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Reçu aujourd’hui — 29 juin 2025The Guardian

Australia v Slovenia: international women’s football friendly – live

29 juin 2025 à 13:32
  • Matildas seek to build on winning start under Joe Montemurro

  • Any thoughts? Email Martin or get in touch on Bluesky

3 mins: The Matildas are on the attack down the left side as Michelle Heyman finds space in the box but is rightly called for being offside.

1 min: Slovenia play the ball all the way back to their keeper for a cagey opening.

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© Photograph: James Worsfold/Getty Images

© Photograph: James Worsfold/Getty Images

‘Swashbuckling and cheeky’: island festival celebrates Ireland’s ‘pirate queen’

29 juin 2025 à 13:09

Achill Island gathering comes amid surge of interest in Grace O’Malley, the legendary seafarer who saw off encroaching English 500 years ago

The Atlantic sea foamed, the wind gusted and the pirate queen swung from the rigging. She was ruler again, at least in spirit, of this corner of west Ireland.

Five centuries after Grace O’Malley defied convention, and the English, by leading a renegade fleet, her descendants and admirers gathered on Achill Island this weekend to re-enact and celebrate her feats.

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© Photograph: Alison Laredo

© Photograph: Alison Laredo

‘When I read my sister’s stories I think, that’s not what it was like!’: Esther Freud on the perils of writing about family

29 juin 2025 à 13:00

The Hideous Kinky author has always drawn inspiration from her own experiences. Now her sister Bella is writing her own version of their childhood. Does fact or fiction come closer to the truth, she asks

I’m four and I’m pretending to be dead. I’ve been lying here behind the sofa, and I’m hoping I’ll be missed, but more than that I’m hoping it will make a story. The story of the games I like to play, and how I profess to remember my past lives. It is 1967, a few months before we set off for Morocco – my mother, my sister Bella and I – travelling overland by van, taking the ferry from Algeciras to Tangier, breaking down on the road to Marrakech. From then on everything becomes a story. The camel festival we visit, the path into the hills so steep that Bella and I are packed into saddlebags while the donkeys’ hooves skitter and slip. I can’t remember later whether it is a camel that is sacrificed when we reach the top, or a chicken. But either way I keep the description of the chicken to myself, running in circles, blood spouting from its headless neck.

For all the decades since, I’ve been the family chronicler, as much in my novels as in our lives. I’ve kept the few possessions from those years in Morocco. The kaftans we bought in the souk when we arrived, the corduroy patch that I unpicked from a pair of too small trousers, embroidered with a flower by a boyfriend of my mother. “Are you my Daddy?” I’d asked him, as I’d asked others, not because I thought he was, but because I’d read about another little girl asking the same question in a book. I can still see the look of consternation on the boyfriends’ faces, hear my mother’s embarrassed laugh.

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© Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt/The Guardian

© Photograph: Lydia Goldblatt/The Guardian

Women’s Euro 2025 team guides: France

29 juin 2025 à 13:00

Laurent Bonadei has boldly dropped some big names and in-form France will have their eyes on progress to the final

This article is part of the Guardian’s Euro 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.

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© Photograph: Sébastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sébastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images

How do we resist and rise? We have to believe the impossible is possible | V (Formerly Eve Ensler)

29 juin 2025 à 13:00

Every action matters now. Every effort small or large counts. And moving, movement is the essential key to dispelling despair

In this authoritarian and suffocating climate where being an American feels like a curse, where just breathing here feels like complicity with genocide, psychotic imperialism, misogyny and endless racism, it is hard to move, let alone imagine what one can do to transform this horror to good.

Every day people are kidnapped by masked men in unmarked cars, taken to hidden sites and left in deplorable conditions; starving people in Gaza are slaughtered as they clamor for a bag of flour; public officials and leaders humiliated and murdered; the T erased from LGBT; brain-dead women forced to give birth; the glib language of hate and cruelty and easy thoughtless threats of world war, assassination, and dehumanization circling like invisible poison. What feels most perilous is the steady evaporation of the boundaries of what seemed impossible only a few weeks ago. Morality, compassion, care – slashed and burned.

V (formerly Eve Ensler) is a playwright and activist and the founder of V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls

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© Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

© Photograph: Jae C Hong/AP

Dawn of the drone age: how agri-tech is boosting production and morale

29 juin 2025 à 13:00

Instagram-inspired gadgets to spread or spray crops are gaining traction on UK farms but require deep pockets

“The idea came from an Instagram video,” says Tom Amery, looking admiringly at one of three huge drones he has bought to help grow watercress on a Hampshire farm.

The drone boasts four sets of rotary blades and is able to carry up to 50kg of fertiliser, seed or feed for spreading or spraying, and is the product of several years of meticulous research by Amery, often using the unlikely corners of social media dedicated to agricultural technology.

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© Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

© Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi/The Guardian

‘The nurse told me I couldn’t keep my baby’: how a controversial Danish ‘parenting test’ separated a Greenlandic woman from her children

29 juin 2025 à 13:00

Two hours after Keira Alexandra Kronvold gave birth, her daughter was taken from her – the third child to be removed from her care following a now-banned assessment that disproportionately targets Inuit women in Denmark. Will she win the fight to get Zammi back?

‘Now your two hours begin.” The countdown started when Keira Alexandra Kronvold had just given birth in the early hours of 7 November 2024. Keira, 38, was originally granted just one hour with her daughter, Zammi, before her baby was to be removed from her and taken to foster parents – but the midwife begged authorities to give them more time. Before Zammi’s arrival, the midwife asked if Keira had any wishes. “I said, ‘I want hand and footprints. I want to grab her, I don’t want you to catch her when she is born. I want to catch her myself.’”

During labour – which lasted just an hour and a half – Keira kept checking whether her 20-year-old daughter, Zoe, who had never seen a birth before, was OK; and she was determined not to scream, to avoid waking up the other mothers and babies on the ward. But when Zammi arrived, everything else – the months of stress, worry and pressure – gave way to pure joy. “I just laid back,” she says, arms cradled and slowly reclining on her sofa, as she re-enacts the moment at home in the town of Thisted, northern Denmark, “because I had to keep her warm. She was so beautiful. That emotional feeling is indescribable. Right there: unconditional love, pure happiness, all that joy.” She wished Zammi a happy birthday and told her how much she loved her. She cried tears of joy, counted Zammi’s tiny fingers.

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© Photograph: Juliette Pavy/The Guardian

© Photograph: Juliette Pavy/The Guardian

Streeting condemns anti-IDF chants at Glastonbury but says ‘Israel should get its own house in order’

29 juin 2025 à 12:50

Minister says BBC and festival organisers have questions to answer over broadcasting of chants during Bob Vylan set

Chants of death to the Israeli military at Glastonbury were “appalling” and the BBC and the festival have questions to answer, Wes Streeting has said, while adding that Israel needs to “get its own house in order”.

The health secretary said the chanting should not have been broadcast to those watching at home, highlighting that Israelis at a similar music festival were kidnapped, murdered and raped.

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© Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

Don’t count on the Iran-Israel ceasefire lasting. What Netanyahu really wants is a forever war | Simon Tisdall

29 juin 2025 à 12:30

Like Putin, Israel’s prime minister sees continuing destruction as an opportunity to boost support and outflank his enemies

The war is over! Except it’s not, not by a long chalk. The verbally agreed Iran-Israel ceasefire could be ripped to shreds at any moment. An aggressive theocratic regime still holds power in Tehran. The same is true of Jerusalem. In Washington, a president whose stupidity is matched only by his vanity prattles about making peace, but the angry old men in charge have learned nothing. Meanwhile, hundreds of civilians lie dead, thousands are wounded and millions have been terrorised.

The war is over! Except only the naive believe that Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and prime warmonger, is done fighting. Even if Donald Trump is right and Iran’s nuclear facilities have been “obliterated” (“severely damaged” appears more accurate), its nuclear knowhow and elusive stockpile of enriched uranium have not. At the first sign, real or imagined, of rebuilding, Netanyahu and his cronies will surely attack again. Trump called them off last week. But this is a man who can change his mind three times before he’s even had breakfast.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

‘Lidar is lame’: why Elon Musk’s vision for a self-driving Tesla taxi faltered

The company’s rollout of its new driverless cars has gotten off to a wobbly start – and rival Waymo remains well ahead

After years of promising investors that millions of Tesla robotaxis would soon fill the streets, Elon Musk debuted his driverless car service in a limited public rollout in Austin, Texas. It did not go smoothly.

The 22 June launch initially appeared successful enough, with a flood of videos from pro-Tesla social media influencers praising the service and sharing footage of their rides. Musk celebrated it as a triumph, and the following day, Tesla’s stock rose nearly 10%.

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© Photograph: Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters

© Photograph: Joel Angel Juarez/Reuters

This is how we do it: ‘Even after 11 years we have sex every day, and three times isn’t unusual’

Mariana and Owen felt sexually frustrated in previous relationships, but are having the ride of their lives now
How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

Our sexual relationship is intertwined with our love for each other. It’s our love language

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© Illustration: Ryan Gillett/The Guardian

© Illustration: Ryan Gillett/The Guardian

Revealed: spies for hire used ‘Big Brother’ tactics on salmon farm activists

29 juin 2025 à 12:00

Guardian investigation sheds light on private intelligence industry that runs covert surveillance operations

Wildlife activists who exposed horrific conditions at Scottish salmon farms were subjected to “Big Brother” surveillance by spies for hire working for an elite British army veteran.

One of the activists believes he was with his young daughter on at least one of the occasions when he was followed and photographed by the former paratrooper Damian Ozenbrook’s operatives.

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/Colin McPherson/Don Staniford/Corin Smith

© Composite: Guardian Design/Getty Images/Colin McPherson/Don Staniford/Corin Smith

The ongoing fight to replace racist monuments in the US: ‘requires a lot of perseverance’

29 juin 2025 à 11:18

Since a reckoning brought awareness to problematic statues across the country, the road to replacing them has been slow and arduous

After nearly half a decade, Vinnie Bagwell, a self-taught sculptor-artist, is still waiting for the million dollars that the New York City department of cultural affairs promised for her to work on monument Victory Beyond Sims, after winning the artist competition to replace the monument of Dr J Marion Sims in 2020.

“It just requires a lot of diligence and perseverance,” she said to the Guardian. “A lot of times, people don’t realize how important and impactful art in public places is until they see it.”

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© Photograph: Vinnie Bagwell

© Photograph: Vinnie Bagwell

‘We’ll keep fighting’: search persists for priest thought to be murdered on Pinochet torture ship

29 juin 2025 à 11:00

No trace has ever been found of Michael Woodward, but almost two years since Chile assumed responsibility for finding victims, cautious progress is being made

In the weak winter sunshine forensic investigators in white suits cast long shadows as they stepped between gravestones at Playa Ancha cemetery in the Chilean coastal city of Valparaíso.

But as the rhythmic click of spades and the throb of an excavator faded, a third search for the remains of Michael Woodward reached a frustrating conclusion.

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© Photograph: Adriana Thomasa/The Guardian

© Photograph: Adriana Thomasa/The Guardian

‘You don’t feel intimidated walking into a padel club’: can British tennis embrace its upstart cousin?

29 juin 2025 à 11:00

Wimbledon has shunned padel this year while tennis purists raise concerns over the fast-growing sport’s takeover of club courts

Wimbledon, a fortnight of tennis, all-white dress codes, strawberries, Pimm’s, royals and its famous queue all awaits. What will probably be absent at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, however, is any mention of tennis’s upstart cousin, padel.

Unlike Roland Garros in Paris, which set aside a court for this cross between tennis and squash, there is no planned promotion of padel in SW19, something which may seem curious given that the racket sport is one of the fastest growing in the world.

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© Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

© Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

‘I’ve been incredibly lucky. I have heavy impostor syndrome’: Djo on viral fame, bad reviews, and life after Stranger Things

29 juin 2025 à 11:00

Actor and musician Joe Keery made his name on the Netflix hit as lovable jock Steve Harrington, but he never stopped making music. He discusses anxiety, his earnest new record and why he and his castmates are ‘bonded for life’

“It was a crazy situation – this song that I wrote was being linked to the head of the Catholic church!” Joe Keery sounds incredulous as he recalls his latest viral moment. The track in question was End of Beginning, the wistful indie anthem from his 2022 album Decide. It first became an online hit last year, taking on a new life soundtracking TikTok users’ videos of their home towns. As it happens, the home town – or university town, in Keery’s case – that he sings about in the song is Chicago. Fast forward to this May, when Illinois native Robert Francis Prevost was elected as the new pope. The song began to do the rounds all over, with fans overlaying the lyrics (“And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it!”) over videos of the new pontiff.

It was just the latest surreal chapter in the 33-year-old’s career, which has seen him juggle musical success with acting megastardom, thanks to his breakout role as villainous jock, and later beloved fan favourite, Steve Harrington in Netflix’s retro sci-fi smash Stranger Things. Performing under the name Djo, he has released two albums of hazy psychedelic rock and angular electro respectively, plus that aforementioned, absolutely inescapable viral hit, which peaked at No 4 in the UK charts. He’s now on tour in support of recent third album The Crux, aptly named as he reaches the end of a nine-year stint in Stranger Things, whose extremely long-awaited final season will be released on 26 November.

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© Photograph: Zachary Gray

© Photograph: Zachary Gray

‘Your reservation is at risk’: beware the Booking.com scam

29 juin 2025 à 09:00

Fraudsters send a message saying there has been a problem with payment and asking for card details

You’ve booked the hotel and you’re starting to look forward to your break when you get a message telling you to make a payment, or give your credit card details, to secure your holiday. It’s come through the Booking.com app, or in an email that looks legitimate, so you get out your credit card in panic and pay.

As the summer holidays get into full swing many of us are primed to hear from travel providers – making it open season for scammers.

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© Photograph: Mateusz Słodkowski/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Mateusz Słodkowski/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

Sing along with the common people: Saturday at Glastonbury with Raye, Pulp and pop punters – photo essay

Raye wowed with her old-Hollywood glamour, Pulp did 90s nostalgia at its best and everyone tried to hide from the heat – see the best Guardian photography from a big Saturday

The sun hit hard on Saturday until late afternoon, and proved too much for some people.

Festivalgoers struggle in the heat by the Other stage. Photographs: Alicia Canter

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© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Iran says it has ‘serious doubts’ over Israel’s commitment to ceasefire – Middle East crisis live

29 juin 2025 à 13:15

Iran’s armed forces chief of staff says it is ‘ready to respond with force’ if attacked again; Iran says airstrikes on Evin prison killed at least 71

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli attacks have killed at least 14 people, including three children, so far on Sunday.

Civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency that 13 people were killed in airstrikes at four locations around the Gaza Strip, and another from Israeli gunfire near an aid distribution centre.

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© Photograph: Mostafa Roudaki/AP

© Photograph: Mostafa Roudaki/AP

It’s true that my fellow students are embracing AI – but this is what the critics aren’t seeing | Elsie McDowell

29 juin 2025 à 09:00

Those turning to ChatGPT aren’t lazy. My generation has been stranded in a rapidly changing and, since Covid, badly mishandled education system

Reading about the role of artificial intelligence in higher education, the landscape looks bleak. Students are cheating en masse in our assessments or open-book, online exams using AI tools, all the while making ourselves stupider. The next generation of graduates, apparently, are going to complete their degrees without ever having so much as approached a critical thought.

Given that my course is examined entirely through closed-book exams, and I worry about the vast amounts of water and energy needed to power AI datacentres, I generally avoid using ChatGPT. But in my experience, students see it as a broadly acceptable tool in the learning process. Although debates about AI tend to focus on “cheating”, it is increasingly being used to assist with research, or to help structure essays.

Elsie McDowell is a student. She was the 2023 winner of the Hugo Young award, 16-18 age category

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

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© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

‘If things were bad before, they will be worse’: can families recover from the stress and strain of war?

29 juin 2025 à 09:00

In Ukraine, three years of war have taken a huge toll on the relationships of those in combat– and experts say society must start to address the problem

  • Photographs by Anastasia Vlasova

When her husband went off to help defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion in 2022, Yulia stayed at home with their toddler. She describes being overcome by a feeling of “numbness”.

“I’d been left alone with a small child. The worst thing for her was the thought that her father had left her and would never come back. The worst time was when she blocked her father when he tried to call.

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© Photograph: Anastasia Vlasova/The Guardian

© Photograph: Anastasia Vlasova/The Guardian

Nasser al-Khelaifi plays game of risk with plans to move PSG from the Parc

29 juin 2025 à 09:00

With Paris FC promoted, European champions could lose their monopoly in city if out-of-town move goes through

Ici, c’est Paris” has been the rallying chant of Paris Saint-Germain supporters since the beginning of the 21st century. It has also become an advertising slogan for the club, who appropriated it to the fury of the ultras, who had trademarked it and have launched a lawsuit in response. But fans and marketing consultants, unless they do not fear ridicule, will not be able to use it once PSG carry out their plan to vacate the Parc des Princes, their home since they were promoted to Ligue 1 in 1974.

“It’s over now,” PSG’s president, Nasser al-Khelaifi, told reporters in March. “We want to move.” This was confirmed in a statement on 10 June, the day the newly crowned European champions flew to California and the Fifa Club World Cup. “I like the Parc a lot,” Khelaifi, known in France as Nak, said of the 48,583-capacity arena. “Everyone loves it. But [if we stay], we’re dead. In Europe, all the big clubs have 80,000- or 90,000-seat stadiums. If we want to be at that level for our supporters, the stadium must be expanded.” And because an expansion of the stadium is out of the question, it is likely that “Paris” (as the club love PSG to be called in the media) will no longer play in Paris by the time the decade is over, but in one of two towns of the grande banlieue, Massy or Poissy. We will know which come November 2026.

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© Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters

© Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters

‘Too arrogant to listen’: how welfare bill soured Starmer’s relations with rebel MPs

MPs describe receiving veiled deselection threats as No 10 sought to quash revolt before finally backing down

The Conservative shadow cabinet minister looked more cheerful than at any point in the 12 months since the general election. “How did they get into such a mess?” they asked. “What are they going to do?”

The answer was revealed a couple of days later when Keir Starmer and his ministers made a series of emergency concessions on their flagship welfare programme, to prevent the otherwise far-greater ignominy of the programme being voted down in the House of Commons.

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© Photograph: Kin Cheung/Reuters

© Photograph: Kin Cheung/Reuters

Doechii at Glastonbury review – an education in rap from the greatest teacher in the game

29 juin 2025 à 08:00

West Holts stage
Theatrical, flirtatious and athletic, this debut UK festival performance from the US MC is unrelentingly brilliant

When Doechii takes the stage at West Holts on Friday night, she is introduced to us as Doechii the don, the dean, the supreme. Before the hour is out, no one in the audience will be left in doubt as to the Grammy winner’s mastery of her craft, or how much work she has put in to achieve it. But at the same time as flaunting her natural ability, Doechii is also eager to show her working and the paths she used – and her debut UK festival appearance is all the more mesmerising for it. The 26-year-old performer’s schoolgirlish styling – giant lockers, rows of desks, Doechii’s long braids and exceedingly brief kilt – is immediately obvious as a feint: she may be a relative newcomer to the scene, but she is no rookie.

The videos playing either side of the stage bring the set’s concept into focus: Doechii (real name Jaylah Ji’mya Hickmon) is leading us, step by step, through the steps necessary to become a hip-hop master – from how to distinguish between “good bars and GREAT bars”, to understanding “the aspect of flow” and the importance of genre.

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© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

Calls to clean up England’s ‘toxic air’ as GP visits for asthma attacks rise 45%

29 juin 2025 à 08:00

Exclusive: Doctors say clean air zones need expanding, after 45,458 visits in first half of this year – up from 31,376 last year

The number of patients being treated by GPs for asthma attacks has increased by 45% in a year, prompting calls for urgent action to tackle toxic levels of air pollution.

There were 45,458 presentations to family doctors in England between January and June this year, according to data from the Royal College of General Practitioners research and surveillance centre. Across the same period in 2024, there were 31,376 cases.

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© Photograph: Ruskin Photos/Alamy

© Photograph: Ruskin Photos/Alamy

‘It’s not football’: Maresca furious after Chelsea’s two-hour weather delay

  • Manager says US ‘not right place’ to host Club World Cup

  • Chelsea into last eight with extra-time win over Benfica

A furious Enzo Maresca suggested that the US is not fit to host the Club World Cup after Chelsea’s 4-1 victory over Benfica in the last 16 was delayed for almost two hours in Charlotte because of a severe weather event.

Chelsea were 1-0 up and cruising towards the last eight when play was stopped with five minutes of normal left at the Bank of America Stadium after a lightning strike in the area. The teams were ordered off the pitch by the officials had to stay warm in their respective dressing rooms before play resumed after an hour and 53 minutes.

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© Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP

© Photograph: Chris Carlson/AP

At 21, Madison Griffiths dated her university tutor. It was legal, consensual – and a messy grey area

28 juin 2025 à 22:00

The author’s new book Sweet Nothings follows four women who, like her, dated their professors – and explores how even a consensual pedagogical relationship can result in ‘a unique harm’

At the tail end of 2023, the author Madison Griffiths posed a question on her Instagram: “Has anyone here ever been in a relationship with a professor or a tutor?”

Hundreds of responses flooded in. There were those who revealed that their parents had met in the lecture hall. Younger women reported they’d been involved with a university superior. Their experiences were diverse but what united those who messaged her was gender: no men came forward to say they had been in relationships with a professor or tutor. In Griffiths’s inbox, at least, it was all women.

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© Photograph: Gabriel Gasparinatos

© Photograph: Gabriel Gasparinatos

A roadmap to beat Trump? How rise of Zohran Mamdani is dividing Democrats

Many believe Mamdani’s triumph shows it is time for national party to evolve but others say his brand of politics will not appeal in key battlegrounds

The Friday night before election day, Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist running for mayor of New York City, walked the length of Manhattan, from Inwood Hill Park at its northern tip to the Battery – about 13 miles. Along the way, he was greeted by a stream of New Yorkers enjoying the sticky summer night – men rose from their folding chairs to shake his hand, drivers honked in support and diners leapt up to snap a selfie with the would-be leader of their city.

A feelgood video of his trek, produced by Mamdani’s campaign, captures the “only in New York” quality of his ascendance, from little-known assembly member to the all-but-official Democratic nominee for mayor of America’s largest city.

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© Composite: Getty Images / Guardian design

© Composite: Getty Images / Guardian design

I’m worried my autistic son is going to struggle socially in his new school

29 juin 2025 à 07:00

All children face difficulties in new schools – make sure he knows this, stick to the positives, and take the fact he’s already been invited to a party as a positive first step

My son is starting secondary school in September. He is the only child from his primary transitioning to a selective grammar school. He has always struggled with friendships and I feel this is due to his autism. He is high-achieving academically. I don’t want him to change who he is or feel as if he can’t be himself. At the same time I know he can be standoffish and overwhelming when he is so focused on his own interests.

He has just been invited to one of his new classmates’ birthday parties. He was shocked and grateful to be invited, and it was heartbreaking. I don’t want him to be isolated in his new school and I don’t know how to help him to be ready and open to a brand new social setting. I would really appreciate any help or advice you could give.

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© Illustration: Alex Mellon/The Guardian

© Illustration: Alex Mellon/The Guardian

Starmer’s promised ethics commission may repackage existing regulators

29 juin 2025 à 07:00

Government sources say ‘umbrella’ structure now more likely after plans for independent body found to be too complex

Keir Starmer’s flagship new ethics and integrity commission may be a rebrand of existing watchdogs brought together under a new “umbrella” rather than creating an entirely fresh regulator, government sources have said.

A year after Labour made its manifesto promise, ministers are mulling the idea of a new oversight structure above current regulators to avoid the need for starting from scratch.

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© Photograph: Paul Currie/PA

© Photograph: Paul Currie/PA

‘It breaks my heart’: how a refinery closure is hitting jobs and politics

In the second in a series, the Guardian looks at how Grangemouth struggles as Reform UK hopes to win votes

Every morning in Grangemouth, chemists at Celtic Renewables’s small factory feed a vial of microbes with a precisely tailored cocktail of food – liquid residues from the scotch whisky industry.

In vessels surrounded by a web of metal pipes and gleaming stainless steel valves, the microbes multiply into something other than drink: a starter solution for batches of acetone, butanol and ethanol – chemicals essential for countless everyday products.

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Shutterstock/Belga/AFP/Getty Images/Reteurs

© Composite: Guardian Design/Shutterstock/Belga/AFP/Getty Images/Reteurs

Free coffee, cut-price theatre tickets and birthday upgrades: 42 genius ways to beat the system

29 juin 2025 à 07:00

It pays to be in the know. These simple hacks will help you save money on entertainment, household bills and eating out

Culture

1 If you sign up to secret seat-filler sites such as Show Film First and Central Ticket, you’ll be alerted to last-minute tickets at rock-bottom prices – sometimes nothing at all. The only catch is you have to keep this on the quiet to maintain the illusion that performances are packed with paying punters.

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© Illustration: Hannah Robinson/The Guardian

© Illustration: Hannah Robinson/The Guardian

Gong baths and a naked sauna: my search for inner peace at Glastonbury

29 juin 2025 à 06:00

The festival can feel like 24/7 sensory overload, but it does have a more tranquil side …

The quest for tranquility in the world’s least tranquil place can lead you to unexpected places. On a baking-hot Glastonbury day, I am sitting in a 90C sauna surrounded by 10 naked strangers.

My journey began on Friday. While Lorde is playing a crammed secret set at the Woodsies stage, I’m over at Humblewell – a somewhat smaller tent – with 50 people who couldn’t care less about the buzz. We lie on mats and parched grass, eyes closed, breathing deeply, legs moving in unison under the orders of the yoga teacher, Dina. A bassy soundtrack distracts from the many sounds outside competing for our attention. If it wasn’t for the bucket hats, you wouldn’t know you were at Glastonbury. I fold into a child’s pose and feel a deep sense of release.

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© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

© Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

‘We won’t let them get away with this’: activists to sue Tanzania’s government over ‘sexual torture’

29 juin 2025 à 06:00

Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire vow to hold authorities accountable as repression intensifies before October elections

Two east African activists say they plan to sue Tanzania’s government for illegal detention and torture during a visit in support of an opposition politician in May.

Boniface Mwangi, from Kenya, and Agather Atuhaire, a Ugandan, sent shock waves around the region earlier this month when they gave an emotional press conference in which they alleged they had been sexually assaulted and, in Atuhaire’s case, smeared in excrement after their detention in Dar es Salaam. “[The authorities] take you through sexual torture,” Mwangi said at the time.

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© Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

© Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

Beau Webster’s dependability should give heart to Australia’s Test hopefuls new and old

29 juin 2025 à 05:57

Sam Konstas has been backed to open again and can look to Webster’s example of composure and calm at the crease

Australia’s bowlers rescued the first Test against West Indies in Barbados, so the team will be relieved to welcome back blue-chip batter Steve Smith for the second Test in Grenada. In London a fortnight ago, a fielding mishap looked like it had caused Smith’s finger a horrific break, but instead the injury was a dislocation, and it has settled well enough for him to come safely through a net session in New York City. Smith will rejoin the team in Barbados on Sunday, with a final fitness check the day before the next fixture starting on 3 July.

Australian coach Andrew McDonald confirmed that Smith will slot straight back in at his preferred No 4 spot when available, which will mean that Josh Inglis has to make way after filling in and returning a rare failure with the bat in Australian colours. There are no other spots available, after McDonald backed Sam Konstas to open and Cameron Green at No 3, while praising the work in Bridgetown of Travis Head at No 5 and Beau Webster at No 6.

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© Photograph: Ricardo Mazalán/AP

© Photograph: Ricardo Mazalán/AP

France implements smoking ban at beaches and parks in step towards ‘tobacco-free generation’

29 juin 2025 à 05:55

Under new rules anyone who lights up on a beach or in a public park from Sunday will be breaking the law

Anyone who lights up on a beach or in a public park in France will be breaking the law from Sunday under new rules aimed at protecting children from the dangers of passive smoking.

Bus shelters and areas in the immediate vicinity of libraries, swimming pools and schools will also be affected by the ban, which is coming into force one day after its publication in the official government gazette on Saturday.

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© Photograph: Sébastien Nogier/EPA

© Photograph: Sébastien Nogier/EPA

Ukraine war briefing: key eastern Ukrainian city under assault as Russia hails cooperation with North Korea

29 juin 2025 à 04:52

Russian troops surge toward Kostiantynivka; Moscow’s culture minister visits Pyongyang. What we know on day 1,222

Ukraine’s top commander said on Saturday his forces faced a new onslaught against a key city on the eastern front of its war against Russia, while Moscow said it was making progress in another sector farther south-west. Russian troops are focused on capturing all of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine and the city of Kostiantynivka has been a major target. Ukrainian forces have for months defended the city against fierce assaults.

Top Ukrainian commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, writing on Telegram, said the area around Kostiantynivka was gripped by heavy fighting. “The enemy is surging towards Kostiantynivka, but apart from sustaining numerous losses, has achieved nothing,” Syrskyi said. “The aggressor is trying to break through our defences and advance along three operating sectors.”

Russia’s defence ministry, in a report earlier in the day, said Moscow’s forces had seized the village of Chervona Zirka – further south-west, near the administrative border of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Russia’s slow advance through eastern Ukraine, with Moscow claiming a string of villages day after day, has resulted in destruction of major cities and infrastructure.

Meanwhile Russia’s culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, arrived in North Korea on Saturday with a 125-strong delegation of performers. Lyubimova, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said that thanks to agreements clinched between Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korea leader Kim Jong-un, “cooperation in the cultural sphere between our countries has reached unprecedented heights”. She said a series of concerts and lectures would take place in the North Korean capital in the coming days.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Pyongyang have drawn closer together, with the two leaders signing a treaty, including a mutual defence pact. After months of silence, North Korea and Russia disclosed the deployment of North Korean troops and the role they played in Moscow’s offensive to evict Ukrainian troops from the Kursk region.

Moscow has insisted that progress towards a settlement of the war depends on Ukraine recognising Moscow’s control over four Ukrainian regions: Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russian forces control about one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, but they do not fully hold any of the four regions.

A Ukrainian pilot was killed and his F-16 fighter jet lost while repelling a large-scale Russian night-time missile and drone attack, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday. It was the third such loss of an F-16 in the war, the military said. “The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While shooting down the last one, his aircraft was damaged and began to lose altitude,” the air force said on the Telegram app.

Russia used hundreds of drones, cruise and ballistic missiles in the attack in western, southern and central Ukraine overnight, damaging homes and infrastructure and injuring at least six people, local authorities said. The sounds of explosions were heard in Lviv, Poltava, Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Cherkasy regions, regional governors said.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said it is “extremely important” for Kyiv to maintain friendly ties with neighbouring Poland, where the incoming nationalist leader Karol Nawrocki opposes Ukraine’s Nato bid. Nawrocki won Poland’s presidential election this month after a campaign in which he criticised Ukraine and accused Zelenskyy of “indecent” behaviour towards his allies. Poland is one of Ukraine’s closest allies and has served as a crucial logistics hub for western military aid to help Kyiv’s war effort against Russia’s now more than three-year-long invasion.

Zelenskyy hosted outgoing Polish president Andrzej Duda in Kyiv on Saturday, ahead of Nawrocki’s inauguration on 6 August. “Poland is now preparing for the inauguration of its new president, (Karol) Nawrocki,” Zelenskyy told reporters alongside Duda. “We will do everything in our power to ensure that relations between our countries only grow stronger.” Poland has taken in more than a million Ukrainians since Russia’s invasion of the country began in 2022. But anti-Ukrainian sentiment has grown in recent years.

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© Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

© Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

Skepta’s surprise Glastonbury set review – British rap’s MVP has matchless mic technique

29 juin 2025 à 01:11

Other stage
Filling in last minute after Deftones pulled out, the Londoner shows he’s still top of his game with a kinetic performance that jumps from garage to grime to Fred Again bangers

The Glastonbury “surprise set” has proved futile this year – anonymous billings for Lorde, Haim and Lewis Capaldi were leaked long before the gates opened. Yet there manages to be a genuine twist in the lineup: grime legend Skepta, as a last-minute replacement for alt-metal band Deftones, who have been forced to cancel due to illness. Skepta happens to be kicking around because last night, at Glade, he performed a DJ set alongside Mochakk from São Paulo and Carlita from Istanbul – an advertisement of his house-techno project Más Tiempo, launched with Jammer in 2023, with regular slots in Ibiza.

But he’d not required the full force of his production for Glade, so stepping in for a billing just shy of the headline slot on Glastonbury’s second largest stage, Other, is certainly a challenge. On that, of course, Skepta steps up to the plate with incredible energy and conviction, saying “Let’s go!!! No crew, no production but am ready to shut Glastonbury down. Victory lap time. Pre-Big Smoke 2025!” (his multi-genre festival taking place at Crystal Palace Bowl, south London, in August.)

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© Photograph: Anna Barclay

© Photograph: Anna Barclay

Senate Republicans scrambling to pass tax-and-spend bill by Trump deadline

29 juin 2025 à 00:04

Clearing an important procedural hurdle, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to open debate on the legislation

The Republican-controlled US Senate advanced president Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill in a key procedural vote late on Saturday, raising the odds that lawmakers will be able to pass his “big, beautiful bill” in the coming days.

The measure, Trump’s top legislative goal, passed its first procedural hurdle in a 51 to 49 vote, with two Republican senators voting against it.

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© Photograph: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters

© Photograph: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/Reuters

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