Tourists all out for 334 as Root compiles unbeaten century
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75th over: England 329-9 (Root 137, Archer 34) In his second Test, Doggett was ineffective yesterday, finishing with 0-74. He starts today with a short ball. Root pulls it but finds a fielder. He steers the second one behind square for a single. Jofra Archer adds another run to his highest Test score, swatting another short one. The easy runs for England continue as Root swipes to fine leg. Archer does likewise, ducking and hooking. Four singles, zero threat.

Here we go. Brendan Doggett will open the attack for Australia and he’ll be bowling to Joe Root on 135.

The hobbyists who helped build this site created technology that has been used to humiliate countless women. Why didn’t governments step in and stop them?

For Patrizia Schlosser, it started with an apologetic call from a colleague. “I’m sorry but I found this. Are you aware of it?” He sent over a link, which took her to a site called Mr DeepFakes. There, she found fake images of herself, naked, squatting, chained, performing sex acts with various animals. They were tagged “Patrizia Schlosser sluty FUNK whore” (sic).

“They were very graphic, very humiliating,” says Schlosser, a German journalist for Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Funk. “They were also very badly done, which made it easier to distance myself, and tell myself they were obviously fake. But it was very disturbing to imagine somebody somewhere spending hours on the internet searching for pictures of me, putting all this together.”

‘Future of Europe’ at stake with Von der Leyen and Merz desperate to persuade Belgian PM to allow use of frozen Russian assets

Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, will meet the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, and Belgium’s prime minister, Bart De Wever, for emergency talks on Friday as the EU races to save its sorely needed financing plan for Ukraine.

The three leaders will dine in private in Brussels, a German government spokesperson said on Thursday, as Belgian officials continued to express strong opposition to the scheme, which involves the unprecedented use of frozen Russian assets.

My husband and I were unable to have children, and then we heard about a new experimental technique

I was 26 when my gynaecologist told me that my fallopian tubes were blocked and there would be no way I could get pregnant. I was devastated. I had always wanted children. It was 1972; I was living in Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow, and working as a college lecturer. IVF didn’t exist, and when my husband and I put our names down to adopt a baby, we were told we had very little chance because few babies were available to adopt at the time. Meanwhile, my gynaecologist tried to open my fallopian tubes. It didn’t work.

I refused to accept that I had no options. I read every article I could about fertility treatment. After three years, I heard about a medical breakthrough by gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and physiologist Robert Edwards. It was described as very experimental and new.

The commission wants Moldova to join the union – so it should drop its dry bureaucratic culture and instead meet people where they are

• Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist and writer based in Chișinău

It was both enjoyable and strange to see the EU enlargement commissioner, Marta Kos, present the news on Moldovan TV a couple of months ago. For one thing, she is Slovenian – and she is also a diplomat, not a news anchor. But there she was, announcing that Moldova had made more progress in the last three years than it had in the previous 30, and that negotiations for our country to join the European Union would open soon.

It was equally surprising to spot Kos in the Instagram stories of leading Moldovan influencer siblings Emilian and Nina Crețu at the end of August – she had invited them to her house in Brussels for a Moldovan pie-making workshop. Kos even brought together the two heads of Moldova’s biggest Orthodox churches for a meeting, in spite of their mutual animosity. This is not the way we are used to EU officials communicating.

Paula Erizanu is a Moldovan journalist and writer based in Chișinău

Trump envoy fails to secure deal as Norway prepares to host talks on how to restore civilian government in Sudan

The US is considering a much broader range of sanctions on the belligerents in the war in Sudan, in a tacit acknowledgment of the inability of the US envoy Massad Boulos to persuade the parties to accept a ceasefire.

Last week Donald Trump announced that work had begun to end the war after a personal request for his direct intervention from the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Arrested in 2013 on India’s Himalayan border after fleeing Beijing’s ‘genocide’ against Muslims in Xinjiang, the siblings have been imprisoned indefinitely ever since then

On the evening of 12 June 2013, according to court documents, three “Chinese intruders” were arrested by the Indian army in Sultan Chusku, a remote and uninhabited desert area in the mountainous northern region of Ladakh.

The three Thursun brothers – Adil, 23, Abdul Khaliq, 22 and Salamu, 20 – had found themselves in an area of unmarked and disputed borders after a 13-day journey by bus and foot over the rugged Himalayan terrain through China’s Xinjiang province, which borders Ladakh.

With an experimental and maxed-out sound, bold new MCs are emerging from all corners of the UK – and with US rap in the doldrums, the time is ripe for another British Invasion

It’s early November and London’s Electric Ballroom is heaving. The warm-up DJ drops Fetty Wap’s 2014 smash Trap Queen, and the young crowd, a fair portion of whom were in primary school when the tune first came out, roar every word. They’re clad in baggy skatewear, with distressed, monochromatic union jacks plastered across hats and jackets. A coat sails across the room: someone is going home chilly tonight, but that’ll be the last thing on their mind as Liverpool rapper EsDeeKid, one of the fastest-rising musicians in the world, explodes on to the stage.

Wrapped in a hooded cloak and spinning like a twig in a hurricane, he grabs the mic and snarls: “Are you ready for rebellion?”, his distinctive scouse accent battling a storm of apocalyptic bass and John Carpenter-esque horror synths. Behind him, projections flash in stark black and red – tower blocks, eyeballs, dot-matrix geometries – more like the ragged photocopy aesthetic of 80s post-punk than any luxury rap branding. The teenagers in the room are ecstatic, borne aloft by the palpable sense, thrumming from stage to pit, that this is A Moment.

These events are meant to make Christmas magical, and while many do, a few fall spectacularly short. Here, in no particular order, are some of the worst offenders

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the season where British people traditionally complain about spending too much on rip-off Christmas events. This year’s festivities have already kicked off in earnest, thanks to the malfunctioning Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer drone show in Haywards Heath this week. By all accounts the drone show was a classic of the genre. It made big promises, offering families “a night of magic and wonder” complete with “state of the art production [and] 600 LED drones”. Then it charged big money, with some families paying hundreds of pounds to attend. And then, of course, it comprehensively underdelivered.

Reports describe the event as not only being too short – about just 15 minutes – but also, due to the failure of several drones, completely unintelligible. “From the beginning, large numbers of drones were missing, which left huge gaps in the formations and made it nearly impossible to understand what the images were even supposed to represent!” wrote one aggrieved attendee on social media. “The ‘finale’, the moment the entire audience was waiting for, didn’t even happen. Just a black sky.”

• James scored 10 or more in 1,297 consecutive NBA games since 2007

• Game-winning assist sets up Rui Hachimura’s 3-pointer

• ‘You always make the right play,’ James says

LeBron James knew his record streak of double-digit scoring efforts was in jeopardy. And in the moment, he didn’t care.

The right play was to pass the ball – so he did. And with that, his streak ended.

Major win for Trump as majority rejects lower-court ruling that found maps had been racially gerrymandered

Texas can use a redrawn congressional map that adds as many as five Republican-friendly congressional districts, the supreme court ruled on Thursday, handing Donald Trump a major win in his push to boost Republican seats ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

In an unsigned order, the 6-3 conservative majority court granted a request by Texas to lift a lower court’s ruling that struck down the state’s new map in November. The supreme court’s three liberal justices dissented.

Reform leader suggests he would boycott BBC, saying he has had letter from Dulwich pupils defending him

Nigel Farage has turned on broadcasters for questioning him about his alleged teenage racism and antisemitism as the number of school contemporaries who recalled such behaviour to the Guardian reached 28.

In an angry performance at a press conference in London, the Reform leader suggested he would boycott the BBC and said ITV had its own case to answer, as he repeatedly shouted “Bernard Manning”.

Six days after alleged incident, evidence emerges without requiring medical intervention, New Zealand police say

Police say they have recovered a Fabergé egg pendant from a man accused of swallowing the item in a jewellery story.

New Zealand police have spent six days monitoring every bowel movement of the suspect, a spokesperson said, and the NZ$33,000 ($19,000) James Bond Octopussy pendant was recovered from his gastrointestinal tract on Thursday night by natural means, without requiring medical intervention.

The surprise visitor waddled around the pub during what’s known as ‘silly season’ where seals pop up in unexpected places

On a wet, lazy Sunday evening a baby fur seal waddled into a craft beer bar in Richmond, at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. Accustomed to seeing animals in the pet-friendly bar, co-owner Bella Evans initially assumed the visitor was a dog before she took a closer look.

“Everyone was in shock,” Evans said. “Oh my gosh. What do we do? What’s going on?”

As Meta begins deleting accounts and the deadline looms, children have already begun to flock to platforms not included in the banned list, like Coverstar, Lemon8, Yope and Rednote

• Australia social media ban explained: everything you need to know

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As Australia prepares to block under-16s from accessing 10 of its largest social media platforms, less prominent companies have begun courting the teen market – in some cases paying underaged influencers to promote them.

One teenaged TikTok influencer said in a paid “collab” video for the app Coverstar: “The social media ban is fast approaching, but I found the new cool app we can all move to.”

Judge allows call from manager of Pennsylvania McDonald’s to be made public after press urged its release

An audio recording of a 911 call that led to Luigi Mangione’s arrest has been made public after the press advocated for its release.

The audio recording was played in Manhattan state court this week during a proceeding about evidence gathered during Mangione’s arrest over the murder of senior United HealthCare executive Brian Thompson a year ago. Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania in December last year after the restaurant’s manager called 911.

Wait, what? You mean … white? Are they trolling us? Emma Joyce explains all to Nick Miller

Hi, Emma! I’m so pumped to find out what colour 2026 is going to be. Fill me in!

Brace yourself, Nick. Every year since 1999 Pantone chooses a colour for the year, a representation of the zeitgeist – from how we’re feeling to what we’re wearing, how we’re styling our homes and even our eyebrows. Last year’s was the darker shade of beige “mocha mousse”, the year before that was the soft, warm “peach fuzz”.

• Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha practises for four to five hours each day

• Indian boy beats multiple adults to secure record-breaking status

India’s Sarwagya Singh Kushwaha has become the youngest player in chess history to earn an official Fide rating at the age of three years, seven months and 20 days.

The chess prodigy edged out the previous record of compatriot Anish Sarkar, who was three years, eight months and 19 days when he reached the milestone in November last year.

Strike comes amid congressional turmoil over legality of US attacks on suspected drug smugglers

The Pentagon announced on Thursday that the US military had conducted another deadly strike on a boat suspected of carrying illegal narcotics, killing four men in the eastern Pacific, as questions mount over the legality of the attacks.

Video of the new strike was posted on social media by the US southern command, based in Florida, with a statement saying that, at the direction of Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, “Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel in international waters operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization”.

Decision comes less than two weeks after judge ruled similar case against New York attorney general unlawful

A grand jury declined to indict Letitia James on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the decision, a decision that came less than two weeks after a judge ruled that a similar mortgage fraud case brought by federal prosecutors against the New York attorney general was unlawful.

The move by the justice department to present the case again to a grand jury was seen as a signal of its determination to prosecute James, who has been one of Donald Trump’s top political foes ever since she successfully brought a fraud lawsuit against him in New York.

Van der Ven may be key for Spurs, Wissa could make Newcastle debut and Dyche deserves warm Everton welcome

Arsenal’s recent memories of Aston Villa are of awkward opponents. Mikel Arteta’s side squandered a two-goal lead at the Emirates Stadium when the teams last met, in January, Arsenal dropping two points, their title charge dented. With such little margin for error, it was the kind of day that boosted Liverpool and crystallised the sense that the Gunners would come up short. Villa also defeat Arsenal in 2023-24, abruptly halting Arteta’s six-game winning streak. Now Arsenal are in a different position, at the summit with a five-point lead – and six clear of Unai Emery’s team. Victory at Villa Park on Saturday, against a side that have lost only once in the league since August, would offer another significant indication that this could be the season Arsenal take the crown. Ben Fisher

Aston Villa v Arsenal, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Bournemouth v Chelsea, Saturday 3pm

Everton v Nottingham Forest, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v Sunderland, Saturday 3pm

Until Soungoutou Magassa’s 83rd-minute equaliser Manchester United seemed to be flowering in the cold of winter on the way to a win that would have been their fifth in eight games.

Instead Jarrod Bowen’s flick-on from Andy Irving’s corner from the right had to be cleared off the line by Noussair Mazraoui, only for the ball to go straight to Magassa, who drove home a first goal for the Hammers.

Communities remain terrified as Trump administration’s crackdown on another Democratic-led city enters day two

Dozens of people have been detained across the New Orleans area as the Trump administration’s latest sweeping federal immigration crackdown in a Democratic-led city entered its second day.

The city’s immigrant communities remain terrified and traumatized, advocates said, with many in hiding as people have been arrested in public spaces including parking lots outside Home Depots and Lowe’s hardware stores, at bus stops, shopping malls and in residential areas around the city.

• Cochran-Siegle second to Odermatt in season opener

• Norway’s Sejersted takes third; Kilde back from injury

Marco Odermatt of Switzerland won the downhill season-opener Thursday, beating American Ryan Cochran-Siegle in a World Cup race on a tricky but shorter Birds of Prey course.

Odermatt finished in 1min 29.84sec to surpass Cochran-Siegle by .30sec. Norway’s Adrian Smiseth Sejersted finished third. The finish line was moved up the hill – and just barely visible by fans in the stands – due to a lack of snow to properly place the safety netting.