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US pauses Iran attacks for second night after Trump advised to halt bombing

The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war. Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict, with Benjamin Netanyahu expected to visit the White House on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister is a vocal critic of Washington’s negotiations with Iranian leaders and has pressed for the US to continue its strikes against Iran. Netanyahu is under considerable political pressure to show that his military campaigns against Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon have yielded results before elections scheduled for October. Tehran said on Sunday it would pause what it called “retaliatory” attacks against US allies in the region. “These [US] attacks continued until two nights ago, but over the past two nights the Americans have stopped their attacks,” said the army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia. “Our strategy has essentially been retaliatory, we have also halted our retaliatory operations.” Senior officials in the Trump administration are reported to have told the president about dwindling munitions stockpiles that could hamper a sustained military campaign in the region. Axios reported on Sunday that Adm Bradley Cooper, the top US military commander in the region, had told Trump the US military campaign had reached the limits of its effectiveness. The message was said to affect Trump’s decision to decide to hold strikes on Iran for the first time in nearly two weeks. Cooper told Trump the US had nearly exhausted the list of targets that it had developed to attack in Iran, and without a return to major combat operations there was little point in continuing the bombing campaign, the news website reported. Asked on Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press whether Trump was ruling out additional strikes in Iran, the president’s UN ambassador Mike Waltz said: “I wouldn’t go that far at all. The president is keeping all options on the table.” The lull in fighting, which began on Friday evening, follows nearly two weeks of strikes against Iran and the collapse of a ceasefire brokered by Trump. Washington blamed Iran for strikes on US forces and allies in the region and its closure of the strait of Hormuz, a conduit for an estimated 20% of the world’s oil and gas. Senior diplomats from Iran and Oman were said to be holding negotiations on Sunday on reopening the vital waterway and an official in Tehran confirmed colleagues had been in touch with US negotiators to prevent a return to war. Iran has demanded payment and control over which ships pass through the strait. “Mediators are working and trying to prevent tension from escalating,” the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, told a press conference on Sunday. But an Iranian army spokesperson signalled defiance, saying the US had no clear strategy and was “experiencing strategic decision-making fatigue”. The US vice-president, JD Vance, and Dan Caine, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, warned Trump of the risks of a renewed military campaign against Iran at an Oval Office meeting on Friday, according to media outlets. The president then ordered the military to call off new strikes, which he had warned could “knock out everything they have”. “We’re talking to [the Iranians] right now,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by. We’re locked and loaded and ready to go, but we’re talking to them.” At a White House Correspondents’ Association dinner that evening he said he did not think Iran was ready to make a deal but he was ready to listen. Caine warned Trump about dwindling munitions stockpiles, which include Patriot missile interceptors and offensive weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles. Vance campaigned on his opposition to US military interventions in the Middle East and has grown more vocal in his opposition to the war in Iran. Netanyahu’s office announced on Sunday that he would convene a meeting of his security cabinet before leaving for Washington on Monday. He played a crucial role in lobbying Trump to launch joint strikes against Iran in February and has said that US negotiators must take a strong line on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programme. US negotiators have instead prioritised opening the strait of Hormuz. Netanyahu will travel to Washington amid some of the worst violence this year in the West Bank, where his military is launching an “extensive” operation after the deaths of four Palestinians and two Israelis when armed settlers entered a Palestinian village on Thursday. The US and the UK under its new prime minister, Andy Burnham, are discussing plans for a high-level meeting in London this week to discuss the potential for a coalition to protect ships in the strait of Hormuz and de-mine the waterway. The discussions will be an early test for Burnham’s administration. The Labour government has so far refused to allow Washington to use a British airbase for offensive operations against Iran.

Police shoot dead Berlin Pride van and knife rampage suspect, officials say

A man suspected of a driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said. Police confirmed on Sunday evening that the chief suspect had been shot dead, reportedly during an operation at an allotment garden complex ⁠in the city’s Spandau district. One person was killed on Saturday evening and 29 others were injured after a man drove a minivan into a crowd of pedestrians, then attacked people with what appeared to be a machete. The attack took place in the Tiergarten park near the Brandenburg Gate at about 10pm local time on Saturday, close to one of Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ celebrations. The attack forced organisers to cut short one of Europe’s largest Pride events and came as Germany remained on edge after a series of deadly vehicle and knife attacks. The German interior minister, Alexander Dobrindt, named the chief suspect as 21-year-old Abdul Ballout. “We are dealing here with ‌a suspected ‌perpetrator, who had previously drawn attention ‌to himself through a high volume of criminal offences, radicalisation and affiliation with the Islamist scene,” he told ‌a press conference near the site of the attack. He said Ballout had a criminal conviction and had been sentenced to a year and 10 months in prison, but that the sentence had been suspended. German media reported that Ballout, a German national with Lebanese roots, was a supporter of Islamic State and last year travelled to the Middle East in a failed attempt to join the group. He was then convicted in Germany of “preparing a serious act of subversive violence”, the news outlets Bild and Der Spiegel reported. Police and prosecutors asked for help in finding Ballout, but warned the public to avoid “direct contact” with him, saying he may be armed and dangerous. Police searched an apartment in the Schöneberg district of Berlin in the early hours of Sunday, but said they had found no one there. The chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged Germany to avoid division and intimidation in the aftermath of the attack. “We will think about consequences, we will ‌defend our freedom,” he said in a news conference. Earlier, Merz vowed to punish those responsible, describing the “heinous act” as an “attack on our society” in a social media post. The flag at the German Bundestag was ordered to be lowered to half mast. Police said the vehicle had struck multiple ⁠people after being driven into the Tiergarten. Shortly before 10pm the driver of the white minivan swerved into the park, close to where the route of the Pride march had been earlier in the day, hitting people on a path and crashing into a tree. Bild cited a witness as saying that a man had emerged from the vehicle and fled on foot. A hunt involving helicopters and officers from several German states was under way across the capital on Sunday. Julian Methig, who attended the event, described it as a terrible day. “It’s one of the worst days for the queer community and a day I personally hoped I’d never have to experience … I’m shocked,” he said. Hundreds of thousands of people had gathered in Berlin in warm summer sunshine to celebrate the Pride parade. It is known in Germany as Christopher Street Day (CSD), named after the site of the Stonewall Inn in New York City where riots against police raids touched off the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement. CSD was first held in West Berlin in 1979. Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, called the deadly assault “an attack on our free and cosmopolitan society”. “Following a peaceful and colourful CSD, the rally for a tolerant and peaceful Berlin was attacked in the most brutal manner,” he said on X. “Berlin is the city of freedom – and our freedom has today been attacked in the most appalling way. My thoughts are with the victims, their families and friends.” For the first time in its history, CSD began on Friday night this year with a pro-democracy political rally. Berlin will hold a state election in September. The parade on Saturday ran under the motto “taking a stand is hot”, which organisers said was “in response to increasing hostility” to LGBTQ+ people in Germany. More than 80 floats and 50 groups on foot joined the procession through the city centre past Potsdamer Platz and the Victory Column monument in the Tiergarten, culminating in a rally at the Brandenburg Gate. Earlier in the day one person was arrested for resisting police orders at a far-right counterprotest. Before last year’s parade, Berlin LGBTQ+ organisations sounded the alarm that attacks had become more frequent while hard-won rights were under threat. Campaigners said a rise in hostility had accompanied the surge in support for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), now the most popular party in national opinion polls, as well as an increase in Islamist-inspired attacks. European leaders offered solidarity, including heads of government in Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden. “Italy firmly condemns and opposes all forms of hate and extremism,” the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, wrote on X, adding: “We stand with Germany and the German people.” The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said: “Faced with hatred and violence, our response will always be unity, freedom, and resolve.” The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, a German centre-right politician allied with Merz, sent her deepest sympathy to the victims of the attack, describing the CSD parade as standing for “freedom, dignity and equality – the fundamental values of the EU”. Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, said he was “horrified by the appalling attack in Berlin” and had spoken to his counterpart, Johann Wadephul, “to convey the UK’s solidarity: we stand with Germany”. Far-right leaders were also quick to comment on the attacks. The co-leader of the AfD Tino Chrupalla wrote on X: “We will not allow religious extremists to divide our country with violence and intolerance!” The president of France’s far-right National Rally, Jordan Bardella, wrote: “The Islamist threat remains a major issue in Europe and continues to target what they hate most about our civilisation – and what we cherish so much – freedom.”

India’s Cockroach Janta party protest victory signals trouble ahead for Modi

Even the night before Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of his education minister, India’s prime minister appeared confident that the largest mass uprising to take place in his 12 years in power would do little to rattle his government. Addressing his “young friends” in a late-night Instagram selfie reel on Friday, he thanked the people – who were mobilised en masse across the country, shouting anti-government slogans – for their “thoughtful suggestions”. Less than 24 hours later, Modi, who has fiercely cultivated his strongman image for years, had bowed to public pressure and accepted the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan. It was, say analysts, the remarkable humbling of a government that has ruled with almost untouchable impunity since 2014. Over that past week, a gen Z movement that called itself the Cockroach Janta party (CJP) mobilised unprecedented protests in the name of justice for millions of young people, after the leaking of a crucial exam paper forced 2 million students to resit the test and was blamed for more than a dozen suicides. The resignation of Pradhan, Modi’s loyal political ally, remained their first and foremost demand for accountability, even as the protests expanded into a wider fight for democracy. Yet Pradhan went unmentioned by Modi in his Instagram address. On Saturday morning, more people than ever were pouring into Delhi’s historic Jantar Mantar site – the centre of the protests – and unrest was spreading fast to other cities, including states ruled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). It was not only physical space that had been captured by the cockroach movement. Since coming to power, the BJP has proved enormously effective at capturing the online narrative, deploying its powerful, highly organised IT cell to mobilise and attack any perceived criticism of the government, whether it came from citizens, politicians or journalists. But this proved no match for the millions of gen Z memes and reels that began to flood Instagram over this past week, fearlessly insulting Modi and pillorying the government, each more creative and incendiary than the next. Modi’s last-ditch attempts to speak directly to the youth on Instagram were simply met with more ridicule and spin-off memes. Modi had also lost another medium critical to the BJP’s domination over the national narrative – the mainstream TV news channels widely acknowledged to have been co-opted by the BJP government over the past 12 years and turned into mouthpieces for its rightwing Hindu nationalist ideology. Initially, the channels ignored the protests, and when they did cover them it was to suggest the protesters were being bankrolled by sinister foreign forces and Pakistani terror groups. In response, the protesters turned on the channels, using social media to expose their “lies”. When the protests escalated, Modi remained conspicuously absent from the airwaves. Pradhan’s resignation came as it appeared that all other options for the government had gone. The option of a ruthless crackdown appeared untenable given the mass outcry to the police violence that had hit protesters on Monday. “The online space was totally conquered by the protesters and regime-loving media was seriously delegitimised,” said Ashutosh Varshney, a professor of international studies at Brown University in Rhode Island. “The anger was so comprehensive there was no option left but for Pradhan to go.” But this was more than the loss of a minister, Varshney said, it was also the first time in 12 years that the Modi government had lost control of the political narrative. “This is a repressive government,” he said. “It wants obedience, it wants no critical discussion and it generates fear. But now the climate of fear has collapsed.” Analysts say the resignation of Pradhan could also have implications for Modi’s power over his own cabinet. Pradhan was one of Modi’s most loyal ministers and ideological footsoldiers, and had implemented policies exactly as senior party figures had wanted. He had also helped the BJP win Odisha state for the first time in the general election, bringing in crucial seats. “Modi knows once you start firing your most loyal ministers, it sets up the incentives for defections in other ministers as well,” said the political columnist Pratap Bhanu Mehta. “If your own cabinet starts to hedge for a future where they may not be backed by your own government, that’s when you are in trouble.” Prior to this week’s unrest, Modi had been riding high on a string of important state electoral victories, in particular the BJP’s first triumph in West Bengal, a politically important state that had long pushed back against its Hindu nationalist politics. The BJP appeared to have fully bounced back from the blow in the 2024 elections, when the party failed to win an outright parliamentary majority and had to scramble together a large enough alliance to take power. At the same time, the much-beleaguered opposition had continued to lose countless state elections and their allegations of voting impropriety by the BJP fell mostly on deaf ears. Yet the emergence of the cockroaches has reinvigorated not only India’s youth, but its political opposition parties as well. Jumping on the bandwagon, the opposition Congress party has had its best week in years as it mobilised protests and shut down parliament. The party’s leader, Rahul Gandhi, was dramatically dragged away by police outside Modi’s house in support of students. Analysts say that dissent, which had been systematically crushed over the past 12 years, has now been re-galvanised as an effective tool to hold the government – and in particular the prime minister – to account. “After a long time, there’s an assertion of political agency across different sections of society,” said Mehta. “And the minute you see that agency out in the street, it empowers lots of other agents.” The next big test of the electoral implications of the CJP movement will come early next year, when India’s largest and most politically important state holds its state elections. Holding on to power in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP’s political heartland, is seen as crucial for the party and would have major implications for the next general election in 2029. The grievances of India’s newly-politicised youth are extensive, including a chronic lack of graduate jobs and stagnant wages. Just how the CJP intends to politically mobilise after its striking victory on Saturday remains to be seen. Leaders and supporters insist this is just the “beginning”, particularly in their push for education reform. Their founder, Abhijeet Dipke, has some past experience as a political party organiser, but has not made his own ambitions known. Yet analysts said that one of the most crucial impacts of the CJP had been to reopen a rapidly closing democratic space and make it seem possible that a new kind of political opposition could emerge, one reflective of the voices heard on the streets of India this week. Saurav Das, a CJP spokesperson, said it was encouraging people involved in the movement to go into politics. “This is one of our goals,” he said. “We need to increase youth participation in politics, because right now it’s controlled by uncles and aunties who are only interested in looking after their own lifestyles and don’t understand the needs of our generation. The answer also has to be political.”

Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani obituary

In June 1995 the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al Thani, was holidaying at a luxury lakefront resort in Geneva, Switzerland. His son, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, having effectively run the daily affairs of the country for more than a decade during Khalifa’s prolonged absences abroad, resolved to depose him. In a swift and bloodless operation, the 43-year-old crown prince proclaimed himself the new emir, a move that would permanently alter the trajectory of his nation and reshape the modern Middle East. Following his audacious takeover, Hamad, who has died aged 74, became a completely different kind of leader from his regional contemporaries. Eschewing the ritualistic, baroque finery and aloofness traditional to Gulf monarchs, he governed Qatar more like the managing director of a global corporation. He was famously down-to-earth, frequently driving his own vehicle around the streets of Doha and dining in local restaurants with minimal security. A “big picture” thinker, he focused on long-term strategy while delegating the minutiae of daily governance to trusted technocrats. This singular determination was widely recognised by foreign observers; a leaked July 2008 US embassy cable published by WikiLeaks quoted a source who said that: “The Amir seems to be the only one in the Government who has a vision for this country. The details of that vision, however, are not entirely clear to anyone, except perhaps the Amir himself and his closest associates.” His achievements as emir were monumental. Hamad successfully bypassed the “oil curse” that plagued his neighbours by aggressively developing Qatar’s massive offshore natural gas reserves, transforming the state into an economic juggernaut with one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. His domestic legacy included delivering Qatar’s first implemented written constitution, introducing democratic municipal elections, and elevating the status of women in public life. Crucially, he established Qatar as a global media hub in 1996 by founding Al Jazeera, initially an Arabic news satellite TV station, later expanding its reach in English and Spanish. In 1998 he abolished the ministry of information, thereby ending official state censorship. His death marks the conclusion of a transformative era for the small Gulf peninsula, which he single-handedly dragged from regional obscurity into the centre of global geopolitics. While maintaining defence and security links with the US, he maintained a deep-seated commitment to the Palestinian cause, an outlook inherited from his father. He gave the leaders of Hamas a base in Doha, an engagement aimed at pulling the militant group away from the Iranian and Syrian “axis of resistance” and getting them to face reality and negotiate. During the Arab spring of 2011, Sheikh Hamad rode the whirlwind, proactively championing his policy of “Arabs sorting out Arab problems”, backing revolutionary movements in Libya and Syria, amplifying popular revolts through Al Jazeera, and positioning Qatar to shape political Islam across the region, all while selectively contributing troops to Bahrain to preserve Sunni supremacy. Born in the capital city of Doha, Hamad was a member of the Al Thani ruling family, members of the Bani Tamim, an ancient Arabian tribe that supported the prophet Muhammad in the earliest days of Islam and carried the movement to Andalucía, in southern Spain. His mother, Sheikha Aisha bint Hamad Al Attiyah, died shortly after his birth. Growing up within this powerful tribal lineage, his early life was shaped by traditional custom alongside a rapidly modernising world. As a youth, Hamad experienced formative encounters that would influence his future philosophy of governance. He had his first exposure to democracy as a boy during a trip to London. The concept seemed so ridiculous to him that he had to be led from the House of Commons balcony in hysterical laughter after witnessing his first parliamentary debate. Back home, his early formal education was dominated by émigré Egyptian teachers, under whose influence he became a virulent Nasserist. This anti-colonial fervour culminated around 1967, when he participated in political protests, throwing stones at the British embassy and denting its metal shutters. He later realised that these radical pan-Arab movements had misled his generation, an epiphany that sparked his lifelong commitment to replacing foreign educational influences with indigenous, world-class Qatari institutions through the later creation of the Qatar Foundation, promoting education, scientific research and community development. To prepare for his state duties, he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the UK, graduating in 1971. On his return, he held several military posts, and in 1977 was appointed minister of defence. Over the next two decades, as his father spent increasing amounts of time on the French Riviera, Hamad assumed the day-to-day administration of the state. He became immensely popular among his peers and successfully buried centuries-old rivalries between competing branches of the Al Thani family, establishing a unified political front that paved the way for his eventual accession. In his personal life, Hamad balanced tribal alliances and personal compatibility across his three spouses, by whom he had 24 children. His second wife, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser al-Misned, emerged as his primary strategic partner, collaborating deeply on national education and social reforms. Hamad carefully managed the upbringing of his large family, deliberately fostering a competitive yet disciplined environment to select the most capable successor to maintain the country’s stability. In a highly unusual move for a Gulf ruler, Hamad chose to step down voluntarily from the throne in 2013, passing the mantle to the next generation. He retired to a life of quiet diplomacy, historical research and cultural advocacy, split between Doha and his properties in Europe. He was succeeded as emir by his son Sheikh Tamim, who continued to guide the nation along the strategic path forged by his father’s singular vision. Their most spectacular deployment of soft power came with the announcement in 2010 that Qatar would be hosting the 2022 men’s football World Cup. The “father emir” is survived by his three wives, 11 sons and 13 daughters. • Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, emir of Qatar, born 1 January 1952; died 12 July 2026

Joy in Greece as Mount Olympus joins Unesco list of world heritage sites

After a 12-year wait, Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods, has been inducted into a hall of more modern fame as Unesco announced it would be added to its world heritage list. Greece’s highest mountain made the list alongside the second world war D-day landing beaches in northern France and the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara. South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations, also won a designation – a first for the east African country. The nominations were among dozens reviewed at a Unesco committee meeting in Busan, South Korea, on Sunday. In the case of Olympus, inscribed as a mixed world heritage site in recognition of its cultural and natural significance, the news was met with near euphoria in Greece. Immortalised as the seat of Zeus, king of the 12 Olympian deities, the mountain rising 2,918 metres from a base near sea level had been on a tentative list of sites since 2014. The head of Greece’s Unesco delegation in Busan, Georgios Koumoutsakos, hailed the decision as one that would ensure the site’s preservation. “It reaffirms our unwavering commitment to safeguarding Mount Olympus for the benefit of present and future generations,” he said. “As Greek mythology wisely reminds us, it is always best to remain on good terms with the gods.” The region’s mayor, Evangelos Geroliolios, said before the announcement that the site’s induction would “place greater responsibility on our part to protect the [local] environment”, not least its extraordinary biodiversity. The committee’s annual meeting, which ends on Wednesday, is expected to examine about 30 nominations. Those successful will join 1,248 sites across 170 countries admitted to the world heritage list for their “outstanding value to humanity”. Inscribed monuments can provide a vital boost for their preservation under an international convention overseen by Unesco, which also gives advice and financial support. Other world heritage sites include the Acropolis in Athens, the Great Wall of China, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt and the Taj Mahal in India. As with Mount Olympus, efforts to get the D-day beaches in Normandy inscribed had gone back years. Included in the French bid were all five of the beaches – Omaha, Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno – where more than 150,000 allied troops came ashore on 6 June 1944, and the Pointe du Hoc cliff that was also a focal point of the assault. The largest amphibious operation ever mounted, in which 4,000 soldiers died, was decisive in the battle to liberate Europe from Nazi occupation. France first nominated the 50-mile (80km) stretch of coastline in 2008. Reacting to the decision, the country’s permanent delegate to Unesco, Ahlem Gharbi, said the designation carried particular weight at a time of such international tensions. The president of the Normandy region, Hervé Morin, who had championed the cause, maintained that inclusion on the list would represent “immense recognition” for the soldiers who had sacrificed so much to defeat Nazism. Echoing Greek officials, he said: “This decision places a responsibility upon us. It compels us to preserve this site, to protect it, to cherish it even more, and to promote its value.” The international council on monuments and sites, one of the bodies that recommends additions to the Unesco list, had previously warned of the threat posed to the Normandy sites by tourism, climate change, rising sea levels and nearby windfarm development, and had called for stronger monitoring and preservation. The coastline is covered with extensive remnants of the time of the landings, including concrete German bunkers and gun positions, sunken vessels and allied installations. Unesco said in a statement that the beaches formed an “exceptional cultural landscape shaped both by the events of 1944 and by their enduring remembrance”, all of which justified further protection. As with Mount Olympus, the landing points have attracted record numbers of tourists in recent years. The agency’s move to include places associated with conflict has fuelled controversial debate over whether “sites of memory” are befitting of world heritage status and Unesco’s stated mission to “foster a world of greater equality and peace”. Three sites used by Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime for torture and execution were inscribed last year. After so many years of campaigning, Greek officials said Sunday’s decision had been made all the sweeter given signs of further delays. In the draft agenda of this week’s meeting, Unesco had signalled the Mount Olympus file would be referred back to the country for further details, spurring fears that proved to be baseless when the nomination won unanimous support.

Will prediction market ‘catch fire’ in UK, replicating US boom?

With more plot twists than a spy thriller, Argentina’s 3-2 victory over Egypt was one of the World Cup’s most unpredictable matches. But in one living room in Reading, to the astonishment of his 16-year-old son, a football clairvoyant appeared to know exactly what would happen next. “I told him I was reading the state of the game and I could tell whether there was a goal coming,” says Dode Dahroug, a 51-year-old former RAF pilot. “He bought it, hook, line and sinker.” In fact, Dahroug was furtively glancing at a live odds graph on Polymarket, one of the online “prediction markets” that have sprung up in the US, offering betting wrapped in the jargon of financial trading. The Dahrougs’ TV feed lagged a minute or two behind the split-second data that Polymarket receives from sports events and publishes to its customers. Moments after a Lionel Messi strike hit the back of the net, the Polymarket graph spiked, giving Dahroug an insight into what was about to unfold on screen. “I was able to create the illusion that I knew what I was talking about,” says Dahroug. “It was hilarious. When I told him, he said he’d try it with his friends for the semi-final.” Dahroug, who doesn’t gamble, was doing the opposite of what Polymarket and Kalshi want customers to do: using their data purely for fun. But millions of people, particularly in the US, do put their money at risk through prediction markets, betting on anything from the World Cup to the next Pope, to the likelihood of nuclear war. Polymarket and Kalshi have soared in popularity, in part thanks to the uneven pace at which US states have regulated sports betting since the US supreme court lifted a federal ban in 2018. While the platforms’ bread and butter is wagers placed on sport, they have convinced American regulators that they are financial trading products. This has allowed them to circumvent ongoing prohibition of sports wagers in multiple states, pending several legal challenges. California and Texas are yet to establish a regulatory regime, giving prediction markets, regulated by the Commodities and Future Trading Commission (CFTC), a free run at states with a combined economy worth about $7tn – one-third the size of the EU economy. With the wind at their backs, registered prediction markets are estimated to have attracted trading volumes of at least $45bn during the World Cup, according to the market data they publish. However, there is reason to be cautious about this nascent revolution. First, the markets aren’t as big as the headline numbers that are bandied about make them seem. One key way in which the figures give a misleading picture is that “trading” positions are little more than open betting slips that can be sold back and forth. Each time a customer trades, the value gets added to the trading volume, but the amount of money put at risk does not necessarily increase by the same amount. In terms of actual World Cup stakes, analysts at the consultancy Eilers & Krejcik Gaming reckon it’s closer to $5.6bn (£4bn) a month in the US. That’s only about twice the roughly £2bn that the Gambling Commission says is being wagered via sportsbooks in the UK, in an economy that is approximately an eighth as big. When it comes to the UK, the commission has been clear that prediction markets would need a gambling licence for sports trading, while the Financial Conduct Authority says betting on financial markets would be covered by an existing ban on “binary option” products. James Bradley, of the consumer advocacy group Fairer Finance, is concerned that UK customers are betting with these sites nonetheless. “I’m a terrible luddite, but it took me about 10 minutes to figure it out,” he says. “You get all the warnings that you can’t use a VPN [a virtual private network that disguises your location], but they’re not policing it and they can’t realistically.” The Guardian was easily able to set up an account with Polymarket using a VPN and deposit cryptocurrency to test out betting on the World Cup and the chances of the US confirming the existence of aliens. (Any profit on the bets will be donated to charity.) Polymarket said it took compliance seriously and that using a VPN to access the site from the UK was against its terms of service. A spokesperson said it was strengthening its tools to ensure compliance including “on-chain monitoring, third-party compliance tools, and internal review processes”. The volume of bets that have been placed on UK political events, such as byelections in Clacton or Gorton and Denton, suggest plenty of Britons believe they can vault over such obstacles. “[Those markets] are in the millions of dollars,” says Bradley. “It’s hard to believe that’s all US people speculating on UK events.” He thinks it’s just a matter of time before prediction markets go mainstream in Britain. Alun Bowden, a seasoned gambling analyst at Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, disagrees: “It’s possible, I just don’t think it’s very likely.” Bowden says prediction markets are almost identical to long-established betting exchanges such as Betfair, which aren’t even as popular as traditional sportsbooks. “In the US, there’s a huge consumer demand they’re meeting, which is [people who say]: ‘There’s no legal sports betting in my state.’ “Those same needs do not exist in the UK, so prediction markets will have to create a need for their product, whether it’s capturing the zeitgeist, or maybe driven by celebrity or TikTok. That might work.” So far, says Bowden, there’s no sign of prediction markets eating the bookies’ lunch. Some smaller UK operators are hedging their bets by borrowing the clothing of their US counterparts. Earlier this year, easyBets – a partnership between easyJet founder Stelios Haji-Ioannou and Australian professional gambler Zeljko Ranogajec – launched itself as a dedicated prediction market. At around the same time, Smarkets – a small but well-established betting exchange that has a commercial partnership with Bournemouth FC – revamped its user interface to look like an American-style prediction market. “It’s been positive,” Smarkets’ chief executive, Jason Trost, says of the redesign. “Gambling and betting comes with so many heavy moral and societal connotations, but I always viewed sports betting as a financial asset class.” Fairer Finance’s Bradley thinks the rise of prediction markets, with their promise to turn every aspect of life into a potential wager, presents a risk not just to gamblers but to British democracy itself. The UK has already been rocked by one political betting scandal, the subject of an ongoing criminal case that resulted in former MP Craig Williams pleading guilty to cheating. In the US, evidence of insider trading on geopolitical events, such as military action in Venezuela and Iran, is abundant. So-called traders appear to have attempted to alter markets in their favour, allegedly rigging thermometers used to settle wagers on temperatures in Paris and even by threatening a journalist over their coverage of events subject to bets. “There’s a real ability to change the outcome of political events by building momentum around a particular story,” says Bradley. “You wouldn’t want to see this stuff catch fire over here, it’s really dangerous.” Bowden remains sceptical that will happen. “The usability, the feature depth, the speed, the ease of managing your money. The quality of the user experience is just not as high [as UK sportsbooks],” he says. “As a consumer betting product, they [prediction markets] are just not as good – for now.”

Pedro Sánchez says Spain is suffering effects of climate crisis as firefighters battle wildfires in France

Authorities in France are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in the south-west as Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency. Efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region of France – which has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and caused nearly 220,000 people to be evacuated – were hampered by windy conditions on Saturday night. In Spain, fires west of Madrid were being brought under control, but Sánchez spoke of “difficult hours”. Wildfires have forced approximately 375,000 people to flee their homes in France and Spain. In France nearly 260,000 have been forced to flee, while in neighbouring Spain 116,000 have been evacuated this week. Bordeaux’s mayor, Thomas Cazenave, described the Gironde blaze as being “at the gates of the metropolitan area”, between 15 and 20 miles (25-30km) from the city itself, which has a population of 268,000. An evacuation of the city was not on the cards, he said. Nearly 260,000 people have been evacuated across France as a whole, including 36,000 ordered to leave another wildfire zone in the Landes region farther south earlier this week. Sophie Brocas, the prefect of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, which includes the Gironde, said that the highly unpredictable nature of this wildfire was a phenomenon never seen before in France. “I urge tourists not to come to Gironde as long as the fire has not been contained,” she said. “I invite tourists who are already here to think about going to another destination. We don’t know where the fire is going to go.” France’s interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, said on Sunday the previous night had been difficult and “the situation remains very unfavourable”. He said the Gironde fire had become “extremely virulent and unpredictable again” on Saturday night, generating its own wind and spreading erratically towards the Bordeaux metropolitan area. It had become calmer by the end of the night, he said. About 2,500 firefighters (including a Swiss team), 1,500 military personnel and about 1,200 police had been deployed to Gironde, Nuñez said, as he praised the contribution of 450 volunteers from civil security organisations. He said another five Gironde municipalities had been evacuated overnight. One firefighter told Agence France-Presse that the fire had formed a pyrocumulonimbus, a fire-generated thunderstorm that “creates its own wind, with whirlwinds, becoming erratic and uncontrollable”. A spokesperson for the National Firefighters Federation of France said that while known in wildfire-prone Australia and Canada, one had never been seen before in France. The federation’s Lt Col Éric Brocardi told AFP there was a need to understand a “natural force beyond our control”. He said: “It’s a David v Goliath scenario: the idea is that, at some point, we’ll find a weak spot and strike there.” Police in Gironde made three arrests over the weekend, including one man smoking in the forest and two having barbecues in a forest area. Authorities in Spain said major areas of fire near Madrid had been contained and cooled down, according to a senior officer with Spain’s military emergencies unit. “We’re facing some difficult hours, although it’s true that the latest update has shown that last night was very positive in terms of the fire’s evolution and efforts to control it,” Sánchez said. Speaking at an advance firefighters’ command post west of Madrid, the prime minister warned that Spain and Portugal were experiencing the varied consequences of the climate emergency, from fires and storms to heavy snowfalls. “The entire Iberian peninsula is suffering the effects of the climate emergency in a very specific way,” he said. While the fire near Madrid was being brought under control, emergency workers battled to extinguish a new fire near the Mediterranean port city of València, where at least 15,000 people were evacuated. “The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish, it has a perimeter of about 21km,” the València region’s president, Juanfran Pérez Llorca, said late on Saturday. Spain’s interior ministry said on Saturday evening that a man had died in a fire in the Valèncian town of Manises. He had been found in a car in a ravine, officials said. Authorities also ordered the evacuation of eight more municipalities near Toledo, south of Madrid, on Saturday, bringing the number of people forced to flee their homes by wildfires in Spain in recent days to 116,000, the Associated Press reported. Spain’s environment minister, Sara Aagesen, said the wildfire that has burned through 50,000 hectares of land in the central province of Ávila was “the largest forest fire in our country’s recent history”. The blazes are the latest episode in a summer of wildfires that threaten to burn an unprecedented expanse of land. Europe has endured a series of heatwaves since the spring, fuelled by the climate crisis, including the hottest-ever June, leaving vegetation tinder dry. The EU commissioner for crisis management, Hadja Lahbib, told the BBC it was likely that damage from wildfires would exceed previous records. “Last year, one million hectares burned during the summer and so we are expecting to face another historic, sad record because the season has started earlier in the year,” she said. Spain’s environment ministry said 32 major fires affecting 152,678 hectares (377,276 acres) had been recorded so far in 2026, compared with seven affecting 24,133 hectares in the same period in 2025. The Gironde fire in France has so far burned 42,000 hectares, an area four times the size of Paris and one of the biggest devastations of land since the second world war. At least 240 homes had been destroyed and many more damaged, a gendarme told BFMTV. Firefighters are battling to slow the fire’s progression toward Bordeaux from the ground and air, with planes dropping water and retardants. Jérôme Steffe, the mayor of Cestas commune, 10 miles from Bordeaux city centre, told French media: “We are working together to put in place a firewall to block the advance of the flames.” An exhibition centre in Bordeaux has been turned into an emergency shelter, providing camp beds and food for thousands of people, including hundreds of older people evacuated from care homes. Cazenave said he had asked the central government for an economic crisis plan for the area because many businesses and workers had been evacuated from areas west of Bordeaux and the tourism industry had been heavily affected. He said it was impossible to say when people evacuated as a precaution could return to their homes. “We don’t know how long this crisis will last, whether several days or several weeks,” he said. The Landes fire has consumed 3,600 hectares and a rekindling of flames on Saturday had to be tackled from the air, Nuñez said. French authorities are also dealing with wildfires in the south-eastern Var region, where 3,000 people have been evacuated, as well as the Hautes-Alpes and Corsica.