Arsenal secured their first win of the new Champions League campaign, Beth Mead sending the ball crawling over the line against Benfica before Alessia Russo killed off the game with their second in Portugal.
It wasn’t pretty in the Estádio da Luz, but it was enough, just, with Arsenal’s lack of cutting edge remaining a major concern.
London film festival Hawke plays with campy brilliance and criminal combover the lyricist Lorenz Hart as he spirals into vinegary jilted despair after his split from Richard Rodgers
Breaking up with the more prominent partner in a showbiz double act is a hazardous business. Larry David did it. So did Andrew Ridgeley. Now this witty and heartbreakingly sad chamber piece from screenwriter Robert Kaplow and director Richard Linklater tells the all but unbearable story of Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart just after his split from Richard Rodgers. He is played with campy brilliance, an unspeakable combover and fake smallness by Ethan Hawke, who is often digitally reduced in size – but is also occasionally filmed standing in an off-camera hole to look up poignantly at taller characters, facing Hart’s vertical challenge as José Ferrer once played the diminutive Toulouse-Lautrec.
Hawke gets big, world-weary laughs with Hart’s riffs on the hidden gayness of the movie Casablanca and the cheesily upbeat musical he’s just been to see, with all the lasso-twirling cowboys; he acidly calls it Okla-homo. The sexual identity of Hart is complex: this film effectively triangulates his gayness with the straight persona invented for him in the 1948 musical Words and Music (with Mickey Rooney playing Hart); it cleverly extrapolates a kind of bisexuality from Hart’s letters to his protege: young Yale student and would-be stage designer Elizabeth Weiland, played here with heedless girlishness by Margaret Qualley.
Manchester United overcame the first-half dismissal of Dominique Janssen to close out a win over Atlético Madrid and maintain their perfect start to their first Women’s Champions League campaign. The Sweden forward Fridolina Rolfö fired in a close-range volley to score the decisive goal.
The Dutch centre-back was shown a red card before the break after a VAR review into her sliding challenge on Gio Garbelini, who was taken off on a stretcher. Atlético also finished the match with 10 players after their defender Alexia Fernández received a second yellow card with 15 minutes remaining.
Goaltender joins Vegas after high-profile acquittal
NHL reinstatement process bars play until December
Bettman says teams must decide on own standards
Goaltender Carter Hart has agreed to sign with the Vegas Golden Knights, becoming the first of the five 2018 Canada world junior hockey players to land an NHL contract since they were acquitted of sexual assault in a high-profile case.
Vegas announced an agreement with undisclosed terms for Hart on Thursday, the second day after the window opened for the players to sign.
Zions and Western Alliance reveal problems with bad loans as scrutiny of regional banks’ lending practices increases
US regional banking stocks fell sharply on Thursday after two banks disclosed issues with bad and fraudulent loans, amplifying concerns on Wall Street around the state of credit markets.
Zions Bancorp announced it had a $50m charge-off over two bad loans from its subsidiary, California Bank & Trust in San Diego. Western Alliance also said it was dealing with a fraudulent borrower.
Agents also appear to have violated order banning them from using riot-control, such as tear gas, without warning
Federal immigration officers in the Chicago area have been ordered by a court to wear body cameras after they repeatedly deployed pepper balls, smoke grenades and tear gas against protesters and local police, seemingly in violation of a federal judge’s ruling from last week.
Sara Ellis, a US district judge, who had previously required immigration agents to wear badges and banned them from using riot-control techniques such as tear gas without warning, railed on Thursday against the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) continued aggressive tactics, many of which have been caught on camera, and which appear to violate her order.
As a gruelling 2025-26 schedule begins with a T20 series, both tourists and hosts stress the importance of enjoyment
England’s white-ball team have played 24 times this year, most recently a little more than three weeks ago. New Zealand’s have played 28 games, the latest was this month. These are groups who spend a lot of time together, but before the start of their Twenty20 series on Saturday both chiselled some space out of their schedule to do something surprisingly unusual with each other: nothing very much.
Brendon McCullum took his team to Queenstown in New Zealand’s Southern Alps where, in Harry Brook’s words, they were “just left to our own devices”. There was some hiking, a bit of go-karting and, inevitably, a lot of golf.
US president has repeatedly hinted at supplying Kyiv with Tomahawks, but some in Moscow say Kremlin sees it as negotiating gambit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to head to the White House for a crucial meeting with Donald Trump, with the possible supply of US Tomahawk cruise missiles expected to top the agenda.
The US president has repeatedly hinted in recent weeks that he may deliver Tomahawks, which would give Kyiv its longest-range weapon yet that would be capable of striking Moscow with accurate, destructive munitions.
The actor has paid tribute to his Godfather co-star and one-time romantic partner, saying she had a ‘once-in-a-lifetime gift’
Al Pacino has paid tribute to the his co-star and ex-romantic partner Diane Keaton who died last week.
The 85-year-old actor had been filming in Paris and reportedly needed some time to put together his thoughts and feelings on Keaton, who died of pneumonia on Saturday at the age of 79.
Killing of Lola Daviet three years ago led to outcry after far right was accused of exploiting her death for political gain
A woman who allegedly abused and tortured a 12-year-old girl before leaving her to suffocate will go on trial for murder on Friday in a case that has shocked France and caused political waves.
Lola Daviet’s body was found stuffed into a plastic trunk that had been dumped on the street near her home.
Hawks want regime change. Democrats and others are right to warn against illegal and unauthorised use of force
The drumbeat is growing louder. Covert operations are supposed to remain just that, but on Wednesday Donald Trump confirmed that he had approved secret CIA actions in Venezuela and suggested that he was considering strikes on its territory. These comments follow the administration’s extrajudicial killings at sea: attacks on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean that have left at least 27 dead – a frightening new precedent denounced by UN experts as illegal. The US has already built up forces in the region, with about 6,500 troops now stationed there. “No to war in the Caribbean … No to regime change … No to coups d’état orchestrated by the CIA,” railed Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s dictator, after Mr Trump’s remarks.
The US president’s repeated claim that each boat strike saves 25,000 American lives is even more preposterous than it first sounds. The fentanyl that killed 48,000 people in the US last year did not come from Venezuela; most of it is from Mexico. But Mr Maduro’s regime looks increasingly isolated. The US has designated Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist organisation that has “invaded” the US, claiming that Mr Maduro is personally responsible. It has used that posturing to justify deportations and to boast – against the evidence – that Mr Trump has cut violent crime in cities.
This week’s partisan blame game is the wrong response to the collapse of the alleged Chinese spying case. The failure of governance runs deeper
The China spying row has revealed disturbing weaknesses in the processes of the UK state. It cannot be in the national interest for a case involving national security to get so close to the courts and then for it to be abandoned in what remain mysterious circumstances. Public confidence, as well as security itself, are inevitably placed at risk. But this genuinely important issue now risks being blanketed by the fog of the party-political battle at Westminster.
For the third time this week, MPs spent Thursday trading accusations about whether the Conservatives or Labour are more to blame for the fiasco of last month’s collapsed prosecution. To be fair, the latest exchanges did not descend to the abject “did-didn’t” level that was reached at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday. Politicians from Sir Keir Starmer down are fond of saying that the national interest comes before the party interest. But there has been too little evidence of that principle in the current dispute.
With supreme entitlement, Sian Clifford’s Lady Isabella shines as ‘aristocracy’s answer to the Kardashians’ in this barnstorming comedy
Those of us pining for Sian Clifford since the end of Fleabag, in which she played Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s fierce sister, have been rewarded with an outrageous barnstormer in this bizarre mockumentary comedy, a feature debut for director Samuel Abrahams. Clifford plays haughty but troubled aristocrat Lady Isabella who welcomes a young film-maker into her gorgeous country estate (filmed at Somerleyton Hall in Suffolk) with calamitous results, and the film plays like a scuzzier, shroomier B-side to Saltburn. Maybe it’s a bit reliant on Clifford’s overwhelming firepower of performance, and we have to indulge the way it cheats strict mockumentary rules about how exactly the camera comes to be where it is at every moment. But there are laughs and unexpected tenderness in this very peculiar sentimental education.
Laurie Kynaston plays Sam, a pushy, insecure young director who shows up at the stately home with his crew, excited at the prospect of shooting a candid documentary study, but disconcerted by the distrait behaviour and patrician mannerisms of the chatelaine, Lady Isabella. Describing herself as “aristocracy’s answer to the Kardashians”, she hosts and judges the annual talent show Stately Stars for local children. Yearning for her own artistic vocation to be respected, Lady Isabella now wishes to compete against the youngsters herself, with a vast, complex multimedia performance-installation piece which includes poetry, action painting and photographs of her apparently dead body around the grounds. Juliet Cowan is a put-upon housekeeper who is unsure whether to address her employer as “milady”.
Presiding bishop Olav Fykse Tveit says discrimination and harassment should ‘never have happened’
Against a backdrop of red stage curtains at one of Oslo’s most prominent LGBTQ+ spaces, the Church of Norway apologised for the discrimination and harm it had inflicted.
“The church in Norway has caused LGBTQ+ people shame, great harm and pain,” the presiding bishop, Olav Fykse Tveit, said on Thursday. “This should never have happened and that is why I apologise today.”
Thousands gather in Nairobi to pay respects to veteran opposition leader, prompting chaotic scenes at stadium
Four people have been killed in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, after security forces fired shots and teargas to disperse huge crowds at a stadium where the body of the opposition leader Raila Odinga was lying in state.
Odinga, a major figure in Kenyan politics for decades who was once a political prisoner and ran unsuccessfully for president five times, died on Wednesday aged 80 in India, where he had been receiving medical treatment.
Thousands of people are taking legal action against the US pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, claiming it knowingly sold baby powder containing asbestos-contaminated talc in the UK.
About 3,000 people have alleged that they or a family member developed forms of ovarian cancer or mesothelioma from using Johnson’s Baby Powder, and are seeking damages at the high court in London.
Europa League match is classified ‘high risk’ by police
Keir Starmer: ‘We will not tolerate antisemitism’
Fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv will not be allowed to attend the Europa League match at Aston Villa on 6 November owing to safety concerns.
West Midlands police said they had classified the fixture as “high risk” based on “current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Uefa Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam”.
As the US government shutdown enters its third week, concerns mount over how the nation’s public lands will fare
Cars and RVs surged into Yosemite national park throughout the weekend, as visitors from around the world came to enjoy the crisp autumn weather, undeterred by a lack of park services and the absence of rangers.
National parks have largely been kept open through the lapse in US federal funding that has left workers furloughed and resources for the parks system more scarce than usual. But as the US government shutdown enters its third week and legislators warn that their impasse could linger even longer than the one in Donald Trump’s first term – which currently holds the record at 35 days – concerns are mounting over how the nation’s treasured public lands will fare.
This six-part adaption of Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s novel is an odd beast. It conjures a fine sense of an isolated 19th-century village … but the murder investigation at its heart is risible
A debate recently went viral on social media, after someone posed the question to women: would you rather be lost in the woods with a man or a bear? Like all the best thought experiments, it exposed wildly different worldviews and experiences, illuminated chasms between the sexes, and was likely to induce an existential crisis if you thought about it for too long. There was also the almost inevitable coda in which men of a certain stripe came online to tell women how stupid they were for choosing the bear and proceeded to limn the punishments they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who had been hesitating over their choice to make it with a new confidence.
To Cook a Bear effectively dramatises this nifty little setup. The six-part drama is adapted from Swedish author Mikael Niemi’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers by Deborah Bragan-Turner). It follows the tribulations of a pastor (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his family when they arrive to start a new ministry in Kengis, an isolated village in northern Sweden, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, none of the inhabitants particularly warm to his puritanical approach to drinking and dancing, but it is his protection of the poor – especially the indigenous Sami, from which population comes the preacher’s adopted son Jussi (Emil Karlsen) – and his belief in social justice and equality that sets him on a collision course with the Kengis powers that be.
2 min: We get confirmation just now that concussion protocol has led to Jess Park not being in the matchday squad. Rolfö is her replacement up top in Skinner’s sole XI change.
1 min: 18sec on the clock and Malard flicks it off to Toone whose shot is just wide! A quick start from the visitors.
A federal grand jury has indicted John Bolton, the former national security adviser in Donald Trump’s first term, on charges of mishandling and transmitting classified information.
The indictment, filed in Maryland, appears to ultimately have been signed off on from career prosecutors in the US attorney’s office there despite initial reluctance to bring a case before the end of the year.
In an interview, Salvador Illa tells of ‘pragmatic approach’ as he seeks to persuade voters about benefits of coexistence with Madrid
Catalonia’s Socialist president has said his party’s focus on tackling inequality can win over voters who are tempted by pro-independence and far-right voices as he seeks to persuade Catalans of the benefits of coexistence with the central government in Madrid after years of turmoil.
Salvador Illa, a close ally of Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has been in the post since August 2024 and leads the first Catalan parliament in 44 years without a pro-independence majority.
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