



Antoine Semenyo will need help from his supporting cast but there is plenty of excitement about a 20-year-old midfielder likened to Michael Essien This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June. Continue reading...
Production fusing the band’s sixth album and Shakespeare’s masterpiece will open at the Barbican later this year Hamlet Hail to the Thief, an acclaimed stage production fusing Shakespeare’s tragedy with Radiohead’s sixth album, is to open at the Barbican theatre in London this autumn. The show had its world premiere at Aviva Studios in Manchester last year and then ran at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It is a co-production between Factory International and the Royal Shakespeare Company and was co-created by Radiohead frontman, Thom Yorke, and the directors Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones. Yorke reworked the 2003 album, which is performed live on stage by a cast of musicians and actors, the lyrics reinforcing themes of grief, despair and paranoia in the play. Continue reading...
Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the only passenger to survive the incident in June 2025, which killed 260 people The only survivor of the Air India plane crash that killed 260 people in June 2025 has called for “honesty, transparency and answers” a year on from the disaster, and spoken about his “significant psychological scars” and financial hardship. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national, has previously described his fate as a “miracle” after being the only person to survive the incident, in which a Boeing 787 Dreamliner struck a medical college shortly after taking off from Ahmedabad airport. Continue reading...
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has finalized a deal with Albanian officials to allow construction on Sazan Island in the Adriatic Sea. The $1.6bn project is expected to build luxury tourism real estate on the pristine island and surrounding waters and wetlands. Spurned by the potential environmental impact of the plan and the possibility of corrupt dealings, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Albania's capital city demanding an end to the project. Cate Brown, the Guardian's political enterprise reporter, examines what the Kushner real estate deal on Sazan Island can teach us on how Donald Trump’s son-in-law pursues real estate ventures and examines why Albania isn't alone in its fight Protests in Albania grow over Jared Kushner-backed luxury resort Sold to the Trump family: one of the last undeveloped islands in the Mediterranean Continue reading...
‘The president is laser-focused on the domestic economic situation,’ the House speaker says. ‘He is working to bring down prices; his working to get the strait of Hormuz reopened’ Sign up for the Breaking News US email Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is largely targeting people from the countries most vulnerable to displacement from climate-driven disasters, a Guardian analysis shows. As the Trump administration pushes policies to boost planet-heating fossil fuels, millions of people are being forced to flee their homelands due to storms, floods and droughts worsened by the climate crisis. Continue reading...
Quarterback has two years added to his deal Contract will last until Mahomes is 38 The Kansas City Chiefs and their starting quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, have agreed to a restructured contract that adds two years to his deal and pushes his total compensation past a half-billion dollars, according to sources. Mahomes signed a 10-year, $450m contract in 2020 that set a benchmark not only for the quarterback position but for any NFL player. The latest extension ties the two-time MVP to the Chiefs through the 2033 season, when Mahomes will be 38, and it comes in at $504.75m, with incentives and escalators that could push the value beyond $520m. Continue reading...
Fifa president defends handling of tournament ‘Screaming and shouting does not find a solution’ Gianni Infantino told football fans to “chill and relax” on the eve of the World Cup, while Fifa faced criticism from the United Nations over the immigration issues that have overshadowed the buildup to the tournament. The Fifa president launched a staunch defence of his organisation’s handling of the tournament, particularly regarding ticket prices and visa problems, and claimed no one else would have been able to secure the participation of Iran, who are at war with one of the three host nations, the United States. Continue reading...
Cooper Lutkenhaus, 17, wins 800m by 0.01sec Gout Gout sixth; Tebogo says: ‘He has a long way to go’ There are few venues more deeply embedded into track and field’s soul than the Bislett Stadion. An extraordinary 70 world records have been set here. Plenty of reputations have been made. Plenty more left frayed, too. And so it proved again as the brilliant 17-year-old American Cooper Lutkenhaus added to his staggering résumé by taking down the Olympic 800m champion, Emmanuel Wanyonyi, with a race for the ages. But another, the Australian star Gout Gout, learned what it was like in the big leagues. Continue reading...
City intensify their pursuit of England midfielder Forest want fee to match British record £125m for Isak Manchester City have made a second bid worth £122m for Elliot Anderson which has been rejected by Nottingham Forest, who want a British record transfer fee of £125m before any add-ons for the England midfielder. City’s offer follows an initial bid of £80m for the 23-year-old and is worth a guaranteed £106m plus £16m in potential add-ons. This would break the club’s record transfer of £100m paid to Aston Villa for Jack Grealish in August 2021. Continue reading...
Changes will address energy management issues Verstappen one of most outspoken critics of current rules The key players in Formula One have come to an agreement to settle the proposed changes to the sport’s engines for the 2027 and 2028 seasons. These have been seen as crucial in addressing widespread driver dissatisfaction with the current formula, not least for the four-time champion Max Verstappen who has repeatedly threatened to leave the sport owing to how unhappy he is with the current engine rules. Verstappen has been particularly outspoken, declaring the rules “anti-racing”, but he has been far from alone. The FIA, teams, engine manufacturers and F1’s owners have since been in discussions looking at ways to address the issue. Notably their resolution does not reach the minimum scale of improvement Verstappen believed was needed until 2028. Continue reading...
An escalating teachers’ strike and concerns around public perception have left locals with complicated feelings on the eve of the tournament’s opener World Cup newsletter | Daily podcast | Download the app Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución sits in the middle of the city’s historic center and has been a gathering place for local residents since Aztec times. Nobody here calls it by its formal name, referring to it instead as the Zócalo. Framed by centuries-old cathedrals and government buildings, it is one of the largest city squares on earth, a monument to Mexico’s colonial past and cosmopolitan present. It is also a block southwest of the Templo Mayor, a place Aztec mythology referred to as the center of the universe. In more recent times, Fifa has done its best to make the plaza the center of the footballing universe. Mexico City is preparing to host the opening match of the 2026 World Cup and four others, and the Zócalo has been converted into the city’s fan festival. A massive video screen dwarfs almost everything else in the plaza. Continue reading...
Misty Roberts, 44, who faced up to 17 years in prison, convicted of two felonies including statutory rape Misty Roberts, a former mayor in Louisiana, has been sentenced to 90 days for raping a 16-year old boy. On Tuesday, 44-year old Roberts was sentenced following her conviction earlier this year of two felonies including carnal knowledge of a juvenile – or statutory rape – and indecent behavior with a juvenile. Continue reading...
Reform UK leader has been unusually quiet in recent weeks – at great cost to the party during a crucial byelection Fake images of Nigel Farage have been ubiquitous online lately – but the real politician has proved far more elusive since it was revealed seven weeks ago that he took a £5m personal gift from a crypto billionaire. And while an AI-generated depiction of the Reform UK leader was falsely shown getting violent on BBC’s Question Time, Farage has been largely avoiding the TV studios where he might face questions over the cash. Continue reading...
Hampstead theatre, London Joshua Harmon studies his family’s fraught matriarchal relations in this thoughtful drama In an empathetic act of theatrical archivism, American playwright Joshua Harmon (Bad Jews) follows the shifting, sinking relationship between his mother and grandmother. Tracing the family’s fractures back through Harmon’s life, We Had a World is a thoughtful if sedate staging of duty, care and the relational ties that can’t be shaken loose. Renee (Suzanne Bertish) is a far better grandmother than she ever was a mother. Bertish sparkles in the freewheeling role, in turns elegant and generous, then petulant and sour. Anna Francolini has the more austere role as Josh’s mother, Ellen: sharp and stubborn, but never less than bursting with love for her son (played with sweet sincerity by Ryan Kopel). When Josh learns why his mum finds her mum so difficult to love, his relationship with his grandmother is recontextualised, and he is stuck in the middle of their war. Continue reading...
The men’s head coach discusses his ‘American dream’ at the World Cup and tempering the host nation’s ‘arrogant’ expectations This American dream begins in small-town Murphy, Santa Fe. That’s Santa Fe, Argentina, at a little club where the old folk played bochas, a kind of boules, and they had one of the few colour television sets. It was 1978, Mauricio Pochettino was six years old and he can see it perfectly, still feel the meaning of it all. “I lived in a prefab with my grandmother and my older brother because my parents were off working the land, then at the weekend we would go to the club,” he says. “There were three courts and I remember standing there, hanging on to my dad’s pocket, watching the World Cup. The ticker-tape at River [Plate], that image engraved. Passarella, Ardiles, Luque, Bertoni, Kempes, Fillol, Tarantini … my heroes.” Continue reading...
Prime minister is ‘hellbent’ on fighting any contest - including sacking ministers who support Burnham UK politics live – latest updates Keir Starmer’s closest aides are “war-gaming” how to win a leadership contest ahead of Andy Burnham’s much-anticipated return to Westminster if he wins the Makerfield byelection, the Guardian understands. Downing Street sources said the prime minister had taken the last fortnight to think seriously about his future but was now “hellbent” on fighting any contest. His team is working through various scenarios, including sacking ministers who publicly supported Burnham. Continue reading...
NHS bosses urge all hospitals to use ‘digital triage’ process to combat overcrowding in emergency services Patients who turn up at A&E with non-urgent ailments could be told to come back another time under NHS plans to stop hospitals becoming overcrowded and avoid the service’s usual winter crisis. Eighteen hospitals in England are already using “digital triage assessment” to help A&E staff decide which patients need to be seen right away or be dealt with in another way. Continue reading...
Temperatures above 15C ‘very strange’ say scientists, as snow melts and rain falls on glaciers in usually frozen region Temperatures in the Antarctic reached above 15C this month, shattering the previous winter heat record for the usually frozen region and raising concerns about the speed of climate breakdown. The new winter peak temperature was logged by the Argentinian Esperanza base on the Trinity peninsula on 6 June, amid a protracted heatwave, when the maximum daily temperature exceeded zero degrees for three consecutive weeks. Continue reading...
Awards for prose, children’s writing and poetry, for writers of colour in UK and Ireland, come with £1,000 Diana Evans has won this year’s Jhalak prose prize for I Want to Talk to You, a nonfiction collection on subjects ranging from Jean Rhys and Toni Morrison to lockdowns and the British monarchy. The book, described as a “pleasure and an invigoration” by Guardian reviewer Alex Clark, was announced as the 10th winner at a reception on Wednesday evening. Continue reading...
Kirsty Coventry: IOC will have taskforce for any issues Referee Omar Artan refused entry by US officials The International Olympic Committee insists it is “confident” that the LA Games in 2028 will not face the same immigration issues that have marred the buildup to the World Cup – including Africa’s top referee, Omar Artan, from Somalia being refused entry by US officials. Despite Fifa’s close relationship with the Trump administration, it was also unable to stop Iran being moved from a training camp in Arizona to Mexico and some of its officials being denied entry visas. Continue reading...
Fashion and sportswear group, which owns 26% of the German luxury brand, is now seeking full control Mike Ashley’s retail group, Frasers, has launched a near-€2bn takeover offer for the German luxury fashion brand Hugo Boss. The fashion and sportswear group, which owns 26% of Hugo Boss, said it is offering to pay about €1.98bn (£1.73bn) for the remainder of the business to take full control. Continue reading...
Kick-off in the Orlando friendly 9pm BST, 4pm EDT Player guide | Bracketology | Wallchart | Mail Scott England have concluded their World Cup warm-up business against Costa Rica before. That was in 2018, and after this … … they made it all the way to the semi-finals in Russia. Say what you like about omens and vibes: they might not materially help, but neither do they hinder. Let’s just not talk about the other time the two countries met. Oh Mr Roy! Kick-off in Orlando, Florida is at 9pm BST. It’s on! Continue reading...