Whatever the Plaza de Colón in central Madrid lacks in elegance or romance, it more than makes up for in patriotic fervour and outsized vexillological allure.

By 8pm local time on Sunday, the square was filling with thousands of spectators who were congregating around a giant screen to cheer on Spain as La Roja prepared to battle England to clinch a fourth Euro title.

Overhead, opposite the statue of Christopher Columbus, for whom the square is named, flew the largest flag in Spain – an epic banner that measures 21m by 14m and weighs 35kg, which is roughly the same as a decent-sized adult Alsatian.

Still, the crowd had brought a few more flags of their own, just to be on the safe side, and the capital’s metro system brimmed with people in Spain strips and rojigualdas tied at the neck and worn as cloaks.

Spain’s appetite for victory had been well whetted by Carlos Alcaraz’s successful, straight-sets defence of his Wimbledon title a few hours earlier.

“I’ve already done my job,” Alcaraz said after his win. “Now let’s see to the football. It’s going to be a really difficult match.”

Madrid’s mayor, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, concurred: “An epic start to the afternoon from Spain. Now to finish it off!”

SW19 honour defended, all eyes shifted from the 21-year-old Alcaraz to the 17-year-old Lamine Yamal, the breakout star of Euro 2024, and to his teammates.

“Tonight is a matter of pride for Spain,” said Javier Adsuar, a 21-year-old from Elche.

“Alcaraz did brilliantly winning the tennis but football is much more important – and I think Lamine Yamal and Nico Williams will score for us tonight.”

Adsuar also felt it was time to give the Spain manager, Luis de la Fuente, a little very belated credit. He had, after all, come a long way from the stinging and ignominious defeat to Scotland in last year’s qualifiers.

“At the beginning of the tournament I wasn’t sure about De le Fuente, but now he’s a god to me.”

His friend, Gabriel Paco, was in little doubt as to the game’s outcome. “Spain is going to win because we’re really good and we’re a better team than England.”

Violeta Macía, who was in Madrid from Alicante province with her friend Maria José Rodríguez and María José’s 10-year-old daughter, Adriana, was a little more cautious in her predictions.

“I think Spain is going to win but it’s going to be tricky as a lot of expectations have been created and football can be a tricky business.”

Adriana, a keen footballer, was more prepared to stick her neck out. What would the final score be? “2-1 to Spain,” she replied, without missing a beat.

For some, Spain’s showdown with England carried an additional weight and importance. As an editorial in Sunday’s El País pointed out, the young, hungry and diverse team had succeeded where so much else had failed by managing to unite a divided and fractious nation.

“At a time in Spanish political and social life when polarisation and fragmentation seem to monopolise private and public conversations, the success of the Spanish football team … has become a celebrated meeting point for millions of citizens,” the paper noted.

As kick-off approached, the bass-thumping sound system in the square cranked up the volume and Viva España poured from the speakers, prompting a remarkably tuneful sing along from the crowds whose busy flags dispersed pink smoke across the plaza.

Rubén Rodríguez, a 22-year-old from the capital, was already buoyed up by Alcaraz’s victory, which could only have been a good omen. As he waited for his friends and their booze supplies to turn up, he offered his optimistic take on Sunday’s prospects.

“I think it’s going to be a tough game because it’s always hard to play a team that scores last-minute goals,” he said. “But I think we’ll still get the winning goal we need. And anyway, fuck it, Carlos Alcaraz is the greatest tennis player in the world – and maybe one of the greatest in history. Maybe we can do the double. Maybe today’s the day.”

Tens of thousands of England fans are arriving in Berlin as Gareth Southgate’s men’s team attempt to make history and beat Spain to win a first major tournament since 1966.

More than 50,000 England fans are expected to be in German capital for the final of the European championship, many of whom will be without tickets.

The German newspaper Bild reported that jubilant England fans were acting as “if they had already won the European championship final”. Police said they had made a small number of arrests overnight after some violent altercations outside bars in the city centre.

Expectations are high for Southgate’s team after England produced their best performance of the tournament so far in their win over the Netherlands in the semi-finals.

Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, published an open letter to the players overnight. “You should all be proud of what you’ve achieved so far,” he wrote. “I hope you can take some strength from the millions at home kicking every ball alongside you.”

Starmer and his culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, will be in the stands at Berlin’s Olympiastadion.

“You don’t need a running commentary from a politician on what you should or shouldn’t do,” Starmer said. “You’re here not because of luck, but because of your graft and hard work. You’ve earned it. As you did three years ago, you’ve made the country proud.

“Whatever happens, you should know that you have united the country, and we are all behind you. So enjoy tonight. I know that up and down the country, we all will.”

The Prince of Wales, who is president of the Football Association, will also attend the match. “We are so proud of you all,” he posted on social media. “Just one last push to finish the job! Go out there and show the world what you’re made of. We believe.”

William was in Germany for England’s group stage match against Denmark and the quarter-final victory over Switzerland. He took his eldest son, Prince George, to the final of the last Euros at Wembley, which England lost to Italy on penalties.

England have never appeared in a major tournament final outside of Wembley. Spain will appear in a European final for the fifth time in their history. They have won three of their four previous final appearances, losing only to hosts France at the 1984 European Championship.

The Spanish media appear confident about the prospect of a “historic” fourth European Championship title, taking them clear of Germany for the outright record. The newspaper Sport claimed that England “need to win” but that Spain “just want to win”.

Barcelona’s Mundo Deportivo had the headline “Come on”, with the Spain stars Lamine Yamal and Dani Olmo, the captain, Álvaro Morata, and Nico Williams and Dani Carvajal on the front. The newspaper said the national team wanted to put the “icing on the cake” after winning each of their games in the tournament.

The former England captain Alan Shearer said he believed the two teams were evenly matched and “it’ll probably take a piece of brilliance from someone to win it”.

Speaking before the game, Southgate, who has faced criticism after poor performances in the group stages and near-death experiences in the knockout rounds, said his team were ready.

“I don’t believe in fairytales but I am a believer in dreams and we have big dreams but you have to make those things happen,” he said. “The run we have had, late goals, penalties, that doesn’t equate to us making it happen. We have to perform.”

The Conservative leader and former prime minister Rishi Sunak said: “We are right behind you tonight and, whatever the result, I know you’ll do us all proud. Bring it home.”

If a week is a long time in politics, then it can be epochal in football. Just eight days ago the national mood was not exactly, as players like to say, buzzing. There was a sense of relief that 14 years of Tory rule had ended, but neither the election nor the Euros had inspired much jubilation.

The victory on penalties against the Swiss helped ease the country’s collective fear of the shootout, but it was the last-minute winner against the Netherlands on Wednesday that provided a much-needed endorphin rush to our spirits.

Suddenly, after all the criticism, England was awash with belief, pride and a galvanising sense of unity. Football alone can do this, particularly in a country that only half exists – as geographical entity but not really a political one.

Football has not only given a boost to England but it has also played a major part in redefining Englishness. As David Olusoga, professor of public history at Manchester University, noted last week, the England manager Gareth Southgate has been trying “to build a new, workable version of English identity”.

Olusoga spoke of a “hyper-diverse” England team. Strictly speaking, it’s Anglo-Irish-African-Caribbean, with no Asian representation. It’s also homogeneously heterosexual, as far as we know, unlike the English women’s team, which while much more white, has a diversity of sexuality. But the point about the England men’s team is that it is multiracial and distinctively English.

To see the whole team sing our dirge of a national anthem with a rousing passion is to witness a group of individuals from different ethnic – but largely similar class – backgrounds embracing a collective national identity. This is no small achievement, especially as football has often been the focus of racism and division. For Sunder Katwala, director of the thinktank British Future, the feelgood factor of Euro 1996, which took place in England, was a breakthrough moment for ethnic minorities.

Hitherto, as a devoted football fan, he had found the atmosphere around England’s international matches “menacing and angry”, and unwelcoming to anyone who wasn’t white. But that tournament, he says, “had a massive foundational impact in my confidence about identifying as English and other people thinking I was English”.

The squad back then featured just three black players – whereas 11 of the current 26 are non-white – but Katwala says he experienced a feeling of inclusivity separate from representation.

“It didn’t mean for me that there had to be a half-Indian, half-Irish person on the left wing,” he says. There is, none the less, a difference between acceptance and genuine solidarity.

As recently as 2011, the then England captain John Terry was accused of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, younger brother of the former England captain Rio Ferdinand. Terry was selected for the Euro 2012 squad but Rio Ferdinand was not, leading to speculation that he’d been jettisoned to prevent disharmony.

That scenario is extremely hard to imagine taking place today. This is an England team that jointly took the knee and has been explicit in its condemnation of racism. Rather than sublimating their racial identity, players have felt able to speak out without it bringing into question their national allegiance.

As Katwala puts it: “It’s clear that the black players and white players are on the same side.”

And that side is not just the side of history that is about “a more tolerant and understanding society”, as Southgate put it in his “Dear England” letter to the nation three years ago, it’s also the side of Englishness, a long troubled and disputed concept.

“We don’t talk about Englishness,” says Katwala. “You get a British passport, you’re a British citizen, but can you be English as well? Can you be black or Asian and English?”

The England team, he says, answers that question and, what’s more, it is the only institution that is equipped to do so. There is no English parliament. The Church of England has been slowly fading from national relevance. In a sense the fact of being English has been left as an ill-defined negative – the Britons who are not Scottish, Welsh or Irish.

“The idea that Britishness was inclusive but that Englishness wasn’t was always an unlikely principle, but it’s in football that we’ve seen the issue addressed,” says Katwala.

It’s no coincidence that the people addressing it are in their 20s, because to this younger generation multiple identities that share a common Englishness is the norm. Older generations might disagree about nationalism or the meaning of the St George cross, but the young are busy shaping the reality of how we live. Of course, when Bukayo Saka scores the equaliser against Switzerland, or Ollie Watkins his winner against the Dutch, matters of race and identity are inclined to vanish in the euphoria. But does that mean that black players have to be the very best to feel included?

Well, they are the very best – that’s why they’re there. Football is nothing if not a meritocracy. Yet we know from the final of Euro 20, when Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho missed penalties in the shootout against Italy, that racists were waiting online to vent their bile.

“The overwhelming response to those players was a kind of love and affection,” says Katwala. “The culture didn’t turn on them, but a minority in a space that is not regulated.”

It will be a special moment for the English, of all races and ethnicities, if somehow the team manages to defeat Spain today. But it’s not really about football coming home. Far more importantly, football has helped make our home.

At least 31 Palestinians have been killed and more than 50 wounded in fresh Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip, rescuers and health officials have said, as conflicting reports emerged over whether Hamas was withdrawing from ceasefire talks after the targeting of the group’s top military commander.

Four attacks in various parts of Gaza City in the early hours of Sunday morning occurred less than 24 hours after Israeli forces said Mohammed Deif, who is believed to be the mastermind behind the 7 October attack on southern Israel, was the target of a strike in the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza that, according to the territory’s emergency services, killed more than 90 people and injured 300 others.

Another 14 people were killed in a strike on Sunday morning near a UN-run school being used as a shelter for displaced people in Nuseirat, central Gaza, journalists at the scene said. Israel said Hamas militants were present in the area.

Sunday’s bombings add to what was already one of the deadliest weeks of Israeli aerial attacks on Gaza since the war broke out nine months ago.

Deif, 58, who has been on Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995 and escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts, is believed to be the chief architect of the attack in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped, sparking the Israel-Gaza war. More than 38,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory operation in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-administered territory, and the population of 2.3 million people is in the grips of a devastating humanitarian crisis.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Rafa Salama, the head of Hamas’s Khan Younis brigade, was also targeted and successfully “neutralised” in the same strike. The Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Aswat reported on Sunday that Hamas sources had confirmed Salama’s death.

Speaking on Saturday night, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “There is still no conclusive certainty that the two [Deif and Salama] have been foiled, but I want to assure you that one way or another we will reach the top of Hamas.”

Hamas’s deputy leader, Khalil al-Hayya, told Al Jazeera TV that the group’s top military commander had not been killed and, addressing Netanyahu, said: “Deif is listening to you right now and mocking your lies.”

Another Hamas official told Agence France-Presse Deif was “fine” and working despite the Israeli attack, without providing evidence.

Deif, which means “the guest” in Arabic, is the nickname for the 58-year-old commander, whose real name is Mohammed al-Masri. He has spent years frequently changing locations to elude Israeli detection. Engaged with Hamas from a young age, the former science student orchestrated a series of suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians in the 1990s and then again a decade later.

On 7 October, Hamas issued a rare voice recording of Deif announcing operation “Al-Aqsa Flood”.

Killing Deif would provide a much-needed morale boost for Israel, which in almost 10 months of fighting has so far failed to take out any of Hamas’s top leadership despite remarks from Netanyahu that the men were “marked for death”.

Gaza’s health ministry said the strike targeting Deif and Salama hit a camp for displaced people in the Khan Younis area, killing at least 92 Palestinians and injuring more than 300 others. Residents said they witnessed at least five “big warplanes bombing in the middle of al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis”.

Mawasi, on the Mediterranean shoreline, is an Israeli-designated “evacuation zone” that Israel has described as safe for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. Israel’s military has not confirmed the exact location of the strike. The area has been hit before.

Hamas said Israel’s claim it had targeted leaders of the Palestinian militant group were “false” and aimed at “justifying” the attack. A senior Hamas official told AFP on Sunday that the Palestinian militant group had withdrawn from talks on a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the Gaza war because of what it called Israeli “massacres” and its attitude in negotiations.

Two Egyptian security sources told Reuters on Saturday that the latest round of Gaza ceasefire talks had been halted after three days of intense negotiations failed to produce a viable outcome, blaming Israel for lacking a “genuine intent to reach agreement”.

However, other statements from Hamas officials on Sunday denied the group had withdrawn from the talks. A spokesperson, Jihad Taha, said: “There is no doubt that the horrific massacres will impact any efforts in the negotiations.” But he added: “Efforts and endeavours of the mediators remain ongoing.”

A few hours before, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, accused Netanyahu of seeking to block a deal to end the war with “heinous massacres”. He said in a statement that Hamas had shown “a positive and responsible response” to new proposals for a ceasefire and prisoner and hostage exchange, but “the Israeli position taken by Netanyahu was to place obstacles that prevent reaching an agreement”.

Thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets over the weekend in what have become weekly protests across the country, accusing Netanyahu of sabotaging the negotiations for political gain. Among the demonstrators were the families of hostages, who made a symbolic march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Relatives of those still held captive in Gaza by Hamas fear the recent escalation of bombings in the Palestinian territory may hinder the safe return home of their loved ones. At least 40 hostages are believed to have died since they were seized last October, Israel says.

“In light of recent events in the Gaza Strip, the families of the hostages remind prime minister Netanyahu that there can be no victory until all 120 hostages are returned home,” read a statement from the Hostage and Missing Families Forum. “The proposed deal is in its final stages. We have been waiting for them for 282 days. Time is of the essence; there’s not a moment more to lose.”

David Lammy is to call for an immediate ceasefire during talks with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on his first visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as foreign secretary.

Lammy said he would push for the release of all hostages as well as an increase in aid into Gaza, announcing a new £5.5m humanitarian and medical assistance package.

Echoing the calls for a ceasefire made by Keir Starmer to both Israeli and Palestinian leaders upon entering No 10, Lammy said the UK wanted to play a “full diplomatic role” in bringing about a lasting end to the conflict.

Labour came in for heavy criticism for its early response to the conflict in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks by Hamas inside Israel that led to a significant loss of votes in some areas with high numbers of Muslim voters, including the election of four pro-Gaza independent candidates in seats targeted by the party.

Lammy will also raise the issue of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank when he meets Netanyahu. Lammy is to meet the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, as well. The British aid package will go to UK-Med, a frontline medical aid charity that includes many NHS medics who are in the region to support field hospitals in Gaza and the emergency department at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis.

“The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable,” Lammy said, before the visit. “This war must end now, with an immediate ceasefire, complied with by both sides. The fighting has got to stop, the hostages still cruelly detained by Hamas terrorists need to be released immediately and aid must be allowed in to reach the people of Gaza without restrictions.”

He said it was the UK’s “ambition and commitment” to play a role in securing a ceasefire deal and a renewed path towards a two-state solution. “The world needs a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable and sovereign Palestinian state,” Lammy said.

“Central to this is to see an end to expanding illegal Israeli settlements and rising settler violence in the West Bank. Here, in what should be a crucial part of a Palestinian state, alongside Gaza and East Jerusalem, we need to see a reformed and empowered Palestinian Authority.”

In Israel, Lammy will also meet the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, and families with links to the UK whose relatives still being held hostage in Gaza or have been murdered by Hamas. The foreign secretary will say there are more than 680 tonnes of UK aid waiting to enter Gaza, including medicines, shelters and hygiene kits – and the Foreign Office said he would push for a rapid increase in aid being allowed into the territory.

The government has stopped short of saying the UK will unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state. Lammy said he would acknowledge the recognition of a Palestinian state was an “undeniable right of the Palestinian people”. He added that the UK would recognise the state as part of a renewed peace process, as well as condemning settlements in the West Bank as illegal and harmful.

In the short amount of time he has spent at the top of his sport, Carlos Alcaraz has already enjoyed a career with few comparisons. He has won big titles at a faster rate than all but a couple of 21-year-olds in history and he has barely scratched at the surface of his talents. With every new triumph, he is closer to becoming the dominant force in his sport.

That moment may have just arrived. A year after wresting the Wimbledon title from Novak ­Djokovic’s grasp in five breathless sets, Alcaraz produced an incredible performance under pressure to dismantle the seven-time champion Djokovic 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (4) and triumph at Wimbledon for a second year in a row. Alcaraz is now four-time grand slam title winner and he joins Roger Federer as the only men to win their first four grand slam finals.

With this victory, Alcaraz becomes just the sixth player have won the men’s titles at Roland ­Garros and Wimbledon in the same year, known colloquially as the “Channel Slam”. This is also Alcaraz’s first grand slam title defence and it marks the first time he has won multiple slam titles in the same calendar year.

“It’s a huge honour for me to be part of those players who have achieved Roland Garros and Wimbledon in the same year,” Alcaraz said of matching Rod Laver, Björn Borg, Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Djokovic. “Really glad to be in the same table as Novak to do it. Huge champions; I don’t consider myself a champion yet, not as them, but I try to keep going, to keep ­building my path, my journey.”

After tearing his meniscus during the French Open and quickly undergoing surgery, Djokovic’s run to the final was a significant achievement in itself. But the 37-year-old had also reached the final without ­facing a top‑10 opponent – the ninth seed Alex de Minaur withdrew before their quarter-final – meaning he had not been tested by one of the elite.

More importantly, nothing in Djokovic’s path to the final prepared him for the extravagant ball‑striking, variety and suffocating intensity with which Alcaraz plays.

From the start, Djokovic was terrified of trading with Alcaraz from the baseline. He tried to shorten points by approaching the net as early as possible but Alcaraz picked him off whenever he tried to approach. By the time the Spaniard led 6-2, 2-0, Djokovic had won just four points of his 14 net approaches.

As Alcaraz established a formidable lead, he struck the ball with increasing freedom, launching himself into nuclear forehands, closing down the net and keeping Djokovic ­guessing with a steady helping of drop shots. Time after time, Alcaraz forced his opponent to scramble in his forehand corner, making Djokovic defend on his vulnerable right knee in a way that none of his pre­vious opponents had done.

It was not until Djokovic trailed by two sets that he finally began to serve well and string holds together. Still, the momentum shifted only as Alcaraz reached 5-4, 40-0 on his serve. The three championship points were quickly erased, with help from a spectator who screamed just before Alcaraz overhit a forehand drive volley on the third. Two forehand errors later, they were tied at 5-5.

“It was 40-0 but I was seeing so far away,” Alcaraz said. “Novak is an unbelievable fighter. I knew that he was going to have his chances again so I had to stay there.”

To his immense credit, Alcaraz did not move. He held serve, forced a tie-break and resumed control of the match. At 5-4, two service points from victory, Alcaraz had the ­audacity to attempt an inch-perfect drop‑shot winner to reach championship point again. This time, he held his nerve to close out a brilliant win.

Despite holding two grand slam titles, Alcaraz will not rise above his current ranking of No 3, behind Djokovic and Jannik Sinner. While the Spaniard has regularly shown his brilliance over the past two years, the next step in his career has been to learn how to do so week after week while also remaining healthy.

Over the past two months, Alcaraz has navigated the forearm injury that badly hurt his Roland Garros preparation, the difficult surface transition from clay to grass and the growing physical and mental fatigue that comes with going deep in ­tournaments. Still, he found a way to end both tournaments triumphantly. In the coming years, he will only grow more accustomed to winning under all circumstances.

Considering he does not expe­rience the sensation very often, ­Djokovic is a great loser. After both players were presented their trophies by the Princess of Wales, in her second public appearance since ­announcing her cancer diagnosis, Djokovic delivered his consolation speech with typical grace.

“Credit to Carlos for really playing some amazing tennis, very complete tennis from the back of the court, serve,” he said. “He had it all today. I tried to push him, save the three match points and extend the match a little bit but it wasn’t meant to be. He was an absolutely deserved winner today so congratulations to him.”

As he celebrated another tremen­dous achievement, the victory allowed Alcaraz to shift his attention towards Berlin for Spain’s Euro 2024 final against England, which presented the opportunity for Sunday to mark a majestic moment in Spanish sport: “I’ve already done my job,” he said. “So let’s see in the football.”

The Princess of Wales has made her second public appearance since announcing her cancer diagnosis, attending an occasionally rowdy Wimbledon men’s final where she was welcomed with a standing ovation.

Catherine, who is the patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, presented the men’s singles trophy to Carlos Alcaraz, who beat Novak Djokovic in straight sets. The princess attended Sunday’s final with her daughter, Princess Charlotte, and her sister, Pippa Matthews.

Before handing Alcaraz the trophy, Catherine spoke to ballboys and ballgirls who lined up around her, and shook Djokovic’s hand.

When she first appeared at Centre Court, which has a seat capacity of nearly 15,000, the princess was greeted with cheers and applause. She was joined in the royal box by a host of A-list celebrities including Tom Cruise, Benedict Cumberbatch, Julia Roberts, Zendaya and the former world No 1 Andre Agassi.

The venue’s genteel atmosphere was broken a few times by loud supporters of both players. On at least one occasion, officials warned spectators to keep quiet and not call out their names.

Towards the end of the match, Djokovic was the target of some boos in the audience and there were more jeers after Alcaraz was asked about the Euros by Annabel Croft, who interviewed him on Centre Court shortly after his win. England is due to play Spain in the football tournament’s final on Sunday evening.

“Now, dare I bring up the football? Where are you going to be watching it?” Croft asked.

“With my team, for sure. I watch it for sure. I’ve already done my job … Now let’s see the football. It’s going to be a really difficult match,” Alcaraz responded, to the seeming approval of the crowd.

Alcaraz told the spectators at Centre Court that winning the trophy, his second consecutive victory at Wimbledon, was a “dream”.

“I did an interview when I was 11 and I said my dream is to win Wimbledon,” he said.

Meeting Alcaraz after the match, the princess said: “This is Charlotte, she was cheering you on. We had everything crossed. We’ve watched you a lot, so it’s nice to finally meet you. You’re playing so well, so well done, enjoy the win.”

Catherine arrived at the tournament in SW19 less than an hour before the final was due to begin on Sunday afternoon. She did not attend the women’s singles final on Saturday, and the Wimbledon chair, Debbie Jevans, presented the trophy to Barbora Krejčíková on her behalf.

Before the men’s final, Catherine and her daughter met Emma Raducanu, Sonay Kartal, Lily Miyazaki, Lucy Shuker and Flora Johnson as they arrived on the players’ lawn before entering Centre Court.

Raducanu said it was “amazing” to have the support of the princess and “see her here looking so healthy and happy”. Catherine told Raducanu, who was knocked out in the fourth round of this year’s championships: “It was so hard to see you go out.”

Elsewhere in the tournament, the British player Alfie Hewitt beat Martín de la Puente in the men’s wheelchair singles final and, partnered with fellow Briton Gordon Reid, also won in the wheelchair doubles.

The princess has been undergoing chemotherapy and made her first public appearance since announcing her cancer diagnosis in March at the trooping the colour ceremony in London last month.

Prince William was due to be in Berlin later on Sunday, as president of the Football Association, to attend England’s Euro 2024 final against Spain. Some spectators at Wimbledon could be seen wearing white England football shirts at the championships on Sunday morning.

Shannen Doherty, star of Beverly Hills 90210 and Heathers, has died at the age of 53.

A statement from her publicist Leslie Sloane, cited by People magazine, said: “It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the passing of actress Shannen Doherty. On Saturday, July 13, she lost her battle with cancer after many years of fighting the disease.”

The actor had been first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015 and underwent a mastectomy. In 2020, she said that her diagnosis was then terminal, calling it “a bitter pill to swallow” in a Good Morning America interview.

In June 2023, Doherty shared an Instagram post that revealed news that cancer had spread to her brain alongside a video of her receiving treatment. “My fear is obvious,” she wrote.

Doherty started working at a young age with small-screen roles in Father Murphy and Little House on the Prairie and big-screen roles in The Secret of NIMH and Girls Just Want to Have Fun all before the age of 15.

In 1988, Doherty starred in the dark comedy Heathers alongside Winona Ryder. While it wasn’t a financial success at the time, it since became a cult favourite, widely seen as one of the best high school films ever. She later made a cameo appearance in the pilot of a TV adaptation.

Two years later, Doherty found success as Brenda Walsh in hit teen drama Beverly Hills 90210, which averaged over 21 million viewers by its fourth season. “We get accosted in malls,” said Doherty of the show’s success in 1992. “Basically, it takes over your life.”

Doherty left before season five but later returned for the 2008 reboot and 2019’s meta BH90210, where she played herself.

She also found major success in witchcraft drama Charmed, which she starred in for three seasons. She also directed a number of episodes. Her film roles included Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back for the film-maker Kevin Smith.

When Doherty shared her latest update in June 2023, Smith wrote: “You have been such a fearless fighter your whole life, so it’s understandable to be a little scared from time to time. But when those moments pass, let that indomitable Doherty spirit take over anew. I love you so much, my Mallrat.”

Doherty was often positioned as a troublemaker in the press, with People magazine once referring to her the “iconic Hollywood bad girl of the 90s”. Addressing her reputation in 1992, Doherty pushed back on being difficult.

“If you consider ‘difficult’ being a strong woman who sticks up for herself, yeah, I admit to it,” she says. “I’m open to different ideas, but if you get on my bad side and don’t listen to me and you don’t treat me with as much respect as you treat a man, you’ve got a problem.”

In 2010, Doherty addressed it again: “I have a rep. Did I earn it? Yeah, I did. But, after a while you sort of try to shed that rep because you’re kind of a different person. You’ve evolved and all of the bad things you’ve done in your life have brought you to a much better place.”

Four people died in a shooting with multiple victims at a Birmingham nightclub late Saturday, while an earlier shooting outside a home in the city killed three people including a young child, police in Alabama said.

Officers responded shortly after 11pm to a report of multiple people shot outside a nightclub on the 3400 Block of 27th Street North, Birmingham police department officer Truman Fitzgerald said in a video posted on social media.

Birmingham fire and rescue personnel pronounced one man dead on a sidewalk near the nightclub. Two women were pronounced dead inside the club, Fitzgerald said.

A second man was pronounced dead at University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital, where at least nine additional victims were being treated for gunshot wounds, he said.

Victims were transported by emergency medical personnel or traveled to the hospital on their own, Fitzgerald said.

Investigators believe at least one suspect fired shots into the nightclub from the street, Fitzgerald said. Federal law enforcement authorities are assisting Birmingham police with the investigation.

Separately, police responded around 5.20pm to a report of a vehicle accident in the 1700 block of Indian Summer Drive in Birmingham. Police found a car that appeared to have been shot into located in the front yard of a home, Fitzgerald said.

Inside the vehicle were a man, woman and a small boy believed to be as young as five years old who had suffered gunshot wounds. Birmingham fire and rescue pronounced all three dead at the scene, he said.

Investigators believe they were victims of a “targeted shooting” before the suspect fled in a vehicle, Fitzgerald said.

Police asked area residents to provide footage from home surveillance cameras to assist the investigation.

Four people died in a shooting with multiple victims at a Birmingham nightclub late Saturday, while an earlier shooting outside a home in the city killed three people including a young child, police in Alabama said.

Officers responded shortly after 11pm to a report of multiple people shot outside a nightclub on the 3400 Block of 27th Street North, Birmingham police department officer Truman Fitzgerald said in a video posted on social media.

Birmingham fire and rescue personnel pronounced one man dead on a sidewalk near the nightclub. Two women were pronounced dead inside the club, Fitzgerald said.

A second man was pronounced dead at University of Alabama at Birmingham hospital, where at least nine additional victims were being treated for gunshot wounds, he said.

Victims were transported by emergency medical personnel or traveled to the hospital on their own, Fitzgerald said.

Investigators believe at least one suspect fired shots into the nightclub from the street, Fitzgerald said. Federal law enforcement authorities are assisting Birmingham police with the investigation.

Separately, police responded around 5.20pm to a report of a vehicle accident in the 1700 block of Indian Summer Drive in Birmingham. Police found a car that appeared to have been shot into located in the front yard of a home, Fitzgerald said.

Inside the vehicle were a man, woman and a small boy believed to be as young as five years old who had suffered gunshot wounds. Birmingham fire and rescue pronounced all three dead at the scene, he said.

Investigators believe they were victims of a “targeted shooting” before the suspect fled in a vehicle, Fitzgerald said.

Police asked area residents to provide footage from home surveillance cameras to assist the investigation.

A city in northern Germany has become the first to issue an all-out ban on the use of a hand gesture used to encourage silence in the classroom because of its close resemblance to a far-right Turkish gesture.

The “silent fox” gesture – where the hand is posed to resemble an animal with upright ears (the little and forefinger) and a closed mouth (the middle fingers pressed against the thumb) – has long been seen as a useful teaching tool by educators in Germany and elsewhere. It signals to children that they should stop talking and listen to their teacher.

But authorities in the port city of Bremen say the symbol is “in danger of being mistaken” for the right-wing extremist “wolf salute”, from which it is indistinguishable.

The salute was recently the focus of a diplomatic and sporting row, when the Turkish national football player Merih Demiral used it to celebrate scoring a goal in Turkey’s round of 16 match against Austria at the Euros earlier this month.

While the symbol not banned in Germany as it is in neighbouring Austria and France, its use was condemned by interior minister Nancy Faeser, who said “to use the football championships as a platform for racism” was “completely unacceptable.”

After the summoning of Turkey’s ambassador to Berlin and Germany’s ambassador to Ankara, the European football governing body Uefa issued Demiral with a two-match ban.

Protests over his ban led to calls among Turkish fans for the symbol to be used even more widely as an expression of their anger at what the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called an “unfair and biased” reaction. “Does anybody ask why the German national jersey has an eagle, or the French jersey a rooster?” he asked reporters ahead of Turkey’s quarter-final encounter with the Netherlands in Berlin.

Erdoğan said the ban was politically motivated, and that Demiral had merely used the gesture to show his excitement.

Germany is home to an estimated 3 million ethnic Turks, who make up the country’s largest single ethnic minority and form the largest Turkish diaspora globally.

Patricia Brandt, a spokesperson for Bremen’s education authority, said the topic of the silent fox gesture and whether to ban it had long been under discussion but the city felt it now had no choice. “The political meaning of the hand gesture is absolutely incompatible with the values of the city of Bremen,” she said.

But she added that increasingly teachers had anyway considered the gesture to be “pedagogically outdated”, and its “regulatory style” to be too dogmatic and condescending.

The wolf salute is the symbol and identifying logo of the Grey Wolves, which is classified as a rightwing extremist group and has an estimated 20,000 members in Germany and many more outside the country. Grey Wolves is described by extremism experts as hardline nationalist and Islamist, with hatred shown to Kurds, Jews, Christians, Armenians, Greeks, the EU and the US. The group, which has a long history of terrorism dating back to the 1970s, has been blamed for bomb attacks in Paris and Bangkok, and the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981.

The silent fox symbol is used not just in Germany but by teachers around the world, and is known variously as the whispering fox, the listening fox, and as the quiet coyote in the US.

The Bremen ban follows a wider debate in Germany. The president of the German Teachers’ Association, Stefan Düll, called last week for teachers to show greater sensitivity in its use at primary schools and kindergartens. He said there were other ways of encouraging children to be quiet.

Some schools have reportedly started using gongs and other sign language or picture symbols instead.

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” used in lithium ion batteries essential to the clean energy transition present a dangerous source of chemical pollution that new research finds threatens the environment and human health as the nascent industry scales up.

The multipronged, peer-reviewed study zeroed in on a little-researched and unregulated subclass of PFAS called bis-FASI that are used in lithium ion batteries.

Researchers found alarming levels of the chemicals in the environment near manufacturing plants, noted their presence in remote areas around the world, found they appear to be toxic to living organisms, and discovered that waste from batteries disposed of in landfills was a major pollution source.

The nation faces “two critical challenges – to minimize aquatic pollution and increase our use of clean and sustainable energy, and both are worthy causes”, said Jennifer Guelfo, a Texas Tech University researcher and study co-author.

“But there’s a bit of tug-of-war between the two, and this study highlights that we have an opportunity now as we scale up this energy infrastructure to do a better job of incorporating environmental risk assessments,” she added.

PFAS are a class of about 16,000 human-made compounds most often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. They are called “forever chemicals” because they do not naturally break down and have been found to accumulate in humans. The chemicals are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, plummeting sperm counts and a range of other serious health problems.

Public health advocates are increasingly sounding the alarm over the need to find alternatives to the toxic chemicals for clean energy technology, such as batteries and wind turbines, as the transition progresses.

The paper notes that few end-of-life standards for PFAS battery waste exist, and the vast majority ends up in municipal dumps where it can leach into waterways, accumulate locally or be transported long distances.

It looked at the presence of the chemicals in historical leachate samples and found none in those from prior to the mid-1990s, when the chemical class was commercialized.

The study noted previous research that bis-FASI can be reused, though as little as 5% of lithium batteries are recycled. That could yield a projected 8m tons of battery waste by 2040 if battery recycling is not dramatically scaled up with demand.

“This says that we should be taking a closer look at this class of PFAS,” Guelfo said.

Since very little toxicological data on bis-FASI exists, the study also checked for effects on invertebrates and zebrafish. It found effects at low exposure levels, which suggests toxicity in line with other PFAS compounds known to be dangerous.

Researchers also sampled water, soil and air around a 3M plant in Minnesota and other large facilities known to make the chemicals. The soil and water levels were concerning, Guelfo said, and detection of the chemicals in snow suggests the chemicals easily move through the atmosphere.

That may help explain why the chemicals have been found in Chinese seawater and other remote areas not close to production plants.

While the most commonly used PFAS definitions globally include bis-FASI, one division of the EPA does not consider it to belong to the chemical class, so it was not included on a list of compounds to be monitored in US water. The EPA has drawn criticism for using a narrow definition of PFAS that public health advocates say has excluded some chemicals at the industry’s behest.

However, the new research, taken with previous evidence, shows bis-FASI are persistent, mobile and toxic like most other PFAS, noted Lee Ferguson, a Duke University researcher and co-author.

“That classification combined with the huge ramp-up in clean energy storage that we’re seeing should at least ring some alarm bells,” he said.

A hundred years ago, the plant scientist Arthur Watkins launched a remarkable project. He began collecting samples of wheat from all over the globe, nagging consuls and business agents across the British empire and beyond to supply him with grain from local markets.

His persistence was exceptional and, a century later, it is about to reap dramatic results. A UK-Chinese collaboration has sequenced the DNA of all the 827 kinds of wheat, assembled by Watkins, that have been nurtured at the John Innes Centre near Norwich for most of the past century.

In doing so, scientists have created a genetic goldmine by pinpointing previously unknown genes that are now being used to create hardy varieties with improved yields that could help feed Earth’s swelling population.

Strains are now being developed that include wheat which is able to grow in salty soil, while researchers at Punjab Agricultural University are working to improve disease resistance from seeds that they received from the John Innes Centre. Other strains include those that would reduce the need for nitrogen fertilisers, the manufacture of which is a major source of carbon emissions.

“Essentially we have uncovered a goldmine,” said Simon Griffiths, a geneticist at the John Innes Centre and one of the project’s leaders.

“This is going to make an enormous difference to our ability to feed the world as it gets hotter and agriculture comes under increasing climatic strain.”

Today, one in five calories consumed by humans come from wheat, and every year the crop is eaten by more and more people as the world’s population continues to grow.

“Wheat has been a cornerstone of human civilisation,” added Griffiths. “In regions such as Europe, north Africa, large parts of Asia, and subsequently North America, its cultivation fed great empires, from ancient Egypt’s to the growth of modern Britain.”

This wheat was derived from wild varieties that were originally domesticated and cultivated in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East, 10,000 years ago. Many of these varieties and their genes have disappeared over the millennia, a process that was accelerated about a century ago as the science of plant breeding became increasingly sophisticated and varieties with properties that were then considered of no value were discarded.

“That is why the Watkins collection is so important,” said Griffiths. “It contains varieties that had been lost but which will be invaluable in creating wheat that can provide healthy yields in the harsh conditions that now threaten agriculture.”

The project’s other leader, Prof Shifeng Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said: “We can retrace the novel, functional and beneficial diversity that were lost in modern wheats after the ‘green revolution’ in the 20th century, and have the opportunity to add them back into breeding programmes.”

Scientists had wanted to pinpoint and study the wheat genes in the Watkins collection after the development of large-scale DNA sequencing more than a decade ago, but faced an unusual problem. The genome of wheat is huge: it is made up of 17bn units of DNA, compared with the 3bn base pairs that make up the human genome.

“The wheat genome is full of ­little retro elements and that has made it more difficult and, crucially, more expensive to sequence,” said Griffiths. “However, thanks to our Chinese colleagues who carried out the detailed sequencing work, we have overcome that problem.”

Griffiths and his colleagues sent samples from the Watkins collection to Cheng and were rewarded three months later with the arrival of a suitcase crammed with hard drives. These contained a petabyte – one million gigabytes – of data that had been decoded by the Chinese group using the Watkins collection.

Astonishingly, this data revealed that modern wheat varieties only make use of 40% of the genetic diversity found in the collection.

“We have found that the Watkins collection is packed full of useful variation which is simply absent in modern wheat,” said Griffiths.

These lost traits are now being tested by plant breeders with the aim of creating a host of new varieties that would have been forgotten if it had not been for the efforts of Arthur Watkins.

A shy pioneer

Arthur Watkins’s introduction to agriculture was unusual. At the age of 19, he was sent to fight in the trenches in the first world war. He survived, and for several months after the armistice he was ordered to remain in France to act as an assistant agricultural officer, tasked with helping local farmers feed the troops who were still waiting to be shipped home.

The post triggered his interest in agriculture and he applied to study it at Cambridge when he returned to Britain, said Simon Griffiths of the John Innes Centre. After graduating, Watkins – a shy, reserved academic – joined the university’s department of agriculture, where he began his life’s work: collecting wheat samples from across the planet.

“Crucially, Watkins had realised that, as we began breeding new wheat varieties, genes that were then thought to be of little use and which were being deleted from strains might still have future value,” said Griffiths.

“His thinking was incredibly ahead of its time. He realised that genetic diversity – in this case, of wheat – was being eroded and that we badly needed to halt that.

“Very few scientists were thinking of this issue in those days. Watkins was clearly thinking well ahead of his time, and we have much to be grateful for that.”

A heatwave that impacted the US west coast over the past week is now moving east into the midwest and south-east, as millions of Americans have been under a heat alert at some point in the past week.

“Numerous near record-tying/breaking high temperatures are possible over the central High Plains and Southeast Sunday, and along much of the East Coast by Monday,” reported the National Weather Service.

Cities on the east coast such as Baltimore and Washington DC will experience temperatures up to 100F (38C) this Tuesday. Temperatures in the west are expected to fall to typical summer averages.

New York City is expected to experience temperatures as high as the mid-90s on Tuesday, with a forecasted heat index between 95-100F from Monday to Wednesday. while some areas around the city could expect heat index of up to 105F.

Over 245 million Americans are expected to experience 90F temperatures between Sunday and Wednesday this week, with at least 30 million to experience temperatures of 100F or higher, according to forecasts by AccuWeather.

Daily records in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, are forecasted to possibly face record break temperatures. St Louis, Missouri, is anticipating temperatures near or above 100F through Monday.

“Keep in mind that the elderly, small children, people on medication, or with weight or alcohol problems are most susceptible to heat related stresses,” cautioned the National Weather Service ahead of the heatwave shifting to the east. “This is especially true during a heatwave in areas where a more moderate climate prevails, such as Wisconsin. It’s a good idea to periodically check in with those most susceptible to the heat and help them obtain relief from the extreme heat and humidity.”

June 2024 was the hottest month of June on record and the 13th consecutive hottest month on record, with 14.5% of the world’s surface reporting record heat, beating June 2023 by 7.4%.

Las Vegas, Nevada, recorded a record-breaking seven consecutive days of temperatures 115F or higher this past week, and recorded its all time highest temperature of 120F on 7 July.

Some 37 heat-related deaths in the US have been reported so far in July 2024, which is likely an underestimate due to the time it takes for investigations into deaths to be completed.

To screenwriters in the 1950s, she was a major power player, fighting for pay rises and striking rights. To the Hollywood studio heads, she was “the meanest bitch in town”.

Now, a new book aims to restore Mary C McCall Jr’s reputation as one of the film industry’s most important figures, a trailblazer who was airbrushed from history after getting on the wrong side of movie moguls.

Prof J E Smyth, whose book, Mary C McCall Jr: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Most Powerful Screenwriter, will be published in September, said: “[McCall] was targeted by right-wing men who didn’t like the amount of power she had had during the 1930s and 1940s and they were going after her …

“The Hollywood blacklist cleaned a lot of women out of the industry, and she was one. Then historians and film critics erased her, because all they’ve ever cared about is great male directors … At McCall’s death in 1986, aged 81, archives did not even want her papers, and she has simply been forgotten. Material relating to women was just deemed not worthwhile.”

Smyth, professor of history at the University of Warwick, discovered material in the archives of Warner Bros, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Writers Guild Foundation, as well as private collections, that shed new light on McCall, who became the first female president of the Screen Writers Guild in 1942.

Smyth unearthed letters and an unpublished memoir that McCall wrote for her children about her career, as well as records of the work she did for female screenwriters who were having difficulty maintaining credit, or getting paid equally by producers. She said: “The material was there, but … none of the people who were writing about the Hollywood studio system wanted to actually deal with it.”

Smyth added: “We’re so wedded to the narrative of the golden age of Hollywood being about gorgeous women who do what they’re told, and the male moguls who were running the show, that between 1920 and 1960 women were only ever talked about if they were objectified on screen … There was also an assumption that most of the scripts were written by men. “But it’s total rubbish. Half of all cinematic employees within Hollywood were female and they could do just about anything in the business, including being producers. A quarter of all screenwriters were women – more than now.”

As a screenwriter, McCall wrote for Warner Bros, Columbia Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Her films included Craig’s Wife, a 1936 box-office success about a woman who marries for money not love – a nuanced critique of marriage and sexual inequality – and she was friends with actors including Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart.

She also launched the successful Maisie series in 1939, writing or co-writing eight of the 10 films about a wise-cracking working-class showgirl, played by comedian Ann Sothern, a role that turned her into one of the biggest stars of the 1940s.

Smyth said: “It was an early franchise that became really popular. While major Hollywood films – for example, Gone with the Wind from 1939 – played primarily in lavish cinemas in big cities, Maisie played primarily in small-town cinemas and had a loyal fanbase, driven by women who finally were seeing a woman on screen who was like them.

“Maisie didn’t wear designer clothes, she didn’t have a top hairdresser, she didn’t have perfect makeup. She had to put up with a lot of crap from men – and women loved it.” McCall also campaigned for fellow writers, said Smyth.

“She [led] a fight to unionise the industry’s writers and secure the first contract guaranteeing a minimum wage, credit protection and pay raises, as well as the right to strike. She was a power player. To studio heads she was, in the words of Jack Warner, ‘the meanest bitch in town’.”

In a legal case against mogul Howard Hughes, the head of RKO Pictures studio, McCall defended a writer he had fired for being subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which conducted investigations during the 1940s and 1950s into alleged communist activities.

McCall said: “I did not intend to permit Mr Hughes to trample on a labour agreement with muddy tennis shoes.” But in 1979, she spoke of her belief that Hughes had played a part in destroying her career, persuading other producers not to hire her. “As a consequence … I was unable to find work.”

Smyth hopes to put McCall back in her rightful place in the history books. “Historians that started to write about Hollywood in the 1960s were the ones who really cut women out of the story of Hollywood,” she said.