News

Ibstock has issued a thumping profits warning, with sales 22% below expectations in the third quarter With John Healey’s Your First Home scheme on the way, is the mood improving in the housebuilding sector? A couple of the builders have results later this week, so can speak for themselves. In the meantime, though, here’s a thumping profits warning from Ibstock, the country’s biggest brickmaker, to spread a little more gloom. Demand hit a brick wall in the summer, as the company could have put it. Industry data, said Ibstock, show UK brick market volumes down 17% year-on-year in July and August. For the whole of the third quarter, it said, sales were 22% below expectations, forcing a one-fifth cut in its production volumes versus plans set out as recently as August. Continue reading...

The Texan could pull off a historic victory in the Lone Star state, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988 When a young, untested former school teacher stood up to address a modest gathering of local donors in Austin, the state capital of Texas, Wendy Davis felt sorry for him. “Poor kid,” she remembers thinking. Then James Talarico began speaking. “He was like five or six sentences in and I knew that something was different about him,” recalls Davis, a former Democratic state senator. “He was as articulate and unique then as he is now. From that day, I started calling him ‘Baby Obama’.” Continue reading...

Devon nature reserve says ‘reckless’ theft of narrow-headed ant colony sets back years of conservation work A nest containing up to 5,000 of England’s rarest ant species has been stolen from a nature reserve, a conservation charity has said. Devon Wildlife Trust (DWT) said a nest of narrow-headed ants had been dug up and taken from Chudleigh Knighton Heath nature reserve in south Devon, which is the last place in England where the species still exists. Continue reading...

Socialist deputy Laurent Lhardit's amendment passed the National Assembly by just 11 votes to 10. In fact, only 35 of the chamber's 577 deputies were even in the room at the time. Both the government and the budget's own rapporteur had advised against it, too. Read Entire Article

The Miami Hurricanes claimed the No. 1 spot in the first College Football Playoff rankings, with Georgia, Utah, Indiana and Alabama rounding out the top five teams.

Favourites for promotion sit eighth in Championship Key figures at club losing patience with manager Nuno Espírito Santo’s future at West Ham is under threat after a disappointing start to the season. West Ham are struggling to live up to their billing as Championship favourites and dropped to eighth after losing 3-1 to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday. West Ham are intent on an instant return to the Premier League after Nuno failed to save them from relegation last season, but the setback against West Brom put another dent in their promotion push. West Ham occupy the final playoff spot after consecutive defeats at home and are four points below second placed Swansea. Nuno is expected to be given time to turn the situation around but key figures have become increasingly impatient. The manager faced unrest from supporters during the West Brom game. Continue reading...

Anthropic has updated Claude Code's system prompt to prevent the AI tool from being used to recreate existing video games, as reported by Tom's Hardware. Retro gaming is currently being overrun with AI-made decompilations, recompilations, and ports, but while Anthropic will still let people use Claude Code to make games, it doesn't want people to […]

“Honoring Hinds’s legacy does not require rewriting the agreements governing his business interests,” write attorneys for the heavy metal band in a new court filing.

Following a Syrian mother and daughter over a decade, Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes capture a family transformed There’s a startling moment in this BBC refugee documentary when Syrian mother Nisreen – in the apparently miserable situation of hiking across the Balkans towards Germany, four kids in tow – suddenly explodes with joy. “This is the best holiday I’ve ever had! It’s an amazing adventure. Now I have the chance to walk in the rain – I love it!” Shunted off early into an arranged marriage, never having left Syria until forced out of Aleppo by the civil war, for Nisreen this running jump into the unknown represents total liberation. Itab Azzam and Jack MacInnes’ superb, forthright and highly moving film bypasses the usual refugee dichotomies, that they’re either external threats or history’s victims. Instead of flat abstractions, we get the knotty reality. Focused over a 10-year period from 2015 to 2025 principally on Nisreen’s eldest daughter Israa, it presents an intimate chronicle of how geographical displacement and cultural dislocation reshape families and lives from the inside. Continue reading...

Attending Boca v River in the week I turned 60 made me recall a lifetime of experiences at the fixture Ever since the Observer Sport Monthly published a list of 50 sporting things you must do before you die with Watch Boca Juniors Play River Plate in Buenos Aires at No 1 in 2004, the biggest super derby in Argentina has been firmly positioned in the global imagination; its reputation for colour, passion and uncontainable emotion acquiring an almost glamorous sheen. The thump and thud of the coordinated chants, the shiny ticker-tape amid flare smoke matching the teams’ strips, the bounce of the concrete as tens of thousands jump in unison, mounted police surrounding the stadium, avalanche stoppers set alight, rockets aimed at players; blood and fire. Exciting, right? Continue reading...

Marco Rose’s tactics are lifting Bournemouth, Roméo Lavia makes progress with Chelsea and Roberto De Zerbi gives youth a chance at Spurs Good defending is the mark of champions. At Anfield, where Arsenal had not won in the past 13 visits, Mikel Arteta followed the orthodoxy of locking down once his team took the lead. This time around, it proved successful. Arsenal did not allow the occasion or the stadium to get to them as they have on previous occasions. In April 2023, Granit Xhaka entangling with Trent Alexander-Arnold energised home fans previously despondent that Arsenal were 2-0 up. It finished 2-2. On Sunday, Liverpool zipped around zestfully, as Andoni Iraola requests, though the final-ball quality was lacking. That owed a great deal to the organisation of the Arsenal defence. Ahead of the last international break, Brighton set a blueprint for getting the better of Arsenal in winning 3-0. Liverpool’s squad profile might have made a similar strategy possible though Iraola’s outfit is struggling to create chances in the same volume as Brighton or his Bournemouth team. John Brewin Match report: Liverpool 0-1 Arsenal Reaction: Iraola responds to Isak penalty denial Match report: Aston Villa 1-1 Fulham Match report: Bournemouth 2-0 Leeds United Continue reading...

President at reflecting pool in Washington DC to talk about various projects in final appearance before Americans head to polls to vote in crucial midterm election Sign up for the Breaking News US email The latest and final New York Times and Siena College poll before the midterm elections also shows Abdul El-Sayed leading Mike Rogers in the US Senate race in Michigan by 11 percentage points, outside the margin of error. The survey took place before Democratic Congresswoman Haley Stevens announced that she would back Rogers in the contest – a vital seat for her party to retain in their quest for control of the Senate. Continue reading...

The most visible hack took place on a digital billboard stretching across one of Egypt's biggest highways: the 26th of July Axis in Giza. Drivers stopped their cars to film as the screen broadcast the adults-only material, which was overlaid with the text "Leaked by: Ch, 19ylegal never and nivex"... Read Entire Article

Starc and Hazlewood also rested before busy summer Beardman and Shaw set to make their team debuts Test captain Pat Cummins and fellow quicks Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood will be rested during Australia’s upcoming one-day and T20 series against England. Australia will play three ODIs and five T20 internationals, but Cummins, Starc and Hazlewood were not named in either squad on Monday as the pace trio refresh for a gruelling 10 Tests in 14 weeks this summer. Continue reading...

Responding to Shabana Mahmood’s changes to indefinite leave to remain, the shadow home secretary was detached from reality Better late than never. It had seemed as if some apologies from the prime minister were more sincere than others. The one that he has planned to deliver for Britain’s role in the slave trade at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in Antigua fell on the right side of genuine. There had been no need to make one at that time. Indeed Kemi Badenoch saw it as a sign of weakness. There again, she would refuse to apologise for running someone over on a pedestrian crossing. Somehow it would have turned out to be the victim’s fault. Andy Burnham’s apology for not being able to turn up in the Commons to lend support to his home secretary might rather fall into the “sorry, not sorry” category. Making life more difficult for migrants was more one for Keir Starmer’s legacy than part of the new government’s agenda. Andy couldn’t have been more thrilled to be on a plane as Shabana Mahmood stood up to make her statement on “earned settlement”. It was almost as if the statement had been timed for when Burnham was away. At the very least, it was the perfect coincidence. If not divine intervention. Continue reading...

Defender expected to keep place after red card at Chelsea Martínez’s ‘commitment is not an issue’, says Carrick Michael Carrick has insisted he is not concerned about Lisandro Martínez’s attitude despite the defender’s recent outburst aimed at the Manchester United hierarchy which was then followed by his reckless sending off in the defeat against Chelsea at the weekend. Martínez, who was fined for his comments about United’s director of football, Jason Wilcox, is expected to keep his place for the visit of Roma in the Champions League on Tuesday as United aim to end their worst run in 38 years, having failed to win any of their past nine matches. Continue reading...

U-turn follows apology from Sky Sports pundit Carragher had been critical of club expectations Aston Villa have dropped their threat of legal action against Jamie Carragher following an apology from the Sky Sports pundit. Villa announced on Friday that they would be taking legal action against Carragher for “unacceptable insults about the club and its fans” on the Stick to Football podcast. The former Liverpool defender had told Villa supporters to “shut the fuck up” after being criticised for suggesting Unai Emery should consider taking the Manchester United job if Michael Carrick is sacked. Continue reading...

“This stadium brings back bad memories but I hope to be able to replace them with good ones,” Harry Kane had said on Monday night, and 24 hours later this was a start. A small step, perhaps, towards coming back on 5 June and having a second go at winning the Champions League in the arena where he lost the 2019 final. On his first European outing since winning the Ballon d’Or, the England captain was unable to score but he and his Bayern Munich team defeated Atlético Madrid, fellow semi-finalists from last season. They did so in a way that suggests that their candidacy this season is serious. It may not have been sparkling but they had been superior almost from the start, dominant in physique and football. This is a team with few weaknesses, intense and impressive throughout. All Atlético could do was resist and it never truly felt like they would be able to do that for ninety minutes; ultimately, they lasted 54. That was when Lennart Karl scored the first. The superb Konrad Laimer then added the second on a night when they racked up nineteen shots. It had been heavy going for a while, and they had been made to wait, but in the end Bayern were just that bit too good. Continue reading...

Inspired by the legendary Milan sides of his youth, the manager gave his side a lift with a tactical victory over Inter Ruben Amorim had waited a lifetime for his first Milan derby. As a kid growing up in Lisbon, he supported two football teams. There was the local one, Benfica, whose games he attended so early in life that his father has recalled changing nappies in the stands of the old Estádio da Luz. And the other one that captivated him from overseas. “I remember watching tapes of that Milan team with [Paolo] Maldini, [Franco] Baresi, [Ruud] Gullit, [Frank] Rijkaard, [Dejan] Savicevic,” Amorim told Portuguese newspaper Expresso back in 2017. “My childhood dreams were to play for Benfica and Milan. I’ve fulfilled one. Now I suppose I’ll have to become a coach for the other!” Continue reading...

Your body uses collagen to give your skin strength and elasticity, so supplements of this protein seem to make sense to reduce wrinkles. But columnist Alice Klein finds it isn’t this simple

Anger and protest have put liberal democracy on trial. It’s vital to understand the rage that now unites a generation We have not yet reached a 1968 moment, when students at the Sorbonne lit a fuse that detonated a crisis that eventually brought down the De Gaulle government. But in late 2026, starting with the symbolic act of young French people climbing the July Column at Paris’s Place de la Bastille, the world is experiencing the biggest outbreak of student demonstrations for 60 years. When Italian students subsequently occupied a high school in Rome, they opened their demand for change with the words “like in France”. Youth demonstrations are now raging from India – where the government has responded with repressive force to the Cockroach movement – to Albania, where, after being out on the streets for nearly five months, students are demanding not only an end to corruption, but the replacement of the government. Continue reading...

Pardon the Interruption co-host to take leave of absence Wilbon did not go into detail but cited ‘worrisome signs’ Michael Wilbon, the co-host of ESPN’s popular Pardon the Interruption talkshow alongside good friend Tony Kornheiser announced on Monday he is taking a leave of absence because of what he described as “multiple health issues”. Wilbon, who turns 68 later this month, wrote in a post on X that he is taking a trip to “the injured list” but added he hopes it is “not an extended one”. Continue reading...

Britain needs migrant workers, yet ministers would make many wait longer for secure settlement because their essential work commands low wages Shabana Mahmood has made a partial retreat on her policy to lengthen the wait for some foreign workers who were soon to be eligible for settlement in the UK. But while the home secretary lost the argument in cabinet on a particularly damaging aspect of her proposals, she has won the larger battle that settlement ought to be based not just on residency but also on how much tax has been paid, English language proficiency and the “character” of applicants. Significantly, she has also won the “full support” of the prime minister for this approach. The home secretary plans to double the standard qualifying period for settlement from five to 10 years for most workers. Importantly, she dropped the proposed 15-year qualifying period for some workers in occupations below graduate level. That is a good thing. Differences in pay, however, should not determine how soon people can put down secure roots. The Home Office’s own figures suggest that a person earning £41,700 makes a similarly positive lifetime fiscal contribution as someone earning £50,271. But the former has to wait five years longer to qualify for settlement than the latter. It is only three years for foreign workers who make enough to be in the top 2% of earners – about £125,000. Continue reading...

Labour’s recently departed grandees are keen to defend their legacies. Is Andy Burnham really offering Britain something new? Rachel Reeves wants you to know she thinks Britain’s future belongs in Europe. She would also like to mention that she “absolutely” got all the big calls right as chancellor, even if there were a few things she would have done differently, and that John Healey’s budget last week would have been far harder for him if she hadn’t put in so much of the groundwork. The gist of her argument in last weekend’s Sunday papers – previewing a lecture at Harvard University today, reflecting on her time in power – was essentially that if anyone imagines Andy Burnham somehow invented pro-Europeanism and putting more money in people’s pockets, they can think again. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

From feeding schoolchildren to recycling tyres, these entrepreneurs are challenging stereotypes while solving social and environmental problems Africa is thought to have a higher proportion of female entrepreneurs than any other continent and yet many still struggle to access financing. Four business leaders from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi tell us about the inspiration behind their success – and the challenges women still face. Continue reading...

Sunday’s win at Liverpool showed the Gunners are deeper, more experienced, and are playing against a weaker class of contenders than last season Sign up for our free newsletter here Arsenal are three points clear at the top of the Premier League table. But given the team in second are Manchester City, who are likely to be facing at the very least a major points deduction, perhaps more significant is that they are five clear of Brighton in third. The season of domination that many anticipated from the champions appears to be coming to pass. Liverpool challenged them on Sunday. There was a 20-minute spell before half-time when they swarmed all over Arsenal, and Anfield felt at least like it did in the golden years of Jürgen Klopp, when it buzzed with an energy that could overwhelm visitors. But Arsenal got through that, reset at half-time, and navigated the second half with relative comfort. For the second league game running, they denied Liverpool a shot on target. This is an extract from Soccer Desk, a newsletter from the Guardian US. Subscribe for free here. Continue reading...

Mal Evans’s tale of historic meeting among revelations in forthcoming memoir unpublished before his death in 1976 Meeting Elvis Presley was “the biggest day of all the years I have spent with the famous Beatles”, the band’s loyal road manager wrote. It is among recollections in a memoir that Mal Evans had planned to publish, with the band’s permission, before his death in 1976, aged 40, in a shooting by the Los Angeles police. Distraught over the breakup of his marriage, it is believed to have been “suicide by cop” after he repeatedly pointed an air rifle at police. Continue reading...

The expansive project has hype and money behind it – but how do you avoid it falling into the disappointment trap so many films end up stumbling into? If the history of failed Hollywood fantasy projects over the past 20 years has taught us anything, it is that transporting audiences to another world is only half the battle: you also have to give them a reason to spend several hours there. The Golden Compass diluted Philip Pullman’s theological bite, Warcraft thought that just explaining its world would make us care about it, and The Dark Tower compressed Stephen King’s sprawling mythology so ruthlessly that it scarcely left room for a story. All these films at one point had fans of the original source material quivering with anticipation at the prospect of seeing their beloved worlds on the big screen; all ended up disappointing. Which brings us to the forthcoming Alex Garland adaptation of the hugely popular high fantasy video game, Elden Ring. If there was ever a cinematic test of the phrase “too big to fail”, it is surely this. Elden Ring has sold more than 30m copies and is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made. George RR Martin himself wrote the foundational mythology of warring demigods that underpins its gorgeous fantasy hellscape. And Garland as writer-director seems almost impossibly perfect: as the creative behind Dredd, Ex Machina and Annihilation, he has both the taste for beautiful nightmares and the geek credentials to deliver something extraordinary. Continue reading...

The final day of the regular season gave fans Gotham’s Shield win, a farewell to a Seattle hero and a new part-whiparound, part-watchalong show to take it all in As a player, Ali Krieger went into NWSL Decision Day focused on one result. She was Gotham FC’s captain in 2023, the first time the league played all of the final games of the regular season simultaneously. The job, she remembers, was to not worry about the other games going on. Three years later, Krieger spent Decision Day with eyes on not one game but eight. For the first time, all of the final games of the NWSL season were aired by the same network. Krieger, now a lead analyst for ESPN, and host Kelsey Riggs Cuff anchored the coverage from headquarters in Bristol with a show that was part whiparound, part watchalong, and ultimately wholly new for the 14-year-old league. Continue reading...