Mark described abusing his daughter in a chatroom. Then it turned out nothing he had posted was true – and he walked free. With ‘fantasy abuse’ on the rise, can Emily and her mother win their fight to make it illegal?

For the first 20 years of her life, Emily had what she thought was a “completely normal” relationship with her dad, Mark. “He was an ordinary man,” she says. “A good dad. We were really close.” Then one morning, police officers arrived at her family home to arrest him for sexually abusing her. Emily wasn’t there. “I had just moved out to live with friends and start my first proper job,” she explains, “but the police didn’t know that. They were trying to protect me.” Emily is telling this story two years on, with her mum, Fiona, by her side. They are close, supporting each other during this difficult conversation, finishing each other’s sentences.

When Fiona heard the door go at 7am, she had just got up. “I wasn’t even fully dressed,” she says. “It sounds stupid but I had just got on an exercise bike so I was in a T-shirt and pants. I looked out of the bedroom window and saw eight people on the doorstep. They weren’t in uniform but they looked official. They had lanyards on and a dog with them.

There are glimpses of the Curb star at his razor-like best here – but they are desperately few. It’s mainly worth watching for the immaculate Obama intro

It is always an emotional blow to see former US president Barack Obama pop up on one’s screen. The Instagram algorithm sends me a lot of him, because it knows I always click on him being charming with babies, statesmanlike in speeches, cool at rallies, articulate and witty at anything, endlessly composed, compassionate, intelligent, handsome, thoughtful – a fully functioning adult human, if you want the short version. The algorithm does not know that I jack-knife in pain before I click and weep softly at how far we – the US sneezed, but the UK has surely caught a cold – have fallen.

And then he turns up at the beginning of Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: an Almost History of America (one of the offspring of his and Michelle’s TV company, Higher Ground Productions) to remind us that on top of all that he also has immaculate comic timing. As he walks through what I assume is the new Barack Obama Presidential Center, he modulates his performance so beautifully that I almost began to softly weep again. If I’d known what a shambles was to follow after this masterclass, I would have sobbed.

The putative PM-to-be explained how one of Tony Harrison’s poems gave him a new outlook – one that the country is sorely in need of

Two weeks before Josh Simons stood down as the Makerfield MP for his benefit, Andy Burnham was at Salts Mill in Shipley celebrating the life and work of the poet Tony Harrison. It was a small gathering, with actors, directors, writers and family members paying homage. Burnham wasn’t the only politician to speak; Richard Burgon, MP for Leeds East, is another fan (in 2020 he put down an early day motion in parliament that recognised how Harrison had “always written, and spoken, for the people”). But Burnham’s was the most incisive illustration of how literature in general and poetry in particular can change lives.

Burnham was introduced to Harrison’s poetry as a sixth-former. An English teacher at his school put him on to V, Harrison’s long poem, set in a Leeds graveyard, which became infamous after Richard Eyre dramatised it for Channel 4. The Conservative MP Gerald Howarth attempted to get the broadcast (and broadside) banned for its use of four-letter words, which the Daily Mail described as a “torrent of filth”. V recounts the poet’s confrontation with a skinhead who has sprayed graffiti on headstones, a young man with whom he turns out to have quite a lot in common.

Blake Morrison is emeritus professor at Goldsmiths, University of London and the author of the poetry collection Afterburn

Last week, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, announced a sweeping ban on under-16s that would stop them accessing social media apps including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and Facebook by 2027.

The move has been nicknamed an ‘Australia plus’ ban, after Australia became the first country to introduce a nation-wide ban on children accessing these apps at the end of last year.

But how is it actually going over there? Political correspondent Aletha Adu teamed up with Guardian Australia social media host and reporter Matilda Boseley to find out

Editor-in-chief has developed network of UK thinkers she believes reject what she regards as overly ‘woke’ consensus

In the six years since she very publicly resigned from the New York Times, and in her tumultuous eight months as editor-in-chief of one of the US’s most prestigious television networks, Bari Weiss has become renowned as a media disruptor and challenger of what she regards as an overly “woke” journalistic consensus.

As Weiss continues to face bitter internal and external opposition to her leadership of CBS News, she has been turning to figures from UK journalism in her attempts to tackle what she sees as US newsroom “groupthink”.

Scorching summer of 2003 triggered first efforts to deal with the problem but heatwaves still have devastating impact

On Wednesday, Pierre Masselot received a text from his daughter’s nursery – less than 50 miles from the weather station that was the first this week to break the UK June temperature record – asking parents to collect children early because the school buildings were about to get worryingly hot.

Similar scenes were repeated across Europe this week as the continent swelters through its most severe and widespread heatwave on record – an oppressive force made hotter by carbon pollution and less bearable by repeated failures to prepare for it. France experienced its hottest day and night on record, while the UK and Switzerland both broke their heat records for a June day.

Exclusive: Researchers call for urgent investigation of risks to babies of tablets, smartphones and other digital devices

Screen time for babies and toddlers under the age of two has been linked with long-term negative effects on health and quality of life and should be avoided, according to a landmark study.

It warns that using screens during that period may lead to wide-ranging developmental concerns and calls for further urgent investigation of the risks smartphones, tablets and other digital devices pose to infants.

Forecasters say hottest conditions spreading into central and eastern Europe

• After decades of climate warnings, why is Europe so unprepared for rising heat?

Seawater is seeping into Italy’s longest river as the waterway starts to run dry in the heatwave, hitting a farming heartland that produces the milk for Parmesan cheese.

The Po River has never fallen this low so early in the year, raising fears of a devastating drought in July in this corner of northern Italy.

Staff at Radio 4 show, which has 5 million listeners, told making content for likes of TikTok will take precedence for correspondents

The task of briefing the nation on Radio 4’s agenda-setting Today programme has been one of the most urgent tasks facing the BBC’s top journalists for decades.

Insiders at the corporation, however, say that duty has effectively been downgraded, after an edict that will result in correspondents prioritising making content for TikTok, Instagram and other digital platforms.

Relocation of Action on World Health raises questions over why Reform UK leader is involved in a US pressure group

Nigel Farage’s campaign against the World Health Organization (WHO) is moving to the US with a new board of lobbyists, raising questions over why the Reform UK leader is involved in an American pressure group.

The Action on World Health campaign, co-founded by Farage, is relocating to the US state of Delaware as a charitable foundation and grassroots non-profit.

US president says levy would be imposed immediately and supersede pre-existing trade deals with the country

Donald Trump has threatened to place a 100% import tariff on any European country that imposes a tax on digital services from US companies.

Writing on Truth Social on Friday, the US president said that “numerous European countries” had been discussing putting a digital services tax on American companies and that “some of these countries are close to actually doing this”.

Experts say students from poorer backgrounds increasingly having to limit their options because of money worries

Most days, Mariam spends hours simply waiting.

The 19-year-old University College London student often finishes her lectures by mid-morning but has careers events or society meetings in the evening. The three-hour round trip to her family home means travelling back and forth makes little sense, so she waits on campus instead. More often than not, by the time the event starts, she is too exhausted to stay long.

Draft resolution seeks to shield board members and security forces from potential prosecution for work in Gaza

The UN-sanctioned Board of Peace announced by Donald Trump earlier this year to rule Gaza is planning a sweeping grant of legal immunity for itself, according to a draft of the resolution obtained by the Guardian. The draft language would also let the organization obtain public property in Gaza “free of charge”.

The four-page resolution, labeled “sensitive but unclassified”, extends broad protections to every member of the Board of Peace and its administrative affiliate, the office of the high representative (OHR), as well as to the Palestinian technocrats, international military forces and nonresident contractors lined up to perform work in Gaza. It defines legal processes from which they would have immunity as “any arrest, detention or legal proceedings in the courts or other entities in Gaza”.

⚽ Latest news from the 16th and final day of the groups
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Amid all the joy, there’s the treatment of Iran. They were denied permission to stay in Seattle after their draw against Egypt, reports Ben Fisher.

We’ve got to have another look at Cape Verde’s celebrations.

Go Cornish Celebration engages younger generation as council finalises strategy to boost everyday use of Kernewek

Seven-year-old Albie, a pupil at Trewirgie infants’ school in Redruth, did not hesitate when asked why he liked learning Kernewek, the Cornish language.

“We used to talk this way in the old days,” he said. “And I like speaking now. I enjoy the songs we sing, the Cornish books we read, all the words. It’s fun.”

Former Westminster correspondent earned a reputation for uncovering political wrongdoing in the 1990s

The acclaimed journalist David Hencke, whose career at the Guardian spanned more than three decades, has died of liver cancer aged 79.

As Westminster correspondent, Hencke was instrumental in exposing the cash-for-questions scandal that forced the resignations of two Conservative ministers, and the scoop that led to Peter Mandelson’s first resignation from government.

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

Leader of local authority in Oxfordshire faces backlash over injunction ‘to maintain neutral, safe space for residents’

While Londoners scurried from building to building seeking shade on another baking hot day this week, one man paused in the shadow of the Royal Courts of Justice.

The leader of Oxfordshire county council, Tim Bearder, was not only happy in the shade of the court’s gothic towers. He had just won a landmark legal victory.

There is high emotion, a deluge of policy papers and an ‘excruciating’ jostle for jobs as Labour’s probable next leader settles back into Westminster life

As well as being the most popular politician in the country – for now – Andy Burnham is also the most popular man at Westminster. Labour MPs, the unions, Whitehall civil servants, political advisers and thinktanks are all among those battling for the ear of the next prime minister.

“There are so many different demands all at once. But the supply of face time with Andy is significantly smaller than the demand. It’s been like laying down a new train track simultaneously with driving the train at 200mph,” one close ally said.

Court files show how men connected through TikTok and encrypted apps planned attack on White House UFC fight

When Tycen Proper, 19, finished high school, his family gave him at least $3,000 of “graduation money”, according to court documents. Despite the generosity, he seemed content to just live at his parents’ home, in a tiny Ohio town near Amish country, and spend more and more time on the internet.

But Proper did have ambition of a kind, an affidavit says. He quit his job to focus on a special project that he was planning with friends from the internet. His mother saw him studying maps of Washington DC. He also put his graduation money into investments that made his father uneasy: a rifle, a shotgun, body armor, ammunition.

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

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

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

Mixed leaf salad can be a mixed bag, but which supermarket offerings are filled with crunchy green goodness and which are woefully wilted?

• The best supermarket strawberries, tasted and rated

Supermarket salad bags can rarely compete with the wonderful diversity of leaves found on small farms. The former are often made up of only two to four types of leaf (spinach, sweet batavia or butterhead, maybe some rocket and a bitter leaf such as frisée), compared with the incredible range of eight to 12 varieties found in a good farm salad bag. That said, this test did teach me that some brands are starting to include more exotic leaves in their mix.

I awarded points for leaf diversity and, more importantly, flavour (it’s incredible how the same leaf variety tastes so different from one packet to another, from nutrient-dense and alive to bland and flavourless). Freshness is also a crucial factor, of course, as is value for money. Sadly, though, compared with other fresh supermarket products such as strawberries and tomatoes, few brands display much by way of transparency or provenance. Most list, at best, a country of origin, with several offering nothing more than just “red and green lettuce” on the ingredients list, leaving me to try to identify the varieties myself.

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

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

The Irish standup and writer on three-day benders, her accidental comedy career, and her feral stage persona

Born in County Roscommon in 1983 and raised in Dublin, Joanne McNally is a standup comedian and writer. Her breakthrough came with the one-woman show Bite Me, and her subsequent tour, Prosecco Express, included a 78-night run at Dublin’s Vicar Street. She co-hosts the hit podcast My Therapist Ghosted Me with Vogue Williams. Her standup show Pinotphile is touring Ireland and the UK until December. She hosts Unacceptable with Ed Gamble and Richard Ayoade on TLC.

I’m three and in the garden of my Aunty Joan’s house in Dublin, in knee-high socks with those little black crossbar brogues everyone had, a white polo neck and little bows in my hair.

Insider knowledge of the Danish capital’s food scene: four chefs (and our head of food) share their favourite spots

• Where Copenhagen leads, the food world still follows

It has to be Københavns Bageri; they upgrade beloved Danish classics using the best ingredients. The cardamom buns are second to none, but the “potato cake” – that’s a choux bun filled with vanilla custard and topped with a cocoa-dusted marzipan disc to resemble a potato – might be my favourite. MF

For bread, go to Tír Bakery in the morning and stand in line – they sell out every day, but their bread is the best. For croissants, go to Bageriet B and sit outside and enjoy a good filter coffee. TH

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

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

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

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

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

• England must match or beat Ghana’s result to finish top

• Reece James out for two games, Rice also injury concern

Thomas Tuchel says nothing has scared him at the World Cup and is adamant that England are capable of competing with any team.

Tuchel, whose side hope to clinch top spot in Group L when they face Panama in New Jersey on Saturday evening, is not panicking after England’s goalless draw with Ghana. The head coach remains confident in his players and, with the bulk of the group stage completed, has not seen anything to make him think any opponents are unstoppable.

• Iran waiting to see if they are through to last 32

• Salah injury fears played down after 1-1 draw

Iran’s head coach, Amir Ghalenoei, has said Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino, must “stand up” to the US after reiterating his belief that the co-hosts have treated his team “very unfairly”.

Iran will qualify for the World Cup knockout stage for the first time if results go their way in the next 24 hours, but after a dramatic draw against Egypt in Seattle, in which Shoja Khalilzadeh had a stoppage-time winner ruled offside and Saeid Ezatolah headed against the bar, they were left frustrated with more than just the result.

• Head coach to depart after Uruguay exit with Spain loss

• Bielsa: ‘I am responsible for all the disappointment’

Marcelo Bielsa said he had left nothing to Uruguayan football after overseeing their elimination from the World Cup.

Uruguay failed to win a game in a group that included Cape Verde and Saudi Arabia and their exit was confirmed with a 1-0 defeat by Spain in Guadalajara during which the 40-year-old goalkeeper Fernando Muslera was withdrawn at half-time after his error handed Spain the only goal of the game. The 70-year-old Argentinian, who took over in 2023 and whose relationship with the players was poor, to the point of describing himself as “toxic”, will not continue in the post.

Excitement was muted before the event, but the joy, noise and colour from visiting fans has captivated people in the US, Canada and Mexico

• Do you live in a host city? We want to hear from you

While Kansas City is the smallest of the 16 host cities, it has a history of punching above its weight and – armed with our own compelling soccer history to buoy us – organisers and the community worked hard to ensure that we wowed visitors and viewers alike. Hiccups with shuttle buses and traffic at our first home match were quickly addressed and resolved by our second match. Our watch parties are heartily attended; our official fan fest teems with people from all over the world.

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

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

A US military court denied her so many of the rights we have secured in the UK. I will do all I can to stop this happening again

• Read more from our Base Justice series here

Over decades, battles have been fought to win the rights that victims of domestic, sexual and physical violence can expect in a UK court. Separate entrances organised so victims do not have to face their abusers. The option of video evidence. Giving evidence from behind a screen. Reams of guidance for judges and legal teams about what is and isn’t an appropriate way to handle an accuser. We have rules about what you can ask a victim about their previous sexual history, and about what in their medical history can and cannot be requested.

Many of us who have campaigned on this issue have pretty much dedicated our lives to trying to make the harrowing experience of facing the man who attacked you even slightly more palatable, not just for the sake of vulnerable victims and witnesses, but for the sake of justice. It is not perfect, the system fails regularly, but I can say as someone who decided to proceed in an alleged stalking case, I can say that if going to court had meant I would be testifying for hours on end in full view of the accused, I would have likely pulled out of the case.

Jess Phillips is MP for Birmingham Yardley

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

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

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

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

Clearly, the former first lady should have been flattered by the remark at the White House cage match

Michelle Obama should feel honoured, apparently.

Do you know what the greatest compliment you can give a woman is? It’s not telling her she’s smart or kind or funny. No, it’s calling her a man. After all, what could be better than being a man?

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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

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

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

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

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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

The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool is a painful metaphor for the state of our union

When you hear the word “pool” in these sun-baked days of summer, you might think of taking a cheeky dip in the water to cool off the skin that is conspicuously peeling off your haggard body. Everyone (except me) loves a pool. Donald Trump really loves a pool, but not the kind you can swim in. Or stand too close to. Or enjoy at all, really.

The state of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool rehabilitation effort has become the primary crisis affecting the United States. That is, if you ask the current administration. Limiting the right to vote is running a close second in the World Cup of Political Football, but it’s the reflecting pool that is attracting the most fervent attention. As emergencies go, it’s as thrilling as watching a really large body of still water in the middle of a park. The paint is peeling and it’s full of green algae.

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Readers on the superfluous words they love to hate

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

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

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

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

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

Follow the third day at Trent Bridge from 11am BST
Second-day report | Read the Spin | Mail Tim

49th over: England 228-4 (Brook 2, Smith 1) Nathan Smith started with a wicket maiden, using the crease, swinging the ball and deploying wobble seam. After dismissing Root, he has Brook in his sights, with Blundell still standing up as he did for both these superstars at the Oval. Smith beats Brook outside off with the ball that doesn’t jag back in, and Brook may well be relieved to get down the other end with a dab to third man.

48th over: England 226-4 (Brook 1, Smith 1) In a shock development, we have a scoring shot! Jamie Smith, facing O’Rourke, gets a thick inside edge on his first delivery and takes a single to square leg. Harry Brook wants two, which might have turned a drama into a crisis. O’Rourke then produces a sharp yorker which Brook does well to keep out with a late jab, and a little calm descends as Brook gets off the mark with a push into the covers.

️ F1 qualifying updates from 3pm BST
️ Hamilton on the march | Mail Philip your thoughts

The hills are alive with the sound of engines. Two weeks on from the outskirts of Barcelona, F1 has left city life behind for a dedicated circuit in rural Austria and brought with it the makings of a multi-team title race.

Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Catalonia showed off the Ferrari’s improvements while the reliability problems of the Mercedes engine has been a concern for the eponymous team and also McLaren. The Briton won from second on the grid; OK, Kimi Antonelli had a small power problem in qualifying, but Hamilton was 0.064sec behind his compatriot George Russell in the pole-sitting Mercedes, suggesting that there was little to choose between their drives.

• England veteran says Samoan ‘immature – but a good kid’

• Academy player ‘a rabbit in the headlights in London’

Jamie George has criticised his Saracens teammate Totoa Auvaa’s “unacceptable” behaviour during the nightclub incident that led to the cricketers Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson being dropped by England but insisted he was “a good kid”.

The England international and former captain described the 21-year-old Samoan back-row as “a rabbit in the headlights in London” and said the academy player “doesn’t know right from wrong”.

• Veteran of 2019 champions in first game for Oakland Ballers

• ‘The hitter ​didn’t know what ‌was coming’

The former England cricketer Liam Plunkett swapped his cricket colours for a ⁠baseball glove, playing his first game for the Oakland Ballers and ⁠even claiming a ⁠strikeout.

The 41-year-old was part of England’s 2019 World Cup-winning side – his final international appearance – taking three ⁠wickets in the tied final against New Zealand as England emerged victorious by the narrowest of ⁠margins on boundary count. He moved to the United ​States, where his wife ‌is from, and has played Major League Cricket for the San Francisco Unicorns.

After dethroning Gloucester-Hartpury, the underdogs fear no one but Saracens’ ‘dog mentality’ will pose a formidable challenge

The self-proclaimed “big bad wolves” Saracens will take on the dark horses Trailfinders in the Premiership Women’s Rugby final at the Stoop on Sunday to bring the most competitive edition of the English top flight to a close.

Part of Saracens’ persona this season has been their wolfpack nickname and Alex Austerberry’s side will be hoping to blow Trailfinders’ house down. They will be big favourites to do so as they have never lost to Trailfinders in PWR. On top of that, this will be their sixth final since the new women’s club rugby era began in 2017, since when they have won three titles.

Trump administration’s rhetoric has created so much uncertainty that Poland and Baltic states have fresh doubts as alliance prepares to meet next month

A nightmare scenario has been playing on eastern European minds with increasing intensity since Donald Trump returned to the White House: what if Russia attacks and the US does not join the fight?

On the rare occasions the question is posed out loud, nobody much likes the answer. In mid-May, at a gathering in Tallinn, the US undersecretary of state Thomas DiNanno was asked directly whether American troops would fight if Russia invaded the Baltic states. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then gave a meandering answer. It did not include the word “yes”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The 46-year-old was stopped at about 9.30pm on Friday while preparing to board a Jetstar flight to Perth, according to police and local media

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

The man, 46, was stopped at about 9.30pm on Friday while preparing to travel on a Jetstar flight to Perth, according to local media.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Experts worked in ocean midwater off Brazil at near-record speeds thanks to cutting-edge tech

A marine biology expedition in international waters off the coast of Brazil has discovered 31 new species in just two weeks.

The researchers believe the speed at which the species were found and identified may be a record, in part because of the cutting-edge technology designed and built by the science and engineering team. For the first time on board a ship, the researchers were able to observe the living 3D cellular structure of microbial life thanks to a technological breakthrough nicknamed the Squid.

Elliot Anderson is the latest in a line of successful footballers from a club that focuses on the wellbeing of young people

Not many local football clubs can claim to have produced the most expensive British footballer of the day. Wallsend Boys, a grassroots team in working-class north Tyneside are about to do it for a second time.

With Elliot Anderson on the brink of a deal with Manchester City worth £116m, eclipsing the fee paid by Arsenal for Declan Rice in 2023, another chapter in the history of the club is about to be written.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prime minister Anthony Albanese says too many children still on platforms but he is ‘heartened’ by world-leading law

• Social media bans go global: big tech faces a reckoning after Australia’s crackdown

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The federal government will double the penalty for breaches of Australia’s youth social media ban to $99m, arguing tech companies are “not doing enough” to keep children off harmful social media sites.

And the eSafety commissioner, now investigating potential breaches of the law by Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube, will have its information-gathering powers strengthened under proposed further reforms.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The actor on becoming a celebrity after Coronation Street, her weakness for Bovril, and why she wants a helicopter

Born in Manchester, Paula Wilcox, 76, moved to London aged 17 to join the National Youth Theatre and was cast in Jack Rosenthal’s 1970 television sitcom The Lovers, which ran for two series and became a film. She also appeared in The Liver Birds, Man About the House and Miss Jones and Son, and she played two characters in Coronation Street. On stage she starred in Shirley Valentine, Great Expectations and Canary. Her recent TV work includes Trying, The Cleaner, Avoidance and Channel 5’s new drama The Fortune. She is married and lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
Being run over by a cyclist on a pavement or pedestrian crossing, because it’s nearly happened too frequently.

Young people have chosen this six-month season, and though rebel classics such as Quadrophenia and If … are here, the picks show youth culture in flux

Seventy-five years ago, the Festival of Britain offered a vision of a modern, forward-looking nation emerging from the austerity of the second world war. It also coincided with the emergence of a new cultural figure in the US: the teenager. For the first time, young people were beginning to be recognised as a distinct social group with their own tastes, fashions, anxieties and aspirations.

That evolution forms the basis of Rip It Up, a new nationwide season from the BFI Film Audience Network running from May to October, exploring how British film and television have captured youth culture across seven decades. Bringing together screenings, archive material, talks, live events and youth-led programming, the season traces a journey from postwar rebellion and working-class aspiration to contemporary questions of identity, belonging and self-expression.

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

9pm, BBC One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tipped by Lorde and Billie Eilish, the New York musician twists sublime folk and chaotic synths into bewitching new shapes

At first Shane Lavers can’t get through. Then he’s on video call but I cannot speak. When we finally make a clear connection over the phone, I can hear that he’s surrounded by nature, with faint snatches of birdsong at the edge of his measured, slightly gravelly speech. The musician who performs both in and as Chanel Beads (it remains unclear even to its core members whether they’re a band or a solo project) is on location shooting a music video somewhere on the coast of North Carolina. Encountering him as a disembodied voice, never mind one competing with worldly twittering and chirping, somehow feels more fitting than it would for most other musicians.

For years, Lavers has honed in on a cryptic, panoramic sound that ricochets from catchy, shout-along rock music to flare-ups of dissonant experimental noise. If the typical payoff of a pop song is to encapsulate a clear emotional arch in three-minute, verse-chorus structures, the appeal of a Chanel Beads track is much more unwieldy. Earlier singles such as Ef, Police Scanner and Male Friendship flicker in and out of focus, establishing a ground-floor of groove, only for Lavers and his bandmates to upend it with swelling strings, chiming guitar and ear-splitting samples. Lyrically, his songwriting gathers around an unstable emotional core that is so dense in its unspoken feeling that it manages to achieve an aching kind of orbit. It’s Lavers’s great talent to handle all of that swirling intensity while keeping everything suspended in the air.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As his new novel is published, the US author talks about nurturing the next generation of creatives, debating Sam Altman – and why he writes on a boat in San Francisco Bay

At Dave Eggers’s suggestion, we’re starting the interview by life drawing together. The novelist dropped out of art school but has been drawing for decades, and his new book is set in the art world. Prudence, our model, stands before us with her palms open, nude but for a pair of black knee-high socks. This, unsurprisingly, is an interview first for me. Eggers shows me how to hold my pencil at arm’s length and use my thumb to measure Prudence’s proportions. Since the pandemic, he’s been organising regular life‑drawing sessions in the book-lined offices of McSweeney’s, the publishing house and literary journal he founded in San Francisco in 1998. He loves the element of chance in figure drawing – you never know which sketch will work out – and believes it helps cultivate empathy.

How so, asks Prudence, helpfully interviewing him for me, because I’ve been thrown off my game. “I feel like in three hours of drawing a human, you learn so much about them and there is so much affection that comes from carefully trying to get them right,” he says.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leeds Playhouse
In a cavernous venue seemingly designed for a colliery-based story, Amy Leach directs Paul Allen’s adaptation of the 1996 film

It’s odd that this most Yorkshire of stories has never been staged at Leeds Playhouse. That’s remedied with grit and humanity by director Amy Leach and her strikingly relevant production of the Paul Allen play based on Mark Herman’s 1996 film.

The Playhouse’s Quarry theatre is an enormous, awkward space that demands epic storytelling. With a name that suggests it has been dug from the earth, it’s easy to see why Leach thought the colliery story was perfect for this stage.

At Leeds Playhouse until 11 July

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

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

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

At Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, until 27 June

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 18 July

In a chance encounter, the photographer captured a beautiful moment of freedom and spontaneity

On the early morning train from Kolkata, Monojit Dutta arranged for a large bundle of balloons to be waiting for him when he arrived at the station at Canning, a town in West Bengal on the banks of the River Matla. It was a Sunday.

“I usually visit new places on Sundays to explore and take photographs, and, on this day, annual school exams had just finished,” he says. “I came across lots of local children playing in a field, shared out the balloons and asked three of them to run and jump. I didn’t guide their movements beyond that, and their energy and expressions are all natural.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Renaissance

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Best wine cooler for hosting and overall:
Peugeot Equilibreur

Best wine cooler for a picnic:
Le Creuset sleeve

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• How to create a more eco-friendly lawn

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

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

Best grass trimmer overall:
Stihl FSA 50

Best budget grass trimmer:
Mac Allister MCI1198GGT

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

• The new rules of concert dressing

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

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

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

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

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

Heaven is a round table in a favourite Cardiff restaurant, and dainty dim sum tucked inside bamboo baskets

Whenever someone asks what my death row meal would be, I say dim sum without fail. It’s cheating, I know; a loophole where you don’t have to choose. I’ve spent more time thinking about it than I’d like to admit, but what I love most about dim sum is that you never have the same experience twice – a bit like snowflakes, no two are ever the same.

Dim sum covers all bases – there’s no settling on one thing: it’s a chance to sample everything as you work your way through the menu. It doesn’t fit neatly into starters, mains and desserts, but exists as its own genre, borderless and all-encompassing. It’s overwhelming, loud and chaotic for first-timers; an assault on all the senses, but in the best way.

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

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

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

You pay: £21
Restaurant profit: £1.65

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Those partial to a pint may be relieved to know a modest of amount of weak beer may actually be beneficial

• European heatwave live – latest updates

As Europe endures a record-breaking heatwave, countries are taking steps to keep people safe and prevent health services from becoming overstretched. Parisians face a temporary ban on drinking alcohol in public to reduce the pressure on the hospitals after a four-fold rise in cardiac arrests in a 24-hour period.

We look at why drinking alcohol can be dangerous in a heatwave.

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

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

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

How to start meditating

How to start weightlifting

How to start budgeting

How to start running

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

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

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

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

Order Original Sin from the Guardian bookshop

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Norfolk: My dad said they hadn’t been on this street for 20 years – so where have they been?

Looking out of my bedroom window, I kept seeing movement – something fast and blurry. I went outside with my dad to see what it was. He couldn’t believe it – they were house martins.

He told me that house martins were all around these houses 20 years ago, but then they all left and never came back, and we don’t know why. This is the first summer that they have returned to this street since then, and they were building a nest right next to my bedroom window.

Edinburgh: As we are visually impaired, we love to appreciate the sounds and smell of the woodland. This time it had been raining, so we could smell the wet ground

Our school, the Royal Blind school, Sight Scotland, is across the road from the Astley Ainslie hospital. The hospital gardens are open to the public and have over 2,000 trees, and sometimes we go to there for outdoor learning lessons with Margon, who helps us learn about the outdoors.

Recently we went to a wooded area to make a den for shelter. We could see lots of green everywhere. It had been raining but we could feel the warm sun and smell the wet ground, which was spongy and soft under our feet. It had been windy and there were twigs and leaves on the ground. We found a tree with textured bark that felt like veins. Margon told us that the bits we could feel were old ivy vines. We could hear lots of birds and feel the breeze and hear it rustling the leaves.

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

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

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

• ​Submit a question

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

Aiden is an unforgettable young caregiver in Walthamstow, east London, who has been looking after his mum for over half his life. Every few weeks, Aiden and other young carers get a rare night off thanks to tenacious council worker Satvinder, who fights to improve the recognition of young carers in her borough. This film joins them as they reclaim a few hours of their teenage lives back.

Is Mum OK? is released during Carers Week in the UK, a campaign that celebrates unpaid carers across the country and calls for better recognition and support for them. There are more than one million young carers in the UK – with an average age of 12 – which is the equivalent of two kids in every school class.

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

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

• Explainer: how the US bypasses British courts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing