Trump says Bill Pulte is ‘less shackled’ because he has only been appointed director of national intelligence temporarily. Key US politics stories from 5 June 2026 at a glance Donald Trump has said that he wants Bill Pulte, his new acting director of national intelligence, to cut the office, which has already been significantly scaled back during the president’s second term. Trump noted that the size of the office as been “way too high for way too long,” and that “if he cut, I wouldn’t mind”. Continue reading...

A botched tumbler promotion on the anniversary of a pro-democracy massacre unleashed a boycott, police investigation and political firestorm It was a PR nightmare: customers smashing Starbucks branded tumblers and mugs as fans deleted loyalty apps and cashed out prepaid balances. Amid the uproar, government ministries cut ties with the coffee chain and apology notices were pasted on Starbucks stores across South Korea. The initial shock may have passed, but the anger remains. Continue reading...

Becerra advanced to the general election after emerging from California’s crowded primary field in the race to succeed Gavin Newsom Xavier Becerra has advanced to the November general election in California’s gubernatorial race, cementing a stunning come-from-behind primary victory in one of California’s most turbulent campaign seasons in recent memory. Election officials are continuing to count ballots to determine whether he will face fellow Democratic Tom Steyer or Republican Steve Hilton in the fall. Continue reading...

Iran and the US have exchanged a series of attacks near the strait of Hormuz, imperilling efforts to reach a peace deal The US military said it shot down four Iranian drones that were launched toward the strait of Hormuz and struck coastal surveillance radar sites in response. “The attack drones posed an immediate threat to regional maritime traffic,” US central command (Centcom) said on social media. The military is enforcing a blockade on Iranian ports in response to Tehran’s chokehold on the strait – a crucial corridor for global oil and natural gas shipments – which has sent energy prices spiking. Continue reading...

Handy, 81, died after being stabbed, allegedly by Michael Gledhill, whose mother was in relationship with Handy A man has been charged with murder in the stabbing of Jumanji and Top Gun: Maverick actor James Handy, who was in a relationship with the suspect’s mother. Michael Gledhill, 44, was charged after police say officers found the 81-year-old Handy stabbed in the chest and unconscious outside his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Handy was taken to the hospital and later pronounced dead. Continue reading...

NBA finals predictions: our writers give their verdicts From Game 1: in a mud wrestle, Brunson was difference Tip-off is at 8.30pm ET from Frost Bank Center Email beau.dure@theguardian.com with your thoughts With 2:16 left in Game 1, an air of inevitability set in. The Knicks had a nice run, but Victor Wembanyana had taken over and restored the Spurs’ lead. Game 1 would go to the home team. With 21.1 seconds left in Game 1, the Knicks had wrapped up the win. Continue reading...

Ranked only behind France and having a teenage prodigy in Lamine Yamal alongside an in-form Nico Williams, we can expect much from La Roja 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...

Emma Barnett killed her one-year-old after a court ruling he be taken away from her A mother who poisoned her one-year-old son with a lethal cocktail of prescription medications added to milk in a baby bottle has been jailed for life for his murder. Emma Barnett, 36, killed her son Oakley before he could be taken into care after a family court hearing ordered that he be removed from her. Continue reading...

Spain 4-0 England Guijarro 19, Putellas 37 55, Pina 78 Only a minor miracle will save European champions England from having to come through World Cup qualifying playoffs after they suffered an utterly humiliating 4-0 defeat by World Cup holders Spain in Mallorca. A loss by only a one-goal deficit would have been enough to keep their hopes of topping their qualifying group alive after an immaculate campaign prior. However, with the head-to-head record between the top two sides coming into play should they finish level on points, Spain’s emphatic win, with talismanic Alexia Putellas scoring two, Spain just need to beat Iceland on Tuesday to secure top spot at England’s expense. Continue reading...

Head coach says Bayern Munich striker is in ‘top shape’ England face New Zealand in warm-up on Saturday Thomas Tuchel has said that Harry Kane is in top shape and ready to lead England to glory at the World Cup. The Bayern Munich striker has been short of fitness at previous major tournaments but he has enjoyed a brilliant season in Germany and has looked in peak physical condition in training this week. England have prepared for the intense heat expected at the World Cup by heading to Florida to acclimatise to the weather and have been working in testing conditions at their pre-tournament base in West Palm Beach. Continue reading...

Government figures show unemployment rate at 4.3% amid rising inflation and economic uncertainty from Iran war US employers added 172,000 jobs in May while the country’s unemployment rate held steady at 4.3%, a sign of a resilient labor market despite rising inflation and economic uncertainty brought on by continued conflict in the Middle East. Despite the positive update on the labor market, US stocks fell sharply by Friday afternoon after a big sell-off of AI chip stocks. The tech-heavy Nasdaq index closed 4% down, the largest single-day drop in over a year. The S&P 500 and and Dow were also down 2.6% and 1.3%, respectively. Continue reading...

Opener scores 57; New Zealand in trouble in chase Gay: ‘I’m trying to lap it all in and enjoy it’ Emilio Gay described his Test debut as “a bit of a whirlwind” and “like a dream” after his half-century on the second day against New Zealand at Lord’s made him the game’s top scorer and helped to put England in the driving seat. By stumps the tourists were 36 for three, still 218 runs from victory. “It was a surreal day yesterday and then today was a bit of a whirlwind,” the Durham opener said. “I think the whole couple of days felt like a bit of a dream: 40,000 fans at Lord’s, tough conditions, getting my cap, family being here. I’m trying to lap it all in and enjoy it.” Continue reading...

The late actor was a charming and funny father figure, and sometime singer, in the cult TV show, one of his many roles that showed just how much he could do Anthony Head, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Ted Lasso actor, dies aged 72 For years, fans eagerly anticipated the oft-floated idea of a spinoff from the cultishly beloved 1997-2003 TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As described by creator Joss Whedon, this miniseries would not follow beloved supporting characters like nerdy witch Willow, sardonic vampire Spike or laconic were-teen Oz. It would be called Ripper, and it would focus on the younger days of Rupert Giles, the school librarian and “watcher” character played by Anthony Head. Giles served as the tweedy mentor and father figure to Buffy, the woman chosen to keep vampires at bay, throughout the show’s seven seasons. Sadly, the show never came to pass – and now, with Head’s death at the age of 72, it probably never will, at least not with its signature star. (And probably not its creator, who has since faced multiple accusations of on-set misconduct.) But both creative and fan interest was consistently high; just think about that for a moment. This 90s-originated teen drama tantalized viewers with the promise of spinning off a token grownup character into his own adventures. To picture Buffy’s contemporaries following suit is downright laughable; consider the equivalent spinoff from Dawson’s Creek, for example. Would it star Jen’s Gram? The female teacher who committed statutory rape with Pacey? Even given the expanded possibilities of a more fantastical world, Sabrina the Teenage Witch’s aunts were never exactly in talks with the BBC, either. Continue reading...

President said he’d like to see intelligence agencies shrink as Senate blocks Fisa extension amid disquiet over nomination of Bill Pulte US politics live – latest updates Donald Trump has urged a controversial loyalist he installed as the country’s top intelligence official to fire “a lot of people” overseeing intelligence for the US federal government. The US president said Bill Pulte, who has no previous experience in the intelligence sphere, is “less shackled” because he has only been appointed director of national intelligence temporarily. Continue reading...

Driver died four years after founding McLaren but his legacy lives through his inspirational tenacity and team’s roll call of champions As the streets of Monaco echo to the roar of engines, history too will resonate long and loud in Monte Carlo this weekend. Allegiance be damned, it would take a heart of stone not to recognise McLaren’s achievement and contribution to the sport when the team that made their debut here in 1966 contest their 1000th grand prix. Bruce McLaren, the team’s founder, had brought his first F1 car, the M2B, to Monaco in 1966. On Thursday it was on the track once again, driven by their double world champion Mika Häkkinen to mark the team’s milestone race, having taken 203 victories, 13 drivers’ titles and 10 constructors’ championships. Continue reading...

Modern Art, London The mathematically named new works of Along the River are disorienting, illusive and seem to offer a flash of the secret sequences that underpin the physical world Why do we find things beautiful? More precisely, why do some paintings of coloured dots in rippling patterns inspire in me something like revelation? The idea that beauty is the feeling you get when encountering truth is unfashionable in the arts, but lingers in the sciences. The physicist Paul Dirac once proposed that it is more important that a formula is beautiful than that it can be proven: when a perfectly beautiful theory produces results that cannot be real, he argued, then we should not discard the theory but reconsider what is real. Since the 1970s, Terry Winters has been rebuilding that bridge between art and science. Taking inspiration from disciplines including botany – his early paintings, particularly, evoke sprouting pods and tangled roots – engineering, computer modelling and cybernetics, his paintings might be understood as diagrammatic approximations of the patterns that govern everything from the division of cells to the constellation of stars. If every era has to renew its standards of beauty to reflect new understandings of how the world is constructed, then Winters comes as close to providing that model as any living painter. Continue reading...

Attacks on police in Southampton, Russian strikes in Kyiv, the Ebola outbreak and PSG win the Champions League – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing Continue reading...

Exclusive: Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate advocates public ownership of water companies as he prepares for potential leadership bid Thames Water should be nationalised, Andy Burnham has said, revealing public ownership of water companies would “absolutely be an option” under his potential leadership of the Labour party. Burnham, Labour’s candidate in the Makerfield byelection, has previously called for “greater public control” over the companies. In an interview with the Guardian, he has confirmed this could mean nationalisation. Continue reading...

For football fans in Canada, the initial prospect of the World Cup coming to town was thrilling – but hundreds of tickets remain unsold As far back as he can remember, football has long been a part of Lawrence Yee’s life. Growing up in a Canadian town where hockey was the dominant sport, he found community and passion in the game. The sport – and the full, at times devastating, spectrum of emotion that comes with fandom – has remained braided into adulthood. Nearly four years ago, when Fifa announced Toronto and Vancouver would join 14 other cities in hosting the World Cup, Yee was ecstatic. “Hearing the biggest stage, the highest competition, the biggest tournament in the world was coming into Toronto? I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime for someone like me. Being able to live in the city and cycle to the venue? I knew I’d be the first in line for tickets.” Continue reading...

Trump administration has asked DC circuit court of appeals to reverse lower court decision which blocked construction of $400m ballroom No court has the authority to halt construction of Donald Trump’s White House ballroom and a secure underground facility, a Department of Justice lawyer has argued, suggesting only US Congress had the power to stop the project. The Trump administration has asked the Washington DC circuit court of appeals to reverse a lower court decision which blocked construction of a $400m ballroom on the site of the White House’s demolished East Wing. Construction of a secure bunker for staff underground at the site was allowed to proceed while the dispute between Washington DC preservationists and the White House continues. Continue reading...

Pouria Zeraati of Iran International TV was stabbed three times outside his London home in attempt to ‘silence’ him Two men have been found guilty of involvement in a targeted knife attack on an Iranian journalist in London said to have been carried out on behalf of the regime in Tehran. Pouria Zeraati, a British journalist of Iranian origin, was working for Iran International, a Farsi-language dissident broadcaster, when he was stabbed in the leg outside his west London home in 2024. Continue reading...

First Test, D2: England 140 & 226; New Zealand 113 & 36-3 Tourists toiling in pursuit of 254 victory target Sixteen wickets on the first day were followed by 17 more on the second, though like the bounce on this mischievous wicket nothing about it felt at all predictable. The day ended in glorious evening sunshine, shadows stretching as England’s lead was slowly, awkwardly reduced. But still the wickets fell, even if in a trickle rather than the torrent that started New Zealand’s first innings, and at 36 for three their target of 254 still feels very distant. The run chase started terribly, with Tom Latham edging the third ball high to Harry Brook at second slip. Thereafter Kane Williamson and Devon Conway were resolute – and, in the latter’s case, on the right side of an umpire’s call – as they clung on until the final minutes of the day, when Williamson was trapped lbw by Josh Tongue and Will O’Rourke, the nightwatcher, was bowled by Gus Atkinson. In the end the only thing that effectively stemmed the stream of dismissals was stumps. Continue reading...

Lucy Powell calls for tougher laws to tackle misinformation and says Reform UK has benefited from bots and troll farms Reform UK is destabilising British democracy by spreading divisive material that is being amplified by bots and troll farms, Labour’s deputy leader has said. Lucy Powell called for tighter laws on social media giants to tackle misinformation, arguing the online space was “open to wealthy individuals, and bad state actors”. Continue reading...

⚽️ Crucial qualifier kicks off at 8pm BST in Mallorca ⚽️ Tom Garry’s preview | Sign up for Moving the Goalposts Spain (4-3-3): Coll; Batlle, Paredes, León, Corrales; Caldentey, Guijarro, Putellas; López, Imade, Paralluelo. Subs: Rodríguez, Nanclares, Méndez, Carmona, Codina, Serrajordi, Bonmatí, Benítez, González, Del Castillo, Navarro, Pina. England (4-3-3): Hampton; Bronze, Wubben-Moy, Morgan, Greenwood; Toone, Walsh, Stanway; Hemp, Russo, James. Subs: Moorhouse, Baggaley, Le Tissier, Carter, Charles, Fisk, Kendall, Mead, Park, Godfrey, Blindkilde, Kelly. Continue reading...

Russian president describes letter from his Ukrainian counterpart as rude and says he can no point in face-to-face talks Vladimir Putin has rejected an offer from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to hold a face-to-face meeting, insisting instead that Russia will achieve its war goals in Ukraine, including seizing all of the eastern Donbas region. Speaking at the Saint Petersburg economic forum, the Russian president described the open letter from his Ukrainian counterpart containing the offer as rude. He refused to use Zelenskyy’s name, referring to him only as its author. Asked if they could meet to discuss an end to the conflict, Putin replied: “So far I see no point.” Continue reading...