Marcus Rashford’s girlfriend, Lucia Loi, uploaded an emotional social media post at World Cup 2026

Marcus Rashford’s girlfriend, Lucia Loi, has shared details of her struggle with endometriosis in a heartfelt social media message. The 28-year-old was present as Rashford featured in England’s 2-0 World Cup 2026 victory against Panama.

The Three Lions have advanced to the knockout rounds in North America and Manchester United’s Rashford, who netted in the first group fixture against Croatia, shone on the left wing in the third match.

Supporting him from the stands in New Jersey was his childhood partner Loi, who began her relationship with Rashford when she was approximately 15 years old.

Earlier this week, Loi posted a photograph to Instagram showing herself in bed crying and in the accompanying text, she revealed her experiences with endometriosis while offering solidarity to others living with the condition.

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Loi wrote in her post: “This was me last night. I had my heels on, my makeup done, and I was ready to go and celebrate my friend’s birthday. Endometriosis had other ideas.

“I’ve been meaning to post about this for so long, but I never really found the courage. Last night, though, I felt so much anger at the fact that so many women go through this while there are so few effective treatment options and the condition remains so under-researched.

“Over time, I have found some things that have helped to an extent and intend to share more of that. I’m sending so much love to anyone living with a women’s health condition.”

The NHS describes endometriosis as a chronic condition where tissue resembling the womb lining develops outside of it, typically on organs within the pelvis. Throughout a menstrual cycle, this displaced tissue thickens, deteriorates, and bleeds in the same way as normal uterine lining.

Yet, because it remains trapped outside the womb with no means of leaving the body, it triggers serious internal inflammation, agonising pelvic pain, excruciating periods, the development of scar tissue and possible fertility complications. There is presently no definitive cure and it is thought to affect one in ten women across the UK.

Loi’s post received an outpouring of supportive comments, including from numerous fellow wives and girlfriends. Megan Pickford, partner of England goalkeeper Jordan, wrote: “Oh my darling, such an important message.” Jack Grealish’s partner, Sasha Attwood, commented: “Love you special girl.”

The 28-year-old met Rashford when they both attended Ashton-on-Mersey School in Greater Manchester and while she supported him throughout his United and England rise to prominence, they separated in 2021, maintaining a close friendship.

Their romance reignited in 2022 and Rashford subsequently proposed, but the wedding plans were abandoned and they parted ways again in 2023. Nevertheless, following Rashford’s loan transfer to Barcelona, the pair resumed their relationship once more and Loi is accompanying him in North America as the Three Lions strive to bring football home.

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Police were called to the scene at Cowbury Reservoir at around 6.30pm on Saturday, June 27, following reports of a teenager struggling in the water.

Emergency services including Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) and North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) responded, and specialist teams later recovered a body from the water.

Chief Inspector Helen Baxter said:

“Yesterday’s events are nothing short of devastating and my thoughts are with the family and loved ones of the young boy who sadly lost his life in such awful circumstances.

“We are confident that there are no suspicious circumstances and that this is such a sad reminder of the dangers of entering open water.

“We remind the public to please avoid being tempted to cool off in reservoirs, rivers, canals or ponds.

“We all want to enjoy the warm weather; please make sure you do so in a safe way.”

Formal identification has taken place and the boy’s family have been informed.

Detectives from Tameside CID believe there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death.

Housed inside the town’s decommissioned Victorian railway station, it has become one of Europe’s largest second‑hand bookshops and a must‑stop for bookworms visiting the North East.

Opened in 1991 by Stuart and Mary Manley, Barter Books was founded on a simple swap system – customers could trade in their old books for credit and walk out with armfuls of new reads.

The couple transformed the disused Alnwick station, designed by Victorian architect William Bell in 1887, into a warm, labyrinthine space filled with shelves, armchairs and roaring fires.

But part of what makes Barter Books so beloved is the sense that it’s more than just a shop.

There are model trains rattling along tracks over the shelves, quotes from famous writers painted on the walls, and corners where you can tuck yourself away with a coffee and a book for an hour or an afternoon.

The shop attracts more than 350,000 visitors a year, with around 40 per cent of them travelling from outside the area.

One visitor on Tripadvisor described it as a “lovely old station building packed full with every book imaginable”, the sort of place you go in for a browse and inevitably come out with something.

Barter Books is also closely linked to one of Britain’s most recognisable slogans.

In the early 2000s, a forgotten wartime “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster was rediscovered in a box of books in the shop, helping to spark the design’s global revival and cementing Barter Books’ place in modern pop culture.

Today the shop is open every day from 9am to 7pm, including Sundays and most bank holidays, making it an easy detour for anyone heading to Alnwick Castle, the beach or the surrounding countryside.

Alongside the shelves there’s a buffet café and an ice‑cream parlour, making it one of those rare attractions that can keep book lovers, families and casual browsers equally happy under one ornate station roof.

The fleet includes an aircraft that is used by the Prime Minister and the royal family

Huge military aircraft will temporarily operate from an airport near Cambridgeshire during improvement work at RAF Brize Norton. The A330 Voyager fleet are normally located at the base in Oxfordshire but will be moved elsewhere for several months.

The fleet includes an aircraft that bears the Union Jack and is used by the Prime Minister and members of the royal family. The A330 Voyager fleet will operate from Prestwick, East Midlands, and Stansted airports between July and November.

Voyager is a military version of the Airbus A330 Airliner. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) say it is designed as a dual role air-to-air refuelling and air transport aircraft.

Voyager is being moved alongside the Atlas and Globemaster fleets while essential resurfacing and improvement works are done on the airfield operating surface at RAF Brize Norton. The RAF say it is a planned programme of modernisation work designed to ensure the base remains fully operational and fit for the decades to come.

The RAF say there is no cause for public concern and that the UK’s military air mobility capability is not diminished by the works. The Atlas and Globemaster fleets will operate primarily out of MoD Boscombe Down with occasional use of Bournemouth Airport.

All aircraft that are normally located at RAF Brize Norton will begin moving to their temporary alternative locations in July. Once the resurfacing work has been completed the aircraft are expected to return in late November.

Fifa has committed to reducing emissions by 50% by 2030 and to reaching net-zero by 2040.

For this year’s tournament, the world football governing body set out a number of environmental pledges, including:

However, even before the first ball was kicked on 11 June, there was scepticism from some climate scientists given the scale of the tournament.

A 2025 report from Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) estimated the overall carbon footprint of this World Cup could reach nine million tonnes of CO2e.

It said this would equate to almost double the average for the past four World Cups, making this year’s tournament the most polluting ever.

In 2023, a Swiss regulator said Fifa had “made false statements” by claiming that Qatar 2022 would be the first carbon-neutral World Cup in history by using investments in low-carbon initiatives to offset emissions.

In response to the ruling, Fifa said it is “fully aware that climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time and believes it requires each of us to take immediate and sustainable climate action”.

Infantino attended all 64 matches at the last World Cup in Qatar, where the eight stadiums used were separated by about an hour’s drive at most – but this year’s tournament spanning an entire continent presents a very different challenge.

Additional reporting by Mark Poynting.

Police said a scene is in place and there will be an increased police presence in the area today

A man has been hospitalised with serious injuries after a stabbing at a rave near Cambridge. Two men have been arrested after the incident in a field where hundreds were attending a music event.

Officers were initially called to the rave in the early hours of Sunday morning (June 28) in a field on Dry Drayton Hill, between Dry Drayton and Madingley. Police attended and found around 400 people at the rave.

Calls then came in that a man had been assaulted suffering injuries consistent with stab wounds. Paramedics attended and the man in his 20s was taken to hospital with serious but not life-threatening injuries.

Officers, including armed police, searched the area. Two men were arrested in connection with the attack. A scene is in place and will remain for most of the day, with an increased police presence in the area.

A spokesperson for Cambridgeshire Constabulary said: “Anyone with any information is urged to report this to police online quoting incident number 115 of today, or call 101 if you do not have internet access.”

He told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips: “What Andy is saying is that this is one of the biggest economies on the planet, and yet we have some of the poorest regions in Europe in this country, and that is because of the grotesque regional economic inequality we have in this country.

The explosion was so powerful that it sent the huge disc-shaped lid of an oil storage tank flying high above the city on a cushion of black smoke and flame.

Ukrainian drones cut through the Russian air defences last week to strike an oil refinery in Moscow for the second time in three days, amid Kyiv’s largest ever attack on the capital.

The footage quickly travelled around the world as proof of Kyiv’s poise and ability to bring the war in Ukraine back to Vladimir Putin’s doorstep.

The Ukrainians have intensified strikes on refineries, depots and supply routes in recent months, having learned to overwhelm Russia’s defences with a growing arsenal of cutting-edge long-range drones.

Their successes have created debilitating shortages across Russia, from occupied Crimea to the eastern expanses of Siberia, giving Kyiv the upper hand as both sides weigh restarting peace talks.

The Independent looks at how Ukraine has mastered its long-range capabilites to devastating effect.

How has Ukraine’s drone campaign evolved?

Ukraine’s ministry of defence said in 2022 that it had the ability to hit targets some 630km away – about the distance between Kyiv and Tula. This year, it says its long-range weapons are destroying targets “at about a distance of 1,750km”.

That evolution has been years in the making. On the frontlines, Ukraine and Russia have been moving in step to adopt and develop drones capable of delivering payloads of explosives several kilometres away without risk to the operator.

Russia went into the war with a long-range advantage, hosting stockpiles of ballistic missiles and access to long-range Shahed drones as early as summer 2022. Those Iranian-made drones can travel up to 2,000km with a 50kg warhead.

That advantage gave Moscow the ability to thrash morale in Ukraine’s major cities, destroy warehouses full of munitions, and devastate energy infrastructure deep behind enemy lines.

But when its allies were hesitant to provide long-range weapons to hit back, Ukraine invested in its home-grown industry, learning from its experiences. That industry is maturing, and Ukraine is now advising in allies on how to fight a modern war.

Fire Point, maker of the FP-1 attack drone and the Flamingo cruise missile, is now planning to develop a European missile defence system. And the Pentagon is said to be considering buying Ukrainian drones and Electronic Warfare systems.

Read world affairs editor Sam Kiley’s dispatch from Ukraine on the start-up weapons industry – where homegrown missiles and drones are made from carbon printers and lawnmower engines – rising from the ashes.

According to the Baker Institute, a Texas-based think tank, Ukraine lacked the drone and missile capabilities for “sustained, long-range strikes” deep in Russia as late as 2025.

“Strikes on targets 1,000 or more kilometers into the territory of an adversary with capable air defense was considered, prior to Russia’s invasion, a domain in which perhaps only the US, Israel, China, and Russia possessed the requisite capabilities,” said Gabriel Collins, CES Lead, Energy and Geopolitics in Eurasia.

“The barriers to entry into long-range precision strike capabilities are considerably lower now. Ukraine’s national GDP before the war amounted to approximately one-fourth that of the Greater Houston area. Yet its combination of survival motivation, a talented and educated population, industrial base, and access to key imported components is culminating into a drone and missile complex — one that is highly capable and can credibly threaten key infrastructure assets up to 2,000 km from its borders.”

What has the impact been?

Kyiv says the strategy of targeting Russian energy facilities is aimed at sapping a key source of Russia’s war funds and showing Russians the four-year conflict started by Moscow is closer to home than ever. In these objectives, it has been effective.

Analysts estimate that more than a fifth of Russia’s total refining capacity may have been knocked offline already, and the International ‌Energy Agency (IEA) reported last week that Russian crude oil production dropped around 5 per cent year-on-year last month to 8.7m barrels per day due to the strikes.

“This level of disruption is unprecedented in the history of the Russia-Ukraine conflict,” the IEA said in its June report.

Grégoire Roos, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia programs at Chatham House, told CNBC that the drone attack on the Moscow refinery last week was “the most interesting development over the past year”.

Roos agreed it showed off Ukraine’s confidence and the wider strategy of hitting Russia “where it hurts the most” by wiping out energy revenues. Those revenues are worth around 23 per cent of the federal budget and about 20 per cent of GDP.

Slowly, those revenues are coming down, in part as Russia is forced to sell at lower prices due to sanctions, but also due to disruption from Ukrainian attacks.

An analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that Russia’s revenues from oil, gas, coal and refined product exports totalled 193 billion euros in the 12-month period to February 24, 2026, down by 27 per cent from the comparable period pre-invasion.

Indirectly, businesses in Russia also suffer under the weight of higher energy prices, with prices then passed on to consumers. Gasoline in Russia that cost around $0.65 per litre just before the invasion cost $0.95 in May of this year. Inflation is officially at 5.6 per cent.

In recent weeks, restrictions on buying gasoline have been imposed in the central region, blamed on ‘temporary logistical difficulties’. Similar issues are reported in southern and western Russia. Social media is flooded with videos of cars queuing for petrol in occupied Crimea.

In Omsk oblast – which only in January celebrated the lowest fuel prices in Siberia – residents were concerned about how shortages would affect their lives, some 2,400km from the frontline.

As a ban on filling containers came in late on Monday, one told local outlet NGS55: “I don’t have a car; I used to ask my neighbor to buy me [gasoline] in a canister. Now I’m supposed to cut firewood with a hacksaw? Mow the grass with a mower? We’ve come to this. Beyond words.”

Labour deputy leader Lucy Powell made the claim on the BBC this morning

Labour’s deputy leader claims outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer “lost the dressing room” resulting in his resignation. Lucy Powell made the claim while talking to presenter Victoria Derbyshire on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg this morning.

Asked why Labour was getting rid of the Prime Minister, the deputy leader said: “Well, look, I mean, I think it’s not me getting rid of him, but I want to focus really on the positive contributions that he has made, but as he said himself on the steps of Downing Street on Monday – we’re here in the middle of the World Cup, aren’t we?

“When the manager loses the dressing room, the manager often takes the decision that it’s the time for them to go, and I think that’s the decision that he has made.

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“But he has served our party well, and we do owe him a great deal of gratitude, and now it’s time for us to move on to a new phase, and that’s what we’ll be doing.”

Ms Powell was also asked whether Ed Miliband would be a good Chancellor amid reports he is Andy Burnham’s first choice. When asked whether she thought Mr Miliband would be good at running the Treasury, the Labour deputy leader said: “Yes I do actually, but actually I think this is a slightly distracting conversation, because I think we’ve all got a really important job to do.”

She added that the cost of living should be the focus and not “tittle-tattle” about Cabinet positions.

With Andy Burnham likely to be the next leader of the Labour Party following Sir Keir’s resignation, Ms Powell backed a woman lead Labour at some stage.

Asked whether she was disappointed that another man was set to take the top job, the deputy leader told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “Well, look, I mean, actually, what I’ll also say is, I was working out this morning, I joined the Labour Party in the 1980s and actually in that time we’ve only, since Neil Kinnock, we’ve only had six leaders of the Labour Party. So we do generally keep leaders for quite a few years in the Labour Party.

“Of course, I’d like to see a woman leader at some stage, but this is a difficult job that brings a huge amount of exposure to your, to yourself, to your family, you know.

“It really is a relentless job, and I’m just glad that actually someone does want to do it. And I’m pleased that actually what it looks like is that we’re probably going to have just one candidate in Andy Burnham.”

She said earlier in the interview that speculation about Cabinet positions under a potential Burnham government was “unedifying”.