Any Iranian move to close the strait of Hormuz waterway would be an act of monumental self-harm, said David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary, as he continued to refuse to endorse the Israeli and American strikes on Iran, or lay out the UK view of their lawfulness.
Lammy said there was no need for the British government to say if the strikes were legal since the UK was not involved in the action and had not been asked by the US to take part, or to allow the US to use the UK’s Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean to target Iran.
Bloc’s foreign affairs chief warns of a response unless action is taken to ‘stop the suffering’ in Gaza Strip
The EU may take action to increase pressure on Israel unless there are “concrete” improvements for the inhabitants of Gaza, its foreign policy chief has said.
After meeting the bloc’s foreign ministers in Brussels, Kaja Kallas said it was “very clear” that Israel had breached its human rights commitments in Gaza and the West Bank.
Indiana Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton sustained a torn achilles tendon in Sunday night’s NBA finals Game 7 loss to Oklahoma City, ESPN reported on Monday. The recovery time for a basketball player with a torn achilles tendon typically ranges from eight to 10 months.
With five minutes left of the first quarter on Sunday, Haliburton pushed off his right foot to initiate a drive to the basket. But instead of maneuvering past Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he fell to the floor in agony. As the Thunder went the other way for a dunk, Haliburton pounded the floor with his fist and was unable to put weight on his injured leg while being escorted to the locker room.
Foreign secretary flounders as he attempts to play catch-up with US strikes on Iran and sidesteps questions on legality of attacks
The situation was, said the foreign secretary, “fast-moving”. Fast-moving as in totally suboptimal. Fast-moving as in completely out of his control. Fast-moving as in he would rather have pulled the duvet over his head and pretended the whole thing had been a bad dream. That he could go back to sleep for a while and wake up to the world as it was.
Maybe we all wish we could do that. These are the days that many of us would rather had never happened. Does the world feel any safer to you today?
He has used clear messaging to redirect anger from the disenfranchised to the economic elites. That the wealthy are worried shows it’s working
The Zohran Mamdani phenomenon should not be happening, if received wisdom is a reliable predictor of events. He’s the 33-year-old Muslim leftist and Queens assemblyman running for the New York mayoralty with the support of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the vitriolic campaign against him suggests his momentum has caused panic in gilded circles. His chief opponent for the Democratic nomination, Andrew Cuomo, could not scream party establishment more loudly: he’s New York state’s former governor – just like his father was – and a former cabinet secretary. He married into that classic Democratic royalty, the Kennedys; his endorsements include the former president Bill Clinton; and billionaires such as Mike Bloomberg are pouring millions into his Super Pac.
In another age, someone like Mamdani would have been a no-hoper. What changed was the 2016 presidential campaign of the long-marginalised socialist senator Bernie Sanders, which re-energised the US left. But Donald Trump’s recent victory on a more extreme platform led to predictions of a general rightwing lurch in US politics, with progressive positions scapegoated for the Democratic loss (even though Kamala Harris ran on a squarely corporate, “centrist” ticket). I was scheduled to interview Mamdani on the night of the US presidential election, but his campaign asked to postpone as results started to come in suggesting a Trump victory was likely. Presumably, they wanted to reassess strategy in the coming US political winter.
Labelling direct action as an act of terror criminalises dissent, chills speech and redefines nuisance as extremism under the banner of national security
The UK government’s intention to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 marks a significant escalation in the treatment of civil disobedience. It elevates a group known for throwing red paint at buildings and military aircraft into the same legal category as al-Qaida and Islamic State. If there’s a serious threat from these activists, we’ve yet to see it – just a ministerial statement discussing civil disobedience in the language of counterinsurgency.
If this is all that Palestine Action can be accused of, then the government is wrong. Ministers are setting a dangerous precedent by using terror laws to outlaw protest – and penalising protesters not for violence but for making a nuisance and vandalism. The cost will be felt in press freedom, political accountability and the right to resist. The home secretary’s statement says that Palestine Action’s activities “meet the threshold” for terrorism under the law, yet fails to specify how the group’s actions – which consist primarily of damage to property, not threats to life – satisfy the statutory requirement of intending to influence the government or intimidate the public through serious violence or threats.
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The health secretary deserves praise for trying something new. But links between poor care and overstretched staff must not be avoided
The announcement of a new inquiry into maternity care failures in England, including the shockingly higher risk of mortality faced by black and Asian mothers, indicates an overdue recognition that improvements are needed. From the devastating 2015 review of a decade of failure at Morecambe Bay, to last year’s birth trauma report from MPs, there is no shortage of evidence that women face unacceptable risks when giving birth on the NHS. The question is whether a review chaired by Wes Streeting himself can achieve what previous ones have not.
His role as chair is not the only novel aspect of this inquiry. A panel including bereaved parents will share their experiences and knowledge, alongside expert evidence. This format should focus minds on the human consequences of systemic failures, including mother and baby deaths, and on the need for accountability when things go wrong.
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Another India lower-order collapse gave England a fighting chance of a thrilling victory in the first Test at Headingley, with the hosts 21-0 in their second innings at the close of play on day four, chasing 371 to win.
Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul struck centuries for the visitors, with the former becoming the second wicketkeeper to hit twin tons in a Test match. But just as he did in the first innings, Josh Tongue came to the fore when seeing off the Indian tail, with three wickets in four balls helping ensure the tourists lost their final six second-innings wickets for 31 runs.
US strikes on Iran are adding to the pressure on carriers, which are having to avoid war-torn regions, lengthening routes and pushing up costs
With barely 48 hours elapsed since the US launched strikes against Iran, the swift resumption of near-normal service circumnavigating the war zone underlines that few crises, short of the global pandemic, have stopped airlines and their passengers flying for long.
British Airways had been planning to restart flights to the Middle East cities of Doha and Dubai again, after cancelling departures from Heathrow at the weekend. However, on Monday evening Qatar closed its airspace again as Iran launched a missile attack on US bases in the country.
Researchers say satellites may be at risk and impact could create a spectacular meteor shower in the skies
If a giant asteroid smashes into the moon in 2032 it could send lunar debris hurtling towards Earth, researchers have said, posing a risk to satellites but also creating a rare and spectacularly vivid meteor shower visible in the skies.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 triggered a planetary defence response earlier this year after telescope observations revealed the “city killer” had a 3% chance of colliding with Earth.
The US has rashly followed Israel into a war that will not end Iran’s nuclear programme or topple its government
Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy
The joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend – targeting nuclear facilities, infrastructure and symbolic state institutions – reflect the bankruptcy of a decades-long approach to Iran that has hinged on pressure, coercion and destabilisation. This latest gambit appears less a strategic gamechanger than a desperate bid to regime-change Iran and prop up a rickety regional status quo built around unchecked Israeli dominance.
The timing of Israel’s initial surprise attack on 13 June was no coincidence. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu – who has long sought to sabotage any prospect of US-Iran detente – appears to have steamrolled Donald Trump into the escalation he has always wanted. The result looks like a trap: Trump, once again, manoeuvred into a destabilising Middle East conflict that serves Netanyahu’s agenda far more than the US’s.
Sina Toossi is a senior non-resident fellow at the Center for International Policy, where his work focuses on US-Iran relations, US policy toward the Middle East and nuclear issues
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If Iran’s nuclear program was not an imminent threat, what motived the US-Israeli attack? Why now? The answer is political opportunity
The United States has bombed Iran. Donald Trump announced on Sunday that B-2 bombers attacked three nuclear sites including the Fordow nuclear site, sometimes referring to as the crown jewel of Iran’s nuclear program.
As the world waits for Iran’s response, it is worth revisiting events since 12 June, when Israel, with US support, attacked the Islamic Republic. The official reason is nuclear weapons. The real reason I contend is the elimination of the Iran-led Axis of Resistance and establishing Israeli regional hegemony over the Middle East with tacit support from Arab autocrats.
Nader Hashemi is associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics and director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
Memo says cybersecurity office deemed WhatsApp a high risk due to ‘lack of transparency in how it protects user data’
The WhatsApp messaging service has been banned on all US House of Representatives devices, according to a memo sent to House staff on Monday.
The notice to all House staff said that the “Office of Cybersecurity has deemed WhatsApp a high-risk to users due to the lack of transparency in how it protects user data, absence of stored data encryption, and potential security risks involved with its use.”
On a 200-acre site in Fayette County, Georgia, US Soccer hopes to build the best facility of its like in the world
Thirty minutes away from the hustle and bustle of downtown Atlanta, the land becomes greener, the trees are taller and builders are working in the intense Georgia sun to ensure US Soccer’s new National Training Center is ready for action in time for the men’s World Cup next year.
It is an enormous site, spanning more than 200 acres in Trilith, Fayette County, and the hope is it will be the best training facility in the world when it opens. Funding has partly come from Arthur M Blank, who owns three sports teams in Atlanta, and executives are confident everything is on schedule for the doors to open in April.
Admitting to being wrong can be difficult. But ‘intellectual humility’ is a trainable trait that deepens relationships
You may be familiar with the feeling. Someone factchecks you mid-conversation or discredits your dishwasher-loading technique. Heat rises to your face; you might feel defensive, embarrassed or angry. Do you insist you’re right or can you accept the correction?
Admitting to being wrong can be difficult and uncomfortable. But the ability to admit to incorrect ideas or beliefs – what psychologists call “intellectual humility” – is important. Research shows that people with higher intellectual humility think more critically, and are less biased and less prone to dogmatism.
A group of 12 House Democratic military veterans have thrown their weight behind efforts to constrain Donald Trump’s military authority, announcing they will support a War Powers Act resolution in response to the US president’s go ahead for airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
The veterans – some of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan – were strongly critical of Trump’s decision to launch what they called “preventive air strikes” without US congressional approval, drawing explicit parallels to the run-up to some of America’s longest recent wars.
Several cities are under extreme heat warnings as high temperatures and humidity grip parts of the country
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued several extreme heat warnings and advisories as a dangerous and prolonged wave of high temperatures and humidity blankets much of the central and eastern US, with the worst conditions expected to persist into the middle of this week.
Several locations recorded their hottest temperatures of the year over the weekend: Salt Lake City, Utah, hit 104F (40C) on Thursday, its first triple-digit reading of 2025, and on Saturday the city of Mitchell in South Dakota also reached 104F, surpassing its previous daily record of 101F. Daily high records were broken in parts of Minnesota, Wyoming and Michigan.
Polite, considerate, and brilliant to watch, Oklahoma City’s team of champions helped produce one of the most absorbing postseasons in years
These were supposed to be the boring finals, a contest between two small-city teams with none of the media pull of Boston or New York or even Denver for that matter, featuring the (allegedly) most overrated guard in the NBA, no personalities, relentless fouling, and a Canadian MVP whose ascendancy seemed to indicate nothing more than the terminal decline of America as a stable of elite basketballing talent. Instead we were treated to the most thrilling and unpredictable finals since LeBron James came through with his famous rejection in 2016 – a bustling, punishing, seven-game exhibition of physical basketball whose outcome was genuinely unclear until the final quarter of the season. Denigrated and dismissed by a basketballing commentariat who’ve spent much of this season ruing the modern NBA’s dearth of charisma, Oklahoma City and Indiana played as if stung by the laugh lines, launching from both ends of the court with a kind of mad, symphonic intensity.
If the finals of the past few years were about punctuating a dynasty (Golden State in 2022), letting Nikola Jokić be Nikola Jokić (Denver in 2023), and mastering a technocratic synthesis of all the elements of the modern game (the Celtics last season), this was a victory built on turnovers, flops, dives, steals, slingshot passes, and snap threes from distance. It was grubby at times, but it was all the more beautiful for its lunging desperation. At the end of it all, the team with the best regular-season record and the best player in the league emerged victorious. In years to come this stat line alone may confer a sheen of inevitability over the season. But Oklahoma City’s victory in Sunday night’s decider – like these finals and the playoffs generally – was anything but predictable. Even after star guard Tyrese Haliburton, who played through the finals with a calf strain, exited the court with a ripped achilles late in the first quarter, the Pacers would not give up.
A growing number of abortions happen through telehealth – including for women in states with strict bans
Three years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, erasing the national right to abortion and paving the way for more than a dozen states to ban the procedure, the number of abortions performed in the US is still on the rise – including in some statesthat ban the procedure.
US abortion providers performed 1.14m abortions in 2024, according to new data released on Monday by #WeCount, a Society of Family Planning project that has tracked abortion provision since 2022. That’s the highest number on record in recent years.
Ukrainian president’s remark came on visit to discuss Moscow’s war and defence cooperation with Keir Starmer
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Russia, Iran and North Korea as a “coalition of murderers” during a visit to London in which he held talks with Keir Starmer on defence cooperation and how to put further pressure on Moscow.
Ukraine’s president arrived in the UK on Monday, hours after the Kremlin launched another big air raid on Kyiv. It involved 352 drones – half of them were Iranian-designed Shaheds – and North Korean ballistic missiles in what Zelenskyy called “a completely cynical strike”.
Environmental funerals are on the up – but are they really as sustainable as their providers say?
“I want to become a pearl when I die - or a reef,” said Madeleine Sutcliffe. Aged 80 and suffering from lung cancer, Sutcliffe was given six months to live in January.
Adam, Sutcliffe’s son, is enthusiastic. “I don’t think a pearl is possible but if mum’s ashes are made into an artificial reef, I’ll be able to dive to it,” he said. “Given how I feel when I dive - serene, calm and meditative - a reef is the perfect environment to remember mum.”
Emerson Colindres reflects on ‘traumatizing’ ordeal after Ice sent him to Honduras despite having no criminal record
The Ohio high school graduate and soccer standout who was recently deported from the US to Honduras despite having no arrest record has described being “handcuffed like we’re some big criminals” for the entirety of his deportation flight.
“To me, it was kind of more traumatizing because I haven’t been to my birth country in years,” Emerson Colindres, 19, who was brought from Honduras to the US by his family at age eight, said to the Cincinnati news station WCPO in an interview over the weekend.
Experts says organised criminal gangs could be behind spate of incidents over past few months
Copper thieves have been targeting England’s onshore windfarms, and security experts say organised gangs could be behind the crimewave.
At least 12 large windfarms across Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, Essex, Humberside, Northamptonshire, North Yorkshire and Lincolnshire have fallen victim to cabling thieves in the past three months.
The political temperature is dangerously high – and shows few signs of cooling
It has been a grim couple of weeks in the US, as multiple acts of politically motivated violence have dominated headlines and sparked fears that a worrying new normal has taken hold in America.
Last Saturday, a man disguised as a police officer attacked two Democratic legislators at their homes in Minnesota, killing a state representative and her husband, and wounding another lawmaker and his wife. The alleged murderer was planning further attacks, police said, on local politicians and abortion rights advocates.
They are the air-conditioning units of the world – filtering water, preventing flooding, preserving history and providing habitat. Our human ancestors knew the extraordinary power of peatlands, so why are they still being destroyed?
I haven’t found an hour when I don’t love a bog. Recently, after a night of counting rare caterpillars in Borth in Mid Wales (they come out only after dark), walking back to the car under the glow of a flower moon, I wondered if 2am was my new favourite. I felt very safe, held by the bog’s softness, and everyone that was out at that hour seemed to have a sense of humour. I met a nightjar hopping around on the ground, pretending, I think, to be a frog.
But there is also something about the humidity of a languid afternoon on a bog, when everything slows and fat bumbles hum, that is surprisingly good. I have done freezing horizontal rain and thick, cold-to-your-bones fog and wind so howling that I couldn’t think. All of those were hard, but I did come away feeling truly alive.
The home secretary has said she will ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws, ignoring a warning from the group’s solicitors that the proposal was “unlawful, dangerous and ill thought out”.
In a statement to parliament on Monday, three days after activists from the group broke into RAF Brize Norton, Yvette Cooper said a draft proscription order would be laid in parliament on 30 June. If passed, it would make it illegal to be a member of, or invite support for, Palestine Action.
In October 1978, two leaders of the Iranian opposition to the British-backed shah of Iran met in the Paris suburbs of Neauphle-le-Château to plan for the final stages of the revolution, a revolution that after 46 momentous and often brutal years may now be close to expiring.
The two men had little in common but their nationality, age and determination to remove the shah from power. Karim Sanjabi, the leader of the secular liberal National Front, was a former Sorbonne-educated professor of law. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was the leading Shia opponent of the Iranian monarchy since the 1960s. Both were in their 70s at the time.
Behavior in orca population off coast of US and Canada captured by scientists using drone observation
Killer whales have been observed mutually grooming each other with a type of seaweed, the first known instance of a marine animal using tools in a way that was previously thought to be the preserve of primates such as humans.
A group of killer whales, which are also known as orcas, have been biting off short sections of bull kelp and then rolling these stems between their bodies, possibly to remove dead skin or parasites. The behavior is the first such documented mutual grooming in marine animals and is outlined in a new scientific paper.
Well, I don’t believe in associating with beings that have no souls. Like psychic vampires. Right? If you go through life, you’ll either meet a psychic vampire every day or every year. You should avoid beings like that, that’s a good rule for life. That’s what I don’t believe in, associating with them. I’m sure you’ve met some beings that draw the energy out of you if you give them 10 minutes. But after 10 minutes, you gotta run. I give everybody 10 minutes.
As the shockingly violent anticapitalist hit returns, its star and creator talk about spinoffs, the dangers of desensitisation, David Fincher’s mooted remake – and why they couldn’t say no to tie-ins with McDonald’s and Uber
When season two of Squid Game dropped, fans were split in their response to Netflix’s hit Korean drama. While some viewers loved the dialled-up-to-11 intensity of everything – more characters, more drama, more staggering brutality – others found the tone relentlessly bleak. And this was a show whose original concept – a cabal of rich benefactors recruit poor people to compete in bloodsports for cash – was already plenty dark. Anyone hoping the show’s third and final season, arriving this week, will provide a reprieve should probably just rewatch Emily in Paris instead.
“The tone is going to be more dark and bleak,” says series creator Hwang Dong-hyuk, through an interpreter. “The world, as I observe it, has less hope. I wanted to explore questions like, ‘What is the very last resort of humankind? And do we have the will to give future generations something better?’ After watching all three seasons, I hope we can each ask ourselves, ‘What kind of humanity do I have left in me?’”
Following the second weekend of Copa Gianni, Fifa were eager to flag up a number of fraternal firsts. In scoring for Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid, Jude and Jobe Bellingham became the first brothers in history to score in the same tournament – “We’re 1-1 now,” honked Jude after his goal – while Francesco Pio Esposito became the first player to replace his brother when he came on for his Inter debut in place of elder sibling Sebastiano in the win over Urawa Red Diamonds. Meanwhile in Atlanta, the United Arab Emirates vice president and Manchester City chief suit, Sheikh Mansour, emerged with family bragging rights after his club’s reserve team trampled Al Ain, who are presided over by his older brother Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, into the dirt.
Coleen is a princess and her parents are queen and king, and Wayne is a warrior. They get together, they split up, she’s broken-hearted and he goes on a quest to find the ring and re-propose to her. The theatre says they’ve never done anything like this before” – Helen Serafinowicz, the writer behind TV hit series Motherland, has announced her next project: ‘The Legend of Rooney’s Ring’, a Game-of-Thrones inspired summer pantomime about Wayne and Coleen Rooney, loosely based on a rumour that the couple once had a big argument in the car which ended with Coleen hurling an engagement ring out of the car, which led to Liverpool locals taking to the streets with metal detectors. Not the theatre we expected, but the theatre we need.
Thanks for the link in Friday’s Football Daily to your article on Eintracht Frankfurt’s hot transfer target, Hugo Ekitike (Still Want More, full email edition). Ever since I watched Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch as a kid I’ve been on the lookout for palindromes. Any chance that Ekitike will eschew the bigger European clubs and sign for Ipswich? Or Bolton?” – R Reisman.
Quite how do you propose Milos Kerkez gets straight from the M40 to the M6 on his way from Bournemouth up to Liverpool (Friday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition)? The M42 would be the logical manner, though if it’s particularly busy northbound near Birmingham airport, he could head west to the M5 and then north past West Bromwich” – Matt Hard.
If Marcus Rashford’s Mr 15% really can get him a transfer from the debacle formerly known as Manchester United to Barcelona, we should give him the Ballon D’or (the Mr 15% that is, not Rashford, obviously). No one, not even the great Lamine Yamal, will have put in a better performance this year. And, an extra nod to the agent for subtlety, getting him to do a timely interview with a Spanish YouTuber for no reason in particular” – Noble Francis.
Danny Boyle’s much-anticipated sequel kicks off a new trilogy filled with surprises but what does it all mean and what can we expect next?
This article contains spoilers for 28 Years Later
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have done it again. In the early 2000s, 28 Days Later became the most popular and influential zombie movie in decades, with its fast-moving, virally infected, not-quite-undead marauders rampaging through a post-apocalyptic England. Now Boyle and Garland have reunited with 28 Years Later, easily the most talked-about horror movie since Sinners, and the biggest zombie movie since the PG-13 dilutions of World War Z back in 2013. Compared with the countless familiar zombie movies and TV shows that have popped up since the original movie, 28 Years Later is a thorny, challenging, unpredictable work, which means there’s plenty to discuss now that it’s spent a well-attended weekend in wide release. Here are some major spoiler-heavy topics related to the film’s style, themes, sociological implications and, of course, that ending.
US strikes on Iran could damage global economic growth, the head of the International Monetary Fund has warned.
Director Kristalina Georgieva told Bloomberg TV that the IMF was watching energy prices closely, warning a rise in oil prices could have a ripple effect throughout the global economy.
Progressive assemblyman may be leading the former governor in race for New York City mayor, survey finds
Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City, has drawn level with Andrew Cuomo in the city’s primary, according to a new poll, as voters brave record-breaking temperatures to cast their ballots.
Mamdani, a 33-year-old New York assemblyman, may even be leading Cuomo, the 67-year-old former governor and scion of a prominent New York political family, if the poll’s simulation of the system of ranked-choice voting is correct.
When Mehraveh Khandan heard about Israel’s evacuation order in Tehran last week, the first thing she thought of was her father. Reza Khandan, imprisoned for his human rights activism in 2024, was sitting in a cell in Tehran’s Evin prison on the edge of the evacuation zone.
She fielded calls from her friends, who were breathless from the shock of the Israeli bombs as tens of thousands fled the Iranian capital. Her father, by contrast, had no way to flee. He was stuck.
Ben Calveley expects competitive Force side to face Lions
Tour could open up to other countries such as France
Every big tour is a hectic learning curve as the 2025 British & Irish Lions are already finding. The squad had to call off their post-arrival recovery dip in the Indian Ocean – a letdown for local news crews and the lurking sharks off Cottesloe beach – because of inclement weather and the first media squall of the trip has also blown in.
The Lions chief executive, Ben Calveley, has made clear the touring side expects Joe Schmidt, the Wallabies head coach, to make his national players available for their Super Rugby teams before the Test series commencing next month and the host nation has been gently reminded of that contractual detail following the Lions’ arrival in Australia.
I’m with Jennifer Garner and Ariana Grande: down with tweakments, be done with fillers and celebrate the lines that make life beautiful
If, like me, you have watched agog, alarmed or just confused at the speed at which tweakments and cosmetic surgery have gone mainstream, then consider this minor piece of celebrity news.
Earlier this month, Jennifer Garner became the latest A-lister to say that having Botox was a mistake. “Botox doesn’t work very well for me,” she told Harper’s Bazaar. “I like to be able to move my forehead.”
Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK
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‘We knew the prize money had to go up fast. No one would say, “Better not put the kettle on in case somebody wins a quid”’
I was responsible for the schedule. I’d listened to Chris Tarrant doing this game on the radio – Double or Quits – which was brilliant. I was intrigued by its TV version, called Cash Mountain, because it was well known in the industry that various people had turned it down. I invited the producer, Paul Smith, to pitch the full idea to me and Claudia Rosencrantz, ITV’s controller of entertainment.
Kirsty Coventry has promised to change lives and inspire hope during an official ceremony to mark her taking over from Thomas Bach as president of the International Olympic Committee.
The 41-year-old from Zimbabwe, who in March became the first woman and the first African to be elected to the most powerful job in sports politics, also paid tribute to the strong women in her life as she was given the golden key to the IOC by Bach.
Royal Festival Hall, London Closing out a Simz-curated Meltdown festival, and with a host of star guests helping out, these songs gain extra nuance as orchestra and star meld perfectly together
Not many can say that they’ve reloaded a symphony orchestra. But as the Southbank Centre erupts after the opening horns of Gorilla, Little Simz has to run it back, starting the track again in the manner of a rowdy club set.
Backed by the majority Black and ethnically diverse Chineke! Orchestra and her own live band, Simz – closing out the 11-day Meltdown festival which she curated this year – performs a set that is equal parts genuine and genius. The energy in the room is overwhelming, overcoming any misgivings about performing to a seated crowd.
Dust settles after impassioned protests but military presence unnerves California leaders – and threatens to inflame already tense situation
Shortly before last November’s presidential election, before anyone could envision him defying his “America first” political base and launching a bombing raid on Iran, Donald Trump offered a preview of how and why he would want to deploy the military on US soil.
Flamengo, Botafogo, Palmeiras and Fluminense are not as rich as European clubs but they have heart and heritage
“The graveyard of football is full of ‘favourites’,” warned Botafogo manager Renato Paiva in what has proven to be this summer’s coldest line in sweltering United States heat. Gritty draws achieved by Palmeiras against Porto and Fluminense against Borussia Dortmund at the Club World Cup were enough to start a conversation. But the underdog heroics of Brazil’s other two clubs have shaken up how we see club football across the world.
For the first time since Corinthians shocked Chelsea in Yokohama in 2012, when some Brazilian fans sold their homes and vehicles to make the trip, the reigning Copa Libertadores champions have beaten the Champions League winners. Igor Jesus, who has been strongly linked to Nottingham Forest, scored the only goal of the game as Botafogo beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, a special setting for Brazilians given it is where they won the World Cup in 1994 and honoured the recently deceased Ayrton Senna.
Copper-coated figures will be hoisted on to cathedral’s reconstructed spire after devastating blaze of 2019
Sixteen giant statues are to be hoisted back on to the spire of Notre Dame in the latest step of the cathedral’s €700m (£600m) reconstruction after the devastating fire of 2019.
The copper-coated figures, each weighing almost 150kg, escaped the blaze because they were removed from the Parisian landmark for renovation just four days before flames consumed the roof and destroyed the spire.
Gunman, identified as Brian Anthony Browning, 31, may have been suffering mental health crisis, police say
The man who opened fire outside a Michigan church filled with worshippers before he was struck by a vehicle and then fatally shot by security staff had attended services there a couple of times in the last year and his mother is a member, police said.
The gunman, identified as Brian Anthony Browning, 31, did not have any previous contacts with local police or a criminal history, but may have been suffering a mental health crisis, the Wayne police department said in a news release.
He was 30 points behind former governor Andrew Cuomo just months ago, but now he’s surging in the contest to lead the largest US city
Zohran Mamdani trailed Andrew Cuomo, the frontrunner to be the next New York City mayor, by 30 points just a few months ago.
Now, just ahead of the Democratic primary on Tuesday, the 33-year-old democratic socialist has bridged the gap with Cuomo, a politician so of the establishment that a giant bridge north of New York literally bears his last name.
This is a mystifying and provocatively slow-paced game with more celebrities than you would find on a Cannes red carpet PS5; Sony / Kojima Productions
What is Death Stranding 2 trying to say? It’s a question you will ask yourself on many occasions during the second instalment of Hideo Kojima’s hypnotising, mystifying, and provocatively slow-paced cargo management simulator series. First, because during the many long and uneventful treks across its supernatural vision of Mexico and Australia, you have all the headspace in the world to ponder its small details and decipher the perplexing things you just witnessed. And second, because the question so often reveals something profound.
That it can stand up to such extended contemplation is a marker of the fine craftsmanship that went into this game. Nobody is scribbling down notes to uncover what Doom: The Dark Ages is getting at or poring over Marvel Rivals’ cutscenes for clues, fantastic as those games are. It is rare for any game to invite this kind of scrutiny, let alone hold up to it. But Death Stranding 2 is a different kind of game, one with the atmosphere and narrative delivery of arthouse cinema, light of touch in its storytelling but exhaustive in its gameplay systems, and the tension between the two makes it so compelling. At first you brave one for the other; then, over time, you savour both.
These super-fluffy scones are child’s play, and ready to devour in all of 25 minutes
The secret to these ultra-fluffy scones? Cream cheese. In a fit of inspiration (I was thinking about rugelach at the time), I replaced almost all the butter with it to great success. These scones are a hit with children, too: my three-year-old quite competently helped make them, from fetching rosemary from the garden to stamping out the dough and brushing on the egg wash. A nice kitchen activity for any resident children, even if your dog turns up for the cheese tax at the last stage.
Robert Schwartzman examines how five friends from the home counties ended up as part of the British invasion of the US music scene
The happy-sad story of 60s band the Zombies is recounted in this very watchable documentary from actor, film-maker and Coppola family member Robert Schwartzman, younger brother of Jason. Keyboardist Rod Argent, singer Colin Blunstone, guitarist Paul Atkinson, drummer Hugh Grundy and bassist Chris White were the amazingly talented group from the English home counties who, in this film, look heartbreakingly like a five-man team on University Challenge.
The Zombies became a hugely prominent part of the British invasion of the US, while at the same being royally manipulated and exploited. Their eerie and sublime harmonies, topped off by Blunstone’s beautiful, plangent and weirdly vulnerable lead vocals, were the foundation of iconic songs like She’s Not There, praised by George Harrison on Juke Box Jury (the equivalent of getting a simultaneous OBE and papal blessing). Then there was the mysterious, psychedelic and weirdly unwholesome masterpiece Time of the Season from 1968, although sadly Schwartzman doesn’t ask the band to walk us through those groovy lyrics: “It’s the time of the season for loving / What’s your name? What’s your name? / Who’s your daddy? Who’s your daddy? / He rich? Is he rich like me?” It stormed the US charts after the band had made the gloomy decision to break up, exhausted and demoralised and, above all, needing money to pay the bills.
Revolut’s chief executive and founder Nik Storonsky could be in line for a multibillion-dollar fortune after he reportedly negotiated an Elon Musk-style deal that hinges on him pushing the fintech company’s valuation past $150bn (£112bn).
The former Lehman Brothers trader, who established Revolut in 2015, is said to have secured a lucrative deal that hinges on the company nearly tripling in value, having last been estimated at $45bn.
From Margaret McDonald’s Glasgow Boys to Nathanael Lessore’s King of Nothing, boys take centre stage in this year’s Carnegie-winning titles. Let’s hope that the male protagonists persuade more boys to pick up a book
This year’s Carnegie medals for children’s writing, awarded on Thursday, brought to light an unexpected trend. At a time of widespread public anxiety about the decline in boys’ reading habits and the rise of the toxic influencers of the online “manosphere”, male friendship and masculinity were front and centre on the shortlist.
The winner, Margaret McDonald’s superb debut, Glasgow Boys, tells the story of the relationship between two looked-after children on the threshold of adulthood who process trauma in different ways. Banjo’s aggression and Finlay’s avoidance could be seen as two models of dysfunctional masculinity. Luke Palmer’s Play, also on the shortlist, tells a story of male friendship which touches on rape culture and county lines drug gangs, while teenage gang membership is the focus of Brian Conaghan’s Treacle Town.
Thorsteinn Halldórsson’s side will be tough to beat but can they turn tightly contested games into victories?
This article is part of the Guardian’sEuro 2025 Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 16 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from two teams each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 2 July.
Heavily immigrant towns and cities in California resemble ghost towns as fear of Ice raids grip local residents
At Hector’s Mariscos restaurant in the heavily Latino and immigrant city of Santa Ana, California, sales of Mexican seafood have slid. Seven tables would normally be full, but diners sit at only two this Tuesday afternoon.
“I haven’t seen it like this since Covid,” manager Lorena Marin said in Spanish as cumbia music played on loudspeakers. A US citizen, Marin even texted customers she was friendly with, encouraging them to come in.
An estimated 3 million rats live in New York City – so members of the ‘Rat Pack’ are working to ease human-rodent relations
I am standing near a tree bed in a bustling Brooklyn park, with only a few feet of dirt separating me from a “small” family of rats – that’s usually around eight of them, I’m told. I’ve come on this “rat walk” with a few dozen New Yorkers, all milling about awkwardly, subjecting ourselves to the kind of brainless small talk heard at speed dating events. But instead of looking for love, we’ve come to learn more about New York’s rodent population. Tonight, knowing thine enemy means we must slink among the rats.
We’re led by Kathleen Corradi, the city’s famed rat czar, appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2023, and we are united by our visceral hatred of rats. We don’t want to see them scurry by on late-night walks home, or watch as they slink in and out of trash bags on the street. We especially don’t want them in our homes. As one exterminator put it to the famed metro reporter Joseph Mitchell back in 1944: “If you get a few [rats] in your house, there are just two things you can do: you can wait for them to die, or you can burn your house down and start all over again.”
ChatGPT developer forced to act after receiving legal complaint from earbud maker iyO
OpenAI has taken down online content related to its recent deal with Sir Jony Ive’s hardware startup, io, after a trademark complaint.
The artificial intelligence company has removed promotional materials including a video where Ive – the former Apple designer behind the iPhone – and OpenAI’s chief executive, Sam Altman, discuss the $6.4bn (£4.8bn) transaction. However, the nine-minute film can still be viewed on YouTube.
The leader of Macron’s party wants to tackle teenage screen addiction, ban headscarves for girls under 15 and bring France closer to Britain. On a visit to London, he discusses Ukraine, immigration – and his presidential intentions
In the conference room of a hotel in Kensington, the man who would be France’s next head of state is sharing his views about Brexit. Microphone in hand, Gabriel Attal is here to meet activists and expatriates. Once 270,000 strong, London’s French community has dwindled in recent years. The 36-year-old leader of Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party is doing his best to gee them up.
“We are waking at the moment from a long sleep when we talk about relations between France and the UK,” he says. In the face of war in Ukraine and turmoil in the US, old alliances are reforming. “Many thought the channel would become an ocean. And that all the ties that bound us had to be cut. But we are emerging from this sleep because in some measure we are forced to.”
“Beautiful test but India will be disappointed with themselves,” reckons Arul Kanhere. “With all due respect to Shardul, who has rescued both India and Mumbai from dire straits … India need a player who can get in on his primary skill and be handy with the secondary one. Shardul is helping with none at the moment." This could always come back to bite me in the ass if the top order collapses and Lord Thakur scores a century … beautiful game.”
“Maybe Sunil Gavaskar is still cheesed off at the Australia-India trophy being called Border-Gavaskar rather than Gavaskar-Border,” suggests Andy Flintoff, “because, obviously, he has the better record (AB averages 50.56, SG averages 51.12).”
Foreign secretary David Lammy says further flights will follow in the coming days
By the way, if you actually wanted to read the Modern Industrial Strategy document published by the government today, you can find it here.
The government has just pushed out a joint statement from business leaders welcoming it, which says:
The Industrial Strategy launched today marks a significant step forward and a valuable opportunity for the business community to rally behind a new vision for the UK – boosting confidence, sentiment, and enthusiasm for investment.
From start-ups and small businesses to large corporates, businesses need a more attractive, stable environment that enables faster, easier, and more certain investment decisions.
For too long high electricity costs have held back British businesses, as a result of our reliance on gas sold on volatile international markets.
As part of our modern industrial strategy we’re unlocking the potential of British industry by slashing industrial electricity prices in key sectors.
Like a sleep divorce, where couples sleep in separate beds, separating screens means that you both get to watch what you want on the TV
Relationships are all about compromise, but there are some areas where it’s simply impossible. Then it becomes about a mutually beneficial workaround instead. A poll has revealed that 55% of couples regularly argue over which TV show to watch: hot on the heels of the sleep divorce (different bedrooms) are we headed for the screen divorce (different tellies)?
Don’t mean to boast, but my husband and I are one step ahead of this trend – screen separated, if you will. In the Venn diagram of programmes we enjoy, the intersection is big enough to fit the words Taskmaster and The Traitors, and that’s about it. He’s tried to lure me into his televisual world, I’ve tried to tempt him into mine, but no dice. Eventually, we realised one of us was always watching through gritted teeth, while the other felt guilty. And so, just like the courageous pioneers of the sleep divorce, who made the decision to prioritise healthy rest above convention, we needed to take action. To divide and conquer.
Michael Grimmett’s documentary, which focuses on a lower-limb amputee’s struggle to gain approval from boxing authorities, will leave you furious
This hour-long documentary about disabled life and ableism co-directed by campaigner Michael Grimmett isn’t merely “inspirational”; it’s also an articulate catalogue of persisting prejudices against disabled people in the UK today, thanks to contributions from influencer Isaac Harvey, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Grimmett himself. What’s ironic about the many instances detailed here of how daily life still excludes them is that being part of daily life is exactly what most disabled people wish to be; not visible, not exceptional.
That said, Fighters does choose a focal point: the struggle of lower-limb amputee boxer Matt Edwards to gain approval from sport’s authorities to take part in amateur boxing bouts. Training and sparring have been a lifesaver for him; after losing a leg aged 19 in a road traffic collision, he fell into addiction. But with the boxing authorities refusing to let him compete, Edwards is forced to sweat it out – elegantly pivoting on his prosthetic limb – in white-collar bouts.
Stunning pictures from Vera C Rubin observatory in Chile released at start of 10-year survey of cosmos
Spectacular views of distant galaxies, giant dust clouds and hurtling asteroids have been revealed in the first images captured by a groundbreaking telescope that is embarking on a 10-year survey of the cosmos.
The stunning pictures from the $810m (£595m) Vera C Rubin observatory in Chile mark the start of what astronomers believe will be a gamechanging period of discovery as the telescope sets about compiling the best view yet of the universe in action.
There are more than 3,000 performances to choose between at this year’s giant pan-genre jamboree. From pop A-listers to underground ones-to-watch, here are our picks
‘Not a vintage year,” came the usual grumbles about the Glastonbury lineup when it was announced in March – and it’s perhaps only in England where people would moan about the lack of quality on offer at a festival with more than 3,000 performances across five days. In reality, Glastonbury remains stacked with varied, progressive, boundlessly vital artists, and the real challenge is picking your way through them: here are some of our tips.
Defender’s representatives pushing for higher basic wage
Fears at Anfield over running down deal that ends in 2026
Ibrahima Konaté is stalling on signing a new deal at Liverpool, raising fears at the club that another key player could run down his contract after this summer’s departure of Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The French defender enters the final year of his deal next month and is understood to have rejected Liverpool’s initial offer of an extension.
As my friends started getting married and having kids, I’d have to wait for anyone to be free to go away with me. So, I started booking solo jaunts and I’ve not looked back
I used to find airports stressful. I mean, I still do – I’m the sort of person who glides mindlessly through security only to be swiftly apprehended (“Er, madam, why is there a litre of water and four bottles of sun cream in your bag?”). But I find them a little less stressful these days. I put it down to the fact that I mostly travel alone. I can arrive as early or as late as I want, drink as many overpriced coffees as I fancy and not go into total unadulterated panic mode when I grossly underestimate the distance to the gate. Because this is my holiday – and my holiday only!
Travelling solo is a pleasure, a tonic, and occasionally a character-building experience (more on that later …). I started doing it by accident. I was 29 when a friend couldn’t make a trip to Paris at the last minute. I went anyway, and also decided to make my life 500% harder by only speaking French, which I hadn’t done since I’d left university several years earlier. Having this goal also distracted me from the fact that I was visiting museums, galleries and restaurants alone, something that can seem almost taboo in a world set up for couples, pairs and groups.
The emergence of Hawk Trump dismayed some of his Maga base but students of US adventurism were unsurprised
So the military parade that brought tanks to the streets of Washington on Donald Trump’s birthday was more than just an authoritarian ego trip. It was a show of strength and statement of intent.
Exactly a week later, sporting a “Make America great again” (Maga) cap in the situation room, the American president ordered the biggest US military intervention in decades as more than 125 aircraft and 75 weapons – including 14 bunker-busting bombs – struck three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump called it a “spectacular military success” – but it remains unclear how much damage had actually been inflicted.
The latest in our series of writers recommending their go-to comfort watches is an ode to Paul Feig’s 2015 comedy starring a never-better Melissa McCarthy
It has a plot and a cast that seem cooked up during a hallucinatory fever dream. It shouldn’t work, but it does – and so splendidly, too. In Paul Feig’s comedy Spy, Melissa McCarthy plays Susan Cooper, a timid CIA desk agent who gets sent out into the field by her fearsome boss (Alison Janney) after the death of her slick Bond-like colleague, Bradley Fine (Jude Law, in a rare comedic turn). The cast is full of delightful surprises. Rose Bryne is a stiletto-clad Oxford-educated villainess with quips so brutal that she makes Regina George look like Barney. Peter Serafinowicz does a game turn as an – admittedly very pre-#MeToo – cringey Italian pervert figure named Aldo (“like the shoe store found in American malls”).
And in the film’s most magnificent twist, Jason Statham parodies the hard-as-nails action leads he’s played over the years as a hard-edged buffoon with “a habit of doing things that people say I can’t do: walk through fire, water-ski blindfolded, take up piano at a late age”. That’s not even to mention whatever it is that’s going on between the English comedian Miranda Hart, who stars as Susan’s best friend and co-conspirator, and American rapper 50 Cent, who plays himself.
The punishing but enduring ‘too posh to push’ fallacy is still prevalent and judgment abounds. This has to change
There was nothing about giving birth that didn’t feel personal, from the agony of my 30-hour induced labour to my eventual journey to the operating theatre where my son was delivered by emergency caesarean section. At that point, I had no idea that I was part of an upward trend in the number of C-sections. Rates of the procedure are rising globally, but it is particularly stark in the UK. When I gave birth in 2017, 29% of births in England took place by C-section. In 2025, that figure stands at 42%.
Why is this happening? There are leading voices within obstetrics, some of whom I spoke to while researching, who put it firmly down to rising levels of obesity, and the increased risks that come with it – including being more likely to need a C-section. But obesity intersects with other risk factors for pregnancy and birth complications, such as social deprivation. And then there is the fact that so many of us are having our babies later than previous generations – age being yet another risk factor for complications during pregnancy and birth, including a higher likelihood of having a C-section. Evidently, it’s a complex picture, and there is not one clear answer.
Debut from Muhammad Hamdy, who won an Emmy for his cinematography, features dramatic chiaroscuros and panning shots to rival Antonioni
Muhammad Hamdy’s debut feature is what you might call an Egyptian stoner flick – if Cheech and Chong were a pair of exhausted, poetry-spouting revolutionaries roaming a broken-down necropolis. Hashish is the means of dulling painful memories and, apparently, preventing subcutaneous eruptions of mint, in this distinctive and stubborn-headed post-Arab-Spring reckoning which comes with magic-realist overtones.
Bahaa (Alaa El Din Hamada) is a disaffected doctor who, on hearing a woman’s complaint about being unable to stop her dead son manifesting, passes her a joint. Wandering through a set of decrepit apartments in a becalmed nocturnal purgatory, pursued by sprinting shadows and bemoaning his lost love Dalal, it seems he and his friend Mahdy (Mahdy Abo Bahat) have joined the ranks of the ghosts themselves. These ruins are psychological as much as anything: their dealer, a former Black Block activist, laments the failed revolution. Another acquaintance laments the 171 bullets that ended his life. There is much lamentation.
Premier League likely to ratify sale within four weeks
Move expected to clear way for Palace to play in Europe
Woody Johnson has agreed a deal to buy John Textor’s stake in Crystal Palace, with a sale to the New York Jets owner likely to be ratified by the Premier League within four weeks.
In a move that could be a major boost to Palace’s hopes of playing in next season’s Europa League, it is understood that Johnson’s offer of £190m for Textor’s 44.9% stake was signed on Sunday evening in the US. The 78-year-old, who has owned the Jets since 2000 and missed out on buying Chelsea in 2022 after making a $2bn offer, mustpass the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test before he can complete the purchase. But it is understood that with Palace under pressure from Uefa to comply with its regulations on multi club ownership, the league is expected to act swiftly to aid their cause.
Australia has one of the most unaffordable property markets in the world, arguably made worse by tax breaks for investors.
The share of investors buying homes has consistently grown over the past 25 years at the expense of prospective owner-occupiers. That trend threatens to accelerate again as younger buyers get priced out of the market amid another surge in property prices.
Ukrainian president to hold talks with UK PM after meeting with king
For more updates on the Israel-Iran war, including US president Donald Trump’s call to “make Iran great again”, you can also follow our live blog here run by Jane Clinton:
Let’s stop for a moment on that question of the EU-Israel association agreement, which sees Spain calling for immediate suspension of the deal, while Germany appears to be distancing itself from it.
Striking a superhero stance is unlikely to change your emotions, but it could help conquer those difficult moments
You may have noticed it before: someone standing feet apart, hands on hips, chest out. Or maybe you’ve done it yourself before a job interview or big presentation. This is “power posing” – the idea that striking a bold posture can make you feel more confident and improve performance. But does it work?
The concept took off in the early 2010s. “A few studies seemed to show if you expanded your body position, it would change your psychological state,” says Professor Ian Robertson of Trinity College Dublin and author of How Confidence Works. “Other studies showed that it could alter testosterone levels, boosting motivation.”
Jaw-dropping formal invention turns this witty heist tale of endangered snails and ‘mail-order’ brides into an urgent dispatch about writing during conflict
Maria Reva’s dexterous and formally inventive debut novel is impossible to review without giving away a major surprise. I do this with a heavy heart: one of the pleasures of this book is the jaw‑dropping coup de théâtre that comes halfway through. Until that point, Endling offers its readers the pleasures of a more or less conventional novel.
The central character is a misanthropic obsessive called Yeva who drives a converted campervan around the countryside of her native Ukraine, rescuing endangered snails. She’s hoping to get them to breed, but some turn out to be endlings – the last living member of a species. First coined in the 1990s, the word was unknown to me before I read this book, but the tragic biological checkmate it describes is older than history. Aurochs, dodos, quaggas, mammoths and Tasmanian tigers must all have culminated in an endling.
Snails weren’t pandas – those oversize bumbling toddlers that sucked up national conservation budgets – or any of the other charismatic megafauna, like orcas or gorillas. Snails weren’t huggy koala bears, which in reality were vicious and riddled with chlamydia. Nor were snails otters, which looked like plush toys made for mascots by aquariums, despite the fact that they lured dogs from beaches to drown and rape them.
From bustling Free Huey rallies to private moments smoking with Angela Davis, Stephen Shames’s photographs tell the revolutionary organisation’s incredible story
The children’s book author spent the precious long Nordic days in simple, off-grid cabins on small dreamy islands – a tradition many Finns still follow
It’s after 10pm and the sky has only just lost the high blue of the day. Sitting by the Baltic Sea, toes in the water, I gaze at distant, tree-covered islands as gentle waves lap over the long, flat rocks. I follow a rough, winding path back to my cabin, through woods so quiet you can hear the pine needles fall.
I’m in Santalahti woods, near Kotka on the south-east coast of Finland, on the trail of Finnish author, novelist, painter and illustrator Tove Jansson (1914-2001). Best known as creator of the Moomins, and for her love of island living, Jansson also wrote for adults. Last year, her first novel, The Summer Book, was made into a film starring Glenn Close and directed by Charlie McDowell. One film critic has described it as “an ode to Finnish archipelago nature”.
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