In many countries, dating seems to be on the decline, with many young people either dating less, or finding it harder to have meaningful relationships. In 2024, one in five of South Korea's 52 million citizens were living alone. In the third episode of our series, reporter Haeryun Kang is in Seoul on a journey to find out what’s stopping people from coupling up.

With food and medicine already scarce, emergency services, bakeries and water supplies are increasingly being pushed to the brink

Palestinians in Gaza already grappling with limited supplies of food and medicine face new threats to their day-to-day existence: shortages of engine oil, spare parts and gas. The knock-on effects are impacting everything from bread production to water supplies and emergency response efforts, producing one fresh crisis after another.

Over the weekend, the main hospital in central Gaza warned of an imminent health disaster as its electrical generators failed.

The movie adaptation of Gary Owen’s acclaimed play Iphigenia in Splott, Effi o Blaenau, is released this month. Here, its director and crew explain why they relocated the film to a post-industrial mining town – and refused to make it in English

The one-woman play Iphigenia in Splott was first performed in 2015. Eleven years on, Gary Owen’s reworking of Greek tragedy, transplanted to working-class Splott in Cardiff, has earned its place as a modern classic. It reimagines the mythological heroine Iphigenia as Effie, a young woman filling her days drinking vodka out of a mug in her dressing gown. The play is about poverty and social inequality, closures and cuts, services scraped to the bone by austerity. Its most recent five-star Guardian review in 2022 advised: “Everyone should see this.”

One person who did was Leisa Gwenllian, a final-year drama student from north Wales. “I was on the front row with my mate,” says Gwenllian, 24, drinking mint tea in a London hotel. “I can remember thinking: wow! A Welsh woman with a strong Cardiff accent on the stage at the Lyric [in Hammersmith, London], that’s what it’s all about.” At the Oxford School of Drama, Gwenllian was mainly studying the classics alongside people with different accents and backgrounds from her own. “To see yourself on stage is really powerful.”

Andy Burnham takes round one of the big byelection bout while Reform’s Rob Kenyon takes aim at himself

Seconds out … Round one. In the left corner we have the middleweight King of the North … Andy Burnham. In the far-right corner we have the total lightweight … Rob “The Plumber” Kenyon. On the undercard, we have three nonentities we can barely bring ourselves to mention. Mike “The Tory” Winstanley, Sarah “The Green” Wakefield and Jake “The Lib Dem” Austin. And if you think these three are dopey, you should see some of the other candidates in the Makerfield byelection who we didn’t invite.

Thursday night’s edition of BBC Question Time had come billed as the great showdown between Burnham and Kenyon with three no-hopers hung out as a veneer of impartiality. But no matter how much the presenter, Fiona Bruce, tried to hype up the programme as television gold, the excitement never really got started. The showdown was that the showdown never happened.

Full of handcrafted care and the rootsy soul of her country origins, this gently elated song is a reminder of what fans love about Swift … and the film series

Taylor Swift does not fear a challenge. She’s broken records then broken those records; taken Grammy snubs as a sign she just has to work harder; mounted probably the most physically exhausting tour of all time. But in writing a song for Toy Story’s cowgirl Jessie, she’s set herself a deranged task: how could anyone outdo Randy Newman’s devastating When She Loved Me, Jessie’s song about being abandoned by her owner, Emily, from Toy Story 2?

Newman’s songs for the Disney Pixar series are some of the greatest film soundtrack work of all time, and Swift knows it. In a post about her song, she acknowledged the “incomparable” Newman: “You created the Toy Story musical world, and we are lucky to get to live in it.” Her own ventures into soundtrack work have never had much staying power (beyond Zayn collab I Don’t Wanna Live Forever from Fifty Shades Darker).

Fifty years ago this week, the Sex Pistols played their first Manchester gig – and upended pop culture. But what was 1976 really like before punk arrived? From swing bands to ‘spaghetti rock’, we discover a lost history

In January 1976, the cover of the NME didn’t feature an artist, but a photo of a room damaged by an IRA bomb: there had been a string of terrorist attacks in London the previous year. The headline: “Is rock’n’roll ready for 1976 … Is 1976 ready for rock’n’roll?”

In the accompanying feature, writer Mick Farren was to be found complaining vociferously about the state of music. Audiences are “prepared to tolerate just about anything”. Rock has “lost its guts” and “is on an unalterable course to a neo-Las Vegas”, because artists are “totally insulated from the real world” and thus making music that “seems so damned irrelevant to real life”. Farren reiterated these points in June in a piece titled The Titanic Sails at Dawn, by which point it was obvious that some new artists completely agreed with him.

Report into royal property affairs reveals disgraced ex-prince generated private income from Windsor Royal Lodge

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received private income from subletting three cottages on his Windsor Royal Lodge estate while paying a “peppercorn rent” to the crown estate, a report into royal property arrangements has revealed.

The National Audit Office (NAO) review also shows that King Charles pays an “adjusted” rent from his private Duchy of Lancaster income, below open market value, for his disgraced brother’s non-working royal daughters, princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, to live in royal palaces.

State department warns of ‘ideological conditioning’ in social media post offering condolences to student’s family

The US state department has criticised “two-tiered policing” in Britain in a social media post offering condolences to the family of the murder victim Henry Nowak, in a thinly veiled rebuke of the UK government.

The 18-year-old student’s murder has been claimed by some as evidence of two-tier policing in the UK – the argument that some groups of people are dealt with more harshly than others for ideological reasons.

Mother, who thought daughter was being examined by GP, says girl began to bleed and scream in pain after device inserted

A five-year-old was left traumatised, bleeding and in severe pain after a physician associate wrongly prescribed her a vaginal pessary, according to a damning report by the health ombudsman.

The parliamentary and health service ombudsman said there were “multiple failures” in the care of the girl, who saw a physician associate (PA) at a GP practice in the East Midlands after complaining of itching and vaginal discharge.

Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor sets out his priorities before Makerfield byelection – and what might happen after the vote

Andy Burnham has signalled he would begin transforming England’s broken social care system this year if he became prime minister, accusing Westminster of “flinching away” from tackling difficult policy problems.

The Greater Manchester mayor said politicians must be willing to take on “the weight of the system” that stood in the way of radical change, as he began to set out his prospectus for government if he won the Makerfield byelection.

Said Labour should be a broad church with more government ministers from the left of the party, but Jeremy Corbyn should not be allowed back in.

Signalled there would be no snap election if he replaced Keir Starmer, but defended himself from criticism over a shadow leadership campaign.

Defended his comments that politicians should not be “in hock” to the bond markets, and denied he was boxing himself in by sticking to Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules.

Argued it would be a mistake to rerun the Brexit referendum but that he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU in his lifetime.

Praised Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, for “facing up” to the big issues on immigration.

UN report says global meat supply has risen fourfold in last 60 years and is expected to keep rising

• Analysis: Ingredients in place for shift to plant-based diets but meat still dominates

The average person eats about six times as much chicken and twice as much pork as their grandparents’ generation did, data from a UN report suggests, with global meat supply having risen fourfold in the last 60 years and expected to keep rising.

The supply of poultry rose from below 3kg a person in 1961 to 17kg in 2022, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Pork supply doubled to 15kg a person over the same period, while beef, the most polluting food, stayed steady at 9kg.

Entrepreneur died of colon cancer, with Mobo Organisation hailing her as ‘one of the most fearless champions’ in the music industry

Kanya King, the entrepreneur and tireless champion of Black British music who founded the Mobo awards, has died aged 57 from colon cancer.

The news was announced by the Mobo Organisation, which said she died on Wednesday “after a courageous and characteristically determined battle” with her illness.

Unexpected monthly drop of 0.1% in May leaves price of typical home at £298,806, says lender Halifax

• Business live – latest updates

UK house prices fell unexpectedly in May as rising mortgage rates fuelled by the war in Iran affected affordability and homebuyer demand.

The average price of a typical UK home fell by 0.1% in May to £298,806, the third consecutive monthly drop recorded by the lender Halifax. Analysts had been expecting a return to growth, with a consensus of a 0.1% rise forecast for May. The monthly drop followed falls of 0.1% in April and 0.5% in March.

Jess Asato’s lawyer says others want to take action over demeaning sexualised material created by Grok AI tool

New claimants have come forward to take legal action against Elon Musk’s company xAI after the Labour MP Jess Asato launched a test case against the firm over demeaning sexualised material created by its Grok AI tool.

A handful of complainants contacted Asato’s lawyer on Thursday in response to coverage of the MP’s decision to sue Musk’s company for damages over its creation and circulation of fake images of her in a bikini and an AI-created video that she said showed her “being chloroformed and prepared for a sexual assault”.

Producer of The Rest is … podcasts reports sales of £37.9m, boosted by rise in subscriptions and live events

The media production company co-founded by the former England footballer Gary Lineker and behind The Rest is … podcasts is now the fastest-growing business in Britain in a new ranking.

Goalhanger made £37.9m in sales in 2025, growing at an average annual rate of 321% over the past three years, according to the latest Sunday Times list of the 100 quickest-growing private companies.

Locita Brandy, 91, has received a medal of honour to recognise her lifetime of campaigning in the city

They both came from the Caribbean to Manchester, and they both dedicated their lives to the betterment of Black communities. Now, the legacies of two postwar pioneers, strangers to each other and from different walks of life, have been celebrated by one gesture.

Locita Brandy, 91, never met the Nobel prize-winning economist W Arthur Lewis. She arrived in Manchester in 1956 from Nevis – via Southampton and a rough sea journey on the SS Irpinia – and spent much of her working life as a school chef.

At least 3,000 Herero and Nama people died in a German concentration camp at Shark Island, Namibia. A new forensic exhibition in Berlin is using digital technology to unearth how colonisers scarred a landscape, and a community

Visiting the Namibian port town of Lüderitz in late 2024, I came across a small museum run by descendants of German settlers. Alongside imperial German flags and memorabilia, it displayed artefacts of the Herero tribe that had been recovered from nearby Shark Island. What went unmentioned is that, from 1905 to 1907, Shark Island was the site of a concentration camp where Herero and Nama prisoners were subjected to forced labour, starvation and systematic abuse. At least 3,000 people are estimated to have died there.

Shark Island was used as a tourist campsite when I visited. Monuments on the island honoured Adolf Lüderitz and Heinrich Vogelsang, the German merchants who helped establish the colony known as German South West Africa. Today, it is widely reported that Namibia’s white minority – less than 2% of the population – owns roughly 70% of commercial farmland.

As demand for cobalt, gold and other minerals grows, mining is accelerating deforestation in the Congo basin – and increasing the risk of deadly Ebola outbreaks

For decades after the discovery of Ebolavirus in 1976, outbreaks of the disease were relatively small and contained, affecting a few hundred people at most.

Not any more. In recent years, outbreaks of Ebola have been much larger, affecting thousands and even tens of thousands of people across multiple countries. The 2014 outbreak of Ebola in West Africa infected over 28,000 people in 10 countries on three continents. The current eruption, which began in early May and shows no signs of abating, has caused 363 confirmed cases in Democratic Republic of the Congo and has crossed into Uganda.

Sonia Shah is the author of five books including Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, and writes the newsletter Cross Pollinations on Substack

The hooded supervillain is a scientist, a sorcerer, a monarch and a mummy’s boy – Robert Downey Jr’s Doom should be all these things and more, radiating history, magic and the biggest ego

The problem with building the next stage of your superhero franchise around Doctor Doom is that nobody really knows if he is Marvel’s Darth Vader, or just the guy from those terrible 20th Century Fox films. We wouldn’t even be getting Doom in the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday if Marvel’s original post-Thanos masterplan had not collapsed when Jonathan Majors, who played Kang, was dropped from the franchise. And we don’t really know if the subsequent casting of Robert Downey Jr (previously Marvel’s Iron Man) in the role is some kind of ingenious masterstroke that will all make sense when we finally see the finished film, or just an expensive nostalgia panic button.

The stakes are so high here that the geekosphere is delving into every possible clue, no matter how fleeting, as to which version of Doom we might be getting in the film. Will this be a flamboyant, comics-accurate take on the Latverian dictator? Or will Marvel dip into the multiverse of convenience and deliver an iteration that is little more than Tony Stark in eastern Europe?

After a period of burnout, I realised that nature knows what you need, and is always ready to offer it – you just have to be quiet enough to receive it

In 2022 I moved to Clevedon, near Bristol. As soon as I saw the oak tree behind my flat, I started sitting under it. It’s not in some beautiful, remote place – it’s on an urban hill surrounded by grassland – but as a solitary tree on the side of a hill, it drew my attention.

I was burned out. For 10 years, I had run a nonprofit tackling plastic pollution. We had got the government to ban plastic cutlery and polystyrene takeaway packaging, and supermarkets to ban plastic cotton buds. They were major achievements, but it was hard work and I was exhausted. I was transitioning away from activism, and only working three days a week.

(Atlantic)
After scrapping an album and starting anew, Lizzo still sounds lost amid these weak genre-hopping songs. Perhaps the zeitgeist has simply left her behind

Just over a year ago, Lizzo appeared on Saturday Night Live, announcing a new album called Love in Real Life in grandstanding style. Wielding an electric guitar, clad in a Trump-baiting T-shirt that read Tariffied, she performed its title track and two other new songs, Still Bad and Don’t Make Me Love U. As with her appearance earlier the same week on a late night talkshow – during which she ran into the audience to high-five fans who were yelling “we love you Lizzo!” – it looked very much like a defiant comeback, fit to drag her out of the controversy that erupted at the end of her hugely successful 2023 world tour. Three former backing dancers and a costume designer filed lawsuits against the singer alleging harassment and discrimination: damaging claims given how Lizzo’s songs have preached a message of inclusivity, body positivity and self-confidence. Some of the allegations were dismissed by a judge but others are ongoing; Lizzo has refused to settle out of court, saying: “I’m fighting the case because I know that it’s not true.”

But the Love in Real Life single, a pivot towards rock that owed a little to Tom Petty’s American Girls – or the Strokes’ American Girls-indebted Last Nite if you prefer – failed to make the charts, a far cry from the period between 2018 and 2022 when Lizzo’s singles seemed to go multi-platinum as a matter of course. The same fate befell Still Bad, a track much more in the vein of her big hits, prompting a rethink. The album was pulled, Lizzo apparently taking control of her own destiny – “I need to do shit my way”. A mixtape that returned her more-or-less to where she started, before pop stardom came calling – punchy hip-hop, albeit tricked out with guest appearances from Doja Cat and SZA – appeared in its place: My Face Hurts from Smiling received mixed reviews and underwhelming streaming figures.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Councils are sending vulnerable kids to homes run by money-grabbing cowboys and private-equity vultures

Bring your suitcase, your bin liner, your dumpy bag. They’re handing out money faster than you can stuff it in a sack. All you need do is join the market in what may now be England’s most lucrative commodity. A commodity with arms and legs, hearts and brains, thoughts and feelings. Children.

Two years ago I stumbled into this issue after discovering that children in care who were being helped by a local charity I’m involved with were suddenly being whisked away, terminating the amazing progress they had been making, breaking their relationships, their sense of home, stability and security. When I began exploring why this was happening, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing: a highly lucrative trade in highly vulnerable young people. Children in “care” were being exchanged between private equity companies for £100,000 apiece. That figure is now wrong. Today they are worth far more.

George Monbiot 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.

What we must learn from the murders of Henry Nowak in Southampton and Barnaby Webber in Nottingham is that kneejerk assumptions either way are dangerous

Emma Webber brought one of her son’s old T-shirts to the hearings into how he died. Holding on to Barney’s clothes is comforting, as is sometimes sleeping in his bed. He was only 19, a student walking home at night with his friend Grace O’Malley-Kumar, when both were fatally stabbed by a paranoid schizophrenic recently discharged from hospital who wasn’t taking his medication.

Valdo Calocane went on to kill 65-year-old school caretaker Ian Coates and gravely injure three others that night before being caught. The T-shirt is still here but Barney is not, as his mother said in a video this week offering her sympathies to the parents of 18-year-old Henry Nowak, the Southampton student who died in handcuffs at the feet of police who failed to realise he was the victim not the aggressor in an attack they had been falsely told was racist.

Gaby Hinsliff 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.

Across Europe, public service journalism is a shield for democracy. But we have to decide if we want to fight for its survival

For 16 years, Viktor Orbán’s government poured millions of euros of public money into thinktanks, institutions and media outlets sympathetic to its illiberal views – not only in Hungary but beyond its borders. In Slovakia, for instance, where a sizeable Hungarian minority lives, Budapest is alleged to have sent millions of euros to favoured media organisations. Many independent newsrooms survived on only a fraction of what these outlets received.

These government-fattened channels were never truly called “media” by Hungarian colleagues, nor their content producers “journalists”. If Hungarians were asked to recall ever hearing from these outlets a piercing human story, an investigation exposing abuse of power or a facts-based analysis that brought clarity to chaos, they would search their memory in vain.

Beata Balogová is a Slovakian journalist and a member of the board of the European Press Prize

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.

Israel and its lobby will use section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act to bind the US to a state that has gone rogue

Congress is considering legislation that would embed Israel’s military deeply within the US military-industrial complex. Stunned by the cratering of public support for Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and towards Iran, Israel’s advocates are frantically seeking to preserve and even escalate US support for the Jewish state in ways that do not rely on defense of its policies or permit scrutiny of the manipulations involved.

Politically, this means avoiding public discussion of Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank or Iran and disguising the sources of massive amounts of money pouring into election races to defeat candidates raising questions about US support for Israel. The proposed legislation shows what this means bureaucratically.

As the second series of the Jilly Cooper adaptation climaxes, we can be thankful that quality TV doesn’t always have to be bleak and stressful

For Jilly Cooper devotees – a motley band that unites me with Queen Camilla and Joanna Lumley, Ian Rankin and ex-footballer Tony Adams – it has been the best of times, and the worst of times. (No apologies for the clunky Tale of Two Cities misquote. Jilly was fond of gleefully shoehorning in the odd bit of Dickens, or Shakespeare, or Wordsworth.) The best of times, because the television adaptation of Rivals has shown the world what some of us knew all along, which is that Cooper’s stories are life-affirming and wise and hysterically funny; but the worst of times, when Cooper’s unexpected death last year cut short the late-life renaissance in which she was quite rightly revelling.

The first half of a blissful second season of Rivals comes to a climax this week (puns always intended). Six heavenly hours on the sofa, following the professional rivalries and personal dramas of a hard-drinking bunch of 1980s telly executives as they bomb along Cotswold lanes blowing Silk Cut smoke through the open windows of their Austin Metros, or pogo to Nena’s 99 Red Balloons on sticky pub carpet while knocking back tequila shots. Rivals has reminded us that good television can be fun. A golden age of television has given us some modern masterpieces, but the payoff for artistic quality has been that prestige viewing has become, for the most part, pretty bleak. Adolescence was utterly harrowing. Baby Reindeer was a pretty tough watch. Even The Bear and The Pitt are kind of stressful. Life in Rutshire has gifted us television as it used to be: a naughty, indulgent treat.

Jess Cartner-Morley is associate editor (fashion) at the Guardian

I’d much rather scoff the 100 best puddings…

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Ministers should end Palantir’s contract before medical confidentiality is sacrificed to Silicon Valley’s appetite for public data

Alarm bells ought to have rung when it emerged last month that Palantir engineers could gain “unlimited access” to identifiable NHS patient data. Such sensitive medical information was only supposed to be available either to someone involved in a patient’s care or with the patient’s informed consent. NHS England’s new position appears to have changed that, extending access to private companies because it may make data processing easier. Convenience is not a basis for undermining medical confidentiality.

Nicola Byrne, the government’s national data guardian, clearly thought the NHS had broken its promise that its £330m deal with Palantir would see “identifiable patient information … limited to NHS staff with a legitimate need”. Patients tell doctors things they may tell no one else. If they think that sensitive details can be disclosed to US tech corporations, trust will suffer – and patients will say less when the truth matters most.

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 president’s image and name are proliferating in Washington and beyond, overturning well-advised democratic taboos on glorifying sitting leaders

One of the surest signs of an authoritarian regime is the ubiquity of its leader. Mussolini’s face was plastered across fascist Italy. In North Korea, pictures of Kim Jong-un have appeared alongside those of his father and grandfather, which are present in every home and public building. The golden statue of Turkmenistan’s leader, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, perching on a marble cliff in the capital is one of a multitude of portrayals.

Thriving democracies spurn such displays, rightly judging it safer to laud leaders once they are out of power. The first US president, George Washington, refused to appear on currency, believing that redolent of European monarchs. The 47th has no such concerns. The administration wants a $250 bill depicting Donald Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of independence, though federal law does not currently allow banknotes to depict living people. His signature will soon appear on $100 bills: a first for a US president.

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.

Dr Deirdre Hughes says the issue of chronic underinvestment in high-quality, impartial careers guidance across schools, colleges and communities needs to be addressed

Alan Milburn’s interim review into young people not in education, employment or training lays bare what those of us working in careers support services have long observed: this is a system failure, not a failure of young people (‘A record of failure’: what’s in the first part of Alan Milburn’s Neet report?, 28 May).

Milburn rightly identifies the deep structural dysfunction that has left more than 1 million young people locked out of work and learning – and the stark imbalance between the £25 spent on benefits for every £1 directed at employment support. But the review’s framing of this primarily as a welfare and employment problem risks missing a deeper structural deficit: the chronic underinvestment in high-quality, impartial careers guidance across schools, colleges and communities.

Readers respond to an interview with Paul McCartney in which he reflects on memories of and inspiration found in Liverpool

The area around Dungeon Lane near Speke, Liverpool, which was such an inspiration for Paul McCartney (‘I can gauge John’s reaction: that’s good, stick that in’: Paul McCartney on how old bandmates – and Oasis – inspired his nostalgic new album, 29 May), provides a good example of what is happening to our green spaces and natural habitats. In 2019, in spite of local protests, Dungeon Lane was closed permanently, when the perimeter fence of Liverpool airport was extended.

Landowners are obstructing traditional rights of way. The use of pesticides has reduced the numbers of butterflies and bees. The coastal path has fallen into disrepair. Aircraft exhaust fumes pollute the air. Shamefully, it has been left to voluntary organisations – such as Save Oglet Shore – and academics to monitor this crisis. Research by Liverpool John Moores University has exposed the extraordinary build-up of Pfas (forever chemicals) on the shore.

Gail Cartmail offers a positive outlook to those facing life-changing bladder surgery, based on her own experience

The report of treatment being trialled that could potentially spare bladder cancer patients life-changing surgery is welcome news (Doctors hail drug that spares bladder cancer patients ‘life-changing’ surgery, 2 June). Yet readers currently facing surgery that includes removing their bladder are likely to be concerned about the here and now.

Like Tracey Emin, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2020. Life requires some planning. For example, the paucity of public toilets means mapping alternatives, as bladder bags have much less capacity than a natural bladder. I always carry a spare kit, however; following the advice and guidance of stoma nurse specialists, it is possible to avoid leaks. The Urostomy Association is a mine of useful information.

American foreign policy | Donald Trump’s self-reflection | Tony Blair’s Toryism | Keir Starmer on Whatsapp | Nine times table

Patrick Wintour’s analysis of the similarities between the Vietnam and Iran wars (Could Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’ be a bigger global turning point than Vietnam?, 31 May) states: “The predicted ‘domino effect’ of communism sweeping south-east Asia … did not materialise, save in Cambodia and Laos.” The changes in these two regimes would not have happened if the US had not carpet-bombed large parts of these countries, neither of which was at war with it.
David Rennie
Cardiff

• “I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time,” says Donald Trump (Iran threatens to suspend peace talks after ‘violation of ceasefire’ in Lebanon, 1 June). Is this a rare moment of self-awareness?
Andrew Gore
Linton, Cambridgeshire

Everything you need to know (and more) about every squad member. Click on the player pictures for more information

Head coach looks forward to leading Sweden at World Cup after reflecting on failures with Chelsea and West Ham

If management has taught Graham Potter anything it is that there is no point in trying to run away from failure. “You’ve got to face the bad stuff,” the 51-year-old says as he thinks about how he recovered from bruising spells at Chelsea and West Ham. “The more you face it, the more chance your life is better. Then you get these beautiful moments.”

Potter is in reflective, occasionally punchy mood during a long conversation about a rollercoaster few years and the brutal life of a football manager. He points out there have also been some successes – he has, after all, lifted Sweden out of the doldrums and led them into the World Cup – but knows people tend to focus on the lows. Potter lasted seven months at Chelsea after leaving the stability of Brighton in September 2022. Then, after a long spell out, he was tempted back when West Ham came calling at the start of last year.

The FA’s data-driven approach towards the World Cup is into its final stages as Tuchel’s side take on New Zealand

“It was hot in ‘94,” thundered Alexi Lalas, the former USA defender turned Fox Sports analyst, who starred for his country when they were the sole World Cup hosts that year. “And guess what? It’s going to be hot again this time.”

Lalas’s booming address came last December at the draw in Washington DC for this summer’s tournament and, to digress slightly, it was difficult not to fixate on his sheer vocality. Lalas is loud and confident, outspoken and there was the moment when he considered England’s chances at the finals. Notoriously, they failed to qualify 32 years ago.

Click your way through the group stage and the knockouts to crown champion

Blue Sharks are in uncharted waters, making their finals debut after a meteoric rise

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

Updates from the second day of the series at Lord’s
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21st over: New Zealand 70-7 ( Smith 10, Jamieson 1 ) Jamieson marches in with intent after Philips loses his off stump. Bangs into a drive, throws the combine harvester at another, but only picks up one run. Smith drives the smiling Tongue’s last ball for four.

Tongue’s first ball of the day fractionally straightens and Philips plays… and misses. A satisfying crunch of stumps.

⚽️ Latest football news before a big weekend of action
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The shortlists for the Men’s and Women’s PFA players’ awards have been revealed. Arsenal’s Premier League-winning trio of Declan Rice, Gabriel and David Raya all feature while Bunny Shaw and Yui Hasegawa have both been nominated for the Women’s Player of the Year award after helping Manchester City to title glory.

Men’s Players’ Player of the Year nominations

The league has been a launchpad for players such as Noah Caluori while showcasing the best English rugby has to offer

The final round of the regular Prem season is nigh, with the playoffs yet to come. Here is the Guardian’s 2025-26 team of the season with players needing to have appeared in at least nine league fixtures to get the nod.

• Kick It Out wants equality, diversity and inclusion targets

• Regulator decides against after licensing consultation

The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) is poised to reject calls from Kick It Out to take on a greater role in promoting equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout the sport.

The IFR has decided, after a second round of consultation over its licensing terms, not to meet Kick It Out’s demands to set EDI targets for clubs and it will not compel them to submit annual reports on the demographic makeup of staff.

New manager achieved much at Bournemouth with style reminiscent of Jürgen Klopp’s counterpress

There comes a point in most discussions when all the detail and complications fall away and the issue can be crystalised into a single straightforward question. For Liverpool that became: do they have more chance of challenging for the league title next season under Arne Slot or Andoni Iraola? Put like that, the answer was clear and so Slot was replaced.

That answer may seem counterintuitive. Slot won the Premier League last year and Iraola has never so much as managed a club in Europe. There will be those who see the decision, and the widespread consensus that it was the right thing to do, as evidence of football’s impatience. Perhaps it is. Perhaps Slot next season at Anfield, in less testing circumstances, could have regained the confidence of the dressing room and reinvigorated the side. But in management that is very rare.

• Russian teen reaches French Open final in 6-1, 6-3 win

• Kostyuk swerves pose with Andreeva in pre-match photo

Marta Kostyuk believes her breakthrough run at the French Open and her determination to speak out about Russia’s war in Ukraine ­successfully served as a reminder, to ­people who may have forgotten, about the ­horrors unfolding in her home ­country as she suffered a heavy loss to highest ranked Russian player, Mirra Andreeva, in the semi-finals.

“Yeah, for sure,” Kostyuk said. “I will never forget the ovations I received after my match [against fellow Ukrainian Elina Svitolina] in the quarter-finals. This is something I will carry with me forever. I will never believe anyone who is at the world stage of this sport saying they have zero influence or anything, because I experienced this myself.”

Inside New York’s notorious jail complex, nearly 2,000 incarcerated people watched Game 1 of the NBA finals, arguing calls, roasting celebrity fans and sharing in a rare citywide moment

It’s nearly half past eight on Wednesday evening and approximately 30 men in tan uniforms drift into the common area of a housing unit deep inside the George R Vierno Center, an 850-bed jail and one of eight active facilities on New York’s Rikers Island. Some hover around a folding table piled to the edges with snacks. Others make their way into the smaller rooms on the perimeter of the two-floor communal space and drag plastic chairs closer to the flat-screen televisions mounted inside. The excited chatter and nervous energy bubbles as a familiar refrain cuts through the din.

Knicks in four.

Pictured above: An exterior view of the Rikers Island jail complex on 3 June 2026. Pictured below: The bridge connecting Rikers Island to Queens crosses a sprawling employee parking lot before reaching the jail complex, which houses the vast majority of people held in New York City’s custody. All photographs by Lauren Caulk.

• Farrell to remain as Ireland’s head coach until 2031

• 51-year-old says ‘best is yet to come’ for Ireland

Andy Farrell has signed a new deal to remain as Ireland’s head coach until 2031, removing any chance of England luring him back to Twickenham after next year’s Rugby World Cup. Instead, Farrell has opted to stay put in Dublin and will now preside over Ireland’s next two World Cup campaigns.

Farrell, who led the British & Irish Lions to a series win in Australia last year, has steered Ireland to two Six Nations titles, including a grand slam in 2023, and a historic Test series win over the All Blacks in New Zealand since replacing Joe Schmidt in late 2019. His latest five-year deal ends any speculation about a possible return to English rugby in 18 months’ time.

The Russian world title challenger and the controversial American have personal issues but similar ratings, and drew 4-4 with a win apiece and six draws

Ian Nepomniachtchi, who won two Candidates tournaments but then lost world title matches to Magnus Carlsen and Ding Liren, and Hans Niemann, whose controversial 2022 game with Carlsen is the subject of the Netflix documentary Untold: Chess Mates, tied an eight-game series in Belgrade this week with a win apiece and six draws.

Nepo won the first game and Niemann the eighth, after the Russian missed an easy opportunity to win game seven. They played two games a day at a brisk time control of one hour per player plus a 30 seconds per move increment, which Fide calls “Fast Classical”. The event was opened by Serbia’s minister of sport, Zoran Gajic, and the veteran grandmaster Ljubomir Ljubojevic made a ceremonial opening move.

Ukrainian president proposes meeting in neutral third country as Trump says both sides have to ‘make compromises’

• ‘You can stop your war’: Zelenskyy’s open letter to Putin – in full

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for face-to-face negotiations in a public letter addressed directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The letter, the first Zelenskyy has publicly written directly to Putin since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, was a sweeping criticism of the Russian leader’s 26 years in power.

Detainees say they’re given ‘rotten’ water and denied meals for not signing papers in English that they don’t understand

Detainees at Florida’s notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail said guards were denying them food and fresh water on Thursday until they signed documents presented to them in English that they did not understand.

In an audio recording of a telephone call to an immigration advocacy group heard by the Guardian, more than half a dozen detainees alleged that the water given to them over the last three days was “rotten” and containing mosquito larvae, in an apparent attempt to pressure them to sign.

Son of actor’s girlfriend arrested after 81-year-old found unconscious in his front yard in Tarzana, Los Angeles

Veteran actor James Handy has died at his home in Los Angeles after a stabbing, allegedly by his girlfriend’s son.

The 81-year-old actor was found in the front yard of his home in Tarzana, California, at 9.30am on Wednesday, according to the Los Angeles police department. He was unconscious and had multiple stab wounds to the chest.

Bear believed to have unlatched and opened a locked window, and was seen turning on and drinking from a tap

Police and hunters in Fukushima, Japan were searching for an “extremely intelligent” bear which, after attacking four people, apparently evaded capture by unlocking a window from the inside. The one-metre-long bear was seen drinking from a tap and showed no reaction when struck by a tranquilliser dart.

On Wednesday, the bear was filmed on CCTV chasing and then mauling an employee in a company car park before being chased off by a quick-thinking passerby who drove their car at the animal. Unfortunately, the animal escaped by running inside the office building where it attacked another man, before taking flight again.

Months after Nicolás Maduro’s removal, pro-democracy activists struggle to turn hope into influence

For nearly 600 days, Anthony Romero crept between more than a dozen safe houses to avoid being captured by Venezuela’s secret police. After helping challenge Nicolás Maduro’s spurious claim to have won the 2024 presidential election, the opposition activist went underground, as the South American dictator waged a ruthless crackdown in an attempt to cling to power.

“He unleashed the harshest repression Venezuela has ever seen – we’re talking about nearly 3,000 arrests,” recalled Romero, 35, a lawyer who is part of the Nobel laureate María Corina Machado’s political party, Vente Venezuela.

Migrant insects have been seen in large numbers along east coast thanks to heatwave and benign southerly winds

If you’ve spotted a pale orange butterfly dashing at frenetic pace through streets, fields or gardens, you’ve noticed the new migrants that will add colour to the summer in record-breaking numbers.

What is expected to be the largest arrival of painted lady butterflies in Britain for 17 years is under way after heatwaves and favourable winds ushered thousands if not millions of the insects northwards.

More than 1 million people advised to evacuate homes amid 80mph winds and heavy rain

Typhoon Jangmi (also known as Typhoon No 6) moved northwards over the course of this week. From Okinawa to mainland Japan, prolonged and heavy rainfall led to landslide warnings and the flooding of rivers, with Japan issuing level 4 warnings for some rivers, signalling a risk of overflowing. This level is high enough for municipalities to issue evacuation orders. Three-hourly rainfall totals on Wednesday reached 105mm in Chiyoda, Tokyo, which was a record high for the month. Sustained wind speeds of 80mph (130kph) were recorded on Monday – making it a category 1 typhoon – bringing damage and disruption to businesses, transport, infrastructure and the environment.

By Wednesday, 23 people had been injured, 17 of whom were in Okinawa. The typhoon damaged 57 homes and led to 60,000 homes losing electricity. In addition to this, 1.52 million people were advised to evacuate by authorities. The typhoon damaged the exterior wall of Himeji Castle, a Unesco world heritage site in western Japan. The maximum recorded wind speed at Himeji was 56mph, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency. The typhoon has now weakened into a tropical depression and has moved eastwards, away from the islands.

Experts say dismantling the ocean observation system will ‘severely degrade’ the accuracy of weather predictions

The Trump administration’s plan to dismantle an ocean observation system vital to understanding the climate crisis and marine ecosystems would “severely degrade” the accuracy of weather predictions and El Niño forecasts, with economic consequences for the US, European and American scientists have warned.

Decommissioning the US system, which plays a major part in a global ocean observation network, would lead to a massive increase in error in the annual estimates of ocean heating rates, according to research published last month.

Weather models project a potentially strong El Niño this year, which could spell disaster for heatwave-hit India, drench China and hurt agriculture across south-east Asia

The UN has warned that the world must prepare for the imminent return of El Niño and the raised global temperatures and weather extremes it brings.

The powerful natural weather pattern has an 80% chance of forming before September and a 90% chance before November, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Tuesday.

Campaign wants to transport people back to weekend of her disappearance when England drew 1-1 with Switzerland in Euro 96 match

The family of Melanie Hall, who was murdered after vanishing from a Bath nightclub 30 years ago, have said they still hope her killer may be found – but felt time was running out – as police launched a fresh appeal for information.

Melanie’s father, Steve Hall, said: “You always think in the early days there’s going to be a quick resolution. That’s not been the case but we travel in hope. I hope I live long enough to see a conclusion.”

Women coaches routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite qualifications, say experts

Women are being shut out of careers in sport by entrenched sexism, discrimination and workplace bullying, MPs have been told.

Female coaches are routinely overlooked, undermined and denied opportunities despite their qualifications, experts told a parliamentary select committee on Thursday.

Critics say high drop-out rate among under-18 army recruits make it a poor means of tackling youth unemployment

Young people looking for employment should “really seriously take a look at the armed forces”, according to the veterans minister, Louise Sandher-Jones, and with more than 1 million 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training (Neets), everyone that age is aware of how bleak the job market is at present. But not all agree about whether the military is the answer.

Alexandra Williams is from rural Lincolnshire and studied law at a university in Manchester. She went in with the intention of becoming a lawyer, but early on was led to believe that would be impossible. “One of my lecturers was like: you’ve got no contacts, you’re not going to get anywhere,” she says.

Zulkernain Ahmed was in pursuit of a group on bikes when he hit Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb, who was walking on pavement

Two brothers have been jailed for killing a 16-year-old boy who was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when he was hit while walking by a car being deliberately driven at a group on bikes.

Abdullah Yaser Abdullah Taleb, who had come to the UK “in search of safety and a better life”, was hit by the vehicle, driven by 21-year-old Zulkernain Ahmed in Sheffield in June 2025.

Families have been left in despair after 39 pupils and seven teachers were kidnapped from classrooms in Oyo state, a part of the country previously considered relatively peaceful

Sitting on a wooden bench under the tree near her home, Aduke Balogun’s gaze is fixed on the road. Her eyes are red from crying and a lack of sleep. Last month her daughter, Kehinde Kasosara, was forcefully abducted from school and has not been seen since.

Kaosara, who is seven years old, was taken from the Baptist nursery and primary across the street from their home. The armed men, wearing military camouflage and face masks, rode into the sleepy town of Yawota in Oyo state, south-west Nigeria, on motorcycles.

Draft treaty claims sexual and reproductive health and rights are an existential threat to the African family

An African treaty that rejects longstanding international human rights obligations moved a step closer to becoming policy this week as governments across the continent met in Ghana.

The draft African charter on family, sovereignty and values, seen by the Guardian, asserts that African values and culture are under attack from “foreign ideologies” and urges states to withdraw from any agreements that do not align with the principles of the charter, including the 2003 Maputo protocol, which promotes gender equality and protects the reproductive and health rights of women and girls.

Pontiff’s resolve to highlight plight of migrants has aligned him with Spanish PM, whose inner circle and party are mired in corruption allegations

While Pope Leo XIV isn’t due to touch down in Madrid until 10.30am on Saturday, his presence in the Spanish capital is already verging on the ubiquitous.

The smiling, avuncular face of the first US pontiff greets visitors from posters, from the sides of buses, from commemorative travel cards and even from the digital screens on the metro system, where it flickers up between adverts for sun cream and banking deals.

Macron, Merz and von der Leyen among those due to gather in Montenegro for talks on integration of six countries

European leaders will seek to show six western Balkan countries that they have a real chance of joining the EU one day, despite splits over how to handle enlargement of the 27-member bloc.

Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen are among more than 30 leaders expected to gather in the Montenegrin coastal resort of Tivat on Friday for summit talks. The focus will be on integrating the six Balkan countries – among them Montenegro and Albania – more deeply into the EU single market, paving the way for them to join the bloc.

Without disclosing that work has been generated using the technology, faith in existing industries will continue to be undermined

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When a pro vice-chancellor at a university this week admitted to using AI in writing an opinion piece for a major Australian masthead, but did not disclose that use prior to publication, it highlighted the growing gap between people’s use of AI and trust in the technology.

Data from Roy Morgan this week showed 13.6m or 58% of the population older than 14 now use AI each month, with ChatGPT being the most popular, followed by Google’s Gemini and Microsoft Copilot.

Announcement seeks to close a difficult chapter for the company after the Guardian revealed its platform was used in mass surveillance of Palestinians

Microsoft has said it will tighten human-rights controls when working with national security agencies after an inquiry into how the Israeli military used its cloud technology for the mass surveillance of Palestinians.

On Thursday, Microsoft announced the completion of the inquiry and a series of new measures that include changes to how the company oversees employees with security clearances issued by foreign governments.

Evoke had been in talks for two months with Bally’s Intralot, which has extensive international operations

The owner of William Hill and the 888 online casino brand has agreed a £243m takeover by the Greek casino and lottery operator Bally’s Intralot.

Evoke had been locked in talks for the past two months with the Athens-listed Bally’s Intralot, which has extensive international operations, including in the US.

Exclusive: Analysis shows resort has yet to recoup Disney’s investment despite record revenue and 16m annual visitors

Disney has still not recouped $4.2bn of its investment in Disneyland Paris after more than 30 years, even though the resort is now its best-performing international outpost, according to an analysis of recent filings.

The sprawling theme park complex swung open its ornate iron gates in 1992 and now attracts about 16 million visitors every year. It is wholly owned by Disney and is home to two theme parks – the fairytale-inspired Disneyland and Disney Adventure World, which launched its largest-ever expansion in late March. The lavish land, themed to the hit animated movie Frozen, is part of a $2.5bn (€2bn) investment by Disney, and its new chief executive, Josh D’Amaro, was on hand for the opening alongside Emmanuel Macron.

In Mona’s new permanent installation, visitors can breathe air so pure it ‘has not been touched by any being before you’

More than 2bn years ago, during the Paleoproterozoic era, the Earth’s atmosphere began to fill with free oxygen, enabling the rise of aerobic life and, ultimately, humans. It’s known as the Great Oxidation Event, and deep in the subterranean belly of the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania, a new artwork offers visitors the chance to inhale oxygen that’s been trapped in iron ore since then.

When French-Swiss conceptual artist Julian Charrière came up with the idea, Mona’s owner David Walsh not only said yes but created a bespoke space for it.

Star makes for reliably charming lead in Netflix’s basic throwback, but co-star Brett Goldstein, and his co-written script, lack in fizz

Netflix has become something of a safe space for Jennifer Lopez, a one-time box office heavyweight who has now secured a more reliable at-home following on the platform. Middling action films The Mother and Atlas might have turned critics off but both drew blockbuster streaming numbers, while more recent theatrical efforts such as Marry Me and Kiss of the Spider-Woman struggled to reach earlier highs. The arrival of her latest Netflix vehicle, to-the-point romcom Office Romance, is likely to be another smartly packaged win for the star, harking back to a genre she once dominated in the 2000s with hits like Maid in Manhattan and The Wedding Planner. It’s similarly by-the-numbers, but what gives it something of an alleged unique selling point is its unusual R rating and the promise of more “raunch” than usual.

But the film is far tamer than those involved seem to think, an inconsistent mix of sugar and spice, the right tone never quite clicking into place. Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, acting as both leading man and co-writer, tries to introduce British humour (awkward bumbling, football jokes, calling people cunt affectionately) into an American setting but it never blends together as smoothly as we want or expect from such high-gloss material. Lopez looks and acts the part, movie star charisma dialled up to 11, but the film around her is too unsure and ungainly to match.

The latest Pixar is a gloriously cute eco-tale packed with neat gags, robotic beavers and shark assassins named Diane … plus, Frances McDormand is astonishing in the Oscar-winning drama that is an instant classic

“We’re all in this together.” It may seem an obvious eco message to be pushing at the kids who will flock to watch the latest Pixar animation. But when it’s done as charmingly as in Daniel Chong’s sci-fi comedy adventure, you’d be hard-pressed not to cheer along with the film’s endangered animals. Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda) is our teenage human guide to a biodiverse nook of woods and water near Beaverton. But when a proposed freeway causes the wildlife to scatter, she “hops” her mind into a robotic beaver (invented by her biology teacher) so she can track them down and save their glade. Crammed with neat gags, relatable villains and a shark assassin named Diane, it’s cute propaganda.
Out now, Disney+

He’s pink, dotty and as British as a Boots meal deal. In recent months he’s duetted with pop stars, appeared on Saturday Night Live and been declared the UK’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse. What’s behind this strange comeback?

Margaret Thatcher wasn’t to blame for the closure of Britain’s coalmines. Mr Blobby was. A harrowing spoof documentary exposed this horrific truth during the finale of Saturday Night Live UK’s debut season. Back in 1992, drilling activity at Nottinghamshire’s Grumthorpe Colliery awoke an evil entity buried underground. Mr Blobby promptly went on an unstoppable murderous rampage, ripping off miners’ limbs and becoming “an atom bomb made flesh”.

Mr Blobby being disinterred is an apt metaphor. Recent months have seen the pink-and-yellow agent of chaos unearthed and on the comeback trail. He has appeared on primetime TV shows, duetted with popstars, and convinced nostalgic punters to part with a surprising amount of cash to get their hands on Blobby-themed merchandise. What has prompted the comeback of a character once considered irredeemably naff?

The star continues to flex her Russian as Bea goes undercover in Ponies. Plus: how will the Iran war impact our summer holidays abroad? Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Sky Atlantic
Emilia Clarke learned Russian for this exciting cold war comedy drama (“I did Dothraki, I know what I’m doing!”) and she continues to flex her impressive skills as US spy Bea. She prepares to go on a date with a KGB agent to strengthen her cover, and gets some tips from Twila. Will she pull it off? Meanwhile, Twila is also taking secret calls to get to the bottom of a number of sex worker murders. Hollie Richardson

Successful jokes are thin on the ground in the musty sixth installment of the once-popular parody franchise, taking aim at everything from Scream to Sinners

The Scary Movie series has always depended on timing. Not necessarily in its gagcraft, which has oscillated between occasional sharp jabs and many beyond-broad blows, but in its position on the release schedule. This was especially true of the first installment, which arrived in theaters just a few months after the 2000 release of Scream 3, capitalizing on the new wave of slashers while holding a spoofy Viking funeral for that just-concluded trilogy. A quarter of a century later, horror endures and there’s no reason to think spoofs can’t endure in parallel along with it as Backrooms and Obsession have ruled the early summer box office.

The sixth Scary Movie, repeating the first movie’s unnumbered title as a simultaneous nod to and act of reboot branding, is releasing too soon after those surprise smashes to incorporate them into its litany of gags (not even some last-minute ADR references, guys?). It’s stuck far further back, doing a composite of the fifth and sixth Scream movies from 2022 and 2023, respectively. On the other hand, with the recent Scream 7 largely abdicating its self-referentiality entirely, Scary Movie arrives as the last horror-comedy holding the torch for in-jokes that its self-serious cousin couldn’t bother with.

(Felt)
From birdsong to pool balls, this Lithuanian musician – a graduate of Copenhagen’s buzzy Rhythmic Music Conservatory – mixes beguiling found sounds into left-field pop and modern classical

Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory has become associated with a specific gauzy, esoteric sound, which draws on, and reshapes, classical instrumentation and pop songwriting. Think ML Buch, Astrid Sonne and Erika de Casier, all of whom have graduated from the institution since 2019. Following in their footsteps is Lithuanian musician Gintė Preisaitė, who works with piano, voice and electronics to create atmospheric, unsettling ambient compositions.

Instruments of Forgetting and the Singing Bone, Preisaitė’s first solo release under her own name, draws on her background in improvisational techniques and composing for large ensembles. With additional instrumentation from a cluster of collaborators – strings, woodwind, tape – she presents eight tracks that build in intensity through her collage-like assembling of strange sounds and effects.

(Matador)
Better known as a formidable free jazz saxophonist, these thrashing songs about the artist’s Tennessee childhood home share a similar genre-pushing intensity

On opening track OCD, Zoh Amba stops a twinkling, rootsy guitar melody and starts over, searching for the right way to tell the story of a boy diagnosed with “dreamin’ all the time”. Amba lands on a queasy combination of empathy and conspiracy (“said that mind needs fixin’ / gunna end up like everybody”), churned up by thrashing, violent strumming – the kind that causes blisters and wrecked strings.

These cryptic postcards from Amba’s home town of Kingsport, Tennessee describe childhood memories with fresh eyes: they left at 17 and returned only recently, now in their mid-20s. Blending gruff reality with poetic licence, Eyes Full is a rugged, experimental country rock record that feels deeply lived in, despite representing an abrupt change in sound: Amba is best known as a prodigious free jazz saxophonist.

Dinnerstein/Baroklyn
(Naïve)
With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto

Getting ahead of next year’s 90th birthday celebrations, American pianist Simone Dinnerstein presents two works by Philip Glass, performing alongside her own string ensemble. Baroklyn – the name conflates her home borough of Brooklyn and the baroque sensibilities of JS Bach – take a far-from-mechanical approach to the composer’s minimalist tics. Their aim is to emulate the passage of time like sand through an hourglass (hence the title) rather than chopping the music into segments like the hands of a clock. And it works.

Arranged by Michael Riesman, Suite from The Hours splices Glass’s score for Stephen Daldry’s film into an almost symphonic three-movement work. The story’s pain and poetry is encapsulated in an immersive score for piano, strings, harp and celesta, with Dinnerstein raising the emotional stakes by adopting considerably slower tempi than the movie soundtrack.

This memoir of a man who moved around China chasing low-paid work for 20 years is an indictment of a shocking system, read in a suitably austere way

Hu Anyan’s memoir about working in the Chinese gig economy began life as a blog before being turned into a wildly successful book that has sold nearly 2m copies in China. It chronicles the daily grind that is working a series of unskilled jobs for insultingly low wages and where there is no such thing as career progression.

Hu is one of 300 million so-called internal migrants in China, people who move around the country chasing work. Over 20 years, he does 19 jobs in six cities, many of them in terrible conditions. He works as a security guard, hotel waiter, delivery driver, bicycle salesman, bike courier, gas station attendant and at a logistics warehouse where he is given only four days off a month. There is a reason, he notes, why so many new recruits fail to make it through the three-day trial, which, of course, is unpaid.

Haunting the Black Air by Anthony Joseph; Selected Poems by Leontia Flynn; Sparrow on the Rooftop by Rachel Long; You Must Live: New Poetry from Palestine, edited by Jorie Graham; Melete by Jennifer Lee Tsai; Somebody Should Have Pressed Record by Galia Admoni

Haunting the Black Air by Anthony Joseph (Bloomsbury, £12.99)
Joseph’s follow-up to the TS Eliot prize-winning Sonnets for Albert sees his poetic approach become more radical. He pays homage to avant garde writers such as Will Alexander and Nathaniel Mackey, while exploring “Nostalgia, mostly grief, / a haunting sound – / the frequency of some / magnetic feeling.” That makes for challenging syntax on first reading the poems. Persist, and Joseph’s unabashed lyricism shines through, finding beauty on dancefloors, city streets and in Trinidadian landscapes: “the way music fills the room, how we embrace until / we become flare bright, light as the white refraction / of the sun upon the summit of hills.”

Selected Poems by Leontia Flynn (Carcanet, £14.99)
She was a Next Generation poet and Forward prize winner; it’s a shock to remember that Flynn has been publishing for more than 20 years, so fresh do her poems remain. This assembly is a glorious reintroduction to her mordant wit, imaginative image-making and unerring ability to puncture pretension. Letter to Friends from 2011 is a brilliant, Auden-esque dissection of the early 21st century, worth a library of political analyses: “daily threats brought to our Way of Life / by man-made imminent apocalypse / though neither really outweighs private grief”. There are pleasures on every page.

In her first novel for adults, the YA author explores the dark side of writers who fictionalise their children’s lives

Children’s writers are sometimes cruel, and often damaged. And, as AS Byatt put it crisply when talking about her 2009 novel The Children’s Book: “Writing children’s books isn’t good for the writer’s own children.” Think of Christopher Milne, raging at having been Christopher Robin; Vivian Burnett, dragging Little Lord Fauntleroy behind him; Alastair Grahame, lying down on train tracks.

This is fertile material, as Byatt recognised, for a grown-up book. The American author Melissa Albert, herself a very successful children’s writer, has made it the theme of her first adult novel. The Children’s protagonist is Guinevere Sharpe, who as a grown woman is trapped by a very public version of her childhood. Her mother, Edith, a sort of JK Rowling/Enid Blyton composite, wrote an era-defining run of children’s portal fantasies called the Ninth City series, in which Guin and her older brother Ennis appeared as the named protagonists.

In her sharp and intellectual first novel, the author finds tragic comedy in socialism, inequality and the flawed ways we connect as the world burns

In her fiction debut, The Ruiners, Ellena Savage probes the awkward realities of white privilege, social mobility and a lack of ancestral connection. At first it seems that Savage has turned away from the experimental ambition of her successful memoir, Blueberries, but the novel gradually reveals itself to be craftier and more subversive than it appears. This anti-inheritance novel is in direct, playful conversation with one of its inspirations – Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – and, while knowledge of the coming-of-age novel isn’t essential, it’s delightful to see Savage tease the themes of the original in her surreal contemporary take.

Having failed to fulfil or even define her own ambition, 29-year-old Pip drifts aimlessly through her life. She is smart, funny and vaguely unhappy. In quick succession, her estranged father dies and leaves her an inheritance of $50,000 and she falls quickly, recklessly in love with Sasha, a brooding young writer who narrates the third part of the novel. With the inheritance Pip sees the opportunity to change her situation. She quits her job – “I’ve developed a rare blood disorder, I wrote. As such, I must cut my hospitality management career short. I hereby tender my resignation, effective immediately” – and marries Sasha, and together they spend the entirety of her small fortune on a rotting house on the remote (fictional) Greek island of Fokos. In the background, a trash volcano burns relentlessly and waste pirates fight to offload their illegal garbage on to the shores. But the move does little to improve their circumstances or resolve their unhappiness.

The Ruiners by Ellena Savage is out now (Summit Books, $34.99)

Family members said the author of the landmark comic book memoir ‘died of sadness’ after the death of her husband last year

Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist, film-maker and graphic novelist whose acclaimed memoir Persepolis helped reshape international perceptions of Iran, has died at the age of 56.

In a statement provided to French news agency AFP, relatives said she had “died of sadness” after the death of her husband, the Swedish producer Mattias Ripa.

PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox; Yacht Club Games
This brilliant adventure creates a whole world from one character with a unique ability

You could mistake Mina the Hollower for something found on the liquid-crystal display of a Game Boy Color around the turn of the millennium. Like the pocketable Zelda and Pokémon games of the time, it presents a kind of snow-globe reality that you peer into from above, relying on imagination to decipher each two-colour clump of pixels into a tree, or a skeleton, or a cloaked mouse wielding a hammer twice her size.

This is Mina, our hero: she jumps, she moves at a clip, and she can delve downward into the soil or floorboards, tunnelling underfoot for a moment or two before popping back up, like an inflatable forcibly submerged in a swimming pool. This is her signature move, perfectly elastic in sensation – the way the released button springs back against your thumb! – and in application. The burrow-jump is an excavation tool, unearthing any treasure you happen to dig through, and a navigational one, used to hop over gaps, reach high-up spots and nose into tiny hidden spaces, where more treasure almost invariably awaits.

The PS5 era has been in some ways disappointing for Sony – on Tuesday, the company revealed a slate of games they hope will change that

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PlayStation’s future has looked a little uncertain these past few years. Although the PS5 has sold well and been very profitable, the brand is far from the runaway market leader it was in the PS2 days. Earlier this week, Game File dug into Sony’s most recent earnings reports to illustrate how PlayStation has been selling fewer and fewer of its own flagship games since a peak during the pandemic. About 54.1m copies of games either developed or published by Sony were sold in the 2018 financial year; in 2025, it sold 32.1m.

Sony has put out some great homegrown games since the PS5 was released in 2020, from Astro Bot to Ghost of Yōtei, but it has also had some expensive and very public failures and cancellations; PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, who retired in 2024, placed big bets on live-service games and only a few panned out (hello, Helldivers). Sony also seems to have rolled back on releasing its single-player PS5 games on PC after a polite interval of time, suggesting it wants to preserve what advantage and exclusivity it has.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Somerset House, London
Escher’s paradoxical geometries and impossible gravities may baffle the mind – yet even his wildest works were never just fanciful, as this fun and gripping show makes clear

We think we know the world of Maurits Cornelis Escher with its mind-bending staircases and buildings that impossibly twist upon themselves. Yet a shocking glimpse of reality intrudes in Somerset House’s gripping journey through his metaverse. In 1945, Escher designed a diploma for students at a temporary academy in Eindhoven, recently liberated from Nazi rule. Behind a wise old owl in the foreground, twisting columns of black smoke rise from a riverside town, their evil sinuousness reflected in the water. The message of this depiction of war is not only that Escher was a civilised individual surviving a brutal age but also that his visual delights were never just fanciful. Even his wildest speculations reveal the workings of the world itself, grounded as they are in what Galileo called “the language of mathematics” in which “the book of nature is written”.

You don’t have to be fluent in that language to lose yourself in Escher’s art. You just need to look, and this exhibition lets you look so much more closely and deeply than you can in books and reproductions and imitations of his work. At times you feel you are actually inside his paradoxical places. I chuckled for ages in front of his 1958 lithograph Belvedere in which a king and queen survey a mountainous landscape in different directions from two storeys of a Renaissance building, but wait, they don’t just face different ways, their separate floors are totally at odds, the king’s pointing sideways while the queen faces out of the picture in a 90-degree shift: the columns on the front of the king’s balustrade support the back of the queen’s floor and the whole building turns in two different dimensions inhabiting two truths at once. No wonder the builders are dressed as jesters while an architect sits studying geometry.

Plays about political extremes, religious sects, swimming the Channel and an 80th birthday party are among the highlights at this summer’s arts spectacular

Producer Francesca Moody has shown a sure touch for spotting fringe hits (Fleabag and Baby Reindeer among them). Her new offering, by Australia’s Hannah Reilly, is about a feminist podcaster who becomes an online “slutfluencer” to earn some easy money, but has a price to pay.
Summerhall, 6-31 August

King Street Social Club, North Shields
Teeing up a forthcoming solo album, the rapper doesn’t reheat his old Beastie Boys sound, instead throwing down everything from ballads to Kraftwerk references

Adam Yauch AKA MCA’s death in 2012 from cancer aged 47 effectively ended the stellar recording and performing career of hip-hop trio Beastie Boys. Since then, bandmates Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz and Michael “Mike D” Diamond have made few public appearances but the latter is now back in the fray. His first appearance on a British stage in almost 20 years is in, of all places, a bingo hall in the north east, where he surely becomes the first legendary rapper to yell: “Wassup, North Shields?!”

With turntables on stage, hip-hop clobber in the audience, a six-piece band in matching outfits and bingo tables at the back, this unlikely show feels simultaneously low-key and an event. Mike D is backed by 5D – who include his sons and are more than half his 60 years – whose slamming grooves and crunching guitars aren’t Beastie Boys reheated, but certainly have the same inimitable joie de vivre.

Barbican theatre, London
Impeccable vocals and slick staging make for dazzling set pieces in a tame production that’s missing the emotional centre of the 1956 film

Five years ago, the Barbican staged the first of three Cole Porter musicals in quick succession. A sublime revival of Anything Goes was fun, frothy and polished to perfection. Kiss Me, Kate followed, and now this show, about the romantic shenanigans of the American east coast gentry.

Immaculate in its song and dance, it is smoothly staged from the minute the (doomed) multitiered cake is wheeled on for the upcoming wedding in Long Island. But something is missing from the love triangle between socialite Tracy Lord (Helen George), her pining ex-husband Dexter (Julian Ovenden) and square fiance George (David Seadon-Young) – with undercover journalist Mike (Freddie Fox) thrown into the romantic pot for good measure.

Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro is in the soprano’s DNA, but she’s never thought about directing it. Creating her own production has been daunting and fascinating – and her son’s building blocks even helped

I am not one of those performers who has spent their life on a theatre stage or film set thinking, “I wish I could direct this”. However, earlier this year, I found myself with an unexpected six-week gap. A scheduled project had been delayed for technical reasons, and it was at this time that Wild Arts’ producer Max Parfitt asked how well I knew The Marriage of Figaro.

I have lived with Mozart’s opera for as long as I can remember. Susanna’s “Deh, Vieni Non Tardar” was one of the first major arias I sang, aged 12 or 13, while studying in Los Angeles. Later, I wrote my final high school paper on Figaro, the adaptation from Beaumarchais’s play to Da Ponte’s libretto. I even translated the entire score word for word, which is probably why I still know it so deeply. My Metropolitan Opera debut at 19 was in Figaro, singing Barbarina. I performed my first Susanna on the same New York stage a few years later, and I’ve since sung the role many times all over the world.

Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad appeared at performance of Abba Voyage for schoolchildren

Abba Voyage concerts can be deafening enough. But when the real-life Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad made an appearance in the hall, which was packed with hundreds of schoolchildren, even the security staff present were surprised by the din.

On Tuesday, at the custom-built Abba Arena in east London, the virtual concert residency launched its expanded education programme which aims to support young people across the area to get into the creative industries.

New York audiences were asked to put phones in sealed pouches, and producer says she hopes to do the same in UK

When a Pulitzer prize-winning play about a feminist activist opened in New York, audiences had to do something unusual.

They were asked to put their phones away – not in their pockets, but in specially designed pouches, which they could open only at the intermission or after the show.

The Persepolis author understood us and translated us for the world. We have lost our most eloquent spokesperson

Marjane Satrapi has died and every Iranian woman I know is in shock and mourning, while none seems confused by reports of the cause. She died “of sadness”, according to those close to her. Of course she did. Iranians often do. And Satrapi felt everything so intensely.

For my cohort (girls who began their adolescence in 1980s Iran and ended it in the west) Marjane Satrapi was a spokesperson for our trauma, our upbringing and our particular flavour of shame, repression and outspokenness. She made us legible to our western peers in our 20s and 30s, and I was sure she would do it again in middle age.

For a fairly low-maintenance crop, the root vegetable can yield an impressive and nutritious harvest, and is surely due an influencer-rebrand soon

My third column on edible plants that I don’t actually grow myself is about one that I do not loathe, as I do celeriac, nor love, as I do sweetcorn. It is the swede, a root vegetable I would describe as “fine”.

Also known as neeps or rutabaga, swedes are hardy vegetables, related to the turnip and part of the brassica family. For a fairly low-maintenance crop, they can yield an impressive harvest that tastes fairly sweet and is very nutritious. I would wager that they are in for an influencer-driven rebrand sometime soon.

From a London houseboat with views of the River Thames to a property by a loch in the Inner Hebrides

Summer is here, and your May favourites show you’re feeling the heat

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Our on-again, off-again relationship with summer finally went official in May, with temperatures soaring across much of the UK. Many of us sweltered in the heat, ordering fans to try to get a good night’s sleep during the unprecedented heatwave, and shade shelters to keep us out of the sun’s glare.

But we also couldn’t help embracing that summer feeling, with many of your May favourites reflecting a little more time spent outside. Many of you got back to nature and went camping, with some of your fellow readers’ top camping products making the list, such as an ingenious washing line and a flying disc. From comfy holiday sandals to a cult favourite K-beauty SPF, these were your favourite things in May.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basics they scrimp on? The former footballer talks Lego, Rich Tea biscuits and spending money on experiences with the Filter

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Karen Carney is England’s fourth most-capped football player, competing at four World Cups, four European Championships and the London Olympics before retiring in 2019. In 2022, she began leading a landmark government review into the Future of Women’s Football in the UK, the recommendations of which were successfully backed by the government in 2023.

She was part of the first all-female punditry team for ITV at the men’s World Cup 2022, led ITV’s coverage of the men’s Euros in 2024 and contributed analysis to the women’s Euros in 2025.

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

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

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

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

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

• The best face moisturisers for every budget

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

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

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

Best budget face SPF:
E45 Sensitive Sun face cream

The magic of easy-make ice-cream combined with the comfortingly familiar flavours of the classic Italian dessert

I can be a real creature of habit when it comes to ice-cream. You could present me with the most creative flavoured scoops in the fanciest gelato shop and I will unfailingly choose mint chocolate chip, pistachio or coffee – not at the same time, of course, I still have some sense. I recently came across a tiramisu ice-cream and my interest was piqued; it’s one of my favourite desserts. Here, I’ve turned it into a no-churn version for ease and added a mascarpone layer to stay true to the original dessert.

Restaurant dining is a terrific and expensive treat, so how can you be sure to get the best from every menu? Experts give their advice, from looking for the strangest dish to going easy on the booze

For many of us, going to a restaurant is a real treat, so you want to make the most of every mouthful. From starters to small plates, how can you ensure that you have the best possible dining experience? Restaurant critics share the insider secrets to ordering well when eating out.

We pop open a selection of fun but healthy fizzy flavoured waters that should satisfy even the fussiest princess

I am not a princess about many things, but there has to be sparkling water in the house. Refreshing, enlivening and occasionally hangover-clearing, it is an essential. Thankfully, my husband is aligned with me (it would never have worked with someone who answered: “Tap’s fine”, when offered water in a restaurant).

I’m not fussy about my fizzy, though – SodaStreamed tap is fine – but I am increasingly seduced by the rainbow of new flavoured, unsweetened sparkling waters such as Dash Water and Aqua Libra that have turned up of late. Depending on how you look at them, they offer a healthy take on fizzy drinks and/or bring a bit of bling to an otherwise neutral beverage. “They make water a fun drink,” says the chef and author Jesse Jenkins, who co-founded sparkling water brand Yew.

Layers of oregano bring a pungent earthiness to this simple supper of baked white fish and spuds

In her enthusiasm, my dog pulled me over in front of a group of teenagers the other day, so I have been using an antiseptic called Citrosil on my elbow, hip and ear. So much so that clothes I wear often, tea towels that have been hung on my shoulder and my bag all seem to have Citrosil hanging about them, like the teenagers around the bench (two of whom came to my aid). I put this down to the smell having got into my sinuses, or personal paranoia, until a woman in the supermarket commented, also saying how reassuring she found it. Separately, I keep having thoughts about chips fried in olive oil with oregano sprinkled on top, which I put down to a comment by a friend a few weeks ago, until I realised that thoughts of chips were also due to the Citrosil on my elbow and in my sinuses, because it doesn’t smell only like hospital corridors, my grandma, lemon and turpentine, but also oregano.

Looking at the ingredients on the Citrosil bottle, the herbal element is actually thyme essence, although thyme and oregano are in the same family and both contain molecular compounds called thymol and cymene, whose decisive component smells – medicinal, tarry, woody, floral – are combined so intoxicatingly in thyme, oregano and marjoram. Smells that bring to mind chips, braised vegetables, köfte and flatbreads.

Hundreds of people applied to adopt beagles from a breeding facility – but ‘these are not ordinary dogs’, says one rescue worker

In May, 1,500 beagles were released from Ridglan Farms, a breeding and bioresearch facility near Madison, Wisconsin.

The event made headlines. Soon, a deluge of tear-jerking videos followed, showing the lab beagles experiencing the outside world for the first time. Millions of people watched the dogs touching grass and instinctively paddling their paws at the sight of water.

It sounds like you both see sex the same way, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith – and perhaps that’s part of the problem

• Read more Leading questions

My husband and I have been married for five years and are having trouble with our sex life. From the beginning of our marriage (we only started having sex after marriage) I wanted sex more frequently than him. In the first year or so of marriage we’d have sex two to three times a week which I enjoyed, although sometimes hoped for more.

A few years into our marriage my husband had a very stressful time at work. Sex dropped to roughly once a week, typically on the weekends. He picked up running to help deal with the stress and really enjoyed it.

Charles and Alice have reconnected in their 60s, but he finds her soggy sponges foul, while she says his ashtrays are worse. You tell us who is giving you that sinking feeling
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Whenever I see Alice’s cloths, I imagine all the bacteria that must be crawling over them

Charles would prefer to throw all dishcloths away immediately after using them

My ‘niblings’ gave me a positive reason to return to the home town where I’d experienced homophobia as a boy. Over time, they transformed my sense of family and self

When I found out I had become an uncle, I was 22 and on a year abroad as part of a languages degree, living in Madrid. I’d spent much of my time there having raucous fun on the city’s gay scene, dancing till the early hours then sloping off with Spanish men. It felt a long way from my family life back home in Bolton.

As this was 1997 – a time before mobile phones – calls from landlines had to be rationed to once a week. But my mum phoned to tell me my sister had gone into labour and then, two days later, the phone rang again with the news that I had a nephew. It felt like an abstract concept, not quite real.

Experts explain how small, regular sums can build wealth over time, from your 20s through to retirement

Thinking about investing? There are compelling reasons for moving at least some of your money away from standard savings accounts and into the stock market. There are also risks, but over the long term the rewards can be better.

Many people are put off by the idea that you need to be wealthy to start investing, or over a certain age. But even if you can only afford to set aside £50 a month, it is worth considering. And while there are important factors to consider before you start, it is rarely too early, or too late, to take the first step.

ScottishPower apologises for charging error, as millions face higher costs under revised energy price cap

The energy bill from ScottishPower sent Richard Palmer into an immediate panic. It said he had to pay more than £8,400 straight away or risk his credit history being impaired for years.

The 76-year-old felt he had no option so he paid the bill, using half of his savings to do so, even though it amounted to nine times what his annual payment would normally be.

Although I voluntarily handed in the licence, the agency’s action has made it far harder for me to get it back

I suffered a spinal cord injury in August 2024. I voluntarily surrendered my driving licence to the DVLA, only for it to revoke it instead. This makes it much, much harder to get it back later on.

I’ve since been told that I need to take a medical driving assessment to get the licence back, but I am unable to take one because I do not have a licence. I am now on my third application, with evidence from my spinal consultant and an off-road driving assessment confirming that I can drive with hand controls. This was submitted two months ago, and the DVLA still can’t update me.

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

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

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

Want to spend less time on your phone? We asked psychotherapists, professors and specialists for practical (and achievable) ways to cut down

• The best screen-free activities

Everywhere you look, people are glued to their smartphones. If you haven’t noticed this phenomenon, it’s likely because you, too, are glued to the little dopamine-deliverer.

In March, Meta and YouTube had to pay a combined $6m after a US court found that the tech companies’ platforms were designed to be addictive. Put such tempting apps in a device that’s carried everywhere, and that’s a recipe for compulsive behaviour.

A new survey reveals the average person in Britain will spend 41,000 hours flicking idly between news apps and social media – and, in all likelihood, getting increasingly miserable

Name: Doomscrolling.

Age: The term first emerged in 2018, but took off in 2020 (when the doom got especially heavy).

The neurologist Orlando Swayne doesn’t suggest everyone can recover. But he does argue that early, targeted and intense therapy can sometimes bring about life-changing improvements – and we have a moral obligation to provide it

Claire was in bad shape. She had been brought to the ward on a stretcher and hoisted on to a bed where she lay curled up in a ball. She was unable to speak, her eyes flat and face expressionless. While she could move her right arm a little, her left arm and both legs were immobile.

Life had changed dramatically for Claire, a mother of three in her late 30s, many months earlier, when she collapsed while on a night out with friends. A weakness in an artery at the base of her brain had ruptured, spilling blood around her frontal lobe. She was taken to hospital, where surgeons removed two side plate-sized pieces of bone from her skull to relieve the pressure on her brain. She spent months in intensive care.

New issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on parallels between marketing for cigarettes and UPFs

The new issue of the American Journal of Public Health focuses on ultra-processed foods, and reveals that big tobacco companies used strategies that helped them sell cigarettes to sell ultra-processed food products, including Lunchables, geared toward children.

The parallels between ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and cigarettes include not only how UPF products were formulated and marketed to drive excess consumption, but also the growing body of evidence linking UPFs to a variety of health risks. For UPFs, these include cardiovascular diseases, certain cancers and cognitive health decline.

A higher price does not necessarily mean better fabric, fairer pay for workers or greater sustainability. To guarantee you’re buying ethically, experts say, you need to dig a little deeper

Does paying more for a T-shirt mean that it’s more likely to be ethically made?

In short (sleeves): no. People who spend their time investigating fashion companies’ supply chains and employment practices seem united in the conclusion that money cannot necessarily buy us a clear conscience.

The sundress is back – here’s how to make it short but not (too) sweet

One sunny day recently, I looked around and realised that every woman in my vicinity was wearing the same dress. Not the same dress, exactly. But the same dress. A maxidress, colourful but in a tasteful sort of way. Floaty, probably with a tiered skirt. Wholesome and vaguely rustic, but also a bit fancy. You know the dress I mean, because if you have been at any outdoor event between 2019 and about last Thursday, you have had the same experience. The maxidress has colonised summer dressing, and it’s out of control.

So I am here to tell you that the maxidress must die. Ha! Not really, but also sort of yes, really. It started so well. When the maxi first landed, it beguiled us all. Floor-length, after all, was new fashion territory for anyone born after about 1965, so it felt fresh and exciting, plus you could go to a party in flat shoes and not have to shave your legs. Result! But somewhere down the line the maxidress has got a bit Motherland. It has become a garment that somehow represents the tense negotiation between prettiness and exhaustion that defines modern womanhood. A dress you wear for a holiday selfie that you retake 14 times before posting on Instagram with a joie-de-vivre caption.

Think self-tan is too much effort – or too risky? Not any more. The latest products are so simple to use you can just go with the glow

I can’t be without a facial self-tan in spring/summer. Keen to offload heavier coverage foundations that can slip, slide and suffocate in the sunshine, I reach for a subtle tanner as a warmer, lighter and, truly, easier base layer for makeup.

People wrongly imagine self-tan to be too effortful, fiddly and risky, and understandably wonder where to slot it into their skincare routine, but a new crop of facial self-tanners simplifies both these issues.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters travelled to north London to celebrate their team winning the Premier League. Here’s what they wore …

‘The only thing I haven’t got are the underpants. Everything else is Arsenal,” says Shane, a memorabilia and kit collector perched outside north London’s Clissold park with his daughter, Erin. Known online as Highbury Gunner JVC, the 47-year-old wore an Arsenal-buckled belt, a club tie in a player pattern and a club shirt with a red and white vintage-style duffel bag. The showstopper, though, was his bespoke jacket made from curtains by the designer Joe Brim, finished with an Arsenal medallion and watch, and yellow customised Dr Martens. A collector since the 1970s, he says: “I could complete a catalogue from the 90s; my house is like a museum.”

Favourite shirt … Liv Samuels in his Arsenal badge Hawaiian top

From boat trips on Lake Garda to zip-wiring in Wales, you share your favourite family-friendly breaks in Europe

• Tell us about a glamorous seaside hotel that didn’t break the bank? The best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Lake Garda gave us one of the most memorable and unexpected family holidays yet. We hired a car and headed from Milan to Unesco-listed Peschiera del Garda and the family-focused apartment we found on Airbnb. A gentle 15-minute walk to the lakeside restaurants and gelaterias, this was the perfect base for exploring the beautiful town. Special mentions go to: Gelateria la Romana, with its wonderful ice-cream; the boat trip to Sirmione, an old town with thermal springs on a narrow peninsula; and, further up the lake, picturesque Malcesine and the cable car to the top of Monte Baldo to watch paragliders and to take in the amazing views.
Alex

Over one weekend, we hiked, swam, slept in a woodland cabin and camped on a hillside – while also supporting community-run projects

The children were asleep in the little tent behind us, wrapped in two sleeping bags, each with an extra helping of wool blankets. Earlier, all I could see were their little faces half-lit by torchlight as I read them a book about rivers to the sound of rain on canvas. They fell asleep as fast and thick as the fog pooling in the valley below.

My partner and I sat outside, huddled together under a waterproof coat, cheek to cheek, perched on our daughters’ foam swim vests because the ground was saturated. We were laughing. As parents, absurdity and beauty make for familiar bedfellows.

The Cambrian Line hugs the shore, offering easy access to the Wales Coast Path, the Cadfan Way pilgrimage route and glorious Cardigan Bay

From the graveyard of St Michael’s in Ynys, Wales, the view was ravishing: the Italianate oddity of Portmeirion sparkled on the opposite shore; the peaks of Eryri (Snowdonia) rippled in the distance; and, within the River Dwyryd’s broad swirl, sat the tidal island of Ynys Gifftan. “No one’s lived there for years,” said a passerby pointing to the isle, “but it’s just been put up for sale – £350,000, if you fancy it.”

I rather did, but sadly my modest savings don’t stretch that far. Wales’s “armpit”, geographically speaking – which is how some people refer to that chunk of Gwynedd where estuaries perspire into Cardigan Bay before it curves round the outstretched Llŷn peninsula – looked like a spectacular place to be marooned.

I love exploring Poland by rail. When I heard about a new back-to-the-80s service, I booked a retro seat …

Trainspotters jostled on platform 2 as sunshine lit up the polished olive-green carriages of the 11:07 from Warszawa Główna (Warsaw main station) to Poznań. As I was readying to board, a man, sporting bow tie and braces, zipped past me, making it to the steps first. Excitement was palpable. But then this was no ordinary train, but rather an event. A throwback in time.

The Polish parliament had declared 2026 as the Year of Polish Railways, and there is a double jubilee under way: the 25th anniversary of the long-distance operator PKP Intercity and the centenary of Polish state railways. To celebrate, a series of retro rail journeys called Nieśpieszny (“Unhurried”) has been launched.

Eggesford Forest, Devon: I thought I was alone in admiring a towering beech in the chilly wood, but I was not

I breathe in the bluebells as a blackcap sings. At the crescendo, a flash of yellow breaks up the blue – a brimstone butterfly flies up to my face, then moves back, approaches, then draws back, repeating the fluttered action until I follow.

Together, we weave through fresh-scented firs before my companion flits away and I realise that I have come further into the forest than intended. My feet start to throb and the wind, as the sky grows overcast, brings a chill. I see the leaves of a vaulted canopy stir overhead and feel the softest carpet of fallen catkins underfoot. Although the threat of rain urges me forwards, a tree, an imposing common beech, makes me stay.

About 5,000 hopefuls logged on for the chance to sleep over in the furniture store’s Sydney pop-up. Caitlin Cassidy scored a coveted stay, but could she keep her sanity?

If you came of age in the early 2000s, you have probably seen 500 Days of Summer, an indie romcom that romanticised Ikea showrooms as the perfect place for a date.

It was thanks to this film that I jumped at the chance to sleep over in what is effectively an Ikea showroom. The caveat being, I would do so alone and, instead of kookily standing in a waterless shower and pretending to cook in a fake kitchen, the taps would work.

GLP-1 drugs such as Mounjaro are helping millions of people rapidly lose weight. But the changes happening inside the body go far beyond the number on the scale.

Neelam Tailor investigates the growing debate around the possible risks of rapid weight loss from jabs and yo-yo dieting, which include loss of lean mass and consequences in older age. Experts say the debate isn’t just about weight-loss drugs, but about how modern dieting culture has shaped our bodies for decades

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Pop the champagne, fire the glitter cannons, let off some sky lanterns and then get castigated for the fire hazard and risk to wildlife they cause. Lo and behold it is the 250th Guardian Thursday news quiz, and a special bumper edition at that. Twenty-two questions await you on topical news, general knowledge, pop culture, and the re-appearance of every regular round we’ve previously had, and could remember, and which didn’t cause us legal problems. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 250

When Dave Grimstead left the police after more than 30 years, he knew just what he wanted to do: solve some of its most intractable mysteries. The founder of Locate International explains why the country needs him and his volunteers

When it comes to cold cases, crime dramas get a lot wrong. “In reality, you’d never reach the end in nine neat episodes, all wrapped up, with a timeline that moved nicely along, building tension,” says Dave Grimstead, who spent more than 30 years in the police. Real cold cases are rollercoasters of false leads, rabbit holes and dead ends. “They’re never solved by one heroic detective, either,” Grimstead adds. “It requires a much bigger team than you see on TV.” But one cliche does ring true – the detective who can’t give up. Most will have at least one unsolved case that stays with them long after the spotlight has moved elsewhere. In a free moment, they will find themselves following a lead, putting in calls. Decades later, they might still wake up thinking about it.

One of these cases, for Grimstead, was the disappearance of Melanie Hall in June 1996. Hall was 25 and never came home from Cadillacs, a nightclub in Bath where she was last seen arguing with her boyfriend. Grimstead was a detective constable in Avon and Somerset’s major crime team at that time, and what began as a missing person investigation soon began to resemble a murder inquiry. Hundreds of hours of interviews and CCTV footage, searches, reconstructions and TV appeals failed to reveal what had happened to Hall. In 2009, one of Grimstead’s supervisors, Mike Britton, was still investigating it, fitting it round his caseload, when her body was found in a bin liner beside the M5. Although this happened just days before Britton’s retirement, he cancelled his plans so he could work on the case as a civilian investigator. It is still unsolved.

Some will question its credibility – but the alternative future to the one imagined in the Global Justice Report is far more bleak

• ‘An equal and habitable world is possible’: academics set out sweeping vision for planetary survival

In our increasingly dystopian world, who wouldn’t want to at least be open to a utopian antidote? The Global Justice Report, published on Thursday, outlines how to build a prosperous, equitable world within safe planetary boundaries. It’s a push from the modern eco-socialist left in a global battle for ideas that will shape the future.

Based on past social achievements and future energy transformation, it indicates that the overwhelming majority of people on the planet could, by the end of the century, work less and earn more – while keeping temperatures down and avoiding much of the current destruction of nature. It is an ambitious, comprehensive and upbeat plan, and a stronger argument around which to build a political campaign than abstract goals of net zero or decarbonisation.

The star of The Fast Show and Father Brown – as well as the original Arthur Weasley – on friendly death eaters, famous Brummies and Chinese trains

What were the best and worst moments shooting the Harry Potter films? bumble1
The worst part was being away from home and the long hours. The best bit was the work and talking to the other actors. I look back with great fondness on that. I remember saying to Alan Rickman that the collective noun for actors is an anecdote.

Michael Gambon was the king of stories. He’d start a joke and you never knew where he was going. But he’d hone them; they were finely crafted – some of his best work was backstage. Richard Griffiths was also a great raconteur. His stories were brilliant, and completely unpublishable.

From rising fuel, fertiliser and feed costs linked to the conflict in Iran to the impact of climate change, farmers around the world are facing a range of pressures. We want to hear how these challenges are affecting you

Farmers are facing rising costs for fuel, fertiliser and animal feed as a result of the conflict in Iran, adding to existing pressures on the industry.

The sector is also grappling with extreme weather after the UK’s hottest May day on record, alongside wider concerns about the impact of climate change. Europe also experienced record-breaking temperatures in late May and the UN has warned about the imminent return of El Niño – a powerful weather pattern that raises global temperatures and worsens some rainfall.

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

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

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

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

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

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

We would like to hear from recent graduates and current students aged 18 or over about their views on studying for a degree

According to the latest British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey, the proportion of people who believe a university degree is not worth the time and money has jumped from 14% in 2005 to 34% in 2025.

The survey found that younger graduates, with experience of the fee system, are more disillusioned than those who did not pay fees.

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