Nick Ames was in Geneva, which looked a picture yesterday, soaking up the atmosphere among England’s fans.
Legends are made on nights such as this. England’s travelling supporters celebrated deliriously long after the final whistle; huge sections of the venue had already dissolved into a mush of limbs when Agyemang struck. Those fans will be able to march proudly, expectantly, one last time before the tournament decider in Basel.
Hundreds of them had assembled at a fanzone near Lancy-Pont-Rouge station to take the mile-long walk towards the stadium, counting down before setting off at 6.45pm to trumpets and beating drums. There had been plenty to entertain them while they waited, including an impromptu limbo dancing competition between tied-together English and Italian flags. This being Geneva, food stalls selling chips and hot dogs were joined by another offering oysters, salmon tartare and moules frites.
Being on a pre-season tour can make or break a player’s future. Yoane Wissa has left Brentford’s after the club turned down a £25m for his services from Newcastle, as he is eager to have a natter with the head honchos at the Gtech Community Stadium to sort out his future. The forward wants to test himself in the Champions League and does not want to be held back by something as minor as a club being unwilling to pay his full valuation. It is anticipated that the Magpies will up their offer in the coming days to a fee in the region of £30m plus add-ons. The Bees are not particularly keen on losing another striker days after selling Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United.
Mateo Joseph has told Daniel Farke and Leeds that he wants out of Elland Road. The Spain Under-21 striker did not travel with the rest of the squad for their pre-season jaunt to Germany. Joseph was the subject of a bid in excess of £10m from Real Betis but Leeds want more for their young striker. “He came to me and to us and said that he wants a new challenge and would like to have a move,” Farke said. “He has also hinted that he prefers a move to Spain due to his Spanish roots. And yes, obviously that was more or less his call.”
Australia made a second $800m payment to America’s shipbuilding industry – bringing total payments so far to $1.6bn which was promised before the Trump administration placied the Aukus agreement under review.
As part of the Aukus deal – in which Australia would buy nuclear submarines from the US ahead of its own nuclear submarines being built in Adelaide – Australia has agreed to pay about $4.6bn towards boosting US shipbuilding capacity.
Belgian GP’s home is a rite of passage for drivers and fans alike, but the circuit faces a battle to stay on the calendar
Each summer, fans descend on the Belgian countryside, braving unpredictable weather and muddy campsites for a glimpse of Formula One’s most romanticised battleground. Tucked in the Ardennes forest, Spa-Francorchamps, hosting the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend, is a rite of passage for drivers, a pilgrimage for fans, and for many, the heart and soul of motor sport.
Since its debut on the calendar in 1950, Spa has carved itself into F1 folklore. Mika Häkkinen’s audacious double overtake on Michael Schumacher and Ricardo Zonta in 2000 is one of the sport’s most celebrated moves. In 2023, Max Verstappen stormed from 14th to victory in an epic comeback. Ayrton Senna won five times there, calling it his favourite circuit, a sentiment echoed by many current drivers.
Despite the ravages of Dutch elm disease, these once ubiquitous features of our landscape still loom large
Just as the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 did not originate in Spain, so Dutch elm disease is no fault of the Netherlands. It acquired the name thanks to the pioneering efforts of three Dutch scientists – Marie Beatrice Schol-Schwarz, Christine Buisman and Johanna Westerdijk – who identified the beetle-transported fungus that causes it in the 1920s.
Nor is the so-called “English elm” (Ulmus minor) really English, inasmuch as it is thought to have been transferred here from Italy, so Reform UK party enthusiasts should probably agitate to repatriate all such specimens. More confidently thought native to these isles is the wych elm (from the Old English for “supple”) or Scots elm, which has long been thought to have healing and protective qualities.
Our scholarly guide to this noble plant, Mandy Haggith, delves enthusiastically into such lore. The 17th-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper said that elm was connected to the planet Saturn and that its leaves could fix broken bones. Modern “healers” promise that drinking a decoction of elm bark can purge phlegm and stop diarrhoea. Haggith cites a present-day “Massachusetts-based herbalist and druid” who claims that slippery elm milk is good for insomnia.
It would be unkind to call this sort of thing merely barking. The author insists that “a western scientific worldview” (in other words, a scientific worldview, shared by scientists in China and India) “is absolutely not the only way forests can be thought about”, which is fair enough. But the fake cures of the “wellness” industry are not without their own ecological downsides: as Haggith writes later, fashionable pseudo-remedies gone viral on TikTok or whatever can inspire the stripping of bark from healthy trees at injurious scale.
Happily, elmwood was not only the preserve of quacks; it was also a sought-after material in shipbuilding (most of the hull of the fast clipper Cutty Sark was made of rock elm), and long before that for making spears and bows: an iron age Celtic tribe was known as “the ones who vanquish by the elm” (Lemovices). Medieval London, Bristol and other cities had running water delivered by mains pipes of elm. And elm is also the source of a famous insult: when the great Samuel Johnson claimed that there was no Gaelic literature, a poet responded with the Gaelic for “your head is made entirely of elm, especially your tongue and your gums”.
Luckily, although Dutch elm disease has killed hundreds of millions of trees since the early 20th century, the species is not lost, or even on the brink of extinction. Brighton, Haggith sees, is managing the blight well through city-wide surveillance and timely surgery. And the fossil record suggests that elms have previously suffered waves of pandemic disease before bouncing back. There will be time for more poetic mentions of elms of the kind the author rather exhaustively collects towards the end. (“Robert Frost was a big fan of elm trees …”)
But the greater part of this book’s devotion, and its delight, is reserved for living specimens in their habitats. Two rows of elms, Haggith notes, can form a “corridor for wildlife, dog walkers and feral children”, or “a church-like nave, an arch-shaped cloister that draws the eye” towards a monastery in Beauly. A cheerfully self-described “tree-hugger”, she is inspired to her best writing by close observation of the trees themselves. On an elm growing horizontally out of the rock near a Scottish loch: “I stand beneath it, neck craned in awe, looking up into the lush green profusion of its living community. It is winter, so all this greenery isn’t the tree’s own leaves, but photosynthesising life using it as a climbing frame”. Elsewhere she finds beauty even in a diseased log, happily noting the “beautiful doily pattern made by the brood-chamber and feeding passages of the grubs”.
And her enthusiasm is contagious. As someone who began this book with literally no idea what an elm looks like, I was inspired to download the Woodland Trust tree-ID app and resolve to pay more attention to our ligneous friends.
• The Lost Elms: A Love Letter to Our Vanished Trees by Mandy Haggith is published by Headline (£22). To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
From his desolate wail on Black Sabbath’s doomy 70s masterpieces, to the twisted self-awareness of his huge-selling solo albums, Osbourne’s vocal style influenced generations of heavy metal
Ozzy Osbourne’s voice was probably at its strongest and most distinctive during the great run of Black Sabbath albums of the early 1970s, before years of drugs and alcohol took their effect. In those days, his desolate wail had reach and range, and a deep melancholy. That tone was perfect for the subject of this bleak and blasted reflection on cocaine (Vol 4 was dedicated to “the great COKE-Cola company of Los Angeles”). Osbourne sounds like a man who has been wiped clean, both terrified of and in thrall to the drug: “The sun no longer sets me free / I feel the snowflakes freezing me.” At a time when cocaine was still considered a party drug, the fervour in Osbourne’s voice as he celebrates enslavement to it is deeply unsettling – it’s every bit as amoral and devout in its drug worship as Lou Reed’s Heroin.
Plan was put forward by 19-year-old leader of Warwickshire council George Finch who also lobbied to remove Pride flag
Reform UK councillors have been accused of hypocrisy after voting to spend £150,000 on hiring political advisers at a county council despite pledging to cut waste and save money.
The plans were put forward by Reform councillor George Finch, a 19-year-old who was narrowly elected as the leader of Warwickshire county council during a meeting on Tuesday, which was picketed by protesters.
Super-slim frame, improved display, enhanced camera and plenty of power give the pricey phone-tablet hybrid a major upgrade
Samsung’s latest flagship folding phone looks like it has been put on a diet. The result is a transformation into one of the thinnest and lightest devices available and radically changes how it handles, for the better.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 measures 8.9mm thick when shut – well within the realms of a standard smartphone if you ignore the camera bump on the back. It easily fits in a pocket but opens up to turn into a folding tablet just 4.2mm thick.
Jon Farley arrested under Terrorism Act at Leeds demonstration for holding sign making joke about Palestine Action ban
The terror arrest of a man for holding up a Private Eye cartoon during a protest at the weekend was “mind-boggling”, the magazine’s editor, Ian Hislop, has said, as the retired teacher called for an apology from police.
Jon Farley was picked up by police at a silent demonstration in Leeds on Saturday, which he described as a “pretty terrifying and upsetting experience”, for holding a sign that made a joke about the government’s proscription of the group Palestine Action from the last issue of the fortnightly satirical magazine.
The Guardian’s head of photography visited France’s renowned photography spectacular. From Nan Goldin to Kikuji Kawada to a father snipped from his own life story, she picks her highlights
At a time when the world is gripped by crisis, and conversations swirl with talk of conflict, political upheaval and nuclear attack, the work of the renowned Japanese photographer Kikuji Kawada feels more relevant than ever.
On display at this year’s Rencontres d’Arles, Kawada’s seminal series The Map – created from his visits to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the aftermath of the atomic bombings 80 years ago – forms the cornerstone of an exhibition shown in France for the first time by the Kyotographie festival team in collaboration with Sigma. These haunting images stand as a powerful artistic response to the trauma of nuclear devastation, layered with political metaphor and historical weight.
Words Burning Up from the series Endless Map by Kikuji Kawada, above
An American wakes up on a Dakar bus to find an explosive device strapped to his chest in Jean Luc Herbulot’s propulsive and strikingly shot action thriller
Set in Senegal’s capital Dakar, this action thriller is so strikingly shot, so propulsively edited and so confident in its tonal shifts that by the end viewers are likely to feel enervated and stunned, but in a good way. It has one of those literal ticking-time-bomb narratives; a corny device to be sure, but one that Congolese writer-director Jean Luc Herbulot, with assistance from main actor and co-writer Hus Miller, manipulates in fresh and interesting ways. Certainly it will inspire some viewers to take a plunge into Herbulot’s back catalogue, which includes festival-anointed gangster-horror flick Saloum, another adept genre mash-up set in Senegal.
The conceit here is that Miller’s white, American-accented unnamed protagonist, called simply #1 in freeze-framed titles, wakes up on a Dakar bus with a sophisticated bomb strapped to his chest that is set to go off in 10 hours’ time. The bomb is connected to a countdown-displaying mobile phone, and a young woman sitting nearby explains to him that he needs to put a Bluetooth earpiece in his ear and answer when he hears the phone ring. When it does, a croaky American-accented voice (Willem Dafoe, no less!) explains that #1 has a number of chores to perform that day before the bomb goes off.
I was stuck in a job that made me miserable – then my friend suggested I go to a yoga class. When we played a kids’ game, the dark clouds parted and my life took a radical turn
I was halfway through a yoga session when it happened. I was sitting opposite a stranger and we were about to do a clapping exercise together, like a child’s game of pat-a-cake. I didn’t feel awkward, or silly; I went for it and gave it everything. It was as if the clouds parted and the sunlight shone through. I felt a huge sense of relief, as if I had just found something I had been looking for.
I was in my late 20s, and I’d had chronic depression since my teens. It would come in waves, and I could see another wave heading towards me. After a photography degree, and a couple of years working at a picture library, I had been desperate to break into the media and, in 2003, I was really excited about getting a job on a magazine picture desk. It felt like an achievement and a lucky break in a competitive industry, but I soon discovered its office was not a great place to be.
Researchers believe huge volcanic eruptions, and the absence of plants, turned our planet into one giant snowball
It’s hard to believe, but about 700m years ago it’s thought that our planet completely froze over with little to no liquid ocean or lakes exposed to the atmosphere, even in the tropics. But what tipped Earth’s climate into “Snowball Earth” state? A new study suggests a cold climate and massive volcanic eruptions set the scene.
The Franklin eruptions – about 720m years ago – spewed out vast amounts of fresh rock, stretching from what is now Alaska, through northern Canada to Greenland. Similarly large eruptions have happened at other times, but this one happened to coincide with an already cold climate. And combined with a lack of plants (they hadn’t evolved yet) these eruptions exposed a huge carpet of fresh rock to intense weathering.
Venus Williams wanted to send a message – to herself and to others – about coming back from a long layoff, about competing in a sport at age 45, about never giving up. Yes, there was something special about just being back on a tennis court Tuesday night.
There also was this: She really, really wanted to win.
Men from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba to be temporarily held in kingdom
Civil society and opposition groups in Eswatini have expressed outrage after the US deported five men to the country, with the largest opposition party calling it “human trafficking disguised as a deportation deal”.
The men, from Vietnam, Jamaica, Laos, Yemen and Cuba, were flown to the small southern African country, an absolute monarchy, last week as the US stepped up deportations to “third countries” after the supreme court cleared them last month.
After the nail-biting Sweden quarter-final, it was the same again as England somehow battled back to beat Italy and reach the Euro 2025 final
This time they needed only one penalty, although even that came with complications. England are through to the Euro 2025 final and, in keeping with the white-knuckle nature of their tournament, that tells only a fraction of the story.
Sarina Wiegman’s team were moments from losing against an unfancied Italy who had played the role of underdog to perfection, holding on to their first-half lead with an exemplary tactical performance. England looked down and out until Michelle Agyemang, the young Arsenal striker, seized on a loose ball and finished clinically in injury time. The Lionesses had got out of jail again and the breaks did not end there.
Exclusive: Wes Streeting among ministers pushing for action after calling Israeli attacks on aid sites ‘intolerable’
Keir Starmer is under pressure from cabinet ministers for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, as global outcry grows over Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza.
The prime minister is understood to have been urged by a number of senior ministers in different cabinet meetings over recent months that the UK should take a leading role in issuing recognition.
UN secretary general warns ‘last lifelines’ may soon collapse after Israeli forces attack WHO facilities in Deir al-Balah
Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the “last lifelines keeping people alive [in the strip] are collapsing”.
An angry chorus of senior figures, among them the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and a senior Catholic cleric, expressed on Tuesday a growing sense of global horror over Israel’s actions.
Jacob Rees-Mogg’s Tory fantasy of a post-Brexit bonfire of regulations is coming true. Our bodies and ecosystems will pay the price
It’s what the extreme right of the Tory party wanted from Brexit: to tear down crucial public protections, including those that defend us from the most brutal and dangerous forms of capital. The Conservatives lost office before they were able to do their worst. But never mind, because Labour has now picked up the baton.
A month ago, so quietly that most of us missed it, the government published a consultation on deregulating chemicals. While most consultations last for 12 weeks, this one runs for eight, half of which cover the holiday period – it closes on 18 August. The intention is set out at the beginning: to reduce “costs to business”. This, as repeated statements by Keir Starmer make clear, means tearing up the rules.
Home Office orders diversion from usual landing place to Ramsgate to avoid clashes with far right
Charities have warned of the increasing danger to asylum seekers posed by far-right protesters after small boat arrivals were moved from their usual landing place in Dover to further along the coast to avoid clashes.
The Guardian understands that Home Office officials received intelligence that some of those participating in what was billed the Great British National Protest in Dover on Saturday afternoon could have been planning to target Kent Intake Unit, where small boat arrivals are initially processed after being escorted to shore in Dover by the Border Force.
Forty people who have been offered scholarships unable to travel without biometric data they have no way of getting
Pressure is mounting on ministers to intervene on behalf of 40 students in Gaza who have been offered full scholarships to study at UK universities, but are unable to take up their places this September because of government red tape.
A high-level meeting is understood to have taken place at the Home Office on Tuesday after MPs and campaigners highlighted the students’ plight, calling on ministers to take action to help secure their safe passage to the UK. Some students are reported to have been killed while waiting, while others are said to be in constant danger.
Operator says if rivals are allowed to squeeze into existing facilities it could jeopardise its investment
Eurostar has urged the UK government to choose a “credible long-term strategy” for international rail or risk “falling behind” the rest of Europe, before a crucial decision by the regulator that could end its cross-Channel monopoly.
The high-speed train operator warned that a “premature” ruling from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) to allow competitors to squeeze trains into existing facilities could jeopardise its planned investment and expansion.
Turn this summer favourite into a savoury lunchtime tart or a warm spiced bake
Summer courgettes seem to multiply faster than we can cook them, and demand a little more of our love from June through to August. But despite their unruliness as a crop, they are mild-mannered in flavour, a culinary chameleon that partners with a wide range of tastes. From the umami punch of parmesan to the fragrant cut-through of citrus, and from the warmth of cinnamon to the char of the barbecue, these green gourds can be used in myriad ways, shining in sweet and savoury contexts alike.
Palau, a country of just 18,000, is considering a draft agreement to resettle ‘third country nationals’ from the US
The Trump administration has requested that the small Pacific nation of Palau accept asylum seekers currently residing in the US, amid a wider push from the US to deport migrants to countries they are not from.
Palau, a country of about 18,000 that lies just east of the Philippines, is considering a draft agreement to resettle “third country nationals” from the US who “may seek protection and against return to their home country”. The draft agreement does not detail how many individuals may be sent to Palau, nor what the Pacific nation would receive in return.
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