Chelsea will host Jack Wilshere's Luton Town in the Carabao Cup second round, while Tottenham Hotspur host Charlton Athletic in a London derby.
Former Arsenal midfielder Wilshere will take his League One outfit to Stamford Bridge, as the 11 Premier League sides not involved in European competition this season joined the winners of the first-round ties in the hat.
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Got Sky? Watch the Carabao Cup on the Sky Sports app
Among the other tasty ties are League One AFC Wimbledon visiting Alvaro Arbeloa's Fulham at Craven Cottage, while Keith Andrews' Brentford face a potentially tricky tie against Birmingham at St Andrew's.
Plymouth - who won the Devon derby with Exeter, live on Sky Sports on Monday night - will get Premier League side Coventry City at home, while West Ham face an all-Championship tie away to Southampton.
In the north draw, Newcastle have been given Championship side West Brom at home, while Leeds were given an all-Premier League clash against Nottingham Forest.
David Moyes' Everton go to second tier club Preston - as the Toffees boss reunites with the club where he began his managerial career.
Like the first round, the second round draw was also regionalised and split into Southern and Northern section ties. The second-round matches will be played in the week commencing August 24.
The remaining Premier League teams will join in the third round, which will be split over the week commencing September 7 and the week commencing September 14. The teams competing in the Champions League will start in the later week.
Carabao Cup second round draw in full
North Draw
Stoke City vs Hull City
Newcastle vs West Brom
Blackburn vs Sheffield Utd
Nottingham Forest vs Leeds
Doncaster vs Middlesbrough
Barnsley vs Crewe
Preston vs Everton
Blackpool vs Lincoln
Sheffield Wednesday vs Wolves
Bradford vs Burnley
Fleetwood vs Shrewsbury
South Draw
Walsall vs Leyton Orient
Ipswich vs Leicester
Cardiff vs Norwich
Stevenage vs Reading
Cambridge vs Millwall
Birmingham City vs Brentford
Southampton vs West Ham
Watford vs Peterborough
Fulham vs AFC Wimbledon
Plymouth vs Coventry
Chelsea vs Luton
Tottenham vs Charlton
Catch up with all the goals so far!
The first-round ties have had plenty of drama, action and goals as sides from the Championship League One and League Two sought a spot in the second round.
Clubs relegated from the Premier League in West Ham, Wolves and Burnley have all made it through, while three clubs from League Two have also booked their spot in the hat - Crewe, Fleetwood and Shrewsbury.
You can catch up with all the highlights here%!s()
Comedian, actor, and entertainer Bill Bellamy will be presented with the Icon Award at the 2026 Whats Funny Comedy Festival, recognizing his decades of excellence and impact on stand-up comedy and entertainment.
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The Whats Funny Comedy Festival was co-founded by Knowledge Beckom and Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out,” “Rel,” “Vacation Friends 2”) with the mission to spotlight Black and Brown comedians and make Chicago the “next great home of comedy discovery.”
The festival’s upcoming third edition will be held September 19-26 at venues throughout Chicago, including Comedy Bar, Laugh Factory, Bellagio 223, ETA Theater, and Wax Vinyl Bar. More than 50 comedians from 20 cities will perform in showcases, including Cousin Tiera, Correy Bell, Eva Evans, Rich Thomas, Shang and Chris ‘CP’ Powell, host of the latest reboot of BET’s “Comic View.”
On Sept. 21, Bellamy will receive the Icon Award during the inaugural Whats Funny Today Show Chicago Comedy Legends ceremony. Bellamy will be honored alongside 15 Chicago comedians whose careers helped shape the city’s comedy legacy. The celebration will conclude with a live taping of the “Whats Funny Today Show” podcast featuring Bellamy and special guests.
Another one of the week’s marquee events will be the live taping of Howery’s next stand-up comedy special on Sept. 20; his previous special, “Rel Talk,” was filmed during the inaugural Whats Funny Comedy Festival and released on Tubi last year. Howery will also lead a master class, sharing insights from his journey through stand-up, television and film.
“The Whats Funny Comedy Festival was created to celebrate the incredible legacy of Black comedy while creating meaningful opportunities for today’s comedians to learn, perform, and build lasting careers,” Beckom, the festival’s co-founder and executive director, said in a statement. “Every year we strive to elevate the experience for audiences and performers alike, and 2026 will be our biggest and most impactful festival yet.”
For the full schedule, tickets and additional information, visit the Whats Funny Comedy Festival website. %!s()
Blue labels indicate marine areas where floating microplastics were collected from surface waters. Red labels indicate locations or regions where larger plastic debris was recovered from riverine, coastal, and seafloor environments. Credit: National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan
Plastic pollution is not only a marine litter issue; it is also closely linked to resource circulation and chemical management. Plastic products contain a wide range of additives, including antioxidants, plasticizers, ultraviolet stabilizers and flame retardants. Some of these chemicals are regulated or managed because of concerns about their effects on human health and ecosystems.
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Once plastics enter the environment, exposure to sunlight and waves can cause degradation and fragmentation. Larger plastic debris may break down into microplastics, generally defined as plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters (0.2 inches). These smaller particles can disperse more widely in the marine environment. Fragmentation also increases the surface area of plastics relative to their mass, potentially affecting both the leaching of chemicals from plastics and the sorption of chemicals from surrounding water and particles.
A research team led by Go Suzuki of the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan, in collaboration with the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology and Nagasaki University, analyzed additive-derived chemicals in floating microplastics and larger plastic debris collected from coastal, offshore, riverine and seafloor environments around Japan.
Floating microplastics were collected from five marine areas: Tokyo Bay, the Genkai Sea, Pacific coastal waters, waters off Hokkaido and Sea of Japan coastal waters. Larger plastic debris, including bags, ropes, nets and hard fragments, was recovered from offshore and coastal areas across Japan, as well as from a river drainage pump station in Tokyo. The researchers identified the polymer types of the samples and analyzed extracted chemicals using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry.
Conceptual illustration of the distinct environmental behavior of three substances highlighted in the study. Irgafos 168-related compounds are affected mainly by leaching and transformation from within the plastic matrices. DEHP may be sorbed to microplastics from the surrounding environment. HBCD can remain in fragmented particles during marine transport. The dots are schematic and do not quantitatively represent chemical concentrations or particle numbers. Credit: National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan
A wide range of chemicals were detected in both microplastics and larger plastic debris, including antioxidants, plasticizers, ultraviolet stabilizers, flame retardants and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Based on detection frequency, concentration and regulatory or management relevance, the researchers focused on three groups of chemicals: Irgafos 168-related compounds, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and hexabromocyclododecane (HBCD).
Irgafos 168 is an antioxidant used to reduce oxidative degradation in plastics such as polyethylene and polypropylene. The distribution of Irgafos 168 and its oxidation products differed by polymer type and particle size. The observed patterns were consistent with leaching and transformation from within the plastic matrix.
DEHP is a plasticizer historically used primarily in flexible polyvinyl chloride products. It was widely detected in both microplastics and larger plastic debris. In some samples, concentrations exceeded 1,000 micrograms per gram (equivalent to 0.1% by weight). DEHP concentrations were higher in floating microplastics than in larger plastic debris recovered from the seafloor in both polyethylene and polypropylene samples. The results suggest that, in addition to chemicals remaining within plastics, DEHP present in surrounding water, suspended particles and organic matter may be sorbed to microplastics from the surrounding environment.
HBCD is a brominated flame retardant that has been used in materials such as expanded polystyrene. Because it is persistent, bioaccumulative and capable of long-range environmental transport, HBCD is regulated as a persistent organic pollutant. The researchers detected HBCD at concentrations of 110–590 micrograms per gram in microplastics collected from the Genkai Sea, Pacific coastal waters and Sea of Japan coastal waters. The findings indicate that fragmented plastic particles containing HBCD can remain mobile in the marine environment and may act as secondary sources of exposure.
The study shows that fragmentation does not necessarily remove chemical concerns associated with plastics that have entered the marine environment. Chemicals may leach from plastic matrices, be sorbed to fragmented particles from the surrounding environment or remain in those particles during transport. Product-based chemical controls alone may not fully capture these processes after plastics enter the environment.
The findings are published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Further research is needed to determine how much of the chemicals associated with microplastics are taken up by organisms and whether they contribute to ecological effects. It is also important to identify the sources and release pathways of plastics containing chemicals of concern and to apply this knowledge to leakage prevention, selective collection and appropriate treatment.
These findings provide a scientific basis for connecting measures to address marine plastic pollution with chemical management. They may also contribute to discussions on the international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution currently under negotiation.
Publication details
Go Suzuki et al, Priority Plastic Additives of Environmental Concern in Marine-Leaked Micro- and Macroplastics: Occurrence, Distribution, and Management Implications, Environmental Science & Technology (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.6c03000
Provided by
National Institute for Environmental Studies
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Every day seems to brings fresh news of an AI agent going “rogue.” Whether that’s compromising Hugging Face, hacking a gym website, or creating its own fake profiles to socially engineer an intrusion, AI models are increasingly behaving like bad actors.
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So, the AI labs that make the models doing the hacking are expanding their cyber protection offerings. This week, OpenAI announced an expansion of Daybreak, its cyber defense service which it launched earlier this year, not long after Anthropic released its cyber-focused model Mythos.
Daybreak is a service that bundles access to models, tools and workflows for defenders. The expansion includes access to a brand new cyber-focused model designed for defensive work.
OpenAI said Monday that Daybreak would now consist of two tiers: Blue and Red. Both of these tiers will allow approved customers access to OpenAI’s limited-access frontier cyber models. Frontier models — the most advanced available — have been a subject of controversy. The Trump administration previously sought to collaborate with AI companies on the roll out of such models, purportedly over safety concerns. Previously, OpenAI deployed significant guardrails to using these models, limiting what customers could do with them.
Blue, which appears to be the more basic of the two, offers a variety of cyber services, including incident response, malware analysis, and patch validation. OpenAI calls Blue its “recommended starting point for most defenders,” implying that it should be more than enough for most enterprises.
Red, on the other hand, offers a broader and potentially more dangerous toolkit. The company grants its users “purpose-trained cybersecurity models,” designed to carry out security testing and vulnerability research.
With Red also comes the new model, GPT‑5.6‑Cyber, which is only available at that tier. 5.6-Cyber is built off of GPT‑5.6 Sol, and offers enhanced capabilities for certain specialized cybersecurity tasks, the company said.
At the moment, GPT‑5.6‑Cyber is only being made available for “trusted customer partners,” including reportedly Accenture, IBM, Crowdstrike, Cloudflare, and others.
While the threats from AI agents are rapidly increasing, critics have also pointed out that they function as marketing opportunities for the AI labs. OpenAI is certainly marketing its upgraded Daybreak that way.
“The cybersecurity world is rapidly changing—threat actors will increasingly use AI to conduct cyberattacks at unprecedented speed and scale, including in fully autonomous ways,” the company said in a blog post. “As these capabilities spread, defenders have a narrowing window to prepare.”
At the same time, enterprises remain interested in buying their protection from the AI labs who know the security risks best, because they know them first-hand.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Lucas is a senior writer at TechCrunch, where he covers artificial intelligence, consumer tech, and startups. He previously covered AI and cybersecurity at Gizmodo.
You can contact Lucas by emailing [email protected].
Halloween: The Game is the next multiplayer horror game from Illfonic, the studio behind Friday the 13th and Predator Hunting Grounds. Like Friday the 13th it's an asymmetrical affair: one player takes the form of psychotic masked serial killer Michael Myers, while everyone else plays the hapless survivors. It's set to release on September 9, but when it does, players based in Australia won't be able to buy it.
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Illfonic confirmed as much yesterday via its Halloween: The Game X account. "Despite every effort on our part, the Australian Classifications Board has denied Halloween: The Game a rating," it wrote.
"The denial was not based on the presence of the iconic slasher, Michael Myers, or the outstanding kills that can be performed in the game, but rather the presence of a controlled substance. Unfortunately, to our disappointment (and certainly yours) this means that we cannot sell the physical or digital product in both Australia and New Zealand."
Games with the presence of a controlled substance are allowed in Australia, but it depends how they're depicted. If the use of those substances is incentivized, that's a big no-no. And that's apparently what the classifications board has determined is happening here: according to a Bloody Disgusting report from March, citing horror influencer Slash 'N Cast, smoking weed as a survivor can temporarily let you see Michael Myers' "pings across the map." That's exactly the kind of thing the ratings system prevents.
I've reached out to Illfonic to get some clarity on this. I also asked if the studio might tweak the system—or replace the marijuana asset—for the Australian market. Studios like Bethesda and Obsidian have resorted to the latter in the past, while others, like Devolver, have refused: Hotline Miami 2 is still unavailable in Australia.
I've also reached out to the Classification Board itself. I can't find the particular RC listing for Halloween on its website, though a separate rating for its pre-order content received an automated R18+ rating in July.
Not that I'm questioning Illfonic's statement: Listings for the game have disappeared from all major Australian retail outlets including EB Games and JB Hi-Fi. The landing page is now inaccessible on the PlayStation Store. True to form, Steam hasn't yet acted on the ban, but it's probably only a matter of time.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Shaun Prescott is the Australian editor of PC Gamer. With over ten years experience covering the games industry, his work has appeared on GamesRadar+, TechRadar, The Guardian, PLAY Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald, and more. Specific interests include indie games, obscure Metroidvanias, speedrunning, experimental games and FPSs. He thinks Lulu by Metallica and Lou Reed is an all-time classic that will receive its due critical reappraisal one day. %!s()
