Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Russia would continue its war on Ukraine as it was unable to achieve its goals through “diplomatic means.”
“We are interested in achieving our goals in the course of the special military operation and it is preferable to do it by political and diplomatic means,” Peskov said, as reported by AFP.
“But until that is not possible, we are continuing the special operation.”
Ex-BBC presenter criticises failure to show documentary, accusing people at ‘the very top’ of failing over the conflict
Gary Lineker has said the BBC should “hold its head in shame” over its failure to show a documentary about the plight of medics in Gaza.
The former Match of the Day presenter said people at “the very top of the BBC” had been failing over the conflict, following the corporation’s controversial decision to drop Gaza: Doctors Under Attack.
Cycling’s governing body accused of dangerous inaction
‘People with real knowledge are pushed to the outside’
A leading Tour de France team manager, Jonathan Vaughters, has launched a scathing attack on cycling’s governing body on the eve of the race, accusing the UCI of being “unable to make good decisions when it comes to safety or the governance of the sport”.
Vaughters, who leads EF Education-Easypost and raced in four Tours as a professional, described cycling’s governing body as “managed by politicians and bureaucrats who do not understand the reality of the sport” and added that “they were put in place by the votes of other politicians who have never had their skin ripped off by the road”.
Nayib Bukele disputed claims of Ábrego García’s lawyers that he was tortured and deprived of sleep while in custody
The president of El Salvador has denied claims that Kilmar Ábrego García was subjected to beatings and deprivation while he was held in the country before being returned to the US to face human-smuggling charges.
Nayib Bukele said in a social media post that Ábrego García, the Salvadorian national who was wrongly extradited from the US to El Salvador in March before being returned in June, “wasn’t tortured, nor did he lose weight”.
Awake in the night again? From box breathing to standing on a cold bathroom floor, experts and readers offer tried and tested tips on how to calm your mind and drift back off …
Bad news for that old favourite, counting sheep. “It has been studied and it doesn’t work,” says Dr Eidn Mahmoudzadeh, a Manchester GP and co-founder of The Sleep Project, which offers support for sleeplessness at all ages. “It is too simple and mundane; people don’t carry on, they just get bored and their thoughts wander to worrying about sleep.” Counterintuitively, you should go for something more mentally challenging, he says, to distract the brain.
Five charges of rape and one charge of sexual assault
Due to appear in magistrates court next month
Former Arsenal footballer Thomas Partey has been charged with five counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, the Crown Prosecution Service said.
The allegations relate to three separate women who reported incidents between 2021 and 2022. Partey has been charged with two counts of rape of one woman, three counts of rape of a second woman, and one count of sexual assault of a third woman. He will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on 5 August.
After initial concerns, pupils are said to be more focused and have better social interactions with each other
Bans on smartphones in Dutch schools have improved the learning environment despite initial protests, according to a study commissioned by the government of the Netherlands.
National guidelines, introduced in January 2024, recommend banning smartphones from classrooms and almost all schools have complied. Close to two-thirds of secondary schools ask pupils to leave their phones at home or put them in lockers, while phones are given in at the start of a lesson at one in five.
Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed he is in discussions about creating a new leftwing political party, hours after the MP Zarah Sultana announced she was quitting Labour to co-lead the project.
Sultana, the MP for Coventry South who had the Labour whip suspended last year for voting against the government over the two-child limit on benefits, said on Thursday night she was quitting Labour and would “co-lead the founding of a new party” with Corbyn.
Dortmund’s pursuit of younger brother included hotel visit and talk of a Club World Cup meeting with Real Madrid
Jobe Bellingham was furious when he found out that the early yellow card he had been shown for a tackle on Nelson Deossa against Monterrey meant missing the next game of the Club World Cup and he was still furious the following day.
The news hit hard when he heard it at half-time heading down the tunnel, and the hurt wasn’t going away in a hurry. This was not just the next game, it was the game: Borussia Dortmund versus Real Madrid, the Bellingham brothers on the same pitch for the first time, and the match so special Dortmund used it to convince him to move to Germany in the first place. That and a disguise.
The yearly commemoration has always marked a contradiction. But despair is not a strategy: this is a moment to create change
The Fourth of July celebration of freedom rings hollow this year. The contradictions built into a national commemoration of our triumph over autocracy feel newly personal and perilous – especially to those who have, until now, felt relatively secure in the federal government’s commitment to democracy and the rule of law.
But the contradiction is far from new. Black, brown and Indigenous communities have always seen the gap between the ideals of American democracy and the lived reality of exclusion. Frederick Douglass’s 1852 address What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? demanded that Americans confront the hypocrisy of celebrating liberty while millions were enslaved. Today, those contradictions persist in enduring racial disparities and policies that perpetuate segregation, second-class citizenship and selective protection of rights.
Deborah N Archer is the president of the ACLU, the Margaret B Hoppin professor of law at NYU Law School, and the author of Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality. L Song Richardson is the former dean and currently chancellor’s professor of law at the University of California Irvine School of Law. She previously served as president of Colorado College. Susan Sturm is the George M Jaffin professor of law and social responsibility and the founding director of the Center for Institutional and Social Change at Columbia Law School and author of What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions.
Advocates in Springfield, Ohio – a city thousands of Haitians now call home – fear the fallout of Trump’s DHS revoking temporary protected status for Haitian nationals
Inside a church a few blocks south of downtown Springfield, Ohio, about 30 concerned Haitians, church leaders and community members have gathered on a balmy summer evening to try to map out a plan.
It’s been just a few days since Kristi Noem, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, announced that Haitian nationals with temporary protected status (TPS) would face termination proceedings in a matter of months. By 2 September, they would be forced out of the US.
Rachel Reeves’s distress may help destigmatise an emotional response to pressure or professional frustration
Rachel Reeves’s tears this week triggered a fall in the pound and attracted widespread derision from political columnists, mostly male. “What is wrong with Rachel Reeves?” the Telegraph asked. In an article headlined “The meaning of the chancellor’s tears”, a New Statesman columnist told readers that Reeves’s authority was “beginning to melt away”. The Daily Mail spoke disdainfully of her “waterworks”.
But in the longer term the chancellor’s display of distress may prove to have an unexpectedly positive legacy, helpfully normalising a still hugely stigmatised phenomenon: women’s tears in the workplace.
The lesson the Americans once taught the British, they are teaching the rest of the world: there are no permanent global orders
This year, like every other year, Americans will celebrate Independence Day with flag-waving, and parades, and fireworks. The political system the flag and the parades and fireworks are supposed to represent is in tatters, but everybody likes a party. It was 249 years ago, when the United States separated from the British Empire. Over the past year it has separated from the world order it built over those 249 years, and from basic sanity and decency as well. For Americans, the madness gripping their country is a catastrophe. For non-Americans, it is an accidental revolution. This Independence Day, the world is declaring its independence from the US.
As the United States retreats from the world, it is reshaping the lives of its former trading partners and allies, leaving huge holes in its wake. For Canada, where I live, the sudden absence of a responsible United States has been more shocking and more terrifying than for other countries. Americans are our friends and neighbours, often our family. We have been at peace with them for 200 years, integrating with their security apparatuses and markets. Now they are explicitly planning to weaken us economically in order to annex us.
Stephen Marche lives in Toronto and is the author of The Next Civil War and On Writing and Failure
Devendra Banhart finds mysticism in Acquiesce, Snail Mail gets chills from Stand By Me and Johnny Marr chooses an absolute curveball as 17 musicians analyse the reunited band’s genius
There are a lot of similarities between us and Oasis: two brothers in the band, Creation Records, working-class kids, guitar band, etc. In the mid-90s, we couldn’t get arrested and had to watch their meteoric rise, but I couldn’t dislike the great music. Rock ’n’ Roll Star was on a compilation tape on the ill-fated US tour when we broke up. We’d had a punch-up on stage at the House of Blues in Los Angeles and back in my hotel room we were hanging around with a bunch of druggies. I was thinking “Where did it all go wrong?” when this song came on. I knew I’d remember that moment for the rest of my life. To me, Rock ’n’ Roll Star is like Johnny Rotten singing with Slade. It’s punk rock, but in 1994. I love the self-belief: Noel [Gallagher] wrote it before he was a rock’n’roll star but knew it was gonna happen. The difference between the Mary Chain and Oasis is that when we reformed we’d buried the hatchet a good few years before we got back together. I’m not sure if they have, but it used to amaze people how William [Reid] and I could be screaming with hatred at each other in the studio, then 10 minutes later it would be: “Do you want a cup of tea?”
Aggressive, dangerous or unsporting behaviour will be subject to review, as will ‘anything that arouses suspicion’
The 2025 Tour de France could see yellow cards issued for bad behaviour by riders thanks to cycling’s answer to football’s VAR. Every touch of shoulders, switch of wheels, dramatic acceleration and multilingual insult in the peloton will be scrutinised by a growing number of in-race cameras and UCI commissaires.
As part of the UCI’s bid to expand its repertoire of disciplinary and investigative tools, cards can be awarded for everything from celebrating a teammate’s win to riding on the pavement. The card system was trialled last year and is now being integrated into World Tour racing.
Rachel Reeves has not given herself enough fiscal headroom to manage public finances, Charlie Bean, the former deputy of the Bank of England has said, and has to “neurotically fine tune taxes”.
About £10bn – that’s a very small number in the context of overall public spending. Government spending is about one and a quarter trillion so £10bn is a small number … and it is a small number in the context of typical forecasting errors.
You can’t forecast the future perfectly both because you can’t forecast the economy and you can’t forecast all the elements of public finances …. The forecasts are imprecise and there is no way you can avoid that. That is a fact of life.
In light of reports of atrocities committed by the Israeli government in Gaza and reports of the UK’s collaboration with Israeli military operations, it is increasingly urgent to confirm whether the UK has contributed to any violations of international humanitarian law through economic or political cooperation with the Israeli government since October 2023, including the sale, supply or use of weapons, surveillance aircraft and Royal Air Force bases.
Arsenal’s hopes of one day signing Nico Williams have taken a blow after the Spain forward agreed an eight-year contract extension to stay at Athletic Bilbao until 2035.
Mikel Arteta is a long-term admirer of Williams and Arsenal’s sporting director, Andrea Berta, held talks with the player’s representatives this year over a potential move. The 22-year-old had looked set to join Barcelona until this week. Barcelona, despite the sales of Ansu Fati to Monaco and Clement Lenglet to Atlético Madrid this week, have yet to satisfy La Liga’s financial requirements to register new players.
Family of Dr Marwan al-Sultan says the Israeli airstrike ‘precisely’ hit the apartment block the cardiologist and his relatives occupied
The children of Dr Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian hospital and one of the territory’s most senior doctors, said they believed their father was deliberately targeted in the Israeli airstrike that killed him on Wednesday.
Sultan died when an Israeli missile was fired into the apartment block in Gaza City where he and his extended family were staying after their displacement from northern Gaza. His wife, daughter, sister and son-in-law were also killed in the attack.
From scoring so badly at Eurovision it made Terry Wogan resign to having Paul Hollywood call your cake ‘tough as old boots’, here are the contestants who lost big on the nation’s favourite shows
We often hear about the people who win TV contests. As well as the glory of victory, they might earn an enviable cash prize, a lucrative record deal or a life-changing career boost. But what about those who finish last? Are they philosophical in defeat or throwing tantrums behind the scenes? We tracked down five TV losers to relive their failure in front of millions, reveal how they recovered from humiliation and share what they learned.
In an Arctic reshaped by the climate crisis, less ice really means more as countries face risks in push for more ships
For millennia, a mass of sea ice in the high Arctic has changed with the seasons, casting off its outer layer in summer and expanding in winter as it spins between Russia, Canada and Alaska. Known as the Beaufort Gyre, this fluke of geography and oceanography was once a proving ground for ice to “mature” into thick sheets.
But no more. A rapidly changing climate has reshaped the region, reducing perennial sea ice. As ocean currents spin what is left of the gyre, chunks of ice now clog many of the channels separating the northern islands.
When the Leicester band were forced to drop their old name after a legal threats from a certain budget airline, it could have been curtains. But frontman Murray Matravers’s trip to Japan has prompted a bold new outlook – and an upbeat new album
When writing songs, “95% of the time” Murray Matravers starts with the title. It’s a tactic he picked up from Gary Barlow: a producer once told him the Take That man tends to arrive at sessions touting a load of prospective song titles “cut out on little pieces of paper, and he’d put them on the table and you could just choose one. I was like: that’s fucking brilliant. Ever since I’ve always had loads of titles in my Notes app. It actually changed the way I wrote music,” he says with genuine enthusiasm. “Shout out to Gary Barlow!”
Names are clearly very important to the 29-year-old – but in recent years they have also caused him untold stress. By 2023, Matravers’ band Easy Life was thriving, having scored two No 2 albums on the trot by fusing upbeat, synthy bedroom pop with wry emo-rap. But that same year, his career came to a screeching halt when easyGroup – owners of the easyJet brand name with a long history of taking legal action against businesses with the word “easy” in their branding – decided to sue the Leicester band for trademark infringement.
With audiences ‘more fashion aware than ever’, being worn on a TV show can be life-changing for small brands
The Bear is back for season 4, but never mind Carmy’s famous white T-shirt. All eyes are on Sydney, the quietly competent sous chef played by Ayo Edebiri, who has been breaking the internet with her own white tee.
Designed by a small independent US brand called Everybody.World, and worn as she is prepping in the opening episode, it mirrors the tight white T-shirt by Merz b. Schwanen preferred by her erratic boss. His crashed the company’s website – and helped propel Jeremy Allen White to become the face (and body) of Calvin Klein.
Marcus Rashford will report for Manchester United pre-season training on Monday after failing to secure an early summer move. The forward is understood to have no problem with returning to the club after falling out with Ruben Amorim and going on loan to Aston Villa.
Rashford, who would like to join Barcelona, is understood to be ready to train with maximum intensity and expects to play a full part in United’s preparations until any move is agreed.
Mouth by Mona Arshi; The Anchorage by Bernard O’Donoghue; Guaracara by Fawzia Muradali Kane; Bunting’s Honey by Moya Cannon; Old World by Robert Crawford; Joy Is My Middle Name by Sasha Debevec-McKenney
Mouth by Mona Arshi (Chatto & Windus, £12.99) We open with Mouthed, a hideous image of forced speech in which a tongue is bitten out, a head hacked off. The stakes for language here – who is allowed to bear witness, and who is not – are high. The book’s opening section also includes scenes of near drowning, parental bullying, breakages, loss and childish torturing of animals. Only gradually do we realise we’re being prepared for the second section, Palace, in which Antigone mourns the death of her brother; as the poet mourns the brother who is her book’s dedicatee. This vivid collection forces us to witness the violence inherent in grief. Mourning may be socially inconvenient; Mouth opens up some of the space it needs. But by the end of the book, set at Cley nature reserve, bereavement has been neither resolved nor made tenable.
The Anchorage by Bernard O’Donoghue (Faber, £12.99)
These masterly portraits of rural Irish farming life, and of community life in Oxford, explore place, time and belonging; they are full of human feeling, yet never sentimental. Walking the Land tells how the family farm was sold off, “that cold March of 1962”, and lovingly lists old field names that mean nothing to the “shrewd and thoughtful men” lining up to buy it. In the title poem’s study in neighbourliness, “all the farmers in the parish” rally round to replace a year’s hay harvest lost in a barn fire. Such interconnected kindness matters, O’Donoghue shows us, yet cannot “repair the loss” of the chained dog burned along with the barn. A collection valedictory in tone and full of dedications, homages and memories reminds us that, after the craic is over, we will all be “free to pack up and make for home”.
New study finds troubling levels of Pfas near wastewater plants and sludge sites in 19 states
Sewage sludge and wastewater treatment plants are major sources of Pfas water pollution, new research finds, raising questions about whether the US is safely managing its waste.
A first-of-its-kind study tested rivers bordering 32 sewage sludge sites, including wastewater treatment plants and fields where the substance is spread as fertilizer – it found concerning levels of Pfas around all but one.
Hallé Orchestra/Adès (Hallé) This brings together new works of his own and by composers he admires that Thomas Adès has conducted at Bridgewater Hall during his residency with the Hallé
Since 2023 Thomas Adès has been artist-in-residence with the Hallé Orchestra. He has featured as composer, conductor and pianist in his appearances with the orchestra, and all his concerts have included new or nearly new works, both his own and by composers he admires. As the residency comes to an end, this collection brings together pieces he has conducted in Manchester; there are four by Adès himself, alongside William Marsey’s Man With Limp Wrist and Oliver Leith’s Cartoon Sun.
Of the four pieces by Adès, only one is substantial. Aquifer, which he wrote last year for Simon Rattle and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, is a densely packed 17-minute movement, which contains enough ideas to power a symphony at least twice as long, before being brought to a halt by the most common-or-garden of cadences. Tower – for Frank Gehry is a fanfare, and both Shanty and Dawn, composed during lockdown in 2020, are pieces that work wonders with repeated phrases. Marsey’s musical narrative, in eight “scenes”, is a strangely evocative succession of musical ghosts, inspired by paintings by Salman Toor, while Leith’s wacky processional, punctuated by enormous climaxes, leaves an exhilarating impression.
The leviathan of competitive eating returns for Nathan’s Fourth of July hotdog eating contest after year’s ban for promoting rival plant-based wieners
A rerun of Jaws will be the blockbuster attraction in Coney Island this Fourth of July holiday, but not the classic Steven Spielberg movie enjoying a new lease of life on the 50th anniversary of its release.
The jaws here belong to Joey Chestnut, the undisputed all-time champion of hotdog consumption, and a leviathan in the world of competitive eating that has grown as a sporting spectacle to the point where it is a regular fixture on ESPN.
Siraj loses his run-up twice before bowling his first delivery. Losing your run-up is bad, losing Joe Root is a whole lot worse. He’s gone to Shami’s third ball, caught down the leg side by the diving Pant! Root can’t believe his luck. He flicked at a poor delivery, on the pads, and got a little tickle that was snaffled gleefully by Pant. That’s a big wicket. Huge. Massive. Massive!
A few venerable tennis observers have spoken of Amanda Anisimova as a possible champion here given the carnage in the women’s draw, especially in her quarter. The 23-year-old American started her campaign by serving up a double bagel to a distracted Yulia Putintseva, and won in straight sets in the second round too, but she’s been broken in the early exchanges against Galfi and trails 3-1.
Make that 3-0 Osaka. Nick Kyrgios, who will play alongside Osaka at the rebooted US Open mixed doubles event next month, is watching on with Osaka’s team, and will be impressed with what he’s seen so far.
Blackweir Fields, Cardiff The thrash legends’ first UK gig in six years is a lean and unforgivingly mean set – no breathers, no ballads, only teeth-rattling bangers
‘Forty years ago, dude. Duuuuude,” Tom Araya exhales, reflecting on Slayer’s maiden, gob-spackled UK show at London’s Marquee Club in 1985. They were just kids then, on the verge of becoming the most belligerent force in thrash metal’s “big four” with Reign in Blood, but time hasn’t dulled their blade. The bassist-vocalist’s mane might be streaked with grey as he addresses the heaving pit but he still has bile to spare, immediately calling up a take on War Ensemble fit to loosen teeth a dozen rows from the front.
Orbiting their contribution to Black Sabbath’s forthcoming final show in Birmingham, this is Slayer’s first UK date in six years after a final tour that, not unsurprisingly given metal’s spotty record in this regard, wasn’t so final after all. There’s little sense of a sheepish re-emergence, though, with a lengthy video package on the history of the band teeing up South of Heaven’s inimitable riff, which is immediately in the throats of the crowd before drummer Paul Bostaph’s double-kick sparks kinetic mayhem.
A piece of history burned down in the Los Angeles wildfires. Project Chimney is salvaging what’s left to honor the architecture – and eventually create a memorial
By mid-morning last Thursday, Evan Hall was standing near the top of Monument Street in Los Angeles’s Pacific Palisades, looking out over the Pacific Ocean. He was running out of time.
Hall stood in the charred ruins of a 1953 home designed by the modernist architect Richard Neutra. Beside him, a handful of hard-hat-clad preservationists, masons and construction workers all looked up at the same thing: a chimney.
Peter Kyle calls for new leadership at Alan Turing Institute and greater focus on defence and national security
The technology secretary has demanded an overhaul of the UK’s leading artificial intelligence institute in a wide-ranging letter that calls for a switch in focus to defence and national security, as well as leadership changes.
Peter Kyle said it was clear further action was needed to ensure the government-backed Alan Turing Institute met its full potential.
From residents of Gondomar, where the footballer grew up, to the president a country has been engulfed by sorrow
Ana Oliveira can barely get through a sentence before breaking down in tears. She has lived most of her life across the street from Diogo Jota’s family home in Gondomar, a town a short drive east of Porto. The sorrow that has engulfed the nation since the Liverpool forward’s death is felt particularly acutely there.
Ana can still picture Diogo clearly as a boy, dropping his backpack after school and spending hours kicking a ball against the wall of his house. His younger brother, André Silva – who perished in the same car crash in north-west Spain on Thursday – quickly followed in his footsteps, sharing his love for the game. The brothers would often invite Ana’s brother, Ângelo, for a quick match in the street before dinner.
Today’s rumours don’t really have their heart in it
Four days into July, Arsenal fans could be forgiven for getting antsy over their outgoings list outnumbering their incomings by seven to one. If Gunnersaurus had ears they’d be pricking ozone-wards at word that Real Madrid are willing to let Rodrygo leave during the current window. Xabi Alonso seemingly likes the trade-off of losing a player who doesn’t currently waltz into his preferred XI (just 88 mins of action at the Club World Cup to date) and getting a fee not far short of £80m to help continue his reconfiguration at the Bernabéu.
The tricksy 24-year-old is seen as a substantial upgrade on Arsenal’s current threats from the left wing, but his arrival would not necessarily herald the exit of his Brazilian compatriot Gabriel Martinelli. A player who will leave, however, is knack-plagued defender Takehiro Tomiyasu, whose contract is being ripped up. That’s, thankfully, a situation suiting both parties, with the Japan international still almost half a year from returning to action after an endless string of knee twangs.
The healing power of exercise should never be underestimated, but be cautious about what recent headlines seem to suggest
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
You might have seen the recent headlines on a new study on exercise and cancer recovery suggesting that “exercise is better than a drug” in preventing cancer returning. Cue a wave of commentary pitting “big pharma” against fitness, as if we must choose between pills and planks. It’s an appealing narrative – but it’s also misleading.
We don’t need to choose between the two. In fact, the best health outcomes often come from combining medicine with a broader view of health that includes movement, diet, social connection and mental wellbeing.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Allegations in US lawsuit allege woman kept as ‘sex slave’
Barnett and former employer CAA deny all allegations
The leading football agent Jonathan Barnett is being sued in an American court over allegations of human trafficking, torture and rape.
In a civil complaint filed in a California district court it is alleged that Barnett “trafficked” the woman from Australia to the UK in 2017, “tortured” her for six years by keeping her as a “sex slave” and sexually assaulted her, including by rape, more than 39 times, as well as making “repeated threats to her life and the lives of her minor children”.
In the third and final episode of Along the Green Line, reporter Matthew Cassel heads to the south of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
Amid the deadliest chapter in the history of this conflict, we visit the kibbutz of Kfar Aza to witness the evolving legacy of the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas militants, and get as close to Gaza as is possible for foreign journalists.
In this three-part series, we're traveling along the 1949 armistice line or ‘green line’ – once seen as the best hope for a resolution – and meeting Palestinians and Israelis living just miles apart
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