Game’s greatest player will not see his legacy sullied by defeat to Spain but his team’s display destroyed the game

Playing on the grandest stage in sport for the last time, Lionel Messi seemed almost certain to provide one last memorable moment in this World Cup final.

Yet as the sun ducked behind the west stand of New York New Jersey Stadium on Sunday, it became clearer and clearer that Argentina had lost the magic they had carried through this tournament. And as Spain gradually wrested control, one was left to confront reality: Messi, and Argentina, had finally run out of time, having long since given in to their worst instincts in a 1-0 defeat.

Is the machinery of state jammed, or is the reason for the slow pace of change more personal than institutional?

Eighteen months into the 24 it turned out he would last in No 10, Keir Starmer was a man in a hurry. The biggest frustration with the job, he told MPs, concerned “speed and the ability to get things done”. The underlying problem, he thought, was that every time something had gone wrong in the past, “successive governments have put in place another procedure or another body or another consultation to try to stop ourselves ever making a mistake again”.

In airing his impatience, if little else, Starmer is in tune with the country he has become too unpopular to lead. Julian Gallie, a pollster at Merlin Strategy, says voters have been “crying out for change for a decade”, even if they have sent inconsistent signs about what sort of change it should be. The Brexit vote, the Corbyn surge of 2017, the Johnson majority of 2019 and the Tory rout of 2024 can all be seen as “a desperate roll of the dice against a status quo” that somehow feels impossible to shift.

A report on the Spectator’s coverage of Muslims makes for grim reading. Conservatism is now focused on this minority to the exclusion of everything else

I start this column already resigned to the tune out, to the glaze over, the click away. This is not to say that I do not have faith in you, dear reader, to keep reading and caring. But I am aware, and this is central to the problem, that it is now normal, when it comes to a certain minority in this country, to speak of them as if they were some sort of plague. Islamophobia has become so common as to be mundane in large parts of the British media. Foremost among the offenders is Britain’s oldest political magazine: the Spectator.

A large and comprehensive report from the Centre for Media Monitoring reviewed 3,733 articles published in the Spectator relating to Islam or Muslims. Released last week, it criticised the publication for “a sustained and systemic pattern of biased coverage of Muslims and Islam”, according to the CMM, “with more than half of all relevant articles rated as biased over an eight-year period”. It is grim, grim reading.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

At 78, the king of horror and sci-fi movies is as much of a rebel as ever. He talks about creativity, compromise (he’s not a fan) and how he became addicted to moviemaking

In 2024, John Carpenter had a dream that sounds like one of his movies: it involved a portal to the underworld beneath a disused church, monstrous demons and people being turned inside out. “I woke up and thought: wow! What an elaborate story,” he says. “I rarely have cinematic dreams, but this was one of them.” He liked it so much that he has turned it into a graphic novel, Cathedral, with an accompanying soundtrack. “It seemed to fit this heavy metal groove that we were starting on, and it worked out pretty well.”

Most people would consider this a nightmare rather than a dream, I suggest. “No. Nightmares, for me, are personal – something that happened to me,” he replies. “Usually my nightmares are, I’m directing a movie and no one will listen to me. No one will follow my directions. Seriously, that’s what I wake up from.”

It zipped along, cramming in Shakira, Madonna and Coldplay, but football fans may not be convinced of need for this mid-match spectacle

Like hydration breaks and Donald Trump’s ability to get refereeing decisions overturned by simply phoning up the president of Fifa and complaining, the final half-time show is an innovation of the 2026 World Cup that comes with a degree of controversy attached. For one thing, its existence automatically means the World Cup final breaks the International Football Association’s 15-minute half-time mandate.

For another, its obvious antecedent lies in the NFL’s Super Bowl, where the half-time entertainment has mushroomed over the decades from a few marching bands to one of the big pop events of the year. To its detractors, it smacks of America not so much embracing the World Cup as imposing itself upon it.

Exclusive: Outdoor workers losing up to 9% of income as weather becomes ‘poverty multiplier’, research says

Extreme heat is pushing some of India’s poorest workers further into poverty, with income losses of up to 9% for outdoor workers, new research has found.

Analysis done by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and shared exclusively with the Guardian, found that extreme heat is acting as a “poverty multiplier” for hundreds of millions of workers in India’s informal sector.

Labour leader will visit king to accept role on Monday and will start making cabinet appointments that afternoon

Andy Burnham will say Britain must be honest about the challenges it faces when he becomes its sixth prime minister in a decade on Monday, as he prepares to introduce measures to ease the cost of living and allow more North Sea fossil fuel drilling.

The Labour leader is expected to start making appointments in the afternoon after going to Buckingham Palace to accept the role of prime minister from the king.

It was the triumph of an idea, an identity. Of an unshakable and patient faith. And when it was over, Spain’s new generation having emulated the one from the 2010 World Cup, all of those legendary names, there was simply delirium for them.

Spain were the only team that turned up to play this World Cup final, from the first whistle to the last in extra time. Argentina were damned by their lack of ambition even before they had Enzo Fernández sent off towards the end of the regulation time. It was extraordinary to report that they did not have an attempt on goal until the 115th minute.

Revolutionary Guard says it targeted US aircraft in Jordan and stopped two tankers in strait while American military says it is ‘holding Iran accountable’

• US launches ninth night of Iran strikes as strait of Hormuz standoff sees oil price pass $90 a barrel

The price of oil jumped in early Asian trade on Monday after the US carried out its latest wave of strikes on Iran and a vessel caught fire in the strait of Hormuz.

Brent crude for September delivery rose 2.72% to $90.50 a barrel by around 0100 GMT, after briefly crossing $91 – its highest price since June.

CENTCOM assets targeted Iranian military command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further diminish Iran’s ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The U.S. military is holding Iran accountable at the Commander in Chief’s direction.

Calls grow for global regulation as rising numbers of westerners use surrogates in countries with different laws

• Why Mexico is at the heart of ethical debate over global surrogacy

The rise in the use of surrogates abroad is leaving more babies at risk of becoming stateless, experts have said, amid growing calls for urgent global regulation of the practice.

The warning follows the suspension of a 15-year effort by The Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH) to establish a global surrogacy convention, which was paused due to divisions among member states.