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In interviews and social posts, the loyalty-obsessed president couldn’t help but weave criticism into his praise

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Normal procedure in the immediate aftermath of an unexpected death is to shower the deceased with praise, irrespective of whether it is deserved.

Donald Trump, commemorating Lindsey Graham in recent days, has taken a different tack, sometimes extolling the South Carolina senator’s virtues but at other times rather diminishing the newly deceased 71-year-old.

England World Cup winner died in 2020 but his death was never reported by authorities to the coroner’s office

The England footballer and World Cup winner Nobby Stiles died with a brain condition caused by repeatedly heading a football, a coroner has ruled.

Stiles, a tenacious, tough-tackling midfielder described by Geoff Hurst as the “heart and soul” of the 1966 World Cup-winning team, died in 2020 but his death was not reported by authorities to the coroner’s office.

Pubs code adjudicator says it has reasonable grounds to believe group has breached industry regulations

The owner of the Slug & Lettuce and Be At One chains is being investigated over concerns about possible “unfair” treatment of landlords who run more than 3,000 of its venues.

Stonegate Group, Britain’s biggest chain of bars and pubs, could be fined up to 1% of revenue, more than £16m, if it is found to have breached the “pubs code”, legislation governing how pub-owning companies treat their tenants.

We often call England v Argentina a grudge match – a simple story of mutual hatred. But the truth is far more complex, says the Guardian’s Jonathan Liew.

It began with British influence, raising Argentina as a ‘faithful son’ in their own image through polo, tea, and football. But decades of nationalist rejection, iconic World Cup clashes, and a war over the Falkland Islands turned them into ultimate footballing antagonists.

Yet, the two teams haven't played a match in over twenty years. Lionel Messi has never faced England. In an era of over-saturated, commercialised sport, this scarcity has kept the romance of their rivalry alive. Because underneath the bad blood, there is a deep, mutual fascination: two nations that probably revere each other far more than they’d ever care to admit.

• Love and hate collide: England v Argentina is not simply a grudge match

Musk distributed money to three people before the 2025 election, which he claimed was critical to Trump’s agenda

Billionaire Elon Musk likely violated Wisconsin law when he gave out $1m checks to voters in the 2025 state supreme court election, a bipartisan elections panel has found.

Musk distributed the money before the vote, which he claimed was critical to Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization”.

Whitechapel Gallery, London
I feel bad for the artists whose work has been crowbarred into a wonky show about migration, protest, climate and identity

It’s rare that an exhibition is so bad you feel compelled to text a friend saying “you wouldn’t believe the garbage I just saw” as soon as you get out. And if you can walk around this badly explained, undercontextualised, barely linked, poorly thought through mess of a show without getting a migraine, you have a stronger constitution than me.

This is an exhibition about east London. Or maybe it’s about Britishness. Or migration. Or the climate crisis. Or music. Or global trade. Whitechapel Gallery doesn’t seem to really know, so what chance do the rest of us have of figuring it out? The gallery would argue it’s about all of these things; I’d say it manages to be about none of them.

In my country, devolution has been the equivalent of giving someone a new electric car without the capacity to charge it. That can’t be the model for the whole UK

As a journalist, I have specialised in Wales, Welsh politics and devolution for the past 10 years. Devolution, in particular, could be considered a bit niche as subjects go. But suddenly, everyone wants to talk about it because Andy Burnham is making it front and centre of his offer as prime minister. MPs have been falling over themselves saying how great devolution is. I feel like a volcanologist after the Eyjafjallajökull eruption shut down air travel in 2010 – everyone is now talking about the thing I know about. But sudden interest among the general population does not necessarily equal expertise.

Further and more rationalised devolution is an incredible opportunity for the UK. It is the most fiscally centralised country in the G7 – twice as much as the next most centralised country, Italy. In an international context, it is bizarre that more than 90% of UK tax revenue is collected and controlled by the central government in Westminster. In the US, about half of government spending is by individual states. In the UK, the majority is by the central government. What is even stranger about the UK is that the prime minister is also the equivalent of the first minister of England. It’s like having the governor of Texas also be the US president.

Will Hayward is a Guardian columnist. He publishes a regular newsletter on Welsh politics

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Environment Canada has issued health warnings after sky over city turns yellow

Smoke from more than 100 active wildfires in northern Ontario have made Toronto’s air quality the current worst in the world and caused yellow, smoky air in cities across the north-east US.

Environment Canada issued health warnings on Wednesday after the sky over country’s largest city turned a sickly yellow and was ranked the worst in the world according to IQAir, the Swiss technology company that racks global air quality.

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds face an overnight social media curfew in an extension of the government’s social media ban for under-16s. Under the plan, aimed at reducing online harms, certain apps would be blocked by default from midnight to 6am. But the curfew will not be mandatory and teenagers can opt out, so will it achieve anything? Annie Kelly speaks to social affairs correspondent Jessica Murray – watch on YouTube

Environment Canada has issued health warnings after sky over city turns yellow

Smoke from more than 100 active wildfires in northern Ontario have made Toronto’s air quality the current worst in the world and caused yellow, smoky air in cities across the north-east US.

Environment Canada issued health warnings on Wednesday after the sky over country’s largest city turned a sickly yellow and was ranked the worst in the world according to IQAir, the Swiss technology company that racks global air quality.

• Alaphilippe gets in breakaway before being reeled in

• Pidcock’s rollercoaster ride continues on return to Tour

The records keep tumbling in the 2026 Tour de France. After race leader Tadej Pogacar shattered the record for the fastest climb of the Col du Tourmalet, Norwegian sprinter Søren Wærenskjold won the fastest-ever road stage, in a frenzied sprint into Nevers.

Pogacar revealed his stage had not been entirely straightforward. “I ran over a loose bottle with my front wheel and almost crashed,” he said. “I completely shat my pants there. Luckily, I managed to keep my handlebars upright. It’s nice to have days like this, but you still have to keep your focus throughout the stage.”

• Staff told to eject hecklers among expected 300,000 fans

• Officials reject Faldo’s calls to fine miscreants $10,000

The R&A has warned spectators who misbehave at the Open that they will be identified and ejected under its new code of conduct.

Mark Darbon, the R&A chair, stopped short of endorsing calls by Sir Nick Faldo, the last Englishman to win the Open, for anyone who abuses a player to also be fined $10,000. But he confirmed that a team of R&A staff, marshals and officials would be monitoring the expected 300,000 spectators to ensure good behaviour.

⚽ Dramatic late goals set up World Cup final with Spain
⚽ The semi-final – in pictures | Golden Boot | Player guide

England’s defenders will face an extreme challenge when they come up against Lionel Messi in their World Cup semi-final. It is not just that he is the greatest player of all time but the almost unique way in which he plays.

The 39-year-old is renowned for ambling around for much of a game, saving his energy for when truly required. It makes him incredibly difficult to defend against. Messi finds pockets of space that appear harmless when the ball is not in his orbit, but he springs to life when an opportunity to produce presents itself.

Doing full justice to the Homeric legend, Christopher Nolan amasses an epic cast to convey the true cost of war with film-making of thrilling ambition

• A classicist’s verdict

• Nolan interviewed

• Will women also love The Odyssey?

Christopher Nolan reinvents the Homeric legend as a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion, an epic ordeal of anguish witnessed by the dead and presided over by capricious deities who participate on almost equal terms with the humans. It speaks to the generational pain of PTSD; plenty of soldiers come home in person after any war promptly enough, but arriving back to their prewar state emotionally or spiritually can take years or decades and may never happen at all. The invisible odyssey of anguish is punctuated by flashback episodes, hallucinations, confrontations with the arbitrary gods of dysfunction. And all the time the spouses and children cannot move on with their lives.

This is a film with thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair. There are some broad-brush moments in the dialogue, yes, but even these are applied with a muscular flourish. It has gasp-inducing, Imax-sized landscapes of loneliness shot by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema – who, incidentally, avoids the sea’s traditional cliched colour – and full-tilt battle sequences and fight scenes accompanied by the throbbing and thrumming of drums.

All the young people the Guardian spoke to disagreed with aspects of the government’s proposed block

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds in Britain are to be encouraged to observe a midnight to 6am social media curfew but will be able to opt out by changing their account settings.

From next spring, they will be urged to refrain from using certain apps, with the block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden.

Met police detain man in his 20s after post on X was reported to them by parliamentary authorities in May

A man has been arrested on suspicion of publishing a message on social media in which he threatened to shoot Nigel Farage.

The Metropolitan police arrested a man in his 20s on Tuesday after the post was reported to them by the parliamentary authorities in May.