General news

• EU Bureaucrats Spend £27m On Luxury, Says Leave

  14-06-2016 11:33
  
  EU bureaucrats have spent more than £27m on luxury hotels, private flights and fine dining, figures obtained by Leave campaigners show.
  
  Read more

• Middle East crisis latest: US carries out strikes across Iran as Tehran targets American bases in region

  24-07-2026 19:04
  Latest attacks come after Trump vowed ‘major military punishment’ for Tehran and its Houthi alliesAs we reported earlier, Iran’s military said on Friday that it carried out attacks targeting US military assets in Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait in retaliation for Washington’s latest strikes on the Islamic republic.Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corp, meanwhile, said they had targeted a data centre in Bahrain belonging to Amazon, according to state media, though neither the
  
  Read more

• Commonwealth Games 2026: men’s gymnastics team final, first swimming golds – live

  24-07-2026 19:01
  All the action as the games get under waySwan claims first gold of Games | Mail BillyBoxing: England’s Lauren Mackie, in the women’s 54kg, punches through to the round of 16 with a unanimous victory against Kenya’s Amina Faki. DJ Khaled’s All I Do Is Win blasts around the ring.This story has caught the eye, courtesy of Reuters: Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Parts of England under heat alert with 30C temperatures possible

  24-07-2026 18:52
  Warning in place until Sunday morning in southern and central regions after drought declared in parts of WalesHeat alerts are in place across parts of England, with possible highs of 30C (86F) and officials saying temperatures are likely to have an impact on health and wellbeing.The yellow heat health alerts issued for the East Midlands, east of England, London, south-east, south-west and West Midlands are in place until 9am on Sunday. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• The Guardian view on Andy Burnham’s first week: polished politics allow an upbeat start | Editorial

  24-07-2026 18:49
  With a flurry of cost-of-living measures and a day in Number 10 North, the new prime minister has hit the right early notesAppropriately enough, Andy Burnham ended a week of political signalling and first impressions back in Manchester on Friday. At the offices of the new No 10 North – where the prime minister hopes to work at least one day a week – regional mayors sat alongside ministers in an example of Burnhamism at work. It was an early statement of intent, ahead of what Mr&
  
  Read more

• The Guardian view on ponds: these freshwater havens need a law of their own | Editorial

  24-07-2026 18:48
  Small pools don’t get the same attention as polluted rivers or seas. But they have a vital role to play in boosting natureFrogs; newts; small fish such as minnows and sticklebacks; dragonflies; water boatmen and water snails: these are just a few of the hundreds of animal species that make their homes in Britain’s ponds alongside diverse wetland plants, some of which are endangered. Yet while small bodies of water are cherished by hobbyists as well as scientists, they have startlingl
  
  Read more

• Shirtless heroes, bucket hats and gold: reimagined Games find their glow

  24-07-2026 18:40
  Some big stars have stayed away, but day one in Glasgow showed the Games have retained plenty of soulThere will be many extraordinary sights at these Commonwealth Games in Glasgow over the next 10 days. But few, you imagine, will top that of a volunteer ripping his T-shirt off and nose-diving under the water, without goggles, to fix a broken rope while Adam Ramsay-Peaty waited on at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre.The crowd, who had watched other volunteers fail to deal with the prob
  
  Read more

• Reform councillors told to call donations inquiry ‘establishment stitch-up’

  24-07-2026 18:32
  Party briefing notes say: ‘Daily routine of hit jobs and smears will not deter us from winning next general election’ Reform UK has instructed its councillors to describe a police investigation into donations from the mother of George Cottrell as an establishment stitch-up, as polling showed the party’s popularity plummeting.Internal briefing documents circulated to the party’s councillors included instructions to respond to questions about a Metropolitan police investiga
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Plus-size models and £5 tickets: Sinéad O’Dwyer’s runway show puts inclusivity first

  24-07-2026 18:31
  V&A event celebrates all shapes and sizes as wider fashion industry stalls on body diversityVisitors to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on Friday afternoon to watch Sinéad O’Dwyer’s Fashion in Motion show would have encountered something a little different. The cast of performers and models wore everything from underwear to skirt suits and sequins, and sometimes danced interpretively on the catwalk to a performance by the band Jeanie and The White Boys, but most
  
  Read more

• Pogacar conquers Alpe d’Huez in record climb to win stage 19 and extend Tour de France lead

  24-07-2026 18:25
  Slovenian only second man to win in yellow on mountainLeader opens up gap of more than seven minutesTadej Pogacar put further distance between himself and his last few rivals, winning the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France and extending his overall lead to more than seven minutes.There was a brutal inevitability about the defending Tour champion’s record-breaking win on the legendary climb of the Alpe, despite all the rumours of illness and gastric problems within his UAE Emirat
  
  Read more

• England’s Mark Swan powerlifts to Commonwealth Games’ first gold by fraction of a point

  24-07-2026 18:17
  Swan edges out Nigeria’s Roland Ezuruike‘I thought I got third, I didn’t realise I won’Mark Swan of England claimed the first gold medal of the Commonwealth Games after one of the closest finishes imaginable in the men’s lightweight para powerlifting competition.The 25-year-old lifted 222kg – more than three times his body weight and roughly the equivalent of bench pressing a grand piano – to finish level with Nigeria’s Roland Ezuruike, 50, on 153.
  
  Read more

• Charli xcx: does the new album live up to Brat? - The Latest

  24-07-2026 18:14
  After a decade in the pop fringes, Charli xcx’s 2024 album Brat propelled her to global stardom: an acid-green ‘Brat summer’, a Glastonbury headline slot and brat as Collins’ word of the year.But how do you follow up the album that made you a star?Charli’s latest album Music, Fashion, Film has now been released – and as Guardian deputy music editor Laura Snapes tells Lucy Hough: it’s a pivot to guitar and a “meta masterpiece about the instability o
  
  Read more

• Martin Rowson on Andy Burnham’s first week as prime minister – cartoon

  24-07-2026 18:07
  Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• Scoff at cheaper bus fares and No 10 North if you like, but Andy Burnham knows what he’s doing | Jonathan Freedland

  24-07-2026 18:01
  Retail politics while taking power out of London: if this works, Burnham’s premiership could be seriously transformationalOne of Andy Burnham’s first policy moves brought back a sharp memory. On Wednesday, he announced that single bus fares across England would be capped at £2, starting from January. It was part of a series of small, practical measures designed, said the new prime minister, to offer a little “breathing space” to a hard-pressed public, but this was t
  
  Read more

• From high heels to ‘Zara death pants’: how fashion falls foul of women’s safety

  24-07-2026 18:01
  A physio, a tailor and a historian on the style trends that can put women in hospital and how to avoid the dangers“Buyer beware” is one of the oldest principles in English law. Now, a pair of wide legged trousers from Zara is bringing the phrase back to the forefront of shoppers’ minds.On social media the £25.99 wide-legged trousers from the high-street retailer have earned the moniker “Zara death pants” thanks to a slew of videos showing wearers tripping over
  
  Read more

• ‘Netflix has to evolve’: can the upstart survive the end of the binge-watch era?

  24-07-2026 18:00
  Streaming pioneer that transformed TV faces slowing growth and battle for viewers’ attention from YouTubeWhen Netflix offered viewers the chance to binge on an entire season of House of Cards it revolutionised the TV industry and started on a path to becoming the world’s most popular streaming service.Almost 15 years on, however, the upstart’s strategy of pumping its service with an avalanche of content and an almost-as-rapid penchant for mercilessly cancelling shows has viewer
  
  Read more

• Lando Norris hits out at Formula One for putting money ahead of drivers

  24-07-2026 18:00
  Many drivers also unhappy with new regulations‘F1’s gone too heavily led by the fact it’s a business’Lando Norris has delivered a scathing critique of Formula One and its management for prioritising making money over sporting considerations when forming the sport’s new regulations. The world champion argued that the drivers should have been more involved in the process.Norris is among many drivers who have been clear this season he is unhappy with the new regulation
  
  Read more

• Johnny Depp is playing Scrooge? I am not here for his big Hollywood comeback

  24-07-2026 17:51
  ‘It’s good to be back,’ says the actor in a new trailer for the forthcoming Ebenezer. Has everyone forgotten about the ghosts of his past?It is fair to say that, professionally speaking, Johnny Depp has had a quiet few years. Since he and Amber Heard sued each other amid a whirlwind of genuinely ugly accusations in 2019, and went to trial in 2022, Depp has struggled to reclaim his position in Hollywood.His 2020 film Minimata made less than a million dollars at the box office. J
  
  Read more

• Our blueprint for Andy Burnham’s success | Letters

  24-07-2026 17:42
  Readers advise the new prime minister and his party on how to turn Labour’s fortunes, and the country’s, aroundRafael Behr neatly summarises Andy Burnham’s strengths as a potential leader and he rightly emphasises that he needs a united party behind him (Andy Burnham is playing the long game in an age of short attention spans, 22 July).He then accurately identifies what Burnham needs to do, but makes no reference to what the parliamentary Labour party needs to do. Leadersh
  
  Read more

• When talk about the weather heats up or cools down | Letters

  24-07-2026 17:41
  Readers contribute words that describe how people feel in all weathersI was interested to read some of the words that your letter writers associated with the weather and our reactions to it (Puggled, scumfished or utterly shrammed, 14 July). Unsurprisingly, the English language is redolent with words to do with harsh weather, with many of the longest-established terms tending towards the cold or inclement. Perhaps as hotter weather becomes the norm rather than the exception, we’ll start to
  
  Read more

• Migraines are so much more than just banging headaches | Letters

  24-07-2026 17:41
  Until migraines are recognised as a multi-system condition, sufferers will continue to be dismissed, writes Sarah Khan. Plus a letter from Rab HallettThank you for your article about migraines – a maligned, misunderstood condition (The truth about migraines: what causes them – and how to find relief, 19 July). But framing it around the headache understates what it is: a systemic neurological event in which head pain is only one component.For me, until perimenopause, th
  
  Read more

• Children are the longest-lasting casualties of war | Letter

  24-07-2026 17:39
  Responding to a new exhibition that explores how children have experienced conflict, Arabella Dorman says they live with the consequences long after the fighting has endedYour article on the Imperial War Museum’s forthcoming exhibition Childhood in War is a timely reminder that the deepest wounds of conflict are often carried by those who never chose it (‘There was absolutely no chance of being a kid’: new exhibition explores how war shapes children’s lives, 19 July). Whi
  
  Read more

• Was Keir Starmer’s leaving party the boozy birth of a new Labour force?

  24-07-2026 17:33
  A £10,000 bar tab was drunk, there was a ‘lot of anger’, and now ex-ministers are thinking how to cooperate in future Keir Starmer’s leaving party had been planned for some time. But in years to come it might be seen as the birth of a new Labour movement.Dozens of ministers, aides and Starmer himself headed to the Grafton pub in Kentish Town on Monday night to drown their sorrows, hours after the former prime minister left Downing Street for the last time. Continue readin
  
  Read more

• More than 80,000 people flee as wildfires spread in south-west France and Spain

  24-07-2026 17:33
  ‘Unpredictable’ blaze forces evacuation of holiday spot Cap Ferret and Spain declares emergency over fires near MadridMore than 80,000 people have fled huge wildfires in Spain and France as Madrid declared a national emergency and French authorities ordered the total evacuation, by land and sea, of one of the country’s best-known holiday spots.Authorities in south-west France ordered the Cap Ferret peninsula on the Atlantic coast to be evacuated “village by village”
  
  Read more

• Guyanese authorities confirm death of 72 people in sinking of coastal ferry

  24-07-2026 17:28
  Of the estimated 179 people aboard, 76 were rescued as efforts continue to salvage the ship and recover all bodiesThe confirmed death toll from the recent capsizing of a state ferry off Guyana’s coast has risen to 72, with more bodies recovered as a multinational team struggle to salvage the partially submerged vessel.Of the estimated 179 people aboard, 76 people were rescued. The government has estimated that 100 may have died in the accident, which would make it the worst marine tragedy
  
  Read more

• After half a decade of the Hundred, we still don’t know what this thing actually is | Emma John

  24-07-2026 17:26
  The Hundred has always been an experiment in manufactured identity – you can’t hurry history, but perhaps you can fake itThe Lucknow Super Giants kit says a lot about their team. Specifically, it draws from the “cultural fabric” of the city and the surrounding state of Uttar Pradesh, “where colour, craft and ritual shape everyday life”. According to the team website, the shirt-and-trousers combo signals “ambition grounded in responsibility to the city it
  
  Read more

• ‘Future generations will curse us for its loss’: can nothing save Glasgow School of Art, Mackintosh’s masterpiece?

  24-07-2026 17:04
  Stratospheric costs could prevent the fire-damaged landmark from returning to its former glory. Now, unless a wealthy patron is found, the building seems destined for ‘soulless’ facade retention or ‘curated decay’ Doubly destroyed by two fires, Scotland’s finest piece of architecture, the Mackintosh building at the Glasgow School of Art (GSA), cuts a lamentable sight, its charred carcass tightly shrouded in white plastic sheeting, like a vacuum-packed Christo sculpt
  
  Read more

• Burnham urged to lobby EU leaders directly to waive EES border controls

  24-07-2026 17:03
  Lib Dems call on PM to push for suspension of ‘bungled, malfunctioning’ system as overseas holiday travel peaksAndy Burnham has been urged to lobby EU leaders directly to suspend the new entry-exit system, EES, as the peak weekend for overseas holidays begins.About 2.2 million British holidaymakers are expected to head abroad between Friday and Monday, the majority to Europe, with all schools in the UK now on their summer break. Continue reading...
  
  Read more

• US cyclosporiasis outbreak expands to nine states as CDC investigates 7,400 cases

  24-07-2026 17:02
  Over 11,500 people this summer are suspected to have been sickened by disease that can cause explosive diarrhea, CDC saysInvestigations into the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak on record expanded to nine states this week, as more than 11,500 people are suspected to have been sickened this summer, according to reports and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Data released by the CDC this week said the agency is looking into 4,173 laboratory-confirmed domestic cases of the disease
  
  Read more

• In The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan worries the end of politeness will destroy civilisation. I fear he’s right | Joseph Earp

  24-07-2026 17:00
  Since I saw the movie, I have found it difficult not to see Trojan horses everywhere. We live now in a state of perpetual distrustfulnessPrior to the release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, I’m not sure many of us would have conceived of the Trojan Horse as a kind of proto-atomic bomb, the sort of norm-obliterating device from which civilisation cannot turn back. If anything, the horse has long existed in our collective imaginations as at best a credulity-stretching plot device &
  
  Read more

Follow @GeneralnewsUK on Twitter!