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Paris Saint-Germain wins Champions League final against Arsenal on penalties

Match Outcome
Paris Saint-Germain won the Champions League, defeating Arsenal on penalties after a 1–1 draw over 120 minutes at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest.
Historic Venue
Hungary hosted the Champions League final for the first time, marking a significant development in its status as a centre for European football events.
Player Reaction
“We fought hard and gave everything, but it wasn’t meant to be,” stated Arsenal’s Declan Rice after the intense penalty shootout.

Paris Saint-Germain wins the Champions League after penalty shootout victory against Arsenal

Paris Saint-Germain wins Champions League final against Arsenal on penalties

By&nbspSertac Aktan&nbsp&&nbspEU News

Published on Updated

Paris Saint‑Germain retained the Champions League title in Budapest, defeating Arsenal on penalties after a 1–1 draw over 120 minutes at the Puskás Aréna.

Kai Havertz put Arsenal in front inside the opening minutes, but Ousmane Dembélé equalised from the spot midway through the second half after Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was fouled in the box.

With neither side able to find a winner in extra time, the final went to a shootout, where PSG held their nerve to clinch a second successive European crown and deny Arsenal a first Champions League trophy despite their domestic title‑winning season.

Defending champions Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal faced off in front of a sold-out crowd at Budapest’s Puskás Arena. It was the French club’s third appearance and the English club’s second in the final of Europe’s most prestigious club competition.

PSG lost to Bayern Munich in 2020 (0–1), but in 2025, they won the Champions League trophy with a dominant 5-0 victory over Italy’s Inter Milan.

Arsenal last reached the final twenty years ago, where they suffered a 1-2 defeat to Spain’s FC Barcelona.

The match

The match began with a quick goal. After a botched Parisian clearance, the ball bounced off Trossard to Arsenal’s German forward, Kai Havertz, who broke down the left flank, then, drifting slightly wide, blasted the ball into Szafonov’s net from about 4 meters out (0-1).

From that point on, the English team dropped deep in front of their goal to deny PSG’s lightning-fast attackers enough space to play their combination game. Arsenal achieved their goal, as the Parisians were unable to create a single serious scoring opportunity in the first half.

In stoppage time of the first half, a sliding tackle by Marquinhos prevented Havertz from scoring a second goal.

PSG’s dominance on the field paid off with a goal in the second half. Dembélé equalised from a legitimate penalty after Kvaratskhelia was fouled (1-1).

Arsenal played a bit more openly after that, but PSG remained the more dangerous side. With about fifteen minutes left in regulation time, Kvaratskhelia hit the crossbar with a shot that took a slight deflection off a London defender.

The Parisians remained the more active side. Vitinha came closest to scoring; the midfielder’s shot went just over the crossbar, and the score remained unchanged until the end of regulation time.

The last time there was extra time in the Champions League final was in 2016, when Real Madrid was drawing 1-1 with Atletico Madrid. Real Madrid went on to win on penalties.

No goals have been scored in the first and second 15 minutes of extra time.

Boos from Arsenal fans rang around the stadium after the referee turned down a penalty appeal by Noni Madueke following a challenge by Willian Pacho.

Arsenal’s Declan Rice was livid that a spot kick wasn’t given and took his disgruntlement too far, getting a yellow card from the referee.

At the end of the extra time, the final went to penalties. It’s the eighth time a shootout has been needed to settle the title match since the European Cup was rebranded as the Champions League in 1992.

The last one was in 2016, when Cristiano Ronaldo converted the decisive kick for Real Madrid and flexed his muscles after removing his jersey.

This has been the first time Hungary has hosted European club football’s showpiece game.

‘Cheer up, you caught the bad guy,’ says killer Virginia McCullough as she is arrested for murdering her parents

A woman who murdered her parents “in cold blood” before hiding them in makeshift tombs for four years told officers to “cheer up, you caught the bad guy” as she was arrested in her home.

Virginia McCullough, 36, poisoned her father John McCullough, 70, with prescription medication and fatally stabbed her mother Lois McCullough, 71, shortly afterwards in 2019.

She ran up large debts on credit cards in her parents’ names and after their deaths, she continued to spend their pensions until she was finally caught in 2023.

In body-worn video footage released by police, a handcuffed – and eerily calm – McCullough told officers: “I did know that this would kind of come eventually.

“It’s proper that I serve my punishment.”

She said she had slipped something into her father’s drink then put his body under a bed on the ground floor, and put her mother’s body in an upstairs wardrobe.

McCullough, having been arrested on suspicion of double murder, told an officer: “Cheer up, at least you’ve caught the bad guy.”

She added: “I know I don’t seem 100% evil.”

At the police station, she told officers where a kitchen knife was, which she described as a “murder weapon”, and a hammer which she said “will still have blood on it”.

McCullough, of Pump Hill, Chelmsford, Essex, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday with a minimum term of 36 years at Chelmsford Crown Court, after she admitted to their murders between 17 and 20 June 2019 at an earlier hearing at the same court.

Chelmsford Crown Court heard how she hid their bodies in makeshift tombs at the family home in Great Baddow in Essex, then told persistent lies to cover her tracks.

The court heard she cancelled family arrangements and frequently told doctors and relatives her parents were unwell, on holiday or away on lengthy trips.

But concerns over Mr and Mrs McCullough’s welfare were raised in September 2023 by a GP at their registered practice, and Essex County Council’s safeguarding team referred these to police.

The GP had not seen the couple for some time and said Mr McCullough had failed to collect medication and attend scheduled appointments. It was found McCullough had frequently cancelled appointments, using a range of excuses to explain her father’s absence.

Police said a missing persons investigation was initially launched and McCullough lied to officers, claiming her parents were travelling and would be returning in October.

It became a murder investigation, and when officers forced entry to the house in Pump Hill on September 15 2023, McCullough confessed that her parents’ bodies were in the house and that she had killed them.

Nicola Rice, a specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “McCullough callously and viciously killed both of her parents before concealing their bodies in makeshift tombs within their home address.

“She spent the next four years manipulating and lying to family members, medical staff, financial institutions, and the police, spending her parents’ money and accruing large debts in their name.”

She added: “This was a truly disturbing case, which has left behind it a trail of devastation, and I can only hope that the sentence passed today will help those who loved and cared for Lois and John begin to heal.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/virginia-mccullough-arrest-video-murder-parents-chelmsford-b2627978.html

Sarah Wilkinson
Sarah Wilkinson@swilkinsonbc
To downplay the genocide, the israelis claim there’s only 20,000 people left in north Gaza, says @MahaGaza : the real number exceeds 400,000
Carol Voderman
Carol Voderman@carolvorders
Man of the right wing Nigel Farage taking more second jobs and freebie helicopter rides Gosh he’ll soon be a true blue Tory at this rate Or far far worse
Zarah Sultana
Zarah Sultana@ZarahSultana
The cost-of-living crisis is far from over, yet the government’s 50% increase to the bus fare cap is a political choice, adding hundreds to annual costs. To address hardship & the climate crisis, the government must keep the £2 cap & make public transport accessible for all.

Defense alliance NATO chief Mark Rutte has met US President-elect Donald Trump to discuss global security issues, according to a NATO spokesperson.

The meeting took place in Palm Beach, Florida.

During his first term as US president, 2017-2020, Trump pushed for European NATO countries to spend more on defense and described the alliance’s cost-sharing as unfair to the US.

Rutte took over as NATO chief from Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg in November.

Before taking office in January, Trump has nominated Pete Hegseth for the post of defense secretary, which has raised eyebrows among many allies.

Hegseth, 44, has served as an infantry captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, but has no senior military or government officer experience.

Multiple missiles were fired in an airstrike towards a densely populated part of Lebanon’s capital early on Saturday.

The huge airstrike targeted Beirut’s Basta neighbourhood, and no prior warnings were given by the Israeli military. The largely residential area was struck last month.

At least one violent explosion was heard across the city, Reuters witnesses said, and plumes of smoke could be seen. Scenes of massive destruction at the site were shared online, including a massive crater in the ground.

“Beirut, the capital, woke up to a horrific massacre, as the Israeli enemy’s air force completely destroyed an eight-story residential building with five missiles on Al-Mamoun Street in Basta,” the state-run National News Agency reported.

The health ministry put the initial death toll at four, with 23 wounded. The number is expected to climb in the coming hours as search and rescue efforts continue.

It came after a long day of Israeli airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, which have been non-stop since last week.

The cross-border fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group escalated into a full-blown war in mid-September.

Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, Beirut’s southern suburbs and the eastern Beqaa region, and has sent ground troops across the border. Hezbollah has continued to fire rockets deeper into Israel.

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