Trump told Israel not to kill Iran's supreme leader, says report
Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that assassinating Khamenei was not a good idea, according to CBS.
Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that assassinating Khamenei was not a good idea, according to CBS.
Five people have been killed and dozens injured, according to Israel's national emergency service.
Some of those in Iran who have spoken to the BBC use one word to describe life in there right now.
Imagery from two different providers shows damage to Iranian nuclear facilities.
The National Crime Agency will target grooming gang predators in a new operation, the Home Office says.
Hundreds injured by funfair rides over the past decade, a Panorama investigation has found.
The long-term impact of the chemical on human health is still unclear and being researched.
Blaise Metreweli joined the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) in 1999 and will become its 18th chief.
The gathering of leaders in Alberta will be a big test for Canada's new leader. We break down his challenges.
The US singer is on £5m bail after being charged over an alleged assualt in a nightclub in 2023.
28 Years Later is also released, Date Everything is here, and Benson Boone has a new album out.
Up to 100 trucks a day could take Scotland's waste to England once a landfill ban comes in at the end of the year.
The 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck near Lima, Peru on Sunday morning, causing panic at the city's cathedral.
Leonard Lauder joined his parents' company in 1958 and served as chief executive for 17 years.
The rare copy of the Bible in Welsh, printed in 1588, has never been displayed before.
As MPs debate whether to legalise assisted dying, we speak to those providing end-of-life care.
The prime minister's new call for a national inquiry into grooming gangs features in the papers.
The president's impact on investment in the US is far more incremental than he has claimed.
Londoners, including couple Chris and Diana, share their experiences of shared ownership.
A legacy of apartheid means some black students have to go the extra mile to get a decent education.
MPs will vote in the coming weeks on a package of measures aiming to cut the benefits bill by £5bn by 2030.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged to stop using taxpayer-funded hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029.
It took three weeks for the mum to receive a refund for the accidental overcharge.
The firm managing the giant rail project has shared whistleblower allegations with HMRC.
Major General Bassam Al Hassan claims former Syrian President Assad ordered Austin Tice's execution.
The government has written to the supermarkets to say the adverts are banned by a law passed in 2002.
A spokesperson for the airport says the man has been discharged with "minor injuries".
Top stories, breaking news, live reporting, and follow news topics that match your interests
Israel launches new strikes in response to Iranian counterattacks
Keir Starmer has accepted recommendations from Baroness Louise Casey.
American JJ Spaun beats Robert MacIntyre by two shots to win his first major title on a chaotic final day at the US Open.
Lando Norris says he "made a fool" of himself in colliding with McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri in the Canadian Grand Prix.
Bayern Munich's Club World Cup group game against Auckland City was a mismatch on the pitch - so why were the part-timers from New Zealand facing the 34-time German champions?
In an exclusive interview with BBC Sport, Angel Gomes discusses why players have flourished away from Manchester United and confronts suggestions his England caps are rooted in nepotism.
From packed crowds, British feel-good energy and 'Boultucanu' - how did the first women's Queen's event for 52 years unfold?
JJ Spaun makes an incredible birdie putt on the 18th hole to seal US Open victory at Oakmont.
Marci Shore made news around the world when her family moved to Canada. She discusses Trump, teaching history and how terror atomises societyShe finds the whole idea absurd. To Prof Marci Shore, the notion that the Guardian, or anyone else, should want to interview her about the future of the US is ridiculous. She’s an academic specialising in the history and culture of eastern Europe and describes herself as a “Slavicist”, yet here she is, suddenly besieged by international journalists keen to ask about the country in which she insists she has no expertise: her own. “It’s kind of baffling,” she says.In fact, the explanation is simple enough. Last month, Shore, together with her husband and fellow scholar of European history, Timothy Snyder, and the academic Jason Stanley, made news around the world when they announced that they were moving from Yale University in the US to the University of Toronto in Canada. It was not the move itself so much as their motive that garnered attention. As the headline of a short video op-ed the trio made for the New York Times put it, “We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the US”. Continue reading...
The maker of Netflix documentary about the fire reflects on a very avoidable tragedy and the injustices attested to by former PM, Theresa MayOver the course of 100 minutes, a new documentary on the Grenfell Tower disaster splices footage from the night and the subsequent public inquiry with testimony from survivors and the bereaved.And at its heart is a universal story: classism, the prioritisation of individual profit over public safety, and a lack of accountability for the decision-makers behind it. Continue reading...
Losing credibility Netanyahu has acted to diminish Iran while he still can, and in doing so regain support from his alliesThere are two ways of looking at events in the Middle East over the past year and a half. One is that the response to 7 October 2023 was a break from the past. The attack by Hamas triggered an Israeli response so vengeful that it has been impossible to fit within the boundaries set by international laws or contain geographically – the genocide in Gaza, the invasion of southern Lebanon, the occupation of the buffer zone in southwestern Syria and airstrikes across that country, and now its attacks against Iran.Then there is the explanation that these events are part of a historical continuum. Regional peace was the result of a volatile status quo that was always vulnerable to disruption. It only looked tenable because it relied on a variety of factors that, working together, looked like a settlement. This fine balance has been tipped by an Israeli government that is now fixated on pursuing its own agenda, singlehandedly rewriting the future of the region in ways that it is unable to explain and unwilling to control.Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
Four unwitting drivers are forced to smash into a lorry to solve the problems with road safety. Except the test conditions are so flawed it does no such thing…Hundreds of people die on British roads every year, with tens of thousands injured – and the multi-vehicle motorway crash is the most terrifyingly lethal way a car journey can go wrong. But the good news is, reality TV is on the case. Welcome to the car-crash telly that is Pile Up: World’s Biggest Crash Test, a programme that, suitably enough, hurls several different documentary genres together with messy results.The problem that needs addressing is this. Experts studying road safety have long been able to propel cars into one other under laboratory conditions, but controlled tests lack the crucial element of flawed humans with unpredictable reactions; actual crashes obviously do involve fickle drivers, but we don’t know when they’ll happen, so nobody’s there to capture high-quality footage from every angle. Continue reading...
Whether you enjoy ‘rucking’, walking, running or making your own sandbags, life after winding up your monthly membership can be your healthiest and happiest everAfter almost two decades of regular gym-going, I’ve finally cancelled my membership. The reasons for this are many and varied – I’m trying to save money, gym music is terrible these days, everyone seems to have forgotten how to share the equipment – but the main one is, I think it may actually make me fitter.Working for Men’s Fitness magazine for almost 10 years, I got to try out every trend, workout style and fitness event I wanted, and I noticed something interesting: quite frequently, the people with the fewest resources were in the best shape. I’m not including Hollywood actors in this, but otherwise, it’s often true: powerlifters working out in unheated concrete sheds get the strongest, runners who stay off treadmills get the fastest, and people exercising in basements have a focus rarely seen in palatial upmarket gyms. Browsing through photos from when my own gym membership was (briefly) paused during Covid lockdowns, I look … if not quite like Jason Statham, then at least his off-brand office-party equivalent. I might not have had the best cardio of my life – even social distancing couldn’t convince me to run more than three miles (5km) at a time – but I was certainly lean. Continue reading...
Unlike Keir Starmer and his cabinet, Reform UK’s leader actually understands and exploits the rules of engagement in our digital ageAs so often happens, what Nigel Farage said on a recent visit to south Wales deserved endless pejoratives. It was ludicrous, condescending, half-baked, opportunistic and plain stupid. Even he didn’t seem to know exactly what he wanted. At a Reform UK press conference in Port Talbot, he seemed to make the case for reopening the town’s steel-making blast furnaces, before admitting that “it might be easier to build a new one”, though he also acknowledged that it would “cost in the low billions” to do so. But he had even more dizzying visions of reopened Welsh mines. “If you offer people well-paying jobs … many will take them,” said Farage, “even though you have to accept that mining is dangerous.”The climate crisis, predictably enough, was not worth considering. He also did not offer any opinions about coal-related issues such as slag heaps, land slips, rivers that run black, and unimaginable underground disasters. When he was asked where new pits might be located, he blithely offered the opinion that it “comes down to geology”. That is true, up to a point, but he would surely also have to think about the housing developments and business parks that often sit atop all those disused coal seams. Continue reading...
Casualties reported in central Israel as G7 leaders were set to meet in Canada with the battle between the two regional enemies set to dominated the agendaMiddle East crisis – live updatesExplainer: what we know so far in the Israel-Iran conflictIranian missiles have struck Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, destroying homes and fuelling concerns among world leaders at this week’s G7 meeting that the conflict between the two regional enemies could lead to a broader Middle East war.Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency service said Monday that four people were pronounced dead after strikes at four sites in central Israel, with 87 injured. The dead were two women and two men, all approximately 70 years old, the MDA said. Authorities in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv said that Iranian missiles had hit a residential building there, charring concrete walls, blowing out windows and heavily damaging multiple apartments. Continue reading...
PM to discuss Israel and Iran clashes with Mark Carney and expected to talk to leaders of US, France and GermanyKeir Starmer is beginning an urgent diplomatic push to try to head off the crisis in the Middle East, as the Foreign Office warned Britons not to travel to Israel after further retaliatory attacks by Iran.Downing Street did not rule out the possibility of having to evacuate UK nationals from Israel if matters deteriorated, saying officials were keeping all contingency plans “under constant review”. Continue reading...
The Iranian supreme leader is backed into a corner, a situation he has spent his life doing his best to avoidWhen he appeared in public for the first time in five years in October, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, had an uncompromising message. Israel “won’t last long”, he told tens of thousands of supporters at a mosque in Tehran in a Friday sermon.“We must stand up against the enemy while strengthening our unwavering faith,” the 84-year-old told the gathering. Continue reading...
Deaths of four family members sheltering in supposed ‘safe rooms’ in Tamra highlight racial inequality of Israel’s defence of its citizensWhen an Iranian missile bound for the industrial port of Haifa dropped out of the sky on the town of Tamra on Saturday night, it fell on Israel’s most vulnerable, and in one devastating flash, lit up the country’s deepest divide.The missile demolished a three-storey stone house and killed four members of the same family: Manar Khatib, and her two daughters – Shada, a university student, and Hala, a 13-year-old schoolgirl – as well as Manar’s sister-in-law, Manal. Continue reading...
Ferocity of Israeli strikes has taken many by surprise, with people rushing to buy petrol and food amid the bombsMiddle East crisis – live updatesIt was just past 4pm when Nahid’s* windows began to shake. An Israeli bomb hit a building nearby – she could not see where – and soon her house began to fill up with smoke. It was the third day of Israeli bombing of Iran and the situation in Tehran was just getting worse.“This is a massacre. The blasts haven’t stopped. Children are crying and we fear many civilians have been killed. There’s a smell of death in the air. I can’t stop crying,” Nahid*, a 25-year-old finance analyst at an e-commerce company in Tehran, told the Guardian via text. Continue reading...
Vance Boelter accused of killing legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband, and wounding John Hoffman and his wifeThe man suspected of opening fire on two Minnesota legislators and their spouses on 14 June, killing one legislator and her husband, was apprehended late on Sunday night and charged with two counts of murder and two of attempted murder, the state’s governor, Tim Walz, said at a news conference.Vance Boelter, 57, is suspected of fatally shooting the Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence early on Saturday. Boelter is also suspected of shooting the state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home, seriously injuring them. Continue reading...
Study finds claimants who challenged payouts after taking advice received huge increases, in one case from £300 to £170,000Survivors of the Home Office Windrush scandal have received significantly less compensation than they may be entitled to, due to the lack of government funding for legal advice during the application process, a study has found.A review of 17 applications to the compensation fund revealed that claimants who challenged their awards after taking legal advice received huge increases in the amount offered. Continue reading...
Metreweli, 47, has held series of director-level roles in foreign intelligence service and in domestic agency MI5MI6, the UK’s foreign intelligence service, is to be led by a woman for the first time, Keir Starmer has announced.Blaise Metreweli, a career intelligence officer who joined the service in 1999, will take over from Sir Richard Moore in the autumn, becoming its 18th chief. Continue reading...
New probe and statutory public inquiry will be a means to get ‘truth and justice’, home secretary saysKeir Starmer has launched a sweeping national operation to investigate grooming gangs and a statutory inquiry into institutional failure, marking a significant reversal after months of pressure on Labour to act.The National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK’s top investigative body, has been tasked with leading a coordinated national push to reopen historic group-based child sexual abuse cases and identify offenders who slipped through the cracks of previous police efforts. Continue reading...
CSRI finds China and Russia may be coordinating ‘grey zone’ tactics against vulnerable western infrastructureChina and Russia are stepping up sabotage operations targeting undersea cables and the UK is unprepared to meet the mounting threat, according to new analysis.A report by the China Strategic Risks Institute (CSRI) analysed 12 incidents in which national authorities had investigated alleged undersea cable sabotage between January 2021 and April 2025. Of the 10 cases in which a suspect vessel was identified, eight were directly linked to China or Russia through flag-state registration or company ownership. Continue reading...
Concerns raised that section 899 could backfire and also undermine dollar’s safe haven statusForeign investment into the US could be threatened by Donald Trump’s new “revenge” taxes, analysts have warned.A provision within the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will allow the US to apply higher taxes on foreign individuals, businesses and investors connected to jurisdictions that impose “unfair foreign taxes” on US individuals and companies. Continue reading...
All-party group concerned about hazards caused by bikes, with focus on use by delivery drivers and risk of fire Ministers must urgently act to stop the sale of illegal and potentially lethal electric bikes, with a particular focus on their use by gig economy delivery riders, a committee of MPs and peers has said.The rapid spread of highly powered bikes or conversion kits causes hazards on the roads and can lead to fires because of cheaply made batteries, the report by the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking said, calling it “a crisis hiding in plain sight”. Continue reading...
Combination of two targeted drugs found to produce better outcomes and was more tolerable than chemotherapyA groundbreaking UK-wide trial has found a chemotherapy-free approach to treating leukaemia that may lead to better outcomes for some patients, with the results being hailed as a “milestone”.Led by researchers from Leeds, results from the Flair trial, which took place at 96 cancer centres across the UK, could reshape the way the most common form of leukaemia in adults is treated, scientists said. Continue reading...
The two players are among those collaborating with artists to create the Football City, Art United exhibition“Everybody needs his own ritual or way of preparing,” says the former Dutch footballer Edgar Davids. “Those minutes that you’re in the tunnel is where we’re going to start.”Davids is talking about a piece he has worked on alongside the artist Paul Pfeiffer in which the pair recreate the tension of the tunnel before a big game. Continue reading...
Relatives of Pooja and Harshit Patel, who were visiting from Leicester, want to cremate them together but have faced painful wait for identificationIn the ramshackle, cramped lanes of Ambika Nagar in the Indian city of Gujarat, everyone spoke of Pooja and Harshit Patel with pride. The couple had done what none of their relatives or neighbours had managed to achieve before; they had moved abroad, settling among the thriving Gujarati diaspora community in the English city of Leicester.Their lives in Leicester, where the couple had moved so Pooja could complete her business masters degree – later getting a job at Amazon alongside Harshit – seemed unimaginably glamorous to their relatives and close-knit community back in India. Continue reading...
As the withdrawal of US funding disrupts treatment and halts crucial research in South Africa, clinics fear the resurgence of mother-to-child transmission of the virusPhotographs by Chris de Beer-ProcterAphelele Mafilika was born HIV positive in 2004. Put on antiretrovirals (ARVs) as a baby, she has been on the life-saving medication ever since and has lived a normal life. No longer. “Now, I have a problem,” she says.For most of her life her viral load (the amount of HIV in her blood) has been undetectable. “When I went for my February clinic visit, I didn’t get my pills. They told me ‘shortage of staff’ and ‘come back another day’. I came back a few times, but it was the same story.” Continue reading...
The Tour de France stage winner talks in detail for the first time about transitioning when her cycling career ended, growing up in the Gorbals and alienation in the pelotonPippa York used to be Robert Millar, a stage winner and king of the mountains in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. Millar was also a podium finisher, in both the Vuelta a España and the Giro, a British national champion, and Tour of Britain winner. But Millar had also wanted to be a girl since the age of five, a secret that remained buried throughout childhood in Glasgow, the subsequent racing career, and beyond, into mid-life.In her new book, The Escape, written in collaboration with David Walsh, the 66-year-old unflinchingly documents the long and painful process towards transition and the isolation, fear and loneliness that went with it. Continue reading...
He is the rapper’s rapper, adored by Jay-Z, and once called ‘the most beautiful thing to happen to hip-hop’. So why has he taken so long to release his new album? And can we please see his diamond-crusted Virgin Mary medallion?Slick Rick is tucking into a late room-service breakfast in his Park Lane hotel room. He is back in London, the city his family emigrated from when he was a boy, because he’s launching a new album, Victory, his first since 1999’s The Art of Storytelling, which featured an array of guest artists – including Outkast, Nas and Snoop Dogg – paying homage to one of hip-hop’s legendary figures.Even today, he remains the rapper’s rapper, the most-sampled hip-hop artist in history. Ghostface Killah has called him the greatest of all time. Eminem described himself as “a product of Slick Rick”, Jay-Z likened him to Matisse and Mark Ronson once gave a Ted talk dissecting his work. Questlove called his voice “the most beautiful thing to happen to hip-hop culture”. Continue reading...
From Jeff Goldblum’s unbuttoned shirt to the dilophosaurus wobbling her wattles, the film is an enduring queer staple‘That’s camp,” proclaimed my drag queen friend Vanity as we watched the T rex rip a tyre off a Jeep in the first Jurassic Park movie. It’s 2012, 2am and we’re in her bedroom playing our favourite Jurassic Park drinking game, where you swig every time you see a dinosaur.“Is it, though?” I said, doubtfully, dipping a Walkers Sensation in some coleslaw. Continue reading...
The NHS Business Services Authority contacted me even though I had paid the fee that was dueLast Christmas I was prescribed antibiotics for a post-operative infection. The pharmacy assistant insisted, despite my questioning, that I was exempt from prescription charges.Two weeks later I returned with another prescription, and was told that they had made a mistake and I was liable for charges after all. I paid the outstanding fee on the spot. Continue reading...
The acclaimed short-story writer brings her characters vividly to life in this debut novel about a teenage girl’s assault and its aftermathThat we tend to regard the shift from the short story to the novel as a natural authorial progression perhaps speaks to a failure to recognise the shorter form as its own distinct discipline. Short stories are not novels in miniature, or parts of novels pruned to stand on their own. Without the luxury of space and looser pacing, they demand of the writer a linguistic precision and compression that, at its most radical, borders on the poetic, and which across the breadth of a novel would feel wearying. Novels need room to breathe. The writer expanding their scope therefore faces a difficult adjustment: guarding against density while ensuring they don’t get lost in the space.For Wendy Erskine, the move to a larger canvas feels entirely unforced. Her highly praised stories, collected in 2018’s Sweet Home and 2022’s Dance Move, often display a certain capaciousness, a willingness to wander beyond the single epiphanic moment that is the traditional preserve of the short story. Now, in her first novel, she revels in the possibilities of an expanded cast, yet controls the pace and framing with all the precision of a miniaturist. The result is a novel that feels like a balancing act: at once sprawling and meticulous, polyphonic and tonally coherent.Misty could end up with one of those lawyers like off the films, a young underdog, nice long hair like your woman, can’t remember her name. She’s been in loads of things. From the wrong side of the tracks, underdog, but sees something in Misty that reminds her of herself, you know what I mean? And works night and day. In libraries at midnight and grafting grafting grafting. And she turns a whole jury around, our girl. And those guys are going down and their lives are just grubbed up for all time. Continue reading...
Breckland is a little-known part of England that sings with peace and rare wildlife. It would undoubtedly be a national park if so much of it hadn’t been commandeered by the military. But there is a place to stay on its bordersThe small white signs with red lettering are dotted through the landscape: “Military training area – keep out”. It adds to the eerie feel of unusually quiet roads and twisted Scots pines, which gather the long summer dusk around them.But when we arrive at our accommodation on an old farm bordering a forbidden area where the British army conduct secretive manoeuvres, the whole place sings with peace. A red kite cavorts in the breeze over handsome parkland, a cuckoo calls and, down by the Wissey, a gin-clear chalk stream, reed warblers chunter from deep within the rushes. Continue reading...
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families waiting months for prescriptions buy it ‘off label’. But is it worth the risk?The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of the TV. That never happens.” Jen is remembering giving her son, David, six, melatonin to help him sleep. She got them from a friend, a paediatrician who gave them to her own child. “It was sort of hilarious. She had half a tub of gummies, and her husband met my husband in a car park near a roundabout to hand them over, like some underhand black-market deal.” Her tone is light, but in fact she and her husband were becoming increasingly desperate for sleep. “They were like gold dust.”By meeting in the car park to exchange the gummies, the husbands weren’t breaking the law, exactly, but they were stepping into a legal grey area. Melatonin is a synthetic version of the sleep hormone that occurs naturally in our bodies, rising at night in response to darkness and helping us get to sleep. It isn’t strictly illegal in the UK, but it is a prescription-only medication, and it can only be prescribed to children by a paediatrician under a specific set of circumstances, usually for children with a diagnosis of autism or ADHD. The rationale for this pathway is so that the paediatric specialist can rule out any potentially physical causes or underlying disease relating to the sleep disorder. Side-effects can include drowsiness the next day, nausea and feeling dizzy. Continue reading...
Public opinion is clamouring for closer EU cooperation. The last thing we need is Ursula von der Leyen pandering to the far rightDonald Trump’s “America First” policies are undermining decades of transatlantic cooperation just as Putin’s Russia destabilises Europe with direct military aggression. But these twin shocks have unintentionally accomplished something the EU institutions never could. They have made European integration feel not just important, but existential – a matter of democratic survival – for ordinary citizens.From Helsinki to Lisbon, people are suddenly experiencing the same existential unease. Trade wars, defence threats and military aggression don’t respect borders. More and more Europeans now recognise that their small, individual nations cannot withstand simultaneous pressure from both Washington and Moscow. They find themselves caught between economic coercion and military intimidation.Alberto Alemanno is the Jean Monnet professor of EU law at HEC Paris and the founder of The Good Lobby Continue reading...
The UN aid system for Gaza was safe and dignified. Today we’re humiliated or hurt by those tasked with helping usTwelve-year-old Ahmad Zeidan’s mother was shot and killed in front of him as she tried to secure food for her starving family at one of Gaza’s new US-backed distribution points. He lay beside her body for hours, afraid to stand up and run because any movement might cause his death.His mother’s death was one of many over the past few days at the hands of Israeli forces on the way to or at facilities operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). On Sunday 1 June, more than 30 were killed. On Monday 2 June, three were killed. On Tuesday 3 June, 27 were killed. Sunday 8 June, four killed. Tuesday 10 June, 17 killed. On Wednesday 11 June, 60 people were reported killed. Continue reading...
The president has spent the past decade employing a familiar tactic. Accusing protesters of ‘insurrection’ is just the latest exampleDonald Trump and his allies wasted little time in branding the people protesting against immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles as “insurrectionists”. Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy – particularly the vindictive kind – spoke darkly of a “violent insurrection”. JD Vance, the vice-president, inveighed against “insurrectionists carrying foreign flags” on the streets of the nation’s second-biggest city.It didn’t escape notice that an insurrection was exactly what the president was accused of instigating on 6 January 2021, when the flag being paraded through the Capitol was that of the Confederate secessionists. And that Trump hadn’t shown quite the same enthusiasm for sending in the troops then.Chris Taylor is a subeditor at the Guardian US and author of The Black Carib Wars: Freedom, Survival, and the Making of the Garifuna Continue reading...
Whether inept, driven by survival or corrupt, they are unfit to lead their countries, let alone make decisions that imperil the whole worldThis was not inevitable. This is a war Israel chose. It could have been prevented. Diplomatic talks were ongoing when the bombers took off for Iran. Israel’s continuing, illegal, unjustified airstrikes are unlikely to achieve their stated aim – permanently ending Tehran’s presumed efforts to build nuclear weapons – and may accelerate it. They must stop now. Likewise, Iran must halt its retaliation immediately and drop its escalatory threats to attack US and UK bases.This conflict is not limited, as was the case last year, to tit-for-tat exchanges and “precision strikes” on a narrow range of military targets. It’s reached a wholly different level. Potentially nothing is off the table. Civilians are being killed on both sides. Leaders are targets. The rhetoric is out of control. With Israel fighting on several fronts, and Iran’s battered regime backed against a wall, the Middle East is closer than ever to a disastrous conflagration.Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator Continue reading...
Two-thirds of women apparently think about doing something different with their careers. Personally, I think I’d make a fantastic archaeologist or opera singerHaving run out of cooking shows to look at with my post-work crisps, I have taken to just watching what’s on TV, which is mostly A New Life in the Sun: Where Are They Now? and Château DIY. Both feature British people who have made radical changes, living out their dreams with wildly varying degrees of competence and success, mostly running restaurants, wedding venues, gites or creative retreats in idyllic locations.There is a reason these shows air in the early evening, as we close our laptops with a defeated clunk or get home after another awful commute: they are selling the notion that another life is possible. Only the very fortunate, or pathologically positive, wash up on the sofa at 6.30pm daily with the clear-eyed, full-hearted certainty that they have spent the day doing precisely what they were put on earth to do with their wild, precious lives. Continue reading...
Foreigners treated as enemies, judges under attack: the signs are everywhere in the US. But there are still reasons to hopeLike so many others, I watched the video of Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish student at Tufts University, as she was surrounded by men dressed in black, some wearing masks. They carried guns. One grabbed her by the collar. The men surrounded her, and one handcuffed her. You can hear her short shrieks of fear.She must have been terrified. I know I was when, as a 19-year-old student, I was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires by members of an irregular taskforce. I know what it feels like and I know what it portends.Miriam Lewin is a leading Argentine journalist and survivor of the dictatorship. She is the author of six books, including Iosi, the Remorseful Spy forthcoming in English in July 2025 (Seven Stories Press). A seven episode podcast about Miriam Lewin’s experience as a prisoner of the state and her fight for justice is titled The Burden: Avenger Continue reading...
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Even in the most harrowing cases, a fair society must allow for review, and the possibility of judicial errorWhen Lucy Letby was found guilty of murdering seven babies, and attempting to murder seven more, the judge sentenced her to multiple whole-life terms for what he said had been “a cruel, calculated and cynical campaign”. The convictions shook public trust in the NHS and demanded a reckoning with a system and culture that had failed to prevent such horrors. In August 2023, this newspaper urged readers to look beyond individual guilt to the institutional failures that allowed such crimes to go undetected for so long. It remains the case that serious questions must be asked of NHS management and clinical staff in relation to the tragic events at the Countess of Chester hospital.However, justice, like science, should not be afraid to re-examine its conclusions when reasonable doubt or fresh evidence emerge. Since Letby’s conviction, many have questioned the basis of the prosecution case. Leading experts have raised challenges about the reliability of key medical assumptions and the quality of statistical interpretations that led to Letby being jailed. Her guilt or innocence is not for the media to decide. But journalism plays a vital role in scrutinising government, parliament and the courts. When a serious body of concern arises around a conviction, particularly one so grave and emotionally charged, the state has a duty to respond not with defensiveness, but with clear candour.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. Continue reading...
Having a separate award was good for female novelists. Now a medical author is blazing a trail with a true storyFemale nonfiction writers are paid less on average, receive fewer reviews and win fewer prizes than men. Unsurprisingly, this means that women sell fewer books. So far this year, more than 60% of titles on the UK’s hardback and paperback nonfiction bestseller lists have been by men.Kate Mosse wants to change this. Famously, she set up the Women’s prize for fiction after there was not a single woman on the 1991 Booker shortlist. This year Ms Mosse’s award celebrates its 30th anniversary. With previous winners including Zadie Smith, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Maggie O’Farrell, it has changed the publishing landscape to the extent that some suggest it is now redundant: last year, five out of the six books on the Booker prize shortlist were by women, and the winner was Samantha Harvey. Indeed, such is the pre-eminence of female novelists that there is talk of a crisis in men’s fiction, and plans for an independent publisher, Conduit Books, especially for male authors. Continue reading...
American finishes two shots clear of Bob MacIntyreSpaun claims first major title of his careerWhere on earth to start with this? A chaotic conclusion to the US Open should have carried an X-rated certificate. You will rarely see anything like it.There will be analysis and lots of it over whether or not Oakmont delivered a great US Open, a pathetic US Open or anything in between. What cannot be denied was the level of drama as holes ticked down. JJ Spaun stood tallest to earn the biggest win of his career. One under par equals $4.3m. Continue reading...
Briton forced out of Canadian GP with three laps leftGeorge Russell claims first win of season for MercedesMcLaren attempted to play down any acrimony between its drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri after they collided at the Canadian GP, which saw the Briton crash out, as George Russell claimed a decisive victory for Mercedes after starting on pole.Norris’s failure to finish, crashing out from fifth place with three laps left, means that the Australian, who finished fourth, increases his championship lead over his teammate to 22 points. Russell now sits in fourth in the standings, 62 points off Piastri. Continue reading...
Argentina superstar steals limelight again at tournament where South America is saying ‘no mas’ to European hegemonyJavier Zanetti looked suitably awed as he read aloud from the label of a Limon Lime Mas by Messi drink, up on stage at the Chase Stadium VIP reception suite, dressed entirely in silky black tailoring, and looking like an elite hired assassin on his way to the opera, albeit one whose speciality is downing his victims in an ice bucket of the Future Of Hydration.To be fair, Zanetti didn’t have many options when it came to striking a tone. A few moments earlier he’d been introduced by a marketing manager who spoke about Lionel Messi’s new energy drink in tones of high-performance evangelism, gazing with doe-eyed wonder at the small plastic bottle in his hand and predicting that the “official hydration partner of the Argentine FA” (water: you’re out) would go on not just to make you less thirsty or become a popular choice in petrol stations, but to “inspire generations”. Here was a guy who has really drunk the Mas. Continue reading...
Enzo Maresca backs new signing to lead line for national team in futureForward competing with Nicolas Jackson to start at Club World CupEnzo Maresca has backed Liam Delap to handle the pressure of leading the line for Chelsea and is adamant that the striker will become England’s next No 9.Delap is eager to make a strong first impression following his £30m move from Ipswich Town and will hope to make his Chelsea debut when the Premier League side open their Club World Cup campaign by facing Major League Soccer’s Los Angeles FC in Atlanta on Monday. Continue reading...
Swede sends home fans wild with 6.28m vaultIt is 12th time the 25-year-old has set the recordSweden’s Armand Duplantis broke the men’s pole vault world record on home soil as Georgia Hunter Bell claimed an 800m Diamond League win. Duplantis delighted the Stockholm crowd by clearing 6.28m on his first attempt after raising the bar from 6m.It was the 12th time the two-time Olympic champion, who was born in the US but competes for Sweden, has broken the pole vault world record. In Stockholm he improved on his previous record, set in February, by 1cm on his first attempt. Continue reading...
Wakefield 20-24 LeighAdrian Lam praises Leigh’s ‘courage at the end’Leigh Leopards won this pulsating contest to solidify their position inside the top four and underline why they are a fraction ahead of Wakefield Trinity right now in Super League.It felt like an afternoon for these two sides to showcase their Old Trafford credentials at the season’s end, and both played their part in a thoroughly entertaining game which see-sawed until the final moments. Continue reading...
Slovenian beats rival Jonas Vingegaard into second placeFrance’s Lenny Martinez wins eighth and final stageTadej Pogacar wrapped up the Critérium du Dauphiné on Sunday with a podium finish in the eighth and final stage, which was won by France’s Lenny Martinez.A winner of three stages in total, the Slovene dominated the 77th edition of the Dauphine to top the overall classification by 59sec ahead of the Dane Jonas Vingegaard – three weeks before the start of his Tour de France title defence. Continue reading...
Group B: England 0-0 SloveniaNwaneri and Elliott among those to miss big chancesEngland Under-21s missed the chance to secure their place in the knockout stage of the European Championship after being held to a goalless draw by Slovenia. Lee Carsley’s side were frustrated in the first half against a Slovenia team who threatened at times, but Ethan Nwaneri and Harvey Elliott spurned golden opportunities. James Beadle, the England goalkeeper, played his part in keeping them level with decent saves to deny Svit Seslar.England will have to wait to secure their qualification against Germany, needing a draw to be sure when they meet in Nitra on Wednesday, while Slovenia kept their slim hopes of progressing alive. Germany beat the Czech Republic 4-2 in the later game, clinching qualification with two wins from two and eliminating their opponents. Continue reading...
German champions have 31 shots during routNew Zealand part-timers suffer through tough afternoonThe good news for Auckland City was that they stopped Harry Kane scoring on Sunday afternoon in Cincinnati. The bad news was that his Bayern Munich teammates were a little more prolific, scoring 10 between them in the opening match of their Club World Cup campaign.If Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, was hoping his expanded Club World Cup – now containing 32 teams, playing across four weeks in 11 US cities – would showcase the depth of talent in global football, this was not a good example. The statistics were excruciating: the German champions had 31 shots – 17 of them on target – to Auckland’s one, and enjoyed 72% of possession. Continue reading...
Gujarati communities in the capital gather to commemorate more than 270 victims who died in Ahmedabad air crashAs the late afternoon sun streamed into a small square behind the Indian High Commission in London on Sunday, a crowd of 200 people gathered for a vigil – one of several held around the UK this weekend to remember those who died in the Air India disaster.Candles were placed beneath a bust of Jawaharlal Nehru and attenders listened to inter-faith leaders and members from the Gujarati community who had come to reflect on a shocking week of loss. Continue reading...
Patients in England will be matched with studies and encouraged to take part via smartphone notificationsThe government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications. Continue reading...
UN rapporteur calls for move as food deliveries are attacked and starvation becomes a weapon of war in Gaza and SudanUN peacekeepers should be routinely deployed to protect aid convoys from attack in places such as Gaza and Sudan, a senior United Nations expert has proposed.With starvation increasingly used as a weapon of war, Michael Fakhri said armed UN troops were now required to ensure that food reached vulnerable populations. Continue reading...
Research reveals 13% of residents regularly invest in cryptocurrency and check stocks, more than all other citiesThe city’s most famous sons may have sung that money can’t buy you love, but that was before bitcoin existed.Liverpool has emerged as the crypto capital of the UK, according to a study looking at the online habits of people across the country. Continue reading...
Rachel Reeves calls Britain’s biggest road-building project a ‘turning point for our national infrastructure’The government has pledged a further £590m towards Britain’s biggest road-building project, the controversial and long-delayed Lower Thames Crossing.In March, the transport secretary gave formal approval to the new road tunnel under the Thames joining Essex and Kent. The £9.2bn project will comprise more than 14 miles of roads including the 2.6-mile crossing near Thurrock, Essex. Continue reading...
Miccosukee Tribe partners with Florida Wildlife Corridor Foundation to safeguard lands as part of ‘moral obligation’Almost two centuries ago, Native American tribe members sought the protection of Florida’s Everglades during the Seminole wars as they hid from government forces seeking to banish them to Indian territories that later became Oklahoma.Now, as the Trump administration continues its wholesale slashing of federal funding from conservation projects, the Miccosukee Tribe is stepping up to fulfill what it sees as a “moral obligation” to return the favor. Continue reading...
A slew of global leaders met in the south of France to discuss the future of the oceans. There was ‘momentum’ and ‘enthusiasm’, but there were critical voices tooThe sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope … and we are all in the same boat.” So said Jacques Cousteau, the French explorer, oceanographer and pioneering film-maker, who notably pivoted from merely sharing his underwater world to sounding the alarm over its destruction.Half a century later, David Attenborough, a year shy of his 100th birthday, followed Cousteau’s trajectory. In the naturalist’s acclaimed new film, Ocean, which highlights the destructive fishing practice of bottom trawling, he says he has come to the realisation that the “most important place on Earth is not on land but at sea”. Continue reading...
Bord na Móna, which was once a peat extraction company, has now committed to one of the largest peatland restoration projects ever undertaken, targeting 33,000 hectares in over 80 bogs with the hope of reducing carbon emissions and increasing biodiversity. But many households still continue to cut turf, relying on it for heating as have previous generations Continue reading...
Research looked at records of 14,800 people in Bradford to see what happened after they moved to more polluted areaWhat happens to your mental and physical health when you move to an area with worse air pollution? That’s the subject of a fascinating new UK-based study.Prof Rosie McEachan, the director of NHS Born in Bradford, asked: “Do already unhealthy communities, who are often poorer members of our society, end up in unhealthier environments because no one else wants to live there; or is it the places themselves that are making people ill?” Continue reading...
Report says billpayer funds are being used irresponsibly, after news that Thames Water paid bonuses from £3bn loanBonuses and dividends for water company bosses and shareholders should be approved by the regulator before they are paid, as billpayer funds are being used irresponsibly, MPs have said.They also recommended that the government consider ending the profit-driven water company model and making English companies non-profit, similar to how the system works in Wales, in the report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee. Continue reading...
Belinda Taylor described by son as someone who ‘wanted the best for others’ as partner seeks answers over incidentThe son of Belinda Taylor, who died in a skydiving incident on Friday, has paid tribute to a “selfless woman who wanted only the best for others”, as her partner said he wanted answers over what went wrong.Taylor, 48, from Totnes, had been taking part in a tandem skydive at Dunkeswell airfield near Honiton in Devon on Friday. Continue reading...
Chancellor used Barnett formula to fund Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, despite their larger public sectorsRachel Reeves has been accused of shortchanging the UK’s devolved nations after leaving the Welsh, Scottish and northern Irish governments with multimillion-pound funding gaps.The chancellor said the Treasury would fully cover the 1.2% rise in national insurance contributions for employers on salaries above £5,000, which came in on 6 April. Continue reading...
Questions raised about potential miscarriages of justice after use of such experts criticised in Lucy Letby and Post Office Horizon casesWho are expert witnesses and how does system work?A lack of regulation over the use of expert witnesses in English courts could be leading to miscarriages of justice, senior politicians, lawyers and doctors have said.The former attorney general Dominic Grieve and the former justice secretary Jack Straw were among those to tell the Guardian that criminal and civil trials were sometimes hanging on evidence by self-appointed “experts” who could lack relevant knowledge. Continue reading...
People say situation in territory has worsened since outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Iran last weekAt least eight Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded on Sunday in shooting near food distribution points in Gaza, as residents described an escalation of Israeli attacks happening against the backdrop of the new war with Iran.Although Israel has said Gaza is a secondary theatre of operations to Iran, Palestinians reported continuing serious violence including fire around US- and Israel-supported aid distributions points and there are fears that global attention is moving on from Gaza. Continue reading...
Prosecutor also tells court Patterson lied about cancer to lunch guests because she thought ‘her lie would die with them’Erin Patterson trial LIVEWho are Erin Patterson and the other key figures in Australia’s mushroom trial?Four calculated deceptions are at the heart of Erin Patterson’s triple-murder case, the prosecution has claimed in its closing address to the jury, including a lie about cancer the accused hoped would “die with” her lunch guests.On Monday, Nanette Rogers SC spent day 32 of the trial closing the prosecution case, outlining these four deceptions: Patterson’s fabricated cancer claim; the “lethal doses” of death cap mushrooms “secreted” in home-cooked beef wellingtons; Patterson’s attempts to make it seem she also suffered death cap mushroom poisoning; and the “sustained cover-up she embarked upon to conceal the truth”.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...
French president is first foreign head of state to visit Arctic territory since US president made commentsEmmanuel Macron has criticised Donald Trump’s threats to take over Greenland as he became the first foreign head of state to visit the vast, mineral-rich Arctic territory since the US president began making explicit threats to annex it.“I don’t think that’s what allies do,” Macron said as he arrived in the Danish autonomous territory for a highly symbolic visit aimed at conveying “France’s and the EU’s solidarity” with Greenland on his way to a summit of G7 leaders in Canada. Continue reading...
With time, events in Los Angeles of the past week may come to be seen as the anti-immigrant zealot’s ultimate revengeWith Los Angeles convulsed by confrontation between pro-migrant protesters and military units dispatched by Donald Trump, no figure apart from the president has loomed larger than Stephen Miller.As the man in the Oval Office, it is Trump who has absorbed the accusations of authoritarianism for usurping the powers of California’s government after deploying 4,000 national guard troops and 700 active marines on to the streets of a city that is home to more undocumented immigrants than any other in the US. Continue reading...
Smartphones offer instant stimulation, but do they silence a deeper messageIn 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the button 190 times – even though he, like everyone else in the study, had earlier indicated that he found the shock unpleasant enough that he would pay to avoid being shocked again. The study’s authors concluded that “people prefer doing to thinking”, even if the only thing available to do is painful – perhaps because, if left to their own devices, our minds tend to wander in unwanted directions.Since the mass adoption of smartphones, most people have been walking around with the psychological equivalent of a shock button in their pocket: a device that can neutralise boredom in an instant, even if it’s not all that good for us. We often reach for our phones for something to do during moments of quiet or solitude, or to distract us late at night when anxious thoughts creep in. This isn’t always a bad thing – too much rumination is unhealthy – but it’s worth reflecting on the fact that avoiding unwanted mind-wandering is easier than it’s ever been, and that most people distract themselves in very similar, screen-based ways. Continue reading...
Despite its twisted characters and unremitting plotlines, the Bafta-winning sitcom has become an unlikely hot property for the BBC. The secret, says creator Kat Sadler: dealing with things in ‘the most unenlightened way possible’Few writers take criticism well, fewer actively court it. Kat Sadler, however, has an insatiable appetite for negative feedback. When crafting her BBC sitcom Such Brave Girls, the 31-year-old frequently runs the scripts past her younger sister and co-star Lizzie Davidson – but she isn’t looking for praise. Instead, “she wants you to tear it to pieces”, says Davidson. “She loves it.”“I get off on it,” confirms Sadler, with matter-of-fact melancholy. Continue reading...
Multiple hypothetical injuries as four drivers get a wake-up call in Pile Up: World’s Biggest Crash Test. Plus, a fun charity football match and more villainy in The Gold. Here’s what to watch tonight9pm, Channel 4Every day, thousands of people get into their cars with minimal understanding of the risks they’re taking. This documentary is a spectacular corrective to that, staging a multi-car pile-up and enlisting four drivers to remotely control real cars. The results are striking and the aftermath is fascinating as the crash scene is pored over and the extent of the (thankfully hypothetical) injuries is assessed. Phil Harrison Continue reading...
What begins as a portrait of Argentinian art collective Mondongo snowballs into Mariano Llinás’s infuriatingly brilliant farrago of colour, conflict and existential crisisAbout as inside-baseball for visual arts as you can get, Mariano Llinás’s three-part portrait of Argentinian art collective Mondongo is knackering, infuriating and, infuriatingly, often brilliant – especially in its more sincere second instalment. The film nominally tries to document Mondongo’s 2021 Baptistery of Colours project, in which the artists catalogued the chromatic spectrum with plasticine blocks inside a dodecahedron chapel. But it quickly snowballs into Llinás’s own scattershot inquiry into colour and portraiture, a tone poem that ceaselessly interrogates its own tones, a crisis of faith about representation, and – as he falls out with artists Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha – a droll depiction of a director’s nervous breakdown.As Laffitte lets fly at him at one point, Llinás can never resist the urge to interrupt with his latest brainwave. By quoting one critic referencing his previous 13-hour portmanteau from 2018, the director pre-empts any criticism of the almost five-hour work in front of us: “You get the feeling he doesn’t know what to do next, and the solution he’s found is to autodestruct.” But this impish postmodernism quickly darkens in the Triptych’s first part, titled El Equilibrista (The Tightrope Walker); soundtracking Mondongo’s colour classification to bursts of music from Psycho and Vertigo, he seems disturbed by their quest to break down art into its constituent elements. This strand alternates with another in which an art historian attempts to document Mondongo’s process; both are constantly intercut with excerpts of Llinás’s documentary script, him revealing the canvas on which he is daubing his own strokes. Continue reading...
Ride was the first US woman in space – but a National Geographic documentary looks at how she was forced to hide her queerness to succeedA week before Sally – a documentary about the first American woman to fly into space – landed at the Sundance film festival in January, Nasa employees received emails informing them how Donald Trump’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) rollbacks would take effect.Contracts and offices associated with DEI programs were to be terminated. Staff were given Orwellian instruction to inform the government of any attempt to disguise inclusion efforts in “coded or imprecise language”. In the weeks to follow, Nasa would take back its promise to send the first woman and person of color to the moon’s surface. Meanwhile, employees are reported to be hiding their rainbow flags and any other expressions of solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, allegedly because they were instructed to do so though Nasa denies those claims. Continue reading...
The celebrated documentarian’s five-part series charts the decline of Britain’s democracy with a witty, kaleidoscopic selection of archive footage. It begins, of course, with Margaret ThatcherHello and welcome to the latest addition to Adam Curtis’s growing compendium of documentaries I have unofficially entitled How Did Things Get So Shit? Let Me Explain in a Weirdly Uplifting Manner. Previous volumes include The Century of the Self, The Power of Nightmares, The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom, All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace, HyperNormalisation, Can’t Get You Out of My Head and Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone.Even if you have not had the challenging pleasure of watching, the titles alone should be enough to evoke most of the concerns found therein – the rise of individualism, the fragmentation of old systems, the political vacuums new people and powers have rushed to fill, the death rattle of formerly dependable entities on which western civilisation has traditionally rested and once allowed us to sleep peacefully at night, the creeping destabilisation of all things, and so very much on. Continue reading...
Band’s ‘on the edge of kitsch’ aesthetic is still relevant three decades later as young people focus on vintage clothing Thirty years ago this month Pulp played the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury and took their reputation to another level. If part of this was due to a storming set taking in their new hit Common People, debuts for their future hits Mis-Shapes and Disco 2000, and the star power of singer Jarvis Cocker, it was also down to their look.There was Steve Mackay, bass guitarist, in a fitted shirt and kipper tie, Russell Senior on violin in a blue safari shirt, keyboardist Candida Doyle in sequins and – of course – Cocker, in his now signature secondhand 70s tailoring. Continue reading...
The Love Again singer expands her media empire with this new podcast. Plus, an astonishing cast of ex-MPs line up to see what might happen if Russia declared war against the UKNot content with her Service95 newsletter and At Your Service podcast, the star expands her media empire. But don’t expect a vanity project: Lipa’s first guest is Jennifer Clement, author of the haunting Widow Basquiat, on the love affair between artist Jean-Michel and his muse Suzanne Mallouk. Hannah J Davies Widely available, episodes weekly Continue reading...
The hunt for the anthrax letter killer, the comedy genius of PG Wodehouse and real talk with Katherine Ryan – it’s the finest listens of the last six months!• See more of the best culture of 2025 so farTell us your favourite new podcasts of 2025 so farJeremiah Crowell’s CBC series transports listeners back to 2001, and the anthrax letter attacks that had much of the US gripped with panic in the wake of 9/11. If it all seems like a distant memory, Crowell’s meticulous narration of the events bring the frenzy and confusion of it all right back. From the underreported fatalities to the police’s painstaking investigation and the question of whether a government scientist could have been behind it, Crowell doesn’t skip over any of the details in a heavily researched series notable for its lack of sensationalism. Continue reading...
After a ‘quiet little break’ of 20 years, the band is back to celebrate their 2000 debut Reflector – then the fastest-selling Australian album in history• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle emailIn 2022, Ella and Jesse Hooper, siblings and bandmates in Australian rock band Killing Heidi, lost both of their parents in the space of two weeks. Their father, Jeremy, died first after a shock cancer diagnosis and a quick decline; a fortnight later, their mother, Helen, passed away after a long struggle with breast cancer.The grieving siblings took the weekend off, then went straight back out on to the road. Continue reading...
Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days Continue reading...
From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future“There is a supernatural process going on under the surface and within the substance of all things,” says a priest in Muriel Spark’s 1965 novel The Mandelbaum Gate. Spark believed herself wired into this process. The novelist was aware from the start of “a definite ‘something beyond myself’”, an “access to knowledge that I couldn’t possibly have gained through normal channels”.“Somehow things happened, odd things, when Muriel was around,” recalled her friend Shirley Hazzard. “Everything that happened to Muriel,” according to her American editor Barbara Epler, “had been foreseen”, usually in her books themselves. If Spark wrote about blackmail, she too would be blackmailed; if she wrote about a burglary, she would then be burgled. Thirty years after toying with an idea for The Hothouse by the East River (1973), in which electrocution by lightning takes place down a telephone line, lightning struck Spark’s house in Italy, sending a current of electricity through the external wires and burning her upper lip. Continue reading...
Small, huge, camp, Star Trek-themed … weddings have changed beyond recognition, but we’re still reading out the same old Shakespeare sonnets. What to read at a modern ceremony? Plus, leading poets pick their favourites• Tell us: what poem would you choose to read at a wedding? I married my wife in October 2022 and, in the lead-up, it was obviously my job to source the wedding poems. I have published seven poetry collections, I read poetry every day, I own more than a thousand poetry books. I should have read through my favourites till I found the perfect fit. But that’s not what I did.Instead, for some bizarre reason, I sat down at my laptop and furtively Googled the words “wedding poem”. Why do we all do this, poets included? Well, I think, even though we want to express something deeply personal, the word “wedding” makes us all panic and reach for stock texts. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s How Do I Love Thee? or The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe (“Come live with me and be my love”) or Ecclesiastes 4 (“Two are better than one”). Continue reading...
The artist and author’s hit book had so much in common with her own life that even her friends forgot it wasn’t real. How did this revolutionary portrayal of midlife desire come to inspire a generation of women?When Miranda July’s All Fours was published in May last year, it triggered what felt like both a spontaneous resistance movement and the sort of mania last experienced when the final Twilight book dropped, except this time for women in midlife rather than teenage girls. Two friends separately brought it to my house, like contraband dropped out of a biplane. Book groups hastily convened, strategically timed for when the men were out of the picture.The story opens with a 45-year-old woman about to take a road trip, a break from her husband and child and general domestic noise. She’s intending to drive from LA to New York, but is derailed in the first half hour by a young guy, Davey, in a car hire place, to whom she is passionately attracted. The next several weeks pass in a lust so intense, so overpowering, so lusciously drawn, it’s like a cross between ayahuasca and encephalitis. The narrator is subsumed by her obsession, and disappears her normal life. The road trip is a bust from the start, but the effort of breaking the spell and going home looks, for a long time, like way too much for the narrator, and when she finally does, to borrow from Leonard Cohen (perhaps describing a similar situation), she’s somebody’s mother but nobody’s wife. Continue reading...
PC (version tested), PlayStation 5, Xbox; Build a Rocket Boy/IOI PartnersA lot of work and ambition have gone into this strange, sometimes likable cover-shooter throwbackThere’s a Sphere-alike in Redrock, MindsEye’s open-world version of Las Vegas. It’s pretty much a straight copy of the original: a huge soap bubble, half sunk into the desert floor, with its surface turned into a gigantic TV. Occasionally you’ll pull up near the Sphere while driving an electric vehicle made by Silva, the megacorp that controls this world. You’ll sometimes come to a stop just as an advert for an identical Silva EV plays out on the huge curved screen overhead. The doubling effect can be slightly vertigo-inducing.At these moments, I truly get what MindsEye is trying to do. You’re stuck in the ultimate company town, where oligarchs and other crooks run everything, and there’s no hope of escaping the ecosystem they’ve built. MindsEye gets this all across through a chance encounter, and in a way that’s both light of touch and clever. The rest of the game tends towards the heavy-handed and silly, but it’s nice to glimpse a few instances where everything clicks. Continue reading...
From the return of Mario Kart to smash-hit architectural puzzles, an emotional football game and monster-hunting, we look back at the best offerings from the past six months• See more of the best culture of 2025 so farTell us your favourite video game of 2025 so farThis unexpected smash-hit puzzle game has you exploring a mysterious mansion with rooms that are different every time. Faced with a closed door, you get to choose what lies beyond it from a small selection of blueprints, drafting as you go. Crammed with devilish logic problems, memory tests and other conundrums, it’s got thousands of players drawing their own maps on graph paper, just like the ZX Spectrum days. Read the full review. Keith Stuart Continue reading...
A gruesome monster munching through a luckless body was just one of the horrors I shuddered at in a brief snippet of the forthcoming Resident Evil 9. Be afraid – and excitedA surprise announcement at the end of the 6 June Summer Game Fest presentation revealed the ninth entry in the iconic Capcom survival horror series: Resident Evil Requiem, coming early next year.Diehard fans of the series (which has spawned films, television shows and more) immediately began picking apart the trailer, which highlights protagonist Grace Ashcroft, the daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft, featured in 2003’s Resident Evil Outbreak. Requiem appears to be set in Racoon City, the fictional location in the franchise that was famously nuked to try and stop the spread of the zombifying T-Virus.Resident Evil Requiem is out on 27 February 2026 on Xbox, PlayStation 5, and PC. Continue reading...
This year’s event showcased gaming’s evolving landscape, from blockbuster titles to standout indie projects• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereAs protests exploded in Los Angeles last weekend, elsewhere in the city, a coterie of games journalists and developers were gathered together to play new games at the industry’s annual summer showcase. This week’s issue is a dispatch from our correspondent Alyssa Mercante.Summer Game Fest (SGF), the annual Los Angeles-based gaming festival/marketing marathon, was set up to compete with the once-massive E3. It’s taken a few years, but now it has replaced it. 2025’s event felt like a cogent reminder that the games industry has dramatically changed since the pandemic. Whereas E3 used to commandeer the city’s convention centre smack in the middle of downtown LA, SGF is off the beaten path, nestled among the reams of fabric in the Fashion District, adjacent to Skid Row. There are fewer game companies present, it’s not open to the public and there’s no cosplay, unless it’s for marketing purposes. Continue reading...
Duke of York’s theatre, LondonThis stunningly rendered tale of a band on the brink of creative genius or total meltdown is a triumph, with a standout cast and scoreIf you’ve ever wanted to step into a 1970s recording studio, get to the Duke of York’s pronto. Stereophonic’s set designer David Zinn has rendered one meticulously, from the complex console and shabby furnishings of the mixing suite to the fully functioning recording booth it gazes upstage into. As the play’s fictional band gathers behind the glass, the dramatic possibilities of their pressurised containment are immediate.David Adjmi’s music-infused drama – songs by Will Butler of Arcade Fire – arrives from Broadway trailing a record number of Tony nominations for a play, and a now-settled lawsuit. Fleetwood Mac’s erstwhile engineer felt the story too closely resembled the making of their best-known album. Rumours? Echoes, certainly. If you know the names Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, chances are you’re going to read them in Peter, the band’s controlling genius, and Diana, whose need for independence grows with her rising star. Continue reading...
Garsington Opera, Wormsley, BuckinghamshireRuth Knight’s production captures the menace and high stakes in this deliciously devilish power struggle with Lucy Crowe whirling her sword like Uma Thurman in Kill BillHandel’s operas don’t stage themselves. In her new production of Rodelinda for Garsington Opera, the director Ruth Knight has to grapple, like those before her, with the need to balance the tone, taking the story and its unlikely curveballs seriously enough to make us care, and yet finding enough levity to entertain. By and large she succeeds – but even if not everything we see on stage convinces, what we hear certainly does. The cast, led by Lucy Crowe’s powerhouse Rodelinda and Tim Mead’s gloriously rich-toned Bertarido, is first-rate, the playing of the English Concert thrillingly energised. Conducted by Peter Whelan, they support the singers yet never give the impression of holding back.Leslie Travers’ set brings the bones of the Garsington Opera pavilion on to the stage, with the same steel beams and glass panels that are all around us creating two levels of playing area. At the top there are three groves of green trees, one for each of the royal siblings whose power plays, depicted in the busy overture, have led to the opera’s starting point; all have turned to ash by Act three. It mostly works well, but can feel cramped, with the tallest dancer’s head missing the girders by only inches. Continue reading...
Snape Maltings, Aldeburgh/Orford Church, OrfordWith a Chekhov-inspired libretto by William Boyd, this ‘opera within an opera’ had an excellent cast and a lucid staging. Another brand new work by Colin Matthews – his vivid Quartet No 6 – featured the following morningFew events feel as haunted as the Aldeburgh festival. Nearly 80 years since it was established by Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears – and decades since their deaths – the couple still loom large in its Suffolk environs, their project continued by younger friends and collaborators.None are more eminent than the composer Colin Matthews, who assisted Britten in the final years of his life. Now 79, Matthews has produced his own first opera, on a Chekhov-inspired libretto by William Boyd: the world premiere of A Visit to Friends opened this year’s festival, on the same stage where Britten’s Death in Venice made its debut 52 years ago. Continue reading...
Chichester Festival theatreNatalie Dormer is exceptional in the title role while Phillip Breen’s production reflects the scope of the novel’s ambition, though the story never fully reaches its emotional depthsThe stampede of actors making their way from screen to stage continues with Natalie Dormer’s return to the boards as the lead, tragic figure in Leo Tolstoy’s story of one aristocratic unhappy family.She is exceptional in the part of Anna, inhabiting the boldness, insecurity and anger of the discontented wife seeking her freedom through romantic passion. But there is little chemistry in her relationship with Vronsky (Seamus Dillane) – the rakish military man for whom she leaves her loveless marriage, and he is a non-character, left uncoloured. Continue reading...
Former curator’s comments, later withdrawn, reignite debate over attribution of Samson and Delilah paintingIt is an unwelcome question, but an important one: did the National Gallery buy a £2.5m dud?This has remained the suspicion of many experts since one of Britain’s premier cultural institutions acquired Samson and Delilah, a long-lost masterpiece by the Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, in 1980. Continue reading...
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As a young gay kid who was often teased and bullied for prancing around like a ballet dancer, I drew confidence from self-assured characters like Nina from TekkenGrowing up, fighting video games such as Tekken and Street Fighter were a core part of bonding during summer holidays for my brothers and I. For me, beat-em-ups were less about nurturing any masculine impulses toward strength and destruction, and more about the lore of the fighting game and its varied fighting styles, which played like a dance on the TV screen. That, and the ever-expanding rosters of sexy, glamorous femme fatales.There is a joke I have often heard that you know a young boy may be of the lavender persuasion if he only picks female characters in beat-em-up fighting video games – the parents might think it’s because he fancies them, but really it’s a form of diva worship. That was certainly true for me. Continue reading...
The country star loves the loud guitars of Bob Seger and belts out some Dolly after a few drinks, but which song makes her feel as if she can do anything?The first song I fell in love with I remember my grandma playing (How Much Is That) Doggie in the Window by Patti Page when I was five years old in the back seat of the car. I could never tell if she was singing “doggie” or “dolly”, but I loved it either way.The first record I bought My grandma used to babysit [US country singer] Tim McGraw, 15 minutes down the road from where I lived in Louisiana, so I bought his album A Place in the Sun from Walmart and my sister and I made up a dance routine. Continue reading...
Marketed to ‘party people’ and touted as a faster route to hydration than water, electrolytes are in the middle of a boomThe tickets are bought, the line-ups have been announced and it’s nearly time to drag last year’s tent out of the cupboard for a wipedown – and to evict a few dead earwigs. And this summer, there’s one more festival accessory that partygoers won’t be travelling without: electrolyte tablets.Touted as a faster route to rehydration than water, and a way to replace vital salts lost during heavy drinking and partying, the focus on festivals is the latest twist in a global boom for electrolytes, as everyone from triathletes to YouTubers sings the praises of these super-hydrating mineral supplements. Continue reading...
Pets have long been a source of comfort and companionship for humans. But are they really trying to console us when we’re distressed or do they just want their dinner?I am lost in Morris’s eyes. They are brown, almond-shaped and fringed by impossibly long lashes. He looks back at me, softly blinking occasionally, and then reaches out his tongue and licks my cheek, just once.I’ve been depressed lately, and while I’ve received compassion and support from many dear people, Morris, my 10-year-old terrier, has been one of the greatest sources of comfort. With that reassuring lick, that steady gaze, he’s conveying a message: “It’s OK. Everything will be all right.” Continue reading...
Are boxers the new beach dress? Are bermudas really back? And is wearing shorts to the office ever OK? Here’s how to prepare yourself for the great unveilingHappy shorts season. Not happy for everyone, though, is it? It’s probably not a stretch to say that for many of us, wearing shorts is up there with getting into a swimsuit or showing your feet for the first time that year. A watershed moment of dread that, unlike most scary things – eating out alone, caring what other people think – only gets worse as you get older.But it’s also summer, and sometimes only shorts will do. Plus, this year, there really is something for every leg. Culottes are back, except they’re structured and called bermuda shorts – and you can even wear them to work. So are 1970s sports shorts, if your summer reference is more Ridgemont High. It’s not unseemly to wear boxer shorts, especially if you’re on the beach, just try them in seersucker – or if you prefer the freedom of a skirt, how about a skort? Hate all shorts? Try jean-shorts or “jorts” – they’re better than they sound. Here is a foolproof guide to getting over shorts fear. Continue reading...
How do the wildly variable supermarket sourdoughs stand up to the scrutiny of someone who’s been baking their own for years?• Everything you need to make great sourdough – and the kit you can do withoutI make sourdough every week at home, so I feel that I’m a good judge of the flavour and texture of this style of baking. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of a handful of these loaves, which had good texture, good flavour and a nice crumb. It was, however, interesting to discover that none had to declare the salt content in their loaves, because this has a surprisingly large impact on overall flavour.None of the packaging for any of these breads, save for Wildfarmed, talked about pesticides and herbicide sprays, which is one of the things I ask about whenever I do buy bread these days – surely part of the point of spending more money is to know that the loaves are made from flour without that toxic load to it? It was great to see the supermarkets becoming more engaged in making better bread, too, and that Jason’s and Wildfarmed have made it on to so many high-street shelves. Continue reading...
From kid-friendly creams and Pritt-Stick-style solids to the best for oily and dry skin, these are the sunscreens our beauty columnist rates the most• Anti-ageing products that actually work: Sali Hughes on the 30 best serums, creams and treatmentsWe are bad at engaging with sun protection unless there’s a heatwave, or we’re venturing on holiday – and the gunky, greasy, spot-causing sunscreens of yore, which stained clothes and couldn’t be shifted, are partly to blame. TikTok misinformation and scaremongering (unsupported by significant clinical data) around rising cancer diagnoses on protected skin don’t help either. The dermatology community is united: high protection, broad spectrum SPF is the most important product you’ll use and the key defence against skin cancers and premature ageing of the skin.The most important aspect of sun care is that people use it. The elegance of a modern sunscreen formula, the texture on fingertips and the comfort on skin, the smell, the packaging, the price, the finish and its ability to play nicely with other skincare and makeup products – these are, in my view, often the difference between someone’s decision to protect themselves or not. What follows are 57 user-friendly sunscreens I’ve enjoyed trying in recent years, all of which have proved popular with those to whom I’ve recommended them and none of which make sun protection a bind. I would gladly use any of them on my own family. Continue reading...
Our tired mum-to-be put 11 maternity pillows, from wedges to U-shapes, to the test in search of a better night’s sleep• Parents on the baby gear they wouldn’t go withoutIt’s a cruel twist that, just when you’re trying to bank some rest before the arrival of a baby, your body and brain conspire to make falling – and staying – asleep more difficult. Hormonal changes, pelvic or back pain, stress and extra bathroom trips are among the delights that can make sleep elusive for pregnant women. As your baby bump grows, general discomfort is a given.Pregnancy pillows aim to help relieve some of this discomfort by supporting key parts of the body, such as your growing baby bump, back and hips. Many are designed to encourage an optimal pregnancy sleeping position: the NHS recommends sleeping on your side after 28 weeks. That’s due to research suggesting a link between falling asleep on your back and an increased risk of stillbirth – although note that the overall risk is still very low, and there’s no need to worry if you wake up on your back. Just roll over and go back to sleep.Best pregnancy pillow overall:Bbhugme pregnancy pillow£159 at BbhugmeBest budget pregnancy pillow:Dreamgenii pregnancy, support and feeding pillow£48.99 at EbebekBest pregnancy pillow for leg support:Snüz SnuzCurve pregnancy support pillow£84.95 at SnüzBest for temperature control:Simba extra support body pillow£109 at Simba Sleep Continue reading...
There’s not much can beat a homemade savoury pastry, including these onion and anchovy turnovers and a very herby chicken pieWarmer weather always has me dreaming of elaborate picnics, just like the ones my mum used to take us on as kids. She made superlative chicken pies, and I always think of them at this time of year. Mum would use shop-bought pastry, but here I’ve made a herby rough puff to up the summery feeling. The onion and anchovy turnovers, meanwhile, are the perfect pocket savouries to keep you going on a long walk or day out. You could always make one batch of pastry and halve the amount of both fillings, so you can have some of each. Continue reading...
Some of the most skilful cooking happening anywhere in Britain right nowRagù is a cool, minimal, romantic ode to Italian cooking that’s housed in a repurposed shipping container on Wapping Wharf in waterside Bristol. No, come back, please – don’t be scared. There are tables, chairs, napkins, reservations and all the other accoutrements of a bricks-and-mortar restaurant, even if this metal box may at some point in its existence once have been used to ship things to China and back. To my mind, Wapping Wharf has gone from strength to strength in recent years, and no longer feels at all like one of those novelty “box parks” that have about them a heavy whiff of the edgy temporary fixture. Today’s Wapping Wharf is a true independent food destination in its own right, and with a bird’s-eye view from one of Ragù’s window seats, while eating venison rump with gorgonzola dolce and sipping a booze-free vermouth, you can watch the crowds head for the likes of the modern French Lapin, Tokyo diner Seven Lucky Gods, modern British Box-E, Gurt Wings and many more; by day, there’s also a bakery, a butcher, a fromagerie and so on. Of course, anyone who calls their sophisticated modern Italian restaurant Ragù clearly didn’t live in the UK through the 1980s. For me, as for many others, ragu will always be sold in a glass jar and advertised via caterwauling operatic ditties during the breaks on ITV’s London’s Burning: “Ragu, it brings out the Italian in you,” etc. This was back in a time when Britain’s attitude to Italian cuisine stretched, broadly speaking, as far as spag bol, though many of us were at a loss to tackle the “bol” part of that equation without Unilever’s industrially squished sieved tomatoes at 79p a jar.Those days are long gone, however, and the evidence is clear to see at Ragù, with its crisp, lightly battered artichoke fritters with a punchy aïoli, its Hereford onglet with cipollotti onion, and its cannoli with rhubarb curd and pistachio. Ragù caters to a young-ish, knowing audience who are well aware that Britain’s current Italian dining culture was shaped by the River Cafe, Angela Hartnett and Giorgio Locatelli. Owners Mark and Karen Chapman opened Cor on North Street, Bedminster, in 2022, where they serve clever, fancy yet erring-on-the-hearty Mediterranean plates – think Catalan sausage with clams and fino butter sauce followed by tonka bean creme caramel. At Ragù, meanwhile, their focus is wholly Italian and, to my mind, this could be some of the most skilful cooking anywhere in Britain right now. I recommend the place wholly, effusively and slightly enviously of anyone who gets to taste the heavenly tiramisu made with sumptuously soggy slices of panettone before I get the chance to return. Continue reading...
Your step-by-step guide to authentically gooey, chewy cookie heavenOnce upon a time, not so long ago, the only so-called chocolate chip cookies on offer in the UK were, in fact, biscuits – small, brittle ones peppered with tiny, waxy, cocoa-coloured pellets. When I finally discovered the soft, chewy American originals in a subterranean outlet at Birmingham New Street station, my teenage mind was officially blown. These are even better.Prep 25 min, plus chilling Cook 15 min Makes 15 Continue reading...
Did you know UK National Beer Day is upon us? Or perhaps you feel that every day should be beer day? Here are some tips on drinking beer that you might not have thought ofI didn’t write a Valentine’s Day column, I also didn’t do one for Mother’s Day, and I won’t be doing one for Father’s Day, either. Who am I to tell you how to enjoy your time with your most beloved – and who am I to tell you what they ought to be drinking, seeing as these days that’s invariably informed by gendered marketing and targeted campaigns?I am, however, writing a column for National Beer Day on 15 June (the same as Father’s Day – yawn). Why am I doing this? Well, today is the night before, AKA New Beers’ Eve, and isn’t a pun as glorious as that worth celebrating? Continue reading...
Laila finds the 27-year age gap between her and Jeremy a turn-on. He says being in polyamorous relationships allows him to love different people in different waysI respect Jeremy’s opinion and life experience and he makes me feel cared forI also don’t experience jealousy. But I can feel insecure. I worry about being left for a monogamous relationship Continue reading...
From the first offer of breakfast mimosas, Jens Radda knew Lachie was a kindred spirit – but he was cautious. Then a mutual friend confirmed his feelingsFind more stories from The moment I knew seriesDuring Melbourne’s sixth lockdown in 2021, I was bored out of my mind in my suburban sharehouse and craving connection. I’d been following an Instagram account for a drag performer called Iva Rosebud at the behest of a mutual friend who felt our work was similar.I’d been watching them from a distance for some time when one Friday night a message arrived suggesting a collaboration. Obviously it piqued my interest; it’s not like I had anything else to do – who knew how long the lockdown would go on for? Continue reading...
Matthew, 48, an international English teacher, meets Emma, 40, a lecturerWhat were you hoping for? A serious-minded woman with a great backstory and fine taste in food who could share thoughts and opinions. All of those things happened. Continue reading...
No they don’t cook from scratch, sometimes forget the sunscreen and often miss work deadlines, but at least their kids are wearing secondhand clothes … Meet the new gen of radically normal mumsMost mornings, I’m woken at 6am by my alarm (the baby crawling on to my head). I stretch, go downstairs, fill a bowl with iced water and, the theme of Transformers playing in the background, write my journal (a list of emails-I-forgot-to-reply-to). I drink hot water with cider vinegar to regulate my blood sugar levels, followed by tea using the baby’s leftover milk. Dragging a chilled jade gua sha spoon across my face in an attempt to reverse the ageing process, I then make my young sons’ porridge. While they eat, I plunge my face into the iced water until I can’t breathe, and begin my three-step routine (two La Roche-Posay serums followed by SPF). Some mornings, I run. Others, I cry into a coffee, albeit one made with organic milk, before taking a mushroom gummy to take the edge off the day. My partner and I divide childcare dropoffs – we’re late for both and broadly OK with that – and each have one day a week with the youngest.This is my routine. You might think it’s elaborate and weirdly specific, and you’d be right. Yet we live in an age of routines shared online, often in pursuit of some sort of personal optimisation – I’m aiming for somewhere between writing 2,500 words before breakfast (Anthony Trollope) and 5am cold plunge (fitness guru Ashton Hall). And however elaborate my morning seems to you, to me, it is nothing compared with the pernicious routine of the tradwife. Continue reading...
Fraudsters offer great pay for liking and sharing TikTok content – but then demand a fee to unlock higher earningsOut of the blue you receive a call or a text offering you a job. It sounds great – it’s remote working and you could earn up to £800 a day. If you’re interested, you just need to contact the sender via the WhatsApp number provided.The job is pretty easy: you are asked to like and share content – usually on TikTok. Continue reading...
We asked a chatbot some common finance questions – and then ran its responses past human expertsArtificial intelligence seems to have touched every part of our lives. But can it help us manage our money? We put some common personal finance questions to the free version of ChatGPT, one of the most well-known AI chatbots, and asked for its help.Then we gave the answers to some – human – experts and asked them what they thought. Continue reading...
MP, who is employing a locum and taking extended leave, says he hopes other Commons dads will follow suitWhen the Labour MP Luke Charters announced he was planning on taking at least four weeks paternity leave when his second son was born, he received dozens of messages of support and encouragement from constituents. But among the congratulations, one grumpy social media user had posted: “I hope you have a good rest.”“I snapped back and said that view is part of the problem,” he says, speaking from the House of Commons. “Paternity leave – any parental leave – is not rest, it’s essential caregiving at the start of a child’s life.” Continue reading...
Steps you can take to report the theft and check if it’s being resold – as well as how to protect your next oneWhether you use your bike to commute daily, for a quick trips to the shops or long rides to keep fit, having it stolen can be a nightmare. Here’s what to do if yours goes missing.Report the theft to the police and describe the bike in as much detail as possible, giving the model, make and where it was stolen. You should also include a description of any scratches, dents and marks that could help identify it, and a picture if you have one. You can go into your local police station or call 101 in the UK to file a report. Make sure you get a crime reference number.Home insurance policies will often cover your bike when it’s at home but you will probably have needed to pay extra to extend this for when you’re out and about, or if you have a valuable bike. Report the loss to your insurer and give it the crime reference number. Your bike will not be covered if you failed to look after it, such as not locking it securely or with a suitable lock.Declare your bike stolen on BikeRegister, a UK bike database – you can do this even if you have not registered your bike on there before. It will help improve the chances of your bike being recovered if there are pictures and descriptions of the bike, and where it was stolen.Post on bike and cycling forums, such as Cycling UK Forum, Bike Forum and CycleChat in case people come across it when looking to buy a new bike.Look on resale sites such as Gumtree, Facebook Marketplace and eBay to see whether someone is trying to sell your bike. You can set up alerts for bikes that are the same make and model. If you find one that looks like yours, alert the police – they may be able to recover it. It is not advisable to set up a sting or try to deal with the case yourself.Alert the local community on neighbourhood forums such as Nextdoor or local Facebook groups and get in touch any bike shops nearby in case someone comes in to the shop and tries to sell one that matches your description.Scuff the frame up a bit using sandpaper, paint and stickers so it is less appealing to thieves. Some kitsch, drawn-on hearts might save you a lot of hassle in the future.Register it on BikeRegister and upload pictures alongside the frame number, which is usually found on the bottom bracket shell between the pedals or on the rear dropouts where the back wheel slots in. This will help the police trace it back to you if it is stolen and recovered.Invest in two high-quality locks to make your bike less of a target. At least one of these should be a good-quality D-lock. Be sure to attach the frame to the stand when locking up.Take any removable parts with you whenever you leave it.Find and apply for your nearest cycle parking. This gives another layer of protection, but be sure to still lock up securely. In cities there are also many cycle hangars, such as Cyclehoop, which are small bike stores on residential streets you can apply for at a small cost each year. Check whether there’s one near you.Conceal a Bluetooth tracker on your bike to help locate it if it goes missing. The smaller and more discreet the tracker, the better. Good spots to hide them include under the seat or inside the handlebar. Apple AirTag and Tile Sticker are popular among bike owners. Continue reading...
I asked doctors and fashion experts, and they all said I should wear sneakers. Now I’m having a style crisisI’ve had a torn meniscus in my right knee for eight years. My knee was OK for 47 years, and then I went on the easiest hike in recorded history and stepped up on a not-very-high ledge. That was it.It’s not ideal. I can walk, but I can’t run or sit cross legged. But whenever I’m about to bite the bullet on surgery, it seems like the wrong time to be sitting around for six weeks or longer. Or someone says: “That surgery didn’t work for me.” Continue reading...
Millions of people are taking weight-loss drugs like Mounjaro and off-label Ozempic. But with so many unanswered questions, are we in the middle of a giant human experiment? In this episode, journalist Neelam Tailor asks two doctors what these drugs are really doing to our bodies, our minds, and our society – from muscle loss and mental health to beauty standards and the blurred line between medicine and aesthetics. Continue reading...
By the time I got a diagnosis, I had seen four different doctors over the span of six yearsMy baby nephew grabbed my arm, eager to show me his toy trucks.“Don’t ever touch me there again!” I snapped. Continue reading...
Women’s personal information at risk of being harvested by private firms running their own versions, report warnsPublic health bodies should launch alternatives to commercial period tracker apps, experts have said, as a report warns women’s personal data is at risk of being harvested by private companies.Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “goldmine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to the research by the University of Cambridge. Continue reading...
The sloppy sartorial style of political insiders, from Musk to Dominic Cummings, reveals who has the privilege to be scruffy – but it may also signal their undoingIn case you missed it, Elon Musk and Donald Trump have fallen out.For some – and in particular anyone looking at the tech billionaire’s White House wardrobe – this will come as little surprise. Long before anyone hit send on those inflammatory tweets, or tensions spilled out over Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB), Musk’s political downfall was written in the stitching. Continue reading...
This weekend sees Gottwood in Wales, Moovin in Manchester and Existance in Oxford. And with Glastonbury a couple of weeks away, there’s no harm in doing a trial run Continue reading...
How to streamline your retail experience and go home with something you’ll actually wearWe all make mistakes. Mistakes are fine. The trick when shopping for clothes is to avoid making the same ones over and over again, because that can get dispiriting, and when it comes to purchases, mistakes can be expensive. Awful to spend the money and not feel the benefit. Not to mention the state of the planet. So, in the interests of not feeling like a broke, evil carbon-guzzler with nothing to wear, here are my golden rules of changing-room decision-making.1. Wear clothes without buttons – and slip on shoes Buying the right clothes starts with wearing the right clothes when you go shopping. You need to streamline your changing room manoeuvres. Wear shoes that you can slip off and on. If you are only looking at dresses, then wear a dress for speed; otherwise wear loose separates. You will have a better sense of whether that boho blouse works if you are trying it on with your favourite jeans, than standing there in your knickers. Also, pack a tote bag so that you aren’t buying bags and can comfortably carry any purchases on your shoulder. Continue reading...
The scents of the season are less Bounty ice-cream, more vanilla, spiced rum and driftwood with a glow of sunloungerSuntan fragrances hark back to more innocent times, when factor 8, 6 – or even 2! – oil seemed like a perfectly responsible course of action for a Brit on a fortnight’s Teletext holiday to Crete. Modern tributes draw on common olfactory themes in retro tanning oils, from warm vanilla and coconut to salt, citrus fruits, sexy amber and tropical flowers such as tiaré and frangipani. My favourites of the genre are either affordable or at least relatively inexpensive, because while I’m disgruntled by many fragrance prices these days, there’s something particularly offensive about a three-figure scent got up to smell like Ambre Solaire.In case I haven’t already raved enough about French pharmacy perfumers Roger & Gallet, here’s more. Vanille Soleil (£20 for 30ml), is the latest in the lineup and continues their tradition for considered, high-quality and very wearable scents at an excellent price point. What we have here is a comforting, only delicately sweet vanilla, warm, mellow amber and a gentle blend of jasmine and ylang-ylang. A crunch of sea salt enlivens the whole thing. This is a sunny, cheerful and charming scent that can be spritzed on lavishly without guilt or fear of offending. Continue reading...
With cooler air, fewer crowds and lower prices, the mountains make a great alternative to the coastAll Italians race to la spiaggia in summer, leaving the hinterland marvellously empty. Tuscany gets a lot of love, but travel one region over to Umbria and Monti Sibillini national park bewitches with views of the Apennines and eyrie-like, honey-coloured hill towns such as Castelluccio, soaring above a plateau of brightly coloured poppies, cornflowers and daisies. It’s a gorgeous spot for hiking, biking and tracking down a trattoria to dig into specialities such as wild boar with locally grown lentils. You’ll find some of Italy’s finest salami in butcher shops in Norcia, as well as black truffles on the menus of restaurants such as the Michelin-starred Vespasia, which is in a 16th-century palazzo. Alternatively, you could join a tartufaio and their dog to head into the woods on a truffle-hunting tour.How to do it Organic farm Agriturismo Casale nel Parco dei Monti Sibillini (doubles from £84 B&B) has truffles and wild herbs in its grounds, and a terrific restaurant serving up local and homegrown produce. Continue reading...
Our writer recalls his favourite mountain experiences, from hard-won views to splendid isolation and the comforts of simple refugesAfter a tough scramble to the summit of Rhinog Fach, we look down into the deep valley holding the chilly waters of Llyn Hywel, then west across several miles of heather, bilberry and bare rock to the Welsh coast. Turning my gaze north, there is the entire Llyn peninsula leading east to the peak of Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), no doubt weighed down by thousands of visitors. Up here there are just two of us in an utterly peaceful landscape. No clouds on the horizon. No surprises.I lie down for a few minutes and feel myself drift off. There are no human voices to be heard, only birds. Summer has come early to these mountains and I wouldn’t be anywhere else, drinking in that particular kind of tranquillity to be found on a peak under a blue sky. Continue reading...
Cyclists of varying abilities can tackle the 133km track, which hugs glacial rivers, pebbly beaches and mossy forestsNew Zealand’s remote West Coast Wilderness Trail is something of an oxymoron: accessibly wild. It sounds nonsensical, but that’s exactly the experience.The gently undulating gravel trail in the country’s most sparsely populated region is not only a beginner-friendly cycle, it’s also enjoyed by people with a wide range of physical abilities. Continue reading...
From the Alpujarras to the Dolomites, our tipsters hike, camp and devour hearty mountain food in some of Europe’s most spectacular scenery• Send us a tip on European wilderness – the best wins a £200 holiday voucherAfter a gruelling journey from the UK, arriving at Alpe di Siusi during golden hour felt like stepping into a dream. Farmers turned hay in some of Europe’s highest alpine meadows, framed by jagged Dolomite peaks glowing in soft evening light. We can recommend staying at the Hotel Schmung, a family-run gem with delicious northern Italian food and direct access to scenic hikes. Rifugios provide great lunch stops along the trails. The peaceful setting, breathtaking views and freedom to explore on foot without needing a car make this a perfect base for the Dolomites.Louise Continue reading...
With oppositional views on net zero and Jeremy Corbyn, could a Greenpeace campaigner and a Tory physicist find any mutual ground?Becky, 47, BrightonOccupation Data product owner at a utilities company Continue reading...
From John Lennon’s takedown of Paul McCartney to the Libertines’ Can’t Stand Me Now, songs by straight men about falling out with their friends were strangely romantic to meWhen I was a teenager, in the late 00s in central Scotland, being gay was something I experienced as painful made me feel overwrought. This didn’t match the depiction of gayness I encountered in mainstream culture at the time, which was mostly very cheerful. Almost all of the gay men on my radar were comedians – figures such as Graham Norton and Alan Carr, both of whom I found funny and still admire today, but who were too easy-going and unpretentious to satisfy my desire to see myself as a tortured poet.When I got to university, I found the representation I was looking for – solemn and beautiful – in writers such as Edmund White and James Baldwin, but earlier in my teenage years I had to make do with what was available: romanticising being gay through songs about straight men falling out with their platonic friends. Continue reading...
I try to think of another detail from the weekend that will convince them of my presence, but absolutely nothing comes to mindAfter a sometimes fraught four-hour car journey, my wife and I and three friends arrive at a remote, sea-facing house in Greece. I’ve been here once before, a couple of years ago, but my memory of the place is fragmentary. I’ve remembered, for example, that you can’t get the car anywhere near the house – you have to lug your stuff across a beach and over some rocks – and have packed accordingly. But the view from the top of the rocks still comes as a disheartening surprise.“I forgot about the second beach,” I say, looking at the house in the distance. Continue reading...
The mob character’s survival was dependent on her achieving a standard of femininity – and as a trans woman, I empathise. When her body fell short, her protection disappearedI have never been excited about fancy dress, but when I received the invitation to a Sopranos-themed party a couple of months ago, I knew immediately who I wanted to go as: Adriana La Cerva. As a transgender woman, I empathised deeply with Adriana. I loved her wit, naivety, garish glamour and scandalous moments – the same reason I admire so many of the women in my trans community. Just look to Hunter Schafer or Alex Consani if you want a masterclass in all the above.Some of Adriana’s one-liners – “If you think I’m gonna blow this guy for your sick purposes, you are sadly mistaken” – contain the sort of lewd, campy bravado of a ballroom queen. This is not the aspiration of gender transition, of course. But it does approximate to some of the ways trans women respond to their exclusion by a culture that expects women to be respectable, polite and discreet about their sexualities. Continue reading...
Peace activist Takamatsu Gushiken, 71, searches for the remains of people who were killed during the Battle of Okinawa, one of the bloodiest chapters in the second world war. As the US seeks to bolster its military presence on the island, due to its close proximity to China, Taiwan and North Korea, we explore the multi-layered tensions that have haunted the people of Okinawa for 80 years Continue reading...
Department’s rapid response team is weaponizing the social platform to champion defense secretary and attack rivalsWhile it’s true no president or political leader has ever used social media quite as prolifically as Donald Trump, no recent secretary of defense has ever weaponized X or any other platform, quite like former Fox & Friends weekend host, Pete Hegseth.Hegseth is actively reshaping the Pentagon in his own image since taking over, prompting a social media policy that has taken a dramatic turn towards supporting Hegseth’s every move and public appearance. Continue reading...
Dubbed ‘Britain’s meanest landlord’, Asif Aziz is fighting it out with a tiny cinema that counts Christopher Nolan, Paul Mescal and other Hollywood heroes as fans. How did the capital’s cultural landmarks end up under the thumb of the super-rich elite?When London’s Prince Charles Cinema has something to say, it declares it with large black lettering across its marquee. Once, during a summer heatwave, it beckoned punters with a blunt: SOD THE SUNSHINE COME SIT IN THE DARK. When its doors were boarded up during the first Covid lockdown it went for a rousing: WE’LL BE BACK. And after the coronation of King Charles: NO, WE ARE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME.As is clear from the repertory of films on show – David Lynch classics in 35mm, all-night Japanese horror marathons, Sing-a-long-a-Sound of Music and screenings of The Room (frequently with a live Q&A from director Tommy Wiseau) – the cult Leicester Square spot (Quentin Tarantino’s favourite UK cinema) has a unique place in London’s West End. When the cinema found itself facing an existential crisis following a prolonged period of fraught negotiations with its new landlord, passersby only needed to look up to learn that the venue had a fight on its hands. Just three words were pinned to the board: SAVE THE PCC. Continue reading...
We’d like to hear from people who have struck up friendships with the person they sit next to at football matchesWe’d like to hear from people who have become football match friends.Watching the ups and downs of your team next to the same person at the ground can lead to strong bonds. Has the perfect stranger you meet only at the football become a close friend or an important person in your life just from your time in the stands? If so, we’d like to hear all about it. Continue reading...
We would like to hear from people who have started setting aside more cashUK households are increasingly setting aside physical cash amid extreme economic uncertainty and to provide a safety net for possible banking system outages such as the recent one in Spain, according to the Bank of England’s chief cashier.Victoria Cleland said on Tuesday that the Bank had tracked a significant increase in the number of banknotes in circulation in recent months, continuing a rising trend since 2022. Continue reading...
We would like to hear about the best new album you have heard this year so far and whyThe Guardian’s music writers are compiling their favourite albums of the year so far – and we’d like to hear about yours, too.Have you listened to a new album that has had you hooked? Or one you’d recommend? Tell us your nomination and why you like it below. Continue reading...
Whether you’re a parent, teacher, or just someone curious about the long-term effects, we’d like to hear your questionsA quarter of three- and four-year-olds in the UK now own a smartphone, but the impact of that is still being understood. From endless scrolling to constant notifications, smartphones expose children not just to their friends and classmates, but to a world of advertising, influencers, and algorithms. But how is all of this shaping how children see themselves, relate to others, and develop emotionally?In a video series on our It’s Complicated Youtube channel, we’re speaking to experts to explore how smartphones might be affecting children’s mental health, attention, self-esteem and relationships. Are social apps making kids more anxious? What happens when children are targeted by ads that shape their sense of identity from a young age? What do we know, and what don’t we yet understand, about growing up in a world where you’re always online? Continue reading...
Tony Wright says that the government must show people what it stands for; Michael Foster says it should fund local authorities properly; and Mike Scott raises the dire state of the NHSMartin Kettle quotes a former Whitehall mandarin saying that “the government has still not made clear what kind of Britain it is trying to create” (Rachel Reeves seized her moment – whatever the future brings, Labour’s economic course is now set, 12 June). He has a point, not wholly answered by Rachel Reeves. It’s the vision thing, and the ability to communicate it. It’s about describing what Labour is for, in a general sense, beyond a list of policy deliverables. Growth is important, but only as a means, not an end. “Securonomics” is interesting, but has no public resonance.If people are now unsure what Labour stands for, it is because the task of ideological self-definition has been neglected. This is unlike 1997, which was preceded by a process of rethinking that produced New Labour and the “third way”. Something similar is needed now. There is a rich tradition of social democratic thinking in Britain to draw on, including RH Tawney’s argument for equal access to what he called “the means of civilisation” as the basis for a common culture. Continue reading...
The assets of those who accrue wealth through the degradation of the natural environment should be confiscated, writes David HumphreysSo creditors wishing to take over Thames Water want the company and its senior management to be granted clemency from rules on sewage spills and environmental protection (Bidders demand Thames Water granted immunity over environmental crimes, 7 June). The rights of investors, it would seem, should prevail over the rights of communities to a clean environment.It is the failure of rigorously enforced regulation that led to the mismanagement of Thames Water, with loans being used to increase shareholder dividends and bloated bonuses for incompetent managers. In many countries the law can now be used to confiscate private assets gained from immoral activities, such as drug-running and prostitution. There is no reason why those who accrue wealth through the degradation of the natural environment should be treated any differently. Continue reading...
Readers on how care homes and regulatory bodies have failed their families, in response to an article on The Firs in Nottinghamshire, which was closed by the Care Quality CommissionThe situation at The Firs care home in Nottinghamshire, which was shut down in April, is dreadful for patients, families and staff (‘How did it get to this?’ What happens when care in a residential home breaks down, 7 June). But the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is not the only body to blame for failings like this.It can’t investigate individual complaints – this is mostly down to the local government and social care ombudsman (LGSCO), but also the parliamentary and health service ombudsman (PHSO). It depends on who funds the care; in theory the same care home could be dealing with two ombudsman staff unaware of each other. Both are equally damned on Trustpilot with overwhelmingly negative reviews. Continue reading...
Richard Ellis says cleaning up is costly and more suitable habitats for the birds should be restoredThe decline in gull numbers must be a cause for concern. However, having once lived in a much gull-colonised town, I’d like to advance an alternative view to Sophie Pavelle’s (Trying to get rid of noisy, food-stealing gulls is missing the point – it’s humans who are the pests, 8 June).Urban gulls excrete guano copiously. It covers cars, buildings and streets in a steady, noxious rain. As a corrosive substance it damages paintwork on buildings and paint on cars, guttering and ironwork, such as railings. As a fertiliser it boosts the growth of weeds on roofs and pavements, blocking drainage systems. Continue reading...
Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they meanScroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you Continue reading...
A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideasEach week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email. Continue reading...
Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of footballEvery weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.Living in Australia? Try the Guardian Australia’s daily sports newsletter Continue reading...
The best new music, film, TV, podcasts and more direct to your inbox, plus hidden gems and reader recommendationsFrom Billie Eilish to Billie Piper, Succession to Spiderman and everything in between, subscribe and get exclusive arts journalism direct to your inbox. Gwilym Mumford provides an irreverent look at the goings on in pop culture every Friday, pointing you in the direction of the hot new releases and the best journalism from around the world.Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you Continue reading...
The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world. Warning: gallery contains sensitive images Continue reading...