Tomorrow is Andy Burnham’s day of destiny as he seeks to return to parliament in a bid to become prime minister. Our North of England correspondent Hannah Al-Othman answered your questions – read the Q&A below.

ruthj70 asks: Should I go and volunteer to support Labour tomorrow, or have people in Makerfield had enough of people knocking on their doors?

Hannah: I think that question is probably best answered by the Labour Party, but I’d imagine they wouldn’t say no! People may generally be a bit fed up with people knocking on their doors – but I think they probably expect it will happen on polling day.

Hannah: The ticket he is standing on is mostly based around local policies. He has pledged: to build new flooding infrastructure, build a new link road, and to clear that toxic waste dump in Bickershaw that I wrote about last weekend. He’s also promised a new health centre, pharmacy and GP surgery in various parts of the constituency, and to save a local library. Burnham has also said he’ll fight a controversial housing development that some people locally are opposing, due to a potential loss of green belt countryside and destruction of ancient trees.

The main local issues I’ve found in the constituency are environmental ones such as flooding, transport issues, and public services, as well as a general sense that the area has been neglected and the high streets have become run down. Burnham’s ticket seems to be broadly designed to appeal to these local concerns.

Ten years ago, after complaining that traffic was ‘driving him nuts’, Musk’s Boring Company began building underground tunnels to ease congestion on the roads. Did he overpromise and underdeliver?

It’s another blindingly bright day in Las Vegas but I’m 30ft underground and strapped in for a rocket ride to the future. Actually, it’s a Tesla ride to the future, and not a self-driving one. And it’s pretty slow – my driver tells me the speed limit down here is 30mph. It’s also pretty short: the journey is over in a matter of minutes. In fact, the Vegas Loop is a pretty underwhelming experience: a brief trundle down a white-walled tunnel only slightly larger than the vehicle itself, lined by strips of LEDs that change colour every few seconds, in an attempt to inject some Vegas glitz. I’d been hoping to ask other Loop-riders what they made of the experience, but … there aren’t any. I’m the only person here.

This is not the futuristic transport solution Elon Musk originally promised. When he first announced this innovative technology in 2017, it was accompanied by sci-fi visuals showing a car pulling over from the street traffic on to an elevator platform, which then descended into a network of tunnels and whizzed along on an “electric skate” at 200km/h (124mph). “There’s no real limit to how many levels of tunnel you can have … so you can alleviate any arbitrary level of urban congestion,” Musk said. A few months earlier, with characteristic edgelordly nonchalance, Musk had announced on Twitter: “Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” Followed shortly after by: “I am actually going to do this.” He did, and he named it the Boring Company.

The BBC debate seems dominated by its foes and commercial rivals, but a new survey reveals a hitherto silent majority in supportive voice

The battle for the soul and future of the BBC is clearly under way. It’s charter decision year; Trump is after the corporation’s scalp; parliamentary committees are embroiled in the vexed questions of how to pay for public service broadcasting and what to do about the relentless expansion of streamers; and the new director general is imprisoned in yet another round of cuts. Oh, and the Doctor Who Christmas special has been junked this year. Just to spice things up, Michael Grade has peppered this newspaper with the old charge that the BBC is part of the London metropolitan elite.

It’s not looking good for Auntie. Where is the love? Why is this great British institution not in the same position as the NHS – criticised of course, but revered in a way that means no political party – not even Reform or Restore – would think of advocating abolition?

Ten years after she was forced to leave her friends and family, the Turkish journalist feels the importance of home more keenly than ever. And she believes it is at the heart of many of the world’s conflicts

One summer’s evening in 2022, the Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran found herself in a doctor’s office in Hamburg, Germany, lying flat on a stretcher with an IV drip in her arm. After six intense years of work and travel, her body was in revolt. “I now know that I need to talk,” she writes in her latest book, Nation of Strangers, which was shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s prize for nonfiction. “I fear that not speaking will make me really sick. And when homeless, you cannot afford to get sick.”

In fact, she had not been silent in the preceding years: she had published two well-received books, How To Lose a Country: The Seven Steps from Democracy to Fascism (2019) and Together: A Manifesto Against a Heartless World (2021). She had spoken her warnings in public, too, on stages all across the west, saying: this is what happened to us in Turkey – make sure it doesn’t happen to you, too. And she is not technically homeless; she lives in Berlin. But by “speaking” and by “home”, Temelkuran means something specific yet vast. Nation of Strangers posits that the idea of home, and the emotions that idea contains, is one of the dominant political forces of our time.

With Two Weeks in August and the return of The Four Seasons, TV dramas about nightmare getaways are having a moment. Here are Guardian readers’ tales of their own

In early 1969, my parents booked a holiday in Belfast for one week and a bed and breakfast in Dublin for one week. When we arrived at our Belfast destination, The Elsinore Hotel, there wasn’t another car in the parking lot and the hotel was empty except for the aged husband and wife owners. Being 12 years old, I didn’t think too much at the time about the quiet, empty place but the owners invited the whole family down to the dining room every evening and we enjoyed some great meals. Lots of pictures of JFK and the pope adorned many of the hotel walls and being a Catholic family ourselves, the hosts made a big fuss of us.

The right is obsessed with ‘two-tier policing’. This is indeed a two-tier government – but the real victims are progressives

“If you are targeting people on the basis of the colour of their skin,” the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn, asked last week, “how else can you describe them? That is racist thuggery.” It is. But there is another way of describing the actions of the rioters burning people out of their homes in Belfast, though ministers somehow cannot bring themselves to say it. Terrorism.

The violence there clearly meets the government’s definition: “the use or threat” of actions designed to “intimidate the public” for the purpose of “advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause”. Among these actions are “serious violence against a person” and “serious damage to property”. I happen to believe that the property clause blurs the issue. But either way, in what possible world do the Belfast attacks not fit the definition?

British retirees Jane and Alan Kelvey say they do not want incident in Channel to stop them enjoying their sailing trip

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A British woman on a yacht in the Channel near which a Russian warship fired warning shots has told how she does not want the incident to be blown out of proportion, saying: “We don’t want world war three to start because of this.”

Jane Kelvey, 69, and her husband, Alan, 70, were on their yacht, Bright Future, travelling from the south coast of England towards France on Tuesday when they came into close contact with the Admiral Grigorovich, a 409ft (125-metre) Russian frigate.

Rachael Maskell said she hoped Andy Burnham could become prime minister before the Labour party conference in September

Andy Burnham may have trouble getting through to Keir Starmer if he tries ringing him after the Makerfield byelection to urge him to set a timetable for his departure. Burnham reportedly wants to call Starmer this weekend. (See 9.47am.) But, in his interview with Sky News, Starmer said: “I’m sure I’ll talk to Andy after the weekend.”

If Starmer declines to take Burnham’s call, he may be following Ed Miliband’s example. In a Times story today, Patrick Maguire and Steven Swinford report:

Sir Keir Starmer’s relationship with Ed Miliband has broken down to such an extent that the energy secretary has been accused of “ghosting” the prime minister in recent weeks.

Senior government sources claimed that Miliband declined to take calls from the prime minister during a tense stand-off over defence spending.

The moment was published by the White House after the US president walking into the summit for Wednesday morning’s session

Rutte says the adjustment in the US pledge to the Nato Force Model is “not primarily about where forces and assets are currently, but about who would do what if our defence plans were activated.”

He says historically the model was “overly reliant” on the US.

“You will likely have seen news adjusting its contributions to the Nato force model. In some cases, this has been cast as a problem, as the US pulling away from its allies, but that is not the reality. The US has made clear that it is committed to Nato.

That commitment comes with an expectation that allies will more fairly share the responsibility for our security here in Europe.”

Pamphlets from event featured projects in West Bank and East Jerusalem despite previous denials by organisers

An Israeli real estate event in north London appears to have advertised the sale of land in Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, despite previous denials that illegal settlement properties would be marketed at the event.

Pamphlets shared with the Guardian from the event on Sunday showed real estate projects in Ma’ale Adumim, Givat Ze’ev, Kfar Eldad and Teneh Omarim in the occupied West Bank, as well as Ramat Eshkol and Givat Hamatos in East Jerusalem.

Sudden shifts from wet to dry weather, or vice versa, may foil typical drought- and flood-prevention measures

Rising temperatures may trigger a dangerous increase in “hydroclimatic whiplash” in rivers that would make traditional approaches to flood and drought planning insufficient, a study has found.

As temperatures rise owing to the worsening climate crisis, rivers will experience increasingly rapid transitions between heavy downpours and long dry spells – called hydroclimatic whiplash events – because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, intensifying rainfall extremes.

Exclusive: Cain has been lauded by corporation for his appeal to young men despite history of abusive and misogynistic remarks

• Warning: this article contains sexually explicit, offensive language

A BBC presenter lauded by the corporation for his appeal to young male audiences has a history of making abusive and misogynistic remarks about women, whom he has variously called “slags”, “sluts”, “psychos” and “bitches”, the Guardian can reveal.

Ashley Cain is the presenter of the BBC Three documentary series Ashley Cain: Into the Danger Zone, which was filmed on location earlier this year after the BBC commissioned a second series.

Education secretary describes historical practice in England as a ‘shameful period’ in country’s history

Downing Street is to make a full apology on behalf of the state to those affected by historical forced adoption in England, the education secretary has confirmed.

Bridget Phillipson, giving evidence to MPs on the education select committee on Wednesday, described it as a “shameful period” in UK history.

Information commissioner issues formal caution after London private hospital treating royal reported breach

A former healthcare worker at a private hospital in London has been formally cautioned by the UK privacy and data watchdog over the deliberate misuse of the Princess of Wales’s private medical records and offering to disclose them for financial gain.

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched a criminal investigation into the unlawful obtaining and disclosure of medical information to a third party without the consent of the data controller after the London Clinic reported a breach in March 2024.

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It is Wednesday, so you can feast upon your weekly dose of The Knowledge.

Socceroos forward Awer Mabil on that viral video.

The reason why it went viral is because it was raw. It was not edited. It was just purely what the players wanted to say and all put together. It had an effect because individually Australians can feel and relate with it.”

Recent success among Sikh voters in doubt after party’s proposed kirpan ban adds to sense of racist scapegoating

“There’s a genuine battle going on between Reform UK and Labour for Sikh voters,” says Dabinderjit Singh, of the Sikh Federation.

Until the case of Henry Nowak, the 18-year-old stabbed to death by Vickrum Digwa, a British Sikh, hit headlines across the country, traditional support for Labour among British Sikhs was slumping, while support for Reform was rising from a low base. But now the fledgling alliance between some British Sikhs and the populist right is facing its toughest test.

Peter Murrell affair may feature, but contest seen as straight fight between SNP and Tories over energy policy

The contest for Aberdeen South, a constituency that spans urban social housing and detached homes with sculpted gardens, has been dominated by one topic: the future of North Sea oil and gas.

The drama gripping the Labour party at Westminster and Andy Burham’s nascent leadership pitch in Makerfield barely affects this byelection, which also takes place on Thursday. The vote is touted as a straight fight between the Scottish National party and the Conservatives, and one in which energy policy dominates.

Utilita Arena, Newcastle
Expanding on her recent theatre tour, Allen’s one-woman performance of her zeitgeist-dominating album is full of catharsis and high camp

Lily Allen’s arena jaunt is a scaled-up version of the show she took into theatres last year, touring her acclaimed album West End Girl, which at least partly dramatises the real-life breakdown of her four-year marriage to Stranger Things actor David Harbour. Once again, the show opens with string ensemble the Dallas Minor Trio playing instrumental versions of her older hits, which warms up the crowd and provides a rare opportunity to cheerily bellow the likes of The Fear or Fuck You (“very much”) along with several thousand people.

The 41-year-old comes on for the second act, an hour-long one-woman show performing West End Girl with theatrical staging. Looking resplendent – like a modern Ronette – in a dress finished off with a giant bow, she cheerily bounds into the album’s title track. Then she takes a phone call, which leaves her tearful.

After two friends sponsored each other in Alcoholics Anonymous, they started making music. As they gear up for a summer of 40 festivals, the band tell their harrowing yet uplifting story

On stage in a Camden pub, Barry Quinlan, frontman of Irish rockers Bleech 9:3, shares the intensity of Joy Division’s Ian Curtis. He hunches and jerks around the mic stand and his eyes bore a hole in the back wall as jubilant teenagers expand and contract in a circle pit. The gig in mid-May has the same I-was-there energy as early Arctic Monkeys or Fontaines DC shows; with major labels signing Bleech 9:3 on both sides of the Atlantic, dozens of festival dates this summer and a wildly impressive, impassioned five-song debut EP, the band will soon be playing much bigger rooms than this.

But when I meet Barry and his three bandmates earlier on that day, there’s none of that twitchy energy. Bleech 9:3 bring calm to a meeting room in their management company’s offices as staff bustle around outside. That stillness is hard-earned: Barry and guitarist Sam Duffy are each other’s sponsor for Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Quinlan smiles: “It’s an anonymous programme, so we’ll say ‘alleged sponsor’.”

Okra holds a special place in many African-descended communities, and a Canadian farmer with Jamaican roots is growing a very old variety

When Nicole Austin was growing up in Oshawa, Canada, her Jamaican family couldn’t find the foods they enjoyed back on the island. No callaloo, garden eggs or okra. Austin’s grandmother grew certain things in her backyard, but only if she had the necessary seeds.

“It’s often small-scale farmers, farmers of color, Black farmers that make sure that these foods that are culturally significant to us are available, that we grow them, that we share them,” Austin said. “It wasn’t until I’m in these spaces now that I realized how important the place is of farmers of color and Black farmers to make sure that these food histories are maintained and celebrated and shared.”

These tailored trousers are ideal for those sunny days when the forecast looks dodgy later on – or when there’s a heatwave but you still have to go to the office

I think we can probably agree that Audrey Hepburn would not have been seen dead in jorts. The baggy, grunge-adjacent knee-length denims that were everywhere last summer and are creeping back around are definitely cool. Totally a vibe. But elegant they are not.

The capri pant is an undeniably elegant solution to the problem of what to wear when jeans or tailored trousers are too hot and cumbersome, but you don’t want to wear shorts. For instance, when it is sunny while you are getting dressed, but you are going to be out all day and the forecast looks dodgy later on. Or when there is a heatwave but you still have to go to the office, so Daisy Dukes are not going to work.

The practice, which merges pre-Abrahamic African religion, Christianity, and indigenous Caribbean features, has been stigmatised in the region

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Babus, Fakis, Sangomas – these are a few of the names of spiritual or mystical healers and practitioners found all across the African continent. A version of the tradition they follow, obeah, made its way to the Caribbean among enslaved populations, from West Africa. Today, obeah endures, despite colonialism and the adoption of Christianity across much of the Caribbean.

This week, I spoke to our Caribbean correspondent, Natricia Duncan, about the tradition, and a new Jamaican film that highlights aspects of obeah. Our conversation revealed to me that obeah, something I knew very little about, was in fact uncannily familiar.

‘I wanted to celebrate the women who are reinventing morris dancing. They took me to a pub and gave me a pickled egg mashed up in a packet of crisps. I felt like I’d entered a magical world’

Morris used to be a very male-dominated sport, but in 1975 the Morris Federation was created specifically to allow women to join sides. An older organisation, the Morris Ring, didn’t allow teams with women to be members until 2018, yet today women account for more than half of Britain’s Morris dancers. As soon as I heard about Boss Morris, the all-female side in this picture, I wanted to shoot a portrait of them. I was keen to celebrate the evolution of this traditional form of dance by focusing on young women who are both honouring and reinventing it.

When they appeared on stage at the Brits with the band Wet Leg, who I was working with at the time, I thought, “It’s meant to be! If I don’t do it now, someone else will.” It was really hard to pin the group down, as there are so many of them, but as we discussed ideas they all got excited by the idea of doing a summer solstice shoot on Rodborough Common during one of their practice evenings. It’s a great location – an amazing hilly green space right on their doorstep in Stroud.

England’s ‘footballaholic’ head coach may not be motivated by a fan’s passion but he is more than just a gun for hire

Identity lies at the heart of the World Cup. Who are we and how do we play? Does our academy system work better than yours? What do your coaching pathways look like compared with ours? And do you still get a bit emotional every time you watch that BBC montage of England’s penalty shootout win over Colombia at the 2018 World Cup?

Maybe not if you happen to be Thomas Tuchel. This is not a man weighed down by the ghosts of England tournaments past. There is no missed penalty haunting this gangly German intellectual in his sleep, no costly red card in a knockout tie stalking his nightmares. For Tuchel, meaning is found merely in the pursuit of victory. At first glance there is no deeper cultural connection here and, for all the breezy talk of putting a second star on the shirt, there are times when it is hard to understand why Tuchel wants to bring an end to England men’s 60 years of hurt this summer.

A hat-trick against Algeria equalled Miroslav Klose’s World Cup scoring record, but Messi and his teammates insist the mark doesn’t matter to him

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Long after the dust had settled on Argentina’s 3-0 group-stage victory over Algeria on Tuesday night, Algeria and Bayern Leverkusen midfielder Ibrahim Maza wearily emerged from behind a curtain and stepped up to the microphone.

Maza had played well, even assisting on Algeria’s disallowed first goal. He’d also had a front row seat to a Lionel Messi masterclass, just a few yards away from Argentina’s captain when he scored his third goal of the evening and tied Miroslav Klose as the World Cup’s all-time leading scorer. In short order, he was asked to expand on what made Messi unplayable on Tuesday evening.

Midfielder says it is important the European champions have ‘humility’ after their disappointing draw against tournament debutants

The mourning after isn’t always easy, Mikel Merino says – and yes that is mourning with a “u”. “No one died, it’s not a mourning exactly, but at times defeats can feel like that,” the Arsenal midfielder admitted and, although it wasn’t actually a defeat at all, this was one of those times.

A 0-0 draw against Cape Verde in their World Cup opener was not the way Spain dreamed it; now, Merino insisted as the selección returned to their Tennessee training camp six long days before they get the chance to make amends, they must deal with it. Each in their own way, but as a family.

• Focus on business dealings with mining company Ternium

• Guadalajara rally to highlight fate of Mexico’s ‘disappeared’

Hyundai will be targeted by protesters at a rally before the group A game between Mexico and South Korea in Guadalajara on Thursday, due to the World Cup sponsor’s business dealings with the South American mining company Ternium.

A 2025 report from environmental group Mighty Earth criticised Hyundai’s involvement in what they described as a “dirty steel supply chain”, as the South Korean motor company is a major buyer of iron ore from Ternium for use in steel production. Ternium has faced repeated criticisms for its destructive environmental impact and corporate governance policies from campaign groups, as well as its alleged links to the disappearance of two Mexican activists.

Previously unknown players have gained millions of social media followers thanks to attention of tournament

Breakout talent emerges at every World Cup, but in 2026 these players’ actions are not confined to the pitch. Social media has become football’s parallel tournament, an arena where one viral clip can reshape an entire career. Here are some standout risers from the tournament so far.

People understand gender differently, and I was taught to respect all ideas. But the vitriol I recently experienced was not a healthy debate

For as long as I can remember, I have known I am a girl. That certainty is as instinctive as knowing I am right-handed. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never been transgender or loved someone who is, but I have never lived this way to gain an advantage or take something from someone else. I live this way to honor what I know is true.

I transitioned at four years old. By sixth grade, my identity was public. I grew used to the double takes, the questions, the quiet skepticism. Most of it did not bother me. Curiosity, even when clumsy, is human. People understand gender differently, and I was taught to respect all ideas, just as I hope others respect mine.

Lina Haaga is a transgender student athlete

Just as the ‘poverty line’ determines what’s required for basic living, we need a ‘wealth line’ to show when extreme wealth becomes harmful

It was bound to happen eventually: Elon Musk has become the planet’s first trillionaire. Until recently, economists who spoke about “trillions” were describing the GDP of the largest economies or the accumulated value of bequests on their way to the heirs of today’s billionaires. The term is not often used in daily conversation, let alone to describe the wealth of an individual.

But now we have entered a new phase of the oligarchic era. Previously, when we described the wealth of the world’s richest billionaires, it was understood as a few hundred billions. Three years ago, the value of Musk’s total assets was estimated to be about $250bn. The pace at which it has increased is mind-boggling – and so is what it represents.

I thought I’d be dismissed as bigoted or odd. But instead it prompted warm and curious conversations

Britain may be peppered with beautiful churches and Christianity retains its status as the state religion, but in my business, TV drama and publishing, there is a definite queasiness around the faith on which much of our national culture is built.

It’s not the kind of overt hostility with which other faiths are met. It’s more of a suspicion: a not wholly unjustified sense that the church is so tainted with the sins and oppressions of the past that there’s no excuse for a rational mind to have freely taken a regressive turn.

Matthew Hall is a screenwriter and novelist. He is the author of Totem

A character bearing that name appears in a remarkable number of chatbot-generated stories. He could be a messenger from the future – or a warning that generative AI is in danger of ‘model collapse’

Ever heard of a shadowy figure called Elias Thorne? If you haven’t, try asking an AI chatbot to tell you a story.

In recent months, tech types and researchers have noticed a weird phenomenon: when prompted to tell a story, numerous popular LLMs, including ChatGPT and Claude, will spit out a tale featuring this mysterious Elias figure.

Unsafe AI systems are leading to cyber weapons of mass destruction

• Stuart Russell is a computer scientist known for his contributions to AI and a new Guardian US columnist

The AI company Anthropic has been making major headlines recently. Its trillion-dollar IPO plan and its blood feud with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth have attracted much attention, but two other events may be even more consequential.

In early June, the company posted an article describing early signs of recursive self-improvement (RSI), a process in which an AI system devises ways to increase its own intelligence, leading to a greater ability to improve itself, and so on.

Stuart Russell is a distinguished professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley, the president of the International Association for Safe and Ethical Artificial Intelligence and a Guardian US columnist

Nearly every indicator of climate change is flashing red. But we still hold the tools available to bring the planet back into balance

The ocean is running a fever. In 2025, the number of days of marine heatwaves – prolonged spells when the sea turns abnormally, dangerously warm – was more than triple what it was in the early 1990s.

These are not abstract statistics. A severe and persistent marine heatwave bleaches coral reefs, strips away the kelp forests that shelter young fish, empties fishing grounds and – if occurring frequently – can tip whole ecosystems past the point of recovery.

Karina Von Schuckmann is an IGCC author and senior adviser of Mercator Ocean International

The recent abandonment of plans for a Franco-German fighter jet sent a disastrous signal. Strategic autonomy will be jointly achieved or not at all

It has become a truism to assert that Europe needs to fast-track its own strategic independence in a volatile world. A recent paper from the European Council on Foreign Relations describes the continent’s leaders as grappling with “a ‘Schrödinger’s NATO’ moment, in which America remains formally inside the alliance while behaving as though it were not, just as the Russian threat looms larger”. Donald Trump’s United States has become at best an unreliable and at times reluctant ally, as Vladimir Putin’s revanchist ambitions have exposed the need to strengthen Europe’s defences.

But if the goal of greater autonomy is to be achieved, far better coordination of resources and cooperation between national defence industries will be required. Neither has been much in evidence this month, with France and Germany abandoning a joint £100bn project to build a new fighter jet as part of an updated Future Combat Air System. Originally launched by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in 2017, plans for the jet were pulled as a result of irresolvable disagreements between Dassault, the French aviation company involved, and Airbus, the European aerospace company whose defence unit is based in Germany.

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

Indian fertility has fallen below the rate required for population stability, in further evidence of the unexpectedly rapid decline in births internationally

The global fall in fertility rates has arrived faster and spread further than anticipated. Two-thirds of people now live in countries that have slipped below the replacement rate – 2.1 births per woman – required for a stable population. Last month, India revealed that its fertility rate had fallen to just 1.9. The world’s two most populous nations, which pursued cruel and coercive policies to cut births, both face shrinking populations. China’s fertility rate is now around 1, and births last year fell below 8 million – just over half the number projected when the “one child” policy was axed 10 years ago, and comparable to the total in 1738, when its population was 150 million.

It’s further proof that what was seen as a phenomenon of rich nations has spread far beyond them. East Asia led the way. But Albania and Chile have far lower rates than the US or England and Wales (themselves experiencing record lows of 1.6 and 1.4).

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

Readers respond to an article about the obstacles young people face in the search for jobs

The issue of youth unemployment is not a new one (Young, ambitious and out of work: ‘I’ve gone from Oxford to zero jobs. It’s a bit of a fall’, 11 June). When my husband and I graduated from university in 1980, it took him 18 months to find employment, not in his field of microbiology but as a trainee IT programmer. We were lucky, and that led to a successful long-term career where I had the option of staying at home with the children.

This generation is stuck with fewer opportunities and the need for at least two incomes to create the chance to build a life and a future. I know that grinding sense of despair with each rejection or, worse, the ghosting of an application.

When I told an old friend about the horrific story of a Romanian family with two children being forced out of their home by last week’s violence, he showed a worrying lack of concern

Last Tuesday evening (Violence erupts in Belfast after protests over knife attack, 9 June), my wife received a phone call from the company that provides the care workers who help to look after her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease. As the call was ending, a Romanian family of two children and two adults were being forced out of their home in the street where my mother-in-law lives, in a predominantly loyalist housing estate on the outskirts of Belfast.

The care workers were new arrivals in Northern Ireland and were afraid of being attacked if they entered the area, but eventually they did so, despite the threat. I heard from others who were in the area at the time that, as the Romanian family were being evacuated from the area by police, a group of women linked arms and cheered, and men and boys clapped. Events like these happened all over Belfast on Tuesday and Wednesday as people, including pregnant women, were in some instances taken to police stations for safety.

The former England manager sidestepped politics in a well-meaning but flawed television documentary, writes Dr Michael Richardson. Plus Lucy Kellaway on the importance of male teachers as role models for young men

In his TV review (Gareth Southgate: Changing the Game for Young Men review – boys are crying out for help like this, 8 June), Jack Seale astutely writes: “Every problem it identifies is the result of a big political choice, which Southgate ignores before offering a small-scale solution. It’s certainly well-meant, but its limitations are frustrating.”

Gareth Southgate’s commitment to the issue is admirable and entirely convincing. However, the fact that more boys own smartphones than live with their fathers – one of the statistics cited in Southgate’s documentary, which also featured in his Richard Dimbleby lecture last year – tell us remarkably little about either. Smartphones are close to ubiquitous among young people, while the reasons fathers may not reside with their children are complex and varied. Such comparisons reveal more about patterns of technology ownership than they do about the realities of fatherhood.

Readers offer sound advice on how to tackle faulty soap containers, in response to an article by Adrian Chiles

Having experienced similar frustrations to Adrian Chiles with soap dispensers , I have discovered that they are usually just tightened too much when they are manufactured (Pump-action soap dispensers are a disgrace – and I won’t put up with them any longer, 10 June). If you remove the pump and grip the part just inside the bottle with a suitable implement (in my case a nutcracker from the kitchen drawer), that is usually enough to dislodge it when you twist it as instructed. It is a bit of a messy job, but it does work.
Bridget Spencer
Sutton, London

• I would like to add to Adrian Chiles’ heartfelt cry. Even if I do manage to make the mechanism on a soap dispenser work, the tiny hole quickly becomes clogged so that, under desperate pumping pressure, an unpredictable jet of gunk ends up anywhere but on my hands.
Christopher Holker
London

• Test starts 30 minutes late due to morning rain

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If the blazer fits… Joe Root tosses the coin and Tom Latham calls… incorrectly. A cheer goes up around the Oval as Root confirms he’s going to unleash his green pace attack.

“I want to make first use of this surface. I think it’s a great opportunity for our attack to get out there and carry on the great work we did last week” he says.

Updates from second day of the royal meeting
Day one report on controversial clash | Mail Tony

Oddschecker market movers

Alta Regina (2.30pm) - 4/1 from 7/1

Cathedral (3.40pm) - 11/2 from 10/1

Jagged Edge (5.00pm) - 7/1 from 12/1

• South Africa-born centre does not qualify until 8 July

• Cleared for selection because Vannes match is not a Test

Benhard Janse van Rensburg is poised to make his England debut off the bench in Friday’s non-cap international against a France XV in Vannes.

The South Africa-born centre does not qualify for England on residency grounds until 8 July but is able to be picked because the Stade de la Rabine showdown is not a Test.

• British hope on the rise again after injury setbacks

• Murray working as former top 10 player’s advisor

Sir Andy Murray has issued a bullish bulletin on the fitness and ability of Jack Draper before Wimbledon, revealing that he has been practising on court most days and hailing his tennis as “bloody good”.

Draper has plummeted to No 113 in the world due to a series of injuries, having been ranked fourth last year, and has not played since the Barcelona Open in April. But Murray, who has been working with the British player for the last month at the LTA’s National Tennis Centre as an adviser and temporary coach, believes that his body is now on the mend.

This week’s newsletter spends a day with the Italy midfielder as she continues to battle her way back to a peak physical condition

“It was accepting that I couldn’t play football because it was my life. It was everything that I knew.” For Everton’s Aurora Galli, the past 20 months have been anything but straightforward. Her return from a serious knee injury has been difficult, one beset with obstacles before, ultimately, a long-awaited comeback.

It was September 2024, 83 minutes and three seconds into the first game of the Women’s Super League season to be exact, when Galli went down in agony. Everton were losing 4-0 to Brighton and, in her eagerness to salvage something for her team, the midfielder attempted to challenge for the ball when her standing leg buckled. As expected, it was confirmed that she had ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament.

This is an extract from our free email about women’s football, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions. Moving the Goalposts will be sent out once a week, on Wednesdays, in the close season but will be back on Tuesdays and Thursdays from September.

From Harold Larwood to Afghan refugees, Blackpool continues to show the value and the charm of English cricket’s outgrounds

What do Harold Larwood, Rohan Kanhai, Richie Richardson and Mushtaq Mohammad have in common? All laced their cricket boots as pros at Blackpool CC, Lancashire’s outground by the sea, watched over by the famous tower – a steel Mona Lisa in a kiss-me-quick hat.

Last week, the ground hosted Lancashire’s men in what has been re-established as an annual Championship match, four days of picnics and fun. At least, it was supposed to be four days – but Kent completed a 140-run win on the third evening, a third morale-sapping defeat for Lancashire, who have also gone down badly to Middlesex and Durham.

• Röhl departs for RB Salzburg by mutual consent

• McInnes linked with move to Ibrox from Hearts

Rangers have confirmed the departure of Danny Röhl to RB Salzburg by mutual agreement.

Röhl, who replaced Russell Martin as head coach in October last year, will take charge of the Austrian Bundesliga side after a seven-figure compensation package was agreed between the clubs. The performance manager Sascha Lense and first-team analyst Tristan Steiner will also depart Ibrox.

Plus: World Cup winners with no domestic honours, and why Australia are unofficial world champions

• Mail us with your all of your questions and answers

“In 1986, Gary Lineker scored six of England’s seven World Cup goals,” writes Brendon O’Mahony. “Has anyone scored a higher proportion of their country’s goals at a World Cup? Let’s exclude teams who were knocked out in the group stage or who scored three goals or fewer”

A number of you mentioned Oleg Salenko, the Russian striker who matched Lineker by scoring six of their seven goals at USA 94. That included five in one game against Cameroon, which turned out to be Salenko’s last in international football at the age of 24. Russia went out at the group stage despite Salenko’s romp, so he doesn’t meet the criteria laid out in Brendon’s question.

• Australia win by nine wickets after being set 79 to win

• Romp in Leeds underlines disparity in resources

It was never expected to be a close one. Australia versus Bangladesh features one of the greatest disparities of resources in women’s international cricket. Still, having hosted Australia for a full series as recently as 2024, and with the recent fast starts of opening bat Juairiya Ferdous, and the intensity of opening pace bowler Marufa Akter, and the developing batting of Shorna Akter and Sharmin Akhter Supta, and the full suite of spin variety under the spiky leadership of Nigar Sultana Joty, there was reason to hope that Bangladesh might continue their development with a competitive performance.

Nothing of the sort, unfortunately, eventuated at the T20 World Cup in Leeds, as Australia notched a win in the north that supercharged their net run rate. Joty won the toss and batted, saying that she wanted to back her top order to be aggressive, only for the Powerplay to go diametrically in the other direction. A cautious opening over facing Megan Schutt, the swing bowler back in the side after Ash Gardner’s rolled ankle created space for the batting order to be shuffled up, was followed by Dilara Akter’s angled hoick across a straight ball from seamer Kim Garth that took off-stump.

Exclusive: Ministers consider national threshold in England that could in effect bar thousands from studying

University students would face minimum grade requirements to qualify for student loans in England under proposals that could in effect bar thousands of young people from higher education.

Under one proposal being discussed by ministers, a pass in GCSE English would become the national threshold for students to access government-backed tuition and maintenance loans through the Student Loans Company.

Ivan Rogers, Britain’s EU ambassador from 2013 to 2017, says party’s ideas did not ‘remotely measure up’ to challenge

• UK politics live – latest updates

Labour arrived in power with no big idea on the UK’s future relationship with the EU, a former British ambassador to Brussels has said.

Ivan Rogers, Britain’s EU ambassador from 2013 to 2017, said Labour presented “a ragbag of issues” on the EU in its manifesto, which did not “remotely measure up to the challenge of the times” and would “make no measurable difference to the UK macroeconomy”.

Victims’ families to speak in court as Heuermann, 63, to be imprisoned for killing spree that spanned decades

The families of eight women strangled by Rex Heuermann are expected to speak at the Gilgo Beach killers sentencing in Riverhead, New York, more than three decades after the 63-year-old Manhattan architect began his killing spree.

Heuermann pleaded guilty to murdering seven women and admitted to the killing of an eighth victim in April. He will receive three consecutive life terms for three killings and a consecutive sentence of 100 years to life imprisonment for four more.

Drivers suspended as prosecutors investigate group said to have been used to share and comment on CCTV images

A group of tram drivers in Milan have been suspended from their jobs amid an investigation into a WhatsApp group in which they allegedly exchanged sexist and vulgar comments about images of female passengers.

Milan prosecutors placed at least one employee of ATM, the city’s public transport firm, under investigation on Tuesday for allegedly accessing an IT system without authorisation and for hacking a CCTV system to obtain images of female passengers.

Campaigners welcome announcement cutting levies on menstrual health items, but say their work to end period poverty is ‘far from over’

Pakistan plans to abolish “period tax”, in a victory for young campaigners who had taken the government to court over the charges.

Finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb announced that sanitary towels and related items were “daily necessities that are indispensable for women’s health, dignity and full participation in social activities”, and said he intended to remove the sales tax.

Many small-scale landowners now include conservation measures alongside everyday farming. But progress is precarious, and the threat of guerrilla violence and poverty remain whichever candidate wins

Like most people settling in the area, Pablo Peña was seeking to escape violence and make a living from a patch of land when he moved to Guaviare in central Colombia. More than 30 years on, he says his life is now about conflict and deforestation.

Peña first visited Guaviare during his mandatory military service. Years later, in 1994, he settled down to farm in Guaviare’s Calamar, a town in a remote corner of the Amazon.

Paul Powlesland told he acted illegally after organising volunteers to remove litter, weed and silt from River Roding

A river campaigner who organised a cleanup of his local waterway is being threatened with prosecution by the Environment Agency for acting illegally.

Paul Powlesland, a lawyer and environmental campaigner, organised a team of volunteers to tackle the removal of litter, weed and silt from a section of the River Roding, after repeatedly asking the agency to act.

Two-thirds of Americans say they are worried about climate but level of media coverage does not reflect this

US political and media discourse has drifted away from the climate crisis amid a frontal assault by Donald Trump upon policies to limit global heating and the president’s pugnacious demands to “drill, baby, drill” for more oil and gas.

Yet while elite attention on climate has waned, even among some previously vocal Democrats who have wound back on criticism of the fossil fuels that are overheating our planet, the American public remains concerned about the climate crisis and continues to favour action to deal with it, according to experts and polling.

London Tree Ring project aims to create corridors of plant and animal life around the city to strengthen its biodiversity

Harry Ewing is heaping branches and foliage from the forest floor on to a dead hedge, reinforcing the protective circle around his newly planted trees in Hadley Wood, north London. He is in a glade created by a fallen oak that was previously overrun with thick bramble.

“I feel very happy – the trees are growing already. It’s really nice seeing it when it starts,” says Ewing.

TV streamers and family shows set to benefit as brands cease marketing to teenagers on sites such as YouTube

• Analysis: impact of social media ban in UK hinges on how firm it is

Brands are expected to cut more than £1bn of digital advertising spending due to the UK’s ban on social media for under-16s, with streaming services tipped to benefit as advertisers try to reach large audiences of teenagers.

The ban, due to come into force early next year, will leave UK advertisers scrambling to reassess marketing plans as millions of under-16s effectively disappear as a demographic that can be marketed to on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube.

Presenter warns viewers of ‘sombre news’ before release of Clarkson’s Farm episodes, shot last year, in which he goes for operation

Jeremy Clarkson has revealed he was diagnosed with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer last summer and had an operation to remove 10% of his prostate, eight months after he underwent heart surgery for blocked coronary arteries.

In the final two episodes of the fifth series of his Prime Video documentary, Clarkson’s Farm, the 66-year-old presenter told his farm manager, Kaleb Cooper, and his land agent, Charlie Ireland: “I’ve got cancer.”

Upgrade to Buchanan Galleries part of £50m spend this year and £800m by 2029 to revive appeal of department stores

John Lewis is to spend £20m on a revamp of its Glasgow store in the city centre’s Buchanan Galleries in a vote of confidence in the shopping mall not long ago scheduled for demolition.

It is the largest cash injection within a wider plan to spend £50m this financial year on refreshing its shops, with department stores in Reading, Cambridge, Leicester and Liverpool all earmarked for an upgrade.

Minnie the Minx and Macbeth feature in National Library’s exploration of how rainfall has shaped Scottish science, literature, history and identity

It seems fitting that, 250 years ago, one of Scotland’s foremost scientists took a close interest in what is arguably the country’s most famous feature: rain

James Hutton, celebrated by Scots as the father of modern geology, went so far as to write a formula for “a theory of rain”. In 1784, he sketched out the key principles for the “condensation of aqueous vapour contained in the air”.

Abdiqadir Salah was pierced by shrapnel in a bombing that killed 12 in Somalia. But as the US denies civilians were hurt they face no hope of compensation

Read more: Killed walking home from school: why did Somali children become targets of US drone strikes?

A seven-year-old boy who was riddled with shrapnel during a deadly US airstrike in Somalia faces losing his ability to walk unless he has a £750 emergency operation.

But Abdiqadir Salah’s family cannot afford the surgery and the US – which refuses to admit that any civilians were killed or injured during its attack six months ago – appears unwilling to pay compensation to those affected by airstrikes in Somalia.

Federal Tort Claims Act, over which DoJ has total discretion, provides workaround to Trump’s $1.8bn slush fund

January 6 defendants who assaulted police officers are pursuing legal claims for millions in compensation from the Trump administration using an obscure federal process with minimal oversight, but which offers the Trump administration a way to compensate those responsible for violence even after scrapping its “anti-weaponization fund”.

The defendants are pursuing their claims using the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows individuals wronged by the government to file claims for monetary damages. The justice department has complete and unchecked discretion over whether to settle the claims, giving the Trump administration a powerful vehicle to reward those responsible for violence on January 6. The claims would be paid out from the judgment fund, a perpetual appropriation allowed for by Congress and the same pot of money Trump’s $1.8bn slush fund was going to draw from. All of the defendants seeking compensation received a pardon from Trump.

Exclusive: health professionals, survivors and politicians voice concerns in open letter over comments by Fatima Maada Bio, who denies supporting the practice

The first lady of Sierra Leone has denied that she supports female genital mutilation amid rising anger around her perceived approval of the practice.

But in an exclusive response to the Guardian, Fatima Maada Bio, the wife of President Julius Maada Bio, also said she would not openly condemn FGM until she saw “reliable data” that the practice was harmful.

Major operation launched after spate of pet thefts in Ho Chi Minh City, according to local media

Police in Vietnam have rescued more than 400 cats in a bust of a cat meat crime ring in Ho Chi Minh City, according to animal welfare groups and local media reports.

More than 40 cats were reunited with their owners after the multiday operation last week, but several dozen of those rescued have died due to the harsh conditions in which they were found, the groups said.

Firm becomes latest carmaker to roll back on move away from fossil fuels with push for US sales growth

Jaguar Land Rover has U-turned on plans to shift one of its factories to making only electric cars as part of an effort to focus on growth in the US, as Britain’s largest carmaker further rowed back on the transition away from fossil fuels.

The manufacturer told investors on Wednesday it would offer petrol and hybrid versions of new models, including smaller SUVs that had been planned to shift to all-electric sales.

Impact of war on UK cost of living more muted than first forecast suggesting fuel price rises have failed to spill out more widely across UK plc

• UK inflation stays at 2.8% as slowing food prices offset transport costs

• Business live – latest updates

As soon as Iran choked off oil supplies through the strait of Hormuz at the start of March, there were dire warnings about rocketing UK inflation and the drastic action the Bank of England might take to rein it in.

At one point, investors were expecting as many as three quarter-point rises in interest rates before the end of the year – a sharp turnaround from earlier forecasts of rate cuts.

Food prices rose at the slowest rate since December 2024 with declines in inflation for meat, cheese, vegetables and cheese

UK house price inflation has picked up while rents are rising at a slower pace, according to official figures.

Average monthy private rents rose at an annual rate of 3.3% to £1,383 in My, down from 3.5% in April, according to the Office for National Statistics.

It’s a key reason why headline CPI unexpectedly stayed at 2.8%, despite upward pressure from air fares and a quirk related to road tax. Food prices fell in May relative to April, a trend we’ve also seen in the eurozone and Eastern Europe. If anything, the latest producer price data suggests food inflation will continue to fall sharply over the next couple of months. That will gradually change, but it’s a reminder that the energy price spike is unlikely to reach its peak impact on food inflation until the first quarter of next year.

In general, it’s too early to see much impact from the Middle East crisis beyond fuel prices. Services inflation is bouncing around, partly due to the timing of Easter this year, but the Bank of England’s preferred gauge of “core services” – which excludes volatile and indexed categories – has been more stable just below 4%. The BoE’s own “Decision Maker Panel” of CFOs points to services inflation staying around current levels through the summer.

About 150 jobs have already been lost in Bolton as company reports 145% rise in profits and hands £20m to shareholders

• Business live – latest updates

The online electrical goods seller AO World has revealed it is outsourcing up to 200 UK call centre roles to South Africa blaming rising labour costs, as it handed £20m to shareholders.

As the retailer reported a jump in profits, it said it was shifting the majority of call centre jobs overseas “in response to ongoing inflationary cost pressures, and particularly rising employment costs”. It expects to save about £4m a year as a result of the change.

Spielberg’s sci-fi blockbuster starring Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor may be spectacular, but it misjudges how much abuse of groups we see as ‘other’ humans are prepared to tolerate

Steven Spielberg has converted his longstanding fascination with the possible existence of aliens into considerable commercial and critical success and now, 49 years after Close Encounters and 44 after ET, the film-maker has returned to the subject for the sci-fi spectacular Disclosure Day.

The film follows cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) and weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) as they become state-secret whistleblowers, working with Hugo (Colman Domingo) to expose nearly eight decades’ worth of evidence that the US government has known about extraterrestrial life.

Descendants of Julia Kerr gather for recital at Einstein’s summer house near Berlin where revived opera was set

Albert Einstein throws a party at his lakeside house at which he presents to his guests his latest invention: a time machine.

So opens the opera Chronoplan, started in the late 1920s by the composer Julia Kerr, who took the score with her when she fled Nazi Germany with her family in early 1933, its planned premiere having been halted following Hitler’s takeover.

Haunting documentary tells how Syrian academic Annsar Shahoud created an online persona to contact the suspected perpetrator of the Tadamon massacre

Sam Benstead’s piercing documentary charts what you might call an act of noble catfishing: how Amsterdam-based Syrian academic Annsar Shahoud adopted the online identity of “Anna” to coax an al-Assad regime stooge into admitting his crimes. It’s not clear if she and her collaborator, genocide studies professor Uğur Ümit Üngör, are part of the European vigilante networks that inspired last year’s fictional feature Ghost Trail. But the courageous, haunted and psychologically smudgy nature of this work is plain to see here.

When they first watch a video of what became known as the Tadamon massacre, Üngör and Shahoud are appalled at what they see: a procession of Damascan civilians casually murdered and dumped into a tyre-lined pit. They are also exhilarated to finally have incontrovertible proof of al-Assad’s brutality. By combing Facebook they manage to track down the Cheshire Cat-grinned head killer: an intelligence agent called Amjad Youssef. Posing as Anna, a Syrian expat writing a sympathetic thesis about the regime, Shahoud makes tentative first contact with Youssef by video call. For a spook, it is surprising how a few well-chosen signifiers work wonders on him: the portraits of Hafez and Bashar al-Assad on Anna’s wall, the Shia sword pendant around her neck.

Severance’s Britt Lower stars in Netflix’s latest lot of cobblers. It’s an eight-part saga of fists and mumbling, with a script made from Play-Doh

A lever groans, a pipe judders and thunk; another length of premium-grade bunkum is extruded from the Harlan Coben Industrial Adaptation Complex™. This particular emission – an eight-part assemblage of fists and mumbling entitled I Will Find You – is the 13th of Coben’s novels to have been processed by Netflix as part of a 14-book deal. Which means – the pulse quickens – there is now just one more to go. On Netflix, at least. The author’s ongoing deal with Amazon suggests we could be trapped in an ever-spiralling cycle of preposterous thrillers for eternity. May God have mercy on our souls.

Helpfully, Netflix has titled its cluster of adaptations “The Harlan Coben Collection”, which makes them sound like the type of ceramic figurines advertised at the back of Sunday supplements: Regency belles, say, or dogs dressed as fictional detectives. Stun your family by collecting them all! Alternatively, watch just one – any one – of these adaptations and relax in the knowledge that you have now in effect seen them all, and thus need never again subject yourself to the sight of hitherto respectable actors remaining straight-faced while delivering lines of the “The past never changes. Until one day it does” genus.

A second helping of the English-language adaptation of Mercedes Ron’s trilogy sustains little chemistry between its supposedly besotted lead characters

Here is Amazon Prime’s sequel to its hit My Fault: London. If you’re new to the franchise back-story, it started with a bestselling trilogy of romance novels by Spanish author Mercedes Ron (who self-published the first one). It’s a tale of the forbidden love between step-siblings Noah and her smouldering bad boy step-brother Nick. The books have been adapted into a trilogy of Spanish-language films, the second of which is remade here with absolutely no sense of fun or humour. A couple of its good-looking actors give performances with frozen, startled expressions, like they’ve been kidnapped from the set of an advert for luxury five-star holidays.

It picks up from the previous movie, with Noah (Asha Banks) and Nick (Matthew Broome) now in a full-blown relationship. Nick insists on keeping it a secret from their parents, who were recently married; he’s worried what his overbearing billionaire dad (Ray Fearon) will say if he finds out. Noah reluctantly agrees, and leaves home to study at Oxford, where she meets nice, sensible second-year student Michael (Joel Nankervis). “We’re just friends,” Noah says. Nick has turned his back on illegal drag-racing and is working for his dad, alongside posh blond tech start-up founder Sophia (Louisa Binder). “Just colleagues,” insists Nick.

After being told he has throat cancer on the eve of his 30th birthday, Nino spends a fraught weekend in Paris in Pauline Loquès’ heartfelt feature debut

French film-maker Pauline Loquès makes her feature directing debut with this meanderingly real-time-style portrait of a young man in Paris over a fraught weekend, somewhat in the manner of Agnès Varda’s New Wave classic Cléo from 5 to 7. It is heartfelt and affecting, if a little flimsy.

Théodore Pellerin plays Nino, a young guy who has never quite got over the death of his dad, and who on the eve of his 30th birthday goes to the doctor due to slight pains while swallowing; he is told he has throat cancer, due to sexually transmitted HPV (or human papillomavirus) which he might have contracted years before. In a state of shock – baffled Nino persistently asks if he has got someone else’s test results – he is told that to preserve his chances of conceiving children he must provide a sperm sample for freezing right away, this weekend, before he begins chemo and radiotherapy on Monday.

The pianist and bandleader, who has died aged 91, had an inimitable style where bright, guileless melody met a fearless improvisational impulse

• South African jazz pianist Abdullah Ibrahim dies aged 91

Scullery Department (from Jazz Epistle Verse 1, 1960)

Born Adolph Johannes Brand in Cape Town in 1934, Abdullah Ibrahim spent his six-decade career defining the heartfelt sound of South African jazz. Making his professional debut as a pianist at 15 under the name Dollar Brand, it was his co-founding of the group the Jazz Epistles in 1959 that laid the groundwork for his journeying career. South Africa’s first Black jazz group, featuring trumpeter Hugh Masekela who would go on to become a star bandleader in his own right, the Jazz Epistles’ first and only album Jazz Epistle Verse 1 is a sprightly document of the South African take on bebop. Although album opener Dollar’s Moods is named for Ibrahim, it’s the record’s closing number Scullery Department that highlights his nascent skills. Heavy-swinging over a bluesy motif, Ibrahim’s playing artfully skips through an opening polyrhythm before taking a solo that refigures Thelonious Monk’s wonky melodic motifs into an earthy sense of groove that would go on to feature throughout his hundreds of recordings to come.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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In the latest autofictional instalment of his family saga, the French writer makes sense of his sibling’s violent homophobia and short life

At 33, the French writer Édouard Louis has already seen all seven of his slim novels translated into English. In his breakout debut, The End of Eddy (2017), and again in Change (2024), he wrote about being the promising child of a poor family, the bullied gay son who became a bestselling author. Several of his other books have offered sympathetic sociological portraits of his parents: a father destroyed by physical labour, a victim of French healthcare and housing subsidy cutbacks, and a mother who, after raising numerous children in poverty, fled first Louis’s father and then, in Monique Escapes, published earlier this year, his abusive successor. Now, in Collapse, translated by novelist Tash Aw, Louis describes his eldest brother’s death, at 38, from complications relating to alcoholism.

“I felt nothing at the announcement of the death of my brother,” he begins; “not sadness or despair or joy or pleasure.” The reasons for his coldness soon become clear. His brother was violently homophobic. His drinking at one point prevented Louis from sleeping ahead of a crucial exam. After The End of Eddy came out, his brother went looking for him with a baseball bat. So when Louis talks with his mother and sister about how to pay for his brother’s funeral and admits, “yes, I would have let him be buried like a dog”, we understand why.

Is Japan really full of centenarians? And what about ‘blue zones’? A brilliant skewering of ageing secrets and lies

There is a special place in hell reserved for doctors who trade on their authority, status and medical training to monetise public fear and gullibility. Every time I scroll past a qualified physician touting elixirs that promise youthful vigour, cellulite-free thighs or gut microbiome makeovers, I want to poke their fraudulent eyes out. At best, these charlatans have chosen lining their pockets over helping others. At worst, as in the case of the Covid deniers and anti-vaxxers, they are actively dangerous – something I witnessed first-hand on hospital wards in 2021 as unvaccinated patients succumbed to the disease.

Nowhere is human hope monetised more ruthlessly by medical grifters than in the anti-ageing industry. Our inescapable fate – decrepitude and death – makes us ripe for exploitation. Who doesn’t want to pop a pill or hook themselves up to an IV infusion that, for only £99.99 a month, will magically stave off the moment you turn into your grandparents? In Morbid, debut author Saul Justin Newman, a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Institute of Population Ageing, sets out to topple the whole, sordid house of cards. His central argument is that our fear of frailty and dying has “created an opening for all manner of skullduggery in the science of ageing”, an area of research which is rife, he argues, with “misleading claims, mistaken assumptions, and outright chicanery. The world’s oldest man is a fake, hundreds of thousands of the world’s oldest people are actually dead, and five decades of research on human longevity is moot.”

After ‘bottling everything up for a long time’ the faithful pet, who has remained silent for many years, will spill the beans on the pair’s ‘pet hates and fur-vent passions’

Gromit, the canine star of the Wallace and Gromit animations, is “breaking his silence” and writing a memoir.

After “bottling everything up for a long time”, the moment has come for him to “spill the beans”, according to publisher Ebury.

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

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

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

After the billion-dollar company’s leaders sent staff a memo saying the brand had ‘over-extended’, game studios may be in the firing line

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In March 2000, Bill Gates stood onstage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and, to a packed crowd, officially announced the company’s long-anticipated video game console. “We want Xbox to be the platform of choice for the best and most creative game developers in the world,” he told attenders – and that was indeed the intention of the small, dedicated team who put together the blueprints of that first machine.

The Xbox landscape seems very different 25 years later. Last week, mere days after a bullish summer showcase full of Gears of War revivals and promises of a renewed focus on Xbox’s gaming strengths, new CEO, Asha Sharma, and chief content officer, Matt Booty, wrote a memo to Xbox staff inviting them to brace for “hard truths”. “Excluding Activision Blizzard King, over the past five years, we have spent over $20bn on ongoing investments in our content, platform and hardware subsidy, but our annual revenue has declined nearly half a billion during that time. Going forward, this cannot continue,” it read.

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S; EA Vancouver/Electronic Arts
Micromanaging your fighter is a little tedious, but the action is thrilling in this authentically detailed sporting simulation

Becoming a professional fighter takes years of repetition, drilling techniques and training footwork until everything is instinctual. Your body needs an automatic answer for every limb, from every angle. In MMA, which encompasses every martial art, it’s even harder.

EA Sports’ UFC 6 realistically captures the grind of this brutal discipline. Throw on Career Mode and you spend most of your time working on combos and techniques. It’s all about making the complex controls feel second nature, increasing the effectiveness of every strike thrown by your fighter. With simulated six-week-long training camps between bouts, you can sometimes spar 12 times before a fight that could be over in a matter of seconds.

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

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

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

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

Arcola theatre, London
Despite some strong satire, there is too much telling and not enough showing in Christine Bacon’s play exploring global inequality

This play about the ethics of international development in the global south is a response to a book on world poverty. Playwright Christine Bacon, who is also co-artistic director of human rights theatre company ice&fire, has taken Jason Hickel’s The Divide to show how development agencies from the west may mean well but in practice can perpetuate inequality and suffering rather than alleviate it.

It suffers from a serious case of telling over showing. Statistics are put into the mouths of every actor. Character and story are sacrificed on the altar of information and argument.

Marina Market, Cork
Michael Glenn Murphy is the accidental soldier and reluctant revolutionary reckoning with his past in Deirdre Kinahan’s touching drama of regret and return

A ferry terminal in steely morning light is the bare setting for Deirdre Kinahan’s poignant drama of return, as a man (Michael Glenn Murphy) in overcoat, suit and hat clutches a suitcase and considers his next move. In the 50 years since he left Ireland on a misguided impulse, Joseph Grace has never been back until now.

As a bus pulls up, he hesitates and turns away, assailed by memories. What follows in Louise Lowe’s atmospheric staging for Once Off Productions is a reckoning with Joseph’s past: a life swept up in 20th-century Europe’s upheavals, from the Western Front, to Roger Casement’s Irish Brigade of war prisoners in Germany in 1915, to the rise of Hitler.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Neons and videos mix with weaving and beadwork to address subjects as diverse as stolen land, ancestral traditions and queer identity. But the self-made nude steals the show

A breeze from the vast North American plains has blown across the rolling Yorkshire hills. The work of 38 Indigenous American artists has filled the galleries of Yorkshire Sculpture Park, transforming their underground space into a world of clay and earth, fabric and ceramics, painting and sculpture that talks of land, memory, oppression and freedom through art.

Everywhere, there’s a sense of ancestral identity, memory and tradition. It’s in the Navajo weavings of Tyrrell Tapaha and Melissa Cody, the patterned beadwork of Jeffrey Gibson, the dizzying geometricism of Dyani White Hawk’s towering column. They all use traditional aesthetics to explore new ideas: Gibson’s work is about how his queer identity meets his Indigenous culture, White Hawk pushes into pure abstraction, Cody mixes pixelated video game aesthetics into Navajo patterns, and on and on. Everyone here is taking the old ways and pushing them in new directions.

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

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

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

From Noël Coward to Martine McCutcheon, the famed institution has been hothousing talent for more than a century. Our writer finds there’s a softer approach these days – and a food bank

When I walk into renowned stage school Italia Conti, in the smart building in Woking that has been its home since 2022, the first thing that hits me is the quiet. Where are the students dancing on tables? Rehearsing scenes in the hallways? Some are offsite, it turns out, rehearsing for a show, but those I see are busy on their phones in the corridors, like any other young adults.

Life has changed at Italia Conti since its earliest days. The school celebrates its 115th anniversary this year. It was founded in London in 1911 by English actor Italia Conti to teach a group of children appearing in the play Where the Rainbow Ends at the Savoy theatre. Noël Coward was among the young performers. By the 1930s the school was advertising lessons in elocution, acting, singing, fencing and dance (ballroom, “operatic, Greek and stage dancing”).

From Quincy Jones to Sam Smith, Raye to Santana, Anoush Abrar has been taking mesmerising photographs of the festival’s stars for years

The Louisiana musician has now been sentenced, having pleaded guilty to the charge in March

The rapper Mystikal has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for third-degree rape.

In March, the US musician born Michael Tyler pleaded guilty to the charge, having originally been charged with the more severe first-degree rape, along with simple robbery, domestic abuse battery and false imprisonment.

In his directorial debut Maddie’s Secret, Early plays a food influencer with bulimia in a wild flip on the modern melodrama

They don’t make film heroines quite like Maddie Ralph any more. As the creation of comedian and actor John Early, the titular character of Maddie’s Secret is a bright-eyed ingenue who greets the day like the sun came out just for her, no matter that she’s trudging to her job as a dishwasher. Like the leading ladies of ’50s Women’s Pictures, she longs for something more than the hand she has been dealt: in her case, to share her gooey, crispy and umami-packed culinary creations with the world as a food influencer.

Early’s character is a loveable striver that you want to see win, even as an eating disorder threatens to get in the way of her dream. “I wanted to make a character that people feel very endeared to and protective of,” says Early a few weeks before the US release of Maddie’s Secret, his directorial debut. “There’s something moving to me about people thinking of Maddie as not me and as this other being.” At recent festival screenings, fans reacted to the character with the primal displays of affection you would normally expect at a Barefoot Contessa book signing. “People are like, Aw MADDIEEEEEE!” smiles Early.

Is chocolate better served chilled? Do bananas go mushy? And won’t someone think of the avocados? Here is the final word on the fridge or cupboard conflict

If every summer has a trending drink, then 2026 promises to be the season of the chilled red. In news that our European neighbours, who have long been doing this, will roll their eyes at, Britons have discovered the delights of a cold glass of red wine. No more serving at room temperature, or warming it by the fire (or radiator) as if you’re the host of a country house gathering: this year if your pinot noir isn’t in an ice bucket, consider it social death. The Times reports that gen Z drinkers are driving the trend, with Ocado finding that 56% had drunk chilled red wine, or wine served over ice, in summer compared with 35% of the wider population.

“We tend to serve wine way too warm in this country, and red wine particularly,” says the wine expert Tom Gilbey. “It accentuates the alcohol and makes it taste like soup. Actually almost every wine is better served slightly cooler than we normally drink it, and some red wines are beautiful when they’re really quite cool.” The optimum temperature is around 10C (50F). “So 20 minutes in the fridge, or 10 to 15 minutes in an ice bucket. You don’t want to serve any wine too, too cold, but it’s really refreshing.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The model and entrepreneur talks pants, lawnmowers and restoring classic cars with the Filter

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David Gandy is one of the most recognisable faces in fashion, starring in hundreds of campaigns for brands including Dolce & Gabbana, Burberry, Hugo Boss and many more. He was the first man nominated for model of the year by the British Fashion Council.

From 2014 to 2019 he designed a bestselling range for Marks & Spencer featuring underwear, sleepwear and more, and in 2021, he launched his own fashion and lifestyle brand, David Gandy Wellwear. A committed philanthropist, he has worked with several charities, from Save the Children to Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, and backed the Centre for Social Justice’s Lost Boys report on the crisis facing boys and young men in the UK today. The David Gandy Wellwear summer collection is available now.

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

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

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

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

• The best supermarket natural yoghurts

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

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

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

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

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

An almost-empty container can be a vessel for food alchemy

Using an almost-empty yoghurt pot to marinate meat and vegetables is one of my favourite ways to prepare dinner. It’s a really simple and tidy way to marinate food that not only saves on the washing-up, it also turns a few yoghurt scrapings that might otherwise be destined for the drain into a flavour-enhancing, tenderising, waste-saving hack.

Three ways with summer’s versatile vegetable: as a simple meal, a deliciously moist loaf and a South Asian achaar to spice up any cheese sandwich

Courgettes don’t have to be boring, thanks to their shapeshifting magic. Shave with a vegetable peeler, douse in olive oil and lemon juice and eat raw, or spiralise for noodles. Alternatively, grill until blackened, scoop out the creamy innards, and fold into tahini for a smoky dip. Courgettes are irresistible grated and turned into fritters, deep-fried or cut into thick rounds and roasted on a high heat so they caramelise, but don’t turn to mush. Finally, you can pickle them to enjoy their sunny flavour in the gloomier months.

It’s all about ‘easy bowl food’, and grub you can shovel in on the sofa without having to cut anything up

What are the best summer TV dinners?
Mel, by email
Few are as committed to teas on knees as Ella Risbridger: “It appals my parents, but I eat on the sofa just about every day,” says the author of The Kitchen Book. The key, she says, is not having to cut anything up: “One-handed cooking is a good way of thinking about it,” which is to say that Mel should be looking for meals that require only a fork, a spoon or chopsticks. “That’s easier to do in winter, because then you’ve got the likes of casseroles, soups and stews, whereas a lot of summer food is based on big sharing platters, which are not ideal, because, while you can put them on the coffee table, there’s lunging involved.” Said movement not only upsets the balance, but often also results in spillages: “I’m currently looking at a lump of bicarb sopping up a turmeric stain on my sofa,” Risbridger adds by way of confirmation.

Other considerations of the sofa supper include getting as many textures and flavours as possible into every mouthful. “Wherever you dig, you want to be getting something good,” says Zena Kamgaing, author of Dinner Time. That’s why pasta is a regular go-to: “It’s easy bowl food. On a hot day, say, I’ll do a no-cook sauce by blitzing mascarpone with sun-dried tomatoes, a little harissa and fresh basil.” Risbridger, meanwhile, is partial to US-style chopped salads, although Vietnamese-inspired numbers also feature regularly: “Invest in a julienne peeler, because that can make salad feel fancy, and put any kind of protein in it: salmon, sliced steak.” Add rice – “Cold salad and warm rice is a delight” – or deploy twirlable cold noodles. “If you’re watching telly, curtains drawn, you’re not looking for a beautiful plate,” Risbridger says. “You want the focus to be on the deliciousness, and I cannot stress enough that a Vietnamese salad is the optimum, because it’s beautiful, but not in a way that means you have to concentrate on its beauty.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

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

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

I’d always wanted to represent my country at something, so when I learned about Mölkky, I got a team together

It was December 2023 and I was searching in the attic for Christmas decorations when my phone pinged. I pulled it out of my pocket and found a WhatsApp message from my son who was backpacking in Australia. The message read, simply: “You might want to take a look at this” – it was accompanied by a short video clip.

The footage was grainy – it was night-time somewhere in Queensland and the streetlights weren’t the brightest – but I could make out Louis and his travel companion Asher throwing what looked like a rolling pin at a collection of numbered wooden skittles.

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

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

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

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

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

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

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

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

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

The rules have changed and more taxpayers are being pulled into the net, not only the wealthy

Less generous rules have turned capital gains tax into a “cash machine” for the government, with income from the levy soaring by almost 80% to £24bn in the last tax year – equivalent to well over £800 a household.

A series of changes to the way the charge works means more people are being pulled into the capital gains tax (CGT) net, and not only the wealthy. And, given the scale of the change, this week experts were reminding consumers of legitimate ways to reduce a CGT bill.

Katie Kendrick, Cath Williams and Jo Darbyshire were subject to tens of thousands of pounds of hidden costs as their new-build freeholds soared in value, making their homes unsellable. Their campaign could finally end the ‘feudal’ system in England and Wales

When a leaflet about leasehold injustice landed on Cath Williams’ doorstep in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, nearly a decade ago, she barely gave it a second thought, tossing it straight into the bin. Had she given it more than a cursory glance, she’d have read about how residents on her new-build estate had found out the leaseholds for their homes had been sold without their knowledge, which could cost them all thousands of pounds. “Sometimes you get things through the door and you go, ‘what are they on about?’” recalls the 69-year-old retired university lecturer. It was of no interest to her. Or so she thought.

Williams hadn’t realised her home was leasehold when she decided to buy it. It was never mentioned in any promotional material, she says, and the word “leasehold” was only later added to her paperwork in pencil by an estate agent four weeks before her move in date – by then she had already paid her deposit and it was too late to back out. Her unease about what this would mean built over time and it soon became clear it would be a huge headache for her: any alterations to her home would require paying the freeholder an ever-increasing permission fee, the property would decrease in value as the lease got shorter, and the ground rent could increase drastically over time. Ultimately, it could leave her trapped and unable to sell her home.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It doesn’t matter if you drink less or use the restroom beforehand. Experts say it happens to all swimmers

I’m midway into my hour-long swim when it hits: I really have to pee. This always happens. It doesn’t help to curb my morning coffee or use the restroom beforehand. My bladder doesn’t care.

Why does this happen? “It’s a normal physiological response by the body to being immersed in water,” says Dr Stavros Kavouras, assistant dean, professor of nutrition and director of the Hydration Science Lab at Arizona State University. And it’s not just me: “It’s something that happens to all swimmers.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The former Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes joined thousands of locals and parkrun fanatics to mark the milestone in a west London park – the venue for the very first parkrun in 2004.

Before choosing a stick to satisfy your Crayola makeup cravings, it’s wise to consider your skin type and tone

There’s something deeply satisfying about scribbling on your face with a makeup stick. Also, convenient. Solid sticks of foundation eliminate the risk of smashed or leaky bottles, are more compact and portable than liquids and creams, and can mostly be blended with fingertips, dispensing with brushes and sponges. They can be applied in a more localised way than other types of foundation and are particularly useful when someone – often with a deeper skin tone – benefits from two shades of foundation and doesn’t want them to merge into each other.

Sticks were all the rage for a few years, but fell from favour until Bobbi Brown’s excellent Skin Foundation Stick (£39) was practically the last one standing. Dior and Charlotte Tilbury recently revived the category and sticks are now enjoying a major comeback. Under the most scrutiny is Bobbi Brown herself, no longer a part of the eponymous brand, but helming the highly influential Jones Road. Her new Your Skin Foundation Stick (£36) is different from her groundbreaking Bobbi Brown formula, but exactly as I’ve come to expect from Jones Road – very moist, glowy and natural-looking. Although definitely not for everyone (including oily skins, and those who want full or matte coverage), it’s a sure-fire winner with devotees of Brown’s pared-back aesthetic. There are 30 shades in a selection of undertones. It spreads like butter, though if longevity is a priority, you’ll need a setting spray. But expect a comfortable ride and a pretty, non-caked finish.

Yves Saint Laurent saw the power of photography to push boundaries and take risks that had an impact in the fashion world and beyond. The new exhibition Yves Saint Laurent and Photography, at New York’s International Center of Photography, includes nearly 300 iconic photographs and archival objects with images by artists including Richard Avedon, Annie Leibovitz, Irving Penn, Andy Warhol and others. Pairing photographs with contact sheets, campaign materials, magazines and personal images, the exhibit shows the vital role images played in legacy of the Yves Saint Laurent brand

Fashion house pays tribute to Chinese style with its 75th anniversary catwalk show in Shanghai

“New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Shanghai doesn’t even sit down.” For the British designer Ian Griffiths, who encountered this line in the New Yorker, it summed up why China’s biggest city was the right place to celebrate Max Mara’s 75th anniversary.

“Max Mara is a product for metropolitan women, and it would be patronising to assume that a metropolitan wardrobe should be western-centric,” Griffiths said.

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

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

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

Britain’s Camping and Caravanning Club started as a cycle camping club 125 years ago. I cycle from its birthplace to one of its oldest campsites to see if its free-wheeling spirit survives

Skylarks call out a cascading trill as I pedal between the pink and white hawthorn blossoms that make my path look like a May Day parade. I’m on the outskirts of Oxford, a city I thought I knew well, yet as I follow the National Cycle Route 57 on the e-bike I’d picked up in Jericho, it feels as though I’ve discovered a secret passageway.

This year the Camping and Caravanning Club (CCC) turns 125 – and I’m celebrating with a 60-mile cycling and camping trip, leaving from the city where the organisation was born and heading to Walton-on-Thames to stay at one of the oldest campsites in the CCC network.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The World Naked Bike Ride is designed to draw attention to the vulnerability of cyclists in the city. But this year’s London event is in the news after half the riders used rental bikes

Name: World Naked Bike Ride.

Age: 22.

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

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

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

Rather than pouring away old aquarium water, you could use it as free plant feed

The problem
Houseplants need liquid fertiliser, but this can be expensive. Fish tank owners, meanwhile, produce litres of nutrient-rich water during water changes, which then gets poured away. Could it feed houseplants instead?

The hack
Water from a freshwater aquarium contains nitrogen, phosphorus and beneficial bacteria. Rather than discarding it during routine water changes, use it to water your houseplants, giving them a free feed.

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.

Female activists are working in the shadows to find and support vulnerable women they fear are being failed by authorities

Last summer, Xiaocao, a softly spoken woman in her 40s, received a tip-off that in Lüliang, a small city in China’s Shanxi province, vulnerable women were being forced into marriages. Along with another volunteer, she wanted to investigate.

After leaving Beijing, the two volunteers travelled south for hours, on trains and in rental cars. A few villages turned out to be dead ends. But on the final day of their trip, the women stopped in a county where they’d heard about a woman with learning disabilities who was “married” to two brothers. Soon, they found her.

A headteacher, a motorcycle taxi driver and a travel agent are among those who are counting the human and economic cost of the virus

Justin Keno watches more than 400 pupils stream through the Nelson Mandela school’s gate each morning, and wonders which of them might be carrying Ebola.

The institution’s principal has done everything he can to prevent the spread of the virus: installing hand-washing basins at the entrance, providing alcohol-based hand rub for parents, making pupils bring packed lunches instead of eating in the canteen, and banning food sellers from outside the gates.

Sea ice is melting fast, worsening the climate crisis, but a bold attempt to rethicken it is showing early signs of success

‘This would have been a wild dream a year ago,” says Andrea Ceccolini, standing on Arctic sea ice just a 4-mile snowmobile ride from the Inuit town of Cambridge Bay, northern Canada. To his left are sky blue ponds of meltwater created in the last few days by a sun that no longer sets in the high north summer. To his right, the sea ice is still a brilliant white, the light dusting of snow on top continuing to sparkle.

“It’s incredibly different, the boundary – I mean, you can point to it,” he says. The difference is the result of a bold geoengineering experiment being conducted by Ceccolini’s company, Real Ice, funded by the UK government.

What should and shouldn’t be kept in the fridge can provoke debate. We want to hear about your non-negotiables

What items should or shouldn’t be kept in the fridge can divide opinions but the Guardian has asked some experts – it seems bread and olive oil do not benefit from being in the fridge but red wine can taste great chilled.

Now we want to hear from you. What items do you keep in the fridge? Does this differ from your partner, family or friends? Let us know.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tell us about your favourite trip to Greece – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

The new Hollywood adaptation of Homer’s epic work The Odyssey, released next month, is expected to give a huge tourism boost to Greece this summer. We’d love to hear about your favourite travel experiences in Greece, whether it’s island hopping, exploring antiquities in Athens, trekking in the Peloponnese or watching the sun set into the Aegean from the perfect beachfront taverna.

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet, wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

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