New Zealander will take over for South Africa series
Trescothick named interim coach for Pakistan Tests
Stephen Fleming has been confirmed as the new coach of the England men’s Test team, with Joe Root returning for a second spell as captain.
Marcus Trescothick will take interim charge for the three-game series against Pakistan that starts at Headingley in three weeks, with Fleming due to arrive in the country “later this summer” and assume the reins for this winter’s trip to South Africa.
Continue reading...Scotland’s Melanie Woods was originally awarded gold
Women’s T54 1500m final will now be restaged on Friday
It turned into Glasgow’s version of Wacky Races. After four crashes, three overturned wheelchairs, three appeals and a disqualification, the women’s T54 1500m final is to be rerun 39 hours after it first took place.
The controversial decision was taken on Thursday after the extraordinary scenes at the Scotstoun track on Wednesday – and despite the medallists doing a lap of honour, posing for photographs together and going to bed thinking they were part of Commonwealth history.
Continue reading...Everything was looking rosy for Howe at St James’ Park until Alexander Isak’s departure led to rushed signings and a messy season
Last September, David Hopkinson, just installed as Newcastle’s chief executive, perched on a stool at a downstairs corner table in Shearer’s Bar at St James’ Park and between sips of zero alcohol lager, likened Eddie Howe to Bruce Springsteen. According to Hopkinson, Newcastle’s manager was “the Boss” and “the talent”. He conjured up an imaginary scene involving Springsteen asking for M&M’s before a concert and being duly supplied with a dressing room overflowing with the brightly coloured confectionery. The same principle, he said, would apply to “Eddie”, who would e furnished with “whatever he wants”.
Six months later, things had changed. In late March, Hopkinson sat around a heavy wooden table in a St James’ Park boardroom and, between sips of coffee, said he did not “have a stance on the manager’s future”. What he could tell assembled reporters was that a recent home defeat by Sunderland “hurt”. It “resonated” and was being taken “seriously”. Given that Newcastle had just lost a Champions League tie 8-3 to Barcelona on aggregate and were en route to finishing 12th in the Premier League, Howe admitted to “sleepless nights” before a summit with the club’s majority Saudi Arabian ownership at Matfen Hall hotel in Northumberland the following month.
Continue reading...Fifa’s 25-page sales deck makes case for World Cup plan
Reference made to doubling global tournaments
Fifa’s sales pitch to persuade members to approve the sale of the World Cup’s commercial rights clearly states that its plans for financial growth will be achieved by staging more tournaments, having higher ticket prices and debt financing.
A 25-page sales deck titled “Fifa Forward Enterprise Member Materials”, that has been seen by the Guardian, makes the case for the creation of a new company to run Fifa’s commercial operations, 20% of which would be sold to Joshua Kushner, a US investor who is the brother of Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Continue reading...I’ve spent a decade reporting on immigration enforcement. The word ‘camp’ best captures the political function of these facilities
We don’t have concentration camps today in the United States, but we have something close. More than 65,000 people are currently confined in demeaning, often dangerous, sometimes torturous and increasingly deadly conditions not because they have committed a crime, but because they have committed the civil infraction of being on the wrong side of a border. They are ripped from their homes, their families, their jobs and are shipped hundreds of miles away where they languish in squalid, freezing cold and punishing conditions with limited and sometimes no access to lawyers, loved ones, nutritious food, sunlight or medical care. At least 52 people have died in ICE custody since the second Trump administration came into office. Tens of thousands have been held in solitary confinement.
Oversight mechanisms of these facilities have been gutted, members of Congress have been turned away, and ICE has stopped reporting basic and legally mandated data about who is inside and what happens to them. The rapid expansion of the detention system, the inherent inhumanity of policing human mobility, and lack of oversight is partly why a woman in Arizona, who has been detained for 16 months without proper medical care to treat her leukemia, has reportedly lost more than 70lb and is regularly vomiting blood. It’s why people in a now shuttered camp in Florida were allegedly subjected to a two-by-two-foot outdoor punishment cage. The stories that leak out of these camps should terrify not only the migrants directly targeted, but should alarm the conscience of us all.
Continue reading...The conservative columnist Ross Douthat is the network’s latest perplexing hire – but the move is in line with the new leadership
In media circles, this week’s hire of a prominent New York Times columnist as a correspondent for CBS’s 60 Minutes was greeted with disbelief.
The collective response went something like this: “What?!”
Continue reading...I can hear the howls of disagreement now but we’ve got zoos – complete with giraffes and elephants – at home. Seen one, you’ve seen them all
When I first took my toddler to the zoo, I realised that here were her celebrities. To see a giraffe in real life is the three-year-old’s equivalent of seeing Tom Hanks strolling through your local shopping centre. After all, every night we lie in bed and read stories about the exploits of shy turtles or bossy rhinos or the occasional lion who didn’t want to go to bed. Then, one day, these heroes are right in front of you, ambling about in a pen, being gawked at by the paparazzi.
All of a sudden, I felt my own childlike excitement reinvigorated, getting to surprise her with the next animal and the next animal. A visit to your local zoo is truly one of the greatest experiences you can have as a parent.
James Colley is a comedy writer from Sydney. His debut novel, The Next Big Thing, is out now
Continue reading...Gianni Infantino’s plan for a Fifa subsidiary is odious – but it’s hard to feel surprised
Just when you thought global soccer couldn’t get more odiously capitalistic, Gianni Infantino said: “Hold my beer” (as long as that beer you’re holding is a Michelob Ultra, one of the official sponsors of the 2026 World Cup).
The World Cup, one of the largest and most prestigious sporting competitions on the planet, is for sale. Infantino, the president of the soccer governing body Fifa, is the architect of a plan to sell up to 20% of a new subsidiary that would administer tournaments such as the World Cup and Club World Cup. The subsidiary, which would oversee Fifa’s commercial activities, would be called “Fifa Forward Enterprises”. If I see the word “forward” in a corporate initiative, I assume it’s either a diversity program that’ll get dropped after a couple years, a training video on how to exit a building during an emergency evacuation, or a blatant cash grab. Take a guess which one I think this is.
Continue reading...There is no point competing in isolation. There are so many benefits to be had, in manufacturing, healthcare, research and governance
Zheng Zeguang is the Chinese ambassador to the UK
Artificial intelligence is widely regarded as one of the defining technologies of our time. Like the steam engine, the harnessing of electricity and the internet before it, it has the potential to transform how we work, live and interact.
But every technological revolution brings challenges as well as opportunities. As AI systems become more capable, people are asking legitimate questions. How can AI remain safe, accountable and under human control? How should its development be governed? How can its benefits be shared more widely?
Continue reading...Polyamory is supposed to be about abundance, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But your partner’s behaviour risks making it a zero-sum arrangement
Read more Leading questions
I have been in a wonderful relationship for six years. We are polyamorous and recently we have been thinking about marrying and starting a family. I think this shift should include stricter boundaries and safeguards, as carrying a child will be disproportionately taxing for me and I expect I won’t want to feel vulnerable or jealous. I also think children necessarily bring about changes in lifestyle, and I would be happy to put the promiscuity on pause. At the very least, I’d like him to steer clear of romantic connections; I’m much more open about him simply having sexual liaisons or flirting.
He will not commit to this, on philosophical grounds. He says I am his soulmate, but also that there can be many soulmates and that “nobody can promise anything for ever”. When I suggest this means we should not be primary partners so that I may pursue those milestones with someone who can give me the reassurances I need, he disagrees very strongly and asks me not to decide on the fate of our relationship without him.
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