Bardem has the absolute time of his life terrifying everyone in this remake of the classic thriller. It’s a masterclass in tension, sublime directing – and never forgets the power of a jump scare

“Ever look around and wonder if we deserve all this?” a woman asks, standing by their sprawling mansion’s swimming pool with her handsome, ripped, fellow lawyer husband.

“No,” he replies.

Cape Fear is on Apple TV on 5 June

There are vital lessons to be learned from Nowak’s death. Instead, it has been used to refuel a pervasive lie about ethnic minorities and ‘two-tier’ policing

Nine times. As Henry Nowak lay dying in handcuffs, he told police officers that he could not breathe nine times.

To recount his final moments: last December, Nowak, who was walking home alone after a night out with university friends in Southampton, encountered Vickrum Digwa. As the judge said in his sentencing, only Nowak and Digwa know exactly what happened in their interaction. But what is clear is that Digwa stabbed Nowak repeatedly and lied to the police when they arrived on the scene: he claimed that Nowak had racially abused him. The police pulled Nowak across the gravel and forced his hands behind his back. As he pleaded with officers, telling him that he had been stabbed, one officer dismissed him, saying: “I don’t think you have, mate.” Another simply says “he hasn’t been stabbed”. Just the sound from the bodycam footage is enough to make your blood run cold.

Jason Okundaye is a Guardian Opinion assistant editor

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.

He stood down as boss of the NT – and threw himself into kayaking, writing and DIY. The veteran director talks about his new start aged 60, mourning his mother – and directing Death of a Salesman in Turkish

There were several big endings for Rufus Norris in 2025, all crammed into the same few seismic months. Firstly, the close of his tenure as director of the National Theatre after a decade at the helm. That planned ending collided with the loss of his mother, who died three weeks before he left the NT. On top of that, a significant birthday concluding his 50s.

So what did Norris do after turning 60, on the other side of the Big Job, alongside the grief of losing a parent? DIY, plenty of kayaking and a house move, it turns out: “It felt important to have a complete break,” he says. “I’m a bit of a workaholic, but I’m also a bird of simple brain so I can as easily lose myself in how to build a shed or do up a place.”

Team is working to digitise archive of correspondence donated by public, charting relationships, social history and evolution of language

After four decades together, Tatiana and Steffen Missbach still write each other love letters. “A good love letter is specific – not only declaring your feelings but also, you know, ‘good luck at music practice, I’ll be thinking of you’,” said Tatiana, 66, a retired personnel manager. “If he’s leaving early on a work trip, I like waking up and finding one at the breakfast table waiting for me.”

Steffen, 68, a car appraiser, said it was his way of giving Tatiana “something to hold in her hands for the time that I’m not there, when I can’t be here to speak the words”.

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

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

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

As summers get hotter, investment and education are vital to ensure we all have access to the clean, safe water we need

A local row about swimmers and swans in Hampstead Heath has now inspired a government reaction. Environment ministers over the weekend wrote to the City of London Corporation, which oversees the heath, to say that they were “deeply concerned” by footage of crowds of people in the water during last week’s heatwave.

One viral video showed young revellers – who had defied a “no swimming” sign – in a wildlife pond, disturbing the nesting birds. It was picked up by the press, with headlines calling the swimmers “selfish”, “horrible” and “appalling”. Like many who saw it, I was saddened and shocked at the disregard for animals: people were clambering over nests, and trying to reach an island specially safeguarded for birds. Yet I also wondered what a polarised, emotive debate is going to achieve when, lurking behind the justified anger, is another question about our access to water.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett 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.

Christi Hill and male officer misidentified in Vickrum Digwa murder case on AI platforms including Grok

A former police officer has been forced to flee to a safe space after she was falsely accused online of being involved in the arrest of Henry Nowak.

Christi Hill, who served as a police constable for 12 years, has criticised social media and AI platforms, including Elon Musk’s Grok, for spreading the false claim that she was one of the officers who arrested Nowak as he lay dying after being stabbed by Vickrum Digwa.

Ministry of Defence confirms deaths of three crew members after crash near Okehampton during training exercise

Three members of the Royal Navy have died in a helicopter crash in Devon during a training exercise, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

Emergency services were called to the scene of the incident at Sourton Down, near Okehampton, around 4am on Wednesday.

File detailing security mitigations is among those withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police

Ministers have faced renewed cross-party pressure in parliament over documents missing from a 1,500-page release of papers about Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington.

Despite the volume of information published on Monday, crucial documents were withheld at the request of the Metropolitan police on the grounds that they could “potentially prejudice” an investigation. They include a document summarising the vetting process, which concluded with officials recommending Mandelson not be given security clearance.

Prime minister says ‘£5m question still remains’, as pressure grows on Reform UK leader over Christopher Harborne gift

Keir Starmer has pressed Nigel Farage to stop “dodging questions” about the £5m personal gift he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

The gift, first revealed by the Guardian, was given to Farage in the months before he stood as an MP in the 2024 general election. It is now under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioner.

US and Iran exchange more strikes but Trump says he is not looking to escalate and there is no need for boots on the ground

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Kuwait’s military said Iranian strikes that hit a terminal at its international airport killed at least one person and wounded 63 in the first deadly attack in the Gulf since a ceasefire on 8 April came into effect.

The US and Iran also exchanged fresh missile and drone strikes, further jeopardising efforts to secure a new ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran.

Proposal for 10-12.5% levies, to also include EU, Taiwan and Australia, would allow US president to skirt court-imposed limits

Donald Trump has threatened tariffs of between 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners including the UK, the EU and Australia over alleged forced labour failures, in the latest attempt to revive his signature trade policy.

The EU immediately hit back, saying it expected the US to respect the tariff deal it entered into last July and arguing that stealth tariffs breached the spirit of that agreement.

Ben Black’s lawyers deny relationship with disgraced financier, but DoJ records reveal years of interactions

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Ben Black, the head of a little-known government investment agency funded by billions of dollars from US taxpayers, had personal and business ties to Jeffrey Epstein, according to emails and business filings released by the Department of Justice.

His father, Leon Black, had once been the disgraced financier’s highest-paying client – calling on the convicted sex offender for tax advice and to orchestrate payments to women, according to the New York Times and Bloomberg.

Jess Asato was portrayed wearing a bikini in Grok-generated images after she criticised creation of such non-consensual pictures

A Labour MP has taken legal action against Elon Musk’s xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her, part of a wave of such images that flooded the social media platform X earlier this year.

Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, said in January that seeing herself portrayed by the AI tool as wearing a bikini without her consent was “violating”.

Special, secretive operation will ship 11th-century artwork across Channel without jolts, bumps or shakes

As the Bayeux tapestry wends its way across the Channel in a top secret operation there will be no jolts, no bumps, no shakes or vibrations – unlike the voyage of William the Conqueror whose 1066 victory at Hastings the artefact recounts.

“Nothing has been left to chance,” Catherine Pégard, the French minister of culture told a gathering to mark the historic loan, which will be physically achieved with the tapestry, which is really an embroidery, transported in a specially constructed cradle within a container, the minister said.

Clear-up has begun but psychological impact likely to last much longer, as community reels from riots over Henry Nowak case

The cleanup was quick. The day after an anti-police demonstration turned violent in the Portswood area of Southampton, workers cleared up broken glass and fixed fences that had been torn down to use as missiles against officers.

But the psychological impact is likely to last much longer.

Badenoch differentiated herself from Nigel Farage in response to Henry Nowak’s murder and supporters say her ratings are rising

Kemi Badenoch has a hard-earned reputation for combativeness, especially on culture war issues, but at prime minister’s questions, with the murder of the teenager Henry Nowak in the headlines, Keir Starmer ended up thanking the Conservative leader for her “tone”. So is she a changed politician? Well, not exactly.

To an extent, Badenoch’s approach ahead of her weekly Commons showdown with Starmer was shaped by events. Widespread concern on Wednesday at the police response to Nowak’s murder – the student was handcuffed while he bled to death after being falsely accused of racism – spiralled into rioting on Tuesday night. The imperative not to inflame matters further was obvious.

While the technology is set to play a growing role in modern warfare, there remains an unresolved ethical challenge

Should the AI-powered drones of the future have a licence to kill? The question is becoming ever more pressing as governments and the defence industry acknowledge that drone systems will play an increasingly crucial role in future warfare.

With drones being deployed in huge numbers in the Ukraine war and AI being used to assist bombing missions in the Iran conflict, there is an expectation among some observers that weapons will have to operate with increased operational autonomy, which means they will need something approximating a moral framework.

Giving news websites the power to block their content from being used in AI summaries will have global ramifications

The UK’s competition watchdog has ordered Google to change how it uses publishers’ content in its AI-powered search results, in a move that will have global ramifications.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is using powers that allow it to set bespoke rules for major tech firms that it deems to have “strategic market status”. Google, the world’s largest search engine, is one of those companies.

We’ve looked at data from USA 1994 onwards to see how and when classic upsets take place – and what that could mean for this year’s competition

This year, the biggest ever World Cup will feature 48 teams, an increase from 32, opening up the tournament to even more upsets, shocks and surprises. The vagaries of the World Cup draw have given rise to classic underdog victories over the years, from an amateur USA team’s shock defeat of the then-favourites England in 1950 onwards. But what does the data tell us about upsets in football’s modern era?

Starting from the launch of the Fifa men’s world ranking system in 1993, we have analysed each World Cup match in which an underdog beat a higher-ranked team, along with the ranking disparity between the teams: the bigger the gap, the higher the “upset score”, and the larger the circle in the graphics below. Upsets are marked in red, while matches decided on penalties are represented with a white border.

Fatally restrained by security guards outside a Dublin department store, Congolese-born Sakila’s demise raises serious questions about accountability

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Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. On a Dublin street two weeks ago, Yves Sakila died. The 35-year-old, who was of Congolese origin, was pinned down by security guards for almost five minutes after being accused of shoplifting a bottle of perfume from a department store. When the police arrived, Sakila was dead. I spoke to Dr Ebun Joseph, special rapporteur on racial equality and racism in Ireland, about what is being called Ireland’s “George Floyd moment”.

The impact of Yves Sakila’s death continues to reverberate across Ireland. Joseph was appointed to give an independent evaluation of the government’s National Action Plan Against Racism, days after several protests and a vigil in Dublin. I ask her what the mood is among Black communities in Ireland.

Sperm counts have fallen sharply in recent decades, fueling anxiety, misinformation and a flood of fertility advice

I’m sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this, but according to reports, men are engaging in a practice known as “spermmaxxing”.

Spermmaxxing, according to the many articles on the subject, is a way of increasing the quality and quantity of one’s sperm. The approaches range from the sensible (get more sleep, eat nutritious foods) to the more dubious (eat raw garlic, dip your testicles in ice water).

The Glaswegian standup on joining the ego-less Saturday Night Live, smiling at himself in the mirror and why he’s not slept in his new house

Behind the scenes, is SNL UK a tightly controlled machine or complete chaos?
It’s genuinely a combination of both: mayhem that is very well organised. Making a show from scratch from Monday to Saturday is going to be chaotic but they’ve got the best of the best in the crew. All the wardrobe people, the camera crew, the set designers … they’re just incredible. There have been moments I’ve thought: are we going to pull this off? But every single time, we manage brilliantly.

Where were you when you got the call saying you were going to be a cast member?
In Daniel Sloss’s bedroom. He woke me up … To be honest, I have no idea. I just make up a different story every time.

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

Name: Doomscrolling.

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

Everything is material for Nige, who made a rare appearance at PMQs to ask question about Henry Nowak case

There was a rare sighting in Westminster on Wednesday. The lesser-spotted Farage. A species so elusive that not even David Attenborough has previously recorded him in the wild. Nige blinked several times, trying to get used to his unnatural surroundings.

He looked sunbaked. His time on the run ever since the Guardian revealed his previously undisclosed £5m handout from a crypto-billionaire in Thailand has clearly been spent mainly outdoors. Sleeping under the sun, moving by night under the stars. Anything to keep one step ahead of journalists asking awkward questions. One twitcher thought he had maybe caught sight of him on the Costa del Crime.

They text, they chat, they throw popcorn: some people would rather do anything than just sit and watch a show. And my friend and I have the mental scars to prove it

Rosamund Pike probably lost a fan last weekend, while simultaneously gaining many more. The secret texter she called out without identifying presumably wasn’t too thrilled to be unnamed but shamed at the end of Pike’s play Inter Alia, but for everybody who has ever had a bad trip to the theatre, it was a good point, well-made and about time, too.

After the final curtain, Pike returned to the stage to explain: “I am trying to tell you a story, and I’m feeling you, and I hope you’re feeling me too ... Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them.”

The Manchester mayor is tapping into deep public frustration over the water industry but at some stage he needs to say what he means

There ought to be a rule to oblige politicians advocating “stronger public control” of an essential service or sector to say what, precisely, they mean. Public “ownership” is easy to understand – it’s nationalisation. But Andy Burnham, when he cites water and energy as targets for greater public control, seems to imply something else. What?

Would he, for instance, torpedo the government’s current plans for water, notably the “once-in-a-generation” reset of regulation in England and Wales via the clean water bill due in the autumn? Or is he merely saying Thames Water should be tipped into special administration, which may happen anyway without a shove from a new prime minister?

Chilling comments by Reform figures can’t be dismissed when you consider the overwhelming power of the UK’s centralised state

Britain is much closer to tyranny than you think. Consider a recent social post by Zia Yusuf, one of Reform UK’s leading figures. “Recent events demonstrate why I view the Tory and Labour politicians who created the burning injustice of modern Britain as traitors to their country,” he wrote. “A reckoning is coming.”

He didn’t define those “recent events”, or what his reckoning would entail, but historically speaking, those deemed “traitors to their country” do not fare well.

Owen Jones 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.

There are ways to address the lack of faith. And unless Starmer, Burnham or Streeting do that, the issue of who is PM is moot

What happens next? Will Andy Burnham win the Makerfield byelection? Will Keir Starmer fight on? Will Wes Streeting run? After that, can Reform win the next general election? Is the Green bounce real? The politics-as-sports predictions rumble on. One newspaper editor texted me the other day asking who would be prime minister come Christmas, apparently because I was on his “clever list”. “Dunno” I said. “You’re off the list,” he replied.

My fear is that whoever is prime minister by the end of the year, a lot of attention will have been distracted from the underlying problem. Voters are not just giving up on this government, but on democracy itself. This weary, cold scepticism comes through in the polls, the focus groups, and it’s in the look in the electorate’s eyes. Politicians know it and it’s making the country ungovernable.

Polly Curtis is chief executive of Demos. Her latest paper, The New Deal: How to repair the broken relationship between state and citizen, is published today

According to chief economic adviser Kevin Hassett, living in the world’s richest superpower and witnessing food, electricity and housing become luxury items is a good thing

God, I love paying high prices at the supermarket, don’t you? I walk outside with a bag of basics that cost approximately 500% more than they did a few years ago and it makes me feel so optimistic about life. What a wonderful thing to live in the US – the world’s richest superpower – and witness food, electricity and housing become luxury items.

Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, knows what I mean. On Sunday Hassett went on Fox News to inform the US public that high prices are good, actually. Trust him – he’s an economist. Yes, it’s true that last month the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index dropped to its lowest point since the survey began in 1952 and Americans are feeling grim about the economy. But as Hassett explained, “The Michigan survey no longer has anything to do with the economy … it’s just a place where Democrats get to register how angry they are at President Trump.”

Proper debate is at risk of being crowded out of the political arena by extremists peddling racially aggravated conspiracy theories

In Germany, it is a Brandmauer, a firewall. In France, it is the cordon sanitaire – a refusal by mainstream parties to do deals with the far right. That resolve has weakened in recent years, but naming the taboo still serves an important function. To invigilate the line where radical conservatism turns to ultranationalism, it is first necessary to say it exists.

That is not happening in Britain, as has become clear in the aftermath of Henry Nowak’s murder. The episode is disturbing. Police failed to recognise the severity of a young man’s stab wounds and, after being misled by a false claim that he had carried out a racist assault, briefly treated the dying victim as a suspect. However difficult and confused the scene was, this was a catastrophic outcome. It is right that every aspect of the case be thoroughly reviewed.

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 shocking case of a man left on the breadline after being recruited to work in the UK’s care sector should prompt ministers to act

The risk of mistreatment for overseas workers recruited for jobs in the UK on health and care visas is well established. Examples range from rip-off agents’ fees and illegally low pay to conditions akin to debt bondage, with passports and wages withheld. But Shabin Shaji’s employment tribunal win over Swan Care Solutions Ltd is thought to be the first time that an individual has succeeded in forcing a business to hand over unpaid wages. His victory should give hope to others in similar situations. It is also a chilling illustration of how migrant workers can become trapped in an unbalanced system in which they have too few rights.

Mr Shaji, a computer science graduate, left his home in south India in 2023 and paid £17,000 to an agent who helped him to get a job with Swan in Stafford. Last month, a judge in Birmingham awarded him nearly £30,000 after he spent a year without work, pleading with Swan for shifts that never materialised, while living off scraps and the kindness of strangers. He eventually found other work, but has since returned to India. Swan lost its licence to sponsor migrant workers.

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

Readers respond to an article by Nesrine Malik on what we lose when we trust machines over humans

Nesrine Malik is right to worry about the effect that AI may have on writing (AI is devoid of meaning and humanity. That’s why its vapid voice suits this political moment, 1 June). The examples she cites of fabricated quotations and unreliable research should concern anyone who values truth and public trust.

However, I suspect the deeper problem is not AI’s bland prose but its relationship to evidence. The writers caught out by false quotations were often not trying to deceive. They believed that they were using AI as a research aid while retaining editorial control. Yet somehow, fiction entered the factual record. The issue was not laziness but misplaced confidence in a system that can produce plausible reconstructions without distinguishing between what was observed, inferred or simply generated.

Mat Watkinson and Keith Flett respond to Jonathan Liew’s article asking why many self-professed progressives still use Elon Musk’s social media platform

Jonathan Liew wonders why people are still on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why?, 28 May). There is an obvious answer: all major companies refuse to leave it. Sadly, it’s the quickest way to complain and get a result.

The BBC, supermarkets and travel companies are all in thrall to its power, because they know they can reach us as swiftly as we can reach them. They’re terrified of the oligarch’s influence. No one should have that power, but it will only start to crumble if these major influences on our lives leave X.
Mat Watkinson
Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Roberta Leem-Bruggen says she was working full-time hours in NHS settings but was considered a ‘non-earner’ and therefore not eligible for childcare support

Jamie Evans’ letter on childcare eligibility and the “nerd tax” (28 May) strongly resonated with me because I have experienced versions of this problem throughout higher education.

In 2020, I was a single parent studying for a clinical master’s degree. I spent over 40 hours a week on compulsory NHS placements while completing academic work. During that time, I received universal credit, including the childcare element, which enabled me to continue my studies.

Many people in developing countries cannot access preventive hygiene, key to attacking climate-driven superbugs, writes Helen Hamilton

As the UK swelters in unseasonably high temperatures, Andrew Gregory’s article underscores the growing urgency of a critical global health threat (Climate crisis is accelerating antibiotic resistance across world, study says, 26 May).

While drug misuse remains a key driver, the climate crisis means bacteria are mutating and spreading faster than ever before. Yet missing from this urgent global discussion is the foundational defence mechanism against the spread of infection: clean water, decent toilets and good hygiene.

• No 1 seed loses 6-3, 5-7, 0-6 in quarter-final meltdown

• Player says roof should be closed in windy conditions

Aryna Sabalenka said she wanted “to quit tennis” in an immediate outburst after one of the worst meltdowns in her career, losing 10 consecutive games en route to a shocking 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 defeat to the 25th seed Diana Shnaider in the quarter-finals of the French Open.

Asked by the moderator to explain her thoughts and emotions at the beginning of her post-match press conference, Sabalenka responded: “No thoughts, no emotions. Just want to quit tennis right now,” she said, shrugging. “But we’ll see. We’ll see in a few days. Hopefully I’ll get back on track mentally.”

• ‘Reboot Fifa’ calls for investigation into Infantino

• Complaint to be sent to ethics committee after World Cup

A quest to deliver the “biggest complaint Fifa has ever received” is being launched by campaigners a week before the World Cup.

With fans concerned over safety and the cost of tickets at the tournament, and complaints ongoing against Fifa from human rights organisations and football competitions, a class action-style complaint is calling for an investigation into the president, Gianni Infantino.

• France defender devasted by deaths of Jota and father

• ‘Depression is personal; it’s deep inside you’

Ibrahima Konaté has spoken about the struggles he faced in a year of personal tragedy in which the death of his former Liverpool teammate Diogo Jota was followed by that of his father.

The France international’s form was affected but it was not until January, when his dad, Hamady, died after a long illness, that it became apparent the personal turmoil the 27-year-old had been dealing with.

• Lions seek to help extend the reach of inclusive clubs

• 78-page document is the first of its kind in football

Millwall have published a first-of-its-kind “Pride playbook” to help football clubs form stronger partnerships with LGBTQ+ teams across the country.

The move comes during Pride month as the Lions seek to build on the success of their teams, Millwall Romans and Millwall Pride, and help extend the reach of LGBTQ+ inclusive football amid growing demand.

It may be the closely guarded private fiefdom of the MCC, but weight of history makes the ground a true institution

There are three Lord’s in London. The first is six feet under Dorset Square next to Marylebone station, where these days a square foot of a single bed flat will set you back a thousand pounds. The second is buried beneath the Lisson Grove moorings on the Regents canal, where the canal boaters grow tomatoes along the towpath. And the third, the current world-famous ground, is two blocks over on the Wellington Road, on a patch rented in the 19th century from the Eyre family, who made their money in wine and slavery. So long as there are ravens in the Tower, it always will be.

This week, Lord’s holds its 150th Test. It was a late starter. Tests were played at Melbourne, Sydney, the Oval, and Old Trafford before it held its first in July 1884, but it will become the first ground in the world to reach this sesquicentenary. The MCG comes next, with 118. But then, much to the gall of every other corner of the country where they play Test cricket, Lord’s has had the advantage of holding two games a year every year this century. And because this is England, they’ve managed to make the rest of us think it’s us who are privileged by it.

Having stormed through African qualifying without conceding a goal, can Sabri Lamouchi lead the Eagles of Carthage out of the group stage for the first time?

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

Forward has generally thrived at the Camp Nou but Gordon’s arrival plus his salary and United’s transfer demands mean next move is not obvious

The next chapter of Marcus Rashford’s dysfunctional relationship with Manchester United may involve a long summer waiting to discover where he plays next season.

A state of limbo for a forward expected to start England’s World Cup opener against Croatia on 17 June in Dallas is an unusual predicament. Yet this is the latest juncture in a period of career uncertainty that began when the former United head coach Ruben Amorim excluded Rashford from his first-team plans. That was in December 2024, loans at Aston Villa and Barcelona followed, and Rashford is still looking to put down roots, perhaps in Catalonia, something he may well have expected to transpire after scoring a free-kick against Real Madrid that proved pivotal in Barcelona’s La Liga-clinching clásico victory last month.

With Graham Potter at the helm and Viktor Gyökeres finding form, hopes are high after playoff success

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

In the first of a new series of dispatches, fans in US, Mexico and Canada tell us that they want visitors to have a good time but are angry about ticket prices, Fifa’s priorities and a lack of long-term thinking from politicians

The 2026 World Cup features 104 matches in 16 cities across Canada, Mexico and the USA, from Vancouver to Mexico City and San Francisco to Boston. Before, throughout and after the tournament we’ll be hearing from fans in those cities about their experiences – some shared and some different – in our “My World Cup” series. Here some of our correspondents share their first thoughts.

Will New York end their long wait for a title? Our contributors pick the winner, key players and dark horses before the season’s grand finale tips off

• Here’s what New York looked like in 1973, the last time the Knicks won a championship – in pictures

Where to even begin? Victor Wembanyama, the brightest young star in the NBA, appears on the biggest stage imaginable (in this galaxy, at least ... I’m not sure how big the stages are where he comes from), while one of the most storied franchises in American sports has its return to relevance cemented. And, maybe most importantly of all, The Garden, baby! CDL

The crowds are expected to be back in force and favourite Benvenuto Cellini may prove irresistible for many backers

Trainer/jockey: Aidan O’Brien/Wayne Lordan, stall 11
Timeform rating: 125. Odds: 25-1
Pedigree: Frankel/Gossamer Wings (Scat Daddy)

The British rider and unvarnished free spirit is in a good place heading into the Tour de France next month

When Tom Pidcock talks about how it feels to chase down the greatest cyclist of his generation, his language is so vivid you can almost taste the salt-baked sweat on Tadej Pogacar’s jersey.

But as we discuss the pair’s epic duel at the Milan-San Remo classic in March, and what it was like when a bloodied Pogacar went nuclear on the final climb, Pidcock can’t help but smile. “Up the Poggio, when I was following his attack, it was like racing a zombie,” he says. “He was white, white skinsuit, white shorts cut up, blood. He’s a demon. It was incredible.”

We all have a tendency to take the game far too seriously – this seven-a-side tournament provided the perfect antidote

As much as it is tempting to romanticise about Bill Shankly’s most famous quote, he was wrong. Football is not more serious than life and death, and over the years far too many of us seem to have taken the former Liverpool manager’s words a little too literally and stopped being able to enjoy football for its primary purpose: fun.

Whether it is clubs writing letters of complaint because a referee – a fallible human like all 8 billion of us – has made a mistake or the rage on social media that a pundit’s opinion might be skewed towards – shock – their former club, isn’t it time we chilled out a bit?

Energy and military sites targeted as guests gather for economic forum where Putin is due to speak on Friday

Ukrainian drones hit energy and military sites in St Petersburg early on Wednesday, hours before international guests gathered for the city’s flagship economic forum, in a blow to Vladimir Putin.

Several long-range drones crashed into oil storage facilities after Russian air defences failed to shoot them down. There were loud explosions and black smoke rose high above the city from the blazing oil terminal.

Defense secretary’s latest interposition resulted in all-male, overwhelmingly white picks for promotion to admiralty

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The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, stripped nine navy officers including women and Black service members from a promotion list last month, according to a person familiar with the matter, resulting in an all-male, overwhelmingly white slate of 22 advancing as nominees to become one-star admirals.

Hegseth’s unusual intervention violated promotion rules designed to be merit-based and apolitical, the New York Times said on Tuesday, and extended the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the military.

Keir Starmer says Younger led an ‘exemplary life’, while foreign secretary says country owes him ‘an enormous debt of gratitude’

Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, has died at the age of 62 after being treated for cancer.

Younger led the Secret Intelligence Service, the agency also known as MI6, between 2014 and 2020.

TfL says 60% of drivers worked on first day of stoppage as RMT confirms second day of action will go ahead

A London Underground drivers’ strike will bring another day of transport disruption to the capital on Thursday, after the RMT union confirmed its action would go ahead.

Transport for London (TfL) urged the union to call off the strike, the second 24-hour stoppage this week in a dispute over the introduction of a four-day working week.

Actor sentenced to probation for incident in which he attacked three men and yelled homophobic slurs, according to witnesses

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Shia LaBeouf on Wednesday pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery charges filed against the actor after his arrest over allegations that he struck three men at a New Orleans bar in February.

After his plea in the city’s criminal district courthouse, the Transformers film franchise star received a sentence of two years’ probation, rehabilitation for alcohol abuse, sensitivity training and anger management classes.

​The first heatwaves of the season reveal how ​ill-prepared governments across the continent are to protect people from increasingly dangerous temperatures

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Meteorological summer has begun, ushered in with scorching heat that struck before spring was up. Although western Europe is now mostly free from last week’s heat dome – which shattered temperature records for May in the UK and Ireland – it is already bracing for yet another sweltering summer. Oppressive days, restless nights and furious fires are brewing. On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organisation warned us all to prepare for the imminent return of the warming weather pattern El Niño.

Scientists have not worked out how many people died during this latest bout of hot weather, but one environmental epidemiologist’s early modelling pegged it at 250 extra deaths in the UK alone on the weekend before temperatures peaked. The full death toll is likely to be particularly high because the heat struck before people had properly adjusted their behaviour to stay safe in the heat.

Campaigners say builders’ demolition of nest site highlights weak protection of wildlife from development

A building that was a noted nesting site for swifts, among the UK’s most at-risk birds, has been demolished during the nesting season, highlighting significant weaknesses in the protection of wildlife from development, campaigners say.

Contractors for the housebuilder Hill Group carried out the demolition of Regent House near Dorking station in Surrey over the last few weeks, during the nesting season which runs from 1 March to 31 August.

Governments urged to act to prevent potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to medicines

The use of antibiotics on livestock will rise by nearly a third in the next 15 years without government intervention, according to new global estimates, with potentially disastrous impacts on human resistance to essential medicines.

Animal husbandry accounts for close to three-quarters of global use of antimicrobial medications and in many countries their use is poorly monitored. Some herds are routinely dosed and in many countries antimicrobials are used to increase the growth of animals bred for meat.

Understanding whale sounds could help prevent strikes from ships and even aid in search for extraterrestrial life

If you stand on certain shorelines and listen carefully you might just hear deep rumbling noises. Sharp-eared fishers, lighthouse keepers and sea kayakers have been haunted by these late-night sounds for centuries and now, for the first time, scientists have recorded these thrums and pinpointed them to humpback whales, proving that whales have a far larger vocabulary than previously thought.

Fred Sharpe from the Alaska Whale Foundation and his colleagues set up land-based microphones to tune in to the mysterious ocean noises. Tip-offs from Alaskan coastal communities helped to narrow down the best recording locations. Along with the previously documented trumpets, blows and shrieks that humpback whales make, the researchers recorded very low frequency rumbles, a bit like distant thunder, and new sounds including pizzle, howl and hooting noises. The night thrums travelled through the air and could be heard up to 6 miles (10km) away.

Fewer than one in 10 SEW customers satisfied with firm’s handling of supply crisis, which left tens of thousands without water

South East Water failed to adequately communicate with customers during outages last winter that left tens of thousands of people without water, a report has concluded.

Fewer than one in 10 SEW customers were satisfied with how the company handled the water supply crisis that stretched across parts of Kent and Sussex last winter, the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) said. The independent body’s report found communication was the company’s greatest failing.

Stephen McCullagh planned ‘cold-blooded and calculated’ killing of Natalie McNally in Lurgan, Northern Ireland, in great detail

A YouTuber who set up a false alibi by livestreaming a video-gaming session online has been sentenced to 31 years in prison for the “cold-blooded and calculated” murder of his pregnant partner.

Stephen McCullagh, 36, of Lisburn, County Antrim, showed no emotion on Wednesday as he was sentenced at Belfast crown court for the murder of Natalie McNally, a crime that chilled Northern Ireland.

DfE plans to withdraw funding for assistive software, saying it is now rarely needed due to ‘widely available free tools’

Disability campaigners have called on the government to halt plans to cut funding for specialist tech support for tens of thousands of disabled students in England.

Almost 10,000 people have signed a petition opposing Department for Education (DfE) proposals to withdraw funding for specialist assistive software available as part of the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA).

Exclusive: Voters value changes ‘so we can afford to actually have a life’, as well as immigration policy and honesty in politicians

Voters in Makerfield rank the cost of living, declining high streets and public services as among the most important issues locally, with many also disillusioned by the political system and distrustful of politicians, according to research.

The findings – shared exclusively with the Guardian – come from a focus group commissioned by 38 Degrees and carried out by JL Partners. The fieldwork took place roughly two weeks before the byelection on 18 June, when the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, is hoping to see off a challenge from Reform UK.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the virus ‘had a big head start’ but that the response was catching up

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could have begun as early as January, the head of the World Health Organization said, giving the virus “a big head start”.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said the response was being hindered by blanket travel restrictions and highlighted high levels of community mistrust and low levels of contact tracing as key concerns.

North Carolina judge said Levi Mendez-Maldonado failed to show up in court – even after being told he had died in 2024

An immigration judge in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently ordered the deportation of a young man who was killed in 2024, citing his failure to appear in court.

Judge Amy Lee ordered the removal of Levi Mendez-Maldonado in absentia on 21 May. Mendez-Maldonado, originally from Honduras, came to the United States as an unaccompanied minor at age 17 and was murdered in a shooting in November 2024.

Combs was sentenced last year in New York to 50 months in prison on charges of transporting women for prostitution

Authorities in Los Angeles are reviewing additional sexual assault allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is serving a federal prison sentence.

In a statement to multiple outlets on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Nathan Hochman, the Los Angeles county district attorney, confirmed that the office was reviewing the allegations, saying: “In the fall of 2025, LAPD and LASD each presented a separate sexual assault investigation for one victim to the LA county district attorney’s office.”

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organizations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html

Petrol station attack in Calabria throws spotlight on widespread exploitation of foreign farm labourers

The exploitation of farm workers in Italy has come under the spotlight again after four men – three Afghans and one from Pakistan – were allegedly burned alive in a car at a petrol station in Calabria.

The attack was captured by a surveillance camera at the garage in Amendolara, close to Cosenza. Two Pakistani nationals have been arrested on charges of aggravated murder, according to public prosecutor Alessandro D’Alessio.

European Commission proposals aim to reduce ‘risky dependencies’ on foreign suppliers in cloud computing, AI and semiconductors

The EU executive wants to ensure no foreign government or company has access to a “kill switch” to turn off or disrupt vital tech services across the continent, as part of an effort to cut dependencies on the US and China.

Publishing “technological sovereignty” proposals that risk further tensions with Donald Trump, the European Commission said on Wednesday the bloc needed to reduce dependency on foreign suppliers in cloud computing, artificial intelligence and semiconductor production.

New crisis at former vocational charity involves alleged withholding of data and breaching redundancy laws

City & Guilds is facing potential legal and industrial action over claims it has been “dishonest” over plans to shed about 400 UK staff.

Officials at the Unite union allege the owner of the training and qualifications body has been “unlawfully withholding key information during transfer consultations”, while also “advertising for new recruits when it is legally required to give staff at risk of redundancy first refusal”.

Bank apologises after IT update caused problems with Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland apps

Lloyds Banking Group has apologised after thousands of its customers were unable to make payments or send money due to another IT glitch.

According to Downdetector, a website that lets people track real-time service issues and outages, customers started noticing problems shortly after 11am on Wednesday, with issues affecting many of the group’s brands: Lloyds Bank, Halifax, Bank of Scotland, Scottish Widows and MBNA.

Non-binding agreement to start assembling vehicles in 2027 would safeguard jobs at UK’s largest car factory

Nissan has agreed to look at building cars in northern England for Chinese manufacturer Chery, in a move that would secure jobs at the UK’s largest car factory and begin mass-market Chinese car production in Britain for the first time.

The Japanese carmaker said on Wednesday it had signed a non-binding agreement and that discussions were ongoing over contract manufacturing by Nissan for Chery, which is part-owned by the Chinese state.

Set to be this year’s biggest blockbuster, The Odyssey’s cast has been selected to ‘represent the world’. Fair enough – except that one key country seems to have gone completely unrepresented …

There are the American accents, gleaming body suits and a muddy Dunkirk palette. And then there is Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy, a casting choice that recently drew racist attacks from the usual moaners of the internet, including Elon Musk, who complained it wasn’t authentic. Authenticity matters. He’s just focusing entirely in the wrong place. To many Greeks, what concerns us most about the first look at Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey is the whereabouts of Billy Zane.

Zane, like other beloved members of the Greek diaspora in Hollywood, has recently appeared on “Alternative Odyssey” lists on the Greek side of social media, as well as over dinner table debates from Patras to Palmers Green. (Theo James, Jennifer Aniston, Hank Azaria, and Dave Bautista are among the other nominees.) Greek and Greek Cypriot media platforms are writing open letters. It’s a symptom of feeling left out by Hollywood, again and with no explanation, from our foundational mythologies and epics, with a cast list that features not even a token –opoulos, –edes, or –iannou. Not a single Greek.

From modern art giants such as Helen Marten to the most exciting up-and-comers, this weekend’s art party showcases the best and brightest the capital has to offer – free of charge

With hundreds of world-class galleries, thousands of stunning exhibitions and countless talented artists, London has a serious claim to being the art capital of the world. Sure, it’s also got sky-high rents that make surviving as an artist nigh on impossible; and yes, perilous economic conditions mean that galleries are closing at an unprecedented rate (the brilliant Tiwani Contemporary announced last week that it would soon be shutting for good). But there’s still plenty to celebrate. And that’s where London Gallery Weekend comes in.

Now entering its sixth year, the event brings together London’s biggest, brightest and best galleries for a weekend-long art party. There are talks, walk-throughs, performances, poetry readings and gigs taking place across the weekend, with galleries open late throughout – and admission to everything is free.

From his multi-million pound beer brand to souvenir emporium flogging cufflinks, there’s such a cult of personality around the bumbling berk now that he’s basically morphing into Kim, Khloé et al. Stick to the farming, Jeremy!

By now, five series in, the fatal flaw at the heart of Clarkson’s Farm has become unignorable. Ultimately, this is meant to be a show about failure; about an oafish man who wades in to an industry he knows little about and mucks everything up.

Except, well, it isn’t that any more, is it? Because in real life, Clarkson’s Farm has become so successful that Clarkson has now essentially colonised the entire Cotswolds in his image. His Farmer’s Dog pub is now such an attraction that it recently had to turn a nearby field into a 360-space car park – the same as a large supermarket – to cope with demand. His Diddly Squat farm shop is a souvenir emporium, catering to anyone who wants to buy branded hats and cufflinks, or to own a jar of honey with Clarkson’s face on it. And this isn’t even mentioning his Hawkstone beer brand, which reported sales of £21.3m in the year to March 2025 and has a stated goal of putting Peroni “out of business”.

Clarkson’s Farm is on Prime Video

It should have taken years, but Ash Koosha made a drama about Iran’s anti-government protests in weeks – and now it’s the first AI-made movie to screen at a major film festival. It could transform indie film-making, claims the director

Next week a breakthrough 75-minute drama about the brutal crackdown in Iran on anti-government protesters in January will premiere at the Tribeca film festival in New York. It is called Dreams of Violets and is based on journalism, video footage and eyewitness accounts. “I would say 80% of it is a recreation of events that actually happened,” says its Iranian-British director Ash Koosha. But Dreams of Violets is a work of fiction, not a documentary: a drama following a group of strangers caught up in the protests, who meet by chance in an alleyway. How on earth has Koosha managed to pull together a drama about the killings in less than six months?

The answer, it turns out, is by using artificial intelligence. Every image and character in Dreams of Violets is AI-generated. Koosha says he created the characters by describing their physical appearances, using people he has known in the past as references. It would be too dangerous to base characters on living people in Iran, he says. “Because of the security issue, it would not be safe for the characters to even remotely resemble someone.”

The bleak Arthur Miller-written 1961 American pastoral is rereleased to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Monroe, who plays a naive divorcee who meets three new suitors in her most serious and poignant role

The 100th anniversary of Marilyn Monroe’s birth, and a two-month retrospective at BFI Southbank, is the occasion for the rerelease of her most serious and poignant film, John Huston’s western drama and American pastoral from 1961. The film’s end of an era desolation feels more sombre than ever; the last film for both Clark Gable and Monroe and a melancholy late role for Montgomery Clift.

The Misfits was written for the screen by Monroe’s then husband, Arthur Miller, adapted from his own short story from a few years before. Miller’s opaque motivations are a subtext running under this movie; with a strangely uxorious dedication or vengefulness, Miller conceived the whole thing for Marilyn. It is the story of a passionate, vulnerable, childlike free spirit who finds a complex kind of excitement and freedom – flavoured with disillusion – with a real man after divorcing an emotionally blank city dweller. (Monroe and Miller divorced immediately after production.) The key irony of the title is that of course no one on screen is a misfit: they fit in all too well with the stark landscape and each other in their loneliness, their discontent and their yearning for something else or something more to live for.

Howells puts in a strong turn as Henry Paget, a Victorian marquess who blows his inheritance on hosting wild parties and staging gender-defying theatrical performances

Playing the shy Colin in Russell T Davies’s 2021 TV drama It’s a Sin, Callum Scott Howells had to be the humble caterpillar compared to Olly Alexander’s extravagant butterfly. But now Howells gets an upgrade to full butterfly status in this high-spirited and good-humoured drama from screenwriter Lisa Baker and director Celyn Jones, reclaiming a forgotten chapter in queer Victorian history.

With a moustache resembling that of Proust, Howells amusingly plays the flamboyant aristocrat Henry Paget, 5th Marquess of Anglesey, a delicate consumptive and aesthete who, in the late 19th century, blew his vast inheritance on colossal private theatricals, wild parties and jaw-dropping performances in which he would appear in gender-challenging costumes, including a diaphanous veil he wore as a “butterfly dancer”. He caused scandal with his behaviour and apparently unconsummated marriage to first cousin Lily (Ruby Stokes), whose attitude to him here is perhaps more affectionate and tolerant than it was in real life.

A Sydney screening of La La Land with live orchestra was rescued by a brave (and skilled) amateur pianist. What happens when classical performers, or their instruments, suddenly collapse? Plus, Tavener’s mystic pantomime finally gets to the stage

Music’s equivalent of catching a home run at a baseball game happened on Saturday in Sydney, when a 21-year-old university student jumped in to save a performance of the movie La La Land with live orchestra. The band’s keyboardist had fallen ill and couldn’t perform in the second half. Unable to find a replacement at such short notice, the conductor Justin Hurwitz (winner of two Oscars for the film’s music) asked the audience if there was a pianist in the house. Sterling Nasa answered the call, and performed in the second half, improvising a solo, and not getting a tempo change or key signature wrong.

It’s a great story – and incredible that an audience member had the requisite sight-reading and technical skills to carry it off. Could it happen in a classical concert? There have certainly been moments here too when an audience member has saved the day. The best of those stories comes from the summer of 1974, when the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus brought Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana to the Proms, conducted by André Previn, with the baritone Thomas Allen among the soloists. You can actually hear the shocking moment from the live radio broadcast when Allen collapses into the cello section in an episode of the BBC World Service’s Witness History. He had fainted and was carried off the stage. After a brief pause, Previn chose to keep going rather than stop the performance.

Emma-Lee Moss, AKA singer-songwriter Emmy the Great, has written a memoir rooted in her love of Hong Kong’s east-meets-west pop. She picks her favourite tracks

Emma-Lee Moss, a singer-songwriter who released four albums as Emmy the Great, was born in Hong Kong to an English father and Hongkonger mother. She lived there until she was 11, when her family moved to England, one of many who left Hong Kong before its transfer of sovereignty from the UK to China in 1997.

Even as a child, Moss understood the significance of the handover, which returned Hong Kong to Chinese control after 156 years as a British colony. “Thanks to our British passports, we would avoid the greatest schism our city had ever known – and its consequences, which were unwritten,” Moss writes in her memoir, My Cantopop Nights. Later, as a touring musician, Moss played gigs in Hong Kong, where she reconnected with her childhood love of Cantopop – predominantly Hong Kong music that blended Chinese and western pop sensibilities. In 2017, she moved back there to write her fourth album. That year, which marked 20 years since the handover, saw thousands of pro-democracy protesters on the streets after activists including Joshua Wong, Nathan Law and Alex Chow were imprisoned. Amid the unrest, Moss sought to capture Hong Kong’s sound and spirit through her music.

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

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

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

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

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

The outspoken crime novelist talks his provocative new book, his hatred of technology and why the film adaptation of LA Confidential is a ‘turkey’

James Ellroy does not own a computer, his publicist explains, so will a phone interview be OK? When the self-proclaimed “mad dog of American crime fiction” picks up his landline at the appointed hour, it transpires that he has never owned a mobile phone either. Nor sent an email. Nor figured out how to turn on his ex-wife Helen Knode’s TV set.

“Everything is very complex and it’s satanic to me, the dependency that people have on computers,” Ellroy, 78, says cheerfully in a bass baritone drawl from his pad in Denver, Colorado. “I don’t engage in internet chat and I understand there’s all this crazy shit on the internet and people with the most outlandish beliefs on God’s green Earth.”

In less than a decade, surrounded by screens, I lost my ability to read some of the best books ever written. But, inspired by the Guardian’s 100 best novels list, I was determined to get it back

It is a privilege to be surrounded by books. My parents hail from the literary working class, a subsection of society that believes great works lead to a richer life. Reading for them was an inverted form of class snobbery. My dad could read as well as anyone. He’d prove it on package holidays, sitting on the balcony the entire time, head bowed, cigarette in hand, flicking through the pages of Jane Austen or Herman Melville. The only difference between my old man and an old Etonian was the drudgery of employment. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: work is the bane of the reading class.

As for my own reading life, my mum wore me down, shouting “Read a book!” any time I dared say I was bored. I soon capitulated. I was nudged towards the classics, defined by Italo Calvino as books people say they should “reread” because they’ve either read them or do not want to admit they have not. In my late teens and 20s, I worked my way through the greats. I fell in love with a woman called George and thought Middlemarch was magic. I was a smart lad, prone to bad decisions, unsure of my place in the world. It is perhaps no surprise that I identified with Dorothea.

The critic’s memoir’s is a portrait in determination to go against the grain and ‘pursue a life in words and ideas’

Brian Dillon lost his parents early, his mother when he was 16, his father at 21. He writes of them in passing here, as he did in his first book, In the Dark Room, but with little overt display of grief. Narrated in the third person, with young Dillon a removed he rather than an emotionally manipulative I, this isn’t a weepy orphanhood memoir. It describes instead his awkward Dublin education, as he struggles to carve out an identity for himself and to accommodate his passion for avant garde music and literature within academe.

He grows up surrounded by the books acquired by his father, who left school early and went to university late. He reads them avidly and adds to them with library borrowings and purchases of his own. But, to begin with, his greater attachment is to music magazines and to David Bowie, whose excitingly ambivalent sexuality echoes his own. His father speaks of duty – to homework, weekly mass and getting a decent job. But his commitment is to jouissance, if only he can find it.

Written in breathless multilingual prose, this coming-of-age meets state-of-the-nation novel is an incredible literary performance

Three twentysomethings “drive and dream of an impossible night on an endless street. moving as a massive through mad sticky traffic, destination: where else? manchester, wilmslow road, the curry mile, yo!” Thus opens Sufiyaan Salam’s high-octane debut novel, written largely in gen Z lowercase – and you’re in for a ride.

The Boyz are British Pakistani friends in their early 20s. Immy is “something of a bad-boy muslim slut who don’t never text back”; Khan is “the mogul mowgli himself … the type to recite Warren Buffett epigrams like they’re hadiths”; and Haris has “a mind that never switches off, philosophy subreddits doing bares”. Each is looking for an escape – from their past, present, someone else, or themselves – and they come together for one night “cruising and bruising in a hire car towards what might just be the natural elastic endpoint of a friendship beginning to fray”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Storyhouse, Chester
Kit Green takes on all the characters in an imaginative interpretation of the 1925 day-in-the-life novel

As Clarissa Dalloway wafts about the stage, welcoming her audience indiscriminately before instigating party games, the essence of Virginia Woolf’s scrupulous socialite appears to be missing. But this stage adaptation – co-written by Jen Heyes, who directs, and Kit Green, who performs – is a playful re-examination of the novel, wrapped up as a multimedia-driven solo show.

Heyes has been experimenting with cine-theatre for some time. The format evokes the work of Australian director Kip Williams, though it’s simpler than his West End blockbusters, Sarah Snook’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Cynthia Erivo’s Dracula. In Heyes’s production, featuring Monika Koeck’s video design, Green’s Clarissa similarly interacts with many characters on screen, who she also portrays.

At Storyhouse, Chester, until 6 June. Then at Harlow Playhouse, Essex, 10-11 June; Wilton’s Music Hall, London, 16-20 June; and Home, Manchester, 24-26 September

Newport Street Gallery, London
White may be a talented musician but as a visual artist, he’s a nonstarter. Not even the collaborations with Ai Weiwei and Damien Hirst can save this show

Nobody can phone it in like a famous conceptual artist. Invited to customise one of rock star Jack White’s amplifiers, Ai Weiwei has inscribed the F-word in buttons of various sizes and colours across its front. It’s a cynical, contemptuous gesture, but also a marvellously louche one, reminding you of the dangerous, nihilistic yet creative spirit that this exhibition of White’s art totally lacks.

White was huge in the 00s as one half of duo the White Stripes, with Meg White, and his solo career is still going strong. Clearly the art world wants to be his friend. This show is on at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery and its luxurious hardback catalogue includes an interview with him by the uber-curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. Hirst has also customised an amp with – guess what? – a model of a rotting cow’s head. In addition, he has collaborated with White on works featuring other hackneyed Hirst tropes: an eternally floating ping-pong ball and a spin painting.

Theatre503, London
Hope still resides against horror in this collection of short plays from Palestinian playwrights, poets and artists

What are the basic requirements of theatre-making? Actors, writers, resource and rehearsal space, to name a few. What happens when these factors are narrowed to their most dangerous extremities? Companies like Belarus Free Theatre and the Freedom Theatre have shown that theatre does not stop its production even as bombs and bullets assail the building. The work finds its way to an audience.

This is certainly the case with this collection of nine short plays written by Palestinian playwrights, poets and artists. Directed by Ahmed Masoud and Micaela Miranda, the show has been rapidly put out with just one week of rehearsals. Four writers are currently in Gaza while two are former political prisoners, including Walid Daqqa, one of the longest-serving Palestinian prisoners, who died in custody in 2024. An extract from The Martyrs Return to Ramallah (translated by Julia Choucair Vizoso) is both absurdist and haunting, featuring the dead bodies of prisoners stored in Israeli prisons and denied burials, who begin to talk to each other.

At Theatre 503, London, until 6 June

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

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

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

Lanza Atelier’s simple, powerful pavilion features an actual serpentine brought to life in a wave of rust-coloured brick – a material never used for the structure before

Serving looks all summer on the green carpet of Kensington Gardens, the often wildly experimental Serpentine pavilion is best viewed as a piece of architectural haute couture. For the last 25 years, it has hosted all sorts of fashionistas, from the American Frank Gehry, whose pavilion resembled an explosion in a lumber yard, to Swiss magus Peter Zumthor, who built a charcoal-walled hortus conclusus (contemplative room), that tuned out the wider park landscape entirely.

The Serpentine’s rules of engagement are simple: the selected architect should not have built in the UK, so it’s a chance to showcase new or unsung talent. The constellation of largely white male superstars doing elaborate parodies of themselves, which characterised the pavilion’s early imperial phase, has given way to what might be described as more nuanced midlife, featuring younger emerging architects from more diverse backgrounds.

The director defends investment in and use of AI-generated storyboards, saying the immediacy of communicating his vision to cast and crew is ‘creatively freeing’

Martin Scorsese’s announcement that he has invested in an AI company and uses the technology to create storyboards has triggered a backlash from fellow members of the film industry.

The New York Times reported that Scorsese had been appointed in 2025 as a partner and adviser to Black Forest Labs, a German-based venture that specialises in text-to-image generative AI.

Film editor who won an Oscar for her work on Star Wars, which she nevertheless referred to as ‘a kids’ movie’

In February 1977, George Lucas screened a rough cut of his science-fiction fantasy Star Wars, devoid of any music or special effects, to a select audience at his home in northern California. Among those in attendance, reported Peter Biskind in his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, were studio executives from 20th Century Fox, colleagues such as the screenwriter Gloria Katz and the director Brian De Palma. Katz recalled that the screening was greeted by “stunned silence”. De Palma was heard asking: “What is this shit?”

Lucas’s wife Marcia, who had edited Star Wars with Richard Chew and Paul Hirsch, was in tears, convinced the film was doomed. Katz advised her: “Don’t cry when there are people from the studio there.”

‘In a really simple way, this photo captures that intense colour and joy of being at the seaside with your loved ones’

Our British seaside has such a distinctive look: the bingo halls, the buckets and spades and pinwheels, and all the amazing colours of the funfairs. I find them the most amazing environments. I love that visually super-charged, maximalist style.

The seaside is nostalgic to all of us. My grandpa lived in Pembrokeshire and we’d go and see him when I was little. The beach provokes this childlike sense of wonderment. It is a space that anyone can be a part of, friends and family, whatever age, whatever background. It unlocks the connection to nature, which inspires freedom and fun. There are not really any rules, and it’s playful – the funfairs, the arcades, splashing in the water. We don’t have many outlets for play, especially as adults.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The best face moisturisers for every budget

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

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

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

Best budget face SPF:
E45 Sensitive Sun face cream

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

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

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

We’ve had swicy. We’ve had swavoury. Now a new fusion of flavours is flying off the shelves. So what do these South American-inspired drinks and dishes actually taste like?

When the balance of fruit and spicy flavours is right, “I love it,” a fellow customer at a dessert cafe in London tells me as we wait to be served. It’s 26-year-old Hannah’s third time visiting Mango Twist in Seven Sisters, which sells South American-inspired slushies and fruit bowls. She’s here, like me, to order one of its “fricy” (fruity and spicy) offerings: the “Volcano” slushie, which is the cafe’s take on the traditional Mexican chamoyada, a mango and chilli drink.

Hannah has family in the US, so is familiar with the Mexican sweet treats that are commonly available there; as a child she was “obsessed” with the flavours. So when she found out about Mango Twist, “I was like, ‘I need to come here,’” she says.

Spent coffee grounds add depth to a smoky-sweet, intense barbecue sauce that’s a knockout with pulled mushrooms, grilled veg and meat alike

Three pillars underpin my cooking style – pleasure, people and planet – and I believe that all three need to be taken into account to make a truly delicious and nourishing meal, hence the title of my most recent book, Eating for Pleasure, People & Planet. Today’s recipe is taken from one of the tastiest recipes in the book, Venezuelan corn cake arepas with “pulled” oyster mushrooms and this sweet, umami-rich and intense barbecue sauce, all topped with a refreshing kohlrabi and mango salsa.

A selection of winning images from this year’s World Food Photography awards sponsored by Tenderstem. The photographs offer insights into the lives of people around the world through the lens of food, from growing, farming and harvesting to cooking, eating, celebrating and surviving

• A free exhibition of all 203 finalist images is at the Mall Galleries, London, from Wednesday 3 June to Sunday 7 June

Crisp chocolate bars that are great to make with children’s help, plus a spicy carrot twist that transforms a traditional blondie

When it comes to having fun with the family in the kitchen, my brownie recipes deliver every time. The toffee crisp number brings crunch and nostalgia, while the carrot cake blondie offers a softer, spiced twist that even veg-avoiding kids love. Both are simple crowdpleasers and perfect for little hands in the kitchen. Best of all, they’re not just for children; grown-ups will happily claim the last square, too.

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

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

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

As the far right fulminates about who ‘belongs’ in Britain, let’s remember Fritz Lustig, who arrived here in 1939, just months before war broke out. Initially jailed as an ‘enemy alien’, he played a vital role in a top-secret military intelligence unit

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in January 1933, Fritz Lustig, my father, was a 13-year-old schoolboy growing up in Berlin. He was a budding musician with dreams of becoming a professional cellist but, by the time he left school four years later, it was clear that under the Nazis, even though his family had largely cast aside their Jewish heritage, his options were going to be extremely limited.

Neither he, nor any of his anxious relatives, could possibly imagine the scale of the horrors that lay in store – but after the anti-Jewish pogrom of Kristallnacht in 1938, it was impossible to ignore the gathering storm clouds.

While many young people are struggling to get work, an average date night costs north of $200. No wonder so many are resigning themselves to being alone

Name: Solo-maxxing.

Age: Newish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few lucky runners can look forward to ‘an orchestra of neurochemical changes’ when they lace up their trainers. Why do the rest of us just get sweaty? And do other forms of exercise have the same effect?

The runner’s high, where pavement-pounding drudgery turns into something like a chemically enhanced experience, is an elusive state to pin down. Some people seem to get it during most of their runs; others rarely, or barely at all. A few lucky Couch to 5kers claim to experience it within their first few sessions, while some professional athletes doubt that it even exists. This is partly due to individual differences in brain chemistry, and partly because the way you train has a significant effect on how likely you are to experience it.

If you’re on the verge of throwing away your trainers, though, there’s good news: runner’s high is real, and there are ways to maximise your chances of experiencing it, even if you’d rather hit the pool or the river than the trail. On your marks, then …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Favourite shirt … Liv Samuels in his Arsenal badge Hawaiian top

Series two of Rivals has brought big, bouncy locks into vogue. From Slash to Grace Jones to Bono’s mullet, here are other looks to copy if you dare …

***

One thing that has come raging back in vogue upon the release of Rivals, season two, is Jilly Cooper’s hair. That’s no surprise – Rivals has revived a lot of things we thought we’d seen the back of: smoking; dinner parties with an aperitif segment; braces (the trouser variant); a haughty expression. Give it a couple of episodes and we’ll have made our peace with naked tennis in time for Wimbledon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tebay, Cumbria: Some of my ancestors were fell pony hauliers and our farmhouse used to be a coaching inn. Might they have called in for a drink?

There is always some waiting around at lambing and calving time, so I like to have a project ongoing. Some years I have written books; this year I’m researching my family tree, in particular whether any of my ancestors may have visited Low Borrowdale farm when it was a coaching inn in the 18th century. I knew they had been involved in fell pony haulage around the north of England, but could they have called in here for a drink?

I’m mainly investigating the Binks family – my maiden name. Almost within living memory, there is my grandad’s grandad, George Binks, a fell pony haulier who lived in Great Asby from 1862 to 1934. My grandad told me which house he lived in, eight miles from our farm. Two more generations of George Binkses take us to 1785, when one was born in Middleton-in-Teesdale and died in 1840 at Kirkby Stephen, 11 miles away.

A breadcrumb trail of secret messages spanning two years, dozens of puzzles and the Guardian’s leader column led solvers to a very special prize …

Last time, we shared some old milestone puzzles in anticipation of Guardian cryptic No 30,000. That crossword has since been published: and here, in the order it happened (that is, how solvers experienced it but in reverse), is its tale.

29581 WELLDONE
29587 BRAVO
29599 HERE
29611 INCONCLUSION
29629 ISOURF
29633 INALCH
29641 ALLENG
29663 EAREYOU
29669 KEEPINGUPGREAT
29671 THEREWI
29683 LLBEAWON
29717 DERF
29723 ULPRIZ
29741 EBUTFIR
29753 STYOUM
29759 USTENT
29761 ERARAC
29789 ENOTAN
29803 ACTUALATHLETIC
29819 RACEOFC
29833 OURSETH
29837 ATWOULD
29851 BEWEIRD
29863 NOTTHAT
29867 ITSACER
29873 EBRALRA
29879 CEINTHE
29881 FORMOFA
29917 CROSSWORDPUZZLE
29921 ITSAGEN
29927 IUSPUBL
29947 ISHEDAT
29959 NOONBST
29983 TOMORROW
29989 GODSPEED

LAST THIRTY-FIVE PRIMES

Leader I tailored badly
[ definition: leader ]
[ wordplay: anagram (‘badly’) of ITAILORED ]

You might think tropical plants would love a warm shower, but even in summer the UK’s weather is unpredictable

The problem
Indoor plants accumulate dust on their leaves, mineral deposits on their soil and a general staleness that comes from living in the same spot, in poorly ventilated air, for months at a time.

The hack
Spending time in warm summer rain is said to give houseplants a spa day: soft water reaches their roots, dust is washed from their leaves, and they get a rare dose of the outdoor conditions they may be best suited to.

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

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

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

In the Guardian’s Against the tide series, the documentary photographer got to know some ‘amazing’ 16- to 25-year-olds living on the fringes of England and Wales, and now her work is the centre of a new touring exhibition

It was while reading a landmark report about the poor health of people who live on the English coast that documentary photographer Polly Braden had her big idea. “I was just blown away by it,” she says. “I thought: this is about England. And it affects all of us.”

At the same time, as a single mother of teenagers, she had become interested in the lives of young people who had grown up under austerity, lived through a pandemic and were becoming adults during a cost-of-living crisis.

With rivals racing to market to raise ‘eye-popping sums’, the spotlight is now on the AI sector’s one-time ‘poster child’

A year is a long time in AI. Just 12 months ago, Sam Altman was predicting his company OpenAI would build a super intelligence and fundamentally remake society. Now the boss of the ChatGPT developer is walking back those ideas after failing to make money from ads and erotic chatbots.

Meanwhile, rivals are storming ahead with plans to expand and go public on the stock market, in what is widely expected to be a season of record-setting initial public offerings (IPOs).

With the constant risk of being recorded, many young people are afraid of showing enthusiasm – let alone doing something so potentially embarrassing as dancing in public. Is there a way to set themselves free?

In a video posted to TikTok, where Katie Whitney has 2.5 million followers, she says to camera, bluntly: “This video is for Cynthia Erivo. If you’re not Cynthia Erivo … you can keep on scrolling.” Her demeanour then shifts, her voice becomes softer; more the way a person might talk to their puppy: “Hi Cynthia. Hi baby. Hey baby. How are you?” It’s toe-curling – or, in modern parlance, cringe – to watch. “I feel traumatised,” says one commenter. Others post photos of a stunned-looking Erivo and imagine: “What if the Wicked star were to actually watch this video?” Cringe!

Now 25, but having started making this kind of content – “weird skits” – at 20, Whitney is part of what is known online as CringeTok, a subsection of the internet that deals in content designed to make your toes curl. It’s in many ways a reaction to a fear of being “cringe”, which is seeping into all parts of life – from social media to classrooms to the workplace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you or you partner a secret spender? Take part in our experiment

We’re looking for couples, who don’t often open up about their finances with each other, to take part in an experiment for the Saturday magazine. Maybe you have a ridiculous Pret habit you don’t mention to your boyfriend or you’re hooked on online shopping and have never revealed the extent of your spending to your wife. Or maybe the two of you have simply never sat down and discussed what you scrimp on and where you splash out.

If this sounds like you – and you’d be willing to record and share money diaries with each other in the presence of a Guardian journalist – get in touch and we can share more information. We would run these interviews anonymously.

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