An apparent prankster has blighted the draw for the 2024 UEFA European Championships with sex noises being played throughout the proceedings. This comes just months after a similar incident occurred on Match of the Day which left the likes of Gary Lineker and Danny Murphy red-faced when loud pornographic noises were played during the broadcast of a game between Liverpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers. It's hard to determine if these were exactly the same noises that were heard on the BBC but they were most apparent when the final teams in the draw were taken out of the hat, with ex-Manchester City and Spain midfielder David Silva struggling not to laugh. The host of the draw, which was taking place in the German city of Hamburg, acknowledged the disruption by saying "there is some noise here..." but they attempted to power through despite the problems. More to follow...

Tennis legend Rafael Nadal on Thursday withdrew from the French Open and revealed that 2024 is likely to be his final season after a career that has yielded 22 Grand Slam titles...

Lionel Messi is expected to make his Major League Soccer debut with Inter Miami at a July 21 home game, the team confirmed Tuesday

Scientists have discovered a way to store the Sun’s energy in rocks and convert the heat into electricity. Using an approach called concentrated solar power, a team of researchers from Tanzania found that certain granite and soapstones could store solar heat at a sufficiently high density to serve as a primitive form of battery. Thermal energy storage has been touted as a low-cost way of storing and harvesting energy from the Sun, even when it’s no longer shining. Last year, scientists from Sweden and China came up with a way to store solar energy for nearly two decades using an ultra-thin chip, which serves as a thermoelectric generator. The innovative system could technically be integrated into electronics, however it remains too costly to implement at scale. By contrast, the granite and soapstone samples offer a low cost and readily available method of storing solar energy, the researchers said. “Using rocks as a storage medium offers the potential of affordability due to the abundance and low cost of rocks,” the researchers noted in a paper outlining their findings. “An air-rock bed has low investment cost, high reliability and efficiency, is environmentally friendly, and does not require the use of heat exchangers.” The rock bed captures and collects solar thermal energy up to 600 °C, which is then used to boil liquid into steam that powers a generator turbine to produce electricity. The results were detailed in a study, titled ‘Experimental Investigation of Soapstone and Granite Rocks as Energy-Storage Materials for Concentrated Solar Power Generation and Solar Drying Technology’, published by the American Chemical Society. Other thermal energy storage systems have focussed on salt and water, with researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology unveiling a heat battery last year that they claim could work at scale. Rather than capturing heat from the Sun, the system instead collects industrial residual heat. “While the potential is great, we have also seen many great potential technologies that have not made it,” the scientists said at the time. “So we’re going to keep our feet on the ground and take this one step at a time.” Read More Scientists break world record for solar power window material Scientists smash world record for solar power window material Nasa holds urgent meeting about sightings of UFOs Opinion: The real reason companies are warning that AI is as bad as nuclear war

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will receive a lavish welcome from US President Joe Biden at the White House this week, with talks about China...

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Watch live as Pope Francis arrives in Marseille for a two-day visit on Friday, 22 September. The pontiff will be greeted by French prime minister Elisabeth Borne before leading prayers at the Basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde for migrants who have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea. The trip was months in the planning, but now comes after thousands of migrants arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa. Almost 130,000 migrants have arrived in Italy so far this year, according to government data, which makes migration a problem for the entire European Union according to Italy's prime minister Giorgia Meloni. The Pope is known for openness towards migrants, but has previously said that they should be shared among the 27 EU countries. He once called their exclusion "scandalous, disgusting and sinful." The pontiff will meet with Emmanuel Macron twice during his visit. The French president is expected to attend a papal Mass on Saturday, which critics say violates strict separation of state and faith, known as laicite. Read More Pope Francis visits Marseille as anti-migrant views grow in Europe with talk of fences and blockades Congo's president wants the large U.N. peacekeeping mission to start leaving the country this year Catholic priests have held a ceremony blessing same-sex couples in defiance of a German archbishop

Danone SA said that the French company remains the legal owner of its Russian dairy operations even after

By Sinéad Carew Shares in Discover Financial Services tumbled more than 13% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after

An xQc fan who was amazed by the substantial amount he won during the stream, headed to Reddit to craft and share a post detailing their astonishment

Seeing isn't necessarily believing anymore, and if a lot of us are already easily blinded

Megan Rapinoe will represent the US women’s national team for the last time on September 24, when the American side hosts Colombia at Soldier Field.