In Kramatorsk, 12 miles from the frontline, daily life goes on amid the constant threat of attacks

In a branch of the Ukrainian coffee chain Lviv Croissants in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, there is a noticeboard where people leave coloured Post-it notes with simple hand-drawn messages. One just says “Kramatorsk”, with red hearts below and a yellow and blue semi-circular fan above, the colours of Ukraine.

Among those looking at the notes is Bohdan, a 26-year-old, who has been serving in the army for the past three years. The soldier, now in logistics, has chosen to spend his one day off in Kramatorsk with his dog Arnold to photograph for himself recent Russian bombing on a city where he was based for 18 months.

Woodlander Initiative provokes mixed reactions in Llanafan Fawr as critics say aim is to build racially exclusive communities

During the middle ages, monks would travel to the village of Llanafan Fawr in mid-Wales to visit the church and relics of St Afan, a son of the king of Gwynedd, martyred by foreign pirates centuries before.

Today, a different sort of pilgrim can be found there. Two hilly, wooded parcels of land in Llanafan Fawr were bought by the Woodlander Initiative (TWI), a land-buying scheme led by Simon Birkett, a far-right figure with links to Patriotic Alternative, the UK’s largest fascist group. Critics say Wiltshire-based Birkett’s aim is to create a racially exclusive settlement; he has cited Orania, a whites-only town in South Africa, as an inspiration for the project.

When Britain’s former deputy PM took a job at Meta, nothing could have prepared him for the ‘cloying conformity’ of the tech world. So why does he still think social media is a force for good?

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The rain is just starting to fall from a grey London sky as Sir Nick Clegg arrives, duckingthrough the traffic and carrying what looks like his laundry. C lean shirts for the photoshoot, he says, before apologetically wondering if he might possibly get a coffee. Within minutes he has further apologised for wanting to swap the leather club chair he is offered for a hard plastic one; and then, in horror, for any impression inadvertently given that my questions might send him to sleep.

Impeccable English manners should never be mistaken for diffidence – at 58, Clegg remains the only British political figure who could convincingly be played by the equally posh but self-effacing Colin Firth, whose old London home Clegg recently bought – but there are backbench nobodies more grandly self-important than the former deputy prime minister who became number two at the tech giant Meta. Which may be just as well, given rumours that his next supporting role may be to his lawyer wife Miriam González Durántez’s nascent political career in Spain. It turns out she “never really settled” in the land of the billionaire tech bro, one of many reasons the couple swapped poolside life in Palo Alto, California, for London almost three years before he left Meta, which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. “She’s fomenting insurrection in Spain now,” Clegg says of España Mejor, her non-profit aimed at bringing citizens into policymaking.

From a desperate attempt to get aid to an expulsion order and the death of Al Jazeera correspondent Anas al-Sharif – Karim recounts nine days in Gaza

Karim is a trained nurse in his early 20s from Gaza City. He has been displaced by the war 12 times and survived an Israeli strike in Rafah. He now lives in the ruins of his former home with his parents and four brothers. He kept a diary for the Guardian over the course of a week.

Taylor, 28, an operations manager, meets Joshua, 27, a musician

What were you hoping for?
Love at first sight. No, honestly, good conversation with a good person. Someone who was willing to engage with the spirit of the evening.

Jammed light switch? We’ll fix it when we’re back from holiday. Leaky garden hose? Doesn’t matter, it’s raining. Big hole in the roof? Ah!

Summer seems to end earlier every year – the weather turns, the football starts, and you realise you’re going to spend the remainder of August trying to reconnect with your lost luggage. This year the traditional demarcation between the seasons – when we arrive home from holiday to find everything in our house in dire need of immediate repair – has come so early that we haven’t even been away yet. The light switch in the downstairs loo is stuck in the on position. The back door will not shut. The garden hose has exploded.

“Nothing in this house works,” my wife says, trying to flick the jammed light switch.

Spiced fried seasonal vegetables folded through basmati rice and served with a nutty, raita-style dressing

My mother’s greatest fears are an empty fridge and underfed family and friends. That’s why there’s always a glut of fresh produce in the kitchen, both hers and mine – like mother, like daughter. At this time of year, that means courgettes, and the usual way I dispatch them is in a shaak (dry curry) or a pilau. Today’s dish is a combination of the two: spiced fried courgettes, just shy of melted, tossed through rice with fresh herbs and served with a fancy salted pistachio yoghurt masquerading as a raita.

Seoul says military fired warning shots on Tuesday after troops from the North briefly crossed border

South Korea fired warning shots at North Korean soldiers who briefly crossed the heavily fortified border earlier this week, Seoul said on Saturday, after Pyongyang accused it of a “deliberate provocation” that risks “uncontrollable” tensions.

South Korea’s new leader Lee Jae Myung has sought warmer ties with the nuclear-armed North and vowed to build “military trust”, but Pyongyang has said it has no interest in improving relations with Seoul.

Group in Kilteely pooled savings to buy bar and licence and ‘everybody brought something to the table’

A century ago, the County Limerick village of Kilteely had seven pubs but one by one they shut. This year, it braced to lose the last.

The economic and social trends that have shuttered family-run pubs across Ireland appear remorseless, leaving many communities with nowhere to meet, have a drink and share stories.

Parole board rules against elder Menendez brother, convicted over killing parents in Los Angeles in 1989

Lyle Menendez was denied parole for his role in the 1989 killings of his parents on Friday, just a day after the California parole board denied the release of his brother Erik.

California governor Gavin Newsom will have the final say in whether or not the 57-year-old will be released.

State department says all people who hold valid US visas are subject to ‘continuous vetting’, including of social media

The Trump administration is reviewing the records of more than 55 million US visa holders for potential revocation or deportable violations of immigration rules, in a significant expansion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

In a move first reported by the Associated Press, the state department said that all of the foreigners who currently hold valid US visas are subject to “continuous vetting” for any indication that they could be ineligible for the document, including those already admitted into the country. Should such evidence come to light, the visa would be revoked and, if the visa holder were in the United States, they would be subject to deportation.

Russia’s foreign minister says no meeting planned between Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Donald Trump renewed a threat to impose sanctions on Russia if there was no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, as Moscow said there remained “no meeting planned” between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it’s your fight,” Trump said, showing apparent frustration at Moscow a week after his meeting with Putin in Alaska.

Treaty will allow PNG nationals to gain Australian citizenship by serving in defence forces and comes as the country sits at the centre of a geopolitical battle

As Papua New Guinea prepares to mark 50 years as an independent nation next month, the country will sign a defence treaty with Australia, binding it closer again to its former colonial overseer.

The treaty will allow Papua New Guinea nationals to gain Australian citizenship by serving in its defence forces, deepen defence cooperation, and give both countries’ militaries greater access to each other’s bases.

No Australian side has won in the South African city in seven Tests across 33 years but Joe Schmidt’s fitter and faster team is full of belief they can

The Wallabies didn’t just defeat the Springboks last weekend, they humiliated them. Now comes the reckoning. The bear has been poked, the Springbok spit-roasted. South Africa’s coach Rassie Erasmus has swung the axe with 10 changes to the side that coughed up a 22-0 lead and allowed 38 unanswered points inside an hour.

The widely held view is that rugby’s world order will be brutally restored in this weekend’s return Test in Cape Town. The two-time world champions will crush their impetuous rivals and resume their mantle as rugby’s No 1 team after last week’s boilover saw them slip down the rankings to No 3 below New Zealand and Ireland.

Hundreds of transcript pages unlikely to pacify those who want to know more of president’s association with Epstein

For weeks, Donald Trump has been on the defensive over his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files and the extent of his own personal links to the late sex trafficker.

While Trump had promised to release files related to Epstein, his justice department announced in July there would be no more disclosures, prompting uproar among conspiracy-minded Maga adherents and many other of his supporters.

The 18-year-old is one of several prominent young Black Ferns fighting to retain the title and secure New Zealand’s seventh World Cup

Back in 2022, Braxton Sorensen-McGee was in the Eden Park crowd to watch the heart-stopping semi-final between France and New Zealand. The then 16-year-old, at the ground with her school team, remembers the moment of relief when a last-minute French penalty goal attempt drifted wide, allowing the Black Ferns to scrape through to the final of the Women’s World Cup. In another gripping contest against arch-rivals England, New Zealand went on to win the tournament.

Now, Sorensen-McGee hopes to play a decisive role in retaining the title. After a breakout 2025, the 18-year-old is the youngest member of the Black Ferns squad, who take on Spain on Monday morning (NZT) in their opening act of the 2025 Women’s Rugby World Cup, hosted by England.

Rotorua and Taupō in northern New Zealand are home to geothermal pools that can heat up to 90C

To get to the geothermal pool of the Squeeze near Taupō in New Zealand, you need to kayak across a lake and wade through a stream pinched between the narrow walls of a canyon. As she walked through the forest to get to the pool, Carmen Chan could feel the mud between her toes getting warmer.

“It was such a visceral way to be in the forest,” Chan says. The pool had a hot waterfall, the steam from which created a fogginess “like an Indiana Jones adventure” – even though the real world, golf courses and highways, was only 6km away. A decade after that first trip, the now 32-year-old Chan is still hooked. The doctor regularly goes to local hot springs to soak her feet after a long shift at Rotorua hospital.

Unprecedented deal comes after president demanded CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign over his ties to Chinese firms

The US government has taken an unprecedented 10% stake in Intel under a deal with the struggling chipmaker and is planning more such moves, according to Donald Trump and the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, the latest extraordinary intervention by the White House in corporate America.

Lutnick wrote on X: “BIG NEWS: The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel, one of our great American technology companies. Thanks to Intel CEO @LipBuTan1 for striking a deal that’s fair to Intel and fair to the American People.”

Jeffrey Kruse ousted as head of DIA, which said US strikes had set back Tehran nuclear program only a few months

The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes angered Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the decision and a White House official.

Lt Gen Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

Electric atmosphere in Sunderland and at the stadium proves women’s tournament has grown up quicker than anyone ever expected

It was quiet at Sunderland station on Friday afternoon, and quiet all the way up Union and South Streets and quiet all the way along to Keel Square, where the World Cup was hidden, waiting around the corner like a surprise party. There three, four, five thousand or more were bouncing up and down while a stout lad with Spandex trousers, a sequined jacket and serious pipes was belting out the opening notes of We Will Rock You on the big stage while his band thrashed away behind him. If everywhere else around town was empty, it was because everyone was here. It was a hell of a way to start a World Cup.

“Let’s show them how we do it in the north-east!” shouted out the Mackem Mercury as he set a carnival parade off marching over the bridge towards the Stadium of Light for the kick-off.

This was Graham Potter finding out what a broken club really looks like. It is the London Stadium emptying out long before full time, patience worn thin by the latest in a long line of humiliations. It is one young fan mounting a solo pitch invasion after being driven to despair by his side’s inability to defend set pieces. It is a new £15m goalkeeper who cannot catch crosses and, as much as Potter will plead for calm, it is that the only positive for West Ham was Chelsea pretty much declaring after going 5-1 up with over half an hour to play.

Chelsea had run through at will, cutting West Ham’s execrable back five to shreds, João Pedro and Estêvão Willian playing a different sport from every individual in claret and blue. Whatever the gulf in class, though, there can be no excuse for a performance so lacking in heart and a team so incapable of doing the basics.

• Bradley: ‘This is the biggest decision of my life’

• Tommy Fleetwood joint leader in Tour Championship

Keegan Bradley has opened up on the intense strain associated with his upcoming and “defining” decision on whether to play for, as well as captain, the United States in the Ryder Cup.

“I am going to be really happy when this week is over,” Bradley said. “I have about had it with this whole thing. I am ready to figure out what we are doing and get a team together.”

The organisation that manages the Square Kilometre Array Observatory has denied whistleblower allegations of financial mismanagement

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It is hailed as a global endeavour to explore the hidden universe – a powerful telescope comprising more than 130,000 antennae being built in outback Western Australia.

Along with a sister telescope in South Africa, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory is a €2bn (A$3.6bn) project tasked with mapping the first billion years of the universe.

Manager of zipline facility detained for alleged religious discrimination after group of eight- to 18-year-olds turned away

The manager of a leisure park in southern France has been detained for alleged religious discrimination after a group of Israeli children were refused access.

The children, aged eight to 16, were on holiday in Spain and had made a reservation for Thursday to use the Tyrovol zipline adventure park in Porté-Puymorens, near the Spanish border in the Pyrenees mountains, the Perpignan prosecutor’s office said.