• Rolling updates from 169km ride in south-east France

• Stage-by-stage guide | And you can drop Tom a mail

As ever, you can get in touch via email. The link is at the top of this page. With the yellow jersey seemingly decided, I’d be interested to hear what you’ll be looking out for during the final week of the Tour.

We’re about an hour away from the peloton rolling out of Muret and then it’ll be another 10 minutes to KM0 where the racing will get underway.

• Ireland lock withdrawn with foot problem in first Test

• Owen Farrell likely to start against First Nations & Pasifika XV

The Ireland lock Joe McCarthy is a doubt for the British & Irish Lions’ second Test against the Wallabies due to a foot injury. Andy Farrell has called up Scotland’s Gregor Brown to bolster his second-row ranks as a result, taking an already bloated squad to 45 players.

McCarthy was taken off after 43 minutes of the Lions’ 27-19 victory over Australia in Brisbane on Saturday and Farrell confirmed his early withdrawal was down to injury. “It’s plantar fasciitis,” said Farrell. “It was niggling away at him there. We got him off. Hopefully we got him off in time.”

The decision to let a small blaze burn – before it suddenly erupted – has drawn scrutiny. Now those who love the remote North Rim are reckoning with the destruction

When lightning struck on 4 July along the remote North Rim of Grand Canyon national park, sparking a small wildfire in a patch of dry forest, few predicted the terror and loss that lay ahead.

Fire managers decided that conditions seemed ideal to let the blaze burn at a low intensity – a practice known as “control and contain” that helps clear out excess fuels and decreases the chance of a more catastrophic wildfire in the future. Rains from previous weeks had left the forest floor moist and weather forecasts indicated the summer monsoon season would arrive soon.

A Tory and a Labour voter struggle to find common ground over woke culture and second-home ownership

Ben, 45, Dorset

Occupation Sustainability lead in the construction industry

Six months into his second term, the president has been disastrous for democracy – but extraordinarily politically adept

In the first six months of his second term as president, Donald Trump has dominated the national political conversation, implemented an aggressive agenda of constitutional reform, scrambled longstanding American alliances, and helped alter US political culture.

Pro-democracy forces have been left with their heads spinning. They (and I) have spent too much time simply denouncing or pathologizing him and far too little time learning from him.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty

A Salvadorian reporter with an audience of millions, Mario Guevara was arrested while livestreaming a protest against Trump in June – and is still struggling for freedom

Prosecutors dropped the last remaining charges against Atlanta-area journalist Mario Guevara last week after he was arrested while livestreaming a protest in June. But the influential Salvadorian reporter remains penned up in a south Georgia detention center, fending off a deportation case, jail house extortionists and despair, people familiar with his situation told the Guardian.

Donald Trump’s administration has been extreme in unprecedented ways to undocumented immigrants. But Guevara’s treatment is a special case. Shuttled between five jail cells in Georgia since his arrest while covering the “No Kings Day” protests, the 20-plus-years veteran journalist’s sin was to document the undocumented and the way Trump’s agents have been hunting them down.

President’s assault on science –particularly climate science – has led to unprecedented funding cuts and staff layoffs

“Our ability to respond to climate change, the biggest existential threat facing humanity, is totally adrift,” said Sally Johnson, an Earth scientist who has spent the past two decades helping collect, store and distribute data at Nasa (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) and Noaa (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

Donald Trump’s assault on science – but particularly climate science – has led to unprecedented funding cuts and staff layoffs across federally funded agencies and programs, threatening to derail research tackling the most pressing issues facing Americans and humanity more broadly. A generation of scientific talent is also on the brink of being lost, with unprecedented political interference at what were previously evidence-driven agencies jeopardizing the future of US industries and economic growth.

Mwangi accused of ‘facilitation of terrorist acts’ during last month’s protests against government of William Ruto

The Kenyan rights activist Boniface Mwangi is accused of “facilitation of terrorist acts” during protests that rocked the country last month, investigators said on Sunday, a day after he was arrested.

At least 19 people were killed during the 25 June demonstration against President William Ruto’s government, which was itself called to pay tribute to victims of police violence at another protest on the same date last year.

As Lena Dunham’s new show reminds us, whether they’re at work or on a date, women are expected to tone it down if they want to get on. What if they refuse to play ball?

‘I can be a bit much,” a friend said to me. A group of us were in a cafe discussing the first date she had scheduled for later that day, and she was worried about how she might come across. It wasn’t the first time I had heard a woman label herself as “too much”, “intense” or “a lot”. I expect even the most feminist of women have found themselves wondering, like the newly single Jessica (Megan Stalter) in Lena Dunham’s new Netflix show, Too Much, whether they would be better off if they just toned it down.

Thanks to the lingering presence of “weirdly archaic feminine ideals”, says the author Amy Key, many women still believe that being “a contained, neat person” will make them more desirable on a date, or at work, or in social situations. “That is linked to the idea of the space that you occupy too,” she adds, whether that’s the metaphorical “space” that you command in conversations or the physical size of your body. The unspoken rule, in both cases, is that less is better.

After splitting, Fred and Hester decided to sleep with other people – and still be intimate with each other once in a while. Now back together, they’ve never been happier

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

Having a break has been great for our sex life

She made her name in Mean Girls and Sex Lives of College Girls, but it’s her lack of a filter off screen that sent her viral. Ahead of her new album, she talks fame, gossip and Trump’s America – and doesn’t hold back

“I looove to lie,” sighs Reneé Rapp happily, sounding like a kid who has just discovered a new favourite toy. She’s talking about using creative licence in her songs, and how she realised, while working on her second album, that she didn’t have to stick to the truth of her own experience 100% of the time. But for a journalist, the admission – and her apparent glee about it – demands a follow-up: has she lied at all in the last 40 minutes?

I expect Rapp, 25, to wave away the question. Instead she pauses, seeming to give it real thought. “Have I lied? You know, I don’t think so,” she eventually concludes.

Coastguard log raises new concerns over safety and viability of flagship policy to intercept dinghies crossing Channel

New concerns about the safety and viability of the flagship UK-French policy to intercept migrant dinghies at sea have emerged after a coastguard log leaked to the Guardian revealed a recent boat-slashing incident that failed to stop people reaching the UK.

Despite the government’s pledge to stop overcrowded dinghies crossing the Channel, the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats this year has increased by about 50% compared with the same period last year, with more than 21,000 crossing so far in 2025.

Syria struggling to contain sectarian clashes between Bedouin and Druze fighters

Israel wants the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to replace a system coordinated by the UN and international aid groups. Along with the US, it accuses Hamas of stealing aid, without offering evidence.

Critics have argued that the GHF is a tool for the Israeli and US governments to politicise humanitarian aid and to distribute it in ways that will depopulate sectors of Gaza in apparent violation of international law.

The Simply Red singer gets emotional over Aretha and wakes up to Ravi Shankar. But which record healed his broken teenage heart?

The first single I bought
One of the first albums I bought was Sticky Fingers by the Rolling Stones; the first single was The Last Time. I was about 11 when my dad bought me my first record player, and I wore it out by listening to it so much.

The first song I fell in love with
My first love was an unrequited crush. I heard Let’s Stay Together by Al Green on the radio, went out and bought it, and played it over and over to heal the pain of teenage rejection.

Instead of spending millions and taking years to complete, creative directors are producing high-grade work using the latest software, but critics voice copyright concerns

A US stealth bomber flies across a darkening sky towards Iran. Meanwhile, in Tehran a solitary woman feeds stray cats amid rubble from recent Israeli airstrikes.

To the uninitiated viewer, this could be a cinematic retelling of a geopolitical crisis that unfolded barely weeks ago – hastily shot on location, somewhere in the Middle East.

This year’s theme for the Prix Pictet, the photography award that focuses on sustainability, is ‘storm’. The shortlisted images were announced at the international photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles. The winner will be selected at the Victoria and Albert Museum in September.

“In many ways our planet is a more dangerous place to live than ever before. The impacts of the climate catastrophe abound. Fires, floods, heat and drought are killing and injuring people and destroying both infrastructure and precious ecosystems. Already, parts of our planet are unliveable, and all the indications are that more will follow. The economic, social and political impacts of these changes are immense. There could not have been a more timely moment for the Prix Pictet to invite nominations on the theme of ‘storm’.” Sir David King, Prix Pictet jury chair

Fun and educational outdoor activities in the wild that will coax kids off their screens this summer

There’s no escaping sea and sky on Tiree, as the Inner Hebridean island is only 12 miles long and 3 miles wide. Shallow seas provide rich feeding grounds for marine life, and it is one of the UK’s best spots for whale watching. Tiree Sea Tours – a member of the WiSe national training scheme for minimising disturbance to marine wildlife – offers half-day and full-day sea-faris (from £75). Visitors can also try to spot basking sharks circling the island in the plankton-rich waters at viewing spots in Hynish Bay or Caoles, or from the deck of the CalMac ferry over to nearby Coll. Sunset Pods’ two cabins (from £700 a week, one week minimum stay in July-August) sleep four and offer views over Balevullin beach, a Dark Sky discovery site and home to Blackhouse Watersports.

Student midwives working thousands of hours unpaid in NHS fear lack of vacancies despite staff shortages

A student midwife who fears she will be unable to get a job after completing 2,300 hours of unpaid placement work in the NHS is calling for guaranteed posts for newly qualified midwives who otherwise will be forced to abandon the profession before their careers begin.

Aimee Peach, 43, is due to complete her training next summer, but says the promise of a job at the end of her three-year degree course has “collapsed”, despite severe shortages of midwives across the country.

No boxer has ever represented his country to this degree: Usyk is a living embodiment of his nation’s defiance of the Russian invasion

Perhaps the most striking part of the surge of controlled fury that ended this heavyweight title fight wasn’t the short right or the clubbing left that took Daniel Dubois down midway through the fifth round.

It was Oleksandr Usyk’s smile before the second of those shots. More of a snarl perhaps, or a baring of the gumshield, as Dubois let his arms drop, giving Usyk time to freeze the moment, load up, take aim and unleash a fully extended left hand to the side of the jaw that made Dubois crumple, legs folding under him as his father, Stan, threw in the towel.

The astonishing save to prevent an own goal against France is the prelude to the match-winning shootout show from a two-time cancer survivor

Ann-Katrin Berger is flying. The ball is flying. A few yards away, near the penalty spot, Clara Mateo of France already has her arms raised in celebration. A heroic German defensive rearguard is about to end in a misdirected defensive header, a looping own goal and a heartbreaking defeat. But a 34-year-old double cancer survivor, largely written off by her own country’s media before this quarter-final, has other ideas.

The mechanics of the save itself are easy enough to explain. Berger is about five yards out of her goal, and so has to back-pedal furiously while also keeping her eye on the flight. At the last moment, it looks like the ball is about to beat her. Which is the point at which Berger flings herself backwards and upwards, finding every last gram of strength, straining every last muscle, the sort of moment you spend a lifetime training for. She claws it away with her fingers. Falls heavily on her shoulders. Accepts the congratulations of her teammates, who look like they have just seen a biblical miracle.

Home favourite in disbelief after shot on the 11th sends an old ball flying but eagle a hole later sends fans into ecstasy

Deep into day three of the Open and Rory McIlroy is still surfing gigantic waves of momentum and goodwill. He has jumped to six under, at this point only four shots off the lead, with each birdie sounding like a sonic boom over Portrush. It is manic, messianic and a lot of fun. And then it gets weird. Twilight Zone weird.

McIlroy has just twirled a drive into the rough at the 11th. For a moment he fears that his ball is lost, only to get the all clear from the marshal. Better still, he will be playing from trampled-down ground. He pauses. Takes aim. And then as his ball flops wearily into air, a member’s Titleist ball, which has been deeply buried under ground, suddenly jumps up beside him.

Authorities axe flights and school classes as typhoon closes in, with China’s Hainan and Guangdong provinces also on high alert

Hong Kong issued its highest tropical cyclone warning as Typhoon Wipha battered the city, with authorities cancelling school classes and grounding hundreds of flights.

Wipha was located around 60km south-east of Hong Kong as of 10am on Sunday, according to the city’s weather observatory. Huge waves were spotted off the eastern coast of Hong Kong Island.

Michael McGrath awaits results of secret shopper investigation amid crackdown on Chinese retail platforms

The EU justice commissioner has expressed shock at the toxicity and dangers of some goods being sold by Shein and Temu, amid a crackdown on the popular Chinese retail platforms.

With 12m low-value parcels each day coming into the EU from online retailers outside the bloc, Michael McGrath has vowed to crack down on the sale of goods that blatantly break the law.

Some in an east London park say they like the incessant beeping, but others that it’s an indication of low-level crime

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Was that exhausting to read? Well, imagine if that noise was the soundtrack to your summer.

To the ire of many city dwellers this year, it is. The piercing and persistent sound, something akin to a half-bothered fire alarm you accidentally set off, has been everywhere. Its origin? Lime e-bikes, specifically the stolen variety.