Ukrainian officials call the move illegal while European Commission condemns ‘another blatant violation of international law’ in parliamentary poll. What we know on day 1,670

• Australia fall 29-26 to France in Test in Aix-en-Provence

• Depleted hosts storm home on extraordinary day of rugby

Australia’s Wallaroos have been left frustrated after a potentially huge Test win got away as an undisciplined France escaped with a miraculous comeback, having been 19 points down and reduced to just 11 players at one stage.

On an extraordinary day of Test rugby, exacerbated by off-field drama when the second half was delayed by a bus on fire adjacent to the Stade Maurice David in Aix-en-Provence, French fans were left stunned at how their depleted side somehow still conjured a 29-26 win on Saturday.

The pop star has faced boycott calls after rapper Macklemore was removed from his tour after shouting ‘Free Palestine’ at a concert this month

Ed Sheeran has opened a solo concert in Philadelphia with comments about Gaza, saying what’s happening is “catastrophic and unjustifiable”, in his first show since the his tour plunged into turmoil.

“My heart has been broken by the scale of devastation and loss of civilians’ lives, of children’s lives,” Sheeran said on Saturday, adding that he wanted his music and shows to be about unity and humanity, not politics.

Tory leader claims prime minister is avoiding difficult decisions as she urges him to increase defence spending

Kemi Badenoch has accused Andy Burnham of “fiddling while Europe is at risk of burning”, as she repeated her call for the prime minister to cut the welfare budget to fund increase spending on defence.

Speaking to the Telegraph, the Tory leader said that “Burnham may be a people pleaser but difficult choices cannot be avoided through dither and delay”.

Queen speaks of love of reading at festival for charity she founded after success of her Instagram book club

Queen Camilla has spoken of her love for books with a “life-enhancing power” after a series of allegations were made about King Charles in extracts from Earl Spencer’s memoir about the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Camilla was welcomed to Chatsworth House in Derbyshire for the first day of the festival for the Queen’s Reading Room, a charity she founded after the success of her Instagram book club during the pandemic.

The Arizona State Sun Devils cantered to victory in the first ever Union Jack Classic in front of a noisy crowd – despite thousands of empty seats

You sensed that Britain’s first US college football game in nearly 40 years was going to be a very different experience when Wembley Way began to reverberate to the sound of steel, muscle and a few whoops long before kick-off.

The noise came from the Arizona State Sun Devils’ marching band, who were so energetic their horns and trombones swished from left to right like air raid lights hunting a target as they played.

The presenters look terrified and some of the celebs are hard to identify, but Strictly remains a rare refuge of joy

At this point, Strictly Come Dancing cannot be allowed to fail. When we’re all living off our Wes Streeting-mandated prepper rations, it’s the only thing that will keep us going, linking us to a time when joy, sparkle and diversity brought the nation together. Enshittification stalks the show – it has long felt too repetitive, its celeb lineups seem to get feebler each year, and the departure of longstanding presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman threatened to be a lethal blow – so there’s a lot riding on this new series.

“Strictly Come Dancing – still fabulous,” said the continuity announcer introducing the launch show, not sounding entirely sure.

Players in Everton v Ipswich Town match wear black armbands as supporters join in minute’s applause

Players wore black armbands during Everton’s home match against Ipswich Town on Saturday, as part of a tribute to three-year-old Noah Woods, whose body was found after he went missing in Suffolk this week.

A photograph of the boy was shown on the big screen before the Premier League game in Liverpool, and three minutes after kick-off both sets of supporters stood to applaud in memory of Noah.

Leader says party ‘won’t give up the fight’ to defeat ‘nasty populism’ in first-day speech to delegates in Brighton

The Liberal Democrats’ leader, Sir Ed Davey, took aim at Nigel Farage and Elon Musk on the first day of his party’s annual conference, saying Lib Dems would not give up the fight to defeat “nasty populism” and Reform UK’s “£72m arsenal of hate and lies”.

On stage at Brighton Centre, Davey called on the assembled delegates not to be deterred in the face of Reform’s hope “that the anger and the hatred and the lies will grind us down until eventually we just give up”.

Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter of man who stabbed soldier continues to divide country

Israel’s president has pardoned a combat medic who shot dead a badly wounded Palestinian attacker who had stabbed a soldier in the occupied West Bank, in a case that divided the country a decade ago.

Elor Azaria’s conviction in 2017 for manslaughter and his release after serving two-thirds of his 18-month sentence drew enormous attention in Israel, where military service is compulsory for most Jewish men.

Anna Malos and Georgie bonded over their shared love of travel and horses. By their third date, an awkward encounter cemented their relationship

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

Georgie and I met at a kick-boxing club in London in 2004. We sparred together in a few beginner classes, just hitting soft pads. Although I didn’t pay her too much attention initially, I immediately recognised she was tall, elegant and very good looking.

It wasn’t until the club’s Christmas drinks that things kicked off between us. We started talking and couldn’t stop. We’d both travelled and worked in Latin America, and also loved horses – Georgie had volunteered with a horse-riding business for tourists in Ecuador. The sparks were flying all over the place.

From old love letters to pieces of string, our homes are stuffed with stuff. When it comes time to empty a parent’s home, sorting the junk from the memory can be overwhelming

Soon after her marriage in 1952, Ellen Rogers’ mother, Fay, bought a coordinated bedroom ensemble – a floral dressing gown and matching bedspread. The day I talk on the phone with Rogers, she has made a tough decision – she is putting the gown and bedspread in a garbage bag to be sent off to a charity shop. “I feel so bad,” she says.

Fay died in May aged 97, and had lived in the same terrace house in Camperdown in inner Sydney her whole life. Rogers grew up in the house and returned three years ago to be a live-in carer for her mother. Now she’s cleaning out the house so it can be sold. The decisions she must make are endless; which pile for what item – family, rubbish or charity? “It’s overwhelming – there’s so much,” Rogers says, “including every bloody card she ever received.”

In a novel approach to urban housing, some residents have pooled their time and finances into redeveloping single dwellings. It’s a herculean task – with feel-good results

Melbourne architect Chris Gilbert had run out of eggs. He texted a neighbour and within minutes, he says, their child arrived with some. “Then I made brownies and my kids took some over to the neighbours’ house.”

It sounds like a flashback to a bygone era, but this neighbourly exchange took place this month, at the Davison Collaborative, a novel housing project in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. In 2020 the townhouse development replaced one past-its-prime brick veneer house with three architecturally designed three-bedroom family dwellings, trebling the lot’s density and future proofing it “for at least the next 50 years,” says Liam Wallis, from the sustainability focused property development and consultancy company Hip V. Hype.

The 76-year-old rocker on her pre-gig routine, the one reality show she’d go on and who she’d cast as herself in a film about her life

Your new album is called Freedom and the title track interpolates The Girl Can’t Help It. You’re going to be rocking until they take you out in a box, aren’t you?

When I was 35, a journalist stupidly asked me, “When are you going to retire?” I said, “I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience, shake my ass, and there’s silence.” This followed me my whole career, so when I got to 65, I said, “I will retire when I go on stage, turn my back on the audience and my ass shakes by itself.”

President had brushed away suggestions to slow down AI technology, even as his own party counseled caution

Donald Trump on Saturday said he would appoint an artificial intelligence czar and create an “AI Force” to help monitor the technology, though he gave almost no details about either plan.

As global fears over AI have grown, especially in the past week in the face of multiple industry figures sounding the alarm about its dangers, the president has been critical of calls to slow down development of the fast-moving industry.

The storied Long Island racetrack, rebuilt with a $455m state loan, is smaller, sleeker and designed for a changing audience. Can it create the public needed to sustain it?

Henry Miller stood on the trackside apron of the new Belmont Park on Friday trying to decide what he thought of the place.

“It has to grow on me,” said Miller, a 59-year-old retired sanitation worker from Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood who has been coming to New York racetracks for 47 years. “For me, it’s too much concrete. I don’t think it’s as friendly as the old Belmont.”

Authorities ban anti-immigration march after fireworks and other projectiles thrown at officers in city centre park

Dutch riot police dispersed several hundred far-right protesters in The Hague on Saturday after violence erupted and local authorities banned a planned march in the city against immigration and asylum policies.

The Dutch public broadcaster NOS reported that 24 people had been arrested, after some protesters threw fireworks and other projectiles at police.

It is apt that the most perplexing football country will now be guided by the most enigmatic of leaders

Even in his playing days, Zinedine Zidane seemed unknowable. As a manager, the sense of distance has only grown. He won three Champions Leagues with Real Madrid without ever giving a sense of what his idea of football looked like.

France are perhaps the most perplexing football country: a squad that teems with such talent that a B team would be serious contenders at a World Cup, that reached three major finals under Didier Deschamps with a sense of unfulfilment, a team that progressed but rarely entranced, or at least didn’t until this summer’s World Cup, when they attacked with gusto and ended up overrun in midfield by Spain.

Arsenal were mightily relieved as a 95th-minute Smilla Holmberg volley rescued a point at home to a much-improved Manchester United side, but the draw will not be enough to eradicate concerns about how far behind the leaders Manchester City Renée Slegers’ team are slipping already and how frequently they seem to struggle to break down a low block.

A defiant Manchester United stunned the north Londoners as Eva Olid’s side claimed the first point of her tenure with a performance that defied all of the pre-match scripts, but it was very nearly a victory, had it not been for Holmberg’s last-gasp back-post finish from Leah Williamson’s deep, diagonal ball into the box, which finally broke the visitors’ stubborn resistance.

Health authorities work to notify people who were exposed to person who traveled through at least six counties

California public health officials are warning of a possible measles exposure spanning multiple counties after an infected and unvaccinated passenger traveled through the state via Amtrak trains and thruway buses.

The warning comes as the US faces its largest measles resurgence in more than three decades, fueled largely by growing vaccine hesitancy.