Loyal to the look: why Zohran Mamdani wears a suit in all seasons https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/zohran-mamdani-suit-new-york-mayor

Around town, on the pitch and even in the pool, the New York mayor keeps his suit on – what do his sartorial choices tell us?

Playing football. Playing in the sand. Dancing on a stage with Alicia Keys and the entire New York Knicks roster. Swimming in a swimming pool. Swimming in the ocean.

Traditionally, a suit and tie would be considered inappropriate attire for each of these activities. Yet over the past year Zohran Mamdani has seemingly been on a one-man crusade to prove otherwise: to convince people that a formal suit is, actually, suitable for all activities.

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‘It was like something was crawling over me’ – the worrying rise of shingles among millennial women https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/26/shingles-rise-millennial-women

Stress, the cost of living, long working hours and even excessive exercise have all been touted as reasons the illness is rising among women in their 30s and 40s. What can be done to help them?

The “lightning strike” pain was like nothing Francine Jones had experienced before. “That is the only way I can describe it,” she says, of the stabbing in her torso that would occur every 10 minutes or so. “It was a really sharp, intense pain, as if someone was giving me an electric shock … it took my breath away.”

It had started in May with a strange pricking sensation under her bra. Then 10 large blisters, plus a host of smaller ones, formed in a band from her stomach to her back. They burned, “like someone was putting an iron on me. I don’t think I wore underwear for five or six weeks.” Showering, or even a cold flannel, would make her skin burn. Then came “the itch”, which lasted for five weeks and was so intense that she was lucky if she slept for four hours a night. “It was like something was crawling all over me all the time.” I can hear her wincing.

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Am I a chicken-shop lefty? Here's what a French fast food row taught me about politics | Coco Khan https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/chicken-shop-left-french-fast-food-row-politics

Feathers are flying over the halal chicken chain Master Poulet opening a branch in gentrified Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine – it’s an issue of wealth and class we know only too well

How do you like your progressive politics? Are you net-zero left or anti-identity politics left? A “legalising drugs” kind of radical or someone whose public sector solidarity includes police? Nato or Nat-no? The reputation for infighting in lefty spaces – where policy disagreements harden into personal tests of morality – needs neither introduction nor encouragement.

But reading about the left-on-left battle at Master Poulet, a French chicken chain that just opened its first UK branch, I found myself mulling a question that felt more than a little personal: am I chicken shop left?

Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK

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.

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Lena Headey looks back: ‘I told Harvey Weinstein where to go. A decade of possibilities disappeared’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/lena-headey-looks-back-game-of-thrones-actor-weinstein

The Game of Thrones actor on her feral youth, not playing the fame game, and being protective of her daughter

Born in Hamilton, Bermuda, in 1973 and raised in West Yorkshire and Somerset, Lena Headey is an actor, writer and director. She made her film debut in Waterland in 1992. Her career spans 300, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Game of Thrones, in which she played Cersei Lannister from 2011 to 2019, earning five Emmy nominations. Intimacy, which she writes, directs and stars in, is an eight-part comedy audio drama for BBC Sounds and Radio 4.

I was an OG onesie wearer. This was taken on Christmas Day in our house in Bermuda. My parents were in the police force, and for some reason one day the Yorkshire branch decided: “We’re all going to go to Bermuda for some training.” I don’t remember much from that time, but I know that it was hot, everyone had scooters, and that it was fun.

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Why does everything feel so joyless? Welcome to the age of decadence without pleasure | Michèle Mendelssohn and Charlie Tyson https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/26/age-of-decadence-pleasure-ai

Decadence in our era comes in technologically mediated forms, emptied of desire and obsessed with self-optimisation

Do you want to have a good time? You know, really enjoy yourself? Click here, and tell us your desires. Maybe it’s a new outfit, or some exotic cuisine delivered anonymously and steaming hot to your door. Maybe it’s porn or gambling. Perhaps you prefer the infinite scroll, the endlessly unfurling ribbon of glossy images and videos starring people you’ll never meet doing things you’ll never do. Or maybe you favor talking to a chatbot who will assure you that you are the most special of all its users.

For anyone with an Internet connection and a little discretionary income, the contemporary moment offers a superabundance of seductive distractions. Why then the pervasive mood of emptiness? Why are so many at once overstimulated and bored?

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Electrolyte lemonade to probiotic pop: do the new generation of ‘functional drinks’ live up to the hype? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/ffunctional-drinks-hype-taste-test-probiotics-electrolytes-caffeine

They make grand claims about beauty benefits or extra energy – and even actor Gillian Anderson has her own brand. We investigate what they’re really doing – and put them to a taste test

Show yourself some love. Fuel your focus. Life’s too good for bad energy. Find your calm in the everyday chaos. Live fit. No, not new-age slogans or something you’d find scribbled in neon on the wall of a cocktail bar, but marketing taglines slapped across cans of functional soft drinks. Walk into any supermarket or newsagent and there they are, bright and cheerful, right next to the Tango, promising everything from improved mental clarity and zen-like calm, to a blast of highly caffeinated energy as part of your sandwich-and-a-snack lunchtime meal deal. Influencers love them. Your favourite podcasters are sponsored by them. Even Gillian Anderson has a functional drinks brand (brilliantly, she’s called it G Spot).

If you have not yet swigged an electrolyte-loaded lemonade or opened a can of probiotic fizzy pop, you might be wondering what functional drinks even are. Because they are marketed as having one or more of many possible physiological and cognitive benefits, it’s a big category. There are functional drinks for focus, productivity, relaxation, calm, protein, energy, gut health and perhaps most confusingly, for hydration – which is, after all, the core function of most potable liquids.

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Ed Miliband indicates development and climate will be at heart of UK foreign policy https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/ed-miliband-development-climate-crisis-uk-foreign-policy-world-bank-seat

Exclusive: Foreign secretary to take up World Bank seat and play active role in shaping changes to global lender

Britain’s foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is to indicate he will put the climate crisis and overseas development at the heart of UK international relations by taking up the country’s seat on the board at the World Bank.

The position, which is usually delegated to a junior minister, means Miliband will play an active role in shaping the changes to the World Bank that developing countries have called for, and ensuring the climate remains a core focus for overseas aid.

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Pedro Sánchez says Spain is suffering effects of climate crisis as firefighters battle wildfires in France https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/firefighters-in-france-battle-to-prevent-huge-blaze-from-approaching-bordeaux

Blazes near Madrid coming under control but efforts to contain huge fire near Bordeaux hampered by windy conditions

Authorities in France are battling to contain a huge wildfire near Bordeaux in the south-west as Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, warned Spain and the Iberian peninsula were suffering the effects of the climate emergency.

Efforts to extinguish the blaze in the Gironde region of France – which has consumed an area four times the size of Paris and caused nearly 220,000 people to be evacuated – were hampered by windy conditions on Saturday night.

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Police shoot dead Berlin Pride van and knife rampage suspect, officials say https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/berlin-pride-van-knife-rampage-islamist-terrorist-attack-germany

Abdul Ballout, 21, reportedly shot in operation at allotment in Spandau district after fatal attack in Tiergarten park

A man suspected of a driving a van into a crowd near Berlin’s Pride festival then going on a knife rampage in an Islamist terror attack has been shot dead by police, German officials have said.

Police confirmed on Sunday evening that the chief suspect had been shot dead, reportedly during an operation at an allotment garden complex ⁠in the city’s Spandau district.

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Every new UK home should have air conditioning, say Liberal Democrats https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/26/every-new-home-should-have-air-conditioning-say-liberal-democrats

Exclusive: Party says housing stock ‘woefully unprepared’ for extreme heat and new rules for builders must be set

All new UK homes should be built with air conditioning to cope with the effects of the climate crisis, according to the Liberal Democrats.

The party says British homes are dangerously unsuited to rising temperatures, meaning passive cooling measures such as planting more trees in residential areas are necessary.

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US pauses Iran attacks for second night after Trump advised to halt bombing https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/us-pauses-trump-netanyahu-attacks-on-iran-talks-hormuz

Top military officials say campaign has reached its limit of effectiveness and warn of dwindling stocks of munitions

The US has paused strikes on Iran for a second night as top military officials advised Donald Trump to halt his bombing campaign, and diplomatic negotiations have continued to avoid a return to all-out war.

Trump is said to be weighing up diplomatic and military options in the nearly five-month-old conflict, with Benjamin Netanyahu expected to visit the White House on Tuesday. The Israeli prime minister is a vocal critic of Washington’s negotiations with Iranian leaders and has pressed for the US to continue its strikes against Iran.

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Water supply failure leaves Gatwick airport without working toilets https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply-failure-gatwick-airport-toilets-bars-restaurants

Airport’s bars and restaurants also unable to serve drinks to passengers because of lack of running water

A water supply failure at Gatwick left passengers without access to working toilets or bars and restaurants.

Passengers posted online that they were unable to get hot drinks, wash their hands or fill up water bottles at the airport in Sussex.

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England’s north-south life expectancy gap grows despite record longevity https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/26/england-north-south-life-expectancy-gap-grows-despite-record-longevity

King’s Fund report finds men and women live, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years, but gains are in south

The north-south divide in life expectancy in England has grown over the past decade, with people in northern regions facing more illnesses such as heart disease and cancer, but also suicides and deaths related to alcohol and drug misuse.

Provisional figures show life expectancy reached an all-time high in 2025, with men and women in England living, on average, for 80 years and nearly 84 years respectively, but the gains were overwhelmingly in the south, the King’s Fund said.

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Gary Stevenson to quit YouTube channel, citing health concerns https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/gary-stevenson-to-quit-youtube-channel-garys-economics

Former City trader’s weekly Gary’s Economics videos took off during the Covid pandemic

The City trader turned wealth tax campaigner Gary Stevenson has announced he is quitting the YouTube channel that made his name, citing health concerns.

His announcement, in a 48-minute address to camera, came after a mixed reaction to a televised documentary that brought him to a wider audience but drew some scepticism from left-leaning tax experts as well as more rightwing critics.

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Relentless Tadej Pogacar wins fifth Tour de France to equal record https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/26/relentless-tadej-pogacar-wins-fifth-tour-de-france-to-equal-record
  • Slovene becomes fifth rider to win five Tours

  • Eddy Merckx: ‘He’ll soon break our record’

Tadej Pogacar took a record-equalling fifth win in the Tour de France on Sunday, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Induráin in the canon of the Tour’s most successful cyclists. In a thrilling finale to the Tour, Mathieu van der Poel took his second stage win of the race on the Champs-Élysees, fending off the pursuing pack of sprinters by a tyre’s width, after breaking clear with Pogacar on the final climb of the Butte de Montmartre.

Merckx, widely considered the greatest-ever cyclist due to the breadth of his achievements beyond the Tour itself, believes Pogacar will now go on to win a sixth Tour. “I don’t think he’ll be content just to draw level with me and the other ­champions,” the 81-year-old Belgian said. “He’ll soon break our record for Tour victories.”

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How Trump could undermine the midterms https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/26/trump-undermine-us-midterms

The president really has no power over elections – but that hasn’t stopped Trump from laying the groundwork to challenge results in November

When Donald Trump commandeered primetime US television last Friday, he delivered a familiar, but still extraordinary, message. The president argued once again that the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, were illegitimate.

US elections are “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen”, Trump alleged, claiming that “the trust of the American people was lost” when he was defeated.

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Burnham v Starmer: one week in, how do their leadership styles compare? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/26/andy-burnham-keir-starmer-leadership-styles-compare

From TikTok appearances to ‘sugar rush’ policies, new prime minister is taking different approach to predecessor

Six weeks ago Andy Burnham was not even an MP; now the former mayor of Greater Manchester is the most important political figure in Britain. After orchestrating a bloodless coup against Keir Starmer, in which he was crowned as Labour leader unopposed, the new prime minister has started his tenure in Downing Street with some eye-catching policies and a radically different approach to communication. A week into the job, how do their leadership styles compare?

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India’s Cockroach Janta party protest victory signals trouble ahead for Modi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/india-cockroach-protest-victory-signals-trouble-ahead-for-narendra-modi

Ally forced to resign, with opposition parties reinvigorated and strongman leader’s grip over media channels rocked

Even the night before Narendra Modi accepted the resignation of his education minister, India’s prime minister appeared confident that the largest mass uprising to take place in his 12 years in power would do little to rattle his government.

Addressing his “young friends” in a late-night Instagram selfie reel on Friday, he thanked the people – who were mobilised en masse across the country, shouting anti-government slogans – for their “thoughtful suggestions”.

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Exfoliate, use ice and conceal eyebags wisely – makeup artists on how to look fabulous, at every age https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/26/exfoliate-use-ice-and-conceal-eyebags-wisely-makeup-artists-on-how-to-look-fabulous-at-every-age

Are you stuck in a makeup rut? Or maybe just beginning to wear cosmetics? Here, experts reveal how to to find the right products for you

Makeup trends change over time – and so does our skin. How can you enhance what you have and refresh your look? Here, makeup artists share the fundamentals of applying cosmetics, at every age.

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Force of Nature review – this nature show turns the climate crisis into a pompom-shaking spectacle https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/26/force-of-nature-review-itv-1-itvx

Cheetahs forced to cross roiling rivers, owls battered by storms … the tone of this look at how extreme weather affects animals is all a bit disaster movie. Subtle, it is not

You have a thick neck and poorly defined calf muscles and you live in South Dakota with your feckless partner and your five expressionless children. You are an owl. Your days consist of lengthy stretches of nothing, punctuated by sudden bursts of unimaginable terror. Coyotes, badgers and snakes are all bent on reducing your beak to marmalade.

But it’s the weather that poses the biggest threat. Specifically, shouts Force of Nature, it’s the “MONSTER STORMS” that rumble ominously across the prairies, each of which forces you and your family to scurry into your burrow, whereupon you will stand with your trembling backs to the wall, legs wide apart and fluffy britches a-flap, like anxious viscounts in the court of Charles II. Will you survive? Or will you be eviscerated by the “cluster bombs of tornadoes” that churn with increasing frequency through the midwest?

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The kindness of strangers: When Mum was hospitalised on a family holiday, our hotel’s owners were heaven-sent https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/27/the-kindness-of-strangers-when-mum-was-hospitalised-on-a-family-holiday-our-hotels-owners-were-heaven-sent

I was just 10 at the time but my siblings and I will never forget the sense of safety, comfort and warmth they offered

We were doing the groceries when a blood vessel burst in my mother’s brain. I was 10 years old and on a family holiday to France that very suddenly changed its tenor. In the following weeks Mum went through brain surgery, suffered a stroke and was placed in intensive care.

We had been staying in a gîte but moved to a small hotel closer to the hospital. It was a terrifying and stressful time, even as a young kid who knew things were serious – but didn’t understand quite how serious.

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Will prediction market ‘catch fire’ in UK, replicating US boom? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/uk-prediction-market-boom-regulation-polymarket-gambling

World Cup and events like Clacton byelection is driving interest in sites such as Polymarket, with UK gamblers easily able to sidestep regulation

With more plot twists than a spy thriller, Argentina’s 3-2 victory over Egypt was one of the World Cup’s most unpredictable matches.

But in one living room in Reading, to the astonishment of his 16-year-old son, a football clairvoyant appeared to know exactly what would happen next.

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This is how we do it: ‘I could have sex every day, but he says no about 80% of the time’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/this-is-how-we-do-it-mismatched-libido-depression-self-worth

Will’s lack of self-worth is creating a barrier between him and Fi, but talking more could help them adjust to their mismatched libidos

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

I worry that Will sees me more as a mother figure than a sexual being

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Mexico’s avenging Mother Courage, an interview with the king of horror movies and why middle-aged women have rediscovered raving https://www.theguardian.com/news/2026/jul/25/mexicos-avenging-mother-courage-an-interview-with-the-king-of-horror-movies-and-why-middle-aged-women-have-rediscovered-raving

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

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From A Useful Ghost to Self Esteem: your complete entertainment guide to the week ahead https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/25/entertainment-week-ahead-useful-ghost-self-esteem-charli-xcx-halo-furious-disney-bestival

A woman is reincarnated as a vacuum cleaner in this Cannes prize-winning black comedy, and the uncompromising pop star hits the festival trail

A Useful Ghost
Out now
Winner of best film at Cannes Critics’ Week, this tale of a woman reincarnated as a vacuum cleaner takes you to plenty of unexpected places, even when you discount the sort of unexpectedness suggested by the premise. Part Marxist thriller, part supernatural romance, and taking in foul-mouthed monks and drama with the in-laws along the way, Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke’s directorial debut is an oddball treat.

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Tour de France finale, Commonwealth Games and Hungarian GP – follow with us https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/24/tour-de-france-finale-commonwealth-games-and-hungarian-gp-follow-with-us

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

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From Charli xcx to Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives: the week in rave reviews https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/25/charli-xcx-secret-lives-gypsy-wives-week-rave-reviews

The glitch-pop great is back with a banger-stuffed new album, and reality TV may have some new stars thanks to Channel 4. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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From the strait of Hormuz to the North Sea, a global maritime war rages around us – and more than the price of oil is at stake | Simon Tisdall https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/strait-of-hormuz-north-sea-global-maritime-war-oil-price

The collapse of the rules-based order is not confined to the land: we’re imperilled as centuries of maritime cooperation sink beneath the waves

The US military campaign to protect merchant shipping from Iranian attacks by asserting direct maritime control in the strait of Hormuz is not an idea unique to Donald Trump’s administration. Almost exactly 200 years ago, in the period 1825-27, a powerful US naval squadron led by Commodore John Rodgers was sent to the Mediterranean to defend American ships from the depredations of Greek corsairs and pirates.

For all the new-minted republic’s brave talk of liberty, the US squadron did not assist Greece’s ongoing “regime change” struggle for independence from the Ottoman empire. Its sole, self-serving purpose was to defend US trade, markets and business interests. After abandoning his call for a people’s revolution in Tehran, this, too, is what Trump’s reckless war with Iran has now boiled down to.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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‘Burnham bounce’ risks deflating unless focus remains on struggling households | Richard Partington https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/burnham-bounce-risks-deflating-unless-focus-remains-on-struggling-households

UK’s inequalities expose splits in consumer economy, with spending suffering and a decline in savings among the poorest

A “Burnham bounce”, sunshine and a strong World Cup run for the England men’s football team. Could this be a turnaround moment for Britain’s struggling consumer economy or yet another false start for the UK’s spluttering growth engine?

Last week the data company GfK credited Andy Burnham’s return to Westminster politics for lifting UK consumer confidence at its fastest monthly pace for almost three years in June.

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I was a terrible teen. Now my son is turning into one, karma is coming for me | Polly Hudson https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/terrible-teenager-son-karma

My mum loves to remind me how sullen, furious and monosyllabic I was. Now she can’t wait to see how I’ll handle parenting an adolescent

The “Baader-Meinhof phenomenon” is a more satisfying name for frequency illusion – noticing a concept, word or product more often just after becoming aware of it. And after reading a fascinating article by a professor who insists that when a teenager makes “the stupid choice”, their brain is actually “working exactly as designed”, I’m suddenly seeing teens everywhere. Not just literally, because it’s the school holidays – hanging about in groups, being scarily tall and all dressed identically – but also in news stories, adverts for adolescent skincare, old clips of Harry Enfield’s Kevin and Perry sketches. Not unrelated: my son’s 12th birthday is fast approaching. This is the very last year my little boy will be nice and preteen, and I’m being reminded from all angles, by all algorithms. Soak up every second while there’s still time! Tick tock, tick tock! Thanks, Baader-Meinhof.

Teenage minds function “in a way that has been shaped by evolution for a unique and uniquely challenging time of life,” according to Dr Evelyn Svingen, assistant professor of criminology at the University of Birmingham. This is reassuring and concerning in equal measures – in the future my son’s going to make dumb decisions, but it’s OK, because that’s what he’s meant to do. Sheesh.

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The Pitt is powerful – but it’s the rawness of The Bear that truly portrays hospital work https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/the-pitt-hospital-work-the-bear

Both restaurant work and medicine involve abusive training and relentless devotion to minutiae – and the joy of offering comfort

I pass a mother heaving in grief while her son’s heart monitors flatline. It is the last time she will ever hold his hand. For me, this is another day on call in the intensive care unit as a pediatric physician. For her, this is the day her life shatters.

Later that night, a striking, charismatic surgeon from work treats me to an exquisite meal. Served outside a trailer, humidity barreling through our scrubs, the food is neither extravagant nor decadent. It is, however, the most succulent Texas barbecue brisket I will ever taste. This is the night I rest my head on his shoulder and he doesn’t flinch. This is the night an “us” was born.

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The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/25/ai-jobs-apocalypse-human-labor

Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay

In March, Anthropic, the cutting-edge artificial intelligence business that gave us the chatbot Claude, published an analysis on the impact of AI on employment, to help us assess the claim that intelligent robots were about to redefine human existence, ending demand for human labor.

Last year in May, Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, claimed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs in one to five years. Last January, he told us AI would probably become a “general labor substitute for humans”. In June he said we risk “a world where the economic trade-off dial is stuck on the hypergrowth, hyper-inequality setting”.

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An act of kindness, or mitzvah, teaches us to be part of something bigger than ourselves | Nomi Kaltmann https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/27/mitzvah-note-teach-children-kindness

More than anything, I want my kids to grow into people who notice others and who care about the world around them

  • Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

Several times a week, I write small notes on pretty stationery for my three-year-old daughter to take to kinder the next day.

Sometimes the note is about how she shared a toy with a sibling, other times it is about how she helped someone without being asked and often it is praising her for saying thank you or please.

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Christopher Nolan has made an Odyssey for our times – by sacrificing the delicious darkness of Homer's epic | Charlotte Higgins https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/25/christopher-nolan-odyssey-homer-epic-film-classics

There’s no denying the power of the film on the big screen. But how far should modern moral sensibilities influence adaptations of classics?

Everyone knows how dumb it is to be this person: the one who mourns the film adaptation of a favourite text because it misses out this scene, or misreads that particularly beloved character, or has a slightly “inauthentic” take on some detail. Of course I’m talking about Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of the Odyssey, a poem I have loved since I was a teenager. I enjoyed the movie, in common with a huge number of other people. It seems remarkable, even dizzying, that the adaptation of a nearly 3,000-year-old poem took $264m (£196m) at the box office over its opening weekend, has sent translations of the Odyssey surging up the bestseller charts, and is sold out (for instance) at London’s BFI Imax screen deep into September. We are living in an Odyssey time, amid an Odyssey frenzy.

There is no point trying to be a purist about a beloved classic text. Whoever reads the Odyssey, including Nolan, inescapably does so through the prism of their prejudices, informed by the conditions of their own place and time. Since the Odyssey is the result of decades, maybe centuries, of non-literate oral poets working with memory and improvisation, there’s no precise “original” place or time to return to, anyway. But what I can’t help doing is observe the choices Nolan has made and think about their consequences – because there are always divides in the road, paths not taken by any adapter.

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The Guardian view on a US-Saudi nuclear agreement: an offer that further erodes international safeguards | Editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/the-guardian-view-on-a-us-saudi-nuclear-agreement-an-offer-that-further-erodes-international-safeguards

Even if no reactors are built, Donald Trump’s announcement of a double-standards deal with Riyadh has wrought further damage in a new era of proliferation

Even as he threatened to escalate an unlawful war sold in part as preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon, Donald Trump opened the door to proliferation in the region on Wednesday. The US announced that it had signed a deal with Saudi Arabia which would potentially allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in future and to avoid the fullest inspection rights for the international watchdog.

Experts have long warned that a civilian nuclear programme could create a path towards a nuclear-armed Riyadh. Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince and de facto leader, has said that if Tehran gets a nuclear weapon, “we will have to get one”. Concerns are magnified by the agreement’s terms. Washington previously argued that the “gold standard” was the United Arab Emirates’ agreement to permanently forgo enrichment and accept full monitoring by the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency. Weakening it sets a precedent that Russia or China could also cite in nuclear deals in future.

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The Guardian view on a new director at Tate: an old institution must tackle fresh issues | Editorial https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/26/the-guardian-view-on-a-new-director-at-tate-an-old-institution-must-tackle-fresh-issues

A decline in visitor numbers, staff strikes and budget cuts – Jessica Morgan faces many challenges as she takes on the biggest role in the British arts scene

A lack of clear vision, low morale, dwindling popularity and financial shortfalls – this may sound like a description of the previous Labour government, but these are also criticisms levelled at the UK’s most powerful arts institution, Tate. Maria Balshaw’s tenure as the first female director of Tate – comprising Tate Modern, Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives – lasted nine years and saw as many culture secretaries. One of Sir Keir Starmer’s last acts as prime minister was to approve the appointment of her successor, Jessica Morgan, a former curator at Tate and head of the Dia Art Foundation in New York.

With record-breaking Frida Kahlo and Tracey Emin shows currently at Tate Modern, suggestions that Ms Morgan is inheriting an institution in a state of “existential crisis” seem exaggerated. Tate Britain, often overshadowed by its more fashionable younger sister, pulled in crowds for its Turner & Constable and Lee Miller exhibitions. These blockbusters in the past year also rebut accusations that Ms Balshaw focused on little-known artists instead of bankable stars. Her commitment to diversifying the collection will surely be taken up by Ms Morgan, who also has a strong track record in promoting marginalised artists. Ms Balshaw is leaving on a high.

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Blame privatised water firms for hosepipe bans | Lettters https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/blame-privatised-water-firms-for-hosepipe-bans

Gillian Metheringham, Dr Gillian Austen and others respond to articles about water shortages in the UK and the high and rising pay of water industry bosses

I was dismayed, when reading your article about hosepipe bans leading to culture wars (‘People are scared their neighbours will call the police on them’: how the hosepipe ban got caught up in the culture wars, 23 July), by the part that said: “Why has the ban been put in place, anyway? The answer, as with so many things, is the climate crisis.”

No, it’s not. The climate crisis is only part of the answer, and probably the smaller part. The privatised water companies have, over many years, privileged the lining of their own pockets over proper maintenance and improvement of the water systems, a fact which has been revealed again and again in your own pages.

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Arts and humanities have a role in understanding space exploration | Letters https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/26/arts-and-humanities-have-a-role-in-understanding-space-exploration

Prof Abbie Garrington reflects on an interview with the physicist Laura Grego about the battle for our skies

Where are the arts and humanities in current debates about space research? The physicist Laura Grego tells us we “have to be aware of what is happening in space”, that we should probe Elon Musk’s potential “appropriation” of space via satellite, and that our spacefaring era raises questions about our stewardship of the Earth for future generations, and the significance of human culture (‘Most people don’t know we’ve set up a doomsday system’: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies, 20 July).

Meanwhile, your interviewer Aida Edemariam notes both the Artemis mission’s potential to inspire, and the relegation of most of us to an audience agog, with no say in civilisational decisions about major space missions.

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Every day is a good-hair day with no shampoo | Letters https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/26/every-day-is-a-good-hair-day-with-no-shampoo

I would only shampoo now if I swam through something nasty in the sea or if a bird crapped on me, says Paddy Eason. But the ‘no poo’ method didn’t work for Kerri Thornton

I was fascinated by George Francis Lee’s account of getting off the shampoo bandwagon (I tried the ‘no poo’ method – and it transformed my hair, 20 July). Or should I say his “confession”, as the social power of the shampoo message is strong enough to make most of us “no pooers” keep a low profile.

I’ve not used shampoo for at least five years. I rub my hair through in the shower every morning, and either towel or air-dry it. Every day is a now a good-hair day – mine is thick, glossy and easy to style, with a very slight waxy feel that comes with the natural oils that hair products are designed to strip away and then replace (badly). I would only shampoo my hair now if I swam through something nasty in the sea or if a bird crapped on me.
Paddy Eason
London

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Ignore a call and enjoy a good night’s sleep | Brief letters https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/ignore-a-call-and-enjoy-a-good-nights-sleep

Insomnia advice | Raging wildfires | Dinner or supper? | Simple meal plan | Best travelling attire

I noted with interest Dr Jemma King’s advice to aid sleeping by making a to-do list before going to bed (13 surprising reasons you’re always dog tired – and what to do about it, 24 July). One of the examples given was: “Call Sammy’s teachers at 10.30am”. As a teacher of 34 years of broken sleep, I am going to take Dr King’s advice by creating my own list. Item 1: ignore Sammy’s parent’s phone call at 10.30am as I will be too busy teaching. If it’s important, they will leave a message. I feel better already.
Colin Mann
Barrhead, East Renfrewshire

• “Some say the world will end in fire, / Some say in ice”. Well, that’s that argument settled, anyway (More than 200,000 people flee or lock down as wildfires sweep France and Spain, 24 July).
Emeritus prof Glyn Turton
Baildon, West Yorkshire

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Ella Baron on the wildfires in France and Spain – cartoon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/jul/26/ella-baron-wildfires-france-spain-cartoon
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Commonwealth Games 2026: gymnastics gold for Scotland, Ramsay-Peaty bounces back, and more on day three – live https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2026/jul/26/commonwealth-games-2026-day-three-live-updates

I posted the Ramsay-Peaty report from last evening a few minutes ago, an d he’ll need to have recovered quickly, as he goes in the 50m breaststroke heats in this morning’s sesh. Back with the weightlifting final, meanwhile, Mboya goes for 115kg … and it’s up, but Chananbam of India just about gets there with 116 and takes the lead.

Our first netball match is over, Scotland beating Wales 56-47; they lost to NZ yesterday, but will hope to finish second in Pool B. In Pool A, England beat Norther Ireland 83-34, while Australia thumped Tonga 99-38.

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Idi Amin’s boxing grandson vows to be ‘new king of Scotland’ at Commonwealth Games https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/26/idi-amins-boxing-grandson-aziz-abdul-vows-to-be-new-king-of-scotland-at-commonwealth-games
  • Aziz Abdul faces England’s Damar Thomas in Glasgow

  • ‘I will be the baddest man in the Commonwealth’

Damar Thomas, the English super-heavyweight, must overcome the grandson of Idi Amin, the former Ugandan dictator and self-proclaimed “King of Scotland”, if he is to progress into the medal rounds of Commonwealth Games boxing competition in Glasgow on Wednesday.

Aziz Abdul, known as “Ringo”, is not shy of his family connection to Amin, a brutal military dictator who seized power in 1971, killing up to 500,000 people and expelling Uganda’s entire Asian population before he was deposed and sent into exile eight years later.

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Australia dispatch England with ease in Commonwealth Games netball clash https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/26/australia-england-commonwealth-games-netball
  • Australia 66-47 England

  • Sophie Garbin pours in 41 goals from 42 attempts

Eight years after England’s dramatic last-gasp triumph over Australia on the Gold Coast, netball’s greatest Commonwealth rivalry was renewed in Glasgow. But this time there was no fairytale finish for the Roses as the defending champions dismantled England 66-47 at the Hydro, the Diamonds extending their record against this opposition at the Games to seven wins from eight meetings.

Ever since Helen Housby’s last-second winner stunned the Diamonds in the 2018 final, every meeting between these two heavyweights has carried extra edge. Australia gained a measure of revenge by beating England on the way to gold in Birmingham four years ago and Sunday’s Commonwealth Games pool clash was another marker of where the sport’s fiercest rivalry stands.

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Lando Norris wins F1 Hungarian GP for first victory of season as Piastri retires https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/26/lando-norris-takes-f1-hungarian-gp-for-first-victory-of-season-as-piastri-retires
  • World champion wins from pole; Piastri’s gearbox fails

  • Verstappen second, championship leader Antonelli third

Lando Norris finally had reason to celebrate after a testing opening to the season, as McLaren’s defending Formula One world champion took his first win of the year at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

However, while the victory was thoroughly deserved in an incident-packed race, there was an all too familiar feel to the bigger picture as Kimi Antonelli emerged from a weekend that might have been considered damage limitation for the Mercedes driver having once more extended his advantage at the top of the drivers’ championship.

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Joshua emerges from Prenga fight with urgent questions while Fury is uninspiring https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jul/26/joshua-emerges-prenga-fight-urgent-questions-tyson-fury-uninspiring

Joshua’s lack of punch resistance is clear, which could place him in danger in the highly anticipated £150m fight with Tyson Fury

The bedlam and madness lasted for just five minutes and 43 seconds and, after Anthony Joshua was back in the sanctuary of his dressing room, he claimed to have learned “a valuable lesson”. Joshua had been knocked down twice by Kristian Prenga before he rescued himself in the second round with a brutal stoppage of the previously obscure Albanian.

Joshua also looked ahead to the hugely anticipated fight with Tyson Fury after the two faded former world champions came through wildly contrasting bouts which were meant to be routine exhibitions this weekend. “I’m gonna come back stronger now,” Joshua claimed as he tried to clear the concussive fog from his brain after the worst round of his tumultuous career.

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‘We want to win the league’: Arsenal’s new recruits ink in WSL success https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/26/arsenal-new-recruits-georgia-stanway-lotte-wubben-moy-wsl

Despite a busy transfer window with Beth Mead moving on and seven new signings, academy graduates such as Lotte Wubben-Moy remain key to trophies

Georgia Stanway looks at her arms and then down at her legs on day one of Arsenal’s pre-season. “As you can see, I’m covered in tattoos,” she says. “I only see the bare skin, the space, so I need to keep collecting more.”

Tattooing and being tattooed is her creative outlet, her way of expressing herself off the pitch. But seeing space is key to the 27‑year‑old England midfielder being exceptional on the pitch.

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Teamwork, tactics and data: behind the scenes at Wigan’s pre-season training https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/26/teamwork-tactics-and-data-behind-the-scenes-at-wigans-pre-season-training

Gary Caldwell, who returned to the League One club in February to keep them up, faces a new season with meticulous plans and bright hopes

“This is the only rule I’m going to have for yous all season: ‘team first’,” says Gary Caldwell. The Wigan head coach’s Scottish accent booms over the gentle hum of a projector in a darkened classroom at the club’s Christopher Park training ground. “That is the one thing that we cannot ever go against,” he says, pointing to a slide on screen. “The team is the most important aspect of everything we do.”

Three rows of professional athletes listen intently, keen to learn not only what the day holds, but about the 10 months ahead.

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Chiesa wants ‘new chapter’ with Iraola after frustrating time under Slot at Liverpool https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/26/federico-chiesa-liverpool-andoni-iraola-arne-slot-premier-league
  • Forward scored in friendly win against Sunderland

  • Chiesa had frustrating two seasons under Arne Slot

Federico Chiesa has said he wants “a new chapter” at Liverpool with Andoni Iraola following a frustrating time under Arne Slot and claimed the club were lucky to qualify for the Champions League last season.

The Liverpool forward has been linked with a return to Italy this summer having struggled for minutes during his two years at Anfield. Chiesa made 36 appearances for Slot last season, a healthy return on paper, but only five were starts.

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Restricted eating hours may reduce cognitive decline in older age, researchers find https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/26/restricted-eating-hours-may-reduce-cognitive-decline-in-older-age-researchers-find

Preliminary study shows older people who avoided food four hours before bed did better in problem solving tests

Confining mealtimes and snacks to a nine-hour window and avoiding food for four hours before bed may help stave off cognitive decline in older age, researchers say.

A pilot study of older women living with overweight or obesity found hints of improvement in mental skills among those who ate within the restricted period compared with those who spread their meals over a longer time.

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Joy in Greece as Mount Olympus joins Unesco list of world heritage sites https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/greece-mount-olympus-unesco-world-heritage-site

Mythical home of the ancient Greek gods designated alongside the D-day landing beaches in Normandy

After a 12-year wait, Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the ancient Greek gods, has been inducted into a hall of more modern fame as Unesco announced it would be added to its world heritage list.

Greece’s highest mountain made the list alongside the second world war D-day landing beaches in northern France and the ancient Japanese capitals of Asuka and Fujiwara. South Sudan’s Boma-Badingilo landscape, host to one of the world’s largest land mammal migrations, also won a designation – a first for the east African country.

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Industry star David Jonsson to play Black Panther in Marvel sequel https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/26/industry-star-david-jonsson-to-play-black-panther-in-marvel-sequel

Director Ryan Coogler announces British actor in lead role alongside co-stars Letitia Wright and Winston Duke

The British actor David Jonsson has been unveiled as the new Black Panther by the film’s director, Ryan Coogler.

Jonsson, 32, known for roles in Industry, The Long Walk and Alien: Romulus, will play the son of Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa in the third Black Panther movie.

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Trump ‘border czar’ says ICE officer in Maine killing should not have cleared vetting https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/trump-border-czar-ice-officer-maine-killing-vetting

Tom Homan comments on officer’s eligibility to serve after reports that agent’s two ex-wives had accused him of abuse

Tom Homan, the Trump administration “border czar”, on Sunday said he did not believe the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer at the center of a recent fatal shooting in Maine “should have ever cleared vetting”.

Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union, Homan was asked by host Dana Bash about the officer’s eligibility to serve following reports that two of his ex-wives had accused him of abuse.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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V&A workers hold ballot to strike over pay and heatwave conditions https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jul/26/va-workers-hold-ballot-to-strike-over-pay-and-heatwave-conditions

Union calls for museum to become accredited London living wage employer and let staff carry water during shifts

Workers at one of the world’s leading art and design museums are balloting for “heatwave” strike action.

The ballot at V&A is taking place because of concerns about soaring temperatures and access to drinking water, along with pay and conditions.

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New North Sea oil drilling faces delay after gear accidentally dropped in sea https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/25/new-north-sea-oil-drilling-rosebank-faces-delay-after-gear-dropped-into-sea

Exclusive: Blunder at Rosebank, UK’s biggest undeveloped oilfield, comes as government considers granting licence

Production at Britain’s biggest undeveloped oil and gasfield could be delayed for months after equipment from a rig was accidentally dropped in the North Sea, the Guardian can reveal.

Andy Burnham’s new government is under pressure from the fossil fuel industry to allow oil to be retrieved from the Rosebank site despite opposition from climate campaigners and some Labour MPs.

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Almost 75% of England’s riverbanks ‘off limits’ to public, figures show https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/25/almost-75-percent-england-riverbanks-off-limits-to-public

Campaigners urge government to introduce right of access to water, particularly as heatwaves become more common

Almost three-quarters of riverbanks in England have no public access, according to data released by the Right to Roam campaign.

Across the country, the public cannot use riverbanks or gain access to the rivers themselves in most of the river catchments from the west of Cornwall up to the Tweed, which flows through northern England and Scotland.

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Lofty ambitions: can puffer jackets be made more sustainable? https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/25/lofty-ambitions-can-puffer-jackets-be-made-more-sustainable

As temperatures dip, the puffer’s appeal inflates. But quality and filler are factors to consider before buying new

Whether you call it a parka, puffer or Tassie tuxedo, the insulated jacket has become a cold-weather closet staple.

A 1920s version by Australian mountaineer George Finch was constructed from hot air balloon fabric and eiderdown, but most modern designs are a mix of petroleum-based synthetics as well as animal and plant fibres, with varying environmental and ethical impacts.

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Nutrients in our food are declining. Can regenerative agriculture save it? https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/24/nutrition-food-declining-can-regenerative-agriculture-save-it

Approach focuses on rebuilding soil health, increasing biodiversity and restoring natural ecosystems

For the last few decades, the nutrient content of our crops has been declining. In the late 90s, the US Department of Agriculture found the vitamin C content of lemons had decreased by almost a third over the previous 22 years. Calcium in carrots, an important source especially for non-meat eaters, had reduced, on average, by more than a quarter. Vitamin A in bananas was down by 57%. The mineral content of wheat has declined by between 20-30% since the 1960s.

A number of reasons have been suggested for this worrying decline, ranging from new varieties of crop that are bred to grow quicker and bigger to the higher carbon dioxide levels in the air causing plants to produce more sugars and starches (they grow faster but they produce fewer nutrients). A wide range of fixes have been suggested, from GM crops to synthetic soil amendments, or underground farms.

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UK journalists ‘self-censoring stories about Trump and the right over safety fears’ https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jul/26/uk-journalists-changed-how-what-report-fears-safety

Government-backed investigation finds risks are normalised amid ‘a narrowing of the public conversation’

Journalists are self-censoring their reporting on rightwing protests, Donald Trump’s administration and trans issues because of growing concerns about their personal safety, with newsrooms accused of “normalising” the risks they face.

Hundreds of journalists from across the UK have anonymously disclosed increasing nervousness over their security. Some have reported avoiding or altering coverage on certain topics due to intimidation, leading to self-censorship and “a narrowing of the public conversation”.

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Birmingham council accused of giving ‘free rein’ to group erecting England flags https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/birmingham-council-raise-the-colours-flags-city

Campaigners call for injunction against Raise the Colours, which is accused of spreading anti-immigration rhetoric

Birmingham residents have accused the local council and police of “dragging their heels” and giving “free rein” to a group responsible for erecting flags across the city.

Raise the Colours, which describes itself as a grassroots movement, has been placing union jack and St George’s cross flags on lamp-posts, roundabouts and other public infrastructure since last summer.

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How the Met police spent £2.5m hiding spycop from former partner https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/how-the-met-police-spent-25m-hiding-spycop-from-former-partner

Spycops inquiry has revealed how Helen Steel was secretly monitored in her search for undercover officer who deceived her into relationship

At 2pm on 14 December 2002, Helen Steel, a well-known leftwing campaigner, and her parents landed at Auckland airport for a family holiday. It had been a tiring journey, so they were irritated when they were delayed leaving the airport for an hour.

What they did not know until recently is the reason for that delay. Their arrival had triggered a secret warning on Steel that had been put in place by police three weeks earlier. It prompted customs to carry out a discreet search of her luggage.

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Police investigate payments to Reform UK first revealed by The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jul/25/police-investigate-payments-reform-uk-guardian

Scotland Yard is looking at two £250,000 donations to the party by Britain Means Business before the 2024 election

Payments to Reform UK first revealed by the Guardian are now being investigated by the Metropolitan police.

The inquiry is scrutinising payments made to the party via a company controlled by its deputy leader, Richard Tice.

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Romania summons Russia’s ambassador after downing third drone since Friday https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/romania-summons-russia-ambassador-third-drone-shot-down

F-16 fighter jet intercepted drone in Romanian airspace over Black Sea, defence minister says

Romania has said it is summoning Russia’s ambassador after the Nato member’s military shot down a third drone in as many days.

Romania has experienced frequent drone incursions since Russia launched its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but had not shot down any until Friday.

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He’s a doctor and a progressive. Will he win a key US Senate race in Michigan? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/26/abdul-el-sayed-michigan-senate

Abdul El-Sayed may be buoyed by a younger, anti-establishment coalition as he runs against an establishment candidate

Abdul El-Sayed spends a fair amount of his day not taking himself so seriously. He jokes about his haircut, films selfie videos with supporters and has taken – more than once – to cringey dancing and lip-syncing on camera.

But ask him after a long day on the campaign trail to explain the difference between a virus and a bacterium, and the epidemiologist takes over from the entertainer.

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Venezuelan men sue aviation firms who flew them to notorious Salvadorian jail https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/26/lawsuit-csi-aviation-globalx-cecot-deportation

Exclusive: CSI Aviation and GlobalX accused of violating civil rights as part of Trump immigration crackdown

Venezuelan men sent last year to a notorious Salvadorian terrorism prison by the Trump administration are suing the US aviation companies that transported them there.

A lawsuit filed this week in federal court in Washington DC accuses the companies CSI Aviation and GlobalX of violating the Venezuelans’ civil rights, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and other violations, for their role in flying the three planes that took the men to El Salvador.

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Ukraine war briefing: Iran accuses Kyiv of deadly attack on Iranian vessel in Caspian Sea https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/ukraine-war-briefing-iran-accuses-kyiv-vessel-caspian-sea

Zelenskyy says Iran is using Russian satellite images to help direct strikes in Middle East. What we know on day 1,614

Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday condemned what it called a ⁠Ukrainian attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, saying it killed one sailor and ⁠injured another. Tehran called the apparent attack an act of aggression and said it would defend its national ​interests and security. Ukraine’s diplomatic representative to Iran was summoned, Iranian state media reported. Throughout ​the war in Ukraine, Kyiv has had to counter Iranian-designed drones deployed by Moscow, and it has offered its drone ⁠interception expertise to countries in the Middle East that have been attacked by Iran.

Iran and Russia are two of the five countries that border the Caspian Sea and Russia maintains a powerful naval force there, making the inland body of water a platform for long‑range power projection, and a vital strategic bridge to Iran. Iran’s denunciation of the Ukraine attack on the ship coincided with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments that Russia was passing its satellite observations in the Middle East to Iran to enable it ‌to direct strikes in the region. Zelenskyy on Saturday said on X that Ukraine had “achieved very strong results with long‑range strikes in the Caspian Sea – including vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran”.

Zelenskyy also said Russia wanted to bring ⁠in 30,000 ⁠North Korean ​troops to take part in its more than four-year-old conflict with Russia, and was ⁠already preparing to receive them. Under a mutual defence pact, North Korea sent an ⁠estimated 14,000 soldiers to Russia’s Kursk Region in ​2024 to help ‌Moscow beat back ‌a major incursion into the region by Ukrainian ‌forces. “Preparations have been under way in Russia’s ‌Voronezh region since June to receive [North Korean troops],” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address, adding that the communist dictatorship was preparing ​to supply Russia with new launchers for ballistic missiles.

Twelve people were killed, including five children, in an drone attack ⁠on ​a holiday camp in a Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, Russian-installed local authorities said on Saturday, ⁠accusing Ukraine of deliberately attacking civilians. Kyiv did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, the ⁠Ukrainian capital Kyiv came under attack from Russian forces ⁠early on ⁠Sunday, ​with falling debris triggering fires in at least three ⁠districts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ukraine’s air force said Russian ⁠forces had targeted the capital with ​ballistic missiles. ‌But an ‌air alert was lifted after about ‌50 minutes and the air force rescinded its warning of missile deployment. Klitschko said one blaze had broken out on the seventh ‌and eighth floors of a multi-storey apartment block in ​a central district. There were no immediate ⁠reports of casualties.

Kazakhstan’s ⁠president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, said on Saturday a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine might be ⁠reached if ⁠both sides froze the conflict and resumed negotiations. Tokayev made the remarks while meeting Vladimir Putin at a Russia-Kazakhstan forum ⁠in the Siberian city of Omsk. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, quoted by the state ​TASS news agency, said Putin outlined to Tokayev in detail the state of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.

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‘Weekday games were amazing’: pubs toast extra £150m in World Cup sales https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/26/pubs-extra-sales-world-cup-england-football

England’s progress provides best football-related uplift of recent years, with one pub too packed to host its Dolly Parton tribute

Late opening hours and England’s progress to the semi-final of an expanded World Cup helped provide the best football-related uplift of recent years for pubs, figures suggest.

Pubs poured 30m extra pints over the course of the tournament compared with a normal trading period, with busy pumps delivering £150m in added sales, according to the British Beer & Pubs Association (BBPA).

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Water bosses’ pay rises despite bonus ban and public fury over bills and pollution https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/24/water-bosses-pay-rises-bonus-ban-sewage

Exclusive: Eight companies expect to be covered by the ban for 2025-26, the Guardian can reveal

Water company bosses’ total pay rose over the past year despite a government bonus ban and public outrage over pollution and bills, the Guardian can reveal.

One chief executive, Mark Thurston of Anglian Water, received £1.9m – including a £500,000 “retention payment”, despite the bonus ban.

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‘It’s not fair’: cafe owners frustrated over exclusion from business rates cut https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/24/its-not-fair-cafe-owners-frustrated-over-exclusion-from-business-rates-cut

Business owners in England say prioritising venues selling alcohol leaves vital community spaces behind

Ferdinand Geus is proud of the positive, global impact his small speciality coffee business is having.

“Around 3,000 small, family-owned farms in Yemen rely on us – we’ve persuaded many to stop growing khat, the drug, and start growing coffee instead,” said the business manager of Sheba Coffee, which supplies Yemeni coffee beans to independent cafes across the world, including the UK.

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Trump threatens EU with ‘substantial’ tariffs over fines of US tech giants https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/24/trump-european-union-tariffs

After Google fined €890m by EU, US president said Brussels was ‘robbing’ American companies and taxpayers

Donald Trump has threatened the European Union with additional and “substantial” tariffs after Brussels imposed a series of steep fines on US tech giants.

The US president accused Brussels of taking “direct aim” at several American companies including Apple, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Google, writing in a Truth Social post: “The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!”

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‘Andy Burnham can grow a moustache!’: SNL UK’s Paddy Young on breakout stardom – and impersonating the new PM https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/26/paddy-young-comedian-saturday-night-live-interview

Not even a grisly hand injury could halt the rise of the Saturday Night Live UK comedian. And soon he’ll get to parody the prime minister every week. So why can’t he enjoy the good times?

The day before I’m supposed to watch Paddy Young perform a work-in-progress version of his new show Will Sir Be Laughing Alone?, I’m told the gig has been cancelled; the standup has sliced his hand open and is about to have surgery. Soon after, Young shares a photo of himself on Instagram in a hospital gown, thanking the Australian comedian Sam Campbell for “bringing the sword to my home” – a post quickly rehashed by the tabloids (The Mirror: “SNL UK star Paddy Young hospitalised after samurai sword accident”). When I finally see him on stage a fortnight later, he’s dosed up on codeine, his arm is in a sling and he’s in the uncertain early stages of refashioning this bizarre anecdote into a routine.

“You’re getting an exclusive on the hand,” he tells me in an east London coffee shop the next day, after I’ve opened a bottle of water for him. Young and Campbell, who recently collaborated on the winningly madcap Channel 4 series Make That Movie, were preparing to host their occasional comedy night Floggers, which involves them dressing up as old men (fat suits, wigs, prosthetics) and helming a real daytime TV-style auction. Campbell had ordered the sword online as a prop, and when the pair’s Uber arrived Young hurriedly picked up the bag it was in. “Blood splattered up the wall like Kill Bill – we all laughed initially.” When his housemates removed the tea towel they’d wrapped around his hand “they could see yellow, which I think is tendon or muscle. Then I fainted.” He went to A&E for stitches but still did the show afterwards – “I cringe thinking about it because I was basically juggling [in the show]” – returning to hospital later to learn that one tendon was 90% lacerated and required an operation. Just before surgery, Young passed out again.

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Keith David on his incredible career: ‘I want you to understand Black men as full-scope human beings’ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/26/keith-david-president-curtis-actor-interview

The hard-working character actor has over 400 screen credits, from The Thing to Platoon to Rick and Morty, and he isn’t slowing down any time soon

Keith David’s voice precedes him. Deep and resonant, with mellifluous notes that hark back to his boys’ choir days, it has spent decades inhabiting warriors, gods, rogues, fathers and a welter of cartoon oddballs. Before David appears in a Zoom window from his Los Angeles home office, his voice reverberates through my tinny laptop speakers like a foghorn. “Can you see me now?” he booms once our connection is established after fits and starts. “OK. Outside of technology, you know I’m … OK.”

He fizzes about the project he just wrapped: a dark buddy comedy called My Friend Jim, in which he stars opposite Rob Lowe. It’s the latest entry in a seemingly unstinting slew of productions that have kept him booked and busy since the late 1970s, from The Thing to Platoon to There’s Something About Mary to Nope.

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The Curse of Love Island review – the deaths are more complex than this documentary can handle https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/26/the-curse-of-love-island-review-amazon-prime-video

This show tries to grapple with the fact that three people associated with the reality juggernaut have killed themselves. But it forgets that the dating series doesn’t exist in a vacuum

In summer 2015, ITV revived its 00s reality format Celebrity Love Island, a show that was remembered mostly as a drunken, downmarket rival to Big Brother. Its new, slick, civilian Love Island was a slow-burn at first, but by 2017 it was one of British TV’s biggest hits. While it remains among ITV’s hottest properties, viewing figures are now more modest, with 600,000 people tuning in for its 2026 launch. Tastes have changed, but the fact that three people associated with the show – former contestants Mike Thalassitis and Sophie Gradon, and Caroline Flack, the presenter for five series – took their lives, may also have made viewers wary.

Timed to coincide with the finale of the latest series of Love Island on Monday, Prime Video has released this two-parter about the apparent “curse” that stalks the programme. It opens with former contestant Anton Danyluk, who appeared on the show in 2019, declaring that there is “no higher high than the summer you’re preparing for Love Island”. But a stint in the show’s Mallorcan villa proved less of a high for some. Luis Morrison – a 2015 Islander – says it feels “disgusting” and “embarrassing” to watch the show back. “Everyone was having sex and stuff,” he says. Malin Andersson, a 2016 contestant, says, looking back, the show feels “quite toxic … so superficial and artificial”. Watching footage of herself coming into the villa for a post-elimination row with her partner, Terry, Andersson alleges there was much meddling on the part of the programme-makers: “The producers are fucking with people who can feel deep things!”

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TV tonight: Ruth Madeley’s ambitious new drama about the end of the world https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/26/tv-tonight-ruth-madeleys-ambitious-new-drama-about-the-end-of-the-world

Ruth Jones and Iwan Rheon also star in this story about climate catastrophes and charismatic leaders. Plus: Andrew Lincoln narrates a nature series. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC One

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Furious: this serial killer thriller is the most staggeringly feminist TV you’ll ever watch https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/25/furious-serial-killer-thriller-is-the-most-staggeringly-feminist-tv-youll-ever-watch

The new detective series with Emmy Rossum and Quincy Tyler Bernstine chasing a female serial killer is a must-see for Killing Eve fans

A male friend recently attended a Lily Allen show, and shakily described the experience to me. “I felt like a vegetarian fox at an armed chicken convention,” he said. An overwhelmingly female crowd were experiencing powerful catharsis, united in their anger at men and joy of bangers. I told him chickens couldn’t handle firearms, but I don’t think he heard me. He had tinnitus from the screaming.

There isn’t much screaming in Furious, Disney+’s new detective series (from Monday, 27 July). Also missing are the standard tropes of murder dramas: mutilated female bodies, an absence of women’s agency generally. Furious is the cat and mouse story between junior FBI agent Alice Black (Emmy Rossum) and Catherine (Lola Petticrew), a serial killer who is bumping off male victims with calculated sadism. Catherine might be the least serial killer name imaginable, but that’s just one way this show rewrites the rule book. I’d say it’s the most feminist show I’ve ever seen – except that might lead some to write it off.

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TV tonight: hit British comedy Ghosts gets a fun new twist https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jul/25/tv-tonight-hit-british-comedy-ghosts-gets-a-fun-new-twist

The Australian version of the sitcom is every bit as entertaining! Plus, get ready to belt out Bonnie Tyler’s best hits. Here’s what to watch this evening

10.30pm, BBC Three

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Shania Twain’s honest playlist: ‘If Dancing Queen comes on, you rush out’ https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/26/shania-twain-honest-playlist-abba-harry-styles-phantom-opera

The country-pop superstar loves Abba and secretly listens to Lloyd Webber, but which British heartthrob’s single gets her out of bed in the morning?

The song that changed my life
There’s many critical songs on The Mission soundtrack, but Gabriel’s Oboe [by Ennio Morricone] hit me hard. I had to pull off the road, I cried like a baby. I didn’t realise how powerful music could be until that moment. I was 22.

The first single I bought
At Seventeen by Janis Ian. I reference it in my album Little Miss Twain and it says so much about the emotions of a teenage misfit. I felt like her, I related – but I was also thinking: “Wow, I have to some day write this well.” It gave me a goal; I was so in awe. I made very little money, babysitting, taking care of my neighbour’s horse, singing in bars. I would get like 20 bucks, that I would mostly give to my family, but I got that record for myself.

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‘I know what it’s like to be vulnerable’: musician This Is Lorelei AKA Nate Amos on addiction and finding peace https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/24/nate-amos-music-interview-singer-in-my-band-album-water-from-your-eyes-this-is-lorelai

The singer-songwriter and Water from Your Eyes guitarist was unstoppably prolific, despite a growing dependence on substances. Now sober, he reflects on his new album and the songs that helped him turn his life round

For most of his life, Nate Amos made music just to get through the day. There was plenty of it: dozens of self-produced albums and EPs uploaded – since his This Is Lorelei project launched in 2012 – to what was then a plucky, independent platform called Bandcamp. Now 35, he is perhaps the quintessential Bandcamp artist: part bedroom-pop whiz, part alt-country troubadour, part indie rock rascal with a big, heavy heart. His peers treat him like a lost folk hero from a bygone era.

Amos is sitting in the basement of a cafe in Camden Town, north London, cradling an iced matcha; coffee makes him “feel like shit”, he says, and he no longer indulges such foibles. The title of one of those Bandcamp albums, OK N8, is tattooed on his knuckles. A friend inked it a few years ago, soon after Amos got sober. “Exactly when you’re not supposed to be making decisions like getting a tattoo on your hand,” he jokes. His active blue eyes dance around behind a golden-brown fringe and an unruly, woodchip beard. In a tough spot he will swing back in his chair and search for answers that always seem to be hiding beneath the table. But each time he stumbles upon the truth, he looks up with a hungry smile.

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Charli xcx: Music, Fashion, Film review – slippery search into selfhood that hits just as hard as Brat https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/24/charli-xcx-music-fashion-film-review

(Atlantic)
How do you follow up the album that made you a star – and a caricature? In classic Charli style: with a pivot to guitar and a meta masterpiece about the instability of identity

After a decade spent trailblazing a unique kind of pop freedom from the genre’s fringes, A-list success seemed like the thing that might finally trap Charli xcx. Her 2024 club-rat opus Brat spawned memes, embarrassing political bandwagoning, Collins’ word of the year and possibly terminal damage to the bra industry. Its ludicrous cultural impact looked set to pickle her as a caricature of a Parliament-toting bad girl; the question of whether “Brat summer” could last – whether Charli could sustain the interest – was so rife she turned it into a mockumentary, The Moment. It made success look miserable: your creation turned cringe by execs wanting to milk their prize cow dry of every last acid-green drop.

Even for a pop star renowned for reinvention, it put a higher price on her next move. Pivot and risk losing new fans and looking wilfully contrarian. When Charli released the sub-two-minute single Rock Music, many heard it as a middle finger. “I think the dancefloor is dead,” she drawls over guitars that buzzed like speakers weathering interference from a Nokia 5110, “so now we’re making rock music.” There were boring thinkpieces about the dancefloor being very much alive, actually (as if Charli had ever ridden culture for clout then binned it off), and about whether she was trying to eject fair-weather new fans. But the key to this cheeky song is surprisingly earnest: “Jump off the stage / I hope they catch you today / But if they don’t it’s OK,” she sings naively, an affirmation to take creative leaps, and to come with Charli – or not, as you like – as she takes this one.

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The Strokes: Reality Awaits review – a perfect marriage of mayhem and melody on their best album in years https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/24/the-strokes-reality-awaits-review

(RCA/Cult)
Allying the crackpot strangeness of Julian Casablancas’ side projects with his band’s gift for pop minimalism, the New Yorkers are on playful, joyous form

Here’s a sentence no old-head Strokes fan wants to hear: to understand Reality Awaits, the stalwart NYC group’s seventh album and first in six years, you first have to understand the Voidz. Julian Casablancas’s other band has been taking up more and more of his time in recent years, much to the chagrin of fans who may have dipped into the group’s painfully, awkwardly proggy 2014 debut Tyranny and decided to just let the old legend have his fun (away from their own speakers, of course). Anyone who decided to listen further will have found that the Voidz have turned into a great, crowd-pleasing, safely experimental zone for Casablancas to pull out some of the most energised, goofy work of his career. If you’re thinking I come to this guy for cool, not goof, I don’t know what to tell you: this is a man who spends interviews discussing his theories about ancient Sumerian culture.

The 2018 Voidz record Virtue is a high point of Casablancas’s entire catalogue: a gentle stylistic mixed bag that covers winsome pop-rock, yacht rock, bedroom pop and much more. That album seemed to clear the decks for the Strokes’ last record, 2020’s The New Abnormal, on which they sounded the most like their 2001 selves since Is This It. That album is now the definitive Strokes album for gen Z – go to any Strokes show and watch the younger contingent light up during The Adults Are Talking – but it didn’t presage a long-term back-to-basics route for Casablancas and co. On Reality Awaits, by sheer force of will, he fuses the crackpot strangeness and, ahem, fondness for AutoTune of the Voidz with the Strokes’ minimalism and pop melodicism.

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From author to anime hero: the unlikely revival of a Japanese literary star https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/26/from-author-to-anime-hero-the-unlikely-revival-of-a-japanese-literary-star

More than seven decades after they were first released, the dark novels of Osamu Dazai have become a publishing sensation, as a new generation of readers engage with his bleakness, humour and brilliance

There’s no question that Japanese literature has been one of the outstanding successes for British bookshops in recent years: in 2024 close to half of the bestselling translated fiction titles were from Japan. Much of the Japanese fiction translated into English fits into broad categories – cats, crime, coffee shops – but one surprise bestseller stands alone.

Sales of books by Osamu Dazai, who killed himself in 1948 aged 38, have rocketed in the last few years. His best-known novel, No Longer Human (1948), has sold more than 75,000 copies in the UK alone. An intense semi-autobiographical account of one man’s alienation, it was the last work of fiction completed before Dazai’s death.

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The perfect books for the beach … picked by Freida McFadden, Mick Herron, Robert Harris and more https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jul/25/the-perfect-books-for-the-beach-picked-by-freida-mcfadden-mick-herron-robert-harris-and-more

From a transporting historical saga to a tale of small-town betrayal, the authors of our favourite page-turners reveal the books they take on holiday – introduced by Jenny Colgan

It is important to follow a balanced diet on holiday. Too many “My Wife’s Sister’s Husband’s Psychopath”, and you’ll get confused and grumpy. Too much sugary romance and your teeth will fall out. Something too big and challenging you’ve been meaning to get round to for ages will make you feel guilty and more liable to give in to scrolling, and if you take too many supposedly upmarket “must reads” of the summer, you will simply prove to yourself just how much overhyped averageness there is out there, when all you want is something satisfying.

You need to be able to chop and change depending on your mood, which means fiction and nonfiction. And finally, you need to be able to throw all of these rules out of the window if you find a sandy old water-stained copy of, for example, James Herbert’s Domain in your holiday cottage and decide to devote yourself to 600 pages of post-nuclear mutant rat-strewn London, or choose to go for a full-on Maeve Binchy sesh.

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Unsayable by Michael Cunningham review – The Hours author on the insecurities that powered his creative life https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/24/unsayable-by-michael-cunningham-review-the-hours-author-on-the-insecurities-that-powered-his-creative-life

The American novelist and screenwriter’s memoir covers sex work, Virginia Woolf and Hollywood success

As an eight-year-old in comfortable, solid, suburban California, Michael Cunningham felt compelled to make art before he quite understood what it was, or could do: a painting of souls ascending to heaven, for example, in which paradise resembled the Griffith Park Observatory and the dead were all depicted in profile because their creator felt unequal to the challenge of full faces. There was also a cigar box covered in gold-sprayed macaroni and a clay representation of the animals on Noah’s Ark – anything, in fact, that would challenge the painting of a placid white chicken that hung in a gilt frame on his parents’ wall.

If Cunningham moved on fairly rapidly from the visual arts, either sparing or denying us the fruits of a more fully formed talent, it wasn’t because the impulse to create had withered. Rather, it was that the experience of making material art had functioned as a temporary outlet, being less painful, less embarrassing – both emotions he ascribes to his young, sensitive self – than attempting to capture the world in words.

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Lucy Caldwell: ‘Even your text messages fizz after reading James Joyce’ https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jul/24/lucy-caldwell-even-your-text-messages-fizz-after-reading-james-joyce

The author on the power of folktales, being inspired by Ulysses – and the book that every woman should read

My earliest reading memory
The summer my middle sister was born, my mum and I would walk to the shops at Cherryvalley, in east Belfast, to do her messages, and she’d buy me the latest issue of Storyteller, illustrated tales from around the world. It came with a cassette tape of actors reading the stories, a ding to tell you when to turn the page. My favourite was a Japanese folktale called The Goblin Rat. I was only just two, but I listened to it, entranced and terrified, until I could recite it by heart.

My favourite book growing up
Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising series. I first read them aged 10 – I’ve read the title book every midwinter since, and read them last year with my own then-10-year-old son. They tell a haunting story of the age-old battle between the forces of dark and light, weaving in Arthurian legend, shot through with an adult melancholy that makes them as compelling now as then.

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‘An anthem for the co-dependent’: Bad Magpie’s corvid carnage with a side of existential angst https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/24/bad-magpie-preview-milktooth

Going by the mantra, if you want to make someone laugh, make them cry first, the game’s developers have created a lonely magpie who fills the void by wreaking havoc

Amid the gleeful anarchy of Bad Magpie’s debut trailer, there’s a striking note of melancholy. The game’s protagonist – a wounded corvid that creates havoc wherever she goes – calls out forlornly as a flock of her kind passes above, with a conspicuous gap in their formation.

Milktooth games designer and co-founder Daisy Fernandez has had this particular image in her head for years. Lying in the grass one afternoon during the 2020 lockdowns, she looked up and saw a V-shaped pattern in the sky, poignantly incomplete. “It really stuck with me,” she says. “I posted about it online and someone told me about a ‘missing man’ formation, which is an aerial salute to a fallen pilot.”

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How Pokémon Go encouraged me to find wonder in the world https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/21/ten-years-after-its-release-pokemon-go-still-encourages-me-to-find-wonder-in-the-world-around-me

These days, I ‘collect’ birdsong and wild flowers, but it all started when my sons and I first set out to find Pikachu and pals

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Believe it or not, Pokémon Go is 10 years old this month. The wildly successful smartphone game, which allows you to track down lovable creatures in the real world using GPS and augmented-reality technologies, has reportedly been downloaded 800m times across 150 countries and regions. A trillion Pokémon have been caught so far – and I have been responsible for a modest percentage of that figure.

When the game was first released, my sons and I spent many happy hours wandering the streets and parks of Frome searching for Jigglypuffs and Charizards, and the game’s social element, which lets you take on gym battles with other players in your vicinity, offered my autistic son a route to communicate with other children in a way he’d never been able to before.

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There Are No Ghosts at the Grand – stripping back the physical and metaphorical layers of a haunted hotel https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/23/there-are-no-ghosts-at-the-grand-friday-sundae-summer-games-preview

Renovate rooms, investigate the supernatural and watch people burst into song in this surreal British ghost story

A young American man arrives in a dilapidated British seaside town to take on the renovations of an equally run-down hotel, inherited from a mysteriously absent father he never knew. His power tools talk to him in a Scottish accent, the local people speak in baffling slang, and occasionally people burst into song. Oh, and there are ghosts.

There Are No Ghosts at the Grand is a novel mix of genres – no bad thing in these times of sequels and remakes – but, according to the creative director of independent developers Friday Sundae, Anil Glendinning, it grew organically from a single goal: to tell a very British ghost story.

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Splatoon Raiders review – Nintendo’s inky shooter fades to grey https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jul/21/splatoon-raiders-review-nintendo-switch-2

Nintendo Switch 2
The single-player offshoot of the quirky and colourful multiplayer series is disappointingly run-of-the-mill

Splatoon is among Nintendo’s most ingenious inventions of the last decade: a series of shooting games whose paint-splattered turf war nature means being bad at shooting is just as valuable as – if not more so than – being good. It is also blessed with an abundance of personality, with vibrant characters, a richly imagined world, and a hipness that the competition can only dream of achieving. Unfortunately, Splatoon Raiders makes it difficult to remember all of this.

The first spinoff in the ink-soaked franchise, Splatoon Raiders is advertised as a single player-focused entry in this primarily multiplayer series. While this is true enough – one can play through the entire game solo just fine – Raiders is clearly best enjoyed cooperatively with up to three others. Players start each session on a hideout ship where they can upgrade their equipment and tweak their play style before heading out on bite-sized repeatable missions, and this structure is tailor-made for teaming up with friends or helping out strangers (the game lets you do either), as each person works towards creating their ultimate squid-kid avatar of chaos.

Splatoon Raiders is out 23 July; £41.99

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Three Choirs festival review – impressive opening salvo full of crackling energy and exuberant fireworks https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/26/three-choirs-festival-review-impressive-opening-salvo-full-of-crackling-energy-and-exuberant-fireworks

Gloucester Cathedral
A packed crowd greeted this year’s curtain raiser for a delightfully Tiggerish premiere of Gavin Higgins’ Fanfare Americana, an exhilarating Elgar’s First and a joyful rendition of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast

So shocked were the worthies of the venerable Three Choirs festival by the eunuchs and concubines littering William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast that they banned the work for 26 years (the powers that be finally unpursed their lips sufficiently to allow it to be performed in 1957). These days it’s a hot ticket judging by the enthusiastic crowd packing out Gloucester Cathedral for this opening concert. It’s also a significant test of any group of singers, and one that this year’s Festival Chorus passed with flying colours.

The UK premiere of Gavin Higgins’ Fanfare Americana opened proceedings, a likable work celebrating the can do attitude prevalent in the US. Whooping brass and tubular bells propelled vast wodges of sound into the resonant cathedral acoustic that exploded like exuberant fireworks. Adrian Partington led the Philharmonia Orchestra in a delightfully Tiggerish account.

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Oona Doherty: Leather Jacket review – dancers delight in their hard sweaty work https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jul/26/oona-doherty-leather-jacket-review-bold-tendencies-london

Bold Tendencies, London
Slaps, beats and bounces underscore the unified collective pleasure of sharing a rhythm in this world premiere of the singular choreographer’s latest piece

Can it be a bit of a curse for an artist to knock it out of the park right at the start of their career? Choreographer Oona Doherty’s astonishing early works, Hope Hunt and Hard to be Soft, marked her as an unique (urgent, unfiltered) voice moving in uncharted territory. Her output since has been more variable, although she’s always utterly her own woman.

Doherty’s last major piece, Specky Clark, was high concept. This new world premiere, Leather Jacket, feels the opposite, not quite enough concept. (I know, you can’t win.) The leather jackets of the title are being worn by eight dancers. Under bright fluorescent lights in the concrete space of Bold Tendencies – the Peckham multi-storey car park turned theatre – the dancers all slap one foot to the ground in a heavy thud, and again, and again, keeping a determined rhythm. It’s a thrill to be up close as foot slaps turn to thigh slaps, then bounces, then into Doherty’s own skewed kind of Irish step dance, matching the shift from electronic score to Cormac Begley’s experimental Irish folk music. (The dancers have shed the jackets by now; they’re just in their underwear.)

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Sinfonia of London/Wilson review – night of Technicolor masterpieces from one of the finest orchestras on the planet https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/26/sinfonia-of-londonwilson-review-night-of-technicolor-masterpieces-from-one-of-the-finest-orchestras-on-the-planet

Royal Albert Hall, London
Verdi’s La Forza del Destino felt vital, cellist Jonathan Aasgaard was immaculate in Walton’s Concerto but it was John Wilson’s wizardly conducting through Respighi’s Roman Trilogy that brought the audience to their feet

Another Sinfonia of London Prom, another five-star concert. Admittedly this programme of Technicolor masterpieces played into the wizardly hands of John Wilson, a conductor whose respect and enthusiasm for the golden age of MGM is legendary. None of this was movie music, however, and Hollywood panache is only a part of what makes this hand-picked ensemble one of the finest orchestras on the planet.

First, there’s that full-fat sound, where every musician is a potential soloist, yet the blend is to die for. Then there’s the parade ground discipline and a willingness to follow Wilson – who seldom lingers – into the very fires of Mordor. The spirit, too, is palpable. Whole sections sway as one, occasionally with broad grins on their faces, such is their delight in the music making.

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Luke Combs review – regular Joe megastar brings the arena-sized party home https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jul/26/luke-combs-review-regular-joe-megastar-brings-the-arena-sized-party-home

Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
Despite his humble persona, the highest-selling country artist of all time has the vocal firepower and heavyweight hits to deliver two hours of crowd-pleasin’ pyrotechnics

The first we see of Luke Combs, the North Carolina-born megastar is walking through the stadium crowd. Cap pulled low, with a bashful look on his face, the stunt is less pap walk, more regular Joe dodging a flashmob on his way to work. Combs is now the highest-selling country artist of all time, but he wears his success with humility: when he finally reaches his saloon-themed stage, with near-70,000 screaming fans before him, he keeps that unassuming presence. “Normally I’d ask how you’re feeling tonight, but I know how you’re feeling tonight,” he smiles.

This week, Combs will perform to more than half a million fans across just seven dates in England, Scotland and Ireland: a remarkable coronation for an artist yet to have a Top 10 single here. Not that you’d know it, from the way the crowd screams every word to his 2016 hit Hurricane, a soft-rock heartacher about running into your ex in a bar, elevated by a cinematic chorus (“moon went hidin’, stars quit shinin’”) that’s closer to early-doors Taylor than any country-bro machismo.

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Tom Gauld on the punctutation factory – cartoon https://www.theguardian.com/books/picture/2026/jul/26/tom-gauld-on-the-punctutation-factory-cartoon

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Treasure as trinkets: Zendaya’s earrings renew debate on ownership of ancient artefacts https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jul/25/treasure-as-trinkets-zendayas-earrings-renew-debate-on-ownership-of-ancient-artefacts

Jewellery made from BC Iran worn at Odyssey photocall throws spotlight on the trade of rare archeological finds

The Odyssey has stormed cinemas, but while its take on the Homeric epic has created ripples among western classicists, it is an actor’s earrings that have made waves further afield.

Zendaya, who portrays the goddess Athena in the movie, provoked outrage when she appeared at a London photocall wearing earrings that were allegedly made from Iranian artefacts dating back to the 1st millennium BC.

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‘People who commit heinous crimes can be victims’: Michael Mann on the provocative power of Manhunter at 40 https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/25/michael-mann-interview-manhunter

As a stunning 4K restoration arrives in theaters, the director and cast reflect on creating the disturbing descent into a criminal underworld

Michael Mann has shown time and again in films like Thief, Heat, Miami Vice and Public Enemies that he is one of American film’s greatest explorers of the underworld. “It’s like a kind of cultural anthropology,” Mann tells me from his office in Los Angeles. “If you make films, you get to do that in a different place with a different subject every few years. For me, the exploration is the high.”

With its unsettling atmosphere and soaring beauty, Mann’s 1986 film Manhunter reimagined how a thriller could look, sound and feel in an early high point for the director. To commemorate its 40th anniversary Manhunter: The Final Cut, a 4K restoration and director’s cut with three minutes of new footage, will see a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles this weekend with a nationwide US rollout to follow.

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Johnny Depp is playing Scrooge? I am not here for his big Hollywood comeback https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/24/johnny-depp-is-playing-scrooge-i-am-not-here-for-his-big-hollywood-comeback

‘It’s good to be back,’ says the actor in a new trailer for the forthcoming Ebenezer. Has everyone forgotten about the ghosts of his past?

It is fair to say that, professionally speaking, Johnny Depp has had a quiet few years. Since he and Amber Heard sued each other amid a whirlwind of genuinely ugly accusations in 2019, and went to trial in 2022, Depp has struggled to reclaim his position in Hollywood.

His 2020 film Minimata made less than a million dollars at the box office. Jeanne du Barry fared better in 2023, although its Cannes premiere was marked by feminist demonstrations and an open letter signed by 100 members of the French film industry, furious that the festival appeared to be offering alleged abusers institutional protection. Aside from that, he voiced a Puffin called Johnny Puff in a cartoon series called Puffins, and that’s about it.

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‘It’s not rocket science’: a day in the life of a Nasa behavioral health scientist https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/26/suzanne-bell-nasa-behavorial-health-scientist

Dr Suzanne Bell helps astronauts perform in a high-stress environment. To do that, she wakes up at 5am – without an alarm

Dr Suzanne Bell, an organizational psychologist, leads the Behavioral Health and Performance Laboratory at Nasa’s Johnson Space Center.

What’s your morning routine?

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How to keep cool in a heatwave: 25 tips from the people who know best, from a Rio lifeguard to an Egyptian archaeologist https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/26/how-to-keep-cool-in-a-heatwave-from-people-who-know-best

For some, scorching days and humid nights are just the norm. So how do they stay chilled and comfortable?

Luis Pacherrez Antón is president of Agroperu Cooperative, a democratic collective of 102 small-scale farmers in the Chira River valley, Peru. He is based in Piura, known as “the city of eternal heat” because it stays hot and dry all year round. “The sun rays start to shine very early – from 9am,” he says. “So as people who work in cultivation, under a burning sun, we stay comfortable by starting much earlier and consuming the healthy foods that we produce, like bananas, oranges, lemons, grapes, papayas and avocados.”

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‘Out of this world’: the best supermarket chocolate ice-cream, tasted and rated https://www.theguardian.com/thefilter/2026/jul/25/best-supermarket-chocolate-ice-cream-tasted-rated

Who makes the smoothest, creamiest, chocolatiest tub? We have the inside scoop for you

The best supermarket dark chocolate

There’s been a marked shift towards less-processed ice-cream since I tested vanilla ice-cream for this column last summer. Most ice-cream on the market used to be a cocktail of gums and emulsifiers, but now they’re of much higher quality and with fewer additives.

All today’s chocolate ice-creams are sophisticated, rich and complex, with deep, dark flavours, and I scored them on taste and texture first (I favour denser, French-style, custard-based ice-creams). I also prioritised smoothness and mouthfeel.

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I’ve been gaming for 40 years. Here are the best chairs in the UK for comfort, support and serious play https://www.theguardian.com/thefilter/2026/jul/24/best-gaming-chairs-tested-uk

Whether you’re on PC or a console, level up your setup with our gaming expert’s pick of the best chairs

The best games of 2026 so far

Comfort is crucial to the gaming experience. It’s hard to focus on blasting aliens or taking Stoke to the Champions League final if your bum has gone to sleep because you’ve been sitting on an old chair for three hours. We’re spending more time playing games than ever before, so good posture matters. If you have set up a dedicated gaming space, then a rickety seat just won’t cut it.

From luxurious ergonomic thrones to cheap-and-cheerful bucket seats, the options available are bewildering. So I set out on an epic quest: to find the most comfortable, durable and stylish gaming chairs. Here’s what I discovered.

Best gaming chair overall:
Secretlab Titan Evo

Best budget gaming chair:
ThunderX3 Solo 360

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Panda Bamboo mattress topper review: soothed my pain and improved my sleep – even in a heatwave https://www.theguardian.com/thefilter/2026/jul/24/panda-bamboo-mattress-topper-review-uk

Supportive and surprisingly cool for memory foam, Panda’s flagship topper gave our reviewer some of the best sleep she’s had all summer

The best mattress toppers – tested

When I was struggling to sleep in a heatwave, diving into a 6ft slab of memory foam didn’t exactly sound like the answer. Memory foam is renowned for trapping heat, and the more “sinky” the foam, the more heat you’d expect it to trap. Less comfort layer, more boiled marshmallow.

However, the foam used by Panda in its flagship mattress topper genuinely seems to break the mould. It has the cosy feel of conventional memory foam, but it eased my night sweats so well when I tested the best mattress toppers in summer 2025 that I named it the “best cooling topper”, beating rivals filled with airy wool and microfibre.

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The best cleansers in the UK for every skin type and budget – tested https://www.theguardian.com/thefilter/2026/jul/23/best-cleanser-face-wash-tested-uk

They’re the foundation of a good routine, but which face wash does our beauty expert rate for oily, dry, or normal skin?

How to build the perfect skincare routine

Choosing a cleanser can feel like Goldilocks’ task of searching for the perfect bowl of porridge – finding one that’s just right is rarely straightforward. Add in that our skin is constantly changing, due to hormones, the seasons and environmental stressors, and it’s easy to see why finding the ideal formula can be challenging.

Cleansers are often overlooked, but the right one is the basis of a good skincare routine. To understand what we should be looking for, I spoke with Dr Ahmed El Muntasar, GP and founder of the Aesthetics Doctor, who explained that the ideal formula depends entirely on skin type. “If someone is acne-prone or oily, I would usually recommend something more gel-based, because it helps break through excess oil more effectively,” he says. “Ingredients such as salicylic acid and niacinamide can also be helpful for those skin types.”

Best overall and best budget cleanser:
Cetaphil gentle exfoliating salicylic acid cleanser

Best cleanser if you can afford it:
Sarah Chapman Skinesis Ultimate Cleanse

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Lennox. Manchester: ‘A boot camp of flavours’ – restaurant review https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/26/lennox-manchester-grace-dent-restaurant-review

You’ll leave fed, challenged and gastronomically punch-drunk

Nico Simeone is the Scottish-Italian chef behind the Six by Nico restaurant empire, and Lennox, in Spring Gardens, Manchester, is his new baby. If you are unfamiliar with Six by Nico, it’s a fever-dream version of fine dining: Simeone conjured up themes such as “The Chippie”, “Italian Road Trip” and “Ancient Rome”, then served six courses in homage to them. Tokyo! Mad Hatters! Childhood! At one point, the Six empire was growing like knotweed, and by 2025 there were 17 restaurants. You had more chance of eating at a Six by Nico than finding an NHS dentist.

Suffice to say, many adore the concept – overlooking its middling cooking skills – because it’s pocket-friendly, and the six-course format gives a night out with friends a sense of occasion not available at Pizza Express. Lennox, Simeone says, will be very different: à la carte, focused on dry-aged meat, but with the same playfulness and invention. There would be a fish finger with katsu curry and celeriac remoulade; a tempura oyster shell filled with dry-aged beef tartare and oyster emulsion; and gnocchi with deboned chicken wings and parmesan. Lennox would be personal, bespoke and absolutely unscalable. No rollout planned, no siree. But by August 2026, there will be three of them. Hang on, what? Yes, shortly after Manchester came Glasgow, and then Edinburgh. Simeone sleeps with one eye open; I salute his indefatigability.

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How to make the perfect homemade viennetta – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect … https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/26/how-to-make-the-perfect-homemade-viennetta-recipe

Your rosy memories of the classic ice-cream dessert may not hold up to scrutiny today, but thanks to our resident perfectionist, you can make a delicious version of your own

When I was growing up, viennetta was something I had in other people’s houses – for some reason, my mum regarded these frilly blocks of ice-cream as a waste of money, which made them all the bigger treat on the rare occasion I did get a front-row seat at the cracking of the chocolate. Launched, like me, in 1982, when developers at Wall’s realised that pumping ice-cream on to the production line slightly faster than the speed of the conveyor belt created a concertina effect that, I think we can now, with the wisdom of age, agree, is more impressive to behold than to consume. No doubt diehard devotees will beg to differ, but even as a child I couldn’t help but notice that all that air made the viennetta distinctly light on flavour (no wonder one slice is never enough, as the old advertising campaign had it). Happily, you can recreate the magic at home with something that looks good and tastes great – and you don’t even need your own conveyor belt!

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‘I panic. It turns to rubber’: could I learn to make omurice, the ‘world’s hardest omelette’? https://www.theguardian.com/food/2026/jul/26/i-panic-it-turns-to-rubber-could-i-learn-to-make-omurice-the-worlds-hardest-omelette

These unctuous rice-filled Japanese egg dishes are all over social media. But what does it cost to make them? A lot of eggs and a whole lot of pans ...

Among the endless videos of cute animals, influencer vlogs and celebrity content, something unusual has been going viral across social media recently: omelettes. A far cry from the usual solid egg slabs served in cafes, these bright yellow omelettes are a fluffy, oval-shaped treat filled with unctuous liquid curds, which are typically sliced open to unfurl across a mound of rice. Called omurice, the Japanese dish has been called “the world’s hardest omelette to make”.

London-based software engineer Jeremy Ocampo, who goes by the social media tag OmuricePapi, has spent the past six months documenting his journey to perfect the art of the omurice online. In the process he has amassed 110,000 followers on YouTube and more than 68,000 on Instagram. “I’m Filipino, so I grew up eating rice and eggs every day, but it took going to Japan for the first time in 2025 to have my mind blown by omurice,” he says. “I was hooked: the presentation of slicing it open over your rice makes it so alluring, while you can’t replicate that texture of egg in any other dish. It’s so unique that when I got home, I decided to teach myself how to do it.”

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My partner’s mother dominates him and it makes me feel helpless | Ask Annalisa Barbieri https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/my-partners-mother-dominates-him-i-feel-helpless

You are stepping into a family system with its own history and loyalties; try to consider how you might set boundaries without rejecting his mum

I’m in my 30s and have been living in Spain for a decade. My partner is Spanish and we have lived together for a year.

The bond he has with his mum sometimes makes me feel angry, jealous and helpless. I’m aware that, culturally, Spanish people often have closer bonds with their families and I try to accept that. He is an only child and his father left his family when he was a teenager and started another. I feel my partner has developed an unhealthy and codependent relationship with his mum.

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The moment I knew: We discussed the pill on our first date, kissed on our second. By the third, I knew he was the one https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/the-moment-i-knew-1961-third-date-love

In the 1960s, 19-year-old Anne Ring was set up with Ian and felt an immediate attraction

It was June 1961, I was 19, and innocently dating in the ways of that time – I’d had several boyfriends, had my heart broken once and had broken two.

A platonic friend decided I should meet Ian, as we both liked to talk. So he invited Ian – who was 20 – and me to dinner. It was at our friend’s family’s home with Beethoven’s violin concerto playing in the background, and he was right. From the outset Ian and I were totally immersed in our conversation, and I felt an immediate connection and attraction to him. Driving me home, he asked me out the following Saturday.

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Blind date: ‘We were chatting as soon as we sat down’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/25/blind-date-jacob-sophie

Jacob, 27, a volunteer manager, meets Sophie, 28, a journalist

What were you hoping for?
To meet someone who I could connect with and possibly go on further dates.

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Millions of people are losing weight using GLP-1s. How do the drugs affect their love lives? https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jul/26/glp1-drugs-weight-loss-side-effects-relationship

Prescribing doctors often warn of the medications’ potential side-effects – but unexpected impacts on romantic relationships are less understood

For Jennifer, obesity was the obvious culprit for most of her problems.

The litigation attorney told herself it was the reason why she wasn’t being invited to parties, and why she and her husband struggled with physical intimacy in their otherwise “solid” marriage.

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‘I never thought I’d fall for a scam’: the fake Spotify emails that put you at risk of fraud https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jul/26/spotify-scam-fake-emails-fraud

Criminals send victims to a cloned site that collects login, personal and payment details

You have had a Spotify account for years and your credit card is linked for the monthly payments. When an email arrives telling you that your payment couldn’t be processed you are not surprised as the expiry date on the card is soon.

“We encountered an issue while processing your recent payment,” it says. “To keep your access active and avoid interruption, please review and update your information.”

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Summer holiday car hire: drive a great deal and avoid hidden fees https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jul/25/summer-holiday-car-hire-deal-fees-extras-rental

Unclear terms and expensive extras can turn what seemed like a cheap rental into a costly one

It is not too late to get a good deal on your holiday car rental, even if you have booked already and are travelling soon. But there are many pitfalls to avoid so that you do not end up paying over the odds.

A survey from Which? found that one in eight people who had hired a car in the past two years had ended up paying more than they were first quoted.

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UK savings deals: the heat is on as banks offer up to 8% https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/jul/25/uk-savings-deals-banks-interest-rates

Don’t delay in taking advantage of the competition that is pushing up interest rates and increasing choice, experts say

It is shaping up to be a decent summer for savers as fierce competition among providers pushes up interest rates and increases choice.

You can currently get instant- and easy-access accounts that pay up to 5% interest, and fixed-rate savings bonds that pay almost that much. Meanwhile, those looking for a regular savings account can now get up to 8%.

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Homes with grand designs for sale in England and Scotland – in pictures https://www.theguardian.com/money/gallery/2026/jul/24/homes-with-grand-designs-for-sale-in-england-and-scotland-in-pictures

From an intricate bronze-like townhouse in Manchester to a sculptural property in the Essex countryside

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13 surprising reasons you’re always dog tired – and what to do about it https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/24/reasons-you-feel-tired-what-to-do-about-it-fibre-creatine

Feel lethargic even after a full night’s sleep? From not enough fibre to too much sitting, experts explain why your get up and go has got up and gone

The very air you breathe could be an issue. “Close the door, shut the window, add a partner and a heater, and by 3am a typical bedroom sits at 1,500 to 2,500 parts per million of carbon dioxide,” says Dr Jemma King, author of Sleep First: Sleep Smarter, Think Sharper, Feel Better. “Research shows that above 1,000 ppm sleep efficiency drops, deep sleep reduces and salivary cortisol rises on waking. You’re sleeping, but your nervous system is mildly activated all night.” Luckily, it’s an easy fix: open a window – even 2cm will do the job, according to King.

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I spent years trying to get smaller. Until I decided to get bigger https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/24/bulking-body-image-weight

‘Bulking’, or gaining weight on purpose to get stronger, challenged everything I was once taught to do with my body

I had been casually lifting weights for a few years when several things changed in quick succession.

First, my boyfriend proposed.

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Before you throw out all the synthetic fabrics in your closet, read this https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2026/jul/23/wellness-culture-synthetic-fabrics-fears

Experts weigh in on wellness culture’s obsession with natural fibers and the growing trend of people shunning plastic-based clothing

A few months ago, Lane Koch made a decision: she would purge her family’s closets of all plastic-based fabrics and replace them with natural fibers, such as cotton and linen.

Koch, a longtime Republican political strategist who was a senior staffer on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign, has long avoided processed foods and rid her kitchen of plastic cookware about a decade ago. But, for all that she cared about what she put in her body, she told me she had paid little attention to what she put on her body.

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Risk of Parkinson’s disease may increase with prolonged exposure to road traffic noise https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/23/road-traffic-noise-parkinsons-disease-study-health

Pioneering study linking noise pollution to Parkinson’s finds 3% increase in risk for every 11.5dB rise in noise levels

Long-term exposure to road traffic noise is associated with a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease, the biggest study of its kind has found.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive disorder in which parts of the brain become damaged over time, affecting movement and balance.

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Gold dresses, flower markets and sitars: Pirelli’s 2027 calendar features all-Indian cast https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/26/pirelli-2027-calendar-features-all-indian-cast

Latest edition of one of world’s most influential fashion photography publications is also shot entirely in India

Against the ancient, weathered walls of Jaigarh fort, high on the hills above Jaipur, Bhavitha Mandava stood barefoot and draped in gold.

Just a few months earlier, the Indian model had been catapulted from a life of obscurity as a student at New York University to become one of the most recognisable and celebrated new faces of fashion. This year, she became the first Indian woman to open the Chanel catwalk at their Métiers d’Art show and her divisive Chanel outfit for the Met Gala, fashion’s most exclusive event, became an international talking point.

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From high heels to ‘Zara death pants’: how fashion falls foul of women’s safety https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jul/24/from-high-heels-to-zara-death-pants-how-fashion-falls-foul-of-womens-safety

A physio, a tailor and a historian on the style trends that can put women in hospital and how to avoid the dangers

“Buyer beware” is one of the oldest principles in English law. Now, a pair of wide legged trousers from Zara is bringing the phrase back to the forefront of shoppers’ minds.

On social media the £25.99 wide-legged trousers from the high-street retailer have earned the moniker “Zara death pants” thanks to a slew of videos showing wearers tripping over the leg of the trousers and injuring themselves.

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Plus-size models and £5 tickets: Sinéad O’Dwyer’s runway show puts inclusivity first https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/24/plus-size-models-sinead-odwyer-runway-show-inclusive-fashion

V&A event celebrates all shapes and sizes as wider fashion industry stalls on body diversity

Visitors to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum on Friday afternoon to watch Sinéad O’Dwyer’s Fashion in Motion show would have encountered something a little different. The cast of performers and models wore everything from underwear to skirt suits and sequins, and sometimes danced interpretively on the catwalk to a performance by the band Jeanie and The White Boys, but most notably came in all shapes and sizes.

O’Dwyer’s work has pushed against fashion’s insistence on a thin body type since she appeared at London fashion week in 2021. If most brands make the samples for clothes shown on the catwalk based on a size 4-8, she uses a size 18. She has won awards for her work, as well as celebrity fans including Cardi B and Björk.

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‘It’s become a nepo baby sport’: how secondhand fashion got so expensive https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jul/24/secondhand-fashion-thrifting-depop-cost

Thanks to gen Z resellers and platforms like Depop, thrifting has lost its subcultural roots - and ballooned into a $350bn business

Vintage boutique owner Janelle Best has been rummaging in thrift shop bins since the 90s. When she started, she says, there was a stigma about it. “It was either you were a freak, or you were poor – and I was a freak.”

At first, she did it to source stage outfits while playing in psych-rock bands. Then, in 2005, she started “casually reselling” on eBay. Ten years later she was trading as Desert Stars Vintage at street markets, and by 2023 she had opened a showroom specializing in upmarket silk dresses in her Williamsburg apartment. Even just a few years ago, she says, she still put in the hours at places like Goodwill. The bins, she says, “were a field day. There were so many fucking bangers.” And then, thrifting became a social media craze, she says, “and the hell gates of high school students flooded in. Twelve people to each bin. Everyone fighting. Suddenly everyone’s a reseller, and instead of these kids intuitively knowing what’s good, they’re on their phones trying to figure out if it’s valuable.”

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‘It’s like bringing the kitchen into the piazza’: seven of the best Italian village food festivals https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jul/26/best-village-food-festivals-italy

Sagre – the historic local events that pop up in villages across the country in summer – are the perfect way to get a taste of regional cuisine and culture

I cannot remember a summer when at least one evening hasn’t been spent following signs to a local sagra. Not quite a food market and not quite a village fete, a sagra is like a village moving its kitchen outdoors for a few nights.

When I think back to those nights from childhood, the first image that comes to mind is of a woman’s hand closed into a fist above a pan of hot oil. Through a tight circle formed between her thumb and forefinger, she would squeeze soft lumps of batter, one small ball at a time, into the oil. In a few seconds, each soft mass would become a pittula, a small Salento fritter: swollen, uneven, golden, too hot to eat straight away but too good to wait for.

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‘We can see the boats that supply the restaurant’s lobsters from our seats’: a culinary tour of Gower, Wales https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jul/25/culinary-food-tour-gower-south-wales

On a coastline brimming with seafood shacks, crab sandwiches and hyperlocal flavour, our food writer is happy to be distracted from the stunning scenery

If we take it as read that the better the view, the worse the cooking, then by rights south Wales’s Gower peninsula should be a culinary desert. The first time I visited almost 15 years ago, I was unprepared for its loveliness – back in 1956, Gower (never the Gower, as locals were quick to correct me) was the first place in the UK to be designated an area of outstanding natural beauty, and though the peninsula abuts the country’s second city, Swansea, it still feels profoundly rural. Crisscrossed by narrow lanes flanked by towering hedges and ancient churches, it’s a great place to cycle, to drive, and above all to walk up an appetite.

Indeed, it’s been a long-held ambition of mine to hike the 43 miles of the Welsh Coast Path from Mumbles to Loughor. Sadly, it remains just that because on this latest trip I spent considerably more time chomping than yomping … though in fairness I was on a research mission for a walking trip with a friend here later in the summer, because as a food writer and semi-professional glutton, I never like to head anywhere unprepared.

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‘The captain told me to wear a nappy on board’ – why is air travel so humiliating for disabled passengers? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/24/the-captain-told-me-to-wear-a-nappy-on-board-why-is-air-travel-so-humiliating-for-disabled-passengers

From being abused by staff and other travellers to being denied access to toilets, flying is an increasingly distressing and frustrating experience for many wheelchair users. Here, they share their stories

When Hannah Babalola boarded KLM flight 598 on 26 May, she was tired. A Paralympic athlete, she had been competing at an event in South Africa’s Cape Town, and was hoping there would be no hold ups on her journey back home to Chicago.

Babalola, 37, is well-travelled. A former wheelchair racer, she now competes in marathons and has flown to dozens of countries over the years without big problems.

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‘Full of zesty colour and flavour’: readers’ favourite food festivals in Europe https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jul/24/readers-favourite-food-festivals-in-europe

From the Tiramisù World Cup in Italy to street food ‘battles’ in Newcastle, your culinary highlights range from the sublime to the delicious
Tell us about a book that inspired you to travel – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

The town of Menton on the French Riviera is beautiful at any time of the year but becomes even more of a treat during the annual Lemon festival (Fête du Citron, 10-28 February 2027). Its microclimate, courtesy of the Alps to the north blocking colder winds, gives Menton lemons a distinct fragrance, flavour and quality that set them apart. For me, the event transformed a damp cold UK winter into a fortnight of colour, taste and light. There were food tastings, salads made with lemons, tarts, cakes and pies all full of zesty colour and flavour at stalls and markets in the town. There are sculptures made from citrus fruit, parades and exhibitions in the Golden Garden of Light (Jardins Biovès). More than a food festival, it’s a celebration of what nature can give to the world.
April

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Readers reply: Some people want to break up the EU. Why not break up the US? https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/readers-reply-some-people-want-to-break-up-the-eu-why-not-break-up-the-us

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions looks at secessionary movements on both sides of the pond

• Answer the latest question: What is the true Breakfast of Champions?

If it’s wrong, as some would say, for European countries to come together as a fully federal European Union, rather than individual states, why is it right for the US to be a federation rather than separate states? It always strikes me that the EU gets unfairly criticised for a system that was established over the Atlantic many years back. The US hasn’t looked back, but has become powerful as a result of being an umbrella for smaller entities. Just imagine if each state needed its own army, air force and currency, with its own customs and border controls not to mention trade tariffs! There’d be no White House and no Congress. Why is it so wrong for European countries to want similar strength, coming together as a union? Howard Phillips, Lisbon

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

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Dining across the divide: ‘I worry the England flag is seen as racist – even at the World Cup’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/dining-across-the-divide-saima-liz-england-flag-world-cup

A retired teacher and a resident doctor found common ground over the NHS, but how did they fare on pensions?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Saima, 25, Birmingham

Occupation Resident doctor and postgraduate researcher

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What makes a woman a witch? Financial independence https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/26/women-witchcraft-financial-independence

Women aren’t being burnt at the stake any more, but there is still risk and violence implicit in the label ‘witch’

When Katherine Harrison’s husband passed away, she became the wealthiest woman in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Rather than wallow in her new status as a young widow she decided to run the farm she’d inherited on her own. She took up ranching and a slew of other hobbies including brewing ale, spinning yarn and beekeeping. She traded honey and beeswax for candles. She was by all accounts, headstrong, outspoken and clever.

In many corners of the internet, Harrison’s interests are having a moment. Craft brewers have been spruiking classic ales for years, urban beekeeping is surging in popularity, and people are looking to textile-based crafts as ways to practise mindfulness.

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Andrew O’Hagan: ‘The worst thing anyone’s said to me? That I was the spitting image of David Cameron’ https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jul/25/andrew-ohagan-interview-author-mayflies

The author on an encounter with the CIA, an embarrassing moment in church, and longing to hold hands with David Attenborough

Born in Glasgow, Andrew O’Hagan, 58, studied at the University of Strathclyde. In 1995, he published The Missing, a work of nonfiction. His debut novel, Our Fathers, was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1999; Be Near Me and The Illuminations were longlisted in 2006 and 2015. His recent novels are Caledonian Road and Mayflies. The latter was adapted for BBC television in 2022 and is now a play which will be performed at the Edinburgh fringe from 7 to 30 August. O’Hagan is editor at large for the London Review of Books; he lives in London with his wife and has a daughter.

What is your greatest fear?
I can’t say it.

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‘We count every litre’: how Cuba’s energy crisis sparked a daily struggle for water https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jul/26/we-count-every-litre-how-cubas-energy-crisis-sparked-a-daily-struggle-for-water

Power cuts not only leave people in the dark but leave taps dry, forcing millions of Cubans to spend their days fetching water any way they can

In the cramped kitchen of her flat in Havana’s Chinatown, Mirella Martínez pushes an old metal trolley stacked with empty jerrycans. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she fans herself gently. “It’s so hot!” she says, as the electric fans remain still due to another power outage that has left her flat sweltering in near darkness for hours.

Mirella Martínez’s flat in Havana has been without running water for nearly three years

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I grew up near Andy Burnham. This is what shaped the UK’s new PM https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/jul/25/view-from-andy-burnham-hometown-warrington-culcheth

In the Warrington suburb of Culcheth, people are hopeful about what one of their own can achieve as the first northern PM in half a century

The Cherry Tree pub is an unassuming local. On a busy road in the Cheshire village of Culcheth, it is a chain-run pub where four shots cost £8, every burger comes with a soft drink, and sport is shown all day on the big screens. It is also a favourite of Andy Burnham, the new prime minister.

Many of the drinkers have a story about – arguably – Culcheth’s most famous son.

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‘I thought, I’ve tried everything else, why not give AI a shot?’: the long-lost family reunited by ChatGPT https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2026/jul/25/long-lost-family-reunited-chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-ai

Avtar spent decades wondering what happened to the mother he never got to know. Thousands of miles away, Nicci was haunted by the story of a half-brother given away before she was born. How did a chatbot bring them together?

As a small boy growing up in Amritsar, India, in the 1960s, Avtar Singh used to hear whispers. Your mum isn’t really your mum, the rumours would say. Your mum lives abroad. Avtar didn’t really pay any attention to it. “I thought, the neighbours are just making up stories.” But the stories were true: the woman raising Avtar was actually his grandmother. When he was too young to remember it, his father had emigrated to Canada to work as a teacher, leaving Avtar in the care of his paternal grandparents. His grandfather, a police officer, was a fearsome authoritarian, but his grandmother brought him up with tenderness, as if he were her own son. She called him by his nickname, Titu. He felt loved.

When Avtar was around eight years old, he was told about his family in Canada: his dad, his mum and a little brother were waiting for him there, and he would soon travel to join them. Just after his ninth birthday, Avtar found himself sitting on a plane, dressed in a three‑piece suit and tie. He was travelling alone. He had never flown before. He didn’t speak a word of English. He landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Christmas Eve, 1968; his family met him at the airport and took him home. “I didn’t know what to think,” Avtar, now 66, tells me in a video call from his home in Abbotsford, British Columbia. “Before I knew it, it was the first week of January, and I was put in school.”

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Tell us: have you been affected by wildfires in Europe? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/08/tell-us-have-you-been-affected-by-the-wildfires-in-southern-europe

Wildfires are burning in parts of the UK and Europe, forcing people to leave their homes, disrupting travel and affecting communities. We would like to hear how the fires have impacted you

Wildfires are affecting communities in the UK and other parts of Europe, with people forced to evacuate their homes, travel disrupted and smoke affecting air quality in many areas.

In France, around 10,000 people have been evacuated from camping sites and other holiday accommodation near Bordeaux in the south-west on Thursday, as a wildfire ravaged a seaside pine forest, AFP news agency reported. The blaze in Le Porge had ripped through 2,400 hectares (5,900 acres) since Wednesday, officials said

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Parents: Tell us how are you balancing work and childcare this summer https://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/jul/21/parents-tell-us-how-balancing-work-childcare-summer

With the cost of holiday childcare rising and many parents juggling work with looking after children, we’d like to hear how you’re managing this summer

The summer holidays have begun, bringing the annual challenge many parents face in balancing work and looking after school-aged children. New research suggests arranging six weeks of holiday childcare can cost working parents up to £1,145 per child, while almost three-quarters of parents say the summer childcare juggle damages their career.

Are you paying for holiday clubs or childminders, relying on family and friends or working from home while caring for children? Are you taking annual leave, reducing your hours or working early mornings and late evenings to fit everything in?

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Tell us: do you help clean up your local area? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/23/tell-us-do-you-help-clean-up-your-local-area

Whether you’re part of a volunteer group or go out on solo clean-ups in the UK, we’d like to hear from you

Across the UK, people are getting together to clean up their local environments. Whether it be maintaining parkland, beaches, waterways or roadsides, we want to hear from the volunteers who are getting involved in the maintenance and preservation of their local areas.

Do you take part in weekly litter picking outings? Are you part of a group taking on the responsibility of keeping our beaches or rivers clean?

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Students and recent graduates: tell us your best and worst experiences of uni societies https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/15/students-and-recent-graduates-tell-us-your-best-and-worst-experiences-of-uni-societies

We would like to hear about the highs and lows of university clubs and societies

As a new academic year approaches, we would like to hear from students and recent graduates (five years ago or less) about their experiences of university clubs and societies that freshers might find instructive.

What was your best experience of a university club or society? And what was your worst?

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Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/sep/20/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email

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Sign up for the Filter UK newsletter: our free weekly buying advice https://www.theguardian.com/info/2024/oct/10/sign-up-for-the-filter-newsletter-our-free-weekly-buying-advice

Get smart, sustainable shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox, every Sunday

The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.

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Sign up for the Feast newsletter: our free Guardian food email https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/jul/09/sign-up-for-the-feast-newsletter-our-free-guardian-food-email

A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.

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Sign up to House to Home: our free interiors email https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/28/sign-up-for-the-house-to-home-newsletter

Upgrade your space today, with eight emails packed with tips to brighten up your home - whatever your budget

Embrace your space: the Guardian’s House to Home newsletter is bursting with tips and tricks to help you boost your bedroom and give your living room some love.

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Rainbow people and Katy Perry in a bottle: photos of the weekend https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2026/jul/26/rainbow-people-katy-perry-bottle-photos-of-the-weekend

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

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