Defense secretary to be quizzed in Senate as Khamenei says foreigners have no place in Gulf ‘except at bottom of its waters’

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The US government’s effort to renew its warrantless domestic surveillance powers cleared the House of Representatives on Wednesday, after House speaker Mike Johnson and Trump administration officials persuaded Republican holdouts to back the bill.

The renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act now goes to the Senate, where it faces a potentially rough reception because it was attached to unrelated legislation that would restrict the Federal Reserve’s ability to issue digital currency - something Senate majority leader John Thune has described as a non-starter.

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Trent Alexander-Arnold has gone, Andy Robertson and Mo Salah are going, and Alisson and Virgil van Dijk may soon follow

By Opta Analyst

Liverpool have had some fantastic players and enjoyed plenty of success in the last decade. In recent years, they have gradually said goodbye to Georginio Wijnaldum, James Milner, Jordan Henderson, Fabinho, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino, but they have also retained a number of their established stars.

Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson and Mohamed Salah would all be in the conversation when it comes to selecting an all-time Liverpool XI. That is quite the achievement considering the club’s rich heritage and, as recently as last season, all five were still at the club as Liverpool strolled to the Premier League title.

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Decision not to change rate comes despite signs inflation is rising amid the Iran war’s effects on fuel prices

The Bank of England has left UK interest rates unchanged at 3.75%, despite signs that inflation is beginning to accelerate due to the impact of the Iran war.

The Bank’s rate-setting monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to leave borrowing costs on hold at noon on Thursday, after its latest rate-setting meeting.

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Goodwood Art Foundation, West Sussex
The late great land artist’s alfresco metal and concrete works are richly engaging and elemental – but the gallery material indoors lacks some heft

It pays to think big if you’re an artist. You know, zoom out and try to get away from the minutiae of life, the tedium of the everyday, and think on a bit more of a universal scale instead. Land artist Nancy Holt (1938-2014) was a master at it; at using her work to place the body, and wider humanity, in a global, cosmic context. Holt and the other land artists of her generation – people like Michael Heizer , Richard Long and her partner, Robert Smithson – wanted to break out of the restrictions of paint and canvas, stone and chisel, gallery and museum. Land, nature, the world itself, was the medium.

Goodwood is a fine setting for the biggest UK exhibition of her work to date – an expansive, lush estate in the middle of the rolling West Sussex countryside. There are two big sculptural installations placed around the grounds, Ventilation System and Hydra’s Head. In the first, a huge metallic mechanism pokes out of the vegetation around the main gallery; big tubular aluminium pipes, all interconnected, snaking their way around the place and back into the building.

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Every World Cup, from Uruguay and Italy in 1930 and 1934, to Russia and Qatar in 2018 and 2022, has been to an extent about presenting an image to the world

• This was originally published in the newsletter The World Behind the Cup. Sign up for it here .

Football fans will be well aware that in 1930 Uruguay both hosted and won the first World Cup, but less well known is the diplomatic backstory of the country’s entry on to the international sporting stage. In the 1920s, Uruguay’s foreign minister, who led one of the country’s two rival football associations, coordinated with a diplomat serving in Switzerland to give his federation legitimacy by joining Fifa. The diplomat also entered Uruguay into the 1924 Olympic football tournament in Paris – which was emerging as the premier venue for global football. That provoked panic back in Uruguay: nobody had expected him to do that and nobody quite knew how they would afford it; a federation official ended up having to use his own house as collateral on a loan to pay for the team’s passage across the Atlantic.

Once they got to Europe, Uruguay quickly won admiration. First in nine friendlies as they travelled through Spain and then at the Olympic Games itself, where they became by far the biggest draw. The great novelist Colette was even dispatched to the villa where Uruguay were staying to record her impressions for the newspaper Le Matin. Playing brilliant, coherent passing football, Uruguay took gold at the Games.

This was originally published in the newsletter The World Behind the Cup. Sign up for it here .

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After stalling at Real Madrid, the forward has found form on loan at Lyon and is desperate to make Carlo Ancelotti’s World Cup squad

With less than a month to go before Carlo Ancelotti announces the Brazil squad for the World Cup, Endrick has been reborn in his nation’s canary yellow shirt. But the 19-year-old prodigy has struggled this season and had to overcome “a night of doubts” before Brazil faced Croatia in late March.

With opportunities limited at Real Madrid after the arrival of Xabi Alonso, Endrick was loaned to Lyon, where his comeback began. He has played 17 matches in France, scoring seven goals and providing seven assists. His form caught Ancelotti’s eye, but before that match in Orlando, the Brazil head coach said that Endrick was a player for the future, not for the present.

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In 2022, Aneil Karia won an Academy Award for his short starring Riz Ahmed. Now, he’s skewering Reform-style parliamentary candidates with the help of Jack Lowden and an unlikely online platform

Some film-makers have unrealistic expectations for their work; Aneil Karia is not one of them. “I’m not deluded enough to think that it’s going to bring down the government,” he says of his new film, Vote Gavin Lyle – but you never know, it just might. A funny, clever, superbly acted, small-but-perfectly-formed satire, Vote Gavin Lyle stars Jack Lowden as a wannabe Reform-style parliamentary candidate for the fictional middle-England constituency of Fletcham and Wold. At just 16 minutes long, it absolutely skewers the far-right mindset; not the minority-bashing, flag-hoisting street thugs, but the cannier, well-spoken Farageists who dominate the tendency’s leadership.

Without wanting to give away the film’s final flourish, it’s fair to say that there’s an element of empathy, even sympathy for its central character. Karia says: “I don’t think it’s interesting or useful to look at these people – far-right politicians, councillors, prospective candidates, whoever – and just say what nasty bastards they are. I think what strikes me about them is they’re just as vulnerable and scared as the rest of us.

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German chancellor stresses links with US and Nato during army visit without directly responding to US president’s overnight comments

Meanwhile, the issue of the US deployment in Europe also came up during the European Commission’s daily briefing in Brussels.

“ The deployment of US troops in Europe is also in the US interest in support of its global role, ” the commission’s lead security and foreign affairs spokesperson Anitta Hipper said.

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You’re not imagining it. Smaller portions. Higher prices. Worse service.

It’s easy to blame inflation, but that’s not the full story.

Over the last few decades, a financial model has quietly taken over huge parts of everyday life. From restaurants and retailers to vets and care homes, many of the brands we rely on are no longer being run as long-term businesses, but as investments designed to generate fast returns.

In this video, Neelam Tailor breaks down how private equity actually works, why it’s grown so quickly, and how it can reshape the businesses you interact with every day.

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