'We have a difficult campaign ahead' - Fuente urges Spain squad to stay grounded, announces players for World Cup qualifiers

'We have a difficult campaign ahead' - Fuente urges Spain squad to stay grounded, announces players for World Cup qualifiers

"Spain’s men’s national team coach, Luis de la Fuente, has urged his players to keep their attention on the qualifying campaign before looking ahead to next year’s FIFA World Cup, as he announced his squad for the upcoming qualifiers in Madrid on Friday. "First, the qualification. Let's focus on that. We're all thinking about the World Cup, the World Cup, the World Cup... that's all well and good, but we have a very tough, very difficult qualification campaign ahead of us," he said. The European champions welcome back Manchester City midfielder Rodri and Real Madrid full-back Dani Carvajal, both of whom missed this summer’s Nations League. "I think the most important news is that they are back with us, they are back enjoying football, their passion, and of course, contributing a lot. They are very important to us. They are our captains. We are talking about the best players in the world in their positions, and they give us, they contribute a lot to us," de la Fuente said. The coach also brushed aside criticism of 18-year-old Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal, describing him as a 'magician' amid scrutiny of his recent goal celebrations. La Roja begin their World Cup qualifying campaign next week with away fixtures against Bulgaria and Turkey. The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be staged across North America, with 48 nations competing. The final is scheduled to take place at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey."

‘La tapisserie, c’est moi’: Macron accused of putting politics first in Bayeux tapestry loan

‘La tapisserie, c’est moi’: Macron accused of putting politics first in Bayeux tapestry loan

Organiser of petition says French president ignoring expert advice that artefact too fragile to be transported to UK The Bayeux tapestry is so fragile that transporting it risks irreparable damage, French experts have said, as a petition urging Emmanuel Macron to reverse a “catastrophic” decision to loan the unique embroidery to Britain passed 60,000 signatures. France’s president declared in July that the nearly 1,000-year-old, 70-metre-long wool-on-linen artwork, which depicts William the Conqueror’s victory over King Harold II of England at Hastings in 1066, would cross the Channel next year. Continue reading...

Putin embarks on China visit with Ukraine war top of agenda

Putin embarks on China visit with Ukraine war top of agenda

Analysts say Putin and Xi will aim to align positions during Russian leader’s unusually long stay Vladimir Putin will travel to China this weekend for what the Kremlin has called a “truly unprecedented” visit to his most important ally, which comes at a crunch moment in talks over Ukraine. During the trip, which is expected to stretch to close to a week – unusually long for the Russian leader – he will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, hold talks with Xi Jinping, and take in Beijing’s Victory Day military parade marking 80 years since Japan’s defeat in the second world war, where Putin is due to be the star guest alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and leaders of Iran and Cuba. Continue reading...

My favourite childhood outfit: ‘I liked this M&S jacket so much I’ve bought a vintage one for my daughter’

My favourite childhood outfit: ‘I liked this M&S jacket so much I’ve bought a vintage one for my daughter’

As a kid, I wore this jacket to meet Bertie Bassett – and it still reminds me of being carefree at two or three, before the awkwardness of my preteen years I’m not saying I peaked at two, but I certainly gave myself an uphill struggle. This jacket was from M&S, or St Michael to be precise. Bomber-style, it was white cotton with red, blue and yellow stripes. It was jolly and innocent in the way of a deckchair, and I appear to have worn it a lot in 1986 and 1987, with mustard dungarees, or shorts and T-shirts in clashing prints. On my feet, I am often pictured wearing scuffed white trainers or a pair of T-bar shoes that are still stashed away in an attic in Sheffield. They were my first proper pair of shoes and, as I would tell anyone who would listen, they were burgundy, not red. I was too young then to be able to remember anything concrete from this period, and what I can recall is filtered through grainy family photo albums: vast, northern French skies and wide sandy beaches, jellies (the shoes) and Calippos. My dad’s BMW, the smell of his cigar smoke clinging to the leather seats and the packet of Soft Mints that was always in the glovebox. Crazy golf and grownups’ parties where women in mists of perfume laughed raucously about things I couldn’t understand. Continue reading...

Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert on leaving her marriage for a dying friend: ‘She said, Let’s just live balls to the wall until I die!’

Eat Pray Love author Elizabeth Gilbert on leaving her marriage for a dying friend: ‘She said, Let’s just live balls to the wall until I die!’

One was a happily married and internationally famous writer, the other a cool, funny hairdresser and ex-drug addict. Then a shock diagnosis pitched them into an intense love affair ... Sometime in the summer of 2017 I wrote in my journal, “Jesus fucking Christ, please save me.” I was trapped in hell, and I could see no way out. Our beautiful, sunny, two-bedroom penthouse apartment in the East Village – which I had rented for Rayya to make her happy in the last months of her life – had become a dungeon of misery, danger, degradation, drugs. Rayya kept the shades drawn at all hours of the day, not only because the light hurt her eyes but also because she had become intensely paranoid that she was being watched by the police, and that they were coming for her. And, to be honest, the police might very well have come for her (for both of us, actually), because our apartment now contained thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of cocaine – some of which Rayya was cooking down and shooting into whatever veins she could find upon her beaten-down, disease-ridden body, some of which she was freebasing, some of which she was snorting up her now constantly bloodied nose. But most of the coke, as of this moment, she had chopped up and laid out in thick rails on the coffee table, next to an overflowing ashtray, a bottle of whiskey, several bottles of morphine and trazodone and Xanax, a stack of fentanyl patches and a cluster of empty beer bottles. And these heaping lines of cocaine she counted, weighed and studied all day long. Continue reading...

Sellers of fake Botox jabs could be jailed for two years, says watchdog

Sellers of fake Botox jabs could be jailed for two years, says watchdog

MHRA is cracking down on unlicensed anti-wrinkle products after spate of botulism cases in England Sellers of fake Botox jabs could be jailed for up to two years, the UK’s medicine watchdog has warned, as it increases efforts to track down those flouting the law. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) says it is cracking down on the trade of unlicensed botulinum toxin products after a spate of botulism cases across England thought to be linked to them. Continue reading...