2026 News Archive

Lord O'Neill, former chief economist at Goldman Sachs, was tipped to become Andy Burnham's chief economic adviser.

Running a farm is tough – TV’s Clarkson’s Farm shows that – but I know many minorities would love the chance. And we would all benefit Who’d be a farmer? Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon is great entertainment but it also gives some indication of the stresses and challenges behind the farm gate. Would anyone who lacked the significant alternative income that Clarkson is lucky to have want that? Well, actually, yes. I’m an entrepreneur who owns a farm, as opposed to hands-on running the small one I bought 25 years ago, but as I look around the industry, I’m struck by a significant fact: the very reason I can be known as the Black Farmer is because I am such a rarity that it makes me readily identifiable...

The U.S. has now imposed 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian products. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada "will match those tariffs dollar for dollar" next month.

Fifa president tells Sky man: ‘You have a nice haircut’ Defies Concacaf president plea to stay away ​from youth event Gianni Infantino told a reporter “I’ll see you at the hairdressers” after he was asked whether he had betrayed football over his aborted World Cup sell-off plan. The Fifa president was stopped outside a hotel in the Dominican Republic by the Sky News US correspondent, James Matthews, who challenged the under-fire leader of football’s governing body over why he had not resigned, despite calls from across the game for him to step down...

As fitness-conscious consumers turn away from processed foods, the industry is scrambling for new ideas, including nutrient-rich lollies and protein-packed tubs. Will they take the fun out of this summer treat? Last month, I stood in the biggest ice-cream factory in Britain and watched a 5-metre Viennetta mint-flavoured ice-cream cake get made. The factory – which is owned by the Magnum Ice Cream Company and produces nine different brands of ice-cream – is based in an enormous building in Gloucester, where the air is thick with the scent of custard. I walked past the Twister and Solero sections on my way in, through clouds of tangy fruit, before arriving at the Viennetta assembly line, where everything smelled minty fresh. A Viennetta is built on a conveyor belt by a fully automated system, and watching it take shape was oddly hypnotic. Every few inches a nozzle attached to the belt squirted out a frilly layer of mint ice-cream, then another nozzle smoothed a flat layer of vanilla on top of that, then came a squirt of chocolate sauce, and it was back to frilly mint again. On and on it went, layer upon layer, popping out finished Viennettas at the end of the line at a rate of 200 cakes every 60 seconds. A slop bucket full of Viennetta overrun stood at the side of the conveyor belt and I fought a strong urge to squelch my fingers into it. Later, the factory operations manager allowed me to push my whole hand into the slop bucket up to the wrist and then lick my hand at a sink, before washing it and resuming the tour...

Researchers in North Yorkshire feel the clock ticking as they aim to transform British food production It has the vibe of a Bond villain’s underground lair but the workers in hi-vis and helmets aren’t weighing and packing hard drugs or parts for a death laser. It’s pak choi and lettuce. More than 1,000 metres down, researchers in North Yorkshire have created the world’s deepest underground farm and are running trials for a project that could transform UK food production...

A partnership between French experts and Ethiopian winemakers is putting East Africa on the viticultural map. Using seeds imported from Bordeaux, and after years of refining, exports are now on the rise. Domestically, Ethiopians are also consuming more and more of their local product. Our correspondent Tom Canetti went to meet a French-Ethiopian winery in central Ethiopia.

Iran has allowed a ​number of Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz following repeated requests from Baghdad, ​Iran’s ‌state news agency reported ⁠on Saturday. Meanwhile, the United States and Iran exchanged defiant messages ahead of Monday's scheduled announcement of new US economic sanctions. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.

More than 2,500 people have already died in the Ebola epidemic currently gripping the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN coordinator for the outbreak has warned that the virus is spreading exponentially – adding that an existing pool of funds is set to run out within weeks. Details by Catherine Viette.

Europe’s biggest amateur sports event for children – that has drawn celebrity ambassadors ranging from Sean Dyche to Alastair Campbell – has marked its 30th birthday in Split On a dais overlooking the Adriatic, 20 children are playing chess. Arranged in a circle, they are competing not against each other but against the grandmaster Nigel Short, who passes awkwardly around the group playing one move each time. The children are no slouches, the best young chess players from the Balkans. But, in a twist, they can also call on the support of celebrity coaches. And so we have the unusual sight of precocious chess talents being coached through their games not just by the former French Open champion Ana Ivanovic, but by the former Burnley manager Sean Dyche and, in quite the eyebrow-raiser, the rightwing tech billionaire Peter Thiel. This is just one event at the Plazma Youth Sport Games (YSG), which is celebrating its 30th anniversary in the Croatian city of Split this month. Described by some of its more esteemed visitors as “the Davos of sport”, it brings eminent figures from the world of sport and politics to the Dalmatian coast each summer. More important, it is also the biggest amateur sports event for children in Europe. Just under half a million young people from across Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Slovenia and North Macedonia took part in qualifying for this year’s event. The finals in 10 sports – from chess to 3v3 basketball – are then held over the course of a week in Split. Alongside the competition, children are encouraged to learn lessons in teamwork, collaboration and putting phones away. The organisers describe Plazma as both a sporting event and a “social project”...

African federations sound out Swede over role ‘They think he can group all the continents’ Senior figures in African football have held talks with Fifa’s general secretary, Mattias Grafström, to sound out his interest in standing against Gianni Infantino, the Guardian can reveal. As many as 15 federations in Africa are also said to be ready to turn their backs on Infantino when he seeks re-election as Fifa president next year, despite the Confederation of Africa Football (Caf) claiming that its executive committee (exco) had “unanimously reconfirmed” its support for the under-fire 56-year-old...

Beach patrols report hundreds of stings a day as warmer waters and drought create favorable conditions for jellyfish An unusually high number of jellyfish are crowding Delaware’s beaches this summer amid climate change and other environmental factors – keeping some beachgoers out of the ocean and stinging lifeguards as well as bathers. Beach safety patrols in the state have reported hundreds of daily stings as the jellyfish have increased with intensifying environmental factors, including warmer waters, hot and dry conditions, and water circulation favorable to the invertebrates...

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has been asked to stay away from a youth tournament this weekend in a sign of deepening divisions caused by his attempted World Cup sell-off, Sky News has learnt.

The diplomat, John Coale, says his personalized approach gets results and matches the president’s style. Critics contend he is giving up too much to an authoritarian leader.

Good news for hiking and climbing enthusiasts today: the Fontainebleau Forest just South of Paris is set to reopen to the public. But a month and a half after the terrible fire that ravaged 10% of this unique haven of biodiversity, the disaster is still fresh in everyone’s minds. Portions of the forest remain closed to the public. Story by France 2 and Camille Corcoran.

The football that Diego Maradona punched into the net for his infamous "Hand of God" goal is under the hammer this weekend. The historic ball from that infamous quarter final World Cup match between Argentina and England in 1986 is expected to fetch over 10 million dollars. Details by Camille Knight.

One effect of moving back is that Archie and Lilibet now have the opportunity to be schooled as Britons. Here’s what that might look like.

Russian drones struck a shopping centre in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine this Friday. 14 people were killed. Authorities reported that children were among the scores of people injured in the strikes, which targeted President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown. Details by Nick Rushworth.

Early this Saturday, Russian strikes killed at least two people in Ukraine. In Zaporizhzhia, a drone killed a man and wounded four, according to officials, while a warehouse was on fire in Kyiv. It comes after a Russian bombing killed at least 20 people on Friday, 16 of them in two successive strikes on a busy shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Kiyv, Emmanuelle Chaze.

Zolani Tete, who held WBF flyweight and WBO bantamweight world titles, killed at his home in Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Australia’s capital will join a gun buy-back ⁠as part of ⁠a response to a ⁠shooting spree that killed 15 at a Jewish festival in Sydney, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Saturday. Albanese’s centre-left government enacted laws in January for the gun buy-back, tighter checks for gun ‌licences and a crackdown on hate in the wake of the December 14 gun attack at a Bondi Beach Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, the capital of New South Wales. The state, Australia’s most populous, became the...

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei slams Trump's latest threat as a return to 'full-scale classic colonialism'.

Apps that let users send digital messages at ultraslow speeds have taken off, with users reveling in a slower pace of life. (Just don’t use the them to make dinner plans.)

When two British historians, Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, began the show, neither anticipated it would become the top history podcast in the English-speaking world.

President Joseph Aoun took office with a popular mandate to reassert control after the militant group dragged the country back into war with Israel.

Canada’s prime minister walked away from what he thought was a bad trade deal with the United States. Many Canadians are behind him, but it will be costly.

Algerian international striker Amine Gouiri scored a second-half double for Marseille, who powered to a 4-0 victory over Strasbourg in the curtain-raiser for the new Ligue 1 season on Friday evening.

Online sleuths detected the error after Sydney Marathon unveiled the double-sided medal.

The man had taken his two boys on the trip but is said to have left one behind when he got tired.

️ F1 qualifying updates from 11am BST ️ Preview | Mail Philip “And now excuse me while I interrupt myself.” Every summer, the F1 season channels the late Murray Walker, taking a month off, and every summer we do excuse it, and welcome it back. Here we go for the last 11 or 12 race weekends of the season. Eleven or twelve because we still don’t know where the season will end: it should be in Abu Dhabi on the first weekend in December, a week after Qatar, but if Donald Trump’s war with Iran rules out those two then a European finale will be arranged, likely at Imola. Which should be fun, given the seasonal weather in November/December...

It’s clear here in Silicon Valley that AI is advancing faster than humans’ ability to control it. That means even sober prophecies seem optimistic Here in Silicon Valley, the experts think that within the next couple of years we’ll see an extraordinary takeoff for artificial intelligence. “Welcome to the foothills of the singularity,” as a Stanford University friend greeted me. More prosaically, the imminent breakthrough is described as “recursive self-improvement” – the point at which AI itself trains each successive model of AI, resulting in an exponential development to something which, in many significant respects, is more intelligent than us humans. As Robert Wright puts it in his book The God Test: “Never before has the near-term future … held such a wide array of not-implausible paths for humankind that would be so wildly transformative.” But will this be heaven or hell? Heaven, says Elon Musk, who predicts “an age of amazing abundance” – although he also sees a 10-20% chance of killer robots murdering us all. Hell is more likely according to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the intellectual founding fathers of AI. “My intuition is, we’re toast,” he told an interviewer in 2023. And talking to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Infinity Machine, a book about the quest for superintelligence, Hinton estimates p(doom) – the probability of human extinction – at 50%, “because I haven’t got a clue how to estimate the real number”. “As soon as evolution [of AI] kicks in, we’re fucked,” he adds cheerfully. But whether it’s God or Godzilla, artificial superintelligence is just around the corner. Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist..

Frances Tiafoe and Brandon Nakashima set up one all-American men's semifinal, Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula also win.

Amid a jobs slump, award-winning writers, directors and producers taking on sometimes lucrative temp work teaching AI skills such as screenwriting and production Hollywood creatives are taking gig work to train AI models to replicate their skills in a bid to offset tightening earnings in a trend one compared to being “handed a shovel and asked to dig the grave of my profession”. Experienced and award-winning writers, directors and producers are being paid from $12 to $200 an hour to teach AI models the intricacies of their jobs, from writing a screenplay to devising a shooting schedule...

In trial that opened on Tuesday, California and 28 other states accused the company of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting children’s privacy Meta’s business can be boiled down to four words that begin with the letter H: hook, hold, harvest, hide, according to a lawyer who is prosecuting the world’s largest social media company. The owner of Facebook and Instagram “hooks” in users, “holds” them on its platforms for as long as possible, “harvests” their data and then “hides” the truth from the public, she argued...

Professionals who left a country in turmoil say they are unlikely to return as more in Libya could be planning to leave.

MLS fine Inter Miami's Lionel Messi and Ian Fray for separate incidents in match against Philadelphia Union.

Leaders claim scaremongering from business figures may cause key legislation to become ‘meaningless’ Trades unions are warning Andy Burnham that Labour’s policy on cutting zero-hours contracts risks failing to live up to the party’s manifesto. Union leaders are seeking reassurances from the business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, amid what the TUC has condemned as “scaremongering” from business groups...

Conflict with Israel derails Lebanon's economic recovery as inflation and consumer prices rise, the global lender says.

Experts say fires caused by wrongly discarded lithium batteries, such as those in vapes, are putting lives at risk Fires at recycling centres caused by wrongly discarded lithium batteries such as those found in vapes are occurring at the rate of more than 10 a week, according to new figures. Experts say the sheer volume of battery fires now occurring at waste facilities has reached a crisis that is putting lives at risk, costing £1bn a year and frustrating fire chiefs...

In the week that Years recalled all of its fresh meals, concerns grow about a potential link to dogs’ health conditions “It’s been horrible – Chester developed sudden red and gunky eyes in May,” said Elizabeth, whose six-year-old cavachon “can’t open his eyes” on many days. The 29-year-old civil servant is one of a number of people who contacted the Guardian because they are concerned about a potential link between a recalled dog food and their pet’s eye condition...

Second Test, day one: Bangladesh 64; Australia 165-8 in Mackay Fast bowler takes five wickets before lunch and finishes with 6 for 12 Left-arm pacemen Mitchell Starc and Shoriful Islam starred with six-wicket ⁠hauls as Bangladesh rallied from a dreadful start to pin back Australia on a ⁠rollercoaster day one ⁠of ​the second test on Saturday. Eighteen wickets fell across three madcap sessions on the ⁠bouncy Mackay wicket, with Australia limping to 165 for eight at stumps but holding a ⁠101-run lead after blasting out the tourists for 64 ​in the first innings...

The drought-stricken country has recorded a 32 percent jump in the number of children treated for severe malnutrition.

Savings bank estimates there will be 308,000 more prizes available in September draw than the month before Premium bond holders will have more chances of winning prizes after changes announced this week. From September there will be more prizes up for grabs for the 22 million people who hold the government-backed savings bonds...

⚽ News and buildup as the Premier League returns ⚽ Arsenal sweep Coventry aside | Fixtures | Get in touch What to look out for on opening day There are new names to look out for and new players to admire. Check out all the predicted line-ups for this weekend here and familiarise yourself with some of your new favourite players...

The defence brought their final witness - a forensic psychiatrist - to the stand to testify about the effects of postpartum psychosis.

As the war neared six months old, the two sides ⁠were not exchanging fire but also not pursuing peace talks

Social media platforms face public ire after fatal crash involving teenagers filming themselves driving on wrong side Videos often begin with the camera panning across a glowing dashboard as a gloved hand starts the ignition. The camera turns to show figures with masked faces in the rear seat, who are also filming, and swivels back to show the windscreen. Beyond it, a dark cityscape. The engine throbs, headlights puncture the night and the journey begins, first down a suburban road, then a motorway. The speedometer shows acceleration, the needle juddering as the car gathers velocity...

At least two people were reported dead early Saturday by local authorities, after Russian strikes on Ukraine. The strikes came after a series of Russian bombings killed at least 20 people in Ukraine on Friday, including 16 in a daytime drone attack on a busy shopping center in President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown Kryvyi Rih.

The central question before the Supreme Court was whether prescribing a single method of execution, hanging, conforms to the constitutional requirement of a procedure that is just, fair and reasonable

From father searching for his daughter's body to man who drowned trying to save a friend, floods take devastating toll.

During investigation into the violence, Sata emerged as the prime conspirator in the case, but he had fled to Dubai using a forged passport

The Ervebo vaccine "has already been used several times, and in particular on a very large scale during the 2018-2020 outbreak", says Samuel Roger Kamba, the DRC's Minister of Health

A widening diplomatic rift is complicating efforts to confront a shared cross-border security threat.

Al Jazeera’s Jamela Alindogan reports from Northern Philippines where inundated communities are demanding answers.

New 50% levy on $20bn of Canadian imports comes into force after last minute breakdown in trade talks.

A 17-year-old Palestinian was killed and another person critically injured in a settler attack in the occupied West Bank

According to police officials, the incident occurred late on Friday, August 21, night triggering panic among residents due to the explosion.

Many Italians see themselves in Andrea Bajani’s latest novel, a portrayal of the family as a “little totalitarian system” shaped by psychological and physical violence.

Osaka? Fukuoka? Sapporo? The race is on to be second to Tokyo — and to claim the prestige and money that could come with it.

Canadian Prime Minister vows retaliatory tariffs "dollar for dollar" following failure to secure a US trade agreement.