Games

• Sahibzada Farhan has been appointed as the captain of Pakistan's 15-man cricket squad for the 2026 Asian Games. • The tournament is scheduled to take place in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, during September and October of this year. • The squad features four uncapped players—Akif Javed, Ali Raza, Maaz Sadaqat, and Saad Masood—providing them an opportunity to debut on the international stage.

• The 2026 men's World Cup is being hosted across Canada, Mexico, and the USA, featuring a total of 104 games played over 39 days. • A dense schedule of matches is underway, including high-profile clashes such as France vs. Senegal at MetLife Stadium and Argentina vs. Algeria at Arrowhead Stadium. • Games are distributed across major North American venues, including NRG Stadium in Houston and SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, to accommodate global audiences.

In an exclusive interview, Ukraine’s president says he believes the war will be won when Russian society feels its impact. Plus, why California’s election count is taking so long (hint: it’s not fraud)In the fifth year of Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine, Volodymr Zelenskyy says he is feeling upbeat and has been grateful for military support from the US, but has a pointed message for Washington.Speaking to Luke Harding and Pippa Crerar in London, the Ukrainian president acknowledged that the priority of Trump’s second term in foreign policy had shifted away from Ukraine to conflict in the Middle East.What did Zelenskyy say about Trump’s relationship with Putin? He carefully praised US diplomatic efforts, despite his bruising encounter in the Oval Office and the fact that Trump has been willing to meet Vladimir Putin, saying: “I always said to President Trump that Putin is lying. He plays games with you, with the White House.”Does he see any prospect of the war ending? The military situation was the most promising it had been for Kyiv for two and a half years, Zelenskyy ssaid. “We can’t say Russia is losing this war. But we can say they are losing the initiative each day, day by day,” he added. “Victory in this war is when Russian society recognises that the war is awful, that the war is a tragedy not for someone, somewhere, but for themselves.” To that end, Zelenskyy said the purpose of long-range strikes – drones buzzing above apartment blocks in greater Moscow and St Petersburg – was to make residents “feel” what war meant.Which other AI companies are making market moves? In addition to Anthropic, which makes the popular Claude chatbot, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which owns his artificial intelligence company xAI, is also imminently slated to go public at an expected valuation of $1.75tn. Continue reading...