The Guardian’s fans network looks ahead to the new season: fresh talent, weak links, and who will be sacked first

Having finally got the title monkey off our back, and with much of the competition in a state of flux, there’s plenty of optimism. Obviously the target is for Arteta to sustain the same appetite and intensity to mount a credible defence. The big questions are whether we can reproduce the same resilience at the back with Saliba on the long-term missing list, and will the introduction of Guimarães be the catalyst for the sort of midfield chemistry we’ll need to carve open opponents who plan to park the bus?

Bernard Azulay onlinegooner.com; @GoonerN5

Jonathan Pritchard

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Student unrest sweeps India, Portugal and Mexico as grievances and pressure for good grades in tough job market collide

Families with teenagers in education know the private, hidden pain of exam season. But this year, what might have been a summer of quiet family anxiety has erupted in several countries into public unrest.

Exam-related turmoil has led to mass student protests in Mexico after nearly 60,000 university applicants were forced to resit tests amid suspected cheating, while Portugal’s disastrous attempt to digitise school exam marking sparked the country’s worst education crisis in decades.

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Four horses with little record of success suddenly won in the US. A seemingly coordinated betting operation across London did too – and now racing authorities want answers

To understand why horse racing on both sides of the pond has been gripped by the Fair Hill Five over the past week, start with a basic principle of betting: when two unlikely horses win in back-to-back races, a wager correctly picking both should pay off handsomely. Last Sunday at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park, it did not.

The sequence began with The Great Amira, a 17-1 longshot who went from finishing last in her previous two starts to winning wire to wire by nine and a half lengths. Her trainer then won the very next race with Tepeyac, who went off at about 4-1, and the meager Daily Double payout for picking both outsiders suggested the exact combination had been unusually well backed. Later that afternoon, two more longshot winners emerged at Saratoga. They were among five runners with recent workouts at Maryland’s Fair Hill Training Center, the common link behind the name Fair Hill Five.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder at the World’s Ugliest Dog contest, which marked its 50th year at the Sonoma County Fair in California. The competition, which promotes dog adoptions and ‘the imperfections that make all dogs special’, was won this year by Jinny Lu, a pug from South Korea

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Ahead of Fat Bear Week, avid fans are glued to the spectacle of brown bears devouring salmon at Brooks Falls in Alaska

One of this summer’s biggest onscreen hits has had big beasts, great escapes and choppy waters, but it’s not Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey – it’s a livestream of Alaskan brown bears catching salmon.

The Brooks Falls bearcam at Katmai national park in the US was watched 7.3m times between 22 June and 4 August – up 70% from the same period last year and more than double the views it attracted in 2024.

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Historians argue box office enthusiasm shows desire for unifying figure as country faces political division

On 18 June 1940, Charles de Gaulle, then a little-known junior army officer, sat in a BBC studio in London and made his famous rallying call for the French to resist the Nazi occupation and its puppet Vichy government.

In the eyes of the British prime minister Winston Churchill, De Gaulle was an arrogant, stubborn and defiant thorn in his and the allies’ side, but the Frenchman never stopped believing in the greatness of France and the need for resistance.

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Fraudsters use pictures posted on Instagram or Facebook to create emails seeking bank account details

You are on a short break in Porto and post some pictures of your family on Instagram or Facebook. With a small section of the Douro river in the background, you think it could have been taken anywhere.

A few days later, you get a text saying that your card was compromised. “We detected unusual activity while you were travelling in Porto – please verify immediately,” says the message.

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Fire has always be part of life on the grasslands, but has grown worse due to rising temperatures and severe droughts. In response, people have turned to their nomadic heritage to help tackle the blazes

Sodnomjamts Damchaabadgar squats in a shallow, rocky depression, working quietly with his hands. Inches above the rim of the pit, the wind whips across the grasslands. But in the marginal shelter of the dig site the air remains calm – essential for delicate operations.

Damchaabadgar, a research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, has erected a ger, a traditional nomad’s tent, nearby, which serves as his sleeping quarters and a field station.

Two gers stand alone against the vast openness of the steppe in Eastern Mongolia. The ger – often called a yurt outside Mongolia – is a round dwelling designed to be assembled or disassembled in a matter of hours

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BONGURI has added a photo to the pool:

柿ヶ島駅から九頭竜方面のカーブ。この先はどんな景色が広がっているんだろう？
Photo taken Kakigashima station, Ohno city, Fukui pref.

Wendy Tuns is uitvaartspreker. Bij het overlijden van een dierbare is zij degene die tijdens de afscheidsplechtigheid woorden geeft aan het verdriet van de nabestaanden. “Soms denk ik wel: wie ben ik dat jij dit zomaar aan mij vertelt.”

Bij een autowasbox in Bleiswijk is in de nacht van zaterdag op zondag een auto door twee glazen puien gereden. Dat gebeurde rond 02:20 uur op de kruising van de Jadestraat en de Kristalstraat.

In dit blog houden we je op de hoogte van het belangrijkste en meest opvallende 112-nieuws in de regio van zondag 16 augustus.

In dit blog houden we je op de hoogte van het belangrijkste en meest opvallende 112-nieuws in de regio van zondag 16 augustus.

MOSKOU (ANP/DPA) - Oekraïne heeft volgens de burgemeester van Moskou weer een grote droneaanval uitgevoerd op de Russische hoofdstad. Burgemeester Sergej Sobjanin zei dat meer dan zeshonderd drones in de richting van Moskou zijn afgevuurd.

De meeste zijn volgens hem onderschept voor ze de regio bereikten en ruim tweehonderd zijn neergehaald door de luchtafweer in Moskou en omgeving. Er zijn volgens de burgemeester drie gewonden gevallen door de aanvallen. Hij meldde geen schade.

Oekraïense media berichten dat weer een distributiecentrum van de particuliere onderneming Wildberries is aangevallen. Daarbij zou in Koledino ongeveer 35 kilometer ten zuiden van Moskou een groot magazijn in brand zijn gevlogen.

Oekraïne voert de aanvallen met drones op in de hoop dat zo achter de linies de kracht van de Russische strijdkrachten en het moreel van de Russische bevolking kan worden ondermijnd.

FNIDEQ (ANP) - Marokkaanse veiligheidstroepen hebben bij de grens met het Spaanse Ceuta zaterdag 294 mensen opgepakt die van plan zouden zijn geweest de grens te overschrijden. Dat was volgens Marokkaanse media een routine-operatie gericht tegen illegale grensoverschrijdingen. Er zijn 46 Marokkanen en 248 migranten uit zuidelijker gelegen Afrikaanse landen aangehouden.

In de heuvels rond de Spaanse exclaves Ceuta en oostelijker Melilla verzamelen zich vooral in de zomer onder dekking van de begroeiing migranten die een kans zoeken Europa binnen te komen.

Eind juli trokken tienduizenden Marokkanen voornamelijk over het strand en via de zee naar Ceuta. Ze werden daarbij niet gehinderd door Marokkaanse grensbewakers. Volgens Spaanse media was de uittocht niet mogelijk zonder instemming van het Marokkaanse staatsapparaat.

Op sociale media werd een nieuwe massale uittocht aangekondigd op 15 augustus. Marokko heeft afgelopen week en dit weekend alles in het werk gesteld dat te voorkomen.

Keith Midson has added a photo to the pool:

Avoca River, Charlton, Victoria.

jspeter9191 has added a photo to the pool:

In the afternoon(16/08/26) this photo taken from the my balcony, Tallawong, Sydney, Australia
Jesus loves you.