2026/08/21 Daily Edition

A reworking of the spacecraft’s power systems could extend the nearly 50-year-old Voyagers’ exploration of interstellar space into the early 2030s.

Harry and Meghan enjoyed some showbusiness success, but their Hollywood reign proved short-lived.

The app was designed to give farmers more time with their families by making the business more manageable.

The body of Lily Hooper, 18, has been airlifted from a national park in the Southern Highlands following an eight-day search.

Sources close to the Sussexes have not denied reports that Meghan has been offered an acting role in the UK.

Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh This fantastic comic play from the Radio 4 trio unleashes a torrent of great gags and illusions Horror pastiche has a proud lineage at this festival – for example Garth Marenghi, and Andrew Doherty’s hit Gay Witch Sex Cult two summers ago. In that company, Crybabies’ The Scaring can stand as tall as the demon Haeldrrun towering over its finale: it’s another fantastic comic play from the Radio 4 trio of Michael Clarke, James Gault and Ed Jones with chills as well as laughs, and production values rarely seen on the fringe. A tale of demonic possession and a disillusioned priest, set in a guesthouse that makes the Overlook in The Shining seem five-star by comparison, it’s as tightly packed with smart gags as a hotelier’s cellar with the corpses of slaughtered guests. The plotting, too, is twistier than Regan’s neck in The Exorcist, a moment referenced in one creepy/comical scene here featuring a haunted dolly. It begins with two priests exorcising a beast from another dimension. But the beast wins, leaving our hero Father Arthur bereft of his partner, and his calling. And so (cue non sequitur second scene) he must take up work in the immersive stag-do industry – at least until summoned to the Lyle Away hotel, where a reckoning with his traumatic past awaits …...

Thirty "pioneer families" have arrived on a wave of nationalism driven by Israel's government, but the rapid change has left nearby Palestinian residents fearful.

10-man Rangers hang on for 1-0 win against Jablonec Tromsø 0-0 Brighton; Hearts 2-2 Rapid Vienna Ryan Naderi’s second-half strike gave an unconvincing Rangers a narrow 1-0 win in the first leg of their Conference League playoff tie against Czech side Jablonec at Ibrox. Derek McInnes got his first win as Rangers manager at the fifth time of asking with a 5-1 thumping of St Mirren on Sunday but there was regression in the goalless first half which brought boos at the interval whistle. The Govan side pepped up after the break and Naderi opened the scoring from close range in the 50th minute but in the 78th minute the substitute Cammy Devlin was sent off – minutes after coming off the bench – for a high tackle on Jiri Slama to leave Rangers to see out the game with 10 men...

According to Health department, there were a total of 5,201 deliveries (2,729 normal and 2,472 C-section) in 2020-21. This number came down to 2,238 (1,387 normal and 851 C-section) in 2025-26. A large number of people from the urban areas of Kozhikode are dependant on the hospital

The latest floods to hit Metro Manila and parts of the Philippines’ main island of Luzon have turned a familiar seasonal disaster into a renewed test of political accountability for President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, as anger over allegedly corrupt flood-control projects returns to the centre of public debate. Analysts said the deluge had sharpened scrutiny of the slow-moving investigation into allegedly substandard and non-existent flood-control works, exposing the gap between Marcos’...

At Southern Zonal Council Meeting, V.D. Satheesan also urges Union government to annul the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2026

Central government finances for 2026-27 may remain close to budgeted levels

In total, 308 people were freed in what the government called the largest single-day rescue operation. But at the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital in Ilorin, a long road to recovery lay ahead

The State government was informed of the denial of permission for the U.S. visit after the official delegation had already reached the U.K.

Growing evidence that cutting coal use and bans on high-polluting vehicles are leading directly to health benefits Failing crops, wildfires and overloaded health systems are focusing minds on the local impacts of our changing climate. While carbon emissions reduction is normally framed as having a global benefit rather than a local gain, studies published in 2025 and 2026 from Greece have added to growing evidence that cutting coal use and air pollution can provide immediate health benefits to local communities...

Exclusive: Mitchell Palmer has also argued for privatising the NHS and immigration as way of cutting poverty Reform UK’s new economic adviser has previously called the pensions triple lock unsustainable, advocated privatising the NHS and welcomed migration as a poverty alleviation tool, the Guardian can reveal. Robert Jenrick, Reform’s economic spokesperson, has appointed Mitchell Palmer, a rightwing economist at the free-market Adam Smith Institute, as one of his key aides...

Meta chief executive paid roughly €20m for gothic-style mansion built in 1830 and its surroundings It stretches the definition of pied-à-terre but Mark Zuckerberg now has a pad in Ireland: Strancally castle. The Meta chief executive and his wife, Priscilla Chan, have bought the gothic-style mansion and its 178-hectare (440-acre) estate in county Waterford to use as a base during visits to Ireland...

From a new high-speed line to better intercity links, the PM has a chance to tackle problems he criticised as Manchester mayor For passenger rail travel, the north of England was the future, once. But since that first train from Darlington to Stockton in 1825, many have felt short-changed. As one angry passenger put it, 200 years later: “What is it about the rail industry which makes them think they can treat passengers in the north as second-class citizens?” That complaint came from the former mayor of Greater Manchester, who frequently set out a different vision for the train services he would like. Now that Andy Burnham is in No 10, he has the opportunity to win those battles – or perhaps see them a little differently. For now, what unresolved issues could the railway expect to be pursued with greater urgency?..

Further restrictions on shipping lane possible as Central America gripped by severe drought The Panama canal will cut the number of ships passing through it starting next month because of drought caused by the El Niño phenomenon, the operator of the strategic waterway linking the Atlantic and Pacific said Thursday. From 3 September, the number of vessels allowed through each day will fall from 36 to 34 due to low water levels in two artificial lakes that feed the canal, the Panama Canal Authority said. From 15 September, the number of ships permitted will drop to 32...

Value of banknotes in circulation rises from €1bn in 2016 to €1.6bn in 2026 as people advised to keep stash of cash The number of banknotes in circulation in the EU is increasing despite widespread smartphone payments, new data shows, with wildfires ripping through parts of Europe fuelling demand for an emergency stash of cash. While cash plays second fiddle to contactless payments in many cities across Europe, the amount in circulation is actually going up, Philip Lane, the chief economist of the European Central Bank (ECB), said at the MacGill summer school conference in Ireland...

Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell sharply on Thursday, with just seven commodity vessels crossing the vital waterway, as heightened security risks and stalled US-Iran peace talks deterred ships from using the key energy route. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.

Mother of Billy Caldwell, who has severe epilepsy, celebrates son’s story while pushing for better access to prescription cannabis for families who need it When Billy Caldwell was a baby he was not expected to survive infancy. A severe form of epilepsy condemned his tiny body to daily seizures – brutal, draining and each one potentially fatal. “They couldn’t get the seizures under control,” his mother, Charlotte, recalled. “Billy was sent home to die – we were told he wouldn’t see past his first birthday.” That prediction was in 2005. Last month Billy, who is autistic, celebrated his 21st birthday at home in a bucolic corner of Northern Ireland with family, friends, cake and a wide smile...

Decade-long study finds stark gender difference in outcomes of people with heart disease Millions of men with heart disease have a higher risk of developing and dying from cancer, according to a decades-long study. The biggest drivers behind male cases were smoking, obesity and drinking too much alcohol, researchers said, with the link most pronounced in lung and oesophageal cancers...

Pacific fleet launched missile drills near what Moscow calls the Kuril Islands but Japan regards as its Northern Territories Japan has criticised missile tests carried out by Russia’s navy around the disputed islands visited by Vladimir Putin last week amid continuing tensions between the two countries. Russia’s Pacific fleet said on Thursday that it had fired Bastion surface-to-ship missiles from Etorofu, the largest island in the disputed archipelago, simulating an attack on enemy vessels, hitting all of its targets approximately 300km away...

Footage circulating on social media shows dozens of migrants arriving by boat on Spain’s southeastern coast.

While the Taliban have retained power, a weak economy, suffocating restrictions on women, international isolation and growing tensions with Pakistan remain key challenges; widespread poverty, unemployment and dependence on humanitarian assistance are the reality for millions

The majority held that ‘industry’ under the IRC must be interpreted based on its own specific text and statutory context, unburdened by the legacy of the 1978 precedent; Chief Justice Kant noted that while the core principles of the 1978 ruling had stood the test of time, the 1978 judgment would no longer act as the “sheet anchor” for interpreting ‘industry’ under the IRC

Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was sent back to prison after being transferred for a medical evaluation.

Despite stars Leslie Mann, Anna Faris and Isla Fisher and the writers behind The Hangover, this tale of friends at a luxury hotel is a dud Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are the screenwriters who struck gold nearly 20 years ago with The Hangover, a brilliant stag-weekend nightmare comedy about what happens in Vegas, which sadly spawned a terrible (though lucrative) franchise. Now, as writers and directors, they have tried turning it around and making a movie about how middle-aged women behave on a longed-for spa weekend at a luxury-porn hotel. The result is a comedy without gags, a comedy which, for all the strenuous high-jinks, is afraid to be flippant or mean or, indeed, funny in any way. Leslie Mann plays a hotshot lawyer called Jane who can’t make room in her life for romance; Anna Faris is goofy Sophie, PA to a rich asshole; Michelle Buteau is outspoken badass Coco, angry at her ex-husband dating again; and Isla Fisher is landed with the stridently unfunny role of Mel, a wild child who makes the other three nervous, but whose life-affirming no-filter honesty is going to break everyone’s emotional logjam and sort out their lives. As for Jane, it looks as if the hotel’s super-hot super-sensitive yoga teacher, Kai (Adam Demos), is going to hook up with her...

As his new film Bitter Christmas is released, the legendary Spanish director turns his fire on Donald Trump, Will Smith, Netflix – and himself Black sunglasses indoors and a tufty cloud of cotton-wool hair: it can only be Pedro Almodóvar, bourgeois arthouse darling nonpareil and master of everything from screwball romps (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown) to clammy thrillers (Live Flesh, The Skin I Live In) – and sumptuous melodramas such as his 24th film, Bitter Christmas, a cautionary tale about the perils of autofiction. We are sitting in the library of a London hotel and Almodóvar is dressed in a thin black windcheater, grey trousers and white trainers; add a whistle on a string and he could pass for a PE teacher. The 76-year-old director may have won more than 60 awards including two Oscars, five Baftas and six Goyas but when the shades come off today, he looks momentarily sorry for himself. He has been deaf in one ear since childhood, he tells me, and now the other one is giving up the ghost. In addition, a nasty stye has turned his left eye a gluey purple. Might he have picked it up while swimming? “I do swim almost every day because I have a pool,” he sighs. Never can those words have sounded so sorrowful...

The new government of Peter Magyar hoped to use the suite overlooking the Danube as evidence of an autocrat’s indulgence. The trappings fell short.

Traverse theatre, Edinburgh Malaika Kegode delivers a supernatural story about the strange disappearance of a maudlin folk singer Playwright and performer Malaika Kegode tops and tails this show for Theatre Royal Plymouth with a message about the allure of storytelling. In a festival city bursting at the seams with stories, it is an unnecessary observation. A more important question is about which stories we choose to tell, which resonate and which pass us by. Why, for example, did Kegode want to write a story – and it is a story rather than a play – about the strange disappearance of a maudlin folk singer? She focuses on the subsequent investigation by Meles Costas, an under-qualified true-crime podcaster, living in the shadow of a high-achieving and terminally ill mother. And she laces her story with gothic fairytale imagery: folk songs with dark-magic properties, human-to-animal transmutation and a hint of witchcraft. At Traverse theatre, Edinburgh, until 30 August; Theatre Royal Plymouth, 2–5 September; Bristol Old Vic, 8–12 September All our Edinburgh festival reviews..

Japan has spent years casting the International Criminal Court as a pillar of the rules-based order. This week, its closest ally sanctioned the Japanese judge who leads it. The move has left Tokyo in an uncomfortable bind: defend Tomoko Akane, the Japanese president of The Hague-based court, and risk antagonising US leader Donald Trump, or temper its criticism and appear weak in the face of an attack on an institution central to Japan’s rule-of-law diplomacy. Washington’s sanctions, announced on...

Japan executed on Friday a man convicted of an arson attack on a pachinko parlour in 2009 that killed five people, authorities said. It was Japan’s first hanging since Takahiro Shiraishi, the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people, was put to death in June 2025. Sunao Takami, the man executed on Friday, doused a pachinko parlour – a popular game mixing pinball and a slot machine using small steel balls – near his home in Osaka with petrol and set it on fire, killing four...

‘Industry’ under the Industrial Relations Code will be interpreted in its ‘own text and context’, says the top court; the 1978 verdict had enabled workers employed in a wide range of jobs to have a legal recourse, including collective bargaining, against unfair labour practices by employers

Iran calls new U.S. sanctions ‘economic terrorism’, ‘crimes against humanity’

The United States on Thursday urged allies and China to join its campaign to isolate Iran's economy, as President Donald Trump seeks to intensify pressure on Tehran amid a stalemate in the war and growing domestic criticism.

U.S. warned allies and China to join Mr. Trump’s new campaign to isolate the Iranian economy, vowing that Washington would “collapse this regime” in Tehran.

Lee Cheuk-yan and Chow Hang-tung - leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance – were tried under under a 2020 national security law Two Hong Kong activists who organised annual vigils marking China’s deadly Tiananmen crackdown in 1989 were found guilty of “incitement to subversion”, in a case widely criticised as exemplifying the erosion of freedom of expression in the Chinese city. Lee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41 “incited other persons to organise, plan, commit or participate in acts by unlawful means with a view to subverting the state power”, a press summary handed out to reporters said...

Three activists were accused of inciting others to subvert state power under the China-introduced law.

Three projects mark a new test for Egypt after it failed to prevent construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

An international socialist institute and Cuba's construction ministry are subject to the latest US sanctions, Marco Rubio announces.

He is the second fisherman to have lost his life after a fisherman Maveeran was killed recently; the two were part of a group of four fishermen engaged in fishing in Saudia Arabia when they were allegedly shot

The Killers frontman asks big questions on his third solo album, which takes a detour into country.

The government has announced investments of about 2.3 billion reais ($444.2m) to bolster its AI ecosystem.

Bangkok said the talks focused on ways to enhance security cooperation on the nations' 2,400-kilometre (1,500-mile) border, where the war in Myanmar has seeded instability

The earthquake was felt in several regions of southern Peru, including Ica and Arequipa

Tunisia has seen an uptick in protests as economic conditions in the country have deteriorated.

The El Nino weather phenomenon is expected to increase the likelihood of drought and excess heat across the region.

The two men, detained in the western city of Herat on August 9, were released on Thursday morning.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s comments underscored how Mr. Trump is shifting to economic rather than military pressure on Tehran the war drags toward the six-month mark

Cox: ‘We were hoping one of us would have kicked on’ Sam Curran will miss rest of the summer due to injury Jordan Cox was one of four half-centurions as England maintained control of the first Test against Pakistan – but there were a few regrets as no one reached three figures on day two in Leeds. “We were hoping one of us would have kicked on and instead of make it just a hundred, make it 150, 160, 170,” said Cox, who hit 73 in his first Test innings at No 3. “And then the game looks, not completely different, but it puts us in definitely a better position.”..

The heavy downpours that have caused flash flooding will ease during Friday with sunshine returning for the weekend. But there are some chilly nights in store, as Ben Rich explains.

Pakistan's former prime minister Imran Khan has been moved from prison to a private hospital.

The Trump administration has ramped up deportations to third countries in an apparent bid to deter immigration.

US Treasury Secretary Bessent says new economic measures will 'collapse' Iranian government.

US military exercises with South Korea end early on Friday, at a time when the North is in a position of strength.

Iran has so far proved adept at finding ways around years of already punishing sanctions on its economy.

All Thing Considered host Mary Louise Kelly speaks with NPR correspondents Tom Bowman and Emily Feng about the ways in which the U.S. war with Iran is connected to other conflicts across the globe.

Gov't forces carried out 81 attacks in the last 24 hours as Houthis claim to have hit two targets in Saudi Arabia.