Author: The Guardian

They soared before England could take off. Jos Buttler’s side will travel to Barbados on Friday morning to begin the defense of their T20 World Cup title after a comprehensive seven-match victory over Pakistan ended with victory with 27 balls remaining A short, rain-affected but still encouraging race.”We feel confident and positive,” said Adil Rashid, who was named man of the match after taking two wickets and conceding just 27 balls in four overs. “We’re in a good place. If we go out there and stick to our guns and stick with the positivity that we have, hopefully we can…

Jimmy Kimmel took aim at Donald Trump and the end of his hush-money trial on last night’s edition of his late-night show.On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host spoke about the former president’s New York City trial, where he faces multiple charges, which is coming to an end as the jury deliberates. Trump must stay in the courthouse to “sit there for hours farting next to the vending machine”.Kimmel continued: “Trump is hoping for a hung jury. Of course he was also hoping for a hung Mike Pence but that didn’t happen.”He said that the Trump camp had been talking up…

Novak Djokovic continues to keep expectations low for the French Open after an encouraging performance on Thursday. Djokovic easily defeated Spanish player Roberto Cabales Baena 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 in Paris to advance to the third round.”I didn’t want to do too much today because I wasn’t in good shape to prepare for the French Open,” Djokovic said. “So I have to lower my expectations a little bit.Of course, hope, faith and faith are always there, always high, I always aim for the highest stars so to speak. But I’m very aware of the situation and what I need to do…

Donald Trump has been found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.The verdict came after a jury deliberated for less than twelve hours in the unprecedented first criminal trial against a US president. It marks a perilous political moment for Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, whose poll numbers have remained unchanged throughout the trial but could tank at any moment.Trump was convicted by a jury of 12 New Yorkers of felony falsification of business records, which makes it a crime for a…

Egypt has reacted with a wall of silence to Israel’s takeover of the southern Gaza buffer zone, an apparent flout for the decades-old peace deal, as Cairo attempts to contain public anger while avoiding an escalation of tensions with Israel. .Israel said on Wednesday its forces had gained “operational” control of the Philadelphia Corridor – the Israeli military’s code name for a 9-mile (14-kilometer) strip along the Gaza-Egypt border. Under the terms of the 1979 peace agreement between Egypt and Israel, both sides can only deploy small numbers of troops or border guards in the demilitarized zone that runs along…

Edouard Baer, a French actor best known for playing Asterix on screen, has become the latest star to feel the impact of sexual assault allegations as his live show in Paris was cancelled.Baer, who played the fictitious Gaul in the 2012 blockbuster Asterix and Obelix: God Save Britannia alongside Gérard Depardieu, was accused by six women of harassment and sexual assault in a joint article by online news site Mediapart and the feminist website Cheek last week.Multiple accusations against Depardieu, which the 75-year-old actor denies, have contributed to a fresh wave of #MeToo accusations in France in recent months.Baer, who…

LMore than a decade ago, American anthropologist James C. Scott described infectious diseases as “the loudest silence” in the prehistoric archaeological record. The pandemic must have devastated human society and changed the course of history in the distant past, but Scott laments that the artifacts left behind reveal nothing about them.In the past few years, groundbreaking research analyzing microbial DNA extracted from very ancient human bones has broken the silence. The latest example is groundbreaking research that discovered three viruses in Neanderthal bones from 50,000 years ago. These pathogens still plague modern humans: Adenoviruses, herpesviruses, and papillomaviruses cause the common…

Mike Johnson, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, is planning a sweeping ideological legislative drive that aims to make Donald Trump “the most consequential president of the modern era” if the Republicans win power in November.A far-reaching bill containing a range of policy priorities at once – including tax cuts worth trillions, border security and rolling back Obamacare – is being prepared to avoid the mistakes the GOP believed happened early in Trump’s first term, when Johnson says the party wasted time because its victory over Hillary Clinton took it by surprise.In an interview with Semafor, Johnson said…

Nelly Korda holed out three short shots on the par-3 12th green on the third hole of the U.S. Women’s Open on Thursday to reach 10.It was a devastating start for the No. 1 player in women’s golf at Lancaster Country Club, a course that’s already so difficult that birdies are hard to come by.Korda walked off the green, took off his mask, put his hand to his forehead for a few seconds, then walked to the next tee. The video crew fixed the camera on the walk scorer, and the “+1” next to her name changed to “+8.”Hole 12…

An investigative reporter with Israel’s leading leftwing newspaper, Haaretz, has said unnamed senior security officials threatened actions against him if he reported on attempts by the former head of the Mossad to intimidate the ex-prosecutor of the international criminal court.Amid growing concern over Israel’s censorship regime, enforced by the military censor’s office and by gag orders issued by the courts, Haaretz published an article on Wednesday with blacked out words and sentences to demonstrate the scale of redactions.In an article published on Thursday, the investigative reporter Gur Megiddo described how two years ago security officials blocked an attempt by the…