In a large community-based study, researchers at Fatty Acid Research Institute observed weak but statistically significant inverse associations between several types of inflammatory biomarkers with omega-6 fatty acids.
This image shows Oenothera biennis, a flower that produces an oil containing a high content of linolenic acid. Image credit: Georg Slickers / CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Chronic inflammation is recognized as an important risk factor for a variety of health disorders,” said Fatty Acid Research Institute’s president William Harris and his colleagues.
“Omega-6 fatty acids, particularly linoleic (LA) and arachidonic acid (AA), have been shown to be either pro- or anti-inflammatory, and researchers have advocated both for and against reducing their dietary intake.”
The authors relied on data from the Framingham Offspring Study, a well-known research cohort from the Boston area.
The Framingham Offspring Study is a landmark longitudinal research initiative that follows the children of participants in the original Framingham Heart Study to investigate genetic and lifestyle factors influencing cardiovascular and metabolic health.
Launched in 1971, it has provided decades of valuable insights into chronic disease risk and prevention.
The cohort’s rigor and continuity make it one of the most trusted sources for understanding long-term health trajectories.
This was a cross-sectional study, meaning that the LA and AA levels were measured in the same blood samples as the 10 inflammation-related biomarkers in 2,700 individuals.
The relationships between the levels of these two omega-6 fatty acids and 10 separate blood/urine biomarkers of inflammation and oxidative stress were statistically evaluated.
After adjusting (controlling statistically) for multiple other potentially confounding factors (age, race, sex, smoking, blood lipid levels, blood pressure, body weight, etc.), the researchers found that higher LA levels were associated with statistically significantly lower levels of five of the 10 biomarkers, and in no case was higher LA related to higher levels of any biomarker.
For AA, higher levels were linked with lower concentrations of four markers, and, like LA, there were no statistically significant associations with higher levels of inflammation/oxidation.
“These new data show clearly that people who have the highest levels of LA (and AA) in their blood are in a less inflammatory state than people with lower levels,” Dr. Harris said.
“This finding is exactly the opposite of what one would expect if omega-6 fatty acids were ‘proinflammatory’ — in fact, they appear to be anti-inflammatory.”
“In the flurry of news stories about the harms of seed oils — the primary sources of LA in the diet — many voices are calling for reducing Americans’ intakes of LA.”
“This is not a science-based recommendation, and this study — in addition to many more — point in precisely the opposite direction: instead of lowering LA intakes, raising intakes appears to be a healthier recommendation.”
“These findings contradict a narrative, not previous research findings.”
“There are many studies in the medical literature that are consistent with our findings here.”
The study was published June 22 in the journal Nutrients.
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Heidi T.M. Lai et al. 2025. Red Blood Cell Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Biomarkers of Inflammation in the Framingham Offspring Study. Nutrients 17 (13): 2076; doi: 10.3390/nu17132076
Jailed PTI leaders urge national dialogue to end crises
Call for inclusive negotiations and access to party founder gains momentum from behind the bars
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LAHORE (Dunya News) – Senior leaders of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), currently incarcerated in Lahore jail, have issued a formal appeal urging the initiation of comprehensive negotiations to steer the country out of its worsening political and economic crisis.
In a joint statement released from jail on Tuesday, the PTI leaders emphasised that dialogue is the only viable path toward stability. “Negotiations must take place at all levels,” the statement read, adding that both political actors and state institutions need to engage constructively.
The statement further proposed that political negotiations be prioritised as an entry point to broader talks, with incarcerated PTI leaders included in the process. It also called for improved access to PTI’s founding chairman to facilitate the formation of a negotiation committee.
Also read: Aleema Khan claims 26th Amendment being used to sideline PTI founder
The appeal was signed by prominent PTI figures including Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Dr Yasmin Rashid, Umar Sarfraz Cheema, Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed, and Ijaz Ahmad Chaudhry.
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Pokémon GO is celebrating its anniversary, and you’re invited to the 9th Anniversary Party from July 1 at 10:00 a.m. to July 6, 2025, at 8:00 p.m. local time! New costumed Pokémon debut, and there will be unique bonuses each day of the event. Ivysaur and Venusaur came dressed to the nines with party hats. Trainers might also find Gimmighoul holding a 9th anniversary coin—if they’re lucky, they may even encounter a Shiny one! Trainers might also find 9, 99, or even more Gimmighoul Coins when they spin a PokéStop with a Golden Lure Module.
The fun doesn’t stop there. Event bonuses include an increased chance to become Lucky Friends, an increased chance to get Lucky Pokémon in trades, and friendship levels increasing faster than usual. PokéStops may turn gold without a Golden Lure Module, and Trainers will have an increased chance of encountering Shiny Pikachu wearing a cake hat and Shiny Eevee wearing a party hat from raids.
The party keeps going—check out these event bonuses for certain days of the event.
July 1 at 10:00 a.m. to July 3, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. local time: 1/2 Egg Hatch Distance
July 3 at 10:00 a.m. to July 5, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. local time: 2× XP for catching Pokémon
July 5 at 10:00 a.m. to July 6, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. local time: 2× Stardust for catching Pokémon
The following Pokémon will be partying—er, appearing—more frequently in the wild.
Bulbasaur wearing a party hat
Charmander wearing a party hat
Squirtle wearing a party hat
If you’re lucky, you may even encounter a Shiny one!
The following Pokémon will appear in one-star raids, and they might just be Shiny.
Event-themed Field Research tasks will be available throughout the entire event period, so don your party hats and get ready to research! Completing Field Research tasks can earn you items and encounters with event-themed Pokémon—including Gimmighoul holding a 9th anniversary coin.
Both free and paid Timed Research opportunities will be available. Free Timed Research rewards include XP, Stardust, and encounters with event-themed Pokémon, including Bulbasaur wearing a party hat, Wobbuffet wearing a party hat, Gimmighoul holding a 9th anniversary coin, and more!
Paid Timed Research is available for US$1.99 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), and rewards include a Super Incubator, a Max Mushroom, an encounter with Gimmighoul holding a 9th anniversary coin, and more! The rewards for Timed Research expire, so be sure you complete the tasks and claim your rewards before Sunday, July 6, 2025, at 8:00 p.m. local time.
If you want a party favor for a friend, you can purchase and gift tickets to any of your Pokémon GO friends that you’re Great Friends or higher with.
For US$4.99 (or the equivalent pricing tier in your local currency), you can pick up a Masterwork Research story, Wish Granted, which leads to an encounter with Shiny Jirachi. Ticket holders who open Pokémon GO at any point during the ninth anniversary event will gain access to the Masterwork Research story, which they can then complete at any time.
If you have already obtained the Masterwork Research story Wish Granted, you will not be able to purchase it again. However, Trainers who purchase this Masterwork Research story or have previously received the Masterwork Research: Wish Granted can enjoy the following bonuses for the duration of the event.
NASA astronaut Anil Menon will embark on his first mission to the International Space Station, serving as a flight engineer and Expedition 75 crew member.
Menon will launch aboard the Roscosmos Soyuz MS-29 spacecraft in June 2026, accompanied by Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov and Anna Kikina. After launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the trio will spend approximately eight months aboard the orbiting laboratory.
During his expedition, Menon will conduct scientific investigations and technology demonstrations to help prepare humans for future space missions and benefit humanity.
Selected as a NASA astronaut in 2021, Menon graduated with the 23rd astronaut class in 2024. After completing initial astronaut candidate training, he began preparing for his first space station flight assignment.
Menon was born and raised in Minneapolis and is an emergency medicine physician, mechanical engineer, and colonel in the United States Space Force. He holds a bachelor’s degree in neurobiology from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, and a medical degree from Stanford University in California. Menon completed his emergency medicine and aerospace medicine residency at Stanford and the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
In his spare time, he still practices emergency medicine at Memorial Hermann’s Texas Medical Center and teaches residents at the University of Texas’ residency program. Menon served as SpaceX’s first flight surgeon, helping to launch the first crewed Dragon spacecraft on NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2 mission and building SpaceX’s medical organization to support humans on future missions. He served as a crew flight surgeon for both SpaceX flights and NASA expeditions aboard the space station.
For nearly 25 years, people have lived and worked continuously aboard the International Space Station, advancing scientific knowledge and conducting critical research for the benefit of humanity and our home planet. Space station research supports the future of human spaceflight as NASA looks toward deep space missions to the Moon under the Artemis campaign and in preparation for future human missions to Mars, as well as expanding commercial opportunities in low Earth orbit and beyond.
Learn more about International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/station
-end-
Joshua Finch / Jimi Russell Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1100 joshua.a.finch@nasa.gov / james.j.russell@nasa.gov
Shaneequa Vereen Johnson Space Center, Houston 281-483-5111 shaneequa.y.vereen@nasa.gov
If a wildfire causes an evacuation, people are forced to leave quickly and make decisions under pressure about what to bring and what to leave behind. Households with multiple cars might want to pack into more than one vehicle to save more possessions, but doing so risks causing traffic that can block firefighter access and endanger people, especially in neighborhoods with few exits and narrow roads.
These challenging decisions can have serious impacts on the outcome of a fire, and are what players confront in ‘Firewise Residents,’ one of three simulation games created by University of California, Santa Cruz computational media researchers to build preparedness for a wildfire scenario.
An increasingly present local issue, several Baskin School of Engineering faculty have turned their expertise in serious game design toward the issue of wildfires. The labs of Professors of Computational Media Katherine Isbister, Magy Seif El-Nasr, and Sri Kurniawan, along with Visiting Professor Eddie Melcer, are using game design to help communities build resilience to wildfire. Kurniawan’s lab explores VR approaches evacuation preparation.
These games can help people think about stressful topics, initiating individual preparedness and larger dialogue. As the games reach more people, researchers hope to spark community-level change, as climate change fuels more frequent and severe wildfires locally and globally.
“We’re using game design techniques to have conversations with the communities that are grappling with these problems,” said MJ Johns, a Ph.D. student in the Social Emotional Technology Lab who is leading the game design. “They’ve been dealing with the issue of wildfire for a long time, but I think that giving them that frame of designing and playing a game about their experience helps open them up to have more productive dialogue.”
In ‘Firewise Residents,” players think through how individual decisions affect their community.
Connected communities
Isbister’s research has long focused on interactive gaming experiences that heighten social and emotional connections and wellbeing. With the increasing urgency of the climate crisis, she wanted to apply her expertise to affect change.
This motivated her connection to the “Smart and Connected Communities” project led by Kenichi Soga, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. The NSF-funded effort brings together scholars along with community members, emergency
personnel, and civic leaders to develop innovative ways to manage risk from wildfires, from serious games to digital twin models of communities to simulate crises.
Researchers from UC Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Davis are working with communities in Alameda, Marin, and Santa Cruz counties. Workshops and interviews with utility workers, emergency responders, and local firewise councils revealed key community concerns.
“There were ideas coming out of those conversations that I think we wouldn’t get if we weren’t trying to engage them in the game design process,” Johns said. “We’re asking them to think of themselves as a game designer, and help us create games about the experience that they’ve had. It really opens up the dialogue with those communities and gets them very invested in iterative design.”
Over the past two years, the games have been iterated with input from Alameda and Marin communities, natural hazard and serious games experts, and communities in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, including Highland Firewise council near UC Santa Cruz.
“All these layers of co-design and participation over the past two years that has allowed us to very rapidly iterate and develop full playable games that have a lot of different perspectives and insights embedded in the design,” Johns said.
Local residents in Santa Cruz and the Bay Area have informed the design and tested iterations of the wildfire games.
Mobile games
Now, there are three mobile mini games that are now available online: Firewise Residents, FireSafe Friends, and Find Your Things. Each deals with complex dilemmas that ask people to make hard decisions, as a recent paper reports.
In Firewise Residents, players talk with townspeople, from children to elders, about evacuation challenges. In Find Your Things, they pack a go-bag for an evacuation. FireSafe Friends, a two-player game, has players choose materials and landscaping to “harden” homes, then test them in a simulated burn. The graphics draw on fire-simulation models developed by civil engineers and fire scientists at UC Berkeley, turning the tools meant for experts into a resource for the larger community.
“We’re taking ideas from those simulation tools and putting them in a gameplay context where the general public can interact with it,” Johns said.
The games provide a safe environment to think through challenging, complex topics that people might otherwise avoid, sparking more engagement than traditional fire safety presentations. The design draws inspiration from cute, classic games such as Animal Crossing and Eco, providing a comforting environment that builds connection to the characters.
“Game simulations can give you a little flavor of the emotional texture of that experience and make it feel more real,” Isbister said. “You also have agency to make choices and see the outcome of your choices.”
‘FireSafe Friends’ teaches players techniques to harden their homes.
Measuring impact
The team hopes the game will reach communities in California and beyond, recruiting fire marshals and citizen firewise councils to facilitate running the games. They also envision the games as a lesson in middle and high school classrooms, so that students, a particularly at-risk group in a disaster, can start conversations at home.
Assessing the actual impact of the games is crucial, which is where Seif El-Nasr’s lab is taking the lead.
Serious games are typically evaluated at the individual level: did they change attitudes or teach something? But these researchers are looking at community impact: who’s playing, whether it sparks further learning, and if behavior changes. They’re applying a discourse analysis framework to study co-learning—how players talk, reason, and make decisions together. By analyzing real-time conversations between paired players, the research offers deeper insight into how collaborative reasoning and reflection can support real-world preparedness.
“We’re trying to understand if these games can be used as an instrument to foster collaborative learning among community residents,” said Mario Escarce Junior, a postdoc in Seif El-Nasr’s lab. “We have a specific framework in which we’re trying to understand if we can observe learning through conversations while players are playing in pairs and discussing their strategies.”
“It’s not just that participants are learning from each other and discovering knowledge together: it’s also planning, goals, role composition—these meta-cognitive skills are important for working together and learning,” Seif El-Nasr added. “Wildfire is a community issue; it’s not just about one house being hardened, there’s a whole community working together. There are a lot of aspects around collective action and collective resilience in a whole community – developing measures to assess and investigate these is essential.”
The researchers are also interested in evaluating the games’ performance in other countries and cultures, with Escarce Junior testing Firesafe friends in his home country of Brazil.
The researchers envision that lessons drawn from this work could inform other climate resilience efforts beyond wildfire. For example, drawing on lessons learned from these efforts, Seif El-Nasr’s Ph.D. student Mennatullah Hendawy is leading the development of various alternate reality games related to sea-level rise. In the future, the researchers hope to build more games to address resilience in the aftermath of a disaster, like the rebuilding efforts currently underway in the wake of disastrous fires.
Leveraging VR
When the CZU fires devastated parts of Santa Cruz county, Kurniawan, along with her Ph.D. student Allison Crosby, who was affected by the 2018 Paradise fire, became interested in using technology to educate on wildfire-evacuation preparedness. Kurniawan has deep experience in developing assistive-technology games, often making use of virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR).
With funding through CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, a UC-wide research center, her lab is developing a timed virtual reality game on preparing a go-bag for a wildfire evacuation while managing the capacity of their car.
To inform their design, Crosy interviewed people who experienced the local CZU fire, including survivors of the local Bonny Doon fire who had to evacuate their homes at 3 a.m., people who evacuated from the UC Santa Cruz campus, and voluntary evacuees from the surrounding area. The stories they heard directly influenced the narrative of the game.
“Some of the stories were really sad, they lost their homes or they lost their pets,” Kurniawan said. “The scenarios inside those games were informed by those interviews, literally front and center are pets. The theme that came up was making decisions under pressure.”
Players pack for an evacuation under time pressure in an immersive VR game developed in Kurniawan’s lab.
Mobile vs. VR
Kurniawan and Crosby are measuring the game qualitatively, aiming for people to feel more confident and comfortable for an emergency situation, and often hear reports that the game prompts people to consider what they’d pack in an evacuation for the first time.
Realizing they were both developing wildfire go-bag games, Crosby and Johns ran a study comparing the mobile and VR versions.
They found that people had similar behavior changes and learning outcomes, although they found the VR game more exciting. So, researchers could pick the version most suitable for a specific audience—VR is not always ideal for children, older adults, or people who get motion sick with VR, and many people may not have access to VR headsets. The researchers are also experimenting with using smoke odors in the VR game to boost engagement and memory retention.
Kurniawan is working with the UC Santa Cruz fire marshall to explore integrating their VR game into the wildfire training that undergraduates on campus are given.
“Everything we have built would be good for the UC Santa Cruz fire marshall to use to attract the attention of younger people,” Kurniawan said. “If we have resources available to us, I would love to get more headsets, install the games, and just distribute them freely in the public library or on campus to get people to try them and trigger conversation.”
Amazon announced a fresh batch of games that it’s giving away for free or nearly free in July. The company’s cloud gaming platform, Amazon Luna, has a few notable standouts on its lineup of free titles this month for Prime members in regions where the service is available. However, you’ll want to play quick. Resident Evil 2 is available on Amazon Luna now through 11:59PM PT on July 12. Need for Speed Unbound is only free for July 5-6, while EA Sports FC 25 is getting two free weekends on July 19-20 and July 26-27. The director’s cut of Death Stranding and the excellent metroidvania Hollow Knight are also on the July roster for Luna, alongside mainstay titles such as Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege and a few Fallout games.
Amazon also gives away game codes outside of Luna to Prime members each month. The big standout in the July batch is Venba, a lovely bite-sized game about cooking, family and the immigrant experience. Here’s the full rundown of free games available through Amazon this month:
Boxes: Lost Fragments (Epic Games Store)
Paquerette Down the Bunburrows (Epic Games Store)
ENDLESS Space 2 Definitive Edition (Amazon Games App)
Besiege: The Splintered Sea DLC (Amazon Games App)
I Love Finding Wild Friends Collector’s Edition (Legacy Games)
July is shaping up to be a busy month for gaming at Amazon, with the retailer’s kicking off in about a week. Amazon has already made a handful of available for free ahead of the big deals spree, and if it continues the trend from last year, expect to see a couple more freebies given out once Prime Day begins.
Chicago Stars FC today announced that interim head coach, Masaki Hemmi, will be departing the club to pursue other opportunities, effective July 3. Assistant coach, Ella Masar, will serve as interim head coach while the Chicago Stars secure a new head coach.
“I’m incredibly grateful for my time with the Chicago Stars and the opportunity to work alongside such talented players and staff,” said Masaki Hemmi. “While it’s bittersweet to be leaving, the club has a bright future ahead. I’ll forever be thankful for the time I had with Chicago Stars FC.”
“We thank Masaki Hemmi for stepping up as interim head coach and working tirelessly to bring out the best in our players,” said Chicago Stars general manager, Richard Feuz. “While we are grateful for his time and dedication to the club, we fully support him taking the next step in his coaching career. We wish him much success as he pursues this exciting opportunity.”
Chicago Stars FC has been carrying out an extensive head coach search since parting ways with Lorne Donaldson in May.
“We are well underway in our thorough head coaching search,” said Chicago Stars FC president, Karen Leetzow. “We have narrowed down the candidate pool and expect to appoint a new head coach soon. While we have a lot of building ahead, we look forward to turning the page to the second half of our season and starting a new chapter for the team.”
Hemmi joined the club in 2024 as first assistant coach, helping lead the Chicago Stars’ return to the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) playoffs after the club finished at the bottom of the NWSL table in 2023. After a 1-5-0 start to the 2025 NWSL regular season landing the Chicago Stars back at the bottom of the table, Hemmi stepped in as interim head coach April 30. Under Hemmi, the Stars maintained a 0-4-3 record, improving to 13th place in the table with a 1-9-3 overall record heading into the NWSL midseason break. Prior to becoming the first Japanese head coach in the NWSL, acting or otherwise, Hemmi served as director of player personnel and first assistant coach at United Soccer League club, New Mexico United, from 2022-2023. Hemmi also spent time as an associate head coach preparing players for the Tokyo Olympics at Japanese side, INAC Kobe of the WE League, in 2021.
A former Chicago Star herself, Ella Masar begins her second stint as interim head coach for the club, previously serving as acting head coach at the end of the 2023 season. Masar will continue working closely with assistant coaches, Karina Báez and Brenton Saylor, as the trio remains focused on leadership and stability prior to a permanent head coach being named. Masar has spent more than two decades in professional soccer as a player and coach, joining the Chicago Stars as an assistant coach in January 2023. Most recently, Masar was selected to join the United States Women’s National Team coaching staff for the April international window.
The Chicago Stars would like to thank Masaki Hemmi for devotion to the club and the players throughout his time as both assistant and interim head coach, and wish him all best in his future endeavors.
LONDON (Reuters) -Trading of derivatives contracts that provide investors with protection against UK company defaults jumped almost 50% in the first quarter of 2025 to more than $2 trillion, an International Swaps and Derivatives Association report showed on Tuesday.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
Credit default swaps trading reported in the UK rose by 47% to $2.3 trillion, from $1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2024, trade body ISDA reported.
The volume of insurance protection investors took out on UK corporate bonds in the first quarter illustrates the scale of unease ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping import tariffs on April 2.
While a UK/U.S. trade deal has since been signed, tariff uncertainty is a headwind for corporates globally as a July 9 U.S. deadline for other countries to strike deals looms.
The effective U.S. tariff rate based on announced policies has climbed to 13% from 3% at the start of the year, Goldman Sachs analysts said last week.
Even if some of the harshest levies are rolled back, higher effective tariffs this year could still drive up inflation and cut into company profits and consumer spending.
KEY QUOTE
“Single-name CDS activity was particularly prevalent in the UK, making up 98% of European traded notional, compared to 2% in the EU,” the ISDA report said.
This week, trade tensions topped a list of investor concerns alongside deepening worries over a potential global recession, a Bank of America investor survey showed on Monday.
BY THE NUMBERS
Notional European CDS trading rose 28% to $3 trillion in the first quarter compared to $2.3 trillion in the first quarter of 2024, driven by heightened activity in index CDS, ISDA said.
UK-reported trades represented roughly 75% of total European CDS notional trading, and almost 82% of the total trade count, while the EU accounted for around 25% and 18%, respectively, the report said.
GRAPHIC
(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie. Editing by Dhara Ranasinghe and Mark Potter)
14th over: England 109-4 (Jones 32, Capsey 5) Jones is moving through the gears. She punishes two low full tosses from Deepti, carting both between deep square and deep midwicket for four.
Thirteen runs from the over, which is pretty much what Ehgland need from hereon in.
13th over: England 96-4 (Jones 21, Capsey 4) Jones turns a poor over for England into an okay one, swiping Reedy’s final ball over wide mid-on for four. That’s a really classy shot. But England still need 86 from 42 balls to win.
12th over: England 89-4 (Jones 16, Capsey 1) It was an outstanding piece of fielding from Sneh Rana to get rid of Beaumont. First she made an excellent sprawling stop at backward point; then she had the awareness and strength to fire the throw into Yadav despite being off balance. Great frielding.
WICKET! England 87-4 (Beaumont run out 54)
Gone! Beaumont hesitates for a split-second over a single to point, and that proves fatal when Rana’s throw is well taken on the bounce by the bowler Yadav. She breaks the stumps with Beaumont short of her ground despite a desperate dive.
Fifty from Tammy Beaumont
11th over: England 82-3 (Beaumont 50, Jones 14) Urgh, apologies, we are having more technical problems. Beaumont has just worked Charani for a single to bring up a highly skilful half-century, her first in a T2o international for four years, from 33 balls.
Drinks: England need 106 from 60 balls
10th over: England 76-3 (Beaumont 45, Jones 13) Tammy Beaumont is dragging England back into this game. She lashes three successive boundaries off Rana, the best a beautiful ping over cover point. Rana’s first over cost 1; the second has gone for 16. Time for drinks.
9th over: England 60-3 (Beaumont 30, Jones 13) Beaumont is dropped, a very tough return chance to the bowler Amanjot. That looked extremely painful, and Amanjot needs to take a moment before finishing her over.
Beaumont skips down to chip stylishly down the ground for four. She looks in excellent touch. Jones, who has taken a bit longer to get going, pulls firmly for her first boundary with the aid of a misfield on the boundary sponge.
8th over: England 48-3 (Beaumont 24, Jones 8) The offspinner Sneh Rana becomes the sixth bowler of the innings in just the eighth over. We’re having a few technical problems but the bald numbers suggest a superb start – only one run from the over. England need 134 from 72 balls.
7th over: England 47-3 (Beaumont 23, Jones 8) On comes Radha Yadav, another left-arm spinner, and Beaumont drags a sweep round the corner for four. It’s a no-ball, too, which means a free hit. Beaumont takes advantage, wiping the first six of the innings into the crowd at long-on.
It’s rare for a bowler to end an over strongly and concede 15, but that’s what happens here: 12 from the first two (legal) deliveries, three from the last four.
6th over: England 32-3 (Beaumont 11, Jones 6) Deepti Sharma completes a triumphant Powerplay – for her and India – with an over that yields six singles.
At the same stage India were 35 for 3 so it’s pretty much neck and neck. Right?
5th over: England 26-3 (Beaumont 8, Jones 3) Heather Knight, who has been as good as you’d expect in the Sky commentary box, says England will be encouraged by the pattern of India’s innings and that a required rate of 10 per over won’t concern them, even with so many overs left.
Tammy Beaumont wipes four off the requirement with her first boundary, panned through the covers off the new bowler Arundhati Reddy.
4th over: England 19-3 (Beaumont 2, Jones 2) England need – gulp – 163 from 16 overs.
WICKET! England 17-3 (Sciver-Brunt c Harmanpreet b Amanjot 13)
And it’s goodnight from England. Amanjot Kaur, who is having a wonderful night, gets some extra bounce to Sciver-Brunt, who flat-bats the ball to Harmanpreet at mid-on. That feels like the killer blow, even with more than 16 overs remaining.
Amanjot Kaur celebrates after taking the wicket of Nat Sciver-Brunt. Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images/Reuters
3rd over: England 16-2 (Sciver-Brunt 13, Beaumont 1) Shree Charani, the left-arm spinner who took four for 12 on debut at Trent Bridge, comes into the attack. Sciver-Brunt, who is so good at staying in her bubble regardless of the match situation, gets England up and running with three boundaries in the over: a lofted drive, a flick-pull and a dragged sweep through mid-on. She’s a genius, the end.
2nd over: England 4-2 (Sciver-Brunt 1, Beaumont 1) A very full ball from Deepti leads to an LBW appeal against Sciver-Brunt, but it was going down and Deepti was signalling as much almost before the umpire said not out.
WICKET! England 2-2 (Wyatt-Hodge c Harmanpreet b Deepti 1)
It is happening again. Wyatt-Hodge whirls Deepti Sharma’s first ball straight to mid-off, and England are two for two after losing two wickets in two balls. I doubt even Richie Benaud could make a virtue of that position.
What a start from India! Photograph: Peter Cziborra/Action Images/Reuters
1st over: England 2-1 (Wyatt-Hodge 1, Sciver-Brunt 0) That was the last ball of the over.
WICKET! England 2-1 (Dunkley run out 1)
A nightmare start for England. Dunkley sets off for a tight single to mid-off and is rightly sent back. But by then it’s already too late: Ghosh collects Deepti’s fast throw and breaks the stumps to give India a perfect start.
Sophia Dunkley is run out! Photograph: Nigel French/PA
It’s a very short turnaround between innings, so short that England’s runchase is about to begin.
England need 182 to win
20th over: India 181-4 (Amanjot 63, Ghosh 32) Amanjot and Ghosh completes a stunning fightback with three boundaries between them in Em Arlott’s final over of the innings. My word, that was devastating stuff: India scored 117 from the last 10 overs and 143 from the last 13.
19th over: India 168-4 (Amanjot 58, Ghosh 24) Despite another boundary from Amanjot, Bell’s penultimate over is a good one for England – eight from it, and she finishes with outstanding figures of 4-0-17-2.
18th over: India 160-4 (Amanjot 52, Ghosh 22) Ghosh thrases successive boundaries off Ecclestone, the second a savage blow through backward point. Nine from the over, which isn’t too bad in the circumstances, and Ecclestone finishes with 4-0-30-0.
Fifty for Amanjot Kaur
17th over: India 151-4 (Amanjot 52, Ghosh 13) This is starting to get very messy for England. Ghosh reverse sweeps for four, then top-edges a sweep straight to Beaumont… who drops a pretty simple catch.
A gorgeous drive through extra cover brings up Amanjot’s fifty, a high-class, perfectly paced innings: 35 balls, seven fours.
Linsey Smith is having another tough day: her figures are 3-0-37-0 in this game and 6-0-78-0 in the series.
Amanjot Kaur brings up her fifty. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
16th over: India 138-4 (Amanjot 45, Ghosh 7) Ghosh tries to pull Filer, is beaten for pace and top-edges a boundary over the head of Beaumont at short third. That could be a big moment because Ghosh can be devastating at the death.
Amanjot struck a more deliberate boundary earlier in the over, pulling meatily through backward square. She’s played beautifully.
15th over: India 126-4 (Amanjot 39, Ghosh 1) The new batter is the very dangerous Richa Ghosh. Nat Sciver-Brunt has just returned to the field; I must confess, amid the carnage I didn’t realise she’d gone off. No word yet as to why she did so.
WICKET! India 124-4 (Rodrigues c Dunkley b Bell 63)
Girl did England need that. Rodrigues cuffs a very wide slower ball into the covers, where Dunkley makes ground and swoops to her left to take an excellent two-handed catch.
Rodrigues gets a fine hand after a blistering knock: 63 from 41 balls, including 33 from the last 14. It was an excellent piece of bowling from Bell, who saw her Rodrigues moving across her stumps and changed her line accordingly.
Lauren Bell celebrates the wicket of Jemimah Rodrigues. Photograph: Harry Trump/Getty Images
14th over: India 123-3 (Rodrigues 63, Amanjot 38) Amanjot guides Linsey Smith’s first ball carefully past backward point for four. Smith does well to make that the only boundary of the over – yet it still costs 10 in total. India, who were 38 for 3 after seven overs, have hit 85 for 0 in the last seven.
13th over: India 113-3 (Rodrigues 59, Amanjot 32) Amanjot continues a dramatic assault from India by hitting Ecclestone’s first two deliveries for four. The first was sliced uppishly and just cleared the diving backward point; the second was a firm sweep past short fine leg.
Amanjot and Rodrigues exchange singles before Amanjot slams a cut stroke for yet another boundary. This is remarkable stuff: India, who were behind the game at drinks, have hit 49 in three overs.
Jemimah Rodrigues strums a brilliant fifty
12th over: India 98-3 (Rodrigues 58, Amanjot 18) Rodrigues ramps Filer to move to 49, then takes two to reach a superb half-century from 33 balls. Never mind ramps, Rodrigues is rampant. She lofts four more over the solitary slip, then slashes the third boundary of the over.
Rodrigues has hit 28 off her last seven deliveries.
Jemimah Rodrigues reaches a phenomenal fifty runs. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
11th over: India 80-3 (Rodrigues 45, Amanjot 15) Rodrigues is hit on the helmet by Arlott, which leads to a break in play while she undergoes a concussion check. Rodrigues passes that, and proves she’s absolutely fine by smashing 14 off the last three balls of the over. What glorious batting: a drive over long-on for six, another over mid-off for four and then a sweep over backward square.
10th over: India 64-3 (Rodrigues 30, Amanjot 14) Another good, thrifty over from Ecclestone ends with a big-spinning delivery that beats Amanjot’s attempted sweep.
Time for drinks. England are on top at the quarter-way mark of the game, though not by that much.
9th over: India 61-3 (Rodrigues 28, Amanjot 13) Rodrigues had a bit of difficult against Filer’s short stuff, but that aside she has played beautifully. She hits her fourth four, making room to clobber Em Arlott back over her head.
The counter-attack has started; India have scored 23 from the last two overs.
8th over: India 52-3 (Rodrigues 21, Amanjot 11) Not such a good start for Linsey Smith, who is targeted from ball one. Rodrigues drives her classily over extra cover for four; Amanjot lofts an even better boundary over mid-off. Three singles and a three make it 14 from the over.
7th over: India 38-3 (Rodrigues 15, Amanjot 3) Sophie Ecclestone comes into the attack. Plenty of focus on here given recent events, and a difficult afternoon at Trent Bridge. She starts nicely, conceding three and having an appeal for LBW turned down against Rodrigues. Bat and pad were fairly close together but replays showed it came straight off the bat.
6th over: India 35-3 (Rodrigues 14, Amanjot 1) The new batter Amanjot Kaur tries to pull a short ball from Bell that zips past the top edge. England’s intensity in the field has been impressive, especially after such a flat performance on Saturday.
WICKET! India 31-3 (Harmanpreet c Filer b Bell 1)
The captain Harmanpreet is now the old batter. She has gone second ball, caught at short fine leg by Lauren Filer. It wasn’t the greatest piece of cricket: a poor ball from Lauren Bell, who celebrated sheepishly, a pull round the corner from Harmanpreet and an untidy catch from Filer. Untidy but clean: Harmanpreet has gone and England have taken three big wickets in the Powerplay.
Lauren Filer catches out Harmanpreet Kaur. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
5th over: India 31-2 (Rodrigues 12, Harmanpreet 1) The captain Harmanpreet is the new batter.
WICKET! India 30-2 (Mandhana c Bell b Arlott 13)
Never mind the ground fielding, England’s catching is much sharper as well! Mandhana clothed the new bowler Arlott towards mid-on, where Bell leapt backwards to take a brilliant two-handed catch.
Lauren Bell takes the catch to dismiss Smriti Mandhana. Photograph: Nigel French/PA
4th over: India 24-1 (Mandhana 13, Rodrigues 7) Rodrigues square-drives Filer with a flourish to score her first boundary. That was a rare full delivery in another aggressive over from Filer, who twice beat Rodrigues with short balls outside off stump.
This has been a good start from England, whose ground fielding has also looked much sharper than it did on Saturday.
3rd over: India 19-1 (Mandhana 13, Rodrigues 2) Lauren Bell, England’s best bowler by a distance at Trent Bridge, replaces Capsey. There’s some gentle inswing to the left-handed Mandhana, who punches a couple of drives without beating the infield. A good start from Bell, just two from the over.
2nd over: India 17-1 (Mandhana 12, Rodrigues 1) Jemima Rodridgues gets off the mark with a mistimed shot that lands safely on the leg side. Terrific start from Filer, who gave both Verma and Rodrigues the hurry-up.
WICKET! India 14-1 (Verma c Jones b Filer 3)
This is seriously good fast bowling from Lauren Filer. She beat the edge with a beauty, then rammed in a superb short ball that followed Verma, took the glove and was comfortably caught by Amy Jones.
Verma was on the walk, which only made life difficult as the ball roared towards her, but it would have been very tough to deal even if she’d stayed in her crease.
Lauren Filer celebrates taking the wicket of Shafali Verma. Photograph: Alex Davidson/ECB/Getty Images
1st over: India 11-0 (Mandhana 10, Verma 1) Smriti Mandhana picks up where she left off at Trent Bridge, hitting two elegant boundaries – one through the covers, one through point – in Alice Capsey’s first over. Eleven from the over, which makes Mandhana and Shafali Verma the most productive opening partnership in Women’s T20I history.
Time for the action. It’s a gorgeous evening in Bristol, warm without being oppressive. The TV commentators are discussing their surprise at England’s decision to bowl first.
Team news: England unchanged
England are unchanged, which gives their XI the chance to right Saturday’s wrongs.
India do change a winning side, but only to bring back their captain Harmanpreet Kaur in place of Harleen Deol.
England Dunkley, Wyatt-Hodge, Sciver-Brunt (c), Beaumont, Jones (wk), Capsey, Arlott, Ecclestone, Filer, Smith, Bell.
Bristol is cooler than much of the country, around 25 degrees, so England are happy to field first. The pitch looks very dry so there was a decent case for batting first, but most teams prefer to chase these days.
Harmanpreet back for India
The word is that Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who missed Saturday’s game because of a head injury, has been passed fit to return tonight.
Preamble
The road to success is never a straight line, but nobody expected England to veer so dramatically off course at the start of their T20 series against India. Nat Sciver-Brunt’s side were pulverised by 97 runs at Trent Bridge on Saturday, their heaviest T20 defeat, with the peerless Smriti Mandhana striking a glorious 112.
Adversity is usually a window into the soul of a person or a team. How England respond tonight, and for the rest of this five-match series, will increase our understanding of the journey that faces them: how far they have to travel, and how long it might take them.
