All eyes will be on Venus Williams as she makes her surprise return to professional tennis at the age of 45 at the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 in Washington, DC, on 21 July.
The seven-time Grand Slam champion will take part in her first professional tournament since the 2024 Miami Open after she accepted a wild card to enter the main draw of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025.
She will face fellow American Peyton Stearns in the first round on Monday for the first clash between the two players.
The Samsung Galaxy Z foldables went on pre-order last week and are now heading into their second week. Open sales will begin soon, but in the meantime, you can have a free storage upgrade. Additionally, Amazon offers a £100 gift card – considering that Prime is £95 a year, it practically pays for itself.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 is super thin, possibly the thinnest horizontal foldable. It has DeX multitasking on large 6.5” cover and 8.0” inner displays with a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset. The phone is equipped with a 200MP main camera (plus 10MP 3x tele and 12MP ultra-wide). The 4,400mAh battery is small and slow to charge (25W/15W) and the S Pen is no longer supported.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 is also slimmer than its predecessor but also brings a battery upgrade to 4,300mAh – that’s almost as much as the Z Fold7. However, charging is slow at 25W/15W. The new model has larger cover (4.1”) and main (6.9”) displays but the same old cameras (with HDR videos being the key upgrade). All Z Flip7s sold globally are powered by the new Exynos 2500. New this year is DeX support.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 FE is £200 less than the premium Flip. However, you sacrifice performance (old Exynos 2400 chipset), battery (4,000mAh) and display size (3.4” cover, 6.7” main), not to mention that it is thicker (14.9mm folded, 6.9mm unfolded vs. 13.7mm, 6.5mm).
The Z Flip7 FE is essentially 2024 hardware – so why not look at other old clamshell foldables? Like the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra, for example. This has bigger displays (4.0” and 6.9”), a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset and a 50+50MP camera with a 2x telephoto lens.
Moving on to Google’s phones, the 9-series is around £300 off at the moment. This brings the Google Pixel 9 Pro under £1,000, even if you are looking at the 512GB model. And you may have to as 128GB is too small and 256GB is out of stock.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro offers much the same hardware in a smaller package – 6.3” vs. 6.8” display and 4,700mAh vs. 5,060mAh battery. Check out our detailed comparison for a closer look.
The Google Pixel 9 is the same size as the Pro and features the same Tensor G4 chipset. It has two of the same cameras too, the 50MP 1/1.31” main and 48MP ultra-wide, but lacks a telephoto module. Head over to our Pixel 9 vs. 9 Pro article for more details.
The Google Pixel 9a only has a small discount, so there isn’t much separating it from the Pixel 9 in terms of price, especially if you look at the 256GB models. Here’s the Pixel 9 vs. 9a head-to-head comparison for a closer look.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE doesn’t have the biggest discount either, but it does come with a free Galaxy Watch7. With a price close to the Pixel 9a, this one has the better chipset (Exynos 2400e), a dedicated telephoto camera (10MP 3x/75mm) and a bigger 6.7” display.
The Nothing Phone (3) has a love-it-or-hate-it design. Its 6.67” 1260p+ OLED display is an LTPS panel and is hooked up to a Snapdragon 8s Gen 4 chipset. There are four 50MP cameras on board – 1/1.3” main, 1/2.75” 3x periscope and 114° ultra-wide on the back, plus a 1/2.76” selfie camera. The battery in the global model is 5,150mAh with 65W wired and 15W wireless charging. The Phone (3) comes with a free pair of Nothing Ear TWS buds.
It could have been paired with something like the new Nothing Headphone (1) over-ears, for example. But if you want those, you will have to pay the full £300 price.
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The first team will raise the curtain on the 2025/26 pre-season this Monday, 21 July. On that day, four weeks of intense preparation will begin, all with a view to the league opener, in which we’ll face RCD Espanyol on Sunday 17 August at 21:30 CEST in Barcelona.
Early on Monday morning, our players will undergo medical tests at the Majadahonda Training Centre and will then head to Los Ángeles de San Rafael, where they will hold their first training session that same afternoon at 18:30 CEST. As usual, the Hotel Segovia Sierra de Guadarrama will once again serve as the team’s base during their stay in the province of Segovia, where they will remain until Saturday 26 July.
After a rest day, the team will resume training in Majadahonda on Monday 28 July. Following six days of work, on Sunday 3 August they will travel to the Estádio do Dragão to take on FC Porto, with kick-off scheduled for 20:00 CEST.
This friendly will be the first of the pre-season, which will also include a trip to St James’ Park on Saturday 9 August, where we’ll face Newcastle United at 17:00 CEST. Between the two matches, Diego Pablo Simeone’s side will continue training in Majadahonda. After returning from England, they will complete their preparations there ahead of the start of the league season.
Security forces killed nine terrorists and captured another eight during a four-day joint operation with police, the Counter Terrorism Department, paramilitary organisations and the district administration in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Malakand district, the military’s media wing said in a statement on Sunday.
Pakistan has witnessed an uptick in terror activities over the past year, especially in KP and Balochistan, after the proscribed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) ended its ceasefire with the government in November 2022.
According to the Inter-Services Public Relations, the joint intelligence-based operation was conducted on the reported presence of terrorists belonging to Fitna Al Khawarij — a term used to designate members of the banned TTP.
“During the conduct of operation, spread over four days, [our] own forces skillfully surrounded and effectively engaged the khawarij location, and after intense multiple fire exchanges, nine Indian-sponsored khawarij were sent to hell, while eight [others] were apprehended,” the ISPR said.
The statement added that two hideouts used by terrorists were destroyed and a large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives were recovered.
“Locals of the area appreciated the operation and expressed their full support for the state’s counter-terrorism efforts,” the military’s media wing said.
“[A] sanitisation operation is being conducted to eliminate any other kharji found in the area, as the security forces and law enforcement agencies of Pakistan, in step with the nation, are determined to wipe out the menace of Indian sponsored terrorism from the country,” the statement read.
Faced with increasing attacks by militants, security forces have also intensified counterterrorism operations in KP and Balochistan.
Eleven terrorists were killed, five were injured and seven were arrested during joint operations conducted in the Hangu and Malakand districts on Saturday.
A senior army officer and two police officials were also wounded during the clash.
In a separate incident, Bannu police claimed to have shot down two explosive-laden quadcopters intended to target police stations.
The M5 iPad Pro will likely sport two front-facing cameras in vertical and horizontal positions.
The M5 iPad Pro, currently expected to launch in October 2025, will come with more than just a new chip and a thinner bezel: Apple will add a second front-facing camera in the formerly traditional portrait orientation.
The next iPad Pro will most prominently feature the M5 processor. The forthcoming update is said to have been in testing since at least March.
However, a new report says another big change is coming. Apple will add a second front-facing camera in order to make it easier for users to unlock the device when using it in its traditional vertical position, according to Bloomberg.
It’s likely that the same sensors that orient the display to landscape or portrait mode will also choose which front camera to use.
Apple moved the front-facing camera to the landscape orientation when it released the M4 iPad Pro in May 2024, along with making the device thinner and lighter. This made it possible to use Face ID while turned horizontally, as well as facilitating more use for videoconferencing and selfies.
Rumors have suggested that the bezels on the front of the M5 iPad Pro could also shrink further due to changes in the OLED display. This could make it necessary to change the design of the front-facing cameras in order to fit within the reduced bezel space.
Longstanding rumors of a foldable iPad or iPad Pro with a larger screen size are still expected to come to fruition, but on track for a debut in 2027 or possibly 2028.
The iPad Pro was first introduced in late 2015. This was quickly followed by a one-off 9.7-inch iPad Pro in early 2016, followed by successive 11-inch and 12.9-inch generations in 2017 and 2018.
The roughly annual updates continued up to the sixth-gen model in October of 2022. The current seventh-gen model arrived in May of 2024.
If the eighth-gen arrives in the fall of 2025 as expected, an M6 iPad Pro could debut as soon as early 2027.
Lois Boisson of France collected another milestone in her breakthrough season by winning her first Hologic WTA Tour singles title at the MSC Hamburg Ladies Open on Sunday.
In a battle between two first-time WTA singles finalists, No. 5 seed Boisson defeated No. 7 seed Anna Bondar of Hungary 7-5, 6-3 in the WTA 250 clay-court final. Boisson was down breaks in both sets, but battled back on each occasion to triumph in straight sets.
A season of firsts: Boisson, of course, came on the global radar when she stormed into last month’s Roland Garros semifinals as a wild card in her Grand Slam main-draw debut. Ranked No. 361 at the time, she set numerous records with her run and became the top-ranked Frenchwoman immediately after that result.
Boisson followed up by losing her first qualifying match at Wimbledon, but back on clay, she has returned to her winning ways. Currently ranked a career-high No. 63, she will better that placement in Monday’s updated PIF WTA Rankings.
Match moments: In Sunday’s final, Bondar got off to a hot start, zooming ahead by a double-break at 4-0. The Hungarian served for the set at 5-2, but she was unable to close in that game, and Boisson took full advantage.
Boisson pulled back on serve at 5-5, then avoided a late stumble by saving three break points in a hold for 6-5. The Frenchwoman wrapped up her first-set comeback with another service break, winning the last five games in a row.
In the second set, Boisson hit one of her 10 double faults to give Bondar the early break at 2-1. However, the Frenchwoman hit a deft dropshot winner to earn a service break at love and pull back on serve at 3-3.
Incredible defense by Boisson helped her scrape through a rally to break for 5-3. Serving for the championship, Boisson used some strong serves and power plays to fend off a break point in the last game and grab her first WTA title.
More to come…
Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that, as a result of the “tougher environment” in the labor market, companies are “in control again” and are warning applicants of “long hours and few boundaries”.
At the same time some industries are reporting worker shortages due to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. And then there’s artificial intelligence, which is about to devastate the jobs market – or is about to create new jobs.
Amid all this change, what do we really know about the jobs market?
Just the other week the Department of Labor said the economy added 147,000 new jobs to the economy. So that seems encouraging? But the official figures are subject to revision – and big ones too. The labor department has said its own numbers were overstated by as much as 818,000 during the first eight months of 2024.
The payroll giant ADP is more in line with the some pessimists on Wall Street, saying that the private economy shrank by 33,000 in June. But their competitor, Paychex, reported that small business employment – which represents about half of the country’s workers – has continued to “hold steady” throughout this year. Job openings “jumped” to a six-month high last month. Does anyone know how the labor market is actually doing?
No economist, no government agency, no academic that I know has yet figured out how many Americans are working or not. Why? Because it’s not just about jobs anymore. It’s about income. The “jobs” data we read isn’t relevant.
Last week a report in Fortune introduced us the concept of the “over-employed”. These are workers – many in the tech industry – that are holding down more than one job at a time, with some making as much as $3,000 per day working for multiple employers. But the over-employed trend goes beyond this.
That’s because in the same week, new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed what we already knew: workers working remotely were logging two hours less hours per day than their counterparts coming into the office. So what are they doing with this extra time? Maybe they’re watching Netflix. Others were generating more income for themselves doing other things, like starting their own businesses.
According to new data from the Census Bureau: almost 460,000 applications were filed for new businesses in June alone, a level almost twice the amount of the monthly average before the pandemic.
We all know these “workers”. Some have multiple full-time jobs. Others have multiple part-time jobs. Many have multiple sources of income. They drive Ubers. They have Etsy shops. They’re selling used sneakers on eBay and working late shifts under the table at the local bar. They write programs. They work with data. They do it all! Are we taking all of these people into consideration when analyzing the “job market?”
Some of the “over-employed” and really just underpaid and need the extra work to make ends meet, unfortunately. According to a new NerdWallet data, nearly two in five Americans are aiming to make more money this year and 10% have started a side business or second job just to cover basic necessities.
In this increasingly complicated “jobs” market perhaps it is time for economists to stop evaluating the labor market in terms of jobs. This is quickly becoming obsolete. We need to measure income.
How many people over the age of 18 in the US are earning more than, say $50,000 per year, taking into consideration all sources of income and inflation-adjusted? What percentage is that compared to the working-age population? How has that increased or decreased over time?
Isn’t this more relevant than the numbers we’re getting now? And shouldn’t the numbers come from actual, real data and not from an unreliable Department of Labor survey that’s revised 10 times after it is initially published? Can’t we get this information from tax returns, social security and private sources such as Etsy, Amazon, eBay, ADP and Paychex? Can’t this be calculated and updated monthly and annually? Of course it can.
Major economic policy decisions still hinge on the unemployment rate and jobs growth. Politicians get re-elected or ejected on this data. But in a job market that’s being shaken by AI, immigration and the rapid rise of side gigs, it’s time we rethought how we measure the health of the labor market.
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ISLAMABAD, Jul 20 (APP):The spillway of Rawal Dam will reopen on Monday, tomorrow at 6:00 AM for around five hours to boost reservoir capacity ahead of forecast rainfall in the upper catchment area, NDMA spokesman said.
The NDMA spokesman urged the public to steer clear of all waterfront zones, including riverbanks and water channels, due to heightened safety risks. Travel in low-lying areas should be limited to essential needs during the operation window.
Fishing and boating have been strictly prohibited throughout the spillway release period. He advised the citizens to remain in contact with local administration for real-time updates.
Emphasizing emergency preparedness, NDMA instructed residents to follow official advisories without delay and urged relocation of valuables and livestock to safer locations to mitigate potential flood damage.
Elaine Paige
(Photo: Christie Goodwin)
Olivier-winning actress Elaine Paige is giving Broadway.com listeners a chance to hear her BBC Radio 2 show Elaine Paige on Sunday. This week, Paige has a spritz of Hairspray, a scoop of ice cream and a heap of your requests. There’s also the latest stage and screen news and your Break A Leg messages. Catch the full episode by clicking the link below!