The ‘ugly-cute’ elf sold by Chinese company Pop Mart has become a sensation and the authorities are aggressively cracking down on fakes – pushing production into the shadows

Trolleys piled high with decapitated silicon monster heads, tattooed dealers lurking in alleyways, bin bags of contraband hidden behind shop counters: welcome to the world of Lafufus.

Fake Labubus, also known as Lafufus, are flooding the hidden market. As demand for the collectable furry keyrings soars, entrepreneurs in the southern trading hub of Shenzhen are wasting no time sourcing imitation versions to sell to eager Labubu hunters. But the Chinese authorities, keen to protect a rare soft-power success story, are cracking down on the counterfeits.

Russian air travel chaos as pro-Ukraine hackers claim hit on Aeroflot; drone targets Ukrainian man taking cow out to pasture. What we know on day 1,252

Trump lawyers ask judge to order Wall Street Journal owner to testify within 15 days. Key US politics stories from Monday 28 July at a glance

Donald Trump has asked a US court to order a swift deposition for billionaire Rupert Murdoch in the president’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal.

The US president sued the publication and its owner over a 17 July article asserting that Trump’s name was on a 2003 birthday greeting for Jeffrey Epstein, who was later a convicted sex offender.

Police say a third man is in a life-threatening condition after incident in Long Lane, Southwark

Two men have died and a third is in a life-threatening condition in hospital after four people were stabbed in a businesses premises in central London.

Police were called to Long Lane, Southwark, at 1pm on Monday and found four men had been stabbed. A 58-year-old died at the scene while three other men were taken to hospital, the Metropolitan police said. A 27-year-old has since died in hospital.

Two huge swarms have made themselves at home inside author Pip Harry’s house – but learning to live together revealed bees can be excellent housemates

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As a child, I was allergic to bees. Just one sting on my fingertip could swell my whole arm. I was allergic to most things – dust, cat hair, pollen – and was always clutching an inhaler, sniffling into my sleeve and keeping a safe distance from stinging insects.

As an adult, when my family bought our first house, a mid-century gem nestled in thick bushland on Sydney’s northern beaches, I wasn’t expecting a visit from my former nemesis. But one warm spring day, we heard the unmistakable hum of 20,000 of those honey-producing insects.

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Ideas that were once fringe are increasingly part of Australian public life. Ariel Bogle and Cam Wilson say they may not be about a singular event, but an overarching interpretation of how the world works

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On the edge of George Street in Sydney, a woman is wrapped in an upside-down Australian flag. She holds one side of a large banner that reads “GROOM DOGS NOT KIDS”, showing pictures of poodles with ears dyed rainbow and pink.

There are young people, people in their 60s and 70s, parents with children in prams. There are T-shirts imploring you to “think while it’s still legal”. Another person holds a sign declaring their staunch opposition to a town planning initiative that has been erroneously linked to the rollout of a new surveillance regime, “Aussies SAY NO to 15 minute cities. FREEDOM.”

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Artists and listeners are leaving the platform after its CEO invested in defence technology. Here are your options – along with how to keep your playlists

How do you switch over from Spotify to another music service? What are the options?

The music industry has long held mixed feelings about Spotify’s extensive influence over artists – and these feelings have intensified amid ongoing controversy over Spotify’s chief executive, Daniel Ek, leading a €600m ($696m or A$1.07bn) investment in Helsing, a German defence technology company specialising in AI-driven autonomous weapon systems.

NYPD officer and three others fatally shot on Park Avenue in Manhattan by 27-year-old from Las Vegas, say officials

New York City police responded on Monday evening to reports of an armed suspect on Park Avenue in Manhattan who shot and killed four people. The gunman later died from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Police reported that four people, including an NYPD officer, were killed in the shooting. One other person was injured in the shooting.

Authorities relocated 80,000 residents from China’s capital after registering rainfall of up to 543 mm in some districts

More than 30 people have been killed by heavy rain and flooding in Beijing and a neighbouring region, state media have reported, as tens of thousands more were evacuated from China’s capital.

State broadcaster CCTV said that as of midnight on Monday, 28 people had died in Beijing’s hard-hit Miyun district and two others in Yanqing district as of midnight. Both are outlying parts of the sprawling city, far from the downtown.

Military spokesperson says Cambodia attacked Thai territory in several places and that it had responded to ‘maintain national sovereignty’

Thailand has accused Cambodia of violating a ceasefire agreement reached on Monday, saying clashes continued despite a deal aimed at ending five days of fighting.

Maj General Winthai Suvaree, spokesperson for the Royal Thai Army, said Cambodia had attacked Thai territory “in several places” overnight. He said Thailand regarded this as “a deliberate violation of the agreement, aimed at destroying trust between one another”.

Ex-leader convicted over efforts to sway testimony in case tied to country’s armed conflict

A Colombian court has found the country’s former president Álvaro Uribe guilty of witness tampering.

The 73-year-old, who served as president from 2002 to 2010, was convicted on Monday of trying to persuade witnesses to lie for him in a separate investigation. He faces a 12-year prison sentence in a case that has become highly politicised.

Lancet Commission says three in five cases preventable with action on obesity, alcohol and hepatitis

Three in five liver cancer cases globally could be prevented by reducing obesity and alcohol consumption and increasing uptake of the hepatitis vaccine, a study has found.

The Lancet Commission on liver cancer found that most cases were preventable if alcohol consumption, fatty liver disease and levels of viral hepatitis B and C were reduced.

The commission set out several recommendations for policymakers, which it estimated could reduce the incidence of liver cancer cases by 2% to 5% each year by 2050, preventing 9m to 17m new cases of liver cancer and saving 8 million to 15 million lives.

Citi Field, New York

An oppressively humid night takes its toll on the maximalist pop quartet who deliver moments of sugar rush exuberance but with less power than before

In 2023, the four women of Blackpink – Jennie, Jisoo, Lisa and Rosé – stood on top of the world. In the seven years since their 2016 debut, the K-pop quartet became the biggest girl group of all time, off the back of delirious hooks, hard-ass stunting, cut-glass choreography and relentless work. With billions of streams, sold-out stadiums and YouTube viewership records in their wake, the group became the female face of the boundary-annihilating force that is K-pop, taking pandemonium and hype as its calling card; with the exception of their slender physiques, everything about the band was huge. Their 2023 headliner set at Coachella – the first Asian and all-female group to headline one of North America’s largest music festivals – served as a jet-fueled exclamation point on global domination. I stood in the crowd that night feeling like I’d been leveled by a sonic boom, in the best way.

Much has changed in the two short years since then. The band went on unofficial hiatus for each member’s respective solo careers, and the four subsequent releases – Jennie’s Ruby, Jisoo’s Amortage, Lisa’s Alter Ego and Rosé’s Rosie – all attempted to escape the Blackpink shadow with halting success; the group’s two rappers, Lisa and Jennie, also launched English-language acting careers on HBO, in The White Lotus and The Idol, and returned to Coachella as solo acts with plenty of bombast but less horsepower. The once ascendant wave of K-pop, buoyed up by the massive crossover success of Blackpink and all-male peers BTS, stalled out abroad and lost traction at home, global ambition and misfiring albums costing musical identity and momentum.

Playing an entire tournament with a fractured tibia is the type of undiluted commitment and individual sacrifice which carried team to glory

For some reason, as Chloe Kelly’s penalty hits the net and the England players explode across the pitch like streaks of white light, as Sarina Wiegman and Arjan Veurink embrace on the touchline, as England fans clutch each other in the stands, the eye is drawn to Khiara Keating of Manchester City.

Keating has not played a minute for England at this tournament. In fact, she has never played a minute for England at all. In fact, there was not the remotest possibility that she would play a minute for England at this tournament, and she knew this all along. Her entire Euros has consisted of training, travel and watching football from a hard bench. And yet at the moment of victory, nobody celebrates harder than England’s third goalkeeper.

Ben Stokes and his team got it wrong on graceless end to final day that showed their vulnerability and India’s unity

India spent a day with Manchester United’s squad before the fourth Test, only to then pull off the kind of collective defensive effort rarely seen at the other Old Trafford in recent seasons. But they were not alone in veering away from their pre‑match preparations.

Gilbert Enoka, the All Blacks adviser who made famous their “no dickheads” policy, did some work with England on the training days, only for them to act briefly like … well, let’s just say their adoption of something similar remains a work in progress.

• Top-flight clubs agree to expansion for next season

• Bradford Bulls and Toulouse in promotion mix

Super League will expand to 14 teams in 2026 after clubs approved an increase in the competition by two at the earliest possible opportunity.

Officials from all clubs met in Leeds on Monday to discuss a strategic review of the professional game that had been led by Nigel Wood, the former chief executive of the Rugby Football League who has now returned as the governing body’s chair, despite being paid more than £300,000 to leave in 2018.

Heat and humidity are stretching east from the Mississippi River valley, and some areas could see heat indices of 120F

The eastern half of the US is facing a significant heatwave, with more than 185 million people under warnings due to intense and widespread heat conditions on Monday.

The south-east is likely to endure the most dangerous temperatures as the extreme heat spread across the region on Monday, spanning from the Carolinas through Florida. In these areas, heat index values (how hot it feels once humidity is accounted for) are forecast to range between 105 and 113F (40.5 to 45C).

Crowd erupted into cheers as team landed at Southend airport and squad then went to Downing Street for celebratory reception

The Lionesses have been greeted by cheering crowds after landing at Southend airport, with fans eager to give the squad a triumphant homecoming after their Euro 2025 victory.

The team arrived back in the UK on Monday afternoon after defending their title in a penalty shootout win over Spain in Basel on Sunday. Many supporters had dressed for the Lionesses’ return, wearing England kits and holding flags.

US president expresses frustration with Putin after meeting with UK PM amid pressure on Russia for ceasefire

Donald Trump’s timeline for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has sped up, the president said while visiting Nato ally Great Britain on Monday.

“I’m going to make a new deadline of about 10, 10 or 12 days from today,” Trump said in response to a question while sitting with the British prime minister, Keir Starmer. “There’s no reason in waiting. There’s no reason in waiting. It’s 50 days. I want to be generous, but we just don’t see any progress being made.”

• Colorado football head coach intends to continue coaching

• Video released Sunday shows Sanders discussing will

Colorado University football coach Deion Sanders disclosed Monday that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer but after surgery his oncologist considered him cured.

Dr Janet Kukreja, the director of urologic oncology at the CU Cancer Center/UCHealth University of Colorado hospital, said Sanders had his bladder removed as part of the surgical plan due to the high recurrence rate of this form of the disease.

• Heroes’ welcome in London to take place on Tuesday

• Goalkeeper Hampton pays tribute to late grandfather

Sarina Wiegman has said England’s defence of their European title “makes change” and “inspires people” far and wide, as the Lionesses prepare for a heroes’ welcome in an open-top bus parade along the Mall and in front of Buckingham Palace on Tuesday.

“We’re England and we want to win but there’s so much more than winning a game,” the head coach, who won a record third European title in a row following her Euro 2017 victory with the Netherlands and England’s triumph in 2022, told Lionesses channels.

Hospital reports receiving several patients with gunshot wounds after incident in Reno

A gunman opened fire at a Nevada casino on Monday morning, killing two people before being taken into custody, police said.

The conditions of the other injured victims at the Grand Sierra Resort in Reno were not immediately known, said a Reno police spokesperson, Chris Johnson. The gunman was being treated at a hospital, he said.

African social spiders’ sinister game of ‘grandmother’s footsteps’ could be breakout moment in BBC’s Parenthood

It is a scene that will make every parent shudder and fuel the generation wars debate.

David Attenborough’s new series, Parenthood, features sinister behaviour that has not been captured by TV cameras before of a 1,000-strong pack of young African social spiders hunting prey in a game of “grandmother’s footsteps” during which they freeze in unison like musical statues then eat all their mothers and elderly relatives alive.

Parenthood starts on Sunday 3 August at 7.20pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

The PM and his wife looked like they wanted to be anywhere else but Trump could – and almost did – go on all day

It had been the very bestest of bigly weekends. Two rounds of golf at his very own course in Turnberry.

On the Saturday Donald Trump had broken the record with a round of just 18. A hole in one at every hole. Largely because there had been men stationed about the course to pick up the ball and place it in the hole. Then on the Sunday he had gone one better. A round of 17. The ball had gone straight into the cup at the fourth hole, had rested there for a couple of seconds and then had flown out, soaring over the links and straight into the hole at the fifth. Scottie Scheffler could only dream of such a shot.