The UK is aiming to have energy costs that are competitive with Europe, business minister Sarah Jones has said ahead of the launch of government’s industrial strategy next week.
Jones said that the cost of energy is one of the top three concerns for businesses, who are hoping for aid in the long-awaited strategy.
“Whether you’re a company wanting to invest in the UK or whether you’re an existing company in the UK, energy prices is a challenge.
The fact that we’re not competitive with it, with Europe, is the challenge.”
“I think there can be a SAF industry in the UK. There are certain industries that are very interested in coming and that’s what we’re trying to work towards.”
“They’ve been pausing because their customers – they’ve got shrewd customers – were going to wait and see what was going to happen from when the deal was announced. You could see that the cost to the ultimate consumer was going to come down because of the reduction in the tariff, but you just didn’t know when.”
At least 15 people were killed in Russian strikes on Kyiv overnight with nearly 100 wounded in what was named as “one of the most horrific attacks” on the capital.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that “such attacks are pure terrorism.”
Conditions for fans at Sunday’s Club World Cup fixture between Paris Saint-Germain and Atlético Madrid at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, have been described as “dangerous” and “horrific” after attenders struggled to get access to water and experienced tightly packed crowds amid temperatures of at least 31C/88F in the stadium.
Supporters have told of having to dispose of full water bottles before entering the ground, of people in distress inside the venue and of lines that lasted 45 minutes to get access to water that was for sale.
Proposed clergy conduct measure hoped to improve existing rules criticised for failing to tackle misconduct allegations
Church of England proposals for church courts to automatically be held in secret should be reconsidered, a parliamentary committee has said.
The clergy conduct measure is intended to replace the existing clergy disciplinary measure, which has been extensively criticised for failing to tackle allegations of serious or sexual misconduct against clergy.
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
Insects are in trouble. Around the world, scientists are reporting catastrophic declines in their numbers, even in nature reserves that are largely protected from human touch. We are also beginning to see huge drops in the populations of other animals – such as birds – that depend on insects as food.
Many of the drivers of those declines are structural, and require strong action by governments to turn around. But there are clear, easy steps that anyone can take to support the insect world. For species under such pressure, any respite is important, and we can create refuges for insects in a world increasingly hostile to their survival. In creating better habitats for insects, you can also reap the benefits: thriving gardens, more songbirds, and a healthier web of life.
Being playful has made me feel more like a mother and carer than a wife. Can we change this dynamic?
My wife and I have been together for seven years. I honestly can’t remember the last time we had sex – it’s been at least a few years. For most of our relationship, I’ve taken on the role of caretaker. She struggles with anxiety, was recently diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and often needs a lot of emotional hand-holding. Over time, it’s taken a toll on how I see our relationship. We also fell into a habit of using silly, childish voices with each other. What started out as playful has ended up making me feel more like her mother than her wife. For a long time, I didn’t have much of a libido, and to her credit, she didn’t push the issue. But now that my sex drive has returned, it feels as if it’s all I can think about – except I just can’t seem to feel that way about her any more. Every time I’m briefly tempted to initiate something, it gets snuffed out by the same patterns: the childish behaviour, the emotional neediness, the feeling of being needed more as a caretaker than a partner. Is it possible to break out of this dynamic? Or have we crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed?
When one partner becomes a caregiver to the other, the erotic charge between them is very likely to be reduced. And when the childlike element you described creeps into the relationship, a sexual taboo arises. Your feeling of being mother to a child is most definitely not sexy; it connects your psyche with a deep and forbidden sense of incest that is never going to allow you to desire your partner. If you want to desire her again you will have to encourage the adult side of her to be present and engage with you as a competent individual in your lives together. It’s possible she may have developed some of the behaviours you dislike as a coping mechanism. If you do not want to spend your life mothering her you must refuse to support the childish behaviour, which is a form of control and passive-aggression. The first step would be to have a frank, adult, non-blaming conversation about the state of your union. Validate the parts of her that are mature and self-reliant, and gently let her know that you would be doing her a disservice to support her learned helplessness any longer.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
Something was shifting in Iran, but now missiles and the return of foreign interference may tear up the green shoots of progress
Missiles follow trajectories. So do countries. And over the past few days, Israel’s attacks have dramatically changed Iran’s trajectory.
Some believe that Iran was already on a downward spiral and that Israel’s actions will simply accelerate the descent. In an op-ed published on Monday, several of Iran’s most prominent civil society figures, including Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, declared that the “only credible path to safeguard [Iran] and its people is the resignation of the current leadership”. In this view, the war could be construed as a deliverance – Israeli officials are openly suggesting that their operations could lead to regime change in Iran. But if Iran’s decline was already precipitous, why are ordinary Iranians terrified by the outbreak of war? Why have they not welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu as the saviour he imagines himself to be?
An ambitious meditation on the ability of narrative to shape our perceptions of one another and our experience of home
Marina Warner begins this dazzlingly protean book with a distinctly mundane memory. It is the 1950s, she is a young teen, and the highlight of her week is going to the Saturday morning “flicks” with a neighbour’s slightly older daughter. One particular movie scene has stayed with her: it involves a man dressed in a vaguely historical costume who is fleeing for his life. Face contorted with terror, he makes it as far as the door of a cathedral, whereupon he knocks loudly and cries “Sanctuary!” The door opens a crack, the man slides inside, and the Saturday morning audience breaths a collective sigh of relief. Even if the plot points remain hazy – is Robin Hood somehow involved? – the underlying principle needs no explaining. The fugitive has invoked the ancient right by gaining entrance to a designated sacred space. As long as he stays put his pursuers can’t touch him.
From these hyper-local beginnings, Warner sets out to explore and expand what “sanctuary” means in an age when millions are on the move around the world, chased out of their homes by environmental disaster, economic collapse, war and political oppression.
In this moving and funny documentary, Swedish TV presenters Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson try to rekindle Filip’s father’s zest for life on a road trip to France
‘Do you want to rot away in an old armchair?” asks Filip Hammar, a Swedish TV presenter, talking to his dad. In this charming, often hilarious documentary, Hammar takes 80-year-old Lars on a road trip to the south of France; the idea is to rekindle Lars’s spark, shake a bit of life back into him. Since retiring as a French teacher, Lars has been sitting around at home, steadily more depressed and frail. Hammar wants to show his dad that life is worth living. But as you’d expect from a documentary this heart-warming, Hammar has a lesson or two to learn himself.
For the trip, Hammar has bought a knackered old Renault 4, the same car the family had when he was a kid. Their destination is the apartment they rented every summer holiday (judging from the old photos, this was pre-factor 50 sunscreen; everyone was a livid shade of lobster). Father and son are joined by Hammar’s best mate Fredrik Wikingsson, another TV presenter. The two are a fixture on Swedish telly; like Ant and Dec they come as a pair, Filip och Fredrik. Their easy, lived-in banter jollies everything along.
Two-thirds of the biggest 65 banks increased financing by $162bn from 2023 to 2024, walking back climate promises
The world’s largest banks boosted the amount of financing given to fossil fuel companies last year, committing $869bn to those involved in coal, oil and gas despite the worsening climate crisis and the banks’ own, fraying, environmental commitments, a new report has found.
The report, compiled by a coalition of eight green groups, shows that while the amount loaned by big banks to fossil fuel firms had been declining in 2021, last year saw an abrupt reversal. Two-thirds of the world’s largest 65 banks increased their fossil fuel financing by $162bn from 2023 to 2024.
Liverpool’s majestic cosmic wigwam has always faced a hard time from critics. Classicists lamented that it replaced an earlier swollen baroque design by Edwin Lutyens, which was cut short by the second world war and rising costs. Modernists found it too prissy, a brittle British version of more muscular concrete creations emerging from sunnier southern climes – a piece of Oscar Niemeyer’s Brasília lost in translation between the hemispheres.
Time has proved them wrong. Frederick Gibberd’s striking upturned funnel is one of the finest postwar buildings in the land, standing as the most prominent Catholic cathedral of any British city, as well as the most original. It is shocking that it wasn’t already Grade-I listed – a fact that reflects a broader antipathy for buildings of the era, which is slowly being corrected by a new generation.
A new trail follows the 26-mile route of the world’s first passenger train journey on the Stockton and Darlington Railway
It was as strange a sight as you could stumble upon in the English countryside. As a muggy summer’s day began outside Shildon, Durham – rain threatening, bees drowsy in the hedgerows – I found myself standing on an embankment, surveying two rows of colossal stone teeth jutting through the earth. It looked as if someone had buried a sleeping giant.
“You wouldn’t believe it by looking at it, but this is one of railway history’s most amazing feats,” my companion, rail expert Richie Starrs, said as we gazed down at the molars beneath our feet. A closer look revealed they were abandoned rail sleepers, laid out between the hawthorns and along which coal wagons were once pulled uphill by steam traction locomotives. “This is the Brusselton Incline, a section of the original Stockton and Darlington Railway. Nationally, it’s a story that’s not well known, but it’s one we’re rightly proud of.”
From peat bogs to ancient trees via abandoned mining towns, these prize-winning images deliver both a stark warning and a message of hope for the future of our planet
Trump could decide to help Israel by joining the fight against Iran, or refrain from involving the US in a new overseas war – either choice will upset his supporters
As Donald Trump considers a direct intervention in Israel’s conflict with Iran, another war has broken out in Washington between conservative hawks, calling for immediate US strikes on uranium enrichment facilities, and Maga isolationists, who are demanding Trump stick to his campaign pledge not to involve the US in new overseas wars.
At stake is whether the US could target the mountain redoubt that is home to the Fordow fuel enrichment plant, a key uranium enrichment site hidden 80 to 90 metres underground that cannot be targeted directly by Israeli jets – although they can attack some of the infrastructure that allows the plant to operate.
A report published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) estimated that China now has at least 600 nuclear warheads, with about 100 per year being added to the stockpile since 2023.
As a queer, black woman raised on jazz and soul, discovering the genre of indie folk felt like an antidote to the guilt and self-loathing I was battling through
I am coming out again, this time as a lover of stomp and clap music. This will probably get me in trouble with my mother in a way that coming out as bisexual never did, because she believed that you should always be your authentic self, so long as you have good taste. Stomp clap music has often been the subject of much derision and a bit of a punchline. But despite the ridicule, I’m willing to defend my taste.
The genre, sometimes referred to as stomp and holler or indie folk, peaked in the 2000s, with bands such as the Lumineers, Of Monsters and Men and, of course, Mumford & Sons – think a lot of guitars, banjos, the odd fiddle, literal stomping and clapping, with the occasional rousing “hey!” in the background. It was largely associated with hipsters – the twirly moustached, braces and Henley-shirt-wearing kind – and with band members who all look like Sunday school preachers and youth pastors. I can’t stand the aesthetic, but the music is undeniable.
Extreme events such as floods and droughts are becoming more frequent, longer-lasting and more severe, study says
New data from Nasa has revealed a dramatic rise in the intensity of weather events such as droughts and floods over the past five years.
The study shows that such extreme events are becoming more frequent, longer-lasting and more severe, with last year’s figures reaching twice that of the 2003-2020 average.
Easy come, easy go: make the most of broad bean season with this simple dish that’s full of flavour
In Spain we say, “Habas en abril empiezan y en abril se acaban” – that is, broad beans begin in April and end in April. In the UK, the season starts a bit later, around June, so we’ve got a bit more time yet to enjoy them. Still, the season is short, so I use these wonderful beans as much as I can, while I can. This is the kind of dish I’d make on a quiet afternoon: simple, full of flavour, nothing fancy. Just a nice way to enjoy what the season gives you, before it disappears again for another year.
It’s an eccentric and work-intensive way to sell your house, but people are now raffling off even the most modest properties. Is it a good idea?
When Natalie Rowcroft decided to raffle off her house in Salford, everybody – including her husband, Bradley Rowcroft – thought she “had lost the plot”. It was July 2020; people were doing stranger things with their first pandemic summer. But given that she had read a newspaper article about a couple who’d raffled their house in the morning, and had put her own up for sale by the evening, the scepticism was well-founded. “At first, I wanted nothing to do with it,” says Bradley, a 38-year-old carpenter. It didn’t help that she had also chucked the family car in the draw for good measure.
Still, Natalie, 38, a teaching assistant, persevered. She printed out leaflets and put them up all over Salford and Manchester, set up social media accounts to promote the draw and bought a big poster to hang in the couple’s driveway.
Oklahoma City beat Indiana 120-109 in Game 5 of finals
Williams leads way as OKC hold serve on home floor
Thunder one win from franchise’s first title since 1979
The Oklahoma City Thunder moved within one win of their first NBA championship in 46 years on Monday night, beating the Indiana Pacers 120–109 in Game 5 of the NBA finals to take a 3-2 series lead.
Jalen Williams erupted for a career playoff-high 40 points, MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander added 31 points and 10 assists, and the Thunder held off a furious Indiana rally to secure a chance at clinching their first title since 1979 in Game 6 on Thursday in Indianapolis.
Russell included in 2021 Lions squad as Sexton omitted
Lions assistant coach says issue ‘blown out of proportion’
Johnny Sexton has insisted he is “here to help” Finn Russell in his capacity as British & Irish Lions assistant coach, after the pair shook hands and cleared the air last month following the former Ireland captain’s previous criticism of the Scotland fly-half.
Sexton toured with the Lions in 2013 and 2017 but was a surprise omission from Warren Gatland’s squad in 2021. In his autobiography, the former Ireland captain revealed how the snub “kills me to this day” and described Russell as a “media darling” before suggesting in a subsequent interview that he was “flashy”.
Much of squad in hospital after game against Sampdoria
Double relegation looms after playoff first-leg defeat
Salernitana’s fight for survival has veered into chaos with a bout of food poisoning hospitalising much of the squad halfway through their showdown with Sampdoria.
The Serie B side, fighting to avoid dropping to Italy’s third tier, have requested a postponement of the second leg of their relegation playoff on Friday because players and coaching staff remain too ill to train.
Gabrielle Drolet had always dreamed of being a writer. But when disability closed down most of her opportunities, a strange career began
When people ask what I do for a living, I’m faced with two choices: either I can lie or I can bore them with the truth, which is too complicated to explain succinctly. While those around me have normal, definable jobs – accountant, journalist, engineer – my work requires headings and subheadings to get it across properly: a map of overlapping gigs and contracts.
“What do you do?” It’s a simple question, and one that often gets asked on first dates. No matter how much I pare down my reply, it’s always long-winded.
Kraamzorg system, where care assistants visit new mothers at home, is threatened by labour shortage and competition
A key pillar of Dutch maternity services that has led to the Netherlands being hailed as a world leader in postnatal care is under threat, healthcare unions in the country have warned.
The Netherlands has long prided itself on its unique system of kraamzorg(maternity care), whereby a maternity care assistant comes to a new family’s home for eight days after a baby’s birth, caring for mother and infant.
Anne-Eva Bergman and Hans Hartung battled with the Nazis and created some of the most riveting abstract art of the last century
They created some of the most riveting abstract art of the 20th century, fought Nazis with the gun and the pen, married, divorced and married again. Now the continent-spanning and nigh-forgotten love story of the Burton-Tayloresque couple at the heart of the European avant garde is finally being given its due at a major art institution.
And We’ll Never Be Parted, exhibiting at Prague’s Kunsthalle gallery, is the first show to reunite the Norwegian painter Anna-Eva Bergman and German-born Hans Hartung.
We’re surrounded by news images of death and violence. Why do Florentina Holzinger’s visceral stage productions still have such impact?
What would you do if the world was to end tomorrow? The premise itself may be both timeless and timely at this moment when authoritarianism is on the rise globally. But that’s not really what causes the nail-biting excitement at the doorstep of Volksbühne theatre in Berlin. On a chilly June evening, a predominantly female and queer crowd of all ages gathers here to see, or rather experience, A Year Without Summer, the newest play by the infamous Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger. It’s the anticipation of Holzinger’s trademark body horrorthat unsettles and attracts us, the crowd. And the question: how much can we take?
“Europe’s hottest director”, as the Guardian described 39-year-old Holzinger last year, is not only known for her work at the Volksbühne but mesmerises and shocks audiences all over the world. Her all female-assigned cast of different ages, origins and abilities dances, bleeds, defecates and swallows swords on stage, naked.
Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist
US president says he is working on something ‘much bigger’ than a ceasefire and derides French president as ‘publicity seeking’ hours after telling residents of Tehran to ‘immediately evacuate’
Donald Trump has encouraged vice president JD Vance and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to offer to meet the Iranians this week, the New York Times has reported, citing a US official.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier indicated that Tehran was open to negotiations, also suggesting Trump could stop the war with “one phone call” to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. In a post on X he wrote:
If President Trump is genuine about diplomacy and interested in stopping this war, next steps are consequential. Israel must halt its aggression, and absent a total cessation of military aggression against us, our responses will continue.
It takes one phone call from Washington to muzzle someone like Netanyahu. That may pave the way for a return to diplomacy.
There is indeed an offer to meet and exchange. An offer was made especially to get a ceasefire and to then kick-start broader discussions … We have to see now whether the sides will follow.
Right now I believe negotiations need to restart and that civilians need to be protected.
All who have thought that by bombing from the outside you can save a country in spite of itself have always been mistaken.
The 39-year-old senator was shot at a campaign rally in Bogota on 7 June and has now undergone three surgeries
Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe, who has been hospitalised since he was shot in the head during a campaign event, is out of an emergency surgery performed but is in “extremely critical” condition, the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said.
Some reporters in the region face jail for alleged defamation in countries where news outlets often lack resources to defend lawsuits
The Pacific is facing a “critical moment” for press freedom, the region’s media watchdog has warned, as a number of senior journalists in a range of Pacific countries are facing costly lawsuits and criminal prosecution for alleged defamation.
“We have seen a few cases coming up … challenging the fundamentals of press freedom in the region,” said Robert Iroga, the chair of the Pacific Freedom Forum.
Donald Trump dramatically left the G7 Summit in Canada a day early to rush back to Washington, with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, claiming the US leader was considering the prospect of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
“There is indeed an offer to meet and exchange. An offer was made especially to get a ceasefire and to then kickstart broader discussions,” Macron told reporters at the G7.
Both sides see red before Nicolás Otamendi heads home equaliser
Well, that was different. On a violently hot Monday night in Miami Gardens, day three of Fifa’s sport-style entertainment event, something unexpected happened. A football match broke out.
And not just the styling, the outlines, the aesthetic sense of a football match. As Boca Juniors tore into a 2-0 first half lead against Benfica, as the stadium interior was transformed into a sustained static field by the Boca fans, as the coaching staff on both benches leapt up in random rotation, like the world’s angriest improv night, this already felt like the real thing, blood, vim, borrowed life.
Stay off Russian gas even after peace, says EU energy chief, as ban is drafted; 6,000 casualties out of 10,000 North Koreans fighting against Ukraine. What we know on day 1,210
US agency had pledged almost $30m over five years to Hope Through Action initiative, which was launched in 2023
The US government funding cuts will hit a chimpanzee conservation project nurtured by the primatologist Jane Goodall.
USAID has been subjected to swingeing cuts under Donald Trump, with global effects that are still unfolding. Now it has emerged that the agency will withdraw from the Hope Through Action project managed by the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI). USAID had pledged $29.5m (£22m) over five years to the project, which was designed to protect endangered chimpanzees and their habitats in western Tanzania.
Global study shows 54% of Americans receive news from social media, while the UK has highest proportion of news avoiders at 46%
Social media has overtaken television as a source of news in the US for the first time, according to a comprehensive analysis of media consumption confirming the rapid rise of “news influencers”.
In a watershed moment for the US media, 54% of Americans said they received news from social media, according to the research carried out after President Trump’s second inauguration. Half said they sourced news from the once all-powerful TV networks.
Salvador Plasencia, who gave Friends star the drug in month leading to overdose, to plead guilty to four counts
A doctor charged with giving Matthew Perry ketamine in the month leading up to the Friends star’s overdose death has agreed to plead guilty, authorities said Monday.
Dr Salvador Plasencia has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They said the plea carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and Plasencia is expected to enter the plea in the coming weeks.
UK aerospace sector will face no tariffs from the US while auto industry lowered to 10% from 25%
Keir Starmer and Donald Trump have signed off a UK-US trade deal at the G7 summit in Canada, with the US president saying Britain would have protection against future tariffs “because I like them”.
The two leaders presented the deal, which covers aerospace and the auto sector, at the G7 venue in Kananaskis, Alberta.
Leeds fear Newcastle or Milan may hijack Bijol transfer
Manchester United are monitoring Eintracht Frankfurt’s striker, Hugo Ekitike, as a potential recruit.
The French forward is of interest to Ruben Amorim after United’s hopes of signing one of his prime targets, Viktor Gyökeres, receded due to the Swede expressing a preference to move to Arsenal. The 22-year-old Ekitike has scored 19 goals in 47 Bundesliga appearances for Frankfurt, having initially been loaned to the German club in February 2024. The Frenchman subsequently signed a five-year deal for around £14m last April. The France Under-21 international has a total of 50 strikes in 151 career games.
Attendance of 22,137 for game at 75,000-capacity venue
The good news for the marketing gurus at Fifa is that the 22,137 fans who turned up to watch Chelsea cruise past Los Angeles FC in their Club World Cup opener at least witnessed the surge of excitement provided by Liam Delap coming off the bench to spark an otherwise forgettable contest into life on his debut.
In reality this will not go down as one of the great sporting occasions. The Mercedes-Benz Stadium can hold crowds of 75,000 but staging this match at 3pm on a Monday afternoon was probably not the wisest scheduling move.
Officials say suspect accused of shooting two lawmakers went to two other legislators’ homes intending to kill them
A man accused of dressing up as a police officer and shooting two Minnesota state lawmakers in their homes – killing one and her husband – also showed up at the houses of two other legislators the same night intending to assassinate them too, authorities revealed on Monday.
Vance Luther Boelter, 57, was captured on Sunday night after a major two-day manhunt and charged by state prosecutors with the second-degree murder of the Democratic representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their residence in Brooklyn Park early on Saturday.
Now Lavia is fit, assuming he stays so, Enzo Maresca will have a decision to make in every game, because he can only pick two of him, Fernandez and Caicedo. I fear the Argentinian may have a problem, his lack of athleticism perhaps set to be the deciding factor.
Email! “This walking-paced, season-leggy tournament feels like Fifa’s version of a methadone clinic offered to ensure that revenues don’t dip during summer’s withdrawal season,” reckons Justin Kavanagh. “It’s on TV here in the USA, but to be honest, no slo-mo circus is going to distract from the pall of totalitarianism that is descending over this country. No amount of laughing gas is going to trump the sting of tear gas. Infantino shouldn’t be whoring out his circus here. Same goes for his World Cup next year.”
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