Summer isn’t over yet and there’s still a ton of new tabletop games on the way, that includes video game tie-ins for XCOM and Cult Of The Lamb.

Unlike for video games, there is no summer games drought when it comes to tabletop games and the last few months have seen dozens of new releases and announcements. There’s been yet more video game adaptations, as well as animation crossovers for Justice League and Ghost in the Shell, and the latest for Warhammer and the Pokémon trading card game.

At the same time, the Disney Store in Oxford Street had to shut its doors, as crowds from all over Europe tried to get their hands on the latest Lorcana offerings, as Disney’s trading card game becomes ever more popular.

There’s never been so many excuses to hit your local gaming café, and take advantage of their aircon while building the perfect deck or plotting against friends over a cardboard map.

Warhammer 40,000: Armageddon launch box

11th Edition already? How time flies when you’re the biggest tabletop gaming company in the world. The battle for Armageddon returns with one of Games Workshop’s biggest Warhammer 40,000 releases in recent years, with a brand new clash between the Imperium and the Orks.

The launch box delivers two complete armies, including Space Marine units such as the newly sculpted lieutenant and tactical squads, alongside a brutal Ork force packed with characterful miniatures including Boyz, Nobz, and heavily armed war machines. The push-fit models make it an accessible starting point for newcomers, while veteran hobbyists have loved the updated sculpts.

Built around the streamlined Warhammer 40,000 11th Edition rules, the set introduces faster gameplay, refreshed mission systems, and smoother army building. With recent rumours about Games Workshop using AI put firmly to bed, this is more than a starter set, it’s a celebration of everything fans love about the 41st millennium.

Out now: RRP £150

Riftbound: League Of Legends TCG Vendetta

Riot Games is proving it means business with Riftbound: Vendetta, the latest expansion for its League Of Legends trading card game, that pushes competitive play deeper into the world of Runeterra. This set focuses on legendary rivalries, introducing new versions of champions including Shen, Zed, Mel, and Ambessa – alongside more than 160 new cards designed to shake up deck strategies. New mechanics such as flow, burn, and empower give you more ways to control battles, while unit-gear cards add another layer of customisation to champion builds.

Like previous Riftbound releases, the appeal comes from combining tactical card play with the personalities of League’s biggest characters. Whether you prefer aggressive champion-focused decks or slower strategic builds, Vendetta offers plenty of new tools for competitive players.

With stunning alternate art cards and collector-focused Showcase cards, this is another major step forward in Riot’s attempt to challenge the biggest names in the TCG world.

Out now: Showdown Deck RRP £35

Disney Lorcana – Set 13: Attack of the Vine!

Disney Lorcana is rushing towards Spooky Season with Attack of the Vine, an expansion that brings fresh characters, clever new mechanics, and plenty of reasons for collectors to start hunting for those elusive Enchanted cards.

The 13th set sees the mysterious Vine spreading across the Inklands, introducing a new storyline alongside fan favourite Pixar worlds including Monsters Inc., Up, and Turning Red. The set also introduces dual-named characters, including combinations such as Sulley & Boo (I love their dedicated playmat), creating exciting new deck-building possibilities. While new abilities like temporary shift and floodborn shift add more tactical depth for competitive players.

With more than 200 cards to collect, top chase cards include my favourite Meilin as a singing red Panada using the Karaoke Queen ability and the iconic Belle and Beast card, which can fetch up to $2,000 on eBay.

Out now: starter deck around £20

Ravensburger Pokémon, 40,000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle

I definitely don’t have room left in my flat for anything Pokémon related, especially not a 6.8m by 1.9m puzzle, but I really want it even at its eye-watering price. This jaw-dropping 40,320 piece jigsaw puzzle is one of the biggest officially licensed puzzles ever made, turning Nintendo’s monster-catching phenomenon into the ultimate challenge for collectors with far more patience and floor space than me.

Featuring every pokémon area, from Kanto to Paldea, the enormous artwork is a colourful celebration of almost three decades of the franchise, packed with familiar faces including Pikachu, Charizard, Mewtwo, Eevee, Lucario, Greninja, Garchomp, Miraidon and Koraidon. The puzzle arrives split into multiple numbered bags, allowing you to complete individual sections before tackling the mammoth final assembly.

Even so, with a finished weight of around 20kg and a price tag of over £500, it’s a major commitment. But for diehard Pokémon fans looking for the ultimate time waster and display piece, this might just be the most ambitious piece of memorabilia released (so far) this year.

Available from 1st September: RRP £549.99

Warhammer: The Old World – Fantasy Battles In the World of Legend core set

Featuring an amazingly huge Chaos Dragon, the new Warhammer: The Old World core set finally delivers a true starter box, pitting the disciplined armies of Grand Cathay against the brutal Warriors of Chaos in spectacular rank and file battles. Packed with 54 beautifully detailed miniatures, an updated rulebook, and everything two players need to begin, it’s the strongest entry point the game has seen for those looking to build a new (overpowered) army.

The tactical gameplay is deeper and more demanding than Age Of Sigmar or Warhammer 40,000, rewarding careful positioning, clever manoeuvres, and old-school battlefield strategy. It also brings with it another way of playing the game in a more manageable way, with a lower point cost called Battle March.

Grand Cathay’s debut is a particular highlight, with stunning new miniatures that perfectly capture the faction’s elegant Eastern aesthetic, while the revamped Chaos range is every bit as intimidating as fans had hoped. It’s not the quickest game to learn, but for strategy lovers and long-time fantasy devotees, this is a triumphant return to the World of Legend.

Out Now: RRP £150

The Ghost In The Shell: Tabletop Roleplaying Game

While the new anime on Amazon Prime may have divided veteran fans with its freestyle animation and chortling Tachikomas I’m sold on its cuter style. However, this new role-playing game is based on the original Masamune Shirow manga and puts players in the cyber-enhanced boots of Section 9 operatives dealing with cybercrime, political conspiracies, and the blurred line between human and machine.

Rather than simply recreating the action of the films and series, the game focuses on what makes Ghost In The Shell so popular, with questions about identity, artificial intelligence, and what it means to be human in an increasingly digital world – something we can all relate to. Players can customise their cybernetic upgrades, investigate complex cases, and use advanced technology to tackle threats across a futuristic Tokyo.

With its mix of tactical combat, detective work, and deep world-building, this is a tabletop experience aimed at fans who want more than just another cyberpunk shootout and are looking for more depth than Cyberpunk 2077’s deck builder.

Out May 2027: Collector’s Bundle £149

XCOM: The Miniatures Game

There may never be another XCOM video game, but between this and Star Wars Zero Company, from some of the same developers, this is as close to a renaissance as you’re likely to get. The miniatures game isn’t out until next year, but from what I’ve seen so far it looks like a lot of fun and transforms the beloved strategy series into a tense tactical battle worthy of the franchise.

Anyone who’s ever watched a carefully planned XCOM mission collapse because a soldier missed a 95% accuracy shot will already know the series was practically born for the tabletop. XCOM: The Miniatures Game leans into that brutal tactical tension, swapping the screen for beautifully detailed miniatures while keeping the desperate squad-based action intact. Built on Ivan Sorensen’s excellent Five Parsecs From Home ruleset, you’ll recruit soldiers, research alien tech, expand your base and throw your elite squad into increasingly impossible missions against Sectoids, Floaters, Chryssalids and other familiar horrors.

It’s fully playable solo or cooperatively, while an asymmetric mode lets another player command the alien invasion. The miniatures look fantastic and the campaign promises meaningful progression rather than one-off skirmishes. If Modiphius can capture even half the nail-biting panic of the video games, this could be one of the year’s smartest licensed adaptations and, yes, you’ll probably still blame the dice.

Out January 2027: pre-order £185

Cult Of The Lamb: The Board Game

Considering I own the plushie and double-fold vinyl for the video game, there’s not a chance that I would be missing out on Paper Fort Games’ Kickstarter, which has somehow bottled Massive Monster’s gloriously twisted mix of cute woodland critters and cult indoctrination into a tabletop adventure that looks every bit as chaotic as its video game inspiration.

And it’s not just another dungeon crawler, with devilishly familiar cute artwork slapped on. Every expedition into the wilderness is balanced by running your increasingly devoted flock back home. That means recruiting followers, constructing buildings, unlocking new doctrines, and making the sort of morally questionable decisions that somehow seem perfectly reasonable when everyone’s wearing tiny animal robes of plastic!

The adorable miniatures are an obvious highlight, but the gameplay looks surprisingly meaty too. Crusades promise tactical combat, meaningful upgrades, and plenty of replayability; while the worker placement mechanics should create just enough friendly sabotage between players.

Licensed board games don’t always survive the jump from screen to table (did we really need so many tabletop outings for The Last of Us?), but this one seems to understand exactly why I fell in love with Cult Of The Lamb in the first place. Equal parts cute, creepy and satanically unhinged, everyone please get on the Kickstarter and vote for the giraffe follower stretch goal, he’s my fave.

Out December 2027 – all-in pledge £249

Pokémon TCG: Mega Evolution-Pitch Black Pokémon Center Elite Trainer Box

If you’ve spent as much time as I have this month in the digital queue for the Pokémon Center, trying to get a chance at any of the 30th Anniversary TCG sets, getting hold of Pitch Black was a doddle in comparison. While it doesn’t have the kind of eye-catching chase cards fans coveted from Ascendant Heroes, it can’t be faulted for featuring the darker, more dramatic style of the Mega Evolution era.

Collectors are already setting their sights on stunning Mega Pokémon ex cards, including Mega Darkrai ex (Special Illustration Rare), Mega Darkrai ex (Mega Hyper Rare), and Morpeko ex (Special Illustration Rare).

With powerful pokémon, eye-catching artwork, and plenty of competitive potential going into the World Championship later this month, Mega Evolution-Pitch Black delivers the perfect mix of nostalgia and fresh strategy, before the deluge of 30th anniversary goodies hit the shelves. Even if you can’t make Worlds this latest Elite Trainer Box has enough tournament-winning cards to keep you happy at home.

Out now – RRP £49.99

Justice League Unlimited: The Roleplaying Game

The new Justice League game is looking to give DC fans the chance to create their own superheroes and fight alongside legends including Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Green Lantern.

Co-written by legendary DC writer Mark Waid, this is the first officially licensed Justice League role-player in almost 20 years and lets you create original heroes from lineages including Kryptonian, Amazonian, Atlantean, and speedster. The system is built around more than just punching villains too, with your hero’s moral code defined through five ‘tacit clauses’, while ‘interlude moments’ encourage role-playing between the universe-threatening set pieces.

When things do go wrong, the clever entropy system and crisis die can throw the entire campaign into chaos with surprise alien invasions, time travellers, or other comic-book curveballs. The lavish miniatures are packed with fan favourites, alongside villains including Darkseid, Lex Luthor, and The Joker (I love his purple and green dice). Throw in two brand-new canon villains, created by Mark Waid exclusively for the game, and this already feels like a love letter to DC fans rather than another licensed cash-in.

Out May 2027 – all-in pledge $320 (£238)

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A heartbroken father revealed the final text messages he received from his ex-wife before she poisoned their four kids in what cops believe was a horrific murder-suicide. 

Brady Harmon’s nightmare began in June, when his children were found dead in an upstate New York home alongside their mother, Sarah Myers, 44, and grandmother, Amy Steadman, 64.

Myers and her mother are accused of orchestrating the murder-suicide that left her children – Harper, 13, Hudson, 11, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn – dead.

Harmon previously said that the children primarily lived with his ex-wife and they were amid a custody battle before the shocking deaths. The children were set to visit him over the summer, marking their first time with their father since 2019. 

He shared the chilling last messages with Myers in a recent Facebook post following the Mechanicville Police Department’s announcement that the mother and grandmother duo planned to murder the children before taking their own lives. 

Chief Bill Rabbitt told reporters on Tuesday that the pair exchanged messages in the days leading up to the killings about administering medications to the children.

In light of the investigation update, Harmon shared the text messages between him and Myers, including exchanges on the day the horror began.

‘According to information released by the Mechanicville Police Department, messages were being exchanged on June 10 concerning the planned murder of my children,’ Harmon wrote online before revealing his own texts.

Myers and her mother are accused of orchestrating the murder-suicide that left her children – Harper, 13, Hudson, 11, and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn – dead, pictured above 

On the same day, Myers sent a text to Harmon saying their children had the stomach bug, police also found messages to Steadman about their plan to medicate the kids

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‘That was the same day I was told the kids had a stomach bug and was asked to postpone my scheduled FaceTime call.’

The messages between the former couple began on May 31 after a series of unanswered and outgoing video calls. Harmon sent Myers the flight information for the children’s planned visit. 

A few days later, they went over the flight information and Myers confirmed that the children could fly out before July 1st, asking in a separate message if Harmon could send a child support payment so she could buy them sneakers. Then on June 8, Harmon asked Myers for activities that the children enjoyed. 

‘My goal is to create opportunities for all of us to spend quality time together, stay active, enjoy the outdoors, make positive memories, and reconnect as a family,’ Harmon said. 

The father then asked for the children’s medical information, including their physicians, medications and allergies. 

‘I’ll talk to the kiddos about the stuff they would like to do over the summer,’ Myers responded. 

On June 10, Myers texted: ‘The kids have gotten a little stomach bug throwing up is it okay to switch your online visit to tomorrow night at 4 pm your time please.’ 

Harmon responded that he would continue painting instead, adding that he hoped the kids would feel better soon. 

The next day, he asked if the children were feeling better, and a video call went unanswered. 

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‘I have thought about sharing these final communications for a long time. I am now sharing the messages from May 31 through June 11 because they show what I was being told while I was planning for my children’s summer with me,’ Harmon wrote in the post.

‘I sent their flight information. I planned activities based on their interests. I requested their medical records, medications, allergies, doctors’ information, and other documents that were required under the parenting plan. I believed I was preparing to welcome my children home.’

Harmon said he believed the truth about his ex-wife and her mother would have come out if the children had the opportunity to stay with him in Utah for the summer. 

‘My children were not pawns to be sacrificed when control was slipping away. They were four beautiful human beings with personalities, dreams, fears, laughter, and an entire family waiting to love them,’ he wrote. 

Police uncovered messages between Myers and Steadman about their plan to medicate the kids. They were made on the same day Myers texted Harmon that their children had a stomach bug.  

‘Sarah Myers instructed Amy Steadman that the medications should be administered between 10.30am and noon so they could be finished before a scheduled telephone call at 6pm with the children’s father,’ Chief Rabbitt said at this week’s press conference.

He added that their plan appeared to take a turn later that morning, when ‘the children failed to respond in the manner that Steadman and Myers had anticipated. 

Police found handwritten letters believed to be written by Steadman and Myers, including a signed confession from the grandmother 

Harmon wrote in a post that his children were ‘four beautiful human beings with personalities, dreams, fears, laughter, and an entire family waiting to love them’ 

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Around the same time, Rabbitt said one of the women – without specifying which – sent the other a sinister message: ‘It’s not working. We need another option.’

Investigators uncovered evidence pointing to a mass poisoning, though it has since been revealed that 10-year-old Gavin was ‘repeatedly’ stabbed to death with a knife. 

The investigation found that Steadman had visited multiple pharmacies in the days leading up to the mass-poisoning event, the chief shared during Tuesday’s press conference.

Internet history recovered by authorities showed ‘searches about medication reactions, the effects of insulin on non-diabetics and the Utah court system,’ according to the chief.

Rabbitt said later searches included ‘Where is the most fatal place to be stabbed,’ which returned results detailing a specific artery as well as the neck.

Authorities also uncovered letters, including a handwritten confession signed by Steadman and unsigned notes believed to have been from Myers alleging that she and her children were abused while living in Utah.  

FIFA’s chief operating officer Kevin Lamour told the Associated Press last week that the FIFA administration had been “deceived” by Infantino, while Portugal star Luis Figo joined the criticism earlier on Wednesday, saying Infantino’s conduct over FFE was the “lowest, most deceitful, and cravenly self-interested behaviour I have ever witnessed”.

A man has been charged over the alleged hit-and-run death of schoolboy Keaton Slater in Coventry more than two years ago.

Dolars Aleksanders was extradited from Latvia, where he was detained last month, and has been charged with causing death by dangerous driving, West Midlands Police said on Wednesday night.

The 23-year-old Latvian man was taken into custody after arriving in the UK and is due to appear before Birmingham Magistrates Court on Thursday.

Keaton, 12, died after being hit by a black BMW in Coventry on 14 June 2024 while on his way home from school.

Efforts to extradite Aleksanders had been under way since he was named by police as a person of interest shortly after the crash.

He was flown into Gatwick Airport on Wednesday and was then transported to a custody block in the West Midlands, police said.

Crown Prosecution Service spokesman Ben Samples said British and Latvian authorities, as well as international agencies, had worked closely together to “bring Mr Aleksanders back to face proceedings in a UK court”.

However, it found that several supplements marketed as “high strength” contained less of the active EPA and DHA – the long-chain omega-3 fatty acids with proven health benefits including maintaining blood pressure, heart function and healthy blood triglyceride levels – than the advised daily intake.

Weight loss jabs like Mounjaro and Wegovy have now been linked to at least 216 UK deaths, the Daily Mail can reveal. 

The majority of victims are those who’ve used tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Mounjaro – which has been dubbed the ‘King Kong’ of slimming injections.

Government figures also show a startling rise in deaths, with annual jab fatalities leaping by 300 per cent between 2024 and 2025 – from 22 to 94.

Meanwhile, a total of 150,000 adverse reactions have been associated with the drugs since the earliest recorded figure in 2010 – 18,000 of which were serious or fatal.

Most of these involve conditions affecting the gastrointestinal system, such as inflammation of the pancreas known as pancreatitis and gastroparesis, or stomach paralysis.

The tallies, obtained via an analysis of official drug safety data, come days after an inquest heard that a 73-year-old British grandmother died after increasing her dose of Mounjaro.

Caroline Savage’s death was said to be faecal peritonitis, whereby bacteria leaks into the abdomen via a hole in the bowel.

This often triggers life-threatening sepsis, and is fatal in half of patients who develop it.

The inquest heard that the slimming injections may increase pressure in the intestines in those with certain underlying conditions, increasing the risk of a hole forming – known medically as perforation.

Experts have warned that patients should be aware of this lesser-known complication.

Penny Ward, a pharmaceutical expert from King’s College London, said that the jabs can cause the gut to work slowly, triggering a back-up of waste products that put pressure on the sensitive bowel lining, increasing the risk of a tear.

She explained because this is ‘not common’ it is a lesser known potential side effect. 

‘Nausea and vomiting are quite common after taking these drugs, but severe, sudden onset of severe abdominal pain is an indication of something more worrisome going on and should be investigated,’ she added. 

The Daily Mail has analysed reports made to the UK’s medical safety regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

These so-called Yellow Card reports are the UK’s system for tracking suspected adverse drug reactions.

They can be submitted from members of the public, healthcare professionals and those who work in the pharmaceutical industry.

Officials stress that they do not prove that a medicine caused a reaction to happen, only that it is suspected by the individual making the report. 

Other health conditions may have been at play.

Since tirzepatide was licensed in 2024, a total of 120 deaths linked to the drug have been reported to the MHRA.

The figure for semaglutide – sold under brand names Wegovy and Ozempic – is 59, while liraglutide, known as Saxenda, is associated with 37 fatalities.

Of the 18,000 serious or fatal effects recorded, 11,500 specifically concerned tirzepatide, or Mounjaro, which results in faster and more significant weight loss than the other drugs.

Close to 8,000 of these Mounjaro reports concerned women.

The popular drugs are known as GLP-1 agonists, and work by mimicking appetite-suppressing hormones released by the gut after eating.  

Studies show the medications can help patients lose at least a fifth of their body weight within a year. 

The death of Ms Savage follows the first British woman to have tirzepatide listed on her death certificate.

Susan McGowan, a 58-year-old nurse from North Lanarkshire, died in September 2024 after taking two low-dose injections of the drug over the course of two weeks.  

Official records show that she suffered fatal organ failure, septic shock and pancreatitis, with the use of prescribed tirzepatide listed as a contributing factor.    

An MHRA spokesman said: ‘It is important to place these reports in the context of the millions of GLP-1 prescriptions issued in the UK. Reporting volumes can be influenced by increased use, greater awareness of a potential adverse reaction and other factors.

‘As with all medicines, the safety of GLP-1’s are kept under continual review including emerging evidence from spontaneous data and scientific publications.

‘On the basis of the current evidence, the benefits of GLP-1 receptor agonists outweigh the potential risks when used in line with their authorised uses.’

Drug manufacturers Novo Nordisk, who make Wegovy, Ozempic and Saxenda, said: ‘Like all medicines, treatments used for chronic conditions can have side effects, and these can vary from person to person. 

‘We recommend that any patient experiencing side effects while taking GLP-1 RA medicines report them to their healthcare provider and via the MHRA Yellow Card scheme.’

Eli Lilly, who are behind Mounjaro and Zepbound, said: ‘Patient safety is Lilly’s top priority. We take reports regarding patient safety seriously and actively monitor, evaluate, and report safety information for all our medicines.

‘Regulatory agencies conduct extensive independent assessments of the benefits and risks of every new medicine. Patients taking Mounjaro (tirzepatide), like with any other prescription medicine, may experience adverse events. Adverse events should be reported under the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme.

‘Mounjaro (tirzepatide) should only be used when prescribed by a healthcare professional. We encourage patients to consult their doctor or other healthcare professional regarding any side effects they may be experiencing and to ensure that they are getting genuine Lilly medicine.’

When approached for comment, NHS England declined to say how many GLP-1 users had been officially hospitalised. 

When Harry Brook was wowing those at Headingley on Tuesday night with a no-look six during a record-equalling 50, it felt in that particular moment that everything might at last be coming together for the Hundred.

A competition with multiple launches but a recurring marketing campaign promising to take a new audience to new places – what better than a shot that wasn’t even a thing when 100-ball cricket was dreamt up? – was doing so through one of its homegrown pin-ups.

Undoubtedly, Brook’s 15-ball half century at Headingley just past the midpoint of the Hundred’s sixth season ticked all the boxes, fulfilling the pledges to make this competition second only to the Indian Premier League in short-form stature and to feature England’s premier players at its forefront.

The strength of the attack the 27-year-old was up against spoke of the quality on show this year: six of the London Spirit bowlers were internationals and the seventh was James Coles, the Hundred’s most expensive auction purchase ever at £390,000.

Yet that snapshot also exposed two sporting spheres colliding. In South Asia and North America – the territories from which this year’s new money in a £975million Hundred upgrade has come – franchises pop up, move cities and disband with minimal fuss while supporters are more willing to change allegiance depending on where their favourite players move.

Here in the UK, though, we are a parochial bunch and one trick that the newly owned teams either missed, or brazenly disregarded, was signing local county players to their respective Hundred teams to boost identity.

Australia stars Marcus Stoinis (left) and Adam Zampa (batting) are two of the international stars cementing the Hundred as the second-strongest short-form competition behind the IPL

Nowhere in the country is as insular as Yorkshire and it felt wrong during the early stages of this year’s auction that SunRisers Leeds were not going all out to recruit one of Joe Root, Jonny Bairstow or Adil Rashid. It left Brook and his former Burley-in-Wharfedale club mate Matthew Revis as the only familiar faces to relate to on Tuesday.

Southampton-based Southern Brave have just one Hampshire player in their ranks in teenager Manny Lumsden, a squad player rather than a first-choice pick and could not retain their local hero and captain James Vince in this season’s auction.

Somerset’s England Twenty20 international Tom Banton has played for three Hundred franchises, but has spent the past three seasons at Trent Rockets and admits continuity in squads is needed to deepen connections with fans.

‘If they’re coming every year and there’s new faces, I guess it’s hard for people to get behind the team and support, isn’t it?’ says Banton. ‘Whereas if you’ve been playing for a few years, they can kind of relate to you, get to know you and want to come and watch you.’

In contrast to the majority of their new-money rivals, the table-topping Rockets have also maintained the same colours and badge following the tournament’s unofficial relaunch. Five seasons of familiarity has been removed elsewhere.

Until recently, Headingley was full of purple-shirted Northern Superchargers fans. Overnight, following the complete buyout of Yorkshire’s stake in the competition by Sunrisers Hyderabad, they were being asked to form an orange army, and support Leeds rather than band together as the North. Best of luck.

Colours and identities are important to a British supporter base. Recall the anger when Cardiff City switched from blue to red shirts and ditched the bluebird for a dragon or when Hull City’s former owner Assem Allam applied to change the club’s name to Hull Tigers.

The Sunrisers are one of three teams to have changed names, along with Oval Invincibles becoming MI London and the Manchester Originals being renamed Manchester Super Giants. All have badges and kits to reflect their IPL links, although MI have retained the colours of the reigning three-in-a-row champions Invincibles for training.

Oval Invincibles won the last three men’s titles wearing a turquoise strip, before being taken over by Mumbai Indians and becoming MI London, playing in royal blue

Meanwhile, the Old Trafford-based franchise have gone from being Manchester Originals in black kits to Manchester Super Giants in red and navy stripes

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Southern Brave have gone from green and black to blue and red. Birmingham Phoenix have moved from orange shirts to black. To their credit, both Manchester and Leeds teams have begun schemes to make the switch easier, giving out replica shirts to every ticket holder at their early matches.

MI London launched a shirt amnesty in which turquoise 2025 Oval Invincibles shirts could be exchanged for the new royal blue ones. Additionally, they produced a club T-shirt for £20 under their ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign.

Vikram Banerjee, the Hundred’s managing director, says that 40 per cent of those through the turnstiles are Under 16s and that ‘as we look to deepen and accelerate fandom, merchandise sales are a great barometer. Southern Brave and London Spirit are already having to restock, and nearly 40,000 fans are wearing the new jerseys of Manchester Super Giants or SunRisers Leeds.’ Presumably referencing the freebies.

Filling their grounds with a shirt-donning, flag-waving, family-oriented crowd has been championed as a success by the host counties too, but there are sceptics from within the county game about the real impact underneath the veneer, with one executive telling Daily Mail Sport: ‘The rebranding is utterly ridiculous. They’ve alienated the local people, and now they’ve whacked the prices up that nobody can afford it. And the sales are through the floor.

‘I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m just looking at the Hundred right now and thinking we’ve seen this before – it was called LIV Golf. So, is the Hundred even going to be here in three years’ time?’

Whether it is the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, increased ticket prices or the rebranding that has proved a turnoff remains to be seen, but the Hundred is proving a hard sell in 2026. The first block of matches saw attendances down around 20 per cent on last year, the second block dropping by 27 per cent.

Crowds have generally picked up across the competitions since, but with ticketing operations now run by the organisations themselves rather than centrally, entrance fees hitting a high of £55 is an issue, even if you do get access to both parts of the men’s and women’s double-header for your money.

That is some hike for a competition that spent its first iteration between 2021-25 dishing out complimentary seats to its target audience of mums and kids. The problem with freebies, though, comes when you ask people to start paying instead.

The first block of matches saw attendances down around 20 per cent on last year, the second block dropping by 27 per cent

Brook’s blockbuster knock was watched by just over 9,000 spectators this week, a few hundred down on the 9,438 that turned out for the Leeds v Manchester contest. By comparison, the established Roses Twenty20 Blast fixture, promoted with a fraction of the budget, drew 11,300 at Headingley in June.

Kaviya Maran, part of the Sun Group that owns the SunRisers said the first signs at Headingley were ‘a good beginning’, adding: ‘Obviously it’s a new brand for them.’

It was a similar story across the Pennines at Old Trafford, scene of a 16,500 sellout for the reverse Blast match. The cheapest tickets were £30 with £8 concessions for that, and while those for Super Giants matches cost less, starting at £24 and £5 in advance, their average men’s Hundred crowd has been under 12,000.

There have been some misjudgments. A huge proportion of Yorkshire fans will refuse to support a team with Leeds in its name, especially after the woeful attempt to incorporate Leeds United’s Marching On Together as the club song via a (swiftly deleted) social media post.

There have been highs, such as Welsh Fire setting attendance records for any women’s match in Wales and in the men’s competition on July 25 for the visit of the MI London teams. And the women’s game is benefitting with a higher percentage of people turning up earlier to stadia. Eighty per cent of fans that watched Southern Brave’s men on July 27 had been there early doors to see the women’s game too.

While the cash-rich Hundred stumbles, the county game it has kicked into the side verges has witnessed a series of triumphs. Helped by the presence of Ben Stokes, Durham sold out Jesmond when hosting Glamorgan in the MetroBank One-Day Cup and had to warn ticketless supporters not to turn up on matchday. There were 2,300 present to witness a thrilling match that saw Durham recover from 97 for six to knock off their 327-run target with three balls to spare.

Stokes was also in the Durham team that played to almost 5,000 in defeat by Yorkshire at York last week, 48 hours after the same venue accommodated 4,500 for the visit of Worcestershire.

Gloucestershire have had to expand their capacity for their visits to Cheltenham this year because of demand and although these numbers are more modest than the Hundred, full outgrounds are aesthetically pleasing to see and provide a county’s emerging players with an entry level for professional cricket.

By contrast, the Roses T20 Blast match drew a sell-out crowd of 16,500 – despite prices being higher than the Hundred

Peter Matthews, chairman of Gloucestershire, is an advocate of taking 50-over cricket to venues ‘that don’t normally see cricket,’ adding: ‘It has echoes for those of a certain generation of some of the Sunday League grounds. Gloucestershire used to play a Sunday League game at a number of different grounds – Lydney, Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucester – which we can’t do now because it doesn’t work economically.’

Matthews says the lack of an obvious Hundred competitor in the region has helped footfall during the period between the World Cup and the start of the Premier League in a fortnight. And non-host clubs like his have been able to plan for more sustainable futures thanks to the £25million individual windfalls from the ECB’s big sell-off.

In addition to paying off their debts – ‘we got ourselves into a bit of a muddle,’ says Matthews – Gloucestershire ploughed £3million into a project codenamed Dressing Rooms, which drastically improved player and match official facilities plus general infrastructure at their Nevil Road headquarters.

Leicestershire are another to have been dragged out of the red by the Hundred’s millions, and they have begun feasibility studies on adding further non-cricket earnings to their annual income.

They have already been creative in this space on a smaller scale, holding drive-in cinema days last weekend and planning to install a 4G multi-sports pitch alongside the country’s largest playing area to be hired out during the winter. Their decision to allow children in free this month has resonated with their following, coming during the school holidays.

Chief executive Emma White says: ‘We’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis, so I think there’s a ridiculous squeeze on the leisure pound. Are we getting a true reflection of the Hundred effect? I’m not entirely sure we are, if I’m totally honest. We’re seeing a true reflection of the fact that people can’t afford to do much at the moment.

‘The massive positive is that it’s given quite a lot of counties more than you would imagine, the breathing space needed to kind of reset a little bit and almost future-proof cricket in their area by investing in revenue-generating projects.’

With the £25million lump sums viewed as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to become less reliant on ECB annual handouts, counties – particularly the non-hosts – are taking their time to assess how best to invest. Durham recently received planning permission for an on-site hotel that they first discussed pre-Covid and will now employ a project director to produce a report on profitability, given the rise of costs in the hospitality industry.

Counties – particularly the non-hosts – are taking their time to assess how best to invest. Durham received planning permission for an on-site hotel that they first discussed pre-Covid

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But there is a fear that however smartly the money is used, the disparity between those that have taken the finite sum and those still with skin in the Hundred game is only going to widen

The IPL might be a behemoth now but it took the expansion of the league from eight to ten teams in 2011 to truly realise its potential 

But there is a fear that however smartly the money is used, the disparity between those that have taken the finite sum and those still with skin in the Hundred game is only going to widen.

‘Host counties are going to become wealthier and more able to attract the best players,’ said one county chair. ‘Fundamentally you’re talking about those grounds having tradition, history and scale. It’s very difficult to argue against tradition, history, and scale. They’re always going to generate more revenue than elsewhere.’

To back up the theory, the Lord’s-based Spirit have been valued at £300million – two and a half times more than the field. Suspicion remains around the shires that while this year’s competition will not return profits for the new investors, they are biding their time until expansion. Teams based in Bristol and Chester-le-Street would be the most obvious additions.

It was not until the IPL increased from eight to ten teams that the original set hit a goldmine, as the fee paid for the rights to own a new franchise would be distributed among the rest of the existing teams. And that with half the teams now controlled by powerful IPL owners, it is only a matter of time before Indian players are allowed to feature in a league outside of their own, significantly increasing its value in television and commercial rights on the subcontinent.

At which point, Hundred teams would potentially need fewer Englishmen and counties would be re-stocked with some of their primary talents, opening the chance to play the County Championship throughout August once more and easing a schedule already past saturation point. Unlike Brook’s shot in Leeds, all eyes are on what direction the Hundred will go now.

Experts warned last night that it may be too late to contain AI after one program was found to have created fake human identities to hack into online systems.

In the latest example of the technology going rogue, AI software attempted to break into a database 19 times while being tested by the AI Security Institute, Britain’s AI watchdog.

And in one unprecedented case, an AI tool was even caught creating fake human identities online to trick coders into assisting with a cyber-attack.

The revelations came after the Daily Mail revealed in July that all five AI models tested by experts tried to trick their way around security controls that had been put in place.

Just days previously it emerged that the US tech firm OpenAI had experienced its own leak – when an AI ‘agent’ hacked into another company of its own accord.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch warned AI was now a ‘clear and present danger’ to Britain’s security.

Julia Lopez, the Conservatives’ science, innovation and technology spokeswoman, called the reports ‘a stark reminder that AI is becoming more sophisticated and more autonomous’.

She added: ‘We all want Britain to lead on AI innovation, but this has to come with safeguards for our national security and accountability from the developers of the most powerful AI models. 

Kanishka Narayan, UK AI and online safety minister, pointed to the speed at which AI agents are finding ways to behave deviously

‘Labour need to be clearer about how the most serious frontier risks will be addressed while ensuring that our world-class tech industry can grow and innovate to build our national resilience and prosperity’.

Henry de Zoete, the Government’s AI adviser, warned yesterday he expected more hacking attempts like these.

Allison Gardner, who chairs Parliament’s cross-party group on artificial intelligence, told the Daily Mail that ‘just because we can build these technologies doesn’t mean we should’.

She warned that the risk levels of agentic AI – AI that can perform a specific goal with limited supervision – should be treated with the greatest scrutiny, adding: ‘Unless we are too late and have not only created Pandora’s Box but already opened it.’

The AI Security Institute (AISI), set up by ex-PM Rishi Sunak in 2023, detected evidence of the AI agents’ activity last week. In a report published on Tuesday, it revealed that leading AI models from the firms OpenAI and Anthropic had attempted to hack into secure systems online under testing.

The experts discovered ‘unusual data transfers’ leaving their systems during routine cyber scanning. Digging deeper, they found that some AI agents had engaged in ‘sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations’.

They began a full investigation after containing the AI agents before they did any real damage.

In an attempt to reassure the public, AI minister Kanishka Narayan said: ‘Identifying behaviour like this, and sharing knowledge so we can better understand it, is precisely what we set AISI up to do. This incident underlines why their world-leading expertise and close work with frontier labs is so important.’

But pointing to the speed at which AI agents are finding ways to behave deviously, AISI said: ‘This is the first time we have seen risks around autonomy and deception manifest this clearly, without specific prompting, in the real world.’ 

Referring to the Anthropic model Mythos, Andrew Yoon, a researcher at CivAI, a California organisation that examines AI capabilities and dangers, said: ‘The fact that Mythos engaged in such deceptive actions, with apparent awareness that it was targeting a real person, suggests that Anthropic does not have as good a handle on their models as they think.’

Ollie Whitehouse, chief technology officer at GCHQ’s National Cyber Security Centre, said AI must be developed with ‘clear plans for responding when the unexpected happens’.

He added that incidents of powerful AI models carrying out unsanctioned actions and human-like deceptive behaviour on the internet were ‘a serious reminder of the risks AI capabilities pose’. 

Anthropic, which is led by chief executive Dario Amodei (pictured), has confirmed its agent was responsible for the fake identities spotted during the AI Security Institute’s safety testing

AISI accesses advanced AI models under agreements with OpenAI, Anthropic and other firms to study their capabilities before they are released to the public.

It gave the AI agents access to the open internet with some safety filters disabled while conducting testing.

The latest test put the AI agents – including those powered by Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6-Sol – through a fictional cybersecurity challenge. 

AISI found the AI went rogue 19 times out of the 122 test runs, with Anthropic’s agent responsible for 17 breaches and OpenAI’s agent the other two.

In the most shocking case, an AI model gathered information on the person in charge of an online project, then created multiple fake identities to manipulate them into approving a malicious code it had created.

The AI agent then wiped any evidence of its wrongdoing to appear innocent to the humans in charge – and even considered adopting a new identity to remain undetected.

If the human victim of the deception had accidentally accepted the malicious code, or ‘malware’, it may have resulted in security breaches, information and data theft, and other potential damage to files and systems.

AISI identified GitHub – a Microsoft online cloud platform used by software developers to create, store, manage and share their codes – as the target of the agent’s hack.

But AISI also discovered an AI agent leaving messages for other agents on GitHub offering to collaborate on the challenge.

The AI agent provided instructions to reuse accounts and artefacts it had left behind – which other agents then discovered and successfully used to achieve the challenge’s aims.

Anthropic said: ‘We’re grateful to AISI for their leadership on this incident, which underscores the need for a broader conversation about how to safely evaluate increasingly capable AI agents.’

OpenAI said: ‘These incidents occurred during cyber evaluations conducted by evaluation partners in testing environments with reduced safeguards, under conditions that do not reflect ordinary use.

‘We’ll continue working with evaluators and other stakeholders to strengthen shared practices for conducting evaluations safely as models become more capable.’

Around 78% of people who are living with HIV take a daily pill to manage their infection. These drugs work by preventing the HIV virus from multiplying.

Although these drugs are very effective, some people struggle to stick with the daily regimen. There are many reasons for this – including pill fatigue, stigma and accidentally missing a dose.

But our recent research has shown that a once-weekly pill is as effective as daily pills in treating HIV.

The global study included 607 participants with well-controlled HIV from 11 countries. The trial was designed to reduce bias and was a double-blind placebo-controlled study. This means that the participants did not know if they were taking the weekly oral pill or daily pills.

The study found that the weekly oral pill worked for 93% of participants, while the daily pill was 92% effective. Importantly, nobody developed resistance to either of the medications.

It’s impressive that the once-weekly pill worked as well as the daily pill, as the daily treatment we used in our study is recommended as one of the best HIV treatments currently available.

Side-effects were comparable between the two drugs. The most common side-effects for both the daily pill and weekly pill were headache and nausea. Only two out of 304 people stopped taking the weekly pill due to the side-effects they experienced.

The once-weekly pill contains two compounds (lenacapavir and islatravir) that have been combined into a single tablet. These compounds work together by blocking HIV from replicating at two different points in the HIV virus’s life cycle.

The weekly pill requires two “loading doses” to be given for the first two days before it can be given weekly. This is so that the correct drug levels can be reached before starting weekly dosing. If a dose is missed, it will only last in the body for a further week – so taking it weekly is very important.

Treatment options

The once-weekly pill is now in its final phase of testing before we apply for regulatory approval. If it is approved for use, it would give people living with HIV more choice over their treatment.

There are many advantages to having multiple safe and effective treatment choices for people who need to take medication for a long time. We have seen this with contraception, where offering a choice of methods – such as pills, injections, implants or patches – has been transformative in giving people greater reproductive autonomy and choice over the option that works best for their lives.

Weekly pills used to manage other chronic conditions have also been shown to better help people adhere to treatment. For instance, one study into people with osteoporosis found that around 57% of weekly users were still taking their medication a year later compared to 39% of daily users.

Although injectable HIV treatments – which are delivered every two months – are available in high-income countries, implementing these therapies has proven very challenging for strained healthcare systems because people must go to a hospital or clinic every two months for an injection, which is time-consuming for both patients and staff.

As such, a weekly pill option is a welcome innovation which could help many more people to persist on HIV tablets.

However, some potential disadvantages of the weekly pill could be that the weekly pill stops working if missed for more than seven days. People would need to take another loading dose in order for the treatment to be effective again.

For daily pills, people who have missed a pill can restart without requiring another loading dose – but there is also less leeway than there is with the weekly pill if a person has missed a dose.

People who have well-established habits of taking daily pills may find it harder to adjust to taking weekly pills. There is also the risk of forgetfulness as they get used to the new schedule.

Still, having an additional tool in the HIV treatment toolkit could bring us a step closer to reaching global targets for HIV elimination, which would need everyone living with HIV to be taking a treatment that works for them. It will now be up to regulators and health technology agencies to approve the weekly pill for use.

But it will also be key for health agencies to put more work into tackling HIV stigma if they want to achieve this goal.

Stigma still affects most people living with HIV. Research has even found it affects a person’s relationship with treatment – with one survey finding that around 60% of people have hidden their pills from others to avoid revealing their status. Stigma and discrimination can also affect treatment outcomes and adherence.

A once-weekly pill may be a welcome innovation for many people living with HIV. It may allow them to feel less stigma about taking their treatment, which may better help them adhere in the long run.

John Parry decided he didn’t want to sit around and do nothing and has now become a social media sensation

When John Parry fell off a ladder in 2024 and was taken to hospital for treatment for a variety of serious injuries that included a skull fracture, brain bleeds, a broken back and a painful list of other injuries it was a pivotal point in his life.

Most people would be traumatised by the accident and the injuries but worse was to come for this 78-year-old grandad from Pontypool because, while being treated in hospital, it was found he had bladder cancer that has also spread to his right kidney.

But John’s reaction to this horrendous period in his life is surprising – he didn’t want to sit around and feel distraught, he decided to walk 450 miles across the country, joined by stars and strangers, to raise money for four charities and this decision has led to John becoming a viral social media sensation.

On TikTok, Instagram and Facebook John’s got an impressive number of followers that his grandchildren would be proud of, on his account called Welsh Grandad. John, originally from Pontypool but now living near Clacton-on-Sea, says: “I’ve got nine grandchildren, six great grandchildren, and all their friends, everybody calls me Welsh Grandad, they don’t know me as anything else.”

Now lots of people across the social media world also know him as Welsh Grandad. John explains: “One day I was taking one of them to football practice and had two hours in the car waiting.

“I’ve been trying to talk to people about cancer for a while, how you react, when you hear those three words, ‘you’ve got cancer’. Until you’re told that, you don’t know how you’re going to react. You don’t know how you feel.

“So I put the phone on the steering wheel, said ‘Hi, I’m Welsh grandad and I’ve got cancer’, chatted a bit and didn’t think about it much. Then boom, the response was so good and so I did another one and it’s built from there really.”

But talking about it online wasn’t enough for John, he felt compelled to try and do something more. He says: “I wondered what I could do, I can’t cure cancer or help like that, I’m not a doctor, but I can walk, I can put one foot in front of the other.”

So a seed of an idea was planted and quickly grew into ‘Grandad’s Great Walk’ – a fundraising walk for four charities, Cancer Research UK, Macmillan Cancer Support, and Farleigh Hospice, Essex, and St David’s Hospice, Newport, aiming to raise £75,000. Currently, at the time of writing the total is £54,318,03 – see what it is now here.

The 460 mile walk began on June 1, 2026 in Lowestoft and is due to end on Tuesday, August 11 at St David’s Head, Pembrokeshire, and John chose to walk along the Via Beata route, a pilgrimage pathway from east to west as he thought it would be “a bit different from the normal routes”.

Website British Pilgrimage Trust says: “The name ‘Via Beata’ means ‘way of blessing’ and this fully mapped route goes through some of the most beautiful places in the country. One of the reasons this walk is special is because every 10 miles of the route there is a hand carved artwork with a story from the Bible.”

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It also seemed the perfect route because John wanted a journey that not only hasn’t been travelled that often and wanted to finish in his native Wales.

John started his training in January, just a short walk that grew every day, and where his mantra was born, ‘one day at a time, one step at a time’ and that is how he treats every day of this gruelling and epic walk.

John says he has been inspired by the beautiful countryside he is walking through, that being surrounded by nature feels special but, of course, there have been challenges on the journey too.

John says: “I did get a large blister on the ball of one of my feet but it only hurt 50% of the time! And I don’t really go to bed, more like collapse into it!”

But John says the biggest challenge has been farmers and landowners in England not maintaining public rights of way along the route, so some are blocked and impassable and some are in too rough a state to continue.

He says: “It has been hard at times because you can’t train for walking through the fields where you’ve got long grass, three foot high, and you’ve got ploughed fields and ditches, and you don’t know where you’re stepping, and you’ve got hedges where you can’t get through, and you’ve got to turn around and walk back to find a different route.

“When the route ahead is full of brambles and nettles, you know, eight feet, 10 feet high, you can’t get through it. You’ve got to go all the way back and try the next field along and that adds mileage and time.”

The weather, although a bonus not getting soaked by rain, has been an aspect of the project to navigate with thought, with John’s rucksack packed daily with food, snacks and a sizeable amount of water and electrolytes.

But this Welsh grandad is not on his own. He says: “My family are supporting me, all of them, from my grandchildren, to my daughter, to my son-in-law; all of them. We find a campsite that is fairly central to each week of walking and they pick me up at the end of that day’s journey, take me to the tent and then drop me off at the same point the next day.” John says he sleeps on a comfortable blow-up bed in a wooden pod.

Although it has gone smoothly so far using his planned route, map and compass, John said one day he did get totally lost. He explains: “I wasn’t concentrating and literally took the wrong road and I was rescued by a lovely lady on a bike.

“She asked me if I was lost, I was, and then asked if she could walk with me and push her bike along when she found out what I was doing. I said, ‘of course you can!’. She asked if she could walk with me another day and has even driven for an hour and a half just to walk with me.”

John says that this is the one aspect of the walk that has surprised him and makes him rather emotional too – the level of support he has received online after every end of the day social media post, the amount of donations made, but also the number of people who have wanted to join him for a section of the walk – the vast majority of which have been strangers.

He says: “I’ve walked on my own and I’ve walked with some amazing people. I got a message from Lauren Oakley from Strictly Come Dancing asking if she could walk with me on the Worcester Cathedral section, and she did, she joined me for nine and a half miles.

“But she said if I walk with you then at the end you have to dance with me, so we found a pub with a public garden and had a waltz. She was delightful, absolutely delightful.” On Lauren’s TikTok account she is also keen to praise John, telling her followers it was ‘My favourite day this summer!’.

John has been joined by families with children who are on holiday or live on the route and one supporter who travelled up from Brighton to join him for part of the walk. He says, rather in awe of it all, “The support I’ve been getting is phenomenal!”

But through the most challenging moments John has kept going thinking about people living with cancer and has kept them close to his heart, in every video saying he is thinking about everyone touched by the disease and carrying them with him.

He says: “I keep thinking about those people and they’re walking with me, all those are walking with me. I never stop thinking about them and I just keep going, just put one foot in front of the other. I have never, ever, not once thought about giving up or wishing I hadn’t started it. And what keeps me going is all those people who’ve got cancer, who are worse off than me.”

John’s family, friends and supporters are obviously proud of him, but if you tell John the whole of Wales is proud of him too, it brings a tear to his eye. He might have lived in England for many years but the love of the homeland has never left him and he is now looking forward to finishing the walk in Wales.

The night before a walk so epic is about to begin most people might feel nervous, not be able to sleep or celebrate the landmark day with a ‘last meal’ but John just treated it as any other day.

He says: “I’m not one to get over-excited, I was happy we had all the planning in place and then I just got up and got going. When I cross the finish line I’ll probably just go, ‘oh hello, can I have a drink please?!’, I’ll have a cup of coffee and a sit down!”

But John says as the final days of the epic walk appear on the horizon he has two main, over-arching thoughts about what comes next. He says: “I’ll walk back along the whole route if some kind, rich person will donate £100,000 to each of the four charities, do you think there is a millionaire out there who could do that?”

If no rich donors come forward the Welsh grandad is not going to stop looking for ways to raise more money, even though he says he knows there’ll be a list of gardening chores from his wife to do when he comes home.

He says: “I don’t know why I got this feeling deep inside me that this is not the end. Maybe I’m being silly now, but I think I might have been given this so I do more to help people.”

See John’s progress via his TikTok or Instagram accounts called Welsh Grandad and see his donation page here.