With a bizarre attack on former England spinner Monty Panesar, Steve Smith made a temporary comeback as Australia’s Ashes captain.
Panesar recently addressed Barrack Smith to travel fans and the media about his role in the “Sandpapergate” ball-tampering scandal seven years ago, saying he should be made to feel “guilty” about taking over as Pat Cummins’ replacement skipper.
On the eve of the first Ashes Test, stand-in Australia captain Steve Smith made a strange remark about Monty Panesar.
Panesar, who played 50 Tests between 2006 and 2013, claimed last week that England should apologize to Smith for his role in the 2018 “Sandpapergate” scandal.
The ball-tampering incident against South Africa resulted in Smith being fired as captain, and England fans frequently use it as a mockery of the 36-year-old.
Within two minutes of the pre-game press conference at Perth Stadium, a journalist was asked a question about Panesar’s comments in what appeared to be an arrangement between Smith and him.
Smith responded by referring to Panesar’s 2019 appearance on BBC TV’s Celebrity Mastermind, which had only one correct answer in the general knowledge round. In the specialist subject round, the left-arm spinner correctly answered six questions about Sikhism and its history.
Smith said, “I’m going to go off topic here.” Who among you in the room witnessed Monty Panesar and Mastermind? Do you know anyone?
“Those of you who have understood will know where I’m coming from. Do yourself a favor by watching it if you haven’t because it’s pretty comical.
It doesn’t really bother me those comments because anyone who thinks Athens is in Germany, Oliver Twist is a city season, and so on. That’s about as far as I’ll go with that.
Beginning on Friday, one of the most eagerly awaited Ashes series ever will be released.
Players on both teams had avoided engaging in hostility toward one another prior to Smith’s bite at Panesar.
Since England’s arrival in Perth, the West Australian newspaper has been slandering them.
The tourists were described as “arrogant Bazballing Poms” on Thursday’s front page.
England coach Brendon McCullum described the hype surrounding the series as “pretty cool” in an exclusive interview with BBC Sport.
Pat Cummins, who has a back injury, will miss the first Test by replacing Smith.
The most memorable line in a media address of 17 minutes was for the Australia captain to turn his attention to Panesar the day before such a massive Test series began.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva helped to inaugurate a new megafactory on the site of a former Ford car manufacturing plant one month before the UN climate summit.
The new plant, in Brazil’s Camacari, Bahia, is one of many being built around the world by China’s BYD, the world’s largest manufacturer of electric cars.
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BYD’s presence is also being felt at the ongoing COP30 climate summit in Brazil’s Belem, where it is a cosponsor alongside GWM, another Chinese electric carmaker.
The sponsorship at the UN’s top climate meeting, where China’s official delegation of 789 people is second only to Brazil’s 3, 805 people, is just one of many ways that China’s investments in green technology are being felt.
It contrasts sharply with the United States, where no official delegation has been sent by the federal government. California’s Governor Gavin Newsom has accused US President Donald Trump of “handing the future to China” and leaving states like California to pick up the slack, in a speech at the summit.
“China is here,” he declared. United States of America is the only nation that is not present, Newsom claimed. Trump has called concerns over climate change a “hoax” and a “con job”.
However, the polarizing effects China and the US are having on addressing the climate crisis are being felt at the UN Climate Change Conference COP30.
Chinese electric vehicles have been much more expensive than their manufacturers’ prices due to trade barriers in the US and neighboring Canada.
These tariffs are a legacy of former US President Joe Biden’s administration, and place North America as an outlier at a time when Chinese EVs otherwise dominate the global market.
Chinese EVs have “really upended the car market” in recent years, according to Joel Jaeger, a senior research associate with the World Resources Institute.
China has gone “from basically not a major player five years ago” to becoming “the number one exporter of cars globally in terms of the units”, says Jaeger.
China produced 12.4 million electric cars in 2024, or more than 70% of the 17.3 million electric cars produced globally last year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
About 1.4 million of these cars were exported by China, accounting for 40% of global exports, while the majority of the remaining Chinese-made vehicles were domestically sold.
This dominance has been built on the back of “subsidies that China’s put in place to develop its industry, which I think is a very strategic thing that China has done, both for its own economic growth as well as decarbonisation”, Jaeger said.
Chinese electric vehicles are still comparatively uncommon on American or Canadian streets.
According to Jaeger, “prohibitive” tariffs mean that Chinese EVs are almost impossible to buy in the US and Canada.
He continued, “Over the past year, the US and Canada both implemented essentially total prohibitive tariffs on EVs over 100% in both places.”
Notably, Trump has vowed to fight it and “drill, baby, drill” for oil while Democrats’ Biden, a Democrat, who has advocated renewable energy, introduced the steep import taxes on Chinese EVs in the US.
A month after the US introduced 100 percent tariffs on Chinese EVs in September 2024, Canada brought in identical tariffs of its own.
This implies that a vehicle that a Chinese EV manufacturer might be selling for $30, 000 in the US or Canada actually costs at least $60,000. Even the less expensive Chinese models can’t compete with the more expensive US electric models, which typically cost about $55,000.
These tariffs, along with other US policies, have meant that Chinese manufacturers have yet to set up shop in the US.
According to Addisu Lashitew, an associate professor of business at McMaster University in Canada, the steep tariffs conflict with targets for fully electric cars by 2035, and are also complicated because of Canada’s close trading ties to the US.
The issue is that we are currently having a very complicated trade conversation with the US, Lashitew said. “And two, our supply chain has also]been] very much integrated. Here are primarily Canadian companies’ suppliers, while many American companies are present.
However, Jaeger contends that North America is missing out on importing new Chinese technology even though it is nearly impossible to purchase one of these cars in the US.
“The US, for example, imports a lot of batteries from China. In fact, China imports lithium-ion batteries from China second only to Germany in the world. They are being used in US-made electric vehicles, he said.
Many other nations have been more welcoming of China’s EV market, according to Jaeger, than the US and Canada.
“You see different reactions from different countries, depending on their relationship with China, but mostly depending upon their domestic auto manufacturing presence”, he said.
According to Lashitew, Chinese exporters, including BYD and some smaller ones, are “targeting many emerging and developing nations.”
“Ironically, we’re in a situation where, at least in the transportation sector, the energy transition is moving much more quickly than it has in North America.
Chinese electric cars have also continued to sell well in many European countries, says Jaeger, despite those countries also imposing some tariffs, though lower than the US and Canada, “for what they see as unfair competitive practices in China”.
Despite having factories in Brazil, Hungary, India, and Japan, BYD still maintains its strongest presence in China, where it was founded in Shenzhen in 1995. Chinese consumers made up the majority of the 4.27 million electric vehicles BYD sold in 2024. BYD also has a manufacturing presence in Lancaster, California, where it builds electric buses and batteries, but not cars.
The government’s incentives for local businesses in China have increased, in part because they saw electric cars as a part of their plan to reduce air pollution in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai.
The government’s strategy has had positive effects on Chinese customers, including with new technology. For example, a new battery, which BYD announced in March with the promise of charging for 400km (about 250 miles) of travel in just five minutes, is first being made available for preorder to customers in China only.
They cost more than gasoline- or diesel-powered vehicles in the past. But according to the IEA, the cost of owning an electric car over the vehicle’s entire lifetime is now less than fossil fuel-powered cars, due to the reduced costs of fuel and maintenance.
However, buying an electric vehicle is still frequently more expensive.
China’s manufacturer subsidies are helpful in that area. The IEA has found that prices for electric cars in China are similar to petrol and diesel cars, with half of all electric cars being sold for less than $30, 000 and a wide range of lower-priced models available.
In contrast, the IEA claims that “the range]of available EVs] was skewed towards higher-end models with higher prices” in the US and Europe.
Under Biden, the US attempted to boost its domestic electric vehicle industry while reducing China’s dependence on the latter.
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) introduced incentives for US manufacturers that did not use any Chinese parts. Despite being largely overturned by Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which became law in July, the IRA also introduced subsidies for customers who purchased EVs.
However, despite the incentives imposed by Biden, only one in ten cars sold in the US in 2024 was electric, compared to more than half of all new cars sold in China in the same year.
In many places around the world, people are increasingly turning to electric bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, buses, and even trains, despite the headlines for sustainable transportation.
Even in the US, says Jaeger, there has been a significant growth in the number of electric scooters and two-wheelers imported from China.
In the 12 months leading up to September 2025, the US imported $ 1.5 billion worth of electric two-wheelers from China, an increase of $ 275 million, or more than 20%, from the previous year, according to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC). According to experts, this is because scooters are less expensive than cars and because US taxes on Chinese electric scooters are also lower than those on electric vehicles.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the government has said it will ban petrol-powered motorbikes in the centre of its capital, Hanoi, from July next year, as part of a plan to tackle local air pollution.
In Europe, including Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Norway, the IEA estimates that about 40% of bus sales are now electric.
In Central and South America, electric bus sales have increased as well. In Mexico, for example, “close to 18 percent of all bus sales were electric in 2024, up from just above 1 percent in 2023”, according to the IEA.
The US is still struggling in this area, too. The leading electric bus manufacturer went bankrupt, and a second company stopped making electric buses in the US market after suffering significant financial losses, according to the IEA, in 2024.
Over the past seven days, there have been numerous events, including football World Cup qualifying matches, netball grudge matches, and the Ashes Test preparation.
Following criticism from Ferrari’s John Elkann, who claims Lewis Hamilton wakes up thinking about driving, he has defended his work ethic.
After Ferrari doubled his retirement at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix last weekend, Elkann instructed the seven-time champion and team-mate Charles Leclerc to “focus on driving and talk less.”
With three grands prix and a sprint remaining, Ferrari finished fourth overall in the constructors’ championship, 36 points behind Mercedes and four behind Red Bull.
Hamilton was asked if it was appropriate to ask him to concentrate more on driving during a press conference prior to Sunday’s Las Vegas GP, which almost entirely focused on Elkann’s comments.
“I need to concentrate more on being able to unplug more,” I said.
It’s been a very heavy year, they say. The year I believe I’ve had the busiest is it. I’ve visited the factory more frequently than I’d like to visit any other factory.
Hamilton asserted that he did not object to Elkann’s remarks.
He said, “I am aware of John’s intentions.”
We have spoken several times in the past week, which is how we used to say it. It’s all about bringing the team together, and we’re all truly at peace. We are all deeply invested in it.
Hamilton left Mercedes for the 2025 season and finished his 11-year career there in 2024.
Hamilton finished sixth in the standings for his 40th appearance in red in his debut season.
“There has just been a ton of learning and doing.” When we work together for something, he said, “it’s definitely tough when you fall back,” he said.
“It’s like we’re climbing up a mountain, and then you arrive at weekend and kind of backwards or backwards.” Then, you must restart your effort the following time.
” I’ve backed this team 100% and I back myself 100%. I am aware that when things are done right, it will be amazing, and I look forward to that because I’m curious to see what you’ll write in the interim.
“I firmly believe that’s what will occur,” she said. Despite the challenging times we’ve had, I’m just continuing to keep that in mind.
Hamilton did not manage to take home a podium finish this year despite winning the sprint race at the second grand prix of the year in China. Leclerc, a teammate, has won seven podiums.
Hamilton’s novelty has not diminished, though, for Ferrari.
“I still feel a little sad because I’m in red, that I get to drive a Ferrari, and that I get to represent so many amazing people,” he said.
I became aware that a ship needs time to travel a different way.
This is a significant thing. It’s a sizable business. There are a lot of moving parts. You can’t fix it with a finger’s click. Real time is required.
With the difficulties we’ve encountered and the outcomes we’ve had, it’s not been what any of us wanted for a season. We’ve just kept going full steam ahead.
Hamilton claims that his first campaign at Ferrari has “remembered how resilient I am” despite his difficulties.
I support this team 100%, I support myself 100%, and I know it will be amazing if things go right,” Hamilton said.
“Despite the challenging days we have had, I can’t wait for that moment,” declares one person. “I truly believe that will happen and I will keep our eyes on it.”
According to Leclerc, Elkann called him the morning after the Sao Paulo GP to inform him that the comments were on his mind.
John called me to catch up and said the message he wanted to send was “we want to do better,” Leclerc said.
Fans can’t believe they’ve never heard of Michael Barrymore trying out a “secret London foodhall.” The TV legend, who was once one of Britain’s highest-paid entertainers, took a picture of himself at the hidden-outlet for a meal.
He shared the video with his 4.1 million TikTok followers, who have already received more than 350, 000 views. Before entering the small food court, Barrymore greets a staff member, passes a shawarma stand, a cookie stand, and heads back to find what he refers to as a “hidden gem.”
He discovers Somali food there, and he places an order for a mixed box. He also grabs a brownie and a banana milkshake while waiting in the quiet food hall.
The 73-year-old then heads to the cookie shop, where the owner surprises her with a whole box of treats before ordering two traditional chocolate chip cookies. He finally makes his way back to the nearly-full barracks, where only two customers were seated, after collecting his Somali dish and milkshake.
A few small independent eateries are housed at W3 Food Court, which is hidden away in Acton, west London. Many fans later admitted they had no idea it was possible.
The video’s creator, Michael from Bermondsey, called it “Secret London Foodhall.” Since then, the post has received over 33 000 likes and comments. One person said, “I didn’t know this existed, I’m in Acton.”
Another remarked, “This is amazing, more hidden gems please”; I work nights in Acton and am constantly looking for good food, a user wrote.
One person continued, “I want to try all these places you go to because they always look so good.” No duds”! “You’re a real foodie just like me, Michael,” one fan said.