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England to extend Borthwick contract as Pollock closes on £400,000 Northampton deal | England rugby union team | The Guardian

Sport, , , ,

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – England rugby union team, Steve Borthwick, Rugby Football Union, Rugby union, Sport
Title – England to extend Borthwick contract as Pollock closes on £400,000 Northampton deal | England rugby union team | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gerard-meagher
Link – England to extend Borthwick contract as Pollock closes on £400,000 Northampton deal | England rugby union team | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:25:48.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/09/england-extend-borthwick-deal-pollock-400k-northampton-deal-rugby-world-cup

Steve Borthwick will be handed a contract extension until after the 2028 Six Nations, giving the Rugby Football Union time to identify his successor if England flop at the World Cup next year.

The RFU’s move is designed to avoid uncertainty heading into the tournament but stops short of backing Borthwick in the long term.

Borthwick is contracted until the end of the tournament next year and the RFU’s director of performance, Conor O’Shea, has made clear that his future beyond that is dependent on how England perform in Australia.

The head coach came out of England’s worst Six Nations campaign this year under considerable pressure but the RFU chief executive, Bill Sweeney, has given his backing for Borthwick to lead the side into the tournament next year.

“You don’t want them looking for a job going into [a World Cup],” O’Shea said. “Everyone knows it will be judged on the World Cup, but you can’t have a group of coaches going in with that uncertainty, especially when you look at the timing. So we will give that certainty, and that will give us time to look properly.”

O’Shea has made clear that Borthwick must target World Cup glory in Australia and, while Andy Farrell has been handed a contract with Ireland through to 2031 the RFU has not presented Borthwick with similar long-term backing.

England were thrashed by South Africa at the start of their summer tour before a comfortable victory against Fiji and a narrow win against Argentina. Borthwick’s job will come under further pressure if England disappoint in autumn fixtures against Australia, Japan, New Zealand as well as a final weekend rankings match.

“I see in Steve someone who bleeds England and wants England to succeed more than anything you can imagine,” O’Shea said. “This England team is unequivocally one of probably five teams who can win the World Cup next year. I believe this team can win a World Cup. Is the talent there? One hundred per cent. If over this next 12 months this England team shows the best version of itself, I know it can beat anyone in the world.”

The RFU, meanwhile, has announced a new money-spinning venture with England jerseys to have a sponsor emblazoned across the back for the first time. The deal with Lloyds Bank is thought to be worth £5m a year, with Sweeney claiming the arrangement gives the union “largest sponsorship revenue in world rugby”.

The Guardian revealed the RFU was on the verge of confirming the deal as the latest in a string of new sponsorships. England jerseys will feature the Lloyds logo during the Nations Championship this autumn and brings the RFU in line with rivals such as France, who have a similar arrangement with Société Générale. Under tournament rules, England will not be permitted to have sponsorship logos on jerseys during the World Cup next year, however.

As part of the multi-year deal the Lloyds black horse will feature on the jerseys of the men’s and women’s teams as well as the training jackets. The jerseys will continue to feature the O2 logo on the front while the RFU secured a kit deal with Castore in 2025.

The RFU is attempting to diversify revenue streams, with the Guardian revealing that the union is expecting to post a £10m loss for the financial year ending 2026 compared with £2m the previous year. The union has told its member clubs that England’s dismal performance in the Six Nations was a contributing factor to the forecasted eight-figure loss.

The year ending 2027 is expected to be more prosperous with sponsorship revenues playing a key factor but the year ending 2028 will incur heavy losses because of the World Cup and the absence of autumn internationals at Twickenham.

Meanwhile, Henry Pollock is nearing a new deal with Northampton believed to be worth more than £400,000, ending speculation over the England flanker’s future. The 21-year-old’s agent, Eddie Hearn, had claimed Pollock should be earning £1m a year but the Northampton director of rugby, Phil Dowson, insisted last week that a “happy medium” must be reached.

Pollock is poised to roughly triple his salary without Northampton having to break the bank to keep the star player, who has 13 England caps to his name.

Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian

News, , , , , , ,

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Foreign policy, Israel, Ed Miliband, UK news, West Bank, Palestine, Trade policy
Title – Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/aletha-adu
Link – Miliband rejects chief rabbi’s claim that West Bank sanctions put UK Jews at risk | Foreign policy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:15:28.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/ed-miliband-rejects-chief-rabbi-claim-west-bank-sanctions-british-jews-less-safe

Ed Miliband has rejected warnings from the UK’s chief rabbi that the government’s sanctions against illegal Israeli settlements will make British Jews less safe, as he emphasised ministers can confront the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government while also fighting antisemitism.

The foreign secretary announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank on Tuesday, with the government taking the position that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory was unlawful.

The measures were coordinated with France, Canada and nine other countries that were also introducing sanctions on Israel over the increasing expansion of settlements, which the UK government says is threatening the future of a Palestinian state.

In a joint statement, leaders including Andy Burnham, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said: “The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late.”

The chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, called the UK sanctions a “dark day for British Jews” and said they could embolden people who “use hatred as a weapon against Jews”.

Milliband, who describes himself as a “proud British Jew”, said he did not agree with Mirvis. Asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether he was saying the chief rabbi was wrong, Miliband replied: “Yes, I am saying I don’t agree with the chief rabbi, somebody over whom I have great respect.”

He added: “I just want to be very, very clear. As I said it in my statement yesterday, anyone who holds British Jews, or indeed Jews around the world, responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is engaging in antisemitism, pure and simple.

“And it must be possible to stand up in our society for British values of freedom, dignity, and against oppression and injustice, and do so as I believe I did yesterday in a way that calls out antisemitism.”

The foreign secretary was pressed on the chief rabbi’s fear that British Jews could feel less safe as a result of the sanctions and was challenged by the BBC presenter, Justin Webb, who suggested Mirvis’s claim could mean less to Miliband because he did not attend synagogue.

“No, I don’t agree with that,” said Miliband, adding: “Antisemitism is a scourge and an evil … I want Jews, I want people of all faiths and none to feel safe in our country.”

Tuesday’s sanctions announcement also prompted a swift backlash from Israel, which ordered the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem and banned 12 British MPs and activists from entering Israel.

Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, threatened that the US could take retaliatory action over trade, but the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US would “obviously” not follow the UK government’s actions but did not want to see the West Bank destabilised.

Miliband told Sky News he would “let our American friends speak for themselves” but insisted the international community had been “quite frustrated to put it mildly, with some of the actions of the Israeli government”.

The foreign secretary said he regretted what the Israeli government had announced but was “proud of what we did yesterday and it was the right thing to do”.

Miliband accepted the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem would be “damaging” but said the government had “weighed up the costs and benefits in advance if this”.

The government is set to enact:

An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK.

Personal sanctions against the main individuals accused of promoting settler violence.

A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

Miliband made an impassioned statement in the Commons on Tuesday, recounting the horrific tales he had heard from Palestinians in the West Bank, whose homes had been destroyed, and doctors in Gaza who saw children dying while waiting for treatment.

The prime minister, Andy Burnham, said the sanctions were “the right thing to do” and emphasised they were aimed “not at the Israeli people”. Burnham is due to face MPs over this issue at prime minister’s questions.

‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian

News, , , ,

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Margaret Hodge, Labour, Politics, UK news, Antisemitism
Title – ‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/simonhattenstone
Link – ‘I am seen as a Marmite figure’: Margaret Hodge on political battles, victories, errors – and regrets | Margaret Hodge | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:05.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/sep/09/i-am-seen-as-a-marmite-figure-margaret-hodge-on-political-battles-victories-errors-and-regrets

M argaret Hodge doesn’t do small talk. “So, how d’you think Andy’s doing?” is her opening gambit. “Not too bad, huh? I think he’s had a really good start.” It’s classic Hodge – sufficiently curious to ask the question about the new Labour prime minister, and assertive enough to provide the answer before you get yours out. “Yep. Fantastic empathy. But then he’s got to deliver. I think the budget is going to be the key moment. And we’ve also got these awful global challenges and Iran and Hormuz. God, it’s a mess. Ugh . Hahahaha!” She hoots with laughter at the horror of it all.

She says she was against ousting Keir Starmer. “I thought we were doing so badly that what we really needed was a complete change in what we were about, what our ambitions were, where we were going, what our priorities were and how we were going to have a message of hope. I thought it was about much more than Keir at that point. I thought changing leaders was like rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. I think I was wrong, right?”

Hodge has seen it all. Decade-long leader of Islington council when it was regarded as part of the “loony left”; Labour moderate and Blair-Brown loyalist throughout the years in power; scrapper extraordinaire who has taken on the BNP as MP for Barking, antisemitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and tax-avoiding tech companies as the formidable chair of the cross-party public accounts committee (PAC).

Now, in the week of her 82nd birthday, Hodge is publishing a memoir, Battleaxe. “I’m reclaiming the term. It shouldn’t be a term of derision. It’s a strong woman.” Who came up with the title? “If I’m absolutely honest, it was my agent. My children don’t like it, but lots of people do.”

Does she really feel like a battleaxe? “People do say: ‘Oh, you don’t want to take on Margaret.’” She stares me down, fiercely proud, big brown eyes aglint. “Can I tell you what I think about myself? I listen and reflect, but when I’ve made up my mind I’m quite strong and determined.” She reminds me of the great football manager Brian Clough, who said: “If I had an argument with a player, we would sit down for 20 minutes, talk about it, and then decide I was right.”

We are at her London home, where she lives alone. It’s every bit as immaculate and stylish as she is. “Don’t look in the garden,” she says. “It’s such a mess – I’ve been away for six weeks.” Her gardening tools are at the ready by the door. The walls are covered in lovely paintings. There are busts of her husband (the high court judge Henry Hodge, who specialised in immigration and died aged 65 in 2009) and her father (Hans Oppenheimer, who co-founded Coutinho, Caro & Co, a steel trading firm that became the multinational Stemcor). On the main wall in the living room is a gorgeous splash of abstract colour by Gillian Ayres. “I love it because it’s painted in big bold strokes and is really optimistic.” You could say much the same of Hodge.

She’s had a fascinating life. Her Jewish parents fled Germany to escape the Nazis, and she was born in Egypt. After a window was broken at her father’s business in 1948 during the first Arab-Israeli war, he took the hint. This time the family fled to Kent in England. Although they were atheists, the family’s only friends were other Jewish refugees.

On Christmas Day in 1954, when Hodge was 10, her mother died of stomach cancer. Shortly afterwards, it was decided that as the brightest child in her class, she should skip a year. So within months she had lost her mother and her peer group. She was devastated, and became increasingly unruly. Oppenheimer didn’t know what to do with her and sent her away to boarding school in Oxford, which she hated. In 1966 she graduated from the London School of Economics with a third-class honours degree in economics.

She worked in corporate market research for seven years, and did a stint as an unqualified teacher. In 1968 she married Andrew Watson, an economist with whom she had two children. She joined the Labour party in 1973, and won a seat on Islington council in the same year. A friend had told her that getting involved in local politics would keep her sane while raising a family. She was, and remains, driven by two desires – to equalise life chances and fight racism.

By 1975, she was chair of the council’s housing committee, with Henry Hodge, then a solicitor, as her deputy. In 1978, she divorced Watson and married Hodge. They went on to have two daughters. In 1982, she became leader of the council. Opponents nicknamed her Enver Hodge, a play on Enver Hoxha, the brutal communist dictator who ruled Stalinist Albania.

Hodge admits she was pretty hardline. “I don’t hold back. Henry always used to try to restrain me.” Can she give an example? “We did a walkout on Michael Heseltine because he did a conference on inner-city regeneration and he was chopping all our funding. I thought it was such hypocrisy.”

Why did Henry object to the walkout? “He said it was a daft thing to do. It was gesture politics. And in that era we were seen as engaging in too much gesture politics.” She pauses. “ But ,” she barks, “having said that, he was incredibly supportive.”

She gives another example of her gesture politics. “I refused to meet Margaret Thatcher. But she did do these awful things.”

I’m fully aware of the things she did, I say, but wasn’t it … She finishes the sentence for me. “It was stupid. It was stupid. I wouldn’t do it today, but isn’t that interesting to learn that of yourself and how you’ve changed? And it fitted with the time. She was taking on local government and the unions. She was destroying what Andy’s now going to try to recreate.”

She says that pre-Thatcher, she had so much power as a council leader, and the Iron Lady gradually stripped it away – rate-capping, grant cutting, privatisations, the abolition of the Greater London Council. “It was a terrible transformation. We did hate her. She was a Marmite figure, wasn’t she? You loved her or you hated her.”

That’s funny, I say: Marmite is how you describe yourself in Battleaxe. “Yep. Ha! This is true. I am controversial. I am seen as a Marmite figure, too. Why is that? Why is that? ” And for once she doesn’t answer her own question .

Has she been surprised by her career? “Yes. As a school kid, I never thought I’d be anybody. I thought I’d be a mum. I’d lost my mother and it made me think the only thing I want to be in life is a mum. So I feel surprised by the extent of my experience and opportunities.” There’s another thing that has surprised her – this time, not so positive. “I never thought I would become a hate figure in the way that I became sometimes.”

What does she consider her greatest achievement? “BNP,” she says instantly. “It has to be the BNP, doesn’t it?” In 2006, the neo-Nazi party won 12 of the 51 seats on Barking and Dagenham council. It looked as if it could go on to win the 2010 council election and that the BNP leader Nick Griffin could oust Hodge as MP in the general election.

Labour had committed the cardinal sin of taking the electorate for granted, Hodge says. What’s more, it was terrified of talking about migration. Meanwhile, her constituency had become unrecognisable to many. “It went from 98% white to under 50% in a generation, which is massive. If your community or my community changed liked that in a generation, we would feel unsettled. At best , unsettled. Kids in the street change, neighbours change, food in the shops changes.”

Hodge discovered her constituents were furious because they believed they were being ignored and that migrants were being prioritised for social housing. She proposed that weighting be given to people’s links to the community rather than housing being based purely on immediate need, which eventually happened.

Many fellow Labour MPs criticised her. Keith Vaz said she “appears to want to be the Alf Garnett of Islington”, while Alan Johnson accused her of pandering to the BNP. “He said that on Question Time. He was going for the deputy leadership,” Hodge says. Did they have a point? “No. I never ever caved in to the racism. Ever . E ver !”

In 2010 Labour wiped out the BNP and she trounced Griffin by 18,000 votes. How did that feel? “Very mixed because it was just under a year since Henry had died. There was a lot of ‘why is Henry not here?’ in it. But I also felt fantastic. Jubilant. If I hadn’t changed the way I’d operated politically, and knocked on doors, I think we would have had a BNP council and a BNP MP. It took me four years of work – it wasn’t just a quick three weeks before the election.”

She talks about the echoes today with Reform. “We lost control of immigration so I think what Shabana [Mahmood] is doing is really important. Now you don’t have massive delays in dealing with asylum seeker applications. People who come here have to abide by our rules, and if they don’t, they lose the right to be here. If they commit a criminal offence they should lose the right to be here.”

Really? Surely our rules are that you serve a sentence for a crime, then come out and get on with your life? I point out that many refugees are deported for minor crimes. “That changes once you’ve got your British citizenship,” she says. But under new Labour legislation, you could wait 20 years for that. “No, I agree,” she says. “I have problems with a 20-year wait.”

What was tougher, fighting the BNP or antisemitism? “The BNP was a much easier fight in an odd way. It was much clearer.” Why? “Because antisemitism was in the Labour party. It was horrible. Antisemitism is the worst of all the battles I have fought. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. It was miserable. I hated the abuse. I hated walking into rooms and thinking: ‘God, who’s for me and who’s against me in this room?’” Abuse on social media included: “The only support she deserves is a handrail to climb the gallows”.

Was she surprised when in 2018 she ended up calling Corbyn … Again she finishes the sentence for me. “ An antisemite ? Was I surprised at myself? No, that’s the battleaxe in me, isn’t it?” She had told two fellow MPs that she had planned to do it beforehand. So, I ask, was there a theatrical element to it? “I didn’t do it publicly. These two lads wanted me to say it to him on the frontbench. I said, ‘I’m not going to do that – I’ll catch him on his way out [of the House of Commons chamber]’, which is what I did.”

The 2022 report by Martin Forde KC into the toxic culture in the Labour party concluded that antisemitism was weaponised by the left and the right of the party. “I was anti-Corbyn; but no, I never used it as a weapon,” Hodge says. Does she agree in general that it was weaponised on both sides? “Yes, probably. I think there was some weaponising.”

If she saw Corbyn now, what would she say to him? “He doesn’t talk to me. Haha! He passes me by. Haha! Ignores me.” She chuckles with satisfaction. The Labour party asked her to apologise to Corbyn, but she told it where to go. After the party dropped its investigation in August 2018, she told Sky News: “On the day that I heard that they were going to discipline me and possibly suspend me, it felt almost like … what did it feel like to be a Jew in Germany in the 30s?”

Was this when she felt most hated in politics? “Yep.” Has it left scars? “It’s still there. But it’s a joy now to be in the Labour party. When Keir became leader, he single-mindedly tackled antisemitism. I hadn’t expected that and I appreciate it. But it’s a part of my life, so it doesn’t disappear.” Now she says it took Corbyn to help her rediscover her identity. “It’s brought me back to feeling an empathy with who I am – a Jewish immigrant refugee.”

What is her biggest regret in politics? She immediately cites the sexual abuse scandal in Islington children’s homes when she was leader of the council. “I just don’t think any of us thought paedophiles were operating out of children’s homes. It was unconscionable. Now it’s unconscionable today to think that we didn’t realise it. That’s probably caused me more political problems than anything.” She had just been made the UK’s first children’s minister when the scandal became headline news again decades later in 2003. She offered her resignation to Tony Blair, who refused it.

But many people knew it was going on and told you so? “We went through each allegation, and I had all the officers there and they denied any of this was happening. Remember, back then kids in care were called naughty. Today that is unconscionable, isn’t it? I’d listened to all the officers, but I didn’t talk to the kids, and that’s a regret.”

What was even more unconscionable is that she tried to close down an investigation by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and called Demetrious Panton, a child abuse survivor, an “extremely disturbed person”. She squirms when I mention it. “That was a terrible error. Terrible error.” Why did you do that? “I was advised. Everyone was ringing me up saying the Today programme was digging around and I thought: ‘How the hell can I stop this?’ That was an appalling bit of advice. But in the end I took responsibility. I did it.” Hodge was forced to issue an unreserved public apology in the high court, she paid Panton’s legal costs, and was ordered to pay him £30,000, which included a £10,000 donation to a charity of his choice.

But in the end Hodge, who now sits in the Lords, will be remembered more for exposing corruption than for covering it up. Although she never achieved high office as an MP, she became a political rock star as chair of the PAC between 2010 and 2015. She was convinced it was going to be a dull job when she took it on, yet it proved anything but. The cross-party committee tasked with assessing the value for money of government projects became a must-watch as corporate executives and senior civil servants were held to account for dodging taxes, playing fast and loose with public money, failing to answer questions or simply being rude.

Hodge proved herself a fearless one-woman grilling machine. Google’s Matt Brittin (now director general of the BBC) was well and truly Hodged when she threw the company motto back in his face, saying: “You are a company that says you ‘do no evil’. And I think that you do do evil.” After a session challenging BBC execs over excessive severance payoffs, she concluded it was “a very unedifying experience watching seven people at the top of the BBC dancing on the head of a pin to try and avoid responsibility”.

In 2024, she was made the UK’s official anti-corruption champion , a fiscal Wonder Woman fighting dirty money, offshore tax dodgers and economic crime. On her kitchen table today is a tax file she tells me I mustn’t look at on pain of death. For all of Hodge’s warmth, I tell her she can be terrifying. “Why?” Well, I’ve seen you in action on the PAC, I say.

Again, Hodge hoots with happy laughter. That’s the battleaxe, she says. Then she half-whispers, almost conspiratorially: “I’m always surprised when people say: ‘God, you don’t cross Margaret.’” But I’m not so sure she is.

Battleaxe: A Memoir by Margaret Hodge is out on 10 September, published by HarperCollins (£25). To support the Guardian and the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com

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Sali Hughes on beauty: the hero products that kept me cool in the long hot summer of 2026 | Skincare | The Guardian

Lifestyle, , ,

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Skincare, Beauty, Women, Life and style
Title – Sali Hughes on beauty: the hero products that kept me cool in the long hot summer of 2026 | Skincare | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sali-hughes
Link – Sali Hughes on beauty: the hero products that kept me cool in the long hot summer of 2026 | Skincare | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:05.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/sep/09/sali-hughes-beauty-hero-products-kept-me-cool-2026-long-hot-summer

Y ou’ll normally find me looking back on my favourite products of the past 12 months at year’s end. But this summer has been so freakishly hot and sweaty it has required its own toolkit and, by extension, its own list of exceptionally well-performing products that deserve rapturous commendation.

The first is Refy’s Skin Base (£30), a sheer face tint so thin and so lightweight it has been all I could bear to wear since July. It’s suitable for all skin types, but not at all appropriate for those who hate any hint of shine. While the texture is totally ungreasy, breathable and so comfortable as to be imperceptible, it does look unmistakably dewy, so avoid if you’re devoted to matte. Personally, I take the view that, in this heat, one might as well steer into the skid, but I am, admittedly, at an age when a juicier look works in my skin’s favour. Anyway, this is makeup that truly feels like absolutely nothing, and what it lacks in coverage can be made up with concealer where needed. Maximum points from me (I wear shade 140N).

Moisturiser is another step that humidity has forced me to downsize. The heat has made wearing heavy face cream as appealing as a 5km parkrun, so I’ve switched to lighter liquids to quench my skin’s thirst. The Prequel skincare line, which recently launched in the UK, is consistently good, but its Half & Half Fluid Moisturi zer (£28) has been a godsend. This very lightweight emulsion pours like semi-skimmed milk, satisfies like double cream and barely adds any weight to sweaty skin. The glycerin and ceramides keep everything supple until bedtime, and give a smooth, plump base for SPF and makeup. It’s the skincare equivalent of sleeping underneath a silk sheet instead of a 9-tog duvet.

St Tropez’s new Instant Glow Mousse (£25) has never been far from my reach. It’s a fast, mess-free and streakless way to make exposed legs golden until your next soapy shower. Stroke on with a mitt, wash off only when you’re ready. Absolutely no fussy prep required.

I’ve relied heavily on zingy, fresh, enlivening scents to keep me in good spirits. The summer 2026 perfume playlist I’ve had on repeat is Dedcool’s Xtra Milk (from £24) – a dreadful name, but a very gentle, happy and wearable fragrance – and Penhaligon’s Luna (from £32), all wet roses, zesty citrus and airy green forests. Like a cold compress for the senses.

‘One day the Taliban will need women to be educated’: three sisters on being forced back to Afghanistan | Global development | The Guardian

News around the world, , , ,

Keyword – Global development
Trefwoorden – Global development, Afghanistan, Taliban, Human rights, Women’s rights and gender equality, Global education, Iran, Migration, Middle East and north Africa, South and central Asia, World news, Women
Title – ‘One day the Taliban will need women to be educated’: three sisters on being forced back to Afghanistan | Global development | The Guardian
Author – Guardian reporters
Link – ‘One day the Taliban will need women to be educated’: three sisters on being forced back to Afghanistan | Global development | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:05.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/sep/09/taliban-afghanistan-women-iran

I t was a warm summer afternoon on 15 August 2021 when the Taliban entered Kabul and changed the lives of millions. Shallah*, then 16, watched the news at home on the Afghan TV channel Tolo news. She ran crying to the garden, to tell her mother that Afghanistan had fallen.

Her younger sister, Fatimah*, then 11, was at her cousin’s house, where her aunt told her the news. At the time, she says, she did not understand what a takeover meant, or who the Taliban were. Her elder sister, Maahi*, then 22, was well aware of the consequences and remembers her hands shaking at work as she read the news on her phone, on Facebook pages of Afghan news.

At that point the three sisters were living thousands of kilometres away in Qom, a city in central Iran , their family having left Afghanistan six years earlier because of the growing violence and a desire for the girls to grow up in peace. But the family had entered the country illegally and knew they could be arrested or deported at any time.

At first the older sisters tried to convince themselves that if the worst happened, maybe things would not be so bad for women and girls under the Taliban. Perhaps, they thought, these Taliban were different from the ones of the late 1990s, who had implemented a systematic denial of women’s rights that gave rise to the concept of gender apartheid. Twenty years had passed, and the Taliban was now making reassuring promises of women’s rights and girls’ education.

But inside Afghanistan, others were not so sure. Millions have fled to Pakistan and Iran over the past decade, with the numbers accelerating after the Taliban takeover. By the end of last year , there were an estimated 1.4 million undocumented Afghans living illegally in Iran, alongside a further 3 million living there with visas, residency permits or legal refugee status.

Mass deportations from both countries over the past year have seen more than 1 million people forced back to life under the Taliban, with about 400,000 Afghans deported from Iran since the start of the year.

The three sisters were born in Iran, but their parents brought them back to Afghanistan in about 2010 to allow Maahi and her brother to study. At the time, Iran did not allow undocumented Afghan children to remain in education past primary school.

Maahi remembers the strange feelings she had – a mix of happiness to come back home but fearful of leaving the only life she had known until then. At 11 years old, she did not yet understand the war between the US-led coalition and the Taliban.

By 2017, the ongoing war and attacks on civilians convinced her parents to leave again for Iran, to keep their children safe. Maahi was in her last year of high school, and wanted to study to become a journalist. She admired two Afghan journalists: Yama Siawash , who has since been assassinated, and Farahnaz Forotan , who now lives in exile.

The Iranian authorities had relaxed their policy regarding Afghan refugees’ access to schools and published an edict allowing them, even if undocumented, to study in Iran until the end of high school.

Maahi was overjoyed, until she realised that the authorities had put an age limit on this: she was 21 by then, as it had taken her two years to get the educational papers allowing her to study, but only Afghans below the age of 20 could study in Iranian schools. She was forced to start work to support her parents while her younger sisters went to school.

But studying for the first time at a school in Iran, Fatimah, the youngest sister, then five, says she was shocked by the treatment of Afghan children. “When we took our exams, Iranian students always got higher grades than Afghan students, and the principal would find any excuse to criticise the Afghans’ uniforms, never the Iranians’,” she says.

“Because we were undocumented, if we did something that the principal did not like, they threatened to expel us, saying they could drop us from school as they wished,” she says.

Shallah also joined an Iranian school and was a bright student, but this did not stop her from being insulted, including being called “afghani” – the name of the currency – instead of Afghan. She cried at the bus stop and hid the harassment from her parents.

She says she finished top of her class at the age of 12 and was meant to receive a prize. But when she stood up in front of the school and the official realised she was Afghan, the school principal said there had been a mistake, and instead gave the prize to the second-best student, an Iranian girl.

Shallah was among the last Afghan girls to benefit from the edict allowing Afghans to go to school. Fatimah was still in grade 8 (aged 14) when the edict expired in 2025. As she was about to start a new semester, she says the principal came to their class and informed them that only Iranians and documented Afghans would be allowed to register to continue.

The end of the edict last year coincided with a wave of anti-Afghan xenophobia and Iranian authorities’ accusations that Afghans had helped Israel in its attacks against the country.

The authorities intensified arrests and deportations and in May this year, their father was detained while at work. When Maahi and their mother went to look for him at the police station, they were arrested too, with the whole family later deported.

The sisters and their family have now settled in Herat, the city closest to the Iranian border in western Afghanistan. But any earlier hopes Maahi had for a more tolerant Taliban movement have long faded away . Women and girls have been barred from nearly every aspect of public life: schools, universities, most jobs and even parks.

The sisters say they now mostly stay at home, fearful of the Taliban “morality police” and its crackdown on what they deem inappropriate clothing. At least two people, including a boy, were killed by security forces in Herat province in June after protests over the arrests of women accused of violating dress code.

Despite the ban on schooling, the three girls do manage to attend unofficial private classes. The family are using their savings to pay the monthly fees of 2,500 afghani (£28) for the three sisters. It cannot award them diplomas, but the sisters say it keeps them focused on a future in which they might be able to resume their studies.

Maahi, the eldest sister, studies German, and says she hopes she can one day finish high school and emigrate there.

“I am not one to wait for what the future will bring me,” she says. “I am one to make my future by chasing opportunities.”

Shallah, the only one of the sisters who finished high school, says she is considering applying to an overseas university, with the hope of bringing her family with her. “For now, going to these classes [at the academy] gives me a little hope to go to university one day. Without this hope, my life would have ended by now.”

The youngest sister, Fatimah, recently sent her school certificates to the Iranian authorities to ask for help to return, but has had no response. She says she still hopes things will change in Afghanistan.

“I believe that one day, the Taliban will need the women to be educated. They will need women doctors to treat the sick and pregnant women of their family. So they will have no choice but to allow us to study eventually.”

* Names have been changed to protect their identities

An embattled Donald Trump is increasingly using sports as prop | Sport | The Guardian

News, Sport, , ,

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Sport, Donald Trump, US news, US sports
Title – An embattled Donald Trump is increasingly using sports as prop | Sport | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/leanderschaerlaeckens
Link – An embattled Donald Trump is increasingly using sports as prop | Sport | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:04.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/09/donald-trump-sports

L ately, it seems Donald Trump’s scope of interests has narrowed to a few things: remaking downtown Washington DC in his gaudy image; wars he thinks he can win quickly and easily, even though he can’t.

Also, golf. Always golf. Ever golf.

We hear less and less about Trump’s plans to overhaul healthcare, reshore manufacturing jobs or address the budget deficit. Yet one other subject, aligned with his lifelong interests, continues to preoccupy him: sports.

And in this area, his ideological project has methodically and loudly – since nothing of consequence can ever be done quietly by this administration – made more gains than just about anywhere else.

Which is to say that Trump, or more likely those seeking to swim in the slipstream of Trumpism , are hard at work trying to put sports back to how it looked in the 1980s. After all, that’s when the president’s view of the world, and how it should function, ossified.

This manifests in ways big and small, in consequences intended and accidental.

Here’s a relatively small and surely accidental one. When Los Angeles FC sold Venezuela international David Martínez to Denmark’s FC Midtjylland for $8.4m recently, the club did not do so for sporting reasons – or not entirely. The winger, named to the Guardian’s 2023 Next Generation class, had difficulty adapting to life in Los Angeles after arriving as an 18-year-old because his family couldn’t get visas to visit him, according to the club.

If Trump and his goons had even heard of the now-20-year-old, which they almost certainly hadn’t, he would have hardly been a top target of their policies. But that they have driven him to leave the country will would satisfy them all the same. This is exactly what the administration’s travel bans and curbs on visas were intended to achieve: to put people off coming to the US, or staying here.

Then there’s the big stuff.

The rolling campaign to “save” women’s sports from transgender athletes, who exist in vanishingly small numbers and are far from the threat those on the right would have you believe. This panic is propagated by a rabble who very proudly didn’t care about women’s sports at all until they spotted an opening to make a political profit from it.

Trump’s looming presence over the summer’s World Cup, and his active interference in it. His attendance at the NBA finals, the Daytona 500 and the Ryder Cup, appearances that seemed to curse his favored participants.

There’s the executive order attempting to unwind the decades-overdue gains made by college athletes in winning the right to be treated like every other American worker. They can finally be paid for their valuable labor and move (almost) freely between programs in search of the best opportunities – same as their coaches and administrators have always been able to do.

Foreign students and college athletes, meanwhile, find it harder and less attractive to come to and stay in the US on account of the same difficulties in bagging visas that chased off Martínez. That makes college sports more homogeneous and therefore, in Trump’s thinking, better.

In trying to rearrange things to how they once were – the exact moment in the past when things were great; a time that nobody can seem to pinpoint, but which you’ll no doubt remember with searing clarity – Trump has even gone so far as to issue an executive order to try to protect the Army-Navy football game’s exclusive TV time slot. The College Football Playoff’s lurching expansion threatened to creep into the second Saturday of December, traditionally and legally set aside for the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy.

“Such scheduling conflicts weaken the national focus on our Military Service Academies and detract from a morale-building event of vital interest to the Department of War,” the order reads.

Also apparently intended as a morale-building event was the much-panned UFC event on the White House lawn to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, and, more pressingly, Trump’s 80th birthday. The first professional sporting event on the White House grounds managed to lose $30m , even though the fighters were apparently paid at least partly in cryptocurrency issued by a Trump company.

When he sensed he would be met by a friendly crowd, Trump became the first sitting president to attend the Super Bowl . In the same spirit, he traveled to a World Series game in 2021, when he was out of power, just to do the racist tomahawk chop with Atlanta Braves fans.

He more or less ordered an IndyCar race to be held in DC, the Freedom 250, which was well attended but severely disrupted car and plane traffic in the capital. The awkward layout of the course, meanwhile, meant that nearly half the cars didn’t finish all the laps. No matter, Trump took a lap around the track in his presidential limousine. With no other cars on the road, he finished first.

Then there are the unprovoked and untethered broadsides. Such as the time Trump suggested the National Football League change its name to accommodate soccer. Or suggested LeBron James was a racist because he doesn’t play golf with the president. Or when he plunged a cleaver into the culture war prime cuts of restoring the Washington Commanders and Cleveland Guardians to their old, racist names.

Several of Trump’s golf courses have hosted events staged by LIV Golf, the Saudi-backed breakaway golf circuit that appears to be on life support . If it should croak, it would share this distinction with the last sporting venture that Trump was intimately entangled with: the New Jersey Generals of the old United States Football League. Trump, who owned the franchise, bungled it into bankruptcy and took the entire league down with him.

Yet the lesson that has stuck with him since childhood is that sports holds a privileged place in our national conscience, and that it serves as a powerful messaging conduit. Now, as president, his efforts have hardly been concerted or coordinated, but sports is the rare topic where Trump has succeeded in shifting the conversation to his preferred terms.

Leander Schaerlaeckens is the author of The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and Its Savage, Four-Decade Journey to the Top, or Thereabouts, which is out now . He teaches at Marist University.

‘Who do you really believe?’: the true crime fans who became a part of the story | Documentary | The Guardian

Culture, , , , , , , , , ,

Keyword – Television & radio
Trefwoorden – Documentary, HBO, Factual TV, TV crime drama, Television, US television, Culture, Television & radio, US crime, Kansas, Media
Title – ‘Who do you really believe?’: the true crime fans who became a part of the story | Documentary | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/andrew-lawrence
Link – ‘Who do you really believe?’: the true crime fans who became a part of the story | Documentary | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T09:00:04.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/sep/09/a-killer-story-series-review

A man and a woman are murdered in cold blood inside their Topeka, Kansas bedroom under cover of darkness in 2002. Suspicion quickly falls on the man’s ex-wife, Dana Chandler, with family and forensic evidence painting her as the jealous type. But the county prosecutor at the time declines to pursue charges in large part because nothing places Chandler at the scene of the crime. It’s only after a politically motivated prosecutor is appointed and CBS’s 48 Hours airs a 2009 report rehashing the case that Chandler is arrested on two counts of premeditated first-degree murder in 2011 and condemned to consecutive life sentences the following year.

No doubt: the story is hot copy. And more than likely, Chandler’s conviction marks the conclusion if a husband-and-wife team of true crime enthusiasts hadn’t become convinced that the real killer was still walking free. “There’s a lot of questions that remain,” says film-maker Matthew Galkin. “But when you start to unpack the crime itself, there’s a lot of hoops to jump through and a very high bar to clear in order for her to have pulled this off.”

A Killer Story, HBO’s latest true crime deep dive, takes Galkin and producing partner Josh Levine on a six-year-long steeplechase to answer the burning question of who murdered Mike Sisco and Karen Harkness. It’s a three-part journey driven not just by their collective skepticism of its three bombshell legal outcomes, but led by one of the country’’s foremost cynics.

Joe Sexton doesn’t just look the part of a hardscrabble newsman, with his resplendent gray mane and goatee for doubtful stroking. “We would talk about noir films, a Sam Spade-type character,” Levine says. “But he also had this [flavor] of Capote in In Cold Blood.” Sexton makes himself unmistakable to the ear with his Brooklyn pottymouth and easy enough to spot in his bright North Face windbreaker vests. “At the end of the second trial, we interviewed the foreman in the jury, and one of the things he told us was that they had given nicknames to different people,” Sexton recalls. “The bald 6ft 8in prosecutor with the big beard was the Son of Anarchy. The older defense lawyer with glasses was Mr Magoo. The nickname they gave me, which I’ve kind of leaned into, was Tracksuit Jesus.”

A Pulitzer prize-winning veteran of the New York Times and ProPublica, Sexton has a deep wariness of the juicy lead. In the first episode, Sexton still radiates with contempt as he recalls the 3,000 unsolicited emails he received from Eileen Umbehr, a self-described pyjamas housewife who couldn’t let Chandler’s conviction stand. It wasn’t until Umbehr wrote Sexton to tell him that the Kansas supreme court would hear an appeal of Chandler’s sentence in 2016 that Sexton conceded there was no more avoiding a trip to Topeka, site of the landmark school-segregation case that reached the US supreme court.

It’s at that point the lens widens on Umbehr, who proves to be more than just a concerned citizen. Her husband, Keen, is a lifelong good troublemaker who went from toiling as a garbageman to uncovering local government corruption for the town newspaper with scoops collected along his garbage route. When the county moved to cancel his garbage contract in retaliation for his muckraking, Keen filed a first amendment lawsuit that went all the way to the US supreme court and won a 7-2 decision in 1996. It was all the motivation Keen needed to go to law school and open his own practice. (Fun fact: he also ran for governor as a libertarian, losing in 2014 to Republican former US senator Sam Brownback.) Years later, Keen and Eileen helped assemble the materials and arguments that prompted the Kansas supreme court to review Dana Chandler’s conviction – and overturn it.

That final revelation, of these plucky underdogs winning yet another challenge to the legal system against all discernible odds, marked the first time I pumped my fist watching a documentary. Gaskin and Levine really make viewers fall hard for the Umbehrs – who offload 200 acres of inherited family property to fund the legal defense for Chandler, who goes from crusade cause to actual client. And the doubts they raise about Chandler’s guilt aren’t trivial.

There’s a reason why she wasn’t prosecuted initially, after all. The Sisco-Harkness murder bore the classic hallmarks of a hit job, with the assailant breaking into their home undetected, spraying them at close-range with machine gun fire without hitting anything else even once, and leaving without a trace. Chandler, meanwhile, lived more than 500 miles away in Denver. But because she had recently sent a series of exasperated messages about Sisco, with whom she had a tumultuous marriage and shares two children, and bought two spare fuel canisters at an auto parts store – with her credit card – then, naturally, she had to be the one and only suspect.

Astonishingly, the idea of a frail midwest divorcee hypermiling her Mitsubishi econobox across state lines to go full Tony Montana with a subsonic machine gun that was once reserved for the Israeli military wasn’t enough to stoke reasonable doubt, let alone seed it. “Over the three prosecutions, the basic gameplan was, ‘Let’s make her as ugly and unpleasant as we can,’” Sexton says. “I used to think there were limitations about what could be entered into evidence as prior bad acts. But that’s all it was: ‘well, she showed up and cursed out her husband at a soccer game …’”

The alternate-killer theory the Umbehrs present, casting suspicion on Harkness’s son-in-law Jeff Sutton, falls apart – ultimately revealing a legal beef between Keen and Sutton dating to the latter’s days as a county attorney and leaving the garrulous Eileen at a notable loss for words. After that second trial in 2022 ends in a hung jury, Chandler is tried a third time, shocks everyone by representing herself and goes down in flames – despite the prosecution manufacturing a witness. (The witness even admits as much on camera!)

“It’s the same evidence in each trial, actually even less because they start throwing things out,” Levine says. “You go from the second trial where there’s a six-day deliberation and they can’t come to a decision in an hour and a half in the third trial. I think it dovetails nicely with our interest in all these people telling their stories for all these years. So it’s like, who do you really believe?”

Once again, you can’t help feeling most for the Umbehrs, who literally bet the farm on Chandler’s exoneration, view her legal Hail Mary as the height of betrayal and cut off all communication and support. That leaves Sexton, Galkin and Levine without a tidy ending for their documentary, but with plenty of observations to offer on the complexities of the criminal justice system, the persuasive effects of true crime mills like 48 Hours and the dangers of confirmation bias – especially when it compounds. “Honestly, I believe she would’ve been free had she not fired her lawyers and represented herself in a massively self-destructive move that almost never turns out well for anyone who chooses it,” Galkin says. “Joe says it well in the series: knowing your case really well and arguing it effectively are two different things.”

In her defense, though, one could also see how failing to win freedom after more than a decade behind bars might make someone with the best counsel act rashly. It’s also difficult to overlook the role a more robust press might have played in, at the very least, underscoring the undeniable reasonable doubt in Chandler’s case. “Certainly local coverage in Topeka at the time of her arrest was in the pocket of prosecutors,” Sexton says. “They’re in bed with 48 Hours, tipped local reporters off to her arrest. Topeka, like many towns its size in America, has had its local press eviscerated. But CBS 48 Hours comes in and does a show and has a bunch of crying family members saying, ‘This woman did it.’ Well, that’s all you need.”

A Killer Story starts on HBO on 10 September and will be available on HBO Max

Tell us: how have you been affected by UK air traffic disruption? | Air transport | The Guardian

News, News around the world, ,

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Air transport, Transport, Heathrow
Title – Tell us: how have you been affected by UK air traffic disruption? | Air transport | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-community-team
Link – Tell us: how have you been affected by UK air traffic disruption? | Air transport | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T08:50:44.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/09/air-traffic-flight-disruption

Airports across the UK including Manchester, Birmingham and all those in London were hit by a system issue at air traffic control on Tuesday, which continued into Wednesday.

We would like to hear from people travelling about how they have been affected by disruption. What has the experience been like? Have you had to change or cancel your travel plans?

If you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian

News, , , ,

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Automotive industry, Manufacturing sector, Business, UK news, Surrey
Title – Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/marksweney
Link – Supercar maker McLaren to create 1,000 UK jobs as part of £450m tech investment | Automotive industry | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T08:34:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/sep/09/supercar-maker-mclaren-to-create-1000-uk-jobs-tech-investment

The British supercar manufacturer McLaren is to create 1,000 jobs in a welcome boost to the UK’s struggling automotive industry.

The carmaker is creating the jobs as part of a £450m investment in its technology centre in Woking, near to the plant where it manufactures all of its vehicles.

McLaren, which merged with the premium UK electric vehicle startup Forseven Holdings, currently employs 2,500 staff. The new jobs will include indirect and agency workers, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the investment.

The news comes days after Jaguar Land Rover confirmed plans to cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years . JLR, which is restructuring to address falling sales and financial challenges including Donald Trump’s tariff wars and the fallout from a cyber-attack last year , employs 44,000 people globally and 34,000 in the UK.

The cuts will mainly affect the 26,000 UK employees who are salaried and management workers.

Last year, CYVN Holdings, an Abu Dhabi government-owned investment company, acquired McLaren’s automotive business from Bahraini sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat.

CYVN has said that it plans to invest $2bn (£1.4bn) over the next five years to drive the lossmaking group.

European carmakers have faced tough trading conditions as Chinese rivals, such as BYD and Chery, have enjoyed soaring sales across the UK and mainland Europe.

Last week Volkswagen announced that it was to cut 100,000 of its more than 650,000 global workforce by 2030 and cut the number of models the group produces by half.

VW group also includes the Bentley, Audi, Skoda, Seat, Porsche, Cupra and Lamborghini brands.

From early next year UK carmakers face a 10% tariff for electric vehicles shipped to the EU, and UK-made vehicles do not qualify for “made in Europe” subsidies under current proposals.

US Open 2026 quarter-final: Ben Shelton stuns Carlos Alcaraz in thriller after latest ever finish – as it happened | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian

Sport, , , , ,

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – US Open Tennis 2026, Carlos Alcaraz, US Open tennis, Sport, Tennis, US sports
Title – US Open 2026 quarter-final: Ben Shelton stuns Carlos Alcaraz in thriller after latest ever finish – as it happened | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bryan-armen-graham
Link – US Open 2026 quarter-final: Ben Shelton stuns Carlos Alcaraz in thriller after latest ever finish – as it happened | US Open Tennis 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-09-09T08:07:14.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/sep/08/ben-shelton-v-carlos-alcaraz-us-open-2026-quarter-final-live-updates

Shelton wins 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7)!

Fifth-set tiebreak: Shelton 10-7 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

And Shelton has done it, closing it out with a 146mph out wide. Carlos Alcaraz is out of the US Open and Ben Shelton will meet Frances Tiafoe in an all-American semi-final on Friday!

That’s all for tonight. Er, this morning. Thanks for following along with us and be sure to read Tumaini Carayol’s full report off a match for the record books.

Shelton also spoke warmly about the communication with his father and coach, Bryan, during a match that stretched deep into the New York night. “For us, it was just enjoyable to be a part of that match,” he says. “Obviously, the level of tennis, how long the match was going, the fight that it was, how even the match was back and forth throughout. I think that’s something that we can appreciate. Win or lose, have a smile on our face.”

And after nearly four and a half hours on court, is he worried about recovering in time for Friday’s semi-final with Frances Tiafoe ? Shelton’s answer at 3.46am on Wednesday morning was to the point. “Two days? Yeah.”

Shelton admits he was “pissed” after losing that 70-minute opening set , particularly after breaking Alcaraz to force the tiebreak. But that late break also gave him belief. “I knew that my serve was only going to get better, and if I’d already dialed in the return to the point that I could break him, I thought my chances were good to get that second set.”

That proved prescient. Shelton broke Alcaraz three times in a runaway second set, and from there felt able to “play and swing more freely”. The key, he says, was staying patient on return: making Alcaraz play, punishing missed spots and not getting discouraged by the inevitable aces and service winners. “I think for me to be able to hang in there in the rallies, have a game plan from the ground and be able to execute that game plan, and not be losing all the baseline points, also helps with the return.”

Shelton: ‘That was a war’

How does Ben Shelton feel after Tuesday night’s/Wednesday morning’s quarter-final win? “I’m tired,” the American said to a gaggle of reporters in the bowels of Arthur Ashe Stadium, in lieu of a formal press conference given the late hour.

“That was a war, epic match. I mean, so physical. Carlos, one of the greatest champions in our sport already at 23 years old. It’s always fun being on the court against him. It’s ridiculous, the amount of stuff he comes up with sometimes, but the most enjoyable match that I’ve had in my career, for sure.”

What an ending. After 4hr 28min, Shelton finally gets over the line in a fifth-set tiebreak to reach the US Open semi-finals, surviving Alcaraz’s furious fourth-set comeback and a deciding set in which neither man could find the break.

The serve that carried Shelton for so much of the night held firm when it mattered most. He won 70% of his first-serve points and 57% behind his second serve, with 54 of his 156 serves going unreturned. Remarkably, after Alcaraz broke him three times in that fourth-set rout, Shelton did not surrender serve in the decider.

And the contrast in errors tells plenty of the story. Alcaraz finished with 38 winners to Shelton’s 34, but committed 53 unforced errors to the American’s 35. Shelton also dominated the short exchanges, winning 55% of rallies lasting four shots or fewer, while Alcaraz controlled the longer ones. In the end, at nearly four and a half hours and deep into the New York night, the margins could scarcely have been finer.

Shelton wins 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7)!

Fifth-set tiebreak: Shelton 10-7 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

And Shelton has done it, closing it out with a 146mph out wide. Carlos Alcaraz is out of the US Open and Ben Shelton will meet Frances Tiafoe in an all-American semi-final on Friday!

Fifth-set tiebreak: *Shelton 8-7 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Shelton pounds a 146mph serve that Alcaraz can’t handle. Then Alcaraz makes another unforced error off the forehand side to go down a minibreak! He wins the next point coming to net with a drop-shot volley winner. But Shelton is serving for the match at 8-7 with the next two points on his racket.

Fifth-set tiebreak: *Shelton 6-6 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz makes an unforced error from the baseline and we’re back on serve in the breaker. He then fires in an unreturnable serve. Shelton to serve at 5-6. That beeping you may hear is the sound of the garbage trucks. What an atmosphere. Shelton wins the next point for 6-all and the players will change ends again. The end is near.

Fifth-set tiebreak: Shelton 4-5 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz crushes a picture-perfect winner into the corner and now Shelton will serve at 3-4 with the next two points on his racket. An unforced error on Shelton’s forehand gives Alcaraz a minibreak, but the American wins the next point with a body serve that Alcaraz can’t handle. Alcaraz to serve at 5-4.

Fifth-set tiebreak: Shelton 3-3 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton wins the next point but then falters on a backhand, handing the minibreak back to Alcaraz. On serve in the tiebreaker. Another unforced error by Shelton makes it 3-all as the players change ends.

Fifth-set tiebreak: *Shelton 2-1 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Shelton serves to begin the tiebreak and rips a forehand winner early in the rally. Alcaraz responsds a quick point but misfires in a 10-shot rally to go down a minibreak. Shelton to serve at 2-1 with the next two points on his racket.

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 6-6 Alcaraz

Alcaraz does his part and this historic quarter-final will be decided by a fifth-set tiebreaker. First man to 10 points will face Frances Tiafoe in a US Open semi-final on Friday.

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 6-5 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton races to 30-love and “Let’s go, Ben!” chants ring through the lower bowl. Shelton gets it to 40-love, igniting the chants again (and louder), before spraying a backhand past the baseline. But the American is able to hold from there, leaving it to Alcaraz to force a deciding first-to-10-points tiebreaker.

Fifth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 5-5 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz holds at love for 5-all, a game that includes a punishing 19-shot exchange that sees Shelton finally blink first. It’s 3.11am. What is life.

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 5-4 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

An emphatic servicde game for Shelton, who holds at love in barely a minute as the match spills into its fifth hour. Alcaraz will serve to stay in the tournament after the change of ends.

Fifth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 4-4 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

A couple of unforced errors have surfaced in Alcaraz’s game at the worst time as he goes down 15-30 on his serve. The crowd swells. And now Shelton has just painted the line with a scorching cross-court backhand winner for 15-40 and two break-point chances! This could be the match! He squanders the first after coming to net early in the rally and hitting a backhand long. And Alcaraz saves the second with another brilliant display, coming from nowhere to hit a forehand volley winner than Shelton can’t return into the court. Deuce, and could that be Shelton’s best chance at closing it out wasted?

Not so fast. Alcaraz has just double-faulted and Shelton will have a third break chance. But he can’t convert that one either, sending a running backhand into the net. Now Shelton sends a forehand long and Alcaraz is one point from the crucial hold. (They’re all crucial now.) And he wins it with a 122mph serve out wide that Shelton can’t handle. We’re on serve in the fifth!

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 4-3 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton in trouble here. He’s quickly gone down love-30 on his serve and Alcaraz tastes blood. But the American wins two fighting points for 30-all. Shelton then hits an unreturnable serve for game point, but follows with an unforced error off the forehand for deuce. From there Shelton nails down the hold, capping it with a 144mph ace to stay on serve in the decider.

This will be the latest finish in US Open history

Fifth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 3-3 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz closes out a drama-free hold with a 113mph ace down the middle.

And at the stroke of 2.51am it became official: this match will be the latest finish in the history of the US Open. As mentioned earlier, the previous record was 2.50am, set by Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in their 2022 quarter-final . Alcaraz won 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-7 (0), 7-5, 6-3 after 5hr 15min.

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 3-2 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

With Shelton serving at 15-all, chants of “Let’s go Carlos, let’s go!” sound through the crowd. Shelton then hits a forehand volley winner, igniting his side of the crowd, but Alcaraz answeres with a backhand tracers off the ground for 30-all. Another blistering forehand winner by Alcaraz give him a break point at 30-40, but Shelton comes to net early in the rally to erase it for deuce. More “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chants. Two quick points for Alcaraz and he’s escaped with the hold.

Fifth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 2-2 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz holds at love while the clattering sound of a No 7 subway can be heard in the distance.

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 2-1 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton falls behind love-30 on his serve, then rattles off four quick points to hold. Alcaraz comes in just too low on a baseline forehand on game point, sending the crowd into roars when the ball caroms back off the net.

Fifth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 1-1 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz holds comfortably, closing it out with a 124mph ace. It’s 2.34am, the lower bowel of Ashe is nearly full, there’s plenty of folks still upstairs and, yes, they’re still selling Honey Deuces (though it seems most stands have run out of the souvenir cups).

Fifth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 1-0 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton falls behind love-15 serving to open the fifth set, but gets the better of a 13-shot rally before hitting a unreturnable serve for 30-15. He’s able to hold from there and “U-S-A! U-S-A!” chants break out as the players change ends with Bad Bunny playing from the arena soundsystem.

Alcaraz wins fourth set, 6-2!

Fourth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6 Alcaraz

Alcaraz holds at love and we’re headed to a fifth and deciding set!

Shelton finally looked vulnerable behind the enormous serve that had carried him through the middle two sets. Alcaraz is now three for 10 on break points, while Shelton has dropped five service games overall. It’s 2.21am in New York, we’re going five, and the US Open’s all-time latest finish of 2.50am is very much in play.

Alcaraz breaks in sixth game of fourth set!

Fourth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-5 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton goes down love-30, then 30-40 and break point down, gifting Alcaraz the break of serve with a scratchy backhand. Alcaraz will now serve to force a fifth set.

Fourth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-4 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz finds himself in a love-30 hole after two unforced errors, but wins a couple of medium-length rallies for 30-all. He gets to game point with a forehand winner, but Shelton answers with a forehand winner down the line for deuce. From there Alcaraz reels off two quick points to nail down the hold.

Fourth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-3 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

A stress-free hold for Shelton, who crushes a 123mph ace along the way.

Fourth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 0-3 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

We’re past 2am here in Ashe and Alcaraz backs up the break with a hold at love. More “Olé, olé, olé” chants.

Alcaraz breaks in second game of fourth set!

Fourth set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 0-2 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Now it’s Shelton who is pressured on his serve, making back-to-back unforced errors from 15-all to go double break point down. He saves the first with another wild exchange of volleys at the net, but blinks on the second with a backhand error to end an eight-shot rally. “Olé, olé, olé” chants ring down from the loge seats in Ashe as the crowd tries to will Alcaraz on.

For anybody wondering, the latest finish in US Open history is 2.50am, set by Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in their 2022 quarter-final . Alcaraz won 6-3, 6-7 (7), 6-7 (0), 7-5, 6-3 after 5hr 15min.

Fourth set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 0-1 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz falls behind 15-30 on hi serve, then 30-40 and break point down. But he rattles off three quick points to escape with the hold to open the fourth set.

Here’s a glimpse of the US Open grounds at 1.40am , with Shelton and Alcaraz still going inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. Fountain Plaza, normally one of the busiest thoroughfares at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, is almost completely deserted, the concessions shuttered and only a handful of people still milling around.

Shelton wins third set, 6-3!

Third set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 6-3 Alcaraz

At 15-all, Shelton pounds a 124mph serve before coming to net and finishing with a muscular forehand winner. He’s two points from the set. Alcaraz answers with a sharply angled backhand winner from the baseline for 30-all. Then, another truly extraordinary point ends after a trade of apparent volley winners, when Alcaraz hits a blistering forehand winner moving into the backcourt for break point at 30-40. A massive point, this. And Shelton gets the better of Alcaraz over a 19-shot rally to save it, bringing the crowd to its feet once again! Deuce. Shelton then outlasts Alcaraz in an 11-shot exchange for set point and the Spaniard looks worse for wear, having been run ragged in these extended rallies. And Shelton forces Alcaraz into another forced error to take the third set in 48 minutes!

Unlike the second-set blowout, this was a much sterner test. The American protected his serve superbly, saving all three break points he faced in the set and losing only seven points on serve altogether. Through three sets he has saved six of seven break points and held in 13 of 14 service games.

The serve remains terrifying – still topping out at 149mph – but Shelton has been winning this match with more than raw velocity. He’s getting 66% of his first serves in and has won 68% of those points, while an extraordinary 39% of his second serves have gone unreturned.

Third set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 5-3 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz races to 40-love on his serve, then makes it complicated for himself with his 36th and 37th unforced errors, both off the forehand, for 40-30. But he’s able to hold from there and Shelton will serve for the set.

Third set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 5-2 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz strolls to a stress-free hold and Alcaraz will serve to stay in the third set.

Third set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 4-2 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz finds himself in trouble on his serve again, but rattles off three quick points to hold from 15-30 down.

Third set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 4-1 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton holds comfortably to stay in front. And with new balls coming on court after the change of ends, the American will have the chance to serve out the set with a little extra zip.

Third set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 3-1 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz holds at love, punctuating it with a barbaric “Va-mos!” after breaking Shelton’s run of nine straight games won.

Third set: Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 3-0 Alcaraz* (*denotes next server)

Shelton goes down love-30 then 15-40 on his serve, giving Alcaraz two chances to break right back. Shelton saves them both for deuce, then uncorks a 142mph ace that draws more audible oohs for game point. But Alcaraz follows by winning the new point of the night – new point of the tournament? – winning a sensational 18-point exhange with a backhand volley winner that brings the reamining crowd of several thousand fans to its feet. Deuce, then two quick points for Shelton to back up the break. That’s nine straight games to the American.

Shelton breaks in second game of third set!

Third set: *Shelton 6-7, 6-1, 2-0 Alcaraz (*denotes next server)

Alcaraz falls behind love-30 on his serve before fighting back to deuce. Shelton then produces a break point by winning a 12-shot exchange and converts it when Alcaraz sends a volley into the net for his 33rd unforced error of the night (against 17 winners).