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1 min: O’Brien hoofs a mighty kick that takes a touch off Escudero’s hand. it bobbles into France’s goal area and the Frenc No. 8 dots it down. Did she not realise she’d touched it? Ireland get a scrum five out.

And we’re off with a shrill blast of Aimee Barrett-Theron’s whistle! My word, conditions are slick and greasy. Should make for a tactical battle. Who will box smartest? Ireland in emerald green or France in royal blue?

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Many football fans – and those in the wider sporting world – are reeling from the sad death of Ricky Hatton, a fan like they are of Manchester City. He was a true local hero.

Arne Slot on Isak’s absence. “We’ve decided it is the best for him to have a proper week of training instead of every time going for five or ten minutes of playing. I can assure the fans that he will be involved on Wednesday - but this game came a bit too early.”

Move made on same day as Guardian published interview with ex-aide’s mother who criticised Bidzina Ivanishvili

The mother of a jailed former aide to Georgia’s de facto leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili has had her bank accounts frozen after she publicly accused Ivanishvili of pursuing a vendetta against her son.

The prosecutor’s office in Georgia acted against Marina Ramazashvili and her husband, Alexander, on the same day that the Guardian published an interview with her in which she criticised the billionaire and called for help from the west.

Hatton, known throughout his career as the Hitman, was one of the best-known British fighters of his generation

The British former world boxing champion Ricky Hatton has been found dead at his home at the age of 46.

Hatton, known throughout his career as the Hitman, was one of the best-known British fighters of his generation and won several world titles.

Takeover of broadcast companies by Donald Trump’s allies is harbinger of media capitulation to authoritarian leanings

The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration.

CBS News – once home to legends of US journalism like Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow – installed a Trump ally as its ombudsman, weeks after the family of Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, and a friend of the US president, sealed control over Paramount, the owner of CBS.

As a huge new public collection opens this weekend, famous fans pick out their touchstones – from the game-changing wardrobe that gave birth to glam to the synthesiser that drove his Berlin years

• Alexis Petridis goes inside Bowie’s mind-boggling 90,000-item archive

Bowie was probably the most inspiring individual I’ve spent any time with. He came to my Blue Note club night in London a few times when it was very underground and he could be left alone. Then he’d come to the studio, where he’d sing through a haze of cigarette smoke like a gorilla in the mist, or I’d take him to see Dillinja in Brixton to hear drum’n’bass, or we’d spend time in his trailer on the Isle of Man set for the film Everybody Loves Sunshine and he’d sit there doing crochet. His thinking was that of an alchemist – he wanted to saturate himself in everything because he knew that inspiration could come from anywhere. He once said to me: “Golds, did you know Michelangelo said that when you blow the dust off a piece of marble, the sculpture’s there inside”? That thought stayed with me.

You don’t have to be vegetarian to enjoy a hot, crisp nugget of deep-fried beancurd

The New York Times once described raw tofu as having “the texture and disposition of a particularly upbeat sponge” – sauteeing, the writer decreed, was the only way to render the stuff “acceptable”. As it happens, I often eat the creamy, wobbly silken variety straight from the packet, but I wouldn’t disagree: you don’t have to be vegetarian to enjoy a hot, crisp nugget of deep-fried beancurd.

Prep 15 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2

Progressives in the US and UK are asking why leftwing politicians are not connecting with ordinary people

Progressives in the UK and US are grappling with the same question. Why have rightwing populists become so much more successful at tapping into public concern? And why are so few politicians on the left connecting with ordinary people?

Barely a year after taking power in Britain, Labour’s popularity has collapsed with an unprecedented rapidity against surging support for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

Elections in Germany’s most populous state pose first significant test at ballot box for Friedrich Merz as chancellor

Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)party is expected to make significant gains as voters in the country’s most populous state go to the polls in local elections that are seen as Friedrich Merz’s first significant electoral test since he took office as chancellor four months ago.

North Rhine-Westphalia, home to almost a quarter of Germany’s citizens and made up of swathes of agricultural land, post-industrial towns and cities with large multi-ethnic and student populations, is viewed as something of a bellwether for the country as a whole.

Peter Kyle says ‘singular talents’ of Mandelson were balanced against warnings over links with Jeffrey Epstein

Peter Mandelson had “singular talents” which meant his appointment as US ambassador had been seen as “worth the risks” despite warnings in the vetting process over his links with Jeffrey Epstein, the business secretary has said.

The dismissal of Mandelson as ambassador after new revelations about his close contact with the financier after he was convicted of child sex offences has caused fury in the Labour party about the slowness of Number 10’s response, as well as a major headache ahead of the US president Donald Trump’s arrival this week for a state visit.

Polish foreign minister says Vladimir Putin seeks to test west’s reactions without triggering full-scale war

Poland’s foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski, has said last week’s Russian drone incursion into Polish airspace was an attempt by the Kremlin to test Nato’s reactions by incremental escalations without prompting a full-scale response.

Sikorski confirmed that while the drones used in the incursion were capable of carrying ammunition, those that reached Poland were not loaded with explosives. “Interestingly, they were all duds, which suggests to me that Russia tried to test us without starting a war,” Sikorski told the Guardian in Kyiv.

Book compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell contains multiple innuendo-laden letters – including one from Donald Trump

After House Democrats released a scrapbook gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday, questions have emerged about whether the late child-sex trafficker’s proclivities were an open secret or, at the very least, rumored in the circle of powerful and rich people that surrounded him.

Indeed, the so-called birthday book, which was compiled by Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, contains multiple letters that are laden with sexual innuendo – including one alleged missive from Donald Trump.

Social media and widespread availability of lethal weapons make this era more dangerous than the 1960s – and the violence may increase

Charlie Kirk’s killing came amid a rise in political violence in the US, the kind now so frequent that it moves swiftly out of news cycles it would once have dominated.

The list is long and growing. From the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump during his campaign last year to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home burnt in an arson attack in April and the Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband gunned down by a man dressed as a police officer in June, to name a few.

A UN special rapporteur shares the stories of those trying to record the horrors of Gaza even as they live through them

“Yesterday I talked to a mother of a child who was born and died in the war.”

“Every day I look at my child, who instead of going to school is going to fetch water, and instead of playing football is hanging around in areas where corpses are lying.”

Mary Lawlor is UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders

Mexicans, who consume on average 166 litres of fizzy drinks a year, will face a near doubling of the tax rate

• Coca-Cola country in southern Mexico – photo essay

Mexico has declared war on one of its deadliest foes – but not one of the country’s many powerful drug cartels. Rather, the Latin American country has doubled down on its battle against a more silent killer: sugary drinks.

“We want people to stop drinking so much soft drink,” said President Claudia Sheinbaum bluntly at a news conference this week. The country’s 2026 budget, unveiled on Monday, proposed to nearly double the current tax rate on sugary drinks from 1.64 pesos (9 cents) per liter to 3.08 pesos per liter.

He’s the star and creator of the BBC hit Juice, but life has thrown him a few curveballs along the way. He opens up about his years of hard graft, his mum’s big acting break, and why things are getting weird with his therapist

I don’t know if I’ve even really celebrated it to be honest, man.” Sitting in a north London bar on a boiling hot evening, resplendent in a matching silk shirt and shorts combo, Mawaan Rizwan is contemplating his life post-Bafta. In May last year, he won best male comedy performance for Juice, his gloriously surrealist BBC series in which he stars as Jamma, a clownish manchild with a bowl cut navigating a chaotic life alongside his dysfunctional family and buttoned-up older boyfriend.

In the end, after a few sips of his negroni, Rizwan – whose CV also includes appearances on Taskmaster, Live at the Apollo and Doctor Who, plus a slew of comedy songs about racism, toxic masculinity and skiing’s lack of socioeconomic diversity – pinpoints one way his life has changed; his therapist upped his fee. Rizwan speculates that it might have happened after his viral acceptance speech, in which the surprised and elated actor recounted a prior session’s focus on the dangers of relying on external forms of validation.

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“I’ve learnt in the past just to stay in the present,” laughs Matt Hudson-Smith in interview with the Beeb – I like that. And he’s right, of course – the past has gone and the future is a promise: the only thing he has, as an athlete, but also we all have, as people, is what’s going on right now.

We’re back watching footage of the 100m heats; goodness me, Julien Alfred looks immense, a classic example of an athlete who wins something when not quite expecting to, then becomes a million times better as a consequence. Consider also: France after the 1998 World Cup.

Grace and Theo’s long-distance relationship – and mismatched libidos – puts pressure on their sex life, but they are learning to build intimacy

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

“We’ve been getting to know each other and building intimacy in bursts of a few weeks at a time

After Jessica and I received expert counselling from the hit show Couples Therapy, I became public enemy number one. Here’s what didn’t make it to the screen

“You are the reason women hate men,” a woman commented on one of my Instagram posts. “You don’t deserve Jessica, you schmuck,” another said in a direct message on Facebook. “I hope you’ve gotten the help you need and set your poor wife free,” wrote a third.

I am a novelist who relishes connecting with his audience. That disposition has suffered. The reason: three months ago, the US network Showtime aired the latest season of the documentary series Couples Therapy, on which my wife Jessica and I appeared as one of the pairs.

Promoter and artist Man Power brings world-class DJs and dance acts to King Street Social Club in North Shields

You can’t miss the King Street Social Club.

Its exterior is made up of hundreds of coloured tiles and a no-nonsense red sign that make it stand out on the North Shields street it occupies. Inside the club, which is at the centre of the former fishing community around Newcastle upon Tyne, something else is brewing.

The bossa nova pianist Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior went out for cigarettes after a concert in Buenos Aires – a forensic team has finally revealed his fate

Early on 18 March 1976, Francisco Tenório Cerqueira Júnior, a Brazilian pianist who had played alongside some of Latin America’s greatest musicians, disappeared from the streets of Buenos Aires.

For nearly 50 years, his fate has remained a mystery, sparking desperate searches, raising suspicions of government complicity, and inspiring international documentaries. Now the mystery has been solved, with forensic scientists formally identifying Tenório Júnior’s body – and confirming he was a victim of Argentina’s bloody dictatorship.

Doctors at Nasser medical complex say it will not be able to cope with large numbers of people fleeing Gaza City

Doctors and medical staff at the largest big hospital still functioning in Gaza say they will be overwhelmed by a wave of new wounded and sick patients if hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee the north of the devastated territory in the face of an intensifying Israeli offensive.

Dr Mohammed Saqr, the director of nursing at the Nasser medical complex near Khan Younis, in the south of Gaza, said there were not enough staff to cope with even existing demand and that supplies of medicine and fuel were running low.

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Jonathan Wilson thinks it might be over for Pep Guardiola. Is Jonathan Wilson right about it being over for Pep Guardiola?

Two current Premier League managers worked as Guardiola’s assistants, Enzo Maresca and Mikel Arteta. Although both have developed along their own paths, they offer a snapshot of where Pepism was at the moment they set out alone: Maresca comes from the days of control through possession; Arteta from the era of four central defenders across the back. A tactical assessment of the elite is like a vertical tasting of Pepism.

“He’s not used to fighting for his place, maybe,” Amorim said. “He’s uncomfortable, but he’s a very good kid. He wants to learn. Sometimes it’s hard to push different things from the players.”

Under Ten Hag, Mainoo scored United’s FA Cup-winning goal against Manchester City in the 2024 final. Later that summer he started England’s European Championship final defeat by Spain. When reminded of this pedigree Amorim pointed to Paris Saint-Germain’s Vitinha, who when on loan at Wolves for the 2020-21 season made only five league starts, as an example to Mainoo.

The highs were preferable to the depressive lows, but I needed balance, not extremes. Perhaps a return to a childhood passion could help

‘Please sit down,” I begged my neighbour, who was leaning across the car gearstick, arm stretched around my headrest. My pleas for him to fasten his seatbelt were futile. Now he was jigging about, gesticulating wildly as he revealed his latest plans.

He had told me before about the script he was writing for Gary Oldman. I hadn’t thought too much of it, then – all writers have to be a bit grandiose, I had reasoned, otherwise they wouldn’t achieve anything. But now he was telling me he was inventing a flying machine, from which he would fall – and I quote – “like a sycamore seed”. “You very much won’t,” my partner muttered. “What goes up, must come down.”

Claire Jackson is a journalist who writes about classical music, art and animals

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