Ten years after the vote, our economy is battered – and our national conversation darkens by the day. Still, there is reason for hope

When the anniversary comes, later this month, few will be in the mood to look back. All the political talk will be of the Makerfield byelection, of the future of this government and this prime minister. And yet, it would be wise to reflect on what happened on 23 June 2016 – if only because the choices Keir Starmer and his would-be successors face, indeed the entire political and cultural landscape we now inhabit, are informed or were shaped by that event. We are living in Brexit Britain.

A useful prompt comes from the upcoming two-part BBC series Brexit: A Very British Civil War, made by the master documentarian Norma Percy. Speaking to (nearly) every key player, it brings it all back – the red bus, “take back control”, the pantomime river battle of Nigel Farage v Bob Geldof.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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What if your best mate slept with your child? The stars of Alice and Steve, the new taboo-busting comedy about friends at war, open up about drug-taking, iffy sex – and why British jokes are so hard to understand

Alice and Steve, the new “wrongcom” starring Nicola Walker and Jemaine Clement, starts like the story of a lifelong friendship between two 50ish exes. They went out for a short time, a million years ago, and ever since have been platonically inseparable. In one of the first scenes, Alice (Walker) tells Steve (Clement) that she loves him so much that if he were ever drowning, she’d hollow out her own mother’s body and use it as a canoe. Alice and Steve go to funerals, get drunk, talk frankly about their disappointments, devise ill-advised solutions, take cocaine but only once every epoch; all the stuff of a loving friendship is here.

But creator Sophie Goodhart also uses it to put every kind of relationship under the microscope. “It’s every stage of love Sophie is looking at,” says Walker. So it’s also about the doldrums of a long marriage, between Alice and Daniel (Joel Fry). And it’s about first love going exquisitely well for Dom, Alice and Daniel’s teenage son, until they take an edible and everything goes awry. Unavoidably, though, all the fireworks are around one love story – and how it puts paid to Alice and Steve’s relationship.

Compare his response, or lack of, to three murders over the past decade – Jo Cox, Sarah Everard and Henry Nowak

Which murder victim’s ambulance does the would-be statesman chase? Can you be said to “speak for England” if there are other times you wimp out on speaking at all, either out of self-preservation or moral smallness, or just not actually giving much of a toss? The questions arise after Nigel Farage moved himself into pole position with an explicitly incendiary speech in the wake of the appalling murder of Henry Nowak.

The good news for Nigel is that he has struck political gold: increased numbers of people saying “I don’t like him, but I agree with him on this”. The less good news for the nation he’d like to lead is that, when dealing with murders that rightly horrify and outrage the country, you can’t be sure which Nigel Farage will turn up. If, indeed, he turns up at all. Today, I’d like to look at three murders spread evenly over the past decade – all of which caused national outrage – and how Farage conducted himself in the wake of each.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

The internet is making everything into a ‘relationship gap’ by seizing on any difference between two dating humans

It started with the age gap. Can a 40-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman truly get along? That was once a question answered with a resounding “yes” by creepy English professors or moustached indie film-makers with a questionable grasp on the meaning of Lolita. Then came gen Z.

A cohort raised on the rigid moral boundaries of internet discourse – things are either good or bad, no in-between – decided that May-December relationships were either problematically one-sided or transactional in nature. Growing up in the fractured aftermath of #MeToo, where monstrous men were often much older than the women they victimized, probably contributed to that conclusion.

The graphic novelist had a remarkable gift for visual storytelling, in the phenomenon that was Persepolis and beyond. Many of us owe our careers to the space she created, says Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani

• News: Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis and acclaimed French-Iranian artist, dies aged 56

On the morning of 4 June, when I heard the news of Marjane Satrapi’s death, I was stunned. I simply could not believe it. Although I had met her only a handful of times in person – despite having lived in Paris for 16 years and having contributed to her book Woman, Life, Freedom – I felt a deep connection to her work and legacy.

Our collaboration on that book took place mostly through email correspondence, but I always held her in the highest regard. I admired her intelligence, her extraordinary sense of humour and, above all, her remarkable gift for visual storytelling.

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

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

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

Paul Quinn’s minimum term of 14 years means he may serve less time than man wrongly convicted of 2003 Salford attack

A “savage” rapist who evaded justice for nearly two decades could spend less time in prison than the innocent man who was wrongly convicted of his crime.

Paul Quinn, 52, was ordered to serve a minimum of 14 years in prison on Friday over a 2003 rape for which Andrew Malkinson wrongly spent 17 years behind bars.

Labour candidate in Makerfield byelection says party has ‘got it wrong on small businesses’

Andy Burnham has said he would consider cutting some employers’ national insurance contributions, and proposed a cut to business rates for pubs and small, family-run enterprises, in his first significant policy initiative during the Makerfield byelection.

Burnham’s plans amount to a notable criticism of Keir Starmer’s policies in these areas. In his announcement on business rates, the Greater Manchester mayor said: “Labour have got it wrong on small businesses.”

MPs urged to push for ‘radical reform’ after NAO finds former prince made income from Royal Lodge properties

Campaigners have called for radical reform and a public inquiry into “all royal finances” after revelations that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor received an undisclosed private income from subletting three cottages on his Royal Lodge estate while paying a “peppercorn rent”.

A report from the public spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), found the rental income went to the former Duke of York, but said: “We do not know what rent was charged.”

British actor starred on the West End before finding international fame in the 90s on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Anthony Head, the actor best-known for playing Rupert Giles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died aged 72.

“He passed away peacefully of complications due to pneumonia, surrounded by his family,” his daughters Emily and Daisy Head said in a statement.

PM rebuffs US state department’s criticism, adding police response to murder of Henry Nowak is under review

Keir Starmer has rejected the claim that the UK is subject to “two-tier policing” after the Trump administration suggested it was evident in the response to the murder of the teenager Henry Nowak.

The prime minister said the UK must not shy away from asking difficult questions of the police after officers handcuffed Nowak as he lay dying from stab wounds after his killer, Vickrum Digwa, had falsely accused him of racist abuse. Digwa was ultimately convicted of murder and jailed for life with a minimum of 21 years.

Experts stress need for transparency while aiming to prevent premature announcements and protect scientists

Alien hunters have released fresh guidelines on how to handle potential signals from intelligent life beyond Earth, in the hope of avoiding an outburst of panic, misinformation and confusion if any are detected.

While the idea of little green men may be a thing of the past, the possibility of intelligent civilisations elsewhere in the universe remains a serious topic among astronomers.

Allegations of bullying by Newsnight host not upheld after case emerges from 2025 workplace culture review

The BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire was the subject of an investigation over her behaviour, after multiple complaints were received by the broadcaster.

It is understood that three complaints about the Bafta-winning Newsnight host were received, which came to light as part of the BBC’s campaign to improve its workplace culture after high-profile cases of inappropriate behaviour.

Technology secretary promises to support people whose jobs are swept away by automation

Liz Kendall has insisted Labour will make artificial intelligence “work for workers”, and not abandon people whose jobs are swept away by its rapid advance.

With public fears mounting about the impact of AI on employment, particularly for young people, the technology secretary claimed that the government could shape the way it is adopted.

• Social media protection service offered by Fifa

• English FA yet to confirm whether it will use service

Fifa will expand the use of AI at the World Cup to reduce the amount of abusive messages that teams and players are exposed to on social media.

World football’s governing body introduced a social media protection service after the 2022 World Cup in Qatar and has offered its moderation element for free to all football associations at the 2026 tournament, which starts next Thursday. The Football Association has not confirmed whether it is taking up the offer.

Reform UK leader looks spooked by far-right Restore and risks undermining efforts to appeal to moderate voters

Nigel Farage’s self-confidence is famously iron-clad. But just before 12.30pm on Wednesday as a visibly angry Keir Starmer tore into his “unforgivable” response to the murder of Henry Nowak, Farage’s attempts to laugh off the criticism looked unconvincing. He was rattled.

This has been a curious week for the Reform UK leader. The headlines have been dominated by a story seemingly tailor-made for his culture war instincts. But some believe that this time Farage might have overplayed his hand.

Thousands have protested in the streets of the Albanian capital, Tirana, this week against a planned luxury resort backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Groundwork has begun on the $1.6bn complex in an area long seen as one of the Mediterranean’s most environmentally sensitive, containing 200 species of birds including flamingos and Dalmatian pelicans.

After builders began erecting a concrete-based, barbed wire-topped fence around the site, alarm turned to public outrage at the environmental damage and lack of political transparency around the deal.

Lucy Hough speaks to US live news editor Chris Michael.

Omar is married to a British woman, has a British son and was given a single non-custodial sentence nine years ago. Nonetheless, the Home Office was determined to deport him – whatever the cost

A year ago, Omar was living in the UK with his British wife and was determined to be a positive, consistent presence for his 10-year-old son, a British citizen from his first marriage. Omar is devoted to his child and has always been committed to guiding him to adulthood.

But today, Omar, 40, lives in Egypt, separated from his family, thanks to an extraordinarily determined, turbulent and expensive campaign by the Home Office to remove him from the UK. (Omar is not his real name.)

National Portrait Gallery, London
The actor’s life in pictures, from mousey-haired teen to American icon to her shocking death at 36, beams with the charm that defined a century. But why aren’t we shown more of what lay behind the smile?

I wanted to hate the National Portrait Gallery’s new blockbuster show, Marilyn Monroe: A Portrait. It represents two things that really should be binned: anniversary exhibitions (it marks Monroe’s 100th birthday) and exhibitions of celebrity portraits. Anniversaries rarely signify anything other than the passing of time, which is an inevitable and uninteresting fact of life. As for exhibitions of celebrity photographs – they’re like anniversary shows, only with faces.

And yet … I didn’t quite hate this show, and the reason is Monroe herself. We first see her as Norma Jeane Baker, a regular-looking teenager with mousey brown hair, in a self-portrait taken in a photo booth in 1940. She then becomes the radiant, uncontainable, insanely glamorous film star, cheesecake pin-up and actor seen here in photographs, paintings, and excerpts from her films.

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

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

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

Paths You Take is a show that finds beauty in images of alienation as Billy Dosanjh turns his lens on race, identity, empire – and the men who kept the furnaces glowing

It was bitter in Walsall that winter of 1962-3 when snow turned the Black Country white. In After the Storm, Billy Dosanjh’s epic photographic reconstruction of one especially chilly night back then, an elderly Sikh man, recently arrived from the Punjab, stands under an old carriage lamp. He is, the shot suggests, seeing snow for the first time.

“I thought it was quite a fitting note to get him gazing at the snow, looking a little bewildered,” says Dosanjh as we stroll around Paths You Walk, his gripping exhibition of photographs, films and installations at the New Art Gallery Walsall. At the back of the image, three furnace smoke stacks rise up in ghostly fashion, almost like the three crosses on Calvary have been relocated to Mordor.

While some residents are proud to host celebrations, others lament road closures and city’s transformation into a ‘theme park’

Concetta Chillemi was chatting to friends outside her shop next to Palermo’s gallery for modern art housed in a sublime baroque church in the city’s historic centre. A few metres away, an Italian TV crew had its camera trained on the tiny square in front of the church where event staff in black T-shirts scurried around in the heat.

They were preparing for the arrival of the British singer Dua Lipa and the actor Callum Turner, who over the next two days are celebrating their wedding in the Sicilian capital after exchanging vows in London last weekend.

The decision not to test all men and only screen the most at risk, including black men, is fact-based. Yet it’s been called ‘two-tier’ – and labelled as misandry

If the country seems to be slipping away from reason and trust in science, blame usually falls on modern phenomena such as social media and its fantastical influencers. Or on the US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s bizarre anti-vaccine, anti-fluoride, anti-evidence lunacy. But campaigns against the UK national screening committee’s decision to limit prostate cancer testing have been run by British bastions of the sort laying claim to “common sense”. They include two Tory ex-prime ministers, David Cameron and Rishi Sunak (who see themselves as sensibles, unlike Boris Johnson and Liz Truss), joined by their Tory/Reform media, especially the Mail and the Telegraph, plus a host of distinguished campaigners such as Stephen Fry, fount of QI knowledge.

The national screening committee (NSC) has for a long time resisted a call for universal testing of all men for prostate cancer, though it kills 12,000 men a year in the UK. I was on the committee in the 1990s, and it was besieged by demands for screening for prostate cancer and numerous other conditions. These were often refused for unreasonable cost, but this decision is about harm to men, not about money.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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The Mobo founder, who has died aged 57, had an unprecedented vision: to give Black British music a glitzy and joyful awards ceremony. But her impact went well beyond it

• News: Kanya King, founder of Mobo awards for Black British music, dies aged 57

I first met Kanya King in the mid-1990s, when I was still reeling from the failure of my own attempt to target the Black audience via my newspaper, Black Briton. Kanya came along a couple of years later and showed how it should be done. In framing her awards as “music of Black origin”, she not only connected with the relatively small Black British population, but brought in a whole new audience, too, who acknowledged its oversized influence.

Back then, the word diversity was hardly known. We were in the era of “equal opportunities”, which was taken seriously only by Labour-run local councils, and labelled “loony left” by most of the media. Britain had been dominated by more than 15 years of Thatcher-inspired government. Stephen Lawrence had been murdered, but the inquiry that identified “institutional racism” was still years away.

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

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

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

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

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

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

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

Plus, Anne Hathaway shoots from the hip for Arsenal and Rosamund Pike calls out theatregoer for texting during show

The first day of Pride month and friends in New York report a textbook encounter between one of the straightest forces in this world – hen night energy – and one of the gayest, the Rocky Horror Show, currently in revival on Broadway, where for the past three months, Tony-nominated Luke Evans has been knocking it out of the park as Frank-N-Furter.

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

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

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

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

Anger and distress at the treatment of the stabbed teenager is widely shared. But the online amplification of myths and grievances must be tackled

To learn of the last minutes of Henry Nowak’s life would be shocking and distressing under any circumstances. The stabbed teenager begged officers for help, as they handcuffed him before realising their mistake. To watch those final moments, on the police body-cam footage released this week, is all the more immediate, and unbearable. The outrage is widely shared. But the way it has been weaponised is alarming. His family’s wish is for his legacy to be a renewed effort to reduce knife crime, not increased antagonism along racial and religious lines. Instead, the unscrupulous are using the power of the footage and the speed of social media to spread myths about “two-tier policing” and turn trauma into political mobilisation.

Rightly, Hampshire’s chief constable has apologised. Three of the officers involved are being investigated, while a fourth has left the force. Policies are being reviewed. Vickrum Digwa will serve at least 20 years for murder before being eligible for parole. Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have met with the victim’s family.

A new national institution, the brainchild of revered artist Sir Quentin Blake, shows this overlooked artform is finally getting the recognition it deserves

“What is the use of a book … without pictures or conversation?” the heroine of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland complains. When you think of Alice, you probably imagine John Tenniel’s 19th-century engravings. Roald Dahl’s BFG is now synonymous with Sir Quentin Blake’s big-eared giant, and the much-loved Gruffalo owes as much to Axel Scheffler’s drawings as Julia Donaldson’s rhymes. And yet illustration nearly always plays second fiddle to words. Caught between fine art and publishing, it is often overlooked as a highly skilled craft in its own right.

Hopefully, this is about to change with the opening of the first permanent home for illustration in the UK, and the largest of its kind in the world. The centre is the brainchild of 93-year-old Sir Quentin Blake, who gives it his name and huge archive of 40,000 drawings. Many wonderful creations – crocodiles, birds, babies who transform into dragons – have sprung from Blake’s imagination. This museum, in a cleverly repurposed 17th-century former waterworks in London’s Clerkenwell, will celebrate the history and future of illustration in all its guises.

Population fears | Pure, cold rage | Protest arrests | Broom v leaf blower

Surely the old will be cared for by robots while watching endless pictures of kittens (The right is desperate for a solution to falling birthrates. Who’s going to tell them that the answer is immigration?, 31 May). As the population falls, there will be a glut of housing, which will become affordable, and so women will be able to have more children and the cycle will begin again, assuming that one or other of the megalomaniacs haven’t blown us all to smithereens first.
Mary Bolton
Chiswick, London

• Nigel Farage has called for “pure, cold rage” (Starmer urges calm as far right seeks to exploit Henry Nowak murder, 2 June). Strangely enough, this is precisely what I have felt since he and his cronies cheated me out of my EU membership back in 2016.
Shane Roberts
Easton, Bristol

Jules Robinson outlines the targeted support needed to prevent accidental deaths, and Sara Hazzard urges investment in rehabilitation and the physiotherapy workforce

Denis Campbell’s article (GPs in England too ‘overloaded’ to help older people at risk of falling, say MPs, 3 June) draws welcome attention to a severe but often overlooked health crisis. Research by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) shows that falls are the leading cause of accidental death in the UK, killing over 11,000 people a year, more than 9,000 of whom are aged 75 and over. And this crisis is getting worse, with a 12% increase in the rate of deaths over a single year.

Falls are preventable, and should not be regarded as just an inevitable part of ageing. The causes are varied and complex, so intervention must take into account a person’s living environment and access to networks of support as well as their physical and mental health. Such a detailed multifactorial assessment requires not just specialist expertise but far more time than is available within a short GP appointment. RoSPA is calling for equitable access to falls and fracture liaison services, removing the variation in treatment available depending on postcodes. Without such targeted support there is a real risk that fatal falls will continue to increase, taking the lives of vulnerable people in tragic accidents that could be prevented.
Jules Robinson
RoSPA

Joan McGavin shares a unique memory of the late poet, playwright and novelist

I was saddened to read your obituary for Maureen Duffy (3 June) but also interested to discover that her early 1980s novel Gor Saga had been reissued under the title First Born in 2024.

Duffy is the only writer I have heard give an all-night reading of their novel – here in Southampton – if I remember rightly under the aegis of David Benedictus, who was a resident writer in the city in the early 1980s.

Kathryn Monk says nutritious, naturally gluten-free food is widespread in cuisines of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America

Your article on the rising cost of gluten-free foods highlights a genuine problem (Gluten-free basics ‘now a luxury’ as price of a small branded loaf nears £4, 30 May). However, I was struck by how narrowly the discussion was framed.

Much of the article focuses on the affordability and availability of gluten-free versions of bread, biscuits, breakfast cereals and other wheat-based products. Yet for much of the world’s population, diets have traditionally been based on rice, maize, millet, cassava, pulses and other naturally gluten-free staples.

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

• Governing body ‘regrets’ website error that caused glitch

• Ticketing process being investigated by attorneys general

Fifa has canceled World Cup tickets issued to about 60 fans who mistakenly got them for free because of a website error, and soccer’s governing body is now asking for them to be paid in full.

The tickets were “allocated at no charge [0 USD] due to a prior payment issue during the checkout process,” Fifa said in a statement Thursday.

A growing divide between fans and team, coupled with economic hardship and war, has dampened the mood

Abbas Kiarostami, the late Iranian director, made a film called Life, and Nothing More …, set during the 1990 World Cup in Italy. The film tells the story of a father and son who, during the tournament, travel to an earthquake-stricken village that had served as the location for Kiarostami’s earlier films. The son, eager to watch Argentina play Brazil, finds a villager who, despite having lost several family members, is busy adjusting a television antenna to watch the game between the two South American football giants.

Kiarostami later wrote about this scene: “This sequence is directly drawn from a similar experience during my trip to the earthquake‑stricken region in the early days after the disaster. [The man] had his left arm in a cast, was shirtless, and with his right hand was striking one stone against another at the base of the antenna to secure it. I saw that after that event, what mattered there was life – and then football.”

A pre-tournament change of manager has complicated planning but, with the pressure off to an extent, Saudi talent has a chance to prove itself

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.

The decision to extend Clarke’s contract before his side have proved they can finally progress to the knockouts could be a needless risk

The summit of Scottish football provides a wonderful environment for those who value long-term career stops. Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the Scottish Professional Football League, arrived at the then Scottish Premier League in 2009. Ian Maxwell, bizarrely headhunted from relegation-bound Partick Thistle, has been the Scottish Football Association’s chief executive since 2018. Scot Gemmill’s tenure as the nation’s under-21 manager has lasted a decade despite underwhelming results.

Glass half full or half empty; either this is a domain that delivers admirable continuity or one in which no one makes sufficient progress to appeal to those in bigger ponds.

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

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

• Second seed wins semi-final 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3

• Cobolli through after Arnaldi withdraws due to virus

Alexander Zverev moved to within one match of a long-awaited first grand slam title as he defeated Jakub Mensik, the Czech 26th seed, 7-5, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 to reach the French Open final for the second time.

Zverev, the second seed and world No 3, will contest his fourth grand slam final on Sunday. The German lost his first grand slam final at the 2020 US Open in a fifth set tie-break against Dominic Thiem having led by two sets and served for the match in the fifth. He was then defeated by Carlos Alcaraz here in 2024 and Jannik Sinner in the 2025 Australian Open final. He will face the 10th seed Flavio Cobolli in the Italian’s first grand slam final after Matteo Arnaldi was forced to withdraw from their match due to a virus, a development that was announced just 25 minutes before the semi-final was due to begin.

• O’Neill agrees one-year deal after successful return

• Keane had a managerial spell with Maccabi Tel Aviv

Celtic are expected to confirm the appointment of Martin O’Neill as their permanent manager after the 74-year-old agreed a one-year contract to remain in Glasgow. O’Neill led Celtic to the domestic double during the second of two interim spells he undertook this season.

Robbie Keane had been prominent in the thoughts of the Celtic hierarchy and held talks with Dermot Desmond, the club’s principal shareholder, earlier this week. But the potential appointment of Keane was met with a furious backlash by an element of the Celtic support, who objected to his managerial spell in Israel. Keane was in charge of Maccabi Tel Aviv before switching to Hungary and Ferencvaros, from whom he resigned at the end of May.

• Bayern midfielder to be No 1 target in summer window

• Olise was watched by potential new manager Mourinho

Real Madrid will launch a €150m (£130m) bid for Bayern Munich’s Michael Olise if Florentino Pérez wins re-election as the club’s president.

The election is being held this weekend and Pérez is expected to beat his rival candidate Enrique Riquelme, whose promise to sign Erling Haaland has prompted a threat of legal action from Manchester City.

• Ferrari last won race at Mexican GP in 2024

• Scuderia’s car should suit narrow streets of Monte Carlo

Lewis Hamilton was circumspect about Ferrari’s chances in the buildup to the Monaco Grand Prix but, on paper at least, this ­weekend is perhaps his best shot at a first ­victory for the Scuderia to end their drought that stretches back to the Mexican GP of 2024.

Mercedes have dominated the ­season thus far, with Kimi Antonelli leading the championship by 43 points from his teammate, George Russell, but the strengths of their car will be somewhat negated on the slow corners of the twisting street ­circuit in Monte Carlo, which should suit Ferrari’s SF26.

Ancient Egypt finally carries owner’s hopes at Epsom three years after huge spending spree at the Sales

Many great gambles have been landed in the Derby down the years, from John Bowes’ bet on his horse, West Australian, in 1853 that won the equivalent of more than £5m today, to Raymond Guest’s £500 each-way on Sir Ivor at 100-1, a few months before his victory in June 1968 as the 4-5 favourite. And the 247th running of the Epsom Classic on Saturday could see another spectacular payoff, albeit without a bookie on the other side of the bet.

Twenty months on from his three-day, £24m spending spree on yearlings at Tattersalls’ Book 1 sale in Newmarket in October 2024, the football super-agent Kia Joorabchian will be at Epsom to watch two of his big-money buys, Poker and Ancient Egypt, go to post for the premier Classic.

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

• Feyi-Waboso faces fitness race for England summer tour

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

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

• Kick It Out wants equality, diversity and inclusion targets

• Regulator decides against after licensing consultation

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

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

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

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

Knicks in four.

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

Thousands flee including from village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, one day after Hezbollah rejects ceasefire

Thousands fled their homes after Israel issued forced evacuation orders for nine villages in southern Lebanon before strikes that killed six people on Friday, a day after the Hezbollah militant group rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

Hundreds of families left Anqoun, a village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, after the Israeli military said it would soon operate against what it said were Hezbollah targets there, ordering residents to leave. The roads leading to Sidon, the closest large city, were choked with cars as families sought shelter.

Request for evidence to support claims of reputational and financial harm from Panorama documentary dismissed as ‘fishing expedition’

Donald Trump’s legal team has rejected a request by the BBC to hand over financial information as part of his $10bn defamation case against the broadcaster.

The US president’s lawyers accused the BBC of a “fishing expedition”, according to court filings, after the broadcaster’s representatives asked for details to get evidence on Trump’s claims he suffered reputational and financial damage because of a Panorama documentary centred on the US Capitol riots.

Long-serving presenter talks about diagnosis in documentary on mining disaster to be broadcast on 20 June

The former Channel 4 News anchor Jon Snow has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, the Alzheimer’s Society has said.

Snow, who presented his last news bulletin in December 2021, will take part in a documentary that will be broadcast on Channel 4 and in which he talks about his diagnosis.

EU’s Maroš Šefčovič says summit will ‘probably’ be in July but sources say it could be put back as talks deadlocked

The EU has said Keir Starmer’s upcoming summit “resetting” the UK-Europe relationship may still happen in July, amid growing fears it could be postponed to the autumn as talks over youth mobility remain deadlocked.

“The summit is supposed to be mid-July but at the moment it could be put back to after the summer,” said one EU diplomat.

Campaigners say supreme court judgment on deprivation of liberty safeguards introduces ‘regressive legal standard’

Severely disabled people will be at heightened risk of abuse in care homes and hospitals after the biggest upheaval in disability law in a generation overturned “vital” legal safeguards, campaigners have warned.

They said a supreme court judgment that potentially strips the right of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people to independent checks on the safety and appropriateness of their care “devalues the dignity of disabled people”.

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

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

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

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

Despite health risks and environmental damage, the meat industry is working hard to safeguard its dominance

• Average person eats six times more chicken than in 1961, UN report finds

Should I tuck into a juicy steak or stick a tofu patty in a bun and call it a burger? Twenty years ago, that question was largely seen as a moral dilemma influenced by grim conditions in factory farms and slaughterhouses. Back then, animal rights activists were the loudest campaigners arguing for people to abstain from meat. They had limited success because vegetarians and vegans made up less than 5% of the population in rich countries – and the best fake meats were bland replicas of real flesh. The word flexitarian had not yet made it into the dictionary.

The debate has shifted sharply. The pollution from animal agriculture, which makes up 12-20% of planet-heating gas, is now part of public discourse around eating meat. A dramatic rise in rates of obesity and diseases linked to red meat have made health concerns part of individual decisions to eat less of it. Meanwhile, some plant-based alternatives have improved in texture and taste to the point where even meat lovers struggle to tell that they did not come from an animal.

Global report provides an alternative to climate breakdown, political extremism and economic tensions

• ‘Happiness is not just about GDP’: ambitious plan or utopia?

Humanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival.

The report by the World Inequality Lab (WIL) aims to be the most comprehensive attempt yet to navigate the polycrisis that is pushing the world toward climate breakdown, political extremism and ever greater economic and social tension.

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

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

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

Shoppers turning to online options also affects BHF, which has carried out review of retail arm

The British Heart Foundation is to close about 150 shops and cut jobs, as rising costs and the shift to online shopping makes about a quarter of the charity’s high street locations commercially unsustainable.

The charity carried out a review of its retail arm, which employs almost 3,700 staff, after net profit across its 640 UK stores plunged from £18.8m in 2024 to £3.6m in the year to 31 March 2025.

Anwar Ashraf, 39, forced his way into building in Whiteley, where Carla Skeites was working

A man has been jailed for 26 years for attempted murder after he stormed into his ex-partner’s office building and stabbed her 17 times in front of colleagues.

Anwar Ashraf, 39, forced his way into the office in Whiteley, Hampshire, where Carla Skeites was working, having bombarded her with messages demanding that she go outside to speak to him.

Almunthir Daqamah, 21, charged with attempted murder as campus safety officer said to be in stable condition

A man accused of attempted murder after a member of staff at the University of Surrey was shot with a crossbow in Guildford has appeared in court.

Almunthir Daqamah, 21, is alleged to have shot Robert Tytler, a campus safety officer, after he told the former student to leave a student village on Thursday morning.

Proponents say scheme could generate up to £2.7bn in five years by making travel around north of England easier

A proposed travel card for northern England modelled on London’s Oyster system could save commuters up to £276 a year, data shows.

Users would tap in and out across different transport networks and fares would be automatically capped at the cheapest available rate.

For a person ‘accustomed to things going his way’, president’s defeats in trials against the author are a direct hit to his ego

Donald Trump had a tantrum.

Trump was seated at the defense table in Manhattan federal court on 17 January 2024 when E Jean Carroll – who has said that he sexually assaulted her at a swank New York City department store some three decades prior – confronted him for the first time in a courtroom.

Federal judge rules policies unlawfully barred applicants from receiving decisions on asylum, green cards and more

The Trump administration unlawfully barred applicants from 39 travel-ban countries from receiving decisions on asylum, work permits, green cards and citizenship applications, a US federal judge ruled on Friday.

The decision came on the same day that the US Senate voted to pass legislation to fund Donald Trump’s controversial immigration crackdown

Republican states rebrand June as ‘nuclear family month’ or ‘fidelity month’ in latest attack on LGBTQ+ communities

June is widely marked as gay Pride month – when LGBTQ+ communities march to protest discrimination and celebrate their identities in the month that the modern US gay liberation movement was born out of the 1969 uprising at New York’s Stonewall Inn – although not so much in certain Republican-led states this year.

Some Republican governors have suddenly come up with alternative labels for the month, which both supporters and opponents view as counterprogramming.

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

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

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

Allan Leighton on government help, talk of a reheated merger with Sainsbury’s – and the vital role of bananas

“It’s not bloody inevitable,” that Asda will be overtaken by Aldi as Great Britian’s third-biggest supermarket, Allan Leighton roars as the veteran retail boss insists his turnaround of the ailing business is on track.

Leighton, the chair of Asda, who returned to lead the business in November 2024 after a 20-year absence, is attempting to defy the critics and revive Asda for the second time in his career.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How does a 100-year-old dance company face the 21st century? For Rambert’s Benoit Swan Pouffer the answer is combining innovation with popular adaptations such as the Brummie crime saga

On 15 June 1926, the Lyric theatre in Hammersmith played host to “an engaging little ballet” called A Tragedy of Fashion, a “chic trifle” according to the press, that had been first concocted round a west London dinner table. Yet it turned out to be a momentous moment in the course of British dance. The show was produced by Marie Rambert, a Polish émigré who had performed with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and it was the beginnings of a dance company that’s still going strong 100 years later.

Marie Rambert was a force of nature. She has been called “an inspired talent spotter and legendary bully”, with “wit, taste and a sharp instinct for trends”, and with her nascent company (first known as the Marie Rambert Dancers, then Ballet Club, then Ballet Rambert), she kindled the talents of Britain’s most influential choreographers of the age, including Frederick Ashton and Antony Tudor. “This woman was a pioneer,” says the company’s current artistic director, Benoit Swan Pouffer. “She was really ahead of her time.” Nonetheless, fast-forward 100 years and Marie Rambert wouldn’t recognise the company that still bears her name, written in capitals down the side of a sleek building just behind the National Theatre, on London’s South Bank.

From Off Campus to the Summer I Turned Pretty, it seems like Australian artists are everywhere right now – but what does the exposure actually mean?

Last month, a new Amazon Prime series, Off Campus, fought its way to the top of the streaming TV pile. Releasing its first season all at once, the glossy campus drama – set around an elite hockey team at a fictional US university – racked up 36 million viewers in its first 12 days, becoming the platform’s biggest debut among women aged 18 to 34.

Its star attraction is the sweet-and-steamy romance between music major Hannah (Ella Bright) and brooding hockey star Garrett (Belmont Cameli). But sharp-eared viewers noticed something else around the hot people doing hot things: a conspicuous run of Australian music, from heavyweights like AC/DC and The Kid Laroi to indie-pop favourites George Alice and Royel Otis, plus rising name Redd.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A debt-laden caregiver attempting suicide is the catalyst for him finding new meaning to life from a ward of terminally ill patients in touching ensemble drama

‘You know the law of entropy? Life is a process of constant decay,” ssays a doctor in this Chinese hospital comedy drama – but not that you’d know it from the gabbling, frenetic first half-hour of director Chen Sicheng’s death-fixated film. Being Towards Death kicks off with caregiver Xiaobing (Jiang Long) about to throw himself off the roof because, after a scheme to flog his superiors care robots fails, he’s in hock to triad loan sharks. Thankfully the film later settles into an intermittently touching ensemble drama with a meta tint; albeit one that doesn’t fully grasp the profundities it’s aiming for.

Hauled back from the ledge, Xiaobing is talked by the hospital director into leading a project studying mental health interventions in terminal cancer care. So he finds himself among the “Ward 10 Fearless Squad”, a group of patients whose outlook is as plucky as their diagnoses are grim. Before long, he has co-opted film director Dao (Wang Zichuan) to make a documentary about his roomies, including bullish property mogul Mau (Cai Ming), browbeaten first son Bowen (Huang Yi) and fib-spinning poppet, Xiaobing (Ye Quanxi) – nicknamed Little Bing.

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

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

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

Less interested in spectacle than vibe, the Delta State artist’s subtle atmospheric projects are carving a quietly distinctive path

From Delta State, Nigeria
Recommended if you like Omah Lay, Rema, XXXTentacion, Juice WRLD
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Born and raised in Delta State and now based in Lagos, Strei is part of a new generation of Nigerian musicians turning away from Afropop’s extroverted certainties and towards something more inward-looking. His self-described “Afromood” sound retains the melodic instincts of contemporary Nigerian pop, but softens them into something more atmospheric and emotionally porous. There are traces of Omah Lay in his melancholic delivery, and of the late Juice WRLD in his confessional songwriting, but Strei’s music doesn’t feel like a mix of influences so much as a deliberate attempt to find emotional clarity.

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Works about infatuation and deep feeling were fitting choices with which the Ryan Bancroft bid a celebratory farewell to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Back in 2018, Ryan Bancroft jumped in as a last-minute replacement for a BBC National Orchestra of Wales tour. By September 2020, the US-born musician was principal conductor. In his six-year tenure, he has always been a vibrant and quietly forceful presence on the podium, amply demonstrated in this, his last Cardiff concert in the role.

He opened with Stravinsky’s Song of the Nightingale, the symphonic poem fashioned from music originally an opera and ultimately a ballet choreographed by Balanchine. Hans Christian Andersen’s story, set in imperial China, allowed Stravinsky to conjure exotic sounds, including gong and celeste. But it’s the poignancy of the emperor’s fate, symbolised by his infatuation first with a real nightingale – made suitably enchanting by Matthew Featherstone’s flute – who is then usurped in his affection by a mere mechanical version, that colours the score.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Royal Court, London
Teenage girls discuss the horrors they have seen via their phones as Georgie Dettmer’s reckoning with internet culture is brutally realised by director Jess Edwards

Georgie Dettmer’s gaze is unflinching. Nothing is held back in Are You Watching?, her fury-filled interrogation of our twisted relationship with sex and violence, and the emotional distance we hide behind when we watch them both through a screen. This bluntness can feel unsubtle, but it’s also admirably unafraid.

Two teenage girls (Kosar Ali and Abby McCann) perch on a bunk bed, talking about the worst things they’ve ever seen. Across the rest of the traverse stage, those stories are smashed into sharp, rapid-fire scenes, flicked between as if scrolled through on a phone. Under Jess Edwards’ direction, the depths of the internet are hurled across the stage (by an excellent multi-rolling cast including Lucy McCormick and Maimuna Memon), while the two girls watch from the safety of their duvets.

Buxton Opera House
Villages appear out of thin air, broomsticks take flight and owls turn into people in a truly enchanting showcase of theatrical storytelling

If you catch a young audience member at just the right moment, when they are old enough to be fully engaged but not so old that the sharp edges of teenage cynicism have begun to slink into view, you can make them truly believe in the magic of theatre. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is the kind of show that will make them – and possibly some adults – believe in magic.

To begin by praising the lighting design may seem odd, but this is one of the most effectively lit pieces of theatre you might see. Lighting designer Simon Bond’s barn doors, gels and gobos are integral to creating the many illusions on the stage. Director Paul Bosco McEneaney was a magician before turning his hand to theatre directing and he empties out a bag of tricks on to the stage of the jewel-like Buxton Opera House.

Escher’s eye-popping visions enter the video dimension, Pan-Africanism pulls in the big names and agent provocateur Julio Le Parc hits the UK – all in your weekly dispatch

MC Escher
The great Dutch artist of eye-popping, brain-melting visual paradox gets a rich retrospective of his prints, with video, music and installations adding to the fun.
• Somerset House, London, until 6 September

Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Surrey
Singers and orchestra toiled admirably with this posthumous world premiere about the Hindu god, complete with inflatable deadly serpent. But the work feels straight from the 19th-century Orientalism playbook

The first thing you should know about John Tavener’s 2005 opera Krishna is that it is actually a “mystical pantomime”. If that very idea provokes even the faintest amusement, this is not the country-house opera for you. The second thing you should know is that by the end of Krishna’s posthumous world premiere at Grange Park Opera, there was warm applause for the musicians.

Rightly so. Without Ross Ramgobin’s intense, poised commitment as the Celestial Narrator, or Eliran Kadussi’s sweet, flexible countertenor as the adolescent Krishna, or the impeccably lucid, admirably agile sopranos of Rosa Sparks (the child Krishna), Nazan Fikret (his wife Rukmini) and Jennifer Statham and Julia Sitkovetsky (Radha as child and woman respectively), this short work would have felt even more interminable.

Former Channel 5 chief is tipped to ‘break things that need to be broken’ as new chair of Arts Council England

When Dawn Airey ran Channel 5, she famously described the channel’s core strengths as the three Fs: “films, football and fucking”.

The comment by the veteran television executive, who has just been appointed chair of Arts Council England (Ace), set the tone for a career defined by boldness and commercial instinct.

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

• Comment: With warmth, kindness and unlimited energy, Kanya King revolutionised Black British culture

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

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

The Men Who Saved the World, the Pulitzer winner’s lost manuscript found in Yale archives, appears in Strand magazine

A never-before-published short story by Edith Wharton, the first female Pulitzer prize winner, who encapsulated the so-called gilded age of US society in bestselling novels including The Age of Innocence, received a first public airing on Friday.

The Men Who Saved the World, discovered in the author’s archives at Yale University, appears in the Strand, a quarterly magazine that has previously turned up lost or previously unknown works by literary luminaries such as Raymond Chandler, Graham Greene and Tennessee Williams.

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

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

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

Electric toothbrushes promise healthier teeth and gums and can transform your oral hygiene. We put 29 models to the test

• How to make your toothbrush last longer

If you grew up using a conventional toothbrush – essentially a stick with bristles on the end – you may be surprised to learn just how long the electric toothbrush has been around. The first was designed in the late 1930s, but that model was a long way from the sleek, feature-packed and Bluetooth-enabled beasts you can buy today.

There are now dozens of ultra-advanced versions on the market, but which ones are worth your cash? To help answer that question, my teeth have become figurative guinea pigs. Over the past 18 months, I’ve put 29 electric toothbrushes from the likes of Oral-B, Philips, Suri, Ordo, Silk’n and Foreo through their paces to separate the best from the rest. Here are my conclusions.

Best electric toothbrush overall:
Laifen Wave Pro

Best budget electric toothbrush:
Odonta PowerPlus

From France’s catwalk looks to Virgil van Dijk’s classic approach, these are the teams and players to watch

The 2026 World Cup may not kick off until Thursday, but the fashion tournament has already begun, as teams arrive at training camps across the US.

Fashion moments range from the outfits players wear to get to training, to the suits worn on planes and their training gear. The French team’s training camp in Clairefontaine became something of a catwalk this week thanks to the style of players such as Jules Koundé and Kylian Mbappé. Meanwhile, brands including Loewe, Gabriela Hearst, Patta and the rapper Drake’s Nocta have worked with teams on suiting and training gear.

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

A funky, fresh pre-batch to set your summer party alight

The rebujito is a classic Spanish cocktail that’s typically made with sherry and a lime/lemon soda. This lifts it up a notch, and also takes well to being batch-made for summer party drinking.

Steve Georgiou, beverage manager, Alta, London W1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Read more Leading questions

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

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

Charles and Alice have reconnected in their 60s, but he finds her soggy sponges foul, while she says his ashtrays are worse. You tell us who is giving you that sinking feeling

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

• The best screen-free activities

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

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

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

Name: Doomscrolling.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Favourite shirt … Liv Samuels in his Arsenal badge Hawaiian top

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Socks, trainers, sofas, cushions, the entire contents of your fridge - the list of things dogs will attempt to eat their way through is endless. And sometimes it gets weird. We want to hear from people who’ve witnessed their dog try to chew their way through the remarkable, the bizarre, the seemingly impossible – and lived to bark the tale! Pictures are a must.

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Tell us about your best coastal boltholes that won’t blow the budget – the top tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

Finding affordable hotel accommodation in Europe’s coastal hotspots in summer can be a challenge, especially if you’d rather not settle for a soulless budget chain or youth hostel. Whether it’s a grand old hotel on the French Riviera that oozes faded glamour or a charming guesthouse on the Amalfi coast, we’d love to hear about European seaside hotels that feel special without blowing the budget.

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

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