• US star will reportedly be world’s highest-paid women’s player

• Rodman turned down ‘compelling’ offers to leave

• Saga spurred debate around NWSL’s ability to keep talent

Trinity Rodman, the US national team forward, has signed a new three-year contract to stay with Washington Spirit and will reportedly be the world’s highest-paid women’s player.

The record deal, announced on Thursday, ends months of uncertainty around the 23-year-old’s future. Her previous contract – a $1.1m, four-year deal – expired in December and she was understood to have received lucrative offers from Europe, which the Spirit were unable to initially match under the NWSL’s salary cap rules.

Her new deal, which runs through the 2028 season, comes after the NWSL created a new “High Impact Player Rule” that permits clubs to spend up to $1m above the salary cap if the player in question meets any one of a specific list of criteria that demonstrates their star credentials, such as being named in the top 40 of the Guardian’s Top 100 women’s footballers for the past two years or finishing in the top 30 in the Ballon d’Or for the past two years.

There was a clear perception across the NWSL that Rodman staying with the league was crucial, following the high-profile departures of several of the league’s biggest names over the past 12 months, including Naomi Girma and Alyssa Thompson’s moves to Chelsea and – earlier this month – Sam Coffey’s headline-grabbing transfer to Manchester City.

“All of us are profoundly grateful that she has chosen to stay with us, despite some compelling alternatives,” Spirit owner Michele Kang said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Thursday, before later adding: “I’m just very happy to tell you, I did deliver, didn’t I?”

Rodman, an Olympic gold medalist with the US in 2024, wore a jacket and tie as she signed her contract on stage along Kang. She has spent her entire professional career with the Spirit since the club selected her in the 2021 NWSL draft, winning a championship that season and reaching the final twice.

Operator says it does now know when the problem at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata province will be solved, after an alarm sounded during start-up

The restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant was suspended in Japan on Thursday just a day after it went online for the first time in about 14 years, with the operator saying it does not know when the problem will be solved.

The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata province had been closed since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, but operations to relaunch it began on Wednesday after it received the final green light from the nuclear regulator.

Sundance film festival: A cautionary new film, executive-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, warns of the devastating consequences if the Utah lake continues to disappear

The Sundance film festival kicked off its final edition on Thursday in Park City, the Utah ski enclave that has housed the independent film hub for more than four decades. Beginning in 2027, the festival will move to Boulder, Colorado, after a multi-year selection process that many assumed would end in Salt Lake City.

Utah’s largest city, a mere 30 miles from the festival center, has long hosted extra Sundance events and served as its transit center. It’s a rapidly growing metropolitan area, a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts, a major US city – and, according to a new documentary that opened this year’s festival, facing an imminent ecological crisis.

More than 30,000 households left with defects after ‘catastrophic failure’ of Tory government schemes

Members of parliament have called for the Serious Fraud Office to investigate the UK’s home insulation sector, after thousands of householders suffered ruined homes, big financial losses and months of disruption from the “clear and catastrophic failure” of two Conservative government schemes.

More than 30,000 households were left with defects, some of them severe, including mould, water ingress and damage to the fabric of walls, with about 3,000 dwellings so badly damaged they presented immediate health and safety risks to occupants.

Mateus Fernandes steels West Ham, Dominic Calvert-Lewin faces a homecoming and Manchester City need Marc Guéhi

• Top scorers: check out the latest standings

The absence of the wantaway Lucas Paquetá has given Mateus Fernandes a chance to take on more responsibility for West Ham. Paquetá, who is said to be nursing a minor back problem, was unavailable again for last week’s win against Spurs but Nuno Espírito Santo’s struggling side coped without the Flamengo target. They called on Fernandes to dictate the flow in midfield and the diligent Portuguese did not disappoint. Fernandes moved the ball cleverly, picked up an assist and looked like that rarest of things: a smart signing from West Ham. They will need the 21-year-old, who joined from Southampton for £38m last summer, to shine again with Paquetá looking unlikely to return against high-flying Sunderland at the London Stadium. Jacob Steinberg

West Ham v Sunderland, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Burnley v Tottenham, Saturday 3pm

Fulham v Brighton, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v Wolves, Saturday 3pm

Bournemouth v Liverpool, Saturday 5.30pm

• Manager shoves his own midfielder in stoppage time

• Aston Villa into last 16 with victory at Fenerbahce

Aston Villa sealed a top-eight finish in the Europa League after Jadon Sancho’s first goal for the club gave them a 1-0 win over Fenerbahce in Turkey. But the Villa manager, Unai Emery, was involved in a touchline spat with Youri Tielemans after the midfielder was substituted in stoppage time.

Villa’s win was their sixth from seven European matches this season and ended Fenerbahce’s unbeaten home record. Sancho opened his account in Villa colours to put the visitors in the driving seat amid a loud Sukru Saracoglu Stadium atmosphere.

Vice-president says ‘number one thing’ that would lower the temperature would be for officials to help facilitate ‘reasonable enforcement of law’

JD Vance on Thursday put the onus on local officials to “turn down the temperature” in Minneapolis, where federal immigration agents in recent days have detained a five-year-old child with his father and gassed protesters throughout the city.

Flanked by federal law enforcement, the US vice-president said he spoke with immigration agents and local business leaders ahead of talking to the press, but he had not spoken with the state’s governor, Tim Walz. He said local officials could be helping ICE identify and arrest violent criminals so that the operation could be more targeted.

Incident outside Opera House that left two people in critical condition is not being investigated as terrorism, police say

Six people have been injured after a knife attack at a demonstration in Belgium on Thursday evening, police said.

Two of the victims were in a critical condition in hospital after the incident in the port city of Antwerp near the Operaplein (Opera Square), police spokesperson Wouter Bruyns said.

Fetal tissue has been used to advance research into diabetes, Alzheimer’s, infertility and vaccines

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will no longer fund research that uses human fetal tissue obtained from “elective” abortions, the world’s biggest public funder of biomedical research announced on Thursday.

The ban marks the latest, and most dramatic, effort by the Trump administration to end research that uses fetal tissue from abortions – a goal that anti-abortion advocates, who oppose the research, have sought for years. In 2019, during Donald Trump’s first term in office, the NIH stopped funding internal research that involved the tissue and implemented a review committee to evaluate research proposals from scientists outside the government. Joe Biden ended that policy in 2021.

Nottingham Forest’s first European adventure for almost 30 years was supposed to be a hoot but the mood music that accompanied a slender defeat in Braga felt rather alarming. The fact is Forest failed to perform and a stale display was typified by the chain of errors that culminated in the captain, Ryan Yates, scoring an own goal that proved sufficient to earn the hosts victory.

A swell of the 2,100 away fans who made the trip to northern Portugal relayed their feelings to Sean Dyche and his squad, jeering the players on several occasions. At full time the question on supporters’ lips was a slightly more direct version of: what on earth was that?

In post-Davos speech, Canadian PM jabs at Trump, saying the arc of history ‘can still bend towards progress and justice’

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said his country must be a “beacon to a world that’s at sea” and that national unity was critical as his government faces a dramatic reshaping of the world political order – and mounting domestic challenges

The national address, given at a historic military fortress in Quebec City, was far narrower in scope than the prime minister’s remarks earlier in the week at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Dubbed the ‘Carney Doctrine’, the Davos speech lamented the disintegration of rules-based order amid a rise of “great powers” that used economic “coercion” as a weapon.

US president says his qualms over the opinion poll would be added to existing defamation lawsuit against the paper

Donald Trump has said he is expanding his defamation suit against the New York Times after an unfavorable opinion poll.

In a post on his Truth Social platform, the US president said his qualms about the Times Siena poll would be added to his existing defamation lawsuit against the newspaper.

Minnesota residents share the fundamental ways their lives have changed since federal troops arrived in their state

The deployment of more than 3,000 federal immigration officers to Minnesota has transformed life in the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, with residents reporting witnessing clashes between civilians and agents, carrying their passports and ID cards around for fear of being stopped, staying home as much as possible, and worrying for the safety of their children while out in public.

“I’ve never witnessed anything like this in the US,” said Dan O’Kane, 69. He came to the conclusion after watching Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers fighting with students and throwing a teacher to the ground at Roosevelt high school, three blocks from his home.

Ellison testified against Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s founder and her ex-partner who was sentenced to 25 years in prison

Disgraced former cryptocurrency executive Caroline Ellison was released from federal custody Thursday after serving about 14 months for her involvement in the multibillion-dollar FTX fraud scandal. Ellison was previously head of FTX’s associated trading arm and the on-again, off-again romantic partner of the crypto exchange’s founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.

Ellison, 31, was sentenced to 24 months in prison in 2024 after pleading guilty to seven charges including wire fraud and money laundering. She featured prominently as a witness for the prosecution of Bankman-Fried, testifying that her former paramour directed her to commit crimes. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Ellison’s release is an epilogue to one of the largest financial-fraud investigations in US history. The collapse of FTX, once among the world’s biggest crypto firms, attracted immense media attention, rattled markets and for a time led to increased regulatory scrutiny of the crypto industry.

Guardian analysis shows images are the same, with Nekima Levy Armstrong looking composed in original but sobbing after alteration

The White House posted a digitally altered image of a woman who was arrested on Thursday in a case touted by the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, to make it seem as if she was dramatically crying, a Guardian analysis of the image has found.

The woman, Nekima Levy Armstrong, also appears to have darker skin in the altered image. Armstrong was one of three people arrested on Thursday in connection to a demonstration that disrupted church services in St Paul, Minnesota, on Sunday. Demonstrators alleged that one of the pastors, David Easterwood, was the acting field director of the St Paul Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office. Bondi announced the arrests on social media on Thursday morning.

Speculation has spread over whether Burnham will attempt to return to pursue a Labour leadership bid

Keir Starmer’s allies have launched a “Stop Andy Burnham” campaign to prevent the Labour mayor from returning to parliament after the resignation of a Manchester MP triggered a byelection.

Multiple members of the party’s ruling national executive committee (NEC) predicted it would be impossible for Burnham to make it through the selection process given the number of Starmer loyalists on the body desperate to avoid a leadership challenge.

Search-and-rescue teams worked through the night at the campground, but there had been no progress in finding missing people, officials say

New Zealand is ‘full of grief”, the prime minister has said, after landslides tore through a house and busy campground, leaving two dead and at least six victims still missing.

Police said emergency crews were still searching for at least six people, including two teenagers, believed missing beneath the debris of a landslide, which struck a Mount Maunganui campsite on Thursday morning. Police were attempting to contact another three people. Families enjoying the summer school holiday were among the campers. Recreational vehicles and at least one structure were crushed, images showed.

• Fifa chief says he has been ‘hammered’ for 2026 prices

• Fans’ group tells Infantino to focus on cheap tickets

Gianni Infantino made a joke about British football fans’ behaviour and defended ticket prices for this summer’s World Cup in North America during a speech to world leaders on Thursday.

Fifa’s president addressed concerns around the staging of this summer’s finals in the US amid rising domestic tensions there, telling the World Economic Forum in Switzerland how there had been “a lot of critics” before Qatar 2022.

Liam Ramos, a preschooler, is just one of a number of kids caught up in dystopian ICE surges in Minnesota and beyond

As symbols of the indiscriminate disproportionality of the Trump administration’s militant anti-immigrant crusade in Minneapolis, the images are hard to surpass.

One recent image shows the innocent figure of Liam Ramos, a five-year-old preschooler wearing a blue bobbled winter hat, standing next to a black vehicle with a dark-clad adult figure standing behind him, whose hand is proprietorially placed on his backpack.

Refusal to approve charges against Lemon in connection with Minnesota protest reportedly ‘enraged’ Pam Bondi

A federal magistrate judge declined to sign off on charges against Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, in connection with a protest at a Minnesota church over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The magistrate’s decision “enraged” the attorney general, Pam Bondi, according to NBC News and CNN.

Emmanuel Macron says the oil tanker was boarded and searched ‘subject to international sanctions’

The French navy has intercepted a Russian tanker in the Mediterranean suspected to be part of the “shadow fleet” that enables Russia to export oil despite sanctions.

“This morning, the French navy boarded and searched an oil tanker from Russia, subject to international sanctions and suspected of flying a false flag,” President Emmanuel Macron said on X.

⚽ Europa League updates from the 8pm GMT kick-offs
⚽ Live scores | Table | Follow us on Bluesky | Mail John

Fenerbahce have equalised against Aston Villa, with Kerem Aktürkoğlu getting it. It’s 1-1 in Turkey.

It’s now 2-2 in Bologna, the Englishman Jonathan Rowe has got the goal, cutting across the Celtic defence to score.

US president alleges JP Morgan stopped offering him banking services in wake of January 6 attack

Donald Trump has sued JPMorgan Chase and its CEO, Jamie Dimon, for at least $5bn after accusing America’s largest bank of “debanking” him.

The US president alleged that the bank stopped offering him banking services in the wake of the Capitol riot on January 6. Earlier this month, he claimed it had “incorrectly and inappropriately” discriminated against him.

I was surprised by the dormant ringlets springing to life as I hunched over the basin, squishing in conditioner to define each tendril

• Read more summer essentials

My housemate has a special phrase for some of my old photos: “Ima’s whiteface era” – hair seared straight down the middle with brassy blond highlights.

Where I grew up, in a regional coastal town, the gold standard was sandy blond beach babe.