Last month she had a post-defeat meltdown and insisted she was done with tennis. On the eve of Wimbledon, she talks about what really happened – and why her ‘aggressive’ face gives people the wrong impression

It’s less than a month since Aryna Sabalenka told the world that she felt like walking away from tennis. The world No 1 had suffered an almighty implosion. Sabalenka is as famous for her implosions as she is for her on-court ferocity. But this was a different level.

She had been playing at her imperious best in the French Open, one of tennis’s four major tournaments. Winner after winner from the back of the court, and when she bullied her opponents back to the baseline she’d dupe them with the most delicate drop-shot. In the last 16 against Naomi Osaka she looked invincible. And then came the quarter-final. By now, all her main rivals were out. The 28-year-old had a clear path through to winning her fifth grand slam singles title. Again, she was playing well against the world’s No 25, Diana Shnaider. Sabalenka won the first set easily, 6-3, and was 5-3 up in the second set. Victory was an inevitability. And then it happened. One game lost. Then another. And another. The wind had picked up, playing conditions got ever worse, the organisers failed to close the roof. And Sabalenka was walloping shot after shot out of court.

As a host of countries move to rein in social media use by children, could this be technology’s big tobacco moment?

A pair of debenture tickets changed hands this week for a sum far beyond the means of ordinary tennis fans

Like many of us, Marcos Ortega enters the Wimbledon public ticket ballot every year in the hope of seeing some championship tennis. In seven straight years of trying, however, he has never got lucky. So he was delighted – initially, at least – to learn there was a way to secure a ticket for every game played on Centre Court.

But Ortega’s hopeful delight quickly turned to anger when he discovered that it would cost him £293,000.

Studies suggest the country is more divided than ever – but we won’t come together unless we begin to talk rationally and calmly

• Read more from the Brexit Vote: 10 Years On series

When I first moved to England, nearly two decades ago, I was invited to attend a talk in London on “the future of British identity”. It was a heated debate from the start, and it became all the more intense when the subject of putting colonial history in the school curriculum was raised. The two main speakers held opposite views and they traded barbs wrapped in velvet – scathing but polite at the same time. It wasn’t just the particulars of the oratory that stayed with me, but what happened afterwards. When the session was over, I saw the speakers shake hands, and then I heard one of them casually ask the other whether he would like to go for a pint. Off they went looking for a nearby pub, these two men who were at loggerheads on so many issues.

I stood there absorbing what I had just witnessed. That two people with clashing worldviews could still find the openness of heart to share a drink together somehow left a bigger impact on me than anything that had been said that evening. This is because I came from Türkiye, a country of profound political chasms and unhealed social fractures. Equally, I had lived in the US for about five years in the aftermath of 9/11 – writing and teaching in various universities in Boston, Michigan and Arizona, which gave me the chance to observe the deepening fissures between liberal campuses and anti-liberal small towns.

You can’t blame Graham Norton for being tongue-tied over the icon. They have a nice, hammy time – and another pop queen serves them drinks – but where is the naughtiness?

London, 26 May. Tower Bridge straddles the Thames like, say, Madonna in Like a Virgin. Piccadilly lights. Ray of Light vibes. Graham bricking it in a black cab. (Forget Norton: such is the superpower of tonight’s subject that her mere presence exorcises any need for surnames.) To all this – London, the dance floor, Graham, you, me, the universe – Madonna whispers “thank you for coming”. I Feel So Free kicks in. And so it begins.

Openings need to be big to accommodate “the incomparable Madonna” – as the BBC press release for this hyped special calls her – now that we’re in the final countdown to the release of her new album Confessions II. This one’s perfectly judged. Nice and hammy. Equal parts outré and gay.

But with rumours about a certain workshy Windsor circulating this week, are we actually encouraging joblessness with an overly generous safety net?

Finally, some part of our struggling state is getting a massive budget increase – and it’s not even the welfare bill, like normal. Or maybe it is? The monarchy’s core funding is going to double to £100m. Also mentioned under cover of the same info dump is the fact that the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is currently coming in at £369m, but the King and Queen don’t want to live there when it’s done.

Personally, I’m a big fan of the gaiety the Windsors add to this nation, willingly or otherwise, but I do worry: are we enabling a culture of dependence that isn’t actually great for any of the people involved? Does the royal economy need rebalancing, if it is simply impossible to own an absolutely vast private network of land and high-end properties without somehow still needing a top-up from the state? You’ve heard of the poverty trap – will no one think of the royalty trap?

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to Be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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.

Home secretary speeds up major part of bill governing asylum and refugees as new prime minister set to take over

Shabana Mahmood will seek to shore up support for her controversial immigration bill on the progressive left of Labour, as she sets out plans to speed up the opening of new safe and legal routes that will permit thousands of refugees to come to the UK.

The home secretary, who is the leading contender to stay in her job if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister, will next week introduce the legislation, which will also set new limits on immigration claims on human rights grounds and under modern slavery law.

Removing modern slavery protections for any foreign national who has committed a crime and received a sentence, scrapping the previous 12-month threshold.

Rejecting last-minute modern slavery claims where an objection could have been raised earlier or where there is evidence of false documentation.

Allowing immigration claims to be brought under the right to a family life only if the family member is a parent, spouse or child under 18 except in exceptional circumstances.

A new test to make clear that deporting foreign national offenders is in the public interest and should only be blocked in the most exceptional circumstances.
Applications for family reunion under the right to a family life will in future have to be brought by a UK-based sponsor, not the overseas family member.

Giving every trafficked and exploited child a dedicated independent guardian to support their safeguarding and recovery.

Hotels report increase in last-minute bookings, including from families attempting to escape hot homes

Families, including parents with newborn babies, are booking air-conditioned rooms in hotels to escape the UK heatwave, with companies reporting a surge in demand.

Data from the accommodation reservation website Booking.com shows that since 1 June, the share of searches using the “air-conditioning” filter has tripled across Great Britain coinciding with the latest heatwave in northern Europe.

Strikes against military facilities were in response to drone attack a day earlier on a cargo vessel

The US has struck Iran in a tit-for-tat response to a drone strike on a cargo ship, as the ceasefire between the US and Iran that reopened the strait of Hormuz undergoes its greatest test yet.

The US strikes targeted multiple missile and drone facilities in Iran near the strait of Hormuz and on Qeshm Island on Friday in what appeared to be a limited strike meant to respond to Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship without escalating the conflict.

Disclosure casts doubt on broadcaster’s claim that failure to properly vet presenter lay with independent production partners

The BBC failed to investigate concerns about the presenter Ashley Cain that were raised with the broadcaster directly by an interviewee who was a victim of sexual violence.

Last week, the Guardian reported that Cain, a former footballer and reality TV star, had a history of extreme misogyny on social media.

• Uruguay’s exit means England through to knockouts

• Thomas Tuchel’s side face Panama on Saturday

England’s place in the last 32 of the World Cup has been confirmed after results in Group H ensured Thomas Tuchel’s side would, at worst, qualify as one of the best third-placed teams.

Uruguay’s defeat to Spain, coupled with Cape Verde’s draw with Saudi Arabia, left Marcelo Bielsa’s side in third and with an inferior record to England. With third-placed South Korea, Senegal and Scotland already unable to match England’s points tally, that was enough to confirm progression for Tuchel’s team.

Delcy Rodríguez says foreign rescue teams are arriving as anger grows at official response and limited resources

• Survivors tell of ‘brutal and fast’ Venezuela quake as hunt for survivors goes on

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has vowed to fight to save “as many people as possible” as the official death toll from the country’s worst earthquake in more than a century almost doubled, but frustration was growing at the perceived sluggishness of the government’s response.

Rodríguez’s brother, Jorge, the president of the national assembly, said on Friday that the official number of dead had risen to 920. Delcy Rodríguez had earlier said that almost 3,000 people were injured. Speaking during a tour of La Guaira, the most devastated region, she said foreign search and rescue groups were starting to arrive.

CPS urges victims to go to police, saying they will be taken seriously and it ‘won’t hesitate’ to bring abusers to justice

Prosecutors in England and Wales are expecting incidents of domestic abuse to increase during the men’s World Cup, and have urged victims to come forward, saying those responsible “will be held accountable”.

“We often see more domestic abuse cases around major football tournaments like these,” the CPS national stalking lead, Olivia Rose, said. “The point that we want to get across is that those responsible will be held accountable, and that we won’t hesitate to bring them to justice.”

Calls for reform to student loan system as those studying for a master’s can be left with ‘a life tax’

Whether to pursue a master’s degree was not really a choice for Francesca Peters. Fresh from an undergraduate degree in biochemistry in 2020, she had set her sights on securing her dream job. There was a catch, however. The only route into her chosen field was further study – and more debt.

She had finished university with more than £60,000 in student debt but another loan to fund her master’s meant this spiralled to £77,000. “It just feels like a life tax,” she says. “Because I’m never going to pay it off.”

Activists aim to repeat disruption of Jeff Bezos’s wedding when billionaire Tilman Fertitta drops anchor

Protesters in Venice are planning to disrupt a visit by the billionaire US ambassador to Italy in his 117-metre superyacht, which they fear he plans to dock in the lagoon city.

“We ruined the party for Jeff Bezos’s wedding last year – this year let’s ruin the ambassador’s tour!” said Stella Faye, a 28-year-old researcher and activist, at a meeting of about 40 demonstrators on Thursday.

Michael Phillips, who says he has a 0.38in member, wrote that he needed procedure to improve his ability to urinate

The North Carolina man who has made the apparently undisputed claim of having the world’s smallest penis is seeking the public’s support for enlargement surgery.

Michael Phillips said online on Thursday that he needed the procedure to improve his ability to urinate, which is difficult for him given that he is reportedly 0.38in (0.97cm) long when fully erect. Otherwise, he said he must continue to wear diapers for adults with incontinence every day.

LGBTQ+ people continue to reel from stigma spread by 16 years of rightwing populist government, says organiser

One year ago they marched in record numbers, risking fines and facial recognition technology to challenge Viktor Orbán and his government’s escalating crackdown on LGBTQ+ rights. On Saturday, Hungarians will again take to the streets for Budapest Pride, this time in a march marked by the country’s sweeping political changes.

The event, which is expected to unfold peacefully after police gave it the green light, will be a rallying cry of a community that has resisted all efforts to silence it, said Petra Buzás, part of the organising team.

Arabic’s rich history of poetry lends itself well to ‘beautiful commentary that … sounds like a love letter to football’

Even before Cristiano Ronaldo’s close-range shot had hit the back of net, the commentator had begun shouting. “Allllllllaaaaaaah!!!!” exclaimed Amer al-Khudhiri, an Omani football announcer for BeIN Sports, as the Portugal star scored his first goal of the 2026 World Cup against Uzbekistan on Tuesday.

He took a deep breath and then began his soliloquy. “I knew you were coming for revenge. I knew you would answer everyone, the world, the World Cup, the doubters, those who have lost their memory,” al-Khudhiri said. “Oh history, put Ronaldo here as Portgual’s all-time top scorer, through all its history. Allah, Allah, Allah!”

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

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

When is a valise not a valise? When you’re in a foreign land where they call it a holdall

The band I’m in is cruising to the end of its tour, with two nights at Victoria Hall in Settle, headlining a weekend festival. The weather on the drive up from Manchester is unpromising, but by the time we reach Settle the sun is out, the festival already under way.

Touring has been hard on our stuff. In the green room people are changing strings and swapping out faulty cables. Wives – not mine; she’s not coming until the next day – begin to arrive by train.

It’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in britches and bonnets, poking hole after hole in American lore – and it’s so audacious it will make your jaw drop. Brace yourself!

‘I hear America singing,” wrote Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass. He didn’t say that the song was “USA! USA!” backed by a klaxon and accompanied by a foam finger. For a country evangelical about its superiority, there is a dark and sizable underbelly they would prefer to ignore. A pretty big overbelly, too. Yet every society has its truth tellers – and they’re generally obnoxious types who can’t let things go.

Who better to educate America on its history, then, than Larry David? Loads of people. But none of them have a series on HBO, executive produced by Barack and Michelle Obama. Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America reimagines key scenes from 250 years of US history, as if they were a series of rapidly escalating, socially awkward celebrations of epic pettiness. In other word, it’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in britches and bonnets. I’m excited.

The first time I saw the film, I convinced myself I didn’t like it. Now it’s one of my favourites

I was 14 years old the first time I saw two men kiss on screen. It was 2006, and my mum had rented Brokeback Mountain from our local Blockbuster. She said it was a “special” movie night for “just the two of us”.

For the next 134 minutes, I watched two sheep herders, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), fall in love in the beautiful Wyoming countryside, only for that love to be suffocated by rigid expectations of masculinity and self-contempt. The film culminates in Jack’s untimely death, and alludes to the possibility that he was the victim of a vicious homophobic hate crime.

In this week’s newsletter: The festival always comes back fresher after allowing Worthy Farm to recover from its yearly musical extravaganza. Star Wars and Charli xcx could learn a thing or two

In any other year this week’s Guide would be arriving into your inbox from Worthy Farm, home of Glastonbury festival. Not in 2026 though: for the first time since the Covid pandemic, which poleaxed two consecutive years of the festival, Glasto is a no-show. The reason? It has booked in one of its occasional fallow years, which allows the dairy farmland on which the festival sits a chance to recover from a half decade of camping, trampling and moshing. It also gives its organisers a rare window to recharge their batteries and plan for the festival’s future, and its detractors a year off from declaring its headliners “the worst ever”, again.

For long-term Glasto-goers, it’s always bittersweet when the fallow year rolls around – the last was in 2018 – but this year it does feel like a bullet dodged, given that the event would have landed bang in the middle of a truly dangerous heatwave (my face, and many others, would have turned a previously undiscovered shade of beetroot). And moreover, the fallow year often works a treat: when the festival returns the year after, it tends to be re-energised, with new stages, stronger lineups and well rested people running the show.

Two decades after chefs rewrote the rules at Noma, Copenhagen’s food scene still flies the flag for seasonality and innovation – progressive, sustainable and uniquely Danish

I didn’t realise I was a fussy eater until I left Denmark. During 12 years of living Danishly, with regular trips to the capital, I just … liked most things. Danes specialise in high-quality, organic produce, eaten as close to its natural state as possible. Denmark has very specific, diverse climatic conditions, making seasonal eating a science. Forget root vegetables in autumn and strawberries in summer – we’re talking micro seasons, week to week, with cabbage, kale, apples, potatoes, berries and rye a speciality. None are around for long, but when they are, they’re fabulous – and the seasonal Nordic diet has been proven to be as healthy as the renowned Mediterranean diet and better for the planet. No wonder Copenhageners look so smug.

But the city’s food scene hasn’t always been so good. Many who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s report being reared on canned food and frozen vegetables, with pork and potatoes, smørrebrød (open sandwiches) or junk food making up much of the offerings. (You’re never far from a pølservogn, or “hot dog wagon”, in Copenhagen – doling out bright red wieners baked in their own bready prophylactic.)

Milly Alcock’s Kryptonian hero bops baddies with a superdog in tow, while the Devon band return with another collection of all-caps rock

Supergirl
Out now
Milly Alcock dons the spandex to play Kara Zor-El, AKA Supergirl, in the second film in the DC Universe (a soft reboot of the DC Extended Universe courtesy of James Gunn and Peter Safran), which sees the Man of Steel’s cousin travelling the galaxy and embarking on a quest for revenge.

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

The former Channel 4 News anchor reports on his health before leading another investigation, and the never-knowingly-understated Devon rockers return. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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

After the full-time whistle Cape Verde’s players formed a huddle around their head coach, Bubista, eyes straining at the tiny moving images on a mobile phone. They sought the certainty that a dream had come true and, when the outcome nearly 1,000 miles away in Guadalajara was confirmed, erupted in unfathomable joy. Dailon Livramento, the centre-forward, leapt on to the back of his teammate “Diney” Borges. Everyone in view grabbed the nearest person to embrace and then came all the flags, the islands represented by their 10 stars made famous during one of the World Cup’s most compelling underdog stories in decades.

One of them was waved in the stands by Ana Cândida Évora, the mother of their remarkable goalkeeper Vozinha. Others made their way on to the pitch and what a sight it was when the entire squad, visibly buzzing to a man, stayed still for long enough to pose for photographs in front of a disbelieving support. They drummed and sang into the night because never has the most formidable of tasks seemed so glorious. Cape Verde, the country of 530,000, will take on Lionel Messi and Argentina in the last 32.

The third in a special series of World Cup 2026-themed collages made for the Guardian by the celebrated satirist

Uruguay are out of the World Cup again and for all that it ended in anger, a red card and a touchline row, it is nobody’s fault but their own. “3 million dreams,” the banner said high in the stand in Guadalajara but this was a recurring nightmare. Divided and dysfunctional, led by a man who barely even says buenos dias to his players, unable to get beyond a draw with Saudi Arabia and Cape Verde, on the night when it was all or nothing against Spain they could only manage two shots on target, neither of which came before the 80th minute or carried even the slightest threat.

Spain meanwhile had only one, and that didn’t carry much of a threat either. But a dreadful mistake from 40-year-old goalkeeper Fernando Muslera allowed Álex Baena’s shot to slip into the net just before the half-time break. Uruguay fought but didn’t play much football and so they fell. For the second World Cup running they failed to get through the group and if four years ago that was on goals scored and could be explained by the teams they faced – South Korea, Ghana and Portugal – this time the opponents only made it worse, demanding a far deeper analysis.

“After review,” began the Polish referee Szymon Marciniak, those two words breaking the hearts of Iran after they thought they scrambled an unlikely 93rd-minute winner. Moments earlier, the 37-year-old Shoja Khalilzadeh fired in from the edge of the six-yard box, whipped off his No 4 shirt in double-quick time and slid on to his knees before being mobbed by his teammates and nestled at the bottom of a pile-on. One member of Iran’s backroom team collapsed onto his back on the turf amid the delirium. Another planted a kiss on Khalilzadeh’s forehead before the defender donned a pair of sunglasses given to him by one of the many substitutes who had swiftly emptied on to the pitch.

But the joy was short-lived, Marciniak playing party-pooper after a VAR review showed Khalilzadeh offside after Mostafa Shobeir rushed from his goal to punch clear the free-kick from which Iran thought they had snatched victory. And the late drama did not stop there either. Seventeen seconds after the minimum of six minutes of second-half stoppage time, Yasser Ibrahim made a monumental block to repel Ramin Rezaeian’s shot after the ball squirted free and then six minutes and 53 seconds into added time Iran’s Saeid Ezatolahi sent a header against the crossbar. Shoubir, who was magnificent in the Egypt goal, moved his hands towards the ball but was beaten.

Does anyone at the World Cup have the defensive strength to deny this hyper-mobile, supremely varied French attack? Not, it turns out, a second-string Norway, who were torn apart in the first half in Boston, as Ousmane Dembélé scored a beautifully precise 25-minute hat-trick en route to a 4-1 win. France now top Group I and will play their last-32 tie in New Jersey on Tuesday. Norway will play Côte d’Ivoire in Texas.

This was a fun, freewheeling game, with the feel of a tournament formality, big third-place playoff energy. But it wasn’t quite that. Certainly nothing that happened here in the absence of the rested Erling Haaland will help nourish Norway’s late-stage tournament hopes, which are real but tentative, and which can only have been damaged by the sight of France’s attack using the corners of Egil Selvik’s goal for shooting practice in a jarringly open, defensively chaotic first half.

A pool manager invoked safety to bar non-German speakers during the heatwave. With the far right soaring, the move is making everyone less safe

Humans are vulnerable in water. Beaches have red flags; swimming pools have flashy warning signs to remind us of our vulnerability when we just want to cool down in the midst of a searing heatwave. Pool rules are essential, especially when children are around, or tourists who don’t know about the local safety measures. With pictograms and whistling lifeguards, swimming pools usually manage to communicate danger without requiring visitors to pass a language test at the entrance. Until now, that is.

In the eastern German city of Halle, a public swimming lake turned away visitors who did not speak German during one of the hottest weeks of the year. The operator of the Heidebad natural pool at Heidesee lake, Mathias Nobel, argued that people without sufficient language skills may fail to understand the rules and thereby put themselves at risk. He said that as a trained lifeguard, he recently had to rescue a small child without armbands from the water, since the lake, a flooded former opencast mine, had a steeply sloping shoreline.

Delegates at an ‘anti-woke’ conference disparaged Ed Miliband’s net zero policies. But even they could not ignore the sweat on their foreheads

It was hardly a perfect film, but I keep thinking of Don’t Look Up. In its depiction of a world that stubbornly refuses to heed the warnings of an imminent planetary disaster, it was perhaps too on the nose. But these days, reality itself is too on the nose.

This week served up ample evidence, on both sides of the Atlantic. In Britain, like much of Europe, the all-consuming concern has been intense, intolerable heat, with temperature records shattered and swathes of the country under the highest state of alert. For the first time, red warnings were issued in the UK for three consecutive days. Schools have closed; nights have become sleepless, with the mercury rising to meet the technical definition of “tropical”. There are wildfires in Derbyshire. All this in a temperate country in June.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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.

The Makerfield MP’s surge towards No 10 is a seductive ad for the power of positive politics. How long that proves effective depends on his next moves

The creation of hope is a vital but risky part of democratic politics. Leaders or would-be leaders who arouse hope attract supporters, motivate activists, achieve momentum and win over voters – and then have a chance of holding together political parties, governments and societies in harder times. From Barack Obama to Clement Attlee, Salvador Allende to Zohran Mamdani, leaders from across the left in particular have heavily relied on hope to launch and sustain their ruling projects.

Meanwhile, an absence of hope has quickly doomed other left of centre governments. Keir Starmer’s decision, only eight weeks into his premiership, to summon the media to the Downing Street garden and tell them that “things will get worse before they get better” in the UK was a mistake from which his administration never recovered. In a society where most lives have been getting harder since the 2008 financial crisis, Starmer’s downbeat manner, however justified by the deep problems he inherited from the Tories, was not an emotional register that much of the electorate desired.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Britain has found itself looking for all three protagonists at once. Who gets to stand at the centre of the national story?

It’s been the refrain of the week. Why can’t the country hold on to a prime minister – and how can it be that Larry, the Downing Street cat, has managed to outlast six of them? Have we become ungovernable? Is it because one government after another has failed to halt the slide in living standards – or have online attention spans eroded our patience for change?

But Westminster isn’t the only dramatic platform casting for a new lead at the moment. Amid the political chaos this week, I was struck by a social media comment that this is the first time the UK has found itself looking for a new PM, a new James Bond and a new lead for Doctor Who, all at the same time.

He’s the only person who can keep Nigel Farage out of Downing Street, so let’s embrace his unique blend of optimism and realism

As Keir Starmer bid a brief and emotional farewell at that pillory of a lectern, there was a moment for some to ask: what have we done, and why? He’s not a bad man, not a Boris Johnson or Liz Truss rogue prime minister. How decadent, if lack of charisma has become a sacking offence.

But the reason why isn’t written in Westminster. It’s there in councils up and down the country where the hard-right Reform UK troopers swept through last month, from Barnsley to East Sussex. Look north, where Sunderland has 58 Reform councillors to Labour’s five. Look next door at South Tyneside, where Labour was nearly wiped out, left with only one councillor. Many Labour MPs now find themselves all but alone, their local parties hollowed out in an alien sea of Reform. Here’s why it matters beyond the green benches, beyond MPs’ personal careers, out in the very real world where services are (or aren’t) delivered locally.

The monarch says how much he pays the Treasury but did not reveal the wealth behind it. Britain still lacks proper scrutiny of royal cash

King Charles has become Britain’s first monarch in modern times to reveal how much tax he pays on his private income: £24.6m over the past two years. This is not a victory for transparency but a win for those who wish to keep the curtain drawn firmly over the royal finances.

What is presented as a radical move is in fact more obfuscation. The monarch says he has paid millions in tax, but has not disclosed the income, gains or deductions behind the bill. The royals are funded by taking a cut of crown estate profits – public money that would otherwise go to the Treasury. That amount is decided by three royal trustees: the prime minister, the chancellor and the keeper of the privy purse.

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.

The Mexican artist’s legacy is far greater than the kitsch. She is a much-loved symbol of rebellion and resilience

Even before it opened this week, Tate Modern’s Frida: The Making of an Icon was a smash hit. With more than 50,000 advance tickets, it is the highest pre‑selling show in Tate history, beating David Hockney in 2017. This is “the Fridamania” that the exhibition sets out to explore, charting Frida Kahlo’s rise from little-known Mexican artist to global phenomenon. During her lifetime, Kahlo was overshadowed by her painter husband, Diego Rivera. Last year, the sale of one of her self-portraits broke the record for the most expensive work by a female artist.

It is not just her art that makes millions. There are more than 100,000 objects bearing her face to buy online. From candles to sanitary towels to a Barbie doll (whiter and with a toned-down monobrow), the cult of Kahlo is big business. Coincidentally, the controversial doll also appears at the Design Museum’s Barbie: The Exhibition – tracing the evolution of Mattel’s iconic toy – which reopened this month in Glasgow.

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

Readers respond to an article by Rafael Behr in which he reflects on the ‘curse of Brexit’ and the reasons for Keir Starmer’s fall

Rafael Behr argues that Brexit created a politics poisoned by nationalism and that the real challenge facing Labour is “a battle to reclaim patriotism” (Keir Starmer couldn’t beat the curse of Brexit – a politics poisoned by nationalism, 24 June). Yet this framework risks reducing Britain’s political crisis to a dispute over competing versions of national identity.

Let us be clear: the social and economic conditions that produced Brexit were not created by nationalism. Regional inequality, economic insecurity and declining trust in political institutions long predated the referendum. Nationalist rhetoric provided a language through which these grievances were expressed, but it did not generate them.

Andy Burnham has a rare commitment to co-designing policy alongside experts and communities, says Kate Pickett

Neal Lawson (This major Makerfield victory has made it inevitable: it’s now time for Keir Starmer to step aside, 19 June) describes Andy Burnham as “open, inquiring and imaginative”, and representative of “a workable alliance for long-term change”.

I know this to be true, having seen first-hand how he operates when the cameras are off. As chair of the Greater Manchester independent inequalities commission and an adviser to its “prevention demonstrator”, I’ve witnessed him systematically use research and frontline expertise to underpin successful regional policies.

Readers on the superfluous words they love to hate

Adding to the discussion of superfluous words (Letters, 19 June), readers might like to know that my MA thesis many years ago had a section on the use of the word “so” in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in which it is used 52 times, about five times less frequently than in his other plays. This is because it was being used as a speech act, or a word that does rather than says something. I thought that it was deployed mostly when Prospero was doing something magic.
Teresa Rodrigues
Crediton, Devon

• “Stunning” has been appropriated almost exclusively by estate agents to misdescribe anything from a bog-standard semi to a view over a car park. Possessed by groupthink, the media and businesses no longer contact anyone – they “reach out”. And don’t get me started on “going forward” replacing “in future”.
Dave Young
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

Readers respond to an article that sounded a bum note on the experience of going to see bands

What an ungenerous assessment of live music by Sasha Mistlin (The hill I will die on: Going to a gig is an endurance test, 20 June). As the relatively new owner of an independent live music venue, I can tell you that the joyous experience of coming together for a gig is alive and kicking on a weekly basis. Yes, the economic environment for hospitality in general, and grassroots music in particular, makes it really tough – but that just strengthens our resolve to put on great shows.

Perhaps Mistlin has just not experienced many gigs outside central London and the big festivals. I used to shuttle regularly between London, Hull and Newcastle, often seeing the same band two or three times in a week. Spoiled London audiences are far more cynical and unresponsive than those of us off the beaten track. I watched the incredibly talented Anton Newcombe play a 30-minute encore to a rapturous audience in Newcastle on a Tuesday and then return for one song to a muted crowd in London the next day. Same quality of gig, different quality of audience. You get out of it what you put in.

• Opening batter credits fitness regime for form in heat

• Duckett stepped away from nets for four-week bootcamp

After scoring his first Test century for more than a year Ben Duckett revealed that shedding some weight has helped him to pile on the runs, with a post-winter fitness regime catapulting him into the summer in form that was glimpsed in the first two games of the series and has been obvious in the third.

“It’s an area of my career where I haven’t necessarily helped myself or been great at,” he said, after scoring a 99-ball 113 on his home ground. “The biggest thing is I’m not getting any younger and I want to keep doing this, to keep having days like this, for as long as I possibly can.”

For better or worse, the inaugural edition of the inter-hemisphere tournament launches with even more long-haul flights in a drive to attract greater interest

Brave is one word for it. Let’s launch a must-see global rugby tournament in direct opposition to the football World Cup, Wimbledon, the Open and Formula One. Necessitating even more long-haul flights and an enlarged carbon footprint in an era of soaring jet-fuel prices and climate-change concerns. And with some of the world’s most box-office players unavailable. Right-ho.

Welcome, for better or worse, to the inaugural Nations Championship, which kicks off in Christchurch, Tokyo, Sydney, Cardiff, Johannesburg and Córdoba next weekend. Spot the odd ones out, by the way. Yes, contrary to the atlas, Cardiff and Tokyo are now southern hemisphere venues. For various reasons Fiji are “hosting” Wales beside the swaying palms of Tiger Bay while Japan, for the sake of numerical convenience, are in with the traditional southern powerhouses.

• Leeds Rhinos 34-8 Hull KR

• Statement victory comes at annual MND fixture

On the night Leeds Rhinos came together as one to remember one of their all-time greats, they produced an occasion Rob Burrow would no doubt have relished.

Their annual motor neurone disease (MND) awareness fixture was once again an emotional occasion, spearheaded by the plentiful pre-match tributes to Burrow two years on from his passing. Leeds’s highest crowd since 2020 witnessed not just a fitting occasion, but another resounding statement about the Rhinos’ title credentials.

• Ukrainian will give up three world heavyweight titles

• ‘I’m not leaving the sport … I still have my last dance’

The world heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk has announced he will relinquish his title belts. The Ukrainian currently holds the WBC, WBA and IBF versions.

The unbeaten 39-year-old insists he is not retiring but says the “well-considered” decision will “open new opportunities”.

Shorter points help the 39-year-old at SW19, where Jannik Sinner hopes to show French Open upset was a blip

For the 21st time in his long and fruitful career, Novak Djokovic arrived at the All England Club on Monday and began his preparations for another Wimbledon in earnest. The 39-year-old worked his way through his tentative first steps on the grass courts of Aorangi Park, movement exercises complementing his sparring on court. He found his rhythm against local hitting partners and tussled with other champions. His training sessions included a catchup with his old friend Marin Cilic and then he broke in the grass on No 1 Court with the world No 1, Jannik Sinner, iron sharpening iron.

The ultimate goal is the same as it has been for some time: Djokovic, the seventh seed, returns to Wimbledon again seeking to become the oldest grand slam singles champion in history by winning an unprecedented 25th grand slam title. At 39 years old, his chances of achieving this goal naturally lessen with each tournament, but he has repeatedly shown that, if fortune favours him for two weeks, he is more than capable of taking advantage.

Republican strategists believe rise of Mamdani could present opportunity to tag Democrats with most extreme views of the left – key US politics stories from Friday 26 June

Donald Trump has previewed a Republican strategy for the midterm elections, seizing on a progressive sweep in New York to portray Democrats as “godless communists” who pose an existential threat to the nation.

The US president, who was a child during the “red scare”, seized on wins by democratic socialists backed by the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, to stoke fears that the Democratic party has embraced extremism that could lead to the violent persecution of Christians.

Nicholas Rossi died due to complications from a medical condition while serving jail sentence in Utah

Nicholas Rossi, the American rapist who absconded to Scotland after appearing to fake his own death in an attempt to evade justice, has died in hospital in the US.

The 38-year-old had been serving a jail sentence in Utah after being found guilty of raping two women in 2008 following two separate trials in 2024.

The 46-year-old was stopped at about 9.30pm on Friday while preparing to board a Jetstar flight to Perth, according to the Nation Thailand

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An Australian man has been arrested at a Thai airport in connection with the alleged murder of a 17-year-old girl whose body was found in a suitcase, according to local media reports.

The 46-year-old was stopped at about 9.30pm on Friday while preparing to travel on Jetstar flight to Perth, according to the Nation Thailand.

The former Today show host promised he’d ‘unleash the beast’ on his podcast. It has taken less than six months for the beast to overtake the polished star

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In 25 years as the face of Channel Nine, Karl Stefanovic made international news twice. Once when he was crowned “hero of 2014” for wearing the same suit for a year to highlight sexism, and this week when he was dumped from his $2.8m contract for embracing far-right activist Tommy Robinson.

The journey between the two extremes is what the Australian television industry is grappling with as the jovial, popular host of the middle-of-the-road breakfast show took a sharp turn to the right and blew up his $2.8m network television career.

Judge rebukes Christopher Ballard for talking to media but declines defense’s request to take death penalty off table

A Utah judge held a prosecutor in contempt on Friday for speaking to the media about the murder case against the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, but did not grant the defense attorney’s request to bar the death penalty as punishment in the case.

Defense attorneys for Tyler James Robinson, the Utah man who allegedly shot Kirk, a conservative political activist, last September, argued in a March court filing that deputy Utah county attorney Christopher Ballard had violated a pre-trial media gag order.

Study also finds high humidity means people in hundreds of cities are enduring their worst ever heat stress

The heatwave scorching western Europe is the most severe and widespread ever and is only possible due to the climate crisis driven by fossil fuel burning, scientists have said.

Almost half of Europe’s 850 largest cities are also enduring their worst ever heat stress, a combination of temperature and humidity, they found. Muggier conditions mean sweating is less effective at cooling the body, making heatwaves even more dangerous.

As temperatures soar across Europe, cities are struggling to adapt, further exacerbating socioeconomic divisions

The heatwave afflicting western Europe is the worst ever, with the combination of heat and humidity fuelled by the climate crisis making scores of cities feel unliveable. While for some the adverse impacts amount to disturbed sleep and sticky days in the home office, low-income families are often worse affected by cities’ lack of adequate adaptation measures, with women at the sharp end.

“[It] throws a grenade into every vulnerability you already have,” says Asad Rehman, chief executive of Friends of the Earth, pointing out that vulnerable or marginalised groups often bear the brunt of climate crisis-based hardship globally.

Economist Prof Mariana Mazzucato says governments must ‘get back their mojo’ and believe they can change the world

Good governments have a vision. They know what they want to achieve, can articulate why, and work out in public how to get there. They don’t just spout slogans about economic growth – because growth is meaningless unless we know what it is for. They understand that there is no trade-off between solving social problems and boosting the economy, and aim to do both, while avoiding rigid fiscal rules that defeat their own purpose by strangling public investment.

If this sounds like a critique of what went wrong with Keir Starmer’s government, it is also a lot more. Mariana Mazzucato, a professor in the economics of innovation and public value at University College London, is a world-renowned economist, adviser to governments, chair of international commissions, prolific author, and PhD supervisor to at least one poet. She was the thinker who inspired Starmer to fashion his political project around five key “missions”, now largely forgotten in the mire of scandals, U-turns and infighting that beset his premiership.

Three pumped storage hydroelectric power station sites in Scotland on list of 16 long-duration electricity storage plans

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Great Britain’s first new major hydropower projects in more than 40 years are expected to move ahead after the energy regulator gave a provisional green light to three proposals as part of a plan to reduce the country’s reliance on energy imports.

All three of the new pumped storage hydroelectric power station projects are due to be built in northern Scotland, where the region’s lochs will act as natural reservoirs to serve the hydropower stations.

Story of the key figures, decisions, planning and missteps in push to line up Greater Manchester mayor for PM

The third coming of Andy Burnham began in earnest on the dancefloor of the Ministry of Sound. It was the annual conference of the centre-left pressure group Compass on an unusually hot spring weekend in May 2025. Keir Starmer, a year into his premiership, was deep in the trenches of the welfare battle. The event’s keynote speakers were Burnham and Louise Haigh.

Under the hot pink lights, the mayor of Greater Manchester joked that he was doing the “rally the troops” slot, inappropriate for a pessimistic Evertonian. But he said there was one reason to still be cheerful. The threat of Reform, he said, “means the left will now have to make changes that we should have made many years ago … something new is going to break through.”

Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, convicted over 2024 incident of which footage was widely shared on social media

A man has been sentenced to three and a half years in jail after being convicted of assaulting two female police officers and a member of the public at a Starbucks in Manchester airport.

Mohammed Fahir Amaaz, 21, from Rochdale, was convicted of common assault and two counts of actual bodily harm, after a four-week trial at Liverpool crown court last year.

Co-defendants in case against Stockport man in his 60s can be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted

The identities of 13 men charged in the UK alongside a man accused of drugging and raping his wife can be revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted.

The main defendant in the case is due to go on trial in September. He stands accused of drugging and sexually assaulting his wife over a period of 20 years and conspiring with other men to engage in abuse.

Sarah B Rogers speech at conference in London included far-right memes and conspiracy theories about ‘Da Yookay’

Claims by a senior official in the Trump administration that British police were making thousands of “freedom of speech” arrests have been rejected by the UK government.

Sarah B Rogers, who has become the public face of the US state department’s hostility to European liberal democracies, was accused by MPs of echoing far-right memes and conspiracy theories during a speech at an international rightwing conference in London. She also referenced the death of the British teenager Henry Nowak and a recent incident in which a child was thrown into a zoo’s crocodile pit.

Ukrainian president says Crimea at centre of Kyiv’s ‘policy of ensuring justice’ against Moscow. What we know on day 1,584

Authorities in Russian-annexed Crimea have declared an “emergency situation” in a bid to ease the fallout from increasing Ukrainian aerial attacks on the peninsula. Friday’s announcement came amid fuel shortages and power cuts triggered by the Ukrainian attacks on logistics chains and oil facilities across Crimea, the rest of Russian-occupied Ukraine and southern Russia. Kyiv calls its stepped up air attacks fair retribution for Russia’s near-daily barrages on Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying on social media: “We are doing everything to force Russia to end the war and restore justice. And it is Crimea that is at the centre of this policy of ensuring justice.”

The Russia-installed governor of Sevastopol said emergency ⁠crews had worked to ease power cuts but told residents of Crimea’s largest city to use appliances sparingly to ⁠avoid power overloads and shortages. Crimea authorities have already suspended fuel sales to private motorists, and Sevastopol introduced restrictions on operating ⁠hours for public transport, shops, cafes and street lights. The restrictions come as Russian air defences shot down 660 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over Moscow and Crimea, its defence ministry said on Friday – one of the highest figures since the start of the war. “Today, Ukraine is depriving Russia of this launchpad and drawing a line under its attempts to normalise war,” Zelenskyy said.

Two countries on Nato’s eastern flank have warned that Russia is preparing a possible “provocation” in the Baltic states or Poland in an effort to test the cohesion of the western military alliance, reports Dan Sabbagh. Western sources also fear there could be danger on the horizon because the Kremlin is coming under pressure from Ukraine’s campaign of long-range attacks on targets near Moscow and St Petersburg.

A Russian drone ⁠strike on ⁠Friday ​killed two passengers aboard a minibus in Ukraine’s south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and ⁠one person in the border Sumy region, regional officials said. Dnipropetrovsk’s regional ⁠governor said on two people ‌died and 12 were injured, including two ‌children, in the strike in Nikopol, while Sumy’s regional governor said a drone strike there killed a man in a village outside ⁠the main regional centre, also called Sumy.

An oil tanker suspected of being part of ⁠Russia’s “shadow fleet” was taken to waters near Marseille on Friday, a ⁠day after it ⁠was ​seized by France’s navy near Sicily, local authorities said. The vessel, the Deliver, ⁠is one of nine ships that have been seized across Europe since the ⁠start of 2026, all thought to have been ​used by Russia ‌to evade ‌western sanctions on its oil trade. The Russian embassy in ​France called the seizure “piracy”.

Ukraine plans to build domestic computing capacity for artificial intelligence with Kyivstar, the company said on Friday. Kyivstar said it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the economy ministry at the ⁠Ukraine Recovery Conference in Gdansk, while parent VEON would provide financial backing for a first phase ​that Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov said could ‌need at least 3-5 ‌megawatts of capacity and tens of millions of dollars. “The biggest consumer of Ukrainian AI ‌right now is the military,” Komarov told Reuters. “You cannot run military computing somewhere outside. It is a matter of national security.”

Ukraine and Russia swapped 160 captured soldiers on Friday, Moscow and Kyiv said, the latest prisoner of war exchange in war. Zelenskyy said the Ukrainians had all been held captive since 2022 and posted pictures on social media of the men wrapped in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flags, smiling and embracing each other. After the release Russian ⁠human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova said she and her Ukrainian counterpart ⁠Dmytro Lubinets had agreed to ⁠jointly visit prisoners ​of ‌war and ‌had exchanged lists ‌of soldiers being held by both countries, Russia’s state RIA news agency ‌reported.

Former Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov, once seen as a possible successor to President Vladimir Putin, has died at the age of 73. Ivanov ⁠was a key member ⁠of the group known as ​the “siloviki”, or strongmen, who, like Putin, had risen through the ranks of the Soviet KGB security service and wielded huge influence after Putin took power at the turn of the millennium. The Kremlin said in a statement on Friday that Putin “expressed his deepest condolences” to Ivanov’s family and friends. Ivanov helped shape Russia’s post-Soviet security state and later framed Nato’s expansion as a strategic concern for Russia.

Authorities say couple failed to take young boy to doctor and did not provide safe environment at home

A Michigan couple has been charged with murder after authorities say their son died weighing more than 250lbs (113kg) despite being just seven years old.

The investigation into the case’s circumstances began on 4 November 2025 after a 911 call reported a young boy in medical distress at a home in Flint township, Michigan. The child, identified as Casper O’Brien, died after being taken to a hospital.

Fire and Rescue NSW uses thermal imaging and a mobile phone red light to quickly locate men who veered off walking track near Jindabyne

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Two hikers who veered off a walking track in Kosciuszko national park have been found within five hours using a drone powered by artificial intelligence, a first-of-its-kind mission, Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) has said.

The two men, aged in their 20s, were reported missing at 7pm on Tuesday evening after they failed to return to a rendezvous point on time.

Experts say move signals greater political interference into public health and will exacerbate opioid overdose crisis

Health programs receiving federal funding must agree within days to new priorities from the Trump administration, including a focus on “parental authority” in education and a move away from proven overdose-prevention methods like harm reduction, suggesting greater political control over public health.

The new priorities will likely affect progress against the opioid crisis, and they could signal an attack on vaccination requirements at schools, which are set at the state and local level. The priorities may also weaponize public health to quash “public disorder.”

High temperatures make some workplaces dangerous, with economists warning disruption will dent growth

Monique Mosley is used to sweltering conditions at the food factory in Yorkshire where she works, but June’s record-breaking heatwave has made conditions unbearable. “We make hot filled food products and it’s common that we see temperatures in the high 30s,” she said. “Thanks to our union, our employer is offering extra breaks, but not every workplace is the same.”

The latest heatwave to grip the UK and much of western Europe has presented significant challenges to employers and their employees, from sweltering offices, disrupted commutes and school closures to dangerous construction sites where workers are at risk of dehydration, heatstroke and other injury.

Airport has also been ‘engaging closely’ with regulator to discuss cost of plan to build third runway

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Heathrow has said that passenger numbers and profits will fall this year because of the war in the Middle East.

Europe’s busiest airport said it expected a 1.1% decline in the total number of passengers to 83.6 million as the Iran war affects air travel.

Hundreds of graduates and interns at finance firm will now have to work in office at least three days a week

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Revolut will haul hundreds of graduates and interns into the office next year, as the digital bank moves away from its “remote-first” policy that has long been used to lure new recruits.

The London-headquartered fintech company had previously allowed its young trainees to choose whether to work from home or Revolut’s offices, reflecting flexible working arrangements offered to all other staff. That included the option of working abroad for 120 days of the year, with the company saying it trusts employees to “explore new cultures while staying productive and connected”.

German firm reportedly considering doubling previously announced staff reductions amid Chinese competition

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Germany’s Volkswagen is to cut up to 100,000 jobs and reduce and eventually stop production at some plants, according to reports.

The company has refused to comment on reports of a management presentation at a board meeting outlining dramatic cost cutting, but if it goes ahead it would mean Volkswagen doubling previously announced staff reductions.

It’s been a funny and frantic ride with Two Weeks in August. Plus: Alexander Armstrong embarks on an American odyssey. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC One

Now 84, the voice of Heat Wave and Jimmy Mack is releasing a new album. She answers your questions on Marvin Gaye, popularising the roundabout and why she hates cover versions of her songs

You were part of perhaps the richest and most exciting era of music since the German and Italian classics of the 19th century. How was it for you and what made it all tick? eamonmcc
William Stevenson discovered me after I had won an amateur contest. It was like a dream come true that a producer would come and approach me and say, “You have talent, come to Hitsville, USA.” I took his advice and showed up the next day unannounced and was immediately placed in a position as secretary [at Motown Records]. It felt real good that I was at the right place at the right time. It was magical to me and it’s all been just a glorious ride.

The Motown production line is sometimes compared to the production line of cars in Detroit. Is there anything to that, do you think? mesm
Motown and Ford are synonymous. My dad worked for Ford and [Motown founder] Berry Gordy worked there as an employee. It taught Berry Gordy the way to represent and how to manage and how to give people assignments. He called it Motown or Motortown. So, it’s all combined: Motor City, Detroit, manufacturing, making music as an assembly line.

Reese Witherspoon’s 00s movie is a beloved cult classic – and now she’s using a spinoff to battle these dark times. The creators of Elle talk miniskirts, car phones and why people need to take teenage girls more seriously

If there’s a young adult romance on TV, we millennial women will watch it. Throw in a love triangle or an emotionally available hockey player having an open conversation about consent, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a cultural phenomenon. Cover it in girlhood nostalgia and serve it to us every summer for our inner teenager to swoon over.

Teen girl-centric dramas have taken streamers by storm in 2026, with love stories reminiscent of a Taylor Swift song that leave viewers smitten for boys half their age. The likes of hockey romance Off Campus or poetically charming drama Every Year After take a sensational soundtrack and add some coming-of-age pains, friendship dramas and relationship dilemmas.

The director and activist on her fictional drama Roya, drawing on her experience of imprisonment and torture, and why even in Europe she feels unsafe

Mahnaz Mohammadi is a survivor. The Iranian film-maker and women’s rights activist has been arrested on many occasions and imprisoned several times. In 2011, she was held for months in solitary confinement and tortured. In 2014, she was sentenced to five years and spent several months in prison. A few years ago, she met one of her first interrogators, from an early arrest.

“Do you know what he said to me?” she says. “He said he told his colleagues that after doing all those things, if I were going back behind the camera, it meant they couldn’t do anything with me. When I heard this from his mouth, I thought: ‘He’s right! Nobody can hurt me.’”

The film-makers and stars of the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders docu-series explain the sisterhood and fights for fair pay behind the pompoms

It’s been 30 years since the Dallas Cowboys – who have long billed themselves as America’s Team – won the Super Bowl. But now, thanks to Greg Whiteley’s Netflix docu-series America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, the most reliable and globally recognizable arm of the Cowboys brand may no longer be the men playing football, but the women dancing on the sidelines.

“The footballers are gonna break your heart,” one fan says in the Season 3 finale. “But the cheerleaders are gonna leave you with a smile.”

Will X-Men’s Jean Grey be in the fourth Marvel Spidey film? What about Spider-Girl? Which Hulk will we see? Who is the real villain? And is Marvel fuelling the internet’s frenzied rumour machine on purpose?

It’s hard to pinpoint when Marvel trailers stopped being mere hype and started teeing up their own conspiracy theories, but it was probably around the time that early footage from Spider-Man: No Way Home appeared to show the Lizard getting thumped by thin air – and the internet correctly pointed out the recently deleted digital ghost of Andrew Garfield. Since then we’ve had Patrick Stewart’s voice hinting at a Professor X cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and Wakanda Forever revealing a new Black Panther suit while declining to mention that Shuri was inside it.

Now it’s happening again with Spider-Man: Brand New Day. With the fourth Marvel Spidey film out next month, the internet is abuzz with predictions. “This movie is a real mystery,” Tom Holland told Esquire. “And for a large portion of the film even Spider-Man is a little bit at odds and lost and is like, ‘What is going on?’ We’re just trying to find ways to make this movie feel like a detective movie.”

They were a big 00s buzz band – but looked in danger of fading out. Empowered by fatherhood and anger at war and AI, the New Yorkers explain why they ‘really showed up’ again

Suits. Gnomic poetry. Moody, insistent riffs. It used to be that you’d know what to expect from NYC rockers Interpol. The band’s first two albums, in the early 00s, were blockbuster successes, shifting half a million units each thanks to dramatic songs also fit for jerking around at an indie disco. Interpol duly jumped up to a major label, but then quickly fell back down again. Their talismanic bassist Carlos Dengler quit, and the band settled into a decade of solidly successful but pretty predictable albums. The most recent, 2022’s The Other Side of Make Believe, only reached No 178 on the US charts.

So it’s a bit unexpected that their upcoming eighth album, This Mirror Weighs a Ton, is their masterpiece. “We just all really showed up,” frontman-guitarist Paul Banks says of a band that has swelled to a quintet as two touring musicians, bassist Brad Truax and keyboardist Brandon Curtis, become full-time members. “The lyrics on the last record, it’s really hard for me to identify with what I was doing,” Banks continues. “I felt as if I made some mistakes.” What were they? “I don’t want to draw attention to them! I just didn’t want to walk away with that feeling again.”

With country music festival attendances soaring and US artists selling out tours, are British and Irish audiences ready for “the full Southern experience”?

“There’s a certain magic with country music in the UK right now,” says Anna-Sophie Mertens, smiling in hi-vis from the build at State Fayre, the UK’s newest festival for country fans. It is located in Chelmsford but styled like the American South – think clapboard, rusted metal and water points disguised as retro gas stations – and this weekend, the gates will open to 50,000 country devotees.

Country is the UK’s fastest-growing genre, according to data from the Country Music Association (CMA), and has been for three years in a row. Until 2023, UK tastes leaned towards legacy acts, but now modern megastars such as Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs and Cowboy Carter-era Beyoncé have taken the wheel, reflecting a changing of the guard.

(Dead Oceans)
The US singer took years away from public life after her silvery balladry reshaped pop. Her return is an ornate reinvention

Since her Boygenius supergroup with Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus went on hiatus in February 2024, Phoebe Bridgers has taken a wholehearted break from life in the public eye. Who could blame her? Bridgers became a figure of invasive parasocial behaviour from fans after her spooked, sad second album, 2020’s Punisher, resonated with life under lockdown and made her a superstar. In recent years, young women making introspective and ornate indie-rock songs have risen to startling, pop star levels of fame and scrutiny – and none more so than Bridgers and her peer Mitski. When Bridgers was rumoured to be engaged in 2022, fans possessed by her devastating music rued her happiness; when she started a new relationship, the gossip mill churned. In 2023, she castigated the so-called fans who aggressed her in an airport while on the way to her father’s funeral.

Even her recent analogue return has prompted reactions that might have a less self-possessed artist wondering why they bother. Last month, mysterious posters started appearing in small towns across the US advertising surprise $1 Bridgers shows in intimate venues later that night, before a concluding gig at New York’s gigantic Madison Square Garden. Phones were banned, along with any kind of recording device, including pen and paper, to stop audience members from writing down lyrics from her third album and sharing them online. The backlash to this – some fans accused her of ableism – prompted its own backlash, a tiresome Russian doll of discourse that’s still dragging on.

(Flee)
A treasure trove of field recordings are reshaped into pulsating floor-fillers and sparse baile funk by a range of producers

The Brazilian religious and musical tradition of candomblé is a rhythmic barrage. Originating in the 19th century among enslaved west Africans, candomblé manifested in music as a ritual practice of drumming circles, where polyrhythms were hammered out to induce possession by spirits. Athens-based archival label Flee presents a treasure trove of this ceremonial music from a community in Salvador in the late 1980s, alongside a series of ingenious remixes made by contemporary artists.

Side one of the album hosts the field recordings. Hazy, unbalanced and full of tape hiss, the 10 ritual compositions pull listeners into the frenetic environment in which they were recorded. It is as if we are sitting next to the tape recorder witnessing the overlapping, joyous voices glimpsed in the distance on Ossaim or the singular male voice that wails movingly before disappearing on Xangô. The experience can feel frustratingly fragmented, but if melody is fleeting, the drumming is not. Clattering, clave-style hits produce infectious movement on Ogum, while bells and a mid-tempo swing create the feel of undulating waves on Entrada dos Orixás.

The writer and newly installed University of Sydney professor on the lure of Berlin, authors versus AI, and writing ‘from a place of admiration’

Anna Funder is mere days into her new role at the University of Sydney when we meet there on an overcast Friday afternoon; she waves vaguely in the direction of her new office and says she hasn’t yet unpacked. So, with her encouragement, I gamely agree to play tour guide around my alma mater and continue to until, about halfway through the interview, she starts telling me about the architecture – at which point it becomes clear how her easy and self-effacing manner can function as a smokescreen for the sharpness of her mind.

As we set off past the beds of majestic fig trees and the manicured lawns surrounding the university’s sandstone quadrangle, passing backpacked students and fresh graduates posing for photos, I ask the newly installed professor of practice in creative writing what her own experience of studying creative writing was like. She looks stricken: “We’re starting with a confession.

A mouse detective; a fresh take on the Odyssey; a dangerous wish; and the world’s most watched reality TV show

My Dad Can by Stephen Lightbown, illustrated by Claire Sahara Lemp, Quarto, £7.99
Iris’s dad can turn into dinosaurs, unicorns, anything she imagines – though some people see Dad’s wheelchair and believe he can’t do anything. This soft-smudged, colourful picture book celebrates the playfulness and creativity of parenthood.

The Fluffy Futon by Yuichi Kasano, translated by Cathy Hirano, Gecko, £12.99
When Grandma spreads a futon on the sunny porch to air, it’s so fluffy that kittycat, Grandma, hen, chicks and the whole household join each other for a nap in this delightful picture book, perfect for enjoying at bedtime.

The novelist on being inspired by Shirley Jackson, discovering the brilliance of Denis Johnson, and finding comfort in Elizabeth Strout

My earliest reading memory
When I was five and starting school, I would catch a coach from the Oxfordshire village where I lived. Twice a day I read the little metal plaque screwed to the upholstery, which gave the warning “Mind your head when leaving your seat”.

My favourite book growing up
In the late 1970s my dad had a copy of Phenomena by John Michell. Each page covers something strange, which might or might not be true: showers of fish, stigmata, spontaneous human combustion. I would lie on the carpet flicking through the pages and loving the chills it gave me that (maybe) there could be such weirdness in the world.

The son of fugitive leaders of the militant Weather Underground recounts his chaotic, peripatetic upbringing

Every aspect of a family’s life will seem normal to the small children within it; only hindsight can bring what was abnormal into relief. Zayd Ayers Dohrn’s earliest years were spent on the run from the FBI; his parents were members of the revolutionary Weather Underground faction, a group dedicated to the overthrow of the US government.

By the age of three he had been coached by his parents on how to recognise plainclothes officers on the street. “It was a bit like playing a game – a grownup version of dress-up or make-believe,” he recalls. He has fond memories of long night-time drives between safehouses. As well as fellow revolutionaries, his family encountered gangsters, IRA members and abortion activists, along with countless undocumented migrant workers.

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

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

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

The blockbuster launch is expected to dwarf the box office takings of the year’s biggest movies with one industry analyst predicting it could make $1bn within an hour

It is, quite simply, the most anticipated piece of entertainment since the Star Wars prequels and now, at last, you can reserve a copy. At midnight last night, Rockstar opened preorders on Grand Theft Auto VI, the latest title in the epic open-world gangster adventure series, five months before its 19 November release date on PS5 and Xbox Series S/X.

Prices have also been confirmed, with the standard edition costing $80 in the US, £70 in the UK, and €80 in Europe. An Ultimate Edition (£90/€100/$100) will include exclusive in-game cars, clothes and weapons – the developer has confirmed that there will also be in-game stores that are only open to Ultimate owners. Anyone who pre-orders the game will get a Vintage Vice City pack filled with 80s apparel and other nostalgic items, which look to be straight out of Don Johnson’s Miami Vice wardrobe.

As football fans revel in the real world tournament, its digital counterparts continue to stumble in capturing the ​hyped up ​atmosphere

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I come with a warning to all football fans: if you’ve been enjoying the World Cup enough to think, “I’d like to re-enact this on a football video game”, do not go to Netflix and play Fifa World Cup: Launch Edition, the officially licensed game of the tournament, which streams via your smart TV or computer. Developed by the virtually unknown Delphi Interactive, it’s a juddering, dated calamity, with sluggish controls (via your phone, once you’ve downloaded the app) and commentary courtesy of Clive Tyldesley that delivers all the excitement of a robotic train station announcement.

Until this, it was largely agreed that the worst World Cup football game in history was World Cup Carnival, the first official Fifa tie-in, which was released on various home computers in 1986. Publisher US Gold thought it had a deal with the Manchester studio Ocean Software to repurpose its acclaimed title Match Day, but the agreement fell through. With three months to go before Mexico 86, US Gold was forced to effectively rebadge a dire 1984 sim, World Cup Football, by the fading developer Artic. To add some value to the package, the game was released in a fancy big box complete with a fixtures chart, a World Cup facts poster and some flag stickers. Nobody was fooled – the World Cup Carnival was a critical and commercial disaster.

As phrases like easter eggs and looksmaxxing enter everyday language, what other words from the world of video games might soon be mainstream?

Twenty years ago, video games were seen as a niche hobby dominated by hardcore enthusiasts, tucked away in obscure online forums and gaming meet-ups. Back then, the idea that governments would use footage from Call of Duty and gaming terms such as “killstreaks” as war propaganda would have been absurd. Then the 2010s happened: nerd culture popularised, previously online-only spaces began to meld with the real world, and gaming went mainstream.

Now, gaming references have entered common parlance – at the end of 2024, video game terms including “cheat code” and “cutscene” were even added to the Oxford English Dictionary – and they increasingly crop up in politics, too. Earlier this year, the official White House X account posted footage of military strikes on Iran interspersed with footage from the video game Grand Theft Auto. Six days later, another video was posted, this time interspersing military footage with clips from Nintendo’s 2006 game Wii Sports. Video game references aren’t reserved for the political right, either: in February 2026, Democrat representative of New York Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quipped, “Why does this guy always talk like a World of Warcraft npc [non-player character]?” in response to a post on X by Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff.

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
Full of surprises, Stephanie Lake’s 2018 piece is a feat of logistics as 60 performers display split-second timing

Mass movement can have a walloping impact. Whether in military parades or Olympic opening ceremonies, Busby Berkeley routines or the corps de ballet, a vast number of bodies chiming together in precise formation equals automatic wow factor.

Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake knows it, and her piece Colossus, which was originally made in 2018, has been performed all over the world. Clips from it went viral online. Now it has a UK premiere with a cast of 60 students from the London Contemporary Dance School – enough of them to fill the stage of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

At Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, until 27 June

Arnolfini, Bristol
The English artist has created a tense world of folkloric psychedelia and pagan aesthetics that is weird, threatening – and utterly compelling

Arms are spread, hands are grasping, lips are puckered: everything in Jonathan Baldock’s eerie, uncomfortable, strange exhibition of tapestries and ceramics at Bristol’s Arnolfini is reaching out to you. The whole exhibition is an invitation to be held, or maybe its cuddliness is a threat, a violent trap.

The English artist has created a tense world of folkloric psychedelia and pagan aesthetics here. Don’t read any of the bumf on the wall, it’s couched in gentle, therapy-lite language about “radical gestures” and “holding space for queer and working-class stories”. It doesn’t fit the show. Not that this isn’t about queerness and the working class, because it absolutely is. It’s just that this isn’t gentle and soft art, it’s weird and threatening and menacing – that’s why it’s so good.

Lyric Hammersmith, London
Four siblings squabble over an art treasure possibly stolen by their grandfather in this riotous play by Ben Ockrent

Ben Ockrent’s black comedy about a family in mourning has distinct strains of the ludicrous, though the cartoonish absurdities creep in gradually. But then families are ludicrous: badly behaved and falling into their early, childish roles, especially in extremis.

The extreme situation here is not the recent death of a mother in itself, which has led four adult siblings to gather at her home and hash out matters of inheritance, but a single item passed down by their grandfather which brings them to blows.

At Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 18 July

The Chinese artist goes large on colonialism, a group show tackles a fun theme and Xanthe Somers’ stoneware fools the eye – all in your weekly dispatch

Ai Weiwei: Button Up!
If any artist can fill the vast home of Factory International, it’s Ai Weiwei, with an installation about world history, colonialism … and buttons.
• Aviva Studios, Manchester, from 2 July to 6 September

Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series accounts for eight of the 10 most read books by 11- to 14-year-old boys, while girls the same age enjoy a wider range of authors and genres

Teenage boys are “stuck” reading primary school books such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid, while girls their age are moving on to a wider range of novels, according to a new study.

Among the boys aged 11 to 14 who were surveyed, eight of the 10 most read books were from Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Girls’ reading was spread across a wider range of authors and genres including Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Source: Renaissance

Mezzo-soprano who performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Welsh National Opera and was acclaimed for her interpretations of Kurt Weill

The mezzo-soprano Meriel Dickinson, who has died aged 86, was recognised internationally for both her classical and contemporary vocal repertoire. In operas, oratorios and premieres of new works, she performed with some of the greatest composers of the last century – Benjamin Britten, Pierre Boulez, John Cage and Aaron Copland – as well as leading conductors such as Adrian Boult and Simon Rattle.

Highlights of her career included Beethoven’s Choral Symphony at the 1969 Vienna festival under George Szell. She recalled: “I was understandably nervous of Szell. His somewhat autocratic manner had been known to subdue the London Symphony Orchestra. However, in the end he was very charming, complimenting me on my voice and German pronunciation.”

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

(Warner)
From Count Dracula organ to choirs crying in Latin, the Devon band are scenery-chewingly preposterous​ yet nuanced on this epic about extraterrestrial life

Barely three minutes of Muse’s 10th album has elapsed before a choir make an appearance: a choir that isn’t singing so much as chanting in Latin, like something you might hear on the soundtrack to an occult-themed horror film. “Sanctus!” they cry. “Dominus!” And, inevitably, “Lucifer!”

The choir are harder to hear than you might think, battling as they are against everything else that’s going on during The Wow! Signal’s opening track, The Dark Forest: a cantering electronic bassline not a million miles removed from those you used to get on the hi-NRG records that soundtracked mid-80s gay clubs; a string section sawing away as if their lives depended on it; a distorted electric guitar playing frantic prog-metal arpeggios; and frontman Matt Bellamy wildly emoting through a chanson-like vocal melody: “Stars extinguish themselves in fear!” he sings. “We will all beg for extinction!”

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

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

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

Up to 97% of autistic people over 60 are undiagnosed. Experts offer up advice for family members on how to support this ‘neglected generation’

There has been a huge shift in awareness around neurodiversity recently, with improved provision for children in schools and increased middle-age diagnosis and detection in women. Still, one group has remained underserved when it comes to support; adults over 60. A recent study estimated that 89-97% of autistic people over 60 are undiagnosed, leading experts in the field, such as Dr Louise Rutter (who last year co-authored a report on the subject for the British Psychological Society) to brand them a “neglected generation”.

It’s an issue facing adult children who might be caring for older parents and recognising traits of autism and ADHD. You may be wondering where to find support – or whether that’s the best course of action (the experts say it is). Here’s a guide.

Our expert put in the hard yards to find the top coolers to keep your wine crisp, whether you’re hosting, picnicking or just want to plonk your bottle in something stylish

• The best no- and low-alcohol wines for when you’re off the booze

I’ll admit to being a bit of a wine cooler sceptic – at home, at least. Don’t get me wrong: I love a crisp, cool glass as much as the next summer rosé guzzler. The temperature at which we serve wine is important, but I’m wary of any inessential gadgetry that threatens to take up prime real estate in my already cluttered kitchen.

What’s more, wine coolers are misleadingly named. In most cases, they don’t actually cool a bottle of wine – ie, bring down its temperature – but maintain it. This is the point of one on a restaurant table; for those who order a bottle (admittedly a dying breed), it can be kept at a relatively consistent temperature for the duration of their meal. For everyday drinking at home indoors, however, there isn’t much need for a cooler – we can keep returning the bottle to the fridge in between pours. But as picnic season approaches, coolers can come into their own. No one wants to ruin the romance of alfresco dining with warm wine. And bringing a wine cooler to a picnic definitely shows you mean business.

Best wine cooler for hosting and overall:
Peugeot Equilibreur

Best wine cooler for a picnic:
Le Creuset sleeve

As temperatures soar across the UK, chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling aircon – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless

• The best portable neck and handheld fans
• Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan review

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.

Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.

Best quiet fan for the bedroom and best overall:
AirCraft Lume – preorder now for delivery early July, or consider the cordless version (£179) or table fan (£129) for faster delivery

Best budget fan and best desk fan:
Devola desk fan – currently out of stock

Whether your patch is big or small, tackle long grass and tricky corners with our tester’s pick of the top cordless and corded models. Plus, how to protect wildlife when trimming

• How to create a more eco-friendly lawn

You can mow your lawn as little or as often as you like, but it won’t look truly perfect until you’ve neatened up the edges. As with most garden tasks, you can do this manually, using a decent pair of edging shears – or, if you’re not a fan of manual labour, you can use a grass trimmer instead.

Rather than traditional cutting blades, grass trimmers usually use one or two lengths of nylon string about 1.6mm thick. A motor spins this so fast that it stiffens and can shear through light vegetation such as grass and weeds.

Best grass trimmer overall:
Stihl FSA 50

Best budget grass trimmer:
Mac Allister MCI1198GGT

Whether it’s a surprisingly roomy bag, cargo pants or a don’t-try-too-hard jacket, we’ve rounded up the festival wear for men and women that’s worthy of an encore

• The new rules of concert dressing

You never really know what you’re going to get when it comes to festivals. Veterans know to be prepared for anything, come rain or shine. So, planning your clothing choices is as important as planning your lineup for the day. Nothing kills the vibe like wearing flip-flops or white trainers when the ground resembles more of a swamp than a field.

There is a certain freedom that comes with festival dressing, too. Everyone is there for the same reason – to listen to music and have a good time. If you’re looking to experiment with something different, festivals are the place to do it.

An easy cheese, peas and egg dish, enhanced with leeks and greens, makes a crowdpleasing summer meal

Whenever I think of cheese and peas together, I think of “Cheesy peas!”, a fictional food advertised to “northern types” by Paul Whitehouse as part of a comedy sketch on The Fast Show, a television series broadcast in the UK in the 1990s. The advert went like this: “Think cheese! Think peas! Think cheesy peas! They’re great for your teas. It’s easy-peasy with cheesy peas, please!” I couldn’t agree more, and I couldn’t think of a better way to introduce today’s recipe for a simple, summery frittata, except to say: think about eggs and spinach too.

Two chefs lift the lid on the expensive business of creating menus they love

You pay: £21
Restaurant profit: £1.65

Apricot season is about to kick off in earnest, so make the most of that honeyed perfume with this soft, buttery cake

Late June is when apricots begin to appear in earnest, piled high on market stalls and often giving off that elusive, honeyed perfume that suggests they might actually taste as good as they smell. This simple traybake makes the most of them: the cake is soft and buttery, with soured cream lending tenderness and a gentle tang, while the apricots themselves slump slightly into the batter while they bake. The sugar, made fragrant with rosemary, orange zest and vanilla, forms a delicate crust on top.

Beat the heat with pistachio sammies, fruit lollies, mint chocolate semifreddo and green-tea ice-box cake

During a recent traffic jam, on a day so hot it felt stagnant and seemingly eternal, I found myself in a private reverie of superiority. My fellow drivers, slumped in their baking metal shells, were observers to my good fortune: a homemade blackcurrant and white peach ice lolly – sharp and fruity, with a delicate almond flavour (the result of having used slightly underripe peaches) – plucked from the freezer in a rare moment of foresight. I licked it with the conviction that it was the only object of desire between Elephant and Castle and Acton Central in London. Ice lollies are fab(!) You will need silicone moulds and some wooden sticks.

Kitty Travers is owner of La Grotta Ices in London, and author of La Grotta Ices, published by Vintage at £25. To order a copy, go to guardianbookshop.com.

Annabel is embarrassed when she spots crumbs in Teddy’s facial hair, but he finds her nudges shaming. Who is being prickly? You decide

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

I don’t want to get his food on my face when I kiss him, and I don’t want him looking silly in public

The standup and Bafta-winner on experiencing grief at a young age, his mischievous grandmother, and why he refuses to learn to drive

Born in Watford in 1993, Jack Rooke is a comedian, actor and writer. He studied journalism at the University of Westminster, and began his standup career in 2014. Rooke’s breakout show, Good Grief, was written with his grandmother, Sicely, and documented their experiences of bereavement following the death of Rooke’s father, Laurie, from cancer. His next show, Happy Hour, became the basis for his two-time Bafta-winning Channel 4 comedy, Big Boys. Rooke is taking an updated version of Good Grief on a UK tour, starting at the Roundhouse in London on 14 August. Rooke is an ambassador for the suicide prevention charity Calm.

I am three years old and being pushed by my nan on a swing. She’s in a lovely powder-blue two-piece while I am sporting an iconic all-in-one black-and-white striped mini boiler suit dungaree scenario. For reasons we will never know, I look rather unimpressed.

More locations are offering debt advice, health services, cafes, social activities and support under one roof

Shortly before lunchtime in a London community centre, older visitors are chatting over coffee and crosswords as young families drift in and out. Kitchen volunteers from the Real Junk Food Project are preparing lunch at a “pay as you feel” cafe, using food that would otherwise have ended up in the bin.

Conversations inside the Victorian building at the East Twickenham Neighbourhood Association (ETNA) community centre range from financial advice to digital support, via childcare and legal services. There are counselling drop-ins and self-help groups, while down the corridor yoga is about to start. Over the course of the day, it all builds a picture of what community hubs offer local people.

Meg was married to a man but had fantasised having sex with women for years. When she met Jess, her knees buckled

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

I’d spent so many years visualising having sex with a woman

From a London tower near reservoirs to a Plymouth townhouse close to a historic saltwater lido

Changes due to take effect next year for stocks and shares Isas have become clearer, prompting concern

The way you can invest in Isas will change next April, and for under-65s that will mean a reduced limit on the amount of money that can be saved tax-free in a cash Isa.

This week, the new rules became clearer, prompting concern among investors that they may have to pay tax on some of their holdings.

The Passport Office accepted applications for my two other children but refused the youngest with exactly the same documents

I am a Briton living in Switzerland and my three children are British and Swiss nationals.

When we found out via the Guardian that dual nationals, who live overseas, are now required to hold a British passport in order to enter the UK, we set about applying, so the children can continue to visit their English relatives.

Treasury also promises a new first-time buyer Isa with no upper age limit, as the ‘age at which a first home is bought is rising’

Isa reforms announced on Tuesday promise a new first-time buyer account with no upper age limit, and a tax on interest on cash savings held in a stocks and shares wrapper.

Savers and investors can currently deposit up to £20,000 a year in Isas, which offer the chance to earn returns which are not subject to tax.

How much do our genes determine about our lives, and could they influence traits like risk-taking, antisocial behaviour or even violence? Ian Sample talks to Kathryn Paige Harden, a behavioural geneticist and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin who studies how genetic factors shape human behaviour. In her book Original Sin she explores how nature and nurture combine to influence our likelihood of committing crimes, and asks whether the ‘cause’ of our actions matters for how we think about culpability

Order Original Sin from the Guardian bookshop

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

As a kid, I did my best to avoid exercise. As an adult, I endured it for the sake of my health. Then I set myself a clear goal – and motivation was no longer an issue

It’s fair to say I don’t come from a long line of athletes. When I was growing up in the 1990s, sport was something other people did; we were not a family who cycled, much less jogged. In PE I was the wheezing child hiding behind the bins, pretending I’d twisted an ankle. When I contemplated working out – not often – I had the vague idea it was supposed to turn my body into something other people might find attractive.

I evolved from an unsporty child into an unsporty adult. Occasionally, mostly in an attempt to lose weight without having to stop eating croissants, I would attempt something like Couch to 5K, which I’d either abandon after a couple of sessions or see through to the bitter end out of the perverse determination to prove I’d been right all along: exercise was a mug’s game and endorphins an invention of Big Wellness.

Jenny Kleeman investigates ‘Biotech Barbie’ Cathy Tie, the controversial entrepreneur hoping to revolutionise human reproduction by letting parents edit their embryos

Meet Cathy Tie: serial entrepreneur, self-described “Biotech Barbie”, and the woman aiming to revolutionise reproduction by using Crispr to edit human embryos.

Beneath the tech-startup polish lies a provocative mission: to take the biological lottery out of the hands of nature and place it into the hands of parents.

Mobility can’t be tracked on a leaderboard, but it can help you feel better and make daily tasks easier

Fitness is often measured through numbers: how much weight a person can lift, or how fast or far they can run. But one important metric is harder to quantify: mobility.

Mobility gets overlooked, because the relevant exercises do not “have the instant visual appeal of traditional workouts”, says Tyler McDonald, certified personal trainer and senior brand manager for the National Academy of Sports Medicine.

How to start meditating

How to start weightlifting

How to start budgeting

How to start running

90/90 hip switches: Sit on the floor with the front leg bent at a 90-degree angle (thigh out in front of you and calf perpendicular to you) and the back leg bent at a 90-degree angle (thigh out to the side, calf roughly parallel to you). Slowly rotate your knees to the opposite side without lifting your feet off the floor. “This is fantastic for opening tight hips,” McDonald says.

Cat-cow stretch. With your hands and knees on the ground, arch your back towards the ceiling, dropping your head between your arms. Then, slowly drop your back and raise your head and glutes towards the ceiling. This helps with spine mobility.

World’s greatest stretch. Yes, this stretch has quite the name, but for good reason. Start in a plank. Bring the right leg forward into a low lunge position. Stretch the right arm overhead towards the ceiling, twisting the upper body. Then, bring the right hand behind the head and attempt to touch the ground with the right elbow. “It hits your hips, hamstrings and upper back all at once, making it incredibly efficient,” says McDonald.

Brollies are becoming year-round must-haves, as designers from Burberry to Blunt cater to people ducking out of the sun

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A bottle of water and a handheld fan are regularly deployed to keep cool while out and about in hot weather. With temperatures reaching record levels for June, though, a new heatwave accessory has emerged: the sunbrella.

On high streets around the country, people wielding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun have become a common sight. On Thursday, as the Austrian Grand Prix declared a heat hazard, Lewis Hamilton was spotted in the paddock holding a Ferrari red umbrella that matched his race suit. And they’re popping up on catwalks, too. At the Dior show during Paris fashion week on Wednesday, guests including the actors James Marsden and Mike Faist were handed large cream umbrellas to help ease their discomfort as temperatures hit 38C.

Influential designer of men’s clothes who was inspired by workwear, military kit and expeditionary gear

“I’m like a big giant sieve of history and I just turn it into the clothes,” said Nigel Cabourn of the inspiration for his decades of quietly influential designs for men’s clothes. To Cabourn, who has died aged 76, history meant war – his grandfather’s memories of trenches in the first world war, his father’s stories of Burma in the second, even his own awareness of the US M65 field jacket and other uniform novelties of the Vietnam war, as paired with jeans by students and protesters post-1968.

He was passionate about mountaineering and exploring too, especially Edmund Hillary’s conquest of Everest, and the Antarctic expeditions of Shackleton and Scott. He was also a football fan, thrilled sartorially by the dark-clad figure of Lev Yashin in goal for the Soviet Union in the 1958 World Cup.

Finding the weather too hot to handle? It will be a breeze with one of these soothing sprays

I wrote this from very sunny Corfu, while Britain enjoyed – or suffered, depending on your tolerance – a full-blown heatwave. Dyson’s new HushJet Mini Cool personal fan (£99.99) temporarily sold out (since restocked), and questions about Shark’s viral new ChillPill 3-in-1 Fan, Mist & InstaChill System (£129.99) were racking up in my DMs.

I happened to have the latter with me (so do many of you – it’s sold out in the prettier colours), and while it’s nice to look at and works well, it’s quite fiddly to switch the different heads.

Update the classic outfit when you want to look slick and office-appropriate … in a low-key, faux-effortless kind of way

Jeans and a nice top is a tried-and-tested formula when it comes to dressing for an evening out. It is the little black dress of real life. A local dinner, an outing to the theatre or cinema, a birthday gathering in the pub: these do not require a cocktail dress. Still, you want to look nice. So you wear jeans and a nice top.

If jeans and a nice top is the real life LBD, then jeans and a jacket is the normcore power suit. It is the no-nonsense, I’ve-got-this formula you need for daytime. It is an outfit that comes together in seconds and keeps on looking good and feeling comfortable for hours. It is grown up but not stiff, alpha but not snooty. It is – and this is important in our capricious climate, and when your commute can take you straight from overheated train carriage to chiller-cabinet level air conditioning – pitched neither too warm nor too cold, and offers flexibility. (You are wearing something under the jacket, you see. We will get to that.)

From cliffside views of Lake Garda to post-hike saunas in Sweden, you share your most memorable walking trips

• Tell us about a cooler European coast – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

If you have a head for heights, then you can “walk with the gods” on the Sentiero degli Dei. It’s cut into the vertiginous hillside high above the Amalfi coast, offering heavenly views all the way to Capri and beyond. Ten breathtaking kilometres later, you’ll rejoin the earthly hordes of Instagrammers in the undeniably beautiful but crowded Positano. A super-convenient combined bus and ferry ticket from Travelmar takes you from any of the coastal towns to the start of the walk, in the lovely hamlet of Bomerano, in Agerola, and from Positano back to your base.
Brian

With Cambridge South about to welcome its first passengers, it’s an ideal time to explore some of the university city’s lesser-known treasures on foot or by public transport

Flat fields of poppies and ox-eye daisies stretch out to a wide horizon. There are butterflies, vetches, salad burnet. Skylarks sing overhead and a cuckoo calls from the trees near the river. Legend has it that the poet Lord Byron swam here as a Cambridge undergraduate and, 20 years later, Charles Darwin surveyed its beetles. Heading through flowering meadows towards a nature reserve known as Byron’s Pool, I’ve walked a mile from the new £250m Cambridge South station.

Opening to passengers on 28 June, Cambridge South will be the first Great British Railways-branded station. The towering Biomedical Campus next door is Europe’s biggest medical research facility, with about 40,000 visitors a day. The station itself, with its 1,000 cycle-parking spaces, living roof and solar panels, feels like a model for sustainable transport.

This long-distance coastal trek takes in towering rock faces, isolated beaches and tasty pitstops

The fluorescent green gaiters seemed a ridiculous suggestion, but prove a godsend as we plod across the sand. “I bet you’re glad I told you to get a pair of these bad boys now, aren’t you?” my friend Luke jokes. We’re marching across a wide, crescent-shaped, honeyed beach. The sun is high in the sky and slivers of light flicker through a thick sea fog, as 6ft waves crash and fizz, their white foam licking the towering limestone cliffs.

I’m in Portugal, in the west Algarve, with two friends, hiking part of the Rota Vicentina, or Fishermen’s Trail, a 140-mile (226km) trek that runs from Lagos to São Torpes in Alentejo. Traversing cliffs that lead to wild, remote beaches like this one is part of the trail’s calling card. As the name suggests, it was originally carved out by fishers to reach otherwise inaccessible fishing spots along the Atlantic Ocean. Now it’s part of the Rota Vicentina, a hiking and cycling route spanning 466 miles across Portugal.

The creators of County Cork’s Sheep’s Head Way had to win over hundreds of landowners to complete the ambitious project, but the result is a gloriously unspoilt trail

The Sheep’s Head peninsula is clearly a good place to be a skylark. They seem to warble overhead at every turn, singing their little hearts out – and who could blame them? The hills here are high and heathery, the sea breeze is warmed by the Gulf Stream and the edge-of-the-world scenery is a realm of wild green slopes and endless blue Atlantic. If you had to choose a sky to lark in, the one that crowns this County Cork headland is a bona fide wing-quiverer.

The peninsula wows hikers, too. I’ve come to one of the south-westernmost points on the Irish mainland to trek the Sheep’s Head Way, a long-distance trail opened by the local community 30 years ago this summer. It took serious work to complete – more of which later – but it’s a delight. I’m walking the original 55-mile (88km) loop around the peninsula, although a longer, 63-mile option is now considered the official route. The way attracts a fraction of the numbers drawn to the Kerry Way and Dingle Peninsula trail further north, and thanks to its untrammelled paths and rampant, cliff-edged scenery, the rewards are grand, in every sense.

From the Cosmati Pavement and Pyx Chamber to Ode to the Yimeng Mountains, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 Who requested in his will that an art gallery be established in Linz?
2 Which mustelid was named “most fearless animal” by Guinness World Records?
3 What was the first concert tour to gross $2bn in ticket sales?
4 The Kirkwood gaps are regions within what?
5 The Ishihara test is used to diagnose which condition?
6 Which element is named from the Greek for lead?
7 Helvetia appears on which country’s stamps?
8 Which sports teams were rebranded from “minor” to “national” in 2020?
What links:
9 Agatha Christie; Sophia Engastromenou; Earl Spencer?
10 The Red Detachment of Women; The White-Haired Girl; Ode to the Yimeng Mountains?
11 Cosmati Pavement; Henry VII Chapel; Pyx Chamber; Shrine of Edward the Confessor?
12 Alexandria and Avignon; Balkans and Levant; Cairo; New York?
13 Lost (Confederate myth); Good Old (English republicanism); Great (13th-century Scottish succession)?
14 Coldplay; Devo; James; Talking Heads; U2?
15 Alces alces, Canada; Haliaeetus leucocephalus, US; Panthera onca, Mexico?

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

• ​Submit a question

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

Luke spoke about how he irons his T-shirts and keeps a strict budget spreadsheet. I was hooked

The Dull Men’s Club popped up on my Facebook feed one day in late 2023. It’s now called Banana for Scale – a reference to a running joke in the group – as there were many clubs with similar names. It’s a place for people to celebrate the ordinary things in life. Every post had this dry sense of humour, which I’m drawn to.

One member regularly posts about his outings with his friend Nigel; others show off their collection of rocks.

Inkpen, Berkshire: Mow, tedder, rake and bale – it all has to be done before the next rainfall, which is increasingly hard to predict

With the weather set fair and a heatwave under way, all around are literally making hay while the sun shines. Last year’s drought produced very little grass to make hay with, resulting in high prices and scarcity over winter. This year, the grass has received good amounts of both sun and rain – the ideal conditions.

Foxglove Farm and Manor Farm are busy at it, but it seems Rolf’s may have sold its crop standing, for someone else to make and take. Other farms on lower-lying, lusher fields made their first crop during the late May heatwave, but the fields here on the higher chalk needed more time to grow.

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.

Sarah Steele waives anonymity to call for greater scrutiny of how US military courts are allowed to ‘rip apart’ vulnerable witnesses in the UK

• Why did a US fighter pilot avoid British trial after strangling a woman in England?

• Explainer: how the US bypasses British courts

A woman strangled by an American fighter pilot at his home in an English city has come forward to criticise the handling of his prosecution via a US court martial, a process she described as “military first, justice second”.

Sarah Steele, a British academic, has come forward to speak about the “distressing and degrading” experience she had with the US military justice system after she was assaulted by the airman in Cambridge.

We know the monarch paid £24.6m in tax over the last two years, but we still don’t know how wealthy he actually is

• Crown estate makes more than £1bn profit for third year running

• King and Queen will not live at Buckingham Palace after £369m refit

King Charles has become Britain’s first monarch in modern times to reveal how much tax he pays on his private income: £24.6m over the last two years.

It’s a move celebrated by some as heralding an era of greater transparency from the monarchy. But just how open has it been?

People in Caracas and coastal towns describe powerful quakes that collapsed buildings and killed at least 164

As a double whammy of powerful earthquakes rattled Venezuela’s northern coast on Wednesday, residents of the capital, Caracas, scrambled out on to the streets from shuddering, fractured buildings.

“It was horrible. I felt like the house was moving to a different rhythm to the earth. I had to carry my mum out. She was paralysed by fear,” said 18-year-old Sebastian Rodríguez, whose family runs a shop in Centro Plaza, a brutalist commercial centre in the affluent neighbourhood of Los Palos Grandes.

We’d like to hear from people in the UK about their experiences of trying to buy or sell a flat in recent months. Have there been any issues?

Getting on the property ladder is an achievement in Britain but for some flat-owners the home-ownership dream has turned sour.

High service charges, fire safety issues, and onerous leasehold conditions are among the issues that have affected flat valuations over the past decade. There are reports of owners, particularly in London, currently selling at a loss.

How did you cope? What do you remember of that period of hot weather? Tell us and share your pictures

The record temperature for June set in Hampshire in 1976 is expected to be surpassed during this current UK heatwave.

The highest June temperature on record of 35.6C was set on 29 June 1957 in London. This was then equalled on 28 June 1976 in Southampton during that year’s heatwave.

Tell us about your favourite summer trip to a more temperate shoreline in Europe – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

As heatwaves become an increasingly common feature of European summers, more of us are looking to cooler, northern coastlines for our seaside holidays. From the traditional seaside towns of Germany, northern France and the Netherlands, to the long sandy beaches of the Baltic coast and the islands of Scandinavia, we’d love to hear about your favourite cooler coastal breaks in Europe.

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

We would like to hear about the best film you have seen this year so far and why

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

Which films have captured your imagination this year? Are there any new releases from so far in 2025 that you would recommend watching?

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The earthquake in Venezuela, a brutal heatwave in Europe, the resignation of Keir Starmer and the World Cup – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing