Women’s Super League newcomers London City Lionesses have signed the Netherlands midfielder Danielle van de Donk on a two-year contract.
Van de Donk, who has 167 international caps, returns to England four years after leaving Arsenal to join French side Lyon.
The 33-year-old becomes London City’s first signing since they clinched promotion to the top flight for the first time after finishing two points clear of Birmingham City in the Championship.
A WSL winner with the Gunners in 2018-19, Van de Donk has won four consecutive league titles since joining Lyon in 2021 and also lifted the Champions League in 2022.
“It’s just such a nice environment to be in, the club really appeals to me, it reminds me of a little family, and I want to be a part of it,” Van de Donk said.
“The project that London City have, it’s different but in a good way. London City have to battle for everything and that’s my style.”
Financially backed by Michele Kang, who also owns Lyon and Washington Spirit in the USA, London City will become the first independent women’s club, not associated with any men’s team, to play in the WSL.
Since splitting from Millwall in 2019 they have been a regular in the second division but have been boosted by the investment from their wealthy American owner since her arrival in 2023.
Van de Donk began her career in the Netherlands with Willem II before playing for VVV-Venlo and PSV Eindhoven.
After a brief spell with Goteborg in Sweden she signed for Arsenal in 2015, also winning the FA Cup and League Cup during a six-year stay in London.
BBC Sport senior women’s football news reporter Emma Sanders
This is a serious statement of intent from the newly promoted WSL side and their ambitious owner Michele Kang.
The independently owned club raised eyebrows in the second tier last season when they brought big-name Sweden internationals Kosovare Asllani and Sofia Jakobsson, as well as Japan defender Saki Kumagai, to England.
Kang was clear she was willing to back them again this season after gaining promotion and they have ambitions to break into the WSL’s top four.
If there were any doubts as to how serious Kang was, this opening signing of the summer transfer window has squashed them.
It is also an example of how Kang hopes to use all three football clubs she owns – Washington Spirit, Lyon and London City Lionesses – to transfer talent between leagues.
Van de Donk brings a wealth of experience and knows the league well from her impressive six-year spell with Arsenal between 2015 and 2021, winning the WSL title during that time.
United States President Donald Trump will decide Washington’s course of action in relation to the Israel-Iran conflict in two weeks’ time, the White House said on Thursday.
Speculation has been rising this week that the US could decide to assist its longstanding ally, Israel, in strikes against Iran, which it claims are designed to neutralise Iran’s nuclear programme. In particular, Israel wants the US to provide “bunker buster” bombs, which may be able to penetrate deep within the mountain in northwest Iran, where the Fordow nuclear facility is located.
This comes after a week of Trump shifting his position on the conflict.
Here is what we know:
On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt shared what she described as a direct quote from the US president with reporters: “Based on the fact that there’s a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place with Iran in the near future, I will make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks.”
When Israel first attacked Iran late on June 13, the Trump administration clearly stated that it had not been involved, calling Israel’s attack “unilateral action”. It has become clear since then, however, that the US did have knowledge of the attacks in advance.
Trump also said he believed Iran was “very close” to having a nuclear weapon during the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Canada this week, contradicting his own US intelligence reports. This marked a shift from his position in May, when he made public statements that Tehran and Washington were close to a nuclear deal.
On Wednesday, Trump refused to say whether the US would join the conflict.
“I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he told reporters outside the White House.
Finally, on Thursday, Trump appeared to give a two-week deadline for talks with Iran to succeed before the US would take action.
No. It also does not necessarily mean the US will attack Iran at all. Leavitt remained ambiguous on what could happen after two weeks.
The press secretary said: “The president is always interested in a diplomatic solution … he is a peacemaker-in-chief. He is the peace-through-strength president. And so, if there’s a chance for diplomacy, the president’s always going to grab it. But he’s not afraid to use strength as well.”
But Mona Yacoubian, senior adviser and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that while two weeks would give time for more negotiations with Iran, it would also provide the US with time to “flow in additional forces should it decide to join Israel in the conflict”.
For now, it is impossible to say which of these two possibilities is more likely – or if the “two weeks” mentioned by Trump is even a deadline at all.
“I don’t even know if President Trump knows what he wants,” Iranian American analyst Negar Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
“He campaigned as the president of peace … he promised he’s going to end conflicts. Russia-Ukraine hasn’t ended. Gaza has escalated, and he just let the third big Middle East war, which looks like a regime-change war, start under his watch. So, he says one thing. He does another.”
Others believe Trump’s “two weeks” comment is a negotiation tactic to apply pressure on Iran during talks.
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, told Al Jazeera that Trump could be attempting to build leverage with threats to strong-arm Iran into accepting his demands of “total surrender”.
“I think he’s trying to present himself as this madman who is unpredictable, and in so doing, he can then insist on this very hard line that Iran has refused to accept for decades of full dismantlement of its [nuclear] enrichment programme,” Abdi told Al Jazeera.
“The delay certainly could be part of a broader negotiating strategy which exploits Iran’s weakened position as a result of wide-ranging military strikes to extract more substantial concessions from Iran on the nuclear issue and potentially on other points of contention as well, for example its ballistic missiles programme,” Yacoubian said.
”It’s extremely difficult to predict what will happen next,” she added. “President Trump’s idiosyncratic negotiating strategy alongside his instinctual, ‘from-the-gut’ decision-making approach underscores the unpredictability of the coming days – which may well be the point!”
In the past, Trump has assigned similar timelines relating to Iran’s nuclear programme, the Russia-Ukraine war and global trade tariffs. But he does not always stick to them.
“Imposing deadlines stands as perhaps the one predictable element of Trump’s approach to finding solutions to complex problems,” said Yacoubian. “Setting explicit deadlines has characterised Trump’s negotiating style in several realms, from Ukraine to politically sensitive domestic challenges.”
In the lead-up to the current conflict, Trump says he gave Iran a 60-day deadline to negotiate an agreement over its nuclear programme, but talks continued beyond its expiry, Yacoubian noted. In the end, it was Israel which took action, launching a series of strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites on June 13.
Since the beginning of his presidency in January this year, Trump has been attempting to lead peace negotiations to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
On May 28, Trump set a two-week deadline to determine whether his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was willing to end the conflict.
Trump told reporters then: “Within two weeks. We’re gonna find out whether or not [Putin is] tapping us along or not. And if he is, we’ll respond a little bit differently.”
As the two-week window approached an end, the New York Post asked Trump in a podcast whether Putin cared about Russia losing thousands of soldiers in Ukraine. He said, “I’m starting to think maybe he doesn’t.”
Since the two-week window ended, Russia and Ukraine do not appear to be any closer to a peace agreement. But Trump has not signalled a shift in US policy towards Russia despite his previous threat.
A report by the Reuters news agency, published on Tuesday, further claimed that the Trump administration had disbanded an interagency working group aimed at placing pressure on Russia to speed up talks with Ukraine. Reuters cited three unnamed US officials in its report. The existence of this working group had not been made public.
Trump has also announced pauses and delays to his on-again-off-again trade tariffs first imposed on trading partners of the US in April.
In April, he announced a 90-day pause for all its tariff targets except China, with which the US reached a trade deal earlier this month. The tariff pause is set to expire on July 8.
Through the creation and deployment of smart police stations throughout the country, Galaxy Backbone Limited (GBB) and the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (NPTF) have established a strategic partnership to promote digital transformation in the country’s security sector.
According to reports, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at Galaxy Backbone’s Abuja headquarters as a significant step in the implementation of the Federal Government’s Renewed Hope Digital Transformation Agenda.
Authorities claim it reflects the two institutions’ commitment to creating a law enforcement system that is both technologically advanced, responsive, and transparent.
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The collaboration, according to Professor Ibrahim Adeyanju, Managing Director/CEO of Galaxy Backbone, marked a turning point in Nigeria’s effort to integrate digital governance, during the signing ceremony. This agreement reflects our shared desire for a more inclusive, resilient, and smart Nigeria. We are incorporating cutting-edge technology into the foundation of our security architecture through this partnership,” he said.
GBB will provide high-speed fiber connectivity, cloud computing infrastructure, and cutting-edge ICT tools to support the deployment of smart police stations in accordance with the agreement’s terms. These locations will have advanced policing-related capabilities like artificial intelligence-driven capabilities, digital case management systems, secure communication platforms, and real-time surveillance.
The project is anticipated to shorten police response times, streamline information sharing, and increase transparency throughout police operations, according to the Nigeria Police Trust Fund. Additionally, the Smart Policing initiative hopes to boost public confidence in law enforcement by enabling more reliable and reliable decision-making.
Additionally, Professor Adeyanju noted that the initiative is in line with Galaxy Backbone’s role as the government’s digital backbone, highlighting the value of collaboration in addressing national issues. The future of governance is secure, resilient, and digitally connected. He continued, “This partnership brings us closer to that reality.”
The MoU supports the wider Integrated Digital Transformation Strategy (2025-2028), which aims to expand the scope of technology’s contribution to national development and delivery of public services.
Top GBB and NPTF officials, as well as Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy officials, attended the event. The Nigeria Police Force’s operational effectiveness would be enhanced by this partnership, according to stakeholders’ optimism.
Quincy Promes, a former Ajax winger, will serve a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence for aggravated assault and drug trafficking.
Last week, the 33-year-old was detained in Dubai at the request of the Dutch police.
Promes, who has been capped 50 times for the Netherlands, was given a six-year prison sentence in February 2024 for his part in the smuggling of more than a tonne of cocaine from Belgium into the Netherlands in 2020.
He has not yet served any time in prison for the crimes he committed in 2020, which he had previously been given an 18-month prison sentence for for allegedly stabbing his cousin in the knee at a family gathering.
The Dutchman has since been returned to the Netherlands, according to a prosecutor’s representative.
Promes made his Twente senior debut in 2009, making his first appearance since joining the club in 2009 with Russian side Spartak Moscow. He spent three years there.
Promes spent just one year in Spain before moving back to the Netherlands with Ajax after four years in the Russian capital.
In 2021, he rejoined Spartak Moscow, and he followed for three more years in Russia before making a move to Dubai United.
The winger scored seven goals for the national team in 2014, his first of Promes’ 50 caps. His final cap was from 2023.