Their movie about marital bed death is this summer’s buzziest, funniest film. Its director and her co-star talk self-loathing, psychosexuality and unexpected eruptions

Earlier this week, Edward Norton took a night flight from New York to London and felt so dreadful the next day he decided to get a massage. “I hadn’t had one in such a long time,” he says, “and I almost started crying. You’re like: ‘Oh! Ah!’”

He has heard similar sounds from cinemas screening his new movie, The Invite, which is about the devastating impact of marriage on your sex life. “People are almost tearful. They’re like: ‘I haven’t had a good, adult laugh that made me feel seen in a long time.’”

A strategic line of towns and cities are crucial to Ukraine’s defence – and where the war is at its most brutal

A vast cobweb of spent fibre-optic cable is draped over the buildings in the small Ukrainian city of Lyman. Used to control the deadly drones deployed by both Russia and Ukraine, it has accumulated so densely after the years of fighting here that fresh drones struggle to fly through it, rotors tangling in the mass. Birds pluck it out to make their nests.

Beneath the glistening strands, residential blocks are shattered from shellfire as Moscow’s forces still push daily to take a city they briefly occupied until the Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2022, when they were driven out.

Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

Imagine a deafening abundance of birdsong so loud it wakes your children at dawn; the chirrup of house sparrows, the chattering of starlings, the melody of the wren, and the clear high-pitched flute of blackbirds saturating the garden, reverberating around your local park, dominating your neighbourhood from early morning to evening twilight.

So loud is the song of the thrush that the naturalist and ornithologist WH Hudson wrote in 1919 that he was grateful when observing one that it was perched on a tree at a distance from his home, “so that when I woke at half past three or four o’clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity”.

After exchanging vows with Travis Kelce, the workaholic pop star probably won’t be staying home to admire the wedding silverware

No speculation is too harebrained when it comes to Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. Are they getting married at the gigantic Madison Square Garden arena? What initially sounded mad is apparently quite true. Will she perform? Will Paul McCartney? All bets are off – and given the level of secrecy, maybe we’ll never actually know what does happen.

Only one recent report has made me go: yeah, as if. Gossip site DeuxMoi claims that Swift recently met 50 country radio execs to pitch an alleged upcoming country album, a return to her roots 20 years after she started in the genre. This strikes me as potentially true: even the world’s biggest pop star will glad-hand when needed, as it usually is in the always-traditional Nashville industry. But the report also claimed the rumoured album – Swift’s 13th, famously her lucky number – would be her last “for a while”, presumably because of her impending nuptials. So much of the discussion around the couple’s wedding is focused on what it will mean for Swift’s job. Will she take a break to “enjoy” marriage? Will it change her ambition? Will her songwriting suffer?

Laura Snapes is the Guardian’s deputy music editor

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Decades after my father’s death, I was still angry about losing him. Finding a good-luck symbol set me on a new path

Sumter, South Carolina, where I grew up, was nicknamed “Murk City”. It’s not all bad, but it has a history of gun violence and crime. I’m a rapper, and a lot of my early inspiration came from my past experiences – overcoming struggles within my home town and grief after the passing of my father.

The 28th anniversary of his death was on 21 May 2023. It was always a tough day, because he died when I was only 11. The anger I had over his loss grew to the point where I couldn’t deal with it and wanted to lash out at those around me.

For all its gloss and elitist governance, football will not bend to the will of a president so eager to demonise and exclude

At 4.38pm on 28 June Donald Trump dropped a Truth. Nothing unusual in that. Trump’s Truth Social feed is relentless and ever-giving.

That same afternoon he also Truthed at 3.58pm, 3.59pm, and twice at 7.42pm, all in the same instantly recognisable, weirdly cartoonish tone, as if a giant maize-based salted snack from a jaunty 1970s TV advert has been pumped full of voodoo and vitamins and propped up behind a lectern to explain geopolitics to the world, but only in the kind of words you might use while arguing with your nine-year-old sister.

NCA says offenders arrange to sexually assault and film victims via online networks with crimes often taking place in trusting relationships

Criminal investigators in the UK say they have uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual assault in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.

The National Crime Agency [NCA] has said online networks, “many as yet unidentified by law enforcement”, were allowing offenders to arrange to rape and abuse victims or arrange for sexual assaults to be filmed.

The late announcement is forcing police forces to take officers away from communities due to a potential rise of alcohol-linked violent incidents

Hollie Ridley, Labour’s general secretary, is to step down this autumn after two years in the job, she has announced to party staff.

Ridley, an ally of Keir Starmer who ran Labour’s field operations in the 2024 general win election, said in an internal email she would stand down after the party’s annual conference in September.

Huge scale of funeral for supreme leader across five cities is intended to relay message of resistance to rest of the world

In the small hours of Friday the police roadblocks, stalls, posters and army vans were starting to appear across Tehran as millions of Iranians prepared to attend the long-delayed six-day funeral ceremony for Ali Khamenei’s, Iran’s supreme leader for 36 turbulent years.

Khamenei was killed in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli attack on the country in February, and the funeral is intended to be an epic display of personal mourning, national power, resilience and social cohesion. Small groups of mourners carrying flags were gathering along the roads festooned with the red fist, the symbol of the funeral alongside the slogan “We must rise”. At a ceremony dedicated to the families of martyrs, Khamenei’s coffin was displayed.

One of 11 surviving copies of ‘Exeter printing’ and only one known outside US was taken from American privateer ship

For Michael Scurr, a volunteer at the National Archives in Kew, west London, it was “just a boring old Thursday morning” when he sat down in late May to catalogue a collection of documents from the British national collection that had never previously been recorded in detail.

As he opened a volume of 18th-century Royal Navy correspondence, however, Scurr unfolded a document whose opening words he recognised. “In Congress, July 4, 1776. A declaration by the representatives of the United States of America …”

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Julian Nagelsmann is set to resign as Germany coach, according to reports in the newspaper, Bild.

It was reported ⁠on Friday ​the 38-year-old had agreed to leave following talks with senior German soccer ⁠officials, ⁠a three-hour “secret summit” on Thursday at the German ​Football Association (DFB) headquarters in ‌Frankfurt.

That pundit was Ange Postecoglou, and now, Asia’s No 1 team need him to not just talk the talk but walk the nation to the top level of the global game. The federation in Tokyo should do all they can to get his signature on a lengthy contract as he is going to be in demand this summer.

Exclusive: As well as citing personal reasons, Ridley says she is making way for a successor ‘to work alongside new leader’

Hollie Ridley, Labour’s general secretary, is to step down this autumn after two years in the job, she has announced to party staff.

Ridley, an ally of Keir Starmer who ran Labour’s field operations in the 2024 general win election, said in an internal email she would stand down after the party’s annual conference in September.

Researchers say Stelios Kouloglou’s device was compromised after he joined European parliamentary committee

NSO Group’s hacking software was repeatedly used against a member of the European parliament while he was conducting an investigation of spyware abuses in Europe, according to a new report.

Researchers at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said they could not attribute the attacks against Stelios Kouloglou to any particular government operator of Pegasus spyware. But their investigation found the attack against the Greek now-former MEP bore the hallmarks of a previous hacking campaign against exiled Russian and Belarusian journalists in Europe.

President says Washington’s relationship with Nato is ‘not reciprocal’ and ‘they were not there for us’ in Iran war

Donald Trump has said it is “ridiculous” for the US to continue its “one sided” relationship with Nato, less than a week before a summit of the military alliance in Ankara.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that “They were not there for us!!!” and Washington’s relationship with Nato “is not reciprocal”.

Visitors can get free peek at works by one of UK’s most significant 20th-century artists and one of his successors

Swifts screech overhead, hares lope along the grassy paths and butterflies flutter in the woodland fringe. There is an orchard; there are chickens, beehives. It seems simply a lovely, if conventional, slice of English countryside – until you happen upon striking sculptures fashioned out of chunks of reclaimed steel or machinery parts salvaged from factories, shipyards and farms.

The pieces are the stars of a show called Heavy Metal, which brings together work by one of the UK’s most significant 20th-century artists, Anthony Caro, and one of his successors, James Capper.

From Times Square to the Norwegian parliament and even in fighter jet cockpits, the choreographed row is everywhere

The fans have done it, in their thousands, in the stadiums. The players have done it on the pitch. Pretty much anyone who was there did it in New York’s Times Square. Norwegian MPs did it in parliament.

Prince Sverre Magnus, third in line to the Norwegian throne, rowed in an Oslo subway carriage. Care home residents in their 90s rowed in rural Norway and Norwegian Royal Air Force pilots rowed in their F-35 fighter jets.

America has long stood for freedom and prosperity, but under Trump insults, threats and unpredictability have become the new norm. As the US marks its 250th anniversary, Guardian correspondents around the world report on how it is perceived elsewhere

Amy Hawkins in Beijing

With 1.5m families waiting for social housing and Labour’s building targets already falling short, the challenge is huge

From the front garden of the red-brick terrace where she has lived for nearly three decades, Coral McKeown, 50, points to the gleaming new council house she was supposed to move into five years ago.

It sits behind heavy metal fences surrounded by building work and an empty construction vehicle. She does not expect it to be ready until next year at the earliest.

Gareth Cattermole took a Polaroid camera to one of the singer’s 12 record-breaking Wembley Stadium shows to capture the fans’ creativity, humour and sense of community

***

Harry Styles is performing for a record-breaking 12 nights at Wembley Stadium, which follows 10 in Amsterdam. He will go on to do four nights in São Paulo, six in Mexico City and a mammoth 30 nights in New York, ending with four in Melbourne and two in Sydney, Australia.

Rebecca Ferguson is still excellent in this unremittingly grey-green subterranean post-apocalypse. Its political acuity makes it worth watching, even if it’s not always the most entertaining …

Being trapped indefinitely in an underground bunker, post-apocalypse, would have many drawbacks, but one of the worst would be miserable boredom. How would you fill the day, and the next and the next, apart from with squabbles and gloom? It’s a problem that Silo, a plush but inevitably rather dank sci-fi drama, wears like a rusty shackle.

Hundreds of years ago, the survivors of a cataclysm were ushered into the titular silo – a dizzyingly enormous metal cylinder hundreds of storeys deep, with the top floor at ground level and everything else subterranean. Ten thousand of them live there now, the records of how and why it all started having long since mysteriously vanished. Citizens abide by rules for which there is no mandate beyond solemn tradition and a paralysing fear of the alternative: on the floor that serves as a town square there is a giant screen with a live video feed of the devastated, irradiated world outside. Employment is provided by departments with functional names such as Mining and Mechanical, giving the impression that the silo is a clanking retro contraption that could fail at any moment.

Digital artists from Maa-speaking peoples including the Maasai and Samburu are gaining popularity in Kenya with a blend of traditional and modern sounds

As the sun sets, a goat’s leg sizzles on the fire in Kenya’s Mau Forest, a bumpy three-hour drive from the nearest Tarmac road. “Nowadays, Maasai shoot with cameras, not spears,” the manager says as he watches a Maasai musician looking at himself on a smartphone screen.

Julius Kesier, alias Kamurar Maasai, a musician and influential community mentor, is being filmed at his manyatta settlement. The spear he carries is purely for show.

The makers of the blockbusting sci-fi thriller reveal how they made a hit, why Kevin Spacey was almost involved and what went wrong with the sequel

The architects of cinema’s most popular alien invasion have slightly differing accounts of how exactly the original plans for Independence Day came to them. But they both agree that it began with the now-famous image of a massive spaceship looming over a city skyline.

Roland Emmerich, the director, recalls explaining the scope of the concept to Dean Devlin, the co-writer and producer, at the latter’s home: “He lived in an area on a hill, so I said, let’s go to the window – all of what you see would be [covered by] the underside of a spaceship. He said, where’s the humor? And I said, there’s a guy knocking out an alien saying ‘welcome to Earth.’ Then we learned that Tim Burton, a director I really admire, was doing Mars Attacks! We knew that movie was coming out in August, and we said, well, there’s a great date before: Fourth of July. And that’s why the movie is called Independence Day.”

Beach-hopping, gorge hikes and awesome archaeological sites feature in your best memories of Greece

• Tell us about a family day out in the UK – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

We first noticed Milos as we travelled home from Crete, flying directly above it and deciding that was where we must go next. It didn’t disappoint. The island was calm, peaceful and strikingly beautiful. Milos isn’t well known, but it should be; the true home of the Aphrodite of Melos, displayed in the Louvre, Paris as the Venus de Milo. The northern coast was spectacular, shaped by volcanic activity and particularly picturesque. Sarakiniko is the perfect stop for photographs with its white rock. Truly an unforgettable trip.
Chris Rimell

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Thomas Tuchel needs to slow game down so his side can handle altitude challenge – it is time for the low block

If any win will do then England do not have to worry about putting on an exhibition of attacking football against Mexico. They have no time to acclimatise to the altitude in Mexico City and will have to box clever if they are to handle the challenge of playing at more than 7,000ft (2,200m) above sea level at the Azteca Stadium.

No wonder Thomas Tuchel predicted this World Cup would be defined by suffering. England have prepared for the heat in the US but they are about to step into new territory. Mexico, rampant in their last-32 tie against Ecuador, are close to unstoppable at the Azteca. They have lost there twice in 89 competitive games, will be backed by a passionate crowd and have a physical advantage because of the altitude.

• ‘The balls have a chip in them – it is clear why VAR intervened’

• Croatia manager Dalic says ‘emotions have been literally killed’

Roberto Martínez commended the numerous video assistant referee interventions that helped Portugal past Croatia, and said there was no “lucky call”, after his team narrowly edged an incident-packed match to progress to the last 16 of the World Cup.

For the first time in the history of the tournament four goals were disallowed in the same game, with Croatia seeing three separate efforts chalked off, while Ronaldo also had a goal overturned. The final incident came in the very last seconds when Josko Gvardiol thought he had equalised in the 103rd minute of the match, only to be called offside. A snick-o-meter had detected the slightest of contacts between the ball and a teammate’s head as it crossed the box.

Egypt face Australia in a historic World Cup game on Friday and the manager has been keen to highlight president Al-Sisi’s role in the achievement

After Egypt’s 3-1 victory over New Zealand at the World Cup, the national team coach, Hossam Hassan, issued a statement of gratitude to the country’s president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.

Al-Sisi had sent a congratulatory message to the team and, for Hassan, that almost seemed like a bigger event than the result. The president’s message, he said, was “a medal on his chest,” adding that it has the “effect of magic” before praising the “unprecedented development” of Egyptian sport under al-Sisi’s leadership.

The Blue Sharks will become the smallest nation in history to play a knockout match at the World Cup when they face Argentina on Friday

The Festival da Gamboa is the largest music festival on Santiago Island, Cape Verde. Since its inception in the early 1990s, the small stretch of beach, nestled at the foot of the plateau of Praia, has been transformed for a weekend from the home of a dozen or so fishing boats to one of the country’s biggest shindigs, attracting thousands of partygoers.

It has staged some of Cape Verde’s greatest musicians playing the rhythms of mornas, funaná, coladeira, batuque and tabanca. But last Friday, on opening night of the three-day event, it staged Cabo Verde’s newest and most popular act, the Tubarões Azuis, the Blue Sharks.

The right wants to paint Manchesterism in terms of north v south – but poverty everywhere is solved by prioritising the public purse over private pockets

When the “king of the north” called London “the world’s greatest capital city” this week, it didn’t reassure those who fear that Andy Burnham represents that old national grievance, the north-south divide. The right warned southerners that he was coming to tax their extravagant properties until the pips squeaked.

The idea that London is reviled as a swelling boil or a vampire sucking life from the provinces long pre-dates William Cobbett. Go north of Watford, go east or south-west, and populists can always raise a hiss against the capital. Envy and loathing come in many political shapes: for the right, London is the citadel of left-leaning elitism and also the multicultural crime-ridden swamp of Trump-Vance fabrication. Who doesn’t resent the gilded greed of City bankers – takers, not makers. And Burnham’s popularity is built on northernness.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

America at 250 is not a finished monument, but a structure still under repair

To call this Saturday the nation’s 250th birthday is to indulge a comfortable fiction. 1776 was a declaration, not a birth certificate – and the founders wrote its claims of human equality while this nation enslaved human beings. A truer account of American freedom runs through 1619 and Juneteenth, when Americans forced the country, at last, to begin making its promises answerable to reality.

So I’m not in the mood to celebrate “America 250”, and I’m not alone. The affection is thin this summer: the Pew Research Center found that 69% of Americans were dissatisfied with the country’s direction early this year. That is not ingratitude. Sometimes a sour mood is simply clear vision.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

The outrage following the 11-year-old girl’s killing is justified. But the case reveals a deeper systemic neglect of child protection

When the body of an 11-year-old girl was found in a disused grain silo on a farm in the Gers region of south-west France last month, the news sent shockwaves across the country. Lyhanna had been missing for nearly a week. Members of the public had been out combing the area. Suspicion quickly focused on Jérôme Barella, the 41-year-old father of one of Lyhanna’s classmates, in whose car Lyhanna had last been seen alive.

Barella was charged in connection with the case, but denies any wrongdoing or involvement in the killing. But shock turned to public outrage after a local prosecutor revealed that the suspect had been the subject of several accusations of sexual violence against young girls before Lyhanna’s disappearance, yet until then had never been questioned by police.

Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, writer, film-maker and activist

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An estimated 185,000 babies were taken from unmarried mothers in England and Wales between 1949 and 1976. I was one of them

After my adoptive father died in November last year, my adoptive siblings found a short story by Enid Blyton among his possessions. The Child Who Was Chosen was read to us as children to explain the circumstances of my adoption. It follows a nice middle-class couple whose domestic bliss is marred by childlessness, prompting them to go to a “very kind lady” who helps them to find a “chosen baby” instead. In its foreword, Blyton advises adoptive parents to tell the tale to their adopted child “again and again … so that to him ‘adoption’ means something lovely”.

The “chosen child” narrative, where parents tell adoptees they were specially picked, helped to shape the still widespread public perception of adoption as unambiguously altruistic. But it has also long been criticised by adult adoptees for masking the trauma of separation from their original parents. Reading Blyton’s saccharine story, I was struck by its glaring omissions. There is no mention of how the boy, who is unnamed until he is adopted, came to be put up for adoption; nor any suggestion that he once had another family and identity. There is no recognition of his first mother or her loss, only the loneliness of the prospective adoptive mother. The woman from the adoption agency also tells the couple that if this child isn’t the one they really want, she will find another one – as though she’s running a baby market.

David Batty is a news editor and writer for the Guardian

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.

Despite a deadly heatwave sweeping through Europe, the US president’s ineptness has created reason for optimism on the climate crisis

• Sign up for climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s free Clear Air newsletter here

Two real-life climate-themed movies are playing in parallel across the globe. They are about the world today, but they are also a snapshot of the future. The first is a slow-building horror story; the second, a feelgood summer hit. Both are worth watching.

Horror films are suddenly box-office gold, so let’s start there. The World Health Organisation says the extreme, record-breaking heatwave blanketing Europe has killed more than 1,300 people. But everyone knows that number will end up a dramatic understatement.

Just before being kicked out of No 10, the PM is dreaming of lifting the World Cup for a nation – and political immortality

The dream lives on. With 15 minutes left against the Democratic Republic of Congo in Atlanta, England were in danger of going out of the World Cup. The defeat would have been one of the more humiliating exits from an international tournament the team had experienced. But with heads going down and nerves shattered, up stepped Harry Kane with a couple of goals. The second, sublime. Captain Fantastic. Thank goodness Spurs had the foresight to send him out on loan to Bayern Munich to polish his finishing skills.

The dream in question, of course, is Keir Starmer’s. For months now, he might have spent the first few minutes of every day staring at his wall chart, plotting England’s journey so that he becomes only the second prime minister after Harold Wilson to lead his country through World Cup glory, and maintain the record of the men’s team only winning a major international tournament under a Labour government. For that alone, Keir would go down in history as one of the immortals. Guaranteed the eternal thanks of a grateful nation. A state funeral in the bag. This would be his most lasting legacy.

While I cherish voice notes and tolerate WhatsApp, I missed the spontaneity and unfiltered rawness of a proper phone call

The first thing my friend Paul says after he picks up after four dial tones is “is everything OK?”

Everything is OK. I was just calling for a chat.

Having ordered a public inquiry, it is right that ministers are taking its ideas about managing risks seriously

It is two years this month since Axel Rudakubana burst into a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, murdered Alice da Silva Aguiar, Bebe King and Elsie Dot Stancombe, and injured 10 other people. The government’s pledge to implement all 67 recommendations from the public inquiry signals its determination to protect the public in future. Its chair, Sir Adrian Fulford, said his most important finding was the failure by any organisation to “take ownership of the risk” posed by Rudakubana. He revealed his interest in violence multiple times, including when he was found on a bus with a knife in 2022. Rather than make an arrest, police sent him home.

Sir Adrian and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, want to ensure that in future, police confronted by a young man with a knife, and with a similar track record, would behave differently. A key part of the problem is what they, and other officials who encountered Rudakubana, did and didn’t know. The plan is to close the gaps between the public services that he repeatedly slipped through.

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.

Foreigners are not to blame for unemployment, crime and the state of public services. Leaders should have the courage to say so more clearly

Just over 30 years ago, Nelson Mandela expressed his sadness and anger at the rising hatred of foreigners in South Africa. “We had a legacy of unity and solidarity here,” the president told an African National Congress rally. “We are not victims to the influx of foreign people.”

Since then, xenophobic violence has periodically erupted. In 2008, anti-migrant attacks killed at least 62 people. Now a new wave is sweeping the country. Thousands marched in the streets on Tuesday – the arbitrary “deadline” that campaign groups had set for migrants to leave the country. More than 25,000 people did so in the run-up, with some countries evacuating their nationals and individuals fleeing in fear. Mozambique says five nationals were killed in anti-foreigner violence in May, and Ghana says a citizen was killed on Monday, though South African officials have offered different accounts. Migrants have been systematically blocked from health and other services by the Operation Dudula and March & March movements.

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 by Blake Morrison about Andy Burnham’s English literature degree and love of poetry

I agree with Blake Morrison about the value of a humanities degree – specifically Andy Burnham’s choice of English literature (At a poet’s memorial, I saw how Andy Burnham could be a different kind of prime minister, 27 June). However, readers may have been misled by his rhetorical comment: “But do you need to have studied science, maths or PPE to become a prime minister? Maybe not.”

If only we had more prime ministers with maths or science degrees. Wikipedia tells me that there has only ever been one with a science degree (Margaret Thatcher, chemistry), and three with maths or maths and classics degrees, and all in the 1800s (maths and classics, Robert Peel 1808 and William Gladstone 1831; maths, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil 1850, fourth class). None in the last 170 years.

Health professionals across Europe are calling for an EU climate and health strategy, write Mark Wilson and Dr Paul De Raeve; plus a letter from Nadine Henderson

You report on hospitals declaring critical incidents as their systems fail in the heat (Hospitals in England declare critical incidents as machines and IT fail in heat, 25 June). This is a crisis that health professionals saw coming.

It is not England’s alone. During June’s record-breaking European heatwave, France raised its health system to the highest level of emergency mobilisation, while hospitals across Italy, Spain and Germany reported surging admissions and cooling systems that could not cope. Everywhere, the people caring for patients are working sleep-deprived in sweltering, un-air-conditioned wards, with consequences for both staff wellbeing and the safety of care. Across Europe, we are hearing from health professionals that conditions are becoming dangerous and systems remain unprepared.

Dr Charlie Gardner says the public are vastly overestimating the cost of net zero. Plus letters from Moira Gommon and Diana Francis

I enjoyed Jonathan Freedland’s lampooning of climate sceptics suffering in the recent heatwave (Climate sceptics cheering as they melt in record temperatures? This heatwave is where satire has come to die, 26 June). He writes: “Given the desperate need for economic growth, I understand why net zero can seem like an unaffordable luxury. But look up: it’s a life-saving essential.”

Indeed it is essential, and it is far from being unaffordable. The Climate Change Committee’s seventh carbon budget in 2025 estimates that reaching net zero by 2050 will cost £4bn a year – a 73% drop from its estimate five years previously. That amounts to just 0.2% of GDP – most of which will be met by the private sector – and the savings it will generate are so great that by 2040 net zero will be a net benefit to the economy. And the Office for Budget Responsibility puts the public-sector costs of net zero at £70 per person per year.

Politics beyond Westminster | A win for Everton | Name the queen | Man’s best friend | Tuned in for music

I have been trying to understand why No 10 North would be situated in Manchester (Report, 2 July). On the mainland of Britain, Manchester is situated 38% of the way from the south to the north coast. Including the Isles of Scilly and Shetland, it is situated 35.5% of the way from the southernmost point to the northernmost. Perhaps it is now implicitly accepted by government in Westminster that Scotland should be a separate state for government?
Janet Davies
Abergavenny, Monmouthshire

• If Andy Burnham is chosen, it will be the first thing an Evertonian has won since the 1995 FA Cup.
David Feintuck
Lewes, East Sussex

The hype around Paul Seixas is fully justified as the 19-year-old bids to end four decades of French disappointment

When you write about the Tour de France for the best part of (deep breath) 40 years, the same themes recur, constantly evolving and mutating. The contorted fortunes of France’s finest cyclists have been a constant narrative since 4 July 1990, when the late Laurent Fignon put foot to tarmac in the feed zone somewhere in the bocage between Avranches and Rouen. It was cold, dank and wet, which given the canicule concerns gripping France at the moment seems like a bit of history in itself.

Fignon had started as one of the favourites, but that was the beginning of the end for “the Professor”. The search for a successor to the five-time winner Bernard Hinault had begun in 1986, the Badger’s retirement year when the ephemeral heir apparent was Jean-François Bernard; 1990 was when the doubts gained pace, intensifying with each passing year and with each potential champion who emerged, went under the spotlight, and eventually crumbled: Richard Virenque, Luc Leblanc, Laurent Jalabert, Romain Bardet, Warren Barguil, Thibaut Pinot.

• Third seed more at ease in dominant 6-1, 6-3 victory

• ‘Today I felt like it was a normal day at the office’

In the final minutes of her quick afternoon on Centre Court, two points from defeat, Karolina Pliskova curled a precise first serve out wide that landed dead on the line, sending a wisp of white titanium pigment flying through the air. Against most other players the serve would not have come back, but Iga Swiatek is not any player. The Pole frantically shuffled to her right and brilliantly improvised with a low, cutting slice return that died on the grass, leaving Pliskova with little chance of a response.

There are days when everything goes one player’s way, and the unique aspect of Swiatek’s career is how frequently she is the protagonist on such afternoons. Here she put together a dominant performance as her title defence gained some momentum, dismantling Pliskova 6-1, 6-3 to reach the third round.

• Teenager wins 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 in match held over

• Zverev and De Minaur reach round three in straight sets

This is Rafael Jodar’s first Wimbledon and yet the way the 19-year-old plays and talks, you would think he is playing his 10th. Trailing two sets to one to another Spaniard, Pablo Carreño Busta, in a match held over from the previous evening when the light ran out, he could easily have been nervous when the encounter resumed, thinking his first time here could be about to end.

Not a bit of it. Jodar quickly levelled and then edged the fifth to win 3-6, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 and move into the third round. “I knew I had to get my body ready for the next day, because obviously I was down,” said Jodar, who has burst on to the scene this year and who reached the quarter-finals at Roland Garros last month. “But I believed in my chances. I believed that I could come back and win the fourth set and then the fifth set. That’s what happened.

• Stanway back in WSL after stint at Bayern Munich

• ‘This is a massive club’ says England midfielder

Georgia Stanway believes Arsenal is the right place for her to win more trophies and further improve her game after completing her move to the north London club on a free transfer.

Stanway, who helped Bayern Munich win four consecutive Frauen-Bundesliga titles, has moved to Arsenal following the end of her contract with the German club. “It’s an unbelievable feeling and I’m so proud to be joining Arsenal,” said the 27-year-old England midfielder. “This is a massive club that is driving the women’s game forward to new levels and I want to be a part of it.

• England beat South Africa by 40 runs

• Women’s T20 World Cup hosts through to Lord’s final

England launched themselves into the T20 World Cup final after defeating South Africa by 40 runs at the Oval on Thursday evening.

Emotions ran high, especially after England were left reeling at 23 for three having been put in to bat. But with a crowd of 21,000 roaring them on, the World Cup hosts were jubilant at the end as a record partnership of 133 from 90 balls between Nat Sciver-Brunt and Heather Knight put them in the driving seat. Sunday’s battle against Australia at Lord’s will be their first T20 World Cup final since 2018.

The New Zealander was the right man to take on the job of persuading a group of jaded senior players to play brilliant cricket, but may not suit a rebuild

Wait, what? Four days on, and nothing about the weekend that’s just gone seems to make much sense. It was England’s seventh defeat in nine Tests, and somehow, at the end of it, they’ve lost the last man anyone really wanted to go. Ben Stokes, his own man all the way to the end, has apparently decided he would rather spend his remaining days in the game playing championship cricket for Durham. A man whose career has been marked by copper-bottomed self-conviction has left English cricket facing a whole lot of questions.

The first of them is whether Brendon McCullum is really the right man to try to rebuild this England team in the years ahead.

Annual celebration on 12 July enables social players and children to challenge some of England’s best

On Sunday, 12 July, ChessFest, the game’s annual celebration, returns to Trafalgar Square in central London and offers a unique opportunity for ordinary players and their children to experience top chess free of charge. Complete beginners are welcome and will receive helpful instruction from Chess in Schools and Communities tutors.

The action starts at noon and continues until 7pm. Throughout the day, experts including nine-time British champion Michael Adams, three-time champion Gawain Maroroa Jones, and many other international players will give simultaneous displays or be available for one to one speed games in the Challenge the Chess Master tent.

Suspect is said to have tried to pass as a man during attack apparently targeting Ukrainian-born oligarch

The main suspect in ⁠a ⁠bomb attack in ​Monaco ⁠this week is a woman ⁠who ​has ‌been spotted ‌in Germany, a ‌judicial source in Monaco told Reuters on Friday.

Three ‌people were wounded on ​Monday evening in a parcel ⁠bomb explosion in the ​wealthy ​principality, which ​was ​believed ‌to ​be an attack ​on a Ukrainian-born oligarch.

Exclusive: Findings cast doubt on Keir Starmer’s claims that reallocation of funds to MoD will boost British jobs

Keir Starmer’s decision to cut billions of pounds of infrastructure spending to pay for more defence equipment will end up costing the UK 10,000 jobs, according to an analysis of the government’s own figures.

The prime minister announced this week he was putting an extra £15bn into defence investment to revamp the country’s armed forces and boost British manufacturing.

Swifties braved a heatwave on Thursday in New York to get a glimpse of preparations at Madison Square Garden

On the streets of New York City, cars are honking, trucks are unloading and wedding bells are ringing. After nearly a year of breathless speculation, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce seem set to host their wedding festivities smack in the middle of the Big Apple at Madison Square Garden tomorrow, creating a cultural spectacle in the middle of a sweltering heatwave and Independence Day celebrations for America’s 250th anniversary.

On Thursday morning, the streets around the arena were closed to traffic but open to pedestrians. A white tent was being constructed on the 31st Street side of the stadium, as a flurry of cars pulled up. Visible packaging included chicken wings from Amick Farms, large bags of ground beef and a large box from Brooklyn’s Northside Bakery. When approached by the Guardian, a gaggle of staffers with lanyards were adamant about the secrecy. “We don’t know anything!” one said.

New York mayor’s remarks at city hall to come just hours before Trump is set to deliver address at Mount Rushmore

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, is expected to deliver a speech on Friday morning to mark America’s 250th birthday.

The address, scheduled to begin at 10am local time and streamed live, will be delivered from behind George Washington’s desk in New York city hall. Mamdani will be surrounded by recently naturalized citizens.

In one area 76% of fishing boats were followed, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents

Bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic are increasingly following trawlers to scavenge for food, with baby dolphins learning the technique from their parents, a study has found.

“These days the easiest way to find [bottlenose dolphins] is to look for trawlers,” said Giovanni Bearzi, a co-author of the study and the president of Dolphin Biology and Conservation in Italy. “Many of them are followed by the dolphins that go to forage and scavenge in their wake.

For decades, foreign firms established settlements in the Brazilian Amazon to support extractive activities, only to eventually abandon the buildings and workers. The remains show human resilience as nature reclaims the land

In this week’s newsletter: Activists are accusing the government of privatising the coastline to support the country’s thriving tourism industry, at the expense of locals

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Every year, millions of visitors from across the globe visit Jamaica to enjoy its gorgeous beaches, fuelling a multibillion dollar tourism industry. But, in recent years, its picture-perfect coastlines have become a battleground for access after successive governments privatised its shorelines to support the country’s thriving all-inclusive hotel industry.

The complex row, which has seen protesters clashing with police and campaigners tearing down barriers around privatised properties, is now playing out in the country’s courts. We take a closer look at each side’s case, and what’s at stake.

European heatwave is worst ever and impossible without climate crisis, scientists say

A sad inevitability’: after decades of climate warnings, why is Europe so unprepared for rising heat?

‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?

Sound of thunder varies depending on distance of listener from lightning as atmosphere muffles and absorbs sound

A bolt of lightning heats the air almost instantly to as high as 30,000C, causing explosive expansion and a supersonic shock wave that becomes thunder. What that thunder sounds like to a listener depends largely on where they are.

Nearby lightning produces a distinctive snap or crack, or a startling explosive boom. Large, complex lightning with multiple segments generates a peal of thunder, a series of booms of different pitches as the sound from each of the segments reaches you in turn.

Nearly 3,000 people have been evacuated in southern France as the country swelters through a record-breaking heatwave. The fire started at a campsite, destroying dozens of mobile homes before spreading to the marina area, where thick, toxic smoke blanketed boats. The fire broke out in the town of Sainte-Marie-la-Mer and spread to Canet-en-Roussillon on Thursday [• This gallery’s headline and subheading were amended on 3 July 2026; an earlier version referred to south-western France]

Anonymous individual arrested after claims of sexual misconduct on reality TV show and police calls for contact

A cast member from Married at First Sight UK has been arrested on suspicion of rape, after claims of sexual misconduct on the reality TV show.

The individual and the alleged victim are not being named. Alleged victims of rape have the legal protection of anonymity.

Exclusive: Guardian analysis exposes evidence of racial inequalities in pain relief offered across healthcare

• ‘The epidural failed and no one believed me’

• How the ethnicity pain gap follows people from birth to death

Women from black and Asian backgrounds are less likely than their white counterparts to receive an epidural while giving birth, research has revealed.

The findings, based on data collected from more than 2.7 million births in the UK, prompted experts to raise the alarm about an “ethnicity pain gap” that means people of colour are more likely to be deprived of adequate pain relief within medical settings.

After decades of campaigning by those affected, PM says British state ‘did not do enough to protect’ mothers and children

Keir Starmer has formally apologised for the British state’s role in past forced adoptions after decades of campaigning by mothers and children affected.

The prime minister said “the shame is ours” and that he was “deeply and profoundly sorry” for what had happened, as he announced extra funding to help people access their adoption records and reconnect with biological families.

Commissioner asked to investigate Reform UK leader after private meeting with Bank of England governor

The standards watchdog has been urged to investigate whether Nigel Farage lobbied the Bank of England to drop a cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for the billionaire bankrolling his party, potentially in breach of parliamentary rules.

The Reform UK leader has said his party’s major donor, Christopher Harborne, wanted nothing in exchange for the £15m he donated to the party and the undeclared £5m gift to Farage the Guardian revealed in April.

Exiled Tibetans say the man’s self-immolation was an appeal for Tibetan independence from China

Police in New York said a man has died from severe burns near the United Nations headquarters, and activists ⁠and a media outlet ⁠of exiled Tibetans identified ​him as a Tibetan who set himself on fire in an appeal for independence.

A New York City police department spokesperson said police found the man badly burned after responding to an emergency call ⁠made at about 6.30pm ET .

Former intern and employee awarded 5,000 yuan (£554) in emotional damages after court found former manager had harassed her

A woman in China has won a rare legal victory in a workplace sexual harassment case.

The woman, a former intern and employee at Beijing Grassland Alliance, an environmental NGO, was awarded 5,000 yuan (£554) in emotional damages, to be paid by her former manager, who the court ruled had sexually harassed her. The manager was also ordered to write an apology to her.

Jérémie Queyras, 28, created painting over months of sessions at his studio where pair struck up unlikely bond

Over months they met secretly in a studio in the government quarter of central Berlin – a young artist and his subject, the former German chancellor Angela Merkel. For hours at a time, while Jérémie Queyras painted her portrait, they bonded, Merkel has said, chatting “about all and sundry”. Sometimes they were silent, or they listened to classical music, taking it in turns to let each other choose the pieces.

The result of what Merkel, 71, called their “little adventure” was unveiled to an invited audience of family, friends and a handful of art critics this week in the neo-baroque Bode-Museum in Berlin.

Yorgen Fenech said to have spent €400,000 on fees for men convicted of car bombing that killed investigative journalist

A businessman accused of commissioning the murder of the Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia spent more than €400,000 (£343,000) on legal fees for the hitmen convicted of her killing, prosecutors claim.

Yorgen Fenech, the 44-year-old heir to one of Malta’s largest fortunes, arrived in court for the second day of his trial on Thursday in an unmarked armoured police vehicle. He is on house arrest having pledged a record bail estimated at €50m.

Ben Francis, who started business in parents’ garage, sold 21% stake in deal that created £1.25bn sportswear brand

• Business live – latest updates

The founder of Gymshark is in talks to buy back a portion of the stake he sold to private equity in a deal that created a billion-pound sportswear empire, as the 34-year-old looks to increase his control of the exercise clothing brand.

Ben Francis, who started the business sewing his own gym clothes in his parents’ garage in 2012, sold a 21% stake to the US private equity firm General Atlantic in 2020.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

Today’s UK Service PMI report (which polls purchasing managers from across the sector) found there was a “sustained reduction in backlogs of work across the service economy”.

This was due to weak demand, S&P Global reports, adding:

This contributed to another fall in employment numbers, with the pace of job losses the sharpest since February. Many service providers noted either redundancies or the non-replacement of voluntary leavers in response to reduced business requirements and pressure on margins from rising costs.

Retailer says sharp rise in fan sales over the latest heatwave weekend left stores scrambling to source stock

• Business live – latest updates

The boss of Currys has said supplies of air conditioning and fans are “tight” ahead of another UK heatwave, expected next week, after a boom in sales sent retailers scrambling to source new stock.

Alex Baldock, chief executive of the electrical goods retailer, said cooling kit had been “flying off the shelves” during June’s record heat in England. Sales of fans were up nearly 3,000% over the most recent heatwave weekend compared with a week earlier, while air conditioning sales increased 330%.

Strong figures suggest Tesla’s auto business is regaining momentum after two straight annual sales declines

Tesla blew past ​Wall Street estimates for second-quarter deliveries on Thursday, posting a record for the period as recovering demand in Europe outweighed persistent weakness in North America.

The strong figures suggest Tesla’s ⁠mainstay auto business is regaining momentum after two straight annual sales declines, providing the spending cushion needed to power its ambitions in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence – the main drivers of the company’s roughly $1.6tn valuation.

This lavishly researched book shows that dots and dashes are an essential component of style, whether you’re a medieval monk or Donald Trump

How do you feel about exclamation marks? Otherwise known as gaspers, screamers, dog’s cocks, or shrieks. In his Modern English Usage, Fowler said that using too many betrays an “uneducated or unpractised writer”. Martin Amis called them “joke badges”, and Theodor Adorno “soundless cymbal-crashing”. The novelist Elmore Leonard specified that you were allowed only two or three every 100,000 words. He was being generous.

Florence Hazrat notes that the Nazis loved exclamation marks, with Goebbels pencilling in triplets of them into a speech for Hitler. The modern German linguist Konrad Ehlich is described here as believing that “slapping exclamation marks on to the end of statements turns all utterance into shouting, and all thinking into order”. At the same time she derides male scholars who have complained about previous editors inserting exclamation marks into the speech of Beowulf on the grounds that it feminises the hero.

With players leaving EA’s series once life there felt like a grind beset by ethical concerns, this quirky new sim promises a better life elsewhere

For 26 years, the life-sims genre has been dominated by one series: The Sims. Originally designed by Will Wright, creator of Sim City, EA’s virtual dollhouse series has grown into a $5bn [£3.8bn] empire with the constant release of new games, expansion packs, and collaborations cementing its place among the bestselling video game franchises of all time. But things are beginning to change. New contenders are emerging and turning the heads of even loyal players in The Sims community.

The most recent, and promising, of these is Paralives, once the solo project of indie designer Alex Massé, who is now employing a small team of developers. Released on the PC games platform Steam in May 2026 as an early access title (meaning it’s technically unfinished and looking for user feedback), it sold 250,000 copies in just eight hours. On that first day, the concurrent player count hit 78,603 – not far off The Sims 4’s all-time peak of 96,328 in 2022. While Paralives is a small project, this success is understandable. Following the news of EA’s controversial acquisition by a Saudi-backed business consortium, some simmers are looking for what they see as a more ethical alternative. But this is only part of the game’s appeal. The real draw is the game’s focus on creativity over realism: the quirky details that made many fans fall in love with The Sims in the first place.

Yorkshire shepherd Amanda Owen takes an old-school camping trip. Plus: a documentary for Agatha Christie fans. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, Channel 4
When faced with freshly plastered walls, what creative kid could resist adding a couple of little scratchy doodles? After discovering that her girls have already started leaving their marks, Yorkshire shepherd Amanda Owen wisely packs some marshmallows and whisks them all off for an old-school camping trip to Boggle Hole. While the ongoing farmhouse conversion dries out, it’s left to her ex-husband Clive and their son Miles to make the grounds look less like a building site. Graeme Virtue

Emma Stone is a CEO-maybe-alien in Yorgos Lanthimos’s wild black comedy, and it’s the vibrant conclusion of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande’s Wizard of Oz tale. Plus: The Bodyguard!

A scruffy conspiracy theorist (Jesse Plemons) and a CEO-maybe-alien (Emma Stone) face off in this wild black comedy. Plemons is Teddy Gatz, a warehouse worker and beekeeper, distraught about the damage done by corporations such as the one Michelle Fuller (Stone) heads up. Teddy’s internet “research” has convinced him Fuller is an Andromedan colonist intent on enslaving humanity, so along with his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis), Teddy plans to kidnap her and negotiate Earth’s liberation. Technically, Bugonia is a remake of a Korean film, but the mischievous mood comes unmistakably from Yorgos Lanthimos, the lauded film-maker behind Poor Things and The Favourite.
Saturday 4 July, 10.25am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

A deeply wholesome new take on Laura Ingalls Wilder’s classic Americana, plus the return of Rafe Spall and Esther Smith’s breezy family sitcom

Adapting Laura Ingalls Wilder’s rural Americana novels for the streaming era is risky. There’s a readymade audience but the books are so beloved that failing to do them justice won’t be easily forgiven. Alice Halsey plays Laura Ingalls, a sparky pre-teen whose family are setting out on an exciting but uncertain adventure to Kansas to start a new life. But can they simply claim some land, chop down some trees and build a house? It’s not as easy as that, as encounters with wolves, strange neighbours and Native Americans soon prove. This version largely plays it safe: in places, it’s a little grittier than you might expect but it is still a deeply wholesome confection.
Netflix, from Thursday 9 July

This documentary tells the story of the long-distance relationship between a BBC correspondent in London and a photographer on the ground in Syria with charm and humanity

Politics is to some degree set aside here in favour of matters of the heart; this is a story of romantic love among the ruins. London-based Lebanese journalist Janay Boulos, while working for the BBC’s Arabic service, fell in love from afar in 2016 with Syrian activist and photojournalist Abd Alkader Habak. He, during the Assad regime, was putting his life in danger to supply her with dramatic footage from his home town of Idlib and later Aleppo. Habak was himself to make international headlines in 2017 by getting photographed carrying an injured child to safety.

Habak’s gruelling images are interspersed with Boulos’s smartphone footage of her thoughtfully going up and down in the lifts at BBC Broadcasting House as well as home-movie material of her childhood in the seaside Lebanese town of Byblos; we get their tender texts and voice notes showing a growing relationship, sweetly calling each other “bird” and “little bird”. Finally Habak got out of Syria and into Turkey; the couple got married and lived in London, going on pro-Palestinian marches. Habak has mixed feelings about having to watch Syria’s final liberation on TV and Boulos goes back to visit her parents in Lebanon where the activities of Israel are stoically deplored, though Hezbollah is not mentioned.

Shaham/Virginia Symphony Orchestra/Jacobsen
(Canary Classics)
The US violinist’s plush tone and laser-focused intonation enriches the solo line in these two violin concertos, with the Virginia Symphony light on its feet

Pairing Samuel Coleridge-Taylor with his musical idol Dvořák is a shrewd idea. The British composer, of Sierra Leonean heritage, usually finds his Violin Concerto coupled with a little-known English work. Here, juxtaposed with one of the 19th century’s most popular concertos, it more than holds its own.

Coleridge-Taylor’s concerto premiered in Connecticut in 1912 (despite the original parts going down with the Titanic). Although he doesn’t quote actual spirituals, the harmonies and melodic contours are reminiscent of African folk music. Gil Shaham has the measure of the work, his plush tone and laser-focused intonation enriching the solo line in a generally more sumptuous performance than most rival recordings. Eric Jacobsen and the excellent Virginia Symphony Orchestra ensure the accompaniments remain sufficiently light on their feet.

(Fixed Abode x Unsound)
The festival-formed quartet conjures an album of glacial sound design and elegiac grandeur, though it can get too moody for its own good

Polish producer 2K88 makes dark, glitching tracks that honour his country’s rap history and UK bass music. So when Poland’s Unsound festival asked him to team up with a group of British musicians, it made sense that he was drawn to Lauren Duffus, Rainy Miller and Bianca Scout, all of whom craft murky, genre-agnostic sounds best suited to after hours. The trio joined 2K88 for a residency in his home city of Gdynia last year ahead of a live performance at the festival in Kraków; the material they conjured up has now been developed into 10 full tracks.

As you might expect from their respective solo projects, this record is haunting and vaporous, with glacial sound design, fragments of FX’d voice and stabs of low end. Opening track Everything Always Changes sets the vibe as textural drones merge into Duffus’s gauzy, looped vocals. Miller’s elegiac spoken word adds grandeur to the ambience, an effect intermittently upheld by soaring synths on In Stardust Garden … (Empress Ballroom) and Purple Mauve.

(Capitol)
Amid signs of greatness, the already hugely popular British singer fails to live up to her potential, lacking vocal agility and lyrical subtlety

We live in a post Die With a Smile world. Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ 2024 megahit has nearly 4bn streams on Spotify alone: the people crave traditionalist AM radio ballads. Enter Sienna Spiro, a young soul singer whose ultra-traditionalist sound is backed up by posh pedigree: her father, Glenn Spiro, is a famed Hatton Garden jeweller; her mother, Arabella, is a high society figure who reportedly mixed with royalty.

After breaking through on TikTok, Spiro first hit the UK singles chart in 2024 and has since had three US Hot 100 hits. Her much-anticipated debut album is merely competent pastiche, largely comprising Whitney-style piano ballads sung with a grittier and less agile voice. Spiro specialises in lyrical stubbornness: the image she paints of herself is that of a charming fighter, refusing to let an ex get away. Sometimes this really works: Die on This Hill is soaring and suffused with cathartic conviction. On We’re Not in Love and Great Expectation, it’s just exhausting.

Racial and gender politics are woven into a clever tale of murder and morals at Cambridge

Yrsa is a young Black undergraduate supervisor who is studying for a sociology PhD at Cambridge. She is tired of the disappointing men in her orbit: the ones she works with, sleeps with and who abuse her trust and that of her friends. She is also heartily sick of the students who attend her lectures and “the mix of boredom, doubt, arrogance that stares back at her. The blond flops of hair, Macs covered in stickers, non-discreet texters [when] she’s explaining – like not all lecturers here will – how the world works.”

Near the start of Honey, we find Yrsa counselling a devastated colleague, Nina, who has been sleeping with her married professor, Richardson. Not only has he reneged on his pledge to leave his wife, but he has been using Nina’s research and passing it off as his own.

Covering three generations, this tangled story of secrets, childhood, abandonment and care might be her best work yet

In 2018 Daisy Johnson was the youngest writer ever to be shortlisted for the Booker prize, for her debut novel Everything Under, a gender-fluid reimagining of the Oedipus myth involving canal boat communities and their complex family dynamics, plus a strange monster lurking in the depths. Before that, her short‑story collection Fen, with its blend of the uncanny and the workaday, was critically acclaimed. She has since written Sisters, a psychological horror that uses supernatural elements to explore sibling bonds and grief, and The Hotel, a series of seriously chilling interlinked ghost stories. Now comes Long Wave, which, while it shares some of these hallmarks, is in many ways finer and more subtle: perhaps her strongest work yet.

Long Wave is a story of three generations of mothers. As a small child Ori was found after being “abandoned” by her mother on a wild, uninhabited island somewhere off the coast of England. What happened to Ori’s mother, and why they fled to the island together, only for Ori to later be found and adopted by a scientist specialising in hares, is a question that returns to her with full force in adulthood when she finds herself newly postpartum and struggling to cope.

From classical painting to video games, this survey of the taboo and the twisted won’t let you look away

Museums are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. Ignore the problems of the past and they’re criticised for being problematic. Rewrite their labels according to changing politics and they’re called preachy and woke. The fact is, history is filled with immoral art. But how do we know it when we see it? And what, if anything, should we be doing about it?

In her timely and punchy new book, the philosopher Daisy Dixon explores some of the most controversial artworks ever produced. She’s interested in how an artist’s character can influence their creations, and the harmful effects those creations can have on the world.

Candice Carty-Williams, Patrick Freyne and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I just finished reading Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam. I absolutely adored this book, a fantastic combination of violence and vulnerability set on Manchester’s Curry Mile. I became completely attached to the three main boys, and I loved all of the perspective shifts to different characters throughout the book. I fully weeped at the end – it was an unexpected but completely understandable ending. 10/10, everyone should read this.

Queenie Is Working on It is published on 2 July by Trapeze. To support the Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com.

Queenie’s ticking biological clock drives her chaotic misadventures in this sage and funny follow-up

A gynaecological examination is a good analogy for the kind of painful self-inspection at which Queenie Jenkins excels. The heroine of Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 debut Queenie memorably begins that novel with a medical appointment for a mystery ailment that turns out to be a miscarriage. The sequel, Queenie Is Working on It, picks up the story eight years on, with the now 33-year-old Queenie back on the gurney, this time for a fertility checkup. “I didn’t realise they did condoms for anything other than … penises,” Queenie observes lamely as the unsmiling doctor sheaths a probe. Life has changed, but in many ways, Queenie has not.

Carty-Williams’s first novel about a stumbling Jamaican-British woman living in London, navigating romantic disaster and a mental health crisis, was a breakout bestseller. Reassuringly, her keen ear for female friendships – the deep affection, the stubborn solidarity, the ribald humour – endures, as does her understanding of how the particular experience of race suffuses the ordinary lives of Black women. These are the qualities that made Queenie feel unique and interesting in 2019. She remains so in 2026, but your patience for the new novel rather depends on your tolerance for her continued misadventures.

Nintendo/TNX; Nintendo Switch
A joyful collection of vibrant rhythm games includes catching veggies in mid-air, practising dance choreographies and speaking to an alien

It has been a strange decade for the rhythm game genre. The legendary progenitors Rock Band and Guitar Hero are seemingly gone, yet companies are manufacturing plastic guitars again. Tango Gameworks, a studio best known for delivering survival horror hauntings, made Hi-Fi Rush and it ruled, but Microsoft sold the studio. Indie titles such as Sayonara Wild Hearts and Rift of the NecroDancer have done well on the margins, but now Epic Games has swept in, adding a rhythm action mode to Fortnite so now its mainstream again. All these titles have reinforced the ideas laid out by their forefathers: rhythm can intersect with video games as much as it already intersects with our everyday lives.

Few series hold this ethos to heart as strongly as Rhythm Heaven. Dormant since 2015, a new entry, Rhythm Heaven Groove (known as Rhythm Paradise Groove in Pal territories), doubles down on the concept of offering bitesize, rhythm-based experiences where you follow auditive cues to perform all manner of increasingly exhilarating actions with just a few buttons. Whether you’re catching veggies in mid-air, practising dance choreographies, or speaking to an alien, each mini-game is intended to be a vibrant, micro cacophony with its own rules.

With the much-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto VI only available as download, Sony is following suit

Sony said on Wednesday that it would stop releasing new video games for the PlayStation console on disc in January 2028 following a shift in consumer preferences.

“Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only,” the company said on its official PlayStation blog.

A preview of the forthcoming sci-fi game from Gareth Damian Martin showcases their unmistakable talent for innovation and game design

Over the past decade, an impression has taken root among gamers that any real creativity and originality in the industry is to be found in the indie, rather than mainstream, sector. Gareth Damian Martin can claim some responsibility for that. Their first game, 2020’s In Other Waters, merged sci-fi and underwater xenobiology in a uniquely calming and thought-provoking manner, while Citizen Sleeper (2022) and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (2025) were full-blown sci-fi epics with ultraminimal aesthetics and a rare intelligence.

Martin has broken with tradition by unveiling their next game, Signet City, far in advance of its 2027 launch. Set in a dystopian monochrome city, it’s a narrative role-playing adventure with a curious first-person perspective. “You play as a parasite,” says Martin. “And it felt natural that it should be a game where you see the world through the eyes of your hosts, very literally. You wake up in the mind of a person called Sid at the same time as she’s waking up in the river of a city. You’re coming to understand what you are, why it is that you’re in the mind of this person who doesn’t know that you’re there, along with what your capabilities are, and what the world is, through Sid.”

Normal Golf Game takes a tiresomely easy genre and makes it infernally difficult. Which deserves a round of applause

I have always struggled playing golf. I wish I didn’t. It’s a beautiful game in concept. A leisurely walk in the sunshine, slapping a ball around, sandwiches and beer consumed during and after play. Sure, you have to dress like Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch, and getting membership of an actual club is more complex than joining the Freemasons (although many offer a two for one deal with this), but you don’t have to be fit, you don’t have to even run. It is the only outdoor sport where a fat dad can be the best in the world.

The premise couldn’t be simpler: get the ball in the hole. But there is nothing worse in sport than knowing what you have to do and not being able to do it. Just ask amateur parachutists.

Carl Freedman Gallery, Margate
With snogging snails, conjoined lovers and her own pug Telly as Jesus, the ceramicist sculpts a mangled mythology of her own relationships

If you’re worried that romance may be dead, just one look at Lindsey Mendick’s new exhibition will reassure you that it’s very much alive. It’s just a bit damaged and mangled. Well, mangled is an understatement. The English ceramicist paints a portrait of romantic love that’s mutated and twisted, gory and gross. This is love as body horror, romance as drug, co-dependency as living nightmare.

The whole show is inspired by her love for her partner, the artist Guy Oliver, and her little black pug, Telly. Grainy, gritty Polaroids in the opening room find Lindsey and Guy embracing and canoodling, arms wrapped around each other, toes in one another’s mouths, naked bodies writhing together, tongues licking nipples, feet pressed against bare bollocks. It’s an incredibly intimate insight into their relationship, so full-frontal that you feel like a voyeur for looking.

(Warner)
After years spent chasing trends like trap and Latin pop, Madonna settles back​ nicely into​ old-school dance music to tell vivid vignettes of life in 80s New York

‘Ask yourself this – what are you doing it for? / Is it for you? Is it for them?” ponders Madonna during Bring Your Love, a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter from Confessions II. It’s a question you could ask of her decision to release a follow-up to 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor 21 years on.

The official line is, of course, that it’s for her. Confessions II was inspired by Madonna’s 2023 Celebration tour, a rampage through her back catalogue – with staging that recreated the videos for old hits including Don’t Tell Me and Human Nature – that apparently set the singer thinking about her past. Certainly, Confessions II is rich with references to Madonna’s history, and not only the album from which it borrows its title and its initial structure, a sequence of house-influenced tracks that segue into each other like a DJ mix. There’s also the trip-hop-inspired Madonna of Bedtime Stories (the album concludes with a suite of slower, more introspective material); the club-hopping, fame-hungry Madonna of her 1982 debut single Everybody, who keeps cropping up in the lyrics; and the maternal, spiritually inclined Madonna of Ray of Light. The Test, a duet with her daughter Lourdes, is an older, wiser sequel to that album’s lullaby-like Little Star, alluded to in its opening lines.

Plymouth retrospective of artist, who died in 2018, aims to ‘champion and celebrate the power of the imagination’

She spoke about indulging in colour, feasting on beauty, feeling a little giddy when drinking in glorious hues and textures – and not searching too deeply for meaning.

So in these gloomy times, a major retrospective of the work of the artist Gillian Ayres in her adopted Devon homeland may be just the job.

Artangel at the Maughan Library, London
Drawing a line from the battle of Quebec to Trump v Carney, the Canadian artist’s takedown of rapacious US thuggery is strangely lacking drama

Forgive me if you’ve heard this one before. The United States of America wants to annexe Canada. It starts by inviting Canadians to join the Greatest Nation on Earth but soon becomes more aggressive and strident. Canada, uninterested and baffled, stands up for itself. War looms.

But this is not about Donald Trump and the bullying threats to Canada he has been making since the start of his second term. Except, of course, that it is, even though he isn’t mentioned by name in Canadian artist Terence Gower’s Artangel commission Enemies and Rascals – monstrous rascal though Trump is. Gower has created a sound installation deep inside a neogothic Victorian library to revisit the first time the US made proprietorial moves towards Canada – in 1775-76 during the American war of independence. George Washington – introduced simply as a “Virginia plantation owner” and Benjamin Franklin (“printer”) are among the US founders whose quoted words make them sound like rapacious thugs desperate to get their hands on Canadian land, particularly that belonging to Indigenous peoples.

With a punkish, antifascist take on the trad jazz sound of Duke Ellington, this noisy outfit are epic in every way. But how on earth do they make a living?

Fergus Quill picks me up from Leeds station in his Nissan Micra – 152,000 miles on the clock, double bass expertly slotted between seats – and drives me to meet his band.

I’m expecting a handful of people, but for the next half an hour, members of Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band just keep arriving, until the tables outside Headingley’s Hyde Park Book Club overflow with musicians and instrument cases. When it starts to rain, they shuffle indoors, gather in the bar’s snug room and begin playing their noisy, joyful music.

Lydia Wood began drawing the capital’s pubs after losing her job. Now, after her sketches went viral, she is on a mission to illustrate all the city’s watering holes – before some are closed

On the pavement outside a London pub, 32-year-old Lydia Wood is sitting in the sunshine at her easel, peering up at the building and sketching with a pencil. Passersby pause to catch glimpses of her work, but what they might not know is that for the artist, this isn’t just a nice day out, but part of years-long project with no apparent end in sight.

Wood began what she calls “the pub project” in 2021. Since then, she has drawn intricately detailed sketches of more than 350 pubs: her goal is to draw all 3,500-or-so of London’s beloved watering holes – a quest that could take her at least 10 years.

Cross-party group writes to ministers of concerns children’s show contains unsubtle ‘propaganda content’

• UK politics live – latest updates

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A cartoon for preschoolers depicting the adventures of a small girl and a retired circus bear may seem an unlikely source of parliamentary concern.

Yet a cross-party group of MPs has written to ministers urging them to examine whether they can stop Masha and the Bear from being broadcast in the UK, alleging it amounts to a cuddly form of Russian propaganda.

Lead vocalist of Village People, the American disco group famed for their hits YMCA, In the Navy and Go West

Victor Willis, who has died aged 74 after suffering from “a short but aggressive illness”, was the lead vocalist of the disco group Village People, and the most instantly memorable member of this most flamboyant of combos. Willis would often perform onstage wearing the uniform of a policeman or a naval officer, while his bandmates dressed as a cowboy, a construction worker, a GI, a leather-clad biker or a Native American chief.

The idea, conceived by the group’s svengalis, Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, was that they would represent a range of American male stereotypes.

It’s been dubbed ‘an American royal wedding’, so who will win the bridal commission of the century? We’ve whittled it down to nine lucky contenders (including one for the groom)

Ever since Taylor Swift announced her engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce via an Instagram post last August, fans have been gripped by a near year-long frenzy of sleuthing and speculation over the wedding plans.

This week the couple will finally be tying the knot. With guests reportedly signing NDAs and dates flying around Reddit, the facts are scant – but it’s been reported that the couple have rented out Manhattan’s Madison Square Garden, an arena which can hold more than 19,000 people, for celebrations on July 2 and 3.

From a home with a patio in Cheshire’s ‘Golden Triangle’ to a Lincolnshire barn that opens out to create one al fresco space

Whether you’re walking the dog, puddle-jumping with kids or dancing in a soggy festival field, these are the wellington boots that topped our tests for comfort, support and grip

• The best men’s waterproof jackets
• The best women’s waterproof jackets

A good pair of wellies will keep your feet warm and dry, and give you a decent grip underfoot. They’ll also offer all-day comfort and support, alongside reliable waterproofing, so it’s worth investing in the very best wellies to see you through season after season.

But sizing, tread patterns, cushioning, warmth levels and even the materials they’re made from all vary, depending on the brand and style. I’ve put 15 of the best wellies from well-known names through their paces.

Best wellies overall:
Barbour Bede wellington boots

Best budget wellies:
Mountain Warehouse Mucker neoprene long boots

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basics they scrimp on? The skincare expert talks vinyl, McDonald’s tea and the body lotion she buys on repeat with the Filter

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Caroline Hirons started her career working at the Aveda counter in Harvey Nichols before launching her successful skincare blog in 2010, which has since amassed more than 160m views.

Her debut book, Skincare, was a Sunday Times bestseller. Caroline launched her skincare app, Skin Rocks, and her skincare brand of the same name in 2022.

Potion kits, walkie-talkies and interactive pets … here are our top picks for seven-year-olds (without a Labubu in sight)

• The best gifts for six-year-olds

There are seemingly endless gifts available for seven-year-olds, which can make the choice feel overwhelming. This probably stems from their growing individuality. At this age, most children are becoming more independent and confident and can play on their own or with friends, without full adult supervision.

“At seven, children start getting into things such as kits, puzzles, cooking and sports,” says Rachel Carrell, CEO of the childcare company Koru Kids. “The key here is to pick things that stretch patience and perseverance without feeling like homework.”

Most swimwear relies on synthetic fibres, but some brands are taking steps to reduce their impact. We’ve rounded up the best bikinis, swimsuits and men’s trunks made from recycled and alternative materials

• The best sunglasses with UV protection

If your summer holiday is beckoning, you may have swimwear on your mind. And if you want to get some new gear with your responsible hat on, you may feel out of your depth. Swimwear needs to work hard, stretching to fit us and our movements, while withstanding tough environments like salt water, sunlight and chlorine. This generally means our bathers will be made from a human-made, petroleum-based fibre like nylon or polyester, but are there more environmentally friendly options out there?

“Better [swimwear] should first and foremost mean longer lasting and higher quality,” says Helen Lofts, a circular economy advocate and founder of the swimwear brand Davy J. “Nylon and polyester fibres are incredibly hard-wearing and robust but the elastane they’re woven with to form a stretch fabric is often not. The quality and density of the fibre weave within the fabric will determine how robust they are.” This means cheap, thinner swimsuits will start to go see-through and degrade much quicker than those with quality lining and a tighter weave.

Juicy stone fruit charred on a griddle, or on a barbecue for extra smokiness, is the inspiration for a dessert that’s as easy as it is delicious

Dessert is so often forgotten about once the barbecue comes out, and, as someone with a sweet tooth, I always notice. Grilled fruit is one of my go-tos, not least because it’s easy and delicious, and allows you to enjoy the likes of pineapples, peaches and bananas in a way you don’t often get to, with a smokiness that’s hard to achieve any other way. Here, I’ve gone for peaches, grilled until charred and drizzled with honey, and served them with some brioche, which is brushed generously with salty honey butter before being toasted on the barbecue.

Lower East Side gems and bars of Boston were low on pretence and high on personality. Plus, southern soul, Jewish delis and, of course, apple pie to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

A dark emerald puck on a white plate – our spoons disturbed its surface to break it down to its crystal components. Bright shards of green ice released their flavour as they melted on our tongues – vegetal, flowery, herbal, slightly honeyed and a lot saltier then any dessert should be. We didn’t know what to expect when we ordered the savoury borage-and-lovage sorbet; we didn’t expect to be transported to a place of infinite green – a virgin forest, a field in spring, an alpine valley. We were in Estela (pictured top), a restaurant on the Lower East Side of Manhattan that is a favourite of ours. It is just as good as it was when we first went there, almost a decade ago. Around us, the understated room was full of achingly stylish people. Outside on the street, two shirtless older men were playing checkers on a bench while two girls in skintight dresses did TikTok poses on a nearby stoop. Neither group seemed disturbed when a woman in a bathrobe suddenly began to shout at a garbage bag and kick it with force.

We were there to promote our latest book, and had not been since before Covid, so we did not know what to expect. There is no doubt that the US is in a very strange moment in its history, and from Britain things look scary and confusing. But we learned, yet again, that things seem different when you are up close, and that food is always the best, quickest and deepest way to connect to people. For instance, a breakfast TV presenter in Chicago secretly confessed that no one in the city really likes deep-dish pizza; instead, we were sent to a farm-to-table restaurant that served us delicious Greek-style pasta.

There is evidence of order, good prep and a sense of fun in American food writer Alison Roman’s fridge

Fillet of arctic char
I got this at the fish market yesterday to cook for my son, Charlie. I dress it with a little soy sauce and lemon juice – he loves it (including the crispy skin).

Kimchi
Always in my fridge for snacking, eating with steak or rice, and adding to soups or stews. I have a great recipe for tomato-kimchi soup with rice in Something from Nothing, which is reason enough to keep it on hand. I explore different varieties, but tend to just love the classic napa cabbage variety. I always drink the liquid after and save the jar as a leftovers container – the gift that keeps on giving!

Effervescent, inexpensive and with a moderate ABV, Portugal’s ‘green wine’ is the ideal accompaniment to garden get-togethers and alfresco dining

If there is a better wine for summer frolics than vinho verde, I don’t know it. Translating literally to “green wine”, the wines from the region known as Vinho Verde DOC in northern Portugal aren’t actually green; the verde is metaphorical. These are young wines, inexperienced wines; their hearts haven’t been broken, they are joyful and fizzy with unlived life, like a Tangfastics-guzzling tween who has just discovered the Beach Boys in her parents’ record collection.

I write this in the aftermath of the hottest UK days on record. If you’re drinking wine on sultry days such as those, chances are you’ll want something refreshing. Thanks to the Portuguese region’s Atlantic maritime climate – ocean breezes, cool nights, high rainfall – and (usually) well-drained granite soils, vinho verde excels at gluggability: vibrant, with high acidity, a low ABV (usually below 12%), sometimes a touch of spritz, and notes of ripe lime and orchard fruits.

You don’t have to force passion about a role you find boring, writes Eleanor Gordon-Smith. And it could help by asking if work has to be meaningful at all

• Read more Leading questions

After six months of unemployment following redundancy, I am re-entering the workforce. Initially I set out to change my career completely but that hasn’t transpired. I have spent the last half a year being present with my kids, attending school activities, baking, exercising, reading and staying on top of household chores. At times I’ve felt bored, but ultimately having one parent home has made for a smoother, simpler life.

I’m heading back to work so we can keep finances flowing. But now that I’ve had my time out, it all feels so lacklustre. Reading LinkedIn makes me feel ill – the AI slop, the bombastic words. I keep thinking: do people really care about this?

Graham and Josephine were friends for years, but after their spouses died they discovered a mutual attraction – and a fondness for adventurous sex

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

Our sexual preferences cover everything from vanilla to being tied up and spanked

You say you don’t put him under pressure, but he seems to feel it. Could you be overcompensating for your initial reluctance to have children?

My husband and I have one son, in his late 20s. We’ve always been devoted to him, keep in touch on a weekly basis and see him about once a month (he has a busy job and has recently started a new relationship, which seems to be making him very happy).

I never really wanted children, possibly due to my traumatic childhood: an absent, mentally ill father; and a single, emotionally imbalanced mother who made me the centre of her life. When my husband talked about having children, I gave it careful consideration and decided in the end to give it a go. Once our son was born, I embraced motherhood fully. We both adore him.

Philip, 74, an antiquarian book dealer, meets Carol, 66, who is retired

What were you hoping for?
Reciprocated love at first sight (I don’t ask for much in this life). To meet a kindred spirit who might even become a partner.

For months I’ve been trying to receive my FIT payment, which should be more than £1,000

I moved into my new house 14 months ago, and soon afterwards applied to ScottishPower, with whom the solar panels are registered for a feed-in tariff (Fit), for transfer of ownership of the panels and the tariff.

After many emails back and forth, I got a response saying they had all the information required.

Trusted by millions, the finance expert has seen his name and face used to mis-sell a string of fake investments. And yet, he says, it would be ‘very simple’ for the government to stop them

This month, an email from a consumer landed in Martin Lewis’s inbox. It was from an elderly woman with a disability who had been scammed when she invested in a scheme purportedly endorsed by Lewis – and lost her life savings. “THEY ARE BASTARDS!” Lewis wrote at the top of his social media post about it. Even though the personal finance expert is a veteran campaigner against fraud, he says he had “tears running down my face”. He still sounds upset. “I felt a mixture of frustration, anger and sadness.” Not only for the plight of the woman, but for the “constant, ongoing deluge of shit from the scammers”.

Lewis never advertises anything. To hammer home the point, his social media profile picture has the words “I don’t do ads” tattooed on his forehead. But still, people fall victim to deepfake videos and frauds that appear to show him offering investments. The scale of harm is great enough that MoneySavingExpert (MSE), the company Lewis founded in 2003 and sold in 2012 for up to £87m – he is now its executive chair – has someone full-time handling these cases.

The car lease company won’t rescind my contract because it says the vehicle is driveable. The only problem is, it won’t even charge

My brand new Peugeot EV stopped working within a fortnight of delivery.

The dealer postponed the repair appointment by a month because it was too busy. Peugeot Assist, operated by the RAC, eventually collected it for repair under warranty two weeks ago, but it never reached the dealer.

Research suggests travel scams are on rise as experts advise doing some detective work to make sure holidays are real

Holidaymakers have been advised to carry out amateur detective work to ensure they do not book into fake accommodation this summer, as research showed a third of travellers had seen an increase in potential travel scams on social media.

Consumer experts have urged holidaymakers to do a reverse image search on photographs of holiday homes and check their locations on an online map to verify they are real.

Differences in unhealthy cholesterol levels and blood pressure found to have ‘narrowed or disappeared’ in over-40s

Many adults living with obesity have “indistinguishable” cholesterol and blood pressure levels compared with those who are a healthy weight, largely because of the use of statins, according to a study.

In some cases, people with obesity were “better off” than those of a healthy weight, researchers added.

Polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome is underdiagnosed and inconsistently managed, according to Nice

Up to 4 million women with irregular periods should be investigated for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, according to new NHS guidance.

PMOS, previously known as polycystic ovarian syndrome, is believed to affect up to 13% of reproductive age women, the World Health Organization estimates.

Holistic care for incurably ill people has to include discussions about death and dying – but getting there is hard

It could be her usual generosity or disquiet, subtly disguised, but she leads by asking about “the kids”. Mine, not hers.

The question from a patient who has known me for years is a reminder that goodwill in medicine goes both ways. I scroll to a photo of my daughter, flanked by her brothers.

British-born, older men among those most likely to have disease found only postmortem, say researchers

One person a week dies with undiagnosed and therefore untreated tuberculosis in England, a study has found.

British-born, older men were among those most likely to have TB diagnosed only after death, researchers said, suggesting healthcare workers could be overlooking the possibility of the disease in these patients.

At Sydney’s Hair festival, professionals from the hair industry put their locks on show – and jostle for a view of the live cutting competition
Isabella Lee, photos by Jessica Hromas

At the entrance of the Hair festival in Sydney’s ICC exhibition centre in late June, mannequin heads with luscious locks silently cast me as a fraud. I’m no hairdresser and this is an industry-only event for hairdressers, barbers and stylists. Rainbow cheetah-print buzz cuts, sea-green rat-tails and blunt mullets – on human heads – pass me by as I make my way into the centre of it all.

Bass-heavy music echoes around the hall and the crowd heaves with excitement as a large timer counts down to the final 10 seconds. Pushing through the crowd, I’m trying to get a view of the most popular event of the day, the live hair cutting competition.

Once dismissed as frivolous, spots are having the last laugh – popping up on celebs, catwalks and all over the algorithm

For years, stripes have been the thinking fashion person’s choice. The style equivalent of remembering to charge your phone overnight. Bracing like sea air, with a top note of French intellectualism. In stripes, you can captain a ship and feast on oysters.

Spots and dots are much less serious. From a distance, they could be smiley face emojis. Spots bounce and dance, whereas stripes are rigid. They are spontaneous and giddy, where stripes are rational. The polo scene in Pretty Woman, when Julia Roberts wears that chocolate polka dot dress, is an iconic fashion moment not just because it’s a great dress, but because the dress itself does so much storytelling. Those polka dots set Roberts apart as vivacious, adorable. The buttoned-up crowd around her does not stand a chance.

This antioxidant may enhance the protection sunscreens provide, but it is no substitute for them

Sunscreen does two important jobs. It is largely used for its UVB protection benefits – blocking the rays that cause sunburn and are a major contributor to the development of skin cancer. But it also blocks UVA radiation, filtering out the rays that lead to signs of ageing.

Vitamin C does neither of these things, says Rosalind Simpson, a professor of dermatology at the University of Nottingham. That said, it is thought to help prevent sun damage in a different way.

As Andy Burnham stuck to his ‘cool dad’ look while the UK sweltered, many in the Paris fashion pack did the same

For many, dressing for an extreme heatwave means wearing as little as possible. But for some men, not even record-breaking temperatures can dissuade them from pulling on their favourite pair of jeans.

This week as temperatures in the UK rose sharply on the back of the climate crisis, Andy Burnham stuck to his tried and tested “cool dad” combination of dark jeans with a dark blue (not black as he pointed out to Kemi Badenoch) T-shirt as he made his way to London to be sworn in as MP for Makerfield.

In his new book, Jack Thurston cycles the quieter roads and forgotten hill tracks of Scotland, exploring Britain’s most remote and rugged terrain

There aren’t many roads in Britain where you can pull over to cook breakfast and finish it without seeing a single car. While my friend Ben got the stove going, I wandered around the ruins of Dun Dornaigil, an iron age broch (stone roundhouse) more than 2,000 years old. Above us, low cloud drifted across the dark cliffs of Ben Hope. This was exactly the kind of lost lane we’d come to Sutherland to ride.

Our journey had begun the day before, in Lairg – the traditional “crossroads of the north”. With its Spar shop, hotel, train station and a population of about 800, Lairg is the largest inland settlement in one of the most sparsely populated regions of Europe. Sutherland – literally, the “southern land” of the Vikings, who held sway over the far north of Scotland from their stronghold on Orkney – tests life to its limits: bare mountains, impassable peat bogs and one of Britain’s wildest coastlines.

With the British Museum’s blockbuster Bayeux tapestry exhibition opening soon, we follow in the footsteps of William the Conqueror and King Harold’s armies around Battle and Rye

‘Uh oh, look at these!” I call to my friends, Annie and Mike. “Ominous,” remarks Annie. Mike raises an eyebrow. We’re hiking the Pevensey Levels, marshland first drained in 772, home now to sheep and cattle, but also water spiders, living underwater in air-filled webs. The ground is pocked with endless impressions of horseshoes.

“It’s almost as if an army came this way,” I say.

From a less-crowded camino and the Slovenian Alps to a stunning river trail and Ireland’s remote Beara peninsula

Distance up to 74 miles
Duration 3-9 days

A landscape of forbidding peaks west of Bilbao plays host to an improbable world full of wild flowers, animals and resilient cheesemakers

Halfway across the first glacial depression, I leave the footpath to stand on a snow patch, disturbing a spider that runs off across the frozen crystals. A few yards farther along, the mountainside is awash with colour: tiny Alpine flowers alive with bees and crickets in a world surrounded by jagged peaks. A pair of chamois watch from a crag, then clatter off up an almost vertical face. Having stopped walking, I’m cooling down fast and put on a jacket. I am in Spain, I tell myself, during a European heatwave.

When I tear myself away from the wildlife, my hiking group are distant dots on a path that is snaking up a wall of rock. This is the Picos de Europa mountain range in northern Spain, a cluster of peaks rising to more than 2,500m and famed for the steepness of its slopes. I set off in pursuit, catching up with the group as they scramble over a ridge to find an unexpected view: a gun turret from a second world war aircraft carrier that is now a mountain refuge hut. (Cabin Verónica was cut from the USS Pulau in 1961 at a Bilbao breakers’ yard and dragged up here by mule.)

They are a delightful cross between a raspberry and a blackberry – and fruit abundantly with the right care

This time last year, when my veg patch was feeling chaotic, I decided to make a big and fairly consequential change to my setup – devoting one of my five annual beds to perennial fruit. I figured that it would be less effort, more bang-for-your-buck and, importantly, less water and resource-intensive once the plants were settled in. It felt very daring to give up the sunniest bed in a relatively small space but now that the tayberries are here, I’m seeing that my bold decision has really paid off.

Tayberries are a delightful cross between a raspberry and a blackberry that grows vigorously and fruits abundantly with the right care. I purchased my tayberries as small potted plants, although it tends to be cheaper to buy them as bare root stock in winter. If you’re fortunate enough to know someone who has an established tayberry, plants can be readily propagated through tip layering – rooting long branches when they touch the ground.

While most hospitality venues are struggling, there has been an enormous rise in ‘competitive socialising’. But why? And could I find the answer while dressed in a prison jumpsuit and drinking a daiquiri?

British hospitality is in crisis. In the first quarter of 2026, three hospitality sites closed every day, while one in five remaining businesses fear collapse over the next year owing to rises in tax and employment costs. For those venues struggling to make ends meet in London in particular, there is the added worry of increasingly stringent licensing rules and influential lobby groups making once-thriving areas such as Soho a ghost town after 11pm.

And yet one hospitality niche seems to be bucking the trend: themed bars. Blending booze with, say, axe-throwing, darts, immersive theatre or adult-sized ball pits, these experiential venues have seen a boom in recent years. A report from Savills estate agents found a 58% increase in “competitive socialising” venue openings in 2025 compared with 2018, while another survey found one in three adults had visited one of these venues in the UK in 2024-25. Photo-friendly interiors have made many of them a hit on social media, too.

Weather this year has encouraged smaller but earlier crops of sweet and bountiful fruit in gardens, RHS says

If your bowl of strawberries and cream tastes particularly sweet this year, you’re not mistaken. It is a bumper summer for strawberries, with the recent weather conditions making them more abundant and delicious than ever, according to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS).

Sales of strawberries are up 240% for 9cm pots and the weather has encouraged smaller but earlier, sweeter and more bountiful crops in gardens.

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.

Birthright citizenship ruling only a surface-level setback, with the court granting president’s multiple power grabs

The symbolic and high-profile defeats cannot obscure a more uncomfortable truth.

The US supreme court – a vital cog in the US constitutional framers’ vision of an intricate system of checks and balances aimed at reining in an excessively assertive president – has made Donald Trump stronger than ever, and shows little inclination to stop.

Women from minority backgrounds are less likely to receive adequate pain relief during childbirth

• Women from minority backgrounds in UK less likely to get epidurals, study finds

• How the ethnicity pain gap follows people from birth to death

Julie Hammond, a 35-year-old mother of three from Kent, believes that the “excruciating” pain she experienced during the birth of her second child was not well managed by the medical professionals caring for her.

“It’s difficult to put into words just how traumatic it was,” Hammond says. “I could just feel myself panicking throughout the whole procedure, while also trying to tell myself to calm down.”

The abortion debate – the language of life, choice and rights – severs women, and their pain, from history. I don’t want to forget my abortion and I don’t want to forget theirs

The physical fact of my abortion caught me off guard. I had been so accustomed to defending abortion as an abstract right – as a right to privacy, to healthcare, to autonomy – that when it came to having one, I was surprised by the brutality of it. Fasting for hours before. Clammy and light-headed, my hands freezing and damp, in the clinic waiting room. Waves of contracting pain afterwards, the blood and the vomit from the anaesthesia, the days of cramping and bleeding. Soaking through pads. Cold sweat. I thought having an abortion would feel like the exercise of the hard-won autonomy of generations of feminists before me. But mostly it just hurt.

What do you do with the brute fact of pain? Of what Annie Ernaux describes, writing about her own abortion before legalisation in France, as an experience that sweeps through the body? I could not translate it easily into a feminist politics, into a slogan, into something I could shout or wanted to shout. It did not feel like the exercise of bodily autonomy; it did not feel like a choice, though of course, in some formal and factual way, I did choose to have an abortion. It’s just that the choice seemed to be the least important and least interesting part of the whole experience, totally unmemorable when it came up against the violence and urgency of the body, reeling and revolting against the sudden transformation from pregnancy to unpregnancy. Nor did the sensations of aborting feel like the making of an abortion story, like the raw material for an anecdote that could be compressed and publicised on social media, piled up with the others to make some kind of aggrieved claim. There was no real plot – but feeling.

We’re asking people from around the world to nominate their favourite spineless species for our third Invertebrate of the Year competition

Step aside World Cup heroes, there’s a bigger global competition in town. The whistle has been blown to launch the third Invertebrate of the Year contest.

We want you to nominate your favourite spineless creature for the hugely popular annual Guardian jamboree which celebrates the wonder and importance of the world’s invertebrates.

Do you have a burning question for Guardian columnist Marina Hyde? Now’s your chance to ask it

Ahead of the publication of Marina Hyde’s new book, What A Time To Be Alive! Scenes From A Strange Age, this autumn, we’re giving readers the chance to ask Marina anything.

Whether you have a burning question for our columnist or want her take on one of the biggest stories of the moment, send it our way and we’ll put it to her. What would you like Marina’s view on? From politics to pop culture, celebrity scandals to the state of the world, no topic is off limits.

We would like to hear about the animals who have attained star status where you live

Wildlife officials have warned people to give Neil the seal space during his visit to Tasmania, where he has been crushing fences, blocking traffic and bashing into parked cars, in what experts say is play-fighting behaviour.

Neil, a 1,000kg southern elephant seal, was born – unusually – in Tasmania in October 2020. Most of his kind live thousands of kilometres south on the subantarctic Macquarie and Heard islands.

We’re interested in hearing from people who have bought gold coins, bars or other precious metals through specialist dealers or online brokers

The Guardian is interested in hearing from people who have bought gold or other precious metals through specialist online dealers or brokers, including gold coins, bullion or investment products.

We would like to hear from people about what prompted you to invest and how was the buying process? Was your experience what you expected?

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