Talks were scheduled in Turkey with Arab states present, but Iran requests move amid attempts to limit agenda
Talks between the US and Iran scheduled for Friday appear to be collapsing after the US rejected Iran’s request to move them from Turkey to Oman without the presence of a group of Arab states.
Iran has also vowed that the talks will be confined to its nuclear programme, while other issues the US would like to discuss, such as the range of Tehran’s ballistic missile programme, will be permanently excluded.
The American has earned the trust of Luciano Spalletti in Italy, but his role with the USMNT remains an open question
Juventus have tried to get rid of Weston McKennie. They even succeeded once, sending him on loan to Leeds United only for the American to return six months later. When he got back to Turin, as US coach Gregg Berhalter told the story at the time, Juve had emptied his locker and given away his parking spot. Despite this, McKennie stuck around.
It’s just as well for the Old Lady that he did – McKennie is now in the form of his life. The 27-year-old has scored four times in just eight games since the start of 2026. He has become one of Juve’s most important players and arguably the biggest driving force behind their recent upturn in form. Luciano Spalletti – among the most big-name coaches currently working in Italian football – has used McKennie to mould the team in his own image.
British firms could get more opportunities to supply defence equipment to Kyiv if agreement can be reached
The UK could reap greater benefits from a €90bn (£78bn) EU loan for Ukraine, if it agrees to help pay the cost of borrowing, after European countries signed off long-awaited financial aid for Kyiv.
British firms could have greater opportunities to supply defence equipment to Ukraine funded by the loan if the government agrees a “fair” contribution towards EU borrowing costs.
Ex-Trump adviser adds to elections officials’ concern about potential interference from Trump administration in voting
Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist and rightwing podcast host, said he wants to see immigration agents at the polls in November, a proposal that election officials have feared.
Bannon has no formal power, but is an influential figure on the far right and is closely tied with the Trump administration.
Marius Borg Høiby, 29, on trial accused of 38 crimes, broke down in tears as he claimed press had harassed him for years
Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s crown princess, has told a court he does not remember taking pictures and videos found on his phone that police say show him sexually assaulting a woman at a royal residence.
Høiby, Mette-Marit’s son from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, is on trial accused of 38 crimes, including four rapes and assaults.
As the wheels of justice begin to turn in Britain, a spotlight should also shine on the financier’s wealthy enablers in the US
“The more Epstein documents get released, the more we see how he had so many powerful friends, and that’s ultimately what helped him,” commented the US lawyer Lisa Bloom in an interview with the Guardian this week. As Ms Bloom, who represents 11 of Jeffrey Epstein’s dogged and brave victims, drily notes: “That’s not the way the justice system is supposed to work.”
From the outset, the Epstein affair has offered a textbook example of the ability of the influential and well-connected to avoid scrutiny and intimidate those who would exert it. A ruthless pursuit of transparency, both institutional and personal, is the only way to combat such tactics and hold power to account. In the extraordinary days following the release of further Epstein files last week, the wheels of justice in Britain are belatedly beginning to turn on that basis.
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Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, shot dead on Tuesday, appealed to ‘a nostalgia for a past that is remembered as more secure’
The assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of Libya’s late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, is a reminder of both how violent Libya remains more than 15 years after his father’s demise – and how much Saif had come to be perceived as a threat to Libya’s governing elite.
The loyalist Gaddafi green movement remained a potent gathering point for some Libyans nostalgic for a return to imagined past security that Saif’s father symbolised.
Reform UK leader received two guest passes from Iranian-born billionaire and declares attendance at event on register of MPs’ interests
Nigel Farage’s two-day trip to Davos cost more than £50,000 after he was given two guest passes by an Iranian-born billionaire, documents show.
The Reform UK leader officially declared his attendance at the conference on the register of MPs’ interests, after giving speeches at the Switzerland summit in which he pledged to “put the global elites on notice”.
New boss Luke Miels knows perils of overpromising but there is growing sense pharma firm is closer to filling potential
It’s a miracle. A mere 25 years after Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham merged to form GSK, the share price on Wednesday got back to where the combo started life – a shade over £20. It has been a very long wait.
A quarter of a century ago, the bosses of the day spoke about creating a “Microsoft of the pharmaceutical world” that would develop new medicines in never-seen-before quantities at faster speeds. A vast new head office in west London was opened by Tony Blair in 2002 to mirror the ambition. By then, however, the share price had already halved as investors twigged that, for all the fanfare, the mega-merger was really about bulking up defensively. The first decade was a blur of expiring patents, clashing egos, quarrels over executive pay and yet more promises of jam tomorrow.
Coach confident skier will be competitive at Games
Lindsey Vonn has been forced to wait for her chance to test her injured knee after heavy snowfall led to the cancellation of the first women’s downhill training at the Winter Olympics.
The American skiing icon was due to take part in Thursday morning’s training session in Cortina d’Ampezzo as she attempts to compete at the 2026 Games with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.
Starmer faces criticism from MPs on all sides of the Commons
PMQs is starting soon. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
The Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has dismissed claims that his party’s plan to support the pub industry would cost far more than the £3bn it claims.
To be honest with you, we’re not interested in who you’ve been talking to. We’re more interested who we’ve been talking to, and we’ve been talking to landlords and small businesses up and down the country, and every landlord that I speak to … they want this VAT cut.
We can go on all day about the numbers. I’m not interested in the numbers that the BBC have sourced. You’re hardly a bastion of truth at the BBC when it comes to things like this.
This doesn’t add up. This is an unfunded tax cut which also pushes hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.
Reform says that reinstating the two-child limit for most, but not all, families would save £2.29bn in 2026/27. The party claims its package of tax cuts would also cost £2.29bn – making it cost neutral – with the bulk coming from a proposal to halve VAT on hospitality, which it estimates would cost £1.7bn.
Suit is the first under new law allowing residents to sue providers protected in their states under ‘shield laws’
A physician based in California has become the first medical provider sued under a recently enacted Texas statute that empowers private individuals to file civil lawsuits against providers who mail abortion medication into the state.
The case was brought by Jerry Rodriguez, who claims that Remy Coeytaux, a doctor practicing in the San Francisco Bay Area, violated a Texas law that allows abortion providers to face penalties of at least $100,000 if they mail pills into Texas. The filing alleges Coeytaux mailed abortion medication to end Rodriguez’s girlfriend’s pregnancies twice, once in 2024 and again in early 2025.
Teenager admitted it was not the first time he had taken the vehicle but told the court he ‘won’t do it again’
A 13-year-old boy who drove his family’s Volkswagen campervan on a 70mph road in the middle of the night for a joyride in Dorset has been given penalty points for a future licence, a court heard.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was spotted by other motorists driving the 2.5-litre silver van on the A35, a busy dual carriageway in Poole. His father told the judge at Poole magistrates court his son would be “washing cars for the next year” to pay off his debt.
A shower before bed, with the bathroom lights off, is said to get you to sleep more quickly and rinse off the day’s stress. No wonder it’s suddenly so popular
Justifying Donald Trump’s “big lie” about winning the 2020 election may seem like his own lost cause – but like his Confederate forebears, he is weaponizing it, damage be damned. Not even his subsequent election victory has quieted Trump’s appetite for more power, earned or otherwise.
Vatican appears to have ordered removal of restored work, which artist confessed he had made to resemble PM
The face of a winged angel bearing a striking resemblance to the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has been erased from a fresco in a historic Rome church, putting an end to a debacle that embarrassed the Vatican.
The image on the wall painting in a chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina in central Rome was removed overnight, leaving the cherub headless.
Spectators will not know finalists but can ‘swap’ tickets
Cheapest standard tickets for day of the final are £125
Top-end tickets for the inaugural Nations Championship final at Twickenham will cost £280 as part of a weekend billed as the “Glastonbury of Rugby”, the Guardian can reveal.
The climax of the new 12-team competition, which will be held every two years and replaces traditional tours, will be held at Twickenham at the end of November with two matches on Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday.
Sheriff’s department says detectives are speaking with anyone who may have been in contact with Nancy Guthrie
Authorities in Arizona have still not identified a suspect in the investigation surrounding the apparent abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the elderly mother of the Today show host Savannah Guthrie.
In a statement posted on X, the Pima county sheriff’s department said that detectives were continuing to speak with anyone who may have been in contact with Nancy Guthrie and were working with the Guthrie family.
House Democrats say US anti-trafficking efforts have been hamstrung by diversion of resources to immigration raids
A diversion of law enforcement personnel and resources to assist with Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign and deployments to US cities has undermined the government’s efforts to combat child exploitation and human trafficking, Democratic lawmakers warned.
In the letter, sent on Wednesday and first shared with the Guardian, nearly two dozen House Democrats demand that the homeland security and justice departments “immediately” restore full staffing and resources to their anti-trafficking divisions. It also makes reference to the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files, arguing that the government’s failure to publicly release the full scope of the documents in its possession “damages trust in institutions meant to deliver justice”.
She’s the edgy British brat who conquered the world with her hard-partying, electro-banging aesthetic. But can the star now go where Beyoncé and Harry Styles stumbled – and smash the silver screen?
In the back of a cab, Charli xcx drags a makeup wipe across her face. A closeup of that face, with its distinctive halo of dark hair, the lipstick-smeared pout and lush, overgrown eyebrows, is perhaps the most striking scene in her new film The Moment. Charli peels a strip of ugly stick-on gems from her lower lash line, regret and shame flashing across her face. It’s a rare raw few seconds in Aidan Zamiri’s clever and knowing satire of 21st-century pop stardom, which wonders what would have happened if the singer had lost her head after the success of her 2024 album Brat. The film is billed as a mockumentary, but its ambitionto be taken seriously is no joke.
The Moment is already being positioned as Charli’s pivot from pop to the silver screen, after a buzzy premiere at the Sundance film festival last month. Charli was there to promote it, alongside two other films she’s starring in. I Want Your Sex, a dark romp of a comedy from new queer cinema pioneer Gregg Araki was mostly warmly received, though early consensus has declared The Gallerist, which stars Natalie Portman, something of a dud.
Melinda French Gates insists Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with Epstein
Bill Gates has said he “regrets” ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein, as his former wife Melinda French Gates alluded to “muck” in their marriage, and insisted the Microsoft founder has questions to answer over his relationship with the deceased child sex offender.
Allegations that Gates hid a sexually transmitted disease from his wife after contact with “Russian girls” surfaced in the latest release of the Epstein files, which have provided remarkable insight into the disgraced financier’s multiple celebrity connections and activities.
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