The Red Devils are showing spirit and improving on the field, but they may still finish the season on zero points

By No Helmets Required

For much of last Friday’s game at Leeds, no one could possibly think they were watching one of the worst teams in rugby league history. Salford eventually sank to a 40-6 defeat, a harsh scoreline given they were the better side in the first half and conceded 18 points in the 10 minutes they had a man sin-binned. Despite a week of huge upheaval – players threatening a strike, crisis meetings with the Rugby Football League and a squad stripped by injuries to another three senior players – Salford competed heroically.

It was another spirited display after their victory over Castleford – just their second win of the season – but coach Paul Rowley is not expecting things to keep getting better over the remaining eight rounds of the season. Wages are due next week, with some players extremely concerned that, once they play the final game of the campaign at home to Wakefield on 19 September, they may not receive the final two paychecks of their contracts. Threats of a strike were quashed after a meeting with the RFL, but the players know they face an uncertain future.

US president says Japanese imports will face 15% levy instead of threatened 25%

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Financial markets around the world have rallied after Donald Trump announced a trade deal with Japan to minimise the level of tariffs imposed on Japanese goods imported into the US.

Share prices rose sharply in Tokyo, where the Nikkei index of leading Japanese companies increased by 3.5%. European markets followed, with the FTSE 100 gaining 0.4% to close at a fresh record high of 9,061.

The Arabian horse – born on the actor’s farm in 1985 – spent his latter years in Florida serving as a therapy animal

Guinness World Records’s oldest living horse – who was once owned by legendary actor Burt Reynolds – has died shortly after attaining the title, the organization announced recently.

Mokie the Arabian horse was 40 years old, having spent some of his latter years in Florida serving as a therapy animal for “people going through some of the darkest times of their lives”, Guinness wrote Monday on its website.

CMA designates tech firms as having ‘strategic market status’ and will promote competition in digital markets

The UK competition watchdog has said that it intends to take action to open up Apple and Google’s mobile platforms to more competition to benefit consumers, businesses and app developers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has designated the tech companies as having “strategic market status” – as they hold an effective duopoly for access on mobile devices – and now intends to force Google and Apple to make changes to their mobile platforms.

Letter signed by agencies including Doctors Without Borders condemns Israeli military attacks on Palestinians

More than 100 aid agencies issued a dire warning that “mass starvation” was spreading across Gaza and urged Israel to let humanitarian aid into the besieged strip to alleviate the growing man-made hunger crisis.

A letter signed by 109 agencies including Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International and Amnesty International says the Israeli government is blocking humanitarian organisations from effectively distributing life-saving aid.

As a film adaptation of the prolific US author’s The Life of Chuck hits screens, it’s your chance to ask about anything from The Shining to the number 13

If you’ve ever worried that you haven’t done enough with your life, then perhaps don’t look at the CV (or résumé, as he’d put it) of the American author Stephen King. Over the past 50 years, the 77-year-old horror, thriller, science fiction and fantasy writer has penned 65 novels and more than 200 short stories. Even if you’ve never read a Stephen King book in your life, the chances are you’ve seen a film adaptation of one of his works: be it Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining starring Jack Nicolson (1980); The Shawshank Redemption with Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman (1994); Misery starring Kathy Bates (1990); The Green Mile with Tom Hanks (1999); or It starring Bill Skarsgård (2017). Even Stand by Me (1986) with River Phoenix and Corey Feldman was based on King’s novella The Body.

It’s hard to know where to even start when it comes to asking him about his life and career. Which is why we’re giving you plenty of time to get in your questions as King prepares to take the reader interview chair for an expanded edition ahead of the release of The Life of Chuck starring Tom Hiddleston, based on his 2020 novella. His only notes so far are: no “lemon” questions, such as where he gets his ideas from. But where does he get his ideas from? How does he feel about being one of the bestselling US authors of all time? Does he really suffer from triskaidekaphobia – an irrational fear of the number 13? And does he really hate interviews as much as he says he does?