Here’s someone who knows the pressures – and might one day coach the Lionesses, Emma Hayes, The Guardian’s columnist for the Euros.
When you are the holders, the most important thing to get right is your internal hunger and understand you’ve got a target on your back in every fixture. To counter that, you have to find another level in yourself because a title cannot be won the same way you won it before.
Doctors say Israel is blocking deliveries of formula urgently needed as mothers are either dead or too malnourished to feed their babies
Doctors in Gaza have warned that hundreds of babies are at risk of death amid a critical shortage of baby milk, as Israel continues to restrict the humanitarian aid that can enter the beleaguered strip.
Dr Ahmad al-Farra, the head of paediatrics at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said his ward had only about a week’s worth of infant formula remaining. The doctor has already run out of specialised formula meant for premature babies and is forced to use regular formula, rationing it between the infants under his care.
As Joey Chestnut, the Ronaldo of speed eating, regains his world hotdog crown, he’s holding up a mirror to our world
The Big Dog is back. And the Big Dog is hungry. Hungry, above all, for dogs. Joey Chestnut has fulfilled his sporting destiny by reclaiming his world champion crown at the legendary 4 July hotdog eating contest in Coney Island, New York. Chestnut, AKA The Silent Warrior, is basically the Messi of elite eating. Or rather he’s the Ronaldo, relentless in his perfectionism, possessed of an alluring competitive arrogance, and with the GOAT-level numbers to back it up: winner of the Mustard Belt now 17 times and the world record-holder as of 2021, when he ate 76 hotdogs in 10 minutes, a huge uplift on his debut in 2005 when he ate a frankly pathetic 32 hotdogs.
Above all, Chestnut had a point to prove. He was banned from competing last year over a controversial sponsor deal with a plant-based hotdog alternative. Losing the title was a kind of Icarus moment. No one is bigger than the sport. Eating had to rein him in. And so this time around it wasn’t about the $100,000 (£73,000) prize. It was about legacy.
Bernard Hinault was the last home champion as the sport has gone international, with winners from Colombia and Slovenia
Age is not just about the policemen getting younger and trying to figure out how to operate an iPhone. It may also be when you are able to tell your children that you once saw an actual French cyclist wearing the actual yellow jersey of the Tour de France having actually just won la grande boucle.
It’s 39 years, 11 months and about three weeks since I watched a tired and slightly diminished-looking Bernard Hinault get out of a car in a backstreet in Lisieux – once the massive crowd pressing on the car doors had been moved on by the heavies – before pulling on that maillot jaune, getting wearily on to his bike, before spinning past, time after time in the late-evening sunlight in the town’s annual post-Tour critérium, an exhibition race which still takes place on the first Tuesday after the Tour.
Since the first time I saw Djokovic win at Wimbledon, in 2011, he has carried himself with the air of a born champion
Moments after he had beaten Dan Evans in almost perfunctory style on Centre Court to advance to the third round of the championships for a record 19th time, Novak Djokovic bumped into an old friend in the corridor on the way to his own match.
“Good day at the office?” Gaël Monfils inquired, smiling as old pros do. The French veteran paused before heading for Court 18 and a much smaller audience, adding: “At this age, we need these types of days.”
After Donald Trump banned Iranians from entering the US, one of the co-hosts, there are different views on what should be done
“It’s offensive for any football fan to be prevented from participating in the World Cup, not just Iranians,” Ali Rezaei of Tehran’s Borna News Agency says. In March, the national team became the second to qualify for the 2026 World Cup that will be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States. In June, Donald Trump authorised the dropping of bombs on Iran and hit the country with a travel ban. As things stand, while the national team will be able to enter the US next summer, fans – and perhaps media – will not.
Residents of Tehran and other cities may have had enough to deal with of late, but still, being barred from entry stings, even if Iranians have long found it difficult to get into the US. “If the US government has issues with the Iranian regime for any reason, it should not result in discrimination against Iranian citizens,” Behnam Jafarzadeh, a writer for leading sports site Varzesh3, says. “If someone hasn’t committed any illegal activity, why should they be punished? It’s not just about the World Cup – the policy needs to change in general.”
A14 in Cambridgeshire promised biodiversity net gain of 11.5%, but most of the 860,000 trees planted are dead. What went wrong?
Lorries thunder over the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, above steep roadside embankments covered in plastic shrouds containing the desiccated remains of trees.
Occasionally the barren landscape is punctuated by a flash of green where a young hawthorn or a fledgling honeysuckle has emerged apparently against the odds, but their shock of life is an exception in the treeless landscape.
Rose Jones was told to repay £2,145 after she unwittingly breached ‘draconian’ carer’s allowance regulations
A young carer who had looked after her disabled mother since she was eight said she was “amazed” and “overwhelmed” after Guardian readers paid off her £2,000 fine for a mistaken breach of widely condemned benefits rules.
Rose Jones, 22, was ordered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to repay £2,145 after joining a government youth employment scheme that meant she overstepped “draconian” carer’s allowance earnings regulations.
We may believe we see the world exactly as it is – but as studies of optical illusions show, it’s far more complex than that
Anil Seth is a professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex
Do people from different cultures and environments see the world differently? Two recent studies have different takes on this decades-long controversy. The answer might be more complicated, and more interesting, than either study suggests.
One study, led by Ivan Kroupin at the London School of Economics, asked how people from different cultures perceived a visual illusion known as the Coffer illusion. They discovered that people in the UK and US saw it mainly in one way, as comprising rectangles – while people from rural communities in Namibia typically saw it another way: as containing circles.
Anthony Albanese has pledged federal support for Victorian authorities after police reported a suspicious fire was lit at a synagogue in East Melbourne on Friday night.
Victoria police alleged an unknown man entered the grounds of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation on Albert Street at about 8pm on Friday and poured a flammable liquid on the front door of the building and set it on fire.
Quest to create viable human sex cells in lab progressing rapidly, with huge implications for reproduction
Scientists are just a few years from creating viable human sex cells in the lab, according to an internationally renowned pioneer of the field, who says the advance could open up biology-defying possibilities for reproduction.
Speaking to the Guardian, Prof Katsuhiko Hayashi, a developmental geneticist at the University of Osaka, said rapid progress is being made towards being able to transform adult skin or blood cells into eggs and sperm, a feat of genetic conjury known as in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG).
US is on the brink of launching a trade assault on dozens of countries as 90-day pause on tariffs is set to end on 9 July
When Donald Trump unveiled his “liberation day” tariffs in the spring, only to pull the plug days later as panic tore through global markets, his officials scrambled to present the climbdown as temporary.
Three months of frenetic talks would enable the Trump administration to strike dozens of trade agreements with countries across the world, they claimed. “We’re going to run,” the White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told Fox Business Network. “Ninety deals in 90 days is possible.”
There’s an astonishing cast of stars in this complicated, grownup love story about a New Yorker moving to London after a breakup. Richard E Grant! Andrew Scott! Rhea Perlman! And they’re the tip of the iceberg…
Too Much (Netflix, Thursday 10 July) opens with a montage of the kind of woman you could be, if you were a carefree New Yorker who upped sticks and moved to London on a whim. You could be a candlelit period heroine, roaming across the moors, or one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, or you could be a sturdy northern police sergeant, which leads to the slightly strange spectacle of seeing Megan Stalter from Hacks doing a French and Saunders-style parody of what looks a lot like Happy Valley.
The much-hyped new Lena Dunham comedy follows Jess (Stalter), an open-hearted American woman who moves to London to escape a broken heart. There, she falls for a messy indie musician called Felix, whom she meets when he’s playing a gig in a pub. Dunham co-created the series with her husband Luis Felber, and it is loosely based on their real-life romance and marriage.
From Jane Goodall, Steve Jobs and Immanuel Kant to Erik Satie and Mark Zuckerberg, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Whose big mistake was to believe Sinon? 2 The Hungarian Mudi has been recognised as the 225th what? 3 What space station was launched by Nasa in 1973? 4 Claudia Jones and Rhaune Laslett were founders of which annual celebration? 5 What is Steven Spielberg’s only film musical? 6 What stands on the top of Mount Corcovado? 7 Which religion is based on the teachings of the 24 Tirthankara? 8 What County Durham town is named after a miners’ leader? What links:
9 British empire, 1833; Russia, 1861; US, 1865; Brazil, 1888? 10 Mbappé (4); Vavá, Pelé, Hurst, Zidane (3); Breitner, Messi et al (2)? 11 Jane Goodall; Steve Jobs; Immanuel Kant; Erik Satie; Mark Zuckerberg? 12 An Mhumhain; Connachta; Laighin; Ulaidh? 13 Udo Jürgens; Conchita Wurst; JJ? 14 The Birds; Working Girl; Fifty Shades of Grey? 15 Anguilla; Colombia; Libya; Montenegro; Tuvalu (online)?
Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, wildfires in Crete, the heat at Wimbledon and Charli xcx at Glastonbury: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
Exclusive: Actor says Starmer’s party has caused ‘derogation of all principles they were supposed to represent’
Steve Coogan has accused Keir Starmer’s Labour government of a “derogation of all the principles they were supposed to represent” and said they were paving the way for the “racist clowns” of Reform UK.
The actor, comedian and producer said the party he had long supported was now for people “inside the M25” and described the prime minister’s first year in power as underwhelming.
At an Abramović art takeover I discovered the quiet strength of a political protester from Myanmar. It gave me a new father figure – and unblocked my creativity
On an unseasonably warm day in October 2023, I arrived, ahead of the queues, at London’s Southbank Centre for a conceptual art takeover by the world-famous Marina Abramović Institute.
I had recently read Marina’s memoir Walk Through Walls, which had resonated. So, when I’d seen the event advertised – hours-long performances by artists she’d invited, curated and introduced by Marina – I bought a £60 ticket and waited for my time slot to enter the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I hadn’t seen performance art before, and this was due to include her well-known work The Artist Is Present with an artist sitting, static and silent, in a chair all day, as Marina once did for an accumulated 736 hours and 30 minutes at the Museum of Modern Art. I felt certain that it would affect me, I just wasn’t sure how.
Saturday’s 10-hour concert will reunite original lineup of Black Sabbath and feature a multitude of metal bands
He is considered to be the godfather of heavy metal, but after more than five decades in the game, the “prince of darkness”, Ozzy Osbourne, brings his blistering performing career to an end with a highly anticipated final concert this weekend.
Scarlett Johansson and Jonathan Bailey breathe new life into the near-extinct franchise, while Channel 4 steps up to showcase the horror inflicted on Palestinian medics. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews
Those appalled by Israel’s actions in Gaza, and the kind ofmedia frenzy prompted by Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury appearance, are finding their voice
If you are in the business of anointing monsters, you can see why your eyes would light up at a punk act called Bob Vylan. Until last weekend, sure, it might have been a tough sell to proclaim them as an avatar for Britain’s revolting youth: prominent though they might be on the UK’s punk scene, they had about about 220,000 monthly listeners on Spotify – a mere 1,000,000 away from a place in the top 10,000. But then, at Glastonbury, they made the most powerful possible case for broad media attention: they said something controversial about Israel’s assault on Gaza, and opened up a chance to have a go at the BBC.
And so the following morning, on the front page of the Mail on Sunday: “NOW ARREST PUNK BAND WHO LED ‘DEATH TO ISRAELIS’ CHANTS AT GLASTONBURY.” Pascal Robinson-Foster, aka Bobby Vylan, had started a round of “antisemitic chanting” that was broadcast live on the corporation’s coverage of the festival, the story explained. Keir Starmer called it “appalling hate speech”. The calls for the band members’ arrest were quickly picked up, and before long the Conservatives were suggesting that the BBC should be prosecuted as well. On Monday, the story splashed in the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express.
Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter
Elon Musk is obsessive about the design of his supercars, right down to the disappearing door handles. But a series of shocking incidents – from drivers trapped in burning vehicles to dramatic stops on the highway – have led to questions about the safety of the brand. Why won’t Tesla give any answers?
It was a Monday afternoon in June 2023 when Rita Meier, 45, joined us for a video call. Meier told us about the last time she said goodbye to her husband, Stefan, five years earlier. He had been leaving their home near Lake Constance, Germany, heading for a trade fair in Milan.
Meier recalled how he hesitated between taking his Tesla Model S or her BMW. He had never driven the Tesla that far before. He checked the route for charging stations along the way and ultimately decided to try it. Rita had a bad feeling. She stayed home with their three children, the youngest less than a year old.
MPs, aides and other party figures reflect on what went wrong and how they could still turn things around
In a stiflingly hot room at a health centre in East London, as he announced the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS on Thursday, Keir Starmer was confronted with a brutal assessment of his first year in power.
“You’ve U-turned on your reforms, your MPs don’t trust you, and markets worry that you’ve lost resolve on fiscal discipline. It’s the epitome, isn’t it, of sticking-plaster politics and chaos that you promised voters you would end?” a television journalist asked.
I thought the cartoonish thwack in the face from the garden tool was a once-in-a-lifetime act of stupidity. How wrong I was
On a weekend afternoon, with the temperature nudging 30C, my wife and I take the dog for a walk. Neither of us wants to go, so we go together, and agree to keep it short.
“Oh no,” my wife says when we get to the park. I look across the open expanse and see what she sees.
A Japanese-style take on the humble omelette, served with sushi rice, spicy mayo and quick pickles on the side
We eat a lot of omelettes in our house: they’re the perfect solution for an impromptu dinner, and they’re also endlessly customisable, so we never get bored with them. You can add butter, beat the eggs in the pan and roll to make it French, add spices, coriander and onion to make it Indian, or mirin and soy, as in today’s dish, for a trip to Japan. You could add any condiment or pickle from mayonnaise to ketchup and chilli oil to chimichurri, and bolster the meal with bread or rice. Today’s recipe is merely one of many wonderful scenic routes on which to take your omelette.
Fish or bird ownership showed no significant link to slower cognitive decline in study with implications for ageing societies
As global population ages and dementia rates climb, scientists may have found an unexpected ally in the fight against cognitive decline.
Cats and dogs may be exercising more than just your patience: they could be keeping parts of your brain ticking over too. In a potential breakthrough for preventive health, researchers have found that owning a four-pawed friend is linked to slower cognitive decline by potentially preserving specific brain functions as we grow older.
As the president’s attacks are met with a distinct lack of resistance, critics warn that freedom of the press is eroding in plain sight
Bernie Sanders, the venerable democratic socialist senator from Vermont, was not in a mood to pull punches.
“Trump is undermining our democracy and rapidly moving us towards authoritarianism, and the billionaires who care more about their stock portfolios than our democracy are helping him do it,” he fumed in a statement last week.
Amy Hawkins visits one of the many bars popping up across Chinese cities offering drinks, snacks and a vision of the future
In the age of self-help, self-improvement and self-obsession, there have never been more places to look to for guidance. Where the anxious and the uncertain might have once consulted a search engine for answers, now we can engage in a seemingly meaningful discussion about our problems with ChatGPT. Or, if you’re in China, DeepSeek.
To some, though, it feels as if our ancestors knew more about life than we do. Or at least, they knew how to look for them. And so it is that scores of young Chinese are turning to ancient forms of divination to find out what the future holds. In the past couple of years, fortune-telling bars have been popping up in China’s cities, offering drinks and snacks alongside xuanxue, or spiritualism. The trend makes sense: China’s economy is struggling, and although consumers are saving their pennies, going out for a drink is cheaper than other forms of retail therapy or an actual therapist. With a deep-rooted culture of mysticism that blends Daoist, Buddhist and folk practices, which have defied decades of the government trying to stamp out superstitious beliefs, for many Chinese people, turning to the unseen makes perfect sense.
To truly understand the president’s style of rule, we must go beyond Scandinavian sagas and Sicilian crime lore
Ever since Donald Trump returned to power, pundits have struggled to find apt analogies for his style of governance. Some liken his loyalty demands, patronage networks and intimidation tactics to the methods of a mafia don. Others cast him as a feudal overlord, operating a personality cult rooted in charisma and bound by oaths, rewards and threats rather than laws and institutions. A growing number of artists and AI creatives are depicting him as a Viking warrior. And of course, fierce debates continue over whether the moment has arrived for serious comparisons with fascist regimes.
While some of these analogies may offer a degree of insight, they are fundamentally limited by their Eurocentrism – as if 21st-century US politics must still be interpreted solely through the lens of old-world history. If we truly want to understand what is unfolding, we must move beyond Scandinavian sagas and Sicilian crime lore.
David Van Reybrouck is philosopher laureate for the Netherlands and Flanders. His books include Congo: The Epic History of a People and Revolusi: Indonesia and the Birth of the Modern World
Palmeiras 1-2 Chelsea (Estêvão 53); Palmer (16), Weverton (83, og)
Malo Gusto’s cross deflected past Palmeiras goalkeeper
Their place in the last four of the Club World Cup in the bag and the prospect of a £97m windfall still up for grabs, Chelsea found themselves in an unusual position: relieved to have survived a taxing second half, hailing Malo Gusto’s unlikely role as matchwinner and able to delight in the opposition’s goalscorer being named superior player of the match.
For a while the story of this entertaining quarter-final looked like it was going to be about Enzo Maresca finding it within himself to forgive Estêvão Willian. Everything had changed when the Brazilian sensation, who joins Chelsea after this tournament, cancelled out an early goal from Cole Palmer and hauled Palmeiras level at the start of the second half.
Melbourne Theatre Company Thornton, Yael Stone and Ash Flanders give beautiful performances as a miserable family, but startling tonal shifts send this American play into silliness
Poisonous and heavily self-medicating mothers are a standard in the theatre, from Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night to Violet Weston in August: Osage County. Self-absorbed, vain and hypercritical, they tend to stalk their stages like injured lionesses, their own offspring the convenient targets of their abuse and cynicism. US playwright Paula Vogel adds Phyllis Herman (Sigrid Thornton) to this list, as monstrous and brittle as any of them.
While Mother Play (the subtitle is A Play in Five Evictions) flirts with the toxicity and histrionics of those antecedents, it feels closer in spirit to Tennessee Williams’ “memory play” The Glass Menagerie. Where Williams created the character of Tom as an authorial surrogate, Vogel gives us Martha (Yael Stone), who is likewise desperate to escape her mother’s clutches while trying to understand what makes her tick. There’s a deep melancholy working under the play, a sense of all that’s been lost to the ravages of time and forgetting.
Britain’s No 1 was outpointed when her opponent raised her game but showed why she merits the hype and spotlight that surrounds her
It’s a little after 8pm by the time the first ball is tossed. Karen Khachanov has just beaten Nuno Borges on No 3 Court and so even before it has started Emma Raducanu v Aryna Sabalenka is the last game on anywhere at Wimbledon: a standalone attraction, the roof not so much closed as hermetically sealed. We are locked in, under these hot lights, until nightfall.
And of course this is not simply a third-round game. At the behest of the broadcasters this is also a primetime television product, an item of light entertainment. Raducanu isn’t just battling the world No 1 here, she’s up against Gardeners’ World on BBC Two. The hill is packed. Brian Cox and Mary Berry in the Royal Box are transfixed. And to think Roland Garros would probably have put this match on in mid-morning.
Batter admits cramping up after 158 helps rescue innings
‘It was probably the death of me in the end’
England face a battle against both India’s batters and their own bodies as they attempt to keep their opponents’ lead under control on the fourth day at Edgbaston, with Harry Brook – who has spent fewer than 15 of the 253.3 overs so far bowled off the field – describing fatigue unlike any he has experienced in his career as he put together the 303-run partnership with Jamie Smith that rescued the team’s first innings.
Brook had scored 157 when he was struck by cramp that ran down “the whole right side” of his body, and added only one more run before he was dismissed by Akash Deep soon after the second new ball had been taken. That precipitated a collapse as England slumped from 387 for five to 407 all out.
Ghanaian left club this week after playing a central role in Premier League title challenges under Mikel Arteta
For the first time since Thomas Partey left his home town of Krobo Odumase in eastern Ghana at the age of 11, he woke on Tuesday without a club. Three days later the midfielder, who had departed Arsenal after his contract expired, was charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
What happens next with Partey’s career will be determined by the outcome of legal proceedings scheduled to start with his appearance at Westminster magistrates court on 5 August. The allegations relate to three women who reported incidents between 2021 and 2022. Partey denies all the charges and “welcomes the opportunity to finally clear his name”, his lawyer said.
IAEA chief says electricity restored after 3½ hours as Ukraine blames Russian shelling for outage; Kyiv accuses Putin of ‘humiliating’ Trump with attack on capital. What we know on day 1,228
The Australian-American actor Julian McMahon, who has died from cancer aged 56, had a long and accomplished career. Like many Australian actors, it began with a soap opera – McMahon played Ben Lucini in 150 episodes of Home and Away – but he soon broke free to pursue a more ambitious and challenging oeuvre.
McMahon, the son of former prime minister Sir William “Billy” McMahon, made a name for himself overseas through US television in his 30s. On supernatural drama Charmed he played Cole Turner, a half-human, half-demon assassin turned love interest for one of the witches he was hired to kill. McMahon took to the show’s campy tone with aplomb, delivering lines like “I’m going straight to hell, cause it’s got to be a sin to look this good” with a twinkle in his eye.
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