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If you thought he was just a shady rule-dodging reprobate, the Fifa boss’s latest 15-page Instagram rant might make you think again
I hope you have found time to enjoy Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s 15-page Instagram meltdown about his World Cup. The last time I saw this many defiant words, they were inked on someone sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Salvadoran supermax prison.
Infantino has been clapping back at his haters – putting them on blast, in the parlance of our times – and on this evidence seems mesmerisingly close to picking out a Chicano script font and getting STILL I RISE needled across his corporate clavicles. Right next to the ones reading THROUGH THE FIRE, UNBREAKABLE and BUILT DIFFERENT.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 11:42:24 GMT
Ukrainian and Israeli leaders converge on Washington with criss-crossing fortunes, but knowing they can count on little from US counterpart
The converging visits of Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington offer an unusually eloquent snapshot of a world in turmoil, unmoored from decades-old certainties.
Some things remain the same. The US is still an almighty military and economic power and for both foreign visitors, a White House encounter with Donald Trump is critical to their governments and the wars they are fighting.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:53:04 GMT
Shots fired in the Channel are all in a day’s work for the intrepid shadow home secretary
C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. Captain Chris “Hunter-Killer” Philp had been on patrol since first light in the Channel. While the rest of the country was still asleep, the Philpster was scanning the horizon for rubber dinghies full of illegal immigrants. Something he had never done in his previous life as immigration minister. Back then he had sought to rehouse new arrivals in hotels. Now he wanted to send them to a watery grave.
It had been a quiet morning. Too quiet. Just the one sighting of a child with a rubber ring paddling off the beach in Boulogne. But Hunter-Killer was taking no chances. All it takes is one child and before long there will be hundreds of thousands making the crossing with swimming aids bought from the local Carrefour. So the Philpster had called in the RAF. Minutes later, a Typhoon FGR4 had blasted the kid out of the water. Job done. Pour encourager les autres.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:50:52 GMT
The Grammy-winning band had an acrimonious rift with Hinds – then he died in a motorbike crash. They explain how they’re paying tribute on their new album, and why their love for each other never ended
Mastodon are near the end of a tour where they’re playing 22 shows in 14 different European countries during a record-breaking heatwave, when they video-call me outside a Bordeaux venue. Bassist and co-lead singer Troy Sanders says the experience has been “31 days of musical bliss”. He’s not being sarcastic, either.
“Things are super energetic, even at day 31,” he insists. “We’re contemplating even staying in Europe for a few days when this tour is over, because we’re enjoying ourselves so much.” It’s pleasantly surprising to see Sanders and drummer/co-vocalist Brann Dailor, sat to his left, in such high spirits, given the anguish and unrest they’ve endured over the last 18 months.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 15:00:07 GMT
As she brings her memoir to the Edinburgh festival, Keeley Hazell talks about trauma, exploitation, the hollowness of the high life – and her new career as a writer on Ted Lasso
There was a time in the mid-2000s when it felt as though “everyone” had seen her topless, says Keeley Hazell. Page 3 was a staple of the tabloid press, lads’ mags were booming and she was one of the country’s most recognisable glamour models. “There was excitement, but also a lot of shame and embarrassment,” the softly spoken Hazell reflects. “Topless modelling never really aligned with me as a person.”
Hazell, who was born in Lewisham, London, left modelling in her early 20s and moved to LA to become an actor. But the emotional impact of her time in the industry has stayed with her, partly inspiring her 2025 book Everyone’s Seen My Tits: Stories and Reflections from an Unlikely Feminist. She describes the writing process as a “release” when we meet in London, where she has been preparing for an Edinburgh fringe theatre/comedy show based on the book. “I was able to give myself a voice,” she says, for “a period where I felt voiceless”.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:03:02 GMT
Now 30, Holland is back as the vexed webslinger in a sometimes shocking, occasionally sluggish new instalment opposite his Odyssey castmate
Just a few weeks ago, Tom Holland was telling us that his role as Telemachus in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey was his “last chance to play a boy”. Well, Holland is back as the supposedly scrappy, gawky, arachnid young superhero Spider-Man. Not Spider-Boy admittedly, and these days Holland is actually a chunkier and more stacked Spidey than previously, flexing some pretty serious biceps. He is maturing in the role. But is the role maturing with him?
The point is that this film is a reset. At the end of the last movie Spider-Man: No Way Home, courtesy of Dr Strange’s colossal psychic powers – which might have come in handy in this episode incidentally, part of the narrative-universe inconsistency that you just have to overlook – Peter Parker was able to erase everyone’s knowledge that he is, in fact, Spider-Man, and that includes his goofy best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) and more to the point, the love of his life MJ (Zendaya).
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:11:59 GMT
Prime minister invites Badenoch and Davey – but not Farage – to discuss how to fix decades-old funding crisis
Andy Burnham has promised “problem-solving, not point-scoring” before a speech on social care in which he will set out his strategy for resolving one of the most intractable issues in British politics.
The prime minister has invited Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, to discuss how to enact urgent reform on social care, as he attempts to find common ground across party lines. Davey confirmed he would attend via videocall while the Conservatives said they would send the shadow health secretary, Stuart Andrew, in Badenoch’s place as she was having pre-planned minor surgery.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 21:30:13 GMT
Man already serving life for killing his cellmate while awaiting trial also murdered and dismembered his friends Claudio Aquilino and Daniel Coleman
On a spring day last year, James Desborough marched up to Cornwall’s county hall in Truro and began bombarding the offices with dozens of eggs stolen from a supermarket.
It was a drug- and drink-addled protest at his plight – homeless, jobless and generally angry at the world. He expected to be arrested and messaged a friend: “If I’m going to get nicked, might as well round the charges up.”
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:58:49 GMT
Share price rally driven by strong product demand as well as decision to sit out AI spending race, amid wider tech sell-off
Apple has become only the second company to pass the $5tn valuation mark, as it benefited from investors fleeing AI and semiconductor stocks amid a wider tech sell-off.
The iPhone maker’s shares hit a session high of $342.89 on Tuesday, giving it a market capitalisation of $5.04tn (£3.78tn), then eased back down to $340.08 – around the $5tn mark.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 20:33:14 GMT
Chris Philp says shots were ‘deliberate intimidation’ while he filmed interview on small boats crisis but France says it was training exercise
When Chris Philp heard a volley of shots on the high seas and spun round to see a French gunship, he believed he was the victim of naval aggression – and updated his social media feed accordingly.
The reality appears to be more mundane: it was, the French authorities said, a routine Channel training exercise by officers who had no idea that the shadow home affairs spokesperson was present, or who he was in the first place.
Continue reading...Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:26:53 GMT