After Ann Widdecombe’s murder, Reform UK has criticised the Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle and suggested its MPs are not given enough security. Pippa Crerar tells Kiran Stacey what Hoyle’s team have been telling her

Please keep sending your comments and questions to Pippa and Kiran at politicsweeklyuk@theguardian.com

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The new BBC documentary is so wondrous and awe-inspiring it will make you feel like a child again – and in Chris Packham, it has a presenter for the ages

Evolution is a coronation. With this new, five-part BBC nature documentary, the presenter Chris Packham is effectively crowned the successor to David Attenborough. And a worthy one, I think most would agree.

Packham has all the great man’s passion for his subject and the willingness and ability to share his knowledge as accessibly as possible. He treads the line between assuming nothing and not infantilising his audience as nimbly as Attenborough does.

Love’s Labour’s Lost offers a heady mix of passion and death – which makes the Spanish art form a perfect match, says director Indiana Lown-Collins. Our writer joins the theatre’s flamenco bootcamp

On a heatwave day in London, Shakespeare’s Globe has turned into a fiesta. Hard-heeled boots strike the wooden boards with rat-a-tat rhythm, skirts swish, a guitar strums, voices rise along with the temperature. Perched in front of the stage is director Indiana Lown-Collins, who is zhooshing up one of Shakespeare’s wordiest plays with a hot flourish of flamenco.

Lown-Collins is half-Spanish and grew up in Spain where flamenco was her way into the arts. Working as resident associate director at the Globe a few years ago, she fell in love with the building and its acoustics and couldn’t stop thinking how well flamenco would work on its oak stage, ringing around the circular space. “I just knew it would sound incredible,” she says.

After a wild attack on the media, Reform’s deputy leader joins other MPs in the Commons offering tributes rather than speculation

This is the third murder of either a sitting or former MP that I’ve covered in the last 10 years. It doesn’t get any easier or less shocking. Every death diminishes us all. The least you would hope is for politicians to behave with dignity. To set an example. For those who knew Ann Widdecombe to express their personal loss, for party leaders and ministers to convey the horror of her death and offer their condolences to her family and friends. Probably best for everyone else to say as little as possible for now.

The police have asked for everyone to refrain from speculating about the motives of the suspect, who, as of Monday lunchtime, was still being questioned by counter-terrorism officers, and not to politicise the murder if possible. A time for our political class to behave like grownups. And the overwhelming majority have done that. Just for now, even Nigel Farage has stopped acting as if he were the detective leading the investigation by offering his insights to every passing TV crew, and has fallen silent.

Doing a split may look impressive, but experts caution it should not be done without practice and it may not be for everyone

On Love Island USA’s recent eighth season, contestant Kenzie Annis quickly distinguished herself with her ability to perform the splits, abruptly deploying the maneuver in fits of both delight and rage.

Seeing the splits on TV shows such as Love Island and RuPaul’s Drag Race can make people “want to take on that challenge and to push themselves to new heights”, said Ramoni Overton, a yoga instructor and YouTuber based in Los Angeles.

The actor, who has died aged 78, recently answered Guardian readers’ questions about missing out on James Bond, the true terrors of Jurassic Park and why he called his prize cow Helena Bonham Carter

• Peter Bradshaw on Sam Neill

• A life in pictures

• ‘A true gentleman’: actors, directors and leaders pay tribute to Sam Neill

• Obituary

• Neill interviewed in 2023, 2024 and 2026

Did you consult a canine expert about how best to regress into a dog in Dean Spanley? WomanofWolfville
There was no consultation. I’ve studied dogs – wittingly or unwittingly – over the years, so the portrayal came from that.

I’ve had dogs all my life. I understand them better than I do people. I had a Staffy for 15 years. They are the most expressive of dogs – every flicker of guilt or pleasure is written all over their faces. If I had to leave, my dog wouldn’t take it well. I’d pack in secret – if she saw a suitcase, she’d plunge into despair. When I returned, she’d walk right past me and shun me as punishment. I’d think: “Are you ever going to forgive me?”

Shock development based on ‘new information and evidence’ renews debate over security of politicians

British counter-terrorism police are now leading the investigation into the death of the former MP and Reform spokesperson Ann Widdecombe in a shock development that has renewed the debate over the security of politicians.

Widdecombe’s body was found with serious injuries by the ambulance service at her home in Haytor Vale, Devon, at 11.40am on Thursday. A 28-year-old man from Rotherham is being held in custody on suspicion of her murder.

Additional 27 nominations mean it is impossible for any other candidate to launch leadership challenge

Andy Burnham is to become Britain’s next prime minister after winning the backing of 349 Labour MPs, including all eligible members of Keir Starmer’s current cabinet, making it impossible for any rival to secure enough nominations to challenge him.

The new MP for Makerfield received an extra 27 nominations on Monday, taking his total from 322 last week to 349. With only 54 MPs yet to back him, including Starmer and Shabana Mahmood, who cannot nominate because of her role as national executive committee (NEC) chair, no other candidate can now reach the 81 nominations needed to enter the contest.

Operator brings in independent legal firm to look into whistleblower allegations relating to June heatwave

Great Britain’s grid operator has brought in independent investigators to look into accusations that its staff were involved in a cover-up over the power system being at a greater risk of blackouts during the heatwave.

The government-owned energy system operator will face the scrutiny of an external legal firm after a whistleblower claimed that control room staff were warned against leaving a paper trail relating to efforts to stabilise the power system during record high temperatures in late June.

US president says strait will remain open ‘with or without’ Iran and there will be a 20% rate charged on all cargo shipped; Iran’s foreign minister shot back that Iran would charge a lower rate

• Trump renews Iran blockade and again threatens to take control of strait of Hormuz

Bahrain’s military has accused Iran of targeting civilians with its latest attacks on the country, after Tehran said it had struck US military facilities and infrastructure there earlier.

“Iran continues its systematic hostile approach through its heinous attacks with missiles and drones that target civilians in the Kingdom of Bahrain,” the general command of Bahrain’s military said, adding that air defences “intercepted and destroyed a number of Iranian aerial attacks” this morning.

National Fire Chiefs Council say emergency services dealing with 19 wildfires across Britain, many near urban areas

The UK is in the grip of a “firewave”, as the summer’s extreme heat produces the ideal conditions for wildfires, scientists and environmentalists have warned.

A particular danger was that more blazes seem to be taking place closer to urban areas rather than in remote countryside, causing hazards to homes and health, they said.

Ukraine and nine other countries including UK issue joint statement as leaders meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris

Ukraine and nine other countries including the UK, Germany and France are to build a shared protection programme for Europe against ballistic missiles, using Kyiv’s experience in fighting Russia’s full-scale invasion for more than four years.

“Our goal is to build a shared ballistic missile defence capability for Europe,” the 10 nations said in a statement on Monday as leaders met the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for talks in Paris.

Three of those arrested were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, say counter-terrorism police

Twelve people have been arrested, including three on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, over a suspected far-right threat against an Islamic event held over the weekend, police have said.

Counter-terrorism police are leading the investigation, which they said was related to “extreme rightwing terrorism” targeting an event held at Shrubland Hall in Suffolk.

General Synod hears that Project Spire has not been abandoned but staff have received ‘vile abuse’ from critics

• What is Project Spire and why is it dividing the Church of England?

The Church of England is facing a legal challenge over Project Spire, its £100m plan to further reparative justice for historical links to enslavement, as staff come under “vile abuse” from critics.

At the General Synod in York over the weekend, Stephen Cottrell, the archbishop of York, defended the project as a “work of healing, justice and repair”.

Pilot took off from Liverpool and spent 20 minutes tracing out phrase that was captured on flight-tracking website

A mischievous airline pilot spelled out his tedium by skywriting “I’m bored” over an estuary on the border between England and Wales.

The message was captured on the airline tracking website Flightradar24.

In the wake of Ann Widdecombe’s murder, members of Reform UK have called out the house of commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle suggesting that Reform UK MPs do not get enough security support.

Spokespeople like Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice have pitched this as the “establishment” vs Reform UK argument, just as Nigel Farage did when he resigned as MP for Clacton.

Pippa Crerar has been speaking to people in Lindsay Hoyle’s team who have pushed back angrily at Reform UK’s claims.

Record numbers find there is little demand for their skills, as entry-level tech roles are hit by AI and automation

This time of year is graduation season in China: traditionally a bittersweet period of solemn goodbyes and family celebrations as university students transition from campus life into adulthood. Now it also increasingly represents trepidation about the future.

Each year, millions more graduates are thrust into China’s already saturated jobs market. The situation for this year’s cohort, flooding into an increasingly crowded pool of applicants fighting for an insufficient number of positions, is arguably the bleakest yet.

President and allies have sued, cut access and issued subpoenas, but experts say media still producing strong work

Donald Trump has ramped up his attacks on the media to a level without precedent in American history in the first 17 months of his second presidency.

But have Trump and his allies won their war against the media – or at least put the industry on a weaker footing than in the past? The answer isn’t so straightforward.

The new Alejandro González Iñárritu film sees Cruise playing an eccentric oil baron on a mission to save the world

The first full length trailer for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s hotly anticipated comedy-drama Digger has been released, and with it audiences’ first look at Tom Cruise’s least recognisable role since he donned a fatsuit and prosthetics for 2008’s Tropic Thunder.

The film will be released worldwide in early October and stars Cruise as Digger Rockwell, “the most powerful man in the world” on a mission to save the world from an ecological disaster.

How Diego Simeone, Michael Owen and Glenn Hoddle remember the two classic World Cup matches between historical rivals

In all the acrimony, the wars, the deep history going back to the British invasions of 1806 and 1807, the Hand of God and the boot of Beckham, there is also an acknowledgment from those closest to the struggle that England and Argentina make perfect footballing sparring partners.

Described as the only trans-continental derby, a rivalry hewn in politics and history as well as football folklore, most Argentinian footballers’ eyes light up when talk turns to England.

Planning a summer camping trip? From spacious family-size tents to festival-friendly pop-ups, these are our top picks for a pitch-perfect holiday

• The best camping mattresses and sleeping mats

Sleeping under canvas is a simple, affordable and joyful experience. A good camping or festival trip lives or dies by one thing, though: a decent tent. You need somewhere roomy, waterproof and comfortable to sleep and hang out in, especially if the weather isn’t looking so balmy.

Tents come in many shapes and sizes, from one-person models aimed at wild campers to more palatial shelters that will sleep the whole family in different bedrooms. Even if you’re bringing a teeny-tiny tent backpacking, bikepacking or wild camping, it needs to be comfortable and weatherproof, with room for all your kit. I’ve selected 10 of the best camping tents to suit just about every adventure, from ultralight backpacking tents to spacious family tents.

Best tent overall:
MSR Hubba Hubba NX

Best budget tent:
Coleman Darwin 3 Plus

England’s quarter-final match against Norway has spawned a new hero online – and it’s not Jude Bellingham …

Name: Victoria Beckham.

Appearance: Supremely unbothered.

Thailand’s urban and rural environments are home to a vast population of stray animals whose safety depends on delicate networks of care. Photographer Jackson Morrow spent three years with the Soi Dog Foundation documenting the systems that shape their survival.

• Some readers may find these images distressing

It’s after midnight and Dr Bow is already awake when her phone starts to ring. She sleeps lightly when she is on call, and she knows who is calling before she picks up the phone.

Two dogs, recently rescued from an illegal dog meat trade sale, breathe through holes cut into canvas sacks as a trader kneels before the local police chief following an enforcement operation in Bulacan, Philippines.

Midfielder covered the most ground in win over Norway while Villa man’s cameo impressed Thomas Tuchel

Elliot Anderson can be forgiven for needing additional time to recover from his exertions in the cauldron of Miami. As Manchester City’s new record signing reflected on England’s extra-time victory over Norway with his fellow Geordie, John Murray, from BBC Radio 5 Live, there was no hiding his pure exhaustion.

“It was so tough. So tough,” said Anderson, who covered 14.8km in stifling humidity – the most of any England player, beating his captain, Harry Kane, by a few hundred metres. “I was cramping up a few times [in extra time]. But the fighting spirit the lads have is amazing to be part of. The fans should be proud of the amount of fight and determination we showed.”

Head coach has found a way to get the best out of his glittering attack and has a second World Cup in sight

It was a night when, as Didier Deschamps put it, the light went out by half-time. A remodelled France side had been comfortably beaten by Italy in their Nations League opener and a Parisian crowd made their feelings perfectly clear upon the conclusion. Three days later Les Bleus’ roadshow moved to Lyon for a meeting with Belgium, where the head coach’s name was booed before kick-off. Deschamps attributed that to provincial enmities but there was the clear sense of a once glorious tenure outlasting its welcome.

Almost two years on, Deschamps stands on the verge of genuine greatness. How can the assessment be any other way when, should the next six days go to plan, he would be only the second manager to win the World Cup twice? The power is firmly back on for France and will surge to new levels if they underline his renaissance against Spain.

The World Cup spotlight causes single games to live longer in the memory than any other. The remaining teams at this tournament face defining moments

World Cup games mean more. England have only ever played 80 games in the finals, which is to say, not much more than two Premier League seasons in the 76 years since they first entered. Those games draw huge audiences: more than 17 million in the UK watched Saturday’s win over Norway, even though it was after midnight by the time it finished. In most countries, World Cup matches are more discussed, more analysed, than any other in sport, perhaps any other cultural phenomenon. They are rare moments that bring vast numbers of people together, hoping, agonising, celebrating, commiserating. They become part of the culture.

Moments from games become touchstones. Allusions can be made to games from six decades ago in the reasonable expectation of being understood. That has a strange, distorting effect. Far too much is read into individual games, in a way it just wouldn’t be in a league game. Senne Lammens’s error that cost Belgium the quarter-final against Spain was watched by far more people than watch the average Manchester United game. There is not another match in three or four days that would mean Lammens’s mistake would be readily forgotten. It will always be part of his story, even if it subsequently becomes about redemption with a brilliant display in some future World Cup.

• Bielsa departed after acrimonious World Cup exit

• Former United striker takes charge until March 2027

The former Manchester United striker Diego Forlán is poised to take over on a temporary basis as the new Uruguay manager after Marcelo Bielsa left the role following a sorry World Cup campaign.

La Celeste were knocked out at the tournament’s group stage after two draws from their three games, before Bielsa took the blame for the disappointing results and performances amid reported tensions in the dressing room.

Defending champions will pose a threat with Messi’s genius, but their lack of width and energy in the midfield offers encouragement for Thomas Tuchel

Switzerland knew how to deal with Lionel Messi. They congested the centre of the pitch and made it impossible for him to find angles for threaded passes or rapier finishes. One of Messi’s trademark moves, when the tempo has slowed, is to go through the gears with a quick bounce pass off one of his teammates near the edge of the area. The idea is that Messi then has room to unwind his left boot and produce the inevitable, but it did not work out in the quarter-final. Instead, Messi ran into a formidable wall of red, only finding space to work Gregor Kobel moments before Julián Alvarez’s winner. Much of Argentina’s setup is designed to put Messi, whose non-contribution off the ball is priced into everything, in optimal positions to wreak havoc. Against Switzerland, the 39-year-old had, by his stratospheric standards, a quiet game even if he still managed to assist Alexis Mac Allister’s goal from a corner. “Stop Messi” is a tactic that sounds good in principle, but most have found impossible to execute. Maybe England have been shown the way.

Mr Blobby, the Liz Truss lettuce, Boaty McBoatface … the Clacton hopeful is part of a rich tradition – and a reminder that it’s laughter that defines us, not hate

Nigel Farage’s pointless byelection in Clacton, in which he will stand against Count Binface, has inadvertently pitted two versions of Britain against one another. In one corner we have those who will argue that we are divided, cynical and jaded, that Britain isn’t what it once was and there is little to celebrate. And in the other corner we have the lovers of nonsense, ready to bind us back together with the unifying force of laughter.

Count Binface symbolises what I like to call Silly Sausage Britain. The Britain that has a laugh and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but is underpinned by self-deprecation, our kindness toward each other and fairness. This is the Britain of comedians such as Victoria Wood and Bob Mortimer, Romesh Ranganathan and Daisy May Cooper, Elis James and Meera Syal. It’s the adverts for Yorkshire Tea, Tango and Irn-Bru and it’s the Liz Truss lettuce. It’s 2p arcade machines and queen of “hun culture” Alison Hammond’s laugh.

The actor, who has died aged 78, was refreshingly candid about Hollywood, filmmaking, his cancer treatment – and why he preferred life on his New Zealand farm to the movie business

• Sam Neill’s 20 best performances

• A life in pictures

• ‘A true gentleman’: actors, directors and leaders pay tribute to Sam Neill

• Obituary

• Neill interviewed in 2023, 2024 and 2026

I interviewed Sam Neill in 2024, remotely: he was in Vancouver filming a Netflix series, Untamed, but we were there to talk about a quirky Australian court-room drama, The Twelve. He was immediately, disarmingly frank. Its second season, he said, was “considerably stronger” than the first, which was absolutely true, the first being a little schlocky, and the second showing more trust in its audience and our tolerance for nuance.

But actors, generally speaking, will never say anything remotely critical of any project, it’s just not worth the hassle. This can make even the most reflective among them sound anodyne, and the feeling of being in a conversation with a real, three-dimensional human was unfamiliar and warm.

Success against antisemitism in the UK will be achieved when schools and synagogues don’t need police protection. Let’s build bridges between communities

When arsonists attacked Finchley Reform Synagogue earlier this year, the physical damage was mercifully limited. The fear travelled much further.

For years, it was my community: I sang at Friday night services, taught b’nai mitzvah students, and its former rabbi officiated at my wedding. Seeing it targeted felt painfully personal, part of a pattern that has led to British Jews changing routines, concealing symbols of our identity and wondering whether the places we gather in can be kept safe.

David Davidi-Brown is chief executive of the New Israel Fund

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

The suffering of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is no isolated case. The abuse of Palestinian detainees is happening in plain sight, yet nothing changes

“This is the end. I don’t see myself surviving. They brought me here to kill me.” These were the words of Dr Hussam Abu Safiya to his lawyer earlier this month. Abu Safiya was the director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza. Eighteen months ago he was seized by Israeli forces and has since been held without charge or trial. He reports being struck with hammers and batons, daily beatings and loss of consciousness. The latest images of him show a much gaunter man than the one who had been the voice of besieged healthcare workers in Gaza, doing their jobs in impossible circumstances.

In June, Abu Safiya was transferred to Rakefet prison, an underground facility first built to hold senior organised crime figures, then closed on the grounds that it was inhumane. It was reopened in late 2023 by the far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Abu Safiya and the other Palestinian prisoners there never see daylight, a violation of the Geneva conventions. Across the Palestinian territories and Israel, about 3,500 prisoners like him are held under “administrative detention” that can be renewed every six months, indefinitely. Nearly 200 of them are children. Once a Palestinian is detained under these rules, they are essentially abducted by the state.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

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

The psychotherapist Amy Morin says uttering a ‘short, positive sentence’ can offer the cognitive reset we need. The idea makes me cringe – but then I can barely cope with returning defective trousers

Are you dreading a high-stakes meeting, a challenging professional task or an awkward conversation? I’m not, because I’m a craven coward who has dodged that kind of unpleasantness for years. If only I had a “power phrase” to activate, maybe things would have been different.

That is the psychotherapist Amy Morin’s advice for dealing with sticky situations. The author of The Mental Strength Playbook, Morin explained in Business Insider that a “short, positive sentence you say to yourself in the moment” is an effective two-minute cognitive reset. She used hers, she says, while answering challenging questions to land her book deal: “I activated my power phrase and told myself, I’m a strong, straightforward communicator.”

I’ve been asked to put away the dog bed – and even my shower gel. Surely prospective buyers should know that I’ll take all my mess with me when I leave

Trying to sell a house is pretty much a once-a-decade event for me, so I shouldn’t be surprised that times have changed. When I sold my first flat in 2006, the norm was actively anti-tidy. Obviously you’d spirit away food waste and animal detritus, maybe you’d put a lid on your laundry basket, but the market was overheated; everything was nonsensically expensive. In that respect it was much like it is now, except that back then, we were still surprised and a bit baffled. Consequently, a bit of visible wear and tear was beneficial, because people felt they might be getting a bargain from a dumb seller, rather than spending 50 grand over the odds for some pristine skirting boards.

Fast forward a decade, and things had changed somewhat. Everyone had got used to not being able to afford shelter, but the market was much slower, so you did have to spruce up your quarters a bit. For instance, I’d once managed to spill a triple espresso on the outside of the house, a vivid dark brown splash that no amount of weather, over the years, managed to shift. I remember arguing with the estate agent about whether or not I should get someone to paint over it – my point being, “What a silly notion, when the next people might want to paint the entire front some colour other than white,” and his view, to the contrary, being, “It’s just a bit off-putting, entering into a commercial exchange with someone who would spill coffee on their own house and never get round to painting over it. You’d wonder what else they hadn’t dealt with. Subsidence. Electrical hazard. A squirrel colony in the attic.” In retrospect I am ashamed at how slowly he had to walk me through this.

The far right leader’s career is not the issue: it’s whether a politician with her record has a legitimate right to seek office

For many years, I have observed Marine Le Pen and her party and how they operate in France. I have heard their xenophobic, anti-immigrant rhetoric and felt it contaminate French political life. It is a rhetoric rooted in the history of a party founded by figures from France’s postwar far right. Nothing they do or say surprises me any more. But even by their standards the crime is extraordinary.

A French court of appeal confirmed last week that Le Pen was guilty of a central role in orchestrating a scheme that systematically embezzled public funds for more than a decade. That the investigation also took 10 years may explain the absence of public shock waves, or why the focus has been on Le Pen’s future political moves rather than on her misdeeds. So let’s recap.

Rokhaya Diallo is a French journalist, film-maker, activist and Guardian Europe columnist.

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Grooming gang victims have been treated appallingly and are rightly angry. But the loss of confidence in the criminal justice system goes wider

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, is not personally responsible for the mess that the government finds itself in with regard to the release from prison of Shabir Ahmed, who was a ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang, earlier this month. Ahmed, who has spent most of his life in the UK, was stripped of British citizenship soon after his conviction for rape and sex trafficking in 2012.

His victims were led to believe when the Tories were in power that he would be deported to Pakistan on his release. They and their supporters now want this pledge to be honoured. The home secretary has announced that the law will be changed to enable this to happen. Whether or not she keeps her job under Andy Burnham, the signs point to the deportation going ahead if Pakistan’s government can be persuaded to give up demanding the return of Pakistani dissidents as its price.

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.

Robust action is needed to protect European industries from unfair competition. The alternative is social strife amid growing insecurity

According to a recent analysis, China enjoys a surplus in its manufactured goods trade with the European Union that is roughly equivalent to Italy’s national income. That trade disparity, it is estimated, continues to grow by about 30% each year. The stark implication, according to a paper from Centre for European Reform, is that Europe, with Germany in the frontline, risks “deindustrialisation at China’s hand”.

The gravity of the threat was grimly evident in the car industry last week, as Volkswagen’s supervisory board met to discuss radical proposals to cut 100,000 jobs – around a sixth of the company’s global workforce – and close plants. Taking into account indirect as well as direct employment, the automotive sector is responsible for around 3m jobs in Germany. But manufacturers in the country’s flagship industry have found themselves in a triple bind.

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.

Susan Randall on Stephen Timms’ Pip review and those with longstanding mental illness and Ruth Lister on why social security spending shouldn’t be called ‘welfare’. Plus letters from Luke Howard and Katie Medd

With reference to your editorial (The Guardian view on disability benefits: Pip must not become another route for cuts, 10 July), and speaking as someone who has contributed to Sir Stephen Timms’ review on behalf of family carers dealing with those with serious mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, I fully support a substantial revision of the whole approach to personal independence payment (Pip) assessment.

The assessment process is currently a daunting one for those who are justifiably applying for this much‑needed support.

Katie Kempen says victims are bearing the brunt of a broken prison system, while Frances Crook believes there are good reasons for early release

Hearing that their perpetrators may be released months or even years earlier than expected will strike fear into the hearts of many victims and survivors (Lack of safeguards over prisoners’ early release puts abuse victims at risk, Lammy warned, 8 July). Worse still, unless eligible for the victim contact scheme, which few are, most victims have no way of finding out in advance if they are affected.

Fixing the prisons crisis is essential, but victims and survivors must not be an afterthought in the government’s plan. A failure to get it right could irreparably damage victims’ sense of safety and trust in the justice system. Once again, victims are bearing the brunt of a broken system. Every victim deserves to be listened to, treated with respect and given the timely support and information they need.
Katie Kempen
Chief executive, Victim Support

Jane Lawson says it would be good to hear men’s stories and for them to perhaps accept some accountability

Lots of tears have been shed and lots of blame apportioned to various institutions about forced adoptions (Letters, 8 July). But women have always been blamed for “getting themselves pregnant”. This comes principally from men in authority – from politicians to priests and the men at the head of the household. Always, it was the young mother who was shamed and left to bear the baby, and then lose it for ever.

I’m left wondering why the fathers of these babies seem to have been removed from the narrative of blame. Many were married and their denials were believed. Some were frightened young men without the courage or means “to make an honest woman of her” and sadly some were men in high office, or even priests, whose transgressions were quietly covered up.

Humility for runners | Carspreading and ESVs | Reform UK and Nathan Gill | Party rebrand for Count Binface | Ernő Rubik

I was delighted by Alan Martin’s article on taking part in parkrun (I’ve completed 355 parkruns – here’s what you need to get started, 8 July). As a parkrun obsessive (252 runs and 126 volunteering sessions at 88 different venues) with a respectable personal best time of 20:05, I have learned that you only really need one thing to participate: the humility to accept that you’ve just been overtaken by a fellow runner pushing a buggy.
Ralph Fyfe
Newton Abbot, Devon

• Regarding Christian Wolmar’s article on large cars (Britain’s cars and SUVs are growing bigger – but there is a way to stop this deadly ‘carspreading’, 12 July), isn’t part of the problem that many SUVs are bought and driven as ESVs: emotional support vehicles?
Martyn Wilson
Malvern Link, Worcestershire

Novak Djokovic’s five-set quarter-final thriller, Linda Noskova’s courage and Jannik Sinner’s class were among the highlights at SW19

It takes a certain amount of toughness and inner belief to keep moving forward after an excruciating setback. In the last match Jannik Sinner played before Wimbledon, he was on the receiving end of a shocking collapse in his French Open second-round loss to Juan Manuel Cerundolo. He responded by gradually building in every round, turning in a flawless 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 win over Novak Djokovic . Then he elevated his level against a peaking Alexander Zverev to defeat the new No 2 in four sets. Sinner’s run to a fifth grand slam title showcased his dramatic serve improvements, defensive skills, drop shots and lobs alongside the clean, vicious ball-striking that defines his play.

England Test head coach vacancy may not appeal to the Zimbabwean who is at the top of his field

That Andy Flower emerged as the favourite to take over England’s Test team so soon after Brendon McCullum’s demotion should come as no surprise. Put simply, the Zimbabwean is the leading active head coach on the circuit.

During his first spell in the job from 2009 to 2014, England won three successive Ashes series, ended a 27-year wait to win a Test series in India, and rose to No 1 in the Test rankings. The men’s white-ball team also broke its duck in global tournaments by lifting the World T20 in the Caribbean in 2010. Flower has since carved out a successful second career. In franchise cricket, his teams have won the Pakistan Super League, the Hundred, the ILT20, and the Indian Premier League (twice). When Australia broke India’s hearts by securing the 2023 World Cup, Flower was in their camp as a batting consultant.

Slovenian’s dominance has drawn admiration and criticism, with some fearing the race is losing its competitive edge

Riding the Tour de France in 40C heat is hard enough without having to race against Tadej Pogacar and UAE Team Emirates XRG every day. As the peloton takes a breather, lounges in the shade and rehydrates on the Tour’s first rest day, most team managers are pondering what genuine opportunities they may still have, in the face of Pogacar’s domination, to try to achieve success.

After he and his team were criticised for chasing down breakaways, even if they posed little or no threat to the overall standings, L’Équipe asked: “Is Pogacar killing cycling?”

• Midfielder thought to have £35m release clause

• Deal for Atalanta’s Éderson falls through

Manchester United are closing in on the signing of Youri Tielemans from Aston Villa after their move for the Atalanta midfielder Éderson fell through.

Jason Wilcox, United’s director of football, is in advanced talks with Villa regarding a financial package for Tielemans. The 29-year-old, who was part of Belgium’s World Cup squad, is thought to have a £35m release clause in his contract, which has two years remaining.

Yorkshireman, who admitted feeling the stress with six holes to go, won by one shot with his fiancee as his caddie

A greenside bunker shot that landed like a butterfly with sore feet. A knee-knocker of a 4ft putt, thumped into the back of the hole. Joe Dean did not win the Open Championship on Monday – and inevitably will not on Sunday, either – but the drama produced by the former delivery driver from Sheffield fully justified R&A innovation.

It has long seemed unsatisfactory that focus shifts towards those beginning their Open buildup as a tournament concludes elsewhere. Scottie Scheffler missed the cut at the Scottish Open on Friday yet the world No 1 drew eyeballs at here on Sunday as he plotted a Claret Jug defence.

• Only Test: India, 285 & 341-7dec, bt England, 170 & 186, by 270 runs

• Ecclestone hits milestone half-century on final morning

India defeated England by 270 runs in the one-off Test here, a famous victory that will go some way to making up for their failure to reach the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup this month. The first women’s Test to take place at the ground broke the world record attendance figure, attracting a crowd of 37,846 across three-and-a-bit days.

England batted for long enough on the fourth morning to allow Sophie Ecclestone to reach her first half-century in an England shirt.

Culture, media and sport committee questions bear a striking similarity to those racing industry has been asking

Last Tuesday’s announcement by the Gambling Commission that it planned to introduce “financial risk assessments” – or affordability checks – for gambling customers seemed to mark the end of racing’s fierce, five-and-a-half-year campaign against the policy, but there has been a further twist to the extended tale after it emerged that the House of Commons’ culture, media and sport committee (CMSC) has written to the commission, requesting answers to a series of questions on the checks by 24 July.

The cross-party committee’s questions for the regulator bear a striking similarity to many of those that the racing industry has been asking – to little or no avail – since checks were first proposed under the last Conservative government in late 2020.

Senator Angus King raised concerns that ICE agents were not wearing body cameras; witnesses described the man as being shot in the head

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The Democrat’s outgoing senator for Michigan Gary Peters has endorsed member of Congress Haley Stevens to be his successor over Abdul El-Sayed in the state’s neck-and-neck primary race set for 4 August.

“She has demonstrated to me time and time again that she’s a fighter,” Peters told the Detroit News. “We need workhorses in the Senate, and we need someone who can do that job from day one. This is not a place for on-the-job training.”

Exclusive: Three men killed in incidents over past year allegedly involving G4S guards, who replaced in-house team after previous deaths

Bereaved families and politicians have raised alarm about continued killings on Del Monte’s pineapple farm in Kenya despite the company hiring a British security firm to replace its in-house security team after previous deaths were exposed by the Guardian.

The multinational food company appointed G4S to guard the farm, which is estimated to cover at least 40 sq km, the area of a small city, after the Guardian detailed allegations of brutal assaults and killings of people suspected of trespassing on its land. Kenyan police have been working with G4S to guard the site.

Cyclosporiasis outbreak comes a year after Trump officials cut funding for state and local health departments

• What is cyclosporiasis, the parasitic illness causing ‘explosive’ diarrhea?

State health officials in Michigan and Ohio are reporting thousands of cases of cyclosporiasis – a parasitic infection that causes “watery diarrhea”, loss of appetite and weight loss.

The outbreak of more than 2,800 cases comes a year after the Trump administration cut funding to state and local health departments and reduced the remit of a program dedicated to coordinating information on foodborne illness, including of cyclospora.

Oliver Blume tells staff restructuring proposal includes ‘controversial decisions’ but he has broad support

• Business live – latest updates

The chief executive of Volkswagen has confirmed plans to cut 50,000 more jobs despite the carmaker’s supervisory board rejecting his plan to shut four factories in Germany.

Oliver Blume told staff on Monday that proposals for a sprawling restructuring was “the most comprehensive realignment in the company’s history” and revolved around “12 initiatives, approximately 150 pages and 45 individual resolutions” for change.

Detection of erythrulose shows compounds that are key to life can form in expanse between stars

A natural sugar found in raspberries and used in fake tan lotions has been detected in an enormous cloud of dust and gas that lurks near the heart of the Milky Way.

The discovery does not suggest that the galaxy revolves around a distant civilisation of pale, safety-conscious frugivores, but shows that compounds important for life can form in the frigid expanse between the stars.

More than 90 residents have expressed interest in contamination claim against AGC Chemicals Europe

A Pfas factory in Lancashire has announced plans to close down, just days after the Guardian revealed that more than 90 residents had signed up to be involved in a potential legal claim over contamination of the local area.

AGC Chemicals Europe is consulting with employees and their union representatives about plans to cease operations at its manufacturing plant in Thornton-Cleveleys, Lancashire. The consultation is expected to last for at least 45 days.

Critics accuse ministers of failing to take control of nature crisis and leaving it to private landowners to act voluntarily

The government’s plan to protect and restore nature in England by 2030 has been condemned as “pathetic” and “completely insufficient” in the face of the spiralling environmental crisis.

The long-awaited plan published on Monday calls for landowners to voluntarily opt to protect and enhance nature, rather than creating legal protections for nature across more of the country’s land, critics say.

As US water wars rage, a tributary of the Colorado River faces unprecedented pressure. Visitors worry how long this aquatic ‘relict’ will last

On an early morning in mid-May, a group of near strangers shoved camping gear and clothes into waterproof bags, slathered on sunscreen, and ambled into the bright-yellow rafts that would carry them down one of the last free-flowing rivers in the American west.

Unhindered by large dams or diversions, the Yampa curves across 250 miles (400km) of alpine tundras, cottonwood forests and ancient red-rock canyons, rising from Colorado’s Rocky mountains to where it joins with the Green River in Utah, much in the way it has for millions of years.

High temperatures and below average rainfall put pressure on waterways used to cool reactors

Above average temperatures combined with below average rainfall across much of western and central Europe during June and the first half of July have placed increasing pressure on rivers, ecosystems and energy infrastructure. Persistent high pressure brought prolonged sunshine, suppressed rainfall and enhanced evaporation, causing river levels to fall and water temperatures to increase.

These unusually warm rivers are affecting electricity generation in France, as several nuclear power stations rely on river water for cooling. Under French environmental regulations, operators must limit the amount of heat discharged back into rivers, meaning electricity output may need to be reduced when water temperatures become too high.

Home Office announces move that officials say comes close to proscribing group as a terrorist organisation

The UK will ban support for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Keir Starmer said on Monday, in a move that officials said came close to proscribing the military group as a terrorist organisation.

The prime minister announced his government would designate the branch of the Iranian military under a new National Security Act, enabling law enforcement to take action against anyone deemed to be providing it with support.

Initiative with Derbyshire Libraries aims to boost access to cultural experiences and ‘champion reading for pleasure’

When Kate, a 47-year-old contract worker came face to face with Charlotte Brontë’s handwriting while visiting Chatsworth House, the avid reader, who counts Jane Eyre as her favourite book, struggled to contain her excitement.

“I had a little bit of a moment,” she said. “I just thought: ‘Wow, that was actually Charlotte Brontë’s writing there on that page.’ That was pretty special.”

Suspension of family reunion route has left many stuck in conflict zones or using people smugglers to reach safety

More than 16,000 refugees have been unable to reunite with families in the UK, leaving them either stuck in conflict zones or resorting to using people-smugglers to reach safety, according to the Refugee Council.

The government suspended the refugee family reunion route last September. It allowed a person granted refugee status to apply to bring immediate family members such as a spouse and their children under 18 to reunite with them in the UK. The indication was that the suspension would last until the spring of this year.

Three-year plan will deliver an extra 500 officers to patrol Jewish neighbourhoods after series of antisemitic incidents

More than £250m will be invested by the government to increase policing in Jewish communities after a spate of violent attacks, the Home Office has announced.

The funding over the next three years will deliver more than 500 additional officers across England and Wales in Jewish neighbourhoods and around schools, synagogues and community centres, while strengthening national counter-terrorism capabilities.

Lawmakers face obstacles, including demands from Trump, Mitch McConnell’s absence and senator’s sudden death

Republican lawmakers return to the Capitol this week facing a lengthy to-do list and Donald Trump’s demands for new voting restrictions, as Democrats jockey for an advantage ahead of the November midterm elections.

Lawmakers from both parties are eager to highlight before voters legislative victories ahead of the midterms, when control of Congress is at stake. But for Senate Republicans, who are already navigating an array of demands from Trump, their agenda grew further complicated over the weekend with the death of Lindsey Graham, the budget committee chair who was a key player in negotiating a party-line bill to fund additional defense spending and other priorities outlined by the president.

Ursula von der Leyen’s commitment comes after panel of experts calls for restriction for under-13s

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has pledged an EU-wide social media ban for children after an expert group called for restrictions for those under 13.

“It is clear we need age-appropriate restrictions to platforms,” von der Leyen told reporters after the publication of a report on child safety online.

Shortages triggered by pipeline rupture drive up costs and deepen frustrations, as pressure grows on water utility

Jonathan Collazo owns two restaurants in a bustling section of San Juan, which has been plagued by water outages, severely disrupting the daily lives of residents and businesses alike.

The water scarcity is part of an escalating frustration felt by thousands of customers of Puerto Rico’s water utility over the past several months, prompting the governor to activate the national guard to distribute drinking water across the US territory. The shortages extend beyond San Juan, with sectors in municipalities including Loíza, Guaynabo, Bayamón and others experiencing interrupted service.

Five years after the ultra-conservative Islamists retook Afghanistan, students describe male pupils being beaten for minor rule breaches and inexperienced teachers struggling to deliver lessons

Before he leaves for Kabul University each morning, Hashmat* checks his face for the beard he has been ordered to grow. Male students are required to grow their facial hair and wear traditional Afghan clothes and those who fall short are punished. Hashmat says he recently saw a classmate beaten for wearing trousers.

“They look at you before they listen to you. If your appearance is wrong, you are already in trouble before the class begins,” he says.

Elizabeth Warren asks Jamie Dimon if he was advised to ‘mildly threaten’ UK chancellor over tax on bankers’ bonuses

A leading Democratic senator has written to the boss of JP Morgan to request clarification on the bank’s contact with the child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the senate banking committee, wrote to Jamie Dimon last week to ask if he took advice from Epstein while lobbying against a UK tax on banker bonuses, in a letter published by the committee on Monday.

Roaming charges also scrapped and trading terms continue for medicines, cars, art, jewellery and other goods

British nationals can expect shorter passport queues at Swiss airports and border crossings after a £5.2bn trade deal was sealed by Keir Starmer, likely his last big international agreement as prime minister.

As part of the deal they will be able to use e-gates from later this year, starting with exit checks at Zurich airport and with Basel and Geneva, a leading airport for business and winter sports travel, to follow next year.

Brent crude rises 5% after US president says 20% toll will be imposed on key trade route to cover ‘safety and security’

• Business live – latest updates

Oil prices rose 5% on Monday as Donald Trump reinstated the US blockade of Iranian shipping in the Gulf and will charge other countries to pass through the strait of Hormuz.

As the US and Iran exchanged strikes amid an escalating standoff over the vital trade route, the price of Brent crude climbed to $79.37 a barrel.

Poorly handled investigations should be treated as threat to public health and damage not just staff involved, report says

Workers are being left burnt out by “poorly executed” disciplinary investigations at work that cost the UK economy £28.5bn a year, public health doctors have said.

Badly handled disciplinary proceedings damage not just the staff involved but also their colleagues and the organisation that employs them, according to the UK Faculty of Public Health (FPH).

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In the US, you can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

He beat brain cancer. Now your favourite DJ’s favourite DJ is on a UK tour, armed with experimental techno, Beastie Boys and Taylor Swift

Ten years ago this month, Japanese DJ Yousuke Yukimatsu had an epileptic seizure. When he didn’t show up for a festival booking, organisers got in touch with his friends in Osaka, who found him collapsed at home. He was taken to hospital where doctors diagnosed a brain tumour. “If no one had contacted me, I might have died,” he posted on a crowdfunding platform several months later.

In the black-and-white photograph accompanying the crowdfunder to support his work, Yukimatsu leans his head towards the camera, his buzz cut growing out around a thick ragged scar that curves from his left ear to the top of his hairline: he’d been through two craniotomies, plus extensive chemo and radiation therapy. The illness also left him with a realisation that he needed to make DJing his full-time job; to dedicate himself to his craft and make the world a better place. “If we can keep living [for] tomorrow, if I can encourage people … that’s what I’m always trying to do,” he says now. “The world is getting much worse than the time when techno was born [in the mid 1980s]. Weapons are being developed; it’s getting easier to commit a massacre. In Japan, if a musician speaks about politics, they can be hugely criticised. But I think it’s really important to speak up.”

With its lovable playboy and jaw-dropping twists, the South African drama has become Netflix’s latest breakout smash

Are you bored with your summertime entertainment already? Did you devour that buzzy novel at the beach? Finish your third Suits rewatch on the plane? Has your algorithm run out of ideas and started feeding you the same reels and memes you liked weeks ago? Have I got a recommendation for you.

The Polygamist is a rollicking, gasp-inducing thrill ride that delivers more hairpin turns, sudden drops and disbelieving exclamations than a day at the amusement park. You can’t beat the bang for buck: the cost of admission is already covered by your Netflix subscription, which gets you 22 half-hour episodes – a staggeringly generous haul that harks back to TV days of yore.

The latest in our ongoing series of writers paying tribute to their favourite rewatches is a journey back to the 1986 cult fantasy

The 1980s were the golden age for the annoying little brother. Before the dawn of those mischief-dulling devices – the smartphone and tablet – a pesky sibling with a flair for invention could really make life hell for an aloof older sister. For me, mimicry and tickle torture were just the basics. My finest hour? Removing the slats in my sister’s top bunk-bed, so she hopped on to the mattress to come crashing down like Wile E Coyote.

In December 1986, our one sliver of common ground was that we both wanted to see Labyrinth. Me, because I was a hardcore Muppets fan, and Jim Henson’s fantasy flick was generating serious playground buzz (pre-internet, we had no inkling it had tanked at the US box office over the summer, breaking Henson’s heart). And her, because it was about a teenage girl who summons goblins to kidnap her baby brother (I suspect she went along just to learn the incantations).

Everyday life takes precedence over sensationalism in a galvanising portrait of union founder Karina Núñez and her community

A sex worker and activist living in Uruguay, Karina Núñez is a force of nature. The charismatic subject of Marta García and Sol Infante’s galvanising documentary, she is introduced by way of a somewhat provocative image: a closeup of her chest, tucked behind a lacy brassiere. The shot, however, is far from objectifying: Núñez is fully in control, and her breasts are simply a tool of her trade. This opening scene expands to take in a road intersection at night, where she is hoping to find her next customer among the stream of cars that passes by.

Núñez might be standing by herself at a crossroads, in a framing that suggests the precariousness of her occupation, yet she is far from alone. As the founder and leader of Otras, a union for Uruguayan sex workers, she has rallied a dedicated community around the fight for social acceptance, better labour conditions and legal protection. Swerving sensationalism, García and Infante’s film does not focus on individual customers, foregrounding instead the everyday struggles faced by the sex workers themselves. In moving scenes, Núñez speaks of the dismissive treatment she receives at a health clinic, as well as her difficulty in transitioning to another line of work. In the eyes of the law and society, she and her fellow workers are merely as faceless statistics or cautionary tales, rather than human beings with rights and dignity.

A poser activist and an online troll strike up a homoerotic friendship in Safdie brothers collaborator Oscar Boyson’s scabrous story

‘I think it’s nice to be part of a community” is how Manhattan rich kid Balthazar (Jaeden Martell) justifies his favourite hobby: posting tear-soaked videos in which he sociopathically pretends to be one of the horde of American youth lamenting the national epidemic of gun violence. Longtime Safdie brothers producer Oscar Boyson brings that kind of scabrous attitude – not just to school shootings, but to social media, “incel”, self-help and US salesman cultures – in this squirming, energetically directed black comedy that is reminiscent of the take-no-prisoners libertarian satire of Jason Reitman’s early films.

Balthazar is trying to impress his crush, Eleanor (Pippa Knowles), with whom he enthusiastically plays the role of the victim in school-shooting drills. After he blows his chances by attempting to make out with her while showing her raw footage of the latest massacre, he ups his game. Preventing the next bloodbath would truly prove his commitment to the cause, and a trollish incel called deathdealer_16, who has been goading him in his chat, seems as if he might be ready to blow. Catfishing him by posing as a comely maiden of the internet, Balthazar sets up an IRL rendezvous.

An Italian on an exchange to the glamorous UK capital gets involved with a sophisticated older woman in a tale of soap opera silliness

A year is about how long this very quaint film feels, although there are moments when the soap opera silliness, the photo-love yearning and the wooden Google-translate line readings are reasonably entertaining.

Olivia (Nina Pons) is a young fashion student from southern Italy who gets the chance of a lifetime to spend a year in our glamorous capital at the “London Academy of Couture” in South Kensington. Saucer-eyed Olivia apparently can’t get over the sight of two men kissing. She is almost-engaged to a wealthy young home town boy called Paolo (Matteo Bassi), though it will soon be revealed that the cut of Paolo’s jib is not all that it might be.

(Interscope)
Despite their goth-coded attempts at emotional turbulence, the saccharine songs of Abrams’ third album feel adolescent in their melodrama

Gracie Abrams’ third album is a full-blown crime scene. Across 16 songs, the US songwriter catalogues slip knots, blades, bullets, knives, more knives, ghosts, cages, drugs, car crashes, blood, burial, flaming tyres, choking, burning houses, sinking ships, drowning, more blood, bloody knees and even more knives. It’s called Daughter from Hell to acknowledge how much the 26-year-old frayed her parents’ nerves as a reckless teen, part of a wider theme about working out when to blame others for her pain, and when to accept responsibility. Clearly, there’s a lot of poetic licence involved in dramatising these mature revelations, but the dissonance between Abrams’ goth-coded emotional turbulence and the music’s insistent, quivering prettiness is the real uncrackable case on this bloodless record.

In one way, Abrams has had an outsized influence on pop. Her early bedroom songs inspired Olivia Rodrigo to write Drivers License, which kickstarted the former Disney star’s dazzlingly quick and continuing act of self-redefinition. Mostly, though, Abrams is the sum of her influences: you needn’t listen hard to clock Lorde’s vocal harmonies, Phoebe Bridgers’ intimacy or the tightly packed storytelling of Taylor Swift, who had Abrams support on the Eras tour. In Swift she also shares a producer in the National’s Aaron Dessner, a collaborator in Bon Iver (his jump-scare falsetto appears on two songs here, and he plays all over the record), and certainly a sound in Folklore’s pearlescent acoustics, injected with a whisper of stomp-clap vigour. That mix of melodrama and songs sung like secrets means Abrams’ audience skews young: her music carries the sensation of being the only person in the world grappling with huge emotions, as life often feels in adolescence. For anyone older, her music can feel a little starter pack.

Food writer and music enthusiast Ruby Tandoh details a tender picture of the existential threat to the lute. Plus, a joyous celebration of the great outdoors with Caitlin Moran and Adam Frost

This indie “audio magazine” brings together documentaries of all stripes, the common thread being a sense of experimentation. The third issue features food writer Ruby Tandoh detailing a quietly beautiful portrait of the lute, an instrument on the brink of extinction, while Jess Shane revisits a groundbreaking experiment that gave children the tools to turn their reality into poignant poetry. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

The Cribs man had a youthful Bee Gees obsession and loves one particular 80s power ballad. But which song does he say is too rude for his funeral?

The first song I fell in love with
Only You by the Flying Pickets – at least according to my mother, who says [my twin brother and bandmate] Ryan and I would sing along to it on the Christmas Top of the Pops. We now use it as our walk-on song and it makes my mum quite emotional.

The first single I bought
Somewhere in My Heart by Aztec Camera, from Boots in Wakefield in 1988, after hearing it at the disco on a holiday at Pontins in Morecambe.

Yankee Stadium, New York City

The rapper celebrates 30 years of his classic debut album Reasonable Doubt with eye-popping visuals and special guests in a love letter to hip-hop culture

The beauty of watching Jay-Z live is more than just watching him calmly spit bars that effortlessly prove why his career has been this long and brilliant; it’s also the complex but lovely feeling of watching an audience (and the artist himself) relive the past. It’s almost unfathomable that 30 years ago, Jay-Z was starting out as a relatively unknown rapper from Brooklyn chronicling his life as a hustler. Quite possibly the greatest pure MC of all-time – encompassing flow, patience, humor, live ability and his taste as an auteur – Jay built a career on restrained tales of wide-eyed dreams and braggadocious stanzas about financial gain.

His 1996 debut album, Reasonable Doubt, was the start of that career, and on Friday night, I’m at New York City’s Yankee Stadium as Jay-Z performs the album’s tracks in order, front to back, making it impossible to forget its legacy in a visually stunning show that splits the difference between close connection and grand spectacle. At times, with a wide, movie-like screen backing Jay that shows funerals of presidents, footage of Mike Tyson, or his wife, Beyoncé, cutting his hair at the ballpark, the show feels influenced by previous tours like Watch the Throne mixed with the street romance of the 2002 movie Paid in Full. Yet the care and attention to detail ensures that the 50,000-capacity venue feels intimate, for the folks who heard the album and felt seen through its songs of regret and paranoia.

Therapy brings childhood trauma to light in this ambitious tale of family rupture – a smash hit in Italy that fails to live up to its hype

A son leaves home for university and goes on to pay fortnightly visits to his parents for 20 years, dreading every encounter because of the oppressive control exerted by his father and the self-effacing passivity of his mother. Then one day, he changes his phone number and cuts off all contact. Andrea Bajani’s The Anniversary is written from the perspective of this son, 10 years after the rupture. The intervening decade has been, he says, the happiest period of his life.

The Anniversary has won Italy’s top literary prize and sold in the hundreds of thousands. It’s been lauded for shattering taboos, revealing families to be breakable structures and sons capable of defying their parents – even in Italy, where a Godfather-like idea of the absolute nature of family loyalty still pervades political and civic life. I came to it expecting some of the lurid revelation found in Knausgård or Houellebecq. What I found was something much simpler and quieter, exposing truths I thought we already knew: fathers can be oppressive and patriarchal; mothers can be occluded and powerless; children can be damaged, and therapists can help. Therapy aside, this was all material I recognised from neorealist Italian fiction of a much earlier era. Natalia Ginzburg, for example, showed vividly how totalitarianism seeped into the family through its patriarchal fathers, with mothers becoming hollow and timid in their wake.

Essays by the great and the good address the legacy of Brexit, but ignore the nationalist elephant in the room

This massive collection of essays by 43 different authors, including seven lords, four baronesses, one dame and three knights of the realm, may be the nearest we will ever get to a semi-official reflection on the causes and consequences of Brexit. Its editor, Sir Anthony Seldon, is honorary historian at 10 Downing Street and has written definitive works on successive 21st-century British administrations.

Yet the phrase “English nationalism” appears precisely once in its 600 pages – in a glancing reference to the line taken by the Daily Mail during the referendum campaign of 2016. Strikingly, while there is a fine essay by Aileen McHarg called On Scotland, there is none called On England. There is no attempt to provide even a broad overview of the tensions, contradictions and anxieties within the part of the UK where Brexit was won: non-metropolitan England. For much of the political and intellectual establishment, it seems, Englishness is still the condition that dare not speak its name.

From novels by James Baldwin and Han Kang to a guide to quantum physics – a former Booker prize judge recommends immersive one-sitting wonders

A one-sitting read is typically the domain of the short story – a form that largely depends on a reader’s pure, unbroken attention. But there is some­thing special about the intensity of beginning and ending an entire book in a single day. Of all my reading experiences, these have been among the most memorable.

As a judge for last year’s Booker prize, faced with 153 books and just over six months in which to read them, it was my task to try to turn every novel into one that could be read in a day. While I loved the experience, it wasn’t exactly a recipe for satisfying reading.

The actor and activist tells the story of her brutal childhood in the deep south with eloquence and defiance

When Laverne Cox was eight years old and growing up in Mobile, Alabama, she saved up her pocket money and bought herself a fan decorated with Japanese geishas. The fan became her favourite plaything, a prop to be used while dancing in imaginary music videos or recreating scenes from Gone With the Wind in which she cast herself as Scarlett O’Hara. “I lit up, animated, whenever that fan was in my hand,” she recalls in her memoir.

But when Cox, who was raised as a boy, began fanning herself with it at school, her teacher, Mrs Ridgeway, yanked her furiously out of the classroom, paraded her and her new accessory in front of the other teachers, and then phoned her mother, Gloria. When Gloria came home that evening, she exploded with fury. She said Mrs Ridgeway had told her she too had a son who had been an effeminate child who was now living on the streets of New Orleans and wearing a dress. “You want to be in a dress on the streets in New Orleans?” shouted Gloria, who would habitually call Cox a “sissy” and other homophobic slurs. She then signed her up for conversion therapy, which duly failed. It did, however, reinforce the message that there was something deeply wrong with Cox and that she was ultimately unlovable. Three years later, she tried to kill herself.

Introducing a new sadistic psychopath and a corrupt secret society of Gotham grandees would mean Harvey Dent takes a backseat to Victor Zsasz and the Court of Owls

Matt Reeves’ The Batman was a strange beast from the beginning. Perhaps not comic-book weird in the usual sense – no cosmic portals or rubber nipples here – but strange all the same. This was a Gotham where Bruce Wayne seemed to have been styled by the ghost of Kurt Cobain, the Riddler appeared to have escaped from a David Fincher evidence locker, and the whole city looked as if it had been left to soak overnight in rainwater and civic corruption. The expectation was that Reeves would begin rolling back the bizarre in part two, perhaps leaving us with a more orthodox Batverse populated with mobsters and corrupt lawyers. Sebastian Stan seemed central to this, with rumours suggesting he would portray Harvey Dent/Two-Face, perhaps alongside Scarlett Johansson as his wife, Gilda.

In the last week, however, there have been suggestions that the sequel might just be priming itself for something a fair bit freakier. Hollywood industry veteran Jeff Sneider is reporting that the main antagonist this time around could be the Court of Owls, a sinister secret society of Gotham grandees who look at first glance like a murder-bird upgrade on the League of Shadows, but are really something nastier: the city’s masked, devious ruling class, living out of secret rooms and exploiting a property portfolio that probably goes back to the Pilgrims.

PS5, PC, Xbox Series X/S; Ubisoft Singapore/Ubisoft
Ubisoft has removed all the boring parts of pirate life from its fantasy RPG, creating something more focused and fun

Edward Kenway isn’t your dad’s Assassin’s Creed protagonist. Neither sworn to ancient oaths nor given a noble destiny, he’s just a guy who likes coin, dislikes rules, and whose gold-chasing, rule-dodging lifestyle sees him embroiled in an ancient war between Templars and assassins quite by accident. After he’s shipwrecked with a man named Walpole who turns out to be a Templar, Edward assumes Walpole’s identity in the hopes of securing the bounty he mentioned.

Edward wears life lightly. The world around him is violent and chaotic, and those in his vicinity are more obsessed with double-crossings than a Mission:Impossible movie writers’ room. Ed just smiles, undeterred by it all, and gets on with plundering. It’s all just fun and games to him, and he is set on conquering the Caribbean on his own terms. He is a brilliant extension of the player, in that way, and that’s what this remake of the 2013 pirate-themed Assassin’s Creed does so well: the sense of freedom.

Sony’s announcement spells the end of a whole ecosystem built by superfan collectors – and signals a troubling shift in the industry

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Sony’s decision last week to quietly announce the end of physical games production for the PlayStation in 2028 is one of the most perfect PR disasters in recent gaming history – and considering what has been happening with Xbox, that’s saying something.

First, there was the timing. Sony posted the news of its decision on the PlayStation blog, less than a week after admitting that it would be deleting 550 movies from the digital libraries of PlayStation owners due to the end of a licensing deal – thereby perfectly illustrating the dangers of purchasing digital products. (Surprise! You never actually owned them!) The move is in stark contrast with the company’s stance on this very issue back in 2013. When Microsoft was attempting to push Xbox One as a digital-first console with strict controls on the sharing and reselling of its games, Sony brilliantly mocked its rival with a short video on how easy it was to lend physical games to pals on the PS4. Oh dear.

The massively multiplayer online role-playing game has grown into a virtual social space and part of daily life for thousands of players

In a small stone chapel, on the edgelands of a medieval wilderness, two women are getting married. The attenders are draped in rainbow capes, glowing armour and top hats. A scantily clad, muscular man with angel wings officiates the ceremony. Over the heads of the two brides hover the words “I do” in bright yellow text. This is RuneScape, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (or MMO) set in the Tolkienesque realm of Gielinor. Turning 25 this year, it has, over its lifetime, become a crucial virtual social space and part of daily life for thousands of players.

Lancashire-born Amelia, one of the pixelated newlyweds, met her wife on a dating app but first bonded through their love of the game. “Our first and second date was pretty much exclusively talking about RuneScape,” she recalls. Four years later they were married, shortly followed by their in-game ceremony. Morgan – a 26-year-old from the Midlands – is one of Amelia’s closest friends. They met through the game and run UWU Girls together, a RuneScape clan that Morgan founded in a bid to cater to players across the gender spectrum. “We do IRL meetups, and for a lot of these women, it’s been their first meetings with strangers online – and that’s the same for me.”

Royal Albert Hall, London
Shiny-suited and slick, the US standup fired off peppy and sometimes taboo-teasing gags about his cultural identity, married life and visits to a fertility clinic

You can’t say Aziz Ansari doesn’t know his audience. He begins Saturday night’s gig with a promise to finish well before the England kick-off. And his ending is underscored by a performance of national anthem-elect Wonderwall on the organ that looms above the stage. In between, we get a slick hour-long account of where Ansari’s life is at: three years into a cross-cultural marriage, partly resident in London (which may explain his feeling for the locals’ priorities), and trying, so far in vain, to start a family. In the hands of a hugely gifted comic who makes funny look easy, it all zips by – entertainingly, if a little glibly.

In that respect, it’s a return to pre-scandal Aziz, the gilded Parks and Recreation star who made it into the comedy big league with whip-smart social commentary so smooth it barely touched the sides. There is less sign here of the more troubled, later-career Ansari, whose work grew markedly less sunny after he was publicly accused of sexual misconduct. (He said he had apologised to the woman after learning of her discomfort, having believed the encounter was consensual.) Here, in a suit so shiny Ben Elton might blush, he fires off peppy and often provocative gags that skate eye-catchingly over the surface of his life, and our times, without ever carving too deep a furrow.

Nottingham Playhouse
The camaraderie and eccentricities of some model railway enthusiasts make for an endearing group portrait in William Ivory’s well-gauged comedy

Before the play begins, a tiny LNER InterCity zips in front of us. Our eyes follow it from one side of the stage to the other. Miniatures fascinate, and the train reminds us of the appeal.

It means that when we meet the old boys of the Market Deeping model railway club, celebrating a second victory in Stamford’s regional exhibition, we are sympathetic to their niche hobby. Yes, it may be eccentric to spend years perfecting an OO scale motive power depot, but look at the detail and gasp!

Royal Exchange, Manchester
A celebration of the cartoonist’s sexual awakening and queer identity as well as an investigation of darker family dynamics, this soulful show wears its heart on its sleeve

The “fun” in the title is short for funeral, a reference to the family undertaking business inherited by Alison Bechdel’s father. But there is some fun, too, in this heart-filled musical adaptation of the cartoonist’s illustrated memoir. First seen in the UK in 2018 and now revived by director Sarah Frankcom in a fluid in-the-round staging, it brings a light touch to a story freighted with emotion.

Published in 2006, the graphic novel describes the author’s sexual awakening – she kissed a girl and she liked it – one that coincided with the discovery of her father’s clandestine gay life. In the musical adaptation by Lisa Kron (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori (music), it becomes a layered reckoning of past and present, as the 43-year-old Bechdel (Jodie McNee) reflects on her student self (Alice Audrey O’Hanlon) reflecting on her childhood self (Felicity Moore at my performance).

Braboeuf Manor, Guildford
Elegantly stitching the plays into two parts of the same continuing story, Tom Littler’s sunny al fresco productions play every possible tragicomic note

Two Shakespearean comedies dated to the last decade of the 16th century each seem to lack something. Love’s Labour’s Lost (c 1595) feels in need of a sequel, ending abruptly, with the usual climactic marriages suddenly deferred to the future. Much Ado About Nothing (c 1598) could use a prequel: there is clearly a tantalising backstory to the harsh sparring between Beatrice and Benedick.

By double-billing the plays, director Tom Littler explores the scholarly hypothesis (well advanced by HR Woudhuysen) that they may be, in Hollywood terms, parts 1 and 2. Some believe that a Shakespeare play, Love’s Labour’s Won, listed in documents but now missing, may have been Much Ado, which contains a possible Shakespeare in-joke about things seeming clearer “when you have seen the sequel.”

The Netflix gender-flip comedy film, in which Sacha Baron Cohen wakes to a world run by female chauvinists, is a valuable testimony to the enduring destructive force of gender bias

‘This Movie Is: Absurd.” That’s the descriptive label given to Thea Sharrock’s comedy film Ladies First on Netflix. Damien (Sacha Baron Cohen) is a male chauvinist who knocks his head and wakes up in a world run by women who are like him: ruthless in the boardroom and the bedroom, using and losing the opposite sex when it suits them. In this alternative reality, he sees what it’s like to be on the receiving end of sexism. It co-stars a terrific Rosamund Pike as his employee in one world, and his boss in another, and Fiona Shaw first as a secretary, then as a predatory boss.

Ladies First may seem absurd, but by flipping the script, it points out double standards and gendered language in a simple way. Men are talked over in meetings and expected to conform to unrealistic beauty goals; Victoria’s Secret becomes Victor’s Secret. The movie has had largely negative reviews, and as a film critic, I had my issues with it: for every scene that had me laughing, another had me cringing, and the largely binary, heteronormative world it depicts is not everyone’s reality.

Odyssey director addresses industry fears over artificial intelligence and says rightwing criticism of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy is ‘irrelevant’

The Oscar-winning director Christopher Nolan believes the kind of movies he makes – big-budget action films shot mostly on location – would survive the spread of artificial intelligence, a technology he says many people “disdain”.

The Oppenheimer and The Dark Knight director is promoting his latest blockbuster, an adaptation of the Greek epic The Odyssey, which will be released in cinemas this week.

Gallery director says collection of 140 paintings will offer a more balanced view of Manchester painter’s work

A new exhibition of work by LS Lowry will “bust a few myths” about the Mancunian artist, who the show’s co-curator says is still wrongly derided for being “naive and uncultured”.

LS Lowry: the Theatre of Life features 140 paintings by the artist, who captured working-class life in the industrial north-west of England during the early and mid 20th century.

Her breakup memoir and Vogue column made her the voice of modern dating. As her debut is published, she talks about single life, oversharing and why she still believes she’ll find love

There is a scene in Annie Lord’s novel that will be instantly familiar to any young person who has spent time at a pub or nightclub recently. Daisy and Maya, two best friends in their mid-20s, are lamenting the paltry state of the dating market.

“It’s just shit out there,” Daisy says. “Every time we go out there’s, like, one decent single guy and then about 40 gorgeous women with master’s degrees and shag haircuts and what’s even the point in trying.”

She has built an unlikely career in mould, maggots and excrement, cleaning for those who most need it. It can take months building trust with a stranger, before she and her boyfriend go in and transform everything

‘There might be a dead bird in the box room. We think it has been there for a couple of years,” says Bea Elton, raising her voice to be heard through her respirator. It is particularly robust, as she has a dust and cat hair allergy. “Not ideal,” in her line of work, the 28-year-old concedes.

Knowing it would be difficult to talk on the job, we spoke before we arrived, struggling into hazmat suits, shoe covers, gloves and masks in the overgrown garden outside the front door. “I refer to myself as a cleaner. I would never refer to myself as a cleanfluencer,” says Elton. The slick videos on her platform, CleanWithBea, which record her transforming homes fallen into extreme dirt, decay and dilapidation, tell a different story. She has more than six million followers across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, who have crowned her a celebrity of this genre, her audience keen to watch the imperfect made perfect in a world that feels increasingly out of control. Yet no matter how many of her polished videos you watch, nothing can prepare you for entering one of the homes she cleans in person.

As people yearn for connection, one-day choirs are popping up around the world - and spreading ‘collective effervescence’

We met in a former synagogue, a vast room with hardwood floors where the sound could echo freely. All were strangers, many former choir nerds, united by a love for group singing. Our goal was to learn and perform, in a single day, a classic of our time: a song from the Hannah Montana movie.

The event, near downtown Los Angeles, was a one-day choir hosted by the Gaia Music Collective – a three-hour gathering where more than 100 people rehearsed a choral arrangement of the song and sang it three times, with ourselves as the only audience.

After 356 parkruns, our writer shares the joys of being a perfectly average runner. Plus, top tips for sleeping in a heatwave and cool boxes for camping

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I remember my first parkrun: Wimbledon in November 2014. I also remember the words I said to a friend at the end: “never again”. That was a promise that I didn’t so much break as grind into dust: I would complete 355 more of the free community 5ks over the next 12 years.

My modest running achievements are nothing to brag about: I’ve never run further than 10km, and my times are middling. In fact, the world record for running 5km while juggling (a niche sport delightfully known as “joggling”) beats my non-juggling PB by more than eight minutes.

With five light modes targeting everything from fine lines to blemishes and pigmentation, CurrentBody’s latest mask promises a lot – and so does its price tag

• The best LED face masks

I’ve been testing LED masks for a couple of years now, and the CurrentBody Series 2 red-light face mask has long been my favourite option for anti-ageing. It’s comfortable, offers excellent coverage and powerful deep near-infrared treatments. Sadly, it doesn’t work for other skin concerns. It’s a one-trick pony.

So, when I heard that CurrentBody had launched its Multi Light Therapy mask with five different modes, I was interested to see how it would stand up to the stellar performance of its predecessor. As someone with hormonal acne, I was especially keen to try the mask’s “clearing” mode, but it also offers a calming “restoring” mode, a pigmentation-reducing “brightening” mode, and a distinctive “complete” mode, as well as the “anti-ageing” mode.

There’s no getting away from it: these are all ultra-processed, but which sponges are the life of the party and which are too sweet for comfort?

• The best (and worst) supermarket dark chocolate

Some of these taste tests – for instance, the oven chips one from last summer – surprise me with their overall quality and minimal processing. But others, such as today’s party cakes, sit firmly in the ultra-processed category, and often make contradictory claims, “handmade” and “carefully selected high-quality ingredients” being just two.

I want my children to enjoy treats without food anxiety, but we also owe it both to ourselves and to them to know what we’re actually eating. Unusually, the price of today’s cakes didn’t reflect processing levels. While more expensive products are often less processed, even the premium cakes included an array of emulsifiers (including mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, polyglycerol esters and sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate), preservatives, stabilisers, synthetic raising agents such as diphosphates, and glucose-fructose syrup, a heavily processed industrial sweetener linked to metabolic concerns. I’ve listed the number of additives in each product, excluding natural colours and flavourings, pectin, citric acid, carbonates and bicarbonate of soda, beeswax and glucose syrup. I also scored the cakes based on their appearance, taste, texture, value, certifications, animal welfare considerations and total sugar content (which varied greatly).

Electric models are selling out fast, so keep cool like the fashion crowd with an old-school concertina hand fan

• How to sleep in a heatwave

You must have noticed that portable fans are everywhere right now: on sweaty commutes, in stuffy meetings, and at shadeless sporting events. As the hot weather continues, neck fans, handheld electronic fans, and fans that spritz water are selling out fast.

But even if you can get your hands on one, they come with drawbacks: electric designs consume energy; they can run out of battery. And most are made from plastic, with concerns over how many poor-quality models will end up in landfill once the summer’s over.

This colourful platter makes a simple shared meal feel like a special occasion

There’s something festive about bringing a whole roast feta to the table, and even more so when it’s thickly covered in toasted pine nuts. Tenderstem broccoli is a real treat in this dish, and my top tip is to blanch the spears in boiling water before you roast them – it really improves their texture. Crunchy, lemon-dressed radishes and spring onions add freshness, making this a lovely dish for a meze with friends.

A growing supplements market may be trying to capitalise on this claim, but the truth is we still don’t know what a truly healthy gut microbiome really looks like

The idea comes from a 2018 study involving more than 10,000 people in the US, UK and Australia. Participants submitted stool samples and reported what they typically ate. Researchers analysed the microbes in those samples and found that people who consumed more than 30 different plant foods a week tended to have a more diverse gut microbiome than those who ate fewer than 10.

But that doesn’t mean 30 is a magic number. Whether you eat 25 plants a week or 30 is probably less important than some would have you believe.

Vibrant, big-flavoured chakalaka and sweet but fiery mango chicken are always a smash at family summer barbecues

For me, chakalaka is the ultimate South African classic. It’s one of those dishes that reminds me of summer braais (barbecues) and big family get-togethers, and the combination of peppers, onions, tomatoes and spices is so vibrant and full of flavour that it enhances any meal you add it to. The mango chicken wings, meanwhile, are among my all-time favourites, and I often make them whenever I want something a little different for a braai. They’re always a hit at gatherings, and I never seem to make enough!

Wildly popular across China, these addictively fiery street food snacks spiced with cumin and chilli are yours for the making

One of the most welcome developments in the mind-bogglingly, gloriously diverse world of London dining options in recent years has been the proliferation of restaurants serving the food of the vast, automonous north-western Chinese region of Xinjiang, known by many of the predominantly Turkic-speaking Muslim Uyghur population as East Turkestan. As this fact suggests, Uyghur cooking has many similarities with other Turkic cuisines, including a love of lamb and mutton, and an aptitude for generously spiced kebabs so good that they’re now an “iconic street snack” in the Chinese capital, albeit some 3,000 miles east, in the time-honoured colonial fashion, and renamed as “old Beijing skewers”, according to that city’s own Maggie Zhu. (In Uyghur, they are, I believe, kawap, though I’d be glad to have that transliteration confirmed.)

Happily, however, you don’t need to go to Beitun or Beijing to enjoy them – or even to Golders Green – because they’re incredibly easy to recreate wherever you are, as long as you have access to a smoking hot grill. I declare this the summer of the skewer!

Rick and Rachel are non-monogamous – but they both know this arrangement may not work forever

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

I’ve tried knowing and not knowing, and I find both difficult. In an ideal world, we’d go looking for sex together

You and your husband need to have a frank discussion and decide whether you want to negotiate the next stage of life together or apart

I’m 55 and, after being a dutiful wife for 30 years, my sex drive declined after a traumatic hysterectomy eight years ago. My husband was patient and kind throughout. I love him dearly, but sex was never really the same afterwards, which I attribute to the surgery.

I’ve now been through menopause and suddenly find my libido returning. However, my husband no longer desires me due to weight gain. He can’t maintain an erection for long, and is very critical of my sexual performance. He’s seen a doctor, but nothing came of it, and he refuses couples counselling.

From Hollywood movies to confessional memoirs, three-person relationships are everywhere. But is it really possible to keep everyone satisfied? Happy trios, bruised couples and rejected lovers tell all

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?”

In the early days, Priscilla felt giddy with the excitement of being in a throuple. She and Kiara had been together for eight years, and adding a third person to their relationship felt like a way of exploring non‑monogamy without losing one another, because every new romantic experience would be shared. Olivia was an old friend, so Priscilla and Kiara’s children were comfortable with her. When the kids were in bed, they would walk to the beach holding hands as a three, to watch the sunset. At night, they would curl up to sleep together, and form a kind of cuddle chain. Priscilla would cuddle Olivia, and Olivia would cuddle Kiara.

After meeting in then-Zaire in the 1980s, Steve Sherwood and Martha Meares became good friends. But when she planned to leave for England, he decided he wanted something more

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

It was 1986, I was 26, had been travelling for two years, and was making my way through Africa. I was camping in the grounds of a run-down hotel, the only campsite in Kisangani, a city in what was then known as Zaire. On my first day in town I asked when the next River Congo ferry would leave. Tomorrow, they said.

Overland trucks would arrive and spend two to three days in town. A truck travelling from Kenya to the UK came, and its passengers put their stools in a circle to eat dinner. I asked to sit with them. Martha from Sydney sat beside me on the last spare stool. We spent most of that night chatting and laughing and got on really well.

Only when Guardian Money contacted the company did it discover the cash was wages owed to its staff

In May, our supplier, Yorkshire Water, made a surprise payment of more than £3,500 into my partner’s bank account.

We assumed that it was an error and we would be told to repay it.

Fraudsters create false articles that appear to be from publishers such as the Guardian to share on social media

The Guardian article looks interesting. It says the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has stormed out of a BBC interview after presenter Laura Kuenssberg revealed details of his personal financial affairs – and now the episode has been removed from iPlayer.

Among the detail in the piece is that Ratcliffe has been using an online investment platform to make money. The report says although the site has been kept secret, other people have used it too, and they have made a fortune. There is a link to the site where you can trade cryptocurrency, stocks and shares.

Experts say there will still be opportunities ahead in everything from teaching to hotels and the law

Entering the world of work often brings some uncertainty, but now there is another question: how can I AI-proof my career?

We asked people from across various industries what they think the impact of AI will be on careers, and which jobs may be less affected. While it is still early days for the tech, many had ideas about how you can best prepare yourself for a successful career in this new world.

The airfare for a baby on your lap could cost more than your own ticket. Here’s how airline charges and travel taxes can hit you

Ryanair recently stopped making parents pay to sit next to their children but depending on the airline the hidden extra costs involved in flying with children can be substantial. In some cases, you can even end up spending more for the baby on your lap than you paid for your own flight.

Your baby might not need a seat, but you are still likely to pay fees for them to travel. Some airlines offer discounts for children over two, while others whack families with the cost of a full-grown adult.

Ministers consider bringing e-cigarette laws in line with tobacco as data shows 20% of teenagers have tried vaping

Vapes could be sold in plain packaging as part of a range of proposals to stop them being marketed to children.

The UK-wide plans also include limiting device colours to white, black or grey, and keeping vapes out of sight in shops, according to the Department of Health and Social Care.

Not everyone experiences heat the same way, and studies show aggression, violence and road rage increase on hotter days

Recently, my husband and I embarked on what should have been a pleasant spring errand: a stroll to the local farmer’s market. But a passing heatwave had made it unseasonably hot outside. I cut him off on the sidewalk and he snapped at me, so I snapped at him for snapping at me. We spent the rest of the excursion in sweaty, stony silence. When we were almost home, he said, miserably: “I’m sorry! It’s just so hot.”

Our grouchiness was not simply a weakness of spirit. “Heat doesn’t just affect your body,” said Dr Susan Albers, clinical psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic. “It affects your mood too.”

For young people, flaunting eye bags and bed rotting has become a cheeky rebuttal of body optimization culture

Picture a typical hangover: a morning spent curled under a comforter, chugging Gatorade and shame spiraling about what you might have said at the bar the night before.

Not so for the young people who are “romanticizing” their hangovers on TikTok and Instagram. Instead, they are flaunting their dark eye circles and raging headaches as the aftereffects of a good time, broadcasting their bad decisions to the world with a glowy sheen.

There are more than 3,000 conditions in dermatology, experts warn – and chatbots’ recommendations can be flaky

• Read more in the Antiviral series

Who among us has not, in a moment of panic or curiosity, consulted the internet in search of solutions to a medical ailment?

Increasingly, people are turning to AI for health advice, and skincare is no exception. Purpose-built apps promise to identify that rash, while people are sending selfies to AI chatbots seeking “full skincare analysis” and personalised regimens of treatments. On Reddit forums, people post before and after shots of the results from their AI-recommended skin routines.

For many watching their team beat Norway at a south London nightclub the look was as important as the game

The Carpet Shop nightclub in Peckham, south London, is ordinarily packed with rowdy crowds at the weekend. But Saturday night’s liveliness was not congregated around the DJ on the dancefloor, the crowd was at the sold-out venue for England’s victorious quarter-final game at the 2026 World Cup, and the young spectators were there for the fashion as much as they were for the football.

Luke Grandon and Mattia Guarnera, both 27, are “massive” football fans, and their love for the game is expressed in their outfits. “I have a massive collection of vintage football shirts,” said Guarnera, wearing a white polo shirt with “LOVE” printed on the back from a limited-edition World Cup-themed collaboration between Lyle & Scott and the British artist Reuben Dangoor.

The discomfort is no reason to give up sun protection, and is not uncommon – not everyone tolerates every formula well

No good deed goes unpunished, as they say. For instance, when you responsibly apply sunscreen to your exposed skin, it sometimes stings.

“Complaints of sunscreen stinging are not uncommon,” says Dr Aditi Senthilnathan, board certified dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. “We also hear about sunscreen causing burning or stinging around the eyes after sweating.”

With the singer sporting an array of ties on stage, fans have been customising, repurposing and even creating whole garments from the office neckwear staple

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When Harry Styles kicked off his Together, Together tour in Amsterdam in May, he bounded on to the stage in navy pleated trousers and a blue shirt, topped off with a colourful floral printed tie from Celine.

Four days later, Styles paused mid-set at the same stadium to take in the crowd. “There’s a lot of ties in the audience tonight. I see you queens, I see you,” he said.

Maria Grazia Chiuri returns to city of birth with haute couture inspired by kimono shapes and draping the body

“This is a cultural problem, and a political problem,” said Maria Grazia Chiuri before her first haute couture catwalk show for Fendi.

The problem, as the designer sees it, is Italy’s unwillingness to acknowledge fashion’s role in culture by giving it space in museums. To challenge this, Chiuri has bookended her Rome catwalk event with two fashion exhibitions in the city.

The warm, gentle conditions I was hoping for turned out to be ferociously windy. The anchor couldn’t hold our boat in place. And then my mum got trapped in the cabin …

It started so well. A catamaran full of loved ones floating into the azure, taking pics, feeling glam, anticipating the sun sinking over the yardarm. I’d been reunited with my sister and family, who live in Australia, for the first time in three years, after Covid. Her husband, a fearless Australian giant, had got into sailing and offered to take me and my then 77-year-old mum, along with their three teens, out in the south of France for my sister’s 50th birthday. I knew sailing could get rough – my dad capsized us at the mouth of the River Dart when I was little – but it’s not every day you get such a generous invitation. How could I resist?

It was October. I was manifesting warm, gentle conditions, but instead the wind blew ferociously and stubbornly the wrong way. Before we knew it, we were charging up mountainous waves, then crashing into the void beyond. Our captain calmly steered while I sat below, feeling as if I was in a disaster movie, at which point I realised I hadn’t even located the lifejackets.

Flights were cancelled and we were told we’d be staying in Iceland for the night. But the hotel had no idea we were coming and people started screaming when I fell down, hard, on the ice

A couple of days before I was due to take a trip to New York with my mum in February, the city was hit with the worst blizzard it had seen in years. Unsurprisingly, our flight was cancelled. Our travel agent managed to reschedule the holiday for later in the week – our journey out would now connect in Reykjavík, Iceland. The holiday was rescued … or so we thought.

The flight to Iceland went without a hitch until the final moments, when the pilot informed us that a mini-blizzard was passing over Keflavík international airport and we would have to redirect to a domestic airport 15 minutes away. We still had hope that we could make our connection, but after several hours on the tarmac that hope died.

These cool, cheap bars in old abandoned buildings became popular in the 2000s – and then tourists moved in. I went hunting for the bohemian spirit of the originals

‘Many ruin bars seem to be just tourist traps now,” says artist István, standing outside Instant-Fogas complex, which calls itself Europe’s biggest ruin pub, but looks more like a mammoth nightclub with several dancefloors.

“These bars were a hot topic 20 years ago, but many have become really commercial now,’ says István. “Ruin bars being expensive actually ruins their purpose. I’m a student, I like beers that are under 1,000 forints [about £2.50], and the big commercial ruin bars are typically much more expensive.”

From the Fanad peninsula in Ireland to the forested beaches of Finland, these are your favourite escapes without the fear of getting frazzled
• Tell us about your favourite food festival – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Saulkrasti’s long beaches and scented pine forests are an hour from Riga on the frequent local train. The forests come right down to the long, long sandy beach and the relaxing and well-marked trail takes you the 4km from Saulkrasti station through the trees to the big dune and blue river at Balta Kapa. We enjoyed a July picnic in the forest and occasional dips in the Mediterranean-warm Baltic, before returning happy to Riga.
Bruce

Phil Yates had never cut anyone’s hair before he decided to retrain at the age of 60. Yet inside the dissatisfied executive a ‘rocking barber’ was waiting to emerge

Phil Yates was nervous about telling his dad he wanted to be a barber. “Get a trade! Don’t leave a job unless you’ve got another job lined up!” were his mantras. Therefore, he says: “I was expecting the worst.” But when Yates plucked up the courage to tell him: “I’m kicking marketing down the road. I want to do this,” his dad replied: “That’s fantastic. Life’s so short.”

Yates was 60. Did parental approval really matter? “It almost made me cry,” he says. His father, a fishmonger turned factory worker, had lived on the streets as a child. “It was huge for him to drop the whole thing about being safe and secure and say: ‘Go and do what you really want.’”

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60?

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From a seventysomething standup comedian to the founder of a highly successful spice business, seven people reveal why it’s never too late to embark on the life of your dreams

Many of us feel stuck in a job we dislike and midlife is a common time to reassess what you are going to do with the rest of your years, especially when finances require us to work into older age. How can you make a change, follow your dreams and finally do what you always wanted? Late bloomers share the secrets to having a stunning second act.

Before they left, the receptionist delicately straightened my father’s collar. I knew then they would be just fine

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

The food poisoning hit like a tsunami. I remember being out at a dumpling restaurant, grabbing a heap of napkins and just vomiting directly into them. I’ve never been sick like that in my life.

I was travelling in Xi’an, China, with my father, who was then aged 88 or 89. I really should have been in hospital but I didn’t feel I could leave my dear dad on his own. Instead I retreated to my hotel room, where I spent the night projectile vomiting. A horrible, embarrassing experience.

The former world champion swimmer turned BBC commentator on 5am starts with his mum, a Jaws epiphany, and why he struggled to come out

Born in Billericay, Essex, in 1970, Mark Foster is a former competitive swimmer and winner of 51 major international medals, including six world titles, two Commonwealth Games golds and 11 European titles. He represented the UK at five Olympic Games, and broke eight world records. He works as a commentator for the BBC during major sporting events. Foster’s memoir, My Double Life, is out now.

This was taken in a park in Southend, presumably – as the trunks suggest – near a swimming pool. I would have been with both of my big sisters and my mum. I was always stupidly smiley and never took life seriously.

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

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

Indonesia’s government is grappling with how to manage waste at Bantar Gebang – Jakarta’s largest landfill – which supports the livelihood of thousands of waste pickers

On the outskirts of Jakarta, huge rolling peaks of rubbish stretch across more than 100 hectares (247 acres), towering over nearby villages. Each day a convoy of trucks plough in and dump more garbage into one of Asia’s largest landfills.

Here, thousands of people live on the fringe of the site and make their income picking through the waste and salvaging scraps for resale. The work is dangerous – earlier this year seven people died after one of the massive trash mounds caved in, burying them alive.

In 2019 Eric Lampaert woke up unable to recognise his friends, his parents, even his own name. After decades of anxiety, abandonment and bullying, was his mind just trying to shield him from his past?

On the day his life changed, Eric Lampaert woke up and saw his hands. What amazed him was that they were moving in front of him, and he appeared to be the person in control of them. We’re drinking coffee in the Groucho Club in London, and at this point he lets go of his cup and wriggles his fingers. Lampaert is an actor and standup whose work has a strong clowning dimension. His hands always seemed to have minds of their own – and, sometimes, strong differences of opinion. But as he got out of bed that fateful morning, marvelling at the magical things on the ends of his arms, he felt only wonder. What he didn’t yet know was that he had lost his memory, and his life would no longer feel like his own.

That was seven years ago, on 17 March 2019, Lampaert says, a date not so much stamped in his memory as retrieved from his journal and recommitted. It was a knock on the door that told him “there were other things out there” beyond his bedroom: the Miracle Mile district of Los Angeles, housemates in the home he’d once shared with his estranged wife, and the downstairs neighbour who’d knocked to collect a bottle of bleach. Lampaert had borrowed it to clean coffee stains from the sink, but now he didn’t know the person at the door or the housemate wandering by. “Eric?” his neighbour said. “And I went: ‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know …”

The TV presenter – who has died aged 68 – worked for the BBC, ITN and Channel 4 and announced the death of Diana, Princess of Wales

• TV presenter Dermot Murnaghan dies of prostate cancer, aged 68

A successful television presenter requires some combination of dependability, affability, ego and ambition. Dermot Murnaghan – who has died aged 68, after revealing a diagnosis of late-stage prostate cancer on screen last year – had some of the higher scores in the business on the first two metrics but among the lower on the others.

The reliability made him one of the few to have anchored news slots on the first four major UK networks – Channel 4, ITV, the BBC and Sky News – while the relative reticence held him back from the absolute front rank of TV journalistic celebrity, although he had sufficient sympathetic recognition for cameos on quizzes (Pointless Celebrities, The Weakest Link), as well as a spell shuffling the question cards himself on the BBC’s Eggheads. Looking and sounding like an anchor should, he was also regularly employed to announce fake news – not in the Trumpian sense, but headlines within dramas – on shows including Absolute Power and The Gunman and in the film Wimbledon.

We would like to hear your tributes and memories of celebrated actor Sam Neill – whether you met him, or appreciated his work

The death of actor Sam Neill was announced today. He was 78.

Known to many for his role as Dr Alan Grant in Jurassic Park, he also starred in The Piano and Peaky Blinders.

How long did you have to wait? Perhaps you are in a queue now. Tell us your experience

The EU has rejected calls to suspend its biometric border checks despite warnings from airports, airlines and ports that the system could lead to long queues and delays during the peak summer holiday season. MPs in the UK have also warned of potential disruption at the Port of Dover as holiday traffic builds.

We would like to speak to people who have been affected by the new system. Tell us about your experience – has the new system worked well or have you experienced delays? How long did you have to wait? What did you do to pass the time? Or maybe you are in a queue now? Tell us your experience.

Prediction markets have grown rapidly in popularity in recent years, particularly in the US. We’d like to hear confidentially from people in the UK who have used them

We’d like to find out more about how people in the UK are using prediction markets and what has attracted them to these platforms.

Prediction markets allow people to buy and sell contracts based on the outcome of future events, such as sporting tournaments, elections and financial markets. They have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in the US.

Has the pill format prompted you to consider GLP-1 medication for the first time? Have you already started taking it? Or has weight loss medication changed your lifestyle in other ways?

A once-daily Wegovy weight-loss pill has gone on sale at high street and online pharmacies in the UK, offering an alternative to injectable GLP-1 medications.

We’d like to hear from people who are considering taking a weight-loss pill, have recently started one, or are planning to switch from injections.

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