From ludicrously fun 80s love affairs to outrageously scandalous drama, this has already been a year of great television. Here are our favourite shows of the year

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What does it actually take to win a World Cup? Talent? Tactics? A functioning democracy? Not necessarily.

As the 2026 World Cup begins, the largest ever, we analysed all 22 past tournaments to find the common threads that link every single champion.

From the tactical innovations that shocked the world to the political forces that fuelled past victories, history shows there are eight distinct ways to lift the famous trophy.

• Bracketology: predict a path to World Cup victory

• World Cup 2026: guide to all 1,248 players

It was once an article of faith that even those who speak words we disagree with deserve protection. As regards Palestine, that’s now not true

Remember the Satanic Verses controversy? Remember “Je suis Charlie”? Remember the constant invocations of Voltaire and Orwell? The great irony of our age is that many of the cadre of politicians who spent years anointing themselves as champions of free speech have become its most enthusiastic enemies when the subject turns to one issue: Palestine.

For decades, western governments lectured the world about liberal values. They declared freedom of expression the hallmark of a liberal democratic society. Protest was deemed patriotic while the right to offend was considered sacred. Then came Gaza. Suddenly, the principles that we were once told were non-negotiable became highly negotiable indeed.

Mehdi Hasan is the editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo

The assault on freedom with Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi
At 7.30pm BST on Monday 8 June, join Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi at a joint Zeteo/Guardian event to discuss the current seismic changes in geopolitics, the alarming rise of populism and nationalism, and its global implications. Only livestream tickets are now available.
Book tickets here

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

As she prepares to mark 70 with a birthday concert, the musician talks about her destructive mindset – and the steps she took to finally make sense of her life and music’s part in it

It was 2023. The holiday of a lifetime, in Australia, had begun, after two weeks at the Australian festival of chamber music, in which I’d played viola in several of my own works. I had fretted about this for months, not really believing that I could stand up as a soloist and deliver. Even as a full-time viola-player in the 80s, I avoided solo playing – always feeling more at home in larger chamber groups. But as my husband Peter and I set off on our holiday, I was euphoric. I had performed with the marvellous young pianist Joseph Havlat, with the legendary accordionist James Crabb and virtuoso trumpeter David Elton – and all had gone well.

But then came a horrible realisation: I had not asked for the concerts to be recorded. This had been a moment in my life that would never be repeated. And I hadn’t captured it. I sank into despair. The fact that this is a pattern in my thinking didn’t make it any less painful: the more wonderful the event, the more likely I am to find regrets to attach to it. It is a destructive mindset I have learned to live with, but for years I had no idea why my head seemed compelled to ruin every joyful memory.

He moved from Nigeria to middle England and was swept up into the rave scene – then battled through incarceration and near-death illness. After making 500 tracks while living on porridge and lettuce, he explains how he kept going

Ibrahim Alfa Jr had been feeling unwell for a while – he’d been coughing up blood – but he says he only realised how ill he was when the facial recognition on his phone stopped working, because it could no longer recognise his face. When he went to visit his sister in 2022, she was so shocked by his appearance, she took him straight to A&E. He was suffering from anaphylaxis, a severe and potentially fatal allergic reaction: moreover, he had a pulmonary embolism that was causing his lung to fill up with blood. “I thought: oh my God, that’s literally what killed Andy Weatherall,” he says today. Like Weatherall once was, Alfa Jr is a veteran star of British rave culture. “So, like, wow.”

The embolism treated, he was sent home, but still wasn’t feeling right. The weekend after, a second pulmonary embolism was found on his other lung. The weekend after that, he had a heart attack. Then he had a second heart attack. Returning home, he discovered he’d become “allergic to everything. Even water was swelling my face,” he says. “You just don’t know what you can eat, so I just lived on porridge and lettuce leaves for three months, and didn’t see anybody. I just locked myself in a room, and a friend would bring me porridge and lettuce leaves. I only went out to go to the doctors. Any type of social life, of seeing other humans just disappeared. It was that visceral.”

Too many leaders have appeased the rightwing culture warriors. In the wake of the Henry Nowak rioting, the time for a push against toxicity and untruths is now

It is easy to regard, and thus disregard, the riots following the conviction of Henry Nowak’s murderer as an explosion of reaction by a flammable and motivated minority. The more uncomfortable truth is that a specific notion, that people of colour have been privileged over and above mere equality, and been given dominion over white people, is now mainstream. Whether it is in the rejection of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or in claims of “two-tier policing”, the current moment can seem as though it is about all sorts of disparate things: immigration, concerns over housing, cultural dilution, basic fairness. But it’s really broadly about one thing – equality has gone too far. The black man has the whip hand over the white man.

As you can tell by the previous line, this is not a new notion, now recycled by Nigel Farage when he says that there is “a two-tier culture in this country, where the rights and privileges of white people matter less than those of ethnic minorities”. It is, at its most simple, backlash. The sort of pushback that has followed every single wave of civil rights progress and efforts at enfranchisement.

US president says ‘final peace negotiations’ under way despite countries firing at each other for first time since April ceasefire

• Israel strikes Iran despite Trump plea as Middle East crisis threatens to escalate

Iranian media is reporting that there were no immediate casualties following apparent Israeli strikes on the Karun petrochemical plant in Mahshahr, a city in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province.

According to the Fars news agency, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they responded to what they described as an American-Israeli strike on the Iranian petrochemical site by launching a missile attack on a similar plant in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.

Companies such as Apple and Google have until September to install software or face legislation, says PM

• UK politics live – latest updates

Apple and Google have been given until September to install software that blocks explicit images on children’s mobile phones or face legislation enforcing its requirement, Keir Starmer said on Monday.

The prime minister said tech companies must activate nudity-detection algorithms or other technical solutions on smartphones and tablets to prevent users taking photos or sharing images of genitalia unless they are verified as adults.

Senior medical staff call for solutions to tackle root causes of excess deaths amid tenfold increase in a decade

More than 1,300 patients a month in England are dying needlessly due to long A&E waits, a tenfold rise in a decade, figures suggest.

There were more than 300 deaths linked to long waits every week in 2025, up from 30 a week in 2015, according to analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

Meta’s former head of global affairs says executives pivoted right in some cases for ‘rather more self-interested’ reasons

Silicon Valley companies including Meta have decided to embrace Maga politics, some for “rather more self-interested” reasons, the former UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has said.

Clegg, who spent nearly seven years at Meta as the head of global affairs, told The Rest is Money podcast that it felt like “a very good time for me to move on” when he left the company in March 2025, three months into the second Trump administration.

More than £3bn is due to be spent on the proposed road tunnel between Kent and Essex, which is estimated to have higher costs per mile than HS2

Ministers have earmarked more than £170m extra to help build the Lower Thames Crossing road tunnel, fuelling concerns over the “spiralling” costs of one of the UK’s largest planned infrastructure projects.

The proposed £11bn route under the Thames between Kent and Essex is already estimated to cost more each mile than the HS2 high-speed rail link from London to Birmingham. It was given the funding boost as part of a plan to spend £3.1bn of public money on the project, before a hoped-for injection of £7.5bn by a private sector firm.

Residents warned not to enter damaged homes or other buildings owing to threat of aftershocks after magnitude-7.8 quake

A magnitude-7.8 earthquake shook part of the southern Philippines early on Monday, collapsing buildings and killing at least 19 people.

“Many buildings were affected, but I cannot enumerate them now because we are busy with ongoing rescues,” Robert Dagon, of the General Santos City police, told Agence France-Presse.

Singer-songwriter Talay Riley worked on tracks for stars including Tinie Tempah, Britney Spears and Craig David

Stormzy and Oritsé Williams are among the artists who have paid tribute to the singer-songwriter Talay Riley, who was stabbed to death in Silvertown, east London.

The 35-year-old musician, whose real name was Mark Orabiyi, was found with stab wounds by paramedics on the morning of 5 June and pronounced dead at the scene.

Tom Kerridge says ‘whole of hospitality’ should get behind Burnham who has called for VAT cut from 20% to 10%

Chefs and restaurateurs have said they hope Andy Burnham becomes prime minister after he backed calls to cut VAT tax for hospitality businesses.

Burnham, who is standing as the Labour candidate in the Makerfield byelection and is expected to launch a challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership if he wins, has called for the rate to be cut from 20% to 10% to be in line with European rates.

The star of Luther played down rumours that he was lined up to take over as 007, adding that he’s against making the character ‘woke’

Idris Elba has refuted rumours that he was seriously in contention to play James Bond after Daniel Craig’s departure in 2021.

The actor, 53, who is currently promoting new film Masters of the Universe, told British GQ the conversation linking him to the role was “never legit”.

Marine biologist Issah Seidu has found a way for Ghana’s fishing communities to earn a living – and help protect the ancient and critically endangered fish species

Guitarfish are an odd-looking and ancient species, with the tail of a shark and the flattened body of a ray, but their coveted fins have driven populations to the brink of extinction. In west Africa, where their meat is also a local delicacy, many guitarfish species are among the most critically endangered fish in the ocean.

Conservationists at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) describe the slow-maturing ray, which produce young annually, as an “indicator species”, which reflect the overall health of an ecosystem and pose challenges in the way coastal fishing of them is managed. The IUCN red list categorises more than half of guitarfish species as critically endangered.

As social attitudes shift and concern for animal rights grows, the dog meat tradition in many parts of Nigeria is increasingly being questioned

Every weekend in Lagos, 36-year-old Izien Aigbodion walks down his street with his three dogs – a poodle and two chow chows. Neighbours and passersby, more used to seeing dogs in cages than walking on leashes beside their owners, stop to stare.

With treats in one pocket and a bottle of water in the other, he pauses to calm his most skittish dog. “People believe that dogs can only follow orders,” he says, as one nudges his leg for attention. But when you live with them, you come to appreciate things like loyalty, emotion, even empathy.”

She starred in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, had to stoop when she danced with Fred Astaire, then became world-famous – and a gay icon – in the original Batman series. But her life behind the scenes has been just as interesting ...

Julie Newmar is showing me her secret garden: an oasis of greenery around her house in Brentwood, Los Angeles, that is crammed with trees, flowers, sculptures and labyrinthine paths. It feels like a little piece of old-school Hollywood, untouched by the world outside. “Here, try one,” Newmar says as she leans over from her mobility scooter and picks me a blueberry from a bush. “Isn’t that nice?” It’s a well-maintained jungle of begonias, jasmine, geraniums, fruit trees, and above all, roses. She has 90 varieties, she says, including one named after her. “That one’s Marilyn Monroe,” she says, pointing out a creamy pink one. “Doesn’t it look like her flesh?” Monroe’s former house is just up the road, she mentions. Newmar has lived here for decades with her son, John, who has Down’s syndrome. They spend a lot of time out here.

“I would say my life is about beauty,” Newmar says. “I want to be a beautiful old woman; beauty in the garden; beauty in your behaviour, in your treatment of others. Because we all know that life’s a circle. All this stuff comes back. And in my 90s now, one has evolved. Big things happen now and they’re more in the metaphysical, they’re in the ‘what can I do for others?’ Because I’ve already done it for myself.”

The brilliantly modulated mix of horror and comedy has quickly become a buzzy water cooler hit for Apple TV

When Widow’s Bay appeared on Apple TV in April, all signs pointed it to being another one of those underwatched and undermarketed curios – like Sunny or Land of Women or Extrapolations – that routinely get dumped on to the platform before quickly dying of neglect.

Instead, something remarkable happened. Unless Apple has been secretly trialling a new strategy where they directly pay everyone I know to tell me how good its shows are, Widow’s Bay has become the biggest word of mouth hit that television has had in years. With every passing episode, the buzz gets a little bit louder. And this is for a very good reason: Widow’s Bay is absolutely wonderful.

A great big bear of a dog, Chewy the newfoundland is always there to rescue us if we fall in the water, or if my 96-year-old grandma needs a hand

I got Chewy, short for Chewbacca, when he was eight weeks old – he was this giant ball of a newfoundland puppy. I live in North Carolina and we drove five hours to Georgia to get him. It was love at first sight, but I never expected how much of a role he would play in my family.

Chewy was the craziest puppy, very clumsy and goofy. He grew so quickly – he went from 10lb (4.5kg) to 100lb (45kg) in the first 10 months. Now aged four, he’s calmed down quite a bit and looks like a big, fluffy, long-haired bear. He’s enormous – you just want to hug him.

Like many couples, my husband and I bickered over who would do what and who did more. We came up with a radical solution

It was when my second child was born in 2021 that I realised I needed a new system for parenting. We were coming out of lockdown, and I was tired and overwhelmed. During the pandemic, my husband and I had built our own mini unit in the UK, as our families lived in the US. I had decided to start my own literary agency as soon as my daughter was old enough to start nursery at six months. It wasn’t ideal timing, but I wanted to start as soon as possible.

I approached finding a parenting system the way I think many women of my generation do, with the same intensity that we would have approached a school dissertation. I decided to crowdsource my research: I watched videos of home-schooling mums in the US demonstrating their morning routines, I read every parenting book I could, I listened to podcasters interviewing mothers who seemingly “had it all”, and listened to others who argued that “having it all” was impossible.

A simple harissa and cream cheese sauce brings a flourish to this easy dinner

One of my favourite kitchen shortcuts? Harissa and cream cheese mixed to make a sauce. The cream cheese rounds out the heat from the harissa, and together they work perfectly with everything from beans to pasta – or, in today’s case, both. Spring greens add welcome colour, and the whole lot is spiked with lemon at the end. It’s one of my most-made pasta dishes.

The newly designated Joyce Country and Western Lakes Unesco Geopark in Galway and Mayo celebrates a 700-million-year geological history that has produced a unique terrain and rich cultural heritage

‘If you take all these springs together in terms of flow, it’s by far the largest in Ireland, and one of the biggest systems in the world,” said Dr Benjamin Thébaudeau, geologist for the newly designated Unesco Joyce Country and Western Lakes Geopark in western Ireland.

Over a few days, I discovered that this massive system of limestone springs and caves is the engine that drives this landscape, in the same way as an underground train network powers a city. It’s a place where rivers disappear into limestone fissures and subterranean lakes, and where roads twist through drowned valleys beneath mountains shaped by fire and ice.

The notorious Code Noir is gone. But people in Guadeloupe and Martinique continue to live with the consequences

“Vive la République, et vive la France.”

Emmanuel Macron closed his 21 May speech marking the 25th anniversary of the passing of the Taubira law, which recognised slavery as a crime against humanity, with the customary patriotic slogan. As applause rippled around the reception room of the Elysée Palace, whose construction was financed by a 18th-century slave-owning magnate, Leïla Brédent, a black soprano from Guadeloupe, launched into a stirring rendition of La Marseillaise.

We are in dangerous territory as courts encourage jurors to discern untruth from body language. In fact, the words are far more revealing

Imagine you are a juror on a murder trial. A married couple have been found shot dead. The defendant, a man known to them, denies the charge. You’ve heard the prosecution’s evidence and you’ve heard his testimony. But you and your fellow jurors are unsure if you should believe his protestations of innocence. At the hotel in the evening, another juror makes a novel suggestion: contact the spirits of the dead couple to find out if the defendant is lying. In agreement, you all sit around a crudely constructed Ouija board and call upon the spirits of the dead couple to ask: “Who killed you?” The board spells out the name of the defendant. The next day, you return a guilty verdict to the court.

Sounds too absurd to be true? Well, in 1994 an English jury did consult a Ouija board (a retrial was ordered, and the defendant was found guilty again). But it is no more absurd than a jury being directed by the courts to use an assessment of body language to make a judgment. Judicial directions in Scotland advise jurors that they can “look at the content of witnesses’ evidence, [and] their body language in giving it”. Similarly, in England and Wales, jurors are instructed not to take so many notes during a trial that they are “unable to observe the manner/demeanour of the witnesses as they give their evidence”. It appears that the UK’s judicial system is no different from most of the population in assuming there is a clear association between body language or demeanour and deception – while being ignorant of the fact that looking at these to determine an individual’s honesty is not trustworthy.

Kirsty King is a lecturer in communication at UCL. She is the author of The Language of Lies

The slogan ‘Albania is not for sale’ reveals a nation that respects itself, and will not sell its soul for investment

“That’s how we found it. We swam to the island, we went on a hike barefoot to the top and we were just captivated. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realise its potential.”

If the woman sharing her desire to improve a foreign island had disembarked from a smugglers’ boat, her dream would have been crushed in one of those migrant detention centres that the Albanian government has recently built with Italy. But the boat in question was a multimillion-dollar yacht, and the woman hiking barefoot to the top was Ivanka Trump. Realising the dream merely required summoning the country’s prime minister, Edi Rama, and volunteering her husband, Jared Kushner, and one of his companies to turn a protected wildlife zone into luxury real estate.

Lea Ypi is professor of political history and philosophy at the London School of Economics and author of Indignity: A Life Reimagined

It’s decades since the former US first lady was an employee. The world of work she grew up in has long gone

Uh oh, Michelle Obama has been advising gen Z on navigating work. “One thing that’s important is to learn how to do something you don’t like to do and be good at it,” she told the audience at a podcast recording in London. “Every experience – the bad boss, the boring assistant job, the job you thought that you weren’t appreciated, the one that didn’t give you the assignment you wanted when you wanted it – all of that is learning to be resilient.”

The podcast is called IMO, and she is entitled to her opinion, and it’s true that awful bosses, crap jobs and professional setbacks are inevitable, unpleasant learning experiences. Plus, Obama has navigated exceptionally tricky circumstances and put up with endless unjustified flak – she has plenty to teach everyone about grace under pressure. But there’s an implicit criticism of gen Z workers in her words. You see that a lot (they’re undisciplined! They won’t use the phone! They want mental health days!) and it feels unfair and unhelpful.

The vote reflects his diminished standing at home and loss of leverage over Iran as he scrambles to exit a disastrous war

Donald Trump suffered a significant setback last week. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed a measure under the 1973 War Powers Resolution. It directed the White House “to remove all US forces from hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran”. This occurred several weeks after the US Senate voted 50-47 to advance its own version of the bill. (A final vote has yet to be scheduled.) Unlike previous failed attempts, both votes won support from some Republican lawmakers.

Trump was predictably irate. “Yesterday, in a meaningless vote, the House voted, 4 bad Republicans and all of the Dumocrats, to limit my War Powers, right in the middle of my final negotiations to end the War with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote in a June 4 Truth Social post. “Who would do such an unpatriotic thing. [sic]”

The 2022 football tournament cost me my freedom for three years. This year, I’ve lost my passport, safety and perhaps more

What I saw in a town called Al-Shahaniyah on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar, seven years ago broke every rule and human right in the book. Desperate, hard-working people were on strike for not receiving their salaries for two, four or six months. Salaries that rarely exceeded $300 (£220) a month, in one of the richest countries in the world at the time.

They had no food, no drinking water and no money to survive on or send back home to their families. But what made the situation worse was that they were building something for each and every one of us: not a mansion, a private home, or a road in the middle of nowhere. They were building World Cup stadiums for Messi and Ronaldo to play in, and for me and you to enjoy the show.

A drug for pancreatic cancer shows immense promise, but we shouldn’t forget research in the field is a story of small victories

It is unlikely that we will ever declare a final victory over cancer. Governments have often promised it: from Nixon’s 1971 “war on cancer” to the 2016 Obama‑Biden plan to fight and cure it “once and for all” and Sajid Javid’s 2022 “war on cancer” initiative in the UK. But framing it this way can obscure how real progress is made: not in stunning routs, but in stalling and turning back the advance of this terrible condition – often in simply giving people more time to live.

Several such breakthroughs, and a bigger one that could transform the treatment of multiple kinds of cancer over the next decade, emerged at last week’s American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago. As the Guardian revealed, there is a new jab effective against head and neck cancers in some patients, and a new immunotherapy that could spare bladder cancer patients invasive and life-changing surgery. Most significantly, there is a new drug called daraxonrasib, which doubled survival time for pancreatic cancer patients in a recent clinical trial.

Mainstream politicians should remember that in the battle to defeat Jordan Bardella or Marine Le Pen, unity is strength

Less than a year before the most important French presidential election in the history of the Fifth Republic, the phoney war is almost over. On 7 July, a court will decide whether to uphold Marine Le Pen’s appeal against a fraud conviction and a five-year ban from public office. Should she lose, her party’s 30‑year‑old president, Jordan Bardella, will be confirmed as Rassemblement National’s candidate and the frontrunner in the race.

Voters will need to wait considerably longer, however, for clarity over who will oppose the far right. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the veteran leader of the radical-left party La France Insoumise (LFI), has already announced a fourth tilt at the presidency. But as Emmanuel Macron approaches the end of a second term blighted by unforced errors, multiple egos are jostling on the centre-left and the centre-right, amid a frantic weighing of the odds.

Savitri Hensman and Sarmad Ahmad Anwar respond to articles on the circumstances surrounding the death of Nowak

On the catastrophic mistreatment of Henry Nowak by police, important points are made in your editorial (The Guardian view on Henry Nowak and the far right: sinister exploitation of a disturbing case, 3 June) and in Jason Okundaye’s article (Henry Nowak was failed in the last moments of his life – and then again by Britain’s disgraceful political class, 3 June).

The key issue is that, in a scene where what had happened was not at first clear, officers did not act swiftly to check, and safeguard, the health of someone voicing extreme distress. In addition, it should not be assumed that what is statistically most common is the case in a particular instance.

Retired judge Hugh Howard says any review would have to include the Scottish sgian-dubh and swords worn by military personnel at service events

As a judge, I wrote a scenario for a recruitment exercise for a judicial appointments commission where candidates had to adjudicate between a Sikh boy who wanted to wear the kirpan and his Church of England faith school that wanted to exclude it (Sikhs wary of UK backlash as they condemn ‘moment of madness’, 2 June). It was based on my advice to a school that wanted to ban it. When I advised the school that it permitted cricket bats and balls and pointed dividers, all of which had been used as weapons, a compromise was reached enabling pupils to wear a swaddled kirpan under clothing. The Sikh community has condemned the illegal use of the kirpan. A Sikh would no more think of using it as a weapon than other faith group would think of using their religious symbols as weapons.

The suggested review of the wearing of the kirpan would presumably have to include the wearing of the sgian-dubh , which I wear when kilted, the swords worn by serving and retired military personnel at service events, or the short sword I wore when dressed as a Roman soldier at a Christian festival.

Readers respond to an article on the serious failings at the Nottingham university hospitals trust

I am writing as someone who has been personally affected by failings in maternity services at Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust. Zoe Williams (Midwives want to make childbirth miraculous – so what went so wrong in Nottingham?, 1 June) correctly acknowledges the affect of austerity on maternity services (I can attest to that, having worked in the public sector), but it in no way excuses the repeated failings that so many of us have endured.

Austerity is not the reason that midwives, health visitors and doctors failed to conduct routine care for my partner. Understaffing was evident, but it did not prevent routine wound inspections and the taking of samples to confirm suspected infections. What I saw again and again was an ingrained arrogance, an attitude of “we know better” and an utter unwillingness to listen or learn.

Teaching practical maths skills is tricky in an overstuffed curriculum, writes Myles McGinley, in response to an article by Simon Jenkins

Students and teachers alike are calling for a more relevant curriculum that includes vital skills like financial literacy (Sunak is right that our students need financial literacy – but that shouldn’t mean yet more maths, 29 May).

There is no binary choice between the academic study of maths and more specific knowledge of compound interest or inflation. A general anxiety around maths is a predictor for poor financial literacy, while having high levels of both maths and financial knowledge is associated with better financial behaviour than either one alone.

• Tuchel criticises England’s ‘freestyle’ approach

• Player guide | Bracketology | Wallchart | Mail Michael

If you think Messi is knocking on a bit, he’s not even one of the 10 oldest players at the 2026 World Cup. Modern science, eh.

FIFA published the top 20 last week and it’s an early win for Scotland.

• Croatia head coach says England game crucial to hopes

• Kovacic, Gvardiol and Modric lacking match sharpness

Zlatko Dalic sees Croatia’s World Cup opener against England as pivotal to their summer fortunes, admitting a softer first match may have been preferable for a team struggling with form and fitness issues.

Croatia beat Slovenia 2-1 in their final friendly before flying to the US but Dalic is likely to face several selection issues when they face England on 17 June. The Manchester City pair of Mateo Kovacic and Josip Gvardiol are both coming back from injury and it adds to the sense that Dalic’s side, who finished third in 2022 and runners-up four years earlier, risk starting their tournament on the back foot.

Lionel Scaloni’s strong, confident squad are no longer reliant on Messi as they target back-to-back World Cup titles

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.

Even the finest miss out on a place at the finals and for those who do get there, decisions can make or break a dream

Ismail Elfath was taking his children to the park near his home in Texas when a message arrived. “Congratulations,” it read. Elfath hugged his wife. Fifa had selected him for his second World Cup. Relief and pride swept over him. “Going to a World Cup is the dream of every referee, but going to a second one means you have stayed consistent for eight years plus,” he said.

For referees, the World Cup is the pinnacle. The tournament comes around only every four years, and only a tiny number make the cut. “First you have to be the best in your own country, and even then you might not be selected,” the former Swiss referee Urs Meier said.

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

Zverev took his chance in chaotic slam but lack of top 10 challengers in Paris begs more questions about the strength of depth below Alcaraz and Sinner

Félix Auger-Aliassime has long been one of the more measured and reflective players on the ATP Tour. He may be desperate to achieve his potential, but the Canadian also understands that improvement is often a long process and remaining patient is essential.

That is what made his reaction to defeat at the French Open so striking. As the fourth seed reeled from his desperate quarter-final loss to Flavio Cobolli, fully conscious of the fact that he had missed the greatest opportunity of his career, Auger-Aliassime was as distraught in public after a loss as he has ever been. His patience had run out.

• Spanish great moving to England after 14 years at Barça

• She has been impressed by vision of Michele Kang’s club

Alexia Putellas has agreed personal terms with London City Lionesses. Widely regarded as one of the best players in the world, Putellas would be one of the biggest signings in the history of the Women’s Super League, with her arrival also representing an extraordinary moment for London City, an independently run club with only one season in the top flight of women’s football in England.

Putellas left Barcelona last month upon the expiry of her contract with the club she represented for 14 years, during which she won 10 Liga F titles and four Champions League titles, as well as the World Cup with Spain in 2023 and twice being named a Ballon d’Or winner.

Other drivers are trying to remain upbeat but the Italian is untouchable on present form, and his Mercedes team principal is in awe

Kimi Antonelli reached new heights at the Monaco Grand Prix, his talent and potential made abundantly clear as he became the race’s youngest winner. The question now in Formula One only six races into the season is increasingly whether anyone can catch the teenager. His rivals are trying to remain upbeat but on current form the Italian is untouchable.

In Monaco pole position is all, and Antonelli delivered it with an outstanding lap acknowledged with no little appreciation by his Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff, a man not given to hyperbole.

• Coach impressed by response in win over New Zealand

• McCullum admits pitch ‘incredibly challenging’ for batters

Brendon McCullum has praised his players’ refusal to be haunted by their nightmare winter after England won their first Test since the Ashes against New Zealand at Lord’s on Sunday, admitting that “the temperature has been a bit hot” around his side since their failure in Australia, but hailing their bravery and refusal to “carry any baggage”.

McCullum insisted his team had kept the Bazball spirit burning, despite the low scores and strike rates seen on an “incredibly challenging” surface. “I thought we were brave when we needed to be,” he said. “Bravery for me is not necessarily about running down the wicket and trying to slog every ball.”

As a former NBA player, I know that criticism is part of the game. But in an age when players are under attack constantly, the Knick star is an example to us all

The entire basketball world is singing the praises of Jalen Brunson and rightfully so. He has led the Knicks to the NBA finals for the first time since 1999 and has united the entire city of New York in a unique way.

On every New York street you can see people of every race, color, creed, nationality, religion, economic status and political affiliation unified in excitement as the team seek their first NBA title since 1973. While older Knicks fans break out their Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and John Starks jerseys, younger fans have the names of Brunson, Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns on their backs. Chants of “MVP!” fill the air in every New York borough every time Jalen Brunson steps up to the free-throw line. Knicks fans have staged watch parties on the sidewalks, in the parks, and on the corners. All of New York is, in the words of JadaKiss, “outside”.

Etan Thomas played in the NBA from 2000 through 2011. He is a published author, podcaster, poet, activist and motivational speaker.

• Denmark’s medic reveals 34-year-old is in ‘good spirits’

• Eriksen in hospital after losing consciousness on pitch

Christian Eriksen is expected to be soon discharged from hospital after he collapsed during Denmark’s friendly with Ukraine on Sunday.

Television images showed Eriksen holding his chest in the 65th minute of the fixture at Odense Stadium, with the match quickly halted and abandoned shortly afterwards amid concern for the former Tottenham and Manchester United playmaker.

In today’s newsletter: the Pacific islands hoping to enter World Cup qualifying before ocean level increase wipes them from the map

“This is not just about football, it’s about building something from scratch,” Eriati Reebo, the Kiribati football president, explains. “A legacy, a story, that the world will always remember.”

Kiribati, a group of Pacific islands south of Hawaii with 138,000 inhabitants, is seeking entry into World Cup qualifying for the 2030 tournament. Becoming a recognised international football team would help bring attention to the only nation on earth that sits within all four hemispheres, and one that is rapidly disappearing from the map. It could be the first, but certainly not the last, country to be engulfed by sea water, leaving it uninhabitable. And before that happens, it wants to professionalise the football setup and become a full member of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC). This would both create a route to competing with bigger nations and help keep the Kiribati spirit alive.

• Live Championship updates from 11am UK time

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But, they are are peeling off the sheets…

Dan Lawrence spoke to the reporter’s network last night after his wham-bam double century.

• Swiss star wins with third fastest time in history

• Hodgkinson targets world record after defeat

On a wild summer’s night in Stockholm, a woman ran the quickest 800m since the darkest days of the cold war. But, staggeringly, her name was not Keely Hodgkinson.

Britain’s 800m Olympic champion had promised she was in personal-best shape, and duly proved as good as her word. But she had no answer to the young Swiss star Audrey Werro, who swooped like lightning across a cloudless sky before crossing the line in 1min 53.98sec.

Result strengthens PM Nikol Pashinyan’s drive for deeper integration with Europe despite warnings from Moscow

Armenia’s ruling pro-Europe party has won parliamentary elections, confirming the country’s pivot towards Europe and away from its traditional ally, Russia.

Final results in the small South Caucasus country showed the prime minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party securing a slim majority, while the Strong Armenia alliance, led by the Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, won 25% of the seats in parliament.

Government urged to help speed up vital industrial project amid growing alarm over National Grid delays

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Trade unions have called for the government to intervene to speed up Tata Steel’s connection to the electricity grid in south Wales, after the company said its new furnace would be delayed by up to a year.

Tata Steel last month told investors that National Grid had said it would face a six- to eight-month delay. That could stretch to 12 months amid unexpected engineering difficulties.

Kristen Welker questioned Trump’s allegations that races for California governor and 2020 president were ‘rigged’

Donald Trump walked out of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press after he repeatedly made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and faced questions about compensation for those charged in the January 6 insurrection.

The US president’s abrupt exit came during a tense exchange between himself and NBC’s Kristen Welker during a Friday interview in Wisconsin that aired on Sunday.

African migrants say legal status offers little protection as rallies against illegal immigration gain momentum

African migrants in South Africa say they are living in fear after a series of marches calling for illegal immigrants to leave reignited long-held xenophobic sentiment in the country.

March & March, a campaign group at the forefront of recent protests, has given people living illegally in the country until 30 June to leave, without specifying what will happen to those who do not.

Police and hunters in Utsunomiya, 100km north of the capital, resume their search for animal that is not usually seen so close to Tokyo

A city in Japan has closed all its 94 primary and secondary schools after a bear was spotted in the municipality for the first time.

Officials in Utsunomiya, a city of half a million people about 100km (62 miles) north of Tokyo, took action after a medium-sized black bear – estimated to be about one-metre-long – was seen near a park in the city on Saturday. The bear was spotted again on CCTV running just in front of two startled young men in the city centre, in the early hours of Sunday.

Record numbers linked to warming waters is mixed news for fishers, with shellfish catches down but octopus catches booming

Record numbers of octopuses found off the south-west coast of England last year have now spread as far as Scotland and Wales and are transforming the fishing industry and the marine ecosystem, according to a study.

The surge in sightings of one of the world’s most intelligent invertebrates was first recorded in 2025 off the south coast of Devon and Cornwall.

Wildlife department says drought conditions and water released from dam led to ‘major fish kill’ at San Carlos Lake

Arizona officials have indefinitely closed a popular lake to visitors after its entire population of fish died recently.

The recreation and wildlife department that maintains San Carlos Lake said in a Facebook statement on Friday that drought conditions as well as water released from a dam there “resulted in a major fish kill affecting approximately 100% of the fish population”.

Guardian analysis finds facilities to be built in some of the driest areas as outcry grows over water needed to power AI

A record-shattering drought has racked much of the US. But the artificial intelligence industry is pushing ahead regardless, with the majority of planned datacenters set to be built in drought-ridden locations, a Guardian analysis has found.

About two-thirds of upcoming datacenters, which typically require a large amount of water to operate, are set to be built in places that have been among the driest in the country over the past year.

India declares onset as up to 280mm of rain falls in 72 hours in Kerala, while downpours hit south-west Thailand

The monsoon season has officially begun in parts of Asia, marking the start of a period of enhanced rainfall vital to the region’s economy.

The south-west monsoon begins each year as a consequence of a growing temperature difference between the Asian land mass and the Indian Ocean. Through spring, the land heats up more rapidly than the surrounding sea, creating a pressure difference that draws moisture-laden ocean air inland. Once this contrast reaches a critical point, the humid air pushed over the continent rises, condenses into cloud and unleashes intense rainfall across the region.

Insurer found 18,400 suspect claims last year with some scammers using AI to fake accident scenes and documents

Bogus insurance claims worth more than £230m were detected by the insurance firm Aviva last year as scammers tried new tricks including using artificial intelligence to fake car accident scenes, documents and to exaggerate damage.

The insurer identified more than 18,400 suspect claims across its brands in 2025, with a combined value of £233m. The fraud claims level was a record for the insurer, although this was the first year that it included the Direct Line brands it acquired last summer.

Without it the ‘true scale’ of former Harrods owner’s alleged network will stay hidden, says survivors’ group

Survivors of abuse perpetrated by the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed are calling for a full trafficking investigation to be launched, arguing that without it the “true scale” of the billionaire’s alleged network would remain hidden.

Survivors at No One Above (NOA), a collective founded by victims of abuse at the hands of Fayed, are calling for the Metropolitan police to broaden their investigation into the billionaire and make trafficking the main focus.

Report blames Middle East conflict and rising business costs for fragile jobs market and steep fall in recruitment

UK companies are increasingly hiring temporary workers instead of permanent staff because of low confidence in the economy and higher cost pressures, according to a report.

Recruiters reported a strong increase in offers of temporary roles in May, according to new research from KPMG and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).

A year after government pledge to regulate sector, ECB criticises ‘lack of visible progress’ and ‘no clear plan’

The UK government has been accused of dragging its feet over plans for the mandatory regulation of bailiffs amid concerns about harmful practices in an industry that collects more than £1bn a year from indebted Britons.

A year on from an announcement by the Ministry of Justice that it would legislate to make independent regulation of bailiffs mandatory, the body that now oversees the industry, the Enforcement Conduct Board (ECB), criticised the lack of “visible progress”.

Four months into US oil blockade, Cubans see island drained as state electric company fights to provide even a few hours of power a day

The doctor called from the darkness, a shadowy figure sitting on the stoop of his apartment building. “I want to tell you we’ve been four days without light,” he said. “And without electricity, water is also a problem. And there are mosquitoes everywhere.”

From the buildings around came a cacophony, as beyond dark windows people smashed pots against pans. It was a cacerolazo, a traditional form of protest which has now become commonplace in Cuba amid seemingly endless rolling blackouts.

Harmonie Perrone, 28, is suing Advocate Good Shepherd in Illinois, where reproductive rights are enshrined in law

Harmonie Perrone, 28, knew she was probably having an ectopic pregnancy, and she knew exactly what she needed to do: seek medical care immediately, before life-threatening complications set in.

But she was denied that care twice as she feared for her life – and, after the delay in care, she lost her fertility, she says in a new lawsuit filed Monday.

Cockroach Janta party began as online joke but is growing into one of the most unexpected challenges to country’s rightwing government

The call out to the youth of India was simple: “Get ready to swarm the streets of Delhi with peaceful and loving dissent.” They came in their thousands.

The weekend marked the first public protest of the Cockroach Janta party (CJP), a movement that began as an online joke, but which has swiftly grown into one of the most unexpected challenges to the indomitable power of the country’s rightwing Narendra Modi government – driven by millions of discontented and disillusioned young people.

Kim Jong-un welcomes Chinese leader on visit to renew relations strained amid Pyongyang’s closeness with Russia

Xi Jinping has arrived in North Korea for a two-day trip, his first in nearly seven years, as China’s leader looks to revitalise ties with his junior ally.

Footage published by China’s Xinhua state news agency showed an Air China plane carrying Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, touching down at Pyongyang’s Sunan international airport.

Venerable but struggling UK firm backs deal with Chicago-based Ingredion putting nearly 500 jobs worldwide at risk

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Tate & Lyle has agreed to a £2.7bn takeover by its US rival Ingredion, in a deal that could put hundreds of jobs at risk and represents yet another loss for London’s struggling stock market.

The FTSE 250 business, which makes artificial sweeteners such as Splenda, has agreed to a deal that values it at 615p a share, about 60% above its price before news of a possible takeover emerged.

Iata boss Willie Walsh blames fuel suppliers, governments and aircraft makers, saying new ‘realistic timeline’ now needed

• Air fare rises ‘inevitable’ as airlines face extra $100bn jet fuel bill

The aviation industry’s landmark pledges to be net zero by 2050 will probably not now be achieved, airline leaders have admitted.

The collective goal to eliminate net carbon emissions was declared by global airlines only five years ago in 2021, with similar pledges made by national aviation industry leaders and governments, including in the UK, in 2020.

Expenditure is growing fast and consumer take-up accelerating. But alarm bells are sounding

The race is very much on. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which makes AI models as well as space rockets, announced last week it is seeking a $1.77tn (£1.31tn) valuation on the US stock market while Anthropic, the startup behind the Claude chatbot, said it had filed for an initial public offering. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is expected to follow.

This latest peak in the AI market comes amid a multitrillion-dollar spending spree on related infrastructure such as datacentres. Meanwhile, companies are attempting to deploy the technology in a way that makes investing in it worthwhile. Here’s a look at what stage the AI boom is at and six key charts that tell us how we got here.

Iata summit in Brazil hears top executives say although jet fuel shortages are unlikely, industry-wide profits will halve

• BA boss: ‘Costly aviation taxes and rail tickets stunting UK tourism growth’

Airlines will have to spend an extra $100bn on jet fuel this year, with fares “inevitably” rising to cover the bill after the war with Iran choked off oil supplies.

With jet fuel prices expected to be 70% higher across 2026, airlines body Iata said that collective industry profits worldwide would halve to $23bn. Some carriers would struggle to survive the fuel price shock caused by the closure of the strait of Hormuz in March, it said.

If you’re in a rut, kids can show you the way out. That’s the latest message from the author of the bestselling Steal Like an Artist. I asked him to help me rediscover my playful, creative side …

As a child, I couldn’t wait to be an adult. I’d spend hours daydreaming about the future, my exciting life and what I’d do with all that autonomy, such as own exotic pets, paint my walls bright pink and stay up all night.

Now that I’m in my mid-30s, it’s fair to say that adulthood has somewhat lost its lustre. Nothing is wrong, exactly – I’ve even achieved some of my dreams, with a bright pink bathroom and two weird cats – but there’s still a sense of going through the motions, and my days being dully predictable: gym, work, cook, clean, collapse on to the sofa.

The latest in our series of writers highlighting their most rewatched comfort films is a dread-filled journey into the woods

I’m not sure I could blame anyone for choosing, as their feelgood film, a film in which the characters feel good. Cinema is supposed to manipulate us emotionally - that’s the whole point. Nemo feels good when he’s found, and we feel good for him. By this logic, horror films should make us feel bad. So, when it was released in 1999, why did The Blair Witch Project – a film in which three film students are hunted, terrorised and presumably killed by an unseen entity – make nearly $250m at the box office? That’s the same as Love Actually. Of all the millions of people who paid to sit and watch Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick’s claustrophobic found-footage nightmare, I’m sure that not a single one of them entered the cinema hoping for their day to be ruined.

I was technically too young to see The Blair Witch Project when it came out, but like so many other children of laissez-faire 90s parents, I found a way. And that way was a friend’s sleepover. Fingers slick with Pizza Hut grease, we slid the 15 certificate VHS cassette into the player and gleefully waited to have the shit scared out of us. And it did. But not in the way we were used to. Up until this point, I’d seen the likes of Hellraiser, Candyman and Nightmare on Elm Street – horror meant guts strewn across the screen like party streamers. But what Blair Witch lacked in viscera is made up for in pure, uncut dread. The fact that you never even see the titular witch somehow made it even more terrifying. Believe me, in the imagination of a child who’d been fed horror films like multipack breakfast cereals, that witch was scarier than Pinhead and Freddy Krueger’s bastard baby. And I … loved her?

Hot tubs and high camp as a TV star dripping in rhinestones tries to solve a real-life crime in this fabulously flawed murder mystery. Who cares who did it

Here is a camply craptastic murder mystery that aims to offer queer-minded fans of trashy detection stories a treat for Pride month with a manifestly cheap and cheerful, amusingly badly performed, diva-centric exercise. Let us be clear: this is not well-made in the slightest, with a script as shonky as a flatpack gateleg table, with similarly slapdash direction by collaborators Trent Garrett and Jacob Young. (Clearly it takes two people to make something this inept.) But its flaws somehow make it endearing, mostly because it stars Joan Collins, looking insanely fabulous at whatever free bus-pass-qualifying age she is.

Collins plays Francesca Carlyle, a famous TV detective lady, lacquered in rhinestones, and always in faintly softer focus than everyone else. She rents her mansion to a gang of old friends getting together for a European holiday in an indeterminate country; this early-middle-aged gaggle, who supposedly have known each other since university, is comprised of a mix of Americans such as bullish Josh (Young), his vampy, fake-eyelash-wearing wife Kat (Nadia Bjorlin), and slightly more modestly attired Sonia (India Thain). There are Brits like Sonia’s husband Devin (Simon Cotton), and newcomer Sydney (Toby-Alexander Smith) who just married the core group’s friend, ambiguously accented Louisa (Hana Vagnerová). One of the cohort is killed on the first night after some carousing, during which two of the above blokes grope each other on a stairway, overseen by a third, and hot tubs are deployed.

This study of author Andri Snær Magnason is somewhat indulgent, with endless musings where piercing climate crisis commentary should be

Is Iceland dying? Is the world dying? These would appear to be the very relevant questions behind this well-intentioned but ultimately exasperating and obtuse documentary from National Geographic, which is burdened with tasteful NatGeo stateliness and visually pleasing production values.

It is directed by film-maker Sara Dosa, whose earlier documentary Fire of Love was about doomed vulcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft, who in 1991 perished in the eruption they were studying. Now Dosa has made a study of award-winning Icelandic climate author Andri Snær Magnason, whose book on climate change Of Time And Water was published in 2019 and who wrote a piercingly sad “obituary” of the Ok glacier, the first Icelandic glacier completely to disappear. It very clearly won’t be the last.

Like meaningless idioms and aimless encounters with small dogs? This is your show. Only the charm of its presenter renders this worldwide tour bearable

Antoni Porowski is waving to us from the top of the Shard. “If sightseeing is your thing, London doesn’t mess around,” he shouts as the camera swoops past his custard-yellow cagoule. “Go beyond the postcards and this city goes deep!”

What could this mean, we wonder, as we watch our hexagon-jawed host whoop cautiously behind a safety barrier. We wait for Porowski to elaborate. He does not. The former model merely waves again, and the soundbite drifts off, bewilderingly, into the clouds. But then, Best of the World With Antoni Porowski is no place for elucidation. Clarity would only muddy the four-part travel show’s vibe; the vibe, or “message”, essentially being “stop asking questions and just enjoy this decontextualised shot of Antoni Porowski embracing a yorkshire terrier in a gilet”.

Former US soccer player Merritt Mathias looks at times when the beautiful game has been a political football. Plus, a deep dive into who is funding Reform UK

Former US soccer player Merritt Mathias (pictured above) and journalists Musa Okwonga and Julio Ricardo Varela are a fascinating team of “football/soccer time-travellers”. They trace the history of how global power has tried to influence the game and make it political. After setting the scene with musings on this year’s World Cup, they first look at the 1934 tournament in Mussolini’s Italy, which Uruguay boycotted. Hollie Richardson
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Tired, emotional and besieged by fans and enemies alike, by 1966 the Fab Four were ready to quit touring for good. A new collection of images by rock photographer Jim Marshall captures their last gigs

The Beatles played their last official concert on 29 August 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Jim Marshall’s pictures capture the group at a pivotal moment, when they are already feeling nostalgia for what they are leaving behind.

Two months earlier, the Beatles had finished precording Revolver, a glittering collection of pop gems. The next day they boarded a plane to begin a global tour during which they would play nothing from it. They were not being perverse; it was simply that none of the songs lent themselves to live performance. On stage, they were a four-piece band. They could hardly play anything as complex as Eleanor Rigby or Tomorrow Never Knows to tens of thousands of fans.

Fans from across UK descend on Shacklewell Arms for intimate gig that leaves them wanting one more song

In the Shacklewell Arms in east London, the usual crowd of hipsters and indie music fans had been replaced by a throng dressed in leopard print, double denim and cowboy hats to pay tribute to the night’s headliner: Shania Twain.

“We thought we might have been scammed when we saw the ticket announcement,” said Jack, 28, who came with his sister Amy. “Why would she do a pub this small?”

The singer knows all the words to Grease and channels Kenny Rogers at karaoke. But which classic musician does he liken to Picasso?

The first song I fell in love with
When I saw Night Boat to Cairo by Madness on Top of the Pops as an 11-year-old, something happened to me on a molecular level. There was something about the way they moved.

The first single I bought
I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats, from Swales Music in Haverfordwest, a 15-mile bus trip from the little fishing village in west Wales I lived in when I was eight.

This clarion call about the loss of delight and safety in children’s lives is also a reminder of the sheer magic of reading

Every day, on my walk to work, I pass a primary school. A group of little people are being dropped off by parents. They are met at the gates by a teacher who greets them all by name before leading them up the steps to breakfast club. In the cold and dark of winter, with the school’s windows glowing invitingly, I sometimes envy these children their warm, welcoming cocoon.

I thought of that daily scene often when reading this book, which is inspired by Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s time as Waterstones children’s laureate. During his laureateship he ran a campaign with the literary charity BookTrust called Reading Rights, addressing literacy inequality for children in poverty. It was prompted by the discovery that nearly half of children were arriving at school without having been read to. Many had no clue how books worked. They were trying to swipe rather than turn pages, or expand illustrations by pinching them with their fingers.

The Pulitzer-winning author of Less has crafted a breezy confection of fish-out-of-water wit, insecurity and self-discovery set in an Italian paradise

‘There’s a place in Italy in need of someone. Why don’t you look into that?” Inspired by his two-year stint directing a writers’ residency, the Santa Maddalena Foundation outside Florence, with these words American author Andrew Sean Greer launches a hapless, clueless innocent into the Tuscan hills and the embrace of its eccentric aristocracy, in the person of the eponymous Coco, Baronessa Lisabetta.

Variously known as “our young man”, Gio and Giovedi, Villa Coco’s narrator is here to fill the post of “adjutant” for the Baronessa. His duties include pruning roses, emptying drains, hunting the Baronessa’s mortal enemy, the pine marten, and cataloguing the dilapidated Villa Coco’s contents. Among the camel saddles and hat racks, he is assured, lurk priceless works of art, including a Picasso and a Botticelli. He joins a staff consisting of a Sri Lankan cook, her husband and a Lebanese factotum; they share in the sisyphean task of keeping Villa Coco going, and the Baronessa out of harm’s way.

Our rigid eating habits date to the Industrial Revolution – it’s time to embrace culinary spontaneity

‘One of the stupidest things in an earnest but stupid school of culinary thought is that each of the three daily meals should be ‘balanced’.” So argues American food writer MFK Fisher in her 1942 book How to Cook a Wolf. She goes on: “In the first place not all people need or want three meals each day. Many of them feel better with two or one and one-half, or five.”

Fisher wrote her book ostensibly as a guide on how to feed yourself pleasurably and nourishingly during a period of food shortages caused by war, but there is much in her insightful advice to inspire and provoke us today. More than 80 years later, threats to the sacred breakfast-lunch-dinner mode of eating can still make the news: “A nation of snackers: Britons no longer eat three meals a day”, gasped one recent headline in the Times. Deviations from the “standard” model are the subject of research by academics and health professionals, and food retailers commission studies in an attempt to understand (and shape?) when and how customers consume their food.

A decade after The Lonely City was first published, the writer reflects on what’s changed – and how the feelings that drove them to write their bestseller are key to understanding our turbulent politics

I first had the idea of writing a book about loneliness in 2012. I was 35 and had just moved to New York City when I became lost in a labyrinth of isolation and misery. A love affair had ended abruptly while I was still sky-high with expectation, buoyant with relief that I was finally entering settled coupledom. To have failed in this transition, to have been rejected and left alone, filled me with a shame that felt literally unspeakable.

So there I was: alone in the city, an exile condemned to watch the world go by. It was a humiliating and very frightening feeling. The pain was intensified, as a broken leg or even a broken heart would not have been, by the fact that my loneliness felt inadmissible, a thing that could not be said for fear of repelling other people. This was the most alarming aspect of the experience, in that the need for concealment further entrenched the isolation, so that loneliness grew ever more inescapable, a fortress of solitude whose bulwarks and ramparts would not stop growing.

Released just before the World Cup kicks off, this upstart football game is positioning itself as a credible alternative to EA Sports FC

This month something extremely unusual happened in the video game world: someone launched a new football game. It used to be that the market could support a vast array of contenders, from arcade kickabouts such as Super Sidekicks and Hat Trick Hero, to serious simulations named Actua Soccer or This Is Football, to eccentric oddities such as Namco’s LiberoGrande which made you experience the whole match as a single onfield player.

For the past decade plus, however, the scene has been dominated EA’s Fifa series, now EA Sports FC. With the exception of Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer, now eFootball, there have been few competitors – and few plucky upstarts.

90s PlayStation fans, rejoice: California studio Toys for Bob is making Spyro: Realms Beyond, intended to ‘inspire love, joy and laughter’

As the gaming mascots of millennial childhood have been resuscitated one by one for a nostalgic audience, one has remained notably absent: 1990s PlayStation hero Spyro. A new game starring the purple dragon was announced at tonight’s Xbox Game Showcase – the first original title since 2008. Called Spyro: A Realm Beyond, it is being developed by studio Toys for Bob in California and will be released in spring 2027 on Xbox, PlayStation 5, PC and Nintendo Switch 2.

It features a freshly redesigned Spyro with his trademark quiff, voiced by Tom Kenny, the original star of the games. Unlike in the original Spyro titles, players will be able to take flight at any time. “[We’re] leaning into the true capabilities of being a dragon,” explains creative director Lou Studdert. “It’s really engaging … the player is making decisions how they fly. They are diving down to sustain speed. They are using fire-breath to light campfires, to create an updraft to get lift before flapping their wings.”

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.

Tate Modern, London
The late artist found his calling in febrile 1960s Paris and this exhibition is imbued with an anarchist spirit – you can even spin the paintings!

In a great scene in Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Bande à Part, the young protagonists run through the Louvre, leaving puzzled art lovers and angry guards in their wake. It seems impromptu and genuinely disruptive yet Godard’s camera finds time to pause in front of Jacques-Louis David’s Oath of the Horatii, an icon of the French Revolution. This is 1960s Paris, a place where young radicals mock high culture in a carnival that starts with running in the museum and will end in 68 on the streets.

Julio Le Parc’s retrospective at Tate Modern plunges you into that 1960s Paris and it’s riotous good fun. It takes a lot to get me off my contemplative pillar and physically “interact” with art but I was soon pushing buttons and spinning paintings. Marcel Duchamp called one of his late works Prière de Toucher (Please Touch), which would have made a good title for this show. Please touch these artworks, make them do things, let them do things to you. One of the simplest, Pattern to Manipulate, is a disc painted with a black and white abstraction: a red arrow on the wall tells you which way to spin it and when you do it fast, the black and white becomes pure white.

Enraged at how the victims of Jeffrey Epstein are being forgotten, more than 80 female and non-binary writers united – to create an epic drama fusing art, activism and anger. How will it work?

As the Jeffrey Epstein juggernaut rolled across the media landscape earlier this year, transfixing the world with its grim stories of corruption and sexual abuse by powerful and well-connected men, a small group of female playwrights decided enough was enough: there was a glaring need for the story to be turned on its head, to focus on the suffering of the victims rather than the perpetrators.

The writers all belonged to a WhatsApp group. “I just put out a call,” says Rebecca Lenkiewicz. “I asked: ‘Is anyone else enraged about the Epstein files and how it’s all about the men and the money?’ It wasn’t just a question of what happened, but of how it is being dealt with by the press afterwards.” Lenkiewicz was all too familiar with the history of abusive and powerful men, being the screenwriter of She Said, about the struggle to bring Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein to justice.

Kings Place, London
A clever programme brought a mounting sense of lost grip, from Errollyn Wallen voicing the shame of Hamlet’s Ophelia, to Schumann’s fraught love declaration, and Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King

Shouts of “Rubbish!” famously greeted Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King at its 1969 Proms premiere. Over half a century later, the composer’s modernist monodrama – George III the “mad king” of the title – has lost none of its feral power. To be shocked is to be numbed; artistically it’s not actually very interesting. What Eight Songs achieves is far more insidious: it makes you feel. And in this fierce account from the Manchester Camerata, conductor John Andrews and soprano Rosie Middleton we felt it all: every desperate clutch for sanity, every hairpin bend of reason, every queasy realisation and glassy-eyed forgetting.

Clever programming let us build up to the Maxwell Davies – looming slowly towards us in a concert gradually losing its grip on reason and order. Ophelia railed and cringed in Errollyn Wallen’s Hamlet-setting By Gis and Saint Charity – a theatrical miniature that packs a punch in barely five minutes of music. Cries and whispers of “Shame” break through the text, uttered not just by the soprano (here the compelling Rebecca Hardwick, balancing hysteria with a horrible glee) but flung at her by the string quartet, who otherwise conspire and feed her delusional fantasies.

Chichester Festival theatre
This stage version of Ian McEwan’s devastating class novel shows inspiring touches and the cast play adeptly, yet the tale’s emotional sweep feels underpowered

Ian McEwan’s novel begins with a play. It is written by 13-year-old Briony Tallis, who has a gift for telling stories. It is perhaps appropriate that Briony’s tale – the one she is constructing through the course of McEwan’s novel – has been adapted for the stage itself now, although it is a hard act to follow the magnificence of the book and also Joe Wright’s celebrated film starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.

The plot reflects on the healing power of storytelling but also its potential to cause damage and destroy. It opens in 1935 in an aristocratic English country home, when one evening, after seeing the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (Jasper Talbot), having sex with her sister, Cecilia (Miriam Petche), she wrongly accuses him of raping her 15-year-old cousin Lola (Yanexi Enriquez). Briony lives with the guilt of that lie long after Robbie has been sent to prison and then the frontline of the second world war.

Joe Mantello’s stark revival of Arthur Miller’s classic drama takes home six awards, while Ragtime and Schmigadoon! pick up musical wins

• Tony awards 2026: red carpet looks and the best of the show – in pictures

• Tony awards 2026: full list of winners

A stripped-back take on Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman dominated this year’s Tonys, winning six awards, while Lesley Manville and John Lithgow took home lead acting trophies.

Death of a Salesman was named best revival of a play, with the award-winning director Joe Mantello praising Miller’s story as one that “still talks to us through time”. Star Nathan Lane accepted the award on behalf of the cast, and called it a play that “continues to teach us who we are as humans and Americans”.

You could let them make a mess in your kitchen, take them to the safari park to draw animals – and if all else fails there’s always bribes! We speak to leading artists about making childcare creative

Who better to have the final word on introducing young children to art than artist parents? Gone are the days of the genius artist at work alone in their garret. Today’s creatives are making art with knee-height people at their feet. So, what’s worked for them when it comes to sharing their love of art? What hasn’t? And what’s their advice for the rest of us?

Stage and screen actor best known for playing Rupert Giles in the US television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Anthony Head found fame as half of the Gold Blend couple in commercials that captured the imagination of the British public in the late 1980s and 90s. They paved the way to success for him on US television in the supernatural horror series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), playing the “watcher” and mentor of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s title character.

As the prim English librarian Rupert Giles at Sunnydale high school, he is assigned to Buffy Summers, a cheerleader there, by the secret Watchers’ Council of Britain, which oversees slayers who use their superhuman skills to fight evil forces. Increasingly, he becomes a father figure to Buffy and her friends Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon). Together, he and those students form the core of a group known as the Scooby Gang (or Scoobies).

Museum hosts the collection of Steve Goldman, who buys records based on the sheer awfulness of the sleeve

“It is like the invasion of the bunny body snatchers,” says JT Thompson, the former lead singer of the 1970s US rock band Peter Rabbitt, as he looks at what is regarded as one of the world’s worst record covers.

The 1979 album Roadstar shows all five members of the California rock band with their faces morphed on to rabbit bodies, with Thompson emerging, like a terrible dream, smiling from a top hat.

The actor on becoming famous as a child, being an old soul, and caring for her dad in his final years

Born in Islington, London, in 1983, Natalie Cassidy is best known for playing Sonia Fowler in EastEnders. She joined the soap in 1993, and after leaving in 2007, she returned several times before making her final exit in April 2025. As well as theatre work, Cassidy has appeared in TV shows including Psychoville, Motherland and Boarders. She hosts the podcast Life With Nat and co-hosts Off the Telly. Natalie Cassidy: Caring Together is on BBC One and iPlayer now.

This was taken on the freezing cold set of EastEnders when I was 13. It was Sonia’s mum’s wedding, so they’d given her a trumpet to play at the ceremony. A genius idea from the writers, as the trumpet brought light and comedy to the role. Sadly, like most soap characters, she got downtrodden over the years. Humour has a tendency to fade after a long time on Albert Square.

Influencers often brand sugar as inherently harmful – but not all sweet foods are created equal

‘It’s a common myth,” says Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London – and one that thrives on social media. The confusion, she says, often comes from people cutting out sugary foods and feeling better. But that can be because removing ultra-processed sweet treats improves the overall quality of a diet (making more room for wholefoods).

Leeming says influencers who call sugar “toxic” often see it as inherently harmful – solely responsible for weight gain, poor blood sugar control and heart problems. But in controlled studies where calorie intake is kept the same, diets high in sugar don’t appear to worsen weight loss, metabolism or key health markers. “It’s not ideal nutritionally if you’re missing out on fruits, vegetables and whole grains,” Leeming says, “but sugar isn’t in itself directly harmful in that context.”

Swimwear season is upon us – so here’s our pick of the most flattering, practical and comfortable costumes

• Jess Cartner-Morley’s June essentials

The trick with swimwear shopping is to stick to well-established criteria. Your priorities, of course, are comfort, support, coverage and price. But while your demure black one-piece might cover those bases, you shouldn’t settle for a costume that does the bare minimum.

Take tummy control swimwear. If you want support in that area, you don’t have to avoid bikinis. Try a high waist pair with a built-in control panel, or a tank top. Ruching is fairly standard these days (as is a tie at the side) and does the trick by tucking everything away. If in doubt, wear something printed to distract.

From spicy South African relish to Scottish tattie scones, food is an integral part of watching the beautiful game. Here’s how fans around the world fuel match day

• International recipes inspired by the World Cup

The biggest World Cup ever is surely going to mean the most ever watching parties around the world. With 48 countries competing, why not take inspiration from global cuisine to serve your friends and family something more adventurous than crisps and lager this summer?

Football, after all, is a sport of rituals – from fans wearing the same “lucky pants” to watch every game, to placing the name of an opposing team in the freezer – and that extends to eating and drinking, too. This doesn’t just mean booze; in nations where alcohol is prohibited, for example, tea and traditional sweets provide the social lubrication. South American fixtures are fiestas of churrasco (barbecues), chimichurri and a lot of cheering, while in regions where cafe culture thrives, baked goods and strong espresso are more commonly enjoyed during matches than half a cider and some pork scratchings – even at 3am.

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

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.

Dip tips: a good mix of North African spice, seasoning, colour and texture is guaranteed to get the palate excited for the meal ahead

Dips are never just accompaniments at our restaurant, the Barbary in central London, but a way of building flavour from the outset. They set the tone for the meal, so it’s important not only to have a variety of spice and seasoning, but also contrast in colour and texture, not least to get the palate excited straight away. These early-summer dips, inspired by the former Barbary Coast (Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Tunisia), are all best served with grilled flatbread, seeded crackers and fresh vegetables. The kaha kaha and machluta dips are both somewhere between a dip and a salad, and go especially well with grilled chicken, while the fava is good with grilled fish.

One of the best seats in Manchester, if not the entire north

I’m perched on a tall stool at a new Manchester bar, perusing a menu of fishy things and various aquatically adjacent items: Lindisfarne oysters, devilled eggs with brown crab and trout roe, hand-dived razor clams and scallop tartare with elderflower dressing. Bar Shrimp sits on New York Street, which feels weirdly fitting, because this place is much more “quietly sceney” New York than anything remotely “aren’t we edgy?” London. Glass-fronted, with discreet net curtains and a Tracey Emin-esque neon name sign, inside it’s draped, floor-to-ceiling, in red, just like in those red room scenes in Twin Peaks. Expect oversized, monogrammed ice cubes, nine types of mezcal and just as many amaros, as well as a menu featuring the likes of cuttlefish sandwiches and buffalo fried cod with blue cheese dressing.

Bar Shrimp is a dog whistle to 1980s kids such as myself, who grew up seeing New York in the likes of After Hours or Wall Street, or in something with James Spader being up to no good and drinking Japanese whiskey highballs. It’s a bar opened by three friends: chef Joseph Otway, sommelier Daniel Craig Martin and general manager Richard Cossins, who met while they were all working at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Tarrytown, New York State. (Blue Hill, in case you didn’t know, is catnip to the aloof foodie crowd – its customers wouldn’t be seen dead at Noma because it’s far too accessible). But does Bar Shrimp make a terrific fuss about this hallowed connection? Nope. Are there nods to Saint Dan Barber dotted around the place, or even in Higher Ground, the Bar Shrimp team’s acclaimed neo-bistro next door? Nah. Does Bar Shrimp even mention that it and Higher Ground are supplied by Cinderwood Market Garden, their own working farm in Nantwich, Cheshire, and pretty much in the spirit of Barber’s Blue Hill mantra? Barely. The Shrimp boys are far too cool to namedrop.

This classic mince dish uses cheap cuts of meat, but is endlessly rich in flavour and can be prepared in many different and delicious ways

If I see the word keema on the menu, I’m sold. Literally translating to mince in Hindi and Urdu, as with many such everyday dishes that use inexpensive cuts of meat, it’s rarely much to look at, yet inevitably punches far above its weight in the flavour department. Prepared in many different and delicious ways, consider this basic recipe a good jumping-off point for further experimentation.

Prep 15 min
Cook 50 min
Serves 4

This endlessly adaptable salad is the perfect addition to your summer picnic basket

When I was growing up, picnicking was a favourite Sodha family pastime, but we did it in a very Indian way. The focus was never on the place: we never had to eat in a bucolic location to have a good time. Our understanding was that homemade food was the best and therefore should be eaten always and anywhere. The food came first; a view was a bonus. As such, even now, decades after leaving the family home, I am always thinking of a good meal for us to eat outdoors. This nutty, chewy freekeh with fennel, dill and tofu has shot up to the top of my favourites: robust, easy to assemble and, above all, delicious whether you eat it on the bank of a lake or in a service station car park.

He walked out of his way to get me on to the right street, then handed me the brolly saying, ‘Here, you take this’

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

It was bucketing down, absolutely pouring. I was on my way to a birthday dinner but got lost in central Sydney’s labyrinth of streets, so I ducked into an internet cafe to look up directions to the restaurant. I then wrote those directions down by hand – such were the times!

As I stepped out of the cafe, I realised just how bad the weather had become and how ill-prepared I was for the rain. As I stood waiting to cross the road, swiftly getting wet, a man waiting for the lights in the opposite direction offered up his big rainbow umbrella to share. I gratefully accepted and, still a little unsure of where I was going, asked if he knew the way to the restaurant.

Nicky and Dan share an outlook on life shaped by their experiences of loss – and it has ignited their sex lives
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

I thought: I’ve found someone else who wants to live every moment like it’s their last – he gets it

Samantha Ross was suspicious about Adam’s sweet disposition. Then a surprising act of kindness brought her guard down

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

It was the year 2000 and my belief in love was crushed. I’d been in a five-year relationship, only to find out my ex had cheated the entire time. In some small part, I saw it as my own fault – I’d always been attracted to proverbial bad boys. Adding to the angst of being betrayed, I’d been writing novels – mysteries set in the Australian wilderness – that kept being rejected.

I was not in a sunny place. And then I met Adam.

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.

Bereaved relatives have been bombarded with calls, emails and letters addressed to the deceased

ScottishPower sent a debt collection letter to my house demanding £130 owing on my late brother’s gas account. I am his sole executor and had informed it of his death.

The company, meanwhile, owed a £430 credit on his electricity account. It eventually paid this with a cheque issued in my late brother’s name, which could not therefore be cashed.

Buyers are ripped off after assuming online stores were genuine because they are recommended by an AI tool

You want to buy a new bag and so you ask ChatGPT for help. You have always liked Russell & Bromley so you ask ChatGPT what is popular there at the moment.

The artificial intelligence (AI) assistant gives you cross body, shoulder, casual and formal options with the prices listed beside them. You click through from the sources to what looks like the official Russell & Bromley site and buy your new bag, which is conveniently on sale.

Apps intended to replace branches have been hit by outages, as a poll finds most Britons want high street services

With its windows blanked out, a poster pinned to the door of the Staines branch of Lloyds Bank tells its customers they can do their “everyday banking with our mobile banking app”.

But not today. On Wednesday, when the Guardian visited Staines, they wouldn’t have got very far because the Lloyds group was battling an IT outage that left thousands of its customers unable to make payments or send money.

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

Doctors say diagnosis is usually clinical and doesn’t rely on a blood test, with symptoms often starting in the mid-40s

There’s a special frisson to period changes in your mid-forties. Every deviation from your usual pattern can feel like a harbinger of the menopause transition, also known as perimenopause.

One might spend years staring at their underwear, wondering: am I or aren’t I?

Keren Landman MD is an independent health reporter who is also trained as an infectious disease physician and epidemiologist, with experience serving as a disease detective at the CDC and conducting HIV and malaria research in resource-poor countries. Her public health newsletter is called Landmansplained

Drug that stops cancer cells hiding and a breakthrough for pancreatic cancer among highlights from Asco conference – but there were also notes of caution

Doctors, scientists and researchers shared new research about ways to tackle cancer at the 2026 American Society of Clinical Oncology (Asco) annual meeting, the world’s largest cancer conference.

The event in Chicago, attended by 40,000 health professionals, featured more than 200 sessions and 2,700 poster presentations on this year’s theme, “the science and practice of translation: improving cancer outcomes worldwide”. Here are the five biggest takeaways.

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.

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.

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.

Rallying the kids can be chaotic and frustrating, but from Interrailing all the way to Turkey to Vespa rides in Naples, these trips brought families together

Finland has been named the world’s happiest country for nine years running, but arriving in Helsinki, dishevelled from one of my first flights with my nine-month-old baby, I was less interested in national rankings and more in having a nice nap. My husband, Jake, and I had emerged from the fog of newborn life and the idea of a holiday felt possible again. My ambitions were small: a sunset beer, a walk in the woods, reading a few pages of my book uninterrupted.

A week-long mountain trek with two young children felt like an ambitious undertaking – but they loved every minute

It’s said the 19th-century Parisian flâneur, intent on not rushing past the beauties of the street, would take a tortoise on a lead to set the pace. I thought about this as my donkey bent his head to another thistle and I turned my attention to the view, waiting for him to finish. Every way I looked, layers of mountains receded in deepening shades of eggshell blue. There were no sounds but the wind, the squeals of marmots and the giggles of my two young kids. I was extremely, uncomplicatedly happy.

Our donkeys were on loan from Burrotrek, a small outfit run by Swiss-born Denise Wirth. Twenty years ago, Denise spent four and a half months walking the Camino from Switzerland to Santiago de Compostela with two donkeys. She liked Spain, and she loved donkeys, so she settled on the idea of offering donkey treks in the Pyrenees. She has not looked back. For much of the year she is based where she settled, near Cadaqués, and offers a variety of self-guided itineraries through the vineyards in the foothills and along the Mediterranean coast, with trips lasting between a day and a week. But for the summer months, when temperatures soar, she relocates with her donkeys to Cal Jan de la Llosa in the province of Girona, a gorgeous ruin of a farm several miles up an unpaved track. From here, she lends her animals to people who, for whatever reason, have a romantic notion of what it might be like to take a donkey up a mountain.

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.

This game is end to end!

Today’s offering is for fans of the number 4. It’s a cute puzzle that offers up its solution in an elegant way.

Nose to tail

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores a topical issue of personal cybersecurity

• Readers reply: If an alien asked you: ‘What is music?’ what would you play for them?

I’ve been struggling to get my head around the idea that a passkey, which can be a PIN on your phone, or facial recognition, can be safer than using a complicated password, and two factor authentication.

I get that having something unique to your device, not stored on a company’s server is unphishable, and less hackable by cybercrims, but what if your phone is nicked and someone guesses the password? And what if you lose your phone?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions comes up with an epic extraterrestrial playlist for Earth’s first contact from beyond the stars

• This week’s new question: Experts say we should use passkeys, but can a smartphone PIN really be safer than a password?

If an alien landed and asked you: “What is this thing you call music?” what would you play for them? And why? Heather, Kent

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

This word for outdoing or outshining others originated in the manosphere, but is now thoroughly mainstream. Why is it so popular – and should we be worried about slang that arises from toxic subcultures?

Until recently, if someone had said “mog” to me, I probably would have assumed they were talking about the children’s book cat created by the late great Judith Kerr. If asked about “mogging” or being “mogged,” I would have been completely baffled. But for many members of gen Z and gen Alpha (or anyone who is just a bit too online), the slang term, which means to outdo or outshine others, is everywhere.

Mogging’s origins are in the manosphere, where it began as a verb derived from the acronym “Amog” (alpha male of the group). In misogynistic forums in the 2010s, to “mog” came to mean to outdo someone in terms of sexual desirability. Mogging has been adopted by “looksmaxxing” influencers such as Braden Peters, known online as Clavicular, who encourage men to try to alter their looks – sometimes in extreme ways – to increase their “sexual market value”. Such an influencer might talk of “frame mogging” another person in a photo or video – a variation on mogging that specifically refers to being more muscular.

Andrew Sparrow has been writing the Guardian’s daily political live blog for more than 15 years. How does he cope with the relentless psychodrama of British politics?

On Monday at 14:12 BST, the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow posted two sentences announcing one of the largest government document dumps in British political history:

The Cabinet Office has published the Mandelson files.
They are in three volumes.

Many people despair at the quality of governance in Britain at the moment, but in one respect we are living through a golden age; if you are interested in contemporary history, and learning about what actually happens at the heart of government, then you can now – sometimes – access the sort of information never available before …

Last month a minister compared [the documents being published today] to the evidence released as part of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war. But the Chilcot inquiry took place in the era before WhatsApp, and it was publishing secret memos – intended for circulation within Whitehall. WhatsApp messages are a lot more personal; reading them is like being able to eavesdrop on a private conversation.”

From franchise hits to historical epics, joyous musicals to autobiographical family sagas: Steven Spielberg has done it all. As his latest sci-fi film Disclosure Day is released, film-makers, authors and Guardian critics reveal which of his movies means the most to them

Steven Spielberg is often described as the inventor of the “event movie” – or as the creator of our new age of IP supremacy, in which the genre property is more important than any above-the-title film star. But that isn’t quite it. He came of age in the American new wave era but in spirit belonged neither to that nor fully to Hollywood’s golden age studio system that preceded it.

In fact, he synthesised both into a directing style that was audacious and fluent. He availed himself of the subversiveness of the new wave, and yet was classically oriented, drawing upon his love of – and alienation from – the all-American suburb, making him the Edward Hopper or the Andrew Wyeth of the movies. Tellingly, it was François Truffaut, the most emollient and Hollywood-friendly of France’s Nouvelle Vague masters, whom Spielberg cast in a cameo in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Legal papers, expert investigations and social media posts tell story of how a 32-year-old Iraqi appeared to run ‘proxy’ campaign

On Monday, a slightly dishevelled Iraqi man, shackled and dressed in beige prison overalls, was ushered into a Manhattan courtroom.

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, 32, pleaded not guilty to a series of terrorism-related offences, then gestured toward the judge and prosecutors. “I’m a prisoner of war. I’m not a threat,” he told them. “Children and women are being killed by your rockets.”

How did you find it? Did it help in your efforts to find work?

Keir Starmer has announced a new AI work assistant tool dubbed a “job centre in your pocket” to help job seekers get into work.

In a speech at the start of London Tech Week, the prime minister said the new AI job tool will “help those out of work find the right jobs, create their CVs and get back into work”.

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.

Please let us know and we’d love to see your pictures too

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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How Was Your Dream? is a documentary project by Thadde Comar, a Franco-Swiss photographer, created during the extradition bill protests in Hong Kong between June and October 2019. His work is displayed as part of the Belfast photo festival, which runs until 30 June at venues across the city