Former bowler hits back after Warner predicts 4-0 win
Cook backs Pope to retain No 3 spot ahead of Bethell
The pre-Ashes barbs continue to fly, with Stuart Broad saying that England will face “probably the worst Australian team since 2010” on tour this winter.
The former England bowler’s claim was in response to David Warner – an Ashes foe of Broad’s – predicting a 4-0 victory for the hosts. “If the captain [Pat Cummins] doesn’t play, they might win one game,” Warner said.
Watch live exclusive coverage of the Ashes on TNT Sports and discovery+
Brand defends decision to show in Saudi Arabia alongside Stella McCartney as ‘a way to encourage dialogue’
Vivienne Westwood’s granddaughter has said her brand’s decisions“do not align with the values or wishes” of the late designer, as it announced it would headline Riyadh fashion week despite Saudi Arabia’s human rights record.
By contrast, Cora Corre, the co-founder of the Vivienne Foundation, the legacy charity started by her grandmother before her death in 2022, will also launch a range of T-shirts this week.
The wrong pillow can disrupt sleep, so finding the right one can guard against decline in mental and physical health
Life is full of mysteries: What is dark matter? What happened to DB Cooper? And the most perplexing to me personally: How tall should pillows be?
I can never seem to find the right pillow. They always seem too soft and flat, or too tall and stiff, and I end up tossing and turning all night. Currently, there are six pillows on my bed, none of which are quite right.
Activist refused to give police his phone pin when stopped at Channel tunnel in July 2024
Police officers who stopped Tommy Robinson as he tried to leave the UK last year had reasonable suspicions that his phone contained information relevant to acts of terrorism, prosecutors have told his trial.
The far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, refused to give police the pin for his phone because it had “journalistic material on it” after they stopped him at the Channel tunnel on 28 July 2024.
After Guardian writers shared their picks, readers responded with films including Gravity, Paranormal Activity and The Road
When the film ended suddenly and silently I found I was gripping the seat armrests and noticed too that nobody moved. I can’t remember a cinema experience where literally nobody moved after a film ended. It was dead quiet for several seconds, I am guessing that many if not most of the audience had actually witnessed the real event on 9/11 on TV, as I had. Visceral cinema a bit too close to the bone, yet sensitive, nonexploitative and direction as tight as it gets. waxanimal
Former president urges support for the ballot measure Democrats say could add up to five US House seats
In a new ad released on Tuesday, Barack Obama urged California voters to support Proposition 50, a November ballot measure that could reshape the state’s congressional map and deliver up to five new Democratic seats in the US House.
“California, the whole nation is counting on you,” the former two-term Democratic president says in the video. “Democracy is on the ballot.”
What will the ballet dancer of the future look like? We visit the hunting lodge where the next generation are being trained – and find huge changes are under way
It’s an idyllic autumn day in leafy Richmond Park, London, where a grand Georgian hunting lodge houses the Royal Ballet school. Enter through the classical columns and it feels like a bubble away from the world. “I was on a video call with my son,” says the school’s artistic director, Iain Mackay. “He said, ‘Where are you? Hogwarts?!’” This is indeed a place of magic for children who come here, hoping to follow in the footsteps of generations of leading dancers. They touch the middle finger of Margot Fonteyn’s statue for luck as they pass, the bronze rubbed shiny by their superstition.
Getting a place at the school, founded in 1926 by the formidable Ninette de Valois, is a huge achievement. Two years ago, 40 students were accepted from more than 1,000 applications (all on merit – 90% are supported by bursaries). Mackay, 45, arrived last year and is making arguably the biggest change in the school’s history. Students have always come to board here at White Lodge at 11 – remember Billy Elliot’s London audition? – but the decision has been made to up the entry age to 13 (Year 9).
Frances D’Souza wrote to Met commissioner in apparent attempt to evade sanction for exceeding 20mph speed limit
Former lord speaker Frances D’Souza is facing suspension from the Lords after writing to the Metropolitan police commissioner to try to “influence a police investigation into alleged speeding offences”.
Lady D’Souza wrote to Mark Rowley saying she feared she would have to give up attending parliament if she were banned from driving for exceeding the limit in a 20mph zone.
Sébastien Lecornu hopes delaying changes until after 2027 election will win him enough support to survive
France’s prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has suspended Emmanuel Macron’s flagship 2023 pension changes until after the 2027 presidential election in the hope of winning over enough Socialist deputies to survive a no-confidence vote.
The far-right National Rally (RN) and radical left France Unbowed (LFI) have already filed no-confidence motions for later this week that Lecornu will lose without the support of the Socialist party (PS), which has also warned it could submit its own motion.
Two Chinese-born businessmen among six people hit by travel bans and property freezes
The UK and US have imposed sanctions and frozen London properties owned by the alleged leaders of scam centres in Cambodia that trick victims around the world and torture their trafficked workers.
Two Chinese-born businessmen are among the six people hit by travel bans and sanctions that aim to tackle the growing threat of organised crime gangs carrying out online fraud globally on an industrial scale.
In 2022, Diane Keaton shot her last film, the comedy Summer Camp. Its director remembers her energy, fearlessness and effortless authenticity on set
Diane Keaton had been an icon since before I was even born; who was I to direct her? To fill her head with my dialogue? To give her a note, suggesting: “It might be even funnier if you tried …”?
And yet, as she towered over me in sky-high Gucci platform booties, she never made me feel even one inch less tall as I guided her through what would wind up being her final film.
Coliseum, London English National Opera’s first shared production between London and Salford is a fluent and finely sung take on Britten’s 1947 comic opera. Antony McDonald’s lively staging gives the slender tale a sitcom feel
This is English National Opera’s first production shared between London and Greater Manchester – where the company has been obliged to plan to move its base, following Arts Council England’s diktat. The choice of a relatively small-scale opera – necessary in the circumstances – means it was never going to be the kind of show to announce the new era with a bang. Albert Herring is Britten’s 1947 work based on a slender 19th-century French story about a mummy’s boy suddenly finding freedom calls for only a small orchestra and no chorus, so the company won’t be heading en masse to Salford next week. It’s regular fare at music colleges thanks to its large and even cast, but this staging, surprisingly, is an ENO first.
Billing Antony McDonald’s production as a semi-staging sells it short. The scenery is simple enough – Albert’s stifling Suffolk village is conjured by a couple of cork-boarded walls, handily labelled to indicate whose shop, parlour or hall we’re in now. The period, judging by Sid’s duck’s arse haircut and Nancy’s new look skirt, is the 1950s – postwar, but with a bit of a Dad’s Army feel thanks to Emma Bell’s portrayal of Lady Billows as a khaki-clad tyrant, one part Captain Mainwaring to three parts Miss Trunchbull.
Something is rotten in the state of … Sweden, though it’s a Dane taking the blame. Jon Dahl Tomasson, one-time Newcastle flop turned elite Feyenoord and Milan forward and former Blackburn manager, has just been sent packing after presiding over historic failure as manager of his neighbouring country. “Resign JDT” read one banner in Stockholm’s national stadium after Sweden lost 2-0 to Switzerland on Friday, while another read “danskjävel”, roughly translated as JDT’s nationality within a portmanteau questioning his parentage. Yes, that’s Sweden, the country that boasts Alexander Isak, the Premier League’s most expensive striker, and Viktor Gyökeres, last year’s European Golden Boot winner who hardly came cheap to Arsenal. The midfield trio of Daniel Svensson, of Borussia Dortmund, Lucas Bergvall of Tottenham and Brighton’s Yasin Asari reeks of talent and promise.
Monday night, again at home, and the calls for Tomasson’s head continued after a 1-0 loss to Kosovo. They wouldn’t have to wait long to get their wish. Noa Bachner, red-hot columnist for Swedish outlet Expressen, pushed the button, writing: “No acceptable arguments for anything other than him being replaced. I haven’t been this sure since Alan Pardew managed Newcastle.” Which seems a tad harsh on the man briefly labelled “Pardiola” on Tyneside. Tomasson, in mitigation, was not helped by both Isak and Gyökeres playing well below their capabilities, with both given plunging ratings across the national press.
“We have full confidence in our national coach until we don’t,” wailed the Arsenal legend and Swedish FA suit Kim Källström after the match. It appears that faith melted away overnight like an Ikea candle. “The decision [to sack Tomasson] is based on the fact that the men’s national team has not delivered the results we hoped for,” Swedish FA chief suit Simon Åström roared on Tuesday afternoon. “There is still a chance of a playoff in March and our responsibility is to ensure that we have as optimal conditions as possible to be able to reach a [Geopolitics] World Cup playoff. In this, we assess that a new leadership is required in the form of a new coach.” Barring a mathematical miracle in their final matches with Switzerland and Slovenia, the nation of Nils Liedholm, Ralf Edström, “Brolin-Dahlin-Brolin!”, Henrik Larsson and Anders Svensson’s roulette will be missing out on a trip across the Atlantic next summer.
A hat-trick of corrections in yesterday’s letters feels impressive, even by Football Daily’s own very low standards” – Jim Hearson (who should read on for a VAR intervention).
I salute Peter Holford’s puffin knowledge (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). I have learned more in my life about puffins from a daily football email than from anything David Attenborough ever told me” – David Branch (who is going to learn some more from this link and the caption below).
Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst lead the acclaimed new comedy drama about an escaped prisoner hiding in a toy store and deceiving a local woman
Leigh Moore was meant to be celebrating her 40th birthday. Instead she received a visit from the FBI. “They told me the man that you’ve been seeing is not who you think he is; he is on America’s Most Wanted,” she recalls.
When agents showed her a picture of her boyfriend to prove it, Moore “fell to pieces” and cried. “They shattered my whole world. I was devastated, like someone had just died.”
The US president’s Gulf allies and supporters at home might just persuade him to pursue lasting peace. And then there’s always next year’s Nobel prize
We can only rejoice that, for now, Israel’s genocide in Gaza has halted. The killing has stopped. Food is being allowed in, easing the starvation. Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes are returning to their cities, if not their homes, most of which Israel has pulverized. Yet celebration must be tempered by the gnawing reality that the conditions for a lasting peace are, in classic Middle East fashion, being kicked down the road for future resolution – if ever at all.
We may grimace in doing so, but Donald Trump deserves credit for finally ending the US government’s funding and arming of the genocide, and arm-twisting Benjamin Netanyahu into accepting his 20-point plan for Gaza. Yet that hardly happened in a vacuum. Had Joe Biden tried to implement the same plan, he undoubtedly would have been pilloried by the Republican party for not giving Netanyahu everything he wanted. But Trump owns today’s Republican party. Much as when Richard Nixon went to China, there was no one meaningfully to the right of Trump to challenge him.
Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book, Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments, is published by Knopf and Allen Lane
Issa Tchiroma Bakary calls on 92-year-old president to accept end of reign, although results have yet to be released
The Cameroonian opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary has declared himself the winner of the 12 October presidential election and called on the incumbent, Paul Biya, to accept the end of his 43-year rule.
“Our victory is clear, it must be respected,” Tchiroma said in a video statement on Facebook with the national flag in the background, before directly addressing 92-year-old Biya: “We call on the regime in power to show greatness and to honour the truth of the ballot box with a long-awaited gesture: that phone call of congratulations, which will demonstrate the political maturity of our nation and the future strength of our democracy.”
This word-of-mouth sensation’s scenes about the US marines’ treatment of homosexuality are incredibly powerful. Until it throws in a weird food fight and starts trying to become an Orange Is the New Black-style comedy drama
One of the pitfalls of the streaming era is that so many shows seem to go unheralded. Last week, Netflix’s Boots looked likely to be one of them, slipping into the submenus without making a noise. However, thanks to unbelievably positive reviews (“The best new TV show of the fall” said USA Today) and frothing word of mouth, the military drama is now the third most-watched show on the platform. With every passing hour, it seems as though Boots is destined to become the next Squid Game-style breakout. So, with all that said, is it actually any good?
The answer: kind of. Boots is an adaptation of Greg Cope White’s 2015 memoir The Pink Marine, detailing his time in the US military in 1990, a few years before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell became the service’s official position on homosexuality. It’s a subject that’s ripe with potential – 2018’s The Assassination of Gianni Versace featured a thread about a gay serviceman that was more powerful than the rest of the show combined – so hopes were undoubtedly high.
The global economy has shown “unexpected resilience” in the face of Donald Trump’s tariffs, but the full impact is yet to be felt, and outlook for growth remains “dim”, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned.
As policymakers gather in Washington for its annual meetings, the IMF has upgraded its forecast for global GDP growth this year to 3.2%, from 3% at its last update in July. Next year’s global forecast is unchanged, at 3.1%.
Evacuations ordered in about 115 Los Angeles area homes as heavy rain and wind raise fears of mudslides and flooding
A rare October storm arrived in California on Tuesday and threatened to pummel wildfire-scarred Los Angeles neighborhoods with heavy rain, high winds and possible mudslides. Some homes were ordered to evacuate.
The evacuations covered about 115 homes mostly in Pacific Palisades and Mandeville Canyon, both struck by a huge inferno in January that killed more than 30 people and destroyed more than 17,000 homes and buildings in Los Angeles county.
Democracy is under attack – and the watchdog agency has no quorum. It must be restored
Threats to the US electoral process keep accelerating. Donald Trump is issuing increasingly unhinged demands that his political adversaries and those who fund speech that he views as contrary to his political agenda or supports his political opponents be prosecuted. When a prosecutor balked at this political intervention, Trump simply found one who is more compliant.
In what appears to be yet another attempt to concoct support for unproven claims of voter fraud, the Department of Justice has issued exhaustive voting records requests to multiple states. Voting rights lawsuits have been dismissed. A division targeting foreign interference in our elections has been dismembered. Attempts are under way to make voter registration more onerous. Alarmingly, at least one commentator has warned that the extraordinary call-out of the military against US civilians on US soil may be a “dress rehearsal” for taking over the 2026 election from the lawful administrators in the states. Even short of a takeover, one could well imagine this administration developing pretexts for troop deployments in Democratic strongholds during voting. Indeed, Trump has already called for the military to use American cities, at least those run by Democrats, as “training grounds” and ominously talks of a “war from within”.
Breaking both dawn and sanity, Twilight fan Jared Richards heads to the cinema to watch all five films for the 20th anniversary of Stephenie Meyer’s vampiric bestseller
It is about 4am on a Saturday morning and a delirious energy is emerging at Randwick Ritz’s dusk-to-dawn, 12-hour marathon of the Twilight Saga. The cinema has the airs of an airport terminal after significant delays; at this point, people no longer care how they look and are doing anything they can to stay comfortable.
We’ve reached the night’s 30-minute “breakfast break”, which means we are three of five films into the romantic tale of clumsy, quiet teen Bella Swan, who moves to the foggy forest town of Forks, Washington and falls for Edward Cullen, a (permanently) 17-year-old vampire.
The director of Sentimental Value and The Worst Person in the World made his English-language debut with this divisive family drama in 2015. It’s worth watching for Isabelle Huppert alone
Long before Joachim Trier made the Oscar-winning The Worst Person in the World and this year’s festival megahit Sentimental Value, there was 2015’s Louder than Bombs: a far stranger, slipperier film worth watching for Isabelle Huppert’s spectral turn alone. She plays a character also called Isabelle, a renowned war photographer whose secrets haunt her family three years after her sudden death.
Her teenage son Conrad (Devin Druid) still daydreams in class about the car crash that claimed her life, imagining her final, panicked moments. His brother Jonah (Jesse Eisenberg) and father Gene (Gabriel Byrne) know (and conceal) the truth: that her fateful, split-second swerve was an act of suicide.
After the jubilation in Israel of the return of the last Gaza hostages, stories of their time in captivity, hidden away in tents and tunnels, are emerging.
Some described being tortured and tormented. Others, though, recalled moments of co-existence with their captors under the most extreme of circumstances. One played cards with the men holding him and even cooked for them. Another said the captors would speak Hebrew for ease of communication.
The administration’s sweeping visa cancellations extend to Mexico’s political elite, alarming allies and rivals alike
The US government has revoked the visas of at least 50 politicians and government officials in Mexico amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug cartels and their suspected political allies, according to two Mexican officials.
The move has sent quiet shock waves through Mexico’s political elite, who regularly travel to the US. It also marks a significant broadening of US anti-narcotics action, with the Trump administration targeting active politicians usually seen as too diplomatically sensitive.
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