Uncontested: Dazn’s $1bn story reveals why the Club World Cup is really here
The question of what football is doing here is even present in the Club World Cup marketing. It is no secret that the Club World Cup would not be happening in the way it is now happening without Dazn. View image in fullscreen The Club World Cup Trophy is displayed at Chase Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. There is an overlap of style and ambition even in the way the Club World Cup will be presented. The Club World Cup may pass in a haze this summer.
Source:The Guardian
June 13, 2025 18:30 UTC
Ukraine war briefing: severely wounded soldiers next in prisoner exchanges
Russia and Ukraine are expected to exchange severely wounded soldiers on Thursday in the latest stage of a large-scale agreement to free more than 1,000 prisoners of war by each side. “Tomorrow, we will begin urgent ‘sanitary exchanges’ of severely wounded prisoners,” Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, posted. Russia’s top negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said Russia had “received the remains of 27 Russian soldiers”. It characterised the plant as one of the main facilities in Russia’s military industrial complex, making gunpowder for small arms, artillery and rocket systems. The Ukrainian military also said it recorded explosions at an ammunition depot in Russia’s Kursk region and an airfield depot in Russia’s Voronezh region.
Source:The Guardian
June 13, 2025 16:44 UTC
First crash of Boeing’s 787 model comes weeks after $1.1bn 737 Max payout
The Air India tragedy in Ahmedabad is the first time a Boeing 787 Dreamliner has crashed since the plane’s introduction in 2011. 0:23 Smoke rises above Ahmedabad in first images from Air India plane crash – videoThere are more than 1,100 787s in service, with most major international airlines using them. The two major crashes that were due to faults on Boeing planes were using the then new 737 Max model, in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019. The last Air India crash, in August 2020, involved a smaller Boeing 737-800 Air India Express that was landing at Calicut airport in bad weather when it skidded off the runway. A Boeing spokesperson said: “We are in contact with Air India regarding flight 171 and stand ready to support them.
Source:The Guardian
June 12, 2025 19:15 UTC
Aircraft leasing firms win multibillion-dollar lawsuit over planes ‘lost’ in Russia
Aircraft leasing companies have won a multibillion-dollar lawsuit against insurers in relation to planes stranded in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Western sanctions forced aircraft leasing companies to cancel their contracts with Russian carriers by 28 March 2022, initially leaving the industry with losses estimated to be $10bn. Initially, Russia faced demands to return the “stolen” planes but Moscow refused, prompting the claims in Dublin and London. Many of the planes were re-registered by Russia without their owners’ consent and sold on to Russian airlines. Ireland’s high court was told last month that all the cases in the Dublin court case had either been settled or were in the course of being settled.
Source:The Guardian
June 12, 2025 03:54 UTC
Otters posing for selfies in Japanese cafes may be linked to illegal trade, experts warn
View image in fullscreen In the wild, otters have a key role in maintaining freshwater and mangrove swamps in Asia, hunting creatures such as crabs and molluscs. “We cannot confirm that the otters came through the illegal trade but we have shown that their DNA is the same as those from areas in Thailand that are illegal trade hotspots. Conservationists worry that the pet trade will see their role in ecosystems disappear – exacerbating the impact of habitat loss and pollution. Photograph: Noriko Hayashi/New York Times/Redux/eyevine“Otters have long been sought after for illegal trade,” she said. But people should understand that the businesses may be involved in the illegal trade.”.
Source:The Guardian
June 12, 2025 03:01 UTC
First-half debacle dooms hapless USMNT in 4-0 friendly loss to Switzerland
The United States gave up four goals in the first half and looked unprepared for next year’s World Cup, as they were routed by Switzerland 4-0 in a friendly on Tuesday night. The result means the Americans lost their fourth straight game for the first time since 2007. Switzerland won their third straight match and extended the USMNT’s winless streak against European opponents to eight games since 2021. after newsletter promotionThe match was played one year and one day before the 2026 World Cup co-hosted by the US starts. The US made five changes to start the second half and Damian Downs made his debut in the 75th minute.
Source:The Guardian
June 11, 2025 17:30 UTC
Eurostar vows to run direct trains from UK to Germany and Switzerland
Eurostar has vowed to run direct trains from the UK to Germany and Switzerland, as it attempts to fend off potential competitors eyeing its London depot space. The cross-Channel rail operator’s chief executive, Gwendoline Cazenave, said she had no doubt the direct services would run in the early 2030s despite the failure of previous ventures to connect London and Frankfurt. It is targeting direct trains from London to Frankfurt and Geneva, taking about five hours to the German financial hub and about 20 minutes more to the Swiss city. after newsletter promotionHowever, Cazenave told the PA news agency that she had “no doubt” the new direct services would happen because of the “willingness” of Eurostar, passengers and governments. The UK and Switzerland signed a memorandum of understanding last month aimed at establishing direct train services between the countries.
Source:The Guardian
June 10, 2025 20:31 UTC
Luciano Spalletti claims he has been sacked by Italy after Norway humiliation
Luciano Spalletti has been sacked as Italy’s coach, he said on Sunday, after their heavy loss to Norway, but will take charge of Monday’s game against Moldova. He told me that I will be relieved of my position as coach of the national team,” Spalletti said. While Spalletti took Italy to Euro 2024, their disappointing performance there had already put the manager under pressure. View image in fullscreen Luciano Spalletti cuts an anguished figure as Italy lose 3-0 in Norway. They lost at home to Les Bleus in the final group game to finish behind France on goal difference.
Source:The Guardian
June 08, 2025 23:35 UTC
Canada won’t become the 51st US state – but could it join the EU?
“We have to strengthen the European Union,” said Streit, who last year was elected as a member of the European parliament. “If Canada would be a member of the EU, it would rank 4th in terms of GDP. In late January, a former foreign minister of Germany, Sigmar Gabriel, called for Canada to be invited into the EU. “They are more European than some European member states anyway,” he told Germany’s Pioneer Media. Undaunted, he sent a letter to two EU commissioners calling for a sort of political Erasmus to be launched between the bloc and Canada.
Source:The Guardian
June 08, 2025 14:30 UTC
Conservationists call for Lake District to lose Unesco world heritage status
Conservationists have launched a campaign to revoke the Lake District’s Unesco world heritage status, arguing that it promotes unsustainable sheep farming at the expense of nature recovery and local communities. The Unesco designation celebrates the Lake District as a “cultural landscape” shaped by traditional agro-pastoral farming, with sheep farming a central part of its identity. When the RSPB replaced sheep with cattle and ponies on its Haweswater site, local people cited world heritage status in opposition. “The Lake District world heritage inscription is presiding over the death of the landscape and its communities – both wild and human.”However, the view that world heritage status is hindering progressive farming is contested. Aglionby disputed that revoking world heritage status was the answer.
Source:The Guardian
June 08, 2025 03:30 UTC
Country diary: This hardy survivor is brightening up the moors
Shadows thrown by the early evening light pick out every feature: streams, cleughs, barns and farms, mining spoil and ruins – a record of the land. It’s a boom year for this beautiful plant, perhaps due to the dry spring putting the plants under stress. View image in fullscreen ‘Sending out underground rhizomes where few other plants will grow’ Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium). Plug plants of cottongrass are being planted by the North Pennines National Landscape to restore degraded blanket bog. The larvae of large heath butterflies feed on a similar species, the hare’s tail cottongrass Eriophorum vaginatum.
Source:The Guardian
June 07, 2025 21:08 UTC
Six great reads: the world’s biggest YouTube star, a missing twin and a way to understand polarisation
‘The Mozart of the attention economy’: why MrBeast is the world’s biggest YouTube starView image in fullscreen Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast (centre, in grey jumper) giving away a car during a promotional tour for his confectionary brand in Sydney, Australia. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAPJimmy Donaldson, the 27-year-old online content creator and entrepreneur known as MrBeast, is by any reasonable metric one of the most popular entertainers on the planet. In this profile Mark O’Connell tries to grasp the scale of Donaldson’s role in modern popular culture:“I don’t intend to make a case here that you should start appreciatively watching Donaldson’s videos. I don’t intend to make a case for MrBeast as art – although I reserve the right to talk about it as though it were. I’m not even going to try to convince you that these videos are even necessarily good, whatever that might mean.
Source:The Guardian
June 07, 2025 20:41 UTC
Friday briefing: From White House sleepovers to Epstein allegations, how the relationship between Musk and Trump spectacularly imploded
He had numerous sleepovers at the White House, where he ate a late-night tub of caramel Häagen-Dazs at Trump’s suggestion. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Hugo Lowell, the Guardian’s White House correspondent, about why the truth may be considerably more venal than that. “And now he’s out of the White House, he doesn’t have anything to lose.”How has Musk’s relationship with Trump changed? “But the White House counsel’s office was clear that he couldn’t serve any longer.”And just days after his official departure, the White House withdrew its nominee for Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, after it emerged that he had previously donated to Democrats. He interspersed his attacks on Trump yesterday with old clips of Republicans arguing for a balanced budget.
Source:The Guardian
June 07, 2025 03:26 UTC
The Swiss village buried by a glacier collapse – podcast
The Swiss village of Blatten was wiped out in seconds. “What we can say is, basically, climate change is affecting all of the ingredients for a disaster like this. They’re shrinking, they’re cracking, they’re growing more unstable. “And we also know that climate change, higher temperatures and mountains are linked, from scientific studies, to higher rates of rockfall and higher rates of that kind of disintegration. So we can’t sort of say yes, the Birch glacier was climate change and climate change alone, but we can look at all of these factors, and all of them are related to global heating.”Support the Guardian today: theguardian.com/todayinfocuspod
Source:The Guardian
June 06, 2025 18:30 UTC
‘All the birdsong in the world in one sound’: England’s nightingale haven at risk from planning bill
For the best part of a decade, developers have been eying up Lodge Hill in Kent, where more than 100 singing birds are known to live. View image in fullscreen The bushes in Lodge Hill attract nightingales because they contain a variety of habitats. So they’ll fly over, and hear another nightingale sing, and know that means the area is good for nightingales. View image in fullscreen The fact that Lodge Hill has been disturbed by the Ministry of Defence suits the nightingale. So we are really worried.”Of the suggestion Keir Starmer should come and hear the nightingales, Beale says: “It would probably do him some good.”
Source:The Guardian
June 04, 2025 20:31 UTC