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Fifa has approved 26-man squads for this year's World Cup in Qatar, BBC reported.

The move is in line with recent national competitions and is an expansion on the 23-man squads that had been used before the coronavirus pandemic.

Fifa also said up to 15 substitutes can be named for a game, meaning no player misses out - something England head coach Gareth Southgate had called for.

"I think everybody has to be available for all the games," he said in April.

Southgate added: "If the squads are going to be bigger then it needs to be a situation where everybody is able to change on a matchday."

The deadline for all 32 countries competing to submit their final squads is 20 October - 30 days before the first game between Senegal and the Netherlands at the Al Thumama Stadium, according to BBC.

Fifa also said that no more than 26 people - up to 15 substitutes and 11 team officials, of which one must be the team doctor - will be allowed to sit on the bench. 

England begin their campaign against Iran on the opening day, 21 November, at 13:00 GMT, while Wales - who are drawn in the same group - face the USA later at 19:00 GMT, BBC reported.

Nike has announced plans to leave Russia, becoming the latest Western brand to quit the country since the invasion of Ukraine in February, BBC reported.

The US sportswear giant halted online orders and closed the stores it owned in the country in March.

Shops run by local partners continued to operate, but the firm is winding down those agreements.

Networking giant Cisco also said it would start to fully shut down operations in Russia and Belarus.

Other companies that have finalised plans to leave in recent weeks include McDonald's and Starbucks.

"Nike has made the decision to leave the Russian marketplace," the company said in a statement. "Our priority is to ensure we are fully supporting our employees while we responsibly scale down our operations over the coming months."

Russia has grown increasingly economically isolated since the invasion, as the West and allies impose sanctions and international companies head for the exits, according to BBC.

The country is now working on legislation that would punish foreign companies seeking to leave, allowing the government to seize their assets and impose criminal penalties, according to Reuters.

Nike has more than 50 stores in Russia, about a third of which are closed, according to its website.

In May, Russian media reported that the company was ending its agreement with its largest franchisee in Russia, responsible for 37 stores.

Nike had previously disclosed that Russia and Ukraine together accounted for less than 1% of the company's revenue.

Cisco said on Thursday that it had "made the decision to begin an orderly wind-down of our business in Russia and Belarus".

This decision will affect a few hundred employees, the US company said, adding that it wanted to ensure they are "treated with respect".

"Cisco remains committed to using all its resources to help our employees, the institutions and people of Ukraine, and our customers and partners during this challenging time," a spokesperson for the firm said, BBC reported.

The networking giant had already stopped business operations, including sales and services, in the region in March, taking a $200m (£160m) hit to third quarter revenues.

Survivors of Afghanistan's deadliest earthquake in two decades say they have nothing to eat, no shelter, and fear a possible cholera outbreak, BBC reported.

The BBC's Secunder Kermani reports from Paktika province, the hardest hit by the disaster.

Searching through the debris, in what is left of his family home, Agha Jan's eyes well up with tears. 

"These were my sons' shoes," he says, brushing the dust off them. His three young children and two wives were killed in the earthquake as they slept.

As the tremors struck in the early hours of Wednesday, Agha Jan rushed towards the room where his family was staying. 

"But everything was under the rubble," he tells the BBC. "Even my shovel. There was nothing I could do. I called out to my cousins to help but when we pulled my family out, they were already all dead."

The area around Agha Jan's village in Barmal district, Paktika province, is one of the worst affected by the earthquake, in which around 1,000 people are believed to have been killed and 3,000 more injured.

It's a three-hour drive to the nearest big city, on mostly dirt roads - the remote location making it all the more difficult to transport the injured. Some had to be flown to hospital in the Taliban's military helicopters, according to BBC.

Almost every house in the village, generally constructed from mud and stone, appears to be badly damaged. Almost every family seems to be grieving a lost relative.

Habib Gul was across the border in the Pakistani city of Karachi, working as a labourer, when he heard the news. He rushed back to his village in Barmal to discover 20 of his relatives had been killed - 18 of them in a single house. 

"Whose names can I give you? So many of my relatives were martyred, three sisters, my niece, my daughter, young children."

Every villager we meet wants to show us the destruction to their home. Partly because they want the world to see the devastation, but also, more practically, because they are hoping their names can be added to aid distribution lists.

"If the world looks on us like brothers and helps us, we will stay here on our land," Habib Gul tells the BBC. "If they don't, we will leave this place where we have spent so long with tears in our eyes."

Overhead, military helicopters whir through the sky. They're no longer transporting injured victims but delivering supplies. Taliban officials tell us the rescue operation has been completed and is now over, BBC reported.

The most pressing need is shelter for the hundreds of families left homeless. 

Agha Jan and one of his surviving sons are pitching a large sheet of tarpaulin between wooden sticks on a piece of empty ground. Other families are in tents, flanked by the remnants of homes they worked so hard to construct, according to BBC.

In a major expansion of gun rights after a series of mass shootings, the Supreme Court said Thursday that Americans have a right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, a ruling likely to lead to more people legally armed. The decision came out as Congress and states debate gun-control legislation, Associated Press reported.

About one-quarter of the US population lives in states expected to be affected by the ruling, which struck down a New York gun law. The high court’s first major gun decision in more than a decade split the court 6-3, with the court’s conservatives in the majority and liberals in dissent. 

Across the street from the court, lawmakers at the Capitol sped toward passage of gun legislation prompted by recent massacres in Texas,New York and California. Senators cleared the way for the measure, modest in scope but still the most far-reaching in decades.

Also Thursday, underscoring the nation’s deep divisions over the issue, the sister of a 9-year-old girl killed in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, pleaded with state lawmakers to pass gun legislation. The Republican-controlled legislature has stripped away gun restrictions over the past decade.

President Joe Biden said in a statement he was “deeply disappointed” by the Supreme Court ruling. It “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all,” he said. 

He urged states to pass new laws. “I call on Americans across the country to make their voices heard on gun safety. Lives are on the line,” he said.

The decision struck down a New York law requiring people to demonstrate a particular need for carrying a gun in order to get a license to carry a gun in a concealed way in public. The justices said that requirement violates the Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.” 

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority that the Constitution protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.” That right is not a “second-class right,” Thomas wrote. “We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government officers some special need.”

California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Rhode Island all have laws similar to New York’s. Those laws are expected to be quickly challenged, according to Associated Press.

Gov. Kathy Hochul, D-N.Y., said the ruling came at a particularly painful time, with New York mourning the deaths of 10 people in a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo. “This decision isn’t just reckless. It’s reprehensible. It’s not what New Yorkers want,” she said.

Gun control groups called the decision a significant setback. Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice and an expert on the Second Amendment, wrote on Twitter that the decision could be the “biggest expansion of gun rights” by the Supreme Court in US history.

Republican lawmakers were among those cheering the decision. Tom King, president of the plaintiff New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, said he was relieved.

“The lawful and legal gun owner of New York State is no longer going to be persecuted by laws that have nothing to do with the safety of the people and will do nothing to make the people safer,” he said. “And maybe now we’ll start going after criminals and perpetrators of these heinous acts.”

The court’s decision is somewhat out of step with public opinion. About half of the voters in the 2020 presidential election said gun laws in the U.S. should be made more strict, according to AP VoteCast, an expansive survey of the electorate. An additional one-third said laws should be kept as they are, while only about 1 in 10 said gun laws should be less strict.

About 8 in 10 Democratic voters said gun laws should be made more strict, VoteCast showed. Among Republican voters, roughly half said laws should be kept as they are, while the remaining half closely divided between more and less strict.

In a dissent joined by his liberal colleagues, Justice Stephen Breyer focused on the toll from gun violence. 

Since the beginning of this year, “there have already been 277 reported mass shootings — an average of more than one per day,” Breyer wrote. He accused his colleagues in the majority of acting “without considering the potentially deadly consequences” of their decision. He said the ruling would “severely” burden states’ efforts to pass laws “that limit, in various ways, who may purchase, carry, or use firearms of different kinds.” 

Several other conservative justices who joined Thomas’ majority opinion also wrote separately to add their views, Associated Press reported.

Justice Samuel Alito criticized Breyer’s dissent, questioning the relevance of his discussion of mass shootings and other gun death statistics. Alito wrote that the court had decided “nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun” and nothing “about the kinds of weapons that people may possess.”

“Today, unfortunately, many Americans have good reason to fear they will be victimized if they are unable to protect themselves.” The Second Amendment, he said, “guarantees their right to do so.”

The days of spending paper banknotes in the shops are numbered: 100 days, to be exact - so start hunting at home, BBC reported.

Remaining paper £20 or £50 notes should be spent or deposited by the end of September, the Bank of England said.

An estimated 163 million paper £50 banknotes and about 314 million £20 paper notes were still in circulation, the Bank said.

These notes are being replaced with plastic versions, just like the £5 and £10 note, which are more durable.

The Bank said the newer, polymer notes were also harder to counterfeit, according to BBC.

"The majority of paper banknotes have now been taken out of circulation, but a significant number remain in the economy, so we're asking you to check if you have any at home," said the Bank's chief cashier, Sarah John, whose signature is on the new notes.

From October, people with a UK bank account should still be able to deposit the paper notes into their account or at the Post Office, but spending them will be impossible.

Paper £20 and £50 notes issued by Clydesdale Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland will also be withdrawn on the same date. 

The paper £20 notes issued by Bank of Ireland, AIB Group, Danske Bank, and Ulster Bank in Northern Ireland will also be withdrawn after 30 September, BBC reported.

China commends the Nepal government's decision not to move ahead on the State Partnership Program (SPP) with the United States, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

Spokesperson Wang Wenbin made the remarks at a daily news briefing when asked to comment on the issue.

Wang said that the program had been widely controversial in Nepal, as various political parties and factions, the government, the army and people across the Nepali society see the SPP as a military and security initiative closely linked to the Indo-Pacific Strategy. They consider it against the national interests of Nepal and its long-held non-aligned, balanced foreign policy to be part of the SPP, according to Xinhua.

"As Nepal's friendly and close neighbor and strategic cooperative partner, China commends the Nepal government's decision," Wang said, adding that China will continue to support Nepal in upholding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and support Nepal's commitment to its independent and non-aligned foreign policy.

"China stands ready to work with Nepal to jointly safeguard regional security, stability and shared prosperity," said the spokesperson, according to Xinhua.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday is hosting a virtual summit with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa collectively known as the “BRICS,” amid rising concerns over the global economic outlook and a growing political divide between Beijing and New Delhi, Associated Press reported.

While no agenda has been issued for the talks, Ukraine is likely to feature heavily in the background. China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion while criticizing sanctions brought against Moscow. India has bought large amounts of Russian oil at a heavy discount, and South Africa abstained on a United Nations vote condemning Russia’s actions.

Along with Xi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are scheduled to join the two days of discussions.

China has sought to use the BRICS meetings to further its vision of an alliance to counter the US-led liberal democratic world order while expanding its economic and political footprint.

That has produced few tangible results, but Xi remains committed to the idea of an alternative — and principally authoritarian — global governance mode, investing heavily in countries like Cambodia while cracking down on civil rights in Hong Kong and boosting its military to assert its claims in the South China Sea and threats to annex Taiwan by force.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday is hosting a virtual summit with the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa collectively known as the “BRICS,” amid rising concerns over the global economic outlook and a growing political divide between Beijing and New Delhi, according to Associated Press.

While no agenda has been issued for the talks, Ukraine is likely to feature heavily in the background. China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion while criticizing sanctions brought against Moscow. India has bought large amounts of Russian oil at a heavy discount, and South Africa abstained on a United Nations vote condemning Russia’s actions.

Along with Xi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are scheduled to join the two days of discussions.

China has sought to use the BRICS meetings to further its vision of an alliance to counter the U.S.-led liberal democratic world order while expanding its economic and political footprint.

That has produced few tangible results, but Xi remains committed to the idea of an alternative — and principally authoritarian — global governance mode, investing heavily in countries like Cambodia while cracking down on civil rights in Hong Kong and boosting its military to assert its claims in the South China Sea and threats to annex Taiwan by force, Associated Press reported.

As the World Health Organization convenes its emergency committee Thursday to consider if the spiraling outbreak of monkeypox warrants being declared a global emergency, some experts say WHO’s decision to act only after the disease spilled into the West could entrench the grotesque inequities that arose between rich and poor countries during the coronavirus pandemic, Associated Press reported.

Declaring monkeypox to be a global emergency would mean the UN health agency considers the outbreak to be an “extraordinary event” and that the disease is at risk of spreading across even more borders. It would also give monkeypox the same distinction as the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing effort to eradicate polio.

Many scientists doubt any such declaration would help to curb the epidemic, since the developed countries recording the most recent cases are already moving quickly to shut it down.

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the recent monkeypox epidemic identified in more than 40 countries, mostly in Europe, as “unusual and concerning.” Monkeypox has sickened people for decades in central and west Africa, where one version of the disease kills up to 10% of people. In the epidemic beyond Africa so far, no deaths have been reported.

“If WHO was really worried about monkeypox spread, they could have convened their emergency committee years ago when it reemerged in Nigeria in 2017 and no one knew why we suddenly had hundreds of cases,” said Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on several WHO advisory groups. “It is a bit curious that WHO only called their experts when the disease showed up in white countries,” he said, according to Associated Press.

Until last month, monkeypox had not caused sizeable outbreaks beyond Africa. Scientists haven’t found any major genetic changes in the virus and a leading adviser to WHO said last month the surge of cases in Europe was likely tied to sexual activity among gay and bisexual men at two raves in Spain and Belgium.

To date, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed more than 3,300 cases of monkeypox in 42 countries where the virus hasn’t been typically seen. More than 80% of cases are in Europe. Meanwhile, Africa has already seen more than 1,400 cases this year, including 62 deaths.

David Fidler, a senior fellow in global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said WHO’s newfound attention to monkeypox amid its spread beyond Africa could inadvertently worsen the divide between rich and poor countries seen during COVID-19.

“There may be legitimate reasons why WHO only raised the alarm when monkeypox spread to rich countries, but to poor countries, that looks like a double standard,” Fidler said. He said the global community was still struggling to ensure the world’s poor were vaccinated against the coronavirus and that it was unclear if Africans even wanted monkeypox vaccines, given competing priorities like malaria and HIV.

“Unless African governments specifically ask for vaccines, it might be a bit patronizing to send them because it’s in the West’s interest to stop monkeypox from being exported,” Fidler said, Associated Press reported.

WHO has also proposed creating a vaccine-sharing mechanism to help affected countries, which could see doses go to rich countries like Britain, which has the biggest monkeypox outbreak beyond Africa — and recently widened its use of vaccines.