Author: The Guardian

The idea that night owls who don’t go to bed until the early hours struggle to get anything done during the day may have to be revised.It turns out that staying up late could be good for our brain power as research suggests that people who identify as night owls could be sharper than those who go to bed early.Researchers led by academics at Imperial College London studied data from the UK Biobank study on more than 26,000 people who had completed intelligence, reasoning, reaction time and memory tests.They then examined how participants’ sleep duration, quality, and chronotype (which determines…

England’s history-making hero Ollie Watkins has described his disbelief after a “special moment” he couldn’t have imagined earlier in his career.Watkins scored a superb last-minute strike against the Netherlands to send England into their first major final abroad, firing low from an angle and sparking fire in Dortmund and beyond cheered. The Aston Villa striker explained that such a scenario was a distant prospect when he was a youngster at Exeter, but revealed that he and fellow substitute Cole Palmer had It is predicted that they will join forces to win.”I told Cole, we’re all going to go out there…

An Iraqi court has issued a death sentence against one of the widows of the late Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, alleging that she was complicit in crimes committed against Yazidi women captured by the militant group.The ruling comes weeks before the 10-year mark since IS launched a series of attacks against the Yazidi religious minority in the northern Iraqi region of Sinjar in early August 2014, killing and capturing thousands – including women and girls who were subjected to human trafficking and sexual abuse. The UN said the campaign against the Yazidis amounted to genocide.A statement by Iraq’s…

Put more flags. Dig out the George Cross clown hat. Be prepared to toss the remainder of your plastic beer glass into the air. After another thrilling moment of drama in Dortmund, England’s football players will take part in the Euro 2024 final in Berlin this Sunday.Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins was the hero at the end as he made his first appearance in the Championship and came on as a late substitute for Harry Kane in a 1-1 draw flat. England and the Netherlands were already staring grimly at the prospect of extra time when Watkins received a pass…

Is it time for a rethink about Gareth Southgate’s substitutions? As the tension rose at the BVB Stadion and extra time beckoned, it was England who found an extra burst when two players who had not been on the pitch long combined to send them through to a first final on foreign soil.They were all off the bench when Ollie Watkins collected Cole Palmer’s pass, swivelled away from Stefan de Vrij and arrowed a stunning shot into the Netherlands net. Having trailed to a spectacular early goal from Xavi Simons, England had rallied through Harry Kane’s penalty, but they had…

Gus Atkinson declares Test cricket ‘beyond my dreams’ on day one as he joins legendary Lord’s Roll of Honor on debut , taking seven wickets, England bowled out West Indies for 121 runs. The score was reduced to 189 in the match, taking control of the first Test match of the summer.“I don’t think it’s in trouble yet. I looked up at the blackboard and saw my numbers and thought, ‘Wow. “A very special day,” Atkinson said. “I was a little nervous this morning. I woke up and all I could think about was the day ahead. I was a…

Dawn Butler has said she “won’t be silenced” over celebrating ethnic minority representation after she appeared to have been reported to the police online for praising the Labour government “showing off the melanin”.After Monday’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, attended by all 411 MPs, Butler posted the phrase​ with three photographs on X, one of which featured her with eight colleagues: Kim Johnson, Zarah Sultana, Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Apsana Begum, Florence Esholomi, Juliet Campbell, Miatta Fahnbulleh and Taiwo Owatemi.Responding to the post, a user replied: “Just imagine if a white MP celebrated the lack of melanin in a group photo..?“@Keir…

“ABowling from the Pavilion End was…” Jimmy Anderson of course. It has been that way since he took 5 for 73 against Zimbabwe in his first Test here 21 years ago. He was almost a fixture at Lord’s, like the old Father Time on the weathervane above the scorer’s table. Twenty-one other players from his first Test match are now long gone: one was Anderson’s last boss at the England and Wales Cricket Board; The other was Anderson’s last boss at the England and Wales Cricket Board. Another is his latest piece; a third is one of his coaches; and…

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez introduced articles of impeachment against the conservative US supreme court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on Wednesday over the justices’ “pattern of refusal to recuse from consequential matters before the court”.The articles of impeachment are unlikely to gain traction in the US House, which is controlled by Republicans. The effort follows calls from two US senators, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ron Wyden, for the US attorney general to appoint a special counsel to investigate potential criminal violations of federal ethics and tax laws by Thomas.“Justice Thomas and Alito’s repeated failure over decades to disclose that they received…

Counties in England that do not yet have a first-class men’s cricket team believe they have been left out of plans for a new second tier of women’s cricket.From the 2025 season, only first-class men’s counties will have the opportunity to manage a team in the top two tiers of the domestic women’s cricket league, although first-class status has never officially existed in women’s cricket and has never existed Historically, many county women’s teams have achieved this status.The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has rejected applications from nine counties to field second-tier teams in women’s domestic cricket from the…