Quick Guide Wenger backs France as 'super-favourite' for 2026 World Cup Show Arsène Wenger has described France as the “super-favourite” for next summer’s World Cup based on their enviable attacking options and major tournament knowhow. Would he allow Trump to get in on the celebrations in the unlikely event of a US World Cup win? Uzbekistan, Jordan, Cape Verde and Curaçao (in that order of seeding) will play at their first World Cup. It can sound corny when players and managers talk about fulfilling childhood dreams at the World Cup. View image in fullscreen The official balls for the World Cup draw are seen on stage at the Kennedy Center.

Of these, 91 people this year became billionaires through inheritance, collectively receiving $298bn (£223bn) in the 12 months to April, the bank said. That was up more than a third against last year and the highest since UBS started its research in 2015. Meanwhile, 196 “self-made” entrepreneurs became billionaires this year, with a collective wealth of $386.5bn, UBS said. The UK ranked seventh, with $164bn in wealth expected to be passed down over the next 15 years. Various European governments have faced calls to introduce a wealth tax on the international elite this year.

Last month Swiss startup Twiliner launched a fleet of futuristic sleeper buses, and I’ve come to Amsterdam to try them out. Even when running on normal diesel, which sometimes the buses have to, a Twiliner bus is as sustainable as a sleeper train per passenger kilometre, it says. The blip on this journey is boarding at Amsterdam’s outdoor bus station in Sloterdijk, a five-minute train ride from Amsterdam Centraal station. View image in fullscreen The bus reaches Zurich from Amsterdam in 12 hours 15 minutes. Twiliner tickets between Amsterdam and Zurich cost from 150 Swiss francs (£141).

Airbus has cut its plane delivery target for this year after it identified a problem with the fuselage panels on its bestselling A320 family of aircraft that has forced it to inspect hundreds of jets. Despite the lower delivery number, Airbus said it was sticking to its previous financial forecast, as it targets a full-year adjusted operating profit of about €7bn (£6.1bn). When Airbus issued its weekend recall to more than 350 operators, about 3,000 jets in the A320 family were in the air. The setback came just weeks after the A320 became the most-delivered plane model in history, when it overtook Boeing’s 737. Airbus is due to report its November delivery figures on Friday.

In an interview in 2013 with the South Morning China Post, Zaw Zaw was reported as saying that his only crime was “in this poor country, I have become rich”. An inscription on the Fifa club World Cup trophy read “inspired by FIFA president Gianni Infantino”. “These developments certainly suggest that this peace prize award process is being reverse-engineered to ensure the favoured result of President Infantino,” he said. “The only year Fifa makes money is in a men’s World Cup year,” McGeehan said. “So every men’s World Cup year, you need to squeeze as much money as possible out of your host.

Hardline migration policies adopted by governments across the globe have been a boon for people smugglers, fuelling demand and allowing them to raise their prices, according to a report. More than 50,000 of them said they had used smugglers, with many of them linking their decision to the absence of accessible opportunities for legal migration. 14:07 How Europe’s immigration crackdown is fuelling smuggling gangs – videoDespite widespread assertions that smugglers are luring people into irregular migration, just 6% of the migrants surveyed said smugglers had influenced their decision. The data made it clear that smugglers were not the cause of irregular migration, said Forin. In Europe, campaigners have long warned that policymakers are pushing people towards smugglers by restricting legal migration pathways such as family reunification.

The EU is considering legally forcing industries to reduce purchases from China to insulate Europe from future hostile acts, the industry commissioner, Stéphane Séjourné, says. Underlining the threats posed by over dependency on China, Séjourné said if industry did not respond, the commission reserved the right to introduce legislation. “We would force European companies legally to diversify their sources of supply. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. after newsletter promotionOf that, “17,000 to 18,000” tonnes come from China, 1,000 are produced in the EU with the remainder from other countries.

Germany will host the 2029 Women’s European Championship after receiving the vast majority of the votes from Uefa’s executive committee. The decision came in the first round of voting, with 15 of the 17 votes going to Germany. Germany are record eight-time European champions and the 2029 tournament will come five years after the nation hosted the men’s competition. Photograph: Sven Beyrich/SPP/Shutterstock“We are proud and delighted to be hosting Uefa Women’s Euro 2029,” the DFB president, Bernd Neuendorf, said. Following the wonderful Women’s Euro 2025 in Switzerland, we want to set new standards.

View image in fullscreen The decision to ‘let go’ of the reins on AI is likely to come between 2027 and 2030, Kaplan says. A Harvard Business Review study in September said AI “workslop” – substandard AI enabled-work that humans have to fix – was reducing productivity. In September, Anthropic revealed its cutting-edge AI, Claude Sonnet 4.5, a model for computer coding that can build AI agents and autonomously use computers. Kaplan said allowing AIs to train the next AIs was “an extremely high-stakes decision to make”. View image in fullscreen Some of the biggest gains have been in using AIs to write computer code.

The leaders of France and Germany have a “strong willingness” to build a new fighter jet together despite bitter internal rivalries, according to the chief executive of engine manufacturer Safran. A row over who should lead between French aerospace company Dassault and the German unit of Airbus has threatened to break apart the countries’ efforts to make a next-generation fighter jet. However, many analysts and industry leaders – including Airbus’s chief executive – have openly mused about whether separate European projects should duplicate efforts to build the planes. The chief executive’s comments came during a visit to lobby UK government ministers and express willingness to invest in Britain. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter.

To hear it is to feel in your skull the brute force involved in the the development of AI technology. Even a relatively modest Google AI factory planned in Essex is expected to emit the equivalent carbon footprint of 500 short-haul flights a week. Silicon Valley has always run on youth, and if experience is needed more can be found in the highest ranks of the AI companies. When he joined OpenAI, AGI was “a very abstract, mythical concept – almost like a rallying cry for me”, he said. But Trump shows no signs of binding the AI companies’ with red tape and is piling pressure on the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, to follow suit.

When does the World Cup draw take place? The World Cup draw will start at Washington DC’s Kennedy Center at 12pm local time on Friday 5 December (5pm GMT/4am Saturday AEST). The 12 groups for the World Cup will then be formed by one team from each pot (full pots listed later). Sure, speculation is all we’ve got until the actual World Cup kicks off next year. The one who said immigrants from Haiti – who just qualified for the World Cup in heroic fashion – eat pet dogs?

Sri Lanka and Indonesia deployed military personnel as they raced to help victims of devastating flooding that has killed more than 1,100 people across four countries in Asia. Millions of people have been affected by a combination of tropical cyclones and heavy monsoon rains in Sri Lanka, parts of Indonesia’s Sumatra, Thailand and Malaysia in recent days. In Indonesia, at least 604 people have been killed and 464 remain missing, according to the national disaster agency. The death toll stands at 366 in Sri Lanka, with 366 missing, and 176 dead in Thailand. Three deaths have been reported in Malaysia

The world’s biggest car-sharing company, Zipcar, has said it will close its UK operation, removing access to its shared fleet across London at the end of this year. The UK operating company had 71 staff last year, according to its latest accounts. Zipcar was thought to run nearly 3,000 vehicles, including cars and vans – the majority of the 5,300 shared vehicles in the UK. “We’ve been warning for a while about the viability of car clubs in London,” said Dilks. However, the proposed UK closure would come after Zipcar (UK) reported an £11.7m loss for 2024.

Switzerland’s federal prosecutor has filed charges against the failed bank Credit Suisse and its new owner, UBS, over the long-running “tuna bonds” loan scandal that crashed Mozambique’s economy nearly a decade ago. The Swiss attorney general said on Monday that it had brought money-laundering charges against an unnamed employee of Credit Suisse, but was also taking action against the lender and its rival-turned-owner UBS. Credit Suisse had already settled the case with US and UK regulators in 2021, having paid $275m to American watchdogs and £147m to Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority. The Swiss attorney general’s office accused Credit Suisse and its owner of “not taking all the required and reasonable organisational measures in the relevant period in 2016 to prevent the money laundering that was allegedly committed”. Credit Suisse had for years been mired in scandals, but panic over its future grew after its largest shareholder, Saudi National Bank, ruled out any extra funding for the Swiss lender despite the growing turmoil.