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‘Our new champion’: Philippines swept up in tennis fever after Alex Eala’s historic win

The Philippines has been swept up in tennis fever after 21-year-old rising star Alex Eala delivered a historic win, drawing praise from the president who hosted a reception in her honour. On Monday, Eala became the first player from the Philippines to win a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour-level singles title. Philippines president Ferdinand Marcos released a message on social media on Tuesday congratulating Eala on “yet another historic achievement”, adding: “You continue to redefine what is possible for Philippine tennis and inspire countless young Filipinos to dream without limits.” Eala not only beat the top-ranked player, Jessica Pegula, to win the title in Washington DC, but also did so coming back from behind in a match spread over two days due to rain delays. Pagula said after the match: “This is the best Monday final crowd I’ve seen ... To all the Filipino fans that came out, and have supported, you guys are helping to grow tennis around the world, and I appreciate that. Being a female athlete, being in tennis, we love to see that growth.” Signs in the stadium during the march expressed what Eala means to the nation, including one reading: “Alex you make us proud to be Filipino”. Filipinos had already been celebrating Eala’s historic run at Wimbledon in July, going farther than any Filipino woman at a grand slam championship and upsetting the defending champion, Iga Swiatek, in straight sets on Centre Court. Eala came home to a hero’s welcome, with Marcos hosting a reception in her honour at Malacanang Palace in Manila, and a nation that had previously paid little attention to the sport now obsessed with it. She has inspired droves of Filipinos to take up tennis, which has seen classes, camps and courts fully booked, leading clubs to upgrade old courts, and increased support for the tennis federation. Speaking about this rise in popularity at a press conference, Eala said: “Everyone comes up to me whenever I go back to Manila saying it’s so hard to get courts … that’s a good thing because when I was younger the courts were empty, nobody was playing.” The Philippines’ sporting interests have historically been all about the “three Bs”: basketball, billiards and boxing. But now fans and supporters of Eala have been packing local venues and public spaces with watch parties, often staying up to cheer through the night on the other side of the world. The Philippines has not had a prominent sporting superstar to throw its support behind since boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, who applauded Eala as “our new champion” on social media, lauding her Washington comeback for showing the “Filipino heart” . Washington’s tournament director Mark Ein said interest in Eala had been unmatched. He told a media conference, “over the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about when is Alex Eala playing?” Tennis is a sport often dominated by players whose home countries – the United States, Great Britain, and France – can afford the tens of millions of dollars annually it takes to develop young talent. The Philippines does not have that infrastructure, and tennis remained a sport for the elite, with courts mostly found in wealthy areas. Eala comes from a prominent family, but she learned to play tennis on painted-over basketball courts in Quezon City before moving to Spain to attend the Rafa Nadal Academy on a scholarship at the age of 13. Eala is inspiring young Filipinos from more modest backgrounds to find the means to play but has spoken about the need to improve access to public courts and equipment, as well as the condition of those that are available. It was only during her Wimbledon she truly appreciated the impact she is having on millions of Filipinos, she told the palace reception according to the state news agency. “I’m so grateful that I am able to share my triumphs … with the country,” Eala said. “As we say, tagumpay nating lahat (this is our victory).”

Penguins and dolphins among nearly 400 Australian species under threat from bird flu as ‘true extent of disaster’ revealed

Almost 400 native Australian bird and mammal species have been assessed as being at a high risk – or worse – from the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, a federal government assessment has revealed. Some of Australia’s most beloved animals – including species of penguins, fur seals, quolls, dolphins, more than 300 birds and the Tasmanian devil – are considered at least high risk from the virus, meaning they could suffer “severe reduction in population size or viability” or worse if it reached them. Five species are considered at extreme risk, meaning “unlikely to survive where the virus occurs”. These are all birds that breed in single islands or groups of islands, such as the endangered Christmas Island frigatebird and the critically endangered herald petrel, which only breeds on Raine Island in the far north of the Great Barrier Reef. More than 80 endangered and critically endangered species are also considered to be facing at least a high risk from an infection, suggesting that the H5N1 strain of bird flu will push them further towards extinction. The federal government released the results of the assessment of more than 2,000 native species, carried out with Charles Darwin University and BirdLife Australia, on Tuesday evening. Nearly one in five have been rated as facing extreme, very high or high risk. Australia’s three resident seals – the Australian fur seal, the New Zealand fur seal and the Australian sea lion – are all considered at very high risk. The Tasmanian devil and the eastern quoll, both assessed as high risk, are the land mammals at greatest threat. The extent of the analysis and the number of species considered at high risk underlines expert fears for the threat to local wildlife. Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter Prof John Woinarski, a leading conservation scientist at Charles Darwin University who helped devise the analysis, said: “This has sketched out a more bleak picture than perhaps we considered previously. “We are going to get major consequences for many species and our bird and mammal diversity is likely to suffer substantial impacts from this disease.” Prof Hugh Possingham of the University of Queensland, a lead councillor at the Biodiversity Council, said the analysis was “a good first cut” but it should have been released two years ago. “A year ago we needed a priority action list and we should have been taking action then because everyone knew that it was coming,” he said. Kate Millar, the chief executive of BirdLife Australia, said while the list of species at high risk or worse was “long” and “incredibly confronting” it also meant Australia could “prioritise and take action protecting the species most at risk”. Jack Gough, the chief executive of the Invasive Species Council, said the “list of doom” revealed “the true extent of the disaster facing Australian wildlife”. He said it demanded a “serious response” from the government “but instead we have had cuts to on ground environment programs nationally”. “Almost one in five Australian mammals and birds has been rated by the government as at risk of severe population reductions or even extinction,” he said. “This includes quolls, parrots, seals and pelicans.” The council is among several conservation groups calling for the government to fund a $200m package to scale up on ground efforts to protect wildlife, including feral animal controls. The government has said it has committed $113m to prepare for bird flu, including $47m “to accelerate protective action” for threatened species and biodiversity. Jess Abrahams, national nature campaigner at the Australian Conservation Foundation, said: “Australia is already in the midst of an extinction crisis and we need to be prepared for just how harrowing this could get. “Australians love nature and we all need to be emotionally prepared for the onslaught that could occur and know what to do if they come across a sick, dying or dead animal.” The H5N1 virus has killed millions of birds and mammals since it spread from Europe in 2021 to every continent on the planet. Australia was the final continent to be breached six weeks ago, when infected Antarctic and subantarctic migratory seabirds were found dead and sick in Western Australia and South Australia. The virus has now been confirmed in more than 100 individual birds and air surveillance has recorded the first mass mortality event from the disease, in South Australia. Detections have also been confirmed in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

Ukraine war briefing: Russian soldier in Crimea shoots comrades and civilians

A Russian soldier ⁠in Crimea ⁠opened fire on comrades, killing one and wounding ⁠another, before shooting civilians and killing ⁠three. Three other ‌people were ‌wounded, said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed ‌governor of the Sevastopol region. He said the attacker had been arrested. “A tragedy in Sevastopol … According to initial information, a soldier opened fire on his fellow servicemen, killing one person, before attacking civilians and killing three of them,” Razvozhayev posted. “All circumstances and causes of the incident are being established.” Crimea, a peninsula illegally annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, has for weeks been the target of Ukrainian attacks aimed at disrupting Russian military logistics and cutting off the occupiers’ gasoline and electricity supplies. Russian ballistic missiles ⁠hit Kyiv early on Wednesday, killing ⁠one person, injuring 12 and severely damaging buildings in several districts. Air raid alerts remained in place for more than an hour. The mayor, ‌Vitali Klitschko, said one warehouse building had been destroyed near the ‌city centre and rescue teams had pulled two people from the ruins. “There may still be people under the rubble.” The attack triggered ⁠an ammonia leak, which was being tackled by emergency crews. Ukrainian drones struck warehouses across Russia including several run ⁠by online retailer Wildberries, local officials said. Wildberries said its warehouse near St Petersburg ‌caught fire ‌with no casualties. In the Tver ‌region, about 180km north-west of Moscow, a Wildberries facility was damaged by drones in the rural area of Emmaus. In the Moscow region, ‌a drone attack on the city of Chekhov set a warehouse alight and killed five people in the Novoselki industrial zone. Drones damaged a Wildberries warehouse near Krasny Bor in north-western Russia, wounding one person. A fire broke out when a drone ⁠fell on a distribution centre ⁠in the Leningrad region near St Petersburg operated ‌by Lenta, one ‌of the country’s largest food retailers, the company ‌said, with one person injured. Ukraine ⁠accused Russia of committing a war ⁠crime after a video was released showing a drone chasing down a street vendor and exploding in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. Police said the man in his 50s survived but suffered shock and shrapnel ⁠injuries, having dived under the vehicle for shelter. “Today, many were shocked by yet another video of the drone ‘safari’ Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson,” said Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president. “We must act and support life in ways that force Russia to think seriously about peace rather than expanding ‌the range of its drones.” Ukraine’s police and its foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said the attack happened on Tuesday. Sybiha said the attack formed part of a deliberate Russian campaign to intimidate civilians. “This barbaric Russian war crime in Kherson demands international condemnation and justice, but thousands of similar crimes never come to the public eye.” The minister said the “sadist” pilot of the Russian drone would have known the target was a civilian. Two children and an elderly woman were killed in Russian guided bomb strikes on Ukraine’s northern city of Sumy, said the regional governor, Oleh Hryhorov. Russia said seven people, including three children, were killed and 60 injured at its Black Sea holiday resort of ‌Gelendzhik by a Ukrainian drone. A Ukrainian official said the drone only fell on the beach because it was shot down by Russian air defences: “Ukraine uses its weapons exclusively against the Russian military-industrial complex and economic infrastructure facilities.” Hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in white walked through central Kyiv on Tuesday behind the open casket of a university student killed at the weekend by a Russian strike as she helped people wounded in an earlier attack. Vitalina Yarovenko’s mother had asked she be given the kind of funeral procession used in Ukraine to honour fallen soldiers. Several hundred people followed her casket. Traffic stopped to let the procession past while drivers stepped out of their cars and stood silently or knelt hand on heart. Russia has repeatedly targeted rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles: the first to draw crews to the scene and the second to wound or kill them. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon.

Rubio hopes US can reach Hormuz deal with Iran ‘very shortly’ as officials say progress has been made – as it happened

Iran and Oman made progress on Tuesday toward a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz, a potential breakthrough that could help end the war, regional officials said. Under the emerging agreement, ships would enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and exit through a route controlled by Oman, with service fees charged for providing security and preserving the maritime environment, two regional officials told the Associated Press. US secretary of state Marco Rubio ⁠said there has been ⁠progress made in discussions with Iran ⁠and Oman on ‌getting ‌more ships through ‌the strait of Hormuz but no final agreement has been ‌reached. “There’s been progress made in those talks, but not finality yet. ⁠We’re hoping that will happen very shortly,” Rubio told reporters ‌at the US state department. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said Washington could reach a deal with Iran by tomorrow to reopen the strait of Hormuz. “We are in talks with the Iranians, and I think there is a chance we may have a deal today or tomorrow to open the strait and move towards a more normalised position in this conflict,” he said in an interview with CNBC. Qatar’s foreign ministry said efforts to reach a diplomatic solution between the US and Iran were “ongoing”, despite conflicting statements from Tehran and Washington over whether negotiations had resumed. “We can confirm that the efforts are still ongoing with all parties,” the ministry spokesperson, Majed al-Ansari, told reporters at a briefing today. Iran’s president was also forced to deny claims that he has repeatedly threatened to resign as he battles hardline factions opposed to reaching a settlement with the US over the strait of Hormuz. Masoud Pezeshkian accused some of wishing to create a rift inside Iran and said: “If I want to resign, I will officially announce that I have resigned. I will not resign, I will stand.” Here’s our story on that. Meanwhile, Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces will not withdraw from their current lines in Gaza until Hamas has completely disarmed. Sugessting there were differences between Israel and the Trump administration over a recent deal announced to disarm the militant group, Netanyahu, who faces a tough battle for re-election in October, said that Hamas’s disarmament should come first, and that Israeli forces would continue to “do whatever is necessary to protect themselves, our territory, and our citizens.” He added that the Trump administration “sent us a draft. We did not agree. It is not our draft. We sent our comments. This is our position. We stand firm on our interests, I believe both wisely and resolutely.” And the ⁠latest round of US-facilitated talks between ⁠Israel ⁠and Lebanon also began on Tuesday in Rome ⁠and will continue through Thursday, ⁠US state department spokesperson Tommy Pigott said. “These discussions bring together technical teams from both governments to advance full implementation of the Trilateral Framework, including the pilot zone process, verified disarmament of Hizballah and other Iran-backed security threats, redeployment of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, and laying the ground for a comprehensive peace and security agreement,” Pigott wrote in ‌a post on X.

Iran’s president denies threatening to resign during talks over strait of Hormuz

Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s president, has been forced to deny claims that he has repeatedly threatened to resign as he battles hardline factions opposed to reaching a settlement with the US over the strait of Hormuz. The US and Europe hope a deal is imminent to reopen the strait and they are putting pressure on Oman to accept a temporary agreement that officials in Muscat fear will leave Iran retaining near permanent dominance of the vital oil shipping channel. Ships would enter the strait in a route close to Iran, but leave on a route that passes through Iranian and Omani waters. But far from being feted over an imminent diplomatic victory, Pezeshkian was instead forced to deny that he had repeatedly offered to resign, verbally and in writing, during a television interview marking his second anniversary in the job. Pezeshkian accused some of wishing to create a rift inside Iran and said: “If I want to resign, I will officially announce that I have resigned. I will not resign, I will stand.” The resignation claims, which have been front page news in Iran, were made by Mohammad Bagher Kharazi, who is linked by marriage to Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader. He said Pezeshkian had become frustrated at being excluded from decision making, made worse by the supreme leader’s reluctance to reveal his whereabouts for fear of foreign intelligence agencies. Khamenei was badly injured in the Israeli bombing on the first day of the war that killed his father and has not been seen or heard in public since. Kharazi claimed Pezeshkian had threatened to quit so many times that Khamenei warned him he would accept the next resignation threat, a claim Khamenei’s office eventually said on Tuesday was “fundamentally false and untrue”. Pezeshkian insisted in the interview that he was in complete harmony with the military and said those that claimed 30,000 people had been killed in the January protests never took up the offer to provide proof. The interview, marking the halfway point of his turbulent presidency, appeared to be an attempt to dispel the impression that his belief in consensus was a weakness, or that he had been sidelined by hardline war leaders. Kharazi is the brother-in-law of Massoud Khamenei, the younger brother of the supreme leader. Critics say he has a record of making unsubstantiated allegations and despite his family connections to the supreme leader, it is not clear if he has seen him since his elevation to the post in March. However, the row has highlighted the deep strategic and tactical differences inside Iran over the wisdom of talks with the US. Mehdi Tabatabaei, a senior member of the Iranian president’s office, described the reports as “complete nonsense and lies”. In a post on social media, he condemned a “sinister coalition of lying, deceitful and reckless extremism”whose members could not accept democratic outcomes. He said: “Two years have passed since their failure in the arena of national elections, yet they are still seeking revenge against the will of the nation. They have become puppets of Iran’s enemies.” Ahmad Zeidabadi, a reformist reporter, said the claims were inflammatory and served only to exacerbate tensions. Pezeshkian on Sunday suggested that the memorandum of understanding, negotiated with the US in June and reviled by some hardliners, would serve as a cornerstone for Iranian foreign relations in the future, saying that Iran “must strive to compel the enemy to remain committed to what it has signed”. On Monday, the conservative-dominated Assembly of Experts issued a statement describing hopes for an agreement or understanding with the US as “futile” and labelled what it termed “whispers of capitulation in the name of defending peace” an “unforgivable betrayal”. It added that trusting this arrogant government was nothing more than a mirage. Khamenei himself had said in April he was opposed to talks with the US in principle, but in deference to Pezeshkian had allowed them to go ahead.

India’s ruling BJP loses byelection in stronghold after Cockroach student protests

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party has lost a byelection in a seat it had held for three decades, after the Cockroach movement student protests that have shaken Narendra Modi’s government. Prashant Kishor, a high-profile electoral strategist turned politician, scored a breakthrough win for his fledgling Jan Suraaj (Good Governance) party in the Bankipur constituency in Patna, the capital of the eastern state of Bihar. The byelection, in what had been considered a BJP stronghold, was closely watched because it came in the aftermath of nationwide student protests over exam paper leaks that forced the resignation of the education minister, a rare retreat by a government that prides itself on not yielding to public pressure. Kishor said his victory was a wake-up call for Modi to improve education and create jobs. The BJP lost two of three byelection contests this week, with the opposition Congress retaining the Datia constituency in central Madhya Pradesh. The BJP comfortably held Manjalpur in Gujarat, Modi’s home state. Kishor’s supporters said his campaign had succeeded by focusing on issues that resonated with younger voters, particularly education, exams scandals and unemployment. Deepak Sharma, a former BJP supporter, told the Hindu newspaper: “Unlike other political leaders who make lofty promises, he raised the simple slogan: vote for the future of your children.” The opposition have said the student protest movement is beginning to dent BJP support among younger voters. Nearly two-thirds of India’s population is under 35. While the official youth unemployment rate is 16%, nearly 40% of graduates aged 15-25 and 20% of those aged 25-29 are jobless, far higher proportions than among the less educated, according to the latest State of Working India report by Azim Premji University. The Cockroach Janata party began as an online joke after a senior judge described unemployed young Indians as cockroaches and parasites. It has since morphed into a nationwide movement with 26.6 million Instagram followers, more than the BJP and Congress combined. The BJP’s president, Nitin Nabin, who previously represented Bankipur, described the largely gen Z protesters as “a virus and a cockroach gang devoted to breaking the country” during the byelection campaign. After he lost the election, he said the party would “undertake a thorough introspection”. Senior BJP sources quoted in the Indian media said the loss has shown that even core supporters could change their minds. A significant victory for the BJP in West Bengal last year expanded the party’s reach into one of the last major regions outside its control, but that triumph has been followed by a string of political headaches, including the student protests. The government has also become embroiled in a separate confrontation with the social media company Meta after a video featuring Modi in which he promised to crack down on exam fraud briefly disappeared from Facebook. The parliamentary committee on communications and information technology has demanded Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, apologise personally and explain how the video vanished. According to local media, Meta executives have already apologised and blamed automated systems designed to detect fake content. The row has highlighted broader government unease about the influence of foreign technology companies over political discourse. Nishikant Dubey, the chair of the committee, said large parties such as the BJP and Congress often received less visibility online than movements with no formal political status. “The country needs to understand what Meta, X and YouTube are doing through their algorithms,” Dubey said. Ajoy Bose, a Delhi-based political analyst, said the Bankipur defeat carried symbolic weight far beyond a single constituency. “Coming as it does after the student protests, the optics look very bad for the BJP. I would not directly connect the result to the protests, but Bihar was one of the main centres of the student agitation, so the two will inevitably be linked in public perception.” But he cautioned against reading the outcome as evidence of a nationwide shift in voter sentiment. “What’s changing is the perceived invincibility of the BJP’s election machine,” Bose said. “There was a widespread belief the party had every election sewn up.”

Calls to ban disposable barbecues in England and Wales over wildfire risk

Farmers and landowners are calling for a temporary ban on disposable barbecues in England and Wales, as they warn of the risk of igniting wildfires. The call, which has also been made by firefighters and is backed by the Liberal Democrats and many Labour MPs, comes as much of England faces further hot dry weather, despite rain in some areas. The deputy president of the National Farmers Union, Paul Tompkins, said wildfires were an urgent concern as farmers counted the cost of lost or poor harvests caused by record heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis over the last three months and the worst drought in many areas since 1976. Dry conditions have meant vegetation is much more prone to ignition through carelessness or deliberate fire-starting. Tompkins said: “A stray match or single spark, and months of hard work can be wiped out in just minutes; crops destroyed and harvest ruined, vital machinery and infrastructure damaged and livestock put at serious risk. “Beyond the immediate losses, there could be long-term consequences for soil health, grassland productivity and confidence of farm businesses already facing significant pressures.” He called for retailers to remove disposable barbecues from sale, and for local authorities to issue public space protection orders prohibiting the lighting of barbecues, campfires and camping stoves. The MP for High Peak in Derbyshire, Jon Pearce, wrote to retailers this week, asking them to stop selling disposable barbecues. Most big supermarkets have already halted sales and some have not sold them for years. But they are still widely available in smaller shops, from some hardware and DIY stores and online. Wildfires have affected every region of the UK this year, with more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) estimated to have burned. There have been fires in the Rhondda Valley in Wales this week and the Cairngorms in Scotland last week, while a blaze in Suffolk came within a few miles of the Sizewell B nuclear plant. Fires have been going on for months. Blazes hit the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland, areas near Aberdeen, and the Brecon Beacons national park in Wales. Tompkins also called for more grazing in moorland areas to reduce vegetation, but conservationists are wary of overgrazing in delicate habitats. Some observers have blamed rewilding for the increasing wildfire risk, a claim rebuffed by experts who said rewilding land could vastly reduce risky conditions. The financier and conservationist Ben Goldsmith pointed to the reintroduction of beavers in some rivers, which has increased the surrounding land’s ability to store water and helped to avoid some of the worst impacts of the drought. The Country Land and Business Association (CLA), which represents landowners, also called for a ban on disposable barbecues, but at the same time a lifting of the ban on controlled burning. It is banned in England to protect wildlife and habitats, and to reduce carbon emissions. The CLA’s president, Gavin Lane, said: “Controlled burning is one of several proven ways to reduce the danger. Done properly, it clears the vegetation that feeds a wildfire and slows its spread. Natural England must lift the ban on controlled burning and look seriously at how it could prevent further loss.” Rain fell in the north of England and Scotland on Tuesday, while thundery showers in Northern Ireland and scattered showers in Wales brought some relief. South-east England was mainly dry despite overcast skies. A government spokesperson said: “There are no plans to introduce a blanket ban on disposable barbecues. “We take the risk of fires very seriously, which is why we’ve taken action to make disposable barbecues safer to use, including making sure they follow strict product safety rules and giving councils the power to ban them in high-risk areas.”