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Yemen’s Houthis declare naval blockade against Saudi Arabia as Kuwait says it is under fire from Iran – Middle East crisis live

Hamas has named Khalil al-Hayya as its new overall leader, according to a statement from the Palestinian militant ⁠group, succeeding Yahya Sinwar who was killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in October 2024. Hayya, ⁠the group’s exiled Gaza chief and top negotiator, is generally seen as more hardline than ⁠Khaled Meshaal, the head of the militant group’s office in exile and the other frontrunner for the leadership.

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Russian attack on Odesa kills three after Ukraine targets Moscow with drones overnight – Europe live

Meanwhile, Italy’s foreign minister Antonio Tajani said that Russia had expelled an Italian military attache and one of his aides from Moscow “without cause,” AFP reported. Tajani wrote on X that it represented a “blatant act of retaliation for Italy’s expulsion of two Russian military attachés”, whom he said had been caught spying against Rome.

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Who are India’s Cockroach Janta party and why are they staging protests?

How did the Cockroach Janta party emerge? The Cockroach Janta party (CJP) might have started out as an online joke, but – driven by millions of discontented young people in India – it has swiftly grown into one of the most unexpected challenges to the powerful rightwing government of Narendra Modi. The CJP was founded in May by Abhijeet Dipke, 30, an Indian national who recently graduated from university in the US. Enraged to hear comments made by the chief justice of India, who compared the country’s unemployed youth to “parasites” and “cockroaches” during a supreme court hearing, Dipke jokingly put out a call on social media: “What if all cockroaches came together?” The response was overwhelming. Dipke built a website and social media accounts for a satirical Cockroach Janta party – a poke at Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) – complete with a biting manifesto taking aim at the government and a tagline: “A political party for the people the system forgot to count.” Within two weeks, the CJP’s Instagram page had more than 22 million followers, overtaking the BJP. The Modi government, highly intolerant of criticism, attempted to block its social media accounts on national security grounds but were not successful. What are the causes championed by the CJP? As the CJP began to mobilise support, Dipke focused the movement on a burning issue for many of India’s millions of students: leaks of medical entrance exams, which have repeatedly been sold to the highest bidder. The pressure on students to succeed is cripplingly high: more than 2 million students compete for just 130,000 places. Many families spend their life savings and get into high levels of debt to pay for their children to be coached for these notoriously gruelling exams, known by the acronym NEET. More is now spent in India on private tuition than the government’s entire higher education budget. A string of exam leaks has forced millions of students into re-takes and been linked to dozens of suicides in recent years. The NEET exams are also not the only papers to have been leaked. The Modi government has been accused of not taking responsibility for the exams fiasco. The CJP began to rally supporters around the issue; calling for the government to be held accountable for exam leaks and for the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, to resign. For many of India’s gen Zs and millennials, the CJP has also given voice to wider frustrations over an education system in crisis and a job market that has been systematically failing them. According to one recent study, almost 40% of India’s graduates below 25 are unemployed. When did the CJP first take to the streets? The CJP’s first offline protest took place in Delhi in early June, calling for the resignation of Pradhan. Dipke returned from the US to lead the demonstration, first in Delhi and then at events across the country. Later that month, CJP supporters held their second major protest in Delhi, where this time they pledged not to move until Pradhan was gone. The protesters were joined by Sonam Wangchuk, an eminent engineer and education activist from the Indian state of Ladakh, who was last year arrested and detained under terror laws by the government for his activism. Wangchuk announced he would embark on a Gandhian hunger strike in solidarity with the students and would not eat or drink until the education minister stepped down. As the protest and Wangchuk’s hunger strike went on into July, they were visited by multiple senior opposition figures. However, the Modi government did not engage with the CJP or Wangchuk and Pradhan dismissed them as the “B-team of terrorists”. How has Sonam Wangchuk mobilised support? As Wangchuk’s conditioned worsened more than two weeks into his hunger strike, the government faced mounting criticism. After 18 days, the Delhi court ordered for his health to be monitored on a daily basis. On Sunday morning, 20 days into his hunger strike, Delhi police sparked national outrage after they arrived early morning and forcibly removed Wangchuk to a government hospital against his will. The police said it was to protect his health – his wife condemned it as “illegal detention”. From his hospital bed, Wangchuk called on CJP supporters to march to parliament on Monday and demand Pradhan’s resignation. How large was Monday’s protest? The CJP protest on Monday swelled into one of the largest anti-government protests in years. By early morning, thousands of protesters began to flock to the streets of central Delhi, joining hundreds who had already been camped out overnight. The crowd was largely made up of students and other young people, but parents whose children had been affected by the leaks were also present in high numbers. The Delhi police refused permission for the protesters to march on parliament. Roads across the city were blockaded with barriers, the internet was shut down and protesters were kettled into a designated protest site about a mile away from parliament. However, protesters still continued to arrive in droves, with more than 20,000 people gathered by the early afternoon. As the crowds tried to push towards parliament, police responded with violence, including baton charges and teargas, prompting criticism from CJP leaders and opposition politicians. Protesters and police were injured in the clashes. Dipke condemned the police response as “absolutely brutal”. What happens next? After weeks of ignoring the CJP movement, the Modi government offered a meeting on Monday morning. At a brief 10-minute interaction, three CJP demands were put forward but so far “no commitments were made”, according to the CJP’s spokesperson. There was no public response to the protest by Pradhan. By late on Monday, even as the police tried to clear the Delhi protest camp, Dipke emphasised that as long as Pradhan remained in his position, they would not be moved. “This peaceful protest is not ending!” read the party post on X.

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Tens of thousands of Cockroach party protesters defy police with Delhi march

Tens of thousands of protesters have defied police orders and descended on Delhi to demand the resignation of India’s education minister in one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in years. A huge crowd, largely made up of students and gen Z-ers, filled the streets in the heart of India’s capital from early Monday morning shouting anti-government slogans. Hundreds had already camped out overnight. Delhi police, which are under the control of the central government, had denied permission for the march to take place. A ban was imposed on all public gatherings, roads across the city were barricaded and the internet was shut down in the centre. Attempts by protesters to move towards the parliament building were met with police brutality including the use of batons and teargas. However, this did little to prevent protesters turning out in their thousands, many of whom were vocal in their anger at Narendra Modi’s government and his ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), accusing them of failing the country’s young people. “They are calling this protest illegal, they are calling us anti-national,” said Rhythm Katoch. “But I am 22 years old and I am standing here to fight for our education system, for the rights of the young people and for our democracy. Is it too much to ask for the government to listen to us?” A call had been made to march on parliament by the Cockroach Janta party (CJP), a new youth-led movement whose name was inspired by remarks made in May by Surya Kant, the chief justice of India, when he called some activists and unemployed youth “cockroaches”. While the CJP began as satire, founded by the graduate Abhijeet Dipke in May, it has swiftly mobilised into a serious political challenge to the Modi government. Its core demand has been the resignation of the education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, over exam chaos, after this year’s medical entrance exam – where more than 2 million students compete for just 130,000 places – was again leaked to the highest bidder, forcing it to be scrapped and for students to face retaking the gruelling tests. The fiasco has been linked to more than 20 suicides. Wider frustrations over alleged failures in the education system and a lack of job opportunities for India’s youth have also mobilised support. Rage was palpable on Delhi’s streets on Monday. Harion Sharma, 18, was among those forced to retake the medical exam last month after it was leaked, which he said had put “unbearable” pressure on him and his fellow students. “This is a government that does not care about education, it does not care about the pressures and pain of young people. Because of those leaks, students have died. So we are here to call for accountability and for the education minister to resign. We are young but we are powerful.” Sharma described the high turnout of the protest as historic. “They might be trying to crush our futures and our democracy, but look around, how young people have come to the streets in such massive numbers,” he added. “Now, finally, the government is scared of us.” The use of police force against the protesters was met with condemnation by opposition politicians. Speaking outside parliament, Priyanka Gandhi, a leader of the opposition Congress party, said: “There are massive issues … but you are firing teargas at children and beating them up? For what?” For weeks, the government had ignored the CJP supporters camped out less than a mile from parliament. Pradhan had sought to dismiss their calls for his resignation by calling them “terrorists”. However, after the huge turnout on Monday, the Modi government invited several CJP spokespeople for talks. In a social media post, the CJP spokesperson Saurav Das said they had waited two hours and were given a brief meeting with a cabinet minister, JP Nadda. Das said the government had made no commitments so far. While neighbouring countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have had governments toppled by youth-led movements, such large-scale expressions of dissent have become unusual in India in recent years. The BJP, which has ruled for 12 years under Modi, has amassed unprecedented power at national and state level while also routinely jailing and persecuting its critics and opponents, leaving little room for dissent. The BJP MP Kangana Ranaut was among the ruling government politicians to criticise the protest, telling reporters that “no one can pressure the government into who to sack and who to retain”. The CJP protest had been galvanised by a hunger strike carried out by the renowned engineer and education activist Sonam Wangchuk, who in solidarity with the students has refused all food and water for the past 21 days until Pradhan agrees to resign. Nationwide outrage grew after the Delhi police arrived early on Sunday morning and forcibly removed Wangchuk against his will, with footage of the incident going viral. Wangchuk was taken to a government hospital where he claimed he was being “held hostage”. In a statement, his wife, Gitanjali Angmo, condemned the heavy police presence around Wangchuk in the hospital ward. “It is not medical care,” she said. “It is illegal detention.” In response, organisers of the CJP also began a hunger strike and called on supporters to join Monday’s march, which Wangchuk said would be “India’s second freedom movement”. Amrita, 27, said she had taken a day off work to join the protest, calling the government’s treatment of Wangchuk “shameless”. “We have a coward government who is afraid of the young people and afraid of Sonam Wangchuk,” she said. “He is a brilliant brain and he has put his life on the line for young people. How he is being treated is a shame on India. That’s why the gen Zs have come out today to speak out.” By Monday evening there had been no formal response by Pradhan to the calls for his resignation and CJP organisers said they would remain at the protest site. In a handwritten note from hospital, Wangchuk said that “seeing the brutality with which peacefully protesting youth are being dealt with, I have decided to continue my fast”.

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Strategic move by Hungary’s Magyar as he picks chess prodigy for president

Hungary’s prime minister, Péter Magyar, has announced plans to ask Judit Polgár, widely considered the greatest female chess player of all time, to take on the largely ceremonial role of president. Magyar said he would meet Polgár on Monday to discuss the matter. “Our country needs unity, peace and a president that all Hungarians can be proud of,” he wrote on social media. “Judit Polgár’s name has been synonymous with talent and perseverance for decades.” The announcement by Magyar follows a months-long standoff between the newly elected leader and Tamás Sulyok, the president appointed during former leader Viktor Orbán’s time in power. Since his landslide victory in April, Magyar has repeatedly called on Sulyok to step down, accusing him of being an Orbán “puppet” who had failed to stand up for the country as Orbán’s rightwing, nationalist Fidesz party was criticised for weakening democratic institutions and undermining the rule of law. Last week Hungary’s parliament – where Magyar’s Tisza party holds a two-thirds majority – voted to back a constitutional amendment that included an immediate end to Sulyok’s term. From there, Sulyok had five days to sign off on the amendment. The manoeuvre was criticised by several rights groups in Hungary, including Human Rights Watch, who warned that the rushed constitutional changes to oust the president were “reminiscent of [the] Fidesz era”. Magyar, however, has insisted that the changes are needed as part of a wider push to loosen Orbán’s lingering grip on the nation. As news emerged that Sulyok had signed the legislation, bringing an end to his time in office, Magyar proposed nominating Polgár as his replacement. The idea was first floated in an open letter signed by 16 prominent Hungarians, including Ernő Rubik, theinventor of the Rubik’s Cube. Born in Budapest, Polgár, who will turn 50 in a few days, was the top-ranked female player for 25 years when she retired in 2014. At the age of 15, she became the youngest grandmaster in the world, breaking the record set in 1958 by Bobby Fischer. Her rise in the male-dominated world of chess – which included victories against several male world champions, including Garry Kasparov in 2002 – was captured in the 2026 Netflix documentary Queen of Chess. Magyar said he would ask her to serve in the new role until a new constitution was passed. The appointment, which must be voted on by parliament but is expected to pass easily given Tisza’s majority, carries a maximum term of five years. Since being swept into power on the promise of “regime change”, Magyar and his centre-right Tisza party have moved swiftly to dismantle the bastions of Orbán’s 16 years in power, from suspending news broadcasts by public media outlets with ties to the former prime minister to abolishing the sovereignty protection office, which had allowed intelligence services to access information on individuals and organisations without judicial oversight.

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US expands Iran offensive as diplomats claim talks ongoing

The US has expanded its aerial offensive against Iran, hitting a city hosting a nuclear power plant, while Iran has responded with strikes on Bahrain and Kuwait, as diplomats insist talks are ongoing. Iranian media on Monday reported strikes around Tabriz, believed to hold underground missile bases, as well as Bushehr, home to the country’s only operational civilian nuclear power plant as the US military said it had struck “military command centers, air defence and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and communications networks”. Iran launched attacks against Bahrain, which hosts the US navy’s fifth fleet, and Kuwait, in addition to striking tankers in the strait of Hormuz, which carried a fifth of global oil and gas supplies before the war. The tit-for-tat attacks came as the region lurched back towards a total war despite an interim peace deal agreed last month. Shipping in the strait has slowed to a trickle due to the fighting and the price of oil reached its highest in a month, passing $90 a barrel, exacerbating the global energy crisis. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) to halt attacks and open the strait is now more than halfway through a 60-day implementation period that was intended to provide breathing room for diplomacy. In a sign that talks could still stop the escalating round of conflict, Iran said on Monday that diplomacy with the US was ongoing despite the fighting, without giving details on the content of the discussions. “We have been informed by mediators, we have received messages – without going into details – but the main point is that the diplomatic apparatus has been active in recent days and ideas have been conveyed to us by certain mediators,” Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said at a press conference in Tehran. Hours earlier, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the US was still open to negotiations with Iran, but that “it has to be real”. “We’re going to continue to respond. If the door opens to diplomacy – if the guys that want to do something productive for Iran win and take control of that system, or take control of the negotiations – that’ll be a very positive development,” Rubio said. Mediators including Qatar and Pakistan have continued to speak to both sides during the current round of escalation in an attempt to bring the two sides back to the negotiating table. The US military said a service member was killed on Saturday in northern Iraq, where the US has military bases, during a controlled detonation of what was called unexploded ordnance on a downed Iranian attack drone. It was the third US death in recent days, after two military service personnel were killed in an Iranian attack on a Jordanian airbase on Friday, with a third missing in action. “We hit them very hard again tonight,” Donald Trump said as he returned to Washington after the World Cup final, adding “we did that in honour of the, probably three, it’s probably three great patriots”. Since the war began, 17 US service members have been killed. Iran’s health ministry said on Friday that 50 people had been killed and more than 500 wounded in the current round of fighting. As the strikes began early on Monday, a ship caught fire in the strait of Hormuz near the coastline of Oman in the southern corridor the US military has encouraged ships to use to avoid Iran’s control. The crew safely abandoned the vessel, while the ship was recovered by a tug boat, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations agency said. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed two oil tankers were blown up after attempting to transit through the southern route, but there was no independent confirmation. The IRGC also claimed to have launched a “surprise attack” on an enemy command centre in the al-Tanf region of Syria, in a statement reported by state news agency IRNA. After Iran targeted sites in Jordan on Sunday, Israel warned of the danger of the strikes spilling across its borders, reigniting a direct regional conflict that had been restrained even as tensions between the Trump administration and Iran have soared again. “If Iran fires missiles at Israel, we will attack them with full force,” said the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, on Sunday. The US is expected to send dozens of additional refuelling planes to Israel as part of a reinforcement of its force posture in the region, a US official told Reuters. Trump has threatened to target Iran’s power stations and bridges to try to compel Tehran to loosen its hold on the strait of Hormuz. The US energy secretary, Chris Wright, defended the Trump administration’s strategy for the war, but argued that the mission had since shifted toward ensuring oil shipments could move through the strait of Hormuz. “We did a pause to try to get an agreement with the Iranian people to allow oil to flow without them attacking it,” Wright said on Sunday. “They’ve proven unwilling to do that, and we’ve pivoted. Now, what we’re doing is assuring that that oil and gas and other products can flow through the strait of Hormuz with or without Iranian cooperation.”

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Taxpayers could pay millions to abuse survivors if Christian Brothers goes bankrupt, court documents reveal

Australian taxpayers could be forced to cover up to $65m in payouts to hundreds of abuse victims when a failing arm of the Catholic church disappears, new court documents reveal. Last month, the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order with a shocking record of child abuse, informed a court it was going broke and would not be able to afford to pay out survivors. The move has affected hundreds of cases brought either through the civil courts or through the government-run national redress scheme, which allows survivors to seek capped amounts of compensation without going to court. An actuarial report detailing the state of the Christian Brothers finances was released to the media on Monday, alongside other court documents. The report reveals there are currently 340 redress claims involving the Christian Brothers, which will cost the religious order an estimated $25m. But the report also predicts the Christian Brothers will be subject to another 590 redress claims, worth $40m, in future years. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email In total, it is on the hook for 930 redress claims worth $65m. The rules of the redress scheme make the federal government a “funder of last resort”. That means that where an institution no longer exists or is unable to pay, the federal government is forced to step in and cover the costs. The situation has prompted a withering response from the social services minister, Tanya Plibersek. “Victim-survivors deserve to have those responsible for their abuse held accountable,” she said. “Christian Brothers should take responsibility for the harm members of their order have caused. “Funder of last resort arrangements which call on taxpayer funds should be just that – the absolute last resort.” The Christian Brothers is currently proposing a scheme that would sell off its remaining 36 properties and divide up the proceeds between a range of creditors, including survivors and the government. But the proceeds from those property sales will be nowhere near enough to cover survivors’ claims, and are likely to provide a fraction of what survivors are owed. Survivors and plaintiff law firms are angry that the Christian Brothers has spent the past decade transferring vast and lucrative holdings of property to a separate entity, known as the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia, for nominal amounts of $1. That entity is resisting any attempt to sell off those properties to help pay survivors. Plibersek said the government would take a “forensic approach” to the matter. “I want to assure victim-survivors that the Albanese Labor government will ensure the integrity of the National Redress Scheme is upheld, and applications naming Christian Brothers can continue to be lodged and will be determined in the usual way,” she said. “The commonwealth, through the Department of Social Services, is participating in the current supreme court of New South Wales proceedings concerning the Christian Brothers’ proposed creditors’ scheme and is acting to ensure the interests of victim survivors and taxpayers are protected. We will be adopting a forensic approach to the Christian Brothers’ proposed financial restructure.” The Guardian also revealed the Christian Brothers has used its dwindling finances to support nine convicted child abusers who remain in the order, and used two remaining properties to house brothers with horrific histories of abuse, including one who preyed on orphans and another who was kept in teaching positions for almost three decades after senior officials became aware of his offending. The newly released court documents also reveal there is more property still that is owned by an entity known as the Brothers of the Christian Schools of Ireland, which is currently out of the reach of survivors and other creditors. The court documents show the entity held net assets of $57m as at 31 December 2025. That has reduced rapidly to $47m in net assets by May this year. The Christian Brothers is attempting to fold those assets into its proposed sell-off scheme, which could boost the funds available to survivors and other creditors. Earlier this month, Plibersek expressed serious concern about the approach of the Christian Brothers. Speaking in parliament after revelations about the transfer of property to the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia, she said: “Growing up, I was taught that there was one church and one God, not multiple corporate entities that transfer assets for purposes that are yet to be made clear. “The feeling that no one may be held to account for this abuse – that is perhaps even worse than the financial impacts … The idea that no one will be held to account for child sexual abuse, when it is identifiable where it happened and who was responsible, I think is devastating for victims and survivors.” • In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

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Monday briefing: 50 years after Viking landed on Mars, did Nasa overlook evidence of life?

Good morning. As Andy Burnham’s search for intelligent life to appoint to cabinet continues (more on that from Libby tomorrow), First Edition sets our sights further afield, to the search for life on another red planet. It’s 50 years to the day since humankind’s first foray on Mars. On 20 July 1976, Viking 1 successfully touched down on the planet in a groundbreaking feat. At least, that’s how Nasa tells the story – technically, the Russians did it first in 1971, but contact with the Soviet Mars 3 was lost in seconds, and only a single fuzzy grey image transmitted back to Earth. Over six years, Viking 1 and its successor returned more than 50,000 images, and mapped 97% of the Martian surface. Their research shapes our understanding of space to this day, in particular their life-detection experiments. “No bodies, no life,” declared Viking chief scientist Gerald Soffen at the time. As Nasa’s website states, Viking “provided no definitive evidence for the presence of living microorganisms”. But what if they got that wrong, and for 50 years we’ve had the evidence to prove it? That’s the claim of Steven Benner, chemist and former Harvard professor, in his new book, Meet the Neighbours. The repercussions, he argues, are vast. For today’s First Edition, we ask: is there life on Mars? Before that, a roundup of your biggest earthling stories from the weekend. Weekend roundup UK politics | Andy Burnham is expected to scrap Keir Starmer’s plans for digital ID cards in a “reset of priorities” when he enters Downing Street. The new Labour leader plans to redirect the resources earmarked for the scheme towards tackling the cost of living, his team indicated. Ukraine | Russia has carried out one of its biggest-ever ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, launching a five-hour raid that left at least one person dead and seven injured, with fires and damage across the city. Iran | The US launched a ninth night of strikes targeting Iran early Monday, after announcing the death of another American service member, as the price of Brent crude oil climbed above $90 a barrel, the highest level since June. Africa | Seven American aid workers who had been in Congo to fight the Ebola outbreak are quarantining at a new isolation facility in ⁠Kenya after the US government introduced travel ⁠restrictions, the head of a US charity employing them told Reuters. Europe | Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, has agreed to step down after signing a constitutional amendment passed by the ruling Tisza party of the prime minister, Péter Magyar. In depth: ‘They thought they found no organic materials’ It’s tricky, Benner tells me, for scientists to claim they have found something. Much safer to state they haven’t. Imagine you’d discovered something unprecedented and revolutionary. “Would you hesitate to announce it to the world? What if two weeks later, some grad student pointed out your basic error?” Scientists like him, Benner says, are “more afraid of being called out for a false-positive than for a false-negative”. In his view, this explains the half-century of science that states extant life was not found on Mars. Over decades, Benner has come to the opposite conclusion. His academic credentials are unimpeachable. Benner holds degrees from Yale and Harvard, and worked at the latter, alongside institutions including the prestigious Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. He is now the director of a non-profit research organisation, and has also worked with Nasa. In fact, it was while peer-reviewing grants for the US space agency at their Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston that Benner made, what he claims, was a major discovery while flicking through the original 1976 Viking mission logs in their library. “Things had quite clearly been missed.” *** The experiments The Viking missions conducted various experiments to test for life on Mars. Some, such as those searching for microbial metabolism (microbes digesting food) and for microbes performing photosynthesis, are widely accepted to have offered positive results. “These experiments discovered unexpected and enigmatic chemical activity in the Martian soil,” says Nasa. “But then Viking used Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) to look for organic material in the soil,” Benner says. Put simply, the GC-MS process can identify and measure the concentration of certain chemicals in a sample. “They thought they found no organic materials.” This is what Benner disputes. “Reading the logs at Nasa in 1999, as a chemist it was clear the GC-MS had detected traces of organics in the Martian soil, but scientists could not explain them, and so dismissed them as a contaminant.” There’s much more to his argument. Decades later, in 2008, Nasa’s Phoenix lander discovered perchlorates were present in Martian soil. Perchlorates are chemicals which destroy organic materials when heated. The 1970s GC-MS experiment heated Martian soil to 500C. “So we now know this experiment would have destroyed most organic materials in the soil.” (For any science-heads, this space.com piece explores this in rich detail.) *** The discovery? If Benner is correct – and there is extant life on Mars – the consequences could be colossal. “It means one of two things,” he argues. “You could have an independent genesis on Mars – a second origin of life.” With Earth, we’re one-for-one when it comes to planets like ours generating life. “If we get two for two, life origin on Mars and Earth, it suggests there is microbial life all over the galaxy.” Only last week, scientists announced they’d identified another Earth-like planet outside our solar system. “If your first casino hand is a straight flush, you’re just lucky,” is Benner’s analogy. “If your second is also a straight flush, you know the deck is rigged. With life on Mars, we’d conclude there is life on all these rocky planets.” There’s an alternative reading of his results: that any life on Mars is a result of interstellar panspermia, the exchange of material between planets. “Rocks hit Mars, get knocked out of the surface and hit Earth, and vice versa,” says Benner. “If we still see extant life on Mars, we are saying that life is extremely resilient to planetary changes.” Earth and Mars have hugely different atmospheres and environments. “If you have one planet seeding life to another planet, and it survives these dramatic changes, again we can expect there to be life on all sorts of rocky planets.” *** Life as we know it Benner’s case isn’t that Viking found definitive proof of extant life on Mars. It’s that the evidence against life is far weaker than received wisdom. Focus has therefore shifted since the Viking missions, turning to the search for water, habitability and signs of ancient life on Mars – which recent missions have detected. “Think of all the experiments that could have been done, had they properly identified microbial life on Mars,” says Benner. “Instead, we decided not to look for it. That was the decision of the Nasa Astrobiology Institute when it was inaugurated in the late 1990s.” Benner worked there from 1999. “We were told no experiment will fly if it is going to look for extant life on Mars – the Nasa leadership interpreted Viking as a mistake or failure.” Yes, the organisms we’re discussing are microscopic in scale, but that belies their significance. “Microbial life has a lot in common with you and me,” says Benner. “In fact, you have more microbe cells in you than you do person cells.” What differentiates microbes from, say, a lump of rock, is their capacity for Darwinian evolution. The search for intelligent extraterrestrial life sounds the sexier pursuit, but “what we’re talking about here shapes our assessment of the prospect of finding it”, Benner argues. “I can’t tell you that microbial life will with high probability evolve to intelligent life, but I can tell you this: you do not get intelligent life without it.” *** Not alone Benner isn’t the first to make a similar claim. Dr Gilbert V Levin, who designed one of the tests used on the Viking missions, spent decades arguing this case. He died in 2021 still resolute, despite being “marginalised, treated as goofy,” says Benner. The late Mexican astrobiologist Rafael Navarro-Gonzalez agreed, finding soil in Chile’s inhospitable Atacama Desert closely matched that found on Mars and that Viking “may have been blind to low levels of organics.” In space circles, it’s a hotly contested topic. Many textbooks today suggest that the Viking tests failed to find life, or were inconclusive. “The community is divided,” says Benner. “Some say, ‘Good guy, Steven. Well done for going out there and taking the arrows.’ Others are worried about the impact on public perceptions of space. That if we say what’s been unspoken, there’ll be a backlash: it’s Nasa trying to get money; a crackpot theory!” For now, Benner says, nobody has stepped forward to discredit or disprove his claims. “That’s because most people in this community are geologists, or biologists, and are a little scared to venture into chemistry,” he acknowledges. Nasa told me they don’t comment on outside research. The European Space Agency, I was told, was “not aware” of Benner’s publication. But he’s up for the fight, if/when it comes. “I’m not going to stop until [Nasa head honcho] Jared Isaacman goes on television and acknowledges the issue.” Science, he concedes, isn’t about total certainty. “But right now, nobody is questioning this. They have to be. I’ve been polite for 25 years – now I’m taking no prisoners.” The week to come Monday | Keir Starmer will visit King Charles to resign as prime minister before Andy Burnham meets the monarch, delivers his first speech as PM, and appoints his cabinet. Wednesday | The third hearing of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, who is facing “narco-terrorism” charges, is set to take place in a New York court. Friday | International criminal court members vote on whether to dismiss prosecutor Karim Khan for alleged sexual misconduct, which he denies. What else we’ve been enjoying Tobias Jones’s long read on the fight for Italy’s beaches is a fascinating story that takes in organised crime, the military, arson and, er, chainsaws. Sam Coare, newsletters team The Church of England’s upper echelons are grappling with its stance on Palestine, and I found this report from Aamna Mohdin on the unfolding debate fascinating. Michael “If you were gonna emulate a director, you’d emulate somebody whose movies aren’t panned” – Steve Rose’s interview with John Carpenter makes for a personable profile of the notoriously grumpy master of horror. Sam World Cup 2026 Final | Spain won their second men’s World Cup after Ferran Torres’s extra-time strike beat a battling Argentina side who had Enzo Fernández sent off. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and Gianni Infantino were booed as they took to the field for the presentation ceremony. The spectacle | The World Cup concluded with a disorientating fever dream beneath a bright blue American sky, Nick Ames writes, where football appeared a sideshow for a tournament nurtured to indulge the cult of the individual. Fifa | Fifa has been accused of providing an “open door to fraud” and allowing political influence to cast doubt on the integrity of the World Cup in a stinging rebuke by the Council of Europe’s secretary general. Sport Golf | On a dramatic final day of the Open, Ryan Fox, son of a New Zealand rugby legend and grandson of a former Black Caps captain, emerged victorious. Formula One | Kimi Antonelli won the Belgian Grand Prix for Mercedes but his title rival and teammate George Russell was knocked out on the opening lap after a clash with Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton. Tour de France | Jonas Vingegaard crashed out of the Tour de France on the approach to the climb of Plateau de Solaison, just hours after being woken up early on Sunday morning to undergo doping controls. The front pages The Guardian’s front page today is “Time for UK to face up to its challenges – Burnham”. The Times says “Burnham: My 10-year UK plan”, the Telegraph’s take is “Burnham heralds new era of big state”, and the i Paper writes “Burnham pledges ‘breathing room’ to help UK on cost of living as he moves into No 10”. The FT leads on “Burnham seeks tight grip on spending with beefed-up control centre at No 10”. Still on the incoming PM, the Mail has “Burnham doesn’t speak for us, say voters in South”, the Express says “New PM has no mandate to raise taxes again”, the Mirror writes “Burning ambition” and the Sun leads on “Turmoil”. Lastly, Metro angles its splash on the return of England’s footballers, writing “Welcome home … there’ve been a few changes”. Today in Focus The battle to reclaim Epping Tim Burrows goes back to Epping in Essex one year after protesters from across the country descended on the small town to demonstrate against asylum seekers being housed at the Bell hotel. Cartoon of the day | Tom Gauld The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad Dino J Martins, an entomologist, argues that insects and parasites are essential to understanding ecosystems. His lifelong fascination with insects led him to study how overlooked creatures shape biodiversity. In his book Hidden Creatures, he explores parasites’ complex roles, from wasps that consume caterpillars from within to sex-loving hookworms thriving in human intestines. Martins contends parasites are indicators of ecological health and offer insights into evolution, immunity and disease. He warns that losing parasite species erases biological knowledge and may affect future health. His work urges readers to see parasites not as villains but as vital ecological actors. “Even the most disgusting have some of the most incredible adaptations and abilities.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply