2026 News Archive

The Shiv Sena (UBT) leader’s call for a protest comes after the BMC general house approved the conversion of the land reservation of Neville Dsouza turf into a convention centre on August 19

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 …...

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...

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

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 62-year-old said that his "world was turned upside down" when a brain tumour was discovered.

Meetings around event seen as chance to lobby for votes Fifa president may meet his most credible challenger Gianni Infantino wants to split the European and North American coalition that is seeking to oust him by attending a junior tournament in the Dominican Republic this weekend in another gamble to cling on to power from the Fifa president. The Guardian has learned that Infantino has made plans to attend the U14 Boys Challenge competition organised by the Caribbean Football Union (CFU), 21 of whose associations are voting members of Fifa, despite being urged to stay away from the event by senior figures within Concacaf – the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football – which is working with Uefa to remove him...

New managers galore suggest many of the usual suspects will struggle to dethrone the champions, but their own hunger could be the key Mikel Arteta wants to get his messaging absolutely right. According to him, Arsenal are not about to defend their Premier League title. They are set to attack another one. Remember Win the dog, who the manager brought in to the club’s training ground a few years back? She must now be called “Won”. But it is when Arteta quibbles over another bout of semantics that he highlights why he is entering the new season with such energy and optimism...

Fuel prices above $4 per gallon impact consumer behaviour, driving spending trade-offs and slowing Walmart's growth.

Schools across Thailand are carrying out active shooter drills to save lives and spread awareness.

Harden previously declined $42.3m player ⁠option on his contract in bid to secure a multi-year basketball deal.

Fishermen were rescued after being found floating in the Pacific where they spent five days clinging to a fish cooler

Researcher Nathan Cofnas, an outspoken critic of DEI, was himself sacked from Cambridge in 2024 over his views on race.

Scott Bessent has not said if countries such as China could be targeted in an effort to economically isolate Tehran.

First Test day two: Pakistan 171; England 366 for eight Hosts slip from 322 for five to 364 for eight The clock had just ticked past 7pm, there was still half an hour of play left on this soggy second day, and it looked for all money that Harry Brook would end a year-long wait for his 11th Test century with a first at his home ground of Headingley. Brook had agonisingly missed out by one run against India here last summer. And this time, against a ragged Pakistan side that had gifted him a life second ball amid another outing to forget, the box was practically begging to be ticked...

At least a half-dozen federal agencies have moved to undermine the state’s environmental efforts.

The detentions of the workers, who have been released, are a sign of legal pressure that the world’s largest crypto exchange faces in the Emirates, which is home to its main regulator.

Who is Ahmad Hassoun, the 'barrel bomb mufti' close to the inner circle of the al-Assad regime?

Annette Young is pleased to welcome Dr. Simon Williams, Behavioural Scientist, WHO Consultant, Lecturer in psychology and a public health researcher at Swansea University. What concerns Dr. Williams most is that the health consequences of extreme heat, particularly for older adults, are emerging sooner and at lower levels of warming than we had previously understood. We are already living with approximately 1.3°C of global warming, and increasingly severe summers are exposing profound age-related vulnerabilities, from reduced physiological capacity to cool the body to underlying cardiovascular and other health conditions.

Nadia Massih is pleased to welcome Leïla Mörch, CEO / Founder of Geminy. She specializes in technology, public policy, with a focus on social media regulation. She sees the landmark trial against Meta as potentially significant not simply because the social media giant is being asked to answer for harms associated with social media, but because the legal focus is shifting from content to design. Section 230 has historically shaped debates around platforms’ responsibility for what users publish. Here, however, the central question is increasingly about the infrastructure itself: recommendation systems, infinite scroll, attention-maximizing features, and the choices platforms make about how users encounter content and engage.

Swalwell, a vocal Trump critic, resigned from Congress and dropped out of California governor's race amid allegations.

We know that trees are good for cities. A new study finds that mature trees are especially good.

The US Treasury secretary says allies will need to decide whether they "are with us or against us".

Liberia is part of a growing list of partners under US President Donald Trump to accept third-country deportations.

High gas prices and weaker pharmacy sales pushed Walmart's growth to its slowest pace in six years

At least 50 people, mostly children, have died after a boat carrying farm labourers capsized in Nigeria.

Human Rights Watch alleges that the killings by Africa Corps troops took place in the presence of Malian soldiers.

Al Jazeera’s AlMigdad Alruhaid travelled along one of the main supply roads to Sudan’s besieged city of el-Obeid.

Spanish tennis star had missed the French Open, ‌Wimbledon and the hard-court events in Toronto and ​Cincinnati.

Minteh targeted as replacement for Mohamed Salah Winger sidelined after recovering from leg surgery Liverpool have had a £50m bid for Yankuba Minteh rejected by Brighton. The club are looking to add two wide forwards to Andoni Iraola’s squad before the transfer deadline, with their pursuit of Paris Saint-Germain’s Bradley Barcola continuing. Liverpool’s shortlist of targets also includes Minteh but Brighton, who have lost Danny Welbeck to Chelsea and have Kaoru Mitoma out injured, have rebuffed the approach for the 22-year-old winger...

The president’s empty advice that children should receive separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella will only lead to less take-up by parents Nobody wants to hurt a child. The howl of pain, the tears, the look of betrayed shock all make it very hard to deliver a cherished small person to the needle-wielding nurse. But that’s part of being a responsible parent. It becomes a lot tougher if mum or dad is being fed mixed and erroneous messages about the benefits and harms of vaccination. Parents have to make a lot of decisions about what’s right for their child, from the school they should go to and the food they should eat to the hours they should spend on the phone or watching TV. In the US, Donald Trump wants them to add another: do they choose to give their children separate jabs against measles, mumps and rubella, involving six visits to the clinic, or should they opt for the combined MMR vaccine, which does the job in two? For decades, the vast majority of families have been taking the advice of doctors, accepting their assurance that the MMR vaccine is safe and very effective. But what are they to think when a US president announces that the triple jab could be “quite lethal” and signs an executive order advising states to offer separate vaccines?..

Prof Katya Rubia withdraws support for The Great ADHD Myth? as other leading figures voice criticisms A contributor to a controversial Channel 4 documentary on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has withdrawn her support for the programme, saying it was biased and could lead to an increased suicide risk by encouraging parents to take their children off medication. Katya Rubia, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, also said The Great ADHD Myth? misrepresented her views...

Exchange for Change is running the new recycling programmes across the UK and will also run Wales's.

Latest profit warning is particularly disappointing in a World Cup year, which should have given the business a sporty buzz JD Sports cuts £50m from profit forecast as cost of living pressures hit trainer sales It was a slower quarter for “high-heat footwear product”, said JD Sports. It didn’t mean it was struggling to shift sandals during a heatwave. Rather, it was referring coyly to the big global trainer brands’ failure to come up with hot new designs. When Nike and Adidas, reckoned by City analysts to account for slightly more than half JD’s sales, are on tepid form, the self-styled “king of trainers” retailer usually is as well. The low-heat grumble will be familiar to JD’s shareholders. So, too, the one about “incremental cost of living pressures”, especially in the US. And the phrase “a promotional market” has appeared so often in the company’s updates in the past couple of years that it would be easier to tell us when discounting isn’t dominant...

Humanoid robots are at the forefront of China’s race for technological supremacy at Beijing’s World Robot Conference.

Bangladesh elects Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir by parliamentary vote, filling vacancy after Shahabuddin's resignation.

While President Trump has declared that the two countries effectively have a deal, they remain apart on several key issues.

Ghent University in Belgium said it suspended the professor, Nathan Cofnas, pending an investigation.

A major wildfire is threatening communities in western Spain with more than 800 people evacuated.

Families in Gaza face devastating water shortages, leaving children with heavy responsibilities beyond their years.

A Swiss tourist has been sentenced to one year in prison in Bali for social media posts insulting Nyepi

Dr. Heidi Overton is currently working as a White House policy aide. If confirmed, she would lead an agency of 18,000 staffers who study and regulate food, drugs, medical devices, tobacco and more.

The U.S. federal debt hit a record $40 trillion this week. The debt has doubled since 2017, and just paying interest on the accumulated debt now costs the government more than $1 trillion a year.

Pre-tax profits rose at high street opticians to £429.7m in the year to February while sales rose 7% to £4.3bn Specsavers has paid £12m to its parent company controlled by founders Doug and Dame Mary Perkins after the high street opticians’ profits increased by more than a quarter. The group operates nearly 3,000 optometry, audiology and ophthalmology businesses globally in at least eight countries, including more than 1,200 in the UK, through hundreds of independent partners...

Alessandro Rapinese issues the prohibition for the historic city centre after an encounter with a cyclist last month.

Bernard Matthews Foods says its Shaftesbury Street factory will close by the end of 2026.

Critics in Liberia, a small West African nation, say their government has not explained why it agreed to one of the largest U.S. deportation deals, who the deportees are, or how they will be handled.

Maeve Plouffe says incident on Wednesday was ‘scary’ Josh Tarling to ride in Vuelta in memory of brother Fin The Australian rider Maeve Plouffe says she was nearly hit by a non-race car during the opening stage of the Tour of Britain Women. With cycling still coming to terms with the death at the Volta a Portugal of the 19-year-old British rider Finlay Tarling, who was last week killed in a collision with a vehicle that had entered the course, Plouffe said the incident occurred as she was chasing the peloton after a puncture on Wednesday...

A barn owl stranded some 70 nautical miles out to sea was rescued by an astonished British Army sailing crew competing in a gruelling race around Britain and Ireland.

Authorities were warned about the dangers of hitting Mohammad Ghamira, who suffered from the rare medical condition haemophilia.

Hundreds of migrants are being removed from their makeshift camps on a beach in Ceuta, Spain.

The Spanish government announced on Thursday the creation of shelters for 1,800 migrants in Ceuta in a bid to relieve the humanitarian crisis there following last month's influx from Morocco. Some 72,000 migrants breached the border in an unprecedented and deadly rush into the north African territory on July 30-31, with 70,000 having since returned to Morocco, according to Spanish government figures. FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid, Spain.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced the creation of a specialised unit to strengthen the fight against cyberattacks. It follows a series of hacks on the websites of French government services that have highlighted vulnerabilities in IT security. So what tools are available to take down cyber attackers – and do they go far enough?

As yields are dragged higher in the UK, Europe and Japan, the impact for consumers and businesses will be far-reaching Government borrowing costs around the world have surged to the highest levels in decades amid growing fears over US bond market turmoil. Anxiety about Donald Trump’s handling of the US economy, and concern that the US president’s war with Iran is driving up inflation, are triggering a sell-off in the US bond market...

Stadium has hosted two men’s World Cup finals Arena Itaquera in São Paulo will host 10 matches The Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro will host the opening game and the final of next year’s Women’s World Cup. The 78,838-capacity stadium, which hosted the finals of the 1950 and 2014 men’s World Cups as well as the finals of the Olympic football competitions in 2016, will be the venue for Brazil’s Group A match on 24 June and the final on 25 July. Fifa released the schedule on Thursday for all 64 matches for the tournament, which features 32 teams. The draw will take place this year after more of the qualification playoffs have been contested...

Midfielder linked with £120m move to Manchester City Chelsea still interested in Bournemouth’s Alex Scott Xabi Alonso has refused to offer any guarantee that Chelsea will hold firm if Manchester City try to sign Enzo Fernández. Fernández’s future remains up in the air and the prospect of him leaving Stamford Bridge has not gone away, even though Chelsea’s unofficial deadline for clubs to make written bids of £120m for the 25-year-old Argentina midfielder has already passed. City, who are also tracking Roma’s Manu Koné, have targeted Fernández as part of their midfield rebuild following Rodri’s move to Barcelona and are weighing up whether to make a move before the transfer window shuts...

Russia launched a hours-long overnight barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles and drones across Kyiv.

Riyadh sees Sudan’s unity and stability as inseparable from its own security across the Red Sea.

The US government is intensifying efforts to unify the country's two rival governments.