Updates as Le Tour covers 131km on the flat
Jeremy Whittle’s stage three report is here:
Demi Vollering of FDJ-Suez will start today’s stage 4 despite a heavy crash on the approach to Angers yesterday. The 2023 Tour de France Femmes champion thus avoids the fate of several other high-profile riders in the first three stages: Marlen Reusser (Movistar), Charlotte Kool (Picnic PostNL) and Elisa Longo Borghini (UAE Team ADQ) are among eight riders in the peloton who have abandoned already.
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© Photograph: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
© Photograph: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
© Photograph: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
With every rattled excuse and deflection, Trump throws his administration into further chaos
Donald Trump’s evident panic over his intimate relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is a case study in damage control gone haywire. If he is trying to keep a scandal clandestine, Trump has instead shined a klieg light on it. His changeable diversions constantly call attention to what he wishes to remain hidden. His prevarications, projections and protests have scrambled his allies and set them against each other. His inability to remain silent on the subject makes him appear as twitchy as a suspect in the glare of a third-degree police interrogation.
The supine Republican Congress abruptly adjourned for the summer to flee the incessant demands for the release of files in the possession of the Department of Justice. But three Republicans broke to vote with Democrats on the House oversight committee to demand the Epstein files. The speaker, Mike Johnson, abandoning his assigned role as a Trump echo chamber, blurted, “This is not a hoax,” directly contradicting Trump. Johnson’s plain statement prompted widespread jaw dropping.
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© Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
© Photograph: Allison Bailey/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox; Weta Workshop/Private Division
This high-fantasy life simulator is brimming with Hobbit-holes but lacks the Tolkienian depth to maintain your interest
After several hours toiling in the pastoral fields of Hobbiton, it finally started to sink in why two generations of Bagginses felt compelled to leave in search of dangerous adventure. Sure, the Shire has a hazy comfort to it, and there’s plenty of unique food to gorge on and friendly faces to meet. But once the saccharine novelty begins to wear off, this bucolic wonderland is actually a fairly dull place to live.
Tales of the Shire is set in the Third Age of Middle-earth, years before the events of The Lord of the Rings. As such, there are no Nazgûls or Uruk-hai – instead the “action” centres on the quaint town of Bywater, whose most pressing issue is its municipal status. Here, you play as a recent transplant from the nearby hamlet of Bree, who gets swept up in the process of turning the town into an official village by building infrastructure and befriending locals one odd job and home-cooked meal at a time.
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© Photograph: Private Division
© Photograph: Private Division
© Photograph: Private Division
Little packs of comndiments, some simple, hardy ingredients, a pot: all you need for a hearty campside meal
Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
I am limited to one pan and a burner when I camp. What would chefs recommend making?
Maxwell, by email
Happy campers need supplies, and Ryan Cole, executive chef and co-owner of Salsify at The Roundhouse in Camps Bay, South Africa, doesn’t mess about. “We have three square boxes: one dedicated to dry goods, one to oil, salt, pepper and utensils, and the third to camping toiletries; we also have a dual compartment fridge-freezer.”
Whatever your set-up, a considered mobile store-cupboard of spices, stock cubes, good oil, grains, pasta, tins of coconut milk and the like will really come into its own. Got tinned tomatoes? Make shakshuka for a campside breakfast. “We always take a lightly spiced onion relish and add that to tinned tomatoes for the base,” Cole says. Otherwise, he’ll use long-life or nut milk to whip up some breakfast pancakes: “That’s super-simple.”
Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com
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© Photograph: David Forster/Alamy
© Photograph: David Forster/Alamy
© Photograph: David Forster/Alamy
Winger Traoré, 29, played under Nuno at Wolves
£35m deal for Bologna’s Ndoye done subject to medical
Nottingham Forest are interested in signing the Fulham winger Adama Traoré. If a deal can be done for the 29-year-old it would see him reunite with Nuno Espírito Santo, who he worked under at Wolves.
After selling Anthony Elanga and Ramón Sosa, Forest have been eager to recruit new wingers. A club-record deal was agreed for Bologna’s Dan Ndoye on Monday, with the Switzerland international set to join this week after a medical is completed. Personal terms are not thought to be an issue for Ndoye, who turned down the chance of moving to Serie A champions Napoli in favour of the Premier League.
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© Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images
© Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images
© Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images
He inspired their band name and played on Born to Run but left before it turned his bandmates into superstars. As the album turns 50, does the musician – who went on to tour with Sting and Eric Clapton – have any regrets?
It was a late spring night in 1971 and David Sancious had walked from his home on E Street in Belmar, New Jersey to the Upstage club in Asbury Park. He was 17 and he had been playing piano and guitar with local bands for four years. “I had walked to the Upstage because I wanted to play,” he says, “and as I’m coming in I see Garry Tallent, a bass player who I already knew from other gigs.” Tallent was with a fellow New Jersey musician, a 21-year-old guitarist called Bruce Springsteen, “the local guitar hero”, says Sancious, “very famous locally.” Springsteen told Sancious he was having a jam session and invited him to play. “I said: ‘Absolutely.’”
The band played until 5am. As they were walking out of the club, Springsteen told Sancious he was breaking up his current band Steel Mill to form a new one: would he be interested in joining? Sancious said yes. He went on to record with Springsteen on his first three albums, but left the group before Born to Run transformed Springsteen and his bandmates into superstars. As that album approaches its 50th anniversary next month, I have wondered whether Sancious regrets walking away.
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© Photograph: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
© Photograph: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
© Photograph: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
The founding manager of rock band Evanescence claims he was fired after reporting that Tait assaulted him. An Evanescence co-founder denies he was fired for that reason
Two more men have come forward to accuse Christian rock superstar and Maga firebrand Michael Tait of drugging and sexually assaulting them – including Jason Jones, the founding manager of the American hard-rock band Evanescence.
Jones said he was fired from the band – which had ties to Tait – for speaking out about his alleged assault. Jones said the firing, which he claimed happened in 1999, cut him out of Evanescence’s massive success beginning in 2003.
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© Photograph: Courtesy Randall Crawford
© Photograph: Courtesy Randall Crawford
© Photograph: Courtesy Randall Crawford
The Black Sabbath singer’s hearse will travel along Broad Street to Black Sabbath Bridge in his home city on Wednesday
Ozzy Osbourne’s funeral cortege is to pass through his home city of Birmingham on Wednesday.
The hearse will travel along Broad Street to Black Sabbath Bridge and the Black Sabbath bench – the sites of thousands of messages, floral tributes and vigils following the metal star’s death last week at the age of 76 – at 1pm BST.
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© Photograph: Jacob King/PA
© Photograph: Jacob King/PA
© Photograph: Jacob King/PA
Cricket to return in LA Games after 128-year absence
Pakistan, New Zealand not happy with selection process
Team GB will be guaranteed a place in the men’s cricket tournament at LA 2028 after the International Cricket Council opted to use the regional qualifying format favoured by the Olympic movement.
The controversial decision is understood to have sparked a backlash from Pakistan and New Zealand, who are set to miss out on cricket’s return to the Olympics after 128 years, with India and Australia to be awarded spots from Asia and Oceania respectively based on the ICC rankings. The IOC favour regional qualifying to ensure all parts of the world are represented at the Games so it is a truly global event.
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© Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
© Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
© Photograph: Richard Vogel/AP
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