Romelu Lukaku: Belgium’s striker has had three goals disallowed so far in this tournament, a state of affairs that prompted his teammate Jeremy Doku to say the big man is frightened of celebrating if he hits the back of the net.
“He would have liked to have the goals because, now when he scores, I think he’s scared to celebrate,” said Doku yesterday. “He didn’t have a lot of luck, but he’s happy. He’s happy because we won our last game. Of course, as a striker, he always wants to score and of course you think of your individual stats, it’s normal. But he’s happy with the impact that he’s having on our team and the chances he’s creating.
Gareth Jenkinstells inquiry he only realised Fujitsu staff were actually accessing IT system remotely in 2018
A former engineer for the company responsible for developing the Post Office’s faulty Horizon IT system has said he knew the computer system could in theory be accessed remotely by its staff for nearly two decades before realising it was happening in practice.
The former Fujitsu engineer Gareth Jenkins was giving his second day of evidence to the Post Office inquiry which is looking at why the state-owned institution prosecuted 900 operatives on the basis of alleged financial shortfalls in their branches when many of the discrepancies were caused by bugs, errors and defects in the Horizon IT system.
Labour is planning to introduce automatic registration for voting under plans to add millions more people to the electoral roll for future elections, especially young people, the Guardian has learned.
Automatic voter registration (AVR), which exists in several European countries, would come on top of planned reforms already announced by Keir Starmer’s party such as extending the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds. Together, they could significantly shake up the voting franchise if Labour gets into power next week.
The trailer for Amazon’s reportedly troubled $250m action-comedy shows that it might just be weightless action mush
Red One, the upcoming Christmas movie from Amazon, is arguably among the most talked-about of the year. However, until now, the conversation has had little to do with the film itself. Instead, Red One looks set to go down in history as the film that tanked Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s reputation.
For the newcomers: in April, The Wrap ran a feature about exactly how troubled Red One’s production allegedly was, with several insiders pointing to The Rock’s chronic unwillingness to work as a key factor. Among claims of his wrongdoing, The Rock was accused of repeatedly showing up eight hours late to set, and also making his assistant dispose of bottles of his own urine that he’d fill when he couldn’t be bothered to walk to a bathroom.
Former US president uses familiar tactics of denigrating Biden and debate hosts to minimise the event’s importance
Donald Trump has unleashed a fusillade of baseless accusations against Joe Biden and CNN moderators ahead of Thursday’s first US presidential debate in an apparent “pre-bunking” exercise designed to have his excuses ready-made if he is declared the loser.
In a familiar rehash of tactics used in previous campaigns, the presumptive Republican nominee has intensified demands that Biden should take a drug test and accused him of being “higher than a kite” in last January’s state of the union address, when the president won praise for an energetic performance.
Readers respond to an article by Shaniya Odulawa on how young people have been put off politics and from voting in the general election
Good on Shaniya Odulawa for expressing the views of many young people about politics (I never thought I’d abstain from voting, but many young people will – and can you blame us?, 21 June). I share her feelings about Brexit. But what options do we have? Young people have the option to oust the present government – surely that alone is enough to vote, albeit grudgingly, for a Labour government? It’s not all about the leader, it’s about what Labour will do on the ground if elected. There will be a new feeling of optimism and actual change, which is impossible to imagine, given how we have lived for the last 14 years.
I must vote. I am 68 years old. The Equality and Franchise Act 1928 gave women over 21 the right to vote for the first time. This meant 15 million women could vote. My mother was born two years after that act and it was drilled into me by her that women fought for us to have that right to vote, so I must exercise it.
Adrian Carter is using polling to help him vote tactically. Plus a letter from Keith Flett
In an otherwise thoughtful article, John Harris neglects one important virtue of pre-election polls (I’ve seen all the ‘landslide’ polls – but they can’t tell us what’s really going on in this election, 23 June). I have spent most of my adult life in constituencies where, in retrospect, voting for the government I wanted would have been best served by voting locally for another party. I do not need help in deciding which issues are important to me or which government is more likely to deliver the outcomes I want, but I do need help in deciding where my vote would best be placed to secure the national outcome I favour. Well-structured polls are a help with this.
To give an example, it is clear from an overview of the six MRP polls I have examined that the party I’m inclined to favour has little chance of winning in my constituency. But if I want to rid myself of the worst government in my lifetime, armed with MRP data, the logical thing for me to do is to vote not for my favoured party but for a third party that has a chance of beating the Conservatives in this seat. I shall know on 5 July whether I have made the right choice, but my chance of doing so is much enhanced by the existence of constituency-level polls. Adrian Carter Penselwood, Somerset
The star has Stiff Person Syndrome, meaning moments of elation can trigger potentially lethal spasms. We meet the director who captured the singer’s Las Vegas home life – and one shocking attack that almost killed her
Irene Taylor has travelled the world to tell stories about sexual abuse scandals and oil spills, staunch conservationists and blind Nepalese farmers trying to regain their sight. The Portland-based film-maker is not someone you would usually associate with celebrity-obsessed mainstream America. But decidedly cushier environs are the setting for her latest project: a documentary about Canadian pop singer Celine Dion and her struggle to contend with a rare neurological disorder called Stiff Person Syndrome (SPS). The film is called I Am: Celine Dion.
Pop documentaries have become a bankable streaming-era trend, but if there is anyone equipped to avoid hagiography it’s Taylor, who readily admits to knowing hardly anything about Dion before signing on to the film. “When Titanic came out,” she says of the blockbuster Dion provided the theme tune for, “I was a mountain guide in the Himalayas. I don’t even think I remember when it came out.” When she was approached to work on the documentary, she adds, “I was not a fan. The Celine I understood was ‘Celine Dion’ – what I knew of her was the lowest-hanging fruit.”
North-east club determined to keep hold of star striker
They are keen to extend his contract, which ends in 2028
Newcastle will do everything in their power to keep Alexander Isak on Tyneside and have let Chelsea and Arsenal know that it would take an astronomical offer to alter that stance.
Chelsea have made an initial inquiry for the Sweden striker but, given that club’s problems with meeting profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), there is considerable doubt at St James’ Park that they would be capable of paying a sum possibly well in excess of £100m for the 24-year-old.
Argument about a lemon- or orange-shaped planet highlights importance of international competition in science, curator says
It was a row that split scientists, launched globe-trotting expeditions and for one man, ended in murder: was the Earth shaped like an orange or a lemon?
The 18th-century debate – and the endeavours that settled it –can now be relived by visitors to this year’s Royal Society summer science exhibition, in a display called “Figuring the Earth”.
Analysis of 400,000 healthy adults finds 4% higher mortality risk among those taking the supplements
Taking a daily multivitamin does not help people to live any longer and may actually increase the risk of an early death, a major study has found.
Researchers in the US analysed health records from nearly 400,000 adults with no major long-term diseases to see whether daily multivitamins reduced their risk of death over the next two decades.
Whether with noodles, spice or all other things nice, it’s hard to go wrong with chicken soup. From ambitious projects to midweek saviours, these recipes will restore the soul
CPS says woman had epileptic seizure at wheel and had no prior diagnosis of medical condition
The driver of a 4x4 that crashed into The Study Prep school in Wimbledon and killed two eight-year-old girls will not face prosecution after it was found she had an epileptic seizure at the wheel, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.
The CPS said the driver had no prior diagnosis of a medical condition and had not had a seizure before.
Foden has started all three of England’s Euro 2024 games
Unclear if 24-year-old will be back for Sunday’s last-16 tie
England’s problems have increased after Phil Foden flew home from the team’s base at Euro 2024 to attend to a “pressing family matter”.
Foden has started England’s three matches in Germany and it is unclear if the 24-year-old Manchester City player will be back with the squad by the time Gareth Southgate’s side play their last-16 tie in Gelsenkirchen on Sunday. England are hopeful he will be.
Whether you’re looking for all-over SPF protection for the family or a UV hair product, Sali Hughes selects her sunscreen winners – and the best of the rest
We are bad at engaging with sun protection unless there’s a heatwave, or we’re venturing on holiday – and the gunky, greasy, spot-causing and staining sunscreens of yore, which stained clothes and couldn’t be shifted, are partly to blame.
The most important aspect of suncare is that people use it. The elegance of a modern sunscreen formula, the texture on fingertips and the comfort on skin, the smell, the packaging, the price, the finish and its ability to play nicely with other skincare and makeup products – these are, in my view, often the difference between someone’s decision to protect themselves or not. What follows are 50 user-friendly sunscreens I’ve enjoyed trying in recent years, all of which have proved popular with those to whom I’ve recommended them and none of which make sun protection a bind. I would gladly use any of them on my own family.
We would like to hear from people who have had emergency NHS care after travelling abroad for treatment
The NHS is having to provide emergency care to patients suffering serious complications following weight loss surgery and hair transplants abroad amid a “boom” in medical tourism, doctors have warned.
If you have had medical treatment abroad and have returned to the UK for follow up care, we would like to hear from you. What treatment did you receive and what were your reasons for travelling abroad? What complications did you experience and how did the NHS help?
Hospitals are all part of London-based trusts hit by cancer care delays after Russian cyber-attack
Junior doctors have been granted permission to work at some hospitals during a looming strike in order to prevent potentially dangerous delays to cancer care, the British Medical Association has said.
The six hospitals where some junior doctors will be allowed to work during the industrial action are all part of the NHS trusts Lewisham and Greenwich, Guy’s and St Thomas’, and King’s College hospital, which are experiencing delays due to a Russian cyber-attack that has resulted in cancer surgeries having to be postponed.
Be it the thankless shifts of Blue Lights or the wage-free stressfest of The Bear, onscreen employees are having a very bad day at the office. And things are about to get worse
In the first series of Slow Horses, MI5’s Jackson Lamb gives a motivational speech: “You’re fucking useless. The lot of you. Working with you has been the lowest point in a disappointing career.” This is actually fairly uplifting from a man who is as likely a contender for a “World’s Best Boss” mug as The Thick of It’s Malcolm Tucker.
On TV, staff morale is at an all time low. From hellish hospitality to callous corporate overlords, going to work has never looked less appealing. Instead of bumbling idiots for bosses, we have tortured geniuses and masochistic maniacs. The daily grind is one of high stakes, long hours and limited rewards – with not an HR department in sight.
Pair will face retrial over baby’s death after jury in previous trial was discharged at Old Bailey last week
Constance Marten and her partner, Mark Gordon, have been found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice after the body of their baby daughter was found following a high-profile search, it can now be reported.
Marten, 37, and Gordon, 50, had also faced charges of manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child, all of which they denied.
The rock star turned activist turned Sopranos actor talks about his revealing new documentary, Disciple, his unlikely career and his fears over the state of the world
For Stevie Van Zandt, unique as the consigliere to both Bruce Springsteen and Tony Soprano, the moment of political awakening came four decades ago in white minority rule South Africa.
“I was in a cab and a Black guy stepped off the kerb and the cab driver swerved to try and hit him,” Van Zandt, 73, recalls. “He [the driver] says, ‘Fucking kaffir’, which of course was the Afrikaans word for [N-word]. I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just seen – whoa! let me out.
The couple were convicted of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice, and will face a retrial after a jury failed to reach verdicts on some charges.
‘This was taken at a small high school event. It was all about who could create the “perfect body” by working hard – and maybe becoming the next Arnold Schwarzenegger’
I’d been studying architectural design in Chile and thought I would do the same when I got to the US. But at university there, photography was one of my subjects – and the minute I put that first sheet of paper in the developer, it was magic to me. There is so much you can say in just one frame. I found it thrilling and overwhelming.
I’ve been living in the US for more than 50 years now and a lot of the pictures from my new book, Moral Minority, were made in the 1980s, when my notion of being a photographer was just beginning to form. The country was new to me and I wanted to figure out how to fit into it and how things worked.
World’s first emissions tax on agriculture will require farmers to pay for greenhouse gas pollution from livestock
Farmers in Denmark will have to pay for planet-heating pollutants that their cattle expel as gas, after the government agreed to set the world’s first emissions tax on agriculture.
The agreement – reached on Monday night after months of fraught negotiations between farmers, industry, politicians and environmental groups – will introduce an effective tax of 120 kroner (£14) per ton of greenhouse gas pollution from livestock in 2030, which will rise to 300 kroner per ton in 2035.
Labour, the Tories and the Lib Dems are branch offices – they do what they’re told, and they won’t represent Scots’ best interests
Just a few weeks ago there were 43 SNP MPs at Westminster, almost three-quarters of the total Scottish seats. It would be hard to argue that wasn’t a mandate for revisiting the vexed question of Scottish independence.
At the 2019 election, as we made our way to the polling booths, there was still a bolshie, buoyant feeling in the country, at least among those of us who believe the country’s best future lies in becoming one of the small, socially progressive European nations within the family of the EU. Independent of the UK, obviously.
Regrettably many of us will have been awake a long time today before the latest broadcast round undertaken by the Last Cabinet Minister, Mel Stride. Even so, a Mel Stride appearance during this election has developed a strong flavour of all those mornings in Groundhog Day when Bill Murray’s clock radio lurches into life halfway through I Got You Babe. The dormant voter need only hear the genial work and pensions secretary say “let’s not get too carried away here” to sit bolt upright as the grim reality dawns once more. As the long days have passed, these listeners have worked their way through all the emotions: disbelief, anger, resignation, smash radio, restart cycle. Just hearing that Stride is “joining us after the headlines” or “up next” produces a Pavlovian response: a million-yard stare and the realisation that it is the general election again – it is somehow still the general election – and, indeed, it may always and for ever be the general election.
And yet, to lightly adapt the words that once graced Mario Balotelli’s base layer: “WHY ALWAYS MEL?” Even broadcast interviewers playing the Sonny to Mel’s Cher have begun to ask where the rest of the cabinet are. It’s honestly hard to say. Ladbrokes? I cannot remember a single general election where the cabinet has been so utterly invisible in the national campaign. They may as well be in witness protection.
Julian Assange needs time to recover after his 14-year legal saga, his wife, Stella, said, following his arrival back in Australia on Wednesday night.
The WikiLeaks founder touched down in the Australian capital of Canberra just after 7.30pm on Wednesday, before walking across the tarmac to embrace his wife, Stella Assange. Supporters who had braved the cold could be heard applauding as he arrived, with some cheering “we love you Julian” and “welcome home”.
Labour appears poised to win a historic election victory on 4 July. In the series Life under Labour, we look at Keir Starmer’s five key political missions, and ask what is at stake and whether he can implement the change the country is crying out for.
“It’s tough. It’s very, very tough,” says Glyn Potts, the headteacher at Newman Roman Catholic college in Oldham as he reflected on the challenges facing education in England.
Hollywood group says 200-hectare site will be based around popular film and games franchises and open 365 days a year
The movies group Universal has said a Hollywood theme park it plans to build in Bedfordshire, England, will be open 365 days a year and will boost the UK economy by nearly £50bn.
Universal Destinations & Experiences, which is owned by the US telecoms group Comcast, the parent company of Sky, plans to build on a 192-hectare site (476 acres) in Kempston Hardwick near Bedford. The company has an option to buy a further 25 hectares.
France showed more signs of life in their 1-1 draw with Poland, in no small part due to the return of Kylian Mbappé. The captain played the full match and coolly slotted home a penalty but the team has not lived up to its billing as near-unanimous pre-tournament favourites. There were bright spots in Dortmund and they are through to the last-16, but there are as many questions as answers for France after they drew two of their three group games and only scored two goals – a penalty and an own goal.
Meeting disclosed after questions by Dutch MPs concerned about Guardian revelations of anti-ICC campaign
Israel’s ambassador to the Netherlands was asked to “report” to the Dutch foreign affairs ministry to explain allegations of a secret surveillance and espionage campaign by Israeli spy services against the international criminal court, it has emerged.
Mia Goth returns for the third chapter of the X trilogy as an adult film star trying to take a crack at horror while a serial killer stalks the city’s sex workers
Director Ti West goes three for three, serving up a horribly watchable new episode in his outrageous black-comic franchise of aspirational horror porn, this time set in 80s Hollywood. Mia Goth returns triumphantly as Maxine, now known as adult movie star MaXXXine Minx, whose traumatic teen story was told in X from 2022 and its 2023 prequel Pearl. West mulches up a thick impasto of pulp, gore, filth and fear and gets away with some colossally self-aware scenes, including one in the Bates Motel set on the Universal studio lot, and one under the Hollywood sign; there is also some blue chip acting talent in the supporting roles.
The year is 1985 in sunny Los Angeles and the titles for this film are striped across the screen in Flashdance-type lettering, flickering a little at the edges as if being broadcast on live TV. Ronald Reagan is telling America its best days are by no means behind it; Frankie Goes to Hollywood and ZZ Top are on the turntable and at one cinema Jean-Luc Godard’s Hail Mary is evidently being shown for one night only. MaXXXine is now in her early 30s; a ruthless survivor and Ripleyesque careerist, she is determined to crown her work in porn with a crossover to horror, from where the further move into legitimate movie stardom is surely but a small step.
England fast bowler Ollie Robinson is hit for 43 runs by Leicestershire's Louis Kimber in the most expensive over in the history of the County Championship.