Cybertrucks have locked passengers inside and burned so hot they’ve disintegrated drivers’ bones. Victims’ families blame what they say is the faulty design of a truck Elon Musk calls ‘apocalypse-proof’

When sheriff deputies arrived at the scene of a late-night crash off a desolate Texas road in August 2024, they could see a giant pyre through heavy smoke.

According to police reports detailing the events of that night, the officers tried to approach the vehicle, but the fire burned too intensely. They saw it was a Tesla Cybertruck and couldn’t see anyone inside. So they combed the surrounding area for the driver.

Cut off from Europe by Brexit and cast adrift by Donald Trump, maintaining diplomatic expertise and connections is crucial

Of all the concerns in the world, the demise of the Ferrero Rocher ambassador might not be top of the agenda. In days gone by, thanks to an excruciating TV advert , the chocolate with the golden wrapping was synonymous with the diplomatic circuit. You really had made it if you offered them up to your bejewelled and bemedalled guests.

That was the 1990s. Almost all diplomats I have met over the years are very serious and very hardworking. They still must schmooze and dress up on occasion, but most of their time is spent trying to fathom out what’s going on and reporting that back to base, often from difficult places.

John Kampfner is the author of In Search of Berlin, Blair’s Wars and Why the Germans Do It Better

O2 Arena, London
This is slicker than their thrillingly chaotic early gigs, but the veteran New York hip-hop crew’s flows remain feral after 30-odd years

RZA peers quizzically into the O2 audience through a pair of impressively bejewelled sunglasses. “How many people in this crowd were born in the 70s?” he enquires, after an attempt to get the audience bouncing on the spot has met with a decidedly tepid response. The ensuing roar suggests the majority of attenders at what’s being billed as the Wu-Tang Clan’s farewell tour are old enough to remember the Staten Island rap crew’s gamechanging arrival on the early-90s hip-hop scene first-hand. He nods understandingly. “Your legs, right?” he offers, kneading the back of his thighs, perhaps no stranger to the occasional twinge himself. Clearly, the challenges in reconvening the Wu-Tang Clan for one final jaunt around the world involve not merely assembling the multifarious members after years of internal strife, but accounting for the stiff joints of the hip-hop dads such a gig is likely to attract.

Nevertheless, the tour arrives in the UK trailing ecstatic reviews from its 2025 American leg. Its European iteration is a little scaled down by necessity, its setlist pared back slightly, its impressive raft of guest stars – everyone from Slick Rick to Lauryn Hill turned up in the US – reduced to just one: Mobb Deep’s Havoc. Still, the version of Shook Ones, Part II he delivers in the company of Raekwon and Ghostface Killah is ferocious and besides, it’s not as if Wu-Tang Clan really need additional firepower.

Esmail Khatib said to be third senior Iranian figure killed in 24 hours as Israel authorises military to kill targeted officials

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel claimed on Wednesday to have killed a third senior Iranian figure in 24 hours, stating that its forces had “eliminated” Tehran’s intelligence minister, Esmail Khatib, in an overnight strike.

If confirmed, his death would follow those of Ali Larijani , the head of the supreme national security apparatus, and the commander of the Basij militia, Gholamreza Soleimani.

The ruling of the Caf appeals committee is against the laws of the game and casts another shadow over Motsepe’s stewardship as president

In more than three decades of reporting on African football, I have gone through the entire gamut of emotions: exhilaration – over some of the continent’s great moments at the Africa Cup of Nations and World Cups; frustration – over the errors its governors make – and deep despair, as one wonders whether its custodians will ever live up to their responsibilities and do their jobs diligently.

The decision on Tuesday, by the appeals committee of the Confederation of African Football (Caf), to strip Senegal of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) title and hand it to Morocco, leaves me gobsmacked, as it did a former member of the appeals committee. “As a person who was on the appeals board for six years I know that it does not have the power to change the on-field decision of a referee. I cannot understand how they came to this disgraceful decision,” he said.

• City winger says beating Arsenal would be ‘a good cure’

• Real Madrid won last-16 tie 5-1 on aggregate

Jérémy Doku has said that beating Arsenal in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final would be a “good cure” for Manchester City’s elimination from the Champions League by Real Madrid. Tuesday’s 2-1 loss at the Etihad Stadium knocked City out 5-1 on aggregate and Doku is focusing on defeating Arsenal at Wembley.

“It’s a good cure,” the winger said. “We’ll do everything to win that game and to win a trophy. There’s still a lot to play for. We’re in three competitions, three trophies to win. If we do that it’s still going to be a great season.

The stars of Sex Education and The Morning Show will appear in a new West End production of Edward Albee’s classic, directed by Marianne Elliott

Gillian Anderson is to return to the West End in a role she has coveted “for decades”. The Sex Education star will appear opposite Billy Crudup in a revival of Edward Albee’s marital meltdown classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in the autumn. Staged in-the-round, the production will be directed by Marianne Elliott at the intimate @sohoplace theatre.

Anderson will play Martha who spars with her professor husband George over drinks with a young married couple in the 1962 play. “Martha’s rage is inseparable from her longing, her disappointment and her need to be seen – all things still eminently relatable 60 years on,” said Anderson. The role was first played on Broadway by Uta Hagen, on screen a few years later by Elizabeth Taylor (opposite her husband Richard Burton) and in a 1996 London revival by Diana Rigg. “I’ve wanted to play Martha for decades,” said Anderson. “I’m thrilled Billy Crudup is joining me in the ring as George.”

Instead of regime change, all the bombing has produced so far is regime reinforcement and no end in sight

With the US-Israeli bombing of Iran now in its third week, its costs are mounting, its purpose is increasingly muddled and potential off-ramps have become frustratingly elusive. Yet rather than succumb to despair, we should urgently press for this destructive war to end.

Iran never engaged in an actual or imminent attack that would justify a war of self-defense. The best that Donald Trump could muster was an argument of prevention – that Iran’s missile program and capacity to disrupt the Middle East must be curtailed, along with its ability to build a nuclear weapon. But the UN charter does not permit armed attacks for mere preventive purposes; that would open the door to endless armed conflicts. And even by the standard of Trump’s inadequate justification for war, his bombing has been a fiasco.

Afghan Taliban government says more than 400 people killed and 265 injured, as Pakistan disputes target of strike

Families and friends of people who were being treated at a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul have continued to search for their loved ones two days after it was bombed by Pakistan, in the deadliest attack so far in the months-long conflict between the two countries.

The Afghan Taliban government has said more than 400 people were killed and 265 others wounded in the airstrike, which took place on Monday night as people and staff at the centre were praying days before the end of the holy month of Ramadan.