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We’re now just 15 minutes away from the start of the action on day one of the Paris Olympics. And that action is badminton.

If you don’t know your back alley from your shuttlecock, fear not, because here’s one we made earlier.

The pool is shallower than the 3m standard, at 2.30m and there have been some questions raised over the effect this will have. The starting platforms have fins that allow swimmers to really push off at the gun. And one of France’s faces of the Games, swimmer Léon Marchand, believes it will live up to expectations.

“The pool is superb,” he said. “I loved the feeling I had in the water, the depth which is the same along the entire length. So you feel like you’re swimming fast and that’s cool. It’s a beautiful pool.” If swimmers are feeling fast in the pool at La Défense, we could yet see some new world records.

The EU’s Josep Borrell made the remark in a meeting with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi

Serhiy Lysak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said the Russian army attacked the Nikopol district at night with a kamikaze drone and then with artillery. No casualties have so far been reported.

The air force of the armed forces of Ukraine has written on Telegram that Russia has increased the number of “ballistic” strikes over the past few months, forcing Ukrainian forces to think more about “passive defence” tactics such as camouflage and using “false positions”.

Over the past few months, the enemy has increased the number of “ballistic” strikes. So in addition to active defence, we have to think about passive defence - camouflage, shelter and... false positions.

Current government funding is currently sorely lacking, so join fund and community initiatives that will raise funds for air force mock-ups.

Israeli military says it is planning a military operation in Khan Younis

The Khan Younis evacuation orders and “intensified hostilities” have “significantly destabilised aid operations”, the UN said, reporting “dire water, hygiene and sanitation conditions” in the Palestinian territory.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that after Israel warned its forces would “forcefully operate” in the Khan Younis region, including an area previously declared a safe humanitarian zone, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that an Israeli operation in Khan Younis killed 70 people and injured more than 200.

There are endless takes on tomato sauce, as well as pesto- or yoghurt-based accompaniments, and you’ll find a very versatile friend in tahini …

I find making sauces for my vegetarian diet quite challenging. Any advice about how to moisten my meals?
Eric, Melbourne, Australia
There are so many directions in which you could happily go, tomato sauce being possibly the most obvious. I batch-cook all my tomato sauces – whether it’s infused with a dried chilli (which is great on butter beans), or just a basil sprig (again, for butter beans, or to stir through pasta); it’s also lovely spooned over cubed tofu or for braising eggs shakshuka-style.

Then there’s perhaps my favourite vegan ingredient, tahini, not least because it’s so rich and “creamy” and substantial. Thinned down with a little lemon juice and water, plus crushed garlic and salt to taste, it’s glorious drizzled over all sorts of roast vegetables, salad leaves, grains and so on – the possibilities are almost endless; if you like, blitz with fresh parsley or coriander (that’s wonderful on chickpeas or a whole roast cauliflower, by the way). I also love to mix tahini with soy sauce and maybe a touch of honey – the combination is a dream with steamed aubergine or even just plain rice.

The model and musician on wanting to be a spy, a brush with gun violence, and the pleasure of fishfingers with ketchup

Born in London, Guinness, 56, married at 19, moved to Switzerland and had three children. She went on to work as a model, fashion writer and muse to Alexander McQueen and Karl Lagerfeld. In 2011, she created a show from her own archive for the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. She began recording music in 2011 and, this summer, released her fourth album, Sleep. Divorced, she lives in London.

When were you happiest?
I am often happiest on a shoot with David LaChapelle, being pushed to the extremes – either suspended from a harness or immersed in a tank of water. He calls it “extreme modelling”.

His spy series became the TV hit Slow Horses, and now his earlier novels are being adapted for screen, starring Emma Thompson. Mick Herron talks about finding recognition

“Let me guess,” says a woman exiting a private detective’s office and finding another one coming in. “You’ve got a husband, he’s got a secretary. Am I getting warm?” So far, so Raymond Chandler, and, indeed, Zoë Boehm, first glimpsed storming out of a row with her husband, fellow gumshoe Joe Silverman, has more than a touch of hard-boiled noir about her: sardonic eyes and laughter lines, cigarette jammed into mouth, a handbag from whose depths she can produce not only vodka but a small silver gun. “I read once that you should take salt on a long journey,” she later declares. “To liven up what you catch and eat.”

But Zoë is not in the canyons and boulevards of Philip Marlowe’s Los Angeles, she is in pre-millennial Oxford, the setting for Mick Herron’s first novel, Down Cemetery Road, now being reissued and adapted by Apple TV+, the makers of the award-winning Slow Horses series. Emma Thompson will play Zoë, with Ruth Wilson taking the role of Sarah Tucker, a woman whose problem is not her husband’s secretary, but the fact that one of her neighbour’s houses has just been blown up. There are four Boehm books, all to make a reappearance, providing plenty for the screenwriters to get their teeth into.

Noisy devices are making public transport hell. But do passengers realise the pain they inflict?

Earlier in the summer I started a social experiment – one you might consider ingenious or insufferable, depending on how much you prioritise a peaceful life. It began with a fragmented journey from north to south London, during which at each section of the journey (bus, overground, bus), someone was playing content on their phone, loudly.

First there was a woman flicking impatiently through TikTok videos: four-second assaults of traditional Chinese medicine tutorials, girls pranking their boyfriends and self-help tips. The woman next to her put in her earbuds, but said nothing. Next, there was a woman listening to a nearly 20-minute long voice note from a friend out loud that all of us could hear. This is the life of the passenger in our new ambient hell.

Hannah Ewens is a freelance editor and writer, and the author of Fangirls: Scenes From Modern Music Culture

Tips and tricks for getting the best deals when renewing home insurance and car cover

• Watchdog urged to clamp down on ‘abysmal’ claims handling

Households facing 100% increases to their car insurance premiums and 25%-plus rises to home insurance renewals may well be able to slash the price by shopping around and using a couple of other tricks.

How do I know this? I’ve just done it – several times.

Visitors will need to pay up to €15 to stroll – and take photos – along romantic 900-metre walkway in Liguria, Italy

Stifling though the crowds of tourists can be at the height of summer, a hint of love is in the air across the five villages of Italy’s Cinque Terre as a Ligurian riviera coastal path famed as a meeting point for courting couples reopens after an almost 12-year closure.

Sculpted into the steep cliffs wedged between the villages of Riomaggiore and Manarola, the Via dell’Amore (Path of Love) had been closed since being damaged by a September 2012 landslide that injured four Australian tourists.

Research exposes flaws of older, often industry-funded studies and finds lowest mortality risk in lifelong abstainers

Humans have been drawn to the idea that alcohol may have health benefits for almost as long as they have been drinking it. In ancient China, rice wine was widely used for medicinal purposes, while Hippocrates, the ancient Greek “Father of Medicine”, advocated moderate amounts of alcohol for the mind, body and soul.

Later, proponents of the temperance movement, who urged 19th century workers to quit booze, were met with resistance by those who thought beer was necessary for good health.

The weight of expectation is part of the experience and so I’m backing Emma Finucane to lead Team GB’s rush for medals

The Paris Olympics are here, at last, and it’s strange to admit that I am excited rather than nervous. It’s taken me 12 years to reach this point. I am proud to have won five gold medals at three successive Olympic Games in London, Rio and Tokyo but I’ve also got one title that you might not expect. On the surface I was pretty good at looking confident and relaxed but, deep down, I always thought I was the most nervous Olympic champion you could ever meet.

I would be sick with nerves before a race while my hands were sweaty and shaking. But one thing made a difference. I was able to understand that this was normal at the Olympics.

The 2024 FA Cup winners have lost several big names but have added the Norway striker who sparkled for Brighton

Elisabeth Terland’s first taste of English football was one of sour defeat. She came on in the 84th minute to make her tournament debut at the 2022 European Championship for a hopeless Norway side who went on to lose 8-0 against England, the eventual winners, in their Group A encounter.

That humiliation took place at the Amex Stadium and, as such, Terland could have been forgiven for never wanting to step inside the venue again. Instead, however, she made it her home that summer, moving from Brann to Brighton in August 2022 and subsequently scoring 23 goals in 50 appearances for the club. Of those goals, 13 came in 22 Women’s Super League appearances last season, leading to her finishing joint-second in the race for the golden boot.

Company after company is swallowing the hype, only to be forced into embarrassing walkbacks by anti-AI backlash

Earlier this month, a popular lifestyle magazine introduced a new “fashion and lifestyle editor” to its huge social media following. “Reem”, who on first glance looked like a twentysomething woman who understood both fashion and lifestyle, was proudly announced as an “AI enhanced team member”. That is, a fake person, generated by artificial intelligence. Reem would be making product recommendations to SheerLuxe’s followers – or, to put it another way, doing what SheerLuxe would otherwise pay a person to do. The reaction was entirely predictable: outrage, followed by a hastily issued apology. One suspects Reem may not become a staple of its editorial team.

This is just the latest in a long line of walkbacks of “exciting AI projects” that have been met with fury by the people they’re meant to excite. The Prince Charles Cinema in Soho, London, cancelled a screening of an AI-written film in June, because its regulars vehemently objected. Lego was pressured to take down a series of AI-generated images it published on its website. Doctor Who started experimenting with generative AI, but quickly stopped after a wave of complaints. A company swallows the AI hype, thinks jumping on board will paint it as innovative, and entirely fails to understand the growing anti-AI sentiment taking hold among many of its customers.

Changes include converting Bentleys to run on biofuels but helicopter use shows difficulties in balancing priorities

A pair of gas-guzzling Bentleys are not the most obvious candidates to burnish the monarch’s green credentials. But news that King Charles is converting his chauffeur-driven luxury vehicles to run on biofuels was this week billed as a small step in a bigger plan to reduce emissions – perhaps the equivalent of lesser mortals separating paper from plastic in the weekly rubbish.

“The two existing state Bentleys will undergo refurbishment in the coming year to enable them to run on biofuel,” said Sir Michael Stevens, the keeper of the privy purse, adding that it was an interim measure in advance of “the next generation of state vehicles being fully electrified” and part of a “wider plan to make a significant impact on our carbon emissions in the years ahead”.

Defining nature as separate from people perpetuates troubled relationship with the natural world, say campaigners

It was last year, during a conference at the Eden Project, the botanic garden and conservation centre in Cornwall, that Frieda Gormley first heard the dictionary definition of nature.

The businesswoman and environmental activist was answering questions about her plans to appoint a representative of nature to the board of her company, House of Hackney, when a member of the audience read it out.

Swimming, cycling and hockey in Paris. Plus: another double-bill of sturdy Aussie crime drama High Country. Here’s what to watch this evening

8am, BBC One

The Olympic host city is one of cinema’s favourite places, whether real or romanticised, in films ranging from Breathless to Ratatouille and La Haine

The Paris Olympics are being held at the very time of year when the City of Light is least desirable as a destination, as all those inhabitants who vacate the city in August for their summer getaways well know. Cole Porter might have recommended Paris when it sizzles, but when it sweats? An acquired taste. Sometimes the city is best enjoyed from a distance – via the Olympics coverage if you wish, or the surfeit of films that have made Paris a veritable capital of cinema.

Like any tourist, there’s no shame in starting with the obvious: Parisians may roll their eyes at the airbrushed Montmartre in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie (2001), but this gaudy romantic bonbon still has its winsome charms. It’s only a shade less artificial than the Hollywoodised musical visions of the city in the 1950s. Gigi, Vincente Minnelli’s absurdly lavish take on Colette’s slender coming-of-age novella (currently unavailable to stream in the UK), used more location shooting than the same director’s An American in Paris, shot almost entirely on LA backlots, though both are delicious faux-French fancies. Ditto Audrey Hepburn swanning around Paris in Stanley Donen’s Funny Face, though it’s at least more Gallic-chic in spirit.

Strategies for CISOs to Tackle the Challenges

• Implement Robust AI Governance: Establish clear policies and frameworks for AI usage, ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical considerations.
• Invest in Continuous Learning: Stay updated on the latest advancements in AI and cybersecurity to leverage cutting-edge tools and techniques effectively.
• Collaborate with AI Experts: Work closely with AI specialists to understand the nuances of AI-driven security measures and potential vulnerabilities.
• Develop Counter-AI Strategies: Create defensive mechanisms to detect and mitigate AI-generated threats such as deepfakes and sophisticated phishing attacks.
• Promote Cross-Functional Training: Ensure that security teams are well-versed in AI concepts and their applications in cybersecurity to maximize the benefits of Generative AI.

Officials insist China-based owner ByteDance must separate from its short video app in the US because it is a threat to national security and citizens’ data

The US justice department has asked an appeals court to reject legal challenges to a law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest itself of TikTok’s US assets by 19 January or face a ban.

TikTok, parent company ByteDance and a group of TikTok creators have filed suits seeking to block the law, which could ban the app used by 170 million Americans.

MPs and candidates who faced abuse discuss polling station buffer zones and action to tackle social media

• ‘Constant abuse’: three UK candidates on their election experience

MPs and candidates who faced abuse on the campaign trail have pressed ministers to act over intimidation around polling stations and via social media algorithms that push incendiary material.

Half a dozen MPs and candidates attended a roundtable meeting with Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, Dan Jarvis, the security minister, and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, on Wednesday.

With Bank of England meeting on 1 August, people are advised to take advantage of top-paying accounts now

Experts are split on whether there will be a UK interest rate cut on Thursday but most agree on one thing: savers should “act now” to lock into the best rates while they are still available.

All eyes will be on the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee when it meets on 1 August, although while some believe we could see it announce the first base rate cut in more than four years, others reckon we will have to wait until at least September.

An academic paper says the show creates ideal conditions for ‘cognitive overload’ and demonstrates how to avoid it

BBC Radio 4’s Just a Minute may be wonderfully entertaining for listeners but it is often excruciating for players as they attempt to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation.

An academic paper jointly produced by a university linguist and one of the greatest exponents of Just a Minute has suggested the game is so devious that the best way to succeed is to let go of any ambition to win.

She’s had death threats, seen her friend and fellow MP murdered, and has just survived a bruising election campaign. So what drives her?

• ‘I’ve intervened in environments that would make the toughest men cry’: read an extract from Jess Phillips’ latest book

The pub is empty when we arrive. “Can you fit us in?” Jess Phillips asks the barman, followed by the familiar smirk. She can’t help herself. Phillips has never been your regular MP. She’s a warm, wise-cracking, potty-mouthed, deeply serious showoff. She’s political Marmite. Lots of people love her, while a fair few hate her with a passion. At least half a dozen men have been convicted of abuse, death and rape threats.

She orders half a lager, then mocks herself for being such a wuss. “Half a lager!” she parrots, as if she can’t quite believe that it’s come to this. But Phillips is exhausted. It’s six days since the most remarkable British general election in decades, with Labour transforming the 2019 trouncing into a landslide victory. On a night of memorable moments (the unseating of Liz Truss, Jeremy Corbyn winning as an independent, Nigel Farage becoming an MP at his eighth attempt, and on it goes), the most memorable might well belong to Phillips – and not in a good way. She had started the day with a majority of 10,659 and only just held on to her Birmingham Yardley seat by 693 votes, with George Galloway’s Workers party of Great Britain, standing on a pro-Palestine platform, finishing a close second. When she began her victory speech, she was heckled by Workers party supporters. She looked both distraught and furious.

For Emily and her husband, Matthew, everything changed when the police knocked on the door at 6.20am one morning. Could their family survive?

Emily, 35
In the 15 years I’ve been with my husband, Matthew, I never imagined opening the front door to the police. As far as I was concerned, we had an ordinary marriage – we met at university, went travelling after graduation and returned home to build our careers. I trained in safeguarding, while he studied to be an engineer. I thought we were so lucky. Ours was a comfortable, middle-class life in an affluent English market town in the south – we enjoyed holidays and had a busy social life, with lots of friends. I’m a bit of an introvert, but my husband’s more popular – the sort who goes out of his way to help other people who might be struggling.

The jeopardy of a zombie show is surely whether the characters get bitten to death or not – but somehow the stars manage to survive endlessly. Will the spinoffs ever cease?

Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there. You just caught me writing a script for AMC’s mega-franchise The Walking Dead, which finally finished in 2022 after 177 episodes and has now splintered into a number of spin-off shows which are basically just the same. I’ve got the most obvious thing in there early (a scene where someone desperately tugs on another character’s arm and goes: “Please, we have to go!” while a mass of zombies get closer and closer to pushing the door down), so just need to pad out the other 55 minutes.

What else? Oh, of course: I need someone to get bitten by a zombie and slowly transform into a zombie but the person who has to kill them is also their brother or sister or wife, so they dilly-dally and either they do kill them in the end but become a shell of a person afterwards – or they mess about so long that they also get bitten by a zombie and die. Got to have an adult having an unbearable conversation with a child, obviously. A scene where a man gets a rifle out of the flatbed of a truck and goes: “No, you stay here – it’s safer,” before messing up their mission in a way where a second person could have been really helpful. A rumour about another city actually being safe, someone’s lost their husband and can’t find them, and the group taking refuge in a building you wouldn’t expect them to take refuge in. Right, that’s 60 pages. AMC, I’ll send you an invoice.

From Berlin’s techno scene to Oktoberfest, a revolution in drinking culture is taking place, and it’s led by young people

The first cliche that comes to mind when many think of Germany is thigh-slapping oompah music, embroidered lederhosen and, above all, litre-sized mugs of beer. And Deutschland’s beer culture is best epitomised by Munich’s Oktoberfest. Millions of revellers descend on the Bavarian capital each September for 16 days of booze, bretzel and bratwurst. But it’s a cliche out of sync with modern Germany, where abstinence is on the up – and boozing is in decline.

One example is Die Null (The Zero). Before the world-famous beer festival kicks off this year on 21 September, a new alcohol-free beer garden has opened in the heart of the city, inaugurated by the mayor of Munich himself. The venue serves a variety of non-alcoholic beverages, from mocktails to alcohol-free lager.

Stories from ‘ripped off’ customers lead Which? to call for ‘meaningful action’ against firms that fall short

• Insurance costs are soaring – here’s how my family cut them

The consumer group Which? this week called on the regulator to clamp down on insurers that have been “ripping off” consumers with “abysmal” claims handling.

Having surveyed how customers have fared at the hands of insurers over the past three years – and unearthed some shocking stories – the consumer body has demanded that the Financial Conduct Authority take tough action against companies that fall short of the regulator’s required standards.

A set of cunning quizzes from the former Only Connect champion and the author of The Cryptic Pub Quiz Book. You might need a pen and paper …

The eight answers in this round form a palindrome. That is to say, if the answers are seen collectively as a single string of letters (disregarding spaces, punctuation and capitalisation), it will read the same forwards and backwards.

From snorkel trails and seafood restaurants to maritime festivals and a ‘museum of fun’, here’s what’s new and exciting around the UK coast

I love walking in Blackpool. The stroll along the prom takes time and a bit of effort – it’s almost three miles from the South Shore to the Grand Hotel – and takes me past three piers and more than a century of architecture including Victorian, art deco, modern and postwar municipal. In her 2023 novel Pleasure Beach, Helen Palmer pastiches Joyce’s Ulysses: her home town perfectly suits its promiscuous, genre-hopping, list-loving energy. The expanses of sand, big skies and far horizons of the Irish Sea always distract and calm the soul.

The US Justice Department late Friday accused TikTok of harnessing the capability to gather bulk information on users based on views on divisive social issues like gun control, abortion and religion.

(Image credit: Matt Slocum)

Strategic Responsibilities and Security Measures

Operational Responsibilities 

Compliance and Governance 

Awareness and Training 

Technology and Innovation 

Key Challenges 

Security Teams in Private Equity Portfolio Companies 

Gemini Data Breach: What Happened

What Crypto Exchange Gemini is Doing

What Affected Customers Can Do

• Contact Your Bank: Inquire about steps to protect your account, including obtaining a new account number.
• Enable Multi-Factor Authentication: Enable this feature on the bank account you provided to Gemini.
• Monitor Account Statements: Closely review your account statements and report any unauthorized activity to your financial institution.
• Stay Vigilant: Be aware of scams that might exploit knowledge of your financial data.

Review Your Account Statements and Notify Law Enforcement of Suspicious Activity

Obtain and Monitor Your Credit Report

Consider Placing a Security Freeze on Your Credit File

Conclusion

Former politicians pay tribute after files show ‘Labour’s most successful leader’ was forced to consider selling legacy to pay for his dementia care

Margaret Thatcher described him as “the most skilful of politicians” and Tony Blair thought him “Labour’s most successful leader ever”.

Such elegies on the death in 1995 of Harold Wilson, 79, the twice Labour prime minister who had Alzheimer’s and colon cancer, betray nothing of the reality of his later years – spent in the unforgiving grip of dementia and, it has emerged, forced to consider selling his personal and political papers to meet the heavy and increasing costs of care.

Birgit, 42, an academic, meets Solomon, 44, a healthcare professional

What were you hoping for?
A fun evening with someone interesting. I chose to not think about it too much beforehand and to just let things happen.

Just back from Spain, my wife has decided that a new dog will give the old one a new lease of life

While we were away, the middle one took the dog to its grooming appointment. When the dog returned shorn, the cat concluded, not for the first time, that this was a different dog altogether, and spent the next 24 hours living in a tree.

“But then it was fine,” the middle one says, the day after we get back.