Prime minister to hold meeting of emergency Cobra committee to discuss security situation in the Middle East, say reports
Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, will be taking PMQs shortly. And she will be up against Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary.
When Kemi Badenoch became Tory leader, she did not appoint a deputy (or even a “de factor deputy”, a post that has existed in Tory politics in recent years) and she said she would decide who would stand in for her at PMQs on a case by case basis. Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, got the gig the first time Starmer was away.
Chris Philp follows Alex Burghart in rotating for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. One Westminster wag asks “When is it going to be Robert Jenrick’s turn?”
We have this profound challenge of the number of people joining the armed forces being outweighed by the outflow the people leaving. So ultimately its about retention.
And the number one issue reason cited in last month’s attitude survey for the armed forces for leaving was family life. We know the quality of housing is unfortunately poor. It’s due to the basically to the structural nature of those homes.
To wrap up this topic, the state of housing for the armed forces is in a poor state because your government did not do enough for it?
[The housing] which is not in a good enough state because of your government?
What did I do about it? I did something that hasn’t been done for 30 years – yes, it completed under Labour – and now we would recommend to the government, when they bring forth their housing defence white paper, that we set up a housing association.
The US bombing campaign of Yemen under Donald Trump led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.
An analysis of Operation Rough Rider by monitoring group Airwars has concluded that 224 civilians had been killed between March and the end of the campaign in May, compared to 258 between 2002 and 2024.
Mamdani’s campaign deserves credit for offering a clear, inspiring, progressive message. But ranked-choice voting is also helping make him competitive
With a week left until New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, one might have thought that the former governor Andrew Cuomo would be measuring the drapes at Gracie Mansion. Real estate developers, corporations like Doordash, a smattering of billionaires and even Billy Joel have shoveled cash into his campaign, with his Super Pac spending more money than any other outside force in the city’s political history. This is on top of his entering the race with major name recognition advantage, amounting to a 20- or 30-point lead as recently as May.
But according to a new poll, Zohran Mamdani – the insurgent state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom the Nation recently co-endorsed along with fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander – has pulled aheadof Cuomo for the first time.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times
XV features Marcus Smith, Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith
Tadhg Furlong also has the chance to prove his fitness
Maro Itoje will captain the British & Irish Lions for the first time in their non-cap international against Argentina in Dublin on Friday.
The England skipper Itoje leads a starting XV that features Marcus Smith at full-back and will be directed by England half-backs Alex Mitchell and Fin Smith.
Withdrawal from event follows string of appearances as Catherine seeks right balance after cancer treatment
The Princess of Wales pulled out of attending Royal Ascot on Wednesday as she continued to seek the right balance of public engagements after her treatment for cancer.
Catherine was said to be disappointed at not attending the race meeting with her husband and King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Inflation pressures remain sticky in the UK, according to Rob Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Looking ahead, we continue to expect CPI inflation to average 3.4% for the rest of the year as strong wage growth, minimum wage hikes and tax increases pass through to retail prices. We think headline inflation will struggle to dip below 3% before April 2026. By that point, inflation will have been above target almost continuously for five years, risking further deanchoring of inflation expectations and persistent wage pressure.
Granted, US president Trump’s trade war could lead to some diversion of Chinese exports previously bound to the US, which could cut UK inflation. But war in the Middle-East has boosted oil and natural gas prices, adding 10bp to our forecast inflation peak and risks probably lie to the upside. We think the MPC will have to proceed cautiously.
Food and drink inflation shot up in May 2025, reaching 4.4% compared to 3.4% in April. These figures are being driven by rising energy and ingredients costs. Food manufacturing is an energy intensive sector, and wholesale gas prices are 7.8% higher compared to last May, as UK businesses face significantly higher industrial energy costs compared to other nations.
Meanwhile, the price of ingredients has also surged. For example, in the last two years, the price of cocoa has tripled, while wholesale butter prices are also 55% higher than last year. Recent and upcoming regulations are also bringing additional costs to manufacturers.
After Hurricane Helene’s flood waters slammed into Lake Lure’s century-old dam last September, the resort town was spurred on to seek federal funding for an ambitious rebuilding plan. While the initial response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed encouraging when Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump’s plans to shrink or even abolish Fema – and push some of the costs of disaster response on to states – have injected uncertainty into the North Carolina town’s recovery
This season’s three hot looks: the barn jacket, the leather blouson and the haute anorak
The summer jacket is one of the trickiest bits of your wardrobe to get right, because nobody really wants to wear one. I mean, isn’t summer supposed to be lovely and warm? Isn’t that sort of the whole point of a summer wardrobe? Sandals and shorts exist to celebrate carefree, balmy days. Sunshine is the raison d’etre of a sundress. The very existence of a jacket is a summer buzzkill. But you need one. Sorry, but you do. Seasons are unpredictable, heatwaves break, darkness brings a chill. So you definitely have to put some thought into a summer jacket unless you want your fabulous summer outfits to end up hidden beneath some random hoodie you grabbed off the banister.
Your summer jacket needs to do two things. It needs to keep you warm and dry when the weather turns chilly or wet. And somehow, at the same time, it needs to keep your summer vibe bouncing along, rather than kill the mood. Like I said: tricky.
Visitors could be more sensitive, while the authorities should seek sustainable solutions for residents and tourists. But just staying at home is no answer
After coordinated protests across Europe last weekend, it’s easy for the ethically conscious tourist to feel uncertain. Across southern Europe – and particularly in Spain, Italy and Portugal – there are headlines blaming visitors for everything from overcrowding to housing shortages. In gentrifying neighbourhoods, slogans such as “Tourists go home” have appeared on walls and windows, with some angry residents grabbing headlines by squirting water pistols at tourists.
Does that mean a golden age of tourism is over? No. Does the complicated relationship between those who want to visit the world’s most interesting places and those who live in them need a reset? Probably.
Ayatollah Khamenei says his country will not surrender, as reports say it is preparing missiles to strike US bases
Iran’s supreme leader rejected US calls for surrender and warned that joining the war would lead to “irreparable damage”, as Israel ramped up rhetoric about regime change and ordered civilians to evacuate a district in Tehran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Israel made a “huge mistake” by launching the war, in his first comments since Friday.
Cheering crowds greet Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh outside London court after lawyers challenge validity of case
Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, who is facing a terrorism charge, has been released on unconditional bail after his lawyers challenged the validity of the case.
Ó hAnnaidh, 27, from Belfast, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, is accused of displaying a flag in support of Hezbollah, a proscribed organisation, and chanting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah” at a gig in north London on 21 November last year.
Maroons win 26-24 after Blues rallied from 26-6 down at half-time
Result at Optus Stadium in Perth sends series to decider in Sydney
They had been all but written off, rudderless and adrift with a rattled coach at the helm, but a spirited Queensland kept the State of Origin shield alive after a wet, wild and often bizarre Game 2 victory over New South Wales in Perth.
The memorable 26-24 triumph wasn’t certain until the final moments after a titanic Blues comeback – highlighted by a Brian To’o hat-trick – brought them back to within two points with eight minutes to go.
Sam Altman describes offer from Mark Zuckerberg’s company as ‘crazy’, as scramble for talent intensifies
The boss of OpenAI has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has tried to poach his top artificial intelligence experts with “crazy” signing bonuses of $100m (£74m), as the scramble for talent in the booming sector intensifies.
Sam Altman spoke about the offers in a podcast on Tuesday. They have not been confirmed by Meta. OpenAI, the company that developed ChatGPT, said it had nothing to add beyond its chief executive’s comments.
Brand known for no-nonsense style and camel coats channels the glamour and poverty of the city in Italian cinema
Max Mara is known for its deep-pile camel coats and conservative northern Italian style. But in tune with the times, this season’s show at the baroque Palace of Caserta outside Naples opened with a pair of very short shorts.
Tight and high-waisted, the vibe was Vogue but the inspiration was the 1949 Italian realist film Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) and a 19-year-old Italian actor, Silvana Mangano, in a paddy field wearing damp shorts and stockings, which ended up on global billboards.
The NHL’s southern expansion was mocked in the 1990s. But it led to better hockey, more money and a long drought for the sport’s spiritual home
“There are a lot of things I do not understand about this proposed expansion,” New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey wrote in December 1992, as the NHL wrapped up its annual Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. During that week’s meeting, the league received expansion proposals for two teams. One was for a team in Anaheim, California, backed by Disney. The other was for a team in Miami, Florida, put forward by waste management-and-VHS-video magnate, Wayne Huizenga. “What makes it think the Sun Belt is ready for all these hockey teams?” Vecsey wondered.
At the time, the answer was money. With more time, the answer seems to be: because championship hockey teams can be built anywhere, including in the South. On Tuesday night in Florida, the Panthers won their second-straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers, this time in six games – one fewer than they needed last season. If anything, you could now argue that there’s no better place to build a championship NHL team than the southern US. Since 1990, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to a team based in the South nine times – but five of those have come in the last six years. And three of those have also been against Canadian teams.
The hotly anticipated music drama stars The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as the rocker with Jeremy Strong and Stephen Graham also starring
The trailer for Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me From Nowhere has offered the first real look at Jeremy Allen White in the lead role.
The award-winning star of The Bear plays the musician as he puts together his sixth album Nebraska in the early 1980s. The film, from Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper, is based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book.
Stubbornly unripe stone fruit are common in UK supermarkets, but it turns out they’re just the thing to turn into a classic, Japanese-style ferment
Umeboshi is a puckeringly sour and umami-rich Japanese condiment made with ume, an Asian plum that’s closely related to the apricot. It’s usually made with ripe but firm fruit, which aren’t all that dissimilar to the under-ripe and slightly flavourless apricots and plums found in most UK supermarkets and which make a great British stand-in for ume.
Equally at ease with making sex-playlist jams and socially conscious songs, the revered group are fretting about fascism – but are determined to find common ground for Americans
If you looked to the skies in the UK on 12 May, you’d have seen the flower moon, the name given to that month’s full moon. Also known in agricultural circles as the hare moon or the corn planting moon, it’s closely associated with new life and new beginnings.
“Happy flower moon day!” beams Durand Jones, leader of soul outfit Durand Jones and the Indications, whose forthcoming album Flowers – led by the single Flower Moon – also deals with the theme of fresh starts. We’re serendipitously speaking on 12 May, along with his bandmates Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein.
Regulators say online retailer failing to do enough to prevent sale of unsafe children’s toys, among other items
The European Commission has accused the online retailer AliExpress of a “systemic failure” to prevent the sale of illegal and dangerous goods on its platform, as Brussels steps up its case against the Chinese company.
Issuing formal findings of an investigation launched in March last year, EU regulators said on Wednesday that AliExpress was failing to do enough to prevent the sale of counterfeit clothes and dangerous children’s toys, among other items.
How Kelcy Warren, one of Trump’s biggest industry backers, and his pipeline firm are likely to flourish in his second term
Kelcy Warren was among the top donors for Donald Trump’s 2024 White House bid, personally pouring at least $5m into the campaign and co-hosting a fundraiser for the then presidential hopeful in Houston.
Trump’s win appears to already be benefiting Warren and Energy Transfer Partners, the pipeline and energy firm of which he is co-founder, executive chair and primary shareholder.
Five residents of Lake Worth Beach – just 10 miles from Trump’s Maga fortress – share their stories of survival as an immigration crackdown takes its toll
Lake Worth Beach, a small coastal city of about 45,000, sits in the shadows of Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-A-Lago. A 10 minute drive from “Maga”
HQ, it is sometimes optimistically referred to as “mini San Fran”, with a largely progressive, white middle class occupying its beachfront bungalows and a local economy built on tourism, retail and construction.
It is also home to many undocumented and temporary visa migrants, who work at fruit farms and restaurants, landscape gardens and support the area’s affluent households. Though data on undocumented people is notoriously hard to collect, the 2024 census estimates that nearly half of the city’s residents are Hispanic and include Guatemalans (many of whom are Indigenous Maya), Mexicans and Venezuelans.
Israel is the main source of terror and instability in the Middle East. But the west continually turns away from this reality
As the G7 issues a statement declaring that Israel has a “right to defend itself”, you have a right to ask if you are losing your mind. Israel launched an unprovoked onslaught on Iran. Its excuse – that Tehran may acquire a nuclear weapon – renders its attack illegal under the UN charter, which forbids wars justified by the claim of a future threat.
“Iran is the principal source of regional instability and terror,” declares the G7 statement. Even though Donald Trump’s intelligence chief testified three months ago that the US intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon”. Even though it’s Israel that actually possesses nuclear weapons, while refusing to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and refusing International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. Even though, as progress was being made in nuclear talks between Iran and the US, Israel targeted Iran’s chief negotiator and proceeded to exterminate scientists, including their families, alongside countless other civilians, including children, an athlete, a teacher, a pilates instructor. Even though Israel’s leader is subject to an arrest warrant, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. And even though Israel has erased Gaza in a genocidal frenzy, and subjected the illegally occupied and colonised West Bank to an escalating pogrom, attacked southern Lebanon and Beirut, and invaded and occupied Syria. No country in the Middle East is as great a source of regional instability and terror as Israel: it’s not even close.
Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
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Exclusive: poll shows 62% of women and 47% of men across political spectrum say economy and inflation getting worse
Women across the political spectrum are more concerned about the state of the US economy and inflation under Donald Trump than men are, according to a new exclusive poll for the Guardian.
More Democrats than Republicans are now concerned about the economy following the president’s return to power. But pessimism was higher for women even among Republicans and independents, according to a new Harris poll.
More women said they are very worried about food prices (52% of women compared to 39% of men)
More women said they’re spending more time trying to find deals or go to more affordable stores (36% versus 26%)
More women said their financial security is getting worse because of their difficulty in affording essential goods and services (55% versus 46%)
United announce members’ prices of up to £97 for a seat
Everton to take United’s Nick Cox as technical director
The Manchester United Supporters Trust (Must) has described the club raising ticket prices to “eye-watering” levels as a “kick in the teeth” after it was announced it will cost up to £97 to attend Premier League matches at Old Trafford.
United have a new four-category system, increasing the cost of tickets for the most in-demand matches. Fixtures against Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle and Tottenham will be placed in category A, where prices range from £59 to £97.
In the second episode of Along the Green Line, reporter Matthew Cassel heads north to the occupied West Bank, visiting Tulkarm, a Palestinian city under siege by Israeli forces. Tens of thousands of residents have been forced from their homes, but just over the border in Israel, residents here are experiencing a very different reality.
In this three-part series we're traveling along the 1949 Armistice line or ‘Green Line,’ - once seen as the best hope for a resolution - and meeting Palestinians and Israelis living just kilometres apart.
Eleven Palestinians were killed or injured on Tuesday morning after Israeli forces opened fire on a crowd waiting for food trucks in central Gaza, civil defence officials in the devastated territory have said.
More than a hundred Palestinians have died in recent days after being targeted by the Israeli military in Gaza as they gathered near food distribution centres or on routes along which trucks were expected to travel.
How can anyone call Rubens’ sumptuous masterpiece Samson and Delilah a ‘fake’ and ‘a shoddy artefact’? The Flemish master is simply doing a superb job of copying his own favourite outlaw artist
Samson, a huge muscular hunk of a man, slumbers in the lap of his seducer Delilah, in a bedchamber sumptuously lit by candle. As Delilah looks down on the unconscious form of the great biblical hero, her accomplice is cutting the very tangled locks that hold his superhuman strength. Meanwhile, at the door, soldiers are waiting by torchlight. At the heart of it all is Samson’s rippled naked back, nestled on the woman’s pink silk skirts.
Is this a painting by the Flemish baroque master Peter Paul Rubens? Hell, yes. The wonder is that anyone would ever think otherwise. And yet some do. Michael Daley and his campaigning group ArtWatch UK, and the art historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis (among others), are getting traction with their claims that the National Gallery owns a “fake” or “modern copy” and is covering up that reality.
Cuesta due to become Italian club’s head coach at 29
Arsenal preparing to make move for Sesko or Gyökeres
Mikel Arteta is poised to lose one of his key lieutenants at Arsenal, with his 29-year-old assistant Carlos Cuesta expected to join Parma to take a first head coach’s role.
The Spaniard, regarded as one of the world’s best young coaches, flew to Italy on Wednesday to finalise his appointment. Cuesta is in line to replace Cristian Chivu, who left for Inter to take over from Simone Inzaghi, and would become the second-youngest head coach in Serie A history.
The first time the teams played at Optus Stadium the Blues won 38-6 in 2019. The last time, the Blues won 44-12 to level the 2022 series. Home from home.
What does Cameron Munster make of captaining Queensland? “It’s everything. As a kid you always wanted to play for Queensland and I never thought I’d have the opportunity to captain this beautiful team and this beautiful state. So to be able to do that tonight, I’m very proud. I can’t wait to lead them out.” Beautiful.
Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Wednesday that direct US military assistance to Israel could radically destabilise the situation in the Middle East, where an air war between Israel and Iran has raged for six days.
In separate comments, the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, was quoted as saying that the situation between Israel and Iran was now critical.
Colleagues speak of Hortman’s legislative accomplishments, a ‘steely negotiator’ who went into politics ‘to do something, not to be something’
A group of white male lawmakers were playing cards in a back room while their female colleagues gave speeches on the Minnesota house floor. They weren’t paying attention, and Melissa Hortman had had enough.
“I hate to break up the 100 percent white male card game in the retiring room,” Hortman said in 2017. “But I think this is an important debate.”
Trump-related products are popping up all over the US – with the profits guaranteed to never help those who buy them
If you want to demonstrate your fealty to Donald Trump through the medium of branded merchandise (and who doesn’t?) there are ample ways to do so. You can pick up a Trump bible and some of Melania’s lovely “Vote Freedom” jewellery. You can stay in one of his hotels, golf in his resorts, and get yourself a Trump watch. You can buy some of the Trump-branded cryptocurrency that has made the family extremely rich. You can also, as announced on Monday, buy a gold Trump smartphone for just $499 and use Trump mobile as your service provider for $47.45.
I know what you’re thinking. All this is wonderful, but where are the Trump-branded home goods? How can I demonstrate my loyalty to the president while cooking stew in my kitchen? Well, I have great news. Because capitalism is relentless, the Instant Pot brand is coming out with a Trump-inspired design. (Instant Pot, if you’re not familiar, is a pressure cooker that gained a cult-like following several years ago, then went on a downward spiral when it was bought by a private equity firm.) The company is apparently planning various products emblazoned with “Make America Great Again”.
A new exhibition looks back at the ‘anti-communist’ witch-hunt that affected many Americans, in particular the Hollywood Ten
There’s no shortage of comparisons with the second Trump administration to the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany, but perhaps the more apt comparison is to the Red Scare in postwar America. Blacklisted, a new show at New York Historical, profiles the lives of the so-called Hollywood Ten, who were creatives caught up in the Communist witch-hunt – to disastrous consequences affecting their lives for decades thereafter. It brings to mind suggestive, and uncomfortable, parallels with politicized persecution in the US today.
“At this point, TV was just beginning to become influential,” said Anne Lessy, an assistant curator who coordinated the show. “There was a lot of anxiety around these mass entertainments and how much power they had, in part because the second world war effort had been so successful in propaganda. A lot of the blacklisted artists were important in those efforts.”
British Antarctic Survey finds one breed of seal has declined by 54% since 1977
Antarctic seal populations are drastically declining as the sea ice melts around them, new research has shown.
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have been monitoring the seal population in the sub-Antarctic since the 1970s, looking in particular at three different seal species in the sub-Antarctic on Signy Island: Weddell seals, Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals.
Tuesday’s vote in parliament was a missed opportunity – and proof that progressives are allowing the right to shape the key debates
Around the world, the antis are joining forces. Whether anti-abortion, anti-transgender, anti-immigrant, anti-human rights or just anti anyone who doesn’t look like them, they are collaborating; amplifying one another and sharing their political and cultural successes. Their rhetoric now dominates our discussions, and increasingly our ballot boxes. In response, some argue caution or even capitulation – as if we can stop the public being dragged to the extremes if we speak in hushed tones or water down our ambitions for social justice. As we witness the consequences of this, it is time to speak up for those values that drive us to show that another future is possible.
On Tuesday, parliament had the opportunity to set abortion in England and Wales on the same modern, regulated footing as it is in Northern Ireland: as a human right. Instead, a vote on this was explicitly blocked by the providers of this service and their supporters, telling MPs to back another amendment, to get a single exemption from prosecution for women “over the line” instead. That is what happened. In contrast, my proposed amendment would have gone further, offering “protection to all those involved in ensuring that women can access safe and legal abortions”.
The 2026 tournament will feature more teams and more air miles travelled than ever, casting doubt upon ambitious climate goals
As next summer’s World Cup approaches, excitement is building for the biggest global soccer tournament ever held, but so too are concerns over the viability and environmental sustainability of the vastly expanded competition.
Held across 16 cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico, the 2026 World Cup will see the tournament expand from 32 nations to 48 competing for soccer’s most coveted prize. It will be a tournament of unprecedented scale both in terms of the number of teams, and the vast geographical expanse it will cover.
Ellen Roome suspects her 14-year-old was taking part in a ‘blackout challenge’ when he died. But she can’t access his online accounts – so she has given up everything to take on the social media giants
The last day of Jools Sweeney’s life, 13 April 2022, was sunny and fun-filled. It was the Easter holidays and Jools, who was 14, had spent the day with a bunch of friends in Cheltenham, where he lived. They played football. They walked through fields to a lake and tried to reach the middle in a small wooden boat. Back home, he and a friend had pizza for dinner, then got the fire pit going and toasted marshmallows. At 8.46pm, his friend left, leaving Jools, an only child, on his own. Their laughter as they said goodbye was recorded on the Ring doorbell.
Jools’s mum, Ellen Roome, had been out all day but she had been in constant contact with her son. At 9.56pm she rang him to say she would be back soon – she rang three times but there was no answer. When she arrived home, less than 20 minutes later, with her then-partner, she went straight to Jools’s room, just to say hello, and for a moment, made no sense of what she saw. “I said: ‘What are you doing?’” says Roome. “I remember thinking he was messing around. Then I screamed and screamed.” Roome’s partner, a pilot trained in first aid, rushed upstairs and delivered CPR. The house filled with firefighters, paramedics, police officers, Jools’s dad who lived close by, and Roome’s dad, too. Jools was defibrillated. Eventually, a detective took the family aside and said they needed to stop treatment. “We were told that even if they brought him back, he’d be brain dead,” says Roome.
New setting mists that provide a cool and comfortable finish are perfect for summer
I have never known a category soar as suddenly as setting spray. It existed for aeons, with the best of them (Urban Decay’s All Nighter, £29.50, which still has second-to-none longevity) rarely threatened by anything new. But countless sprays have launched in the past year, all of them promising to significantly increase the lifespan of makeup.
There’s an argument that “fixing sprays” and “setting sprays” have different purposes (locking down makeup versus providing a more unified, less powdery finish, respectively), but I dismiss it because it’s based on the generous assumption that the marketeers who name products according to popular Google search terms give a hoot for semantic nuance. Here, I mean sprays that do all of the above, drastically reducing makeup fade and wear, even during dancing, hot flushing or perspiring.
It is not just Trump’s funding cuts that have led the country to a health crisis. The real collapse comes from a lack of political courage to act
No one should be surprised that the health system in South Africa is straining in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s cruel gutting of HIV funding. What is shocking is the political will to pretend otherwise.
As public health workers, researchers, academics, people living with HIV and civil society organisations, we reject the narrative put forward by the government that things are “under control”. Testing has dropped. Frontline workers are being dismissed. Clinics that served our most marginalised communities have closed or are struggling to keep their doors open. And those most affected, such as transgender people, sex workers and drug users, have not been meaningfully included in any transition planning. The National Treasury and the Department of Health are at odds with each other. Officials within the health department are at odds with each other.
Liverpool are believed to be willing to let Joe Gomez leave Anfield this summer and there are no shortage of suitors for the England international. Sunderland, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Everton, West Ham, Leeds, and Burnley have formed a disorderly queue for the 28-year-old who is valued at £30m.
Despite not having done business with West Ham since 2011 because he does not get on with the club’s owners, the Tottenham Hotspur chair Daniel Levy is prepared to bite the bullet in an effort to bring Mohammed Kudus to north London. The Ghanaian has an £85m release clause on his contract but Spurs are believed to be preparing to test the waters with a £50m lowball offer.
Liverpool begin the defence of their Premier League title with a home game against Bournemouth on an opening weekend of the 2025-26 season that sees Manchester United host Arsenal.
Arne Slot’s champions, who are likely to contain the £100m signing Florian Wirtz, kickstart the new campaign at Anfield on Friday 15 August. The following day sees Thomas Frank’s Tottenham take on newly promoted Burnley, with Scott Parker’s side handed a daunting opening set of fixtures on their return to the top flight. After the visit to Spurs comes trips to both Manchester clubs and Aston Villa, as well as the visit of Liverpool to Turf Moor, all by early October.
Andrew Jassy tells white collar workers that such technology means fewer people will be needed for some jobs
The boss of Amazon has told white collar staff at the e-commerce company their jobs could be taken by artificial intelligence in the next few years.
Andrew Jassy told employees that AI agents – tools that carry out tasks autonomously – and generative AI systems such as chatbots would require fewer employees in certain areas.
Nintendo has slept on new games for its new handheld but clockwork-puzzle murder missions, an RPG reborn and a beefed-up Yakuza 0 are the highlights from other developers
The Nintendo Switch 2 certainly makes a strong first impression, but once that gadget limerence begins to fade, it’s down to the games to stave off any creeping buyer’s remorse. We all know that Mario Kart World is undoubtedly a multiplayer masterpiece, and original Switch games from Pokémon Scarlet/Violet to Zelda have been updated to look amazing on the new console, but there’s otherwise a severe lack of Nintendo-made launch games for the Switch (beyond the £8 tech demo, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour).
Thankfully, other developers have stepped in to fill the gap, releasing a bunch of updated versions of games that have been out on other consoles for a while. What should you pick up when you’re tired of Mario Kart World?
In this powerful documentary, six former inmates revisit their old cells to reflect on the childhood trauma and domestic abuse that led them to prison
You can be told the statistics: 30% of women in prison spent time in care as children, and 70% have been the victim of domestic abuse. But what this powerful documentary from Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson (the latter of whom is the director of just-released film Lollipop) does is to demonstrate the cruelty and injustice of a system that incarcerates the vulnerable.
Shot in 2021, it follows six women returning to HMP Holloway in London before demolition began a year later. In the first scenes, they walk back into the prison, some into their old cells. The building is abandoned, ivy creeps up through the floorboards, but it’s still Holloway: “Fuck, I remember this smell,” says one. During a week-long workshop the women – brave and unfailingly articulate – share their stories. All of them experienced trauma in childhood, most masked it with drugs or alcohol, or unhealthy relationships. Of the six, two are now charity CEOs: Aliyah Aliand Mandy Ogunmokun, who both work to support disadvantaged women. The poet Lady Unchained is also in the group.
From buzzards in Oxfordshire to cranes in Kent – how once common birds left their mark in British place names
Old place names recall old ways of belonging.They often reference characteristics of the land or its use, the people who lived there, or the non-human lives they were enmeshed with. A great many of these vivifying genii loci are birds, although their identities aren’t always obvious because language evolves over time. We need a guide.
Enter Michael Warren: teacher of English, amateur ornithologist and a man who lives in a Britain different to the one most of us inhabit: a medieval one, which by some magic has “survived in another dimension parallel to our own”. The gift he bestows in this gorgeous book is that, by the end, we live there too, newly able to read the growth rings of place, and to perceive an alternative land shimmering over the one we already know.
Iran said on Wednesday it had detained five suspected agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency on charges of “tarnishing” the country’s image online, Iranian news agencies reported.
“These mercenaries sought to sow fear among the public and tarnish the image of the sacred system of the Islamic Republic of Iran through their calculated activities online,” Tasnim and SNA news agencies quoted a statement from the Revolutionary Guards as saying.
EU foreign policy chief says Russia is a direct threat to Europe and has plan for long term aggression
And speaking of Russia’s impact on its neighbours, let’s quickly go to Miranda Bryant in the Nordics and see how the region monitors the global threat of war, terror and piracy on seas from its Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre.
The European Commission has insisted there will be no return to Russian gas, as it published plans to phase out fossil fuel imports from its eastern neighbour by 2028.
I decided to ditch my sleek, neat hair for chemical-free afro styles and noticed how differently I was treated. Changing my hairstyle has never just been about fashion – what it symbolises culturally runs far deeper
At the start of 2023, a couple of months after a trip to Jamaica with friends, where we spoke extensively about our hair, I made my first new year resolution in more than a decade. I was going to try a wider variety of hairstyles. For most of my 20s, I had two styles: long, dark, medium-sized box braids (where hair is divided into square sections, and each is then braided into a single plait) or, very occasionally, a weave. Now, I decided, I would switch things up – whether trying a new colour, length or type of braid.
This may not seem groundbreaking but for me it genuinely was. It was never just about hair, it ran deeper than that. I had come to realise that my own understanding of stereotypes about Black women had been learned from years of experiencing microaggressions: from comments on how good my English was, despite being British, or being followed around supermarkets by security guards – as well as seeing how women who looked like me were portrayed on TV. Without my knowing, on some level, I had become increasingly conscious of the “vibe” I was giving off, before I even spoke. This, in turn, had influenced my hair, dress sense, and, at times, my very behaviour. I wanted to break free from internalised prejudices I didn’t even realise I had.
“During the Liechtenstein v Scotland game there was a reference to Billy Gilmour scoring more goals for Scotland (2) than his various clubs (0). But has a recognised striker ever finished their career with more goals for their country than their clubs?” asks Stuart McLagan.
The structure of women’s football in North America, particularly before the NWSL was founded in 2012, makes it the likeliest source of an answer to this question. There was no league at all in the US between 2003 and 2009, and to this day players sometimes appear more for their country than their club in a calendar year.
The death of Turki al-Jasser was the first high-profile killing of a journalist since the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi
The tweet posted by Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser in 2014 was chillingly prescient: “The Arab writer can be easily killed by their government under the pretext of ‘national security’,” he wrote.
On Saturday, the Saudi interior ministry announced that al-Jasser had been executed in Riyadh, for crimes including “high treason by communicating with and conspiring against the security of the Kingdom with individuals outside it”.
Put in the proper wider context, the attendance issues that have emerged during the tournament perhaps aren’t quite as embarrassing as they seem
If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it’s that images of nothingness can still generate hysteria. Empty seats – which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football, a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup, an issue demanding alarmist coverage delivered with brows fully furrowed – have been commonplace in the competition’s opening dozen games. Headlines (including from this very publication) have followed. Social media is awash in panoramic photos from a nation of press boxes, informing you incredulously that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff – or (gasp) even closer.
Why do we, the fans, observers, journalists, and other people who simply watch these games, care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention?
Stuttgart striker is tournament’s top scorer so far and could stand in way of England’s hopes of reaching the knockouts
If there was any doubting Nick Woltemade’s star quality, a brilliant hat-trick in Germany’s opening match of the European Under-21 Championship against Slovenia showed the beanpole striker with numerous nicknames is the real deal. Known variously as Woltemessi, the Tower of Stuttgart, Goaltemade or just plain old Big Nick, he has been the standout player of the first two rounds of matches in Slovakia, having helped to book his side’s place in the quarter-finals with another goal in their win over the Czech Republic on Sunday.
With England up next as Germany attempt to seal top spot in Group B and avoid a meeting with the favourites, Spain, in the last eight, the coach, Antonio Di Salvo, has a decision to make. Such has been Woltemade’s success this season that he was also called up by Julian Nagelsmann for the senior squad’s Nations League games and made his debut against Portugal in the semi-final less than a fortnight ago.
A young gay Black man escapes from grief into the hedonism of upper-echelon New York, in a lyrical tale of redemption
Lives can turn on one mistake. Smith’s comes when he is caught in the corner of a restaurant in the Hamptons on the last night of summer, snorting cocaine from a key. He walks calmly out with the two khaki-clad police officers, poses for a mugshot and posts his $500 bail.
Smith is Black, which won’t help, but he comes from wealth, which will. So he calls his sister, who calls his father in Atlanta, who tells his mother, who collapses on the floor in shock then starts calling lawyers. Smith prepares for his court date with a series of AA meetings and counselling sessions that will make it clear that this promising young man is on the road to redemption.
This people’s museum is crammed with curios donated by Dublin residents. A major facelift has added a library, archive and exhibition on ‘fearless women’
There are certain museums around the world that go beyond their role of housing artefacts and somehow seem to act as portals to the past. The Frick Collection in New York and Marcel Proust’s cork-lined bedroom at the Musée Carnavalet in Paris both hum with a timeless energy that transcends the exhibits on display. The Little Museum of Dublin is also such a space.
Within seconds of ascending the stairs of this beautiful four-storey Georgian townhouse at 15 St Stephen’s Green, a different era appears to take hold. The modern world disappears and I imagine myself back in Georgian times, when this red-bricked terrace was built along with so many of the beautiful squares and parks throughout the city centre.
From Greek customs to a Kenyan returning home, this year’s winners of the OpenWalls Spotlight award show how migration shapes our culture – and the power of ancient rituals
As international tensions mount and hackers grow more sophisticated and audacious, the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre is constantly monitoring the global threat of war, terror and piracy
Ships being taken over remotely by hackers and made to crash is a scenario made in Hollywood. But in a security operations room in Oslo, just a few metres from the sparkling fjord and its tourist boats, floating saunas and plucky bathers, maritime cyber experts say not only is it technically possible, but they are poised for it to happen.
“We are pretty sure that it will happen sooner or later, so that is what we are looking for,” saysØystein Brekke-Sanderud, a senior analyst at the Nordic Maritime Cyber Resilience Centre (Norma Cyber). On the wall behind him is a live map of the ships they monitor and screens full of graphs and code. Two little rubber ducks watch over proceedings from above.
Act swiftly and these steps could help mitigate the damage from a sim-swap scam and prevent it happening again
Your mobile phone line is the artery through which data, calls and texts flow. It is also used to prove you are who you say you are for a plethora of accounts, from banks to messaging services.
But if it gets hacked or stolen, in what is known as a “sim swap” or “simjacking”, the consequences can be far worse than just being cut off from mobile data or calls. Unfortunately it is the kind of hack you don’t see coming. It happens in the background, with hackers using your personal data such as date of birth and address to con your network provider into swapping your phone number to a new sim in their possession.
Keep an eye on notifications from your mobile network, which are usually delivered by SMS. These include information about activity elsewhere and alerts of change requests, such as your phone number being activated on another device.
Be aware of scams. Fraudsters may and try to trick you out of information using fake notifications. If you receive a message asking you to get in touch, double-check that any number you are given is legitimate before calling, or use a number from the provider’s website or a bill.
Any loss of service that prevents calling, texting or accessing mobile data and is not explained by outages or missed payments may be a sim-swap attack.
Loss of access to various accounts such as your bank or social media linked to your phone number could indicate hackers are in the process of trying to break in or have already changed your password and stolen the account.
Frequently review statements and account for unexpected charges, which may be a sign that you’ve been hacked.
Call your provider on the customer service number listed on its site using another phone. Have your phone number and details ready, including any account passwords you may have set. Explain what has happened and make sure your provider begins the recovery process and investigates how this has happened.
Ask your provider to block any “charge to bill” activity.
Contact your bank, crypto and other financial services immediately to ensure the hackers cannot get into your other accounts, which are typically their primary targets.
Contact your immediate family and anyone who could fall victim to a scammer pretending to be you and texting from your number.
Check any account you use your phone number for two-step verification. Change the two-step method if you can and set a new strong password.
Check your WhatsApp and other messaging services that use your phone number as the user ID.
Activate any and all security measures on your provider’s account. This includes using a strong password and two-step verification, and setting a sim pin on your phone, as well as adding a telephone customer service password and a sim transfer pin, if available.
Find out from your provider how the hack happened, and if possible, what personal data was used to break into your account. Consider using fake security question answers that cannot be guessed rather than real ones, just make sure you store them safely such as in a password manager.
Set a spend cap on your phone account.
As soon as you are sure you have full control again, reactivate two-step verification on your accounts and transition any that you can to authenticator app-based two-step verification, which is more secure.
Set pins on messaging services such as WhatsApp or Signal to make it much harder for someone else to register new devices or take over your account.
Contact your financial services providers to reactivate your accounts but keep watching out for fraud and query any unexpected transactions.
Look at your social media and other public-facing accounts for any information that could enable criminals to steal your identity to perform hacks such as this.
Sympathetic docu-biography centres on the conceptual artist deemed ‘too shocking for punk’ who inadvertently spawned the industrial music genre
Genesis P-Orridge was the performance artist, shaman and lead singer of Throbbing Gristle who was born as Neil Megson in Manchester in 1950, but from the 90s lived in the US. P-Orridge challenged gender identity but it is clear from the interviewees that there were no wrong answers when it came to pronouns: “he”, “she” and “they” are all used. This is a sympathetic and amiable official docu-biography in which the subject comes across as a mix of Aleister Crowley, Charles Manson and Screaming Lord Sutch. The “P-Orridge” surname makes me suspect that Spike Milligan might have been an indirect influence, although there’s also a bit of Klaus Kinski in there as well.
Genesis P-Orridge, known to friends and family as Gen, started as a radical conceptual artist, rule-breaker, consciousness-expander and tabloid-baiter who with Throbbing Gristle influentially coined the term “industrial music”, a term later to be borrowed without acknowledgment by many. They were, in the words of Janet Street-Porter, shown here in archive footage, “too shocking for punk”. P-Orridge formed a new band, Psychic TV, in the 1980s, and then also formed a group of likeminded occultist provocateurs called Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. (The film tactfully passes over how very annoying that spelling is.)
As I punched and shouted, I knew I didn’t have to be demure, delicate or diplomatic. I could be as fierce as I wanted. Those three minutes set me free
On meeting me, you would never guess that I used to be an angry person. I’m talkative, sociable and self-possessed – but for nearly 20 years I lived with a quiet fury. It started with my parents, whose strict conservatism restricted everything in my life: what I ate, what I wore, where I went, what I thought. As immigrants from Bangladesh, they believed that control was the best way to protect their daughters, but it suffocated me.
I had to fight to go to university – for all the things that men in my community were given as a right. At first, my anger felt ambient – mild and ever-present – but it became something harder, more bitter, when I was pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 24.
Aviation journalist Jeff Wise on the crash of flight AI171, in which at least 270 people died, and how one passenger in seat 11A managed to survive
Air India flight AI171 took off from Ahmedabad airport on the afternoon of 12 June with 242 people on board. Less than a minute later, it had crashed into a medical college about 1km away.
Including those on the ground, at least 270 people were killed. But one passenger miraculously survived. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a British national sat in seat 11A, was able to walk away from the scene – though, as he found out soon after, his brother had died on board.
For over a decade, lab-grown meat has been hailed as the food of tomorrow – a plate changing technological innovation that is right around the corner. Now, in Australia, tomorrow has finally come.
After a two-year-long approval process, Food Standards Australia New Zealand has given Australian food technology startup Vow foods the green light to sell three products made from cultured quail cells.
Playmaker says he will stay on for the last year of deal
Silva says City players ‘very used to’ gruelling schedule
Bernardo Silva will captain Manchester City at the Club World Cup, with the Portuguese player saying he could leave the club when his contract expires next June.
The 30-year-old signed in the summer of 2017 and is one of Pep Guardiola’s most trusted players, a status reflected in the manager nominating him to lead the campaign to claim the inaugural 32-team competition in the US.
A tangy pea, potato and coconut curry, and a soupy, spicy delight from northern India – and both meat-free
The sweetness of fresh green peas works so well with Indian curries and spices, and June is the month to make the most of them, because they’re now at their peak. Even the empty pods have so much flavour and sweetness, which makes them perfect for a quick salad on the side (toss thinly sliced raw, blanched or even griddled pods with chopped tomato, sliced onion and coriander, drizzle over some fresh mint raita and sprinkle with chaat masala). Blanch the fresh peas without any seasoning before you make the curry, then add them to the simmering gravy near the end. You can swap them for frozen peas, too, if you like.
Tyranny is contagious – and western governments’ reluctance to name the threat is helping it spread
There is no founding charter or admissions process to the self-selecting group of “leading” economic powers that currently numbers seven. It was the G8 from 1997 to March 2014. Then Russia annexed Crimea and had its membership suspended, establishing the rule that participating nations should not seize their neighbours’ land.
The White House used to condemn that sort of thing on the grounds that “it violates the principles upon which the international system is built”. These days, not so much. On Sunday, shortly after arriving for a G7 meeting in the Kananaskis resort in Alberta, Donald Trump told his host, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, that Vladimir Putin’s expulsion from the club had been a “big mistake”.
On 9 July, join Pippa Crerar, Rafael Behr, Frances O’Grady and Salma Shah as they look back at one year of the Labour government and plans for the next four years
Garments thrown out by consumers from Next, George, M&S and others found in or near conservation areas
Clothes discarded by UK consumers and shipped to Ghana have been found in a huge rubbish dump in protected wetlands, an investigation has found.
Reporters for Unearthed working with Greenpeace Africa found garments from Next in the dump and other sites, and items from George at Asda and Marks & Spencer washed up nearby.
The company said AI-made music accounts for just 0.5% of streams on the music streaming platform but its analysis shows that fraudsters are behind up to 70% of those streams.
In just a few days of war, Israel has killed more than a dozen of Iran’s top nuclear scientists, taken out much of its top military hierarchy and attacked key parts of its nuclear programme.
It has been a powerful display of Israeli military and intelligence dominance, but has not critically damaged Iran’s widely dispersed and heavily protected nuclear programme, Israeli military commanders and international nuclear proliferation experts agree.
Tinder is trialling a height filter, following in the footsteps of some other popular apps. What is behind the ‘6ft fixation’ in dating – and could it be scuppering the chance of true connection?
Height is often seen as a dealbreaker when it comes to romance, particularly within heterosexual relationships. But when Tinder recently said that it was trialling a feature that allows some premium users to filter potential matches by height, it quickly proved controversial. “Oh God. They added a height filter,” lamented one Reddit thread, while an X user claimed: “It’s over for short men.”
“I’ve experimented with not putting my height on my dating profile, or lying about it just to see, and the number of likes I get shoots up massively,” says Stuart, who is in his 50s and from the Midlands. “I know I get screened out by the majority of women from the off.” At 5ft 7in (170cm), Stuart is just two inches below the UK and US male average height of 5ft 9in, but a height filter would probably prevent him from receiving as many matches.
As the Trump administration’s security focus shifts towards countering China, European governments are living on borrowed time
Call it the five-for-five summit. When Nato leaders meet in The Hague next week, European allies will sign up to a phoney transatlantic bargain in which they pretend they will spend 5% of their economic output on defence and Donald Trump pretends in return that he is committed to Article 5 of the Nato treaty, the mutual defence clause that he has repeatedly undermined.
The Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, is deploying all his considerable political wiles and powers of persuasion to contrive a short, “no surprises” summit at which fundamental differences over Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, trade, the Middle East and liberal democratic values are deliberately excluded.
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final on Tuesday night, becoming the NHL’s first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021, and the third team to do so this century.
Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming just the fourth player in league history to achieve the feat in a Stanley Cup final game. His third to complete the hat-trick sent rats, along with hats, flying on to the ice. Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the franchise, fittingly scored the Cup clincher.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on the island of Flores, east of Bali, erupted on Tuesday afternoon, leading to several airlines cancelling flights
A volcano in eastern Indonesia has spewed a colossal ash tower into the sky, forcing the cancellation of dozens of flights to and from Bali.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,584m twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, east of Bali, erupted at 5.35pm local time on Tuesday, the volcanology agency said in a statement.
First civilian-led military simulation bringing together teams from the US, Taiwan and Japan revealed a series of potential vulnerabilities
A series of war games in Taiwan has highlighted significant vulnerabilities in how the island and its supporters would respond to a Chinese annexation attempt, as well as growing questions over how much reliance can be placed on the volatile Trump administration.
Last week former senior military and government officials from the US, Japan, and Taiwan convened in Taipei for a tabletop exercise, led by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation. The event was described as the first civilian-led military simulation held in Taiwan, testing responses to a hypothetical attempt by China to annex the territory.
Relations between the two countries broke down in 2024, after Canada accused India of involvement in the assassination of a Sikh separatist
India and Canada have agreed to return ambassadors to each other’s capitals, turning the page on a bitter spat over an assassination, as Canada’s new leader welcomed his counterpart Narendra Modi.
Prime minister Mark Carney, who took office in March, invited Modi to the Canadian Rockies as a guest at the summit of the Group of Seven major economies.
Media mogul faces allegations of creating ‘coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic’ in lawsuit seeking $260m in damages
Tyler Perry has been accused of sexual harassment, workplace gender violence and sexual assault in a lawsuit from an actor who said the media mogul used his influence and power to create a “coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic”.
In the suit filed in Los Angeles last week and first reported on Tuesday, Derek Dixon, who worked on Tyler Perry’s shows Ruthless and The Oval, said Perry promised career advancement but subjected him to “escalating sexual harassment, assault and battery”. Dixon alleges he was subjected to harassment and abuse by Perry while he “held direct control over his employment, compensation, and creative opportunities” and that he faced retaliation when he did not respond favorably to his advances.
Exclusive: Video and documents give rare glimpse inside daily life of the imprisoned civilian leader as she nears her 80th birthday
Rare footage of Aung San Suu Kyi inside a Myanmar courtroom and detailed records of her daily prison routine have been seen by the Guardian, offering a glimpse into the life of the country’s ousted civilian leader as she nears her 80th birthday.
Since the military seized power in February 2021, little has been seen or heard of Aung San Suu Kyi, who led Myanmar for six years before her arrest. She is held in solitary confinement with access to the outside world strictly controlled and only rare supervised visits from her legal team.
California senator details being restrained and warns of how democratic norms can slip away when power is unchecked
Alex Padilla took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to deliver a deeply personal speech, formally entering into the congressional record his account of being restrained and forcibly removed as he attempted to ask a question at a press conference held by the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, in Los Angeles last week.
In emotional remarks, Padilla described the encounter that he hoped would serve as a “wake up call” for Americans – a warning, he said, of how quickly democratic norms can slip away when dissent is silenced and power is unchecked.
Tulsi Gabbard, the US director of national intelligence, delivered a concise verdict during congressional testimony this March: the intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and supreme leader Khomeini [sic] has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003”.
As he rushed back to Washington on Tuesday morning, Donald Trump swatted aside the assessment from the official that he handpicked to deliver him information from 18 US intelligence agencies. “I don’t care what she said,” said Trump. “I think they were very close to having one.”