Andy Burnham will face Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon in next month’s crucial Makerfield byelection in a clash that could change the course of British politics for years to come.
Reform are billing Kenyon, a plumber and army reservist who contested the seat just outside Wigan in the 2024 general election, as a local champion taking on a professional politician who is using the seat for his own advantage.
Kenyon, however, faced immediate scrutiny of his social media activity. Deleted posts on X show he appeared to cast doubt on the efficacy of a vaccine, interacted with a Dutch far-right influencer and praised Donald Trump. The Conservatives also asked why Kenyon’s account had been suspended.
Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, was selected by Labour’s national executive committee . No other candidates were on the shortlist despite others having applied. The byelection is expected to take place on 18 June.
Burnham has been open about wanting to return to Westminster to change Labour’s direction at the national level, and a leadership bid against Keir Starmer is widely assumed if he wins. He said in a statement that he was humbled to have been selected and promised to put the spotlight on what he said were neglected parts of the UK such as Makerfield.
Announcing Kenyon as Reform’s candidate, the party leader, Nigel Farage, characterised the byelection as a “David versus Goliath battle”.
In a video posted by Reform, Kenyon took aim at Burnham, saying he was using Makerfield as a stepping stone. This is likely to be an attack line in the weeks ahead despite Burnham’s family home being nearby.
“Labour and probably the other parties have got career politicians. They go to private school, to university, they get a job at a thinktank or they are an assistant to an MP and then before you know it they are parachuted into somewhere they have never even visited to stand as an MP,” he said.
Kenyon, who was born in Makerfield and previously worked as a specialist NHS technician in Lancashire, came second in the 2024 election, 5,399 votes behind Labour’s Josh Simons, who announced last week he would give up his role so Burnham could launch his attempt to return to Westminster.
Archived copies of Kenyon’s X posts include one in which he replies to an NHS account questioning its claim that a vaccine has 90% effectiveness, asking: “How many people were tested and what is the protection rate for people who hadn’t had the vaccine?”
In the aftermath of the murder of three young children in Southport, Kenyon replied to a post by Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a prominent Dutch influencer who was among 11 far-right activists banned from the UK before a rally last weekend. Kenyon asked her: “Any description of the attacker?”
He also expressed support for the US president in a number of posts, telling another X user: “Trump is very popular, just not in your liberal circle.”
Labour and Reform are favourites for the byelection, but they face challenges from the left and right. Restore Britain, the openly far-right party set up by the former Reform MP Rupert Lowe , has selected the local businesswoman Rebecca Shepherd as its candidate and deployed targeted Facebook adverts in Makerfield on Tuesday. The Greens are expected to pick a candidate on Wednesday.
Starmer chaired a cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning, the first since Wes Streeting, another expected leadership rival, resigned as health secretary.
The prime minister later used a Downing Street event to hail the impact of the Renters’ Rights Act, which gives new protections to tenants. “We had to fight for this,” he said. “This is not a dry piece of legislation that just sits on the statute books … it makes a real impact for renters up and down the country.”
Starmer has refused to consider the idea of setting out a timetable to quit, saying he hoped to lead the party into the next election.
Mark Drakeford, who was the Labour first minister of Wales from 2018 to 2024, said on Tuesday that he wanted Burnham to replace Starmer.
“I think Keir Starmer should set out a timetable for a change in leadership of the United Kingdom Labour party and the United Kingdom itself,” he told Channel 4 News.
“He is a decent man who works extremely hard every day to do his very best, but a combination of circumstances and capacity mean that it hasn’t worked out, and it’s time to recognise that and make a plan to move ahead.”
Scientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals” , in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study .
In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity.
The samples were taken from the Solent strait, which runs between the Isle of Wight and the mainland, forming part of the Channel. The chemicals are thought to have entered the environment from wastewater treatment plants, sewage outflows, historic landfills and nearby military sites.
Researchers said their findings highlighted the need to monitor chemicals in combination and to make a blanket ban on Pfas part of the government’s water reform agenda.
Prof Alex Ford, a biologist at the University of Portsmouth and one of the study’s authors, said: “If there was an oil spill in the Solent that industry would have to pay for the restoration of those habitats, but that doesn’t happen with sewage.
But he added: “This is one thing I don’t necessarily pin on the water companies because they don’t have the capacity to treat these compounds. That’s why they should be banned at source.”
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (Pfas) are a family of chemicals used for their long-lasting qualities in various industries and household products including non-stick cookware, food packaging and waterproof clothing.
They are often known as “forever chemicals” because they are not easily broken down and have been linked to a range of diseases in humans and wildlife by scientists.
Researchers analysed government data, testing at water utilities, and their own samples from a dozen species of fish, seaweed and invertebrates. They found Pfas were entering the Solent in treated effluent from wastewater plants in Portsmouth and Fareham operated by Southern Water, the utility that provides drinking water and sewerage for Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
The study also mapped 194 combined sewer overflow outfalls and more than 500 nearby historic landfills that researchers believe could also contribute to the pollution.
Some of the samples taken from marine wildlife contained individual chemicals above existing safe legal limits, including in the livers of harbour porpoises. Far more failed a newer European Union test for combined toxicity, which weighs the relative potency of Pfas combined.
All but seven of English surface waters tested fail the combined test , as would a number of remote lochs and burns in Scotland .
“I don’t think our story is specific to the Solent,” Ford said. “I think we would see a pattern all around the UK.”
A Southern Water spokesperson agreed on the need for new legislation “to restrict or ban certain chemicals”.
“Tackling the presence of these chemicals is a challenge for society as a whole,” they said. “The most sustainable solution is to meet the problem at source … and keep [the chemicals] out of pipes and the environment in the first place.”
Despite Pfas’ persistence in the environment, evidence shows that restricting their use can be effective .
The EU is moving towards a blanket Pfas ban, probably with some exceptions for medicine and other critical uses. The British government said it would consult on setting limits for the chemicals and carry out further tests when its own Pfas plan was published in February, promising a “framework … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.
However, the Marine Conservation Society , which funded the Solent study, said: “We need to go further and faster.”
“It’s not good enough to plan to have a plan,” said Calum Duncan, head of policy at the environmental charity. “We urgently need action and we have this once-in-a-generation opportunity with the water reform process to get on and do that.”
T his is my current speedy weeknight favourite, and hits so many of my wishlist requirements. The flavours are intense – salty, sweet, a little spicy (I love to finish it with a crispy chilli oil), with the freshness of a shredded slaw. It’s punchy, quick and nutritious. And, as much as I love it just as it is, this would also make an excellent butty: pop the sliced panko-coated chicken in a brioche bun and pile the salad on top. Delicious.
Panko chicken with green bean and cabbage salad with miso dressing
Prep 10 min Cook 35 min Serves 4
200g extra-fine green beans , trimmed 4cm piece fresh ginger , peeled and finely grated 1 small garlic clove , peeled and finely grated 25g white miso 1 tbsp maple syrup ½ tbsp sesame oil 3 tbsp groundnut oil , plus extra for frying 1 tbsp soy sauce 1 lime Sea salt and ground black pepper 500g chinese leaf or white cabbage , trimmed and finely shredded 150g cherry tomatoes , halved 4 chicken breasts (about 160g each) 60g plain flour 2 large eggs 90g panko breadcrumbs 2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil, then drop in the green beans and cook for about five minutes, until just tender. Drain, then plunge into a bowl of cold water.
In a large salad bowl, whisk the ginger, garlic, white miso and a tablespoon of boiling water until smooth, then stir in the maple syrup, sesame oil, groundnut oil and soy sauce. Squeeze in the juice of the lime, whisk and season generously. Stir in the cabbage and tomatoes, then drain the beans, pat them dry with kitchen paper, and add those, too. Toss everything and set aside.
Put the chicken breasts between two sheets of greaseproof paper and give them a good whack with a frying pan, pestle or rolling pin, until evenly flattened out. Tip the flour on to a plate and season well. Whisk the eggs in a wide, shallow bowl. On a final plate, season the panko breadcrumbs.
Dip one flattened chicken breast into the flour, until completely coated, then in the egg (let any excess run back into the bowl), then finally in the breadcrumbs, until completely covered. Repeat with the remaining breasts.
Put a large frying pan on a medium heat and pour in enough groundnut oil to fill by 2cm. Fry the chicken breasts for six to eight minutes on each side, until golden all over and cooked through, then transfer to a kitchen paper-lined plate for a minute to rest.
Toss most of the sesame seeds through the salad mix and divide between four plates. Slice each chicken breast into strips and lay alongside the salad. Drizzle over any dressing left in the bowl, sprinkle with the remaining sesame seeds and serve.
Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell , the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.
Blanche’s comments came during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, where he was testifying before the appropriations subcommittee over budget requests for the justice department.
During one exchange, Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, asked Blanche whether the justice department, and he as the acting attorney general, could commit to not recommending a pardon for Maxwell.
“Yes, I can commit to that, of course,” Blanche, who is a former personal lawyer for Trump, responded .
The statement comes as Maxwell exhausted a series of appeals of her conviction, with the US supreme court in October declining to hear her petition.
Earlier this year, Maxwell appeared before the House oversight and reform committee but invoked her fifth amendment right and refused to answer the panel’s questions. Her attorney told lawmakers that she would only speak if granted clemency.
And in April, reports emerged that members of the committee were divided over whether Trump should consider pardoning Maxwell in exchange for her cooperation in the panel’s Epstein investigation.
Last year, as the Trump administration faced growing pressure to release more documents related to the Epstein investigation, it dispatched Blanche, who was deputy attorney general at the time, to interview Maxwell about the Epstein case. The interview, conducted over two days in July, was followed by the justice department releasing the transcripts and audio recordings .
Shortly after that meeting, in August, Maxwell was transferred from a low-security prison in Tallahassee, Florida, to a minimum-security camp in Texas, where most prisoners are serving time for non-violent offenses and white-collar crimes . At the time, experts described the move as “ unprecedented ”.
Since then, reports have surfaced that Maxwell is “much happier” at the Texas facility than she was at her previous prison, and there have been allegations that she is receiving favorable treatment.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Blanche denied that Trump personally sent him to interview Maxwell and claimed he didn’t know whether she was receiving better treatment at her new facility.
The possibility of clemency for Maxwell , however unlikely, has long outraged survivors and their advocates.
Earlier this month, Spencer Kuvin, chief legal officer and litigation director of Goldlaw, which has represented numerous Epstein survivors, told the Guardian that “any talk of clemency for Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for testimony turns justice on its head – it risks rewarding the very person who helped enable the abuse”.
A representative for Maxwell did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Blanche’s statements.
During the hearing on Tuesday, Van Hollen also told Blanche that he had spoken with several survivors of Epstein’s abuse, who told him that they were “extremely frustrated” that Blanche “keeps calling for people to come forward with more evidence, but you have not met with them to hear their stories”.
“If I connect you with these survivors, will you meet with them?” Van Hollen asked Blanche.
Blanche responded: “Absolutely, and what you just said is false, I have met with them, I’ve met with the many, many of the lawyers for the survivors of victims as did Attorney General Bondi, so whoever told you that unfortunately gave you bad information.”
In response, a group of 17 Epstein survivors released a statement on Tuesday, saying that Blanche “has not met with any of us”.
“As survivors, we previously sought a meeting with former Attorney General Bondi and Department of Justice officials, but no meeting occurred,” they said. “We should not have to be this persistent to engage with DOJ – the department responsible for handling the Epstein files, protecting their privacy, and answering for years of secrecy and failure.”
In the statement, they added that “given Blanche’s comments, we are again asking DoJ to meet directly with survivors and their counsel – not to ask survivors to start over, but to hear their concerns, explain how these failures occurred, and provide clear answers about the release, redaction, and withholding of Epstein-related records going forward”.
Y ou wake up later than planned, so it’s a rush to get everything sorted out ahead of the school run. While you’re waiting for the toaster, idiotically, you check your phone. Something has happened, and your timeline is a scalding-hot mess of the worst takes imaginable. One of your children has left their shoes somewhere unfathomable, and there’s an envelope on your doormat scolding you for driving in a bus lane.
You’re undeniably stressed, and your body’s likely to respond by ramping up the same biological systems that evolved to deal with inter-tribe disputes and mammoth attacks. But is there a downside to being stressed – and having these systems switched on – all the time? Take a calming breath, and let’s dig into the science.
“The most immediate effect we see in a stressful situation is a surge of adrenaline causing an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing,” says Prof Kavita Vedhara, a specialist in stress and behavioural medicine at Cardiff University. “This is your fight-or-flight response, and it’s designed to prepare you to address the challenge you are facing.”
Within about 30 minutes of this rapid response, you’ll also experience a rise in cortisol, often ( somewhat reductively ) known as the stress hormone. “Again, this is very useful in supporting the fight-flight response because it regulates blood pressure, suppresses inflammation and increases the availability of blood sugars to increase energy,” says Vedhara.
This was all very useful centuries ago when most of what life threw at us was physical challenges. But now it’s fairly rare that we need to literally run away from – or physically fight – the source of our stress, and very easy for us to start worrying about someone being mean to us on the internet, or spend hours ruminating on an argument with our partner. The problem with this, broadly speaking, is that when your body diverts all its resources to fight or flight, it’s moving them away from areas such as digestion, repair and the immune system (sometimes referred to as the rest-and-digest systems). This is fine if it happens occasionally – it’s how we’ve evolved to operate – but if we’re chronically stressed, the body never gets time to catch up.
“Perhaps the most well-known issue associated with chronic stress is poorer immune function, which can increase risk of infections, make vaccines work less well, impair wound healing, and so on,” says Vedhara. “But chronic stress has also been shown to increase the risk of obesity, depressive illness and progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.”
Another issue is that all of this can create an unhealthy feedback loop. “Because of the complex physiological nature of the stress response, we often experience a range of changes in the body,” says Dr Jo Daniels, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Bath. “This in itself can become alarming for some people: why is my heart beating so fast? This can then trigger increased attention to what are essentially normal bodily variations, which effectively amplifies those physiological sensations, adding another layer of stress and anxiety.
“When we’re in a stress response, we’re hypervigilant, so we’re more likely to consider normal variations in our bodily sensations to be threatening – and because we are flooded with stress hormones and we are using that ancient part of our brains that is programmed for survival, our decision-making is also likely to be impaired, so we might respond in ways that are unhelpful.”
“If you’re feeling a little on edge, for instance, perhaps you won’t go out, because it feels like your body is saying, ‘Something’s going on here that we need to protect ourselves against’.”
How badly stressed – and how frequently – do you have to be for all of this to be a concern? This is a question scientists are still working on. “It’s an elastic system – it’s designed to respond and recover,” says Vedhara. “How bad is it genuinely? It’s certainly true that the experience of stress has such wide-ranging effects on our physiology that there is potential for it to take a very real toll on our health and wellbeing – but that’s only true for long-term and enduring stressors.”
One near certainty is that more challenging lifestyle factors make stress more of a threat. In a landmark study in the 90s , for instance, researchers recruited almost 400 healthy volunteers, exposed them to the common cold and found that being stressed was heavily correlated with a tendency to become ill. Older adults, dealing with an immune system that’s already declining, might see worse effects from being chronically stressed than people in middle age. But a complicating factor is that we seem to differ hugely in our ability to tolerate stress. “A lot depends on your life experiences,” says Daniels. “People who have been affected by trauma might have a lower threshold for stress response – while other people seem to seek out stressful careers and thrive in them. It is also influenced by learned resilience and ability to manage and respond to stress – though over the long term, as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, everyone has their limit.”
So what can you do to get better at managing stress? One of the most evidence-backed options, perhaps surprisingly, really is learning to just stop, take a moment and slow your breathing. “When people are stressed or anxious, they tend to breathe in a more shallow and rapid way, which reinforces the threat response, keeping the physiological loop going,” says Daniels. “If you breathe slowly, you’re giving your brain the message that everything is OK, you are safe – essentially inducing the relaxation response. So something as simple as regulated breathing really can make a difference and head stress off at the pass. The same is true for exercise, which can help reduce the excess adrenaline buildup caused by high-stress responses.”
It’s important to understand that this is most useful in acute (ie, temporary) stress situations – serious and disabling stress can’t be solved by just having a breather. If the stress is more prolonged and frequent, another option is evidence-based psychological therapies including cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). “When stressed and overwhelmed, we often jump to thoughts like, ‘I can’t cope with this,’” says Daniels. “But is this true? Thoughts are not facts. A helpful strategy can be to sit down and assess the evidence – have you coped before? And with worse? Can you survive the worst-case scenario if you are late for school drop-off and forgot to feed the cat? It can also be useful to stop or phase out coping strategies that aren’t helpful and contribute to the problem – for example, some people tend to work longer or harder to try to solve a work-related problem, which is likely to contribute to increased stress over time.”
With mindfulness-based stress reduction techniques, the focus is different: you’re taught skills to enable you to step back from unhelpful thoughts rather than challenge them.
One option is to experiment with both, depending on the nature of what it is that’s stressing you out: negative thinking patterns and unhelpful coping strategies are often best tackled with CBT, while mindfulness-based stress reduction might be better for coping with the unavoidable.
Avoiding stress completely, of course , isn’t a realistic option. Even the 6% of people in the UK who say they’re never stressed are probably just better able to manage challenging situations than the rest of us. The best thing to do, if you’re concerned that you are suffering from high levels of stress all the time, is to understand and address the things that are causing it: this might be as simple as not going on social media first thing in the morning, or as difficult as changing your job or having difficult conversations with your family.
“Catch your stress response early, and you have a good chance of reversing it using simpler strategies – but for chronic stress, modifications to lifestyle, accessing social support and developing helpful coping skills are key,” says Daniels. “I would suggest people seek help when they are experiencing stress most or all of the time, or if they themselves are concerned about their stress levels.” And remember: while you can’t always control the mammoths charging at you, you can control how you respond to them.
Check the list of NHS resources for dealing with stress .
L ife during wartime is the theme of Andrey Zvyagintsev ’s film. It is set in provincial Russia, a portrait of a nation paralysed with disillusionment and fear, slowly coming to terms with, or retreating into collective denial about, the terrible mistake in Ukraine. It’s an inspired variation on Claude Chabrol’s La Femme Infidèle from 1969 , mixed with Gogol’s Dead Souls and the 14 sacrifices required for the Minotaur in Greek myth. It is also a noir thriller of infidelity and vengeful murder, lent a new meaning by the context of deadly cynicism and political bad faith, a world in which powerful people, gloomy with self-hate, have made covering up misdeeds their way of life.
There is a telling early scene in which the male lead, mini-oligarch businessman Gleb (Dmitriy Mazurov), goes out for an expensive restaurant meal with his boorish plutocrat friends and their spouses and girlfriends, including Gleb’s elegant, beautiful wife Galina (Iris Lebedeva) who is almost catatonic with unhappiness. One girlfriend there tells a racy joke about a guy applying for a job on an adult movie, despite having a tiny penis unlike all the other well endowed applicants – because, he says, “all films need anti-heroes”. Minotaur is full of anti-heroes.
Gleb and Galina live in a town far from Moscow, where the letter Z is to be seen on car windshields and on the tanks being transported by train, in a handsome modernist dacha in a gated woodland estate with Gleb’s mother and their teen son. Gleb has evidently broken Galina’s heart some time back with his infidelities and now he suspects that she, too, is cheating. But Gleb has more pressing worries. He and all other chieftain-business-leaders are peremptorily called to a meeting by the mayor (whose office has a photo of Putin) and informed that Moscow needs to draft more men for the war, but doesn’t want to take away people needed for the local economy. So each firm will be required to provide names of disposable male employees who will then get the dreaded callup papers.
Like a landowner disposing of his serfs, or souls, Gleb calculates that he must offer up 14 people – but then has a chilling idea. He tells his harassed and undeceived assistant simply to advertise for 14 truck drivers, enticing them on to the official payroll with the promise of up to double the normal salary, knowing full well that these guys will be sent off to war before Gleb ever has to pay their wage bill. And he also puts this scheme to work in another, even more soul-blackeningly evil way, when he has to address himself to his wife’s infidelity, a crisis that occasions the film’s central, extended silent sequence. Here Gleb shows that, however traumatised he is by this whole business, violence and coverup come naturally to him.
Interestingly, there is a moment of classic toxic masculinity which Zvyagintsev shows us in the family home. Gleb’s son Seriozha confesses he is being bullied at school, and Gleb naturally does not consider anything so milksop or liberal as raising this with the teachers; he tells his son to grab his tormenter by the lapels and threaten to bash his face in. Delivered with enough conviction, he says, the mere threat will be enough, and gets his son to practise the move with him. On the face of it, this is a heartsinking, poisonous education in violence, all too clearly what Gleb’s own father has taught him. And yet, as we will see, the lapel-grabbing is at least honest, open and face-to-face. What Gleb is engaged in is grotesquely underhand and cowardly, something far worse. The performances from Mazurov and Lebedeva are outstanding, and Zvyagintsev’s direction is superb with his cold daylit compositions and scenes in grim streets and housing estates. Everything here looks like a crime scene.
88 mins: A triple change for Chelsea , now. On comes Garnacho, Mheuka and Essugo and off goes Palmer, Delap and Pedro Neto.
“We’re going down, I’m !00% percent sure,” writes Dom in Florence, a Spurs fan. “Arsenal winning the title just confirms it. We only needed one point from two games, sure, but it’s never going to happen. This team couldn’t win a one ticket raffle. They would lose a game of noughts and crosses to a duck. It’s written in the stars, Hammers dig in and get a result against an in form Leeds. We meekly surrender to an out of form Everton at home. I leave football behind to become a yak herder in Uzbekistan, but the guy I share a yurt with reveals he wears an Arsenal shirt at night. My face is pressed up to its badge as our shared hammock forces us together. He snores loudly. Ultimately, You can’t change the future.”
87 mins: This is really chaotic now. A long, bouncing ball is contested by Delap and Spence. Delap carefully watches Spence’s positioning before jumping into the player, and is booked for the foul.
87 mins: The corner is eventually taken, and Sanchez fumbles his catch but gathers at the second attempt.
85 mins: All sorts of pulling and tugging inside the penalty area as the corner is taken. The referee blows his whistle, and books Cucurella. VAR checks the incident, and decides the foul took place before the ball was in play.
84 mins: Spurs should equalise! Richarlison tees up Maddison, who sets himself, takes aim, and waits just long enough for Hato to come across and block!
82 mins: Before they take the free-kick Chelsea bring on Sarr for Fofana. Palmer takes the free-kick, but sends it into the wall.
80 mins: A long pass from defence releases Delap down the right. Fernandez is available in the middle but instead Delap delays for a while. The crowd shouts angrily at the lack of impetus, but eventually he passes to Fernandez, who has run towards him to offer an easy option, and Sarr sticks out a leg for the Argentinian to fall over.
70 mins: Hato is booked. He looks bemused by it, and Sky certainly didn’t show TV viewers whatever caused it, but apparently it was for delaying a restart.
77 mins: Richarlison arrives late to bump into Caicedo, and then goes down clutching various bits of his anatomy and rolling about. It’s all a bit odd. Eventually he gets up.
75 mins: Chelsea make their first substitution, bringing Chalobah on for Acheampong.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-1 Tottenham (Richarlison, 74 mins)
A lifeline for Tottenham! Pedro Porro pulls back to Sarr, whose backheel was presumably intended to fly into the net but instead bobbles to Richarlison, who turns it in!
72 mins: Save! Spurs end up crossing from the right, and Gallagher volleys pretty tamely at Sanchez.
72 mins: Spurs attack, and for a while they have seven players inside the Chelsea penalty area. The downside of which being they get in each other’s way, and are forced to turn back.
69 mins: Spurs were readying a triple change before the goal, and they’ve gone ahead with it: Sarr, Maddison and Spence have come on, with Udogie, Joao Palhinha and Kolo Muani going off.
68 mins: The ball is presented to Palmer in the centre circle, and he passes right to Pedro Neto, who crosses beyond the far post to Enzo Fernandes, and his cushioned volleyed pass leaves Andrey Santos with an easy task!
GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Tottenham (Andrey Santos, 67 mins)
And that should seal it! Spurs give the ball away, and Chelsea punish them!
65 mins: Kolo Muani has the ball on the right, and sends in a rubbish low centre. I’ve not seen a huge number of Spurs games this season but I have watched them several times recently and have found the French forward a source of constant perplexity.
63 mins: Udogie sprints 60 yards to offer Tel an option and is so frustrated by the quality of the pass sent, at least in theory, towards him that he brings down Fofana and gets himself booked.
61 mins: Delap hassles Danso, who flirts with giving the ball to him in what would be, for Spurs, a disastrous position but just about avoids actually doing so.
58 mins: Richarlison wins the header from a Porro corner, but Sanchez saves it pretty easily. It is Tottenham’s first shot on target.
57 mins: Spurs are having a decent period. The last time they exerted this level of control for any length of time, Chelsea went and scored.
56 mins: Pedro Neto is found in space on the right flank. With crushing inevitability he carries the ball into the area, cuts onto his left foot and shoots towards the far post, but straight into a defender.
Arsenal are Premier League champions
54 mins: The final whistle blows at Bournemouth, where it has ended 1-1. Haaland’s equaliser, in the fifth minute of stoppage time, has improved Manchester City’s record after being behind at half-time, but has not extended the title race. A single point for City means Arsenal now cannot be caught!
51 mins: Tel sends in a fine cross from the right that gives Richarlison a superb scoring chance with a header, about eight yards out. The Brazilian heads it way, way wide and turns out to have also been way, way offside.
50 mins: The game is stopped for a while, because Cole Palmer has a minor issue with a boot.
47 mins: Spurs have been trailing at half-time in 16 games this season. They’ve lost 12 of those, and not won any. It’s not a great record. The worst record in the Premier League this season? Manchester City, who have been losing at half-time twice and lost both games. Tonight they’re set to make it three out of three.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! Game back on!
Right then, players back out. No halftimely changes to report.
Meanwhile at Bournemouth, Manchester City are 10 minutes away from defeat and Arsenal thus 10 minutes away from the title. Tonight is not going Tottenham’s way at all .
Half time: Chelsea 1-0 Tottenham
45+2 mins: And that’s half-time! A really interesting half but not a great one: just one really good chance, which Tel headed onto a post, and a goal from nothing from Fernandez.
45+1 mins: Space and time for Palmer on the edge of the D, but on this occasion it’s D for Drags his shot wide.
45 mins: Now Caicedo goes down clutching his face like he’s been assaulted, after Gallagher touches him gently on the shoulder. Again, no cards, but the referee gets both captains together for a word.
44 mins: Pedro Neto takes the free-kick, from wide on Chelsea’s right. I don’t know if he intended to shoot but it looks like it’s also heading barwards until Kinsky catches it.
43 mins: But now Van de Ven gets a yellow one, for holding back Delap and then, when that doesn’t achieve much, giving his shirt a good yank.
Voters headed to the polls in primaries across six states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Idaho, Oregon, Alabama and Kentucky – today, with the contest in Kentucky seen as a test of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party. Trump continued his tirade against the state’s congressman Thomas Massie even on primary day as he looks to remove him from office.
Trump endorsed hardliner Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in critical Texas US Senate race runoff. This has boosted the Texas attorney general’s chances of securing his party’s nomination for a critical Texas race in November’s midterm elections.
Trump told reporters he is giving Iran until the weekend or early next week, to make a deal to end the war. He said that yesterday he was within an hour of deciding to resume bombing Iran but that his negotiators had reported progress in talks.
When Vice President JD Vance was faced with questions about the $1.8bn slush fund being eligible for people who attacked the Capitol building and attacked police officers on January 6, he defended the fund said anybody could apply for it and their claims would be investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell , the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. He also defended the $1.8bn slush fund citing transparency for beneficiaries.
Police are investigating a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime, after three people were killed and two dead suspects were identified near the scene. Democratic leaders from across the country issued statements in the wake of the shooting calling out Islamophobia and advocating for stricter gun laws.
The United States will shrink the pool of military forces available to assist Nato allies in a crisis, Reuters reports , citing three sources familiar with the matter. The US is expected to share the news with its European allies on Friday.
Under the Nato Force Model, Nato member countries select a number of forces that would be available to assist allies if called upon. Although the exact number of US forces currently available under the compact, “the Pentagon has decided to significantly scale down its commitment, said the sources, who requested anonymity to speak candidly about the plans”, Reuters reported.
The Nato alliance has been under increased strain since Donald Trump returned to the presidency. In April, Trump said he was “absolutely without question” considering withdrawing from Nato because of the European allies failure to take part in the US-Israeli war on Iran and has accused other member countries of “ripping off” the US by failing to spend adequately on their defence budgets.
Here’s more of our past coverage of the security alliance:
Here’s a recap of the day so far
Voters headed to the polls in primaries across six states – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Idaho, Oregon, Alabama and Kentucky – today, with the contest in Kentucky seen as a test of Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party. Trump continued his tirade against the state’s congressman Thomas Massie even on primary day as he looks to remove him from office.
Trump endorsed hardliner Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in critical Texas US Senate race runoff. This has boosted the Texas attorney general’s chances of securing his party’s nomination for a critical Texas race in November’s midterm elections.
Trump told reporters he is giving Iran until the weekend or early next week, to make a deal to end the war. He said that yesterday he was within an hour of deciding to resume bombing Iran but that his negotiators had reported progress in talks.
When Vice President JD Vance was faced with questions about the $1.8bn slush fund being eligible for people who attacked the Capitol building and attacked police officers on January 6, he defended the fund said anybody could apply for it and their claims would be investigated on a case-by-case basis.
Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell , the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes. He also defended the $1.8bn slush fund citing transparency for beneficiaries.
Police are investigating a deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego as a hate crime, after three people were killed and two dead suspects were identified near the scene. Democratic leaders from across the country issued statements in the wake of the shooting calling out Islamophobia and advocating for stricter gun laws.
In Pennsylvania today , Democratic primary voters in the seventh congressional district around Allentown will choose between firefighters’ union leader Bob Brooks, who has the support of the party’s establishment, Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor, Lamont McClure, a former county executive, and Carol Obando-Derstine, a former aide to US senator Bob Casey .
The winner will take on the Republican congressman Ryan Mackenzie , who won his seat from a Democrat two years ago.
In the eighth congressional district in the state’s north-eastern corner, the mayor of Scranton, Paige Cognetti , faces no major challengers in her bid to oust Republican Rob Bresnahan Jr, who also flipped a Democratic-held seat in 2024 .
In the Harrisburg-centered 10th district, county commissioner Justin Douglas is vying for the Democratic nomination against former broadcast anchor Janelle Stelson to take on incumbent Republican congressman Scott Perry .
Democrats also hope to oust moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick from the first district in suburban Philadelphia, and primary voters will weigh in on whether county commissioner Bob Harvie or former congressional science adviser Lucia Simonelli is a better bet.
And while there’s no doubt a Democrat will represent the third congressional district in Philadelphia, voters will first have to choose from three ideologically distinct candidates to replace retiring representative Dwight Evans.
When Vice President JD Vance was faced with questions about the $1.8bn slush fund being eligible for people who attacked the Capitol building and attacked police officers on January 6, he said anybody could apply for the fund.
“ Republicans can apply for it. Democrats can apply for it,” he said. “The president has pardoned a number of Democrats who he felt were actually subject to this lawfare. I mean, if Hunter Biden wants to apply for this particular fund, he is welcome to.”
Vance said people who would receive this money are those who have been prosecuted completely disproportionate to any crime they’ve ever committed, citing the example of Tina Peters .
Peters is a Colorado election clerk, who had her prison sentence commuted on Friday by Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis , after months of pressure from Trump and other conservatives. She was the county clerk in western Colorado’s Mesa county in 2020 when she allowed an unauthorized person to use a security badge and access her county’s voting equipment.
Vance said the claims for the fund would be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Blanche was also questioned by Patty Murray, a Democratic senator from Washington, about the creation of a nearly $1.8bn slush fund to compensate prosecuted allies of the president. “What we are talking about is nothing short of the sitting President of the United States looting from the Treasury for his own gain,” said Murray. “Do you seriously think this arrangement is appropriate?”
Blanche defended the fund, and while he did not rule out that payments could be made to January 6 rioters, he said there would be transparency about the beneficiaries.
Blanche said: “The president did not set up this fund, it’s not a slush fund. It’s been done many times; we have lots of funds.”
Todd Blanche says he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell
Todd Blanche, the acting US attorney general, told lawmakers on Tuesday that he would not recommend a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell , the longtime associate of Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex-trafficking crimes.
Blanche’s comments came during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, where he was testifying before the appropriations subcommittee over budget requests for the justice department.
During one exchange, Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, asked Blanche whether the justice department, and he as the acting attorney general, could commit to not recommending a pardon for Maxwell.
“Yes, I can commit to that, of course,” Blanche, who is a former personal lawyer for Trump, responded .
The statement comes as Maxwell exhausted a series of appeals of her conviction, with the US supreme court in October declining to hear her petition.
‘Ken Paxton is a disaster’: Texas congresswoman Crockett on Trump endorsement
Speaking at an event in South LA on Tuesday morning, Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett said she was a “bit speechless” when informed by the Guardian that Trump had just endorsed Ken Paxton for Senate.
“Ken Paxton is a disaster,” Crockett said, speaking from Dulan’s soul food restaurant, where she endorsed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra for governor of California. “This is the crème de la crème of the Republican Party nowadays.”
The Democratic congresswoman ticked through Paxton’s vulnerabilities: his impeachment, the federal investigations, and his extramarital affairs.
“I wish people would wake up and recognize that the party of law and order is no longer there. The party of family values [is no longer there] because he has this long history of cheating on his wife and using taxpayer dollars,” she said. “It is going to be a fun time for the Democrats if for some reason Ken Paxton makes it through that primary.”
Crockett lost the Democratic nomination for Senate to James Talarico.
“It doesn’t matter who wins this runoff. We already know who we’re running against: the billionaire mega-donors and their corrupt political system,” said Talarico, in response to Trump endorsing Paxton. “For decades, John Cornyn and Ken Paxton have embodied a broken politics that enriches wealthy donors while costs skyrocket for the rest of us.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People launched a campaign today calling on Black athletes, their families, friend and supporters to hold athletic and financial support from public universities in states that have moved to weaken Black voting representation in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais.
The “Out of Bounds” campaign was launched because the NAACP believes the ongoing redistricting has gutted what was left of the Voting Rights Act.
Eight priority states – Tennessee, Louisiana, Alabama , Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, and Georgia – and well-financed public athletic programs have been identified.
The NAACP’s ask is that top football and basketball players actively being recruited withhold their commitments until the states restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation.
Ken Paxton said in a post on X that he was “incredibly honored” to have received Donald Trump ’s endorsement.
No one has ever fought harder for the American people than President Trump, and I look forward to championing his America First agenda in the Senate!
Trump endorses hardliner Ken Paxton over John Cornyn in critical Texas US Senate race runoff
And right on time, Donald Trump has endorsed hardliner Ken Paxton in his primary challenge to veteran Republican US senator John Cornyn , boosting the Texas attorney general’s chances of securing his party’s nomination for a critical Texas race in November’s midterm elections.
In a lengthy post on Truth Social announcing the endorsement, Trump called Paxton “a true MAGA Warrior who has ALWAYS delivered for Texas, and will continue to do so in the United States Senate.”
I know Ken well, have seen him tested at the highest and most difficult levels, and he is a WINNER! Ken is a Strong Supporter of TERMINATING THE FILIBUSTER and, very importantly, THE SAVE AMERICA ACT , something which polls at 87%, including Dumocrats, and yet can’t seem to get approved. Perhaps Ken can help move these important elements of Government forward because with the Filibuster, as an example, the Democrats will terminate it on their First Day in Office, giving us two extra States, D.C. and Puerto Rico, and a greatly enlarged Supreme Court of the United States, probably going with their Dream Number of 21 Justices from the 9 that we currently have — And these new Justices will be Radical Left Lunatics! Two years ago, our Country was DEAD — Now we have the “HOTTEST” Country anywhere in the World — And I want to keep it that way. Ken Paxton will help me do that , MAKING AMERICA BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!
He will tirelessly fight to continue the Great Growth of our Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations (I just delivered the Largest Tax and Regulation Cuts in American History!), and Advance MADE IN THE U.S.A., Unleash American Energy DOMINANCE, Champion Texas Oil & Gas, Advocate for our Amazing Farmers and Ranchers, Promote School Choice, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Support our Incredible Military/Veterans, Safeguard our Elections, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.
Scandal-scarred Paxton faces Cornyn, an old guard Republican, in a 26 May runoff after neither secured a majority in their three-way March primary election. Both candidates had tried to position themselves as closely to Trump as possible , but some Republican leaders had worried that Paxton could endanger a typically safe seat.
In his endorsement announcement, Trump said Cornyn was “a good man, and I worked well with him, but he was not supportive of me when times were tough .”
“ John was very late in backing me in what turned out to be a Historic Run for the Republican Nomination, and then, the Presidency, itself,” he added.
Trump in March said he would ask the candidate he did not endorse to drop out of the race, which has been one of the nation’s costliest US Senate primary contests.
The victor of the runoff will face off against Democratic nominee James Talarico , a state lawmaker and Presbyterian seminarian who has explicitly appealed to independents and moderates in a state that has long been dominated by Republicans .
The president also said he will announce his endorsement in the heated Republican Senate runoff contest in Texas between US senator John Cornyn and the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton , this afternoon.
Going to make an endorsement around 12:30-1 o’clock . I hope you find it good.
“I’ve pretty much always known who I was going to endorse,” Trump said, adding, “I think it’s a good time” to do so.
Trump calls ballroom his ‘gift’ to the country and says it will ‘shield’ all of Washington DC
Trump also spoke in detail about the security of his proposed White House ballroom , calling it his “gift” to the country, as dozens of workers in safety vests hammered, welded and moved materials behind him.
The ballroom site is still open-air and, per the press pool reporter, the lowest portion of the construction site appeared to be approximately three stories deep.
He said the construction began six stories underground. The ballroom has a drone-proof roof and it will have a drone port on the roof where unlimited drones can land, he said, acting as a “shield” to protect the White House campus.
The roof will have “the greatest drone empire that you’ve ever seen and it’s going to protect Washington”, he said, adding that the ballroom was a social and security gift for future presidents – and the country.
When this opens, I’ll be here for a very short period of time. This is really being built for other presidents. This is my gift to the United States of America.
Trump said the ballroom project was within the proposed budget and timeline and the only thing they have changed from the start is that the size of the building has doubled.
This is a shield that protects everything that’s inside, everything that’s on top.
Trump also spoke about the prayer rally held in Washington DC Sunday, describing it as a “beautiful day”.
“I think religion is very important for a country,” he said. “This country was built largely on religion.”
Religion is making a comeback, the president said, claiming that churches are fuller today than they were three years ago.
“Christianity, it’s a great thing for our country,” he said. “I mean, so many of the things that we we’ve done, the successes that we’ve had have been based on Christianity and religions.”
Donald Trump says ‘Cuba is calling us’ and that US could reach diplomatic deal with Cuba
Trump said he feels confident that the US could reach a diplomatic deal with Cuba, and that he wants to help the Cuban people.
“Look, Cuba is calling us. They need help, but Cuba is a failed nation. Cuba needs help, and we’ll do that,” he said.
“ I am very prone toward the Cuban Americans. They’re incredible people. I want to help them now. They have family members in Cuba. They’ve been treated very, very badly.”
He said Cuba’s had a tough regime and now the country needs help and the US is ready to help.
The Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn , best known for films such as the Pusher trilogy and Drive, has emotionally spoken about his near-death experience and heart surgery three years ago.
The director, whose first film in 10 years, Her Private Hell , premiered on Monday evening, told gathered journalists that he had “died for 25 minutes” in 2023.
His “leaking heart” was “discovered by accident”, Refn continued. “My lungs were filling up with blood. Suddenly, I was told that I would probably not live, but if I did they didn’t know what would happen. So, two weeks later I was operated on.”
He added, tongue-in-cheek: “Thank God the surgeon was Tom Cruise and he could fix me with his hands, and then he brought me back to life with electricity.”
Through tears, Refn explained that the experience had changed his approach to his career and personal life.
“Before I died,” he said, “I had come to the end of my career because I didn’t have anything left in me. So, there was nothing for me to do.
“I realised before I died that I’d been given a gift, I could start over again. Like how many people get a second chance? And I got a second chance from God. And I could use that for good,” he concluded.
His words echo those given in an interview with Screen International on Sunday, when he told Wendy Mitchell, “I was dead for half an hour, and I was brought back to life with electricity, like Frankenstein,” he reveals. “I suddenly realised I could start over again. I had this desire to go back and make movies again like I’ve never made movies before.”
Refn’s 2011 film, Drive, was a major hit on the Croisette in 2013; he returned to the festival in 2013 with Only God Forgives and 2016 with The Neon Demon.
Her Private Hell is a horror-thriller about a tortured film star, played by Sophie Thatcher, whose best friend marries her father. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure played by Charles Melton and known as Leather Man seeks to avenge the kidnapping of his daughter.
Tuesday also saw the first screening of another film by a director who has come back to Cannes after battling considerable health challenges. The dark drama Minotaur is the first film in almost 10 years from the Russian director Andreï Zvyagintsev, who was hospitalised for 11 months with Covid in 2021.
Filippo Ganna sailed to an easy victory in stage 10’s individual time trial at the Giro d’Italia on Tuesday,. The pre-race favourite, Jonas Vingegaard, failed in his bid to take the overall lead as Afonso Eulálio battled hard to keep the pink jersey.
No one could come close to Ganna, a time trial specialist who completed the flat, 42km (26-mile) route along the Tuscan coast from Viareggio to Massa in 45min 53sec. Ganna had little to worry about while waiting for confirmation of his eighth Giro stage win – seven of those have come in time trials.
Ganna’s Netcompany-Ineos teammate Thymen Arensman finished second, 1min 54sec behind. The Dutchman had five seconds to spare over the Frenchman Rémi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ United) who finished third. Vingegaard (Visma–Lease a Bike) was three minutes down on Ganna in 13th place.
“We have done an amazing job last winter to prepare for time trials,” Ganna said afterwards. “And it can be seen also with the GC riders of the team, look at Thymen in second place.”
Portugal’s Eulálio took the pink jersey after stage five and began the day 2min and 24sec ahead of Vingegaard. The Bahrain-Victorious rider dug deep to limit the damage and still holds a 27sec overall lead.
In the only time trial of this year’s race, Vingegaard was expected to seize control. While he is now within touching distance of Eulálio, the Portuguese rider defied the odds and his own pre-stage predictions.
“I’m not expecting a good time trial,” Eulálio had said. “It’s the worst possible type of stage for a lightweight climber like me. It’s going to be suffering.” Suffer he did, but with the finish in sight, Eulálio found an extra gear to power to the line. “The pink jersey is giving me strength,” he said after Tuesday’s stage.
Arensman was the big mover in the general classification, up from sixth spot to third overall, and is one-and-a-half minutes behind Vingegaard, while Felix Gall (Decathlon CMA CGM) slipped from 35 seconds off the Dane to almost two minutes adrift.
Gall had been Vingegaard’s main rival on the recent summit finishes, where the favourite won two stages, and the Austrian will now need to push hard once more to recoup his losses.
Wednesday’s stage 11 is a 195km ride from Porcari to Chiavari, lacking any categorised climbs but with a number of hills to negotiate close to the finish line.
