What happened
Gianni Infantino is resisting mounting pressure to leave his post as Fifa president after a controversial proposal to commercialise parts of the World Cup triggered a political storm. Infantino has acknowledged “mistakes” surrounding the plan, which has been withdrawn, while promising an internal review. He has remained in Morocco, where Fifa held an emergency meeting as support for his leadership looked to be increasingly uncertain.

Meanwhile, leaked documents have revealed that Infantino held talks with top European clubs in 2020 about forming a breakaway competition that could have been called the “Fifa Super League”.

Who said what
Infantino told Fifa’s governing council that the organisation accepted that errors had been made and apologised for the way the proposal was handled. The apology was nothing short of a “last-ditch survival bid”, said Martyn Ziegler in The Times, but it doesn’t appear to be working. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the sell-off plan “should be fatal” to Infantino’s presidency. Former Portugal star Luís Figo said: “He should go. Now.” 

What next?
Infantino had been expected to seek another term next year, but senior football officials are now pushing for his departure.

What happened
Authorities in Pakistan have implemented new restrictions on foreign media in the country, with organisations now requiring permission to report outside of Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore.

The Foreign Media Facilitation Guidelines, 2026 also apply to Pakistani nationals working for international media organisations and do not outline how long gaining permission, known as a No Objection Certificate, can take.

Who said what
The government claims that the measures are not aimed at restricting the media, but at providing “an administrative mechanism” to verify outlets – as well as facilitating access to Pakistan’s more remote regions – said the BBC.

The guidelines are “tantamount to choking international media in an increasingly shrinking space”, said political commentator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar. “Placing restrictions simply creates more room for disinformation and the spread of fake news.”

Supreme Court lawyer Salahuddin Ahmed said the guidelines were “merely an executive order and lack any legal backing from statute”, adding that “quite clearly” they are a “hastily and ill-thought-out attempt to further curb independent reporting in Pakistan”.

What next?
The president of Pakistan’s Federal Union of Journalists GM Jamali is attempting to meet with Information Minister Attaullah Tarar to raise concerns about the measures.

Television might actually be rotting our brains. Watching TV for extended periods of time could increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, new research says. To combat this danger, experts recommend taking breaks from binge-watching and engaging in more mentally stimulating activities.

Frequent TV watching in midlife was linked to reduced volume in the parts of the brain vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published in Alzheimer’s & Dementia. The diminished brain systems include those associated with memory and cognition, as well as executive functioning. More surprisingly, the brain volume reduction was not tied to sedentary behaviour, but specifically to watching TV. “People whose jobs involved sitting for much of the day tended to have healthier-looking brains,” said ScienceAlert. Also, “when the researchers accounted for differences in overall physical activity, that didn’t seem to impact the outcome”.

“For years we’ve focused on how much people sit,” David Raichlen, a professor of biological sciences and anthropology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and the senior author of the study, said in a news release. But these findings “suggest we should also pay attention to what they’re doing while they’re sitting”. For example, working from home, while sedentary, is more “intellectually stimulating” compared to watching TV, said the release.

Because watching TV appears to specifically affect the brain, “we might eventually see a different approach to health guidance around sedentary activities”, added the release. “The goal is not to eliminate passive rest,” Dung Trinh, a doctor at the MemorialCare Medical Group and chief medical officer of the Healthy Brain Clinic in Irvine, California, told Healthline. It is to “build more cognitively engaging moments into the day”.