An Iraqi political official, speaking to the Associated Press (AP) on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment, said that Iran’s al-Quds force commander Esmail Ghaani had paid a visit to Baghdad prior to the Arab League summit and “conveyed messages of support for the Iranian-American negotiations” for a nuclear deal and a demand for the lifting of crippling sanctions on Iran.
The Arab League is meeting in Baghdad on Saturday to discuss Gaza and other regional crises, but some leaders are expected to miss the talks that come straight after US president Donald Trump’s Gulf tour.
The Mayo Clinic hopes to uncover how the microbiome affects how patients react to cancer medications
A leading US clinic hopes its fecal waste biobank will help researchers make new discoveries about how to treat cancer patients – one of several efforts to turn human waste into medicine.
The Mayo Clinic biobank is part of researchers’ years-long effort to “personalize” medicine by uncovering how the microbiome changes how patients react to cancer medications.
Journalists, fans of Combs, podcasters and others lined up to get into court, where Cassie testified about alleged rape
The high-profile federal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs began this week in New York, where the 55-year-old music mogul faces charges of sex trafficking, racketeering conspiracy, and transportation to engage in prostitution.
In 2015, the UK placed first on the rainbow map. But even then, as an 18-year-old gay man, I knew that wasn’t the whole story
It should surprise no one that the UK has dropped to its lowest ever position on theannual “rainbow map” of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA), which ranks the best and worst European countries on the basis of laws and policies that affect LGBTQ+ people. The map assesses each country through seven categories, including equality and non-discrimination, legal gender recognition and asylum.
The supreme court’s ruling last month that a person’s sex in the Equality Act 2010 refers only to “biological sex” – a redefining of trans people’s rights to their detriment, and a political and cultural victory for the gender critical movement – will have played a key role in the downgrading. Senior politicians immediately capitulated to the ruling, interpreting the implications of the verdict beyond the scope of the court, with the gay health secretary even renouncing his own support for the notion that “trans women are women”. Meanwhile, the Scottish government has dropped plans to legislate for a ban on conversion therapy during this parliamentary session. At this rate of progress the ranking will be even lower next year, as it should be.
The administration seems to be getting clobbered in court, but it’s still unsettled whether the government can detain and deport noncitizens over political speech
The Trump administration suffered yet another blow this past week to its efforts to deport international students over their pro-Palestinian speech, when a third federal judge threw a wrench into a government campaign widely criticized as a political witch hunt with little historical precedent.
On Wednesday, a federal judge in Virginia ordered immigration authorities to release Georgetown University postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri from custody. The Indian scholar’s release followed that of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University student from Turkey, and Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian permanent resident and Columbia University student. The administration is seeking to deport all of them on the grounds that their presence in the US is harmful to the country’s foreign policy, part of a crackdown on political dissent that has sent shockwaves through US campuses.
Charlotte Caslick brings dare and dash in 30-19 win for Wallaroos
Victory is crucial for Australia’s confidence ahead of World Cup
The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen. So rang the cry of the Canberra crowd after American rugby star and social media “queen” Ilona Maher was upstaged by Australia’s own golden girl, the Sevens star and Olympic gold medallist Charlotte Caslick, whose speed and daring inspired a 30-19 win over the USA at GIO Stadium.
This was a sweet victory for the Wallaroos – and a vital one. These sides will resume their rivalry in August via the same pool at the Rugby World Cup in England, with each nation hunting a first semi-final. Maher is crucial to the USA’s chances. Yet every time the Queen touched the ball last night she had a swarm of golden bees over her.
Glanville was Sunday Times correspondent for 30 years
Influential author of The Story of the World Cup
Brian Glanville, whose insightful football writing had a profound influence on generations of reporters and readers alike, has died aged 93.
A novelist and respected columnist, Glanville was a prolific commentator on his beloved game, a passionate chronicler of Italian football and author of some of football’s most influential books.
White House remakes foreign policy under pay-for-access code that critics say could violate US constitution
Former White House lawyers, diplomatic protocol officers and foreign affairs experts have told the Guardian that Donald Trump’s receipt of overseas gifts and targeted investments are “unprecedented”, as the White House remakes US foreign policy under a pay-for-access code that eclipses past administrations with characteristic Trumpian excess.
The openness to foreign largesse was on full display this week as the US president was feted in the Gulf states during his first major diplomatic trip abroad this term, inking deals he claimed were worth trillions of dollars and pumping local leaders for investments as he says he remakes US foreign policy to prioritise “America first” – putting aside concerns of human rights or international law for the bottom line of American businesses and taxpayers.
Whatever the future for Italy’s secondary circuit, it will be remembered for some glorious moments, as well as some tragic ones
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix is taking place against a backdrop of severe doubts over Imola’s Formula One future. The deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix remain etched on F1’s psyche but the demanding Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been the scene of some of the sport’s most-compelling races. Here are three of the best:
Springsteen had told Manchester crowd that Trump was ‘unfit’ and ‘treasonous’, leading to angry outburst from the president
Donald Trump has angrily insulted Bruce Springsteen after the veteran musician said Trump was heading a “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration”.
Springsteen made a series of vehement speeches on stage in Manchester as he kicked off his latest tour, arguing that Trump was “an unfit president” heading up “a rogue government”. He said that in the US, “the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world’s poorest children to sickness and death … they’re taking sadistic pleasure in the pain they inflict on loyal American workers … They are abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.”
Chat over. Will Hughes strolls across the car park to get some photographs taken. As it happens, the man emerging from the gym at that very moment is the Crystal Palace midfield partner whose praises Hughes has just been lavishly exalting.
“Just added about £20m to your fee in that interview,” Hughes shouts at Adam Wharton as they pass. “You can have half,” Wharton retorts. All delivered with a knowing smile, for this is the Palace of Oliver Glasner, where – as Hughes puts it – “there’s egos, but good egos”. No arrogance, none of the blame culture he sees elsewhere. “You watch other teams and hands are in the air, there’s moaning,” he says. “But I honestly don’t see any of that here.”
As her memoir of losing her sons is published, the author talks about radical acceptance and how writing fiction helped her to prepare for tragedy
As the novelist Yiyun Li often observes, there is no good way to state the facts of her life and yet they are inescapable: she had two sons, and both died by suicide. After her elder son Vincent died in 2017, at the age of 16, Li wrote a novel for him. Where Reasons End is a conversation, sometimes an argument, between a mother and her dead son, and it is a work of fiction that doesn’t feel fictional at all, because it’s also an encounter between a writer in mourning and the son she can still conjure up on the page. “With Vincent’s book there was that joy of meeting him again in the book, hearing him, seeing him, it was like he was alive,” she says. The book had 16 chapters, one for each year of his life, and Li felt she could have spent the rest of her life writing it, and also that she could not linger.
When her younger son James died in 2024, aged 19, Li wanted to write a book for him, too. James was harder to write for. Her sons were best friends but “such different boys”, she says. She and James did not argue in the same way as she did with Vincent, and he would hate to be thrust into the spotlight, or for her to write a “sentimental” book. James had a mind so brilliant that his inner workings were often unreachable – by seven or eight he’d open meal-time conversations with “apparently the Higgs boson …” or “apparently the predatory tunicates …”. He did not speak often, but could converse in eight languages and his phone was set to Lithuanian, a ninth. He once described Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant as the only book that captured how he felt about the world. If Vincent lived “feelingly”, James lived “thinkingly”, Li says, and she wanted her book for him to be “as clear as James, as logical and rational”.
The long-suffering Knickerbockers were the butt of jokes around the league for at least two decades, but now they’re just four games from the NBA finals
On Friday night in New York City, more than 19,000 Knicks fans poured out of Madison Square Garden and onto Seventh Avenue, celebrating their team’s improbable 4-2 series victory over the Boston Celtics. The NBA’s social media peanut gallery had previously taken issue with Knicks fans for their overly exuberant early-round victory celebrations, but after landing in the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in a quarter-century, this party was as legit as the Knicks newfound title hopes.
New York had beaten their rivals by a franchise playoff-record margin of 38 points, ending Boston’s reign as NBA champs. If you watched the way they suffocated the Celtics, you know it wasn’t even that close. The way this series ended was as stunning as how it began, with consecutive historic Celtic meltdowns at TD Garden, when the home team surrendered 20-point second-half leads not once but twice. Then New York were moments from wrapping up another improbable victory in Game 4 when Boston cornerstone Jayson Tatum went down with an achilles injury. Back in Boston, down three games to one, with their season on the brink and their all-NBA player in the hospital recovering from season-ending surgery, Boston powered through Game 5 on pure adrenaline. That wave of raw energy had crashed by the start of Game 6, and the Celtics finally tapped out. The Garden crowd let out 25 years of shpilkes as they watched their team bounce the champs.
We recognise extreme poverty as ruinous, but this turbo-charged affluence is deeplydamaging too. Treat it as such
Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah is chief executive of the New Economics Foundation and author of Power to the People
Once again, it’s the Hinduja family. Gopi Hinduja and his family, who run the Hinduja Group, are cited as Britain’s richest family in the latest Sunday Times rich list. The big story so far seems to be that their wealth has dropped to £35.3bn from £37.2bn the year before. But that story, and much of the discussion there will be this weekend, risks missing the real story. “Rich list” is barely the right description for the extreme wealth we should be talking about.
In 1989, when the Sunday Times first published its annual rich list, to be included someone would need to have 6,000 times the wealth of the average person in the UK. That’s already a pretty big gap – but this has now tripled to more than 18,000 times the average, according to a study by the University of Greenwich.
Edit your wardrobe, do a beauty blitz, organise your savings … Experts share tips on the tasks best tackled in small bites
Any day now I am going to do a complete wardrobe reorganisation and then make tons of money selling my old clothes on Vinted. Also, learn Spanish. Go through the 10,000 photos on my phone, print out the nice ones of the kids and put them in nice frames, and create one of those charming gallery walls. Definitely get into meditating and journalling. Should probably write a will? I’m all set. I’m just waiting for, say, a clear week to magically appear in my diary and I’ll get started.
Except, the penny is starting to drop that those pristine, blank diary pages are never going to happen. Life doesn’t work like that. And anyway, say a week off did magically appear, which it isn’t going to, wouldn’t it make more sense to go on holiday than sit on the floor sorting jumpers? If I had even half a day off, surely it would be a shame to waste it on dull jobs when I could, maybe, go to the cinema on my own – or get the train to Paris for lunch?
Most of those killed were elderly women who were being evacuated, according to local officials
Nine people have been killed in a Russian drone attack on a minibus that local authorities say was evacuating civilians in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region.
Local authorities said that most of those killed were elderly women being evacuated from Bilopillya, a town in the Sumy region that has come under repeated Russian attack.
Met police say the three charged under National Security Act for allegedly assisting Iranian foreign intelligence service
Three men have been charged under the National Security Act on suspicion of assisting the Iranian foreign intelligence service.
Scotland Yard said a counter-terrorism investigation had led to three Iranian men being charged for engaging in conduct likely to assist the foreign intelligence service between 14 August 2024 and 16 February 2025.
OVO Hydro, Glasgow Her Tension world tour reaches the UK, and it’s the work of a relaxed but inherently flamboyant singer with a bold new vision for her back catalogue
The lights go down in Glasgow, and Kylie Minogue ascends from underneath the stage like a pop deity: head-to-toe in electric blue PVC, sitting in the centre of a giant neon diamond. After acclaimed runs in Australia and the US, she’s kicking off the UK leg of her Tension tour, celebrating an era that started two years ago with lead single Padam Padam – a phenomenon everywhere from gay clubs to TikTok – and continued with her equally hook-filled albums Tension and Tension II.
In contrast to some recent over-complicated arena tour concepts from the likes of Katy Perry, the Tension show is admirably straightforward after Kylie’s big entrance, allowing her to remain the focus at all times. She races through hits – some condensed into medleys – at an astonishing pace; from 1991’s What Do I Have To Do, to Good As Gone from Tension II. For Better the Devil You Know, she changes into a red sequin jumpsuit and matching mic, leading a troupe of highlighter-coloured dancers in front of a minimalist, impressionistic backdrop. There’s something of the Pet Shop Boys’ art-pop flair in the show’s considered design choices, and in Kylie’s inherent – rather than costume-driven – flamboyance.
England’s titanic tussle with Australia enthralled a nation but then the Test game vanished from UK free-to-air TV
How are you planning to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the 2005 men’s Ashes? Is it finally time to get that Kevin Pietersen skunk cut? Gather your friends for a drunken knees-up around Trafalgar Square?
Realistically, a quiet afternoon on YouTube will do, with Simon Jones’s reverse-swinger to Michael Clarke on repeat, off-stump gone like a popped cork. That rabbit hole should end up taking you to Pietersen’s 2014 appearance on the Graham Norton Show in which he discusses his strained relationship with Andrew Strauss while perched next to Taylor Swift. Yes, that actually happened.
The results of the election rerun could alter the future of the country, which is suffering under political divisions
Collecting her 10-year-old son from primary school in Bucharest’s crumbling Ferentari neighbourhood, Georgeta Petre was quite sure who she would be casting her ballot for on Sunday, and why.
“I hope he will change things,” she said. “I hope he’ll do things better. Everyone before him just … lied. Look around – we can’t continue like this. I can’t afford food, or clothes for the children. I’m voting for George Simion. He will be different.”
Israeli airstrikes continue in Gaza, the aftermath of the Kashmir crisis, protests in Panama, and the Cannes film festival: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists
Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing
It took a few adjustments on both sides – she wasn’t keen on snails or Rembrandt – but after seeing Paris, Berlin and Venice, she wants to go again next year
A year ago, I discovered a bit of a travel hack – that if accompanied by an adult (obviously) children under the age of 12 can explore Europe by train for absolutely zilch. Profoundly susceptible to any sort of bargain, even those that promise a net deficit in the long run, I determined to take advantage of Interrail’s generous offer, despite lacking dependents of the specified vintage.
Sourcing someone under 12 was far easier than I’d imagined. When I lodged an enquiry about my 10-year-old niece, asking if Annabelle might be available for an Interrailing stint at Easter, my brother couldn’t sign her up fast enough. (Though he did insist on some caveats: in bed by 10pm, out of bed by 9am, and no watching sweary Gordon Ramsay shows).
I was too afraid to confess my feelings and be rejected, until hearing Jarvis Cocker’s words gave me a moment of clarity
The first time Gordon and I kissed I thought we’d made a terrible mistake. It was 1995, we were both 20 years old, and we were drinking at our university bar in Leicester. We had formed a friendship over the previous three years, but I had never considered Gordon in a romantic light. He was a goth at the time, which I thought was very cool, and he had this fruity, posh voice – whereas I was a timid girl from south London with a terrible perm. I remember Gordon leaning in to give me this very innocent, tentative kiss, but it caught me off guard. I felt excited but also confused. For one thing, I’d only ever known Gordon to kiss his fellow goths.
I avoided Gordon for weeks after that, which was difficult, considering we were on the same course. We bumped into each other almost every day in lectures but I made things awkward. Conversations between us didn’t flow in the same way. I’m an overthinker, whereas Gordon is much more relaxed. I think he would have been happy to keep kissing me in a casual sort of way and see where things led, but I was frightened of ruining our friendship. I was so shy at that time, and didn’t connect with people as easily as Gordon did. I had very deep feelings for him, but I wasn’t able to acknowledge them. Gordon was the closest person to me and I was terrified of losing him by having a fling.
Moore plays a creepy socialite obsessed with raptors; Meghann Fahy plays a hot mess who thinks there may be a murder cover-up … or several. This is snappy satirical TV that goes down easy – and it’s only five episodes long. Woohoo!
I have a theory that TV shows nowadays are all tonal variations on either The White Lotus, Boiling Point or possibly Yellowstone, but honestly I haven’t seen the latter. You might wish I had supporting evidence, but isn’t that what a theory is?
Anyway, this week’s pick is definitely in the White Lotus mould. Sirens (Netflix, from Thursday 22 May) unfolds over Labor Day weekend in the Lloyd Neck peninsula of upstate New York, where a wealthy group of guests descend on a beachside estate for a charity gala. The raptor conservation organisation (think falcons, not velociraptors) is run by socialite Michaela Kell, a wellness-y guru who expects obedience from everyone around her. But preparations are interrupted by Devon, a chaotic falafel waitress who has come to save her sister Simone, Michaela’s assistant. Devon comes to believe Simone has been brainwashed, and that they’re mixed up in a murder, or several. It’s a long weekend.
From Tsar Alexander II and Queen Anne to Korky the Cat, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz
1 Which king’s sister, wife and lover were all called Edith? 2 Korky the Cat was the first cover star of what in 1937? 3 Which fabric is made from flax fibres? 4 What type of holiday is named from a Swahili word for journey? 5 Who orchestrated the FTX fraud? 6 Maria Mitchell, in 1847, was the first US astronomer to discover what? 7 Which west London stadium hosted one game of the 1966 World Cup? 8 What is the lowest composite number? What links:
9 Tasmin Archer; Frederick Delius; Gareth Gates; Zayn Malik; Kimberley Walsh? 10 Buenos Aires; Canberra; Luanda; St John’s; Tirana; Vienna; Yerevan? 11 Beds; cream; espresso coffee; quotation marks; window glazing? 12 Borghese; David; François; Medici; Portland; Warwick? 13 Hawaii (1); Sicily (2); Thailand (3)? 14 The future Tsar Alexander II; Queen Anne; future Edward VII; Edward Smith-Stanley? 15 Beryl Bainbridge’s Master Georgie and JG Farrell’s Troubles?
Smartphone Nation by Dr Kaitlyn Regehr vows to help us take control. But can her methods beat the algorithms?
Can you count the number of times you’ve looked at your phone today? Or how often you’ve opened it to do one thing to find yourself doing something else entirely?
If you’re anything like me, you’ll have little idea – merely an inkling – that it’s more times than you’d hope. Smartphone algorithms are designed to capture our attention and hold it, but a new book written by an academic who studies them promises to help people take back control.
These vegan burgers are child’s play and fun to make, too
This is exactly my kind of recipe. It’s easy, flavourful and, as a bonus, it’s crisp, too. In fact, it’s so simple, you could make the mixture with your eyes closed or, better still, give it to a six-year-old to do (they could also make it with their eyes closed). The key is the black beans, because they crisp up perfectly, and the condiments, which supercharge the flavour. There is one small catch, though: the onions need caramelising until they’re jammy, and ready to top the patty. You don’t have to do this, but I’m here to tell you that it is worthwhile (especially if there’s a six-year-old already making the burgers).
He’d been waiting about a decade to make his latest dash for freedom, and he grasped the opportunity like a pro
A reader writes, asking how I can let my tortoise roam free in my back garden. She’d like to do the same with her adopted tortoise, but is worried it will escape.
I explain that my garden is bounded by high brick walls, safely sealing the tortoise in, but that I too am consumed by fear that he will escape. He’s very good at hiding, and this always strikes me as a strategy: wait until they think you’ve already gone, and their guard will drop.
Familia Torres has been making wine in Catalonia since 1870, but says it may have to move to higher altitudes in 30 years’ time
A leading European winemaker has warned it may have to abandon its ancestral lands in Catalonia in 30 years’ time because climate change could make traditional growing areas too dry and hot.
Familia Torres is already installing irrigation at its vineyards in Spain and California and is planting vines on land at higher altitudes as it tries to adapt to more extreme conditions.
The orthodontist’s strange mouth exercises are beloved by incels seeking a manlier shape – and a fast-growing TikTok trend in classrooms around the world. So why has he been struck off the dentists’ register?
In a two-storey house in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, Dr Mike Mew perches on an ergonomic kneeling chair in front of two vast computer monitors, a microphone and three dazzling studio lights mounted on a rig, a vision mixing console and a studio camera complete with Autocue. Behind him, on a white shelf, is an enormous plastic mouth with perfectly aligned teeth.
Among stacks of files on the shelves below the oversized mouth, there are board games, a crystal-making kit, a pottery craft set – unwelcome reminders that this is not actually a dental clinic but a family home. The toys will need to be covered up before Mew’s new plans can be put into action. “The final thing for me to do is to go to Ikea and buy some white boxes,” he tells me. “Then I can sit here and I can change the world.”
After a week of bruising criticism, the PM will show what he really stands for when he signs a pivotal agreement with Brussels
Keir Starmer has had to grow a thicker skin over the past few years, but there are times when critics can still get under it. One such moment came this week, when he replied to a question about whether there was “any belief he holds which survives a week in Downing Street” by snapping back: “Yes, the belief that she talks rubbish.”
He probably knows it wasn’t a great response, not least because the MP who provoked this flash of tetchiness, Plaid Cymru’s Liz Saville Roberts, is far from being the most deserving recipient. By way of explanation, if not justification, it’s worth pointing out that Starmer’s emotions were already pretty raw this week after a suspected arson attack on his family home in north London. And he was also frustrated that his announcement of proposals for lowering immigration numbers had been interpreted as dancing to Nigel Farage’s divisive tune, or even a deliberate echo of the overtly racist one played by Enoch Powell half a century ago.
Tom Baldwin is a journalist and former senior adviser to the Labour party. He is the author of Keir Starmer: The Biography
Medications such as Ozempic have transformed obesity treatment and are now leading a healthcare revolution
Obesity was once medicine’s Cinderella subject with some questioning whether the condition should even be viewed as a biological disorder. But the arrival of a new class of appetite-suppressing drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy has transformed obesity treatment into the most scientifically exciting and commercially lucrative area of healthcare.
These drugs lead to dramatic weight loss, are shifting perceptions and, according to a series of results announced at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Málaga this week, promise health benefits that extend far beyond weight management.
While several labels have anniversaries this year, the event itself celebrates a milestone. After losing previous organiser IMG, the Australian Fashion Council relaunches it with new CEO, Kellie Hush
The age of impunity is over for male violence against women, say campaigners after the actor was found guilty of sexual assault
When Gérard Depardieu, one of France’s biggest cinema stars, was placed on the sex offender register this week after being found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021, it was a historic moment for the #MeToo movement in the country.
“It was a message to all men in power that they are answerable to the courts and can be convicted,” said Catherine Le Magueresse, who represented the European Association Against Violence Towards Women at Work (AVFT) at the trial. “The message is: watch out, the impunity is over.”
Sunday’s election could threaten the country’s place in Europe if Russia’s dark arts and historical amnesia win the day
Somewhere in my attic, among my rather extensive Polly Pocket and Barbie dolls collection, there’s a poster by the Romanian caricaturist Mihai Stănescu gathering dust. Truth be told it isn’t mine, it’s my mother’s. She passed it on to me a while ago and it spent most of my early adulthood taped to my bedroom door. On one line the poster reads “Before: EU – RO – PA”, with the RO dropping out. Beneath it: “After 22 December 1989: EUROPA” with the RO restored: Romania finally a part of Europe again.
Stănescu was one of the few caricaturists who dared to make subversive work mocking the Ceaușescu regime. He was under constant surveillance but his drawings encapsulated the hope many harboured for a democratic Romania. A Romania turned westwards. This same hope sustained the 1989 revolution. One of the best known placards held up by protesters in December 1989 read: “Copiii noștri vor fi liberi”. (Our children will be free.)
The judge handling the trial of five Canadian hockey players accused of sexual assault dismissed the jury Friday after a complaint that defense attorneys were laughing at some of the jurors.
Ontario superior court Justice Maria Carroccia will now handle the high-profile case on her own.
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