Fans flocked to Huntington Beach on Friday to watch top canine athletes compete in the Purina Pro Plan Incredible Dog Challenge surf contest

Raids have brought life to a standstill for some immigrant residents while others pick up pieces after arrests of family

It has been eerily easy to find street parking in Los Angeles’s fashion district this week. In the nearby flower district, longtime vendors have locked up stalls. And in East LA, popular taquerías have temporarily closed.

Neighborhoods across LA and southern California have gone quiet since the Trump administration ramped up immigration raids in the region two weeks ago.

‘Profound concern’ as administration says Afghanistan safe to return to despite dangers posed by Taliban regime

Thousands of Afghans who fled to the US as the Taliban grabbed power again in Afghanistan are in mortal dread of being deported back to danger in the coming weeks amid the Trump administration’s anti-immigration crackdown.

Many, including some who assisted US forces in Afghanistan before the botched withdrawal by the military in 2021, are contending with threats to their legal status in the US on several fronts.

The celebrated designer, 90, is believed to be saving his energy for his haute couture show in Paris next month

Giorgio Armani, the celebrated Italian designer and one of the most recognisable names in fashion, is to miss his shows at Milan fashion week this weekend due to ill health, for the first time in the label’s history.

A statement released by the brand on Saturday morning said the 90-year-old designer was “recovering at home” and “will not be present at the two shows as he usually is”. According to la Repubblica, his absence comes after a brief stint in hospital.

Seb Hines and Giles Barnes have transformed the fortunes of Orlando Pride

To followers of women’s football in the US, they are the English coaching duo who have delivered unprecedented success to a previously trophyless club. To English football fans with particularly sharp memories, they are the former Middlesbrough and Derby youngsters who left to play in the MLS. To each other, Seb Hines and Giles Barnes are just old mates, stretching back to their days sharing a room on England youth international camps.

“It brings an unwavering trust. We can challenge each other and there’s no ill intent behind it,” is how Barnes sums up the benefits of a head coach and his assistant being longtime friends. Yet the unlikely chain of events that led to their reunion in Florida is almost as improbable as Orlando Pride leaping from 10th place to the title in two years.

The attacks on lawmakers and a US senator’s callous reaction tell a dark tale of modern America

In the early morning of 14 June, according to authorities, Vance Luther Boelter, disguised as a police officer and wearing body armor and a face mask, drove his black Ford Explorer SUV, equipped with flashing lights, to the home of the Minnesota state senator John Hoffman. There, he shot Hoffman nine times, critically wounding him, and shot his wife eight times as, relatives say, she threw her body over her daughter to shield her. He next drove to the home of the former house speaker Melissa Hortman, forced his way in, and killed her and her husband, officials say.

The police arrived and Boelter fled, abandoning his car. In it they allegedly discovered a “kill list” of dozens of federal and state Democratic officials, mostly from Minnesota but also prominent Democrats in other midwestern states, and the sites of women’s healthcare centers and Planned Parenthood donors. He left behind notebooks with detailed descriptions of his target locations. On the lam, Boelter sent a text message to his family: “Dad went to war last night.”

Trump’s $499 gold phone is only the latest ask of the Maga faithful to show their commitment in dollar terms

“I like thinking big. I always have. To me it’s very simple: if you’re going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big.”

Those were Donald Trump’s words to writer Tony Schwartz in the Art of the Deal. In his second term, Trump has been thinking big about making money. Since his reelection campaign began, Trump is estimated to have more than doubled his net worth to $5.4bn.

• Onana was dropped by Ruben Amorim last season

• Monaco also monitoring Chelsea’s Djordje Petrovic

Monaco have shortlisted André Onana as a potential signing this summer but the goalkeeper is intent on staying at Manchester United and proving his worth to Ruben Amorim next season.

The Ligue 1 club are admirers of the 29-year-old and are also thought to be monitoring Chelsea’s Djordje Petrovićc. Onana, however, is keen to remain at United despite his patchy form at the club.

When the extent of the university’s involvement with slavery was unearthed, a scholar tracking descendants of enslaved workers was suddenly fired

Jordan Lloyd had been praying for something big to happen. The 35-year-old screenwriter was quarantining in her apartment in North Hollywood in June 2020. Without any work projects to fill her days, she picked up the novel Roots, by Alex Haley, to reread.

The novel tells the story of Kunta Kinte, Haley’s ancestor, who is captured and sold into slavery in the Gambia and then brought to Virginia, where he is forced to labor on a plantation. It was adapted into an Emmy-award winning television series in the 1970s, and while reading it again, Lloyd thought to herself, “Wouldn’t it be nice if they could make another Roots?”

David Litt’s new book It’s Only Drowning centres on an improbable friendship and how shared experience provides a neutral ground for connection

What do men want? Democrats need to know after their election drubbing by Donald Trump and the “manosphere” last year. They have responded by commissioning “Speaking with American Men”, a strategic plan that will study “the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality” in online spaces.

News of the two-year $20m project reinforced critics’ view that Democrats have become the party of an aloof, college-educated liberal elite whose pursuit of working class men resembles a Victorian explorer wielding a butterfly net. Which makes the publication of David Litt’s book, It’s Only Drowning, a timely contribution to Democrats’ ongoing post-mortem.

She made her name with rage-fuelled anthems – and sold 75m records in the process. Now, with a highly anticipated Glastonbury slot, the California-dwelling earth mother is ready to let rip again …

Alanis Morissette asks which version of her I wish to hear from: “The hormonal bitch who has a lot to say? The people-pleasing, kind, amenable part? They’re all here.” It’s 9am in sunny Los Angeles and the ­Canadian-born singer-songwriter is ­wearing a slouchy top, her wavy hair loose. She’s long been aware of these different “parts”, that her life is full of contradiction. “I have 14 different opinions about one thing.” It’s why, aged 19, she wrote Hand In My Pocket (lyrics include: I’m high, but I’m grounded / I’m sane, but I’m ­overwhelmed), one of several anthems on Jagged ­Little Pill, the album released 30 years ago this month. Back then, in the unenlightened 90s, people found this sort of talk unnerving. “They were like, ‘Whoa, that’s scary. What are you talking about?’”

“They called it my ‘psychobabble’. I’m like, ‘I’m going to stay the course with my psychobabble.’” It’s what she sees as her “karmic assignment” and feels not a little vindicated now that these ideas are welcomed by the mainstream. There’s a whole seam of psychotherapy that views the mind as composed of distinct “parts”, called Internal Family Systems. Morissette speaks at the symposiums, as well as summits on trauma, or wholeness verses wellness, career, art and feminism. She hosted a podcast devoted to this stuff. “The healing arts,” she says, adding drily: “I am from California, never forget that. California, because if I were in any other state my head might explode.”

Authors including Anne Enright, Michael Rosen, Samantha Harvey and Rutger Bregman reveal their books of the summer

• Summer reading: the 50 hottest books to read now

• The 10 best audiobooks for summer
  

Zadie Smith
For me summer reading is about immersion. Three novels fully absorbed me recently. Flesh by David Szalay is a very smart and stylish novel about the 1%, filtered through the life of a Hungarian bodyguard/driver in their midst. Cécé by Emmelie Prophète (out 23 September) vividly depicts the slums of contemporary Haiti via a very online young sex worker who lives her best life on Facebook. Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie features a series of unforgettable women trying to work out what love means. The summer read I’m looking forward to myself is Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, a true original.

David Nicholls
I would recommend two books, 800 pages and a shade under 150, depending on what you can carry. Helen Garner’s collected diaries, How to End a Story, are frank, gripping and revealing about family, marriage and the writing life, while Anthony Shapland’s debut, A Room Above a Shop, is a small, tender love story, almost a poem.

• Updates from Headingley, play from 11am BST

• Day one report | Reaction | Email Rob

89th over: India 368-3 (Gill 132, Pant 69) India still have a fair bit of batting to come: Karun Nair, Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur. England would love to gain access to Nair, playing his first Test in eight years, while the ball is new. Gill will be aware of that – he is batting in his bubble, playing every ball on its merits, which in this case means a maiden from Woakes.

“Good morning,” writes John Starbuck. “Another puzzle, neurologically speaking, is why so many Test players go for a double-digit choice as their playing number. It must have begun with Joe Root 66, understandably a mild pun, but it looks like there’s a superstition going around. In the system used by some sides, each player has a number according to their debut, counting from the very beginning of Tests, so why not use that? I suppose they feel that anything which boosts confidence gives you an edge and there’s not much to be done about it. Confirm?”

Islamabad says US president helped resolve India conflict but critic says ‘Israel’s sugar daddy in Gaza’ not candidate for any prize

Pakistan has said it will recommend Donald Trump for the Nobel peace prize for his work in helping to resolve the recent conflict between India and Pakistan.

The move, announced on Saturday, came as the US president mulls joining Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Paying theatregoers have bemoaned watching Don’t Cry For Me Argentina on livestream while passersby experience it live for free. But is it a seven-minute stunt worth waiting for?

Move over Romeo: theatre’s second most famous balcony scene has stolen the show.

Every night this week Rachel Zegler has emerged halfway through Jamie Lloyd’s production of Evita at the London Palladium to sing its biggest number to the Oxford Circus crowds. Last weekend the Hollywood ingenue was serenading surprised shoppers, but since her performance of Don’t Cry For Me Argentina went viral it’s become the hottest (free) ticket in the West End.

This image captures the passion and solemnity of an Islamic ritual in Iran

For Meysam Hamrang, this image was years in the making. The Iranian photographer took it in 2019 at a religious ceremony in the village of Masuleh, part of a historic city in the northern province of Gilan, Iran.

“On the sixth day of Muharram – the first month of the Islamic calendar – Shia Muslims mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussein in a ritual called Alam Bandan,” says Hamrang. “It’s held in a 1,200-year-old shrine. People from surrounding villages gather to participate in, or observe, the ritual.”

People locators, 3D weapon blueprints, tactical planning – all accessible on the web for potential attackers or terrorists

A rash of recent assassinations have brought on congressional scrutiny and concern among law enforcement agencies who are wary of an age of political polarization turning deadly.

But experts say the violence is as much a byproduct of the times as it is the easy accessibility to DIY murder tradecraft, evident in some high-profile slayings of late.

You don’t have to be a fan of Tucker Carlson to enjoy the spectacle of a Republican civil war

You have to admit that there’s something delicious about watching Ted Cruz get served his just deserts by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. In a nearly two-hour long interview on Carlson’s own channel and in Cruz’s Washington office, Carlson repeatedly grilled, roasted, and fried the Texas senator, exposing a deepening rift within the Maga movement and showing us the hollowness of our so-called leaders along the way.

You don’t have to be a fan of Carlson to enjoy the spectacle of a Republican civil war. Carlson, who once hosted a show on CNN, established his reputation on Fox News and then became “a racist demagogue and promoter of far-right disinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories”, as a 2023 profile in Mother Jones described him. While at Fox, he was for a time the highest rated personality on cable TV and was deeply influential in setting the conservative agenda. On air at Fox – and in this essay for Politico – he praised Trump. Off-air, he was texting his colleagues a different opinion: “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Carlson wrote in a text sent on 4 January 2021. “I truly can’t wait,” he wrote, adding: “I hate him passionately.”

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

Wembley Stadium, London
Amid exercise videos, confetti cannons and guest star Jamiroquai, Lipa maintains an old-school superstar steeliness as she works up a sweat in the summer heat

Call it temperature-induced delirium, but when Dua Lipa kicks off her first stadium headline show the crowd is strangely mute. As slow-motion images of crashing waves appear on the screens, augmented by a sound bath-esque drone, the effect it has on the sweltering cauldron in north-west London is close to trance-like. When Lipa finally pops up, standing statuesque at the top of an infinity symbol-shaped stage and resplendent in a white crystal leotard, everyone quickly surrenders to the heat.

It’s a white-hot start, too. Despite relatively lacklustre sales of her third album, last year’s Radical Optimism, its second single, Training Season, whips up an early frenzy as 12 dancers spread themselves across the stage, a stomping Lipa inspecting them like a drill sergeant. By the time her house-y Calvin Harris collaboration, One Kiss, arrives, there’s a danger of peaking too soon.

Hacked credentials could give cybercriminals access to Facebook, Meta and Google accounts among others

• What to do if your email account is stolen – and how to stop it happening again

Internet users have been told to change their passwords and upgrade their digital security after researchers claimed to have revealed the scale of sensitive information – 16bn login records – potentially available to cybercriminals.

Researchers at Cybernews, an online tech publication, said they had found 30 datasets stuffed with credentials harvested from malicious software known as “infostealers” and leaks.

Series of allegations facing those around the PM have hit the reputation of the socialist-led minority government

Pedro Sánchez could be forgiven for remembering the autumn of 2018 with a deep and nostalgic sigh. Back then, having been in office for just six months, Spain’s socialist prime minister could afford to mock his opponents’ frequently hyperbolic attempts to depict him and his administration as an existential threat to the country.

“I know you think I’m a dangerous, extreme leftwinger who’s trying to break Spain apart,” he told the senate at the end of October that year. “I know that everything I do, and everything my government does, is illegal, immoral and even fattening.”

The former Vanity Fair editor on Hermès hankies, his daily 11am cigarette, and the ‘ugly lunacy’ of the Trump administration

Born in Canada, Graydon Carter, 75, moved to New York in 1978. He became a staff writer on Time magazine, followed by Life in 1983; in 1986, he co-founded the satirical publication Spy. He edited the New York Observer for a year before becoming editor of Vanity Fair in 1992; he retired in 2017. His memoir, When the Going Was Good, is out now. He lives in New York City with his third wife and has five children.

When were you happiest?
My first week in New York in 1978, when I was about to start as a writer at Time. And my first week in the south of France after retiring from my job of 25 years as editor of Vanity Fair.

The evidence against the Drax power station is damning, yet the government wants to continue its massive public funding

How green is this? We pay billions of pounds to cut down ancient forests in the US and Canada, ship the wood across the Atlantic in diesel tankers, then burn it in a Yorkshire-based power station.

Welcome to the scandal of Drax, where Britain’s biggest polluter gets to play climate hero. The reality is that billions in public subsidies has enabled Drax to generate electricity by burning 300m trees. Now the government is trying to force through an extension that would grant Drax an estimated £1.8bn in public subsidies on top of the £11bn it has already pocketed, keeping this circus going until at least 2031.

Dale Vince is a green energy industrialist and campaigner

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A deep crimson vegan version of the classic Persian dip featuring coconut instead of the yoghurt, and a bean medley spiked with an aromatic spiced oil

This fava bean dip is rich and luxurious, but made using quite humble ingredients. The broad beans on top make a perfect garnish, because they are, in essence, fresh fava beans, while the vadouvan seasoning, although untraditional, has the same sweet, warm and earthy flavours as the fava. Then, a take on a vegan borani, enriched with coconut cream instead of the more usual yoghurt. It hits the spot with its tang, heat and sweetness, with an intense beetroot flavour from the salt-baking and a generous dollop of pomegranate molasses to add punch.

Final stage of operation will allow investigators to try to find cause of fatal sinking during storm

Salvage teams in Sicily are working to bring Mike Lynch’s superyacht “fully and finally out of the water” on Saturday for the first time since it sank last year during a storm, killing seven people including the tech tycoon and his teenage daughter.

The white top and blue hull of the Bayesian, which ran into trouble off the coast of the Italian island in August last year, emerged from the sea on Friday to sit the holding area of a yellow floating crane barge.

From dazzling debuts to unmissable memoirs, prize-winning novels to page-turning histories … Plus our pick of paperbacks and children’s fiction

• Leading authors choose their perfect holiday reading

• The 10 best audiobooks for summer

Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
A rich exploration of female experience, Adichie’s first novel in 10 years charts the lives and loves of four women in Nigeria and the US, from a “dream count” of ex-boyfriends to a section inspired by Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s alleged rape of a Guinean hotel worker in 2011. Magisterial, wide-ranging and delicately done.

Those delivering paternalistic lectures to Sabrina Carpenter, Addison Rae and Sydney Sweeney would do well to revisit recent history

Sabrina Carpenter was accused of dragging women back into an unenlightened past last week, as the controversial cover for her new album was met with (apparently) feminist furore. It’s ironic, then, that the past is precisely where Carpenter’s most outspoken critics could do with looking. It’s clear that the general consensus is lurching grimly to the right when it comes to gender, and a new generation of young, female critics should be wary of falling into step. The debate about how we look at women, and what they want, risks limply missing the point.

In the past few weeks, Sydney Sweeney has been chastised for selling sexy soap, and Addison Rae scolded for dancing in her underwear on stage. It’s odd that the backlash has been so immense, given the celebration of Halina Reijn’s Babygirl film just a few months ago. The SheEO Nicole Kidman slurping milk out of a saucer? Hot. Sweeney’s dirty bathwater? Degrading and vapid. Seemingly, Kidman’s age made the former radically feminist, and by extension, permissible in the eyes of the kink police.

It has been an ominous week for the sport in the US but talk of a boycott of next year’s World Cup misses the point

Should we give it a miss? Is it best to stay away from next summer’s Trump-Infantino US World Cup? Depending on your politics the answer may be a resounding no or a bemused shrug. Some will see pure drive-by entertainment. Why would anyone want to boycott a month-long end-of-days Grand Soccer Parade staged by two of the world’s most cinematic egomaniacs?

But it is a question that has been asked, and will be asked a lot more in the next year. Those who intend to travel will need to answer it by action or omission. Would it be better for dissenting media and discomfited football fans to simply no-platform this event?

Uefa’s legal team is preparing for more action as a complex and increasingly common issue rears its head again

In the waterfront offices of Uefa’s House of European Football headquarters in Nyon, the legal team are preparing for an unwanted trip around Lake Geneva to Lausanne. Over the course of many internal meetings since Crystal Palace inadvertently provided Uefa with the toughest test yet of its multi-club ownership (MCO) rules by winning the FA Cup, it has become increasingly clear the ultimate arbiter on the issue is likely to be the court of arbitration for sport (Cas).

“We’re going to find out if our MCO rules stand up to scrutiny as, one way or another, it looks like we’re going to Cas,” says one source at Uefa, resigned to the issue of whether Palace can compete in next season’s Europa League being placed in the hands of that Lausanne court.

Spirit of Jane Birkin and her fisher’s basket is being channelled by luxury brands and high street alike

“When you start recognising that you’re having fun, life can be delightful,” said Jane Birkin. She was talking about champagne – but could equally have been talking about her popular basket, which is now arguably the accessory of the summer.

“It’s such a weird story, because as a useful bag it doesn’t really function,” says fashion historian Tony Glenville. The then CEO of Hermès, Jean-Louis Dumas, apparently watched as the contents of one of Birkin’s baskets spilled out on an Air France flight to London in 1984. The bag’s obvious design flaws – no zips or pockets – inspired Dumas to create the leather Birkin handbag.

Tennis’s great disruptor speaks on his highs and lows on Centre Court and the BBC’s ‘very strange’ decision to leave him out of the commentary box

Wimbledon runs through Nick Kyrgios’s tumultuous career with a mysterious force full of pain, glory and controversy. It is a tournament defined by history and restraint but, for Kyrgios the disruptor, it is also a place pitted with dark despair and sunlit magic.

The Australian has spent a night in a psychiatric ward while playing at Wimbledon and also been served with court orders and lawsuits during and after the 2022 championship that ended in him pushing Novak Djokovic so hard in a memorable final. But he has since struggled with injury and he will miss his third successive Wimbledon this year.

Andy Farrell will want players to display a bit of attitude as well as talent but Argentina showed it will take time

Swag is a word more common in the US than in this corner of the world. It’s a made-to-measure term for athletes with attitude as well as talent; a bit of showmanship to go with the substance. It helps sell the product. When we think of the Lions we like the idea of a bit of swag to go with the occasional success.

Scott Gibbs for example, on the 1997 winning tour to South Africa, the trip that rescued the idea of four countries merging into one and still having a relevance in the newly professionalised game. Or Brian O’Driscoll’s stunning impact on his first tour, in Australia in 2001. George North did the same thing in the same country in 2013.

After his rapid rise at Leverkusen, Liverpool’s new club-record signing is well set to step outside his comfort zone

When the Bayern Munich charm offensive starts in earnest, few players are impervious. When months of public flattery and declarations of interest in Florian Wirtz continued past the Rekordmeister’s title celebrations in Marienplatz and the departure of Xabi Alonso from Bayer Leverkusen, the whole of German football felt they knew which way the wind was blowing.

So it is an unpleasant surprise for Munich’s finest to see the red jersey Wirtz is holding up for the camera is not theirs, but that of Liverpool, who have signed him in a deal that could reach a British record £116m. Make no mistake: this is an authentic coup for the Premier League champions. How Wirtz came to choose a future in north-west England rather than southern Germany tells us much about the personality, as well as the player.

Iran’s foreign minister urges US not to join war after a night of strikes from both Tehran and Israel

• Full report: Israel says it has killed two al-Quds officials as Iran warns US against joining war

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, has urged more international support for Syria to speed up reconstruction and enable further refugee returns after 14 years of civil war, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“I am here also to really make an appeal to the international community to provide more help, more assistance to the Syrian government in this big challenge of recovery of the country,” Grandi told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of a visit to Damascus.

Iran is ready to consider diplomacy once again – once the aggression is stopped and the aggressor is held accountable for the crimes committed.

Singer trains underwater like Frank Sinatra once did and scientists say it may be useful in maintaining vocal prowess

Frank Sinatra did it his way, taking to the pool to boost his vocal prowess, and it seems Rod Stewart is singing from the same songsheet. Now scientists say the approach might not be somethin’ stupid.

Stewart, 80, is still entertaining fans with his raspy vocals and energetic stage performances and earlier this month he revealed that as well as running and playing some football, swimming also played a key part in his campaign to stay forever young.

Commuters share their views at the junction with the highest number of cycling accidents

It’s 8am in Clapham, the area of south-west London where young professionals and well-off homeowners are crammed into 2 sq miles of buzzy high streets, a leafy common and rows of terraced houses.

The popularity of the neighbourhood lies in its proximity to the city centre. A 4-mile hop to central London makes for an easy journey to work, especially for one kind of commuter: cyclists.

As the big day approached, I tried to brush aside feelings of uncertainty. But the 90s romcom reminded me that I didn’t have to settle for anyone

When my boyfriend proposed, I said yes – not because I was madly in love with him, but because it seemed like the correct thing to do. We’d been together for eight years and all of our friends were getting engaged; my life felt like a constant cycle of hen nights. I knew something was wrong but I suppressed it. Sometimes I’d get these flashes of anxiety. I’d worry about the fact that I no longer felt excited when my boyfriend walked into a room, or that we didn’t have sex any more – but I was 28, which at that point felt ancient to me, and I was frightened of being alone. I told myself I was experiencing nothing more than a classic case of pre-wedding jitters. I threw myself into buying the big white dress and designing the invitations. I planned to stash a bottle of gin in the church, so I could have a shot to calm my nerves before I walked down the aisle.

About three months before the wedding, I was home alone one evening and decided to watch Sleepless in Seattle. It was my father’s favourite film – he loved the classic jazz soundtrack and Nora Ephron’s dialogue. It had been on in the background a lot during my childhood and teenage years, so I was expecting it to be a comfort watch; something to almost lull me to sleep. I’d remembered the film as being about a man (Tom Hanks) and his cute son grieving the death of his wife. But that night I interpreted the film completely differently. I was sucked into the perspective of Meg Ryan’s character, Annie, who is engaged to a perfectly decent but slightly boring man – and deciding whether or not to call it off. I’d always seen Sleepless in Seattle as being about bereavement, but that night on my sofa, it felt like a film about one woman’s decision whether to get married, and play it safe, or give it all up and take a leap.

In the first in a series, the Guardian maps out the rise in support for Farage and how parties are targeting the UK’s deindustrialised areas

When Nigel Farage called for the nationalisation of British Steel on a visit to the Scunthorpe steelworks this spring, it was a marked change in direction for a man who had spent almost all of his political career campaigning for a smaller, Thatcherite state.

Two years earlier, he had questioned why British taxpayers’ money should be thrown into keeping the fires of the very same blast furnaces burning. Back in 2018 he told an interviewer: “I supported Margaret Thatcher’s modernisation and reforms of the economy. It was painful for some people, but it had to happen.”

In the Baltic nations, midsummer celebrations are rooted in pagan traditions around fire and fertility. They are also a good excuse to meet up with family and friends for a party in the forest

Towards dusk a bonfire was lit and, one after another, the friends we were eating and drinking with hurdled the leaping flames, a pagan ritual thought to provide benefits including improved physical and mental strength, prosperity and fertility.

Further heat came from a sauna we made using five sacks of logs – too many, we agreed afterwards. When it got too hot, we escaped into the cool shallows of the pond just a few metres away, repeating this cycle several times.