Australia’s Matthew Dawson thought his Games were over after a freak accident but a bold decision ensured he will still be part of a team chasing a medal

It has been 20 years since the Kookaburras, the Australian men’s hockey team, have won an Olympic gold medal. But so badly do the current cohort want to improve on their agonising silver medal in Tokyo, downed by Belgium in an extraordinary, protracted shoot-out , that some squad members have taken to drastic measures. Like cutting off a finger.

Two weeks ago, Kookaburras defender Matthew Dawson was participating in a warm-up match in Perth when another player’s stick collided with his hand, leaving a finger bloodied and partly detached. Dawson was devastated; he immediately thought his third Olympic campaign was over before it had begun.

Hammersmith Apollo, London
Played at the volume of a pantomime, this makeover of the fairytale favourite is flatly unadventurous

You might have walked into the Emerald City. The art deco auditorium of Hammersmith’s Apollo is bathed in green light, the stage dressed with a curtain of ivy. But we’re meeting an ogre not a wizard and, this being Shrek, he’s in the outhouse taking a dump.

There’s plenty more toilet humour to come in this revival of Jeanine Tesori and David Lindsay-Abaire’s 2008 musical, based on the 2001 Oscar winner and William Steig’s book, now in London after a UK and Ireland tour. With booming narration, it is played at the volume of a pantomime and comes with panto’s random topical references (to Jude Bellingham and Baby Reindeer ). There are some game performances – and Cherece Richards is on fire with a sensational singing voice as the Dragon – but the show becomes bogged down by its sludgy monotony and often unmemorable songs.

Over 160,000 attendees in a key demographic ‘answered the call’ on Thursday, with nearly $8.5m raised for Harris

Following the success of a virtual call to mobilize Black women voters for Kamala Harris , a similar event with more than 160,000 attendees was held on Thursday aimed at white women, and appeared to break records.

White women will be a key demographic for the Democrats to win over this election .

Social media platform uses pre-ticked boxes of consent, a practice that violates UK and EU GDPR rules

Elon Musk’s X platform is under pressure from data regulators after it emerged that users are consenting to their posts being used to build artificial intelligence systems via a default setting on the app.

The UK and Irish data watchdogs said they have contacted X over the apparent attempt to gain user consent for data harvesting without them knowing about it.

The Parisian rain showed there is a good reason why Olympic opening ceremonies are held in stadiums

Avant: le deluge. There was a moment, about an hour into Paris 2024’s Grand Opening Spectacular, as the rain soaked through shoes, trousers, socks and eventually skin, hair and bone; as yet more boats of waving people chugged down the Seine, like watching an endless series of weirdly nationalistic office parties; as some men did some dancing in a place, for reasons that frankly seemed quite remote at that point, where a thought occurred.

Maybe this wasn’t just the worst Olympic opening ceremony ever. Maybe this wasn’t the worst outdoor event ever. Maybe this was the worst thing ever.

Singer, who hasn’t performed onstage since 2020 as a result of her health, brought down the house with a breathtaking take on an Edith Piaf classic

The casual sports fans of the world endured four hours of rambling, chaotic, rainy pomp and circumstance along the Seine on Friday evening for one reason: to possibly see Céline Dion return to the stage. The 56-year-old French Canadian singer has not performed in over four years, owing to a rare, incurable neurological disorder called stiff person syndrome . Despite struggling with uncontrollable muscle spasms extreme enough to break ribs, Dion, a true-blue born performer, promised to one day return. “If I can’t run, I’ll walk. If I can’t walk, I’ll crawl,” she said in her recent documentary I Am: Céline Dion . “And I won’t stop. I won’t stop.”

On a soggy Friday night in Paris, at the tail end of the Olympic opening ceremonies, Dion did more than just return – she triumphed. Bedecked in silver sparkles, accompanied by a rain-soaked piano on the steps of the Eiffel Tower, she not only sang Edith Piaf’s Hymne A L’Amour – which, truly, would have been more than enough – but performed it with the gusto of someone who, by her own admission, longs to resume touring more than her fans. If you have seen the documentary, then you know it is nearly impossible to fathom the amount of medicine and therapy, on top of bottomless grit and determination, required for Dion to retake the stage, let alone be the capstone performance at France’s Olympics, let alone do it well , with palpable, distinctive vocal power and without seeming to miss a note. She is, as pop singer Kelly Clarkson put it on the American NBC broadcast, a “vocal athlete”.

An armada of boats carrying athletes along the Seine, dangling dancers and parading drag queens – all under torrential rain

The Paris Olympic Games opened on Friday night with a high-kitsch, riverside spectacle, as an armada of boats carried athletes along the Seine, dancers dangled from high poles, drag queens paraded on bridges and the Olympic rings lit up the Eiffel Tower – all under unrelenting, torrential rain.

France had promised its opening ceremony would be the biggest open-air show on Earth. More than 300,000 people watched the riverside and bridges – and hundreds more stood at windows and balconies – as a show of dance, live-music and acrobatics unfolded along more than 6km of river from the Pont d’Austerlitz to the Eiffel Tower.

Singer, who cancelled tour dates as a result of stiff person syndrome, makes comeback with Edith Piaf rendition

Céline Dion made a triumphant return to the stage at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics.

The star, who has been diagnosed with the neurological disorder stiff person syndrome , sang Edith Piaf’s Hymne A L’Amour at the Eiffel Tower for a global audience of millions, her first live on-stage performance since early 2020.

Russell T Davies says his drama The War Between the Land and the Sea ‘will shake The Whoniverse to its foundations’

Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star in a Doctor Who spin-off called The War Between the Land and the Sea, it has been announced.

They will lead the cast alongside Jemma Redgrave and Alexander Devrient in the series, which was created by Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies.