Two people reported dead in Israel after Iranian strikes; Tehran says 78, mostly civilians, killed in Friday’s surprise Israeli attack and confirms new wave of retaliatory strikes on Israel
Images coming in from news agencies show the impact of Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel overnight.
Earlier, Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif reported that dozens of civilians in Gaza were killed or wounded early on Saturday after they were attacked by Israeli forces as they gathered to wait for aid north of the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Footage purported to show spy agents launching missiles inside Iran is marked contrast to the intelligence service’s history of secrecy
Israelis were celebrating on Friday what many see as a stunning new success by their country’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad.
Hours after launching 200 warplanes in a wave of strikes against Iran, Israeli officials released footage they said showed the Mossad agents deep inside Iranassembling missiles and explosive drones aimed at targets near Tehran.
In pop, which equates genius with innovation, recent artists have not pioneered new forms like those from the 60s. Has the digital age sidelined invention and promoted the derivative for ever?
By all accounts, Brian Wilson was a genius. His fellow greats Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney both used the word in their tributes to the creative force behind the Beach Boys, who died this week aged 82. So did John Cale, Mick Fleetwood and Elton John. And so did Wilson’s bandmates, who wrote in a joint statement: “The world mourns a genius today.”
You may imagine Wilson gradually accrued such a vaunted standing. Artistic legacy is largely dependent on the longevity of mass appeal, and the fact that the Beach Boys’ opus Pet Sounds remains one of the most celebrated and beloved records of all time almost 60 years since its release is proof enough of his incredible talent.
The artist and author’s hit book had so much in common with her own life that even her friends forgot it wasn’t real. How did this revolutionary portrayal of midlife desire come to inspire a generation of women?
When Miranda July’s All Fours was published in May last year, it triggered what felt like both a spontaneous resistance movement and the sort of mania last experienced when the final Twilight book dropped, except this time for women in midlife rather than teenage girls. Two friends separately brought it to my house, like contraband dropped out of a biplane. Book groups hastily convened, strategically timed for when the men were out of the picture.
The story opens with a 45-year-old woman about to take a road trip, a break from her husband and child and general domestic noise. She’s intending to drive from LA to New York, but is derailed in the first half hour by a young guy, Davey, in a car hire place, to whom she is passionately attracted. The next several weeks pass in a lust so intense, so overpowering, so lusciously drawn, it’s like a cross between ayahuasca and encephalitis. The narrator is subsumed by her obsession, and disappears her normal life. The road trip is a bust from the start, but the effort of breaking the spell and going home looks, for a long time, like way too much for the narrator, and when she finally does, to borrow from Leonard Cohen (perhaps describing a similar situation), she’s somebody’s mother but nobody’s wife.
Band’s ‘on the edge of kitsch’ aesthetic is still relevant three decades later as young people focus on vintage clothing
Thirty years ago this month Pulp played the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury and took their reputation to another level. If part of this was due to a storming set taking in their new hit Common People, debuts for their future hits Mis-Shapes and Disco 2000, and the star power of singer Jarvis Cocker, it was also down to their look.
There was Steve Mackay, bass guitarist, in a fitted shirt and kipper tie, Russell Senior on violin in a blue safari shirt, keyboardist Candida Doyle in sequins and – of course – Cocker, in his now signature secondhand 70s tailoring.
I try to think of another detail from the weekend that will convince them of my presence, but absolutely nothing comes to mind
After a sometimes fraught four-hour car journey, my wife and I and three friends arrive at a remote, sea-facing house in Greece. I’ve been here once before, a couple of years ago, but my memory of the place is fragmentary. I’ve remembered, for example, that you can’t get the car anywhere near the house – you have to lug your stuff across a beach and over some rocks – and have packed accordingly. But the view from the top of the rocks still comes as a disheartening surprise.
“I forgot about the second beach,” I say, looking at the house in the distance.
Few things in life are as simple and mouthwatering as tomatoes on toast sprinkled with salt, but here they hit new heights with olivey breadcrumbs, garlic and butter beans, too
My favourite breakfast is sliced tomatoes on rye bread sprinkled with sea salt. The best bit is neither the tomato flesh nor the bread, it’s the salted tomato water that runs down the back of my hands and threatens to meet my elbows. It’s liquid electricity and one of my favourite earthly flavours. It could make a great stock, or a delicious martini, perhaps even a marinade for ceviche, but here it’s thrown in at the end to refresh a dish of gently cooked tomatoes, beans and dill. Perfect for dunking anything but elbows into.
His ostentatious birthday parade is his latest reimagining of America’s past. He’d do well to remember that pride must be rooted in honesty
David Reynolds is the author of Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him
Today the US army will parade in style along the National Mall in Washington DC to celebrate its 250th anniversary. This also just happens to be the 79th birthday of President Donald J Trump. As commander-in-chief, he will take the salute from a viewing platform on Constitution Avenue.
But this is not a mere vanity project, as some critics have claimed. History really matters to the US’s 47th president. One of Trump’s last acts before reluctantly leaving the White House in January 2021 was to publish a report by his “1776 Commission”, created to “restore understanding of the greatness of the American Founding”. Deliberately, the commissioners included few university historians because universities were described as often being “hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship that combine to generate in students and in the broader culture at the very least disdain and at worst outright hatred for this country”.
Ukraine says return in line with deal reached in Turkey while Russia hands over 1,200 bodies; Moscow claims capture of another Sumy village. What we know on day 1,207
Ukraine has repatriated more bodies of fallen soldiers in accordance with an agreement reached during peace talks in Istanbul, Ukrainian officials said Friday. Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said Russia had returned 1,200 bodies, and “according to the Russian side, the bodies belong to Ukrainian citizens, in particular military personnel”. The repatriation of the bodies was carried out with the help of Ukraine’s armed forces, the country’s security service, the interior ministry and other government agencies, its statement said. Forensic experts would now work to identify the remains. The repatriation marks one of the war’s largest returns of remains.
Russia says its forces have captured another village in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region amid its ramped-up offensive there. Moscow’s defence ministry said on Friday it had taken control of the village of Yablunivka, about 9km (five miles) from the Russian border. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukrainian forces are “gradually pushing back the occupiers” in the border region but prevailing assessments have shown Russian gains.
Russia’s defence ministry said Russian forces had also taken control of two other Ukrainian villages – Koptevo and Komar in the eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s Tass news agency reported. The ministry said Russian troops had captured six Ukrainian villages over the past week. The battlefield reports could not be independently verified.
A 73-year-old American jailed by Russia as a mercenary for Ukraine protested his innocence when his US-based legal team and family finally tracked him down in April, months after he vanished into the vast Russian prison system, they said. Stephen Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was sentenced last October to almost seven years in a penal colony and Russian state media reported that he had entered a guilty plea in the closed-door trial. His US-based lawyer, who made his first public comments on the case to the New York Times this week, said: “The first thing Hubbard wanted to talk about when he was able to make contact with the outside world was: ‘It’s not true.’” US officials have requested his immediate release.
Ukraine’s air force said on Friday that Russia fired 55 Shahed and decoy drones and four ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight. The air force said air defences had neutralised 43 drones. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Russia’s defence ministry, meanwhile, said its air defences had downed 125 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions and the annexed region of Crimea into early Friday.
Companies hail ‘historic partnership’ to bring ‘massive investment’ but details of agreement remain unclear
Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order paving the way for a Nippon Steel investment in US Steel, so long as the Japanese company complies with a “national security agreement” submitted by the federal government.
Trump’s order did not detail the terms of the national security agreement. But US Steel and Nippon Steel said in a joint statement that the agreement stipulates that approximately $11bn in new investments will be made by 2028 and includes giving the US government a “golden share” – essentially veto power to ensure the country’s national security interests are protected.
After a ‘quiet little break’ of 20 years, the band is back to celebrate their 2000 debut Reflector – then the fastest-selling Australian album in history
In 2022, Ella and Jesse Hooper, siblings and bandmates in Australian rock band Killing Heidi, lost both of their parents in the space of two weeks. Their father, Jeremy, died first after a shock cancer diagnosis and a quick decline; a fortnight later, their mother, Helen, passed away after a long struggle with breast cancer.
The grieving siblings took the weekend off, then went straight back out on to the road.
For a long time, serial killer and shark movies were separate forms of cinema; never the twain did meet. In Dangerous Animals they’ve been blended into one foul fishy stew, theoretically delivering the best of both worlds: a Wolf Creekian adventure with a creature feature twist. But, sadly, this collision of genres hasn’t resulted in any real freshness or flair, playing out with a stinky waft of the familiar.
Jai Courtney gets the meatiest and most entertaining role as Tucker, the owner of a Gold Coast business that ferries thrill-seekers out into shark-infested waters, where they observe the great beasts from inside an underwater cage. After they’re hauled back on to the boat, Tucker kills them and feeds them to the sharks, while filming their grisly deaths on a camcorder for his personal collection of VHS snuff films.
Big names tumble out as DeChambeau finishes on +10
Clubs were thrown but the towel was not. Rory McIlroy battled Oakmont’s treacherous setup and his own frustrations to survive for the weekend at the 125th US Open. As McIlroy clung on, high-profile exits from Pennsylvania included the defending champion Bryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. In epitomising how Oakmont can mess with the mind, Lowry earned a one-stroke penalty after lifting his ball on the 14th green while forgetting to mark it. The Irishman could only laugh and, to be fair, did.
McIlroy’s day began with two double bogeys inside three holes. By the 12th, the Masters champion flung his iron 30 yards down the fairway in anger at a loose shot. Five holes later, McIlroy broke a tee marker after cracking it with his three-wood. Yet amongst this was admirable fighting spirit; McIlroy fired an approach shot to within 4ft of the 18th hole, a birdie ensuring a 72 for a six-over aggregate. McIlroy last four, played in two under, were crucial. The madcap nature of this US Open is such that McIlroy will believe he has a squeak of winning. Only three players – Sam Burns, JJ Spaun and Viktor Hovland – are under par. Burns leads the other two by one at minus three.
Decision expected to be ratified at ICC conference in July
WTC win would be ‘massive’, says South Africa coach
The third day of the World Test Championship final ended amid raucous scenes among the South Africa fans in the stands but possibly also with popping corks in the Lord’s pavilion as it emerged that England is likely to host the showpiece event for another three cycles.
Arun Singh Dhumal, chair of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, informed the International Cricket Council in April that it would like to host the next final in 2027 and such is the BCCI’s power in the international game the move was seen as overwhelmingly likely.
Trump claims they signify a ‘foreign invasion’ but experts say they are flown by US citizens proud of their heritage
At the White House on Wednesday, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters Donald Trump’s decision to dispatch the military to Los Angeles had been triggered by something he had seen: “images of foreign flags being waved” during protests over federal immigration raids.
Leavitt did not specify which images the president had been so disturbed by, but the fact that some protesters denouncing his immigration crackdown have waved Mexican, Guatemalan and Salvadorian flags, or hybrid flags that combine those banners with the American flag, has been taken as an affront by supporters of his mass deportation campaign.
Iranian missiles have rained down on Tel Aviv in retaliation for Friday morning’s surprise aerial assault by Israel, as Tehran vowed to open the “gates of hell”, while fresh explosions were heard in the Iranian capital early on Saturday.
Benjamin Netanyahu warned “more is on the way” and said Israel’s attempt to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme was just beginning.
Kim Sajet’s departure comes after the Smithsonian Institute rebuffed the president’s attempt to fire her over DEI
The director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, has resigned just two weeks after Donald Trump attempted to fire her and accused her of being “highly partisan and a strong supporter of DEI”.
“We thank Kim for her service. Her decision to put the museum first is to be applauded and appreciated. I know this was not an easy decision. She put the needs of the Institution above her own, and for that we thank her,” Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian secretary, wrote in a Friday internal email that was obtained by multiple outlets.
After Israel’s attacks on Iran and Ukraine’s on Russia, it is time the administration finds discipline and focus to regain authority of its foreign policy
Iran and the US have stood at a crossroads in recent weeks. Down one path lay negotiations that, while difficult, promised benefits to the citizens of both countries. Down the other path, a protracted war that promised little more than destruction.
Back in 2018, Donald Trump had blocked the diplomatic path by tearing up the existing nuclear agreement with Iran – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. But since beginning his second term in January he has been surprisingly open to negotiations with Tehran. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seemed ready to go along.
RJ May, who used screen name ‘joebidennnn69’, charged with 10 counts and ordered to remain jailed until his trial
A Republican member of South Carolina’s state house whom prosecutors say used the screen name “joebidennnn69” has been arrested and charged with 10 counts of distributing sexual abuse material involving children.
RJ May was arrested at his Lexington county home after a lengthy investigation and was ordered on Thursday by a federal judge to remain jailed until his trial.
Accord comes as Mark Carney seeks shift in Ottawa’s relationship with New Delhi after long diplomatic spat
Canada and India plan to share intelligence in an effort to combat the rising threat of international crime and extremism, according to a new report from Bloomberg, days before a meeting between the two countries’ leaders.
Canadian officials declined to comment on the report, which, if confirmed, would represent a dramatic shift in relations between the two countries which for nearly two years have been locked in a bitter diplomatic spat after Canada’s federal police agency concluded that India planned and ordered the murder a prominent Sikh activist on Canadian soil.
Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami play in Saturday’s opener but people still look blank when asked about Fifa’s $1bn event
Fire up the marching band. Rouse the majorettes from their state of indifference. Put out more flags. Put out some flags. Put out a flag. Er … is anyone actually there? IShowSpeed? Can you hear me Pitbull? Welcome to the almost-World Cup, an almost-real almost-event that will perhaps, with a favourable wind, now begin to feel like almost-football.
This week Gianni Infantino described Fifa’s regeared tournament as football’s Big Bang, referencing the moment of ignition from which all the matter in the universe was dispersed out of a previously cold and indifferent void. And to be fair, Infantino was half-right. So far we have the void.
The civilian who was detained identified himself as Marcos Leao, an army veteran, and said he was treated ‘very fairly’
US marines deployed to Los Angeles on Friday temporarily detained a civilian, the US military confirmed, in the first known detention by active-duty troops deployed there by Donald Trump.
Marines took charge of the Wilshire federal building earlier on Friday in a rare domestic use of US troops after days of protests over immigration raids.
Donald Trump is walking a tightrope as he claims that he was fully aware of Israel’s plans to launch massive airstrikes against Iran while continuing to distance the US from those strikes and deny Washington took any active role in the preparations.
The White House’s messaging has shifted quickly from Marco Rubio’s arms-length description of the Israeli attack as a “unilateral action”, to Trump claiming on Friday morning that he was fully in the loop on the operation and that it came at the end of a 60-day ultimatum he had given Iran to “make a deal” on its nuclear programme.
The recklessness of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and the incoherence of Donald Trump’s deepen the crisis in the Middle East
US presidents who thought they could easily restrain Benjamin Netanyahu have quickly learned their lesson. “Who’s the fucking superpower?” Bill Clinton reportedly exploded after his first meeting with the Israeli prime minister.
Did Donald Trump make the same mistake? The state department quickly declared that the devastating overnight Israeli attack on Iran – which killed key military commanders and nuclear scientists as well as striking its missile capacity and a nuclear enrichment site – was unilateral. Mr Trump had reportedly urged Mr Netanyahu to hold off in a call on Monday, pending US talks with Iran over its nuclear programme due this weekend. The suspicion is that Israel feared that a deal might be reached and wanted to strike first. But Israeli officials have briefed that they had a secret green light from the US, with Mr Trump only claiming to oppose it.
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Politicians must analyse the forces behind mob unrest, but not in terms that make excuses for it
A reputation for political violence is one reason Northern Ireland has historically attracted fewer immigrants than the rest of the UK. In that context, increasing diversity could be read as a measure of progress; a peace dividend after the Troubles. That isn’t how it has felt to families cowering in fear of racist mobs this week. The riots started in Ballymena, ostensibly triggered by the arrest of two boys, reported to be of Romanian origin, accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. A community vigil mutated into a racist rampage. Masked thugs targeted the local migrant population. When police came to quell the pogrom, officers were attacked with bricks, fireworks, petrol bombs. There was contagion. Windows were smashed and a fire started at a leisure centre in nearby Larne that had been used as a temporary refuge for those fleeing the Ballymena violence. There were outbreaks of disorder in other towns.
Leaders from across Northern Ireland’s political spectrum have condemned the violence. But on the unionist side in particular, there has also been much leavening of opprobrium with reference to “legitimate” underlying grievances. Judiciously expressed, the complaint is that migration has been poorly managed, putting a strain on local services. In its more pungent iteration, it is the insinuation that new arrivals get preferential treatment, especially regarding housing.
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Dutch four-time world champion rose to fame as something of a scoundrel and has showed signs of reverting to type
Max Verstappen rose to fame as something of a villain. As the Formula One circuit hops back across the Atlantic for the weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, he appears on the verge of reclaiming the role.
Like Tim Robbins’ strong-armed and hot-headed Nuke LaLoosh character in the baseball film Bull Durham, the brash Dutch phenomenon announced his presence with authority – undeniable skills and unfortunate lapses in judgment or focus. He became well acquainted with the walls of many a race circuit and earned a gentle warning from F1 management.
As attendances at other meetings decline, the monarch’s presence makes Ascot a soft power asset for Britain
Ascot will mark the 200th anniversary of the first Royal procession at its showpiece race meeting next week. The intermittent noise of jets on the final approach to Heathrow will be one of the few deviations from the sights and sounds when George IV first trundled his way up the course in 1825. The king and queen will ride in the first of the horse-drawn carriages, their liveried attendants will be upright in the saddle and, as they pass the Royal enclosure, the gentlemen’s top hats will be doffed in the familiar mark of respect.
There is little else, in sport or the wider world beyond, that remains just as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Demand for the Royal Ascot experience also remains strong. After a post-Covid surge, attendances are in decline at both the Derby and Cheltenham’s festival meeting in March. At Royal Ascot 2024, though, the year-on-year crowd numbers were up.
Tony Cable, a former senior air crash investigator, has one piece of advice for Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of the Air India plane disaster: “Buy a lottery ticket straight away.”
The 40-year-old Briton walked away from the wreckage of flight AI171 after it crashed less than a minute after takeoff from Ahmedabad to London on Thursday, killing 241 other passengers and crew and dozens more on the ground.
From memories of photoshoots and telephone calls with the late Beach Boy, to appraisals of his complex but pure music, Guardian readers pay tribute to a great
I remember the Christmas after my mother’s death in 1989 when I was 15, I purchased the best-of collection from Asda, interested to see what I would hear. It had the hits, of course, but also a few of the deeper cuts from Pet Sounds and onwards. To say this changed my life is an understatement – Brian’s music, harmonies and subject matters struck an incredible chord in me. It did exactly what he existed for, bringing comfort to a heart and soul that needs it. I’ve been a fan ever since – I saw him at the Royal Festival Hall on his first Pet Sounds tour, watched him perform Smile in utter disbelief and wonder in Liverpool, while finally introducing his amazing show to my beautiful wife at the Summer Pops in Liverpool. Quite simply the greatest musician to ever live, in my opinion. Stephen Woodward, 50, Liverpool
Marcos Leao, a 27-year-old army veteran, told reporters after he was released that the marines who detained him were ‘just doing their job’
With Donald Trump’s deployment of more troops in response to protests in LA, and as plans come together for a military parade in Washington DC on the president’s birthday, journalist Judith Levine tells Jonathan Freedland why she believes the US has entered a new era of authoritarianism in this week’s edition of US Politics Weekly. You can listen here.
With predictions of as many as 200,000 attendees at tomorrow’s Washington parade, the Secret Service is preparing for protests by erecting 18 miles of anti-scale fencing and deploying drones to the city’s skies to keep watch.
Among other concerns, the US military parade will produce as much pollution as created to heat 300 homes for a year
Donald Trump’s military parade this weekend will bring thousands of troops out to march, while dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers roll down the streets and fighter jets hum overhead.
The event has prompted concern about rising autocracy in the US. It will also produce more than 2m kilograms of planet-heating pollution – equivalent to the amount created by producing of 67m plastic bags or by the energy used to power about 300 homes in one year, according to a review by the progressive thinktank Institute for Policy Studies and the Guardian.
British No 1 cannot match world No 5 who wins 6-2, 6-4
Raducanu loses after two impressive straight-sets wins
Under suffocating pressure to hold on to her serve at all costs against one of the best players in the world, it came as no surprise when Emma Raducanu faltered. Although she had fought hard and rallied after conceding a convincing first set against an imperious Zheng Qinwen, in truth she was never in control.
Up 4-3 in the second set but down break point, Raducanu double faulted. A few minutes later, the match was over. The tension felt by the British No 1 in those decisive moments was a reflection of the constant pressure imposed on all contenders by the best players in the world, a challenge that she continues to struggle with.
Opener hits century and Bavuma bats on through injury
Heartache and South African cricket have not so much gone hand in hand over the years as been locked in a loveless marriage. But provided they eke out the last 69 runs of what would be an epic run chase on day four, divorce papers can be issued and the World Test Championship mace will be theirs.
At the end of a gripping third day Australia were left praying that South Africa’s habit of imploding at global events – yes, yes, the old chokers tag – might return in the morning. Guided by a sparkling unbeaten 102 from Aiden Markram, and the captain, Temba Bavuma, hobbling through a hamstring injury to finish on 65 not out, the Proteas had reached 213 for two at stumps in pursuit of 282 to win.
Israel’s assault on Iran demonstrates a ruthless combination of air power and intelligence – and a significant disparity between the two countries in a conflict that is likely to be a long one if the goal is to eliminate Tehran’s nuclear capability.
Israel’s air force undertook waves of airstrikes, beginning at about 3am on Friday, aimed, briefings indicated, first at Iran’s military leaders and intelligence in Tehran, then switching to air defence batteries, missile launch sites and, above all, the critical facility at Natanz where uranium can be enriched to weapons grade.
War is the prime minister’s doctrine. Israel’s strikes on Iran – falsely described as pre-emptive – are the latest example
Benjamin Netanyahu must be stopped. The Israeli prime minister’s lust for war as a solution to his myriad problems is nothing short of a threat to us all, one that extends far beyond Israel’s neighbors. Netanyahu knows no other way. War is his doctrine. War is his reflex. War is his answer. He believes the power of war will unite Israeli society and will stifle any American criticism of him, necessary since the machinery he needs to make his wars comes mostly from Washington. And, with his aggression against Iran, he seeks to drag the United States further into another endless military quagmire in the region and light the world on fire.
Early on Friday morning, Israel launched a series of unprovoked strikes against Iran, targeting Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, its top scientists, its military commanders, and parts of its military and civilian infrastructure. Television images show a residential building in Tehran damaged by what looks like a missile attack. Iran, which has not suffered an assault this severe since its war with Iraq in the 1980s, is reporting at least 70 people killed and 320 injured thus far. Meanwhile, Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza continues out of the public eye, as an internet blackout halted most aid operations.
The Story of a Heart, which won this year’s award for nonfiction, tells how one child saved the life of another. The author talks about the amazing families involved, campaigning for a better NHS, and how being a doctor frames the way she writes
To read Rachel Clarke’s The Story of a Heart, which has won this year’s Women’s prize for nonfiction, is to experience an onslaught of often competing emotions. There is awed disbelief at the sheer skill and dedication of the medical teams who transplanted the heart of nine-year-old Keira, who had been killed in a head-on traffic collision, into the body of Max, a little boy facing almost certain death from rapidly deteriorating dilated cardiomyopathy. There is vast admiration for the inexhaustible compassion of the teams who cared for both children and their families, and wonder at the cascade of medical advances, each breakthrough representing determination, inspiration, rigorous work, and careful navigation of newly emerging ethical territory. And most flooring of all is the immense courage of two families, one devastated by the sudden loss of a precious child, the other faced with a diagnosis that threatened to tear their lives apart.
To write such a story requires special preparation. “I was full of trepidation when I first approached Keira’s family,” Clarke tells me the morning after she was awarded the prize. “I knew that I was asking them to entrust me with the most precious thing, their beloved daughter Keira’s story, her memory.” The former journalist trained as a doctor in her late 20s, and has spent most of her medical career working in palliative care. Subsequently, she has also become an acclaimed writer and committed campaigner, publishing three memoirs: Your Life in My Hands, Dear Life and Breathtaking. She turned to her medical training for guidance when writing The Story of a Heart. “I said to myself, my framework will be my medical framework, so I would conduct myself in such a way that they would, I hoped, trust me in the same way that someone might trust me as a doctor. And if at any point they changed their mind, then they could walk away from the project.”
The hugely popular reality competition series has led to a string of similarly devious yet undeniably lesser copycats
This is a punt, but Fox might have started to commission new shows via the power of online thesauruses. Take its new reality show The Snake. It’s a game of secrets and betrayal, of feigning one emotion to gain trust while you stab your new friends in the back. In other words, it’s basically The Traitors.
I don’t know whether any of you have ever searched Merriam Webster for synonyms of ‘traitor’, but ‘snake’ is literally second on the list. And this laziness is indicative of the show itself, which is such a painfully halfhearted retread of The Traitors that it ends up being exhausting to watch.
Connexion
