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

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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.

Starmer giving final address as PM before he heads to Buckingham Palace to meet the king and formally resign

Andy Burnham may see banners urging the government not to allow the proposed Rosebank oil field development in the North Sea as he drives to Buckingham Palace and the No 10 today.

Here is a banner on Whitehall.

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.

US military confirms third service member killed in current round of fighting as price of oil passes $90 a barrel, deepening energy crisis

• Middle East crisis live: follow latest updates

The US expanded its aerial offensive against Iran on Monday, hitting a city hosting a nuclear power plant, while Iran responded with strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait as diplomats insisted talks were ongoing.

Iranian media on Monday reported strikes around Tabriz, believed to hold underground missile bases, as well as Bushehr, home to the country’s only operational civilian nuclear power plant as the US military said it had struck “military command centers, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”.

Chaos of Capita-run scheme has left some people waiting up to a year for payments and in financial hardship

Retired civil servants have been failed by the decision to outsource their pension scheme, the government has admitted, and the maladministration meant some were left waiting up to a year for payments.

Multiple members of the civil service pension scheme, run by the private company Capita since December, have come forward to say they are unable to afford rent and have been forced to use food banks after being left without an income.