Alarm over the judgment and behaviour of the world’s most powerful man, and the consequent risks to the world, can only get worse

The main Nuremberg trial ended, Winston Churchill warned of an iron curtain descending across Europe, It’s a Wonderful Life received its premiere and, at Jamaica hospital in the borough of Queens, New York, Donald John Trump was born.

It was 1946, also the birth year of George W Bush and Bill Clinton, but on Sunday the current US president celebrates his 80th birthday in a style uniquely his own. Trump will stage a night of cage fighting on the once-pristine White House south lawn as part of events marking the 250th anniversary of US independence.

Forecasters were wrong about an immediate recession but right that we would be worse off outside the EU

As the 10th anniversary of the Brexit vote approaches, the verdict on Britain’s economic performance is clear: voting to leave has resulted in severe costs for households and businesses.

The immediate recession predicted in the Treasury forecasts ordered by George Osborne – dubbed “project fear” by the Leave campaign – did not happen. The impact from the Covid pandemic, wars in Ukraine and Iran, and Donald Trump’s trade battles also cloud the picture.

Don’t expect the Russian president to pursue peace. Instead, he could continue to expand the war beyond Ukraine’s borders – with dire risks for us all

Just about everyone reckons Vladimir Putin is in deep trouble in Ukraine. Everyone – meaning Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his European backers and western military analysts and commentators – seems to believe Russia’s dictator is heading for humiliation. They could all be wrong, of course. But what if they’re right? How might a desperate, cornered Putin, fearful for his policy and person, react to the prospect of defeat? On past form, he will escalate, not capitulate. His options range from trolling YouTube to waging nuclear war.

For Ukraine, the latest news is mostly good. Using sophisticated Ukrainian-made drones and missiles, it has forced the invaders on to the back foot. Russia’s tally of dead and wounded is said to be running to 30,000 each month. Its advance has stalled – and in some places has been reversed. Ukrainian airstrikes deep into Russian territory are bringing the war home to a misled, disillusioned public. St Petersburg burns. Fuel shortages cause panic buying. Prices and taxes are rising. Putin’s 2022 “special military operation”, which was supposed to bring swift victory, has now lasted longer than the first world war.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

It may be obviously Michelin-chasing, but it’s also resolutely midriff-expanding

Oudh 1722 is chef Aktar Islam’s first foray into London, following his barnstorming ascent in Birmingham with the likes of Opheem. Brum’s love for Islam is resolutely misty-eyed, while Opheem’s 10-course tasting menu has garnered two Michelin stars. It is the ultimate special-occasion spot within a 100-mile radius, more akin to L’Enclume in vibe than its fellow two Michelin-starred Indian Gymkhana in Mayfair. Islam, however, is not taking this snoozily. Instead, he has taken on a listed Victorian townhouse near Borough Market in south-east London and opened a restaurant that’s pretty solemn in its approach to Awadhi cooking.

A laughably brief catch-up on the tradition: the Nawabi era began in 1722, thus the restaurant’s name. The cuisine was luxurious, and defined by slow, thoughtful cooking, sealed pots, aromatic spice blends and subtle notes. Dead posh, basically. The polar opposite of fast, very spicy, grab-and-go food. 1722’s à la carte menu opens with a lamb shorba, a traditional welcome broth poured over finely chopped lamb tartare. Then spherical servings of gol guppa (you might know them by another moniker, pani puri), filled with sprouting moong shoots and tiny edible flowers, and flooded with jaljeera-spiced cumin water. It feels unregal to shove the entire thing in your mouth, but needs must.

• Brunson scores 45 points to seal 4-1 series victory

• ‘He is him’: NBA finals MVP Brunson quiets doubters

• Photos: Ecstasy and chaos grip NYC after Knicks win

• As it happened: Knicks 94–90 Spurs

Good things come to those who wait for a long, long time. The New York Knicks clinched their first NBA championship in 53 years with another thrilling late comeback win over the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday.

Three days after grabbing a 3-1 NBA finals series lead by completing the largest comeback in finals history at Madison Square Garden, the Knicks sealed the deal on the road with another epic display of resilience and recovery, stunning the Spurs at Frost Bank Center.

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

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

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

Prime minister says British armed forces intercepted a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the early hours of Sunday morning

• British armed forces intercept Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in Channel

Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch has posted this on X:

I pay tribute to the brave Royal Marine Commandos who boarded a Russian shadow fleet oil tanker overnight in the English Channel. Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine is funded by their oil exports in defiance of sanctions. As Leader of the Opposition, I support the government in standing with Ukraine.

British authorities say the Smyrtos is one of 700 vessels in a shadow fleet responsible for carrying 75% of Russia’s sanctioned oil. The fleet provides Russia with what analysts say is a critical lifeline, allowing oil to be sold and funds generated to continue its war against Ukraine.

The Sunday morning operation is the first time the UK has led on such an endeavour, previously providing support to the French military when it carried out something similar in the Atlantic…

Police stop comes after far-right activist rose to further prominence on social media amid racial tensions in Britain

Tommy Robinson was detained by police on Saturday at Heathrow airport under counter-terrorism laws, after a week in which he rose to further prominence on social media.

It was understood the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was stopped and had his phones seized under section 3 of the Counter-Terrorism Border Security Act 2019.

Exclusive: Former minister calls for urgent action against companies such as X that allow incitement to violence

Wes Streeting has called for Keir Starmer to take urgent action against X and other online platforms that have helped whip up social tensions, suggesting they should be forced to contribute to rebuilding costs after the riots in Belfast.

The intervention by the former health secretary, who is seen as a likely challenger to Keir Starmer in any leadership contest, comes after Downing Street said any response would be left to Ofcom, the media regulator, meaning no action is likely for at least two months.

This all proved rather difficult to evaluate as the dust settled. Scotland’s fifth win at a World Cup finals should have been a cause for epic celebration. Victory over Haiti meant this is a team not guaranteed to receive a bloody nose against lesser nations after all. More than 10,000 days after limping out of the World Cup in France, Scotland returned to the biggest stage in football and claimed three points. They top Group C.

Yet in the Boston Stadium, the counter narrative was more than a feeling. With Morocco and Brazil to come, this single goal success may prove insufficient as Scotland look to emerge from the group phase for the first time. This regressed into an unconvincing display from Steve Clarke’s team. Haiti lacked the composure to punish that. Still, those who would blindly celebrate Scotland’s win are probably ignoring a bigger picture that should matter. John McGinn’s goal, a sclaff in Scottish terminology, summed up much that was to come thereafter. Scotland must now cling on in their next two outings.

Deal could see strait of Hormuz immediately ‘open to all’, but Trump says US retains the ‘ultimate alternative’ if talks fail

• Trump says Iran peace deal could be signed by Sunday, with strait of Hormuz to open shortly after

Iran’s Fars news agency said on Sunday that Tehran has not made a final decision on signing the agreement under discussion with the United States to end the Middle East war, AFP reports.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has not yet taken or announced its final decision concerning the memorandum of understanding proposed during negotiations,” reported Fars, which is close to Iranian conservative circles, citing “a well-informed source close to the Iranian negotiating team”.

Exclusive: Recovery efforts remain slow and passing of time makes it more likely they will be skeletonised

The International Committee of the Red Cross has said the risk that the thousands of Palestinians buried beneath Gaza’s rubble may never be identified is increasing by the day, as recovery efforts remain slow and many victims have yet to be retrieved, the Guardian can reveal.

“There is no doubt that these bodies could soon become difficult to identify,” said Pat Griffiths, the ICRC spokesperson in Jerusalem. “The longer it takes for human remains to be recovered, the more difficult it can be to identify them. The longer the deceased lie beneath the rubble, the more likely they will be in advanced stages of decomposition – even skeletonised – when eventually recovered.”

Kate Dearden says reforms such as enhanced sick pay simply bring UK into line with other big economies

Labour’s radical workers’ rights reforms have simply put the UK on a “level playing field” with other big economies, the employment minister, Kate Dearden, has said.

The government’s Employment Rights Act became law last year, with specific provisions being implemented this year and next.

Exclusive: Cancer charity says dispelling falsehoods gleaned from social media is now routine task for clinicians

Social media misinformation about the use of dietary supplements such as turmeric, St John’s wort and magnesium is now so common that dispelling online claims has become a routine part of NHS clinicians work.

Two out of five frontline health workers say they encounter patients who raise inaccurate or misleading information about supplements at least once a week.

Increase in road deaths amid rise of e-bikes prompts Houten to test willingness of freedom-loving cyclists to slow down

As road deaths increase and cycle lanes overflow with e-bikes, the Netherlands is considering a cycling speed limit of 12mph (20km/h).

The government has started a two-week trial in Houten, near Utrecht, to gauge whether freedom-loving Dutch cyclists are willing to slow down – and whether they have any idea how fast they are going in the first place.

Failure to clear up rotting, rat-infested site is a key issue for local people as they weigh up politicians’ promises

A mountain of rubbish sits behind a metal fence in the village of Bickershaw, where it has remained for more than 20 months. For many residents, it is a physical manifestation of the north-south divide as well as a rotting, rat-infested symbol of a broken system in which organised criminal gangs make millions while communities endure the toxic impact of their trade.

The 25,000 tonnes of household and trade rubbish is one of the largest toxic waste dumps in the country. Unlike many illegal dumps that appear in woodlands, by rivers and on farmland, this one is in the heart of a residential street, right next to a primary school.

US defence secretary cancelled appearance at D-day event in Langrune-sur-Mer after protest by residents

When news came that the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, would be travelling to Normandy to mark D-day, some in the seaside village of Langrune-sur-Mer – where the afternoon ceremony was slated to be held – felt they had to speak up.

“We found it unbelievable that they could send someone who held views and values contrary to democracy, human rights, peace and Europe,” said resident Chantal Richard. To her, the incongruence felt deeply personal. “We grew up going to D-day ceremonies, some of us had grandparents or parents whose lives were affected by this war.”

The 47th has his 80th this weekend – a milestone that surely shouldn’t go unmarked. Artists, activists, writers and thinkers send their messages to the man of the hour (even if they’re unlikely to get a party invite)

Cory Doctorow

Dear Comrade Trump: On this, the occasion of your 80th birthday, I write to extend my sincere thanks for all the work you have done. After decades of deadlock, you have inspired the world to action! You have done more to de-dollarise the world than any American leader in history. Without you, there would be no way that Ethiopia would be revaluing its national debt in yuan. You have done more to end the global dependence on oil than any leader (except, perhaps, for Comrade Putin). Without you, there would be no way that India would be chucking out its gas hobs and replacing them with induction tops. And, of course, you have done more than any president in history to end American dominance over the internet. Without you, there would be no way the EU would be racing forward with projects such as Eurostack and European Digital Infrastructure Consortium, with whole nations ditching American tech exports like Microsoft Office 365 in favour of free, open, auditable, transparent alternatives running on servers within the EU’s borders. Comrade Trump, you are, at long last, ushering in the post-American world, and a grateful planet salutes you!

As he opens a career-spanning show in London, the Turner prize-winning artist gives us a private view of his giant studio and talks censorship, controversy and why disobedience is central to making great art

In Anish Kapoor’s 3,100 sq metre studio complex in south London, photographers, assistants and gallery representatives gather in an upstairs meeting room. The artist has a staff of 23 in London – 11 studio assistants, nine people in the offices, three stone masons at a yard in Battersea – and some have been with him for decades. When he’s in town, everyone wants a piece (“It’s like The West Wing,” says one gallery rep).

Anish Kapoor and his hazmat-suited assistant with some of the 31 parts of Ha Makom

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

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

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

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

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

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

He challenged homophobia not through sexualised imagery but by reshaping ideas of beauty, intimacy and desire. The result? From posters to cushion covers, A Bigger Splash has become an essential presence in countless gay households

• ‘He changed the world just by looking at it’

• Obituary: David Hockney

Six decades after David Hockney painted A Bigger Splash, his most famous painting, reproductions have become a visual motif in gay domestic life. I’ve seen framed posters, prints and postcards of the work – which captures the moment after a person jumps off a diving board into an otherwise still cyan blue swimming pool – in countless gay households. In my flat, it appears on a cushion cover that I bought after seeing the real thing at Hockney’s 2017 Tate Britain retrospective.

It’s fitting that A Bigger Splash is now emblematic of this pioneer. As an out gay artist who depicted same-sex desire in his work long before male homosexuality was partly decriminalised in England and Wales, Hockney and his paintings challenged the homophobia within the artistic establishment and beyond. And he did so not through the use of highly sexualised imagery, like the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, or with the activist themes of painter Keith Haring, but by reshaping our ideas of beauty, intimacy and desire. That’s how he made the biggest splash.

It’s so full of nutrients that it tops the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of powerhouse vegetables. But this superfood is also surprisingly versatile

Watercress is among the oldest known plants consumed by humans, and claims for its medicinal powers are almost as ancient. Hippocrates grew it near his hospital for medicinal purposes; Pliny the Elder favoured it as a remedy for anxiety and coughs. At one time or another its peppery leaves have been used as old folk remedies to treat fever, scurvy, intestinal worms and baldness.

Even now, watercress maintains a reputation as a nutrient-rich superfood – the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ranked it number 1 (with a perfect score of 100) on a list of “powerhouse” fruits and vegetables, and with good reason: it’s rich in vitamins C, K and A and antioxidants.

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

The multiple Grammy-winner muses tunefully on love’s ups and downs, while Peter Mullan stars as a local historian in a new comedy drama

Disclosure Day
Out now
A new Steven Spielberg movie is always an event, whether he’s in blockbusting Jurassic Park mode or gunning for Oscars. This new effort starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth and Colman Domingo sees the film-maker wrangling with a fave topic – UFOs – for an epic sci-fi drama involving whistleblowing, conspiracy theories and shady corporations.

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

Steven Spielberg presents a sci-fi conspiracy barnstormer, and the US singer and cellist returns with a rich, inventive new LP. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

• News, build-up and reaction from North America

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How Group D stands after the opening games…

Group D also continued today, with Australia earning a 2-0 win over Turkey in Vancouver. You can recap the action below.

Nestory Irankunda ran to the corner flag like Tim Cahill, punching and ducking and weaving, after sending the Socceroos on their way to a stunning 2-0 upset victory over Turkey in Vancouver. The one act pulled past and future together on a night when Australia’s next generation delivered one of their best World Cup victories, to start their 2026 campaign in style.

They can thank a trio of young stars, all of whom were considered unlikely to start the match. Irankunda finished a brilliant end-to-end attack with a goal in the 27th minute, assisted by midfielder Paul Okon-Engstler. Young goalkeeper Patrick Beach – thrust into the starting side in a pre-match selection shock – pulled off a series of dazzling parries, including one in the first half that will be a contender for save of the tournament.

Brutally tough return to tournament awaits, but the stature of opposition feels less important than the fact of being here at all

It was an arrival worth more than half a century of waiting. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) players strolled into the arrivals hall of George Bush airport on Thursday kitted out in tuxedo suits and leopard-print sashes, channelling La Sape vogue for snappy dress that swept Kinshasa in the 1970s. A throng of local volunteers cheered them through and, in a climate where little can be taken for granted, their welcome to Houston was a genuinely wholesome moment.

The DRC’s squad looked appreciative although perhaps they were simply relieved to see new faces. The joy of a first World Cup since 1974, when they competed as Zaire, has been complicated by the Ebola outbreak in their homeland and a 21-day isolation period imposed by the US authorities. The players and staff formed a bubble in Belgium, playing one friendly against Denmark and being forced to cancel a scheduled meeting with Chile in Cádiz.

The Real Madrid star was his country’s best player in their World Cup opener on Saturday. They’ll need more of the same if they are to make a deep run

Vinícius Júnior is not wearing the famous Brazil No 10 at this World Cup. For now, the hallowed shirt of Pelé, Zico, Rivellino, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and all the rest belongs to Neymar.

Or at least it belongs to a man faintly resembling Neymar. Now 34, he showed just enough at Santos to make Carlo Ancelotti’s squad after two lucrative but mostly wasted years in Saudi Arabia. Ancelotti could have chosen João Pedro or Richarlison or Savinho or Gabriel Jesus or Igor Jesus or, hell, even Antony, but he took Neymar. Who is injured again – a calf problem this time – and whose fitness will loom over the Brazilian campaign, just as it has at some point during every one of his four World Cups.

The Knicks ended a decades-long title drought behind a 45-point explosion from Brunson, whose teammates say his influence extends far beyond the box score

The New York Knicks spent decades searching for the player who could carry them back to the top of the NBA. On Saturday night, Jalen Brunson removed any remaining doubt that they had found him.

With Karl-Anthony Towns limited to two points and New York struggling offensively for much of the evening, the Knicks’ 6ft 2in floor general erupted for 45 points in a 94-90 victory over the Spurs that delivered the team’s first championship in 53 years and earned him Most Valuable Player honors.

• British No 1 defeats Iva Jovic 6-2, 6-2

• Raducanu to face Donna Vekic in final

Emma Raducanu returned to Andy Murray Arena for her second match in five hours with lingering doubts about her physical condition after slipping on the slick grass earlier in the day and hurting her left thigh. By the time she had launched herself into consecutive backhand and forehand down-the-line winners to snatch an early break, that concern had dissipated.

What followed was one of her very best matches as she dismantled the talented 18-year-old Iva Jovic 6-2, 6-2 in front of an ebullient home crowd to reach the final here.

• Semi-final: Bath 26-27 Exeter

• Chiefs meet Northampton at Twickenham on Saturday

For the first time since the greatest game in Premiership history, the away team have won a playoff. This might not have been a comeback to match that of Harlequins at Bristol in 2021, but Exeter looked every bit as dead and buried at half-time. And then a new team took to the field for the second half.

So we will have a new champion. Bath had so dominated the first half, their lead was the least they might have expected. But in the second half they looked utterly bewildered, like a golfer who just cannot understand why he can no longer hit the ball straight. Where they had smashed through collisions, they were now staggering off rampant Exeter runners. Same sport, apparently – they just couldn’t play it any more.

Updates from around the grounds
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Division One

Grace Road: Leicestershire 180-9 v Essex 401

• ‘I’m just glad to feel myself again … at one with the car’

• Lewis Hamilton second ahead of Kimi Antonelli

Is George Russell’s run of rotten luck finally over? The Mercedes driver said he felt “like my old self again” after scorching to pole position for the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. He was fractionally faster than second-placed Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari, who nearly snatched top spot with a dramatic surge at the last, capitalising on what is clearly a significant upgrade to the Scuderia machine.

Kimi Antonelli, Russell’s 19-year-old teammate, will aim for a sixth consecutive victory from third on the grid while Charles Leclerc of Ferrari said there were “no excuses” and that he felt “very ashamed” after crashing out spectacularly in Q3 and causing a red flag – a week after hitting a wall at his home race in Monaco.

• Group 2: Scotland, 161-5, beat Ireland, 121, by 40 runs

• Kathryn Bryce struck 60 from 39 balls

Scotland recorded a historic maiden World Cup win on Saturday, beating Ireland by 40 runs. The Scotland captain, Kathryn Bryce, struck a powerful 60 from 39 balls and followed it with a brilliant one-handed caught-and-bowled to see off Alana Dalzell in the first over of Ireland’s chase.

It was also an emotional occasion for Kirstie Gordon, who switched allegiance to her native Scotland this year after playing a handful of internationals for England in 2018-19. Gordon had been in tears before play as Flower of Scotland rang out around the ground, but she was all smiles three hours later after returning figures of three for 16.

• Defensive lineman was No 7 pick in 2011 draft

• Off-field incidents, suspensions affected his career

Former NFL defensive end Aldon Smith died Saturday at the age of 36, the San Francisco 49ers said. The team did not disclose the cause of death.

Smith played six seasons in the NFL for the 49ers, the Oakland Raiders and the Dallas Cowboys.

• Group 1: Australia, 172-8, beat South Africa, 107, by 65 runs

• Captain takes two key wickets as spinners dominate

It’s a curious one. Sophie Molineux, a notional all-rounder, was appointed to lead the Australian women’s team with fewer than a hundred international runs in any format. In her first gig as all-format captain – a T20 in Saint Vincent in March – she was carded to bat at No 8 but sent in Alana King instead with an over to go. In the second match she was due in next but not required, and only in the third did she bat as listed, facing the last 12 balls of an innings. This from a player who couldn’t bowl either, restricted by injury. In the one-day series to follow, she journeyed up the order once for a hit, again didn’t bowl, then missed the two games to follow.

Molineux can, in fact, bat. While her full T20 career has included at least one innings at every spot in the order, most of her domestic innings have been as an opener. She has batted top five in 82 per cent of her domestic games, but zero per cent of her international ones. Players not getting much chance isn’t unusual in Australian teams, with so much all-round strength that good batters regularly get stuck down the order. But it has become a notable part of Molineux’s brief tenure, especially as she opened her team’s T20 World Cup campaign by once again sliding herself down the order.

Rugby World Cup winner says he feels like he is picking up the fundraising baton from people such as Doddie Weir and Rob Burrow

Sunshine streams into Lewis Moody’s conservatory near Bath as we share a sofa with his dog, Ziggy, who has swapped his usual cheerful bounciness for a peaceful snooze. Moody has already explained how Ziggy licked away the tears rolling down his face, and the face of his wife, Annie, when they told their teenage sons that he has motor neurone disease. And now he says something extraordinary with a certainty that feels far stronger and more enduring than the mid-afternoon sunlight.

“It is a gift and a privilege,” Moody says of the lesson he has gleaned from the terrible diagnosis he received last October. “I’m not sure if privilege is the right word but MND helps you really understand what you love and what makes you happy. So you learn to apply your time in that direction and, invariably, being happy is about doing things that feel purposeful and spending time with the people you love and doing things that help others.”

Complete solitude may not be for everyone, but walking the windswept Harris hills by myself gave me the space to contemplate a difficult year

Sitting in a remote cabin earlier this year on the Hebridean isle of Harris, watching the fishing boats come and go in the little harbour, I felt the fog of the previous months finally beginning to clear. I kept thinking back to a cold November night, returning from Leeds to south London, when I finally admitted to myself that something needed to change.

I was exhausted from the long, frequent and often unrewarding round trips to visit my mum. At her care home in Leeds that autumn day, I had tried the usual tricks to summon a reaction from her – news of the grandkids, or re-reading poems and songs she’d written in her days as a primary school headteacher. But for the most part, she remained still and silent.

Graham Snowdon is the editor of Guardian Weekly

Forget the Olympic and the rest. People across the planet remember where they were for their biggest World Cup matches

The connection between King Lear and the 1966 World Cup is little known, mainly because it affected very few people at a now defunct boarding school. I had been a surprise selection to act in the school’s production of Lear (yes, I played the Fool; yes, I was typecast). The day before one of the performances I fell and twisted something and was a doubtful starter for a part that required a lot of dashing about.

Matron prescribed sleeping pills. That night England were playing Mexico in that now-sanctified tournament – almost a must-win after a goalless start against Uruguay. I went to bed early, tucked my transistor under the pillow to hear the commentary, went spark out and only heard the result next morning: England 2 Mexico 0. The rest is national history.

A 2% levy on fortunes above £100m – with no exemptions – could begin to reverse decades of rising inequality

Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting have sought to blunt the Green leader Zack Polanski’s popularity with a hint that a government run by either of them, should they win a Labour leadership race, would favour a tax of some kind on the wealthy.

With SpaceX’s stock market launch on Friday sending Elon Musk’s fortune to the stars, it is clear to most people that the world’s super-rich are running away with the lion’s share of the spoils and there is not much left for anyone else.

After a week of violence and discord, this is clear: some politicians know images supersede inconvenient facts. And Labour has no good response

When voters in Makerfield head to the polls next week, their decision, as is increasingly the case across the nation, may come down to this: whether to be more swayed by a hopeful vision of the UK or by a narrative that defines the country as little more than the most shocking thing they have seen on their phone that day.

That quandary has been sharpened by something that has quietly become a regular fixture of social media: members of the public are now consistently fed a stream of exceptional images and videos that once might have only been seen by investigators or from the inside of a courtroom. It is so regular that it has become banalised, whether it’s of robbers smashing up a jewellery shop, or of extreme and graphic assaults akin to snuff films.

Jason Okundaye is a Guardian Opinion assistant editor

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.

Women in heterosexual marriages continue to do most of the caregiving. Now some are offering guides to AI-fying parenting

In honour of Pride I’d like to share some important news: Being Straight is Great, Actually! This public service announcement is brought to you by the New York Times which, in an offering to the Ragebait Gods, published an op-ed with that headline on the eve of Pride month. It then changed the headline of the piece, which was written by a Playboy editor, to There’s Nothing Wrong With Wanting Men. “I’m going to go out on a limb and say it,” author Magdalene J Taylor bravely wrote. “There has still never been a better time in human history to happily and successfully pursue heterosexuality.”

A sincere congratulations to Ms Taylor for her successful pursuit of heterosexuality, and her brave dismantling of straw men. But, look, while I don’t like to rain on anyone’s (straight) parade, I do have a few little quibbles with her argument. Namely, I keep seeing data which somewhat contradicts the idea that we live in a golden age for straight women.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Junk speak, like junk food, encourages verbal littering. It has to be one of the worst things about life in Britain

I live in the Norfolk countryside, and what irritates me most about living here is the deluge of litter that gets thrown out of car windows in the lane outside my house. It is always from junk food outlets, so the question arises as to which way round things are: does junk food turn you into an antisocial moron, or is it that only antisocial morons eat junk food? Could it be an unfortunate confluence of both?

I never eat it, and never throw litter out of my window. QED. I do find other ways of being antisocial, I suppose, but farts disperse on their own and don’t have to be picked up by passing dog walkers and irate householders.

Louis de Bernières’s fourth novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, became a worldwide bestseller in 1994

We must highlight the awful stance of the White House towards so many competing nations, but also the hypocrisy of leaders who acquiesce

Omar Artan was to be the first Somali to referee at the World Cup finals. A Fifa-certified referee since 2018, Artan officiated at the Africa Cup of Nations in 2023 and was named the 2025 Confederation of African Football men’s referee of the year. Last weekend, as we know, Artan was denied entry to the United States at Miami international airport.

The US has not officially given a reason for Artan’s ban, but we know that Somalia is one of the countries on Donald Trump’s travel ban list. After the news reverberated around the world, an administration source, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed the move came about because Artan had possible links to possible terrorists. But that claim, in the face of a furore, merits widespread scepticism. There is a word for this: racism.

Jeremy Corbyn is the MP for Islington North and parliamentary leader of Your Party. He was leader of the Labour party from 2015 to 2020

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A win for Labour would show how the party can speak to working-class insecurity without scapegoating minorities

The resignations from the heart of government this week will only deepen the anti-Westminster mood ahead of the Makerfield byelection. The departure of the defence secretary, John Healey, and his deputy illustrates that Sir Keir Starmer’s problem is not just his unpopularity. It is that his claim to competence is being challenged from the inside. When ministers resign saying that the government is too timid and its politics largely performative, they are not just criticising decisions. They are arguing for a different leader.

Step forward Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor and Labour candidate in the most consequential byelection for decades. Mr Burnham has not disguised his leadership ambitions if he wins the seat and enters parliament. His sales pitch is that he is Labour-but-not-this-Labour. He sells himself as a party insider who is outside Westminster; an experienced politician, but not one involved in the present governing mess. He styles himself as plausibly loyal but interestingly dissident.

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Writers do not only document the horror of conflict; they speak to a future that must exist beyond it

Last week, thousands of readers gathered for a literary festival in Kyiv, risking air raids to hear from writers. Four brutal years of war have not destroyed the appetite for writing, but fuelled it. Russia’s extensive and systematic attempts to destroy Ukrainian culture, and therefore identity, have rightly received widespread attention. Over 700 libraries were damaged or destroyed outright within the first three years of the full-scale invasion.

But that campaign has also spurred efforts to move away from Russian literature and the Russian-language titles that previously dominated the market. Ukrainian literature and publishing has flourished far beyond the powerful documentary accounts of war often awarded attention outside the country, with growing room for experimentation. Newer writing also attempts to bridge the gap between those on the frontline and those more safely at home.

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 nights of rioting in the city fuelled by anti-migrant rhetoric

I agree with John Harris’s analysis (Cars burn in Belfast, bricks fly in Southampton – and the ubiquitous cry of ‘civil war’ goes up again, 10 June). He misses one obvious point, though. Since the election of the first Thatcher government in 1979, there has been a continuous attack on the rights and living standards of working-class people, such that we are now seeing a decline in healthy life expectancy for the poorest in the UK.

We might think of this as a civil war which only one side is waging. Because the language of class has been erased from our politics, the “white working class” only hear themselves being spoken about when Nigel Farage or Stephen Yaxley-Lennon tell them how the system has failed them.

Readers respond to an article by Jonathan Freedland about our entire political and cultural landscape being shaped by the referendum

Jonathan Freedland is right to highlight the disastrous role played by David Cameron and George Osborne in using the prospect of an in/out referendum to garner votes in the 2015 election, with a view to dropping it if the expected coalition with the Lib Dems emerged (Britain is a swamp of lies and disinformation – and we got here on the Brexit bus, 5 June).

But even their win with a majority did not necessitate the calamity the country suffered. They could have kept their referendum commitment, but demanded that those proposing leave come up with a model for it to be put to the electorate as the “out” option.

Letter writers challenge what appears and what doesn’t

Alex Clark writes that The Lord of the Rings “is, strictly speaking, a trilogy” (Move over Middlemarch! Readers’ top 100 novels, 6 June). Strictly speaking, it isn’t a trilogy but a single work of fiction originally published in three volumes for practical reasons. None of the three volumes can stand alone. Compare, for example, the late David Lodge’s Changing Places, Small World, and Nice Work – a proper (and still sharply entertaining) “campus” trilogy.
Prof Chris Walsh
Hawarden, Flintshire

• Critics should read Bleak House in full before condemning it as miserable: the demise of Mr Krook by spontaneous human combustion must be one of the most darkly hilarious scenes in 19th-century literature, concluding with an appropriate warning from Dickens for contemporary corrupt administrations.
Noel Kavanagh
Cambridge

The origins of the English nation long preceded the Anglo-Saxons, says Rev Dr Richard Cleaves. Plus a letter from George Nicholson

Rev Dr John Caperon, writing about the Bayeux tapestry’s visit to Britain, appears to think that “the real origins of the English nation” lie in the “pre-1066 Anglo-Saxon culture” (Letters, 9 June).

This is utterly outrageous. A little respect is due to the Danelaw and the Vikings, to the Celts of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, to the continental, Middle Eastern and north African Roman occupiers, and to the iron-age Celts.

Keir Starmer says commercial and government agreements will create tens of thousands of jobs

The UK and Japan are set to agree £18bn worth of investment, creating tens of thousands of jobs.

Prime minister Keir Starmer will welcome his Japanese counterpart Sanae Takaichi to Downing Street on Sunday ahead of the G7 summit next week.

New safety measures had little effect so far, study finds, with Starmer expected to announce under-16s ban

Nearly half of girls and a third of all teenagers saw suicide, self-harm and eating disorder content on social media in a week, a study shows.

The Molly Rose Foundation (MRF) research found that 47% of girls aged 13 to 17 encountered high-risk content during a seven-day period.

US president will reportedly hold bilateral talks with Qatar, UAE and India but not Ukraine; Russian gains in Ukraine ‘more or less stopped’, says official. What we know on day 1,572

Donald Trump will take part in a G7 working session with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in France on Tuesday, but the US president won’t hold a bilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, a senior administration official said. The G7 summit will take place in Evian in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region on 15-17 June, and Trump is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings on its sidelines with French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as the leaders of Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and India, the official said. One of the senior US officials who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity about Trump’s trip, said Russian gains have “more or less stopped” They added: “We want the war to end as quickly as possible.”

A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and injured three in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, local officials said Saturday, as part of Kyiv’s campaign of strikes on Russian military and energy targets. The governor of Krasnodar, Veniamin Kondratyev, said drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal.

Ukraine’s general staff did not comment on the Krasnodar strike Saturday, but said that its forces had hit an oil preparation and pumping station overnight in Russia’s Volgograd region, as well as Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

The attacks come after Zelenskyy said his Ukrainian forces had struck several infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory that he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles.

Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been reconnected to the grid after repairs carried out under an IAEA-brokered localised ceasefire, the agency said. The outage marked the 19th time the plant has lost off-site power since the start of the war, after an attack on an electrical substation across the Dnipro River disconnected the Ferosplavna back-up power line late on Wednesday. Lasting almost three days, it was one of the site’s longest power loss events, forcing the facility to rely on emergency diesel generators for the electricity it needs to cool its six shutdown reactors.

Convenience store employee Eileen Fox, 56, said suspect ‘banged into metal stand’ but no one was injured in incident

• Waitrose employee sacked after stopping shoplifter from taking Easter eggs

A convenience store worker was sacked after trying to tackle a woman who she suspected was shoplifting bacon.

Eileen Fox said the suspected thief was “well known” in Bootle, Merseyside, and claimed she had been stealing from the shop for years.

Charlie Verco managed to grab hold of the woman and bring her back to shore after the Sydney shark attack on Saturday

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Elite paddleboarder Charlie Verco has only seen one shark bigger than the one he saw on Saturday at Sydney’s Coogee beach.

The North Bondi athlete was training for July’s world championships in Hawaii on Saturday morning when he heard a swimmer shouting “shark”.

Two fires in 12 years wiped out all but a handful of the mature native pines in Victoria’s Wyperfeld national park, a key breeding ground for endangered pink cockatoos

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At the entrance to Wyperfeld national park, in north-west Victoria, more than a dozen pink cockatoos are sprinkled across a hedge row of pine trees like Christmas decorations. These are Aleppo pines, not the native conifers that the birds rely on for nesting habitat and as a primary source of food.

Still, the feathered ornaments appear quite content, nestled in among the spruce and ripping into pine cones with their dexterous claws and beaks, making gentle cracking sounds that punctuate the soft roar of Mallee winds.

Appearance of a western reef heron in north Wales is unlikely to be the last, as heating temperatures mean species can survive Britain’s winter, say experts

It is a tropical bird typically encountered between west Africa and India, but last week a western reef heron arrived in north Wales in what is believed to be the first ever sighting in the UK.

The heron was first spotted in Foryd Bay at the weekend before flying to nearby Caernarfon harbour where it fed among the boats.

Exclusive: Fighting Dirty taking legal action against government over proposal it says could import weaker standards

An environmental campaign group is taking legal action against the government over proposals that it claims could fast-track chemical hazard classifications from other countries with lower standards into UK law.

Fighting Dirty claims proposals to change the classification and labelling of potentially hazardous chemicals could result in the UK weakening standards on cancer-causing substances.

With limited resources and sanctions tightening, conservationists are forced to find new ways to protect the coral reefs of Ciénaga de Zapata national park

At 8am, scuba divers gather to collect plastic and drinks cans from the sea at Cuba’s Ciénaga de Zapata national park. Amid a power crisis that has virtually paralysed the country’s economy, they use an electric trailer to move to a designated spot. In only a few hours, they have collected five sacks of cans and waste.

Lack of environmental awareness, invasive species and the climate crisis have long threatened the island’s pristine marine ecosystem but as US sanctions and economic scarcity take their toll on the country, scientists and community conservationists are working with even scarcer resources to protect a vital ecosystem for the Caribbean and the world.

Chris Farrell was given benefit for six months despite his repeated requests for payments to stop

A former unpaid carer has urged welfare officials to “get their act together” after they continued to pay him carer’s benefit for six months after the death of his husband, potentially landing him with debts of more than £1,300.

Chris Farrell, 65, who claimed carer’s allowance for four years while providing full-time care for his late husband repeatedly tried to get the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to stop paying him the £86.45 a week benefit.

A carer who has accumulated more than £2,000 of unwanted carer’s allowance since their mother went into a care home 10 months ago. They said they had contacted the DWP to cancel the benefit five times, by phone and online form, to no avail.

A carer who found it impossible to get the DWP to stop carer’s allowance payments despite reporting over a year ago she had taken on a new work contract and was no longer eligible for the benefit. She had been overpaid more than £2,650.

A man trying to manage work and care for his father, who claimed carer’s allowance for several months after being made redundant, has been unable to stop the benefit despite telling officials repeatedly he no longer needed it after finding a new job.

Funding for extracurricular activities comes as ministers prepare to introduce social media restrictions for under-16s

The government has announced a £132.5m funding package for after-school clubs as ministers prepare to introduce expected restrictions on social media use for under-16s.

The programme is designed to expand access to enrichment activities in schools, with funding for clubs ranging from music groups and debating societies to engineering and sports, in what ministers describe as an effort to give children alternatives to time spent online.

More than 100 UK lawmakers urge government to cancel London event, warning it is linked to land ‘stolen from Palestinians’

More than 100 UK lawmakers have called for the cancellation of an Israeli real estate event scheduled to take place in London on Sunday, which had appeared to advertise the sale of land in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In a letter sent to the foreign secretary on Friday, 101 parliamentarians and members of the House of Lords, warned the event was “firmly embedded in Israel’s project of colonial expansion by facilitating the sale of land that has been stolen from Palestinians” and called on the government to take “all necessary steps” to stop the event from going ahead in the capital.

Exclusive: Research in England shows people a third less likely to reoffend under decriminalisation-style schemes

Drug diversion schemes led by police that steer people away from the criminal justice system and into treatment and education services are significantly more effective in reducing reoffending than prosecution, according to a new analysis.

Researchers examined outcomes across 13 English police forces and more than 62,000 criminal incidents over the past four years, finding that people whose cases were dealt with through decriminalisation-style diversion schemes were a third less likely to reoffend than similar individuals prosecuted for drug possession.

Closure of independent festivals mean emerging artists will lose important launch pad, music insiders say

On New Year’s Eve 1998, a few hundred people gathered for a dance party on a clifftop above the black sands of Karioitahi beach, south of Auckland. It was wild and lo-fi. Inspired by outdoor raves in Goa, India, and New Year’s Eve parties in the hills of the South Island, there were stilt walkers and fire performers and all kinds of dance music. It was called Splore, a Scottish word meaning merrymaking and frolicking.

Fat Freddy’s Drop played their first ever festival show at Splore, and have gone on to become a festival favourite in Europe. Other acts followed that path. For nearly three decades, Splore was an unofficial launchpad – where a band or DJ used to playing to a hundred people could suddenly be on a main stage in front of thousands. People came back year after year, they brought their children. Their children brought their own friends.

Nine-year-old visiting relatives in Punjab province when police opened fire on car, local media report

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A nine-year-old Australian girl has been killed and two of her family members injured after reportedly being shot by police in Pakistan.

The family were visiting a relative in Chakwal, in Punjab province, when they were robbed while in their rental car on Wednesday night local time, Pakistani English-language news outlet Dawn reported.

Funeral procession travels to palace as people remember royal’s campaigning and work for underprivileged

As the sun began to set on the golden spires and gilded finials of Bangkok’s Grand Palace, the gates were open, waiting for the return of a princess.

Since December 2022, Princess Bajrakitiyabha had been in hospital, having collapsed while out training her dogs. After nearly four years in a coma, the princess died earlier this week.

Officials given 21 days to comply with order after Angel Kelley condemns administration for ‘telling half-truths’

A US district court judge has ordered the Trump administration to reinstate any history or science materials it removed from the nation’s public monuments, finding that the White House’s actions “set a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization”.

In March 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “restoring truth and sanity to American history”, calling upon the secretary of interior to examine monuments, memorials and statues to see if they had been altered after January 2020 to represent a “false construction of American history”.

Company said US government believes safeguards can be bypassed and product used to identify software vulnerabilities

Anthropic said it will “abruptly disable” its most advanced AI models for all users after the US government ordered it to suspend access to the models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns.

The company received the export control directive to suspend access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all foreign nationals, without being given specific details of the national security concern, Anthropic said in a statement.

The company’s response to the launchpad blast has become a key test for Artemis III

As Blue Origin tells it, the most spectacular launchpad explosion in recent memory, which destroyed its pioneering New Glenn space rocket last month and severely damaged almost everything around it, was merely a blip.

“We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter,” Dave Limp, the company’s chief executive, posted on X on 1 June, using the Latin form of its motto, “Step by step, ferociously”.

He’s now the world’s first trillionaire, after his rocket and AI company broke IPO records on its way to a $2.1tn valuation

Elon Musk is now the world’s first trillionaire. SpaceX’s historic debut on the stock market on Friday launched the CEO to unprecedented levels of wealth; his personal fortune now amounts to $1.1tn, an increase of more than $62bn since the previous day, according to Forbes.

The rocket, satellite and AI company raised $75bn from its record-breaking initial public offering (IPO), and is now valued at $2.1tn after its first day of public trading.

Deal still under UK scrutiny with new investigation, and could face lawsuit from state attorneys general

Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has decided to approve the $111bn merger of Paramount Skydance, controlled by the Ellison family, and Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of networks like CNN and HBO.

The deal was approved by the justice department’s anti-trust division after months of review, and despite the concerns of many people in the entertainment and media industries who believe it will hurt competition by reducing the number of film studios and – most likely – merging two news networks, Paramount’s CBS News and CNN.

The Teenage Jesus and the Jerks frontwoman shares her hatred of sandwiches and pop culture, plus her wish to evaporate and return to ‘the ether’

What’s the most chaotic thing that’s ever happened to you on stage?

I’m still waiting for that. Maybe it’s the most chaotic thing I’ve ever put forth from the stage. Once a quite drunken man called out a rather rude remark for me to suck his you-can-imagine-what, so I invited him up to the stage and cracked him in the neck with a blackjack [club]. He fell to his knees and I told him to suck it himself. I’m always prepared!

Director Adam Shankman and drag queen actors explain putting a brilliantly madcap twist on Airplane! style parody

Drag queens are never more striking than when they’re set against an everyday background. “Kristen Stewart is a buoy … ” the Laotian American beauty Jujubee muttered spacily to herself in the hallway of Bleecker Street Media’s New York office, reading out the tag-line of a framed poster for the 2024 sci-fi/romance Love Me. The former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and star of the new disaster-comedy Stop! That! Train! was lingering outside an office cubicle in a structured blazer and fishnets as an attentive PR took her order for lunch. By that point she’d been in full wardrobe and make-up all day fielding press, including a mid-morning stop with her castmates at NBC’s Today with Jenna & Sheinelle.

I’d heard Jujubee and her co-star Ginger Minj before I saw them, laughing like glamorous hyenas from another room. When they made an entrance, they did so in coordinated cheetah print looks, greeting me with the kind of mega-watt smiles that told me I was now their audience. I was impressed by how “on” they were, but could imagine it was taxing to keep up. How had the whirlwind of press been for them? “It’s been a lot of work but it doesn’t feel like it,” Ginger admitted. “The tour has absolutely mimicked the making of the movie.” “We have to schedule our sleep,” Jujubee added as she slowly began to peel off some cumbersome press-on nails. “But I’m so high on life and all of us have been able to stay in the moment, and live in this stormaganza of press.” They immediately started cackling again.

Those who knew him tell the remarkable story in a three-parter. Plus: a juicy drama about the scandalous Mitford sisters. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

I had always dreamt of a grand fairytale wedding, but my boyfriend hated being the centre of attention. Watching a couple negotiate their differences on TV convinced me we could carry it off

I have been with my partner Martin for 10 years, and he has always told me that he doesn’t want to get married. He thinks that the institution of marriage is a way for the state to control us. He also thinks that marriage is inherently patriarchal – and, honestly, I can’t argue with him about any of this.

But the truth is that I’ve had my whole wedding day mapped out in my head since I was seven. As a child I loved daydreaming about adulthood, and a huge wedding was the most adult thing I could possibly imagine. When other children were playing Pokémon, I was thinking about precisely how many tiki torches I wanted to light the way to the blessing ceremony. I didn’t really visualise the groom; he was a kind of blurry Ken-doll figure. My visions mainly centred around myself.

Now on its third season, the Scouse sitcom doesn’t shy away from huge topics such as class, anoxeria and neurodiversity. But also, you’re never too far from a joke about ‘ye ma’

How had I not heard of this show? Had I heard of it, then forgotten? Questions plagued me as I caught up on two series of this week’s underrated gem. In my defence, G’wed is an esoteric title. I assumed it was the name of a person, place or ancient story, possibly borrowed from Celtic mythology. Turns out it’s scouse for “go ahead”.

Reviewers that saw previous series of the adolescent comedy noted its similarities to The Inbetweeners. A middle-class boy, Christopher, is forced to “slum it” with working-class lads, including his nemesis neighbour, Reece, at a new secondary school in Liverpool. Immature antics ensue, alongside merciless teasing and finally acceptance. Hearts are warmed, knob jokes hammered. The difference was, this show kept talking about grief, and had more to say about class than does your average fish-out-of-water premise.

The story behind the grainy footage of a dummy filled with butcher’s off-cuts is an extraordinarily eccentric and knotty joy – with the hoaxers resembling Scooby-Doo baddies

You will, no doubt, be familiar with the 1995 footage of a supposed alien autopsy. Since its yikes-inducing TV debut, the jittery black-and-white film is estimated to have been viewed by a billion people. Still, for better or worse, here it is again: a scrum of faceless hazmat suits hover over the corpse of a pot-bellied humanoid. Its forehead? Bulbous. Its expression? Pensioner outraged at price of bark chippings in local branch of Wickes. Over the next 18 minutes the suits proceed to dissect this appalled sod, slicing it open to reveal what appear to be various organs, condiments and splodgy, flopping … things.

“Those were lambs’ brains,” chuckles Trevor the butcher as The Alien Autopsy Scandal zooms in on a quivering hillock of the aforementioned horrors. Trevor was one of the individuals involved in the titular film, its production taking place not, as initially claimed, in a US military facility in 1947, but a Camden living room in 1995. Trevor had been approached by a sculptor to supply “guts” with which to stuff the “alien” mould that would, the latter had explained, be appearing in “a film”. Hmm. Nevertheless, guts – in the form of knees, hearts and miscellaneous entrails – were duly supplied. Anything else? “Pig eyes, ’cos they look like human eyes,” guffaws Trevor, before taking a hacksaw to the remains of a decapitated pig. Disgusting? Yes. But fascinating, too. And certainly no stranger than anything else in John Dower’s exquisitely directed documentary; a thing of great playfulness and eccentricity that, over three increasingly extraordinary episodes, unknots the tale behind the notorious film. Or at least does its best to do so. But the truth proves slippery and its gatekeepers are … well. Enter Ray Santilli (tinted glasses; deep shiftiness) and Gary Shoefield (tracksuit; air of one comfortable with the phrase “it is what it is”).

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

Riya Mahesh is the ‘insanely Texas girl’ and medical student whose music splits the difference between dazed ambient production and big-tent pop melody

From Boston, via Texas
Recommended if you like Grace Ives, Porter Robinson, Grimes
Up next Touring EU/UK in November

Riya Mahesh has perfected her own sweet, whimsical brand of plunderphonics; her seventh project as Quiet Light in six years, this year’s Blue Angel Sparkling Silver 2, sounds a little as if it’s been chopped together from samples of Mahesh’s own memory. On Berlin, she sings to a wayward love interest over a moony breakbeat and IDM glitches, as a spoken-word part – what sounds to me like a recording of a lecture – floats in the background. Star100 starts all whispers and garbled laughter, before ceding space to Mahesh’s multitracked harmonies. Sometimes, Mahesh will suddenly deliver a wildly catchy chorus, something she clearly has an aptitude for – check Dealerz, her collab with Danish band A Good Year.

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

• Read our selection of 70 brilliant books for the summer

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

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

The American author received ‘thousands of rejections’ over two decades before finally hitting gold with her first published novel

Just as I am about to interview this year’s Women’s prize winner, debut American novelist Virginia Evans, at the party on a drizzly evening in a leafy London square, we are interrupted because someone wants to congratulate her. The fan is Richard Curtis.

A warm-hearted weepy with a sprinkling of gentle humour, Evans’s prize-winning novel The Correspondent is prime Curtis material. In fact, he is too late. “I think he just wants to be my friend,” Evans jokes modestly – Notting Hill is her favourite movie of all time. A film of The Correspondent is already in the pipeline with Jane Fonda playing 73-year-old Sybil Van Antwerp, the crotchety correspondent of the title. Evans will be one of the producers and will have a cameo appearance, “walking a dog or something”.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Penguin Books, £9.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

The BBC’s chief international correspondent was awarded the prestigious nonfiction prize for The Finest Hotel in Kabul – which she hopes will bring more attention to the Taliban’s draconian treatment of women

• Women’s prize: Virginia Evans wins for fiction and Lyse Doucet takes award for nonfiction

Lyse Doucet first checked into Kabul’s Intercontinental Hotel on Christmas Day 1988, as Soviet troops were withdrawing from Afghanistan at the end of a decade-long occupation. She expected to stay briefly. Instead, she remained for almost a year, and the hotel became her first Afghan home.

More than three decades later, it became the subject of her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, which has now won the Women’s prize for nonfiction. But while the prize recognises a remarkable work of reportage and history, the BBC’s chief international correspondent is more interested in what it might do for the country that inspired it.

My mum, the author Mary Hooper, who has died aged 81, left school aged 15 with no qualifications. Her last school report said: “Far too noisy and talkative.” When she was a young mother in the 1970s she read a short story and thought “I could do better than that,” wrote one up and sent it to Jackie magazine. To her surprise, it sold for £14.

She went on to write hundreds of stories and more than 100 books for children and young adults, before YA was an official genre. Among them were Newes from the Dead (2008), which won teenage book of the year at the North East Book awards and Bank Street best children’s book of the year in 2009; Fallen Grace (2010), which was nominated for the Carnegie medal in 2011; and Poppy (2014), which won the Young Quills Historical Association award that year, nominated by young readers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hundreds of video games were shown at June’s annual bonanza. After watching more than 15 hours of showcases, our video games editor picks the highlights

The sequel to a revered 2014 horror game from British developer Creative Assembly: this time you must evade the xenomorph on the surface of a storm-ravaged colony world.

Royal Opera House, London
Prodigal son Paul Lightfoot returns with Sol León for their first performance by a British dance company. The result is impressively choreographed, if in need of more heart

Paul Lightfoot is a prolific, multi-award-winning British choreographer, more than 35 years in the industry, making dance as a duo with his former wife Sol León. Yet this is the first time their work has been performed by a British dance company. Seems hard to believe.

The pair spent their careers at Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), as dancers and choreographers, then Lightfoot was artistic director from 2012 to 2020. But Cheshire-born Lightfoot trained at the Royal Ballet school, so this is a bit of a prodigal son situation, the Royal Ballet dancing an evening of the duo’s work: one two-decades-old piece revived, another that originated in lockdown that’s been dramatically recreated especially for this company.

The style of dance is so distinctive (influenced by that of NDT’s longtime director Jiří Kylián). It’s full of steps, exclamations, exaggerations and quirks. It is ultra specific, with constant switches of tone and timbre. The Royal Ballet’s dancers are used to demanding, ultra-contemporary movement but you can see how challenging it is to completely absorb a new style, and it’s interesting to see dancers play against type, like Vadim Muntagirov, a classical prince, now an ultra-serious, starkly angled figure in 2006’s Shoot the Moon. He’s one of five protagonists on a clever rotating set where different rooms and relationships come into view. Not so much a story as a set of (moderately opaque) situations. The style can be a bit Marmitey: Euro arthouse angst, well-dressed people in crisis to Philip Glass. Always a beautiful crisis, though.

The dancer most impressively invested in the work is Lauren Cuthbertson, almost reinvented for this piece. At one point there’s a live camera feed on stage and we see a closeup of Cuthbertson on screen, facial expressions as frantic as her body. She’s mesmerising, like a silent movie star scrolling through different roles – puffed cheeks, villainous pout – it could be comical if she weren’t so committed. The only thing is, there are so many expressions (and so many steps), it’s saying so much, that it almost doesn’t say anything; trying to tell a hundred stories, but sometimes one story is enough.

Citizens theatre, Glasgow
The novel is adapted with equal parts wit and horror to capture the depravity of a notorious crime in Glasgow

On the bare brick wall backing Jen McGinley’s set – half courtroom, half saloon – there is a faded poster of The Searchers, John Ford’s 1956 western. The whisky-swilling hard men who haunt the clubs and dives of The Long Drop may well see themselves as cowboys. They are double dealers and grandstanders, full of bluff and bluster; sometimes cosplay baddies, acting as tough as John Wayne; other times, they are the real thing, meting out beatings and sociopathic violence.

But this is not Monument Valley. Rather, it is the same Gorbals streets outside the theatre where, in a different time, one of Glasgow’s most notorious crimes played out. Adapted with equal parts wit and horror by Linda McLean from the true-life crime novel by Denise Mina, it is the unravelling story of a triple murder.

Sadler’s Wells, London
The company’s centenary celebration isn’t about nostalgia – this occasionally thrilling triple bill of recent creations showcases some excellent dancers

Britain’s oldest dance company is celebrating its 100th anniversary but this celebratory tour is decidedly no exercise in nostalgia. As the title, This is Rambert, makes clear, it’s a mission statement, a manifesto, and all about the present moment.

So no harking back to the company’s beginnings in the early years of British ballet, or the deliberate shift into modern dance in the 1960s. The Rambert brand has gone through some chameleonic changes across the last century, settling for a while into a pattern of reputable, reliable, something-for-everyone shows. Current artistic director Benoit Swan Pouffer wants to shake things up, to prove there’s nothing geriatric about this centenarian.

O2 Apollo Manchester
The Messy hitmaker is back after taking time away from live performance, and this charming, relatable set shows why she is such a gen Z icon

The rollercoaster ride towards international pop stardom seldom runs smooth, but few rising stars have been flung through its loops and freefalls as publicly as south London singer-songwriter Lola Young. In 2024, gen Z anthem Messy became her breakthrough moment, but social media scrutiny surrounding her open struggles with addiction and a stage collapse in New York last year brought live performances to a halt.

When the 25-year-old musician strolls on stage in a baggy black hoodie, she seems relieved to be here. Casual though the look may be, she is worshipped as a Y2K style guru, as evidenced by the young crowd: a blur of bleached mullets and denim jorts cry every word of her single Sad Sob Story!.

Disruption during performance of Inter Alia comes weeks after Pike berated audience member for texting during play

Rosamund Pike kept her cool after a phone alarm in the front row interrupted a performance of Inter Alia on Saturday afternoon.

The actor berated an audience member earlier this month for texting on their phone during the performance at Wyndham’s theatre in London.

Shadows glimpsed on a wall at sunset inspired this evocative portrait of the photographer and his dog, Lolly

Lolly – a chow-chow-cocker spaniel mix – was Tony Hertz’s dog for 15 years. “She had long black hair with a little white on her mouth, ears, eyebrows and feet, and a partially marbled tongue. She was quite cute,” Hertz says.

Hertz and Lolly were living in Pismo Beach, California, when he took this shot. At the time he was working on a photography series and book based around shadows, and he had taken her along on one of his regular sunset walks. Over a career spanning three decades, Hertz has photographed queens, popes and a president, but this was an attempt at something more personal. The photo was taken on a grassy area next to a Walmart. As Hertz sat down on a bench for a breather, he noticed in their shadows that Lolly was looking directly at him. “I positioned my phone so it couldn’t be seen in the shadow, composed the shot and then looked toward Lolly so that our profiles would be turned to each other,” he says. Hertz often wears his brimmed hats when seeking out new elements for his series, “to make them consistent with a little noir look”.

In this week’s newsletter: Are you indifferent to office sweepstakes and bored by endless stats? Fear not – there’s a bounty of film, TV and music being released this summer to take your mind off the on-pitch action

Have you, like me, got an incurable case of World Cup fever? Have you spent hours staring intently at the wallchart, attempting to memorise the kick-off times of all 104 games, even – no, especially – Uzbekistan v DR Congo? Have you signed up for the office sweepstake, played Bracketology, listened to approximately 831 preview podcasts (including the Guardian’s Football Weekly, of course), and quietly left your moral reservations about the Trump of it all at the front door? I’m all in.

For people with no interest in football, however, this must be the most hellish of periods, where every last billboard, newspaper front page (and website) and cola can is devoted to the sport. And that’s before you even switch on your TV, where the tournament has laid waste to regular scheduled programming.

Ceaselessly inventive painter whose best known works were inspired by the light and colour he encountered in 1960s California

Soon after he moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, the artist David Hockney was visited by his mother. As they drove back from the airport, far from her native Bradford, she gazed about her in apparent awe at the beauties of sun-kissed southern California. Then, as Hockney was fond of recalling, she turned and said: “I don’t understand it. Such lovely drying weather and no one’s got their washing out.” Mrs Hockney thus joined Mrs Warhol and Alan Bennett’s “Mam” as working-class mothers who delighted in their son’s success without ever quite understanding it.

Hockney, who has died aged 88, had been similarly awestruck when he first went to California in 1963, commissioned to make work for a show in New York. His response, though, was quite different. Looking down from a Pan Am jet, he marvelled at the blue glint of swimming pools and thought, “My God, this place needs its Piranesi.”

The actor on missing his late mother, Maggie Smith, being mistaken for Damian Lewis, and looking ‘like a fridge’

Born in London, Toby Stephens, 57, is the son of actors Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens. He trained at Lamda and, in 1992, made his film debut in Orlando. In 2002 he played the Bond villain in Die Another Day. His television work includes One Day, The Split and Black Sails. On stage he has performed for the RSC and the National Theatre, and he is currently starring in Equus at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, until 4 July, and then Theatre Royal Bath, from 14-25 July. He is married to the actor Anna‑Louise Plowman, with whom he has three children, and lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
To be completely alone.

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

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

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

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

• The best supermarket natural yoghurts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our writer grilled halloumi, veggies and spatchcock chicken to find the best barbecues, from crowd-pleasing all-rounders to models that can smoke, roast and more

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

Salmon don’t know that they swim upstream. Some ancient instinct impels them; they don’t think about it any more than trees think about growing. You are a British person of a certain age and bearing. You are buying a barbecue.

But this half-century-old compulsion often ends before it starts. Few products are marketed with as much machismo as BBQs, and the jargon makes them surprisingly tricky to buy. While we all enjoy the unintended high camp of a snap-jet ignition, it’s unclear if such features are essentials or optional extras. Add in the tedious difference between planchas and kamados, and you can easily spend hundreds of pounds on what is essentially a hot metal box.

Best BBQ overall:
Weber Bar-B-Kettle charcoal barbecue

Best budget BBQ:
Argos Home drum charcoal BBQ with cover and utensils

Ever since Stanley Tucci got me into fried courgettes, I’ve been obsessed. And, of all the ways I’ve used them since, this is by far my favourite

I had my head turned by fried courgettes while watching Stanley Tucci eat spaghetti alla Nerano (on Searching for Italy). So much so, in fact, that I went so far as to book a table at Lo Scoglio da Tommaso in Nerano while I was in Italy last year, only to be thwarted by a broken-down car. Still in search of the pleasure, my husband, Hugh, made that pasta when we got back home, and we slapped our thighs in amazement that so much flavour and pleasure could be achieved by frying courgettes until bronzed. I’ve been using them in all sorts of ways ever since and this is hands down my favourite.

Bloody mary, but not as you know it …

This sour-spicy twist on the classic brunch drink is very easy to recreate at home.

Heath Ball, owner, The Red Lion & Sun, London N6

Its nutty, zesty flavour combination makes this single-layer cake an absolute winner for everyday eating

A good snacking cake earns its place not through grandeur, but reliability. It sits patiently on the counter, improves with a day’s rest and can be sliced into at odd hours: with coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon or something stronger during a tense World Cup match. This lemon and pistachio version is especially companionable: tender, bright and just sharp enough to keep things lively.

Savour the glorious sound of mussels popping open and finish cooking the pasta in the shellfish liquor really to ramp up the flavour

If you put your ear close (but not too close) to a covered pan full of mussels, olive oil, garlic and a bit of white wine (not too much) over a lively heat, you will hear the sound – a cross between a crack, or that of a rip and an unzipping – of the mussels opening. To begin with, it’s intermittent, so you lift and look under the lid to reassure yourself that they are indeed starting to open … But there are only a few, so the lid goes back on. You shake the pan until, like popcorn, the mussels are off – crack, rip, unzip – at which point, get the lid off and the mussels out, so you can admire the liquor. Taste to see how salty it is and measure how much you have: you want about 200ml, so take some out, reduce or add water to get the proportions and taste to your liking.

Spaghetti (or linguine) with mussels is a recipe that benefits from finishing the cooking of the pasta in the sauce, which is also a great technique to know generally, because it can be applied to countless pasta recipes. The benefits of finishing the cooking in the sauce (or broth) are: deep flavour (because the pasta absorbs and gets completely coated in the sauce), shine and a slightly thickened sauce, thanks to the starch that seeps from the pasta and combines with the fat.

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

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up there by myself, I decided life might be best on my own. That thought has shaped my travel and relationships ever since

I grew up in Kenya and was nine when we went camping by the beach in Mombasa, with two other families. The constant games and laughter were new to me, as we were a quiet, rather insular family. I went bodyboarding, watched crabs emerge from holes in the sand, climbed all over rusty cannons in the old fort and bought colourful strips of kanga fabric in the market to make sarongs.

One day, my father asked some fishers to take us to the reef in their canoes. It was a good mile offshore: I wanted to stay behind with Mum, but Dad fixed me with a look and said: “You’ve got no sense of adventure, have you?” Then I knew I had to go, clambering shakily into the wobbly wooden construction, clinging on to the sides for dear life.

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

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

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

People with careers in the UK and beyond offer practical advice for those struggling to secure work

About 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds in the UK are not in employment, education or training, and a recent report said this could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action.

With the obstacles young people face in securing employment now greater than ever, we asked readers if they had any advice for those seeking work. Here are some of their responses.

The clock is ticking to take advantage of this valuable UK scheme, as the benefits are to be restricted from April 2029

Millions of workers are able to take advantage of a scheme that allows them to boost their pension and pay less tax, and experts are urging people to “max out” this valuable perk before the rules are tightened.

Salary sacrifice lets you exchange some of your wages for a different benefit from your employer, such as a company car – or, in this case, pension contributions. You will then pay less tax and national insurance (NI) on your lower salary.

Also: Anthropic advocates for a ‘pause’ on AI advancement – days after filing to go public on the US stock market

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, the US tech editor at the Guardian. Today we’re discussing Donald Trump’s neediness for AI and the contradictions of Anthropic’s safety-first posture.

OpenAI confidentially files for initial public offering on US stock market

Apple debuts revamped ‘Siri AI’ and new child safety features for iPhones and iPads

The Guardian view on children and the internet: rolling back big tech’s untrammelled power | Editorial

Silicon Valley including Meta has embraced Maga politics, says Nick Clegg

Bernie Sanders’ AI sovereign wealth fund plan is good. But we think this is better | Nathan E Sanders and Bruce Schneier

Majority of US’s new AI datacenters to be built on drought-hit land

Billions spent and hypothetical returns: the AI boom explained with six charts

‘A driver of political violence’: how the breakneck AI boom is fueling anti-tech extremism

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

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

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

Other projects include developing tools to help visually impaired people navigate video games

Parents are constantly being told to limit their children’s screen time. But when it comes to deciphering which films or TV shows are best suited to developing minds, the guidance remains largely one-size-fits-all. A relatively slow-paced programme such as Bluey offers a very different viewing experience to a fast-moving action series such as PAW Patrol, yet both are broadly considered suitable for young children.

This challenge is growing as the type of content children are exposed to evolves. “Today’s young viewers are increasingly engaging with short-form, fast-paced, highly captivating content, often created by splicing and rearranging existing episodic content into quickly digestible snippets or compilations,” said Prof Tim Smith, director of University of the Arts London’s Nerve Lab. “This evolution is not only changing how content is produced and distributed, but may also affect children’s attention, comprehension and emotional response.”

Is my metabolism slowing with age? What’s the secret to good skin? And is there anything I can do about my crows feet? Medical, health and diet experts offer a midlife MOT

According to the dietician Rick Miller: “By the time a man hits his mid-40s, several physiological changes are already under way. Testosterone drops at around 1-2% annually from the mid-30s, insulin sensitivity decreases and the liver’s capacity to process certain nutrients changes. The diet that kept a man lean and energetic in his 30s simply stops working.”

Influencers often brand sugar as inherently harmful – but not all sweet foods are created equal

‘It’s a common myth,” says Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London – and one that thrives on social media. The confusion, she says, often comes from people cutting out sugary foods and feeling better. But that can be because removing ultra-processed sweet treats improves the overall quality of a diet (making more room for wholefoods).

Leeming says influencers who call sugar “toxic” often see it as inherently harmful – solely responsible for weight gain, poor blood sugar control and heart problems. But in controlled studies where calorie intake is kept the same, diets high in sugar don’t appear to worsen weight loss, metabolism or key health markers. “It’s not ideal nutritionally if you’re missing out on fruits, vegetables and whole grains,” Leeming says, “but sugar isn’t in itself directly harmful in that context.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Follow the folklore and you will discover a landscape full of wonder and powerful women – from a fearsome Scottish warrioress to the first queen of a united England

It’s just past midday and I appear to be inside a rain cloud. Soaked to the skin, my walking boots squelching through tufts of grass and black bog mud, I can hear hundreds of streams rolling off this wide mid-Wales peak, each vying to be the fastest. I’ve hiked around more than 8 miles (13km) of Hafren Forest trails to the top of Pumlumon Fawr (Plynlimon), to reach a wooden post carved with the words Source of the Severn. And I’m here, alone, because I’m hoping to meet a river goddess.

It’s perhaps not as strange as it first sounds. Starting about 150 years ago, the folklorist John Rhys travelled across Wales to archive as many local myths as possible, and among them was the very tale that brought me to this peak: the story of the birth of the River Severn, in which three sisters – Hafren (Severn), Rheidolyn (Rheidol) and Gwy (Wye) – each choose their own route to the sea. My trip to the river’s source was itself a moment of mythically inspired travel, something that has been common practice in the British Isles for as long as we’ve told stories, not least as a means of passing them on.

Affordable, family-friendly and largely flat, the Lelångenleden is a gateway to an otherworldly wilderness with wild swimming, canoes and cabins as part the ride

Imagine the Swedish landscape and a stereotypical scene of idyllic red cottages with white trim, foregrounded by a lake of glimmering blue, might spring to mind. Beyond perhaps, adding depth, lies a band of birch and spruce, and a midsummer view of wooded islands.

Now, add to this image the sight of two half-naked men lunging from a tiny sauna cabin into the cold shock of a lake. One screams. The other ducks his head under, pops up, shivers, then does it again. His skin has the pinkish tinge of salmon, but he’s smiling.

From underfloor heating to big screen TVs, there seems to be nothing in the average house that isn’t available in one of these uber-vans

Our maiden campervan trip, 2021, and my wife and I return from Kata Tjuta to Yulara’s “Ayers Rock” campground to find new neighbours. Towering beside our humble rental is a fully optioned monster ute with a spanking new off-road caravan. And a playpen.

We’re enjoying a sunset dinner outside when a woman lurches down the steps next door cradling a chihuahua. Scowling at us, she drops the dog in the playpen and hauls herself back inside. The dog snarls and yaps until we hastily finish eating and retreat into our tiny van.

From Brinsworth House and Denville Hall to Goliath, Timperley Early and Valentine, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Which African capital city and its river are anagrams of each other?
2 In the UK, which bird of prey has gone from near extinction to about 4,500 breeding pairs?
3 Which 1956 play was written on a deckchair on Morecambe Pier?
4 Which song features nine times in the film Groundhog Day?
5 Who was the only crowned heir apparent to the English throne?
6 Denville Hall and Brinsworth House are retirement homes for whom?
7 What is England’s largest forest?
8 What volcanic glass is named after a Roman traveller?
What links:
9 CND chair; 9-57 v South Africa; Happy Valley star; RAF philanthropist?
10 Benfica, 2026 and 1978; Galatasaray, 1986; Perugia, 1979; Red Star, 2008?
11 Coal Miner’s Daughter; I Saw the Light; Sweet Dreams; Walk the Line?
12 Champagne; Fulton’s Strawberry Surprise; Goliath; Timperley Early; Valentine?
13 Isabella Bird; Nellie Bly; Ida Pfeiffer; Freya Stark?
14 Sunshine Desserts (Barron); LA beaches (Anderson); White House (Janney)?
15 Eddy; Falstaff; Junior; Lily; Lin; Lucy; Oscar?

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

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.

In her work as an online safety campaigner, the baroness and Bridget Jones director has seen things she can never unsee – and she’s furious at the tech overlords doing nothing to stop the abuse

Through the open windows behind Beeban Kidron drifts the unmistakable sound of children playing. Her north ­London office is sandwiched between a school and a nursery, and the occasional playground shriek functions as an aural reminder of what we’re here to discuss: the safety and happiness of young people, growing up in an age of screens.

Though our conversation takes some dark turns, only once does the film director turned crossbench peer and online safety campaigner for children lose her composure. “I have seen a lot of things I’d rather not see,” she says, slowly. “But the worst thing was not the most extreme. It was watching a child’s face as she realised that the person who she thought was her friend wasn’t her friend; that the sex acts she’d been doing weren’t for her friend; and that there may have been other people in the room.

The philanthropist always saw Epstein for who he really was – despite his meetings with her then husband Bill Gates. Now carving out a life on her own terms, she explains why she’s focused on the fight for women’s health

Melinda French Gates has entered a new phase of life, and it is “beautiful”, she says. It is five years since her painful, public divorce from the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and two years since she stepped down from their charity, the Gates Foundation, to focus her full attention on Pivotal, the philanthropic organisation she founded in 2015 to promote women’s empowerment. Her three children have all left home, she goes by “Nonna” to her two granddaughters, and as an empty nester she finds herself in the strange position of having time on her hands.

She has started visiting her local independent bookshop more often, chatting to the staff about what she should read next; when she finishes work at five, she often texts a friend to meet for a walk, and they go exploring new neighbourhoods of Seattle, decaf coffees in hand. She no longer runs daily but insists on a morning stroll to enjoy the natural beauty of her adoptive home town, Lake Washington glittering in late-spring light. This morning, she saw a blue heron, she says, sounding almost boastful.

Other western acts have attempted to crack country’s music scene since singer’s breakout success in 2018

One week after announcing she was “cancer free”, the British pop star Jessie J did what any recovering patient would do and travelled thousands of miles around the world to perform for an audience of more than a billion people.

On 29 May, the singer-songwriter, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, belted out a stage-rattling rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way on the stage of Singer, a hugely popular Chinese singing competition similar to The Voice. She also performed her new song, California, briefly adapting the lyrics to change California to Changsha, the Chinese city where Singer is hosted.

We would like to hear your advice that might help younger people looking for a job

About 1 million 16- to 24-year-olds are not in employment, education or training – and the obstacles they face are bigger than ever. With this in mind, we would like we would like to hear your advice that might help younger people looking for a job.

Do you have experience of looking for work that you could share? What useful tips do you have for job seekers? Let us know below.

We would like to hear about your television highlights of the year so far. Share your thoughts now

The Guardian’s culture writers have compiled their favourite TV shows of the year so far – and we’d like to hear about yours, too.

Are there any new series that you would recommend watching? What have been best TV shows of the year so far, and why?

We would like to hear from people who have been affected by the disorder following anti-immigration protests

Police have used water cannon against rioters in Northern Ireland during a second night of anti-immigration protests.

It dispersed a crowd of about 300 people on Wednesday night who burned a truck and threw bricks and petrol bombs close to the Sandyknowes roundabout near Newtownabbey, eight miles north of Belfast.

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

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

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

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The championships, which take place in Maidstone, Kent, were dreamed up as a way of raising funds for Coxheath village hall about 50 years ago