Conquering of Beaufort Castle for first time in 26 years brings back memories of occupation of south

• Middle East crisis – live updates

When Hussain Alawieh used to take tourists to Beaufort Castle, they would marvel at the view. The ancient hilltop fort, captured nearly 1,000 years earlier by Crusaders, still offered the same sweeping panoramic views of south Lebanon and the Litani River that empires fought over for a millennia.

On Sunday, the view from the castle was obscured by white phosphorus smoke, the toxic incendiary munition providing a smoke screen for advancing Israeli soldiers. Out of the fog rose an Israeli flag, and the castle, for the first time in 26 years, was once again conquered.

Casting shifts to EU talent as paperwork delays and visa limits make hiring British crews less viable

From blacklists for UK passport holders to being asked to work illegally while on holiday, the plethora of extra costs and red tape thrown up post-Brexit are restricting opportunities for British actors seeking work in the EU.

Mainland Europe has always been a springboard for those in the creative industries, from gaining crucial first credits on a TV, film or theatre production to building a marketable resume and paying the bills while attempting to make it big in the UK or US.

It’s natural to focus on breakthroughs, but there are many challenges in Britain and around the world. There is no magic bullet, but there’s room for optimism

Cancer causes nearly one in six deaths worldwide every year, some 10 million all told. That is a stunning number, but it also masks the reality that some cancers are more deadly than others. We have become remarkably good at detecting and treating melanoma and prostate cancer, for example, and today five-year survival rates for those cancers are well over 90% in most rich countries. Others, such as pancreatic cancer, are more difficult. In the UK, just over one in 20 people with pancreatic cancer are still alive five years after diagnosis.

That is why a new drug for pancreatic cancer, called daraxonrasib and announced at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (Asco) annual meeting in Chicago at the weekend, has been met with such jubilation. The drug – taken as a pill once a day – doubled the survival time of those enrolled in a 500-person trial, with fewer side effects compared to traditional chemotherapy. The drug works by shutting down a protein, Kras, that causes cancer cells to grow and divide. One longtime cancer researcher reported that she cried reading the results. With so few effective treatments for this cancer available, the drug is likely to be a real game-changer.

For the star’s 100th anniversary, Lawrence Schiller relives the nude photoshoot that showed, far from being a ‘messy’ blond bombshell, Monroe was a shrewd controller of her image

A few days after doing a nude swimming pool shoot on the set of the 1962 comedy Something’s Got to Give, Marilyn Monroe jumped into her raven black T-Bird and drove her photographer, Lawrence Schiller, to Schwab’s Pharmacy on Sunset Boulevard. Schiller had brought his negatives, now ready to be turned into prints. And in her purse Monroe had brought her scissors, which she now reached for – and, under the glow of the now legendary Hollywood hangout’s streetlights, began to cut the colour film into pieces.

“Ziiiiiip – the ones she didn’t like,” says Schiller, animating the sound. “Ziiiiiip.” She destroyed them? “Oh yeah, but that came with the territory,” laughs the now 89-year-old, the last living photographer of Monroe, as he recalls his 25-year-old self bending down to pick up the debris and thinking: “Well, I would’ve killed that one, too.” In fact, he speaks of her editing with nothing but admiration: “There wasn’t a picture she destroyed that I would’ve published.”

In HBO docuseries Bring Me the Beauties, a lesser-known, image-obsessed cult from the 80s is put under the spotlight

Documentary film-maker Chris Smith made the seminal 1999 film American Movie, about an indie director’s struggle to complete a horror film, which he hopes will then finance the completion of his dream project. More recently, he’s profiled well-known subjects in projects for Netflix about Jim Carrey and Andy Kaufman, the bands Devo and Wham!, and the disastrous Fyre festival, among others. His new HBO miniseries Bring Me the Beauties is similarly connected to popular culture, but through a story with far less immediately available background material: the rise and fall of Eternal Values, a cult started in the 80s by the eccentric Frederick von Mierers, consisting largely of models.

“What was odd about this story,” Smith said, “is that there was very little about it online.” He met Hoyt Richards, sometimes referred to as the first male supermodel and a former Eternal Values member, on another project, “and as we started talking, hours went by”, Smith said. “It was one of those situations where I just became more and more curious about his life.” Richards became the backbone of the series, sitting for many hours of interviews, but wasn’t sure if Smith and his collaborators would be able to coax anyone else into participation. As seen in the series, not everyone’s account of their experience with Von Mierers is the same; not everyone is even convinced they were involved with a cult in the first place.

The acronym ‘FOH’ for ‘Fuck off home’ was used beside the names of expectant mothers. Senior midwives advised others not to be ‘too kind’. But as this and other shocking evidence is brought to light, sexism is only one part of the story

It’s said to be mother nature’s stunning con trick, the single most helpful move in the propagation of the species – that childbirth might be the worst thing ever to happen to anyone, but once you are through it, you instantly forget how painful it was. And that is true, up to a point, although you can often remember enough of the surrounding detail – swearing at strangers, wishing you were dead – that you can infer the rest.

What you don’t forget, however, is what the midwives were like, and nor, even in moments of extremis, do you fail to notice if they’re treating you scornfully. Panorama tonight is about the maternity unit run by Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust, the subject of the largest maternity inquiry in NHS history, spanning 13 years from 2012, and covering 2,500 families. The details are hair-raising: “FOH” written next to women’s names on a whiteboard, which stood for “fuck off home”; accounts of senior midwives advising others not to be “too kind”; gut-wrenching individual cases of women being warned off coming in to hospital for so long that, when one finally arrived, her baby was dead and her perineum and vaginal wall had collapsed. And every one of those women will have known, on some level, even if she was in no state to ask for her notes or read them, that someone wanted her to “fuck off”. You get a superpower in a life-and-death situation, though it’s unclear how helpful it is: you can tell pretty fast who’s on your side and who isn’t.

Criticisms revealed in major release of files relating to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to US

• UK politics live – latest updates

Peter Mandelson exchanged WhatsApp messages with a senior cabinet minister criticising Keir Starmer’s lack of “verve” and tendency to buckle under pressure, suggesting the prime minister should behave in a more “Trumpian” fashion.

The former US ambassador said No 10 was “beleaguered and bereft” and that the public were “crying out for leadership”. In another exchange, he described both the advisers and policy coming out of No 10 as “rubbish in, rubbish out”.

McFadden complaining how Labour MPs wanted to raise taxes to pay for welfare.

Starmer’s chief of staff considered setting up an external No 10 unit to circumvent existing staff.

Mandelson venting his annoyance about Ed Miliband and net zero.

US president speaks to Israeli prime minister amid attacks on Lebanon; Trump says ‘I think it’s fine if they’re done talking’ but adds that he was not told that was the case

• Iran suspends all peace talks in protest at Israeli offensive in Lebanon

The exchange of strikes between the US and Iran reflects the fragility of the current ceasefire, which has seen repeated violations even as American and Iranian officials try to negotiate a deal to extend it.

Iran has maintained its chokehold on the strait of Hormuz, disrupting global energy supplies as a fifth of all oil and natural gas traded once passed through the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf. The US continues to enforce its own blockade on the strait, as it pressures Tehran to reach an agreement.

Met says non-fatal stabbings took place after most of the crowds had dispersed on Sunday evening

Six people were stabbed after Arsenal’s Premier League victory parade in north London on Sunday, police have said.

The Metropolitan police said the stabbings took place in the evening after most of the crowds had dispersed. Twenty-four people were arrested.

Children of those on care worker visas, who came legally before rule change, told to leave even if parents can stay

Children as young as five who are living legally in the UK are being told by the Home Office they must leave the country even if their parents have been given permission to remain.

The Guardian has seen five letters sent to children by the Home Office telling them they must leave the UK. A sixth letter has been sent to a woman who is six months pregnant and lives in the UK with her husband, telling her she must leave him and return to her country. The children have parents on care worker visas, which until March 2024 had allowed them to bring partners or children with them to the UK.

Experimental tablet produces encouraging results in patients with world’s most common forms of disease

• ‘I was getting ready to say goodbye’: patient’s hope after smart drug success

A smart drug that stops cancer cells “hiding” from treatment can shrink tumours by at least 30% in six of the world’s most common forms of the disease, early trial results show.

While immunotherapy treatments have improved survival rates for many patients, their effectiveness can stall or fail when tumour cells hide and then spread.

Michaela Hall’s family bring claim against Devon and Cornwall police and Probation Service

The family of Michaela Hall, who was murdered by her partner five years ago, has launched a legal challenge over failings by the police and probation service that could have prevented her death.

Lee Kendall, a serial violent offender, is serving a 21-year minimum sentence for stabbing Hall through the eye at her home in Truro, Cornwall on 1 June 2021. An inquest and a police watchdog investigation into the handling of the murder revealed a string of errors by public agencies that contributed to her death.

Victims should be given legal support to help slash number of claimants denied payouts, says Windrush commissioner

The Windrush compensation scheme has failed to repair a grave injustice and needs a significant overhaul, a Westminster inquiry into government compensation schemes heard on Monday.

Survivors of the Windrush scandal should be given legal support in making claims for compensation to help slash the number of claimants who are denied payouts and to bring the scheme in line with compensation programmes rolled out for victims of the Post Office Horizon and infected blood scandals, the independent Windrush commissioner, Clive Foster, told MPs.

About half of drivers will take action on Tuesday as RMT blames TfL’s ‘refusal to engage meaningfully’

The strike on the London Underground will go ahead on Tuesday after a day of talks failed to avert industrial action.

About half of London’s tube drivers will take action, bringing widespread transport disruption to the capital. A second strike is planned for Thursday.

Nicholas Cullinan says cultural institutions ‘caught between opposing political pressures’ after row over talk on ancient Israel and Judah

The director of the British Museum has warned that cultural institutions are “caught between opposing political pressures”, after a row over the museum’s decision to postpone a Jewish culture month lecture over fears it would be disrupted by protesters.

Nicholas Cullinan defended the decision, saying “freedom of expression does not require institutions to provide a platform for disruption”, in a lengthy statement shared on the British Museum website.

As Israel threatens to bomb Beirut and the US and Iran trade missile strikes, Donald Trump insists it will ‘all work out well in the end’ and urges his critics to ‘sit back and relax’. So are we any closer to a deal? Lucy Hough speaks to diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour.

Cenk Uygur and Hasan Piker were supposed to address events at SXSW London before their ETAs were cancelled

• Free speech activists condemn UK entry ban for Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur

Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks online political talkshow, and Hasan Piker, who runs his own hours-long stream each day, have been banned from entering the UK by the British home secretary, Shabana Mahmood. They were supposed to address events at SXSW London, a creatives-led festival. Uygur was also planning to speak at the Oxford Union on Friday.

The move has sparked a political row and concerns that Keir Starmer’s government is censoring public debate.

Letting nature take over at a former dairy farm has resulted in a surge of species in just three years

Three years of rewilding on a former dairy farm in east Somerset have led to the number of recorded bird species soaring from 67 to 94, butterfly species rising from 11 to 24 and small mammals growing in number.

Heal Somerset, the first site acquired by the charity Heal Rewilding, has produced a state of nature report mirroring a national survey by environmental charities that has tracked the decline in nature.

Adult beginners are charming when the stakes are low. Learning the piano at 50 is cute – but nobody ever needed to be airlifted out of a piano recital

I was 43, unfit and burnt out at the end of 2025, when my phone pinged from an old friend:

I know this is unlikely but I’m thinking of doing this four-day hike and there are two places available. You stay in huts so there is less gear to carry. Would you like to come?

Record-breaking box office for Backrooms and Obsession has opened the door for twentysomething YouTube creators as the industry rethinks what audiences want

At this time last year, the idea of a wide-release feature film-maker cutting their teeth on YouTube was, if not unheard of, certainly still a niche origin story. Siblings Michael and Danny Philippou had just released Bring Her Back, the follow-up to their surprise horror hit Talk to Me, to pretty-good reviews and OK box office; clearly they would continue to work, but the slightly diminished returns didn’t predict a YouTube explosion. Nor did the outright lousiness of Shelby Oaks, from longtime YouTube film critic Chris Stuckmann, when it premiered in theaters later in 2025. Generous horror-festival buzz died down as more people actually laid eyes on the movie; Stuckmann was an obvious enthusiast, and some saw promise in his first effort, but a clumsy found-footage pastiche without much emotional sense didn’t seem like the next big thing, either.

But in 2026, something has shifted. In January, YouTuber Markiplier self-released his adaptation of the video game Iron Lung to theaters, and it outgrossed any number of big-studio titles. Then Curry Barker, whose comedy sketches have been a YouTube fixture, unveiled his feature debut Obsession. The film, made for under a million dollars, has become the box office phenomenon of the summer so far, managing a virtually unheard-of feat when its second and third weekends actually outgrossed its first. Obsession is sharing multiplex space with Backrooms, directed by 20-year-old Kane Parsons, who previously brought the spooky internet meme to life in a series of YouTube shorts. Despite being set in a series of purgatorial, sparsely furnished, fluorescent-lit “liminal spaces”, it was the top movie at the North American box office this weekend, poised to become the biggest-grossing movie from distributor A24 in a matter of days. Backrooms also opened to bigger numbers than any number of starrier or bigger-brand 2026 titles like Wuthering Heights, Scream 7, The Devil Wears Prada 2 or the last Pixar movie. That makes three YouTube-trained film-makers who have presided over some of this year’s biggest and/or most surprising hits. With them have come countless social media posts about how YouTube, not film school, provides the real training tomorrow’s directors need.

Need a pair of grown-up shorts? A summer sandal that works with everything? Or perhaps just a really cute bag? Our expert’s monthly edit is here to help

• 52 women’s summer wardrobe updates for under £100

Weddings! Wimbledon! It’s June, which means that summer has well and truly arrived. The May heatwave may have flagged some gaps in your warm-weather wardrobe, so here are some of this month’s juiciest style updates.

Read on for everything from the season’s most chic capri pants to bikini bottoms for under £10, plus some tips on under-the-radar brands to keep an eye on. Keep cool out there, comrades.

‘Brash, disingenuous, lethal’: that’s how the 67-year-old actor describes his younger self. He lied to his partners, disrespected his audiences, betrayed his friends. Has this indiscreet, unreliable heartbreaker finally grown up and settled down?

Rupert Everett is struggling with the heatwave. It reminds him of the summer of 1976, when he was 17, basking in the sun, serene as a sloth, his future spread out ahead of him. It’s so different now. “When you were young, hot weather was nice. But when you’re chubby like me now, it’s not so nice,” he says.

“You’re not chubby,” says his publicist, with reassuring brio.

‘We didn’t have a washing machine, so I was in the launderette when our manager rang and said: “You’ve gone in at No 2”’

We were still a three-piece: Adam Devlin, my brother Scott and myself. We hadn’t met Eds Chesters yet, so we didn’t have a drummer. We were spending a lot of time writing songs, trying to hone this west coast, mid-60s, Crosby, Stills & Nash sound – even though it was the 90s and we were from Hounslow in London.

Launching in the UK this month, this new pint-sized console revives the motion-controlled video game boom of the 00s – with better, safer tech

For a wonderful moment in the noughties, video games became a truly universal pursuit. As I witnessed my controller-phobic aunt swing a Wii remote and nail a tennis serve, while my great-grandmother furrowed her brow over sudoku puzzles on her Nintendo DS, it seemed my long-derided hobby had finally gone mainstream. The Nintendo Wii flew off the shelves, inspiring a wave of competitors such as the Xbox Kinect camera that encouraged people to play games by moving their bodies. But the tide turned: outside of still-niche VR gaming and the odd controller-waggler on the Switch, motion-controlled gaming has barely been seen for more than a decade.

Now, 20 years later, a new console is aiming to get the whole family flailing in front of the TV once again: the Nex Playground. Launching in the UK later this month, the first thing that struck me about this family-friendly device is just how tiny it is. The size of two and a half Rubik’s Cubes taped together, this impressively unintrusive device swaps cumbersome controllers for camera-controlled minigames, putting you and your family directly in the game. Using a wide-angle lens and AI-powered tracking tech, the Nex Playground offers over 50 games that track players’ bodies as they leap, flail and dance about the living room. It’s not hard to see the appeal.

Fans celebrated a first Premier League title in 22 years, having lost the Champions League final to PSG the night before

It’s real and physical, it scars and heals: sport is a visceral high – and the Gunners have reminded fans just what it means

It’s going to take some time to shake this feeling. Frankly, I don’t want to shake it. I don’t want the flare smell, akin to a thousand party poppers going off at once, to leave my skin, I don’t want the stream of content to subside and I don’t want this joy to leave.

When the final whistle blew in Manchester City’s 1-1 draw at Bournemouth the tears flowed, I pulled on jeans and trainers, told the lad to change out of his pyjamas and headed to the Emirates Stadium. Then, on Sunday, I was back, champagne in hand, for an emotional lap of the stadium and a pilgrimage to the old East Stand at Highbury to sit on the steps in front of the marble halls.

For ease and speed, we are degrading our ability to connect and to organise our societies. We must assert our trust in humans over machines

Here is a nightmare scenario for you. You are writing a book about how AI reshapes reality. You start using it as a research partner, confident that you are applying the right hygiene by not letting it actually write a sentence of the book. You think you’ll be careful, you will double check everything. And then your book comes out and it appears that it includes more than a half dozen misattributed or fake quotes. Steven Rosenbaum, the unfortunate writer, acknowledged that sometimes the output of AI was “staggeringly wrong”, but still, errors crept in.

There are others. A Commonwealth prize-winning short story became engulfed in claims that it carried the hallmarks of AI. And every time I see a story of a journalist caught out by fake AI quotes during research, I cross myself – there but for the grace of God go I. But to make sure it is not left up to grace alone, I never touch the thing. When AI results pop up as the default in a search engine, I reject them, rebuke them, as if they contained a dark sorcery that would through mere engagement creep into my synapses and take control.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Physical and mental health aren’t easily separated, especially at our age. And the president is showing many concerning signs

I do not wish Trump ill. While he hasn’t shown a shred of compassion for anyone other than himself, this doesn’t justify any of us lacking compassion for him.

It’s also in the interest of the US and the world that he be physically and mentally able to discharge the duties of his office.

Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy. … I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! … Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK

Castlelake’s move raises questions over valuation and ownership rules as well as whether Stelios Haji-Ioannou could throw a spanner in the works

• EasyJet says US takeover bid would be ‘highly opportunistic’

A share price gain of only 10% on a possible takeover approach is a meek reaction. If the stock market truly believed that Castlelake, a US investment fund, stood a decent chance of buying easyJet, you would expect the target’s stock to fly significantly higher. Scepticism is the right stance until at least three factors become clearer.

First, would the two sides even be vaguely in the same landing zone on valuation? EasyJet’s description of Castlelake’s timing as “highly opportunistic” was boilerplate rhetoric (all bids are opportunistic to a degree) but in this case it is clearly possible that all European airlines’ prospects could be brighter within a couple of months.

Underfunding, systemic failure and awful Tory policies bequeathed us a public and private sector housing crisis. As a priority, we will now fix that

Growing up, I remember how important our home was to my family. I know I get raised eyebrows now when I mention that pebble-dashed semi, but that doesn’t negate the point. Our house was not just a roof over our heads – it was our home. A place of security and a focal point for our family. A place to build out from and hope for a better future.

So it is simply shocking that under the long years of Tory rule, so many people across our country were left without a stable place to call their own. Children were left languishing in temporary accommodation, too often without proper places to play, eat and sleep. Families were left in limbo on waiting lists for years. Young care leavers were denied a permanent place to live. And, incredibly, domestic abuse survivors found themselves forced out of their homes because landlords lacked the powers to make their abuser the one who must leave.

Keir Starmer is the UK prime minister

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Endless swiping has left a generation of singles burned out. But get real: dating assistants and AI-aided chats will never recreate the friction of real romance

After years of shrinking usage and tumbling stock prices, the dating app Bumble is teasing a major change to its product. But in solving one problem, it might be walking right into another. The company told Axios this month that it’s getting rid of a dating app mainstay: the swipe. The feature made it easy for people to carelessly flick through photos, said CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd, leading to a user experience with too many dead-end conversations. Going forward, Bumble will focus on features that make for deeper, more meaningful connections, she said. Namely, an AI assistant named “Bee”.

While it’s still unclear exactly what Bee will do, its responsibilities will include punching up users’ profiles by suggesting better options for their photos and personal blurbs. Bumble says it will also use AI to chat with people about their dating preferences and help them find others with similar “values”.

Tatum Hunter is a technology journalist based in Brooklyn. She writes on Substack at Bytatumhunter

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.

Authoritarian states are increasingly shutting off or throttling access to the internet, creating separate spheres in a realm built on connection

China boasts of having the world’s largest population of internet users: 1.125 billion by the end of 2025, according to official figures. But as one joke has it, the Great Firewall – blocking not only politically sensitive material but also global tech firms such as Google and Meta – has produced what looks more like the world’s largest intranet.

Beijing is not an anomaly, but a pioneer. Its extraordinary investment in the apparatus of “cyber sovereignty” – others would call it censorship and repression – is guiding other authoritarian countries. A realm defined by connection is fragmenting not just from commercial greed and filter bubbles but due to state fiat, birthing the splinternet.

While Westminster’s attention is focused on Andy Burnham and Makerfield, another pivotal byelection is taking place in Scotland’s north-east

The coming byelection in Makerfield, from where Andy Burnham aspires to make rapid progress towards Downing Street, is perhaps the most consequential in British political history. But the decision by the Scottish National party’s former Westminster leader, Stephen Flynn, to relocate to Holyrood means that another pivotal contest is taking place more than 350 miles to the north. If Makerfield is a test case for Mr Burnham and Labour’s ability to see off Reform UK, Mr Flynn’s old constituency of Aberdeen South is on the frontline of the increasingly fraught politics of North Sea oil.

Labour, despite finishing second in the 2024 general election thanks largely to anti-Tory tactical voting, will not be expecting much this time round. The ramifications of Donald Trump’s reckless war in Iran have exposed Britain’s ongoing vulnerability to fossil-fuel-related energy shocks, highlighting the practical benefits of moving to a green economy. But the knock-on effects of the closure of the strait of Hormuz have also been a gift for the Scottish Conservatives and Reform, who are framing the byelection as a local referendum on reviving oil and gas production beyond Westminster-imposed limits.

Comments such as ‘their lives are ruined’ or ‘they’ll never heal’ aren’t necessarily helpful, says one reader

I write about the recent coverage of the Fordingbridge case (Court of appeal to review rape sentences of three teenage boys, 26 May). I experienced a remarkably similar crime over 20 years ago: same number and age of perpetrators, same incident, same court outcome. The differences were that I was younger, and that, mercifully, being before the days of social media, it wasn’t filmed (though word of mouth in the community resulted in similar name-calling). There also wasn’t public outcry at the outcome; it’s nice to see progress, if too slow, in our understanding of the impact of these crimes.

Still, I’m worried by some of the discourse for the girls in question and others who have experienced similar. There have been comments in print and social media which, in attempting to emphasise the severity of the crime, have said things like “their lives are ruined” or “they’ll never heal”.

Luke McCullough, the corporate affairs director at BBC Scotland, responds to an article reporting ‘deep unease’ about female presenters being axed

Your report on staff concerns about the number of female presenters on BBC Radio Scotland’s new schedule is mystifying (‘Deep unease’ at BBC Radio Scotland as majority of axed presenters are women, 28 May). When the new schedule starts, of the 25 daytime programmes across the week Monday to Friday, six will routinely be presented solely by men, and the other 19 will be routinely presented either solely by women, or jointly by women and men.

More than half of the programmes will be routinely presented solely by women. To somehow raise questions about female diversity in that presenting lineup is surely ignoring the actual evidence of the BBC schedule here in Scotland.

Yvonne Singh says the government needs to hold South East Water to account after elderly and vulnerable residents had to queue at water stations in the hottest week of the year

The story is a depressingly familiar one: from bank holiday Monday, thousands of homes in Kent had no water all last week (‘They’re a private company, run for profit!’: fury in Kent at South East Water’s outages, 28 May). This on the hottest week of the year so far. No water for drinking, flushing toilets, washing hands, bathing or cleaning, let alone sprinklers in the garden.

Vulnerable and elderly people and families were forced to queue in the searing heat for bottled water at water stations. Those on priority lists did not received promised deliveries and had to rely on the kindness of friends and families. In Whitstable, the first hot week of the summer promised profit. Instead, cafes, pubs, famed oyster bars and leisure centres were forced to close, resulting in thousands of pounds being lost from the local economy.

Time is a resource that reflects power, raising the question of who gets to decide how it is spent, says Dr Louise Lawson

Writing this letter has been a productivity gain for me as a full-time academic, parent and unpaid carer for my disabled partner. While Tania Roettger’s reflection on parenthood and productivity was refreshing and resonated, it risks reinforcing a narrow narrative about time, work and care, shaped by persistent gender inequalities in paid and unpaid labour (Whisper it: becoming a mum can make you a more productive writer, 28 May). For many women, productivity gains are less about drafting a paragraph for a novel and more about contending with chores that remain gendered.

Policy debates from the four-day week to Living Hours increasingly recognise problems of too much versus too little paid work. Yet framing time solely in terms of the number of hours worked misses a crucial issue. The rhythms, scheduling, predictability and control of working time are fundamental to wellbeing, especially given women’s disproportionate responsibility for unpaid labour, which continues to structure and constrain how time is experienced.

The origin of PSG’s largesse and the effect it’s had on their domestic game can’t be ignored, even as we appreciate the team’s stunning quality

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Since 1990, only one side had ever successfully defended the Champions League – Real Madrid, who won three in a row between 2016 and 2018. Paris Saint-Germain’s victory in the final on Saturday elevates them to a new tier of the pantheon. No bad side has ever won the European Cup or Champions League, but only great sides have ever retained it.

Arsenal pushed them much closer than Inter had in losing in the final the previous year, and there is always something slightly unsatisfying about a victory on penalties, but the quality of this PSG cannot be denied. They put six past Bayern in the semi-final – their superiority far greater than the one-goal aggregate margin would suggest. It was a similar story in the quarter-final, in which a 4-0 aggregate victory didn’t really reflect how much better they were than Liverpool. And while Chelsea may think they were slightly unlucky to lose the first leg of their last-16 tie away to PSG 5-2, the 3-0 result in the second leg was a devastating assertion of authority: three goals scored by an almost bored opponent apparently just as they felt like it.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

The Canadian fourth seed and the former Wimbledon runner-up both won through in straight sets but Madison Keys was defeated by Diana Shnaider

Potapova, having lost five games in a row, makes advantage on the Kalinskaya serve, a pair of backhands, one cross then another down the line, seizing the break to trail 4-6 1-0. Neither player is really at it here, meaning the match is there for whichever of them can stay composed.

On Chatrier, Svajda is improving, surviving to break points for lead 2-1 in set two, having lost the first 6-2. If he can attack Cobolli’s second serve and backhand, he might yet make an impression in this match.

• 75-year-old says he has ‘top doctor’ working on his case

• Newcastle send ‘heartfelt support and warmest wishes’

The former England and Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan has revealed he has stage four cancer. His family had said in January the former England, Liverpool and Newcastle player had been diagnosed with cancer and the 75-year-old provided an update on his health during a weekend appearance at the Tyne Theatre and Opera House.

“They said we have a top doctor with this new way of fighting what you have got, which is stage four cancer,” Keegan said, in quotes reported by the Daily Mail. “He was a Liverpool supporter so I went to meet him. I knew I wouldn’t be walking alone, if you know what I mean.”

Fans and professionals alike are desperate for positivity after last year’s damp squib, but there is reason for hope

One of the major benefits of announcing a “five-year plan” is that it should buy you some time but Epsom’s ambitious scheme to revive the status and popularity of the Derby, which was unveiled in December, may be an exception. There were just 22,312 paying spectators at last year’s race, and the need for an upturn in attendance for the 247th running of the Classic on Saturday is immediate.

In part, this is because the Derby still retains a special place in the hearts and memories of many of the sport’s most committed fans, and its steady decline over the last couple of decades has been painfully obvious to all of us who still cherish the annual pilgrimage to Epsom in the first week of June. There is a collective need for signs of a revival.

The Basque made his Bournemouth superbly watchable, just what the Reds need after Arne Slot’s meek title defence

Bravery. It is the recurring theme in conversations with those who have worked with Andoni Iraola at close quarters and the thing, they say, that sets him apart. It was evident in the manner his Bournemouth side illuminated the Premier League.

Liverpool’s sporting director, Richard Hughes, has been here before. This time, though, rather than asking Iraola to replace Gary O’Neil and inherit a team that scrambled to safety, the challenge is to recondition one of the biggest clubs on the planet and help them rediscover the swagger that made them champions.

• ‘The heat is a challenge but we are prepared already’

• Head coach believes team can go far at tournament

Heat and humidity will be obstacles to overcome but England have full belief in their ability and can go far at the World Cup, Thomas Tuchel has said. The head coach has received help from Team GB, drawing on their Olympic experiences, and other specialists to find solutions for the weather conditions.

Some of Tuchel’s 26-player squad flew from Birmingham to Miami on Monday for a 10-day hot-weather acclimatisation camp. Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Noni Madueke and Eberechi Eze have been given more time to recover after Saturday’s Champions League final and Crystal Palace’s Dean Henderson, who played the Conference League final last week, is also expected to be a later arrival.

Smallest nation to reach a World Cup will be guided by the oldest coach in Dick Advocaat

This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June.

All you need to know about the 16 host stadiums in the US, Mexico and Canada

The 2026 World Cup is the largest tournament ever, and as such it involves more stadiums in more countries than ever before. A total of 16 venues will play host to this summer’s big games, and each has a story to tell about the past, present and future of sports in its city. Stadium names may look unfamiliar, as we are using the Fifa-approved names instead of the sponsored names that run afoul of the governing body’s clean venue rules.

Australia v Turkey, 13 June

Canada v Qatar, 18 June

New Zealand v Egypt, 21 June

Switzerland v Canada, 24 June

New Zealand v Belgium, 26 June

Round of 32, 2 July (1B v 3EFGIJ)

Round of 16, 7 July (W85 v W87)

Sergiño Dest scored the US’s opener on Sunday thanks a collection of little actions from his teammates

The US men’s national team has undergone considerable change from one window to the next throughout Mauricio Pochettino’s tenure. And it makes some sense; the Argentinian had plenty of first-hand assessments to conduct, limiting the core group’s ability to iron out patterns of play and forge partnerships.

Still, amid all that turnover, Antonee Robinson and Sergiño Dest were expected to remain the first-choice options at full-back (or wing-back, depending on the system) for the 2026 World Cup. Both had been essential in the 2022 cycle, after all, and continued to fare well when healthy for their club teams (Fulham for Robinson, and PSV Eindhoven for Dest). That “when healthy” caveat has worked overtime throughout Pochettino’s 19 months in charge, though, with Dest suffering a torn ACL just before the 2024 Copa América and Robinson missing for much of last fall due to knee issues.

• Analysts trace illegal views to 3.7m IP addresses in UK

• Champions League final watched legally by more than 7m

Arsenal’s Champions League final defeat by Paris Saint-Germain attracted more than 16.2 million views on illegal streams in the UK after not being made free to air.

Analysis conducted for the Guardian by the technology analyst Gaming Compliance International (GCI) shows there were 16.2m illegal stream views of longer than 90 seconds, traced to 3.7m unique IP addresses. The final was watched legally on TNT Sports and HBO Max by more than 7 million people.

• Led two sides to Challenge Cup glory in long career

• ‘He was a true rugby league man through and through’

John Kear, the rugby league broadcaster and former Challenge Cup-winning coach, has died at the age of 71. The Rugby Football League announced that Kear died on Sunday on his return from covering Wigan’s Challenge Cup victory at Wembley for the BBC.

Kear led nine clubs in a coaching career lasting more than 700 matches, masterminding the shock Challenge Cup win for Sheffield Eagles in 1998 and then steering Hull FC to Challenge Cup glory in 2005.

For years the NBA has wondered what would happen if it had a giant who could do everything. The San Antonio Spurs star has given us an answer

The NBA season began with serious questions about Victor Wembanyama’s ability to last the distance in the playoffs. Could this brilliant ectomorph, a blend of rare height and even rarer skill, stand up to the rigors of a deep postseason run? Would his slim body snap under the intensity of professional basketball’s sternest tests? The results are in: Wembanyama will this week lead the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA finals. At just 22 years of age, basketball’s next superstar has arrived: slightly ahead of schedule, but with every part of his brilliance emphatically affirmed.

“Wemby” landed in America in 2023 as the NBA’s No 1 overall draft pick, an alien in both stature (his official height is listed as 7ft 4in, though many claim he may be as tall as 7ft 6in), nationality (French) and foreign-language proficiency (fluent in English, despite never having lived outside his home country). Sure enough, “The Alien” quickly became his nickname. But the flood of tears with which he greeted his team’s defeat of Oklahoma City in Saturday night’s Game 7 of the Western Conference finals revealed a different side to this outlier of outliers: the human side. More than his freakish physique or the sheer absurdity of the spectacle he presents on court, towering over established giants of the game like some basketballing Burj Khalifa, it’s Wemby’s humanity that makes him such a compulsively interesting and watchable star. He is the alien who longs to be among us.

Ravi Naik says legal ruling that forced Sarah Wynn-Williams to make silent appearance at Hay festival also applies to him

The lawyer representing the Meta whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams has said he too has been prevented from promoting her memoir under a legal ruling, after her silent appearance at the Hay festival.

Ravi Naik said the terms of an arbitration proceeding meant neither Wynn-Williams nor her “agents” could promote her bestselling book Careless People or say anything disparaging about the company.

Michael Grade dismisses impartiality concerns, saying rightwing channel faces same rules as BBC, Sky and ITN

Michael Grade, the recently departed chair of Britain’s media watchdog, has accused broadcasters of being “embarrassed” by GB News because it covers the “agenda of the majority”.

Grade, who has recently retaken the Conservative whip in the House of Lords after stepping down from Ofcom, said he was now able to give his real view on the rightwing broadcaster, which has faced repeated accusations of partial and misleading coverage.

Two leftwing US commentators, who have both been accused of propagating antisemitism, barred from visiting for event

The UK is failing to protect freedom of speech, prominent activists have said, after the government banned two leftwing US political commentators from entering the country to attend speaking engagements.

Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks online political talkshow, and Hasan Piker, who runs his own hours-long stream each day, were both due to appear at SXSW London, while the former said he had also been due to speak at an event run by University of Oxford students.

Vickrum Digwa, 23, who fatally stabbed Henry Nowak, 18, to serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole

A man with a “weapon obsession” has been jailed for life for murdering a university student with a 21cm-long knife that he claimed to be carrying for religious reasons.

Vickrum Digwa, 23, who stabbed 18-year-old Henry Nowak five times, will serve at least 20 years before being eligible for parole.

Success of far-right presidential candidate, Abelardo de la Espriella, suggests some voters are ‘fed up with politics’

The far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella and the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda have just under three weeks to compete for the roughly 3.6m votes that did not go to either of them in the first round of Colombia’s presidential election.

That is no insignificant number, given that De la Espriella’s lead over Cepeda amounted to little more than 670,000 votes – 43.7% to 40.9%.

Girl, 13, pulled from River Wharfe on Sunday and boy, 11, remains missing from River Don as hot spell comes to an end

A 13-year-old girl has died after getting into difficulty in a river as the water-related death toll reached at least 15 in the recent UK heatwave. Emergency services continue to search for a boy who went missing in a river two days ago.

The girl was pulled from the River Wharfe in Burnsall, near Skipton, North Yorkshire, on Sunday evening. She was airlifted to hospital where she was pronounced dead, North Yorkshire police said.

Seasonal wardens and netted fences are helping protect the rare ground-nesting birds that arrive each spring on the UK’s shores

On Ross Sands in Northumberland, a little tern has caught sight of a group of people and is sprinting across the beach. “It wants us to follow it,” says Andrew Craggs, senior manager at Lindisfarne national nature reserve. “It’s a diversionary thing – it’s got a scrape and it wants to take us away because it thinks we’re predators.”

Craggs is no predator, and he’s not after the scrape – a small pit the ground-nesting bird has dug into the sand to lay its eggs. He is a guardian of these little birds, as well as more than 3,500 hectares (8,600 acres) of sand dunes, saltmarsh and mudflats that make up this tranquil nature reserve perched on the tip of England’s north-east coast.

Study finds activity is not harmful or caused by stress of captivity – and is in fact more common in wild birds

An investigation into acts of self-pleasure among parrots and other birds has reached a climax, with the results providing welcome relief for vets and researchers, not to mention the birds themselves.

Bird keepers are often advised to discourage and even punish birds for masturbating, but the study found the activity was more common in the wild than in captivity, with researchers concluding it is part of a bird’s natural behaviour.

Powerful winds and rain expected in parts of Japan and Australia, while temperatures in Spain could hit 40C

A powerful tropical storm is forecast to track near Okinawa, Japan, on Monday before moving towards the south-east of the country. Typhoon Jangmi (also known as Typhoon No 6) has formed within the monsoonal gyre over the Philippine Sea.

A monsoonal gyre is a large, slow-rotating weather system that spawns typhoons through smaller vortices formed within it. This flow can intensify storms. Such typhoons are typically characterised by broad areas of low pressure and extensive wind fields, often without a distinct eye.

Annette Bramley says Holly’s Law would stop perpetrators acquiring pets and raise awareness of domestic abuse link

Annette Bramley fondly remembers her daughter Holly as being family-oriented and a lover of animals. “She adored anything small and furry, or even not. I mean, she thought orangutans were beautiful,” she said.

When Holly ended up in a controlling and abusive relationship, her husband, Nicholas Metson, was quick to use this passion against her. He bought Holly a puppy and then tried to kill it by putting it in a washing machine at their home in Lincoln. After it was rescued by Holly, he drowned it in a bath.

Chancellor in talks with banks and investment funds about public-private partnerships to build infrastructure

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Rachel Reeves is examining how to attract funds from private investors to accelerate the government’s development of new towns in England.

The chancellor has begun talks with some of the UK’s biggest banks and investment funds about building infrastructure for new towns based on public-private partnerships (PPP) – a successor to the much-criticised Tony Blair-era private finance initiative (PFI).

Scientific dating proves streaks on walls of Bacon Hole, near the Mumbles in south Wales, is Palaeolithic rock art

In 1912, the Guardian reported on the discovery of Palaeolithic rock art on the walls of Bacon Hole, a cave near the Mumbles in south Wales – only for the painted panel’s authenticity to be dismissed by 1928.

A series of horizontal bands in red pigment were subsequently deemed no more than a natural phenomenon and the newspaper added an updated statement: “It was later established that the red streaks … turned out to be red oxide mineral seeping through the rock and not prehistoric art.”

Conflicts over land and resources have deepened owing to climate breakdown, deforestation and population growth

Beneath the shade of the wide-spreading branches of a neem tree, five young gang members wearing camouflage and beanies and cradling AK47 rifles took refuge from the harsh midday sun. They passed around cold bottles of water and a popular energy drink called Fearless.

To their left, a dreadlocked teenager with his own rifle rested on one of three motorcycles parked on the sparse grass. To their right, another teenager sat with his back to the others, rolling a spliff.

Abu ‘Abu Radde’ Bello, the leader of a gang in Katsina state

Rampant Bull needed a makeover after wear and tear from tourists, but refurbishment ‘castrated’ it, critics say

The restoration of a floor mosaic in Milan called the Rampant Bull has been mocked after the works appear to have erased a crucial anatomical detail – its testicles.

The 19th-century mosaic in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcade needed a makeover because a small crater had formed in the tiny pink tiles featuring the bull’s testicles, due to the constant stream of tourists performing a heel-spinning gesture.

A project to measure how reflective paint reduces indoor temperatures is delivering tangible benefits across Africa

The brick house Sylvia shares in a Western Cape township on the outskirts of Cape Town with her three children gets unbearably hot every summer, causing the youngest to cry and her two older children to struggle to concentrate on their homework. Sylvia is not alone, according to a recent report in the Lancet: “In 2024, people in South Africa were exposed to 13 heatwave days, on average. Of these, 10.5 (80%) would not have been expected to occur without climate change.”

But summer is more bearable for the family now that her asbestos roof has been painted with reflective paint.

Community groups say some fear they could lose homes, jobs and access to healthcare if the new law is ratified by President John Dramani Mahama

Ghana’s LGBTQ community is living in fear after the country’s parliament approved a sweeping bill that criminalises the promotion of LGBTQ+ activities and identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, rights groups have warned.

The legislation, which was passed on Friday, mandates prison sentences of three to 10 years.

International money transfer service’s shares tumble as it confirms discussions with prosecutor’s office

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Wise, the UK-based international money transfer service and darling of the London fintech scene, has confirmed it is answering questions from Belgian prosecutors investigating money laundering, sending its shares tumbling.

In a statement to the stock market, Wise said it was “currently working with the Brussels prosecutor to respond to queries about our business, as we routinely do with regulators and law-enforcement authorities.

Firm says its RTX Spark PC chip for Microsoft Windows will let AI agents replace the mouse and keyboard

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A new front has opened up in the battle for dominance in AI chips, as Nvidia said its latest development could replace the mouse and keyboard in how people use computers.

The $5tn (£3.7tn) US semiconductor company has launched a “superchip” that puts AI capabilities into laptops and desktop computers, a move that will pit it against Intel, Apple, Qualcomm and AMD.

Airline’s shares hit highest level in three months as investment group Castlelake says it is considering offer

• Nils Pratley: EasyJet is an obvious takeover target, but US approach may not be a flyer

EasyJet has called a potential £3bn bid by a US investment group “highly opportunistic” as shares in the airline shot up to their highest level in three months on news of the takeover interest.

The US private credit firm Castlelake said on Friday it was considering a takeover offer for the airline. On Monday, it said it had already bought a 2.14% stake in the business and its offer would value easyJet at least at 403p a share, or about £3bn overall.

Latest figures show the company’s delivery performance has worsened compared with the previous year

• Business live – latest updates

The postal regulator has launched an investigation into Royal Mail for once again missing its annual delivery targets, with almost a quarter of first-class mail arriving late.

The company, which has been fined £37m since 2023 for routinely failing to meet delivery targets set by Ofcom, revealed on Friday that 24.3% of first-class mail failed to arrive on time in the year to the end of March.

2026 marks the 90th anniversary of the Francoist uprising and the beginning of the Spanish civil war. An estimated 120,000-150,000 people disappeared during Franco’s repression, their remains scattered across 2,567 mass graves. The far right’s entry into regional governments, as in Extremadura, is dismantling the historical memory laws that allow for reparations for victims of the disappearances. The photojournalist Roberto Palomo researched the life of his great-grandfather, the recovery of his remains and the effects of traumatic memory on the descendants

They took everything from my great-grandfather Silvestre Indias Carvajal and left us with nothing but his story, which was buried at the bottom of a 30-metre-deep well in south-west Spain for 87 years.

Silvestre worked as a municipal clerk in his small home town of Feria in Extremadura. He was given the job in recognition for his service in the war in Morocco, a conflict to which he was dispatched by lottery.

Feria is a small town in the southwestern Spanish region of Extremadura, which sits atop a mountain range. It had barely 4,000 inhabitants in 1936 when it was occupied by Gen Franco’s rebel troops.

At Pixelate, the music is as garish as the meme-referencing costumes. Is it internet ‘brainrot’ come to life – or a much-needed offline community?

‘It’s time to get … crazy!” DJ Compulsive Leia is yelling at us from the stage. Around me, clubbers in cat ears wave LED glow sticks and squeal in anticipation. Suddenly, an all too familiar sound: Crazy Frog’s much maligned version of Axel F, albeit remixed at an even giddier pitch and speed. “Ding, ding!”

Tonight, Vauxhall Arches in London is a hyperactive fever dream for Pixelate, a rave currently touring the UK and celebrating the 00s era of “internet cringe”. This edition is cat-themed, and a person in a giant bobble-headed Hello Kitty costume is dancing frantically on stage, soundtracked by high-octane versions of 00s memes, video games, cartoons and dancefloor hits.

The roots of AI in rightwing ideology is examined in Valerie Veatch’s enjoyable doc, including an array of colourful, often crazed, figures

Director Valerie Veatch made her name with documentaries such as Love Child (about an online gaming-addicted couple whose child died of malnutrition) and Me at the Zoo (about American vlogger Cara Cunningham), films that explore the intersection of real-world subcultures and internet communities. Her latest continues in this vein, although its self-set remit is a bit broader, more urgent and germane to everyone right now: the pursuit of artificial intelligence, its dark history in eugenics and highly debatable utility today (despite the stock-market bubble pushing the value of a half-dozen companies towards the stratosphere).

The thrust of the film is largely polemic, guiding the viewer towards AI-sceptical conclusions one persuasive soundbite at a time. Nevertheless, it also serves as a very useful, straightforward primer on AI history, touching on a dazzling array of colourful, often crazed figures, including Victorian British eugenicist Francis Galton, Silicon Valley founding father and overt racist William Shockley and current-day jillionaire jerk Elon Musk. Sadly, the film is not so up-to-date that it covers Musk and former friend-turned-foe Sam Altman’s recent courtroom brawl, but that doesn’t detract from the thrust of Veatch and her interviewees’ arguments.

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their most rewatched comfort films is a personal tribute to the inspirational British drama

For me, feeling good isn’t about escape, it’s about confrontation. Staring the thing you truly care about in the eye and giving in to it. It’s about empowerment, courage, optimism. I’m a sucker for coming-of-age films, the idea of striving to be the person you want to be despite the circumstances around you, and no film hits home for me like Billy Elliot.

The low-budget drama danced its way through cinema projectors and on to the screen in September 2000, a few weeks after my fourth birthday. The film, set in County Durham in 1984, focuses on Billy (played by Jamie Bell), the younger brother of Tony, who is part of the miners’ strike, alongside his father, Jackie, who is a widower. Billy is 11 and a reluctant boxer who finds himself drawn toward Sandra (Julie Walters) and her ballet classes, which are taking place in the boxing gym as their studio is being used to feed the striking miners. He knows these dreams are not for young men like him, and is petrified of how his older brother and father will respond to his newfound passion, but the chain-smoking Sandra sees a natural aptitude (and above all determination) in Billy and helps him to audition for the Royal Ballet School in London.

This film may be making a point about the classical vis a vis the contemporary, but its visual collages and dense poetic texts render it inert

The title of this lyrical but frustrating docu-essay about director Rita Azevedo Gomes’s travels in Greece cuts both ways. Is it expressing impatience with the classical ideals she hopes to discover there; or, borrowed from street graffiti, is it actually critiquing the modern society that has betrayed ancient standards of beauty and harmony and, in the words of Albert Camus cited here, “has fed its despair on ugliness and convulsions”?

Nostalgic aspirations and the sobering here-and-now vie for supremacy in the texts recited by Gomes and others over travelogue images from Athens and the Cyclades beyond. As if echoing heroic voyagers past, she adds a layer of fictionalisation to her exploits, reading a poem written by João Miguel Fernandes Jorge based on a journey there in 2007; it becomes the story of Irma, who romances a young man, Ion, on the island of Delos, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. But the affair founders – and there are other reality-checks, such as the incongruous Chinese cargo ships that now traverse the 21st-century Aegean.

The Leeds group arrived in a frenzy of post-punk energy, picking at the scabs of society – then started questioning their instant success. They talk about dodging ‘the megaband treadmill’ to make their surreal new album

It’s certainly a novel way to announce your comeback. On the opening song of Yard Act’s new album, over a cacophony of doomy piano chords and crashing drums, singer James Smith announces: “I’ve got absolutely nothing – absolutely nothing new to say!” And he’s not finished there. Later in the same track, Empty Pledges, Smith whips himself up into unhinged preacher mode only to declare: “Do you feel like an impostor for every new level you ascend to too? Do you have to bluff as much as I do?”

Is it refreshingly honest to begin a record by saying you haven’t got a clue what you’re doing – or an act of ludicrous self-sabotage? “Well, I don’t know if anyone has anything new to say really,” says Smith with a grin when I meet him and bassist Ryan Needham in a London bar to discuss You’re Gonna Need a Little Music, the band’s forthcoming third LP. “We’re in this age where everything has to be a manifesto and a statement, but it’s mainly just a one-way conversation. Nobody wants to explore the grey areas any more.”

The judgey pair swap views on everything from pop culture to fashion choices and workplace strife. Plus, what toxic masculinity looks like around the world

The freshly announced Strictly Come Dancing hosts have been generating huge online chatter, but this podcast will ensure that (half of) the judging panel isn’t totally overshadowed. Judgemental sees Anton Du Beke and Craig Revel Horwood prove they have strong opinions on more than just an ex-soap star’s pasodoble by trading verdicts on everything from pop culture to sartorial dilemmas to listeners’ workplace dramas. Rachel Aroesti
Widely available, episodes weekly from Tuesday 9 June

The Radiohead guitarist once serenaded a girl with the Smiths and thinks George Michael was a genius. But what is his favourite football song?

The first single I bought
Ally’s Tartan Army, the 1978 Scottish World Cup song, because England hadn’t qualified. I loved that Scottish team – Alan Rough, Martin Buchan, Gordon McQueen, Kenny Dalglish – and the 10-year-old me got completely swept up in World Cup fever.

The first song I fell in love with
When I was 17, I fell in love with a girl called Mary, who was this huge Smiths fan. I bought Hatful of Hollow so I could serenade her with William, It Was Really Nothing. I don’t think she adored me quite as much as she adored the Smiths.

In this week’s newsletter: Yes, it’s technically still spring, but with garage already pumping out and the 00s legends making a comeback, it’s time to celebrate the often-overlooked women who defined the genre

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Hello everyone. I’m Coco Khan, covering for Gwilym this week, and I’m officially calling it. Summer is here.

No, I’m not a meteorologist or an astronomer – rather, I rely on a measure I’ve developed over many summers: the UKG Index. The more UK garage you hear – through passing car windows, pumping out of festivals, or floating on the breeze from a nearby barbecue – the more likely the mercury is climbing. And this year the sound of summer has arrived early, and with some exciting news: a Mis-Teeq reunion.

Set in the aftermath of the famine, the Hamnet author’s family saga folds in myth and folklore

‘His father was ever a man of few words,” begins Maggie O’Farrell’s 10th novel, a lengthy and ambitious story set in the aftermath of the Irish famine. Land opens in 1865 on a rainswept Irish peninsula and takes us to Dublin, Rome, Quebec and Kerala as it tells the story of two generations and gestures backwards and forwards at two more. The opening line came to O’Farrell on a train journey from Belfast to Dublin, and became the way in to a story based in part on that of her great-great-grandfather, who worked for the Ordnance Survey in Ireland not long after the great hunger. “What, I wondered, would it have been like to be revising the maps at that time,” she writes in a short introductory note; “to be recording and setting down the devastation that had occurred?”

In bitter weather, Tomás and his 10-year-old son Liam are mapping a peninsula – perhaps Dunmore Head in County Kerry, though O’Farrell doesn’t specify – using surveying poles and measuring chains. Tomás is in the pay of the English, who need him not only for his surveying ability and draughtsmanship, but for his language skills: they cannot easily find out from Irish speakers the names of places, or determine who owns what. It is Tomás’s job to untangle complex local legends and obscure toponyms to create a usable map, and he wants to ensure that the marks left by the famine – the empty houses and graveyards – are recorded on it, though the “redcoats” sign their names to his work. A famine survivor himself, scarred by unspeakable trauma, he tolerates this: as we later discover, assisting the surveyors and learning their trade was his route out of the workhouse. He might not have survived otherwise.

It’s not enough to wish for growth; economic success requires a sense of purpose, according to this academic

When Keir Starmer won a landslide Labour majority promising to pursue five governing “missions”, the high-profile leftwing economist Mariana Mazzucato was credited as an inspiration. Two years on, her bracing new book helps shed light on why Labour in power has struggled to project the sense of direction that “mission-led government”, as Mazzucato calls it, requires. Synthesising and extending her earlier work, here she proposes “a new economics of collective action around the common good”.

From this perspective, the economy is not a concatenation of rapacious independent forces, to be contained and offset by public policy, but a project – or rather a series of projects – with direction and purpose. Finance should be turned to the benefit of these collective goals instead of chasing short-term returns, she argues, and the creativity of corporations channelled to the public good.

Usually, individuals don’t want to be angry. In a group, however, negative emotions can rile the tribe. On the streets of London, Ed Coper felt it first hand

Back before 9/11 and the wars it precipitated, the big global focus for protest was globalisation itself. Things came to a head in Seattle in November 1999 when 50,000 protesters crashed the World Trade Organization’s party. The ensuing “Battle of Seattle”, as it came to be known, brought unprecedented attention to the growing disquiet over the inequalities of unregulated free market excesses. That’s how, a few months later, I found myself smack bang in the middle of the next big anti-neoliberal flashpoint, the “MayDay 2K” protests in London.

My experience of protest throughout high school had been pretty tame, more likely to take the form of defiance than demonstration. Socks down, shirt untucked – take that, sir! But then again times were good, even for a ratbag. I didn’t have many grievances. At least, none that could be solved by collective protest against powerful institutions that weren’t my parents.

From The Twits to The Gruffalo and an angry bear in search of his hat… Quentin Blake, Cressida Cowell, Axel Sheffler, Lauren Child and more reveal how they bring children’s books to life

Spread across a sprawling 17th-century industrial complex in London’s Clerkenwell, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, which opens next month, is being billed as the largest institution of its kind anywhere in the world: a permanent national home for an art form that shapes everything from children’s books and political cartoons to animation, fashion, advertising and digital culture. Part museum, part gallery and part creative laboratory, the centre represents an extraordinary attempt to drag illustration out of the margins and finally place it at the heart of British cultural life.

Eventually the centre will become home to Blake’s own enormous archive: 40,000 drawings created by one of the UK’s best-known and most immediately recognisable artists. Now 93, Blake has spent three-quarters of a century bringing the words of some of our most beloved authors to life. Roald Dahl is the big one, of course – it’s impossible to think of Dahl without seeing Blake’s energetic, dip-pen pictures – but the list also includes Michael Rosen, John Yeoman, Sylvia Plath and Voltaire, as well as Blake’s own books. In other words, it’s difficult to find anyone with the same authority.

When Ben Elton didn’t distract from the pain of moving my body, I found the perfect solution – the interactive smartphone game Zombies, Run!

At 56, I am running my first marathon, an old, fat, bald dad surrounded by millennials in body-hugging Lycra and smiles that look AI-generated. But I am ahead of them. For they are only competing for positions and personal bests, and I am being chased by zombies.

The black dog of depression hit me around the time of my last birthday. I didn’t feel I had achieved anything of note for an eternity. I used to work out but, for years, work kept getting in the way. I decided to kill two circling, carcass-sniffing vultures with one stone and run my first marathon.

Infinity Ward’s new game in the storied shooter genre embraces change with a potentially controversial real-world setting

There was a time when Call of Duty (CoD) regularly courted controversy. In 2009, Modern Warfare 2’s infamous “No Russian” mission saw players (optionally) shooting screaming civilians in a Moscow airport. In 2022’s entry, a drone strike mission that drew chilling parallels to the real-world US assassination of Iranian general Qassem Suleimani two years earlier was featured. The series has not always been straightforwardly palatable.

In recent years, however, the world’s most popular shooter game has largely swapped grit for melodrama, following the misadventures of a troop of larger than life elite soldiers. For 2026’s Modern Warfare 4, however, Activision’s shooter series and its developer Infinity Ward are back in tabloid-baiting territory.

A gentle daily puzzle is quietly becoming the most joyful part of my morning routine​ and reminds me that not every win needs to be epic

There’s been some pretty big news in the last couple of weeks in video game world: the long-running space shooter Destiny 2 is winding up after almost nine years, PlayStation appears to have decided to stop releasing its flagship single-player games on PC, and Microsoft wants us to look like we’re shouting every time we type XBOX. But the biggest news for me is that I have found my new favourite word game. I am going to be so bold as to call it the new Wordle.

Ribbit is one of the varied suite of daily games on Puzzmo, an online puzzle platform. It launched at the beginning of January, but I only recently discovered it because I have been unwell, bored, and spending too much time on my phone. Puzzmo’s daily hits include a satisfying shape-arranging game, variations on chess that make me feel extremely stupid, and pleasing word games, which are my favourites. Circuits has you making connections between the beginnings and ends of phrases (eg “stone cold > cold medicine > medicine cabinet”) as fast as you can. Bongo gives you a bunch of letter tiles and asks you to arrange them for a maximum score.

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; IO Interactive
The stealth masters behind Hitman go loud for this game about Bond’s brilliant beginnings

Given that we’ve not had a great James Bond video game in decades – or any Bond film at all in five years – there’s a lot of pressure on 007 First Light to reinvigorate a British cinematic hero. But developer IO Interactive has been auditioning for this role for some time. It’s there in the globetrotting nature of its Hitman assassination games, starring a besuited hero who knows how to turn a soiree to his deadly purpose; then there’s the developer’s evident eye for corporate opulence and brutalist architecture. Even their in-house game engine, Glacier, sounds like a secret codename cooked up in a Bond villain’s lair. All it would take is a slight shift in Hitman’s moral compass – more old boys club, fewer old boys clubbed – to turn IO’s familiar series into a Bond game with minimal fuss.

007 First Light refuses that easy route. We join young Bond in his pre-00 days, as a petulant, belligerent rule-breaking trainee. Actor Patrick Gibson begins as a cookie-cutter insubordinate, but warms to the role once he’s bouncing off M (herself a green leader looking to make her mark), and an enjoyably urbane Q who drops the frustrated quartermaster routine and introduces Bond to the wonders of vinyl. A scene where he teaches our agent to tie a bow tie is a perfect bit of prequelcraft: arriving at an iconic look through a lovely character touch.

Wigmore Hall, London
The Norwegian singer’s remarkable ability to inhabit a character, her warmth on stage and the control and tenderness she brought to the more intimate songs made this a very special recital

Wigmore Hall is turning 125, its director John Gilhooly was being granted honorary membership of the Royal Philharmonic Society, and everyone in the audience was shouted a free drink, but there was another cause for celebration on Sunday night. With Lise Davidsen, the world’s most in-demand opera singer, giving an all-Schubert recital it was a case of standing room only.

The Norwegian soprano has a Rolls-Royce instrument, more than capable of filling a house the size of the Metropolitan Opera, but up close she brought other qualities to the table. Her disarming warmth in seemingly off-the-cuff spoken introductions put the audience entirely at ease. Her ability to inhabit a character, as she does on stage, ensured songs such as Gretchen am Spinnrade and Die Junge Nonne were dramatic highlights. The former opened with a throbbing intensity and built to an eruption of volcanic proportions. Her fledgling nun seethed with a scared rapture that verged on the dangerously corporeal.

Early works show a less familiar side to the Scottish artist celebrated for her flower and cat paintings

She may be best known for accessible paintings of flowers and cats but a new exhibition of Elizabeth Blackadder’s work focuses instead on chilly landscapes and pared-back still life compositions.

The show in Hampshire, far from Blackadder’s Scottish home, presents a less familiar side of the artist, with most of the pieces exhibited for the first time.

Longborough Festival Opera, Moreton-in-Marsh
Sinéad O’Neill’s production is persuasive and Beth Taylor’s performace as Orlando is extraordinary in this tale of unrequited love, madness and magic

The woodland outside Longborough’s theatre, deep in the Cotswolds, sneaks inside and on to the stage for its season-opening production of Orlando. With a story that sometimes seems little more than an excuse for a series of showpiece arias, it’s not an obvious choice for the festival’s first Handel opera in a decade, but Sinéad O’Neill’s production has confidence in the work and is persuasive enough to lead us through.

The flimsy plot comes from Ariosto’s poem Orlando Furioso. High-ranking warrior Orlando loves princess Angelica, but she’s not interested; she loves Medoro. Low-ranking shepherdess Dorinda loves Medoro – but he loves Angelica, see above. The usual baroque-opera love triangles and noble self-sacrifice are absent, and what we have instead is the stuff of school lunch-queue gossip. Someone hears words that weren’t meant for them and jumps to conclusions; someone else has unwisely given away a special bracelet. Then Orlando cracks: he has an extended, musically arresting mad scene and then goes on a murderous rampage that’s cleared up by the presiding magician, Zoroastro, thus allowing for a happy ending.

Kings Place, London
The US singer Thomas Hampson paired with accordionist Ksenija Sidorova to perform highlights from Schubert’s Winterreise alongside Weill and Piazzolla. Alas much of this disappointing evening felt like a vanity project

Schubert’s Winterreise – the composer’s great psychodrama in song – ends devastatingly. Der Leiermann conjures a chilling vision of a hurdy-gurdy man. Alone beyond the village he plays his melancholy tune, luring the narrator to him – perhaps also to his death? The haunting song, with its anchoring drone, begs for colours the piano can only suggest. Presumably that was the seed for this unusual collaboration between veteran US baritone Thomas Hampson and Latvian accordionist Ksenija Sidorova.

You can see the logic that swaps piano for accordion and frames the Schubert with songs by Kurt Weill and a tango by Piazzolla: this is street music with its face washed and hair brushed, invited into the salon, the cabaret, the opera house.

Artist said Man in a Black Scarf was not his but evidence has emerged to show he painted it when a student in Suffolk

An early portrait by Lucian Freud, which the artist denied was his for years, is to be exhibited for the first time after experts proved it was painted by him.

Man in a Black Scarf was created in 1939 by the British artist when he was still a student at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing in Hadleigh, Suffolk. The sitter is thought to be John Jameson, a friend of Freud’s and scion of the whiskey family.

Actor tells theatregoers she hoped message was ‘very important’ after final bows of Inter Alia performance

Rosamund Pike has criticised an audience member for texting during the climax of her West End performance, saying she hoped the message was “very important”.

After a performance of Inter Alia on Saturday, Pike returned to the stage after the final bows. She told the audience at Wyndham’s theatre in London: “I just wanted to say for anyone going to the theatre, it’s a huge thing that we’re trying to give you. I am trying to tell you a story, and I’m feeling you, and I hope you’re feeling me too.”

She had a passion for butterflies and would seek out rare ones, yet this was used against her by violent, money-grabbing husband. Now this pioneering naturalist’s story has been translated to today’s manosphere

‘There’s nothing wrong with having a hobby, or even what you might call in this case a hyperfocus,” psychiatrist Dr Godrick tells Eleanor Glanville in a claustrophobic therapy room.

Outside the Phoenix theatre in Hampshire, a summer heatwave is delivering perfect conditions for butterflies. Inside, a rather darker story is being rehearsed in air-conditioned gloom. Butterfly, a new play, shines a light on one woman’s passion for butterflies and how it is turned against her when she became trapped in an abusive relationship.

In the Nordic country, books covering subjects such as childbirth and sex have become bestsellers among younger readers – and an export hit. Behind their success lies a unique philosophy of childhood learning

‘I wasn’t aware that I am such a brave writer and illustrator,” says Anna Fiske, a softly spoken Swedish-born author living in Norway who received death threats for a book she wrote in 2019. “I just tell things as they are.”

Fiske doesn’t write political polemics but books for children: the title of the offending book is Hvordan Lager Man en Baby?, “How Do You Make a Baby” – and, yes, there are illustrations. Distributed in English-speaking territories through Fiske’s New Zealand publisher, it triggered threats from Canada and was banned from several school libraries in the US. “They said it was pornographic.”

Like many first-time pet owners, I was overprotective when we adopted her during the pandemic. But this affectionate creature showed me that love can mean letting go

In July 2021, after a few beers on a summer evening, my flatmate, Lew, answered an internet ad. By 5pm the next day, we had a kitten. She was a swirl of tortie-and-white fluff, with a small pink snoot, and huge ears that made her look more bat than cat. We called her Mush, pronounced like “smush”. From the moment the result of our drunken decision arrived and hid behind the sofa in our south London flat, we were in love.

Like many first-time parents in their 20s, Lew and I were fussy and overprotective. Neither of us had ever been responsible for a living creature before. When I held her tiny body against my chest, I felt anxious. Any little thing sent us running to the vet. A crusty eye. A single flea. Was she too small? Was she eating enough? “She’s in perfect physical condition,” the vet assured us during one of her many checkups.

More and more people are looking for love when they’re abroad, and consider themselves better placed to do so. But there are potential pitfalls ...

Name: Wanderlove.

Age: Originally coined by the dating app Bumble in 2022 to describe a trend predicted for 2023.

Whether you want a stick, a spray or a tinted cream, our expert’s favourite formulas can provide year-round sun protection

• The best face moisturisers for every budget

There’s nothing quite like the warmth of the sun on your face after a long, dreary winter. But before you bask in it, you should always apply an SPF. That’s especially true if you use retinol serums, which can increase your vulnerability to sun damage. If you’re not wearing an SPF every day, you might as well toss the rest of your skincare out of the window.

As well as the risk of sunburn, UV rays cause longer-lasting, deeper skin damage, resulting in age spots, pigmentation and premature ageing. But if the thought of slathering sticky sunscreens on your face every day makes you want to spend your life in perpetual shade, you’ve come to the right place.

Best face SPF overall:
Beauty of Joseon relief sun rice + probiotics

Best budget face SPF:
E45 Sensitive Sun face cream

Crisp 27in 5K Mac monitor is packed with features and some of the best HDR performance you can get for work or play

Apple’s new 27in Studio Display XDR is its best monitor yet, with an exceptionally bright and gorgeous 5K screen that wants to be the pro display for Mac-wielding content creators everywhere, with a price tag to match.

Built to be paired with the latest or high-end Macs, the Studio Display XDR costs from £2,599 (€3,099/$2,899/A$4,799), although it is a cool £3,000 if you want it with a stand. It sits above the standard £1,499 Studio Display and is £2,000 cheaper than the 2019 Apple Pro Display XDR it replaces.

Whether it’s giving florals a twist or wearing a rented number, here are our top tips for decoding the dress code

• Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

The invitation thumps on to your doormat – or, as likely, into your inbox – and rather than feel excitement for the ensuing nuptials, you feel dread. What on earth to wear?

Weddings are full of sartorial pitfalls. If there’s no dress code, the limitless options can feel daunting; if there is, it can feel a different kind of daunting, but with a useful guide to prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

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

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

Best fan for cooling:
Dreo TurboCool misting fan 765S

This yoghurty-crunchy sharing dish brings classic street food vibes with no need to fire up the barbecue

While souvlaki and other Greek meat grills are staples in our house, their appearance definitely increases in the warmer months. And if I’m going to the effort of lighting the barbecue, I will always cook more meat than I need, so I can enjoy it on subsequent days. As a result, I have a new appreciation for turning this much-loved street food into more of a sharing plate. You can, of course, barbecue the chicken, if that is how your day is going, but this is just as delicious made in a pan, quickly and simply, with all that charred flavour. Throw in a little sunshine and a glass of cold wine, and you’ll find yourself instantly transported to a waterside taverna, paper tablecloth and all.

Fresh, light, vibrant vegetable dishes that capture the changing of the season and Scandinavia’s long summer days

Summer is a beautiful season in Scandinavia, and the word that embodies it is “abundance”. The midsummer night doesn’t really get dark, the light is beautiful and it is only the sound of the blackbirds singing that indicates the day is ending. In stark contrast to the dark winter months, summer is all about the light, so your temperament is different and you long for different things: to be outside, to eat lighter meals and to enjoy as many fresh vegetables as possible. These two recipes would make a perfect summer’s evening meal (beach house optional but recommended): cold cucumber soup followed by a fresh and tasty tart with raw tomatoes on top of a smooth cream and crusty pastry. Velbekomme!

These compulsively snacky salt-crusted spuds are a Canary Islands favourite – and an unusual but excellent way to cook our own early-summer crop

If you’ve ever visited the Canary Islands, you’ll be familiar with papas arrugadas – often translated, somewhat unappetisingly, as “wrinkly potatoes” – which pop up on every menu there. And not, generally, as a side dish, but as a standalone snack to be enjoyed with drinks. I do love a place that takes the spud seriously, and perhaps it’s not that much of a surprise, given that the first potatoes to reach Europe passed through the Canaries on their way from Peru, which, along with the similarity between the rocky soils of the Andes and the islands, probably accounts for the long history of cultivation.

Though many unusual early varieties are still grown for local sale, the Canaries imports both seed and fresh potatoes from the UK (king edward and arran banner have become quinegua and arambana). Once upon a time, ships would leave the islands laden with winter tomatoes for the British market, and return full of tubers. For this recipe, however, you’ll need new season potatoes with thin, delicate skins, and small enough to cook whole. Cooked in salty water until the salt crystals cling to them like frost, they’re served with a fiery dipping sauce that reflects the strong Portuguese and African influences on Canarian cuisine: an unusual but excellent way to celebrate our own early-summer crop.

The cuisine is booming in the UK, with more places than ever to try bibimbap, bulgogi or tteokbokki. Here’s what to eat – and where to find it

From sizzling bowls of comforting bibimbap to crispy, hot, sweet pancakes, Korean food is exploding in popularity in the UK. Demand is rising for the country’s bold and punchy flavours, which feature soy sauce, sesame oil, the tangy, fermented kick of kimchi, raw napa cabbage and gochujang, a sweet and spicy chilli paste that elevates dips and gives an umami boost to sauces.

Last year, Waitrose reported that sales of gochujang had increased by 71% since 2024. Jamie Oliver uses it to flavour his chicken burgers while Nigella Lawson adds it to her pasta sauce. In March, Korean fried chicken was named one of Just Eat’s top 10 takeaways of 2026, while there were long queues this month at Jung, a Korean food festival in London.

It started as a hook-up, but before long they were parents. Now Sofia and León are finding new ways to be intimate

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

It just felt easy, like I’d already known him for a long time. I told León I loved him after two weeks

Would you want this to become sexual? If the answer is yes, then think about what might be holding you back

I don’t know whether I am in love with my friend or not. We hang out a lot, because we work together in the same university. My feelings developed over many months and it took us a long time to fit with each other as we do now. I don’t find him perfect; I sometimes don’t like his behaviour, especially when we are with other people. However, I want to be with him a lot: I imagine going on holiday with him and doing things together.

We do have physical contact sometimes – just things like touching arms. I appreciate that and have deep affection for him. So I wonder if this could be love or if I am mistaking great friendship with love just because he is a guy. I do not know whether he is a friend, almost like a brother, or more than that.

Ailsa, 31, a systems engineer, meets Mike, 35, a paralegal

What were you hoping for?
Good conversation with someone interesting.

Amy is worried about microplastics. Melanie says she can’t bin everything. Whose argument is toxic? You decide
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I want to live a healthier life too, but removing all plastics is unrealistic and unaffordable

We left our car at the short-stay car park after paying £66 for a one-week ‘meet and greet’ service

I have ended up hundreds of pounds out of pocket after paying £66 for a week’s parking at Stansted airport.

I booked through the website compareairportparkings.co.uk for our car to be collected at the short-stay car park, parked off-site while we were away, and then returned to us at the short stay.

Urgent renewal emails and huge discounts figures are used to pressure people to hand over their data

You have had McAfee antivirus software installed on your laptop for years after becoming fearful that your computer would be infected. So when an email arrives to say your protection is about to expire, you are not surprised. Better still, there is a “renewal discount” of 89% if you pay on the same day.

“Once the expiration date has passed, your computer becomes susceptible to many different virus threats,” the email warns.

Whether first-time buyers, in between homes or refixing, people tell of impact of higher mortgage rates on housing

Prospects of cuts in UK interest rates in 2026, which were widely expected at the start of the year, were rapidly extinguished when the Iran war started at the end of February. The renewed threat of inflation means the Bank of England is now expected to raise rates at least once this year, with mortgage costs staying higher for longer.

The boss of Britain’s largest housebuilder said on Thursday it was the most challenging time to be a first-time buyer since the 2008 financial crisis.

Barratt Redrow boss says rising interest rates, higher student debt and squeeze on wages hitting property dream

• Business live – latest updates

The boss of Britain’s largest housebuilder has said it is the most challenging time to be a first-time buyer since the financial crisis, as the dream of home ownership moves increasingly out of reach for many young people.

A combination of rising interest rates, higher levels of student debt and the squeeze on wages is making it “challenging, very, very difficult” for young people to get on the housing ladder, according to David Thomas, the departing chief executive of Barratt Redrow.

There is no evidence that ovulation affects muscle-building, but you may feel stronger at certain times

It’s an idea that’s been enthusiastically embraced on social media: women should sync their training to their menstrual cycle. That means lifting heavier weights around ovulation, then switching to gentler movement such as yoga in the second half of the cycle – because as their hormones fluctuate so does their strength.

But there’s not much proof that this is useful, says Dr Marianna Apicella, a researcher at the University of Leicester specialising in female physiology. “High-quality evidence supporting that is seriously lacking,” she says. “There’s not really much concrete evidence for it.”

Experts hail daraxonrasib as ‘gamechanger’ for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer

A daily pill can double survival time in patients with the world’s deadliest cancer, according to the results of a clinical trial that experts are saying is a “gamechanger” and one of the biggest breakthroughs in decades.

Currently, there are few treatments for pancreatic cancer, and most do little or nothing to help. For decades, scientists have worked relentlessly trying to find clever solutions for a form of cancer that is often found late. More than half of patients are only diagnosed after it has spread.

Whether it’s Hyrox or CrossFit, some of this century’s biggest exercise trends have one thing in common: combining cardio with strength training. Here’s how to do it

Tough Mudder. CrossFit. Hyrox. Some of this century’s biggest fitness trends have one thing in common: they require feats of both strength and endurance. People used to pick a side: either you used weights and resistance machines to build your muscles or you did cardio for the sake of your heart and lungs. Now everyone wants to be a “hybrid athlete”. So is this the best way to get fit – and where do you start if you’re a complete beginner?

A lack of confidence can prevent us from trying new things or going after what we want – but it’s never too late to change our beliefs

When I was in middle school, my father told me 80% of how people see you is how you see yourself. This was terrible news at the time, because I was deep in the depths of puberty, self-loathing and figuring out how to part my hair.

Though he pulled that number out of thin air, in the intervening years I’ve found he was on to something – projecting confidence can sometimes be the key to success, professionally and personally. But how does one actually cultivate confidence? And what if our understanding of what confidence is skewed?

Sorting, wearing and even reworking some of Mum’s wardrobe has given me a way to keep her close

Only my mum would insist on buying a designer swimsuit on her deathbed. She had always found emotional solace in clothes, but shopping for herself had become futile by that point. She was, after all, lying in a cancer hospital having been told there was no further treatment available for her relentless myeloma; she had exhausted all available options in the 11 years since her diagnosis. But my 37th birthday was coming up and there was no way terminal blood cancer was going to stop Rhona from buying me a present. She loved showering her family with gifts. I would reprimand her for spoiling us. “I can’t spend it when I’m dead, can I?” she used to respond.

Of course, there was only one thing I truly wanted that birthday, but I was being forced to come to terms with that being a deluded fantasy. Despite my protestations that I needed nothing, my mum insisted: “Something nice for your holidays, perhaps?”

Once associated with wealth and celebrity, cosmetic treatments to defy ageing have become more commonplace. What is it doing to beauty standards?

Mary Munson’s first non-surgical cosmetic treatment wasn’t the result of a plan, or a concrete decision. She describes it in terms of sating her curiosity. Munson, 41, was visiting a clinic to extend her lashes when a woman working there spoke to her about a procedure that she referred to as “baby Botox” – which was, in fact, Botox. Since deciding to try it, she hasn’t looked back.

“It was just a starter to see what it was like, and I realised that I enjoyed it. And to be honest I don’t feel like I see a huge change,” says Munson, who was 37 when she started treatments. While she thinks her Filipino and Scottish genes “give me good skin”, Munson started getting other treatments alongside regular Botox injections, including platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy (sometimes referred to as a vampire facial, in which platelets are drawn from a patient’s own blood), as well as platelet-rich fibrin (PRF), a similar treatment that stimulates collagen.

The New York mayor scored a range of responses attending Eid prayers in an outfit combining football and faith

Since Arsenal won the Premier League for the first time in 22 years this month, the visibility of the club’s shirts has soared, with celebrities including Romeo Beckham and the singer Mahalia wearing them.

One particularly notable fan moment occurred when Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York, wore a kurta made out of the team’s 2025-26 away kit to attend Eid al-Adha prayers in the Bronx.

From sardines and sprats to crabs, marine life-themed fashion and homewares are making a splash

Three years after declaring the death of florals, John Lewis has discovered a new print that is making a splash among shoppers. At the launch of its new high summer collection, the retailer said fish were quickly becoming its customers’ catch of the day.

From sardines and sprats to crustaceans including crabs, its latest haul across fashion and homeware is rich in fish prints and shapes. Sales of starfish-shaped earrings are up 300% month on month, while high demand for a silky blue skirt smothered in shoals of fish has resulted in a waiting list. In homeware, sales of a set of glass tumblers that stack together to form the shape of a fish are up 400%, while a “gluggle jug” – a ceramic pitcher shaped like a fish that makes a gurgling sound as the water is poured – is becoming an outdoor dining essential. Sales of versions from Wade Pottery are up 129% month on month.

Piòle are the Italian city’s working-class neighbourhood taverns. Of the few that survive, many have gone upmarket – but I was looking for the real deal and affordable home cooking

Turin is one of Italy’s most serious food cities, shaped by the culinary legacy of the House of Savoy and, more recently, the slow food movement – a reputation reflected in its historic cafes and restaurants, where meals can feel refined. But that’s only part of the picture. As a local, I’m drawn to something far less formal: the piòla.

Piòle were never quite restaurants. They were places for a glass of barbera (poured at the counter from a cylindrical, quarter-litre carafe, the tubo) in rooms worn smooth by decades of use. Regulars played cards, argued about football or politics, and lingered without ceremony. Food, if it appeared, was simple and to the point: anchovies in green sauce, hard-boiled eggs, cold cuts, perhaps a plate of agnolotti (stuffed pasta).

The 2,700-mile route covering the entire English coastline is almost complete. We walked less trodden sections big on scenery and history

Day one Circular walk of Lindisfarne (4 miles)
Day two Budle Bay to Bamburgh to (5 miles)

From a vinyl-focused music exhibition to beloved record stores, ‘listening bars’ and clubs, the Victorian capital’s fondness for wax reverberates in every corner of the city

When the needle drops, Elias Rahbani’s 1972 album Mosaic of the Orient (Näi, Buzuk & Guitar) cascades out from a Technics SL-1300GE-K turntable and a colossal pair of Tasmanian-made Pitt & Giblin Superwax speakers. I’m in the Listening Room – a temple for audiophiles, and to the vinyl record – in Melbourne’s Acmi, as part of Rising festival’s new exhibition The Vinyl Factory: Reverb. The gear sounds extraordinary – and it is only one story in a room filled with countless more.

Rising music curator and Triple R host Yasmine Sharaf remembers the moment she spotted that rare Rahbani record, on a 47C day at a Cairo market. “Record shopping is really hard in Egypt. Everything usually has no cover and is covered in dust. It was sitting on the very top in complete sun. Somehow in perfect condition, not warped or melted. You’d think it would just be a puddle. I feel I was supposed to find it and save it.”

From the wilds of Galloway and spectacular Pembrokeshire to the cockle sheds of Southend, you share your favourite seaside walks
• Tell us about a European road trip – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

With an impressive mix of mountain and sea views, the 130-mile Anglesey Coastal Path is a must-do for those who love a good walk. But like most locals, my perennial favourite is the offshoot trail out to the tidal island Ynys Llanddwyn. Having grown up on Ynys Môn but now living in London, for me it has become something of an annual pilgrimage in the summer months. The mile-long walk along the main beach to the island is manageable and fun for grandparents and grandkids alike – with the white-washed lighthouses offering a rewarding end viewpoint. Pack a picnic, swim in the clear waters and relax – just make sure you’ve checked the tide times!
Lavinia Brydon

Many of those who love spending time in Britain’s green places say it is awe-inspiring, calming and therapeutic

As a recent study revealed almost half of UK adults now spend less than three hours a week in natural settings such as gardens, parks, fields or woods, we asked readers to tell us about what being outside means to them.

The replies – heartfelt and passionate – came flooding in, with some admitting they just did not have the words to say how important it is.

The comedian on coming out at 20, discovering she was funny, and the special moment she marked with a tattoo

Born in Portsmouth in 1986, comedian Suzi Ruffell trained at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts in London and began her standup career in 2008. As well as touring and appearing on Live at the Apollo, she hosts a podcast, Out With Suzi Ruffell, and co-hosts another, Like Minded Friends, with Tom Allen. She has also written a bestselling memoir, Am I Having Fun Now? Anxiety, Applause and Life’s Big Questions, Answered. She tours her show The Juggle until September.

This was taken in the living room of the house I grew up in, in Portsmouth. All the curtains were heavily patterned, as were the carpets. I was 10 years old and deep in my Spice Girls era – especially Mel C, who was on the roster of my early crushes, along with Kate Winslet and Jennifer Aniston.

I heard the ambulance siren getting closer. And then a voice: ‘Where do you live? We’ll take your bike home for you’

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I was coming down a mountain bike trail when I became aware of an odd ache in the middle of my chest. At the time I was working as a specialist anaesthetist, and also had a history of working in intensive care medicine, so I immediately knew the significance of such a sensation. Which is: I was having a heart attack halfway down a mountain, somewhere an ambulance wouldn’t be able to reach me.

I knew that to have any shot of making it out alive I had to get myself down to the car park, so I coasted on my bike to the bottom of the trail, all while gripped by central chest pain. I made it to my car, got my phone and called an ambulance.

The broadcaster documents living with this debilitating, lifelong disease in a bid to help other sufferers. Plus: the soothing return of Springwatch. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC Two
“It’s like having a drill inside my stomach that is going down into my organs.” Broadcaster Emma Barnett lives with this extremely painful lifelong disease that affects one in 10 women – but about which medical experts still don’t know enough, largely because of the gender health gap. In this vital documentary, she is candid about her own story and hears from other women with the condition, as they demand more help. Hollie Richardson

A new belief set is uniting some of the wealthiest men in the world around a ‘transhuman’ future – actual humanity be damned

Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, took to the Internet a few years ago to propose that homo sapiens would be the first species “to design our own descendants”. In his best case scenario, the “merge” between humans and artificial intelligence occurs at some point over the next 50 years. The alternative, where we remain simply human and the machines follow their own path, is more ominous. “If two different species both want the same thing and only one can have it – in this case, to be the dominant species on the planet and beyond – they are going to have conflict,” he wrote.

More recently, Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who at one point last year was granted the power to reconfigure the US federal government, argued on his social media platform, X, that “it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence” – our role in the history of the cosmos reduced to that of the low level code that boots up a computer before you can run sophisticated programs on it.

Andy Burnham and the Reform candidate lead the polls, but issues such as flooding and the state of the high street are main concerns locally

The roads that connect the collection of towns and villages that make up this constituency in England are studded with turquoise banners declaring: “Makerfield needs Reform.”

Once at the heart of Wigan’s coal-mining industry, and represented by a Labour MP continuously since the 1900s, Farage’s party has gained a foothold here, and with any other Labour candidate installed, this parliamentary seat would almost certainly fall to Reform.

The Guardian’s landmark poll of the greatest novels published in English required collaboration and innovation across multiple desks. This is the story of how it came together

Everyone was asking each other the same questions. How many have you read? Which ones are you going to read now? What must-reads do you think are missing?

Matt Freeman, a 46-year-old designer from London, resolved to finally get around to Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie: “I’ve had it on my shelf for years – a clothbound edition because I thought that if I invested in a really great copy, I’d read it. And now I’ll finally do so – it’ll mean I can tick another one off this list.”

We would like to hear from people who are facing water supply disruptions due to warm weather in the south east of England

Thousands of properties in the south east have been affected by water supply issues caused by the warm weather, according to South East Water (SEW).

After water outages for hundreds of homes across Kent and Sussex over the last three days during record temperatures, the firm has asked customers to only use water for essential purposes like drinking, washing and cooking.

Dua Lipa got married this weekend in an outfit that appeared to pay homage to Bianca Jagger’s wedding to Mick Jagger. We’d like to hear whether you made a similar style choice at your wedding?

Dua Lipa got married this weekend in a beautiful outfit that appeared to pay homage to Bianca Jagger’s wedding to Mick Jagger.

The singer wore a Schiaparelli couture white skirt suit paired with a Stephen Jones hat as she tied the knot with actor Callum Turner at Old Marylebone Town Hall in London on Sunday. In 1971, Jagger married the Rolling Stones frontman in a Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket and bias-cut skirt, finishing off the look with a floppy hat and veil.

We would like to hear your stories of nightmare holidays that wouldn’t be out of place on screen

With the release of Two Weeks in August, along with new series of Four Seasons and White Lotus, it seems we can’t get enough TV about holidays from hell.

With this in mind, we would like to hear your own stories of holiday mishaps. Do you have a nightmare holiday story that could have inspired a TV show? Tell us all about it below.

How has the search for work been for you? How many job applications have you made?

The number of young people not in work or education in Britain could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action, a landmark report has warned.

Alan Milburn, the leader of the review into why so many young people are economically inactive, said the UK risked opening up a “generational fault line” between young and old without urgent steps to overhaul schools, the health service, the welfare system and the jobs market.

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