Once a year, Dutch kids, parents and teachers take part in a walking festival, heading out for four nights in a single week to explore their neighbourhoods, exercise and make friends. It’s a tradition that seems to be genuinely transformative

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the rain didn’t stop the Dutch kids. All day it had been thunderstorming, and the forecast didn’t look so great for the evening. And yet at 5pm, hundreds of kids started arriving – many by bike – with their parents to Amsterdam’s Westerpark, a beloved city park that caters to a more residential area of the capital. Today, it functions as a starting point: volunteers coordinate registration, and groups of children gather, decked out in raincoats and eager to embark on either a 5km or a 10km excursion around the surrounding neighbourhoods.

It’s the second night of Avondvierdaagse (which literally means “four-day evening walk”) , organised by a group of neighbourhood volunteers. It’s not a race, but if children complete every night, they get medals, a bouquet of flowers and, if they’re lucky, a lot of sweets. It’s not just Amsterdam; across villages, towns and cities in the Netherlands, hundreds of thousands of Dutch people are doing the same: every year, kids spend four evenings in early summer exploring their neighbourhoods with their school friends and parents as part of the Week van de Avond4daagse. Some places had celebrated earlier; others were walking the following week. A variation of the tradition has even made its way to Suriname, one of the Dutch former colonies. There are also four-day cycling and swimming events. According to the Royal Dutch Walking Association (KWbN), which helps coordinate the events, half a million people take part every year, in 700 locations across the country, powered by tens of thousands of volunteers.

It’s a decade since the MP for Batley and Spen was killed by a far-right extremist. Her sister Kim Leadbeater, who took over her parliamentary seat, explains what lessons are still to be learned

Jo Cox was a Labour MP for Batley and Spen, the place where she had grown up and had known her whole life. She was firmly pro-Europe, a passionate campaigner for social justice - and the mother of two young children, five and three years old. On 16 June 2016, at the height of a toxic Brexit campaign, Jo was murdered by a far-right extremist. He shot and stabbed her several times outside Birstall library in West Yorkshire, shouting “This is for Britain.” She was 41 years old.

Her sister Kim Leadbeater and her family set up the Jo Cox Foundation in her honour, and took on her former constituency. But a decade later, with far-right ideas increasingly mainstream and far-right violence more common, Leadbeater tells Nosheen Iqbal what lessons we can all learn from the tragedy

While we need protecting from foreign enemies, slashing benefits in favour of defence will make millions less, not more, safe

As the row over the military budget grows, Keir Starmer has spent much of the past few days insisting he’s spending huge sums of taxpayer money on defence. Every single government department has made cuts to fund next month’s defence investment plan (Dip), the prime minister promised, resulting in “the biggest sustained increase since the cold war”. On Sunday, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, told the BBC that cabinet ministers have been asked to look for further reductions to help fund defence.

Now squint and replace the word “defence” with “welfare”. Imagine Starmer – or any prime minister for that matter – boasting they’ve pinched cash from the NHS or schools to boost benefit payments. Indeed, swap “defence” for any sort of progressive cause – think housing, social care or net zero – and you’d be hard-pressed to picture a politician trying to save their career by pledging vast levels of spending, let alone if that spending was lifted from the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

I’ve met many hardcore, violent fans, but the hostage-negotiating, cocaine-smuggling, Marxist-Leninist Alessandro Casolari still stood out

I had heard the name Alessandro Casolari on and off for years. From 2016 onwards, when I was researching my book on Italy’s ultras – a cross between English football hooligans and Hells Angels – the nickname “Caso” kept coming up. In the late 80s and early 90s, he had led the ultras in Ferrara, whose football club is known as Spal.

A red-brick city in northern Italy between Bologna and Venice, Ferrara has always felt sidelined, languishing in a marshy land of fog and floods. I used to go there quite often, drawn by its festivals and famous writers and film directors. A few years ago, when I started writing another book, about the Po River, I hung out there again, but I never bumped into Caso.

Some titles that once backed the Tories now ‘flirting with Farage’ as they try to gauge where readers stand

It was a Mail on Sunday headline with all the ferocity usually reserved for general elections, directed squarely at a political opponent. But in this case, the traditionally Conservative-supporting title was not targeting Labour.

The party in its crosshairs was Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, the vehemently rightwing outfit that regards Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as too weak on deporting migrants.

He built modern Greece from the ground up, but Ioannis Kapodistrias remains a controversial figure. A new biopic throws light on this overlooked titan of European history

On a hilltop in central Corfu, a marble bust carved in the classical style gazes skyward, lean, fine-featured and composed to the point of austerity. There is no uniform, no decorations, nor symbols of office, just a name cut into the base in Greek capitals: Ι Α ΚΑΠΟΔΙΣΤΡΙΑΣ. The bust stands alone in the gardens of Koukouritsa, once the family home of Ioannis Kapodistrias, the first governor of Greece. The villa is now the only museum in the country dedicated to the man who gave up one of the most powerful diplomatic positions in Europe to return to a country that was barely a country and try to build one.

Without Kapodistrias, there may have been no modern Greek state, and the map of Europe might look very different today. He spent years supplying material and moral support to the Greek revolutionaries; once independence was won from the Ottoman Empire, he negotiated directly with Britain, France and Russia over the new country’s borders and future, then set about building the institutions, its currency, courts, schools and civil service that the modern state still stands on. “He who murdered Kapodistrias murdered his homeland,” Swiss philhellene Jean-Gabriel Eynard wrote on hearing of the statesman’s assassination in 1831 at the hands of rebel leader allies turned enemies.

US president says strait of Hormuz will be open from Friday but questions remain over waterway fees and Israeli breaches of ceasefire in Lebanon

• Tallying the global cost of the US-Israel war against Iran

Donald Trump has declared that the strait of Hormuz will be “completely open” from Friday, as western leaders gathering at the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains battled to prevent the fragile US deal with Iran from almost immediately unravelling.

“The deal’s all signed. And the strait ⁠is already partially opened,” Trump said as he arrived at the summit in France, but Israeli breaches of the ceasefire in Lebanon and Iran’s claims about its right to charge fees in the crucial waterway revealed the agreement’s many loose ends.

Labour MP warns of voices fanning hatred on eve of 10th anniversary of the murder of her sister, the MP Jo Cox

• How the murder of my sister changed Britain – podcast

Political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit referendum, when Jo Cox was murdered, says Kim Leadbeater, Cox’s sister who is now also a Labour MP.

Speaking to the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast Leadbeater, who was elected to the same Yorkshire seat held by Cox in a 2021 byelection, said everyone in public life had a responsibility to try and ease tensions.

No 10 is worried about retaliation from White House over restrictions to under-16s’ internet use

Ministers have embarked on a concerted lobbying operation to prevent a backlash from the Trump administration to the under-16s social media ban announced by Keir Starmer.

Officials said they have spent weeks trying to reassure senior Trump officials and the US president himself that the restrictions were not specifically aimed at US technology companies.

Environment secretary reportedly raises concerns that customers would face ‘undue burden’ from £10bn plan

• Thames Water should be nationalised, says Burnham

• Business live – latest updates

The UK environment secretary has objected to a £10bn rescue proposal for Thames Water because it would place an “undue burden” on consumers, pushing the troubled utilities firm closer towards public ownership.

Emma Reynolds wrote to the regulator Ofwat on Monday to raise concerns about the plan for the UK’s biggest water company as she is worried that customers will lose out.

Exclusive: Carns, who quit last week, says he was angered by unwillingness to confront sunk costs of legacy programmes

There is “unbelievable” waste and inefficiency at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the former armed forces minister Al Carns has said, adding that every time he would “turn a stone over” he would get another shock.

Carns said that during his time as a defence minister he had been angered by the unwillingness to confront the sunk costs of legacy programmes – and suggested mismanaged programmes such as tanks investment should be scrapped in favour of new technology.

Tech is helping to identify and save new specimens and could open ‘genomic goldmine’ of fungi data

The rise of AI and digitisation could be a turning point in the “race against extinction” faced by botanists trying to identify and save vital plants before they vanish, according to a major report from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

New technology is enabling scientists to track how flowering times have shifted by weeks around the world, rapidly identify new specimens and even get crucial genetic data from 180-year-old fungus specimens, potentially opening a “genomic goldmine”. Digitisation and online access to millions of specimens that were until now only accessible in archives is also producing new insights, especially in the global south.

Breakthrough treatment enabled Archie Goodburn, 24, to keep competing but he says one new drug in 20 years is not enough

Archie Goodburn, a 24-year-old champion swimmer who has a rare, inoperable form of brain cancer, is calling for the government to do more to help people with the condition.

“I grew up representing my country, and
I want to see my country supporting me back,” he said.

Exclusive: Commons motion calls for code of practice to be blocked amid concerns over impact on transgender people

A number of Labour MPs are increasingly doubtful that the guidance on how organisations should implement the supreme court ruling on sex as it applies in the Equality Act is workable in the real world, with some predicting it will unleash a wave of competing legal claims.

A total of 135 MPs, 69 of them from Labour, have signed a Commons motion calling for the code of practice drafted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, approved last month, to be blocked, primarily because of worries about its impact on transgender people.

During 101 minutes of action in Los Angeles, Iran were finally able to focus on football. The buildup, of course, had been unprecedented, messy and chaotic. But then, in the aftermath of an entertaining draw with New Zealand, Iran’s captain, Mehdi Taremi, described their World Cup as a “disaster”, explaining how Fifa president Gianni Infantino went into their dressing room to hear their concerns, and head coach Amir Ghalenoei labelled them the “most oppressed” team at the tournament after being forced to return to Mexico after the game.

A charter flight from LAX was scheduled for 11pm local time. It was a lively end to a relatively drama-free occasion, despite pre-match protests and an underlying anxiety around how the team would be greeted by their own supporters. What, really, were the emotions flowing through their veins as they took to the pitch? A few hours earlier Donald Trump, in France before the G7 summit, said a peace deal had been signed after almost four months of war. Infantino, who in effect recently admitted he is powerless to prevent the chaos that continues to plague Iran’s preparations and overshadow their participation, was up in the VIP seats.

16 June 1976 is not just another chapter in the history books, nor is its aftermath and legacy, say those who took part and their families

The day of 16 June 1976 began peacefully in Soweto. Student leaders at high schools across the sprawling Johannesburg township, to which the apartheid regime had exiled hundreds of thousands of black South Africans, took charge of the morning assemblies. They led their fellow students into the streets and began to march toward Orlando stadium.

The students were protesting against the government’s imposition of Afrikaans as a medium of instruction. Their teachers barely spoke the white minority language and the students did not want to learn the oppressor’s language. They were tired of the intentionally substandard Bantu education, tired of being second-class citizens.

The short-tailed roundleaf bat was feared extinct until scientist Iroro Tanshi found one in Afi sanctuary in Nigeria, and set out to protect the only confirmed roosting colony

Just after sunrise, a cacophony of whoops and chatter can be heard over the verdant forests of the Afi mountain wildlife sanctuary. Nestled within the Cross River rainforest in south-east Nigeria, and spanning an area about the size of central Paris, the steep sanctuary is a haven for endangered gorillas, drill monkeys, the grey-necked rockfowl – and the short-tailed roundleaf bat.

The Nigerian biologist Iroro Tanshi remembers the moment she first spotted the endangered bat in 2016, during a field expedition for her PhD research. “We were trapping near a roost that night, so we caught a lot of bats,” says Tanshi. But, she adds: “This looked very, very different. Big-eared.” She promptly turned to her identification guide, which revealed that the tiny furry creature she was holding between her fingers was Hipposideros curtus, better known as the short-tailed roundleaf bat, last recorded in the wild in the 1970s.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Barney Ronay, Dan Bardell and Sid Lowe as debutants Cape Verde earn a draw against the favourites Spain

From gymnasts in kitten heels to lovers stalked by a devil, Pieter Henket’s dazzling portrait series, Birds of Mexico City, can feel like being in ‘a museum where the art comes alive’

The French cities of Marseille, Aix, Avignon and Arles boast a wealth of museums and festivals showing work by contemporary artists. Here’s how to make the most of a dazzling cultural summer

My wife and I moved from London to Marseille a little over five years ago when our British passports still conferred “right to reside” in France. That first winter on the beach, in short sleeves, as our daughters played in the topaz-coloured Mediterranean and the sun set across an ever-clear blue sky, I understood why this part of southern France has always been popular with artists.

I was recently speaking about this with the painter Fanny Nushka and her sailor husband, Benoît Bouchet, on the terrace of Café la Muse in Marseille’s “coolest” neighbourhood. She said: “It took a long time to go back to blue. It’s like being in Paris and painting the Eiffel Tower. It’s dangerous to paint the Calanques [limestone coves] as an artist from here.”

Audiences have propelled Spielberg’s alien thriller to the top of the box office. Yet some exiting the cinema appear to believe this sappy extravaganza is not the director’s finest hour

A sage person once told me every noted director’s career is an ongoing conversation with the audience. Some film-makers – Michael Haneke, say – sit on high, like a headteacher at an assembly, and loftily number the ways in which we’ve let ourselves and the school down. There are others – Lars von Trier and Ari Aster spring to mind – whose work sidles up uncomfortably close, gooses the viewer and then flees the scene sniggering before the relevant authorities can be alerted. The career of Steven Spielberg – arguably the most remarkable career in the history of popular cinema – has long depended on the audience being on the exact same page, looking up wide-eyed and guileless towards the light: his greatest films, from Close Encounters to The Fabelmans, invite further discussion, an awestruck back-and-forth.

You can therefore understand why Spielberg has broached the subject of social division with Disclosure Day, his much-trumpeted return to the summer event movie: he has almost as much skin in this game as the rest of us non-trillionaires. Yet if early box office has been solid enough, secondary indices – not least a slew of disappointed foyer texts from friends and loved ones – would suggest the film has itself proved distinctly polarising. In the US, market research firm CinemaScore – which polls opening-day cinemagoers to assess a film’s commercial prospects – graded Disclosure Day a B, the joint second-worst for a Spielberg film, ahead of AI: Artificial Intelligence (recipient of a harsh C), dead level with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Headmaster Haneke again shakes his weary head.

Wuva staff’s kindness and empathy means we are able to plan more trips away

My husband has motor neurone disease (MND). For us to continue going away, we decided to buy a refurbished mobile hoist, which helps to get out of a bed, from the online mobility equipment company, Wuva.

It arrived quickly, but had been damaged in transit and didn’t work. I contacted Wuva out of hours via WhatsApp, and within five minutes I received an extensive apology and advised an engineer would call me shortly.

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France: Right, on to what is ahead. France and their potent attack featuring Kylian Mbappé, the former Ballon d’Or winner Ousmane Dembélé and flying winger Michael Olise open their account against Senegal in New Jersey.

The French will be desperate to avoid any repetition of the opening-day defeat by the Senegalese that they suffered at the 2002 World Cup in South Korea, a result which led to the then-reigning champions crashing out in the group stage. Luke Entwistle looks back on that unfortunate loss for Les Bleus and how the relationship between Mbappé and Dembélé must be positive from the off.

Mbappé’s relationship on the pitch with Ousmane Dembélé is perhaps a bigger issue. Dembélé has never delivered his best football for the national team; lest we forget his calamitous performance in the World Cup final four years ago, when he was hooked at half-time. Dembélé’s recent Ballon d’Or win has led to a clamour for him to picked in the No 9 position – where he has thrived since his reconversion at PSG under Luis Enrique – but that spot is occupied by Mbappé at international level.

When asked about Mbappé’s role as centre-forward, Deschamps’ retort is quite simple. Luis Enrique, Carlo Ancelotti, Xabi Alonso and Álvaro Arbeloa have all made the same decision at club level over the last three years. Repositioning him at this late juncture would be illogical. But Dembélé’s struggles on the right of the attack and inability to create a partnership with the France captain are feeding a national debate akin to the one in England in 2006, when there were similar concerns about the ability to fit Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard into the same team.

• Keeper named player of the match against Euro winners

• ‘I have worked my whole life for this moment,’ he says

Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who was named player of the match after making seven saves in his side’s 0-0 draw against Spain, was in tears at full time. The mother of Cape Verde’s World Cup hero was not there to see history made because she could not afford the visa to the US.

The goalkeeper described the game as the moment he had been working towards his “entire life” and said he wished he could have shared the moment with his late grandparents and his mother.

Bobby Robson employed a head of human performance for the World Cup and, despite wariness, the players got on board

The eve of Italia 90. Gazza’s tears, England’s heartache, and the cascading emotions of a World Cup that sang and ultimately stung still lie ahead. For now, the sports scientist tasked with acclimatising Bobby Robson’s side to the Italian summer is using cutting-edge technology to assess each player’s fitness: a BBC microcomputer, a dot-matrix printer, and a few clunky Polar heart-rate monitors.

Some in the England setup initially regard Prof John Brewer, the Football Association’s first head of human performance, with suspicion. But after monitoring the squad with a bleep test at Lilleshall before they fly to Italy, again when they arrive, and for a third time after a fortnight’s training in the hottest part of the day, Brewer can prove to the players they have adapted to the heat, and can play their familiar high-tempo game.

• Fifa president sets gruelling itinerary across tournament

• World Cup to generate about 9m tons of carbon dioxide

Gianni Infantino is planning to attend two World Cup games each day where possible for the rest of the tournament despite the huge distances involved.

The Fifa president has access to a private jet provided by Qatar Airways as a value-in-kind element of its sponsorship deal with the world governing body, which will come in useful as Infantino journeys across the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The UK has its own progressive policies such as the second home and ‘mansion’ taxes. So why isn’t the PM shouting it from the rooftops?

In April, to mark the day on which Americans are expected to file their taxes, the New York mayor, Zohran Mamdani, filmed himself on Billionaires’ Row, an enclave of super-tall apartment buildings just south of Central Park. When he took office, he said, he would tax the rich, and now, outside the hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238m penthouse, he was ready to make good on his pledge. “Today, we’re taxing the rich,” he said with a flamboyant smile, zooming his face into the camera. It was the opening to a short film unashamedly titled Happy Tax Day, New York.

He went into battle armed with stats. According to Mark Levine, NYC’s comptroller (a senior financial executive), the pied-à-terre tax on second homes will raise about $500m annually fromabout 11,200 properties.

Anna Minton is reader in architecture at the University of East London. Her new book, Superprime: The Sterilisation of the City, will be published by Penguin next year

Time and time again, the PM has failed to take on big tech. With this plan, he is taking an easy way out and giving parents false hope

• Ian Russell is an internet safety campaigner and chair of the Molly Rose Foundation

More than eight years ago my youngest daughter, Molly, died after being bombarded with suicide and self-harm material on social media. I had hope that Keir Starmer would finally take the measures needed to address the harm Molly was subjected to, but his social media ban for under-16s leaves me desperately worried for the safety of children online.

Instead of tackling the product safety issues that cost my daughter’s life, he is choosing to take a politically easy route which the evidence shows – and experts warn – will not work, and will leave children at continued risk.

It fell to Robert Jenrick to announce his party’s plans to lift white British people from the bottom of the pile

Now is not a good time to be a white Brit born in this country. Nigel Farage is clear about this. So much so that he wrote a 6,000 word Substack piece about it at the weekend. Or rather someone did. Possibly an intern who had been told to channel their inner Nige.

Or maybe, if Matt Goodwin was involved, ChatGPT helped out. “Write me an essay in the style of an even more deranged Rupert Lowe.” Don’t hold back. Go for it. The UK is unrecognisable. Foreigners everywhere. It’s time that black and disabled people started paying reparations to white people. For all the benefits they have taken off us.

A full return will require a marathon of democratic persuasion, on the continent as much as in Britain. For one side holds most of the cards

As Britain approaches the 10th anniversary of its vote to leave the EU, the British are beginning to debate rejoining what they call Europe. But, as in most previous British debates about “Europe”, this is Europe with the Europe left out. The discussion is all about what would be best for Britain economically and the British politics of getting there. Little or no account is taken of what the rest of Europe thinks or cares about. The other day, the Treasury minister Lord Livermore became the first member of the government to publicly endorse rejoining the EU. “Of course,” he told the House of Lords, “the UK will re-enter the European Union because it’s absolutely in our national economic interest.” As if we had only to knock on the EU’s door and – abracadabra! – we would immediately be welcomed back in.

If you asked all sitting British MPs to say when the European Council is next meeting in Brussels, I doubt that more than a handful could give you the right answer. In fact, I wonder how many could immediately tell you what the European Council is. It’s instructive to look at the agenda for that top table gathering of the national leaders of the 27 EU member states, together with the union’s key institutional leaders. Between 6pm this Thursday and lunchtime on Friday, they hope to discuss Ukraine, the Middle East, the EU’s next seven-year budget, global economic challenges, European defence and security, migration and illicit drugs. So they have, to put it mildly, a lot on their plate.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist. His new book, Europe in 7½ Chapters, will be published this autumn

There is nothing left to be squeezed from disabled people or families, yet some continue to bang the same old drum

What’s it to be, warfare or welfare, social or military spending, guns or butter? Hermann Göring coined that phrase calling for re-armament, “Guns will make us powerful, butter will only make us fat.” In her “Britain awake” speech, Margaret Thatcher in 1976 warned that the Soviets “put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns” – though defence spending fell as a proportion of GDP in her time, and faster as the cold war ended. But that peace dividend needs repaying now we are back in cold (and quite hot) war with Russia, only with the US no longer reliable, nor even a friend.

The present day “guns v butter” has morphed into a warfare/welfare zero-sum. How dispiriting that Al Carns repeated it on resigning last week as armed forces minister. “There is an argument around welfare,” Carns says. “I am a firm believer that it’s about hands up, not a hand out. But we need to help the people who need the most help within the nation but also get the balance right across defence.” Why the juxtaposition? This ex-colonel of the marines would “take the country by the scruff of its neck and make it great again” – soldier talk that makes Westminster go weak at the knees.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

As the isolation period comes to an end for those caught up in the outbreak on a cruise ship, let’s celebrate a good news story

passengers from the MV Hondius cruise ship where the hantavirus outbreak first occurred finished their isolation periods this past Sunday. This is a public health success story worth celebrating, because so many worse results were possible. We heard so much about what went wrong during Covid and the various systems that failed, so it’s good to recognise when things go right – even if you won’t hear about it in the evening news.

There were 147 passengers and crew, and on 4 May seven cases of respiratory illness on board were identified as the Andes strain of hantavirus, which has been known to spread from human to human. This was already an extremely unlucky outcome – hantavirus is deadly, with death rates approaching 30% based on recent research, but most strains only spread from animals to humans.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

We over-50s should worry less about our crepe necks and sunspots and more about our listening skills – and the pettiness we bring to social media

When I was young, there was a huge list of things you shouldn’t do, or specifically wear, over the age of 30; there were fewer explicit rules about what you should and shouldn’t wear over the age of 50, but they were all implied by the fact that it was 20 years since you’d been 30. Then someone lampooned the whole business – it was strikingly memorable but, teeth-gnashingly, not memorable enough that I can remember who it was – with a definitive list of Never Wear This Over 30, which included “a necklace made of ears”. The entire discourse was buried that day, and I never thought about it again, until the weekend, when I was walking up some stairs with a mirror all the way up. That, I could not help but notice, is a very 90s walking style.

I guess we all learned it from Bez out of Happy Mondays, the man specifically employed (if you would use such a LinkedIn word for it) to bring happiness to the nation with his physical joie de vivre: leading with the shoulders, as if you’re in a ferocious hurry to get to the front of somewhere, with your neck hunched in to bypass the attention of the authorities because of all the drugs you are about to either sell or buy, the rest of your body an afterthought.

There are real concerns about how a social media ban for under-16s will work. But tighter rules could be a step towards a better internet for everyone

There is a long way to go before children under 16 in the UK are blocked from the main social media platforms – as Sir Keir Starmer announced on Monday that they will be. He proposed a date of next spring, although whether, and when, a ban comes in may be up to an eventual successor.

But whatever happens next, a crunch moment has arrived sooner than expected. Until recently, it seemed highly unlikely that the government would seek to restrict the tech industry’s access to children in the way it is now doing. Eighteen months ago, ministers sided with Ofcom in a row over the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Groups including 5Rights argued that companies should be made accountable for harm reduction, as well as obliged to follow new rules. For a mixture of economic and political reasons, the government seemed determined to stay on the right side of big tech and Donald Trump. Its approach was timid.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The US-Iran ceasefire is welcome. But the US president is trying to disguise a failed war of choice as a diplomatic victory

The US-Iran agreement to halt fighting for 60 days is welcome, because even cynical diplomacy is better than war. But Donald Trump should not be allowed to call this a triumph. He has bought a pause after an illegal war of choice that failed to secure its declared aims, devastated Iran, destabilised Lebanon and sent shocks through energy and fertiliser markets, leaving many people poorer and hungrier. A campaign launched to display US military strength is likely instead to be remembered for demonstrating its limits.

A deal with Iran is better than war with Iran. But the US president is hailing as victory the partial easing of a crisis that he, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, helped create. The measure of success will not be the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which war had closed, but whether the next two months produce a verifiable nuclear settlement and put out the flames fanned by the US-Israel attacks.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Readers respond to an article about what was once the UK’s most expensive house, which has lain empty for years

Grand properties lying empty when we’re in the midst of a housing crisis is ludicrous. Sam Wollaston’s article about a homeless person sleeping in the portico of a £200m palace, which used to be terrace houses, is the most apt and absurd illustration of the UK’s housing problem (It was Britain’s most expensive house. Why is its only resident a homeless man who lives on the porch?, 10 June).

For a long time, my partner and I lived in the affluent town of Henley-on-Thames. There, behind the famous Leander club, sat a sizeable disused property. Most days I’d drive past it on my way to work and lament that the pigeon-filled building wasn’t occupied. It took over a decade before it was knocked down and the area finally developed; presumably somebody owned it for all that time and sat on it for whatever reasons.

Dr Rajiv Prabhakar assesses the best age at which grants should be provided to young people, while Jeremy Galtress argues against redistribution

Polly Toynbee discusses capital grants for the young to counter wealth inequality (Young people need money because our system is rigged. Here’s a way to give it to them, 9 June). The age at which grants are accessed is critical for both policy and politics.

Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Agrarian Justice, published in the 1790s, proposed providing £15 to all 21-year-olds. The Social Market Foundation’s report is the latest addition to this literature, and promises policy impacts.

Readers respond to an report on experiments that have shown a left-turn bias among humans

It is not quite true to say that no one knows why people prefer to turn left and walk anticlockwise (Report, 10 June). Research by the French professor of physiology Raphaël Dubois in the 19th century revealed the existence of a phenomenon in the natural world that he called the “antikinetic gyratory movement”, caused by the rotation of the Earth on its axis.

During the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, he observed a tendency among visitors to walk anticlockwise. In the years leading up to the first world war, he applied his theory to explain migration (of humans and animals) and war. I documented the latter in an article in the journal Peace & Change in 1986.
Dr Peter van den Dungen
Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire

Analogue music | Football songs | Money matters | Medical mysteries | Vintage comedy

The communications lecturer ARE Taylor believes old media formats are “presented as the remedy for our digital ailment” (Editorial, 11 June). As a 65-year-old whose journey in music began with a transistor radio, moved on to a radio cassette player and eventually to a record player, I can testify that these old technologies were just as “addictive, unnatural, unhealthy and harmful” as today’s, but in a beautiful, exciting, memory-filled, crackly sort of a way.
Alex Dickie
Edinburgh

• Your list (Sing when you’re winning: the 20 greatest songs about football – ranked!, 4 June) surprised me by not including Fitba’ Crazy, written in the 1880s by James Curran. Sung by Jimmie MacGregor and Robin Hall with a strong Scottish brogue, it was released as a single in the 1960s. Surely it is the oldest football song, and ought to be the Scotland anthem in the World Cup.
Richard Gosnell
Royal Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire

England Test captain has a lot of credit in the bank and if he comes back hopefully everyone has the compassion to move past his curfew breach

The first Test against New Zealand seemed to be played in fast forward, and since England sealed victory on day four at Lord’s the cricket world has just carried on in the same vein. An often wild match ending with the MCC rushing out a statement reacting to criticism of the pitch would be one of the more memorable events of an ordinary summer, but this time it was practically forgotten within 48 hours.

Celebrating England players threw the England and Wales Cricket Board into crisis, and the week between Tests ended up being so unusual that the shock retirement of one of the great players of the past two decades almost went unnoticed. Ten days ago it looked like England had hit upon a lineup that could stay pretty settled through the summer. Now they have made at least four changes for their next game.

• Martin joins Leicester after relegation to League One

• Ex-Gil Vicente coach Peixoto replaces Rob Edwards

Leicester have confirmed Russell Martin’s appointment as manager, on the same day as Wolves unveiled César Peixoto as head coach, replacing Rob Edwards.

The two Midlands clubs were relegated from the Championship and the Premier League respectively last season and have moved quickly to restructure their setup, with Martin joining Leicester eight months after his nightmare 123-day stint in charge of Rangers came to an end.

• Sage joins after winning Coupe de France with Lens

• ‘We come here with a lot of ambition,’ Sage says

Crystal Palace are determined to hold on to their best players this summer after confirming the appointment of Pierre Sage as their manager, with the Frenchman to be backed in the transfer market to prepare for their Europa League campaign.

Sage has signed a three-year contract to replace Oliver Glasner, having led Lens to second place in Ligue 1 last season and won the French Cup. He emerged as Palace’s preferred candidate after they missed out on Andoni Iraola and it is understood that the 47-year-old’s preference to play a 3-4-2-1 system was a key factor in his appointment.

Stunning Barcelona triumph has kickstarted veteran’s push to win a record eighth drivers’ championship but Kimi Antonelli still stands in way

When the soaring emotions began to settle one question remained. After his life‑affirming maiden win for Ferrari in Barcelona, is Lewis Hamilton in contention for the Formula One drivers’ championship?

Typically, in a sport where there are innumerable competing voices, it depends who you ask. But with the 41-year-old’s consummate display at the Circuit de Barcelona‑Catalunya securing his first victory for Ferrari, there is no doubt Hamilton remains among the elite drivers on the grid.

• Trump brings UFC to White House – as it happened

• Gaethje stuns unbeaten Topuria for lightweight title

• Josh Hokit targets former First Lady after TKO win

For most of America’s 250-year history, the White House South Lawn has been reserved for state dinners, diplomatic ceremonies, Easter egg rolls, turkey pardons and carefully choreographed displays of presidential power.

On Sunday night it hosted cage fights.

• Spain left-back completes move on six-year contract

• Cucurella had spoken out against Chelsea hierarchy

Real Madrid have announced the signing of Marc Cucurella from Chelsea in a package worth up to €60m (£52m).

News of the deal emerged on Sunday, with this Spanish club now revealing a six-year deal has been negotiated. “Real Madrid CF and Chelsea FC have reached an agreement for the transfer of the player Marc Cucurella, who will be linked to our club for the next six seasons, until June 30, 2032,” a club statement released on Monday morning read.

The all-time great’s Stud is represented by Daryz at the premier Flat meeting of the year on Wednesday

There are high hopes for a royal winner at Ascot this week, when the king and queen are expected to have a runner on the first four days of the meeting. Many fans, though, will also hope to see the green and red of the Aga Khan Studs in the winner’s enclosure after the weekend brought final closure in the ill-starred story of Shergar, whose 10-length winning margin in the 1981 Derby remains the all-time record.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Princess Zahra Aga Khan, the daughter of Shergar’s owner and breeder, Aga Khan IV, confirmed what had been the general wisdom in racing for many years – that the five-year-old stallion was shot not long after being kidnapped from Ballymany Stud in County Kildare by an armed IRA gang in February 1983.

Conway, Kobayashi and De Vries added to team’s success, in front of more than 350,000 fans, to go alongside five victories between 2018 and 2022

As the fans walked away understandably a little wearily from the 94th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours, they had surely earned a sit down in a shady spot and a cold drink or two. Tired but happy, then, after a vingt-quatre that demonstrated the event and the series of which it is part are in rude health.

After the twice-round-the-clock challenge in baking sunshine and through the night with nary a spot of rain, it was the No 7 Toyota TR010 of Britain’s Mike Conway, Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi and the Dutch driver Nyck de Vries who took the flag after 381 laps, just 11 seconds up the road from the chasing BMW. It was a first victory for De Vries and a second for Conway and Kobayashi. There were tears from the Japanese driver in the cockpit as he brought the Toyota home. “I need a beer,” he told the team. He had earned it.

I became a fan of this team to connect with my father. Their NBA championship does not erase the heartbreaks and hurt of the past – it completes the journey

Do you know what you want your last thought to be? I have waited my whole life for mine.

Most people, I imagine, don’t choose theirs. They arrive at the end and find loved ones’ faces gathered around their bed. Their subconscious gifts them the sound of their child’s laugh, or the memory of their wedding day rises from the dark like a lantern, unbidden. The mind, in its final kindness, selects for them. But I decided long ago that I would not leave that to chance. I decided, the way you decide anything important, deliberately and a little defiantly, the way I have decided most things in my life.

Nearly one in six pieces of news shared in local Facebook groups during the campaign is false, Social Market Foundation report finds

Keir Starmer has vowed to “choke off” Russian revenue with further sanctions and to provide hundreds of millions of pounds worth of energy support for Ukraine, as he met world leaders in France for the G7. Alexandra Topping, who is covering the summit at Évian-les-Bains in France, has the story.

Good morning. Andy Burnham seems to be on course to win the Makerfield byelection on Thursday. But, if he does win, it will be despite a huge increase in the amount of hostile, fake news about him circulating on local Facebook groups. This has been documented in a report out today by the Social Market Foundation thinktank that has important implications not just for Makerfield, but for how politics functions today in a social media environment awash with lies.

Nearly 1 in 6 pieces of news shared in local Facebook groups during the campaign is false, with misinformation heavily targeting Labour and its candidate Andy Burnham, a new study has found.

The Social Market Foundation analysed over 1,800 posts across four local Facebook groups – representing different towns and settlements within the constituency with 66,000 members across them in total – and found that the share of news posts classified as misinformation jumped from 4% before the by-election was called to 16% during the campaign, a four-fold increase.

So-called ‘good behaviour’ legislation fiercely criticised by opposition politicians and rights groups

Sweden’s parliament has voted to escalate the country’s crackdown on immigrant rights, backing laws that allow authorities to revoke residency permits based on a vague criteria of bad behaviour and obliging most public sector workers to report anyone suspected of being undocumented.

The new legislation comes ahead of parliamentary elections in September, pitting the centre-right government, which currently depends on the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats to govern, against a far right that has said its intent is to create one of Europe’s most hostile environments for non-Europeans.

Brian Gu says he sees Chinese car firms competing on quality rather than launching price war as at home

Motorists in the UK and EU should not expect a sharp drop in the cost of electric vehicles despite increased competition among Chinese manufacturers, one of the country’s biggest electric carmakers has said.

Brian Gu, the vice-chair of the manufacturer Xpeng, said that Chinese carmakers could compete on quality to win customers in the EU and UK, rather than unleashing a brutal price war as they have in China.

The closures, so employees can watch a recorded lecture, will cost the company an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in sales

Starbucks Korea will simultaneously close all its stores for a mandatory history lesson, after a disastrous promotion that evoked memories of a pro-democracy massacre sparked public and political backlash.

More than 2,000 stores will temporarily close at 3pm on 22 June, the company said, so staff can watch recorded lectures on modern Korean history and engage in “social sensitivity” training. The half-day closures will cost Starbucks an estimated 2.1bn won ($1.4m) in lost sales, according to data firm IGAWorks.

Play at Gillian Lynne theatre in London will cycle through versions with weekend crowds able to pick one

In keeping with its well-earned reputation for cloak and dagger, the stage adaptation of the hit gameshow Traitors will present audiences with different renditions of the story depending on which night they attend.

The Traitors: Acts of Betrayal will take the form of a five-play cycle, with weekend crowds able to determine which version of the BBC show dramatisation they see.

Wharfedale, Yorkshire: On the trail of a wood warbler, I find a suite of woodland plants rising up from a fascinating land formation – limestone pavement

Grass Wood is a magnificent fragment of ancient woodland owned and exceptionally well managed by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. It is home to some lovely plants including lily of the valley and herb paris. What became my defining revelation about the place and, in truth, about this whole area was down to a wood warbler.

It is among my favourite birds, so getting to see the individual singing just off the trail required me to enter the trees, rise up a short bank, and then sit for a long time on a rocky ledge. Slowly it dawned on me that the platform on which I rested, while carpeted in moss, was also incised into a tessellated pattern. From these narrow cracks in the limestone arose a suite of woodland plants. It was dense with ash seedlings, ferns and sedges, as well as linear thickets of dog’s mercury, but there – unmistakably where my hand rested – were strips of flowering herb paris.

Move is part of broad effort to open public lands to industry and other uses, threatening wildlife and ecosystems

The Trump administration is executing a controversial plan to allow dirt bikes, ATVs, trucks, snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles to drive through tens of millions of acres of public lands and national parks, which environmental groups warn threatens endangered species and the environment.

The plan’s opponents say the impacts will be wide-ranging and that the vehicles will likely destroy sensitive habitats, harm waterways, drive large predators like grizzly bears into contact with humans, and otherwise damage pristine public lands and parks.

Amid fears the wreck will be more accessible to explorers – and new species – as the climate warms, conservationists want to create the region’s first underwater protected area

The harsh temperatures, treacherous currents and shifting pack ice of the Antarctic’s Weddell Sea, which crushed and sank his ship, Endurance, in 1915, led Ernest Shackleton to describe it as the “worst portion of the worst sea in the world”.

For more than a century, the inhospitable conditions, which present a challenge even for modern icebreaker ships, helped to protect the lost wreck, which was discovered in 2022, its structure still largely intact.

Heatwave conditions build over much of continent, while mild start to winter continues in parts of Australia

Hot weather is expected across Europe this week as heatwave conditions build over large swathes of the continent.

A mass of hot air from the Sahara has settled over the Iberian peninsula and spread into southern and western France, pushing temperatures widely into the low- and mid-30s celsius.

Works of Ali Smith, Kathleen Jamie and more to feature in celebration of literature’s interplay with other art forms, says director

This year’s Edinburgh book festival is expanding its slate of genre-busting musical events, including staging Japanese Noh theatre at one of the city’s oldest religious sites, Greyfriars Kirk.

Jenny Niven, the Edinburgh international book festival’s director, said such events broke away from the traditional formula of authors sitting in tents, and aimed to attract new audiences and celebrate literature’s interplay with other art forms.

Dan Jarvis says vessel tracked for several days as opposition suggest decision linked to his predecessor’s resignation

Dan Jarvis has told MPs that the Russian oil tanker seized on Sunday had been monitored for several days as he deflected suggestions that its seizure had been ordered by a prime minister under pressure after the resignation of John Healey last week.

The new defence secretary, flanked supportively in the Commons by the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said the Smyrtos had been “closely tracked” as he faced a question from the Conservatives as to why the capture took place over the weekend.

Varley presented himself in court as a doting dad but prosecution said he used adopted boy as a sexual ‘plaything’

‘They were an ordinary couple,” said one neighbour. Their baby “was happy, he was smiley, he was beautiful”, said a friend. There were no big concerns about the teacher and the sales manager who were doing what thousands do every year – adopting a child.

In reality, Jamie Varley and his partner, John McGowan-Fazakerley, were child abusers and Varley murdered the baby boy they adopted, Preston Davey, when he was 13 months old.

Chris Elliot was exposed to ‘lethal dose’ of bacteria while receiving chemotherapy from Gloucestershire NHS trust

An NHS trust has admitted to failing to provide safe care to a man who died after using a contaminated shower in a hospital while undergoing chemotherapy.

Chris Elliot, 59, a father of two, died a fortnight after he was admitted to Cheltenham general hospital in Gloucestershire to be treated for leukaemia.

Experts say criminal networks favour Sri Lanka due to ease of getting tourist visas and limited regulation on sim cards and internet connections

Experts have warned that Sri Lanka is emerging as a hub for transnational cybercrime, after a crackdown in south-east Asia pushed Chinese-run criminal networks to relocate their vast scam operations.

Sri Lankan police spokesperson Fredrick Wootler said the country was witnessing an “alarming increase of cybercrimes” perpetrated by people entering the country as tourists, and then illegally setting up scam operations targeting people across the world.

Welsh singer, best known for 1983 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart, had emergency intestinal surgery in May

Welsh pop star Bonnie Tyler is no longer in a coma but remains “very unwell” in intensive care at a hospital near her home in Faro, Portugal.

The 75-year-old singer received emergency intestinal surgery in May and was placed in an induced coma to aid her recovery.

B-52 crashed shortly after takeoff at Edwards air force base in southern California’s Mojave Desert, officials say

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Eight people are presumed dead after a B-52 bomber crashed shortly after takeoff on Monday morning at a US air force base in California’s Mojave Desert, officials said.

“An Air Force B-52 Stratofortress carrying eight people on a routine test mission crashed today shortly after take-off at 11:20 a.m,” Edwards air force base said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Initial indications are that the crash was not survivable. Emergency response personnel are on scene, and officials are working to account for all personnel.”

Instructors hurled Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas into 40-metre abyss without attaching safety equipment

A 21-year-old woman who died when two rope-jumping instructors threw her from a bridge without first harnessing her to security equipment has been buried in Brazil’s São Paulo state.

Maria Eduarda Rodrigues de Freitas was rope jumping on Saturday at Ponte do Esqueleto, an abandoned bridge in the municipality of Limeira where tourists practise extreme sports. The young woman, who aspired to become a physical education teacher, had asked to be launched from the bridge airplane-style, with two instructors hoisting her above their shoulders as she spread out her arms.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

There are signs that things are starting to return to normal in the Gulf.

Offshore marine support firm Gulf Marine Services has told the City that all its support vessels which had been temporarily evacuated due to the Iran war have now successfully returned to hire on the same contracts.

“We are very pleased to confirm that the fourth and final evacuated vessel has now returned to hire. This is a significant milestone, and we are encouraged by the positive momentum we are seeing both operationally and on the geopolitical front.

The swift and safe return of all four vessels is a testament to the professionalism of our crews and the strength of our client relationships, which have remained robust throughout this period.”

“Compared with our previous meeting in April, the U.S. and Iran have signed a memorandum. That is a welcome move. Having said that, there is uncertainty on the pace of improvement in distribution (of oil).”

Compared with the previous meeting, the risk of a sharp deterioration in the economy has diminished. On the other hand, price rises are broadening, and there is a risk that underlying inflation may deviate from our target.”

“With underlying inflation approaching 2%, it’s important to ensure we achieve our target stably.”

Markets welcome US-Iran peace deal but prices may stay high as buyers race to refill depleted emergency crude stockpiles

• Oil prices hit three-month low and markets rally

After more than 100 days of the greatest recorded disruption to the world’s energy supplies, the global oil and gas markets have breathed a sigh of relief.

Hours after Donald Trump confirmed that a US-Iran peace deal would lead to the reopening of the strait of Hormuz for tankers carrying millions of barrels of oil and gas, the price of Brent crude tumbled to lows of $82 a barrel. Wholesale gas prices fell about 6%.

Report finds Kirstie Donnelly and Abid Ismail paid bonuses ‘without authorisation or knowledge’ of superiors

The two most senior executives at City & Guilds awarded themselves millions of pounds of bonuses “without authorisation from, or knowledge of” their superiors, an internal investigation into last year’s £166m sale of the vocational charity has found.

The report on the conduct of Kirstie Donnelly, the former chief executive of City & Guilds, and the body’s finance chief, Abid Ismail, sets out how the pair “directly authorised and paid bonuses to themselves” of nearly £3m combined.

Federal Reserve to make first decision under Kevin Warsh as Middle East hopes ease inflation pressures

Central banks in the US and UK are expected to leave interest rates on hold this week as the peace deal in the Middle East is predicted to ease inflationary pressures.

The US Federal Reserve is expected to hold its benchmark interest rate at a range of 3.5% to 3.75% on Thursday, in what will be the first policy decision under the new Fed chair – and Donald Trump’s pick – Kevin Warsh.

Parenting is represented in all its hilarious, moving and truthfully plodding detail, in the story of a mother and her two little boys

The last day of maternity leave, and an unnamed mother of two decides to stage a “yes day”, full of treats and good feelings. Of course it does not go according to plan: the treats are deficient, misjudged and underappreciated; the good feelings are fleeting, quickly upstaged by anxiety, guilt or humiliation. This familiar-sounding scenario is the simple yet bracing premise of Lisa Owens’s second novel, following her impressive first comic fiction of female-centred modernity, 2016’s Not Working.

The academic E Ann Kaplan once wrote that “motherhood is the major emotional experience of my adult life” – certainly a relatable observation, and reason enough why some writers may swerve going through the experience altogether. But when using it as narrative material, the aim is to render the cluttered yet lonely planet of motherhood in some new way, drawing on the energies of honesty and idiosyncrasy to frame a common, universal adventure as something singular and memorable.

Amber Haque’s preposterously bleak film shows how hordes of men have turned the ethical answer to sex work into a sleazy nightmare – and how big tech is turning a blind eye. Sound familiar?

In the grounds of a huge house in Manchester, dozens of dejected-looking young men and women – none of them fully dressed – mill around supercars they do not own. Nearby, a young woman with a faraway stare touches her lips in a rough facsimile of sexual availability. Inside, a Twister board lurks next to a pile of discarded clothes.

The whole setup is preposterously depressing, a kind of Requiem for a Dream for the modern-day influencer, but it turns out that the whole thing was designed as a content day for OnlyFans models – a way for them to spiral through outfits and locations and poses at speed for content they can dole out to subscribers over the coming months. Done right, it will make them rich.

A trio of actors play one woman from high school to her mid-30s in Tracy Choi’s thoughtful romantic drama

It can stretch credibility a little when an actor plays the same character over a long time span in one film. Richard Linklater solved the problem in Boyhood by shooting scenes over succeeding years; AI and de-ageing effects are now an option. With this intimate queer coming-of-age drama, film-maker Tracy Choi instead casts a trio of actors to play one woman from high school to her mid-30s. The three don’t look particularly alike; their temperaments overlap but are by no means identical. The point is perhaps to show how intense the transitions into adulthood are, how unrecognisable are the people we used to be.

Working backwards, Girlfriends begins in Hong Kong, where 34-year-old film director Lok (Fish Liew) lives with her actor girlfriend Bei (Jennifer Yu). Five years earlier, Choi released a feature film, but her career has stalled. She is directionless and restless. Bei is also applying pressure to buy a flat and have a baby. The film then rewinds 12 years, to Taiwan, when Lok was a student with spiky orange hair, known as Choi (played by Elizabeth Tang). Some of the best scenes in the film come when her parents visit from Macau; Choi and her girlfriend Qing (Han Ning) have been pretending to be flatmates. Then, as the four of them eat dinner one night, unwilling to keep up the charade, Choi grabs Qing’s hand fiercely over the dinner table. She is coming out to her parents; they understand but say nothing. Another film might give us a big showdown, but this is probably how it would have happened in real life.

The Light in the Hall is back, and Bear Grylls runs wild with Flight of the Conchords’ Rhys Darby. Plus: Timothée Chalamet’s Wonka! Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4
Caryl (Sian Reese-Williams) is making a midlife career change to journalism. As she trains, she is drawn to Rhys Owen (Mark Lewis Jones), who has returned to Llanemlyn after 30 years in prison for the murder of his activist cousin. What happened in Caryl’s life that makes her so curious about Rhys? And how does this fit in with the town’s controversial plans to expand the reservoir? A murky drama unravels. Hollie Richardson

In this passionate documentary, Chris Packham looks at the notorious nature invaders – and whether we should love or loathe those flashes of neon green in our skies

’Twas a grim February teatime in West Wickham, south London, when I saw my first parakeet. About six of them, in fact. I looked up from doing the dishes, through the window overlooking the garden, and there they were, where no medium-sized members of the genus Psittacula should be. Half a dozen slashes of the most vivid green imaginable against the brown bleakness of late winter in suburbia. Wholly improbable, wholly mesmerising, wholly wonderful. This was 25 years ago and I’ve been a fan ever since.

They have become a far more common sight since then, of course, as the title of Chris Packham’s latest documentary, Invasion of the Parakeets, suggests. There are now an estimated 15,000 pairs in the UK – the largest population in Europe.

Juliette de Marcillac’s documentary follows the volunteers helping those crossing the French Italian border and shines a light on the the hypocrisies underpinning the treatment of asylum seekers

With its rustic wooden chalets and spectacular alpine peaks, the French ski town of Montgenèvre has long been a popular holiday destination. Looking past these postcard-perfect vistas, Juliette de Marcillac’s absorbing documentary paints a very different picture, focusing instead on a humanitarian crisis that festers beneath the snow-white image of an idyllic locale.

A whirl of confusion and fear envelops the film’s startling opening sequence, which follows a group of desperate migrants trekking across the Italian border into Montgenèvre, with the hope of claiming asylum in France. Among them are pregnant women and even small children, many of whom suffer from frostbite, exhaustion and other life-threatening conditions. Their plight, however, is met only with intimidation and orders of arrest from the local police force.

Unpack the latest viral moments and the week’s celebrity whispers with Clara & Munroe. Plus, the grim story of a man cashing in on the rise in young suicides.

If the first episode is anything to go by, Clara Amfo (let loose from BBC broadcasting) and activist Munroe Bergdorf could well be your fun commute companions. The pair are passionate, incisive and just the right amount of gossipy as they unpack the latest pop culture moments – such as what the loud conversation around Olivia Rodrigo’s baby-doll dress says about women in music. Our one complaint? Half an hour isn’t long enough! Hollie Richardson
Widely available, episodes weekly

(Geffen)
Gossips have rushed to the lyrics for details about her personal life, but the rest of us can just get on with luxuriating in Rodrigo’s funny, Cure-infused craft

With a certain crushing inevitability, the arrival of Olivia Rodrigo’s third album has been accompanied by a lot of frenzied decoding of its lyrics for references to Louis Partridge, the British actor whose relationship with the singer ended late last year. One magazine ran a 1,200 word essay, complete with annotations, panning its songs for nuggets of gossip: the fourth piece they’ve published on the subject in recent months. A British broadsheet plumped for a news story about the fact that Rodrigo had apparently changed the lyrics of a track called Purple, formerly a “very sweet and saccharine” love song, to reflect the end of their relationship. Over in New Delhi, The Hindustan Times was pondering rumours that the couple had actually got back together: “Interest in Partridge has grown after Rodrigo released her new album since fans believe the track Stupid Song has references to the singer’s relationship with him.”

Well, of course it has: for better or for worse, that kind of speculation seems to have become a major part of modern pop, and Oliva Rodrigo in particular has long been a beneficiary of the clickbait publicity it brings. Her breakthrough single Drivers Licence gained traction thanks to the rumour that its lyrics were about her former boyfriend Joshua Bassett’s dalliance with Sabrina Carpenter; Vampire, the lead single from 2023’s Guts invited yet more speculation about whether its subject was another ex or Taylor Swift. Indeed, she actively seems to encourage it: “I never talk about my personal life in interviews or in any public forum, so I guess the music is where people go to deduce things,” she recently told an interviewer, a line that seems to have a distinct hint of “go ahead, fill your boots” about it.

Surreal genius from Harry Hill, trailblazing women and a passionate ode to an incredible New York rapper – these are the best listens from the last six months

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The Ivor Novello-winning musician has written works inspired by his family history. He talks about building music from testimony – and why the Windrush generation deserves new narratives

A briefcase-sized console with a large, sleek keypad, the MPC One drum machine is an eye-catching piece of kit. It can’t be easily overlooked among the various synthesisers, guitars, amps, samplers and vinyl albums in Renell Shaw’s studio in Wood Green, north London. This month, when the 38-year-old musician plays a double-bill show at Kings Place, five miles down the road, the treasured black box will travel with him – and it has special sounds.

“On stage, I’ll have my score and the MPC, with my grandparents’ voices stored in there. They’ll be there with the band in front of me,” says Shaw, artist-in-residence for Kings Place’s Memory Unwrapped season, a series of musical performances that explore nostalgia, transformation and future.

This fascinating intellectual history of imagined paradises takes us from Thomas More to Ursula K Le Guin

By definition, utopia cannot exist. In 1516, educated readers of Thomas More’s Utopia would have appreciated a tension between two possible derivations of this novel word: the Greek “eu-topos”, meaning good place, and “ou-topos”, meaning not a place at all. It might have been a compact warning that one should never attempt to turn utopias into reality. Those who have tried usually witnessed the model societies they founded devolving into grungily dysfunctional communes, weird sex cults, or both.

In this richly diverting intellectual history of the idea, we begin, as we must, with Plato, and the zany prescriptions of his Republic (“we should neutralise the poets’ influence on mothers”). Passing in silence over the potentially utopian aspects of Jesus’s thinking, we arrive at More’s utopia, where “nothing is private”, and so “the common affairs be earnestly looked upon”. The great Renaissance scientist Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis portrays a utopia of rational scientific experimentation – which, Wren suggests ingeniously, might have inspired Wakanda in the Marvel Black Panther films. The 17th-century duchess Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World imagines the author as a goddess elected by a world of human-animal hybrids who like science. In the 18th century, Sarah Scott’s Millenium [sic] Hall imagined an ideal society of women without men, as did Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland during the first world war.

This corrective to our habitual emphasis on competition had me writing ‘wow’ in the margins again and again

When Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, the Industrial Revolution and British colonialism were in the ascendant. Charles Dickens had published Hard Times five years earlier; Queen Victoria nominally ruled a fifth of the world’s population. Darwin, writes science writer Rowan Hooper, crafted his evolutionary theory to deliver what he figured his audience wanted to hear: “an account of nature as a competitive struggle”. Natural selection was launched into a world that was “colonial, capitalist, patriarchal and ruled by the upper class” – and Darwin’s central message, crudely paraphrased by the philosopher Herbert Spencer as “survival of the fittest”, chimed with the times.

Hooper adores Darwin – his account of visiting Darwin’s Kent residence Down House radiates reverence (“it’s a pseudo-religious experience”). But he feels that Darwinism and its union with genetics in the so-called “modern synthesis” has placed undue emphasis on competition in the natural world and underplayed the roles of cooperation and collaboration. In redressing that imbalance, Togetherness is not an attempt to make evolution cuddlier and more palatable; rather, it is a corrective deeply informed by what we have learned since Darwin about how nature works. Written with immense charm and passion, and packed with eye-popping facts, it is also a paean to the wonders of nature and the value and urgency of preserving them.

The life of the Brooklyn Bridge’s chief engineer inspires this multifaceted novel

Washington Augustus Roebling, or “Wash”, was the chief engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, which, when opened to the public on 24 May 1883, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was quite an achievement, but he didn’t do it alone. On the one hand there was his father, the austere and tyrannical John Roebling, who had designed and begun the bridge before his untimely death in 1869. On the other there was his wife, the accomplished and capable Emily, who, as well as providing moral and secretarial support, took on ever more responsibility for the project after Washington’s own health began to fail mysteriously.

Wash is something of a companion piece to Chief Engineer, Erica Wagner’s 2017 biography of Roebling. Spurning what she calls in her afterword “the clock’s time”, she has instead structured the narrative in accordance with “the soul’s time”; that is, by jumping backwards and forwards in time and place in a series of short chapters emphasising those individual moments, choices and encounters that together made this remarkable man who he was. It is a bold and engaging, if somewhat disorienting approach, giving this slender novel a vividness and intensity that might be smoothed over in a more traditional narrative arc.

Leading authors including Sarah Waters, William Dalrymple, Bernardine Evaristo and Anne Enright reveal their perfect holiday reading

• Read our selection of 70 brilliant books for the summer

Zadie Smith
Margaret Busby’s Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century is the record of one woman’s lifelong passion for the literature and life of Africa and its diaspora, wherever she finds it. A beautiful collection. The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while is Black Bag by Luke Kennard.

Mark Haddon
Can I recommend some metaphorical summer travel? Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, won the International Booker prize so you’re legally obliged to read it. But there are three other books on the shortlist I would strongly urge you to get your hands on. The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin, brilliantly fictionalises the story of the film director WG Pabst who fled Germany before the outbreak of the second world war, felt ignored in Hollywood and made the foolish decision to return home. On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan, is a short, sharp cleaver-blow of political horror set in a Brazilian prison camp. And She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel, is the story of Bekija/Matija who escapes an arranged marriage in Albania’s Accursed Mountains by becoming a “sworn virgin” under the ancient laws of the Kanun and living her life as a man.

Bart and co’s latest video game venture involved the show’s writers, animators and voice talent – plus a showdown between the two infamous tycoons. ‘It’s a true little Simpsons episode,’ say creators

Every generation gets its own Simpsons game. Them’s the rule-diddly-ules. For some, it was the arcade cabinets that swallowed pocket money throughout the 1990s. For others, it was The Simpsons: Cartoon Studio. For millennials like myself, it was The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Joe Zanetti, vice-president of operations at Monopoly Go! developer Scopely, traces his Simpsons gaming nostalgia back to Konami’s 1991 brawler, The Simpsons Arcade Game. “That’s the one that made such an impression on me,” he says.

It certainly did, because Springfield has just crash-landed in Monopoly Go! itself through a collaboration involving Simpsons writers, animators and voice talent alongside a new animated short starring Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer and Will Ferrell. While most licensed TV games have faded into obscurity, The Simpsons keeps finding new digital lives.

If you fancy roaring around Japan’s open roads, scaling impossible mountains and playing with post-apocalyptic Pokémon, this year’s highlights mean you can do so without leaving your chair

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch; Vertigo Games
This clever update captures the 1990s magic of the original… including some of the technical issues

The 90s were a gold rush for adventure games. LucasArts kicked off the decade with its legendarily irreverent Monkey Island games. Then, Cyan Worlds materialised to deliver a series of atmospheric and boundary-pushing odysseys with Myst and Riven. Nestled between these primary genre texts is The 7th Guest, a lesser-known but still notorious adventure that earned plaudits for its unique FMV visual style, blending live-action filmed footage with pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. It was remade originally for VR, and now has been reconfigured into something playable on PC and consoles, its digital cobwebs cleared and tricky puzzles tinkered with for a fresh (or nostalgic) audience.

We are dropped into the ectoplasmic shoes of an amnesiac apparition, arriving at the gloomy haunted home of a toy-maker. Armed with a time-bending lantern and a Ouija board-shaped map, your job is to solve a historical whodunnit by literally illuminating events from the past. It’s a melodramatic, surprisingly campy adventure that effectively evokes the overzealous CD-Rom horror of its original era.

From horror galore to Chinese action games, the key trends, trailers and surprises from Summer Game Fest’s many, many hours of streams and broadcasts

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Did you spend hours of your weekend watching a relentless series of video game adverts? No? I don’t blame you – Summer Game Fest, the collection of livestreams that has arisen in place of the giant annual E3 video game expo in Los Angeles, is extremely overwhelming. There are the bigger, longer shows: the PlayStation and Xbox streams, the main SGF show hosted by Geoff Keighley and Lucy James, Future’s duet of the Future Games Show and the PC Gaming Show. Each show is two hours long. Then there are all the indie showcases: cosy games, women-led games, Black voices in gaming, Day of the Devs. Between them, they show off hundreds of games that might pique your interest.

I picked out exactly 34 highlights here: the biggest news, the most interesting-looking smaller games. But from the barrage of trailers I was also able to discern some trends. Here’s what we can learn.

Hayward Gallery, London
Butcher bags, human sacrifice and cavernous black holes … in a world of dry art this stunning exhibition forces us to confront religion and mortality

It’s the clinging, transparent PVC that does it, a horribly surgical-looking, synthetic skin covering each of Anish Kapoor’s three paintings – can we call them that? – entitled Plastic Sacrifice I, II, III. They resemble a serial killer’s trophy art. Through the wrapping you gawp at three-dimensional purple and crimson entrails that slop off the wall, forming valleys and protuberances that, it seems, would collapse all over the floor if the carnage wasn’t contained by these butcher bags.

Sensationalist and macabre? Rembrandt’s painting Slaughtered Ox is just as visceral as it contemplates the flayed, hollowed body of a huge ox hanging upside down, its yellow fat and blood-dark meat a mirror of our own doomed flesh, not to mention the crucifixion. In the age of smartphones and minuscule attention spans, Kapoor gives artistic depth a go, addressing God and mortality, those themes of the old masters, in a metaphysical rollercoaster ride of a show, a divine bloodbath.

The Crypt at St Luke’s, Cork
Luke Casserly’s playful, participatory exploration of Ireland’s 10,000-year-old bogs involves touch, sound, taste – and an earthy perfume

Seated at a circular table covered in a mound of dried peat, writer and performer Luke Casserly might be presiding over an arcane ritual. When he holds a handful of peat in his hand and passes it to the small audience around the table, the initial air of solemnity dissolves into quizzical laughter.

A soundscape of birdsong and wind evokes the ancient landscape of bogs in the Irish midlands, where Casserly grew up. Part essay, part dialogue, this playful, participatory performance involves touch, sound, taste – and especially the smells of soil, moss and peat smoke, later presented as a perfume created by olfactory artist Joan Woods; a message in a bottle.

Glyndebourne festival
A visual whirlwind accompanies charismatic and stylish performances in William Kentridge’s new staging. In the pit, Jonathan Cohen and the OAE add light and shade

There is a lot to look at in Glyndebourne’s first production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo. Directed by William Kentridge with a set by Sabine Theunissen, this staging is rooted in an artist’s studio and borne along by objects and images. Some are three-dimensional, real-life: ladders, chairs, sketchbooks, a mid-century desk lamp. Some are cartoonishly 2D or purely symbolic (placards shaped like oak-leaves, concertinas of coloured cardboard, big sheets of paper printed with Kentridge’s own work, an oversized metal cone used as a loudhailer). And many are projected on to the back wall of the stage in a video (designed by Janus Fouché) that starts before the first note of Monteverdi’s score and runs throughout as a constant, often hyperactive spool of Kentridge’s animated charcoal drawings, annotated archive documents and fragmentary phrases.

The cumulative effect is overwhelming – particularly if you want to read the surtitles. Some may find the visual busyness frustrating, its symbolism gnomic. (I remain foxed, I confess, by the repeated images of telephones and the map of Johannesburg.) And there are a few scenes in which the animated whirlwind seems to make up for a shortfall of drama embodied by the singers. But elsewhere the connection between stage and screen is clearer. Kentridge has the figure of Music (who in this production also sings the minimal vocal lines allotted to Euridice) painting at a desk throughout, as if generating the projections and with them the opera’s world. Euridice has a dancing counterpart performed by Roseline Wilkens, who is captivating onstage as she whirls and lunges, but also spins across the projections as an animated sketch. There is something exhilarating about a production so determined to match the Orpheus myth’s own obsession with the power and dangers of sensory overload – from music helping Orpheus into the underworld to the fact that the final catastrophe is caused by a single desperate glance.

Aldeburgh festival, Snape Maltings
Ryan Wigglesworth’s piano concerto, veering between tense, creepy and off-kilter, brought out the best in soloist Steven Osborne

A dance can be a frenzied release or a whimsical invitation, sophisticated or primal, gilded and ballroom-ready or slouching, whisky on its breath. In this Aldeburgh festival concert from Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it was all these things and a couple more for good measure.

Resident throughout the festival’s opening weekend, the BBCSSO had brought reinforcements from home for this final concert in the form of Scottish pianist Steven Osborne – soloist in both Ravel’s Piano Concerto and, after the interval, Wigglesworth’s own.

Investigative reporter who confronted swindlers, smugglers and various villains on his radio and television programmes

Exposing con artists, fraudsters, paedophiles and other villains on the BBC Radio 4 programme Checkpoint, then on ITV in The Cook Report, brought fame to Roger Cook – for both his foot-in-the-door journalism and the beatings he took from his targets. He received death threats, was roughed up, attacked with baseball bats, held at gunpoint, and suffered broken fingers, cracked ribs and dislocated shoulders.

While tackling one man who had been swindling pensioners out of money by lying that their properties were to be compulsorily purchased, Cook was run over by a car. As he came round after surgery, an Australian doctor told him: “Jeez, mate. Put it this way, if you weren’t built like a brick privy, you’d probably be dead.”

Exclusive: At an open-air film festival in Rome, the actor shared anecdotes of his time on the set of upcoming superhero film Avengers: Doomsday

On Sunday night at an open-air cinema in Rome, Sir Ian McKellen showed a crowd of 2,000 film fans advance footage of his appearance in the superhero film Avengers: Doomsday.

The film, which is released in December, sees a return for the X-Men played by McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU’s 39th feature, it is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, and intended as a sequel to their 2019 film Avengers: Endgame, which made $2.8bn and is the second highest-grossing film of all time.

The accomplished musician, who recorded over 70 albums in his career, died peacefully in Germany after a short illness

The South African jazz composer and pianist Abdullah Ibrahim has died at the age of 91.

His family announced his death in a statement released on Monday.

Oasis and Elbow have soundtracked Burnham’s byelection campaign and he got Liam Gallagher doing Manchester’s tram announcements. Will he keep banging the drum for music if he reaches Westminster?

First came Andy Burnham’s Makerfield byelection campaign launch video, with the Greater Manchester mayor stomping down red-brick streets soundtracked by homegrown stars Oasis, Elbow and James. Then came the eye-catching, northern soul-influenced campaign logo: Change Labour, Keep the Faith. And this week, it is not just pubs and clubs but music venues that would be part of Burnham’s proposed business rates cut.

As he looks to return to Westminster then make a bid for party leadership, music is part of Brand Burnham in a way that is unusual for a mainstream politician, in a campaign where he has pitched “Manchesterism” as the solution to Britain’s woes. But it is a policy platform that can be as vague and vibes-based as a Noel Gallagher verse. How does the Mayor’s love affair with Manchester’s music industry shine a light not just on “Manchesterism”, but the man behind it?

Perfect for the football, these half-time snacks are quick to assemble and sure to score highly with friends

Both of these sausage-based delights are great for a gathering, can be prepared in advance and go really, really well with ice-cold beers. God bless the sausage. Whether your team is winning, losing, embarrassing or delighting, everyone will consider you the Cristiano Ronaldo of half-time snacks if you bang either of these out. The prawn and sausage toasts can be made in advance and kept in the fridge with greaseproof paper between the slices, then you just need to fry them when you want them. Similarly with the hotdogs: prep everything in advance, then, when the whistle goes, boil the sausages, steam the buns and get stuck in.

Never mind leftovers – some dogs will eat anything, from electrics to wasps’ nests. We asked you to tell us about your pets’ most radical experiments in off-menu dining

I adopted my brother’s middle-aged westie, Maggie. She did tend to eat anything unattended, but usually leaned towards actual food. One memorable day, I came home to a living room carpet covered in what appeared to be termite mounds. Maggie had consumed about a kilo of chinchilla bathing sand and a second course of sanitary towels (the ones with wings). The latter contained some kind of absorbent gel, which made the vomit sculptures impressively solid – the vet who checked her afterwards (Maggie was remarkably unaffected, and certainly did not learn any lesson) remarked that it was something of a miracle that she threw it up. If not for my carpet. Fiona, 56, works for a non-profit research institute, Fulford, North Yorkshire

I have a partially sighted two-year-old red fox labrador and a more matronly five-year-old black lab. I have a long daily commute and my dogs come with me. There wasn’t space for a cage that was big enough for both labs in the boot of my small hatchback, meaning they had free access to the whole boot during our two hours on the road. Last year, the younger one, with possible assistance, ate up all the electrics she could get to, pulling them out from under the back seat. She also ate the floor of the boot, the polystyrene around the spare tyre and the backing of the back seats. All done in relative silence during our drive until the car suddenly stopped in the middle of the road as I was driving out of a car park one morning, with all the warning lights flashing. The entire car had to be rewired, costing around £8,000. Thank goodness for comprehensive car insurance. She is no longer allowed to travel in the boot unless she’s in her cage and, thankfully, nothing she ate needed advanced veterinary attention. Rebecca, 51, veterinary surgeon and researcher, Norway

You told us the barbecue upgrades that make a big difference. Plus, we’ve got you covered for Father’s Day with 62 tried and tested gifts

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Lighter, drawn-out days, warmer nights, and World Cup watch parties can mean only one thing: alfresco dining. If you’re itching to get the barbecue out, we’ve rounded up reader tips and tricks – and some of our own – to help up your grill game.

If you need an upgrade to your setup, the Weber kettle barbecue “makes incredible food without any faff”, says Alex David, who gave it top spot in his test of the best barbecues. Or Argos’s affordable drum-shaped grill “has everything you need and a little more”, and was Alex’s budget favourite.

The very best double creams have a wildly complex taste, but which brands are a little scoop of sunshine and which are much of a muchness?

• The best supermarket natural yoghurts

This was a tricky taste test, not least because 70% of these creams tasted pretty much exactly the same, which is a clear reflection of how homogeneous our conventional food system has become (much of our cream is made from milk sourced from thousands of farms across the country and mixed together). Even the packaging is more or less identical, with a printed plastic tub and a peelable plastic lid.

British double cream is about 48% fat, which is higher than whipping cream (35%) and just below clotted (55% plus). This matters in practical terms because that’s why it whips more firmly, holds its shape longer and is less likely to split when added to a hot sauce. Conventional cream does the job well (it’s white, neutral in flavour and whips well), but really good cream is thick, gloopy and wildly fatty, with an unbelievably complex taste and remarkably nourishing effect; it’s also eminently whippable. Scooping a blob of cream like that straight from the tub can replenish energy and satiate in an almost alchemical way.

We’ve tried, tested and rounded up 62 thoughtful gifts – from gardening gloves to a cold brew coffee maker and a parkrun keyring – to make the father figure in your life feel special

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Whoever you’re celebrating this Father’s Day – your own dad or a father figure in your life – our bumper list of gift ideas should help you think beyond the norm (though we have included some sock options, because sometimes it’s OK to go classic).

Whatever their age or your budget, we’ve focused on sustainable products that stand the test of time. All of the products have either been tested by me or by our own brilliant testers on the Filter and should still be going strong on Father’s Day 2027 and beyond.

Whether it’s fancy sauces or lesser-known cuts, skip the obvious with these creative garden party gifts (and not a pasta salad in sight)

• The best (and worst) chef’s knives – tested

Summer’s here, so you’ve probably got an invitation to a barbecue. If someone’s gone to the effort of hosting one, they deserve better than supermarket sausages and a bottle of wine grabbed from the corner shop on the way.

But what to bring that’s thoughtful and a little bit different? Whether it’s olive oil or ice lollies, green harissa or Lambrusco (yes, really), here are some suggestions from those in the know.

This crunchy, spicy wonder has made a fortune for its Chinese creator – and inspired hundreds of British-Asian versions. Time to get tasting …

Walk down the specialist aisle in most British supermarkets and you will find a red jar with the kindly face of a middle-aged Chinese woman staring back at you. Branded Lao Gan Ma, meaning “old godmother”, these jars contain chilli crisp – a spicy, crunchy and moreish umami condiment that has made made hundreds of millions for Tao Huabi, the woman on the label. Doused over steaming dumplings, fried eggs, noodles and even ice-cream, Lao Gan Ma’s chilli crisp has become a social media sensation in recent years and has spawned a thriving cottage industry of independent chilli crisp producers in the UK.

“It’s such a convenient shortcut to flavour when you use it as a condiment,” says Fuchsia Dunlop, an expert in Chinese cuisine. “Every Asian cuisine has a form of chilli oil, but China and Lao Gan Ma invented chilli crisp and now the western world is more interested in authentic flavours, thanks partly to social media.” People, she says, want to have their own taste of that authenticity. “It’s far more exciting than a bottle of ketchup!”

A crunchy, tangy antithesis to traditional soggy rice salads

There are not many foods I will pass on, but a traditional rice salad is something I have never been able to get on board with – soggy dressed grains just don’t do it for me texturally. However, the current trend of roasting or pan-frying the grains is a whole other story. I love the added flavour it brings, the crunchy texture, and the way the rice soaks up everything with which it is enrobed. This gochujang dressing is my new obsession, adding enough spice to elevate things, and finishing with chunks of creamy avocado and a punchy hit of tangy lime. Serve straight away, or leave the roast rice to cool before dressing, it’s up to you. Either way, I guarantee it won’t last long.

Master the ultimate (and gloriously messy) finger food, in nine simple steps

When I first made these back in 2015, I noted that the British are “not enthusiastic” consumers of chicken wings. The fried chicken boom has changed all that, but these tangy, spicy versions, named after the American city rather than the beast, still aren’t as well known as they deserve to be, given what perfect finger food they make while watching (or pretending to watch) sport.

Prep 15 min
Dry 1 hr+
Cook 20 min
Serves 4 (with sides)

Fructose, glucose, sucrose. Lactose, maltose, dextrose. Treacle, molasses … honey! The sweet stuff is everywhere, in everything from colas and cakes to fruit and veg. Are some forms healthier than others? And what about artificial sweeteners?

Many people try not to eat too much sugar, yet it is added to so much food and drink, it is hard to avoid. It goes by more than 50 different names on labels, is present even in seemingly savoury products and the alternatives are confusing and controversial. So is the sweet stuff addictive – and should you cut it out completely?

Edward thinks of sex as playtime and has a vivid imagination, which Jane is happy to go along with despite being quite ‘vanilla’ herself

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

When I dreamed about Jane in a latex catsuit, we had one made

Brendan Maclean had never spoken with drag queen Karen from Finance in person, nor laid eyes on the man behind the makeup. Then came a chance encounter in Melbourne

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I’d had a big, sparkly pop career in my 20s but by 2024 I was beyond my twink era, and getting by hopping from one weird gig to the next. Covid had really done a number on the music industry and, while my friend Paul Mac had kept me making music, I found myself drifting through a strange, boozy few years in Sydney. I’d been single since 2020 and my best friend was my cat.

Throughout that hazy time, I was as terminally online as ever. At 38 I was posting like a 20-year-old. One day, for no particular reason, I posted a track from the Dissociatives’ self-titled album from the mid-noughties. Paul, who I call my gay uncle, and Daniel Johns of Silverchair fame, had made just one LP together, and the obscure track, Thinking in Reverse, was one of my favourites.

Yusuf, 25, who works in finance, meets Hannah, 26, a PhD student

What were you hoping for?
Someone interesting, good chat is more important than anything. And a fun story. I like a random side quest.

Jordan wants one catch-all digital resource for him and Charlene, so their social lives don’t clash, but she prefers to communicate in person. You decide whose time is up

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m not trying to control her but having one shared calendar helps us plan our lives together

We booked our hotel because of its swimming pool but a hefty hourly fee to use it wasn’t mentioned

My partner and I paid £2,150 for a week’s all-inclusive break in Marrakech with easyJet Holidays.

We chose the Jaal Riad Resort Hotel because of its pool and spa. When we arrived, we were told that use of the heated pool cost £24 a person an hour, the Jacuzzi £24 for 20 minutes, and the hammam was £16 for 20 minutes.

After falling for a scam call, ‘The Tech Chap’ host Tom Honeyands realised he’d given away vital details in social media posts

When Tom Honeyands realised he had been defrauded out of £70,000 he was furious and embarrassed – and left wondering if he had given away too many details on his social media videos.

Honeyands was on a work trip to Tokyo when he got a call from someone claiming to be from Lloyds bank. The caller asked if he had made a recent transaction in Singapore and when he said no, the scammer said his account had been compromised and that security details needed to be reset.

A medical issue can send quotes for cover soaring but it is not worth risking going abroad without a policy

‘I nearly fell over when I saw the travel insurance quote,” says the retiree Bernie Lawrence. The 77-year-old from Fleet, Hampshire, says that after he developed heart problems, the cost of buying cover became “astronomical”.

Lawrence, who usually travels with his wife, Barbara, 79, says he had always been active and fit before suffering chest pains while out running in 2018. Nine days later, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery.

Change in viewing habits offered by match times at 2026 tournament could mean using cheaper off-peak power

Watching late-night or early hours football could provide UK households with a practical opportunity to cut their energy bills, as even just doing the washing when cheaper electricity rates apply can net a decent saving.

At a time when energy costs are back at worrying highs, research by E.ON Next shows the potential to save money on a time-of-use tariff – in this case, its Next Smart Saver deal, which has three rates: peak, off-peak and super off-peak.

An increasing number of people are finding trail running relatively late in life – and they’re reaping the health benefits

Earlier this year, 62-year-old Karla Wagner placed second in the 100-mile division of the Grandmaster Ultras, an Arizona trail-running event designed for 50-and-over runners in the age group known as “grandmaster”.

For most of her adult life, Wagner, who is from Lander, Wyoming, avoided running because it triggered her asthma. But when asthma meds improved, she added trail running to her fitness mix and became completely hooked in her early fifties.

Many of us have reassured ourselves with the ‘five second rule’, but bacteria can transfer almost immediately – and sticks around for hours

You drop a piece of cucumber on the floor. Do you immediately throw it in the bin or reassure yourself of the age-old “five-second rule” and reckon it’s fine to pop it in your mouth after a quick rinse?

If you fall into the latter camp, John Tregoning, professor of vaccine immunology at Imperial College London, has some bad news. He refers to three studies into bacteria transfer that all point towards the rule being false.

Founded in 2004, the free weekly 5km event has grown into a global fixture of weekend life, taking place in parks, fields, seafronts and even prisons

The millionth parkrun took place on Saturday, acting as a celebration of the community cohesion and public health benefit that the charity has been aiming to achieve across the past two decades.

Those in attendance at the event in Bushy Park in west London included former Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes, as well as thousands of locals and parkrun fanatics alike.

Footy Addicts helps amateur players find a game at short notice – and tackles the problem of loneliness

Cries of “Boss! Boss! Boss!” emerge from the pitch during a hard-fought game of football in a London park. There aren’t a lot of names used in this game, because most players only met just before kick-off. They were brought together by an app that’s injecting life into grassroots football.

Footy Addicts was invented to solve an infuriating problem for amateur players – the late dropout, which can lead to unbalanced teams and ruined games. The app brings together strangers who are desperate to play football, and who can step in after a cancellation to make up the numbers at short notice.

Taylor Swift and Timothée Chalamet lead the charge in blue and orange, as courtside style hits a ‘memeable’ peak

The World Cup may have kicked off in the US this week, but America’s attention is focused on a different sport: basketball. The NBA finals could end this weekend, with the New York Knicks potentially becoming champions for the first time since 1973. And with Knicks fever comes fan style, especially courtside, where celebrities have been showing their support in different ways.

For Wednesday’s Game 4, won by the Knicks, Taylor Swift and Este and Alana Haim all wore T-shirts in the blue and orange of the Knicks with their own Knicks-related pop culture pun: Swift’s read “Stevie Knicks”, while Este’s said “Knickeback” and Alana’s read “Knickole Kidman”. This was not shop merch. Vogue reported that Alana had made the T-shirts herself.

‘Late life’ male celebrities are turning the need for spectacles into a style statement as they refuse to disappear into fashion invisibility

A heart-throb for more than 40 years, Brad Pitt is no doubt used to people looking at him. But this week, that gaze was distracted by an addition to his face – aviator-style glasses.

Worn to watch the tennis at Roland Garros and with a pink trenchcoat when out for dinner in Paris, these retro glassesare more typically worn by younger men. That’s changed recently – they’re now becoming central to a makeover for men entering their “late life” era, but who aren’t willing to submit to the fashion invisibility associated with ageing.

Dear Frances offers the latest take on ballet flats, offering ‘a glove-like fit wearability’ – which is fine if you have nice feet

When is a shoe not a shoe? On sale this month is a pair that seems to pose the question – the no shoe-shoe is the work of the cult brand Dear Frances and the latest in a steady march of shoes that are barely there; a take on naked dressing but for the foot.

The Balla shoe, which the brand calls a “sock shoe”, covers almost the entire foot, but also leaves it – encased but on display – in a kind of flimsy foot-cage. According to Jane Frances, the creative director and founder of the brand, it “offers a unique, glove-like fit wearability” and “takes inspiration from the delicate strength of a woman”.

With his trademark glasses, his bleached hair and a thrillingly haphazard approach to colour, the artist’s signature style evolved and captivated decade after decade

If artist style is now a well-trodden path in fashion, there are some examples that stand out. David Hockney – with his trademark glasses, rugby shirts, trenchcoats and quirks like wearing a pair of yellow Crocs to meet King Charles in 2022 – might have been top of that list.

His flair for style was there from the start: a self-portrait of Hockney at 16 shows him dressed in a blue coat, red scarf and yellow tie, already with strong statement specs. As time went on, he developed his trademark look. The peroxide mop came in the early 60s, after he saw an advert for Clairol proclaiming “blondes have more fun” and his signature round spectacles replaced his NHS specs by the the middle of the decade.

Can a long road trip work with children? I set out to relive a classic journey from Bilbao to Saint-Malo I did in my freewheeling 20s

The moment came on about day four. A cloud-like mist was drenching our faces, hair and clothes, despite the thick canopy of trees overhead. My six-year-old daughter silently trudged uphill pushing her bike, her mouth set in a grim line. I looked again at the blue blob on Google Maps, which seemed, unfeasibly, to indicate we were on the right path. I thought, again, about the diminishing supply of chocolate in my backpack.

“See! I told you! We’re having an adventure,” I said with forced jollity. She didn’t even look up.

A 1,600-mile journey to the wild peaks of Scotland, via Llandudno’s Victorian promenade and the bright lights of Blackpool proved an eye-opener in more ways than one

One of my favourite recent photographs is of me (unusually), perched on the bonnet of our car, about to set off on a solo, two-week road trip from our Sussex home to the wilds of Scotland, taking in Eryri (Snowdonia), Lancashire, the Lake District and Yorkshire. I had no idea that the research trip I was about to embark on – for my book, which traces the story of British holidays over 400 years – was going to reveal my homeland as somewhere I barely knew.

As a southerner, it was the northern half of Britain that I needed to discover. I’d stitched together my route with visits to museums, archives and classic seaside resorts that had once blazed so brightly. I’d visited Cumbria before, but the Conwy coast, the Lancashire countryside, Blackpool, Morecambe, Scarborough? All these were unknowns.

I found cinematic landscapes, wild freedom and thousands of miles of perfect solitude on my campervan adventure through the Nordic countries

It’s midnight, in June. Powder pink and dark grey clouds drift across a pallid sky, the palette reflecting in the motionless water of Lake Inari. Islets of pine and just-budding birch create pools of distorted shade close to the horizon of this 420 sq mile (1,080 sq km) lake in Lapland, northern Finland. There is not a sound. It’s so silent, I barely breathe to avoid disturbance. Only me, the lake and a moonbeam-coloured moth, whose wingbeat is inaudible.

I am sat beside my car-sized campervan, with mesmerised reverence for the rose-tinged panorama. I do not wish to go to bed and miss this moment. And I am loving the wild freedom and deliciousness of being entirely alone, with nobody in the world knowing my exact whereabouts. Ordinarily, I would be long asleep by midnight, exhausted after a day of work and family life. But I have left my husband and (adult) children at home in England for an eight-week solo camping adventure through Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway, with the singular aim of reaching Nordkapp (North Cape) and Knivskjellodden, Europe’s northernmost point at the top of Norway, in time for midsummer.

From Iceland to Italy, you share your best adventures behind the wheel
• Tell us about your favourite European hike – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Jeremy Clarkson described Romania’s Transfăgărășan Highway as “one unbroken grey ribbon of motoring perfection”. The route (the second highest in Romania after the Transalpina) with its hairpin bends and climbs over the mountain was thrilling. Although we’d been told bear sightings were possible, we didn’t anticipate spotting them literally on the roadside, with one hanging over a stone wall posing for photographs, taken through the car window. Because of the harsh winters in the southern Carpathian Mountains, the section of the road to Bâlea Lake is open only for a few summer months – it proved particularly beautiful.
Helen Jackson

I had just lost my brother when Joey arrived – also struggling and in need of TLC. Caring for him gave me a routine, and taught me that life is worth the fight

As a farmer’s daughter my life has been full of animals. Joey arrived soon after my brother’s sudden death when I was just 18. We were all reeling with grief. Then this tiny twin calf arrived, born to one of my brother’s favourite cows. His twin died almost immediately, but I rebelled against the pragmatic advice of the farm manager to let this one slip away too.

I hand-milked his mother and fed him myself, and took him home to my little cottage where I could watch him whenever I wasn’t at work on the farm, learning the trade. He took up residence there alongside my lurcher puppy, Gail, who accepted him without fuss. It was an unlikely trio – a grieving girl, a dog and a calf – finding our way through the fog of loss together.

Our favourite music, clothes and books used to be markers of individuality – but the algorithm has made us all sheep. Meet the style rebels fighting back

What are you into? What floats your boat? What music, films, clothes, art, books – anything, really – do you actually like? Do you find these questions more difficult to answer than you would have done 10 years ago? How about 20? You do? You’re not alone.

It has become impossible to ignore: personal taste has been seriously debased – if not completely destroyed – by technological advancement. We know the internet has radically altered the way we form our opinions and beliefs. Now we’re waking up to another sobering truth: it has wrecked our capacity to form our own preferences.

Smac McCreanor, a content creator who recreates viral internet trends through dance, gets woken up by bunnies every day

Have you seen the video of Smac McCreanor pretending to be a parakeet? Dressed in green, she gracefully slides and sidesteps, occasionally lifting her arms – or wings? – mimicking the movements of a bird who went viral for his dance moves.

McCreanor, 33, translates the internet’s obsessions through her body, whether a green bird, emoji or objects being destroyed by a hydraulic press. A multi-genre dancer with 1 million Instagram followers, she has performed on So You Think You Can Dance and choreographed for the online video game Fortnite.

Jaya Saxena is a co-founder of Ravenous, a worker-owned food and culture site. She lives in Queens, New York.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: Is ‘ripen at home’ fruit the supermarkets’ idea of a joke?

I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a pin on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password and two-factor authentication.

I get that having something unique to your device, not stored on a company’s server, is unphishable and less hackable by cybercrims, but what if your phone is nicked and someone guesses the password? And what if you lose your phone?

Aiden is an unforgettable young caregiver in Walthamstow, east London, who has been looking after his mum for over half his life. Every few weeks, Aiden and other young carers get a rare night off thanks to tenacious council worker Satvinder, who fights to improve the recognition of young carers in her borough. This film joins them as they reclaim a few hours of their teenage lives back.

Is Mum OK? is released during Carers Week in the UK, a campaign that celebrates unpaid carers across the country and calls for better recognition and support for them. There are more than one million young carers in the UK – with an average age of 12 – which is the equivalent of two kids in every school class.

Before Orange Is the New Black made her a star, Cox endured bullying, abuse, harassment and violence. She talks about the bad old days – and her fears they’re on their way back

Two days before she spoke to me, Laverne Cox had been at the premiere of a new, animated Animal Farm, in which she voices Snowball. The film is wildly controversial, for its absolutely unOrwellian, childish tone, complete with happy ending, but Cox had bigger things on her mind than film criticism.

“If we don’t wake up and don’t understand, trans people will be exterminated,” she said that day in April. “People’s rights are being taken away, people are losing their jobs, people are losing healthcare, people are being detransitioned in prison, gender-affirming care is being attacked, not just for children but also for adults. It’s never been about protecting women – it’s always been about creating a permission structure to scapegoat trans people, to dehumanise trans people, to take away our rights and to eliminate us from public life.”

From thousands of lives lost to an economic shock likely to plunge millions into poverty, the world is paying dearly

It would be hard to find a human on Earth unaffected by the US-Israel war against Iran. Several thousand have been killed. Millions are paying more each day in steeper food prices or at the petrol pump, and as inflation eats away at the value of their earnings.

For many, the final bill has not yet come, but it will eventually. They will pay for the long-term damage caused by the biggest threat of all to the global economy: uncertainty.

The bar she drank at, the bed she recuperated in, the canals she daytripped to, the studio she stormed out of, the easel she painted her final masterpiece at … ahead of a major Tate show, our writer finds Kahlo’s spirit alive in her home town

‘Today you’re going to eat art,” says Federico Valdez, a chef at the School of Mexican Cuisine and a man so passionate about food he has the word Queso (Cheese) tattooed on his forearm. “Today,” continues Valdez, “you’re going to eat history.” What unfolds, in a sun-filled dining room lined with Mexican flowers, books and artefacts, is a three-course feast inspired by Frida Kahlo, her life, her art and her loves, including her first lesbian affair.

The starter, inspired by her childhood fascination with revolution, is a lightly spiced Mexican take on pirozhki, the Russian favourite. The main dish – served with pulque, an agave-derived drink Kahlo loved – taps into her rebellious spirit. “It’s called Frida Against the World,” says Valdez, as we are presented with a giant stuffed chilli that sits amid a nutty, beany sauce similar to the one eaten at Kahlo’s wedding to Diego Rivera, then the most famous artist in the world, now much more in her shadow.

What are your thoughts about the ban? Do you welcome it or do you have misgivings?

The UK government has confirmed a social media ban for under-16s.

We’d like to hear from 16 and 17-year-olds about their views on the social media ban. What are your thoughts on the ban coming in when 16-year-olds will soon be able to vote (at the next general election), and when they can pay taxes and join the army. Do you welcome it or do you have misgivings?

We would like to hear from people who regret turning to AI chatbots for advice on their personal or social lives

People are increasingly turning to AI chatbots for advice on their personal and social lives. But researchers and even some AI companies are beginning to worry that some users are becoming overly dependent on their chatbots.

Have you taken the advice of an AI chatbot to make a significant decision - and regretted it?

We’d like to hear from UK adult adoptees about they navigated their reunion with a birth parent

Guardian journalist David Batty has described the complex family trauma many adult adoptees have to navigate during reunion with their birth parents, often without professional support.

We would like other UK adult adoptees to share their experiences of adoption reunion. How challenging was it to forge relationships with birth relatives and to maintain them? What, if any, support did you receive? How did it impact your relationship with your adoptive family?

We would like to hear about the holidays reads you’d recommend

Summer is here, which means lazy days at the beach or the pool with a great book by your side.

We would love to hear from people about their favourite beach reads. What books have you loved reading on holiday? What are the page turners that you keep returning to every summer and always recommend to friends? We would love to hear what books these are and why they make a great beach read.

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