Saturday also saw Wales make history by taking to the field for the first time at a major tournament. Goals from Vivianne Miedema, Victoria Pelova and Esmee Brugts made it a tough afternoon for the Euro debutants but their manager, Rhian Wilkinson, remained proud of her team:
We’ve got two more games and we’ve got to show up. We’ve got to cut out the defensive lapses and create more but my players have put in a massive shift, they’ve run their socks off
I love playing in football matches where we need to win – they’re the games you want to be involved in
Majority of leading names selected by Andy Farrell for Canberra game
First-choice pairing of Finn Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park reunited
Andy Farrell has picked his strongest British & Irish Lions combination so far for his squad’s penultimate fixture before they take on Australia in Brisbane next week. The majority of the Lions’ leading names have been selected to start against the ACT Brumbies in what is clearly being seen as a dress rehearsal ahead of the first Test.
The first-choice pairing of Finn Russell and Jamison Gibson-Park are reunited at half back inside an all-Irish centre pairing of Bundee Aki and Gary Ringrose, with Scotland’s Blair Kinghorn at full-back and the Anglo-Irish combination of Tommy Freeman and James Lowe on the wings.
Anyone can ask any question of the players, leading to absurd inquiries, but it can sometimes serve a useful purpose
To spend even a little time at Wimbledon is to drown in the sheer scale of things. This is a place of mind-boggling numbers: the 40 miles of racket string, the 55,000 balls, the 300,000 glasses of Pimm’s, the 2.5m strawberries. But Wimbledon’s true staple good is none of these. The most abundant product every Wimbledon fortnight is the word. And even on a rain-affected, slow news day, the words must keep coming.
As with everything else, Wimbledon procures its words with a suitable reverence. Post-match interviews, in contrast to the more informal on-court setup at Melbourne and New York, are conducted at a respectful distance in front of a microphone stand, as if Jannik Sinner were actually a high-school student about to spell a very difficult word. But of course the majority of Wimbledon’s bluff and bluster takes place in a small windowless upstairs chamber that most tennis fans have never even seen.
From her groundbreaking debut Thirteen to forthcoming teen drama Street Smart – ‘a homeless Breakfast Club’ – the film-maker explains how she’s made her way in a job still largely made for men
Film-makers have long used their movies as Trojan horses to express their political beliefs and values and Catherine Hardwicke is no different. In her 2003 debut feature, Thirteen, and her 2008 teen vampire hit Twilight, the writer-director bolstered the stories with environmentally and socially conscious messaging to inspire people to “save the planet”. And with her latest film, Street Smart, which she describes as “a kind of homeless The Breakfast Club”, she is still “sneaking in” her “good values”.
Street Smart, now in post-production, is a low-budget ensemble drama, executive-produced by Gerard Butler and partnered with charities Covenant House and Safe Place for Youth, that centres on a group of unhoused teens bonding through music, trauma and humour while fending for themselves on the margins of LA society. It stars Yara Shahidi (Grown-ish), Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan) and Michael Cimino (Never Have I Ever), as well as a group of unknown actors whom Hardwicke describes as having “big hearts and compassion for others; otherwise, they would be trying to work on a superhero film”.
Eight were held for weeks at a US military base in Djibouti while their legal challenge played out in court
Eight men deported from the US in May and held under guard for weeks at an American military base in the African nation of Djibouti while their legal challenges played out in court have reached the Trump administration’s intended destination, war-torn South Sudan, a country the state department advises against travel to due to “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict”.
The men from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan arrived in South Sudan on Friday after a federal judge cleared the way for the Trump administration to relocate them in a case that had gone to the supreme court, which had permitted their removal from the US. Administration officials said the men had been convicted of violent crimes in the US.
This brilliant short-story collection confronts the knotty truths of Northern Ireland’s bloody past
The literature of the Troubles is a rich one, from Seamus Heaney’s North (1975), Jennifer Johnston’s Shadows on Our Skin (1977) and Bernard MacLaverty’s Cal (1983), to Eoin McNamee’s Resurrection Man (1994), Anna Burns’s Booker-winning Milkman (2018), and Louise Kennedy’s Trespasses (2022). The latest addition to the corpus, a slim debut story collection by nonbinary Northern Irish writer Liadan Ní Chuinn, shares the brilliance and burning energy of those other books, but there is a fundamental distinction. Ní Chuinn was born in the year of the Good Friday agreement, the 1998 power-sharing deal that delivered peace and brought an end to the Troubles; why, then, should their writing be so obsessed with them?
“I believe, these things, they’re the making of us,” a character says at one point. He’s talking about a dead friend, but his words might apply to Northern Ireland’s past 50 or so years. Throughout the book the violence of that period is shown to persist, the past proving powerfully, inconveniently alive. Tensions flare between those who attempt to ignore that fact and others who insist on it.
People from across the UK discuss why the government is struggling to win the approval of a deeply divided public
For Aiden Robertson, a 35-year-old consultant from Burnley, Labour’s first year back in government can only be summed up as “incredibly disappointing”.
The year had been marked, he felt, by “dreadful communication, a lack of clear purpose, zero vision”, while Labour had been “pandering to Reform voters who will never back them”.
Experts raise alarm over ‘commodification’ of vulnerable children as independent fostering agencies make millions in profit
Experts have raised alarm over the “commodification” of vulnerable foster children as analysis reveals almost a quarter of all foster places in England are now provided by private equity-backed companies making millions of pounds in profits.
Analysis for the Guardian by thinktank Common Wealth found independent fostering agencies (IFAs) are making millions via public funding from councils to provide placements for foster children, while foster carers struggle to pay bills.
Hundreds of thousands of hospital appointments could be cancelled if BMA members vote for series of stoppages
Hospitals are bracing for a fresh round of strikes by resident doctors seeking a 29% pay rise, amid warnings that stoppages could lead to hundreds of thousands of appointments and operations being cancelled.
NHS leaders fear that a ballot of resident doctors, formerly junior doctors in England, which closes on Monday will produce a majority backing renewed industrial action.
‘So-called sidechicks’ are celebrated in the presenter’s new show with a TikTok historian. Plus, a shocking investigation into gangs profiting from inheritance scams
Jameela Jamil and Dr Kate Lister host this podcast dedicated to the untold tales behind “history’s so-called sidechicks”, with interludes from TikTok’s History Gossip, AKA Katie Kennedy. If you prefer a more strait-laced approach then this isn’t the show for you: it’s a tongue-in-cheek riot, kicking off with Louis XIV’s paramour Madame de Montespan, and her fall from grace via a poisoning scandal. Hannah J Davies Audible, all episodes out now
North Korea has opened a massive resort area on its east coast. The tourism pet project of the leader, Kim Jong-un, is reportedly due to welcome Russian guests later this month. Labelled ‘North Korea’s Waikiki’ by South Korean media, Wonsan Kalma coastal tourist area can accommodate nearly 20,000 people, according to Pyongyang, which has described it as ‘a world-class cultural resort’
Smallest and most affordable Framework still has brilliant modular ports, is upgradable and designed to last
The modular and repairable PC maker Framework’s latest machine moves into the notoriously difficult to fix 2-in-1 category with a fun 12in laptop with a touchscreen and a 360-degree hinge.
The new machine still supports the company’s innovative expansion cards for swapping the different ports in the side, which are cross-compatible with the Framework 13 and 16 among others. And you can still open it up to replace the memory, storage and internal components with a few simple screws.
On retiring at 56, Michelle Jackson needed a big new challenge. So she picked up her first proper camera and was soon spending 20 hours a week in the field, and winning awards
A few weeks ago, Michelle Jackson was in the Peak District, hiding beneath a camouflage net with her camera, waiting for badgers to emerge at sunset. For more than two hours she watched the skylarks and curlews, her hopes intensifying during the 45-minute window in which the light was perfect.
At last the heather moved. A badger’s head appeared. “Their eyesight is poor, but they can smell you,” Jackson says. At 66, she has won national and international awards as a wildlife photographer. Although the desire to get the shot “drives” her, for a while she simply watched. “You want to embrace what’s there. It’s so special to see wildlife up close.”
The 80-year-old, two-time Oscar winner said he had been ‘working pretty hard for almost 60 years’ – and is ‘quite happy’ watching his wife Catherine Zeta-Jones work
Two-time Oscar winner Michael Douglas has revealed he may be finished with acting, saying he has “no real intentions” to return to the industry.
Speaking at the Karlovy Vary international film festival in the Czech Republic for the 50th anniversary of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – which Douglas co-produced – the 80-year-old actor and producer told a press conference that unless “something special came up” for him, he would not act again.
All England Club’s official TikTok account hit 200m views by Wednesday as it aims to connect with young people
Whether it is a clip of Novak Djokovic hitting a winning backhand volley before taking a tumble or an American influencer presenting fashion tips, Wimbledon’s social media posts are vying for the same thing: a new generation of tennis fans.
“Demographic wise, I think it’s no secret that Wimbledon is an event that’s trying to attract younger audiences. I want to find a way to engage people who might not be on tennis pages,” said Will Giles, the managing editor of digital content for the All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC).
Young people living in the most deprived stretches of England’s coastline are three times more likely to be living with an undiagnosed mental health condition than their peers inland, according to new research.
This “coastal mental health gap” means that young people in these towns, which include areas of Tendring on the east coast and Blackpool and Liverpool to the west, are suffering disproportionately, often alone and with no help, said the researchers who conducted the study.
One is rich, smoky and red, the other bright green with minty undertones – and both are packed with punchy flavour and light on stove time
When hot summer days roll around, midweek dinners that require minimal cooking really come into their own. I love making pesto on such evenings, and not just the classic basil-and-pine-nut situation. Jazzing things up with braised greens or a red pesto made from lots of jarred goods are just two directions in which I like to take things for a big hit of flavour. Both of today’s pestos freeze well, too.
Swissport staff at seven airports in UK and Channel Islands eligible for £1.20-a-bag payment through incentive scheme
Airport staff are earning cash bonuses for every easyJet passenger they spot travelling with an oversized bag, according to a leaked email.
Staff at Swissport, an aviation company that operates passenger gates at airports, are “eligible to receive £1.20 (£1 after tax) for every gate bag taken”, according to the message sent to staff at sevenairports in the UK and the Channel Islands, including Birmingham, Glasgow, Jersey and Newcastle.
A jury has found Erin Patterson guilty of murdering three relatives and attempting to murder a fourth with a deadly beef wellington lunch almost two years ago.
As the trial entered its 11th week, a Victorian supreme court jury convicted Patterson of murdering her estranged husband’s parents, Don and Gail Patterson, and his aunt, Heather Wilkinson. The 12-person jury also found Patterson guilty of attempting to murder Heather’s husband, Ian Wilkinson, who survived the lunch after spending weeks in hospital.
They had portholes, cutting edge mod cons – and the ultra luxurious models even came with a free calculator. As Japan’s beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower resurfaces, we celebrate an architectural marvel
Looking like a teetering stack of washing machines perched on the edge of an elevated highway, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was an astonishing arrival on the Tokyo skyline in 1972. It was the heady vision of Kisho Kurokawa, a radical Japanese architect who imagined a high-rise world of compact capsules, where people could cocoon themselves away from the information overload of the modern age. These tiny pods would be “a place of rest to recover”, he wrote, as well as “an information base to develop ideas, and a home for urban dwellers”. Residents could peer out at the city from their cosy built-in beds through a single porthole window, or shut it all out by unfurling an elegant circular fan-like blind, all while remaining connected with the latest technology at all times.
Launched to critical acclaim, the Nakagin tower’s 140 capsules quickly sold out, and became highly sought after by well-heeled salarymen looking for a place to crash when they missed the last train home. Never intended to be full-time housing, the pods came stuffed with mod cons: en suite bathroom, foldout desk, telephone and Sony colour TV. But, 50 years on, after a prolonged lack of maintenance and repairs, and disagreements among owners about its future, the asbestos-riddled building was finally disassembled in 2022. The creaking steel capsules of Kurokawa’s space-age fantasy were unbolted and removed from the lift and stair towers, pod by pod.
Participants in the Matadero’s inaugural Senior Audience School discover that theatre ‘takes the sting out of the nonsense in life’
The 25 people who have gathered in a small Madrid theatre over the past few months to consider identity, relationships, gender-based violence and inclusion aren’t exactly the crowd you’d normally expect to haunt a cutting-edge drama space housed in a former slaughterhouse. And that is precisely the point.
The men and women, aged between 65 and 84, are the first cohort of an initiative that aims to introduce those who live around the Matadero arts centre in the south of the Spanish capital to the joys and challenges of contemporary theatre. Last year, mindful of the fact that many of the older residents of the barrios of Usera and Arganzuela rarely attended contemporary theatre and would be unlikely to darken the doors of the new Nave 10 space, the Matadero and the city council came up with a plan.
Bitter rows had damaged trust and dialogue but UK-French relations have thawed amid new geopolitical landscape
When Emmanuel Macron rides in a horse-drawn carriage to Windsor Castle this week, it will be to celebrate the return of close political relations between London and Paris, drawing a line under the damaging spats of the Brexit years.
The French president’s office said the “shared interests” of the two countries were what mattered now, hailing France and the UK’s “essential” close relationship on the international stage. This reinvigorated cross-Channel bond was “vital”, a UK official said.
PM says ‘those who tried to divide us failed’ while monarch says victims and stories of courage should be remembered
Keir Starmer, King Charles and the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, have marked the 20th anniversary of the 7 July attacks in London in which Islamist suicide bombers killed 52 people and injured more than 770.
The prime minister said: “Today the whole country will unite to remember the lives lost in the 7/7 attacks, and all those whose lives were changed for ever. We honour the courage shown that day – the bravery of the emergency services, the strength of survivors and the unity of Londoners in the face of terror.
In her 20s, the actor says, casting directors didn’t rate her. In her 60s, she got her big break. She discusses fun, family, optimism, regrets – and wild sex on screen with Daniel Craig
Anne Reid wants to get one thing straight from the off. She adores working with the director Dominic Dromgoole. “He treats actors like grownups. Some directors feel as if they’ve got to play games and teach you how to act. But a conductor doesn’t teach a viola player how to play the blooming instrument, does he?” She talks about directors who get actors to throw bean bags at each other and go round the room making them recite each other’s names. “Blimey! I want to be an adult. I think I’ve earned it now.” She pauses. Reid has always been a master of the timely pause. “You can’t get more adult than me and be alive really, can you, darling?”
Reid turned 90 in May. She celebrated by going on a national tour with Daisy Goodwin’s new play, By Royal Appointment. I catch up with the show at Cheltenham’s Everyman theatre. She’s already done Bath. Then there’s Malvern, Southampton, Richmond, Guildford and Salford. I feel knackered just thinking about it, I say. She gives me a look. “Oh, they send me in cars. I don’t have to toil much!”
We’ve been living in a great experiment: can finance provide basic human rights such as housing? The answer is increasingly no
“The housing crisis is now as big a threat to the EU as Russia,” Jaume Collboni, the mayor of Barcelona, recently declared. “We’re running the risk of having the working and middle classes conclude that their democracies are incapable of solving their biggest problem.”
It is not hard to see where Collboni is coming from. From Dublin to Milan, residents routinely find half of their incomes swallowed up by rent, and home ownership is unthinkable for most. Major cities are witnessing spiralling house prices and some have jaw-dropping year-on-year median rent increases of more than 10%. People are being pushed into ever more precarious and cramped conditions and homelessness is rapidly rising.
Joint attack on Iran puts Israeli PM in powerful position as he dangles prospect of Trump-brokered ceasefire deal
Donald Trump will host Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington DC on Monday as the US president seeks again to broker a peace deal in Gaza and the Israeli prime minister takes a victory lap through the Oval Office after a joint military campaign against Iran and a series of successful strikes against Tehran and its proxies in the Middle East.
Netanyahu and Trump have a complex personal relationship – and Trump openly vented frustration at him last month during efforts to negotiate a truce with Iran – but the two have appeared in lockstep since the US launched a bombing run against Iran’s nuclear programme, fulfilling a key goal for Israeli war planners.
Thousands of lone women forced to return face extreme repression and destitution under Taliban laws that forbid them to work or travel without a male guardian
Women forced back to living under the Taliban’s increasingly repressive regime have spoken of their desperation as Iran accelerates the deportation of an estimated 4 million Afghans who had fled to the country.
Residents observe day of prayer after 82 people killed and 10 girls and one camp counselor still unaccounted for
Residents in central Texas were observing a day of prayer on Sunday for at least 82 people killed and dozens missing in Friday’s devastating flash flooding, as a search and rescue operation for survivors began to morph into a grim exercise of recovering bodies.
Relatives continued an anxious wait for news of 10 girls and one camp counselor still unaccounted for from a riverside summer camp that was overwhelmed by flash flooding from the Guadalupe River, which rose 26ft (8 meters) in 45 minutes on Friday morning after torrential pre-dawn rain north of San Antonio.
President says team will start sending trade partners letters with new tariff rates ahead of this week’s original 90-day deadline to make deal
Donald Trump has said that his administration plans to start sending letters on Monday to US trade partners dictating new tariffs, amid confusion over when the new rates will come into effect.
“It could be 12, maybe 15 [letters],” the president told reporters, “and we’ve made deals also, so we’re going to have a combination of letters and some deals have been made.”
A time of opportunity seemed to lie ahead in 1975, but has PNG and its leaders lived up to that promise?
In the early 1970s, Dame Meg Taylor remembers a sense of immense optimism as Papua New Guinea stood on the brink of independence. At that time she joined the staff of Sir Michael Somare, who would later become the country’s first prime minister.
“There was a lot of hope,” said Taylor, diplomat and former secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum.
US exports account for third of Vietnam’s GDP and 40% tariff on so-called transshipments – products with Chinese input – means uncertainty for manufacturers
As news spread that Vietnam would become just the second nation to reach an initial tariff agreement with Washington, shares in the clothing companies and manufacturers that have a large footprint in the country rose with optimism.
Just hours later though, they declined sharply, as it became clear that the devil would be in the detail, and the most striking part of the deal might in fact be aimed at Vietnam’s powerful neighbour China.
Married couple die in Russian strike against Kostyantynivka; Ukraine on agenda as Macron makes state visit to UK. What we know on day 1,230
Russia and Ukraine struck each other with hundreds of drones on Sunday, throwing Russian air travel into disarray, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Ukrainian deals with western partners allowing Kyiv to scale up production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Six Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow, said its mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, while another two were reported outside Russia’s second largest city, St Petersburg. Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s civil aviation authority, reported temporary airport closures in the two cities and other regional centres and said dozens of flights had been delayed.
In Ukraine on Sunday, Russian drones injured three civilians in Kyiv and at least two in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, located in the north-east, officials said. A Russian attack involving Shahed drones also targeted port infrastructure in Mykolaiv in central Ukraine, according to its governor, Vitaliy Kim. He reported warehouses and the port’s power grid were damaged but there were no casualties.
Russia killed four civilians and injured a fifth with a glide bomb and a drone in the frontline town of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine, prosecutors said. The drone struck a car in which a married couple were travelling, killing the 39-year-old woman and 40-year-old man on the spot.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had struck deals with European allies and a leading US defence company to step up drone production, ensuring Kyiv receives “hundreds of thousands” more UAVs this year. Zelenskyy did not name the US business in his nightly video address to Ukrainians, but said Ukraine and Denmark had also agreed to co-produce drones and other weapons on Danish soil.
Russia said on Sunday it had captured the villages of Piddubne in Donetsk and Sobolivka in Kharkiv. Ukraine did not immediately comment on Russia’s claims which were also not independently confirmed. Piddubne was home to about 500 people before the conflict and lies 7km (four miles) from the border of Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region. Sobolivka lies 3km (two miles) west of the town of Kupiansk, outside areas Russia claims it is holding, according to battlefield maps by the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, is to begin a state visit to the UK on Tuesday, addressing parliament and co-chairing a meeting on Ukraine. Macron and Starmer will host the 37th Franco-British summit in London on Thursday, where they are set to discuss opportunities to strengthen defence ties in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The summit will touch upon the deployment of “a reassurance force” to Ukraine after a ceasefire and how to “increase pressure” on Russia to accept an unconditional ceasefire, the Élysée Palace said. The last state visit by a French president to the UK was made by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008.
Briton Sonay Kartal loses to Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in clash marred by technological failure
Wimbledon organisershave apologised after the electronic line-calling system was turned off in error at a crucial moment in Sonay Kartal’s match on Centre Court.
The British No 3’s opponent, the 34-year-old Russian veteran Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, accused the All England Club of home bias and said a game had been stolen from her when the AI-enhanced technology missed a call.
Norrie faces Alcaraz in quarter-finals after five-set epic
‘These moments are the icing on the cake’
Cameron Norrie said his spectacular run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals, where he will face the defending champion, Carlos Alcaraz, has been made even more satisfying by his recent struggles with form and injury, which led to him falling down the rankings.
Norrie, the last British singles player standing, held his nerve to defeat Nicolás Jarry 6-3, 7-6 (4), 6-7 (7), 6-7 (5), 6-3 in an epic four-hour 27-minute battle to reach his second quarter-final at the All England Club. The left-hander had held a match point on his serve at 6-5 in the third set tie-break before Jarry turned the match around with his enormous serve, eventually forcing a five-set shootout.
Captain was bamboozled by Jadeja’s bowling before falling to Washington Sundar in crushing second Test loss to India
It was raining hard in Birmingham on Sunday morning. A weight of great black clouds broke over the city while it was feeling its way into the day. On the streets people pressed themselves together under the cover of bus stops and awnings: revellers off to the Queens Heath pride festival, heavy metal lovers making their way home after Black Sabbath’s farewell gig at Villa Park the previous evening, and cricket supporters bound for the ground, most of them with last-minute tickets, split between anxious Indian and wry English fans, the only people in the city who were happy enough to be getting wet.
The bad weather was about the only way England were going to get out of this match with a draw. A team who have spent three years learning how to do the improbable were in no position at all to attempt the unremarkable and bat out the match, even after the rain had washed out the first hour and a half of the day.
Astrid Jorgensen, whose show has helped unite audiences in a divided USA, says singing in a group is a ‘fast track to community’
Viewed from the outside, at least, far from united, the states of America appear irreconcilably divided.
Which may explain why Astrid Jorgensen, a 35-year-old choir director from Brisbane who honed her skills at the pub, has just toured the States to sold out shows and seen her US reality TV appearance go viral.
Iceland will be leaving the party early but, following some initial wobbles, the hosts are still going strong.
After losing their tournament opener to Norway, Switzerland ultimately settled a nation’s nerves thanks to a combination of smart substitutions on Pia Sundhage’s part and some excellent play from Manchester City’s Iman Beney at right wing-back.
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