The much-loved presenter had 10 years on This Morning before suddenly deciding she had to get out of there. She discusses sexual harassment, tabloid intrusion, Phillip Schofield and the power of forgiveness

On the daytime TV behemoth that is This Morning, Fern Britton always had an appealing mix of warmth, no-nonsense capability and a hint of danger, as if she could decide to blow it all up at any moment. And then she did.

On the day she resigned in 2009, Britton didn’t know she was going to do it, but amid rumours of a feud with co-host Phillip Schofield, she took the scorched-earth route and walked away from her high-profile, high-paying job with nothing to take its place. Was she not worried about what she would do next?

Fining errant corporations is welcome – but when consumers are also getting shaken down on their local high street, it’s time for a new and boisterous approach

It’s a story that warms the heart and lifts the soul: last week, Virgin Media was fined a record £28m by Ofcom for repeatedly preventing customers from cancelling their contracts. Its methods were insidious: deliberate call-dropping, unnecessary call transfers and constantly putting customers on hold. For anyone who has experienced the mental anguish of attempting to cancel a contract or subscription, only to be met with “cancellation friction”, their comeuppance conjures a feeling of economic justice.

“Rip-off Britain” has long been a popular narrative about our country, and feels ever more prescient in a time of stagnant living standards and cost of living pressures. Whether it’s extortionate energy and water bills, food prices, subscription traps, consumer scams, defective goods, unfair fines or hidden charges, it’s impossible to escape the feeling that you are being constantly shaken down. It’s an issue that unites us in frustration: little wonder that the money-saving expert Martin Lewis is the most trusted man in Britain. Reassuring people you’ll help protect their hard-earned money is one of the most surefire ways to make them feel you are on their side.

Jason Okundaye is a Guardian Opinion assistant editor

These two half-hour classics of stop-motion pack in nods to more earnest cinema but are never distracted from producing pristinely beguiling family entertainment

Nick Park’s stop-motion Wallace and Gromit animations have an amazing ability to deliver an entire action adventure feature film at just 30 minutes complete with romantic subplot and loads of great visual gags thrown in, and A Close Shave (★★★★★) from 1995 is just another example of it. The situation is that Wallace (voiced by Peter Sallis) is working on his latest invention in his cellar, a giant machine, like a bungalow-sized cauldron, that automatically shears sheep and knits the product into lovely woolly jumpers.

While they are waiting for this to become a success, Wallace and Gromit run a window-cleaning business, and it is in this capacity that they meet Wendolene Ramsbottom (voiced by Anne Reid) who owns a wool-selling business oddly unaffected by the wool shortage. Wallace falls for the comely Wendolene and their intensely English and shy romance forms an ironic counterpoint to the fact that Wendolene has been coerced by her sinister dog Preston into being complicit in this hateful canine’s sheep-rustling business – as a result of which a runaway sheep finds its way into Wallace and Gromit’s house.

Treasury says shoppers will get a ‘fairer deal’ as new rules for BNPL credit are introduced on Wednesday

Millions of shoppers will enjoy more rights and protections from Wednesday as new rules for “buy now, pay later” take effect in the UK.

The government said it was delivering on its commitment to end the buy now, pay later “wild west”.

Look beyond the flashpoints and flare-ups and perhaps this is the greatest and most romantic of footballing rivalries

It’s about the ball, right up until the moment it isn’t. On Sunday afternoon Godoy Cruz played Defensores de Belgrano in Nacional B, the second division of Argentinian football, and among the sea of blue home banners were two crosses of St George, apparently expropriated from England fans at the 2014 World Cup. One reads: “Boys & Girls From Oakwell Barnsley.” The other: “Big Al – Y-Bird – South Croydon – CPFC.”

Now I want you to reflect on the levels of pure and gorgeous malevolence – pettiness doesn’t quite cover it, nor does spite – required to travel to Brazil, obtain an English flag, fold it away, bring it home in your luggage, keep it in pristine condition for 12 years, only to unveil it in your second-tier football stadium in the week Argentina play England in a World Cup semi-final. The restraint and optimism required to allow your minor act of territorial banter to fester and mature for over a decade. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a footballing rivalry.

In the UK, these scams have become an epidemic, rising 147% between January and March, compared with the same time last year. Why are they suddenly so common? And what can you do if you’re charged thousands for a quick, easy job?

Sarah was alone in her flat with her three-month-old baby when a man put a card machine in her face and demanded she pay £2,209. A few hours earlier Sarah, 30, had been for a walk with her daughter when it dawned on her that she had left her keys at home. She did what most people would do in the same situation: search Google for a nearby locksmith. “I had a screaming baby, so I needed someone to quickly let me in,” she says.

Sarah came across a seemingly legitimate company, near the top of the search results, which was sponsored. The company’s website said prices started at £45 and claimed they had received “4,500-plus five-star reviews and counting”, so she called them. When the locksmith arrived, Sarah says, he “seemed pleasant and relatively quiet” at first. After examining her lock, however, he told her it was a high-security one and the only way to get inside was to drill it open. He broke his way in and changed the lock before delivering another blow: he had accidentally damaged the internal mechanism, which also needed replacing. After Sarah got inside and placed her baby on a changing mat, the locksmith told her the price: £2,209.

Keir Starmer was told he would be remembered as a ‘giant of the Labour movement’ at final cabinet meeting

• Tell us: what do you want from the next Labour leader and UK prime minister?

Labour should ditch the triple-lock pensions promise to help tackle the UK’s straitened public finances, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has urged. Heather Stewart has the story.

I’m afraid we are not going to be able to open comments today for staffing reasons. If you want to contact me directly, it is probably best to get me on on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social.

US strikes Iran for fourth consecutive day as Iran deputy foreign minister says interim deal all but ‘dismantled’

• Trump again threatens to strike Iran’s power plants amid impasse over strait of Hormuz

For a second day in a row, US strikes targeted Iran’s southern port city of Bushehr, home to the country’s only civilian nuclear plant, according to the state news agency IRNA quoting a local official.

“In continuation of the brutality of the American enemy, three points in the city of Bushehr were attacked today,” Mohammad Mozaffari, the governor of Bushehr, was quoted as saying.

In the recent attacks on the southern part of the country, more than 30 civilians lost their lives. While expressing our condolences and sympathy to the bereaved families, we honour the memory of the fallen. The government will stand by the people with all its might. The south of Iran is the beating heart of this land. The south of Iran, the soul of Iran.”

Exclusive: Andrew Bailey says he does not regret meeting Reform UK leader to discuss cryptocurrency regulation

The Bank of England governor has said he would have put off a meeting with Nigel Farage last autumn had the Reform UK leader’s £5m gift from a crypto billionaire been under investigation at the time.

Andrew Bailey said he did not regret meeting Farage to discuss the Bank’s plans for cryptocurrency regulation last September, months before the controversial donation from the Thailand-based investor Christopher Harborne was revealed by the Guardian in April.

Anna Liedtke files criminal complaint in Israel over alleged attack by female guards and says abuse was intended to silence campaigners

The third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel.

She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain that her attackers had left open.

Detectives examining whether hatred of Widdecombe’s strong views or of Reform party were factors in killing described as a ‘targeted attack’

The police investigation into the death of Ann Widdecombe is examining whether a leftwing or single-issue cause may lie behind her killing, the Guardian has learned.

Among issues detectives are investigating are whether a hatred of Widdecombe’s strong views, such as on homosexuality, was a factor. They are also examining whether extreme hostility to the Reform UK party played a role.

Exclusive: allowing firms to dodge biodiversity protections by paying into levy will harm nature and economy, say 100 experts in letter

The UK government has been accused of “rushing through” planning changes that could give developers permission to “trash” nature for as little as £1.

A letter signed by more than 100 conservationists, scientists, celebrities and businesses, including the actor and writer Stephen Fry and the broadcaster Chris Packham, has urged the incoming prime minister, Andy Burnham, to immediately halt the rollout of environmental delivery plans (EDPs).

⚽ All the latest news from a huge World Cup Wednesday
⚽ Spain reach final | Player guide | Golden Boot | Mail us

Over the next three hours – and when I’m subbed off thereafter – we’ll reflect on France 0-2 Spain, and look forward to England v Argentina. England v Argentina in the semi-finals of the World Cup, oh my complete and utter daze days.

Greetings one and all. Anyone got any plans for later?

Mayor of London backs calls from unions to update health and safety rules in light of more frequent heatwaves

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is backing calls for a maximum workplace temperature as pressure grows on the government to protect workers from the impact of repeated heatwaves across the UK.

The extreme heat has left people struggling to cope as temperatures in some workplaces climb above 40C, causing thousands of schools to close and hospital and transport systems to break down.

The Star Wars director has called AI technology ‘the future’ of film-making and advised ‘there’s nothing you can do about it’

Star Wars director George Lucas has added his voice to the growing chorus of film-makers receptive to the rising use of AI tools in moviemaking.

Speaking in an interview with A Rabbit’s Foot, Lucas, 82, said: “Artificial intelligence means it’s much easier for us to make movies.”

As Ann Widdecombe’s death raises concerns over security, politicians describe the threats and aggression they have faced and the anxiety it causes

Jess Phillips has received so many death threats she has to remind herself not to be blase. One night she received more than 600 rape threats. In 2019, a man forced his way into her office. The same year a white supremacist sent her a picture of Jo Cox, her friend and fellow Labour MP who was murdered in 2016, accompanied with the message: “I will have you dealt with.”

“This is not academic to me; it is something I face every day,” says the MP for Birmingham Yardley. “You learn to cope with it, but it does cause terrible anxiety. For me, I feel guilty about the people who work for me, my kids, my family.”

Whether it is our ‘identity maths’, naked nostalgia or diaspora experience. All seem scarred by the political contexts bearing down on this tournament

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I have measured my life in World Cups. The first blurry moments of childhood memory, the passing into adolescence, starting university. Each tournament marks a season of life. Each one is also associated with potent, formative emotional events: Roger Milla dancing around the corner flag when Cameroon became the first African team to reach the quarter-finals in 1990; Roberto Baggio’s devastating goal that knocked out a Nigeria that had been on a thriller streak in 1994; Zinedine Zidane’s tragically ignominious head-butt in 2006 during his last-ever match. But this World Cup has felt different from the start.

Watching the World Cup as a Black diaspora viewer is a broadly unhinged exercise that still adheres to an elegant logic. You might describe the process of deciding your allegiance as a sort of “identity maths”. You support the African teams until they get knocked out (and thanks to the extended format, this time around we had so many more heroic teams such as Cape Verde and the DRC). Then you move on to a combination of Black diaspora teams from elsewhere, then adopted homelands, and then just adopted teams because you like their vibe or their country’s politics. The last category is really tenuous and involves a lot of projection. Spain is a good example of this, a country that has a sort of unproblematic European outlier aura that imbues it with more political proximity to the post-colonial experience than, say, Norway. Then there’s France, which, despite being an ex-colonial power, has a majority-Black team and therefore trumps Spain. I do not make the rules of identity maths.

Bristol Dockyards takes reflective look at imperialism, migration and lives onboard Brunel’s revolutionary vessel

Berthed in a dry dock near Bristol city centre, the grand old ship SS Great Britain is billed as the vessel that changed the world.

But a new museum opening in one of the old dock buildings close to Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s creation highlights that the ship did not always change the world for the better – and life for those who helped build it and travelled on it could be pretty miserable.

Fashion is getting braver with accessories again, so lean into it by embracing loud earrings and chunky pendants

This summer, I want jewellery that makes some noise. Real noise – earrings that swish, bangles that clatter – and visual noise as well. Stuff to wear when you want to be seen and heard. The total opposite, in other words, of the jewellery most of us have been wearing lately. Charming, delicate jewellery has become the default. Two necklaces of different lengths on fine chains. One has a heart pendant, the other an initial or a birth stone, am I right? Maybe a curated earlobe of tastefully small mismatched diamond hoops.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this look. It is really nice. In fact, this is exactly the problem.

The Filter’s authority on camping and the outdoors, Sian Lewis, is now answering all your questions. Whether it’s about finding the perfect stove for baked beans or the best campsite ever, nothing is too detailed or too silly to ask

Sign in or sign up to post your question in the comments

ejtp19 asks: My six man Hi-Gear tent complete with zipped off sleeping area is on its last legs and I need to replace it. I’ve got the romantic urge to go for a teepee/bell tent ... but I’m worried I’m going for style over substance. How annoying is not having a zipped-off sleeping area? Is there a teepee/bell type tent with a separate bedroom and is it worth it?

Sian replies:

I have a bell tent and I absolutely love it for festivals, weddings and family camps, but they do have limited uses - they’re heavy, only have one room as you said, and take a while to erect and dismantle. I also paid to have mine cleaned after a few years of use as polycotton isn’t fully waterproof and can get mildewed if you don’t put it away fully dry.

You could look at something in between a bell tent and a tech-y tent - I rate Robens for quality and its Fairbanks Grande and Fairbanks Venturer are gorgeous, teepee styles that are easier to transport and erect (but with no sleeping areas). The only teepee-style tent with sleeping compartments I can find is Decathlon’s Teepee 5.2.

Firstly, camping alone as a woman is brilliant - once you get used to it. It can take a few camps to feel confident, and I’d recommend starting in a comfy campsite by yourself or even going for a solo glamping trip and seeing if you enjoy having some time alone under canvas. I’ve wild camped alone hundreds of times and always really enjoyed it. I’d suggest trying one night alone not far from your car - if you don’t like it you can always drive home and try another time.

If you fancy trying wild camping, firstly make sure you’re aware of where you can camp legally, and let someone know your plans and location. I like to take some creature comforts such as a good book or a podcast (not a true crime one, mind).. Remember that no-one knows who you are once you’re inside a tent. Pitch late and leave early and you’ll probably have your spot all to yourself.

The ubiquity of GLP-1s is wreaking new havoc on bridal designers who must scramble to accommodate rapid weight loss

In bridal stores across the world, solicitous sales assistants are being trained to ask a new, blunt question: “Are you planning on losing a drastic amount of weight?”

Wedding season’s new disruptor is semaglutide, now used by 10% of engaged couples, according to a survey by the wedding planning platform Zola. In the same survey, 42% of couples said the ubiquity of GLP-1s has made them feel they should “look a certain way” for their wedding.

Peat bogs are essential to the environment, holding twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests. But in the UK, 80% are damaged, most of what is extracted is used in horticulture – and some campaigners fear the problem is getting worse

‘I don’t see how I can possibly do my job and eat mushrooms,” says Sally Nex, a campaign advocate for the Peat-Free Partnership. “An awful lot of the food you buy in the supermarket is grown in peat: field mushrooms and little button mushrooms, salads and many brassicas, herbs in pots … all of those have started in peat.”

I’m taken aback. I’ve bought peat-free compost for years, but I’d never considered “hidden” peat. “I would imagine that most people are buying peat-free compost at the moment – certainly, you only have to go into a garden centre to see the amount of peat-free options you now have,” says Nex. “But you may not realise that an awful lot – probably most – of the plants that are on sale in that garden centre are also grown in peat.”

Five decades since punk bible Sniffin’ Glue, DIY magazines are in rude, rich health. Their creators talk fandom, community-building and resisting the algorithm

‘The most important part of the word ‘fanzine’ is ‘fan’,” says London-based zine-maker Jon Marsh. Existing outside mainstream media, free from the demands of release cycles and search engine optimisation, music fanzines are obsessions turned into tangible objects; self-published primarily for the maker’s own enjoyment, but with the potential of forging connections with like-minded people.

In the 1970s, punk zines such as Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative Ulster and Ripped & Torn allowed fans to share news and enthusiasm quickly and cheaply. Half a century on, music fanzines are enjoying a resurgence as a form of resistance to algorithm fatigue and the hyper-capitalist music industry. “Digital attention span is at an all-time low,” says hip-hop musician ExP, creator of the West Yorkshire Hip-Hop zine. “You’re almost definitely going to spend more time looking at a zine than anything you see scrolling. It’s more interesting and more real.” In the words of Stephen McRobbie, from indie-pop icons and fanzine regulars the Pastels: “It’s the long way round compared to other media, but the scenery is always better.”

From mechanical mutts to android assassins, our cybernetic companions have been entertaining us, their organic overlords, for decades. Here are the 20 best automatons ever to grace the small screen

The robots are coming. And one of them happens to look a lot like Philomena Cunk in a wig. This week sees the arrival of Ann Droid, the BBC’s new odd-couple comedy. Diane Morgan stars as a secondhand elderly care bot, foisted upon Sue Johnston’s sceptical pensioner.

Ann Droid is the latest in a long line of TV tinheads. We tentatively toast the rise of the machines by counting down the all-time Top 20. Stand by, cybernetic selection is now loading …

Head coach praises his players’ ability to rise to the occasion and ‘put on a fight’ against the defending champions in the semi-final

“A funny quote for you,” Thomas Tuchel says as he prepares to lead England in the World Cup semi-final against Argentina on Wednesday but peeks back at a subject that has attracted a few column inches of late. “You don’t have to be a horse to be a good jockey.”

It is a line made famous by Arrigo Sacchi in 1987 when he was appointed as the manager of Milan despite being a relative unknown and having had no professional playing career. It worked out pretty well for Sacchi, just as it has done for Tuchel, who was forced to hang up his boots as a 24-year-old after a knee injury. He played no higher than the Bundesliga 2 with Stuttgart Kickers and spent time at SSV Ulm, a semi-professional club in the third tier. “I had a mediocre career at best,” Tuchel says.

• L’Équipe laments ‘mentally sunk’ players iin Dallas

• Ouest France front page reads: ‘End of American dream’

French fans’ expectations of their national team had been at an all-time high: a semi-final on Bastille Day, Kylian Mbappé a hero, a squad unbeaten. Across the country, bars had been packed with viewers spilling on to pavements, ready to crack open the fireworks ahead of hopes for the final.

But the night was unexpectedly subdued, streets cleared early. On Wednesday morning, the French media were still digesting the disappointment of defeat in a World Cup semi-final, praising Spain’s performance in Texas while struggling to comprehend Les Bleus’ fall from a high.

Not everyone supports the country where they were born or grew up. Sometimes fans are won over by a player, place, population or style of play

Footballers need to be born in a country or have a family tie to that place to represent them at the World Cup, but those rules do not apply to supporters. Sometimes fans are won over by a team, a star player or even a country. Here six fans tell us why they decided not to support the country of their birth and instead root for teams with whom they have no family ties.

Match officials are enforcing tweaks to the laws of the game that have hardly been tested. The results? Drama, ‘mistaken identities’ and lots of confusion

In the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, the titular characters occasionally played a game known as Calvinball.

The rules were amorphous. At any moment, something like a “30-yard base wicket” may become part of the game. Determining a “winner” was besides the point, as the score for one game was given as “Q to 12.” The fictional, farcical sport entered public consciousness and was even cited by US supreme court justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in a blistering dissent last year.

Children’s worlds have been shrinking and it’s harming their mental health. It’s time for parents to be brave and allow them a little independence

In books and movies that pack a wallop you will usually find a “charged object” – an item crucial to the plot and freighted with emotion. The slipper in Cinderella. The apple in Adam and Eve. And today, in the story of what has gone wrong with childhood: the smartphone.

It’s not that phones aren’t a real problem. We have all seen it. Kids glued to their phones in a restaurant. Kids glued to their phones at the bus stop. The other day I saw a girl swinging on a swing – the classic summer pastime – glued to her phone. And oh, the content! This study alone will give you pause: ParentsTogether Action reports that children see sex and drug content every few minutes on Snapchat. If only we could take away their phones, a happy childhood would be restored – or so it can seem.

Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a nonprofit promoting childhood independence and resilience, and founder of the Free-Range Kids movement

The next great climate divide will be between countries that have the resources to adapt and those that don’t

This summer, much of the media’s attention has focused on record temperatures across Europe and the United States. Television coverage has been filled with familiar images: heat maps shaded deep red, schools closing, rail lines slowing, wildfires spreading and emergency rooms treating growing numbers of people with heat-related illnesses.

Public officials have responded with equally familiar advice: stay indoors, drink plenty of water and, if possible, turn on the air conditioning.

Paid-for political access and threadbare regulations have helped to embed the US tech firm in the NHS – and beyond. But there is a way to free ourselves

Andy Burnham faces a lot of big decisions. But one of the incoming prime minister’s biggest early tests is what he does about the world’s “scariest company” – Palantir. The US defence and surveillance tech behemoth has a swathe of British public contracts, including, most controversially, a £330m deal with the NHS. It’s pretty clear what many of Burnham’s new parliamentary colleagues want him to do: the science, innovation and technology committee says the government should ditch Palantir and its “clear mismatch with UK values”.

Peter Thiel and Alex Karp’s company is not without British backers. The Times and the Telegraph have been enthusiastic supporters. In the Financial Times last month former Conservative party adviser Camilla Cavendish accused Palantir’s critics of putting politics over progress: “To me, what matters is what works.”

Peter Geoghegan runs the investigative website Democracy for Sale

The world’s biggest classical music festival begins on Friday. Over eight weeks of sonic excursions and orchestral revelations there’s a huge range of premieres and contemporary music: here’s the concerts I won’t be missing

Three heatwaves in, but the summer hasn’t truly started until the Proms begin, and on Friday, Radio 3 and the BBC Symphony Orchestra light the blue touchpaper of eight weeks of music-making at the Royal Albert Hall and beyond. Like me, you might have been through the Proms guide marking up the concerts you most want to hear, but what’s always surprising as the summer of music unfolds are the concerts you couldn’t have predicted as being remarkable; the concerts that might look unexceptional on paper but in the flesh of performance find special resonance, be that the groups making their debuts, the brand new music and Proms premieres, or simply that alchemy that means that concerts that are days or weeks apart create musical and creative connections you’d never have thought possible.

Predicting surprises and revelations of a season that hasn’t even begun is of course a pointless and contradictory exercise, but of the new music on offer there are many works that should merit their own marker-pen tick. The First Night’s world premiere of Josephine Stephenson’s That the Sunrise Not Leave Us Unmoved, and Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto for Abel Selaocoe, These Righteous Paths, on 20 July, should make a wonderfully contrasting pairing – Stephenson has written music of poetic refinement while Montgomery and Selaocoe’s concerto collaboration promises an experience of soul-searching power. “A living organism that gradually absorbs orchestra and audience alike into its breathing body” wrote Michelle Assay at the work’s North American premiere in Toronto.

Despite Anthropic’s claims, Claude is no more likely to achieve sentience than a simulation of a weather system is likely to generate a real hurricane

For centuries, humans have been fascinated by the prospect of creating artificial beings in our own image. Of developing synthetic minds and artificial bodies that not only think but also feel, and are both intelligent and conscious. For the vast majority of this time, this prospect seemed very distant; a topic for science fiction and philosophy, not for the here and now. But over the past few years, the rapid rise of AI – and especially of language models – has changed everything.

Last week, the frontier AI firm Anthropic published new research on its language model, Claude, in which the researchers claimed to find signs of consciousness emerging within its inner workings. They didn’t claim that Claude is actually conscious in the same way that humans are, but the findings certainly upped the ante on the possibility of consciousness arising in AI.

Anil Seth is professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience at the University of Sussex, and co-director of the Sussex centre for consciousness science. He is the author of Being You

Back in the day, he was funny. But that day was 24 years ago – and the character sits uncomfortably in a post-shame world

Have we not suffered enough? The US is currently in the throes of a parasite-induced watery diarrhoea outbreak while being governed by a mad king suffering from a horrible case of logorrhea. Meanwhile, on both sides of the Atlantic the temperature is about a million degrees and the world is experiencing a “Godzilla” El Niño. Thanks to the extreme weather and the Iran war, global food prices are about to rocket. Everything is going to hell, basically. And now, to top it all off, we’ve just had the news that we’re getting an Ali G reboot.

I iz being deadly serious here. News broke last week that Sacha Baron Cohen has finished secretly filming a new Ali G movie – 24 years after the character, a satirical take on privileged suburban kids appropriating black street culture, was last seen on the big screen. Baron Cohen then showed up at Wimbledon over the weekend in character, posting an Instagram proclaiming: “I iz Back!”

Around the world, climate-sceptic parties are exploiting floods and fires to make political capital. Without urgent changes, this deadly spiral will continue

Recent unprecedented heatwaves in the UK may have killed thousands of people. Children are suffering in overheating schools. NHS trusts are straining under record-breaking demand. This all comes after climate extremes have even affected national security, with three of Britain’s five worst harvests coming since 2020, impairing food security.

This is what life looks like in the “adaptation gap”.

Laurie Laybourn is executive director of the Strategic Climate Risks Initiative

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.

Lady Hallett exposed waste and secrecy. Hillsborough campaigners showed why public bodies must be honest before and after catastrophe strikes

The Covid-19 inquiry’s procurement report and the Hillsborough law are not accidental companions. The same movement of bereaved families, many of the same lawyers and the same ideas connect them. In both cases the movement for justice was driven by ordinary people who refused to let institutions control the account of their own failures. That they both arrived within hours of each other meant that it was a good day for justice.

The inquiry chair, Heather Hallett, found that Britain entered Covid dangerously unprepared, leaving health and care workers without adequate protection and that £10bn of PPE spending was then wasted because of the flawed purchasing arrangements. The result of those failures were avoidable infections and deaths: families such as Naomi Fulop’s believe that inadequate protective equipment allowed the deadly virus to take the lives of vulnerable loved ones.

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.

Donald Trump’s tariff threat recasts Brazil’s attempt to protect its democracy as unfair commercial practice – and gives Bolsonarism a Washington stage

Last June, Brazil’s supreme court responded to the online lies that helped fuel Jair Bolsonaro’s failed far-right coup attempt in 2023. It ruled that social media platforms could be held liable for some users’ posts, forcing firms such as Elon Musk’s X and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to remove hate speech and anti-democratic content. A month later, Donald Trump proposed a 25% tariff on Brazilian imports, complaining that the judges had made US tech firms take down “political” material.

At a hearing held at the US International Trade Commission last week, an extraordinary platform was given to Mr Bolsonaro’s son, Flávio. He is the opposition candidate running to be president in this year’s election while his father serves a 27-year prison sentence. His message to Washington was that the US’s problem with his country’s unfair trade practices was down to the president, Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, who has clashed with Mr Trump.

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.

Peers, former ambassadors and senior lawyers say Israel must be held to account for its actions in the Gaza and the West Bank

Pippa Crerar’s focus on action is right (Burnham’s apology over Gaza marks ‘reset moment’ as Labour seeks to win back progressive voters, 9 July). May we add one element: the law. Two years ago, the international court of justice advised that the 1967 occupation of Palestine is unlawful. Keir Starmer worked to uphold international law on Ukraine. Rightly, he recognised the state of Palestine alongside Israel, and confirmed that the occupation is unlawful. Consequences should follow, but we still await the government’s assessment of the ICJ opinion. Steps to end the occupation are needed. No state that values the decisions of UN bodies should prolong it.

Our country needs a rules-based international order. The UK relies on due process for the conduct of international affairs. It is in the UK’s interest to challenge the “might is right” fallacy. The rule of law helps keep us safe, when made effective – domestically and internationally. Lord Denning observed that “the rules of international law … do form part of our English law”. The two are intertwined.

Absurdly high expectations for the new prime minister will only lead to anger and resentment, writes Colin Montgomery – we new a new political ballgame

It’s not the hope that kills you, in either football or politics; it’s unrealistic expectations (It’s the hope that kills you – so fingers crossed for Andy Burnham, 14 July).

When it comes to football, writing as a Scot, I know that all too well. Despite us never making it past a World Cup group stage, expectations were high this time, born of the giddy qualification drama of our spectacular Hampden win against Denmark. Then reality hit hard.

Caroline Cerny, Prof Sir Ian Gilmore and Katharine Jenner welcome the ethics watchdog’s recommendations to improve transparency around lobbying

From tobacco and alcohol to unhealthy food, there is extensive evidence that companies whose profits depend on the sale of harmful products have repeatedly sought to influence the policies designed to protect public health.

Research from around the world has documented efforts to deny, dilute and delay measures aimed at reducing harm, while promoting approaches that are more favourable to commercial interests. Too often, that lobbying takes place behind closed doors with no opportunity for scrutiny.

Prof Craig Jackson responds to an article by Polly Hudson on the benefits of not forgiving or forgetting

Polly Hudson’s article extols the benefits of grievances, mostly for retaining her sanity and self-esteem (Don’t tell me it’s wrong to hold a grudge. I’m making the world a better place, one petty boycott at a time, 5 July).

Holding grudges can be an elegant art form, but it is also a sign of the amount of self-regard one has. The commitment required can be a marathon effort, involving extra work, mileage, expense, inconvenience and “missing out” – all in the name of valuing one’s own “worth”. It is tiring, but even more so for others caught up in it. It can also be futile if the target is never aware.

Stage starts from Vichy at 12.50pm BST/1.50pm CEST
‘I have haters’: Pogacar brushes off boos | Email Luke

Christoph Roodhooft, Jasper Philipsen’s boss at Alpecin-Premier Tech, tells Hannah Walker on TNT Sports that his sprinter is “feeling better … but that doesn’t mean he will win today.”

Is there any thought of letting Mathieu van der Poel sprint, instead of Philipsen, given the latter’s apparent lack of form?

The 154th Open starts at Royal Birkdale on Thursday with a host of compelling storylines to follow

Scottie Scheffler won the 2025 Open by four strokes but the world No 1 arrives at Royal Birkdale having missed the cut at last week’s Scottish Open. The out-of-form American has claimed his fewest wins in a season since 2021, having claimed only one victory all year: January’s American Express, in his first start of the year. Since then, Scheffler has recorded four runner-up finishes, including at the Masters. “I didn’t really feel like I played that bad,” he said of his missed cut, his first in four years. “This golf course can be just tough at times.”

• ICC reveals shape of expanded 2027 14-team tournament

• Only one of three lowest-ranked teams would advance

The men’s Cricket World Cup will undergo yet another revamp when it takes place in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia next year. A convoluted 14-team format has been officially confirmed by the International Cricket Council (ICC), albeit one that trims the competing nations to 12 almost immediately.

While at the last two World Cups the 10 teams played a round-robin league stage that threw up four semi-finalists, the expanded 2027 edition will begin with the three lowest-ranked teams out of the 14 qualifiers playing what has been dubbed a “Super series”. Only one of these teams will progress through to the main event.

• Lionesses goalkeeper heading to Villa on a free transfer

• Millie Turner moves to Birmingham City for £100,000

Aston Villa have a deal in place to sign the former Everton goalkeeper Emily Ramsey on a free transfer, the Guardian can reveal.

The 25-year-old has received a call-up by England in 2023 – as part of the squad that won that year’s invitational Arnold Clark Cup – and 2021 for a training camp, although is yet to earn a senior cap. Ramsey was a regular in England youth international sides throughout the age groups and is highly admired by Villa.

Many are in awe of the investment that Michele Kang is making into the women’s game. Others, though, are baffled

There is one team whose transfer activity this summer has captured everyone’s attention. London City Lionesses, a club who finished in the bottom half of the second tier a little over two years ago, have stunned the women’s game by signing a flurry of big names, including the Spain stars Alexia Putellas and Mapi León, the former England goalkeeper Mary Earps, and then, on Wednesday morning, the France winger Kadidiatou Diani. It is a startling recruitment drive intent on breaking up the Women’s Super League’s established order.

Reaction has been divided. Many are in awe of the investment that the independent club’s owner, the American businesswoman Michele Kang, is making into the women’s game. Others, including senior staff at lots of rival clubs, are baffled at the idea that one of the league’s smaller teams can afford such world-class signings. They have one key question on their lips: how are London City able to sign all of these top players within the confines of the WSL’s salary cap rules?

• Experienced Belgium right-back signs two-year deal

• Competing in Europa League was ‘big factor’ in move

Sunderland have completed the signing of the experienced Belgium right-back Thomas Meunier on a two-year deal as Régis Le Bris’s team step up preparations for a second successive season in the Premier League alongside a Europa League campaign.

Meunier, who has just returned from the World Cup, has been capped 83 times by Belgium and was a free agent after the expiration of his contract at Lille. The 34-year-old is Sunderland’s first summer signing.

The centre is embracing a friendly rivalry with his headline-grabbing teammate when they take on the Pumas

It has been a long road for several of the players who went on last year’s British & Irish Lions tour to Australia. They are putting on a professionally brave face but for some the final weekend of the season cannot come soon enough. Factor in the travel, the training and associated other stresses and strains and the 2025-26 campaign has been relentless from both a physical and a mental perspective.

Crunch the numbers before Saturday’s last hurrah against Argentina and it is a wonder many are still standing. Of the those English Lions, Henry Pollock is about to participate in his 32nd competitive game while his Northampton teammate Tommy Freeman his 29th. Ben Earl and Ellis Genge, assuming their involvement against the Pumas, will be in the same situation with Ollie Chessum just one behind.

Treaty came into effect at midnight, eliminating border controls on land frontier with British overseas territory

• Europe live – latest updates

• UK politics live – latest updates

Spain and Gibraltar are celebrating the fall of the last frontier fence in western Europe after the signing of a post-Brexit deal that brings an end to border checks for residents, tourists and the thousands of Spanish workers who cross into the British overseas territory every day.

The agreement, which was signed in Brussels on Tuesday and came into effect at midnight, marks the conclusion of more than four years of negotiations between the UK, Spain, Gibraltar and the EU after Britain’s departure from the bloc.

Sotheby’s expects second man on moon’s marker, crucial to Apollo 11 return, to reach astronomical sum

The felt-tip pen Buzz Aldrin used to fix a broken circuit breaker and escape from the moon in 1969 is up for auction in New York.

The dented silver plastic Duro Rocket pen – used by the second man on the moon to save Neil Armstrong and himself from being “stuck on the moon for ever” – has a sale price estimated by Sotheby’s at between $800,000 and $1.2m. The lucky bidder will get the broken piece of circuit breaker, too. Both come from Aldrin’s personal collection.

Agents killed Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas, even though both were not targets of enforcement action

US officials are facing mounting calls to remove US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from American streets after federal agents killed two men who were not the target of enforcement action in less than a week.

Advocacy groups, including the National Police Accountability Project and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, described the fatal shootings of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine and Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas as extrajudicial killings.

Canadian scientists visit remains of polar exploration vessels in ‘golden era for shipwreck investigating’

Moments after devouring the final glimmers of light, the seafloor offered nothing but darkness and silt. Then the bow appeared.

More than 1,000ft (305 metres) below the surface of the Labrador Sea, off the coast of Canada, the skeleton of the final ship used by the famed polar explorer Ernest Shackleton appeared in its silty grave.

Kremlin dismisses Lithuania’s warnings of potential strikes on critical infrastructure as ‘horror stories’

Meanwhile, the Kremlin has rejected Lithuanian president’s warnings about a potential Russian attack on critical infrastructure (10:06), dismissing them as “horror stories” intended to “prepare public for further militarisation.”

Reuters reported that the Kremlin said these comments were merely a “pretext for further deployment of Nato military infrastructure to Baltic states.”

Americans warned to be on alert for heat-related illness as parts of country experience record high temperatures

Extreme heat warnings are in place for large swaths of the United States this week, as an unusual weather pattern eclipses record temperature highs.

In Billings, Montana, residents experienced a sweltering 111F (43.9C) on Sunday, the hottest day in its history. Salt Lake City in Utah also hit an all-time record high on Sunday at 109F (42.8C). Boston has seen more 90F (32.3C) days than average, according to NPR station WBUR-FM.

Indigenous groups organised mass protests over a series of deals by the president, Rodrigo Paz, that prioritise agribusiness and mining interests

From her home in the Bolivian Amazon, Vivian Palomequi walked for a month and more than 560 miles (900km) to the capital, La Paz. She arrived in late April to protest over a law she fears would open the door to accelerated deforestation and land privatisation. “We declared a state of emergency and started marching,” says Palomequi, who leads a peasant farmers’ union. “We had no other choice.”

The march was part of a wave of pushbacks against the environmental policies of Bolivia’s new government, which has staffed ministries with former agroindustry leaders, struck deals to open protected areas to mining and criminalised environmental defenders.

EV owners were sent hefty PCNs but say some signs in private car parks fail to warn of fees to park and recharge car

Does refuelling your car class as parking? The answer appears to be yes if it’s an electric vehicle. Guardian Money has been contacted by several readers who were fined after charging their cars away from home.

The motorists report being caught out by signs that fail to make clear that charging points are subject to parking tariffs or to store opening times. Also, they have found some chargers being advertised as available for use when it would be a breach of the car park’s terms and conditions to use them.

Campaigners criticise C of E for failing to show moral leadership as one of country’s biggest landowners

The Church of England has voted against plans to restore 30% of its land for nature, with campaigners criticising its failure to show moral leadership.

The C of E owns about 42,500 hectares (105,000 acres) of land, making it one of England’s biggest landowners. Currently just 3.5% of its land is used for nature restoration.

Midnight to 6am block on some apps is latest stage of Labour’s bid to protect young people from online harms

Sixteen and 17-year-olds are to be encouraged to observe a midnight social media curfew, in the latest stage of Labour’s bid “to protect the next generation” from online harms, including poor sleep caused by night-time scrolling.

From next spring, Britain’s oldest children will be urged to refrain from using certain apps with a midnight to 6am block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden. The move is an extension of the under-16 social media ban announced last month, which included restrictions on platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.

PM-in-waiting says bill is major step towards securing accountability families had fought for, in rare moment of Labour unity

Andy Burnham has hailed a power shift from the state to the people as MPs finally passed the stalled Hillsborough law, a rare moment of Labour unity with the bill set to be a key legacy of Keir Starmer’s government.

In his first intervention in the Commons since returning as an MP, Burnham said the bill was a significant step towards securing the accountability the Hillsborough families had fought for – but should never have had to do.

Exclusive: Lewisham council’s move marks first step in Greens’ plan to create a corridor of sanctuary boroughs across London

A Green-led London council is planning to ban its officials from working with the Home Office on immigration raids, after uncovering evidence suggesting government officials wanted to use environmental health data to target restaurant workers.

Councillors on the Lewisham borough council are due to vote next week on a motion that would review its systems with a view to ending any cooperation with the government’s attempts to deport people without the right to remain in the UK.

Exclusive: Analysis offers ‘smoking gun evidence’ that overturns previous assumption that bronze age individual was male

The Upton Lovell Shaman, a bronze age individual who has been depicted in museum exhibits as a bearded spiritual leader and metalworker, was female, an ancient DNA analysis has revealed.

The 4,000-year-old skeleton, along with the extensive collection of stone axes, metalworking tools and the remains of an elaborate ceremonial cloak found in the grave, is viewed as among the most significant bronze age burials in Britain.

We Go Way Back opens at the Francis Crick Institute on 16 July

Nobel laureate María Corina Machado will not lead negotiations over new elections, contrary to expectations

The interim government of Venezuela has announced it will begin formal talks with the opposition aimed at “strengthening democracy” in the country.

The move is backed by the US, which says it is seeking a “democratic transition” in a country still recovering from the twin earthquakes that killed more than 4,700 people.

Promise Me, America to cover everything from economy to decision to drop bid for re-election

Former president Joe Biden will publish a memoir this fall, publisher Little, Brown and Company told the Associated Press.

Promise Me, America, which Biden says will touch upon everything from the economy to his decision to drop his bid for re-election, is scheduled to come out on 17 November.

Arrested suspect tells police he ‘intends to kill Muslims’ after alleged attack on kiosk worker at West Valley City mill

A man was arrested in Utah for stabbing a Muslim ⁠man multiple times and ⁠stated that he targeted ​the victim because of the victim’s religion, police said in court records on Tuesday.

Police said the suspect told them he “intends to kill Muslims” and that ⁠he constituted “a substantial danger to the public if released based on his violent actions ... ideologies and pre-planned mass casualty events”.

Extradition request for James ‘Fergie’ Chambers sparks concerns that US government is conflating humanitarian aid with terrorism

The arrest in Ibiza and US justice department extradition request for a wealthy American donor to lefwing causes in connection with alleged material support for Hamas is sending ripples through leftwing circles in Spain and being closely monitored in the US for potential “chilling effects” on support for Palestine.

Spanish authorities detained James “Fergie” Chambers Friday and are now holding him without bail in Madrid. A hearing is scheduled on whether he can be released on bail for Thursday.

Worse-than-expected figures for three months to June come amid concerns over lopsided economy

• Business live – latest updates

China has posted worse-than-expected growth figures for the three months to June as its economy expanded by just 4.3% – one of its lowest quarterly readings on record.

The rate, which came in under the government’s target of 4.5% to 5%, was one of the weakest since reporting on official quarterly GDP figures began in the early 1990s.

Lawsuit filed by dozens of employees says people who took maternity or disability leave were disproportionately selected for layoffs

Dozens of Meta employees have sued the social media company over claims that it used artificial intelligence tools to tag workers for mass layoffs. The workers allege that those AI tools targeted them after they asked for protected or maternity leave or disability accommodation.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in the northern district of California, points to Meta’s workforce reduction of about 8,000 employees earlier this year. Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The suit alleges that Meta used a “constellation of internal artificial intelligence systems”, including AI performance ratings and keystroke- and activity-monitoring data, to pinpoint who to lay off.

Organisation’s experts say pledge puts pressure on UK public finances and ‘adds significant fiscal risks’

Labour should ditch the triple-lock pensions promise to help tackle the UK’s straitened public finances, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has urged.

In its latest survey of the UK economy, the Paris-based club of industrialised nations added its voice to those calling for an end to the pledge, which uprates the state pension each year by whichever is the highest of wage growth, inflation or 2.5%.

Annual results show struggling firm’s net debt has risen to £18.5bn, up from £16.8bn a year earlier

• Business live – latest updates

Thames Water increased its bonus payouts to £4.1m for senior managers, despite warning over “material uncertainty” over its future as it scrambles to recapitalise to avoid nationalisation.

The water company also gave a pay rise to its chief executive, Chris Weston, and drew the ire of Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, for paying him a previously deferred bonus of £99,000 – despite a ban on bonuses because of pollution failures.

Bridge theatre, London
Mary-Louise Parker gives a powerhouse performance in a three-part drama that cuts up Aeschylus’s chronology and adds shades of other plays

Although writer-director Simon Stone has named his play The Oresteia, the credits make clear that this is a drama “after Aeschylus and Others”. The Aeschylus is recognisable here, particularly in the most faithful, and supremely gripping, first of three parts. But the “others” are key too, with many shades of Greek tragedies thrown in, from Antigone to Medea, and maybe even Oedipus Rex.

Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter, Iphigenia, followed by his murder at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra, and subsequently hers by their avenging son, Orestes, is transposed into modern, metropolitan family life. There is Christopher (David Morrissey), who runs a tech company, his wife Montie (Mary-Louise Parker), an American alpha-type, and their children: Augie (Tom Glynn-Carney), offstage tearaway Isabel and her twin, Alice (Rosie Sheehy). They are so privileged that they speak of Bollinger as a cooking wine, and live in a house that has the corporate look of an upmarket hotel chain.

Edinburgh Castle
The AI-style backing videos are terrible and his accomplished band can be overly slick at times, but Taylor’s civility and grace cuts through it all

James Taylor, in summer twilight, plays the lovely fingerpicked intro to Fire and Rain, a song he has been performing for decades – and the crowd cheers in recognition of a classic. But does the 78-year-old still feel those old songs? He sings them beautifully in his lulling baritone, but perhaps they no longer lift and soothe his heart quite like they do ours. Is the man on stage in front of Edinburgh Castle now just a heritage act at a heritage site?

There is evidence for the prosecution. His live show has a slick professionalism that at times shades into tedium. The 11-piece backing band, including four backing vocalists, is packed with veteran sidemen whose smooth virtuosity can sound bloodless. As a result, the set’s better songs are generally those with spare instrumentation. Millworker has an austerity that suits its subject, the soul-crushing exploitation of labour. Taylor’s voice shines in its simple setting – a violin drone and martial beat.

The passionate allegory on Stalinism is outrageously reduced to happy-ending panto in this defanged animation featuring the voices of Seth Rogen, Laverne Cox and Glenn Close

George Orwell’s Animal Farm is not a sacred text. There’s no rule that says it can’t be changed in adaptation, especially if, say, you wanted to add some historical perspective from the world that came to exist after the book was published in 1945. But this unforgivably sugary animation from screenwriter Nicholas Stoller and director Andy Serkis, as well as having a pretty cheapo digital look, betrays Orwell by outrageously blandifying and defanging its classic allegory of Stalinism and failed revolution with a dumb happy ending in the Disney style.

The pivotal moment when the pigs and the humans look the same happens not at the end, but around the one-hour stage into a 94-minute film, signalling that a new third act is in the offing. I was initially intrigued, wondering if there would be some ingenious finale in which a wall on the farm is knocked down. But no. The evil pig Napoleon (voiced by Seth Rogen with many a yuk-yuk-yuk) has eliminated his rival Snowball (Laverne Cox), then gobbles up corrupt human money from a newly invented agribusiness corporate character from the human world called Pilkington (Glenn Close) and takes to addressing his followers with the aid of a Big Brother-style giant screen.

More candid confessions from the tabloid star and her exes. Plus: unflappable paramedics deal with the aftermath of a bonfire accident. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Documentaries
Part two of Katie Price’s rollercoaster life story. After an eye-popping account of her time in the Playboy mansion, Price recalls finding out she was going to become a single mum and the public judgment that came with it. Gareth Gates also sits down to speak about their fling – “I was on cloud nine!” – and what happened when Price later sold their story to the press. Then we reach the I’m a Celebrity stint, where Price met a pop star called Peter Andre. Hollie Richardson

This series about a conwoman fleeing for her life is packed with explosions and preposterous coincidences. It’s bunkum with bells on – but who can resist it in this heat?

Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong (Anya Taylor‑Joy) is on the run, scampering across the US in her fashionably rumpled sateen blouson and prompting much fist-shaking from the hapless feds on her tail. “Lucky!” they bellow, cheeks puffing in disbelief as the incorrigible grifter bounds across the roofs of parked lorries, wriggles out of an exploding car, scams a sobbing gran and sets fire to a goon’s cowboy boots. “Lucky?! Stop!” But, no, too late, she’s off again; capering, conning and smirking her way through the Apple TV crime thriller that bears her pointedly ambiguous nickname.

Based on Marissa Stapley’s bestselling novel, the story follows thus: after her boyfriend has made off with the proceeds of their multimillion-dollar heist, our penniless protagonist finds herself pursued by the FBI and a ruthless crime boss determined to relieve the duo of their ill-gotten spoils.

This tale of a 50-year-old assassin going rogue – and having to confess all to her best mate – is so much fun. The chemistry between its leads is a thing of beauty

The bone-deep magnificence of Hannah Waddingham is such that she could, I suspect, talk most of us into a burning car should she wish to. So selling viewers on the delightfully ludicrous premise of the comedy caper Ride or Die is but the work of a moment. Waddingham plays Whiptail, a deadly assassin for the last 20-odd years whose work has recently become more attention-grabbing than her bosses like. Octavia Spencer (who occupies god-tier comedy status in my heart for her tiny part as Tracy Morgan’s nemesis in 30 Rock alone) is her best friend Debbie. Debbie knows Whiptail as Judith, a forensic accountant, and has no idea that behind the woman she depends on for laughs, emotional support and notes on the latest book club book she hasn’t read is a trained killer.

Debbie is married to David (Jamie Parker), a politician, and is the gentle power behind his throne. His personal and professional life have been shaped and smoothed by her for the past 25 years, and he is now on course to be the next prime minister.

After the Guardian’s music critics chose their best of the half-year, we asked you for your picks – from Brian Jackson and Arlo Parks to Maya Hawke, Flea and more

• The best albums of 2026 so far
• ‘I saw it seven times in the cinema’: readers’ favourite films of 2026 so far

The album is a fun, punchy dance record that will definitely be the soundtrack of my summer. It’s propulsive, full of queer joy, cheeky lyricism, and relatable insecurities as they ruminate on “being past their prime” as pop stars in their early 30s. It will undoubtedly be an amazing live show and is a testament to the importance of artists taking breaks, going out and living and resting before coming back with new things to say and experiences to detail. Jane Tytla, New England, US

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
The veteran band may not have much new material to show for the past decade or so but this brutal, melodious mayhem still inspires catharsis

Since re-forming in 2010, System of a Down (SOAD) have existed in some weird limbo, playing numerous big-ticket tours but releasing only two new songs, with mooted further new material conspicuous by its absence amid grumbling of impasses and creative conflicts.

Tonight offers scant clues this deadlock has eased – certainly, there are no new songs – but SOAD don’t play like they’re retreading familiar material simply for filthy lucre. Viscerally heavy, they give everything a metal band should, including a guitar hero, Daron Malakian, who leads chants of: “Pull Oasis out of your ass!” and provokes a circle-pit that stretches from stage to exit; a bassist, Shavo Odadjian, gurning with unparalleled panache; and a frontman, Serj Tankian, who growls, croons, gets operatic and – at least once tonight – meows.

(Interscope)
Despite their goth-coded attempts at emotional turbulence, the saccharine songs of Abrams’ third album feel adolescent in their melodrama

Gracie Abrams’ third album is a full-blown crime scene. Across 16 songs, the US songwriter catalogues slip knots, blades, bullets, knives, more knives, ghosts, cages, drugs, car crashes, blood, burial, flaming tyres, choking, burning houses, sinking ships, drowning, more blood, bloody knees and even more knives. It’s called Daughter from Hell to acknowledge how much the 26-year-old frayed her parents’ nerves as a reckless teen, part of a wider theme about working out when to blame others for her pain, and when to accept responsibility. Clearly, there’s a lot of poetic licence involved in dramatising these mature revelations, but the dissonance between Abrams’ goth-coded emotional turbulence and the music’s insistent, quivering prettiness is the real uncrackable case on this bloodless record.

In one way, Abrams has had an outsized influence on pop. Her early bedroom songs inspired Olivia Rodrigo to write Drivers License, which kickstarted the former Disney star’s dazzlingly quick and continuing act of self-redefinition. Mostly, though, Abrams is the sum of her influences: you needn’t listen hard to clock Lorde’s vocal harmonies, Phoebe Bridgers’ intimacy or the tightly packed storytelling of Taylor Swift, who had Abrams support on the Eras tour. In Swift she also shares a producer in the National’s Aaron Dessner, a collaborator in Bon Iver (his jump-scare falsetto appears on two songs here, and he plays all over the record), and certainly a sound in Folklore’s pearlescent acoustics, injected with a whisper of stomp-clap vigour. That mix of melodrama and songs sung like secrets means Abrams’ audience skews young: her music carries the sensation of being the only person in the world grappling with huge emotions, as life often feels in adolescence. For anyone older, her music can feel a little starter pack.

Food writer and music enthusiast Ruby Tandoh details a tender picture of the existential threat to the lute. Plus, a joyous celebration of the great outdoors with Caitlin Moran and Adam Frost

This indie “audio magazine” brings together documentaries of all stripes, the common thread being a sense of experimentation. The third issue features food writer Ruby Tandoh detailing a quietly beautiful portrait of the lute, an instrument on the brink of extinction, while Jess Shane revisits a groundbreaking experiment that gave children the tools to turn their reality into poignant poetry. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

In a new book, Isaac Butler goes back to the 1980s to trace how battles started against the arts, from Piss Christ to Mapplethorpe, and looks at what we can learn for today

Isaac Butler is limbering up for an event at Politics and Prose, an independent bookshop and venerable Washington institution, but still has time to explain his arm tattoos.

They variously depict: a logo from his grandparents’ company in the 1960s; a satellite that his father worked on at Nasa; a “jaunty crab” for his wife, who finds crabs “hilarious”; an iris by Japan’s Utagawa Hiroshige for Butler’s daughter, Iris; a drawing of a scene from a production of The Seagull by the Russian theatre maker Konstantin Stanislavski; and an artwork by the American painter and photographer David Wojnarowicz that shows a house on fire.

In the follow-up to the Booker-shortlisted Burnt Sugar, a woman seeks liberation from her controlling relationships

Avni Doshi’s second novel is narrated by an unnamed woman in the suburban US who is shocked to hear her husband announce that he is leaving her. She isn’t in love with him, exactly, but she sees their marriage as a structure or “container” for her existence. Formerly a novelist, her writing has stalled since having children. Her husband controls their finances, and won’t tell her why the credit card keeps failing. She suspects he’s been sleeping around.

In the aftermath of his departure she tries to isolate herself, not only from her ex, but also from her own family, whose well-meaning interference becomes another kind of domination. She’s a practising astrologist – the “first house” of the title refers both to the couple’s home and to the astrological division of the heavens that has a bearing on the body, physical appearance and early life experience: foundations for a self. This self is exposed by abandonment. The First House, as a whole, is the story of its excoriation: a harsh, occasionally bitterly funny rejection of the narrator’s personhood and relationships as they stand. Marriage, she states, requires “a terrible fear of consequences”; “if either person in a couple stopped being afraid, it would certainly break apart”. Her parents bully her. Her cousin tries to set her up with other men. Her daughter just wants a phone. Relationships, like devices, promise connection and deliver alienation. “The tight, airless room of a marriage only created the conditions for us to realise we were alone, always alone.”

From maggots to viruses, this gross-out compendium also manages to celebrate the awe and inventiveness of nature

When Craig Venter, one of the mappers of the human genome, set out on a sailboat cruise to map DNA in seawater all across the globe, he found that a teaspoon of seawater contained on average 50m viruses. While this doesn’t sound particularly reassuring, the bad news is mitigated by the fact that most of these are phages that infect marine bacteria and have no interest in us.

Viruses are parasites, and like all their parasitic kind, they get a free ride from living organisms. The whole point of multicellular life is to create a cosy environment for cells to live in, and evolution has invented all manner of stowaways that want this comfort and manage to get on board, either outside or sometimes inside the cells themselves. While it is not generally in the best interest of a parasite to kill its host and be forced to find a new home, some come dangerously close. Most diseases in the developing world are connected in some way or another to parasitic infections.

Skipping between London, Shanghai and Hong Kong, this tale of family migration, politics and food has plenty of flavour and fire

Amber Fan, the 22-year-old protagonist of Kit Fan’s heartfelt and elegiac second novel, is ready to say goodbye. Goodbye to her parents, who are booked on the midnight flight from London to Hong Kong, there to enjoy their sunset years having sold the family restaurant in London’s Chinatown. And goodbye to the old Chinatown that they and their generation of hard-working Hong Kong émigrés represent, the Chinatown of peking duck, red lanterns, rude waiters and sticky tables. She loves them both, in their way, but she has her own plans for the future.

The story begins in late 2001, not long after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, as Amber prepares to open her own restaurant – an east meets west “fine fusion restaurant” called Luna. It is, she notes, “the worst possible time to open a restaurant”. Global markets are in meltdown and the old Cantonese-style joints of Chinatown, often established by those who, like Amber’s parents, fled Hong Kong for Britain in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, are closing down and selling up, usually to cash-rich mainland Chinese investors. Everyone agrees that it is the end of an era.

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2; Marimittu Games
A soft puzzle game makes a sharp point about the over-optimised future ahead

In the far future, on a planet that is not Earth, AI is in charge. This entity is no Skynet-esque killer robot but a machine that cares for humanity. Manifesting most visibly as cute droids, the technology is pervasive – embedded in everything from the design of the sleek architecture to the gorgeous, mostly sunny artificial weather. The so-called Optimization System has but one responsibility: ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

In less skilled hands this game might have felt like an undergraduate seminar on the limits of utilitarianism. But Japanese studio Marumittu Games elegantly marries its philosophical concerns with smart design choices. You play as a young, unnamed Facilitator tasked with tending to both the city’s bots and its human residents. Each morning you wake up, sleepily loping off to the bathroom before sitting down for an exquisitely rendered breakfast, and then embark on your day’s work. Like everything else in this near-future scenario, labour is designed to cause as little frustration as possible, amounting to simple maths brain teasers on a grid – nothing too taxing, but enough to keep you engaged.

Introducing a new sadistic psychopath and a corrupt secret society of Gotham grandees would mean Harvey Dent takes a backseat to Victor Zsasz and the Court of Owls

Matt Reeves’ The Batman was a strange beast from the beginning. Perhaps not comic-book weird in the usual sense – no cosmic portals or rubber nipples here – but strange all the same. This was a Gotham where Bruce Wayne seemed to have been styled by the ghost of Kurt Cobain, the Riddler appeared to have escaped from a David Fincher evidence locker, and the whole city looked as if it had been left to soak overnight in rainwater and civic corruption. The expectation was that Reeves would begin rolling back the bizarre in part two, perhaps leaving us with a more orthodox Batverse populated with mobsters and corrupt lawyers. Sebastian Stan seemed central to this, with rumours suggesting he would portray Harvey Dent/Two-Face, perhaps alongside Scarlett Johansson as his wife, Gilda.

In the last week, however, there have been suggestions that the sequel might just be priming itself for something a fair bit freakier. Hollywood industry veteran Jeff Sneider is reporting that the main antagonist this time around could be the Court of Owls, a sinister secret society of Gotham grandees who look at first glance like a murder-bird upgrade on the League of Shadows, but are really something nastier: the city’s masked, devious ruling class, living out of secret rooms and exploiting a property portfolio that probably goes back to the Pilgrims.

PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S; Ubisoft Singapore/Ubisoft
Ubisoft has removed all the boring parts of pirate life from its fantasy RPG, creating something more focused and fun

Edward Kenway isn’t your dad’s Assassin’s Creed protagonist. Neither sworn to ancient oaths nor given a noble destiny, he’s just a guy who likes coin, dislikes rules, and whose gold-chasing, rule-dodging lifestyle sees him embroiled in an ancient war between Templars and assassins quite by accident. After he’s shipwrecked with a man named Walpole who turns out to be a Templar, Edward assumes Walpole’s identity in the hopes of securing the bounty he mentioned.

Edward wears life lightly. The world around him is violent and chaotic, and those in his vicinity are more obsessed with double-crossings than a Mission:Impossible movie writers’ room. Ed just smiles, undeterred by it all, and gets on with plundering. It’s all just fun and games to him, and he is set on conquering the Caribbean on his own terms. He is a brilliant extension of the player, in that way, and that’s what this remake of the 2013 pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed does so well: the sense of freedom.

Sony’s announcement spells the end of a whole ecosystem built by superfan collectors – and signals a troubling shift in the industry

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Sony’s decision last week to quietly announce the end of physical games production for the PlayStation in 2028 is one of the most perfect PR disasters in recent gaming history – and considering what has been happening with Xbox, that’s saying something.

First, there was the timing. Sony posted the news of its decision on the PlayStation blog, less than a week after admitting that it would be deleting 550 movies from the digital libraries of PlayStation owners due to the end of a licensing deal – thereby perfectly illustrating the dangers of purchasing digital products. (Surprise! You never actually owned them!) The move is in stark contrast with the company’s stance on this very issue back in 2013. When Microsoft was attempting to push Xbox One as a digital-first console with strict controls on the sharing and reselling of its games, Sony brilliantly mocked its rival with a short video on how easy it was to lend physical games to pals on the PS4. Oh dear.

Bush theatre, London
Francesca Amewudah-Rivers is a phenomenal presence in this queer thriller that leaves a little too much unexplained

This strange and alluring two-hander was first performed in this theatre’s smaller studio space two years ago. It is a dark romance between two women, one in a long-term relationship with a man and the other experimenting with women. Both are tormented, in different ways.

Nadi Kemp-Sayfi returns as Ivy while the abundantly talented Francesca Amewudah-Rivers takes the role of Ash. She is taut, sexy and disturbed. The play sits in and around Amewudah-Rivers, such a phenomenal presence that she eclipses everything else.

The Kneebone Cadillac is about a sport in which community is fostered yet collisions are encouraged. Actors, audiences and drivers explain the rush

Lexi Crosbie was five days old when she went to her first ever banger race. “I grew up around the track,” the 14-year-old says. At nine, her racer dad gave her a chance at the Micro F2s, the junior league, and Crosbie has been racing ever since. “You’re so filled with adrenaline,” she says of the motorsport. “It’s the best feeling ever.”

This month, Crosbie went to her local Cornish track, United Downs Raceway (also known as St Day), for a different kind of event. The Kneebone Cadillac, Carl Grose’s raucous play about a banger racer and her family, is set and performed on the track. For Crosbie, it was her first ever theatre show. “I really enjoyed it,” she says. “My whole family did.” Director Kyla Goodey has loved seeing how many racers have come along, when theatre isn’t part of their regular lives. “It’s been a bridging of worlds,” she says. “That’s exactly what we wanted.”

Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
A lesser-known selection from the composer and lyricist’s archive is full of heart and humour, swinging between cabaret blues and pop bangers

How do you measure a year? Love is one answer, according to Jonathan Larson’s Rent, but what about songs? This tribute, which ran off-Broadway last year, reveals the industriousness of the composer and lyricist, who died aged 35 in 1996. But it also highlights the calibre of his wealth of lesser-known material, written for obscure cabarets, cut from his musicals or otherwise unused, these spare parts stored in a Library of Congress archive. A selection of 18 songs make up a pleasingly eclectic revue conceived by Jennifer Ashley Tepper.

Take the opener, Greene Street, written as a 23-year-old newcomer to New York. With propulsive piano, it’s a huge crush of a song, in awe of the city while the sun bursts through on a snowy day. Larson puts a positively bucolic spin on this SoHo address (whose name “don’t mean money, honey!”) as the new arrival, also green by nature, receives a wink from a stranger amid the urban anonymity. There’s the hint of a jingle or theme tune but it’s irresistible, blissfully shared by the cast of five.

Nottingham Playhouse
The camaraderie and eccentricities of some model railway enthusiasts make for an endearing group portrait in William Ivory’s well-gauged comedy

Before the play begins, a tiny LNER InterCity zips in front of us. Our eyes follow it from one side of the stage to the other. Miniatures fascinate, and the train reminds us of the appeal.

It means that when we meet the old boys of the Market Deeping model railway club, celebrating a second victory in Stamford’s regional exhibition, we are sympathetic to their niche hobby. Yes, it may be eccentric to spend years perfecting an OO scale motive power depot, but look at the detail and gasp!

Their scandalous work was once banned. Now it’s in museums. The photographer talks about a lifetime defying conformity – and their ‘very active’ sex life

The peaceful Swedish city of Örebro is not where you might expect to find Del LaGrace Volcano, the US photographer known for their subversive images depicting LGBTQ+ communities, drag kings and sexual desire. Yet this is the place they have called home for the last two decades, having moved with their ex-partner, Matilda Wurm, an associate professor at the city’s university. Now, their days are punctuated by walks around a nearby forest and trips to the local outdoor swimming pool with the pair’s two children. It is a far cry from the life Volcano previously had in London, where they lived in squats, attended S&M fetish parties and documented lesbian cruising culture.

“I do miss it. I think London will always be my city,” Volcano tells me when they pick me up from my hotel in Örebro’s (virtually empty) city centre. Halfway between Stockholm and Gothenburg, the former trading hub – known for its medieval castle – is “not a queer city”, the photographer admits. Most of their neighbours don’t even know they are queer. Volcano, 68, is intersex and calls themself a “hermaphrodyke” – but these days they “pass as apparently a little old man”, they say with a grimace.

Author Wendy Jones highlighted the trend in an Instagram post: ‘What is going on here?’

Nine of the 10 bestselling fiction paperbacks in the UK this week have one thing in common: a woman is murdered.

The novels, which appear on this week’s Sunday Times bestseller list, include The Secret of Secrets, The Divorce, The Names, The Family Friend, The Widow, The Impossible Fortune, The Hallmarked Man, My Husband’s Wife and Boleyn Traitor.

The legendary composer warned theaters could soon meet the same fate as Hollywood’s ‘empty soundstages’

Andrew Lloyd Webber has spoken out about the precarious state of Broadway in the wake of the early closing of his revival Cats: The Jellicle Ball.

“Broadway is more than a street or a collection of buildings. It is an idea – and one of the greatest cultural ideas America has given us,” the composer wrote in a lengthy X thread on Tuesday morning.

Mission: Impossible star to appear in a pre-game show that will also feature Robbie Williams and Jennifer Hudson

A wide array of performers, from actor Tom Cruise to streamer IShowSpeed, will help close out the World Cup, Fifa announced on Tuesday.

Soccer’s governing body released the lineup for the closing ceremony, which will take place 90 minutes before Sunday’s final. The show is meant to “celebrate the 48 teams’ unforgettable journey” through 16 host cities across three countries, Fifa said in a statement.

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

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

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

Want to recreate the lustre of days spent in the sun with none of the damage? Try these expert-approved formulas

• The best IPL and laser hair removal devices tested

The wise among us would never forgo our safe-sun protocol, but there’s no denying that many of us feel happier and healthier with a tan. The irresistible lure of sunkissed skin has long been a summer staple – and from tanning waters to wipes, instant tans to gradual tanning moisturisers, there are now more ways than ever to get a faux glow.

There’s also been a growing demand for multitasking beauty products, so the newest fake tan formulas often add skincare benefits alongside the bronze. Self-tans infused with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and vitamin C hydrate, nourish and protect, much like your usual body cream or facial serum.

Best fake tan overall:
Bare by Vogue Williams clear tan water

Best budget fake tan:
Dove Summer Revived Sunkissed Glow + Pro-Ceramides gradual tan lotion

They’re cheaper and greener than air conditioning, but which evaporative cooler impressed us most?

• The best fans to keep you cool, tested
• Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review

Air coolers should not be confused with air conditioning. An air cooler can lower your room temperature by a couple of degrees, while aircon can lower it by tens of degrees. So it’s important to manage your expectations. But air coolers are much more energy efficient: they use a fraction of the electricity of aircon.

Evaporative air coolers work by pulling warm air through water-soaked pads. The water evaporates, which uses energy, so the process cools the air. So while it’s not fridge-cold like aircon, the air is cooling – like a sea breeze taking the edge off summer heat.

Best air cooler overall:
Swan Nordic air cooler – currently out of stock

Best portable air cooler:
Morphy Richards Flexi Freeze

A lantern for night strolls, lace-free shoes and a microscope for mini beasts … parents on their top camping tips and must-pack gear, as well as what to leave at home

• The best camping mattresses

I have wholehearted respect for parents who recoil from any notion of family camping. Camping with kids is no picnic. In fact, it sets out from where a good picnic leaves off, venturing from the brevity and civility of a blanket on the grass into the uncertain – and certainly precarious – waters of soggy towels, tangled guyropes, cramped quarters and midnight meltdowns.

And yet a great many of us voyage these waters regardless, ardently asserting (to ourselves as much as others) that camping is good for the soul, for the imagination, and for instilling a foundational appreciation of the great outdoors.

There’s no getting away from it: these are all ultra-processed, but which sponges are the life of the party and which are too sweet for comfort?

• The best (and worst) supermarket dark chocolate

Some of these taste tests – for instance, the oven chips one from last summer – surprise me with their overall quality and minimal processing. But others, such as today’s party cakes, sit firmly in the ultra-processed category, and often make contradictory claims, “handmade” and “carefully selected high-quality ingredients” being just two.

I want my children to enjoy treats without food anxiety, but we also owe it both to ourselves and to them to know what we’re actually eating. Unusually, the price of today’s cakes didn’t reflect processing levels. While more expensive products are often less processed, even the premium cakes included an array of emulsifiers (including mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, polyglycerol esters and sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate), preservatives, stabilisers, synthetic raising agents such as diphosphates, and glucose-fructose syrup, a heavily processed industrial sweetener linked to metabolic concerns. I’ve listed the number of additives in each product, excluding natural colours and flavourings, pectin, citric acid, carbonates and bicarbonate of soda, beeswax and glucose syrup. I also scored the cakes based on their appearance, taste, texture, value, certifications, animal welfare considerations and total sugar content (which varied greatly).

Use the whole pod – husks, beans and all – for a rustic, nutritious version of a seasonal favourite

Tom Norrington Davies is a friend, fellow chef and one of the best yoga teachers I know, so you can probably imagine my pleasure on recently coming across his recipe for broad bean and mint risotto, which he wrote for The Eagle Cookbook in 2009. Like many restaurants, this legendary gastropub pods their broad beans to reveal the beautiful green bean inside; this is my zero-waste interpretation.

Not a ‘cake person’? Loaded with fruit and whipped cream, these luxurious pastries are sure to hit your sweet spot

Strawberry, or any berry, shortcakes are the perfect dessert to make for those in your life who are not cake people. I’m married to a “not cake” person, so I would know. For me, the contrast between the salty, slightly warm shortcake (which is more like a biscuit), whipped cream and macerated fresh fruit is perfection, and hits enough of the sweet spots still to feel like a dessert without actually being cakey. But, first, the cardenal, a truly elegant, light-as-a-feather cake that’s made with alternating rings of genoise sponge and meringue all sandwiched with whipped cream. Though the building blocks are simple – meringue, sponge and cream – when combined, they turn into something really special.

This often underrated but hugely versatile vegetable can be cooked in copious delicious ways. Here are two of them

Courgettes are an early summer delight, when, such is their appeal and versatility, you often can’t move for them in my kitchen. Even so, I am not entirely sure they get the full recognition they deserve in the UK, not least because we grow some marvellous varieties here. I use courgettes in everything from raw salads (very thinly sliced courgettes tossed in salt and lemon) to slow-cooked, crisp-fried (the flowers are especially good stuffed with cheese or meat, then deep-fried) or lightly charred on a barbecue, which brings out a wonderful sweetness; you can even bake them into a deliciously moist cake. Can you show me a more versatile vegetable?

Jerk aubergines, lentil-stuffed courgette, griddled pineapple with maple syrup … Meat-free doesn’t need to mean treat-free when it comes to barbecue season

I’ve recently turned vegan. How do I have a great barbecue?
Nia, by email
Happily, most vegetables benefit from a bit of barbecue action, but the key is not to get too carried away, says Genevieve Taylor, author of How to BBQ: “There’s a real leaning for people to overdo barbecues, but you should approach it just as you would any meal, with one central star and a few sides. After all, there’s no other meal where you’d be expected to eat a chop, a sausage, a kebab and a chicken wing.” Not a meal you’d find Nia devouring, sure, but you get the general idea.

Shaun McAnuff, author of Original Flava: Easy Caribbean, would be inclined kick things off with tostones. “They’re a bit like crisps,” he says. “Boil green plantain, which are more dense and not as sweet as yellow ones, then peel and cut into thick circles.” Smash those flat with the bottom of a mug, then barbecue until nice and crisp and serve with guacamole or salsa. Alternatively, grab some aubergines, Taylor says: “They’re such a sponge for smoky flavours.” Slice lengthways, brush with oil, season and grill until soft. “Spread a filling, such as walnut paté with spices, herbs and pomegranate molasses, over the slices and roll up.” Those would be nice at room temperature, which also helps with getting ahead.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

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

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

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

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

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

Rick and Rachel are non-monogamous – but they both know this arrangement may not work forever

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

I’ve tried knowing and not knowing, and I find both difficult. In an ideal world, we’d go looking for sex together

You and your husband need to have a frank discussion and decide whether you want to negotiate the next stage of life together or apart

I’m 55 and, after being a dutiful wife for 30 years, my sex drive declined after a traumatic hysterectomy eight years ago. My husband was patient and kind throughout. I love him dearly, but sex was never really the same afterwards, which I attribute to the surgery.

I’ve now been through menopause and suddenly find my libido returning. However, my husband no longer desires me due to weight gain. He can’t maintain an erection for long, and is very critical of my sexual performance. He’s seen a doctor, but nothing came of it, and he refuses couples counselling.

From Hollywood movies to confessional memoirs, three-person relationships are everywhere. But is it really possible to keep everyone satisfied? Happy trios, bruised couples and rejected lovers tell all

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?”

In the early days, Priscilla felt giddy with the excitement of being in a throuple. She and Kiara had been together for eight years, and adding a third person to their relationship felt like a way of exploring non‑monogamy without losing one another, because every new romantic experience would be shared. Olivia was an old friend, so Priscilla and Kiara’s children were comfortable with her. When the kids were in bed, they would walk to the beach holding hands as a three, to watch the sunset. At night, they would curl up to sleep together, and form a kind of cuddle chain. Priscilla would cuddle Olivia, and Olivia would cuddle Kiara.

We booked the £1,070-a-week retreat because of the facilities, but when we got there they were a round-trip away

Last month’s tale of a winter break spoiled because easyJet Holidays had neglected to state that the hotel’s heated pool and spa incurred hefty charges was discordant music to another reader’s ears. He writes:

We returned last month from an easyJet Holidays break at a “wellness retreat” with prominently advertised spa facilities, which turned out not to have any spa facilities whatsoever. We had booked a £1,070 week at the Vasia Sea Retreat in Sissi, Crete, because I wanted access to a gym at least twice a day as rehabilitation from a serious knee injury, and my wife was keen for pool and pilates classes.

Snappy performance, long battery life, great keyboard and excellent new haptic touchpad make the best of Windows 11

Microsoft’s Surface laptop for consumers is back, faster and with longer battery life and a hefty price increase because of the high cost of memory and chips.

The Surface Laptop 8 is a straight replacement for the seventh edition from 2024, which was the first of Microsoft’s new generation of ARM-based, Qualcomm-powered PCs designed to better rival Apple’s MacBook Air and other thin and light machines.

Only when Guardian Money contacted the company did it discover the cash was wages owed to its staff

In May, our supplier, Yorkshire Water, made a surprise payment of more than £3,500 into my partner’s bank account.

We assumed that it was an error and we would be told to repay it.

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

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

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

Doing a split may look impressive, but experts caution it should not be done without practice and it may not be for everyone

On Love Island USA’s recent eighth season, contestant Kenzie Annis quickly distinguished herself with her ability to perform the splits, abruptly deploying the maneuver in fits of both delight and rage.

Seeing the splits on TV shows such as Love Island and RuPaul’s Drag Race can make people “want to take on that challenge and to push themselves to new heights”, said Ramoni Overton, a yoga instructor and YouTuber based in Los Angeles.

Ministers consider bringing e-cigarette laws in line with tobacco as data shows 20% of teenagers have tried vaping

Vapes could be sold in plain packaging as part of a range of proposals to stop them being marketed to children.

The UK-wide plans also include limiting device colours to white, black or grey, and keeping vapes out of sight in shops, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Not everyone experiences heat the same way, and studies show aggression, violence and road rage increase on hotter days

Recently, my husband and I embarked on what should have been a pleasant spring errand: a stroll to the local farmer’s market. But a passing heatwave had made it unseasonably hot outside. I cut him off on the sidewalk and he snapped at me, so I snapped at him for snapping at me. We spent the rest of the excursion in sweaty, stony silence. When we were almost home, he said, miserably: “I’m sorry! It’s just so hot.”

Our grouchiness was not simply a weakness of spirit. “Heat doesn’t just affect your body,” said Dr Susan Albers, clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic. “It affects your mood too.”

Rapid scientific progress has given us the tools to stop time more convincingly than ever – but lurking behind these claims is the same fear of ageing

Andrea holds a PhD in literature and works for a non-profit in Dallas. She’s in her late 40s and tells me that the pressure to remain youthful in her city is palpable. Almost completely irresistible.

“You don’t know what it’s like here,” she said. “Everyone has a facelift if they can afford one and everyone has had some work done. I’m a feminist to the core, but if I had the money, I would get a deep-plane facelift in a heartbeat. I’m saving up to get my neck done.”

This nifty addition to your makeup bag will give the impression of a person with time, skill and polish – with every little effort

A liquid eyeshadow is the answer to all your eyeshadow misgivings, and I will die on this hill. One neutral, long-lasting shadow gives the impression, however false, of a person with time, skill and polish, when in fact its effort:effect ratio is a joke.

Just daub on to the middle of your lid from lash line to socket, avoiding the inner and outer corners in the first instance, then take a clean fluffy shadow-blending brush and buff in a windscreen wiper motion to spread across to the corners and soften any hard lines.

For many watching their team beat Norway at a south London nightclub the look was as important as the game

The Carpet Shop nightclub in Peckham, south London, is ordinarily packed with rowdy crowds at the weekend. But Saturday night’s liveliness was not congregated around the DJ on the dancefloor, the crowd was at the sold-out venue for England’s victorious quarter-final game at the 2026 World Cup, and the young spectators were there for the fashion as much as they were for the football.

Luke Grandon and Mattia Guarnera, both 27, are “massive” football fans, and their love for the game is expressed in their outfits. “I have a massive collection of vintage football shirts,” said Guarnera, wearing a white polo shirt with “LOVE” printed on the back from a limited-edition World Cup-themed collaboration between Lyle & Scott and the British artist Reuben Dangoor.

The discomfort is no reason to give up sun protection, and is not uncommon – not everyone tolerates every formula well

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. For instance, when you responsibly apply sunscreen to your exposed skin, it sometimes stings.

“Complaints of sunscreen stinging are not uncommon,” says Dr Aditi Senthilnathan, board certified dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “We also hear about sunscreen causing burning or stinging around the eyes after sweating.”

A catamaran service from Dover to Boulogne is the perfect start to a trip exploring the Pas-de-Calais and marshes of Saint-Omer by bike, boat and kayak

“It’s all about tuning into the culture of the sea,” helmsman Chris O’Brien tells me, scanning the rippling cobalt horizon from the wheel of a catamaran. “People find the water, and the meditative experience of sailing, healing.” Meditative isn’t a word that usually comes to mind when talking about cross-Channel ferries on a bank holiday weekend, but this is no ordinary ferry.

Launched last year, SailLink operates a largely wind-powered (engines are only used when necessary) service from Dover to Boulogne up to five times a week between April and mid-September, with a new Shoreham to Fécamp route due to start trials later this year.

Would walking buddies convince reluctant children that hiking can be fun? A group trip with an Enid Blyton vibe proved a hit with the whole family

“I’m not going to wake her up,” I hiss at my 12-year-old son who’s standing half naked in a dark corridor of a Victorian house. “Please, Mum. She said we could come at any time! I don’t want to get Lyme disease,” he begs.

This is not the kind of drama I was expecting when I signed up to a family walking holiday in Exmoor. A few meltdowns about an extra mile or a blister perhaps, but not a night mission to one of the guides to request a tick removal.

The warm, gentle conditions I was hoping for turned out to be ferociously windy. The anchor couldn’t hold our boat in place. And then my mum got trapped in the cabin …

It started so well. A catamaran full of loved ones floating into the azure, taking pics, feeling glam, anticipating the sun sinking over the yardarm. I’d been reunited with my sister and family, who live in Australia, for the first time in three years, after Covid. Her husband, a fearless Australian giant, had got into sailing and offered to take me and my then 77-year-old mum, along with their three teens, out in the south of France for my sister’s 50th birthday. I knew sailing could get rough – my dad capsized us at the mouth of the River Dart when I was little – but it’s not every day you get such a generous invitation. How could I resist?

It was October. I was manifesting warm, gentle conditions, but instead the wind blew ferociously and stubbornly the wrong way. Before we knew it, we were charging up mountainous waves, then crashing into the void beyond. Our captain calmly steered while I sat below, feeling as if I was in a disaster movie, at which point I realised I hadn’t even located the lifejackets.

Flights were cancelled and we were told we’d be staying in Iceland for the night. But the hotel had no idea we were coming and people started screaming when I fell down, hard, on the ice

A couple of days before I was due to take a trip to New York with my mum in February, the city was hit with the worst blizzard it had seen in years. Unsurprisingly, our flight was cancelled. Our travel agent managed to reschedule the holiday for later in the week – our journey out would now connect in Reykjavík, Iceland. The holiday was rescued … or so we thought.

The flight to Iceland went without a hitch until the final moments, when the pilot informed us that a mini-blizzard was passing over Keflavík international airport and we would have to redirect to a domestic airport 15 minutes away. We still had hope that we could make our connection, but after several hours on the tarmac that hope died.

When is it OK to go shirtless? What time can you start drinking on holiday? And can you ask a stranger to apply your sunscreen? Experts explain the behaviour that’s hot this summer – and what’s really, really not

Summer means a loosening of rules and norms. Eating with your fingers is suddenly encouraged, near-nakedness is everywhere and a 6am airport pint is unremarkable. It’s a hot, sticky recipe for social chaos and – if you share my view on showing off ungroomed feet – possibly the end times of human civilisation. Here, then, is everything you need to know about summer etiquette.

Easy to grow, hardy and charming, these once-maligned flowers are having a much-deserved comeback

You might not know the term Caryophyllaceae but I guarantee you’d be able to spot a carnation, which is part of this family. Garage forecourt carnations have been having a semi-ironic fashion moment as a cut flower for a while now, but I’m yet to see them making a garden comeback.

I’d always dismissed the whole family as fusty, old-fashioned bedding plants for fussy little gardens. But it turns out that whoever is in charge of the carnation comms is having a good run. I keep seeing them around. Rose campion, another Caryophyllaceae, has even turned up in my garden – or rather, it has survived there. I didn’t plant it, and a photo from last July shows a scorched wasteland (it’s now a haven for moths, grasshoppers and bees, which shows what not mowing can do). But they’re biennial (they take two seasons to get from seed to flower), so I guess it was biding its time. It’s bright pink with a soft grey leaf, and not the kind of thing I’d choose, but I’m enjoying it so much I’ll be encouraging it to self-seed in the wildflower patch.

It might sound brutal, but this is exactly the kind of damage plants are built to recover from – and thrive on

The problem
Trailing plants tend to grow long and bare. A pothos or tradescantia that started full and lush can become a few sad vines with all the leaves clustered at the ends, trailing toward the floor with nothing in the middle. The instinct is to leave the plant alone and hope it fills out on its own. It rarely does. Yet the fix – cutting off healthy growth – feels counterintuitive and slightly brutal.

The hack
Pinching out means removing the growing tip of a stem, just after a node. This redirects the plant’s energy, prompting it to activate and produce new shoots. The result, in theory, is a bushier, fuller plant rather than a few straggly vines.

As people yearn for connection, one-day choirs are popping up around the world - and spreading ‘collective effervescence’

We met in a former synagogue, a vast room with hardwood floors where the sound could echo freely. All were strangers, many former choir nerds, united by a love for group singing. Our goal was to learn and perform, in a single day, a classic of our time: a song from the Hannah Montana movie.

The event, near downtown Los Angeles, was a one-day choir hosted by the Gaia Music Collective – a three-hour gathering where more than 100 people rehearsed a choral arrangement of the song and sang it three times, with ourselves as the only audience.

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.

As the rights of nature are increasingly being recognised, the Scottish Association for Marine Science is the latest organisation to make the ocean a trustee

In a boardroom in an office building in Oban, a picturesque town on the west coast of Scotland, trustees attending meetings have long been able to see the breaking waves of the Atlantic through the windows. But since last month, the ocean has also been present in the room, with an unusual new initiative ensuring that it now has a say on decisions shaping the future of the 140-year-old Scottish Association for Marine Science (Sams).

Sams was set up during the Scottish Enlightenment, a time of growing interest in oceanography when nature was seen as something to be dominated and exploited.

He was elected mayor of Istanbul in 2019, and had announced his candidacy for the 2028 presidential elections. But Ekrem İmamoğlu is now behind bars, and his trial, on charges including fraud and organised crime, could take 12 years

• This piece first appeared in the Dial

There’s a Turkish saying, “Silivri soğuktur”: Silivri is cold. You’ll hear it from journalists, politicians and activists after they say something critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government. The kind of comments that could send them to the notorious prison complex in Silivri, where it would take months before they saw a judge.

For decades, Silivri was considered a “sayfiye yeri”, a place for cottages, country and summer houses. All around the complex are small family-run farms and villas with private pools, protected by watchdogs. Construction of the Marmara Prison complex began in 2005 and lasted three years. It contains eight closed correctional institutions and an open prison where the court is located. It is Europe’s largest prison complex.

Covert footage obtained by the Guardian shows how crime networks are using souvenir shops to hide a booming wildlife trade targeted at a new influx of Chinese tourists

The shop is dark and deserted. Though the door is open, there is clearly no expectation of any customers walking in off the street. Visits are likely by appointment and from a specific clientele. This shop is part of an organised crime network. What is being sold is highly illegal and incredibly unethical.

Anyone wandering in would see large bags of specialist tea, local coffee, trinkets and cigarettes on the shelves. But the photographs of wild animals adorning the walls offer a clue to what is truly for sale here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How long did you have to wait? Perhaps you are in a queue now. Tell us your experience

The EU has rejected calls to suspend its biometric border checks despite warnings from airports, airlines and ports that the system could lead to long queues and delays during the peak summer holiday season. MPs in the UK have also warned of potential disruption at the Port of Dover as holiday traffic builds.

We would like to speak to people who have been affected by the new system. Tell us about your experience – has the new system worked well or have you experienced delays? How long did you have to wait? What did you do to pass the time? Or maybe you are in a queue now? Tell us your experience.

Prediction markets have grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, particularly in the US. We’d like to hear confidentially from people in the UK who have used them

We’d like to find out more about how people in the UK are using prediction markets and what has attracted them to these platforms.

Prediction markets allow people to buy and sell contracts based on the outcome of future events, such as sporting tournaments, elections and financial markets. They have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in the US.

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Robin Bernstein’s debut book Mapalakata takes us to the edge of the South African frontier to tell a story inspired by folk tales and historical artefacts