The Times

An Iranian newspaper journalist who played an important role in covering the death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police is being held in solitary confinement. Niloufar Hamedi was arrested after breaking the news that Amini, 22, was in hospital following her arrest this month for “unsuitable attire” by the police force, which enforces the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Hamedi is one of several reporters detained during the country’s worst protests since 2019.

A cabinet minister held three meetings with a Chinese state-owned nuclear power company for which no minutes have been retained, The Times can reveal. Anne-Marie Trevelyan met representatives of China General Nuclear (CGN) in April, June and July last year while serving as energy minister. Two of the sensitive meetings took place after the United States sanctioned the company for its links to the Chinese military. Liz Truss, who promoted Trevelyan to transport secretary on becoming prime minis

The Fifa World Cup 2022 will be hosted in Qatar and contested by 32 nations. After more than a decade of allegations, arguments and animosity, the most scrutinised football tournament in history is about to begin. On the pitch, the World Cup remains the pinnacle of the sport and the stakes are as high as ever. When does the competition start? Can England win it? Why is there so much controversy? We answer all the important questions below. • Who will win the World Cup? Play our predictor • Wha

Rob Page has invited Michael Sheen to meet the Wales squad after the actor’s motivational speech to the team went viral. Page, the Wales manager, revealed that the rallying cry had him “welling up” and said that his players are keen to have the Frost/Nixon and The Damned United star visit them before they head to Qatar for the World Cup in November. The Hollywood actor, who was born in Newport and grew up in Port Talbot, gave a rousing speech on the TV show A League of Their Own at the request

Player of the week Henry Arundell received the bulk of the attention after London Irish’s 45-14 win against Worcester Warriors but another wing, Ollie Hassell-Collins, was equally impressive for the Brentford club. Hassell-Collins had a hand in his team’s first four tries. He created Irish’s opener, scored by Ben Donnell, with a run across the field, before making a more direct run in the build-up to Ben White’s try. The 23-year-old then scored himself with a finish built on brawn rather than

A member of the South African rugby squad and the team’s dietician have been sent home from Argentina because of reports of an affair between the pair. Elton Jantjies, the Springboks fly half, was allegedly seen with Zeenat Simjee at two different guest houses in Sabie prior to South Africa’s match against New Zealand last month in Mbombela. Simjee was also sent home. The removal of Jantjies was not a punishment, but to allow the 32-year-old, who is married with three children, to “attend to t

Anthony Joshua has accepted Tyson Fury’s proposed 60-40 split of the purse for a potential fight, according to his promoter Eddie Hearn, but the date could still prove a sticking point. Hearn said that though he thought Joshua deserved more it was the boxer who made the decisions. “So I went back this morning and said, ‘We accept 60/40’,” he told a YouTube channel. “We want that reversed in the rematch — rightfully so because you’re champion here, you want the bigger split.” Hearn also said th

The goalkeeper sent off after urinating in a bush was relieving himself discreetly, his joint-manager insists. Connor Maseko, playing for Blackfield & Langley against Shepton Mallet in the FA Cup first qualifying round, was shown a red card by Benjamin Duffill when he urinated in a bush while retrieving the ball for a goal kick. However, Conor McCarthy, his joint-manager, defended him. “He was not in the public’s vision. It was not like he was brandishing his parts,” McCarthy said. “He was in

Portsmouth and Peterborough United’s meeting was inevitably defined by strikers. Going into the League One encounter, both sides had scored a division-best 13 goals and deployed forwards with contrasting stories. The first 20 minutes at Fratton Park belonged to Jonson Clarke-Harris. Into his 12th season of EFL football with 101 goals in that time, the Peterborough captain overpowered Portsmouth’s defenders, made some deft touches and created the game’s first goal. However, the hosts gradually

Saudi Arabia has handed down its harshest ever sentence to a women’s rights activist, sentencing her to 45 years in prison for opposing the regime on social media. Nourah bint Saeed al-Qahtani was convicted in the Specialised Criminal Court for “using the internet to tear the social fabric” and “violating the public order by using social media”, according to a court document received by rights group Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn).

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was allegedly threatened with firearms and iron bars during a robbery at his house in Barcelona on Monday morning. El País, a Spanish daily newspaper, reported that at least four men broke into the Barcelona striker’s home before assaulting him in front of his wife and leaving with jewels kept in his safe. The incident happened in the early hours of Monday morning and was witnessed by the Gabon international’s wife, Alysha Behague. She called the police but the robbe

A chaotic end to a chaotic week at Burton Albion, but some things stay the same. Their incident-packed 4-3 loss away to Cambridge United meant that they remained bottom of Sky Bet League One with a single point from six games. It is now two wins in 21 for the Staffordshire side, but Saturday’s game was far from business as usual. From the moment Burton notched their fastest EFL goal after 11 seconds, drama was never far away. Kicking every ball on the touchline was Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who

Dozens of formal complaints of bullying are being lodged by soldiers in the British army every year yet the vast majority of them are not resolved, new figures show. Data disclosed by the Ministry of Defence under Freedom of Information laws show that official allegations of bullying have increased by almost 40 per cent in seven years. However most of the reports are thrown out, with campaigners expressing concerns that the military is being allowed to “mark its own homework”. In 2015 51 comp

Lincoln City have suspended the forward Chris Maguire indefinitely after an alleged breach of the Football Association’s betting rules. The 33-year-old is alleged to have placed 52 bets on football matches between March 2017 and February this year. He has been given until Tuesday, August 30 to respond to the misconduct charge. The period of Maguire’s alleged offending includes time spent at former clubs Oxford United, Bury and Sunderland. “Chris Maguire has been charged with misconduct in rel

“Join us on Crawley Town FC’s road to the Premier League,” proclaims the website selling the club’s NFT (non-fungible tokens). After Saturday’s 2-0 home defeat by AFC Wimbledon, Crawley sit 23rd in Sky Bet League Two with one point from their first five games. The top flight is light years away. But WAGMI United, the consortium that purchased Crawley in April, will unashamedly forge its own path. Those who purchase the club NFT — unique virtual assets bought and traded using a blockchain, a for

The handshake between Jackie Robinson and George Shuba is the antithesis of Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte’s full-time spat. Rather than a hotly contested flashpoint over trivial matters, this gesture was understated but became a tool to combat centuries of discrimination. The day was April 18, 1946, and Robinson, 27, was making his minor leagues debut for the Montreal Royals in an away game against the Jersey City Giants. Not for the last time in his fabled career, he was making history — the

Never leave early when Stevenage are playing. It was 5pm when Danny Rose headed home their equaliser at Walsall, in the tenth minute of second half stoppage time. It followed three 2-1 victories to start the season, won with goals in the 84th, 95th and 89th minute. Rose’s effort also knocked the Saddlers, who themselves had a perfect record and were yet to concede this campaign, off the top of League Two. Regular pauses on a sweltering afternoon led to eight minutes of second-half stoppage tim

Clad in animal fat, paraffin-sealed motorcycle goggles and a two-piece swimsuit bereft of the modesty expected in 1926, Gertrude Ederle left Cap Gris-Nez in France with women’s sporting history at stake. Some 35 miles later, in the August twilight, the 19-year-old American broke new ground not for her gender, but her species. Ederle had become the sixth person to swim the Channel, joining five men, and did so in a record time of 14 hours and 39 minutes. No caveats, no qualifying statements on h

Will Smeed is being lauded as the next big thing in English cricket yet the 20-year-old, who describes himself as “a bit of a slogger and not the most elegant to watch”, almost took a very different sporting path. “I enjoyed rugby more than cricket,” Smeed admits. “I was just better at cricket so as I got a bit older, it made more sense to pursue that. “By the time the opportunity to play academy rugby came around, my cricket had already come on quite a lot.” Rugby’s loss is very much cricket

If you have Union Jack cushions or leave the loo seat up, good luck getting onto these discerning brokers’ books

The Iranian government yesterday claimed to have arrested spies belonging to a network of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. Iran’s official news agency said the agents had been planning “terrorist acts” against “sensitive sites”. Iran said all the agents had been “identified and arrested before conducting any acts of sabotage”.

‘We declare that we are all loyal subjects of his majesty the King,” it was proclaimed at the opening ceremony of the 1950 British Empire Games in Auckland. Indeed, as the multi-sport festival began on New Zealand’s North Island, the only sensible conclusion seemed to be that the empire was thriving. There was the name itself: “Commonwealth” was only included in the title from 1954, and “British Empire” would survive until 1970. “Commonwealth Games” was adopted in 1978. There were the measurem

The residents of Vale do Lobo in the Portuguese Algarve knew it was time to worry when clouds of ash started falling from the sky into the swimming pools of their multi-million euro villas. The region is a second home to several celebrities, including Cliff Richard, but emergency services are so overstretched that the majority of firefighters working to protect these luxury homes are unpaid reserves. Supporting their cause is an unlikely group of volunteers: 25 designated “fire watchers”...

The half-smiles, polite applause and chuckling at the streamers implied that English cricket was a little embarrassed by it all. The inaugural Twenty20 cup finals day, which followed a swift 12-day group stage of five matches each, was held on July 19, 2003, at a sold-out Trent Bridge. Once complete, the remains of the summer could be dedicated to longer and more serious formats. Today, the competition celebrates its 20th finals day — at Edgbaston — and nearly two decades of remarkable change.

Mark Cavendish’s hopes of claiming the outright record for Tour de France stage victories have been dealt a heavy blow after he was left out of Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl’s team for this year’s race. Cavendish took a share of the record with Eddy Merckx on 34 stages wins last year with four victories in the three-week grand tour, but at the age of 37 the British rider’s omission this year may deny him the chance to pull clear of the Belgian. Cavendish had already been left out of Quick-Step’s prov

Andrea Leadsom has placed her experience in the City at the centre of her candidacy to become prime minister Ben Cawthra/London News Pictures Ltd Andrea Leadsom has no experience as an investment banker despite claims from her backers that she managed billions of pounds’ worth of funds, The Times can reveal. Mrs Leadsom, who has never held a cabinet role and has only been a minister since April 2014 and an MP since 2010, has placed her experience in the City at the centre of her candidacy to b

In lifting the Italian Open trophy on Sunday, Novak Djokovic registered his 1,001st Tour-level victory. In reaching four figures the previous day, with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Casper Ruud, he became only the fifth man to reach 1,000. Only the Serbian’s two great rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, the American Jimmy Connors and the Czech-American Ivan Lendl are in that select group. A victim of his career coinciding with arguably the two other greatest players in the sport’s history, Djokov

Mark Cavendish continued his late-career renaissance by winning a Giro d’Italia stage for the first time in nine years. The 36-year-old sprint specialist pulled away to take the third stage in Balatonfured, Hungary, by a wheel ahead of the second-placed Frenchman, Arnaud Démare. The win continues a remarkable comeback for Cavendish, who won four stages of last year’s Tour de France, having not won a stage at any grand tour — the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France or Vuelta a España — since 2016. “

For nearly three decades, Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday shared a unique quirk of English knockout football. Never before or since had the same sides contested the League Cup and FA Cup finals in one campaign, as they did in 1992/93, until Liverpool and Chelsea repeated the feat this year. The duo are still in a bracket of their own. After Arsenal prevailed 2-1 in the 1993 League Cup final, the rematch ended 1-1. That meant an FA Cup final replay, the last of its kind, which the Gunners also e

The first permanent licence for a testing service that will allow drug users to assess the strength and purity of illegal substances has been issued by the Home Office. The facility will open in Bristol later this month in a move that is likely to herald the introduction of similar services across the country. The objective is to reduce high-risk substance use by allowing people to access information on the contaminants in drugs such as heroin, cocaine and ecstasy. For the past four years, pi