Exclusive: The Irish rap trio have recently faced censure and a court case, but have also had support for their pro-Palestine stance. Ahead of a Glastonbury appearance deemed ‘inappropriate’ by Keir Starmer, they argue the backlash against them is a deliberate distraction
In April, the Irish-language rap trio Kneecap performed two sets at Coachella, the California music festival attended by 250,000 people. As is commonplace at the group’s shows, Kneecap displayed a message stating: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” and the words “Fuck Israel. Free Palestine”. Mo Chara, one of the group’s members, told the audience: “The Palestinians have nowhere to go. It’s their fucking home and they’re bombing them from the skies. If you’re not calling it a genocide, what the fuck are you calling it?”
Within a week, Kneecap’s US booking agent had dropped them, Fox News had likened the statements to “Nazi Germany”, a handful of summer shows had been cancelled, and two videos from 2023 and 2024 had resurfaced of the group on stage saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory,” and “Up Hezbollah, up Hamas”. The former statement attracted criticism from the families of murdered MPs Jo Cox and David Amess, leading the band to apologise – “we never intended to cause you hurt” – and to reject “any suggestion that we would seek to incite violence against any MP or individual”. While saying “we do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah”, they also described the recirculation of the videos as a “smear campaign” against them, with the footage “deliberately taken out of all context”.
Amendment to law will strengthen protection against digital imitations of people’s identities, government says
The Danish government is to clamp down on the creation and dissemination of AI-generated deepfakes by changing copyright law to ensure that everybody has the right to their own body, facial features and voice.
The Danish government said on Thursday it would strengthen protection against digital imitations of people’s identities with what it believes to be the first law of its kind in Europe.
As territories shift and divide families, desperate parents are travelling to Russia to find their children, many of whom have been moved into military camps or orphanages
As many as 35,000 Ukrainian children are still missing and thought to be held in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, according to an American team of experts, with families saying they are being forced to take desperate and risky measures to try to rescue them.
As Russian forces began their invasion in February 2022, children were abducted from care homes, from the battlefield after the death of their parents, or under coercion directly from their families.
During more than three years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s firefighters have been working on the frontlines of Russia’s air war. Amid ongoing ceasefire negotiations, Russia has steadily intensified its airstrikes in recent weeks and months. Since 24 February 2022, photojournalist Jelle Krings has embedded with firefighters across Ukraine, documenting their lives. His photographs offer a glimpse into the daily reality of these wartime rescuers, who risk everything to save lives while under constant threat from Russian strikes themselves
Last week, on 17 June, Ukraine was attacked with 440 drones and 32 missiles. It was the fourth time this month that Russia launched more than 400 aerial weapons toward Ukraine in a single night, and one of the largest bombardments since the start of its full-scale invasion. For more than nine hours, Kyiv was kept awake by the buzzing sound of drones, the clusters of explosions caused by them and the incoming missiles, and the rattling of anti-aircraft guns firing to intercept them.
The Institute for the Study of War concluded in May that Russian forces have intensified long-range strikes against Ukraine since November 2024. Seven of the largest drone and missile strikes during the war to date were carried out since January 2025. In the same period, Vladimir Putin has stated publicly that Russia is committed to serious peace negotiations. The notion has been met with scepticism in Ukraine in light of the ongoing attacks.
The final was me and a guy in a Dune outfit. I got the loudest cheer
When I first saw the flyer for the Timothée Chalamet lookalike contest last October, I thought it was a joke. Lookalike contests were not mainstream yet. It was also taking place in New York’s Washington Square Park – a place I usually associate with chaos. But last year a TikTok of me at a London barbershop went viral before because people thought I resembled Timothée. So, a day before the contest, I headed to a charity shop and picked out an outfit that made me look like Timothée’s Willy Wonka. Why not?
I was shocked by the size of the crowd on the day. There were thousands there and I was swarmed by people wanting photos. Before the contest even began, the police had arrived to shut it down. We relocated to a nearby park. It was later announced that Timothée had crashed the contest but left when the cops arrived. I missed his visit entirely.
Friedrich Merz is unwisely trying to revive the discredited postwar ‘guest worker’ programme
Friedrich Merz’s government has sent a clear message to anyone thinking about coming to live in Germany: don’t. Yet its message to those who want to come to Germany to work is: we need you.
This might sound like a contradiction, but it is a revival of the thinking that drove the “guest worker” programme of the postwar boom years. Between 1955 and 1973, West Germany sought to rebuild its economy by attracting labour, mainly from Turkey but also from Italy, Portugal and Yugoslavia. Yet it did so without giving much consideration to the human needs of the people coming.
US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick quoted as saying US countermeasures will be removed once US receives rare earths
The United States has reached an agreement with China on how to expedite rare earth shipments to the US, a White House official has said, amid efforts to end a trade war between the world’s biggest economies.
President Donald Trump said earlier on Thursday that the US had signed a deal with China the previous day, without providing additional details, and that there might be a separate deal coming up that would “open up” India.
The execution of Takahiro Shiraishi would be the first instance of capital punishment in Japan since 2022
Japan has executed a man dubbed the “Twitter killer” who murdered and dismembered nine people he met online, in the nation’s first enactment of the death penalty since 2022.
EU extends Russia sanctions but new package blocked by Slovakia. What we know on day 1,220
Ukraineand Russia exchanged a new group of captured soldiers on Thursday, the latest in a series of prisoner swaps agreed at peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month. Neither side said how many prisoners were released in the latest exchange. The majority had been held captive for more than three years, according to Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war. Many of them were taken prisoner in Mariupol, a Ukrainian port city that fell to Russian forces in 2022 after a nearly three-month siege, it said. Russian officials said its soldiers had been transferred to Belarus and were receiving “psychological and medical care”.
The EU’s 27 leaders on Thursday agreed to extend sanctions on Russia for another six months, resolving fears that Kremlin-friendly Hungary would let the measures lapse, officials said. The decision at a summit in Brussels means that the EU’s sweeping sanctions over the war in Ukraine, including the freezing of more than 200bn euros ($234bn) in Russian central bank assets, will remain in force until at least early 2026. But while the EU made sure its existing measures will remain in place, it failed to get clearance on a new package of sanctions due to a blockage by Slovakia.
The leaders also said the bloc “remains steadfast in its support for Ukraine’s path towards EU membership.” That message came a day after Nato leaders refrained from putting a reference to Ukraine’s hopes of joining the military organisation in their summit statement, due in large part to US resistance. In a video message sent to EU leaders, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged them to send “a clear political message – that Ukraine is firmly on the European path and that Europe stands by its promises.”
The White House has recommended terminating US funding for nearly two dozen programs that conduct war crimes and accountability work globally, including on alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to two US sources familiar with the matter and internal government documents reviewed by Reuters. The recommendation from the Office of Management and Budget, which has not been previously reported, is not the final decision to end the programs since it gives the state department the option to appeal.
Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Thursday that a new arms race could lead to the fall of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “regime”, just like it toppled the Soviet Union. The Nato member’s top diplomat spoke after the western defence alliance agreed to massively ramp up defence spending, seen as vital to counter the threat from Russia. “Putin should understand that he is on the path of [Soviet leader Leonid] Brezhnev. He himself once said that the Soviet Union collapsed because it spent too much on armament, and now he is doing exactly the same thing,” Sikorski said in an interview with AFP, the Polish news agency PAP and German agency DPA.
Ukrainian forces have halted Russia’s recent advance into the northern Sumy region and have stabilized the frontline near the border with Russia, Ukraine’s top military commander said on Thursday. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said that Ukrainian successes in Sumy have prevented Russia from deploying about 50,000 Russian troops, including elite airborne and marine brigades, to other areas of the frontline.
Russian troops have taken control of a village in eastern Ukraine which is close to a lithium deposit after fierce resistance from Ukrainian forces, a Russian-backed official said on Thursday. The village of Shevchenko is located in Donetsk. The Russian defence ministry announced earlier on Thursday that Shevchenko had been taken along with another settlement called Novoserhiivka.
The international chemical weapons watchdog said Thursday that it had found a banned teargas in seven samples submitted by Ukraine, which has accused Russia of using the riot control agent on the frontline. It was the third time the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has confirmed the use of CS gas in areas where fighting is taking place in Ukraine.
A mental health crisis on a busy Tokyo street set one-time dealer and debt collector Yoshitomo Morohashi on a path to redemption, and life as a lawyer
Yoshitomo Morohashi is every inch the lawyer, from his three-piece suit and designer glasses to the sunflower lapel badge identifying him as a member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations.
Then, with little encouragement, he removes his shirt and turns away to reveal a tattoo of an ancient warrior, a samurai sword clenched between his teeth, covering his entire back.
Moyers, who served as Johnson’s press secretary for two years, became one of television’s most revered journalists
Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary who became one of television’s most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas, died on Thursday at age 91.
Moyers died in a New York City hospital, according to longtime friend Tom Johnson, the former chief executive of CNN and an assistant to Moyers during Lyndon B Johnson’s administration.
Erling Haaland’s 300th career goal graced this canter of a victory and Savinho’s 75th-minute peach lit up a Manchester City display that will be noted by the other big guns aiming to claim the inaugural 32-team Club World Cup.
The Brazilian’s 20-yard shot pinballed off the bar to make it 5-1 and confirm that Juventus would lose and finish second. While Pep Guardiola’s men remain in search of their smoothest rhythms, topping Group G is impressive, and Al-Hilal will not relish facing them in the last 16 at the far cooler 9pm kick-off time. The manager was delighted.
Hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans were shipped to the Caribbean island when it was a colony of the UK
Jamaica will ask King Charles to request legal advice on the issue of slavery reparations from the judicial committee of the privy council, the final court of appeal for UK overseas territories and some Commonwealth nations.
Under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, the king, who remains Jamaica’s head of state after the country gained independence from Britain in 1962, has the authority to refer matters to the council for consideration.
Claudia Sheinbaum frustrated as US says trio – placed under sanctions – are ‘vital cogs in the fentanyl supply chain’
Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, expressed frustration at US sanctions against three Mexican financial institutions accused of laundering drug money, and said the US has not yet provided any evidence of criminal activity.
“Until now, the treasury department has not sent any proof that indicates there is money laundering,” Sheinbaum said. “We will act if there is proof.”
Andrea Velez, 32, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, had just been dropped off at work by her mother and sister
A US citizen was arrested during an immigration raid in downtown Los Angeles this week in what her family described as a “kidnapping” by federal immigration agents.
Andrea Velez, 32, had just been dropped off at work by her mother and sister, the pair said, when they saw agents grab her.
Wintour has amplified the place of fashion in culture beyond all recognition
The departure of Anna Wintour as editor-in-chief of American Vogue leaves a bigger absence in the fashion world than would be left by the departure of any designer, or any supermodel.
For more than three decades, Wintour has held the official title of editor-in-chief of American Vogue – and an unofficial, but widely acknowledged, title of queen of fashion. At any catwalk show, the best seat in the house is automatically hers. Like Beyonce and Madonna, she has no need of a last name; everyone refers to her simply as “Anna”, although few are bold enough to address her directly. She has been a constant, regal presence, crowned by the signature glossy bob and ever-present sunglasses.
31-year-old Kenyan fails despite high-tech kit and shoes
She insists she will be faster next time after Paris ‘trial’
Faith Kipyegon’s dream of following in Sir Roger Bannister’s long footsteps by becoming the first woman to shatter the four-minute barrier for the mile ended with her body soaked in lactic acid and defiance. And, crucially, with the stadium clock at Stade Charléty more than six seconds away from where she had hoped it would be.
The 31-year-old Kenyan arrived in Paris stacked with the latest weapons in track and field’s technological arms race. But having reached the bell in 3mins 1sec, just about on schedule, she found that physiology began to overpower technology.
For one of the most prominent names in global fashion, this is not the end of her role but rather an elevation
Anna Wintour, one of the most prominent names in global fashion, is seeking a new head of editorial content at American Vogue, the magazine she has directed for 37 years.
British-born Wintour, 75, made the announcement at a staff meeting on Thursday. But hiring a new head of editorial content at American Voguedoes not mean the end of her role – rather, it is an elevation.
Possible meteor rattled windows in three states, with a fragment crashing through the roof of a house near Atlanta
A “fireball” that may have been a meteor burned through the sky on Tuesday just after noon in north Georgia, with a meteorite fragment crashing through the roof of a house in metro Atlanta.
“It pierced through the roof all the way through and cracked through the laminate flooring to the concrete,” said Ryan Morrison, director of emergency management for Henry county, a suburban area south-east of Atlanta. “That’s why we think it’s part of this meteor storm.” The homeowner requested the homeland security office refrain from identifying them, because they have a small child, Morrison said.
Beau Webster impresses with ball to keep West Indies in check
The wheel turned as the wheel so often has in Australia’s Tests the last couple of years: the batters under-delivered, the bowlers made it right. With the team having been bowled out for 180 on the first day of the first Test against West Indies in Barbados, Australia’s quicks turned around and returned the favour, keeping West Indies to 190, the lead to 10, and making the match a one-innings shootout in an often chaotic day. The second Australian batting effort then stuttered to 65-4, before improving the score by stumps to 92, a lead of 82.
Spare yet another thought for Shamar Joseph. In three career outings against Australia, the West Indies pace prodigy has been a bowling Mozart, but he runs towards a slip cordon with more drops than Tiësto. In the first innings after getting Sam Konstas lbw, his notional catchers put down chances from Cameron Green and Usman Khawaja in the space of 10 balls, and Nathan Lyon later in the innings. Second time around was even more galling: tearing in for his first over, hitting an irresistible line with pace, and having Konstas dropped twice in three balls.
Trial is an attempt ‘to uncover the truth’ behind the deadliest attack in Argentinian history, says judge
A judge in Argentina has ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people.
The attack, which caused devastation in Latin America’s biggest Jewish community, has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group of carrying it out at Iran’s request.
British No 1 ‘feeling so much better’ after tonsillitis
Draper will be seeded No 4 this year at Wimbledon
Jack Draper says he is feeling refreshed before Wimbledon after his bout of tonsillitis and is determined to make Centre Court his own as he prepares for his first championships at the All England Club as one of the top players in the world.
“I think the home support that I’m going to have and people right behind me is going to be amazing,” Draper said. “It’s going to be a privilege to play as the British No 1 and that’s what I’ve always wanted, I’ve wanted to make Centre Court of Wimbledon my environment, and I’m looking forward to hopefully starting that.”
4 min: Ait-Nouri turns Locatelli inside out down the left and crosses long for Silva, whose downward header is awkwardly kicked off the line by Di Gregorio. The ball pings back to Silva but he’s swarmed and the chance is gone. Ait-Nouri’s impressive start at his new club continues apace.
3 min: … and after that brief sortie, City quickly get into ping-it-about mode. Juve pressing but they can’t get a sniff.
By taking military action, Trump “created the conditions to end the war, decimating, obliterating Iran’s nuclear capabilities”, Hegseth says, contrary to early US intelligence findings reported yesterday that suggested US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites did not destroy two of the sites and only set program back by months.
Hegseth starts off by praising Trump’s “game-changing” and “historic” achievement in getting most of the Nato allies to raise the defense spending to 5%.
Rates are higher in young women as in young men and mental ill health up across age groups, study shows
Sharp rises in rates of anxiety, depression and other disorders have led to one in four young people in England having a common mental health condition, an NHS survey shows, with young women more likely to report them than young men.
The study found that rates of such conditions in 16- to 24-year-olds have risen by more than a third in a decade, from 18.9% in 2014 to 25.8% in 2024.
More than a fifth (22.6%) of adults aged 16 to 64 have a common mental health condition, up from 18.9% in 2014.
More than one in four adults (25.2%) reported having had suicidal thoughts during their lifetime, including about a third of 16- 24-year-olds (31.5%) and 25- to 34-year-olds (32.9%).
Self-harm rates have quadrupled since 2000 and risen from 6.4% in 2014 to 10.3% in 2024, with the highest rates among 16- to 24-year-olds at 24.6%, especially young women at 31.7%.
Chelsea forward on the way her brothers sharpened her skills and how the country can get behind the Lionesses
‘I think it was in me from when I was young,” says Lauren James of the fierce competitive drive that has taken her from playing football with her brothers, Josh and Reece, in a park behind their house in Mortlake, south-west London, to England’s opening match of Euro 2025 against France in Zurich on 5 July. The 23-year-old returns from injury as the most likely catalyst for England’s hopes of remaining European champions because she has the skill and tenacity to be one of the tournament’s standout players.
“It helped playing with my brothers all the time,” James says as she reflects on a footballing journey when her prodigious talent has blossomed with Chelsea and England while being tested by insidious abuse and racism. We need two interviews to get a little closer to the tangled heart of her story, but her natural reticence and reluctance to open up deserves respect.
Former players in joint action against FA, EFL and FAW
Claimants include family of World Cup hero Nobby Stiles
There is “no safe limit” for heading a football, the high court heard, as lawyers acting for former players who suffered permanent brain injuries sought to advance their case against the game’s authorities.
Claimants in the case argue that the authorities should have made players aware of the risks they were taking by heading a ball as far back as the 1960s, claiming that information on the danger of repeated blows to the head was in the public domain.
In 1999, the future Barclays chief executive Jes Staley was gearing up for his biggest job yet. As head of JP Morgan’s private bank, he would be in charge of a sprawling team that managed money and investments for some of the world’s richest people.
Among them was the mysterious but well-connected billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he would quickly develop a “fairly close professional relationship”.
With hawks on one side and doves on the other, we ignore the obvious fact that engagement is the best defence against conflict
‘Toadying”, “slavish”, “cringe-worthy” were the words hurled at Nato’s Mark Rutte for the praise he heaped on Donald Trump. But words cost nothing. Keir Starmer went further. He dug into his pocket and gave Trump $1.3bn for just 12 aeroplanes. He promised never to use them, or put any bombs in them, without orders from Washington. He might as well have enrolled in the United States Air Force.
Starmer is engaged in a strategic shift in Britain’s global stance – from soft power to hard. He has clearly received the notorious initial briefing that so moved Tony Blair and led him eventually to war in Iraq. It induced David Cameron to spend billions on aircraft carriers that he had intended to cancel. Now the government warns in its strategic review that Britain needs to prepare for the possibility of being attacked on its own soil. Perhaps Starmer agrees with Nato’s Rutte that the British people “better learn to speak Russian”.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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Howard/Carby/Scottish Opera/Andrews (Retrospect Opera, two CDs) Granville Bantock’s story of a Selkie emerging from the sea is a century-old curio whose beauty has faded over the years
Except perhaps in Birmingham, where his memory is still cherished for what he did for the city’s music, including co-founding the CBSO, Granville Bantock (1868-1946) has slipped quietly into the margins of 20th-century British music. But as well as being an academic and conductor, Bantock was a prolific composer, with a work list including four symphonies, five concertos and nine operas, of which the last, the “Celtic folk opera” The Seal Woman, is easily the best remembered now.
The premiere of The Seal Woman in 1924 was the Birmingham Repertory theatre’s first production; librettist Marjory Kennedy-Fraser took the main role of the Cailleach, whose dreams and visions tell the story of the Selkie, seal-people who emerge from the sea every seven years to live on land, shedding their skins to take human form.
The photographer’s images of environmental degradation are both stunning and haunting, and make up a captivating new survey
Few if any photographers have done more than Edward Burtynsky to shape our view of the large-scale industrial production that is a constant, ever-expanding part of the capitalist system. Since the 1980s, he has created more than a dozen multiyear series, tackling extractive industries like mining and oil refining in India, China and Azerbaijan, traveling to such disparate places as Western Australia, Chile’s Atacama desert and the so-called ship graveyards of Bangladesh.
Often taken from high in the sky, his photos offer views of industrial landscapes that attend to color and pattern with a sophisticated eye reminiscent of abstract expressionism, while also forcing us to contend with the devastating transformations to the natural world required to sustain our way of life.
British driver insists ‘things have come out stronger’
‘It’s important Oscar and I keep the trust and honesty’
Lando Norris has insisted he and McLaren will come back stronger after the British driver’s title ambitions took a blow when he had to retire at the Canadian Grand Prix having made an error in hitting his teammate Oscar Piastri on track.
Norris was challenging Piastri for fourth place in Montreal when he attempted to pass and made what he later described as a “stupid” mistake. The pair were approaching turn one and Norris ran out of room when trying to take the inside line, clipped the back of Piastri’s car and was edged into the pit wall, sustaining damage that took him out of the race. Piastri went on to finish fourth and the championship leader is 22 points ahead of Norris in the title fight.
Private jets and super-yachts deliver guests to three-day event protesters say will turn city into playground for rich
The world’s rich and famous have arrived in Venice as the three-day wedding bash hosted by the Amazon billionaire, Jeff Bezos, and his wife-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, gets under way amid protests in the lagoon city.
The US reality TV personalities Kim and Khloé Kardashian were spotted clambering into water taxis in stilettos, while Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom and Jordan’s Queen Rania have also been seen.
Task force of scientists and federations to revise policy
Trans and DSD athletes expected to be banned from female category
Kirsty Coventry has said there is now “overwhelming support” among International Olympic Committee members to protect the female category in a significant shift in its gender eligibility policy.
Coventry, who was chairing her first meetings as the IOC’s new president, said that a taskforce of scientists and international federations would be set up within weeks to come up with a new policy.
Green card holder Sae Joon Park left for South Korea after saying he was being targeted by Trump administration
A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. “That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.”
Blockade will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as Spain PM Pedro Sánchez describes situation as ‘genocide’
Israel has closed crossings into northern Gaza, cutting the most direct route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, as airstrikes and shelling killed dozens more people in the devastated Palestinian territory.
The move to close the crossings on Thursday will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as attention shifts from its brief conflict with Iran, back to the violence and grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Shell says it has ‘no intention’ of making an offer for BP. But if its share price rises, the numbers could work
BP is a sitting duck for a takeover bid by most criteria. Its share price has underperformed rivals’ for years. The latest strategic “re-set” was a bits-and-pieces production involving disposals, which do not happen overnight, plus a dilution of green energy ambitions that upset one sub-set of shareholders and didn’t go far enough according to another. Meanwhile, the chair, Helge Lund, is set to exit next year after being pursued by an activist investor.
So Shell, the most credible possible bidder by a distance, would be asleep at the wellhead if it were not taking a look and calculating what costs could be removed, which development licences it fancies and how regulators and governments might react. That’s standard stuff, and Shell, one assumes, will have maintained a version of such modelling for about 20 years, which is roughly as long as tales of a combination of the two companies have been running.
The 36th season of the long-running comedy ended with a surprise flash forward to the death of a family member but it’s less a twist and more a sign that it can’t last forever
Spoilers ahead
The Simpsons is getting experimental in its old age. With 36 seasons complete and a renewal through a 40th secured, the show has entered territory previously occupied mostly by non-prime-time stalwarts like Saturday Night Live and Meet the Press – television institutions that run for much longer than the typical sitcom or drama. Perhaps conscious that the animated comedy has now lasted five to 10 times longer than a normal sitcom, the 36th season has repeatedly toyed with the idea of what a series finale might look like, even though no such thing is anywhere in sight.
For the season’s premiere back in the fall, it created a fake series finale, hosted by Conan O’Brien, that featured forever-10-year-old Bart turning 11 and reacting badly to a number of finale-style abrupt changes to the status quo. And in the last episode of season 36, Estranger Things, the show flashed forward to a future where family matriarch Marge has passed away and a gradual estrangement has developed between now-adult Bart and Lisa. (Homer remains alive, with the show repeatedly underlining how unlikely it seems that he would outlive his patient, cautious and seemingly healthy spouse.)
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