Up to 800,000 people are expected to march over budget cuts, public services and wages a week after Sébastien Lecornu’s appointment

• People in France: share your views on the strike

• Full report: France’s biggest strike in years under way amid political crisis

I am keeping an eye on the EU’s midday briefing just now, but there is no substantial update from the EU on the 19th package of sanctions against Russia.

The European Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, Olof Gill, repeated that “we expect to present … [them] soon”, as he asked journalists to “please bear with us on that”, without offering more detail.

• Latest updates from the track on night six in Tokyo

• Kerley joins Enhanced Games soon after ban | Mail Daniel

Back on the track, Yamamoto leads from Tanaka, with Battocletti of Italy third and Chebet fourth.

Oli Goldman reminds me that, when reminiscing about the 1991 worlds, I neglected to mention the GB 4x400m quarter changing up their order and Kriss Akabusi taking out Antonio Pettigrew, the individual champion, in the final few strides. I was actually looking for and failing to find photos of the t-shirts made thereafter, featuring Roger Black’s post-race line, “We kicked their butts”, then got distracted.

Breaking news: Metropolitan police announce arrests of two men and a woman

Two men and a woman have been arrested in Essex on suspicion of assisting the Russian intelligence service, the Metropolitan police said.

More details soon …

• Full-back Kildunne returns after concussion

• England make four changes to starting XV

Ellie Kildunne returns to the England starting XV in one of four changes for their Rugby World Cup semi-final against France on Saturday.

Kildunne missed the Red Roses’ quarter-final win against Scotland as she went through concussion protocols with Helena Rowland stepping in at full-back.

Stock climbs above £6.5bn in early trading as trial shows ‘significant weight loss’ for pill version of Wegovy

• Business live – latest updates

The value of the drugmaker Novo Nordisk has shot up by more than £6.5bn after research showed its new anti-obesity pill resulted in almost as much weight loss as its Wegovy jab, as it races against its US rival Eli Lilly to get a tablet treatment to market.

Stock in the Danish company climbed by more than 4.5% on Thursday morning on hopes it could claw back market share lost to Eli Lilly and cheaper generic versions of GLP-1 drugs. Shares have fallen by nearly 60% in the past year as sales slowed.

Channel 4’s use of facts to correct almost everything the US President has said since taking office in January is a monumental flex. Sadly three hours of him speaking is deadeningly boring

If nothing else, you have to applaud their commitment to the bit. Broadly speaking, the British media responded to Donald Trump’s state visit with a series of cautious little inserts nestled within scheduled news programming. Then along came Channel 4, which decided to go big, junking off a full night’s schedule to deliver an unbroken almost three-hour, fact-based, point-by-point repudiation of almost every single thing that Trump has said since he retook office in January.

This sprawling extravaganza, entitled Trump v the Truth, formed the backbone of what effectively became Channel 4’s Trump Day on Wednesday. Preceding it was episode two of The Donald Trump Show, a weird hour that overlaid an arch Come Dine With Me narration over old Trump clips. And throughout the day, continuity announcers were replaced with a Trump impersonator who whined about the channel’s output. During Frasier at 10:40am, for instance, he complained about his intense dislike of tossed salads.

Still, Trump v the Truth was always the real pull; a monumental flex that few other broadcasters would have dared to attempt. Starting at 10pm and rolling on into the small hours, the show was billed as a rigorously sourced factcheck of more than 100 untruths that Trump has told during his second term so far, in speeches, interviews, statements and social media posts.

The president won’t prevail in court. But his cases against media companies have a potential chilling effect on criticism of the government

Donald Trump has sued the New York Times for, well, reporting on Trump.

Rather than charging the Times with any specific libelous act, Trump’s lawsuit is just another of his angry bloviations.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now

When a mysterious object fell from the sky mid-game, I knew it was a portent of doom. The surprise was finding out who chucked it there

A funny thing happened at the football last Saturday, and not in a good way. My team, West Brom, were outplaying Derby County but, importantly, without managing to score a goal. Ordinarily, as the second half went on, I would have given in to pessimism, assuming that for all our dominance we’d not score, though Derby somehow would, and I’d go home miserable. But on this occasion, I really thought the match would be ours. Until this thing happened.

Play suddenly stopped, for reasons that were at first unclear. A few of the players were looking at something lying on the pitch. Gingerly, squeamishly, they edged closer to whatever it was. Bizarre. As opera glasses aren’t available on the backs of seats at football grounds, we couldn’t identify the object. Eventually a member of the ground staff appeared, wearing rubber gloves. He strode out to the middle of the pitch, picked the object up, and returned whence he came carrying half a pigeon – dead, obviously.

The Sky have consistently chased away talented players from the organization. Now they are doing it again with one of the best young players in the league

When the Chicago Sky selected Angel Reese, one of the most celebrated college players in years, with the No 7 overall pick last year, many believed she could be a turning point for the franchise. Yes, the Sky had won the NBA finals in 2021 but they have been a losing team for most of their history and Reese, in addition to her celebrity, would bring explosive athleticism and superb rebounding to the franchise. As a player, those lofty hopes have panned out: she is already a two-time All-Star and has led the league in rebounds in both her WNBA seasons.

As a teammate, things aren’t so smooth. The Sky were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs last season. This time around they finished with the joint-worst record in the entire WNBA, alongside the Dallas Wings.

Michael Werner Gallery, London
Artists as varied as Sarah Lucas, Gwen John and Georg Baselitz are called upon by critic-curator Hilton Als to chime with the writer of Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys was a perpetual outsider. Born Welsh and Creole into largely black Dominican society in 1890, she was out of place everywhere – too foreign for Europe, too Caribbean for Britain, too white for Dominica, and much too female to be taken seriously as a writer for most of her lifetime.

But her literary influence continues to grow and resonate, especially with American critic and curator Hilton Als. His group show is a heady, passionate, experimental love letter to Jean Rhys – to her literature, her in-betweenness, her life of unbound creativity in a postcolonial world – in the vein of his previous exhibitions-as-portraits of Joan Didion and James Baldwin.

Aerospace firm Honeywell also subject of US lawsuit from families of four passengers, who allege negligence

The families of four passengers who died in the Air India crash in June have sued the aerospace manufacturers Boeing and Honeywell, blaming negligence and a faulty fuel cutoff switch for the disaster that killed 260 people.

Air India flight 171 crashed shortly after takeoff from Ahmedabad en route to London on 12 June.

Donald Trump wants drastic rate cuts – and his campaign to exert greater political control over the Fed continues apace

The time has come to ban the “revolving door” between the White House and the Federal Reserve, two academics argued last year. Doing so would be “critical to reducing the incentives for officials to act in the short-term political interests of the president”, they wrote.

Eight months ago, the two writers – Dan Katz and Stephen Miran – joined the Trump administration in senior roles. On Tuesday, Miran, the chair of the US Council of Economic Advisers, walked into the Fed as a governor.

Basic principles need to be enshrined to protect the sacred craft of storytelling from this automated onslaught

• Jonny Geller is a literary agent and CEO of The Curtis Brown Group

The single biggest threat to the livelihood of authors and, by extension, to our culture, is not short attention spans. It is AI.

The UK publishing industry – worth more than £11bn, part of the £126bn that our creative industries generate for the British economy – has sat by while big tech has “swept” copyrighted material from the internet in order to train their models. Recently, the AI startup Anthropic settled a $1.5bn copyright case over this issue, but the ship has undeniably left the harbour and big tech is sailing off with the goods.

Jonny Geller is CEO of The Curtis Brown Group

On a tiny Italian island, scientists conducted a radical experiment to see if the bees were causing their wild cousins to decline

Off the coast of Tuscany is a tiny island in the shape of a crescent moon. An hour from mainland Italy, Giannutri has just two beaches for boats to dock. In summer, hundreds of tourists flock there, hiking to the red and white lighthouse on its southern tip before diving into the clear waters. In winter, its population dwindles to 10. The island’s rocky ridges are coated with thickets of rosemary and juniper, and in warmer months the air is sweetened by flowers and the gentle hum of bees.

“Residents are people who like fishing, or being alone, or who have retired. Everyone has their story,” says Leonardo Dapporto, associate professor at the University of Florence.

Giannutri island’s remote location made it a perfect open-air laboratory for the bee experiments. Photographs: Giuseppe Nucci

US president is holding talks with Starmer before attending a business event and then appearing at a joint news conference with PM

President Trump is now leaving Windsor Castle. He will be flying to Chequers by helicopter.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, has thanked King Charles for what he said at the state banquet last night strongly supporting the Ukrainian cause.

I extend my deepest thanks to His Majesty King Charles III @RoyalFamily for his steadfast support. Ukraine greatly values the United Kingdom’s unwavering and principled stance.

When tyranny threatens Europe once again, we must all hold firm, and Britain continues to lead in defending freedom on many fronts. Together, we have achieved a lot, and with the support of freedom-loving nations—the UK, our European partners, and the US—we continue to defend values and protect lives. We are united in our efforts to make diplomacy work and secure lasting peace for the European continent.

Our countries have the closest defence, security and intelligence relationship ever known. In two world wars, we fought together to defeat the forces of tyranny.

Today, as tyranny once again threatens Europe, we and our allies stand together in support of Ukraine, to deter aggression and secure peace. And our Aukus submarine partnership, with Australia, sets the benchmark for innovative and vital collaboration.

We’d like to hear from people across France about how they view Thursday’s strikes

Around 800,000 people are expected to join marches across France on Thursday.

French trade unions across many sectors from schools to transport have called for the nationwide strike to oppose unpopular budget plans.

• Tennis legend told diagnosis was ‘really, really bad’

• Borg also recalls drug use after early retirement

Björn Borg, the five-time Wimbledon tennis champion, has said he is taking life “day by day, year by year” after his “extremely aggressive” prostate cancer diagnosis.

The former world No 1, who won 11 grand slam titles before retiring aged 25, revealed the diagnosis in the final chapter of his autobiography, which will be published this week in the UK and next week in the US. The Swede is in remission, having had an operation in 2024, but described the diagnosis as “difficult psychologically”.

Read Bjorn Borg’s interview with Simon Hattenstone on theguardian.com from 4pm UK time on Thursday

A thriller-like account of the influential men and women who opposed Hitler and paid a terrible price

On 10 September 1943, a loose group of well-connected friends met in a small apartment in the Charlottenberg area of Berlin. The host was Elisabeth von Thadden and the nominal reason for the get-together was her younger sister’s 50th birthday. Really, though, this was a cover story for nine influential people meeting to discuss what should happen now that it was clear that Hitler was losing the war.

Otto Kiep, a former diplomat, talked hopefully about how Mussolini’s recent toppling meant that Italy was ready to make peace with the allies, while political hostess Hanna Solf gleefully anticipated the moment when Hitler fell: “We’ll put him against a wall.” Meanwhile, Von Thadden herself, a devout Protestant and former headteacher of an elite girls’ school, warned of the humanitarian crisis that would follow the end of hostilities. For those who gathered on that late summer’s day for tea, sandwiches and a particularly unappetising food item called “war cake”, Germany’s rebirth as a democratic nation state felt so near that they could almost touch it.

The phenomenal response to an article we published on this question led to detailed cognitive research – and the findings have implications that go way beyond gamers

Five years ago, on the verge of the first Covid lockdown, I wrote an article asking what seemed to be an extremely niche question: why do some people invert their controls when playing 3D games? A majority of players push down on the controller to make their onscreen character look down, and up to make them look up. But there is a sizeable minority who do the opposite, controlling their avatars like a pilot controls a plane, pulling back to go up. For most modern games, this requires going into the settings and reconfiguring the default controls. Why do they still persist?

I thought a few hardcore gamers would be interested in the question. Instead, more than one million people read the article, and the ensuing debate caught the attention of Dr Jennifer Corbett (quoted in the original piece) and Dr Jaap Munneke, then based at the Visual Perception and Attention Lab at Brunel University London.

Jonathan Millet makes his fiction feature debut with an ambitious slow-burn thriller that opens up a complex world of pain

The face of a Syrian refugee is the enigmatic key to this slow-burning drama-thriller, the fiction feature debut of French film-maker Jonathan Millet; it is hard, blank, withdrawn, yet showing us an inexpressible agony, a suppressed, unprocessed trauma, complicated by what is evidently a new strategic wariness. The refugee is Hamid (played by Adam Bessa), a former literature professor from Aleppo who is now in Strasbourg in France in 2016, having suffered torture in Damascus’s notorious Sednaya prison, and the killing of his wife and infant daughter.

Hamid asks expatriate Syrians if they know a certain man, showing them a hazy photograph, claiming that this is his cousin. In fact, it is a man who tortured him and Hamid is a member of a ring dedicated to tracking down Syrian war criminals all over Europe. Haunted, exhausted and unhappy, Hamid’s only real relationship is with his elderly mother in a Lebanese refugee camp, with whom he has weekly Zoom calls; this a tender performance from Shafiqa El Till.

Once teams promote a country, are owned by states or have to reflect government policy, sport becomes a playground for power

High fives all round at Hamas high command. The triumphant clink of Gaza Cola tins pings across the bunker. It’s been a tough week for the lads, what with five of their members being killed in the Doha airstrike, but you’ve got to celebrate the little victories, yeah? And as they use what remains of their fragile satellite internet connection to refresh the Cyclingnews live blog for the final time, the Hamas Grand Tour Disruption Division (Vuelta Branch) can toast an operation executed to perfection: the successful mobilisation of more than 100,000 members of the Madrid battalion to force the curtailment of stage 21 of the Tour of Spain.

“They asked us to quit the Vuelta, but we did not surrender to the terrorists,” said Sylvan Adams, co‑owner of the Israel-Premier Tech team targeted by mass protests that disrupted several stages. On Sunday, huge crowds of protesters in Madrid forced the race to conclude 27 miles short of the finish. And if the rancorous and chaotic last three weeks have taught us anything, it is the sheer number of terrorists that appear to have been operating within pro cycling, albeit many armed with nothing more lethal than energy gels.

As the Manchester City legend returns to face his former team, we look back at moments that will never be forgotten

On 22 May 2022, in a dictionary definition of carpe diem, De Bruyne shows his greatness with the assist that harvests another title for City, just as Pep Guardiola’s men veer near to losing the plot. After 69 minutes Aston Villa are cruising at 2-0 up and the title is heading to Anfield where Liverpool, drawing with Wolves 1-1, need a goal to seal a famous last-day triumph. But, after City goals on 76 and 78 minutes, De Bruyne takes charge. A piercing burst along the right prompts a pinpoint cross to Ilkay Gündogan, whose threaded finish on 81 minutes sends the Etihad Stadium ballistic.

Raquel doesn’t believe ADHD excuses Gina’s bad habits. You decide who needs to brush up on their etiquette

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I can hear her swishing and spitting from my room. I have a visceral reaction to it

Living with ADHD is difficult, and anyway, the kitchen is not some sacred food-only zone

I was the envy of the friends I’d left behind. Now it seems prudent to assess how much that nativism will truly take root here

This time last year, I had just moved back to Britain from the US and was enjoying the almost universal envy of American friends. While they were looking down the barrel of a second Trump presidency with its guarantee of chaos and division, we had elected Keir Starmer by a landslide and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. I remember people congratulating me on the prescience of my move, which I absolutely took even though politics hadn’t been part of my decision (not least because, for most of 2024, I had assumed Trump would lose). Anyway, here we are a year later and who’s laughing now?

I guess the answer to that is Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party, which has somehow managed to harness the anger, disappointment and shame felt by large numbers of people who voted for and were then let down by Brexit, and are now in search of another fire to light. To this extent, the roots of the rightwing march last weekend and the rise of Reform generally feel broadly of a piece with their US antecedents: a case, at least in part, of people clutching at anything that promises to rip up a system that has serially failed to reward them. What has felt shocking to many of us this year, however, is how quickly the political landscape seems to have changed in this country, and how a leader as frivolous as Farage could get anyone to follow him anywhere, let alone in the direction of No 10.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist