Gleeson plans to build 200 new homes at the former steelworks site near Wrexham

A preferred housebuilder for the next phase of development at the former British Steelworks site at Brymbo near Wrexham has been confirmed.

Brymbo Developments Ltd (BDL) – a subsidiary of private development company Parkhill Group – has selected MJ Gleeson for a major residential scheme at one of North Wales’s largest regeneration sites, Brymbo Park.

Gleeson is set to acquire a 6.487 hectares (16.03 acres) plot with outline planning permission for 200 new homes. The value of the land deal has not been disclosed.

The residential development site forms part of the wider regeneration of the 560-acre former steelworks, which closed in 1990.

BDL recently secured an agreement for a 5,000 sq ft Sainsbury’s convenience store, with a further 4,500 sq ft of retail space currently being marketed. As part of its commitment to delivering essential new community facilities, the developer has also recently completed the transfer of land to Wrexham Council to accommodate a new local primary school, with work scheduled to commence in early 2027.

James Cannon, head of property at Parkhill Group, said: “Gleeson is a well-respected developer and a good fit for this site. We are confident that they will deliver fit-for-purpose new homes for the local community, which will provide a further catalyst for this major regional regeneration project. We look forward to working alongside them to deliver the next phase of this transformative project.”

Gareth Owen, land director at Gleeson, added: “We are delighted to be selected as the preferred bidder for the next phase at Brymbo Park, a site of significant scale and importance to the region. This acquisition presents an exciting opportunity for Gleeson to deliver high-quality homes that meet local demand, while contributing to the wider regeneration of this historic site.”

The wider masterplan also includes a visitor attraction celebrating the site’s heritage, which recently secured a £10m funding deal from the National Lottery, Wrexham Borough Council, CADW and National Resources Wales. It is scheduled to open this summer.

The remaining retail space at Brymbo Park is being marketed by BA Commercial. Moreover, the site’s 6.46 acre plot C for up to 84 new homes will be marketed shortly.

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SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors are preparing to pursue one of the boldest, riskiest roster overhauls in recent NBA memory, planning a simultaneous push for free agent LeBron James and a trade for Wizards center Anthony Davis as the franchise looks to transform a play-in tournament team into a legitimate title contender around an aging Stephen Curry.

ESPN’s Shams Charania reported that the Warriors are “planning a pursuit of LeBron James in free agency and Anthony Davis via trade this week,” signaling that Golden State intends to move aggressively on both fronts as NBA free agency officially opens. The strategy reflects an organization fully aware of the shrinking championship window surrounding Curry, who turns 38 this season and remains the centerpiece of any title hopes for a franchise that won 37 games and finished as a play-in participant last season.

The boldness of the plan is matched only by its inherent risk. James, 41, has missed more than 20 games in four of his last six seasons, while Davis, 33, has totaled just 71 appearances combined over the past two seasons. Pairing two stars with that combined injury history alongside an already injury-prone roster, one that includes Al Horford, Kristaps Porziņģis and Draymond Green, represents what amounts to a significant gamble on health and availability as much as on talent.

Despite those concerns, the potential upside has kept the idea squarely on the table for Golden State’s front office. The Curry-James-Davis trio has already shown it can function at an elite level together, having helped Team USA capture gold at the 2024 Paris Olympics under the direction of current Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. That shared chemistry and Kerr’s familiarity with deploying all three players alongside one another has reportedly factored into the Warriors’ confidence that the pairing could translate successfully to an 82-game NBA season and a deep playoff run, even accounting for the players’ respective ages and recent injury histories.

According to NBA insiders Marc Stein and Jake Fischer, the Warriors are considered “far and away the most interested external suitor” for James as he weighs his free agency options this summer. Still, there is no guarantee James will be willing to leave his Los Angeles home base to relocate for a fresh start in the Bay Area, particularly given the financial constraints Golden State would likely face in putting together a competitive offer. Absent significant additional maneuvering, the Warriors may have only the non-taxpayer midlevel exception, worth roughly $15.1 million, available to offer James as a free agent.

Even securing that level of cap flexibility would require considerable financial gymnastics on Golden State’s part. Draymond Green’s decision to decline his $27.7 million player option Monday was widely viewed as a necessary first step toward clearing the path for such a pursuit, but the Warriors would likely also need Green to accept a meaningful pay cut on any new contract, and the team may need to shed the salary of injured swingman Moses Moody to fully open up the financial space required to make a James pursuit and a Davis trade both feasible simultaneously.

The Davis side of the equation presents its own complications. Any trade for the Wizards center would likely require Golden State to include Jimmy Butler, meaning the Warriors would have to reverse course on previously stated plans to keep Butler on the roster throughout his recovery from a torn ACL. On Washington’s end, the Wizards would similarly need to abandon their own publicly stated intention to keep Davis as a core piece of their rebuilding effort, a stance general manager Will Dawkins reiterated just weeks ago when he said the team and Davis both want him to remain in the nation’s capital. Bridging that gap between Washington’s stated plans and Golden State’s ambitions remains one of the most significant obstacles standing between the Warriors and completing the proposed blockbuster.

Analysts following the situation have been blunt about just how complicated pulling off both moves simultaneously would be, describing the broader plan as far from simple and acknowledging that success would require a substantial amount of fortune breaking in the Warriors’ favor across multiple fronts at once, from James’ personal willingness to relocate, to Washington’s openness to moving Davis, to the financial restructuring needed to make the math work under the league’s salary cap and luxury tax rules.

Still, the calculus facing Golden State’s front office is straightforward in its own way: there has never been an easy or conventional path to transforming a 37-win, play-in-caliber roster into a genuine championship contender. With Curry’s prime years narrowing and no clear alternative path to title contention readily available through the draft or more conventional free agency moves, pursuing a high-variance, high-reward strategy built around two future Hall of Famers represents, in the view of those tracking the situation, a realistic if far from guaranteed route back to relevance for a franchise that has won four championships over the past decade but has watched its competitive window narrow considerably in recent seasons.

Whether the Warriors can actually thread the needle, convincing James to leave Los Angeles, persuading Washington to part with Davis, and restructuring their own roster finances enough to fit both moves under the salary cap, remains very much an open question as free agency unfolds this week. But for an organization unwilling to simply accept a gradual decline around its aging core, league sources indicate Golden State views this aggressive dual pursuit as the clearest remaining avenue to give Curry one final, legitimate opportunity to add to his championship resume before his career window closes entirely.

LONDON — Serena Williams steps back onto a Grand Slam singles court Tuesday for the first time in nearly four years, opening her much-anticipated Wimbledon return against 20-year-old Australian Maya Joint in a first-round match that caps a remarkable, fan-driven comeback to the sport’s most storied tournament.

Williams, a seven-time Wimbledon singles champion and 23-time Grand Slam winner, last competed in a singles match at a major tournament during the 2022 US Open, where she fell in the third round to Ajla Tomljanovic in what many assumed at the time was the closing chapter of her professional career. That assumption was upended on June 21, when Williams confirmed her return to the All England Club through a joint Instagram post with the tournament itself.

“This is not a drill,” the post read, accompanying a photo of Williams on a grass court alongside the caption “Serena Returns.”

The announcement followed an earlier reveal that Williams would also reunite with her sister Venus for women’s doubles at this year’s tournament, a pairing that has won six Wimbledon doubles titles together among 14 Grand Slam doubles championships overall. Speaking with reporters at the Berlin Tennis Open earlier this month, which marked just her second competitive appearance since her extended break, Williams credited her younger daughter for nudging her back toward the doubles reunion with Venus.

“My daughter, Olympia, told me I should play with Venus,” Williams said. “She’s always right.”

Williams, who shares daughters Olympia and Adira with husband Alexis Ohanian, described her older daughter as unusually perceptive for her age, calling her smart and wise before recounting her own initial response to the suggestion. “I said, ‘Okay, Olympia, we’ll see if we can do it,’” Williams said.

Tuesday’s first-round singles match pits Williams against Joint, a rising Australian player born in Michigan, the same state where Williams herself first picked up a racket. Joint, who made her own Wimbledon debut just last year, has described the matchup as a career milestone she once considered nearly unimaginable.

“I always dreamed about playing Serena Williams,” Joint told ESPN. “If you told me 10 years ago that I’d be playing her first round at Wimbledon, that’s just crazy.”

Joint also addressed the mental challenge of facing a player whose career she grew up admiring, saying she planned to focus narrowly on the match itself rather than the magnitude of her opponent’s legacy. “You just have to play the ball,” she said. “You can’t really think about who you are playing because I’ll just get too nervous. I’ll just take it one ball at a time.”

The exact start time for the Williams-Joint match depends on Tuesday’s official order of play, which tournament organizers traditionally release the evening before each day’s matches. Wimbledon’s broadcast coverage in the United States begins daily at 6 a.m. ET, running continuously through the tournament’s conclusion on July 12, with matches available across Tennis Channel, ESPN, the ESPN app and the network’s dedicated Wimbledon streaming hub. A complete list of international broadcast options is also available through the tournament’s official channels for viewers outside the U.S.

Williams enters her singles return without an active ranking, having been away from competitive tennis long enough to fall outside the WTA’s standard ranking system entirely, which left wild card entry as her only realistic path into the main draw. Tournament organizers granted her that wild card alongside a separate entry for the Williams sisters’ doubles reunion, with Venus and Serena set to compete together at Wimbledon for the first time since 2016, the same year Serena most recently claimed the tournament’s singles title.

Williams’ build-up to Wimbledon included a deliberately limited slate of tune-up matches on grass, a surface she has long considered her strongest. Beyond her appearance at the Berlin Tennis Open, Williams also played doubles at the HSBC Championships at London’s Queen’s Club earlier this month, partnering with Victoria Mboko in what was widely viewed as an early test of her readiness to compete again at a high level. Those appearances, along with continued practice sessions at the All England Club in the days leading up to the tournament, set the stage for Tuesday’s singles debut against Joint.

The broader 2026 Wimbledon field includes several other storylines competing for attention alongside Williams’ comeback. Defending women’s champion Iga Świątek is seeking her second consecutive title at the tournament after an earlier exit at the French Open, while Jannik Sinner aims to defend his men’s title following his own surprising early departure from this year’s Roland Garros. Both Sinner and longtime rival Novak Djokovic landed in the same half of the men’s draw, raising the possibility of a semifinal meeting between the two should they each advance that far.

For Williams, however, Tuesday’s match carries significance well beyond the tournament bracket itself. Her return marks one of the most closely watched comebacks in recent tennis history, drawing attention not only for the rarity of a player of her stature returning to Grand Slam singles competition after such an extended absence, but also for what it represents emotionally, a chance for her young daughters to watch their mother compete on one of the sport’s biggest stages, something neither child has had many opportunities to witness during Williams’ time away from the tour.

Whether Tuesday’s match against Joint marks a brief, ceremonial return or the start of a longer competitive run remains to be seen. But for a player widely regarded as the greatest in the history of women’s tennis, simply stepping back onto Wimbledon’s Centre Court grounds, nearly four years after many assumed her singles career had already concluded, represents a moment tennis fans worldwide have been anticipating since the surprise announcement first broke earlier this month.

The deal ends 155 years of member ownership

US business tycoon Bill Foley has completed the acquisition of Premiership Rugby club Exeter Chiefs, ending 155 years of member ownership. Foley’s Cannae Holdings has agreed to invest £19.6m in the Devon side through its newly created subsidiary Black Knight Rugby.

The deal values Exeter at £32.6m, with the new owner set to pay £11.7m to clear outstanding debt and other liabilities, while another £7.9m will remain on the balance sheet for growth capital and general corporate purposes.

Members voted in favour of the sale to Foley – a billionaire who also owns AFC Bournemouth – in May.

Cannae said on Tuesday (June 30) the transaction was part of a strategy of “transforming its portfolio” to concentrate on sports and entertainment-related assets, where it has the ability to drive shareholder returns.

It is understood the company will look to capitalise on commercial opportunities at Sandy Park – the club’s 15,000-capacity purpose-built rugby stadium – following the takeover.

“Exeter is the type of asset we have been seeking as we transform Cannae into a focused portfolio of sports and entertainment businesses,” said Foley, who is vice chair of Cannae Holdings.

“We have a proven track record of building successful sports and entertainment brands, like Black Knight Football’s network of clubs, and we intend to bring that same approach to Exeter. We are excited to partner with Tony, the management team and the Exeter community to build on the success of the Club and drive future results.”

Tony Rowe, chair and chief executive of Exeter Chiefs, said the completion of the deal was “a tremendously exciting moment” for the club. He will continue to serve as a director and CEO following the acquisition.

“By partnering with Cannae, we are securing a unique partner with experience, ambition and long-term commitment that will position the club to compete at the highest levels of English and European rugby,” he said.

“I look forward to working with the Cannae team to drive the Club forward with our players, our staff, and our supporters.”

Hollywood star Michael B Jordan, who won this year’s best actor Oscar for his role in Sinners, is a minority shareholder in Black Knight Football Club.

The news comes just days after Exeter finished as runners-up to Northampton in the 2025/26 season.

“The acquisition of Exeter is the next example of Cannae executing on the strategic priorities outlined by our board,” added Ryan Caswell, chief executive of Cannae Holdings.

“Exeter adds another attractive sports asset to our portfolio at a compelling entry price with upside at both the club and the league level – that can be enhanced through Cannae’s experience operating sports assets.

“We look forward to working with the Exeter team, its sponsors and the supporters to further the club’s momentum both on and off the pitch.”

Last year, Business Live revealed that all of England’s Premiership rugby clubs were making huge financial losses, with experts warning at the time that the sport was facing a “crisis” that could see more teams going under.

Rugby – the last of the big sports to professionalise – has long relied on owners and benefactors to cover ever-mounting debt burdens.

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait International Airport is open and operating today, with both of the country’s national carriers running scheduled flights, though one of its main terminals remains closed for repairs following repeated drone and missile strikes tied to the broader U.S.-Iran conflict that has disrupted Gulf aviation for much of this year.

Kuwait Airways is currently flying out of Terminal 4, while Jazeera Airways operates from Terminal 5, with both airlines maintaining largely normal schedules as the country’s aviation sector continues a gradual recovery. Terminal 1, the airport’s primary international facility, remains closed pending repairs after sustaining significant structural damage, and authorities have not announced a confirmed reopening date.

The airport’s path back to normal operations has been anything but smooth. Since the conflict began Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Kuwait’s airspace and its main airport have been repeatedly disrupted by Iranian drone attacks, part of a wider pattern of strikes targeting Gulf states hosting American military installations. The airport was first forced to suspend all flights starting Feb. 28, with local carrier Jazeera Airways temporarily diverting operations to Qaisumah International Airport in Saudi Arabia, roughly two and a half hours away by road, during the closure.

Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways resumed limited service on April 26, operating out of Terminals 4 and 5 while Terminal 1 remained shuttered. Terminal 1 finally reopened to international traffic on June 1, allowing some foreign carriers to resume service there for the first time in months. That reopening proved short-lived. Just two days later, on June 3, Iranian drones struck the terminal directly, according to Kuwait’s state news agency KUNA, causing severe damage, killing one person and injuring 63 others, including airport workers and passengers.

Kuwait’s Defense Ministry said its forces detected roughly 30 ballistic missiles and drones launched by Iran that day, with several intercepted over residential areas. A ministry spokesman described the attack as targeting civilian and vital facilities, and Kuwait’s foreign ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires to lodge a formal protest, demanding that two Iranian embassy staff leave the country within 24 hours. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard denied responsibility for the strike, with a spokesman claiming the damage was instead caused by a failed U.S. interceptor missile. U.S. Central Command rejected that account, calling it a deliberate Iranian drone attack on the airport.

Despite the severity of the June 3 strike, Kuwait Airways resumed flights from Terminal 4 within hours, reflecting the country’s determination to keep at least limited air traffic moving even amid continued security threats. In the weeks since, Kuwait’s General Authority of Civil Aviation has worked to bring additional capacity back online in phases. Oman Air confirmed it would restart its Kuwait flights on June 25, temporarily routing through Terminal 4 rather than its usual Terminal 1, becoming one of several foreign carriers progressively resuming service as conditions stabilize.

Sheikh Hamoud Mubarak Al Sabah, chairman of Kuwait’s General Civil Aviation Authority, said the decision to reopen the country’s airspace was coordinated closely with relevant domestic and international authorities to ensure operations resumed in line with the highest safety and security standards. He also credited the cooperation of aviation staff and government entities in accelerating the recovery, and specifically thanked Saudi Arabia for helping facilitate Kuwaiti carriers through its airports during the disruption, along with broader coordination among Gulf Cooperation Council members aimed at maintaining regional air traffic continuity throughout the crisis.

The broader security picture in the Gulf has shown signs of easing in recent days, even as sporadic violence has continued to test a fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran. Tensions flared again late last week when Iran was accused of launching attack drones at commercial shipping passing through the Strait of Hormuz and firing missiles and drones at military installations in Kuwait and Bahrain, prompting renewed U.S. retaliatory strikes. By the weekend, however, U.S. officials indicated both sides had agreed to stand down from further direct attacks, with fresh negotiations between Washington and Tehran expected to resume in Doha this week, focused in part on restoring normal commercial shipping and air traffic through the broader Gulf region.

Aviation risk trackers continue to reflect the uneven nature of that recovery. According to monitoring group OPSGROUP, Kuwait’s airspace has reopened and resumed limited operations after nearly two months of closure earlier this year, though the group cautions that neither Kuwait nor neighboring Iran has yet restored anything resembling normal central Middle East routing. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has similarly softened its guidance for Kuwait and several other Gulf states from active-avoidance warnings to a recommendation that operators “exercise caution” and maintain updated risk assessments, a marked shift from the stricter warnings issued at the height of the conflict earlier this year, even as the agency continues to advise airlines against operating in Iranian, Iraqi or Lebanese airspace altogether.

For travelers with existing bookings, airline and travel industry sources continue to recommend confirming flight status directly with carriers before heading to the airport, given the airport’s recent history of abrupt, security-driven schedule changes. Kuwait International Airport, located roughly 15.5 kilometers south of Kuwait City’s center, typically handles more than 15 million passengers annually and serves as the primary hub for both Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways, connecting the country to more than 100 destinations worldwide.

For now, the practical answer to whether the airport is open today is yes, with flights departing and arriving on a steadily normalizing schedule, but the broader question of whether that recovery can hold remains tied directly to the durability of the ceasefire between the United States and Iran, a truce that has already been tested, and broken, multiple times since it was first announced earlier this year.