Almost all of the sandy stretches on the country’s 8,000km of coastline are run for profit. Now ‘free beach’ campaigners are fighting back against the mafia, the military and those profiteering from sun loungers and cocktails

Walking along Italian beaches is like strolling through a rainbow. The sand will be subdivided into colours: for 50 metres or so the perfectly spaced parasols and deck chairs will be all red, then they become orange, then yellow, green and so on.

These are the country’s famous bagni (lidos), formally known as concessioni balneari (bathing concessions). They’re simple but stylish. The sand is raked at dawn. The bar plays ambient music and serves negronis or fried squid. There will probably be a table-tennis table, or a beach volleyball area. Some have swimming pools.

You hear the word ‘empathy’ a lot when people talk about our next prime minister. I can see why

My contribution to this summer’s modest avalanche of Andy Burnham stories extends to only two. One is about Glastonbury, and the time that he and his wife, Marie-France, came for a three-day stay at the festival, which included his appearance on the Left Field stage, organised by the songwriter and activist Billy Bragg. I help with the bookings and chair some of the debate sessions: Burnham’s was titled State of the Nation: Politics in Crisis.

It was the summer of 2022 – the prologue to Liz Truss’s five minutes in power and (somewhat amazingly) Burnham’s first visit to Glasto. As well as seeing bands – the Irish funsters Fontaines DC were among his favourites – and wandering around the perfumed fields, he had come to make the case for a lot of the stuff he has been talking about in the buildup to him entering Downing Street on Monday: “rewiring” the UK by changing our systems of politics and authority, collaborating on that task with other parties, and taking away as much power as possible from Westminster. Open, self-questioning and a talker rather than a shouter, in front of 1,000 mostly hungover people in a giant tent, he passed with honours; he was even nice to the obligatory disruptive Trotskyists.

John Harris is a Guardian columnist

The soul-rockers achieved worldwide success before surprising everyone by deciding to quit while they were ahead. Now they’re back with a new album railing against the state of contemporary America

In the autumn of 2024, Alabama Shakes showed no sign of ending their indefinite hiatus – and nobody was asking them to. Seven years had passed since the blues-soul-rock band, who exploded out of Athens, Alabama in 2009, had last shared a stage. Their transatlantic Top 10 2012 debut Boys & Girls announced them; the million-selling 2015 follow-up Sound & Color went to No 1 in the US and won them four Grammys. Their fanbase included Bruce Springsteen, Robert Plant and Barack Obama. But by 2017 they were physically and creatively spent, and they stopped. Then, in December 2024, with almost no warning, they played their first show in more than seven years.

“We had a friend in Tuscaloosa who had a brewery, but it wasn’t doing so well after Covid,” explains singer Brittany Howard. “He called me and said he was going to do a fundraiser and asked if I’d like to perform. I said, ‘For sure.’” But then she started reminiscing, remembering how that particular friend had been a huge help to the band, not just her personally. She felt the band owed him something, collectively. “So I called the fellas,” she smiles. “‘Do y’all wanna perform at this thing – like, all of us, together?’ And they instantly said yes.”

She was the young girl in that infamous photograph with Prince Andrew, and the best-known survivor of Jeffrey Epstein. As Virginia’s explosive posthumous memoir continues to reverberate, her brother Sky Roberts and his wife, Amanda, talk about her final tragic months

A British prince was arrested at 8am and was stripped of his title; ambassadors, politicians and numerous other high-profile men lost their prestigious jobs; millions of files relating to the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were released and a US president remains under scrutiny. So much has happened since the death of Virginia Roberts Giuffre in April last year, and the posthumous publication of her memoir Nobody’s Girl six months later, detailing for the first time the full story of her abuse by Epstein and his associates. “This year has been extraordinary,” says Sky Roberts, Giuffre’s younger brother. “I just wish Virginia was here to see it.”

He is determined that there will be many more advances to come. Giuffre had become one of the most recognisable survivors of Epstein; in the midst of grief, Sky and his wife, Amanda, have become accidental advocates. “She paved the way, and we want to keep paving that road forward for other survivors out there,” says Sky.

From Nevada to Manchester, developers are trialling innovative solutions to clean energy’s biggest challenge

In the deserts of the United Arab Emirates a sprawling clean energy project, stretching across an area roughly the size of 12,600 football fields, will play host to a breakthrough allowing solar energy to power the equivalent of half a million homes through the night.

The Gulf state has been steadily combining 5.2GW of solar power capacity with 19GWh of battery storage to create the largest battery scheme in the world.

The fatal shootings of two men, both killed in their vehicles by ICE agents, have rekindled anger over the US’s militarized deportation push

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, 52, was driving to work with his brother and two other passengers in Houston, Texas, when immigration agents began tailing his car. They pulled him over and fired a fatal shot through the open passenger-side window.

Six days later in Biddeford, Maine, Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, 26, was driving around his neighborhood when agents stopped him at an intersection – right outside the laundromat where he’d often go with his three-year-old daughter – and shot him dead.

Reform leader says support from fraudster before last election is ‘totally undeclarable in every single way’

Nigel Farage has admitted his close friend the fraudster George Cottrell let him use one of his London homes and paid for social media filming before the last election but insisted it was “totally undeclarable in every single way”.

The Reform UK leader spoke in depth for the first time about his support from Cottrell and the £5m gift from the Thailand-based businessman Christopher Harborne in an interview with the anti-woke Triggernometry podcast.

Where to start with this rollercoaster of a match? Thomas Tuchel had promised a reaction but he could not have imagined the manner of the response from England, albeit against a France team firmly on their sunloungers during an incredible first half in which they conceded four times.

Yet with Kylian Mbappé on the hunt for his second successive Golden Boot in Didier Deschamps’ last match in charge of Les Bleus, even that lead courtesy of goals from Declan Rice, Ezri Konsa and two from Bukayo Saka almost wasn’t enough. Mbappé began the comeback straight after half-time before adding his second after Bradley Barcola’s strike. The 27-year-old has become the first male player to reach double figures at a World Cup since Gerd Müller in 1970. Over to you, Lionel.

Incoming PM will reallocate unspecified resources from unpopular plan to helping with cost of living

Andy Burnham is expected to scrap Keir Starmer’s plans for digital ID cards in a “reset of priorities” when he enters Downing Street on Monday.

The new Labour leader plans to redirect the resources earmarked for the scheme towards tackling the cost of living, his team indicated on Saturday.

Britain to seek extradition over alleged sexual exploitation, ‘extreme pornography’, assault and indecent images of a child

The social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate have been arrested in Miami on UK charges by federal authorities, the US Marshals Service has said.

The brothers were arrested on Saturday on an extradition request from British authorities, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss the case.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says two ships have also been involved in ‘accident’ after defying strait of Hormuz warnings

• Two US troops killed and one missing in Jordan after Iranian attacks

Jordanian authorities ⁠have not issued any decision ⁠to ​evacuate the airport or ⁠seaport in the city of Aqaba, and have not detected ⁠any potential threats ​in ‌the past ‌hours, the state ‌news agency cited the government spokesperson as saying.

This denial comes in response to the US embassy in Jordan earlier saying the airport and seaport in Aqaba had been evacuated by Jordanian authorities because of a “specific and credible threat” (see this post for more details).

Health Foundation paper argues health is an economic asset and improving it could generate £72bn for public finances

Restoring the deteriorating health of the UK’s population to the level of 2014 would boost GDP by 2% and generate a £72bn dividend for the public finances, research suggests.

A paper by the Health Foundation thinktank, published on Sunday, argues the nation’s health should be valued by policymakers as an economic asset.

At least one person killed after dozens of missiles arrive in less than an hour and three-storey building catches fire

Russia has carried out one of its biggest-ever ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, launching a five-hour raid that left at least one person dead and seven injured, with fires and damage across the city.

Ukrainian officials said the capital was hit with about 40 Iskander-M and hypersonic Zircon missiles. Residents heard an air raid siren sound at 1.30am. There was the sound of air defences, followed minutes later by a series of booms and explosions.

People in Tunbridge Wells area face lower pressure, intermittent supply or no water after ‘instrument failure’

Thousands of homes and businesses in Kent are facing water supply problems for a second day, including a “complete lack of water” in some cases, South East Water said.

About 7,000 properties in the Tunbridge Wells area could face low pressure, intermittent supply or no water, after an “instrument failure” at a nearby water treatment works, SEW said.

Fans evacuated from sold-out open-air show as organisers promise full refunds

An open-air show by the Puerto Rican music star Bad Bunny was abandoned in Italy on Saturday night because of a violent hailstorm, but the organiser said ticketholders would be reimbursed.

Videos posted on social media showed large hailstones hitting people at the sold-out show, along with strong winds and driving rain, after the star began his set at Milan’s Snai La Maura Hippodrome.

Andy Burnham’s recent promise to create a ‘No 10 North’ echoes BBC’s successful Out of London plan

When the BBC first announced its intention to move a significant chunk of its operation to Salford in Greater Manchester – the “Out of London” plan, as the then director general Mark Thompson called it in 2004, with a faint “here be dragons” whiff – there were plenty in the organisation who were scornful that it could ever work.

Senior staff would never leave the capital. Star talent wouldn’t dream of travelling. It “didn’t take a brain surgeon”, said the Breakfast presenter and Strictly Come Dancing winner Chris Hollins, to see that the prime minister would never appear in person.

A General Synod vote to hear a document describing Israel’s ‘genocidal war on Gaza’ was welcomed by Palestinian Christians, but prompted warnings from Jewish groups

Father Fadi Diab, a prominent Palestinian Anglican priest from Ramallah, watched quietly as the Church of England debated whether to formally hear a document describing Israel as a “colonial enterprise” that had inflicted a “genocidal war on Gaza”.

The motion passed overwhelmingly among bishops, clergy and laity – all three houses of the General Synod – last week.

The aerospace giant is seeking UK government support for its re-entry into the huge narrowbody jet market

In a 100-year-old hangar at Rolls-Royce’s factory in Derby, aircraft engines lie on their noses as technicians strip them down after a couple of years circling the world.

Cranes lift and flip the engines, before engineers separate different modules to be cleaned, treated in acid baths if necessary, repaired or replaced. The acrid smell of kerosene signals the part of the factory where engineers handle the metre-diameter core of the engine, in which fuel and air combine at high pressure to drive the turbines and propel 200-tonne planes through the air.

Surprisingly easy to manoeuvre and skilled at cleaning carpet and hard floor, Shark’s upright bagless model is one of the best corded vacuums I’ve tested

• The best vacuum cleaners

Corded vacuum cleaners aren’t as glamorous as their cordless cousins, but swapping battery power for a plug socket has its advantages. The device will never be short of power, so it can keep cleaning for as long as you need it to. Prices also tend to be lower because there’s no expensive battery to factor into the cost.

On the downside, there’s a cable to manage while you clean, and even the longest cords usually need to be switched from one plug socket to another if your home is any larger than a small flat.

Experts believe it’s at least possible. We urgently need a plan to navigate the ethical implications

In January, the AI company Anthropic published a new constitution for Claude, its most advanced large language model (LLM), which contained the comment: “We are caught in a difficult position where we neither want to overstate the likelihood of Claude’s moral patienthood nor dismiss it out of hand.” A month later, Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei went on a podcast and said his company couldn’t rule out the possibility that Claude was conscious. Philosopher David Chalmers, who coined the phrase “the hard problem of consciousness”, has said there is a significant chance of conscious LLMs within a decade. And what about Claude itself? When asked during testing to estimate the probability that it is a moral patient, meaning that its wellbeing matters in its own right, it gave numbers ranging from 5% to 40% and stressed how uncertain it was.

Modern AI systems are extraordinarily complex, and they are advancing fast. In terms of structural complexity and computational scale, by some measures a few are already in the range of a mouse brain, and at recent growth rates, they could reach the range of a human brain within five to 10 years.

A social media manager and a​ transport psychology ​researcher disagreed over Palestine Action, but who ​changed their view on the triple-loc​k?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Hugo, 21, Birmingham

Occupation Social media manager for the Conservative party

Both Denzel and Sarita left sexless relationships before they met, but together they have discovered toys and Tantric sex

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

She’s brought a different side to my life I didn’t know existed

Actor who was the first Irish woman to win an Oscar for her role in the 1989 film classic My Left Foot

Brenda Fricker, who has died aged 81, was only the second Irish actor – and the first female one – to win an Oscar, for her role as Daniel Day-Lewis’s mother in the 1989 film My Left Foot, after shooting to fame in the original cast of the BBC medical drama Casualty.

As the nurse Megan Roach, she was the Mother Earth of the fictional Holby City hospital’s A&E department for the programme’s first five series (1986-90). “We knew the show had to have compassion,” said Casualty’s first producer, Geraint Morris. “We made Megan the person everyone could talk to.”

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days

Matt Damon dons the sword and sandals in Christopher Nolan’s epic, while the LA singer-songwriter shares more arena-friendly scream-along anthems

The Odyssey
Out now
Christopher Nolan tackles one of the granddaddies of the western canon – Homer’s meaty tale of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his long trip home after 10 years in the Trojan war. Also starring Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya and Charlize Theron.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

Chris Packham takes us back to the beginning in awe-inspiring fashion, while Christopher Nolan heads for Homer with a grand adaptation. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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Watching England against France – though, of course, defensive intensity was lower – it was still noticeable how dangerous Saka and Marcus Rashford were on the counter. Had Tuchel sent them on against Argentina soon after England scored, Lionel Scaolini’s men would’ve had to respect it and might well have feared it, forced, at the very least, to leave defenders back to mark them, while their own team would’ve had out-balls and a serious threat, meaning when they cleared their lines, it wouldn’t have simply been to face yet another attack.

It find it strange that, given his team struggled for control and also to break down tight defences, Tuchel didn’t give Mainoo a single second on the pitch – and seemed to have decided as much by the Panama game, when he brought on Henderson in preference. England desperately lacked midfield balance, control, poise and craft, a problem that eventually cost them – and is the main reason I’d have given them little chance of beating Spain had they made the final. Anderson and Rice are fine players, but given Bellingham is essential, I’d want only one, with the trio completed by a more technical and cerebral type – which needn’t be Mainoo, he was just the only one in the squad.

After the team’s third-placed finish, we rate the 24 squad members who made an appearance at the tournament

Jordan Pickford Could he have done better with Enzo Fernández’s equaliser for Argentina? Jude Bellingham certainly thought so. But the man who has made more World Cup finals appearances than any other Englishman made some crucial saves, including a brilliant stop from Nicolas González in the semi-final. 7

Lionel Scaloni says he has a squad full of fighters – wild and unruly – but on the pitch they play with a freedom reminiscent of eight- or nine-year olds

After scoring the goal that secured Argentina’s place in the World Cup final, Lautaro Martínez burst into convulsive sobs during the touchline interview. He spoke of the first pair of trainers his father bought him and of how his mother kept making his bed when he moved to a club pension house in another city as a teenager. Every single day. Martínez said that mattered to him more than any goal, any cup.

Argentina’s head coach, Lionel Scaloni, said he was a bit worried after England’s goal but never stopped believing in his players. “They grew up in environments where they were afraid of nothing, in which they’ve always been the best at what they do,” he said. “As small children they competed and everyone expected so much of them; responsibility doesn’t weigh them down.”

Great brought an ideology to Barcelona that Guardiola and Emery refined, defining the playing style of the national team

Two countries are generating powerful, cross-border momentum in football. Spain represent the leading footballing culture, radiating their influence across the globe. Argentina possess a distinct identity that shapes the South American continent. Consequently, the World Cup is witnessing the perfect final.

The architect of Spain’s vision is Johan Cruyff. He brought the 4-3-3 formation and a specific ideology to Barcelona. A cadre of tactical purists, such as Pep Guardiola and Unai Emery, refined his approach into a philosophy that has defined the playing style of the entire league, all youth squads and the national team for nearly two decades. Its principles include ball-oriented defending, clearly defined positions and roles, a high level of organisation, and technical, combination-based football. Eleven players operate as a unit, moving like a swarm.

• Fifa deal with prediction market company under fire

• Balogun reprieve showed ‘rules bend under pressure’

Fifa has been accused of providing an “open door to fraud” and allowing political influence to cast doubt on the integrity of the World Cup in a stinging rebuke by the Council of Europe’s secretary general.

In an open letter published to coincide with Sunday’s final, Alain Berset also called for a new integrity framework to be built before the 2030 tournament, which is mainly being staged in Europe, and warned that Fifa was embroiled in a crisis involving money and power.

Fifa’s orchestration of incompatible or frankly absurd corporate sponsorship suggests the balance may have tipped too far

It’s almost all over. No more hydration breaks, no more obligatory pans of the TV cameras to Hollywood A-listers, or dread of the crushing inevitability of English disappointment. The Fifa World Cup 2026 is at an end, after another month of planet-straddling drama laced with significance and symbolism, both on and off the pitch.

Before the kick-off between Spain and Argentina on Sunday evening, the result is already clear: football’s greatest prize is more than a sporting event; it is a geopolitically charged economic juggernaut.

My husband has a personality transplant within a five-mile radius of any airport. There is no chatting, no dawdling, no time to buy water or go to the loo. But I have happened upon a better way to travel

If we are being observed by aliens, they probably wonder why couples on Earth invent so many ways to be apart while together. The sleep divorce, screen divorce, meal divorce, chore divorce, hobby divorce … “Just split up already!” the beings from Nerfleurg 7 undoubtedly yell at their surveillance screens. However, there’s a new relationship hack in town and it could be the best yet: the airport divorce.

In the run-up to holiday season, is there anybody who didn’t read those words and feel wistful? Even if you’re single, going away with a friend, you can still have an airport divorce. This strategy is as all-inclusive as a resort package.

From Shirley Valentine to my own adventures with friends in Italy, all-women holidays offer the perfect mix of freedom and self-discovery

I have just come back from a much-anticipated girls’ holiday to Puglia, and to say that it fulfilled expectations would be an understatement. We swam, we napped, we reminisced, we ate little bits of crudo alongside lovely sips of fiano, we danced around the table of the Airbnb while singing along to Sarà perché ti amo. Most of all, we laughed, sometimes until our stomachs hurt and our faces were wet with tears.

What a joy the girls’ trip is (despite our ages, “women” doesn’t feel right here somehow). Maybe that’s because at times during the holiday I was transported back to when we were indeed “girls” and studying together in Italy (although this time with far less street harassment – a realisation that prompted mixed feelings until a belated “Che bellissime!” saved the day).

One Nation’s polling popularity is proof we live in an upside-down world which surpasses substance and vaults reason

Pauline Hanson’s podcast with Tommy Robinson was dispiriting in unexpected ways. Racism was a given: more deflating was the recognition of its entertainment value. Enough attention has been directed towards Robinson, real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. He is a thug, a fraudster, a bully and a bigot.

Despite, or because of this, there are those who rush to swing hands with him.

The president no longer treats the people who defeated him as voters. He treats them as suspects

There is a version of this country in which Donald Trump tells Americans the truth he has been handed: that their elections are secure. Once, he apparently wanted to.

The Atlantic reported after Thursday night’s address that a February 2020 election-security briefing pleased Trump so much he wanted to announce the news himself. The press conference never happened. The election did, and Trump lost it.

In a speech given on Wednesday in honor of Nelson Mandela Day, New York’s mayor reflects on what Madiba can teach us in a fractured era

What a privilege it is to be together to honor the leadership of the Nelson Mandela Foundation. For 27 years, this organization has insisted that Madiba’s legacy belongs not only in museums, but in movements for freedom too. I would like to recognize a man whose legacy lives on in the millions that he inspired.

Madiba lives in every protest for justice, every call for democracy, every march with a righteous demand. Madiba lives in every township and slum where dignity remains just out of reach, and he lives in each person who reaches for that dignity, who works all day and then returns home with food for the hungry and medicine for the sick. Madiba lives each time someone bears witness to oppression, or want, or misery, and does not accept it as inevitable, but rather as something that we each can fight. So many of us are only where we are today – can only conceive of the principled as possible – because Madiba showed us the path.

Thursday’s speech about election integrity was a case in point, as the president seeks to undermine the system

America’s mad king is spiraling. Donald Trump’s approval ratings are mired in the 30s as the Iran war rages on with no end in sight. As prices rise and the US’s reputation tanks, Trump is building self-serving monuments and putting his face on new $1 coins to ensure he leaves a lasting legacy. Don’t worry, Donald, we’ll never forget you! Your name will forever be associated with corruption, crime and a nationwide outbreak of explosive diarrhea.

When the going gets tough, Trump tends to go into full-on victim mode. This week was no exception. On Thursday, the president gave a televised primetime speech in which he rehashed all his usual grievances. A random jab about trans people? Check. Boasting about how he’s single-handedly made America great again? Check. Demonizing the media? Check. Complaints about how unfair it was he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 coupled with accusations about Chinese interference and misinformation about election integrity? Check. “No country can be great without fair and honest elections,” Trump announced. “If there can be no trust, there can be no greatness. Unfortunately, the system we have falls catastrophically short of that standard.”

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Larkin, Harrison and Shakespeare shaped Labour’s leader. Now comes the harder task: turning language into lasting change

Andy Burnham is finally Labour leader. After trying – and failing – twice to be elected by party members, he took the top job on Friday without a contest. Sir Keir Starmer remains prime minister until Monday, when he will tender his resignation to King Charles, who will invite Mr Burnham to form a government. Then the future that Mr Burnham has long imagined will cease to be a promise and become a test.

Much will be written about the man. But why does Mr Burnham believe what he believes? One clue lies in the Guardian’s letters page in 1991. Fresh from graduating in English at Cambridge, the 21-year-old Mr Burnham defended an “uncouth and uncultured” Philip Larkin from critics who dismissed him as “too parochial”. Larkin – a bigoted curmudgeon – is difficult to admire, but his poems are not.

The lack of diversity in the latest film is a backwards step. Adaptations of Tolkien’s epic must reflect our times

There is trouble in Middle-earth – again. So far, all of the actors announced for the latest The Lord of the Rings film instalment, The Hunt for Gollum, to be released next year, are white. Kate Winslet, Jamie Dornan, Anya Taylor-Joy and Leo Woodall join a cast that has already been criticised for its lack of diversity. “Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology,” the film’s director, Andy Serkis, who plays Gollum, said. “The Shire feels very white.”

Ironically, Serkis invokes fidelity to Tolkien to defend the casting, yet his “modern film version” of Animal Farm, which came out this week, plays fast and loose with Orwell by replacing the novel’s crushing conclusion with a hopeful one.

Alex Dickie on Uberto Pasolini’s 2024 film, Darryl Accone on differing translations of the Greek original, and Roberto Breña on the excitement around Christopher Nolan’s new version

As Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey sails into view, epic both in scale and emotional heft (Editorial, 10 July), it is interesting to note that Uberto Pasolini’s 2024 film The Return strips the poem of gods and monsters to reveal Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) traumatised by war, emotionally and psychologically bewildered – an ancient precursor to post-traumatic stress disorder. Penelope (Juliette Binoche), as wife and mother, has her own inner demons to contend with in a male world immersed in physical prowess and killing. Both have been hollowed out by their experiences.

Perhaps Homer set out to tell a good story, but in doing so revealed so much more, not least the futility of war and in the words of Robert Burns: “Man’s inhumanity to man / Makes countless thousands mourn!”
Alex Dickie
Edinburgh

Andreas Swadlo, Andrew Wardrop and Tony Coghan respond to an etiquette guide saying swimmers must dash ashore rather than relieve themselves in the water

I have long been puzzled by the widespread belief that if nature calls while swimming in the sea, one should dash ashore in search of a lavatory (Summer etiquette: 47 essential rules – from sex to sunloungers to shopping in swimming trunks, 14 July). Why this is considered the more virtuous option escapes me. The contents of the lavatory are, after all, treated and eventually discharged into rivers and seas. The ocean merely cuts out the middleman.

Assuming one is well away from other bathers, the environmental distinction seems elusive. The Atlantic Ocean has the capacity to cope with a few hundred millilitres of highly diluted human urine. It has been dealing with whales for rather longer than it has with us.

Stephanie Calman is mystified that the regulation of these massively profitable services is being left to the user

Asking teenagers to limit their own social media use is a laughable waste of time (UK 16- and 17-year-olds to be encouraged to follow midnight social media curfew, 14 July). I am still mystified that the regulation of these massively profitable services is being left to the user.

In Britain, television is tightly regulated by Ofcom, with rules governing the showing of sex, drugs and violence, and the requirement for impartiality and accuracy. The public must also be protected from unduly offensive material.

Juliet Gardiner | England’s World Cup hope | DIY spirits | Slang

It was good to read David Kynaston’s appreciation of Juliet Gardiner’s writing, so widely admired (Juliet Gardiner obituary, 14 July). The school we both attended, leading to a lifelong friendship, failed to recognise her talent. On the bus together one morning, Juliet let me read her latest piece of homework: 11 strikingly imaginative pages about the stone effigies of knights in St Peter’s church, Berkhamsted. At the end I found her teacher’s only comment: “This essay is too long.”
Ann Segrave
Lewes, East Sussex

• I was 18 in 1966. As the fourth goal for England went in against West Germany, after he’d leapt from his seat my dad said, “watch this, you’ll never see it in your lifetime again”. I fear he might have been right. I’m also reminded of Brian Clough’s quote: “We were the best team on paper – unfortunately we played on grass.” Looking forward to the Euros now. Hope springs eternal.
Chris Walters
Buxton, Derbyshire

️Updates from the final day’s play at Royal Birkdale
️Official leaderboard | Mail Scott with your thoughts

A good couple of minutes for Ireland. Rory McIlroy finally makes a putt, on 10, while Shane Lowry holes out from a bunker at 4. It’s back-to-back birdies for the 2019 champion, who clenches a fist in celebration. At -5, you can be sure he’s not going to admit defeat just yet. Rory is -4. But any faint Scottish hopes of a first title since Paul Lawrie seized the day in 1999 have gone south. Consecutive bogeys for Bob MacIntyre, at 6 and 7, and he’s back to -2.

Russell Henley keeps on keepin’ on! He sends his approach at 11 from 156 yards to 14 feet, and the putt drops for his fifth birdie of the day. The rest of his card is unblemished, so he just needs another three birdies in the last seven holes to join Club 62. And there are scoring opportunities all around Royal Birkdale.

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Ferarri: It is not just the leading trio who will be hoping to capitalise when the lights go out at Spa. Ferrari will line up directly behind them, with the Scuderia showing stronger race pace than qualifying speed in recent rounds.

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were separated by a mere 0.002 seconds in qualifying, earning fourth and fifth on the grid respectively. That puts both drivers in prime position to take advantage of any drama or mistakes ahead of them in the opening laps.

Updates from Lord’s, play starting at 11am BST
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5th over: England 37-0 (Duckett 17, Bethell 17) Bethell and Duckett swish and flick, six off the over. India getting twitchy for the breakthrough, fast outfield and it looks a decent track for Lord’s.

4th over: England 31-0 (Duckett 15, Bethell 14) A purr goes round HQ as Bethell plays a classy flash past point. The prowling Kohli can only nod in appreciation as it scorches the turf and whistles past him to the fence. Beaten! Prasidh finally gets one in the right area, angling into Bethell on a good length and then snakes away late, somehow missing the edge and the off bail. Keep it there son.

Stage updates, starting from 1.10pm CET/12.10pm BST
You can email Tanya | Stage-by-stage guide | Team guide

The peloton will pedal away from Champagnole in about five minutes, with kilometre zero at 12.20.

Doping control have been visiting in the night – Pogacar at 5am and Vingegaard at 2am – he isn’t impressed.

• Argentina 24-31 England

• Visitors run in five tries; hosts denied late score by TMO

It has been a long season but England’s well-travelled players can finally head to the beach with some degree of satisfaction. Spurred on by a fine performance from the wing Immanuel Feyi-Waboso, they had to weather a frantic finale to complete an eventful five-try win over Argentina, thus denying their hosts a notable sporting double over their English amigos this week.

Reduced to 13 and briefly 12 men at stages in the second half, with four players sent to the sin-bin along the way, they were ultimately indebted to Marcus Smith and Feyi-Waboso for all-important tries in the final quarter, along with a brace of first-half scores for Ben Earl. England also had to defend stoutly at times, with Ollie Chessum, Ellis Genge and Joe Heyes all fronting up well at the fag end of an energy-sapping campaign.

• Time of 3min 42.66sec betters El Guerrouj in 1999 by 0.47

• Kerr becomes seventh British man to hold record

Having put himself out there in the manner that he did, Josh Kerr left nowhere else to go. He had to deliver on Saturday. You call your shot, you take it. So he did. And boy, was it spectacular.

For the first time in 27 years there is a new one-mile world record-holder. On the morning of this London Diamond League meet, Sebastian Coe – a three-time mile world record-holder himself – described Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj, the incumbent, as the greatest miler in history. If that fact remains undisputed, the record books will now show Kerr’s name above El Guerrouj as the man who ran one mile in 3min 42.66sec. Just as he said he would.

• Fee makes Rogers most expensive English player

• Arsenal were also keen on Rogers, a £15m Villa signing

Chelsea are poised to sign Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa for £117m. The attacking midfielder has agreed terms on a six-year contract and is due to undergo a medical on Monday.

Arsenal were interested in Rogers and made contact with Villa this month but Chelsea have long tracked the 23-year-old’s progress and have moved quickly to land one of Xabi Alonso’s top targets.

From manufactured election insecurity to an outbreak of ‘explosive’ diarrhea, Americans are bearing the brunt of harmful policies

Between widespread cuts to vital government agencies, various disease and illness outbreaks, and new environmental disaster vulnerabilities, the United States is facing a convergence of crises with widespread repercussions.

Yet the Trump administration has hamstrung the federal government from addressing these crises – and in some cases is actively fanning them. Over the past year, the administration has moved to shrink the federal workforce, roll back environmental protections and policies intended to fight the climate crisis, reduced funding for scientific research and is seeking to advance legislation that would impose new voting restrictions.

Solomon’s Pools date back to the second century BCE, and have become a source of recreation for nearby Bethlehem

Israel is threatening to seize ancient water reservoirs near Bethlehem, in what would be a significant escalation in an intensifying campaign for control of West Bank land and the Middle East’s historical narrative.

Since Israel’s extremist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, made an explicit threat in May to “erase” the agreements that confirmed Palestinian ownership of Solomon’s Pools more than 30 years ago, Israeli settlers and troops have stepped up their presence around the spectacular site.

Data shows 32,559 earnings-related overpayments in 2025-26 after DWP’s measures to end carer’s allowance scandal

Scores of unpaid carers were hit with demands to repay sums of more than £20,000 and hundreds more put at risk of prosecution last year as a result of official failures in what appear to be continuing problems with carer’s allowance.

New figures showed carers were asked to repay £33m in 2025-26 as a result of 32,559 earnings-related overpayments, despite the introduction of measures over a year ago designed specifically to prevent carers falling foul of the system.

Campaigners hope move will force commercial banks to rethink holding assets linked to the fossil fuel

Climate campaigners have declared a victory after the Bank of England said it would no longer accept bonds linked to one of the most polluting industries on the planet for key loan arrangements.

The ban, which comes into force in October, marks a fresh crackdown on thermal coal, which is burned in power plants to create electricity, and has long been a target of green policy activists.

Incumbent Carlos Vila Nova hopes to defeat his former party and secure second term as independent

Voters in São Tomé and Príncipe go to the polls for a presidential election on Sunday as one of Africa’s least populous countries seeks to burnish its democratic credentials.

According to the National Election Commission, about 142,000 people are registered to vote in the tiny African state’s elections, approximately 15% of whom live in the diaspora.

Award-winning entomologist Dino Martins, known for his work on pollinators, shows in his latest book that even the most gruesome creatures have vital roles to play

Dino J Martins has never been able to resist the small things. The renowned entomologist and evolutionary biologist spent his formative years in biodiversity-rich western Kenya with his foster parents, Joe and Sarah Ellen, looking at birds, flowers and insects on Mt Elgon, and in Kakamega forest and Kerio valley.

He was especially transfixed by the miniature world beneath his feet – dung beetles rolling mounds of cattle dung; safari ants’ migrations across the plains; male butterflies that suck salt and other nutrients from the mud to produce “nuptial gifts” during mating; and bees pollinating the critically endangered African violet alongside crops in a farmer’s field.

Top Democrat says findings show public ‘way ahead of the politicians’ as Trump dismisses global heating as ‘hoax’

Amid a summer of dangerous heat, drought and floods, a majority of Americans are connecting increasingly severe weather to the climate crisis, new polling shows, despite efforts by Donald Trump to dismiss global heating as a “con job” and a “hoax”.

It’s a sign that attempts to suppress polarize climate concerns may not be seeing full success, said Grace Adcox, senior climate strategist at Data for Progress.

Greenpeace UK says 2.87bn litres lost daily, a fifth of all water pumped through network

Water companies are wasting five times more water through leaky pipes than even a nationwide hosepipe ban could save, environmental campaigners say.

Research by Greenpeace UK found that 2.87bn litres of water a day seep from leaky pipes in England and Wales. That is enough to fill 1,150 Olympic-sized swimming pools and amounts to a fifth of all water pumped through the network.

Air quality in North America has plummeted, affecting the health of millions of people across the continent

As smoke from hundreds of Canadian wildfires continues to spread across large parts of North America, bringing hazardous air to tens of millions of people, outdoor activities are being canceled, businesses disrupted and vulnerable residents kept indoors as officials warn the unhealthy conditions will likely persist.

Air quality alerts were issued across more than 20 US states as smoke from wildfires burning in south-central Canada, northern Ontario and parts of Minnesota drifted south. About 109 million Americans across the midwest, mid-Atlantic and north-east experienced unhealthy air this week.

Outgoing PM has joked about cookery classes and cutting hedges, but does the international stage beckon?

As his time in Downing Street comes to an end, Keir Starmer has been joking with friends about what he might do after he stands down as prime minister.

He has teased that he might take a cookery course. “He needs it, he only makes two meals,” one friend said. Another not entirely serious suggestion was cutting his father-in-law’s hedge in the expectation that if he did well, he could graduate to lawns.

Annual lectures will discuss work of writer and campaigner who ‘revitalised the anti-slavery cause’ in Britain

He was one of the most important figures of his time, an author, orator and American statesman who was born enslaved. But some of the most important years in the civil rights leader Frederick Douglass’s life were spent in Britain.

This month marks the 180th anniversary of a series of lectures Douglass gave in Manchester, speaking at venues across the region.

Incoming PM must seize chance to stop race discourse deflecting from class inequalities, says David Weaver

Andy Burnham has a historic opportunity to shift the national mood on racism, the chair of Operation Black Vote has said.

In an interview marking the 30th anniversary of the influential nonpartisan civil rights organisation, David Weaver, the chair of Operation Black Vote (OBV), said Burnham must seize the chance to change a UK political culture where race and migration discourse is used to deflect from class inequalities and ineffective leadership.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage compares One Nation leader’s polling rise to Donald Trump’s victory in the US

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Pauline Hanson has told a political conference in London that Australia is following Britain down a path of cultural decline, blaming mass immigration, multiculturalism, Islam, net zero policies and “woke” ideology such as support for trans rights.

The One Nation leader has been in the UK to speak at the inaugural British spin-off from America’s influential Conservative Political Action Conference, alongside Nigel Farage and Liz Truss, the former British prime minister.

Sex, drink and religion are common motifs in the ‘extraordinarily rich’ colloquial vernacular of Ireland’s second city

If Des MacHale had to nominate a favourite from the lexicon of insulting and inexplicable terms that comprise Cork slang, it would have to be “langer”.

Depending on tone and context it can mean idiot, drunkenness or penis, a versatility that baffles outsiders and further enhances the word’s value. “Langer is an absolutely beautiful word. I’m very fond of it,” says MacHale.

Pete Hegseth announced that soldiers aged 30 and older in the US military will be screened for low testosterone

The US defense secretary, ⁠Pete Hegseth, this week ordered an annual testosterone-deficiency screening for active-duty and reserve service members aged 30 and older, which he says will help to maintain military readiness.

But many medical professionals warn it might do nothing of the sort and instead could increase service members’ risk of infertility or lead to other consequences if testosterone is prescribed inappropriately.

Tamás Sulyok signed the constitutional amendment that cited ‘serious loss of confidence’ in him as leader

Hungary’s president, Tamás Sulyok, has agreed to step down after signing a constitutional amendment passed by the ruling Tisza party of the prime minister, Péter Magyar.

The amendment will end Sulyok’s term immediately, citing society’s “serious loss of confidence” in a leader elected in early 2024 by lawmakers from the former prime minister Viktor Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party.

Taylor Farms does not specify where products were served or sold, as US braces for weeks more of outbreak

Taylor Farms recalled potentially contaminated shredded iceberg lettuce in 27 states on Friday, including lettuce distributed as recently as Thursday, as cases of cyclosporiasis continue rising in the US.

The US is likely to see at least another two weeks of possible cases, since infections may have happened in recent days. And the expanding outbreak investigation could point to other products in coming days.

CEO’s pay packet surges to £791,000 as union says public ‘sick of obscene pay’ and bosses ‘feathering own nests’

Wessex Water awarded its chief executive an above-inflation pay increase even as the company was banned from paying bonuses because of sewage spills, it has emerged.

Ruth Jefferson received a 14% base salary increase in October, from £590,000 to £670,000, before other benefits, according to accounts published this month. It was far above the 3.5% given to workers, and put her pay at 18 times that of the company’s median employee.

Exclusive: Watchdog asked to look into how James Watt got data of ex-crowdfunders he invited to join buy-back bid

James Watt, the BrewDog founder who sold the debt-laden “punk” brewer earlier this year, is the subject of complaints to the UK’s data privacy watchdog linked to his surprise bid to buy the company back, the Guardian has learned.

BrewDog’s brand, intellectual property, UK breweries and 11 bars were sold to the US cannabis and drinks firm Tilray in March for £33m, in a deal that rendered the shares of more than 200,000 crowdfunding investors worthless.

East Midlands Railway cancels trains on Midland mainline, as drivers on LNER and Avanti West Coast ballot

Intercity rail travellers face potential disruption this summer across Great Britain’s three north-south mainlines, with drivers voting on strike action on two lines and timetables slashed on the other owing to malfunctioning trains.

East Midlands Railway announced it will cancel hundreds of services in the coming weeks from its intercity timetable on the Midland mainline, because of continued problems with its fleet of Hitachi trains.

One UK man whose bill is usually less than £1 says he ‘almost had a heart attack’ when he saw £5.8bn invoice

People always suspected big tech was greedy, but not quite like this. Patrons of Amazon Web Services have been landed with panic-inducing monthly bills running as high as $1.5tn for subscriptions that usually cost less than the price of a cup of coffee.

From Bangalore to Bolsover, the bills have been causing alarm after a computer glitch resulted in the astronomical invoices being dispatched around the world by Jeff Bezos’s company, which provides data and cloud services to millions of customers, from students and small charities to big businesses.

Wembley Stadium, London
Mars sings every line like it’s his big solo in a show that leans more on his stage presence than pyro and pageantry

Wembley Stadium is awash with crimson as the Bruno Mars operation rolls into town for the first of a six night run. The tour is named for the diminutive singer’s 2026 album The Romantic. Mars is feeling amorous and the Saturday night crowd is very happy to be romanced, clad in red and brandishing hand fans that read “Hot for Bruno”.

He starts with a prayer, a kitschy video in which he asks for a hand giving the audience a show we’ll never forget, before emerging in a puff of dry ice. Stained glass behind him and twinkling fairy lights all around, it’s half seedy club, half church service as he barrels into Risk It All. Is this show meant to be a spaghetti western or a 50s high school prom? The Romantic Tour bravely asks: why not both?

The Avengers star teams up with real-life scholars for a look at the eruption of Vesuvius. At points it’s elegiac and moving, at others it’s majestic and brutal

It’s always funny when documentaries strategically pair a possibly boring topic with a famous face, just to sex them up. A History of NCP Car Parks By Tinie Tempah, say, or World’s Deadliest Sleep Disorders With Anna Maxwell Martin. So when I saw that Tom Hiddleston was hosting a National Geographic investigation into the destruction of Pompeii in AD79 (Disney+, from Thursday), there was no way I wasn’t watching.

The actor has famously sauntered through life’s most vaunted way stations: Eton, Cambridge, Rada, Kong: Skull Island. Privilege and perceived smugness have long been sticks to beat him with. It’s harder to argue he’s not qualified for this job, having earned a double first in classics. Here, he slips into the role of undergraduate detective. A real-life scholar is forced to cosplay as his don during their interview, addressing Hiddleston by surname, issuing prim little reprimands. Hiddleston even translates Latin headstones in the first episode. I don’t know what the ancient Roman for “screw it, I’m leaning in” is, but I think that’s what it means.

Carrie Underwood and Kathy Mattea celebrate 100 years of Grand Ole Opry. Plus: controversial comedy in Unacceptable. Here’s what to watch this evening

7pm, Sky Arts

It’s silly, singular and occasionally tearjerking: this tale of a mechanical companion to an elderly widow is shot through with love and care

The home, warns Jamaican nurse Brianna (Michelle Greenidge), can be a “lethal” environment for elderly people. “You lucky like plucky you never smash your head on the corner of the coffee table, or land teeth first on the iron doorstep!” she says, fatalistically, as Sue (Sue Johnston) tries in vain to explain that she didn’t “have a fall”, but fainted due to low blood pressure. In any case, Sue – widowed two years ago – has wound up in hospital with a sprained wrist and is discharged with her arm in a sling.

At least she has her son, Michael (Paul Ready), to rely on. Except that Michael – gutless, whiny and covered in red blotches from a drug trial he’s joined for quick cash (“if it was dangerous”, he says, “do you really think drug companies would do it?!”) – is moving back in with his cheating ex. His solution? A robot carer, preloved and purchased on a 24-month contract. Cocking snooks at an era where everything is on subscription and at the general direction of late-capitalist travel, the preloved Ann Droid robot is useless without an internet connection, and is delivered by overburdened delivery driver Cass (Sarah Kendall), who we later discover has completed a PhD on Chaucer. Sue is appalled.

The director’s more-is-more approach to the 1986 sequel gave us seat-edge action and an indelible performance from a rule-breaking Sigourney Weaver

James Cameron loves tough female characters. That seems like a given now, after three Avatars and two particularly muscular arms belonging to Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2. Even the lushly romantic Titanic is about a supportive, sweet-natured boyfriend lending his love the extra smidge of strength she needs to live a rich and iconoclastic life without him, until she’s freely chucking diamonds into the sea at 100 years of age. But in Cameron’s 1984 de facto feature debut The Terminator (after a Piranha sequel that he attempted to disown), T2’s Hamilton is stalked and appropriately terrified by Arnold Schwarzenegger’s slasher-like killer robot. She’s a great character who gets majorly pumped up for the sequel in 1991. By then, Cameron had plenty of practice: he had already written and directed Aliens, maybe the best pumped-up sequel ever made, which turns 40 this week.

Ellen Ripley, introduced as the warrant officer onboard the ship Nostromo in Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi horror picture Alien, is already a great character by the end of that film. But while the anecdote about James Cameron pitching a sequel by appending a dollar-sign to Alien’s title, concisely showing what a simple pluralization could do, has perhaps overtaken the buffing up of Ellen Ripley in the most-circulated lore about this movie, she’s really the first subject of Cameron’s great plussing. Without betraying the simplicity and resilience of her character in the first film, Cameron reintroduced Ripley as a survivor, landing on Earth almost 60 years after the events of the earlier film. (In a deleted scene restored in the film’s longer special edition, Ripley even learns that her daughter has died in the interim – as an adult, given that Ripley was in cryosleep for decades.)

The trip-hop star doesn’t believe in getting jiggy to songs and would choose Cyndi Lauper at karaoke. But which classic reminds him of his mum?

The first song I fell in love with
I was going out with this Jamaican girl when we were about 15, and would listen to Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs all the time. We had a daughter together when we were 17 – she’s 35 now and works as a social worker in Bristol – so that song has always stayed with me.

The song that makes me cry
Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, because it reminds me of my mum and growing up in Bristol. He sings about his mum dressing him and showing him pictures, and my mum was exactly like that. In every childhood photo I’m in a shirt and tie and looking proper.

After 20 mutilated animal corpses were left outside a rural primary school, the creators of award-winning podcast Buried began investigating – with a little help from Chris Packham. It plunged them into organised crime, the dark web and Line of Duty-esque rumours of police corruption

In 2024, a village in Hampshire woke up to something truly disturbing. A mound of dead animals had been dumped outside a school, and blood oozed out on to the streets before children’s classes started for the day. There were about 20 carcasses, including rabbits, hares, pheasants, a fox and a muntjac deer with its head severed. The village was dumbfounded, and the biggest question was: why?

The husband-and-wife investigative journalist team of Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor – the pair behind the award-winning BBC podcast series, and now forthcoming documentary, Buried – found themselves wondering the same thing. Their new 10-part podcast, Buried: Dead Rabbit, delves into this and finds them plunged into the shady world of illegal bloodsports. Specifically, hare coursing – where dogs hunt hares to kill them, an activity that has been banned in the UK since 2005 – and its links to organised crime and the dangerous, violent characters who are terrorising villages across the country.

Buried: Dead Rabbit is on BBC Sounds now.

A Grammy nom at 17, a US No 1 ... then silence. With new album Oh Yeah? finally out after four years away, the genre-hopping artist explains the trauma and heartbreak that informed it

Since Steve Lacy became a Grammy-winning artist with a No 1 hit in the US, little has changed for him. His single Bad Habit was one of the biggest songs of 2022, leading to a sold-out tour across North America, Europe and Australia. But off-stage? He bought a new home in Los Angeles, but he hasn’t made any new famous friends. He doesn’t get hounded in public, because he’s a natural homebody. Besides, he’s not really that famous, is he?

“I think my name is bigger than my face, which is great,” he says, smiling mischievously. Sitting in a private room in a London hotel, wearing a Serge Gainsbourg T-shirt and jeans so ripped that they might as well be shorts, Lacy says he thinks he has pulled off the greatest trick of modern pop stardom: being one of the most celebrated musicians of his generation while remaining almost unrecognisable.

From Copland to Gershwin and a new Emily Dickinson-based commission it was America’s evening – but with a surprise Mancunian encore

And we’re back. The “world’s greatest classical music festival” has flung wide the doors of the Royal Albert Hall for another eight-week season. Where the Last Night of the Proms is often strangely separate – a self-contained musical party for an entirely different audience – the First Night is the celebration for those here for the long haul, the scene-setter and season in microcosm. So what does this year’s have to say?

Whatever its current geopolitical strain, the “special relationship” is live and kicking in the concert hall. The 250th anniversary of American independence is front and centre this summer (because nationalism is always less embarrassing when it’s someone else’s), trumpeted from the off with – what else – Aaron Copland’s crowd-pleaser Fanfare for the Common Man.

Sinister bogland discoveries haunt the intersecting lives of four characters in this meditative, exquisitely written tale

Almost 14% of Ireland is bog: vast swathes of moss-carpeted land, below which layers of ancient history have been compounded into mulch-black turf. Captivated by their otherworldly beauty, Seamus Heaney wrote some of his finest poetry about bogs – and the bodies discovered, perfectly preserved, in their eerie depths.

Sheila Armstrong’s exquisite second novel, The Red Mouth, also centres around two bog discoveries: the “monstrous, bog-black antler” of a great Irish elk, and the mutilated body of a girl who comes to be known as Belroe Woman. From here we follow the intersecting lives of those haunted, both literally and figuratively, by these excavations and the uncanny landscape that yielded them.

The former poet laureate on growing up with Lawrence Durrell, rereading Henry James and getting to grips with the genius of Alexander Pope

My earliest reading memory
My parents were country people who thought that looking after or chasing animals was more fun than reading: my father used to say that he’d read half a book in his life (The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes), and while my mother got through three or four novels a year, she didn’t expect me to do anything equivalent. But I do remember enjoying something my grandmother gave me – My Father’s Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. I must have been seven or so, and thought it was amusing and ingenious.

The books that changed me as a teenager
At my first school, I somehow got my hands on White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell, which my parents thought was unsuitably violent. I never finished it, but enjoyed carrying it around as proof of how grown-up I was. Then, at my secondary school, my history teacher read us some Wilfred Owen (we were studying the first world war), and the poetry-lights in my mind immediately flickered on. When I subsequently bought Owen’s Collected Poems it became a kind of sacred text for me (it still is).

The Runner by Scarlett Thomas; The Madman by Henning Mankell; Everything She Didn’t Say by Jane Casey; The Spy and the Snake by MJ Robotham; Murder at the End of the World by Akane Araki

The Runner by Scarlett Thomas (Scribner, £16.99)
Part thriller, part romantic suspense, Thomas’s latest novel begins in Cyprus, where 34-year-old Jay is literally on the run from someone who wants to kill him. Jay (not his real name) is well used to evading hitmen: the attempts on his life began at university, when a Japanese man arrived at his flat with a samurai sword. People have been trying to murder him ever since, the contract on his life traded like a commodity, in bitcoin. Now his only apparent ally is the mysterious Ellie, although – given his track record – it’s quite possible that she’s trying to off him, too. Just before the reader’s sense of intrigue turns to irritated bafflement, the action rewinds to Jay’s childhood in Kent, and the reasons slowly become clear in this quirky, exciting tale that takes in exorcism, dictators, high finance, con artists and marathons along the way.

The Madman by Henning Mankell, translated by George Goulding and Sarah de Senarclens (Mountain Leopard, £25)
Written in the 1970s and published in English for the first time, The Madman is set in a Swedish town in the late 1940s. The country’s wartime neutrality-on-paper continues to divide: the town’s pro-Nazis want the past forgotten, but the communist sympathisers, bitter about having been interned, want a reckoning. When a letter to this effect appears in the local paper, those accused, including the director of the town’s sawmill, claim that newcomer Bertil Kras has been stirring resentment for political ends. When the sawmill burns down, Kras is blamed for that, too, and the disintegration of the life he has tried to make provokes an existential crisis. An older Mankell might have been more concise, but the slow build towards inevitable disaster makes for true emotional depth, and the theme of othering, isolating and penalising people for their opinions remain horribly topical.

Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of the ancient Greek epic has sparked a new appetite for an old classic. Here are the translations, podcasts and audiobooks that make the Homeric world more approachable

The Odyssey was once all Greek to me. I struggled to keep up with the characters, the mass of heroes and villains, the swarms of sons and daughters. I found the Homeric formula – repeated stock phrases passed down from the oral tradition – confusing and tiring. The prose in my 1946 EV Rieu translation, revised by his son DCH Rieu, felt laboured and laborious. I have put the Odyssey down, several times, in the course of my life. But, like Sirens, difficult books tend to have a hold on us. The recent film adaptation pushed me to once again try reading the Odyssey, so I decided on a new approach. I spoke to classicists and conducted research, aiming to render the inaccessible accessible.

To read the Odyssey, start by avoiding the Odyssey. “Begin with contextualisation” – get to grips with themes and content – Antony Makrinos, associate professor in classics at UCL and director of the Summer School in Homer 2026, told me. He sent me an exhaustive list of recommendations, and I found myself in the British Museum, mid-heatwave, learning about Mycenaean civilisation and ancient Greece. I cooled down that evening with a Simon Armitage documentary, Gods and Monsters: an intriguing assessment of our flawed hero.

Evil Empire creatives explain how it is playing to today’s ‘metroidvanias’ and honouring the original’s legacy with much fresh slaying to be done

Since the last Castlevania game hit the shelves (2014’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2), Konami’s dormant series has unexpectedly spawned a hit genre. With an entire generation raised on “metroidvanias” – a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania – millions of players have only ever seen the games inspired by Konami’s seminal games. Now with Belmont’s Curse, launching in October, Castlevania is finally dashing back to console, where Konami hopes to reclaim its side-scroller throne.

Set 23 years after the events of 1989’s Castlevania 3 – the same setting as the hit Netflix show – Belmont’s Curse shakes off the series’ 3D ambitions and takes the Belmonts back to basics. Dispatching players to the demon-infested streets of 1499 Paris, you’re placed in the tattered boots of Trevor Belmont’s daughter, Rose. As a bishop pleads with the Belmonts to rid Paris of the ancient evil besetting the city, Rose heads into the sewers, longsword in hand, and her demon-slaying adventure begins.

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 2; Undercoders
Colourful, counter-cultural and captivating – this rail riding game set in a dystopian Japan is as weird as it is exhilarating

Every now and again a game appears with a premise so outrageous you stop in your tracks to take it all in. Denshattack!, a game about kickflipping trains across a dystopian future Japan, is the epitome of this feeling. Set in a post climate disaster world, people have retreated to corporate-owned domed cities to live out their days in air-conditioned, ignorant comfort. Save for a handful of outcasts, the rest of the country is a mess of broken infrastructure, where rival gangs battle it out on the ruins of Japan’s famously extensive rail network. Naive upstart Emi has one goal: become the best Denshattacker there is, one sick nosegrind at a time.

Taking the idea of an on-rails platforming game to its extreme conclusion, developers Undercoders have combined the best bits of the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series – grinding, flipping and spinning through an entire dictionary of tricks – with the anti-establishment message behind Jet Set Radio. The rivals Emi encounters showcase the history of Japanese misfits, pitting you against ageing rockabillies and violent girl gangs without a shred of judgment.

Brennan Lee Mulligan’s Dungeons and Dragons push is part of a wider trend using tabletop games for political action

Just before their election day, six Los Angeles city council candidates stood on stage at Hollywood’s Fonda Theatre. But they weren’t there for a debate or a black-tie gala. They were there to play Dungeons and Dragons.

Comedian Brennan Lee Mulligan guided the politicians through a short D&D campaign to defeat corporate villains and an evil dragon. Hundreds of enthusiastic fans in the crowd pledged additional donations up to $150 each to give the candidates what is called an “auto crit” for maximum damage to the dragon.

As global anxieties multiply, ​v​ideo games from Resident Evil to Mouthwashing are providing rich source material to help decode society’s problems

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Horror is so hot right now. There’s Obsession, Evil Dead Burn and Hokum in the cinema, Widow’s Bay, From and Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen on TV, and, of course, a rotting smorgasbord of horror games including Resident Evil Requiem (pictured top) and Reanimal, soon to be joined by Silent Hill: Townfall, Silver Pines and Dreadmoor. We’re also seeing weird cross-pollinations, with horror movie studio Blumhouse making games, while games themselves become horror films and the whole backrooms genre infects every medium it touches.

So it was fascinating to attend last week’s horror and gaming conference at Falmouth University, in Cornwall: a gathering of students, researchers and lecturers, all engaged in the academic study of horror games. There were brilliant talks on zombies and posthumanism, the gothic in games, and the role of monstrous little girls in survival horror (there are a lot of them!). Subjects as diverse as masculine fragility, disability and ageing came up; Will Doyle, creative director at Supermassive Games, gave a great keynote on the art of creating horror in games using tools such as revulsion, spatial alienation and the human instinct of apophenia. I learned a lot about theorists such as Julia Kristeva and Mark Fisher, and about the technical similarities between indie horror games and film noir (for example, the use of darkness and creative camera techniques to “hide” budget restrictions). It was incredible fun.

Mick Lally theatre, Galway
Eva O’Connor’s intense new play explores the lives of spiky Glaswegian Mo and naive Dubliner Réaltín through competing monologues, blunt humour and dance moves

Staying together for the sake of a child takes on additional weight in Eva O’Connor’s intense new play for Fishamble Theatre Company. In their mid-20s, Mo (Catriona Faint) and Réaltín (Lara McDonnell) initially seem like bickering young parents; “chosen family”, attending a therapy session, with the audience in the role of therapist. As the pair’s story spools back to their comical first meeting as new university students in Edinburgh, a portrait of an obsessive friendship emerges.

Playwright and actor O’Connor has written previously about compulsion, and here she vividly conveys the confusing mix of love, dependency, admiration and desire that can be poured into young women’s friendships: “the wild magnet pull of us,” Réaltín calls it. Initially it was the contrasts between the spiky, politicised Glaswegian, Mo, and the naive, middle-class Dubliner, Réaltín, that cemented their bond – captured in Faint and McDonnell’s committed, passionate performances.

King’s Head theatre, London
Camp comedy from The Simpsons’ Harry Shearer and Seinfeld writer Tom Leopold explores the relationship between FBI boss Hoover and protege Clyde Tolson

This queering of FBI history does not seem like the stuff of fringe theatre. Created by American comedy royalty – Harry Shearer, a long-time cast member of The Simpsons, pens the book and lyrics with Tom Leopold, of Cheers and Seinfeld writing fame – the music is by the late Peter Matz, known for his work with Barbra Streisand. Alongside those commercial chops, Mad Men actor Bryan Batt plays the lead. It is even more curious that, as a very American story about the life and times of the eponymous first director of the bureau, it premieres in Britain.

It has been decades in the making too (beginning life on radio in the 1990s). How has it ended up here?

Underbelly Boulevard Soho, London
A grab-bag of awkward ‘lessons learned’ by a middle-aged entertainer reflecting on her journey, the US comic’s song-filled show has savour and schmaltz

Among Americans, Tony award-winner (“and four-time Tony award loser,” as she self-deprecates here) Laura Benanti is a well-loved Broadway doyenne. But prior to national treasure status (boosted by her popular Melania Trump skits in recent years), she was a blushing innocent, performing on the Great White Way aged 18, being propositioned by bigshot producers and breaking her neck in a revival of Into the Woods. A “pathological people pleaser,” she didn’t raise a fuss, and the injury was covered up.

This eyebrow-raising history contains quite enough to justify a 65-minute solo show about being, in Benanti’s words, a “recovering ingenue”. And when that’s what Nobody Cares is, it’s at its strongest. Delivered with musical director Todd Almond plus two-piece backing band, the show is cringingly funny about the younger Benanti’s conflict avoidance, as she lurches from one disastrous relationships to another and squirms out of a marriage proposal in the least appropriate way imaginable.

Marylebone theatre, London
Christine Lahti tells the story of family life, misunderstandings between mothers and daughters, and her career – but its focus is blurred

Christine Lahti’s autobiographical show addresses many important issues and emotional pressure points. It is the story of family life, misunderstandings between mothers and daughters, Lahti’s career trajectory, a second wave feminist awakening and a post #MeToo reflection on a time in showbusiness when the casting couch was the norm and female actors were judged for their “fuckability”.

All in the space of 90 minutes. That is the problem here. Lahti stands on Sarah Beaton’s near empty stage design with occasional neon lights (why?) and a white sofa covered in “upscale plastic” to evoke the sterility of the unhomely 1950s Michigan home in which she grew up, and her parents’ demand for perfectionism.

The showcase library’s centenary was celebrated by thousands who filled the still-relevant public institution

The central library in downtown Los Angeles has seen its fair share of colorful moments.

The architectural gem, which turned 100 this week, has been the backdrop to the epic street battle between Pacino, De Niro et al in Heat, and was where the original Ghostbusters came across their first ghost, a friendly older lady librarian who was anything but. Television shows such as Moonlighting, Murder, She Wrote and LA Law filmed there too, when characters were researching or investigating a case.

The British actor on no-nonsense women, learning her lines in the bath and encountering a ‘nation of beautiful people’ while filming a new medical drama in Australia

You’re starring in Australian medical drama The F Ward. What was the best medical fact you learned on set?

Some of the operations I studied and watched in order to emulate them, I couldn’t believe that the patient was alive. Half of their body was outside of them; that should be inside!

The film helped me realise that getting out into nature would also allow me to escape my anxieties, but I started to see the costs of constant escape

It’s 5.30am, and I’m waking up on a granite slab overlooking the Domeland Wilderness, with nothing but forest, stone and silence for miles. I am 44 days into hiking the Pacific Crest Trail – a journey of about 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada through desert scrubland, pine forests, deep valleys, volcanic terrain and alpine mountains. Each day, I walk about 20 miles with everything I need for the next four months on my back.

I was 16 when I first watched Into the Wild, the film telling the true story of Christopher McCandless, an adventurer who gave up his middle-class life to live in the wilderness. I’d always had a sense of adventure and was enticed by the idea of breaking away from expectations and moving through the world on my own terms. I began to fantasise about escaping my north London bubble to live somewhere as remote and unknown as the wild American landscapes in the film.

The writer of cult hit If Women Rose Rooted is on a mission to bring folklore to modern readers. She talks about confronting her fears, communing with nature – and the power that comes with age

Like many of the wise women in her books, Sharon Blackie lives miles from anyone. Hers is the only house on the road winding through a valley deep in the Yorkshire Dales. The River Eden runs along the bottom of her garden, which overlooks the ruins of a castle built, as legend has it, by King Arthur’s father. The writer shares this romantic idyll with three border collies, six sheep, nine hens and her husband, David Knowles, a former RAF Tornado pilot.

It seems an appropriate setting for an author who is on a mission to bring fairytales to modern readers. Blackie runs spiritual retreats and workshops at the nearby Broughton Sanctuary and publishes a popular Substack called The Art of Enchantment. Her books, including word-of-mouth hits such as If Women Rose Rooted and Hagitude, are a beguiling mix of memoir, mythology and eco-feminism – manifestos for a better way of living.

Your friend gave you little choice but to end your relationship. You were right to prioritise your own wellbeing

I had a friend who I always felt on edge around, but I tried to push past that and give them an opportunity. They had experienced childhood trauma and had mental health issues. I put my discomfort down to having to be a bit more accommodating.

They seemed incapable of maintaining friendships and would paint themselves as a victim, saying they constantly get ghosted.

Vieni dances a fine line where British Italian restaurants often fail

Vieni, an Italian restaurant in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham, is small, Sicilian and scrappy. The Instagram bio of its chef and founder Angelina Adamo reads, “Bite off more than you can chew and learn how to fucking chew”, which feels like a battle cry for almost everyone stepping into hospitality, especially independent places like Vieni, where the waters are choppy and your skillset needs to be varied. Arancini with one hand, signing off payroll and ordering loo paper with the other.

Vieni, which is about a mile or so from the city’s Bull Ring, is a million miles from Albert’s Schloss, Big Mamma’s La Bellezza and the multitude of vast, impersonal pleasure machines that have spread their legs in Brum city centre. Of course, a gigantic Rosa’s serving pad thai and Tattu with a plastic purple flower ceiling all have their place, and make people happy, but I have joy in my heart for places like Vieni.

Our writer braved smelly pits to see which deodorants, from aluminium-free sticks and creams to long-lasting balms and roll-ons, pass the sniff test

• 12 sustainable toiletries subscriptions that make life easier

Like many people, I’m becoming more concerned about sustainability and the ingredients in my personal care products. Natural deodorants have become more appealing, especially with refillable options becoming more common. Unlike antiperspirants, which tend to use aluminium salts to reduce sweating, natural deodorants are usually aluminium-free. Instead, many use absorbent powders, such as tapioca starch, to soak up moisture, alongside ingredients such as sodium bicarbonate to help neutralise the odour caused by bacteria.

Once confined to health shops, they’re now firmly mainstream, with sticks, creams and roll-ons lining the shelves and making bold claims about effectiveness and gentleness. But do they work? In practice, results are far less predictable. Natural deodorants don’t behave like antiperspirants, and what feels effective for one person may fall short for another. Choosing one tends to involve a fair bit of trial and error.

Best natural deodorant overall:
Luna Daily the All Over deodorant

Best budget refillable deodorant:
Wild refillable natural deodorant

Our writer trekked more than 50 miles to find stylish pairs that can go the distance, whether you’re hiking, sightseeing or commuting

• The best hiking boots for women – tested

Whether you’re planning countryside rambles, hilly walks, or just want practical, cool footwear for your next holiday, walking sandals will be your new hot-weather-adventure best friends.

The best walking sandals should offer the grip and support of a hiking shoe but without the bulk or heat, and cope just as well with rural trails as they do with pavements. With so many options available, from sporty trail designs to more polished, wear-anywhere styles, it’s worth knowing what to look for before you buy.

Best walking sandals overall:
Vivobarefoot Tracker Ora

Best budget walking sandals:
Jack Wolfskin Ridge

From blackout masks that block 5am sunshine to silk Bluetooth masks that feel cool on your skin, these eye masks could genuinely improve your sleep

• The most-hyped sleep remedies, tried and tested

The best product I’ve ever reviewed for the Filter cost less than £10 and sent me to sleep. When I tested sleep aids last year in an effort to tackle insomnia, an eye mask helped me nod off faster and stay asleep for longer than numerous purported zzz-enhancers, including magnesium and lavender spray. Between you and me, it also worked better than the melatonin tablets I’d brought back from a trip to the US.

Even so, when I was asked to test a range of eye masks for this article, I didn’t expect the cheap MyHalos blackout mask to retain its pole position. Masks from leading sleep brands Tempur and Manta Sleep, and therapeutic tech specialists such as Therabody, use innovative designs to calm your mind and even sync with your heartbeat. The Lumenate Nova, which deploys soothing LED light therapy, reportedly has Jennifer Aniston among its many fans.

Best budget eye mask and best overall:
MyHalos blackout 3D sleep mask

Best Bluetooth eye mask:
SnoozeBand Pro

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The chef and restaurateur talks vintage plates, proper photo albums and cycling with the Filter

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Angela Hartnett is a chef and restaurateur known for her sophisticated yet simple Italian cooking. Her passion for food was instilled in her by her Italian mother and grandmother. After starting out in Gordon Ramsay’s kitchens at Aubergine and Pétrus, Angela became head chef at Pétrus, helping the restaurant achieve a Michelin star. In 2008, she co-opened the now Michelin-starred Murano in London’s Mayfair with Gordon Ramsay before taking full ownership two years later. Several Café Muranos have followed, as have Hartnett Holder & Co at Lime Wood in Hampshire and Cicoria at the Royal Opera House.

She co-hosts the podcast, Dish from Waitrose, with Nick Grimshaw. She has an MBE and an OBE for services to the hospitality industry and to the NHS during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cooked vegetables, pickles and good mayonnaise are key components of this traditional but adaptable dish

In much of the world, including Russia itself, this richly satisfying collation is known as salade olivier, after the 19th-century Belgian-born chef credited with its creation. Its wide popularity is testament to its adaptability and essential deliciousness: robust enough for picnics and packed lunches, it also keeps well and is great paired with just about anything, from fish to a simple green salad.

Prep 40 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 4

Hot summer days call for a pasta dish that’s treated like salad leaves – tossed gently through a fresh, room-temperature sauce

In her encyclopaedic but not at all stuffy book about Neapolitan food, Jeanne Caròla Francesconi provides half a dozen recipes for pasta with raw tomato sauces suitable for hot days. The one I always notice is vermicelli all’insalata, because of the arrangement of the words. Not the familiar insalata di pasta (pasta salad), but all’insalata (like a salad), which serves as a reminder that, as with salad, the important thing with this family of recipes is that the pasta is treated like leaves of salad and tossed gently but thoroughly with plenty of tasty and suitably cut condiments and dressing.

The dressing in this instance is the result of mixing two recipes that we used to make during cooking lessons on hot days at the old Latteria Studio: pasta with courgette, and pasta with double tomato sauce. The courgette softened in plenty of olive oil with spring onion is the warm part of the recipe, while a raw and juicy salsa of tomato, garlic and herbs provides the room-temperature element.

Tomatoes come into their own in summer, but which supermarket offerings are super sweet, firm and juicy and which are forgettably flavourless?

• The best supermarket salad bags

From brick-red to intense maroon, the tomatoes in this test varied greatly, with the most flavourful ones often also being the richest in tone. I measured the sugar content using a Brix refractometer, and the tomatoes’ sweetness also varied hugely, from a sometimes bland and watery Brix score of four (each point represents 1% sucrose in the juice by mass) to a satisfyingly sweet seven.

I also scored the tomatoes on overall flavour. The sweetness of the best examples is well balanced, with a refreshing acidity, a fresh and potent tomato leaf aroma, and a complex umami profile that provides an explosion of flavour in the mouth. I also awarded points for value for money, provenance, transparency and growing methods – though, disappointingly, an organic certification did not necessarily equal the flavour I’ve come to expect.

Bring the flavours – and heat – of Athens into your kitchen, with this traditional salad baked for an added sweetness and jamminess

Greeks, look away now! Those who don’t turn on the oven in the summer months might want to turn the page, too. Personally, I don’t mind putting something in the oven in summer, not least because I enjoy that the oven does the work when I might not want to. I even quite like that cheeky blast of heat when I open the door, imagining briefly that I’m on the streets of Athens. I digress … Today’s recipe is for a Greek salad (minus the cucumber) that’s roasted to make the flavours sweeter and more jammy, then cut with briny feta and cooked with orzo to fill bellies after a long summer’s day.

At work, Alison Muir’s relationship with Peter Thorn veered between flirtation and hostility, until one day he stopped sidestepping his feelings

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

In 1990, I’d started an exciting job as executive assistant to the director and chief curator of the not-yet-opened Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. On my first day, I was introduced to Peter, the museum’s talented publications manager. I smiled as I shook his hand, but he made no distinct impression.

As I settled into my role, I felt as if he was deliberately avoiding me. I chalked it up to his apparent conceit as, along with good looks, he had a swagger and confidence that made half the female staff infatuated with him.

Hugh, 55, a teacher and musician, meets Edie, 50, an independent advocate

What were you hoping for?
An exciting, exhilarating experience and a beautiful lady to talk to.

Guardian readers tackle a thorny topic and share their stories of dating a friend’s ex – or a friend dating their ex

Life is full of big, messy questions. How should we spend our finite time on Earth? What is the nature of good and evil? And, thorniest of all: is it OK to date a friend’s ex?

This year, reality TV fans debated this question with vim and verbosity when it was revealed that Bravo reality stars Amanda Batula and West Wilson had started kissing (!) and dating (!!) even though West had broken the heart of Amanda’s best friend, Ciara Miller.

The more unusual you are, the more unusual it is to find people like you, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. With time, her world will expand

• Read more Leading questions

Our teen daughter is a deeply sensitive, perceptive kid who longs for close friendship but often feels sidelined; she reads slights quickly, ruminates and compares herself harshly. Her 16th birthday was heartbreaking: the in-person warmth and social-media love she expected didn’t materialise, and she’s crushed. We try to parent with empathy and backbone, validating her feelings while nudging her towards agency: widening her circles, getting busier and repairing frayed ties without begging for approval.

But how do we wisely accompany a teenager whose self-worth is repeatedly tested by imperfect peers (in her mind at least) and the distortions of online recognition? What practices, language and boundaries help a highly sensitive adolescent convert disappointment into dignity and build friendships rooted in mutual regard rather than constant self-surveillance?

They are out to steal your password to commit further fraud such as crypto scams or phishing attacks

You have had an X account for years, since it was known as Twitter. When an email arrives about a new login from a location nowhere near where you live, alarm bells begin to ring.

“We noticed a login to your account from a new device. Was this you?” the email asks.

Vibrant areas for young workers who plan to rent while saving for a deposit and then get on the property ladder

• The new 100% mortgages for first-time buyers

• Homes to rent before buying in cities

The common property rite of passage for graduates and career-focused first jobbers has changed over the past decade. Many careers used to start in London, and an early house-share would be followed by a first flat purchase, then a move to somewhere bigger.

However, the heavy burden of housing costs in the capital is making would-be first-time buyers stop and evaluate whether – even with London weighting on some wages – it is possible to get on the ladder there.

Almost half of working-age adults in the UK do not save into a pension. Four readers explain why they fear for the future

“I am 35 and have essentially nothing saved for my future, which is a huge concern.” Sarah* works in library services in Oxford – full-time at one library and part-time at another. She has saved £5,000 into her pension.

After finishing her PhD in 2020, she said she had “good intentions of contributing to pension schemes. But because I then had a succession of part-time jobs, I never started. I never thought, this is a job I’ll be doing for long enough.”

Banks and building societies have started relaxing affordability rules and becoming more creative with products

For many first-time buyers, getting their foot on the property ladder can feel like an impossible dream. However, the good news is that there are a growing number of mortgage deals that require only a small deposit, or no deposit at all.

Metro Bank is the latest high street lender to launch a deal that allows eligible first-timers to borrow up to 100% of the value of a property. Home loans that let people borrow 100% have been making a bit of a comeback – they were once fairly commonplace but were axed after the 2008 financial crisis.

The England defender wears a tracker, the heptathlete is experimenting with kiwi fruits – and world champion swimmer Adam Peaty swears by hours and hours of history videos …

Katarina Johnson-Thompson

From mattresses to saucepans, scientists offer tweaks to help detoxify your space

The problem Whenever we burn anything inside our homes, we cause indoor air pollution, whether we’re cooking using gas, frying bacon, lighting a wood burner, an open fire, a cigarette or incense, or ruining the toast. “ We spend 80-90% of our time indoors,” says Prof Francis Pope, chair of atmospheric science at the University of Birmingham. “And there is potential to have quite high concentrations of pollution indoors. This affects your respiratory and cardiovascular systems; certain components are carcinogenic, and there’s a growing body of evidence that air pollution affects cognition. In the long term, you get awful diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s. But relatively short exposures to air pollution are linked to things like educational outcome, workplace productivity and general mental wellbeing.”

As a teenager I declined a painful operation to straighten my spinal curvature, and it was a decision I sometimes regretted. But through daily stretching and exercise, my relationship with my body was transformed

I was 13 when a spinal surgeon gave me unsolicited career advice. “Scoliosis won’t ruin your life,” he said, peering over his spectacles, “unless you want to do bikini modelling.” As a young teenager, I hadn’t thought much about job prospects, let alone modelling, but his words stung. It also curdled my situation into a lose-lose scenario: either have a painful operation to fuse metal rods with my spine, or endure a lifetime with an abnormally twisted back.

Until this point, I’d perceived my spinal curvature in terms of the inward experience: pain. Now, I became aware of an external dimension: a disfigurement. Something to be hidden. This did me no favours as a teenager in the age of Instagram. While I declined the operation due to the risks and the extended leave from school, the surgeon’s blithe remark burdened me with shame.

Analysis of 12 indicators including asthma, obesity and vaccination finds child health is ‘national embarrassment’

Children in the UK will grow up to be one of the unhealthiest generations in decades, with child health outcomes having declined or stalled completely across all areas, a group of leading paediatricians has said.

Reduced vaccination rates alongside rising hospital admissions for asthma and mental health disorders are all contributing factors to the UK’s record on children’s health, which should be seen as a “national embarrassment”, their analysis has found.

From Lily Collins at Wimbledon to the cast of Love Island, heels-averse cohort is stepping it up a notch

Gen Z, the flats-only generation, has finally succumbed to the heel – albeit a tiny one. Long vocally anti-heel, the cohort who were born between 1997 and 2012 have famously shunned millennials’ obsession with Jimmy Choos in favour of pancake-flat shoes, from the Adidas Samba “It-trainer” to the split-toe Margiela Tabi and so-called “French girl ballet flats”.

But they now appear to be embracing a potential gateway heel, typically measuring in the region of 1.5in (3.8cm) or the height of a triple-A battery.

From M&S to Miu Miu, 50s US school gym staple adopted by 70s rockers is having its moment in the sun again

If the T-shirt is a ubiquitous sight on summer streets, fashion loves nothing more than changing up something very familiar. Enter, this summer, the rise of the ringer T-shirt.

A T-shirt shape but with contrast colour on the collar and ends of the short sleeves, the garment has been spotted at brands ranging from Marks & Spencer to Ganni, Hush and Levi’s.

Designers say that as well as offering a degree of protection from surveillance, their clothes make a powerful fashion statement about the importance of privacy

As facial recognition technology is rolled out across Britain’s public spaces, a new generation of designers say privacy could be the next big fashion trend.

Companies have started incorporating “adversarial patterns” in their garments – carefully designed arrangements of shapes, colours and repeated motifs said to exploit weaknesses in some computer vision systems.

Using tinted tips and undercuts, footballers are rewriting what ‘professional’ looks like in elite sport in the process

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At the World Cup this summer locs, or what are commonly known as “dreadlocks”, have become as ubiquitous as free kicks. Defenders pin theirs back for clear sight-lines; forwards loosen and shape theirs for the cameras.

Antoine Semenyo of Ghana paired his with a sharp undercut. Spain’s Nico Williams bleaches his tips. Belgium winger Jeremy Doku has a mix of blond tinted tips, cornrowed. England’s Eberechi Eze has a variant styled into cornrows, while his former Crystal Palace teammate (and soon to be similarly gutted opponent in Saturday’s third-place “bronze” play-off) France’s Michael Olise opts for a slickly styled taper fade, a technique that emphasises the volume of the locs on top. Manu Koné, also of Les Bleus, has sported braided locs, while Switzerland’s attacking midfielder Johan Manzambi has gone for jumbo locs in combination with rope-like, protective Senegalese twists.

With bus fares capped at £3 and free for kids in August, it’s the ideal time for wildlife watching, woodland walks, world-class art and more

Trips to waterfalls, gardens, galleries, medieval forests and prehistoric caves will make the long school holidays a lot more fun. To help families explore affordably, throughout August buses in England will be free for kids and adult fares will be capped at £3 single. Or, if you arrive somewhere by train, you could buy a PlusBus ticket, which include unlimited local bus travel. Here are six ideas for family outings by bus around England.

From 100,000 sunflowers in Gower and cosmic art in Galloway to a bat safari and messing about in boats, there’s enough here to keep you and the kids busy till September

At the westernmost tip of the Gower peninsula, Rhossili Bay is a gloriously wide sweep of sand, backed by dunes and licked with waves perfect for bodyboarding and surfing. Wild ponies graze on the southern headland, while walkers time their trip across to the serpent-like Worm’s Head promontory to not get cut off by the tide.

From a boat tour in Northern Ireland to a farm with great ice-cream in Surrey, you share your top tips for day trips

The MV Kestrel has been taking boat tours out from Enniskillen on Lower Lough Erne for as long I can remember. We were brought out as primary schoolchildren on a geography field trip and I was recently a passenger for a civilised stag party. It’s popular for a reason: the tour (adults £15, under-12s £11) passes the old alma mater of Oscar Wilde and Samuel Beckett (Portora Royal School), and stops at the sixth-century monastic settlement on Devenish island. The silence out here has to be heard (or rather not heard) to be believed. The lough is beautiful regardless of the weather – and with this being Fermanagh, if you don’t like the weather just give it 10 minutes.
Tom

Preston and St Helens were heartbeats of the industrial age, but their power faded. In the last of our series, we discover how their legacy is finally being celebrated

• Where tourists seldom tread, parts 1-20

This double act of “Lancashire” locations is my final celebration of Britain’s bypassed towns. My native county has dominated my life of late, and one key question asked in these columns has been: can you holiday right at home?

The French author Xavier de Maistre believed you could fit a journey inside a single room. And in Instructions on How to Climb a Staircase the Argentine-French writer Julio Cortázar turned a walk upstairs into a quest. An entire county offers enough adventures to fill a life.

Death salons are spaces that allow free-flowing conversations about mortality and are becoming more popular around the country

In a small cream-colored room at a cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Nefertiti Moor sat at the head of a semicircle. Dressed in black with her long hair in locs, she delivered instructions for the evening discussion. “It’s not death counseling or a debate,” said Moor. She invited the two women in attendance to talk freely about their cultural associations with dying and grief. Tasha Johnson, who worked in behavioral health, said that she felt desensitized after the recent deaths of several people she knew. She was grappling with “the reality that it can be anyone at any point”.

The free-flowing conversation about mortality, otherwise known as a death salon or death cafe, was unique in that it was designed for people of color. Death salons for marginalized communities are becoming more common around the country, with practitioners addressing the unique end-of-life concerns of queer, trans, or Black and brown people. Acting on a lifelong interest in how communities process grief, Moor became a death doula, a non-medical professional who provides emotional and practical support to people who are dying and to their loved ones.

The singer on struggling with the English weather, a secret celebrity crush, and her terror of tinned spaghetti

Born in Sydney, Australia, to an Italian father and Australian mother, Natalie Imbruglia, 51, joined the cast of Neighbours at the age of 17. In 1997, she released her debut album, Left of the Middle, which gave her the global hit single Torn. She releases her seventh studio album, Algorithm, on 4 September. She lives in Oxfordshire with her son.

What is your greatest fear?
As an Italian, tinned spaghetti. As a child, I was once served it at someone’s house. It was quite frightening.

Accompanying my wife on a morning walk is a humbling experience – not least because our pet enjoys better name recognition than I do

I don’t normally do the morning dog walk; it’s my wife’s thing. But we’re going away for the weekend straight afterwards, so on this particular Friday it makes sense for us to go together. The park is more or less on the way out of town.

“Morning!” my wife sings, waving at someone in the car park.

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.

After killing of a British former MP, experts say dehumanising rhetoric, declining institutional trust and disinformation fuelling a global problem

On 9 July, the body of Ann Widdecombe, an uncompromising, staunchly conservative former UK government minister turned TV personality and spokesperson for the radical-right Reform UK party, was found at her home in south-west England.

Two days later, a man was arrested in South Yorkshire. Believed to be previously unknown to the local police force and thought to have acted alone, he is suspected of driving 270 miles (435km) to the 78-year-old politician’s home and causing her catastrophic blunt-force injuries. Police have been examining whether a leftwing or single-issue cause may lie behind her killing.

The actor seemed destined for a long but unflashy career in musical theatre – until a role as a football club owner in the TV hit changed everything. She talks about her new Hollywood era, calling out misogyny and why she’s ‘more than just camp’

Hannah Waddingham clears her throat. Her voice is a little scratchy. Two days before we meet, the star of Ted Lasso hosted the TV comedy show Saturday Night Live UK. She took part in almost all of the sketches that night, from a skit about “two top-heavy, Reading-based drama teachers” called Janet, to a musical number about how many glasses of wine to drink at a bar, to a bit in which she played the stern northern leader of a speed awareness course. In her opening monologue, she zipped through a variety of accents and impressions. “You see?” she told the cheering crowd. “Range! Range.”

I should have remembered this line when making small talk. We are tucked away in the hidden private dining room of a hotel in London, the city where the actor was born and raised and where she still lives with her young daughter. When Waddingham walks through the lobby, people notice her. She is tall, striking, and wearing the pulled-down baseball cap that is an actor’s day-off uniform. During lockdown, Ted Lasso – the amiable football series in which she plays Rebecca Welton, the owner of a fictional team called AFC Richmond – made her famous on both sides of the Atlantic. In 2021, it won her an Emmy award for outstanding supporting actress in a comedy series. At 47, after a long but unflashy career on stage and screen, there was a sense that her time had come.

Falling pupil numbers have left ‘unique’ London school facing an uncertain future, but its supporters have ambitious plans

Sandwiched between a strip club, a West End theatre and a pub might not be the most obvious location for a school but Soho Parish C of E primary has thrived for decades among the colourful charms of inner London.

But in an area that once had 16 schools, Soho Parish is the last remaining and its time may soon be up, a victim of the post-Covid downturn and falling pupil numbers that are forecast to close hundreds of primary schools across England.

If you’re wearing the new glasses, we want to know more about how you’re using them. We’d also like to hear from people about how they feel about others around them wearing the glasses

With over seven million pairs of glasses reported to have been sold by Meta in 2025, it is clear that their popularity is growing and we’d like to find out more about how people are using them.

There have been some concerns around nonconsensual filming and the data protection of users, however the glasses have proved life-changing for those with visual impairments and hearing loss.

Ahead of Andy Burnham taking over from Keir Starmer, we’d like to hear what qualities, values and priorities people want to see in the next prime minister

Andy Burnham is to become the next prime minister after winning the backing of 349 of the party’s MPs to replace Keir Starmer.

In a recent op-ed in The Times, Burnham wrote: “Doing politics differently means levelling with the public, engaging them in decisions and ensuring more social value in return for increased government spending.”

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is interested in hearing from couples, partners and former lovers to talk about their sex lives

How often do you have sex? The Guardian is looking for couples to talk honestly – and completely anonymously – about what they get up to in the bedroom for the Saturday magazine’s much-loved This is How We Do It column.

The idea behind the column is to provide a counterpoint to the airbrushed, exaggerated stories about sex we see on TV and in the media. We want to publish un-sensationalised interviews with real couples, so we are particularly keen to hear from you if you have hit a roadblock in your sexual life. How do you navigate intimacy when your partner wants sex more than you do? Or after an affair? Or when you are not feeling spectacular about your body?

We’re looking for couples of all ages and sexualities. We would not publish your names or where you live.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

We want to hear from those working or living at sea, including maritime workers, sailors, port staff and family about how the situation is affecting their work

The conflict in the Middle East continues to disrupt shipping across the region, including in the strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.

Donald Trump has once again threatened to take control of the strait of Hormuz, as he announced the reimposition of a naval blockade on Iran and demanded a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the key maritime passage.

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Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, wildfires in Europe, ICE in Maine and the World Cup semi-finals – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists