2026/08/13 Daily Edition

Modest but sensible-looking recruitment befits the club’s new air of stability but a continuation of their spring slump could test David Moyes’s appetite for the fight Guardian writers’ predicted position: 10th (NB: this is not necessarily Andy Hunter’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips) Last season’s position: 13th..

After the PM announced a crackdown on subscription traps, readers share how they got into and out of unwanted plans.

Latest Israeli attacks kill police official Jamal Abu Kamil in Gaza City and another person in Khan Younis.

Former world No 4 slumps to 6-3, 7-5 first-round loss Draper still recovering from long-term arm injury The minuscule amount of confidence and self-belief Jack Draper currently has to call upon in the most difficult period of his career was underscored in the first game of his opening match in Cincinnati. Draper began his service game by shanking a forehand into the back fence, which he followed up with two double faults. He immediately fell down a break and never recovered. A few fleeting positive moments followed, but this miserable start set the tone for another excruciating day for the former world No 4 as he could not escape the mental fatigue borne out of battling serious injury for 15 months and counting. Draper fell 6-3, 7-5 to Martín Landaluce, the world No 64...

Leeds 16-20 Leigh Clubs optimistic of securing better offer soon On what may prove to be the most significant day in Super League’s modern history away from the field, Leigh Leopards blew wide open the race for top spot in this year’s competition on it with a stunning victory against the league leaders, Leeds Rhinos. Super League clubs were finally informed on Thursday morning of a long-awaited opening offer from the NRL to invest in the competition. A figure of around £7m per season, for the next five years, has been tabled but is set to be turned down by clubs – who believe the competition’s value is much higher. In return, the NRL would get a 10% stake in Super League in each year it invests, but this is probably the first of several negotiationsbetween the two competitions, with some leading figures who were in that meeting telling the Guardian a crucial get-together of the clubs next Thursday will probably lead to Super League rejecting that opening bid...

With a top-eight finish offering at least a playoff place, the temptation to spend big in pursuit of the Premier League will grow – but so will the risks The Championship’s collective wage bill grew to a record £903m in 2024-25, according to Deloitte’s latest Annual Review of Football Finance. Clubs are paying players enormous sums in their pursuit of Premier League football. With the playoffs expanding this season, the number of owners willing to risk even more money in the hope of securing promotion is only likely to increase. In isolation, the figure of £903m does not signify much. Compared to the Premier League’s £4.4bn salary outlay, it almost looks small. But England’s top division can afford that gargantuan commitment to wages whereas the second tier cannot. The 24 clubs in the Championship earned £942m, meaning salaries consumed 96% of revenue. If there was any surprise in their collective net debt being £1.4bn at the end of 2024-25, it was only that it had reduced from the £1.5bn it was a year earlier...

United unable to financially compete with rivals Rashford back after Barcelona loan but could leave Michael Carrick has stated that Manchester United will not make a £100m signing this summer due to their finances, with the manager also insisting that Marcus Rashford “is our player” despite the forward and club preferring him to depart. In the current window United have invested a total of £85m on Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos but have never spent £100m on a single transfer...

Rangers 1-1 Jagiellonia Bialystok (2-3 agg) Spirited Hearts hold Benfica but also out of competition Derek McInnes’s fledgling tenure as Rangers manager is in disarray after his side exited the Europa League qualifiers with a 3-2 aggregate defeat to Jagiellonia Bialystok after drawing 1-1 at Ibrox. Rangers had lost 2-1 in the first leg in Poland last week but there was optimism when the captain, Lawrence Shankland, levelled the tie on aggregate with a penalty on 19 minutes...

Hunt had won 100m already; Asher-Smith wins bronze Mark English wins 800m for Ireland’s first men’s gold Two down. Two to go. Amy Hunt’s dream of winning a record four gold medals at a single European championships gathered further momentum with a bravura performance in front of a raucous Alexander Stadium crowd. Hunt was given a huge cheer by the 20,082 in attendance, by far the biggest of the championships so far, when she was introduced in lane seven. But she had to work hard to get past her domestic rival Dina Asher-Smith, in lane eight...

Some traders are reeling from heavy losses after a brutal correction in South Korea's stock market.

Cuba's Raul Castro made a rare public appearance on Thursday at a celebration marking the centenary of his brother Fidel's birth. The 95-year-old former president received a standing ovation at the secure event in Havana as the island grapples with a deepening economic crisis and frequent blackouts.

A preliminary report by US investigators says an engine fan blade broke on last month's flight from Greece to Germany.

In tonight's program, mourners gather in memory of the 44 people killed in Tuesday's ferry accident. Also, ballot counting has started in Zambia, President Hichilema's is expected to win a second term. And finally researchers, reckon that the rising cost of living and changing societal expectation is behind a marked drop in the birth rates across North African countries.

If President Trump's threatened 50% tariffs go through later this month, construction businesses that rely on materials imported from Canada are among those that will suffer.

U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called settlers besieging a West Bank home of an American-Palestinian family "terrorists."

A powerful explosion tore through a munitions faction south of the Italian capital Rome on Thursday.

At least six homes were set alight by an extensive wildfire in Stourbridge

Trustees condemn Kennedy Center’s move to re-add Trump’s name and shut down for extensive renovations.

The economy dominates voter concerns in the southern African country.

Supporters of Andrew and Tristan Tate gathered outside a Miami detention centre ahead of their bail hearing.

Colombia denies politics played a role after Mexico said its military rescuers were refused entry.

Israeli drone strikes killed at least 2 people and wounded several others in Gaza on Thursday.

Updates from the evening session in Birmingham Hudson-Smith surges to 400m gold | Mail Luke Matt Hudson-Smith is having a chat with the BBC about his 400m triumph last night. He had no sleep at all overnight. “I tried to sleep, I was just staring at the wall,” he says. “So many flashbacks, so many memories … it was so surreal … I did it...

Israeli forces have ordered Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank to evacuate their homes in Qusra

A passenger train derailed near Lewes in East Sussex, England, injuring at least 11 people, and two of them seriously.

Military and government sources say the paramilitary RSF and allies advance into town of Kurmuk in Blue Nile state.

The military’s failure to keep extremists away from two Palestinian families trapped in their West Bank homes made clear the chaos gripping the Israeli-occupied territory.

Earthquake damages Cali's hospitals, forcing medical staff to prioritize critical patients as rescue teams work nonstop.

Bill Hunter says the weekly 5k race at locations across the UK and beyond is for everyone, and should be celebrated, while Helen Beioley says it is the perfect excuse to meet friends and consume a croissant after I am sorry that the parkrun spoils Janet Knowlson’s experience of her local park (Letters, 7 August). I wonder if she has ever spoken to a parkrunner or a volunteer? Many would tell of the camaraderie and their improved physical and mental health. Strangers become friends and even partners. We do not take over the park, as she alleges, rather we recognise that we share the space with other park users and are respectful of their rights and needs. Parkrun is for everyone and anyone, from children upwards, and not only runners. It is only competitive if you want it to be, and is equally welcoming to walkers. Parkrun is a huge success story, both in the UK and many other countries, and should be celebrated. It receives no public funding and each event relies on an army of volunteers, without whom it wouldn’t happen. Long may it continue. Bill Hunter Honley, West Yorkshire • In response to Janet Knowlson’s letter complaining about the disruption to her daily peaceful walk through her park by parkrun, please can I suggest that she avoid just this one specific hour a week? Parkrun is an inclusive joy for hundreds of thousands of runners and walkers of all shapes, sizes, ages and levels of fitness. For me, it’s the perfect excuse to meet up with mates and wallop down a huge almond croissant as a post-run(walk) reward. Helen Beioley France Lynch, Stroud..

President’s order calls for several changes to childhood vaccinations – and experts say it’ll lead to confusion On Monday, Donald Trump signed an executive order pushing for revisions to how children in the US are vaccinated. The executive order calls for several changes. These include fewer vaccinations overall and a recommendation that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine be replaced with separate shots for each disease administered during separate medical visits. The latter direction is currently impossible to implement because no stand-alone shots for these diseases are licensed in the US...

A jury in Chicago in the US awarded the sum to Michael Ryan's family after his widow Naoise Connolly Ryan brought a civil suit against Boeing.

United's preseason outlay pales in comparison with some of their fellow title contenders.

UK records its hottest day of the year as the temperature in west London reaches 38.1 degrees Celsius.

Ruling latest setback in Trump administration response to Gaza war protests that swept college campuses.

Emergency services said they were working at the scene of a derailment near Lewes, in East Sussex, on Thursday. Nine other people were less seriously hurt.

Topos Azteca, a Mexican volunteer rescue group that works worldwide and helped after the Sept. 11 attacks, arrived in Colombia after searching for survivors in Venezuela.

Study of 56m-year-old leaves counters claims from Trump administration members of ‘benefits’ of fossil fuel pollution Adding huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is set to cause the Earth’s forests to wither and die rather than flourish, according to a new study that counters erroneous claims that fossil fuel pollution will green the planet. An analysis of fossilized leaf cells from a period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (or PETM), which occurred about 56 million years ago, has helped reconstruct how the world’s forests responded when planet-heating gases were previously being released at a rapid rate...

State department says it has reached administrative settlement with company’s US arm to resolve breaches The UK defence company BAE Systems is to pay a $36m (£26.7m) civil penalty after breaching US arms exports regulations more than 100 times. The US Department of State announced on Thursday that it had reached an administrative settlement with the US arm of BAE to resolve 104 violations of the Arms Export Control Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations...

The suspect has been identified as a Russian citizen who planned to kill one of Moscow's critics in Warsaw.

A new report finds key federal agencies have stopped providing oversight of civil rights laws nationally.

Artists in Gaza painted a mural honouring former Burger King employee Arianna Hamilton.

Wednesday’s eerie spectacle united crowds beneath the sky, continuing a human fascination that stretches from ancient myth to modern physics “I’d describe it as a magical eeriness.” Lisa Redfern’s description to the Guardian conveys the combination of beauty and wrongness that accompanied Wednesday’s partial solar eclipse in Britain. Crowds across the country assembled as the sun’s power seemed to wane, twilight changed tone abruptly, the temperature fell and the familiar landscape took on an unnatural appearance. In a divided world, there is comfort in coming together in awe. Ms Redfern, speaking from Cornwall, was right that Britons “may not see another one. We have to make the most of these moments.” The country has to wait 55 years for another comparably deep partial eclipse. To experience the true marvel of the eclipse, one had to be in the path of totality – which this week crossed over Greenland, Iceland and Spain. There the sun was completely obscured. Britain saw a partial version, with the moon covering part of the sun, with only a thin yellow crescent showing. Totality is another world of wonder: for a few minutes a black disc appears where the sun should be, surrounded by a fiery corona in a purplish firmament. It is 64 years before a total eclipse of the sun will be seen over Britain. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please..

NGOs say agreement held back by tenuous human health commitments and lobbying from plastic industry The latest version of the long overdue plastic treaty is even less ambitious than the previous one, according to experts. A year after UN plastics treaty negotiations collapsed in Geneva in 2025, diplomats met informally in Nairobi between 30 June and 3 July, aiming to flesh out a new “no surprises” document...

Zoo Southside, Edinburgh Letícia Rodrigues takes on the titular challenge in this show about shame, rage and how female bodies are surveilled A smiling woman steps on to the weighing scales in front of the stage. She is glamorous with bobbed blond hair, gleaming nails and a trendy red trouser suit. She is exactly 84kg, she states. It is an opening gesture reminiscent of an old-school diet club like the one her mother first took her to at the age of eight. Letícia Rodrigues’s show is autobiographical, albeit dramatised through a character called Gorda who, like her, is Brazilian and has been deemed overweight for most of her life. So she is planning to lose the fat in each of her shows. The weigh-in will be followed by a weigh-out at the end of the hour. The goal is to be 116 grams thinner and so the show is also a training session, she says...

Solar eclipses are far easier to manage than Europe’s cross-border electricity politics In the end, the solar eclipse did not cause the electricity grid to flicker. The early drop-off in solar generation was manageable, just as the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the state-owned body responsible for keeping the lights on, predicted. Gas-fired generators still had to be paid nose-bleed prices to fire up, and power via high-voltage interconnectors to continental Europe was also expensively sourced. But the system worked. A summer of heatwaves, however, has highlighted European grids’ reliance on those interconnectors – including seven between the UK and the continent – in an age of extreme weather and greater use of intermittent renewables. On Thursday, another low-wind “heat dome” day, a fifth of power to the British grid was coming from the continent at 10am. Cables from France alone were meeting 11%, or 3.54 gigawatts, of demand, or more than twice as much as the output at that time from the UK’s entire fleet of windfarms...

The drought roasting much of Europe this summer is taking a heavy toll on crops across the continent, from potatoes in the Netherlands to corn in Bosnia. Triodos, a Dutch bank with a focus on sustainability, has warned that this could reduce gross domestic product across the EU by 1 percent for 2026 – or around €180 billion.

If you know Nigeria's city of Lagos, you're surely familiar with the hum of its traffic jams. But a new sound is emerging... or rather, one is disappearing. As soaring fuel prices have hit Nigeria in recent years, some motorists are turning to electric vehicles. But in Africa's biggest oil producer, the transition remains fraught with challenges.

Rescuers in Colombia made a last-ditch effort to locate earthquake survivors early Thursday, as the critical 72-hour window for finding people alive drew to a close. Our journalist Rosa Perez gives us the lastest information.

Kyiv and Moscow have been trading attacks on each other's grain warehouses, as concerns mount that global food prices could rise as a result. Russia struck Ukraine's largest grain shipment port on the Danube overnight, causing damage and setting off a fire. The attack came a day after Ukraine hit Novorossiysk, a major grain hub in Russia's part of the Black Sea.

Chinese state media have released footage of a joint naval drill with Indonesia in waters east of Taiwan.

It comes after one of its planes suddenly lost altitude last week, with a number of passengers injured.

US senators call for inquiry as USS Lincoln has record-long period without port stop amid war on Iran.

There are reports of food shortages, broken plumbing and other potential harms aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been at sea since November.

Mangione faces two federal stalking crimes that carry a maximum penalty of life in prison without parole.

Mike Pender responds to an article by Felicity Lawrence in which she reflects on why food firms are panicking and suing Felicity Lawrence’s alarming piece on ultra-processed foods (Why are ultra-processed food firms panicking and suing? Because they know time is running out, 7 August) made no mention of the UK’s Food Standards Agency, whose primary statutory objective is to protect public health from risks arising from the consumption of food. The FSA is an independent, non-ministerial government department. Its advice to ministers, and guidance to consumers, is informed by the most up-to-date scientific evidence, free of political or commercial considerations...

Safety advice was followed by almost all the public but the historic event left behind huge quantities of litter and abandoned Lime bikes It started with the glasses, as people desperate to see the most complete eclipse in decades formed long queues for the proper protective eyewear. Then, when they sold out almost everywhere, they came for the colanders. Sales of the kitchen staple, which could be used to safely view the partial solar eclipse that enraptured millions, increased markedly, retailers have said...

Kew Gardens in London hits 38.1C and 40C-plus expected in parts of Europe with continent trapped under heat dome Europe heatwave – latest updates The UK has recorded its hottest day of the year so far with a provisional temperature of 38.1C in southern England as Europe sweltered under a major heat dome. As temperatures on the continent approached 40C at the peak of the summer’s fifth heatwave, the thermometer at Kew Gardens in west London surpassed the previous high of 38C on 28 June, the Met Office said...

Zambian president Hakainde Hichilema has cast his vote in the capital Lusaka, as he bids for a second term.

The winning country in Eurovision will be ineligible to host the contest the following year if involved in an armed conflict or a "sensitive geopolitical situation" that could impact the safety of the event, organisers said on August 12. The rules for the contest were updated following an annual review by the European Broadcasting Union.

France is yet to comment on Yann Vezilier's pardon and previously called the accusations "unfounded".