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Stephen Graham, Jodie Comer and Ariana Grande among new invited film Academy members

The annual list of creatives invited to join the Academy also includes Andrew Scott, Gillian Anderson, Mikey Madison and Jason Momoa

Stephen Graham, Jodie Comer and Ariana Grande are among the names invited to join the film Academy in this year’s just announced list.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended the invite to 534 names this year, up from last year’s total of 487.

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© Photograph: Kate Green/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kate Green/Getty Images

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Juventus v Manchester City: Club World Cup 2025 – live

Manchester City have only beaten Juventus once in seven previous meetings. That victory came in the first round of the Uefa Cup in September 1976, Brian Kidd scoring the only goal of the first leg at Maine Road. Much good it did the Citizens, who lost the return leg in Turin 2-0, Gaetano Scirea and Roberto Boninsegna with the goals at the Stadio Comunale. Names that evoke some proper old-school Italian glamour, right there. Since then, it’s been slim pickings for City, with two draws and four defeats against the Bianconeri. The latest of those losses came just seven months ago, during City’s downright strange mid-season misfire. An opportunity for City to right some historical wrongs tonight.

The big news for City: Rodri starts a match for the first time since succumbing to injury against Arsenal last autumn. Or is this the big news: Erling Haaland is back on the bench. Take your pick.

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© Photograph: Nathan Ray Seebeck/IMAGN IMAGES/Reuters

© Photograph: Nathan Ray Seebeck/IMAGN IMAGES/Reuters

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Republicans in turmoil after Senate parliamentarian rejects Medicaid cuts in Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ – live

Some Republicans call for Elizabeth MacDonough, who enforces Senate rules, to be fired after she rejects slew of major provisions

By taking military action, Trump “created the conditions to end the war, decimating, obliterating Iran’s nuclear capabilities”, Hegseth says, contrary to early US intelligence findings reported yesterday that suggested US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites did not destroy two of the sites and only set program back by months.

Hegseth starts off by praising Trump’s “game-changing” and “historic” achievement in getting most of the Nato allies to raise the defense spending to 5%.

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© Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

© Photograph: Nathan Howard/Reuters

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One in four young people in England have mental health condition, NHS survey finds

Rates are three times as high in young women as in young men and mental ill health up across age groups, study shows

Sharp rises in rates of anxiety, depression and other disorders have led to one in four young people in England having a common mental health condition, an NHS survey shows, with young women three times more likely than men to report them.

The study found that rates of such conditions in 16- to 24-year-olds have risen by more than a third in a decade, from 18.9% in 2014 to 25.8% in 2024.

More than a fifth (22.6%) of adults aged 16 to 64 have a common mental health condition, up from 18.9% in 2014.

More than one in four adults (25.2%) reported having had suicidal thoughts during their lifetime, including about a third of 16- 24-year-olds (31.5%) and 25- to 34-year-olds (32.9%).

Self-harm rates have quadrupled since 2000 and risen from 6.4% in 2014 to 10.3% in 2024, with the highest rates among 16- to 24-year-olds at 24.6%, especially young women at 31.7%.

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© Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

© Photograph: David Cheskin/PA

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‘A bit like a new era’: Lauren James on England’s Euro 2025 ambitions

Chelsea forward on the way her brothers sharpened her skills and how the country can get behind the Lionesses

‘I think it was in me from when I was young,” says Lauren James of the fierce competitive drive that has taken her from playing football with her brothers, Josh and Reece, in a park behind their house in Mortlake, south-west London, to England’s opening match of Euro 2025 against France in Zurich on 5 July. The 23-year-old returns from injury as the most likely catalyst for England’s hopes of remaining European champions because she has the skill and tenacity to be one of the tournament’s standout players.

“It helped playing with my brothers all the time,” James says as she reflects on a footballing journey when her prodigious talent has blossomed with Chelsea and England while being tested by insidious abuse and racism. We need two interviews to get a little closer to the tangled heart of her story, but her natural reticence and reluctance to open up deserves respect.

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© Photograph: The FA/Getty Images

© Photograph: The FA/Getty Images

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Brain injuries hearing: ‘no safe number of times’ a footballer can head the ball

  • Former players in joint action against FA, EFL and FAW

  • Claimants include family of World Cup hero Nobby Stiles

There is “no safe limit” for heading a football, the high court heard, as lawyers acting for former players who suffered permanent brain injuries sought to advance their case against the game’s authorities.

Claimants in the case argue that the authorities should have made players aware of the risks they were taking by heading a ball as far back as the 60s, claiming that information on the danger of repeated blows to the head was in the public domain.

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© Photograph: Sebastian Widmann/Bundesliga/Bundesliga Collection/Getty Images

© Photograph: Sebastian Widmann/Bundesliga/Bundesliga Collection/Getty Images

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High flyer to pariah: the saga of Epstein-linked banker Jes Staley

How a relationship with a billionaire child sex offender brought down the CEO of Barclays bank

In 1999, the future Barclays chief executive Jes Staley was gearing up for his biggest job yet. As head of JP Morgan’s private bank, he would be in charge of a sprawling team that managed money and investments for some of the world’s richest people.

Among them was the mysterious but well-connected billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he would quickly develop a “fairly close professional relationship”.

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© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex

© Photograph: Tayfun Salcı/ZUMA Press Wire/Rex

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Note to Starmer and the other sabre-rattlers. Why spend billions on weapons – soft power would keep us safe | Simon Jenkins

With hawks on one side and doves on the other, we ignore the obvious fact that engagement is the best defence against conflict

‘Toadying”, “slavish”, “cringe-worthy” were the words hurled at Nato’s Mark Rutte for the praise he heaped on Donald Trump. But words cost nothing. Keir Starmer went further. He dug into his pocket and gave Trump $1.3bn for just 12 aeroplanes. He promised never to use them, or put any bombs in them, without orders from Washington. He might as well have enrolled in the United States Air Force.

Starmer is engaged in a strategic shift in Britain’s global stance – from soft power to hard. He has clearly received the notorious initial briefing that so moved Tony Blair and led him eventually to war in Iraq. It induced David Cameron to spend billions on aircraft carriers that he had intended to cancel. Now the government warns in its strategic review that Britain needs to prepare for the possibility of being attacked on its own soil. Perhaps Starmer agrees with Nato’s Rutte that the British people “better learn to speak Russian”.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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

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© Illustration: Thomas Pullin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Thomas Pullin/The Guardian

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Bantock: The Seal Woman album review – Celtic folk opera that never quite gets its head above water

Howard/Carby/Scottish Opera/Andrews
(Retrospect Opera, two CDs)

Granville Bantock’s story of a Selkie emerging from the sea is a century-old curio whose beauty has faded over the years

Except perhaps in Birmingham, where his memory is still cherished for what he did for the city’s music, including co-founding the CBSO, Granville Bantock (1868-1946) has slipped quietly into the margins of 20th-century British music. But as well as being an academic and conductor, Bantock was a prolific composer, with a work list including four symphonies, five concertos and nine operas, of which the last, the “Celtic folk opera” The Seal Woman, is easily the best remembered now.

The premiere of The Seal Woman in 1924 was the Birmingham Repertory theatre’s first production; librettist Marjory Kennedy-Fraser took the main role of the Cailleach, whose dreams and visions tell the story of the Selkie, seal-people who emerge from the sea every seven years to live on land, shedding their skins to take human form.

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© Photograph: Benjamin Hamilton

© Photograph: Benjamin Hamilton

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Edward Burtynsky: ‘My photographs are like Rorschach tests’

The photographer’s images of environmental degradation are both stunning and haunting, and make up a captivating new survey

Few if any photographers have done more than Edward Burtynsky to shape our view of the large-scale industrial production that is a constant, ever-expanding part of the capitalist system. Since the 1980s, he has created more than a dozen multiyear series, tackling extractive industries like mining and oil refining in India, China and Azerbaijan, traveling to such disparate places as Western Australia, Chile’s Atacama desert and the so-called ship graveyards of Bangladesh.

Often taken from high in the sky, his photos offer views of industrial landscapes that attend to color and pattern with a sophisticated eye reminiscent of abstract expressionism, while also forcing us to contend with the devastating transformations to the natural world required to sustain our way of life.

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© Photograph: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

© Photograph: Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York

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‘A lot has been learned’: Lando Norris on McLaren talks after his crash into Piastri

  • British driver insists ‘things have come out stronger’

  • ‘It’s important Oscar and I keep the trust and honesty’

Lando Norris has insisted he and McLaren will come back stronger after the British driver’s title ambitions took a blow when he had to retire at the Canadian Grand Prix having made an error in hitting his teammate Oscar Piastri on track.

Norris was challenging Piastri for fourth place in Montreal when he attempted to pass and made what he later described as a “stupid” mistake. The pair were approaching turn one and Norris ran out of room when trying to take the inside line, clipped the back of Piastri’s car and was edged into the pit wall, sustaining damage that took him out of the race. Piastri went on to finish fourth and the championship leader is 22 points ahead of Norris in the title fight.

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© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Canadian Press/Shutterstock

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Kardashians, critics and copycats kick off €40m Bezos wedding bash

Private jets and super-yachts deliver guests to three-day event protesters say will turn city into playground for rich

The world’s rich and famous have arrived in Venice as the three-day wedding bash hosted by the Amazon billionaire, Jeff Bezos, and his wife-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, gets under way amid protests in the lagoon city.

The US reality TV personalities Kim and Khloé Kardashian were spotted clambering into water taxis in stilettos, while Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom and Jordan’s Queen Rania have also been seen.

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© Photograph: Matteo Chinellato/ipa-agency.net/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Matteo Chinellato/ipa-agency.net/Shutterstock

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IOC’s Kirsty Coventry announces ‘scientific approach’ to protect ‘female category’

  • Task force of scientists and federations to revise policy

  • Trans and DSD athletes expected to be banned from female category

Kirsty Coventry has said there is now “overwhelming support” among International Olympic Committee members to protect the female category in a significant shift in its gender eligibility policy.

Coventry, who was chairing her first meetings as the IOC’s new president, said that a taskforce of scientists and international federations would be set up within weeks to come up with a new policy.

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© Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA

© Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott/EPA

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Purple heart army veteran self-deports after 50 years from ‘country I fought for’

Green card holder Sae Joon Park left for South Korea after saying he was being targeted by Trump administration

A US army veteran who lived in the country for nearly 50 years – and earned a prestigious military citation for being wounded in combat – has left for South Korea after he says past struggles with drug addiction left him targeted by the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“I can’t believe this is happening in America,” Sae Joon Park, who held legal permanent residency, told National Public Radio in an interview before his departure Monday from Hawaii. “That blows me away – like [it is] a country that I fought for.”

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© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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Israel closes the most direct route for aid to Palestinians in Gaza

Blockade will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as Spain PM Pedro Sánchez describes situation as ‘genocide’

Israel has closed crossings into northern Gaza, cutting the most direct route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, as airstrikes and shelling killed dozens more people in the devastated Palestinian territory.

The move to close the crossings on Thursday will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as attention shifts from its brief conflict with Iran, back to the violence and grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

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© Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA

© Photograph: Haitham Imad/EPA

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The arithmetic is tricky for a Shell bid for BP today. Next year may be different

Shell says it has ‘no intention’ of making an offer for BP. But if its share price rises, the numbers could work

BP is a sitting duck for a takeover bid by most criteria. Its share price has underperformed rivals’ for years. The latest strategic “re-set” was a bits-and-pieces production involving disposals, which do not happen overnight, plus a dilution of green energy ambitions that upset one sub-set of shareholders and didn’t go far enough according to another. Meanwhile, the chair, Helge Lund, is set to exit next year after being pursued by an activist investor.

So Shell, the most credible possible bidder by a distance, would be asleep at the wellhead if it were not taking a look and calculating what costs could be removed, which development licences it fancies and how regulators and governments might react. That’s standard stuff, and Shell, one assumes, will have maintained a version of such modelling for about 20 years, which is roughly as long as tales of a combination of the two companies have been running.

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© Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

© Photograph: Julian Smith/AAP

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Did The Simpsons really just kill off a major character?

The 36th season of the long-running comedy ended with a surprise flash forward to the death of a family member but it’s less a twist and more a sign that it can’t last forever

  • Spoilers ahead

The Simpsons is getting experimental in its old age. With 36 seasons complete and a renewal through a 40th secured, the show has entered territory previously occupied mostly by non-prime-time stalwarts like Saturday Night Live and Meet the Press – television institutions that run for much longer than the typical sitcom or drama. Perhaps conscious that the animated comedy has now lasted five to 10 times longer than a normal sitcom, the 36th season has repeatedly toyed with the idea of what a series finale might look like, even though no such thing is anywhere in sight.

For the season’s premiere back in the fall, it created a fake series finale, hosted by Conan O’Brien, that featured forever-10-year-old Bart turning 11 and reacting badly to a number of finale-style abrupt changes to the status quo. And in the last episode of season 36, Estranger Things, the show flashed forward to a future where family matriarch Marge has passed away and a gradual estrangement has developed between now-adult Bart and Lisa. (Homer remains alive, with the show repeatedly underlining how unlikely it seems that he would outlive his patient, cautious and seemingly healthy spouse.)

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© Photograph: Fox

© Photograph: Fox

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Bugonia: first trailer for new Emma Stone and Yorgos Lanthimos collaboration

Actor and director who worked on Kinds of Kindness and Poor Things reunite for a dark comedy about a kidnapping

The first trailer for Bugonia has arrived, offering a first look at the latest collaboration between Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone.

The acclaimed Greek film-maker and the American actor have previously worked on The Favourite, Poor Things and, most recently, Kinds of Kindness. The relationship has netted Stone an Oscar nomination and a win.

Well, actually just this one is one of the few times that I read a script that I hadn’t generated or I hadn’t been developing for a long time, and I was immediately drawn to it. And then I did a little bit of work with the writer Will Tracy in order to make it a little bit more my own. It’s just one of these things that something clicks in the story, in the tone. Again, something you probably haven’t done before, working with the same actors, like working with Emma again and Jesse, it’s just exciting to get into it, do something different, but also with that kind of familiarity.

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© Photograph: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

© Photograph: Atsushi Nishijima/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

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Members of British Jewish body suspended after criticising Israel to launch appeal

Board of Deputies representatives hit by disciplinary action say they remain ‘deeply concerned’ about Gaza war

Thirty-six elected representatives to the UK’s largest Jewish organisation are to appeal against disciplinary action taken against them after they criticised the Israeli government’s operations in Gaza, and have said they remain “deeply concerned” about the war.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews announced on Tuesday that five of the group would be suspended for two years and 31 would be reprimanded for breaching its code of conduct after a two-month investigation.

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© Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian

© Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Guardian

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Mamdani faces barrage of Islamophobic attacks after New York primary success

State assembly member subjected to death threats and xenophobic rhetoric from Republican figures

“Hamas terrorist sympathizer”, “jihadist terrorist”, calls for deportation and predictions of another 9/11 – these are among the torrent of Islamophobic attacks that have erupted across social media and conservative political circles following Zohran Mamdani’s success in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor.

The 33-year-old state assembly member, a democratic socialist who would become the first Muslim mayor of America’s largest city, has been subjected to a barrage of death threats and xenophobic rhetoric from prominent Republican figures and online activists since his primary win became apparent.

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© Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

© Photograph: Julius Constantine Motal/The Guardian

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Group of high-profile authors sue Microsoft over use of their books in AI training

Writers alleged that company used nearly 200,000 pirated books to train its Megatron artificial intelligence

A group of authors has accused Microsoft of using nearly 200,000 pirated books to create an artificial intelligence model, the latest allegation in the long legal fight over copyrighted works between creative professionals and technology companies.

Kai Bird, Jia Tolentino, Daniel Okrent and several others alleged that Microsoft used pirated digital versions of their books to teach its Megatron AI to respond to human prompts. Their lawsuit, filed in New York federal court on Tuesday, is one of several high-stakes cases brought by authors, news outlets and other copyright holders against tech companies including Meta Platforms, Anthropic and Microsoft-backed OpenAI over alleged misuse of their material in AI training.

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© Photograph: Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images

© Photograph: Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images

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Just Biber album review – Podger rises brilliantly to these sonatas’ extreme challenges

Rachel Podger/Brecon Baroque
(Channel Classics)

The baroque violinist remains true to the spirit of Biber’s music on a new recording of six extremely difficult sonatas, animal noises et al

Ten years ago, Rachel Podger made a fine recording of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber’s Rosary Sonatas for solo violin and continuo, each of which portrays an episode in the life of Christ. Now she adds a disc of more sonatas by arguably the most important baroque composer for the violin after JS Bach – five of the collection of eight that Biber published in 1681, as well as the quasi-theatrical Sonata Representivo, which may or may not have been composed by Biber and probably dates from 1669.

The pieces are all characterised by their extreme technical difficulty, and especially by their extensive use of scordatura, when individual violin strings are tuned differently from usual. Podger copes with all these challenges quite brilliantly, including imitating the sounds of animals in the Sonata Representivo; she brings an expressive freedom that never takes too many liberties, but remains true to the spirit of the music. If the works themselves are not quite as startling and vivid as the Rosary Sonatas, anyone who enjoyed Podger’s previous encounter with Biber will surely relish this one, too.

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© Photograph: Andrew Staples

© Photograph: Andrew Staples

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Hegseth defends Iran strike amid doubts over Trump’s ‘obliteration’ claims

Defense chief says US bombings degraded Iran’s nuclear sites, citing AI models over leaked intel doubts

The US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, has defended the US strikes on Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities and said that Donald Trump had “decimated … obliterated” the country’s nuclear program despite initial intelligence assessments that last week’s strikes had failed to destroy key enrichment facilities and they could resume operations within just months.

But he and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Dan Caine, largely based that assessment on AI modeling, showing test videos of the “bunker buster” bombs used in the strikes and referred questions on a battle damage assessment of Fordow to the intelligence community.

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© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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How we're killing our microbiome and kimchi alone won't save it – video

Our human microbiome is in decline, which is likely to be contributing to the sharp rise in non-communicable diseases, health conditions that cannot be directly transmitted between people, such as cardiovascular disease and cancers. Josh Toussaint-Strauss talks to Dr James Kinross, colorectal surgeon and author of the book Dark Matter: The New Science of the Microbiome, about why the human microbiome is in decline, how modern life is impacting it and what we can do to look after it

James Kinross also appeared recently on the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast, you can listen here:

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© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

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‘We’re seeing the best of LA’: as Ice raids haunt the city, Angelenos show up for each other

With the largest undocumented population of any US city, much of LA locks in with fundraisers, mutual aid networks and grocery deliveries

In the days after ramped-up immigration raids began in Los Angeles, 50-year-old Lorena, who has been running a tamale cart in Koreatown for decades, stayed home. So did her husband, who works as a day laborer.

Worried about paying their bills, both of them after a few days went back out to work.

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© Photograph: Lois Beckett/The Guardian

© Photograph: Lois Beckett/The Guardian

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On r/collapse, people are ‘kept abreast of the latest doom’. Its moderators say it’s not for everyone

A subreddit tracking apocalyptic news in a calm, logical way comforts users who believe the end times are now

The threat of nuclear war, genocide in Gaza, ChatGPT reducing human cognitive ability, another summer of record heat. Every day brings a torrent of unimaginable horror. It used to be weeks between disasters, now we’re lucky to get hours.

For many, the only sane solution is to stop reading the news altogether – advice often shared by therapists, self-help books and even newspaper articles.

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© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

© Composite: The Guardian/Getty Images

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The alarming rise of US officers hiding behind masks: ‘A police state’

Mike German, an ex-FBI agent, said immigration agents hiding their identities ‘highlights the illegitimacy of actions’

Some wear balaclavas. Some wear neck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes.

Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing up prominent Democratic critics.

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© Photograph: Olga Fedorova/AP

© Photograph: Olga Fedorova/AP

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Ex-world leaders call for ‘powerful shift’ as they warn of extreme inequality

Former leaders urge current state heads to work together to end poverty amid potential of first trillionaires emerging

The world is facing a looming crisis of inequality that could see the first trillionaires emerge while nearly half of humanity still languishes in poverty, a group of 40 former presidents and prime ministers warns.

In a letter seen by the Guardian, the group – which includes the ex-British prime minister Gordon Brown – issues a joint appeal to current world leaders for a “new economic coalition of the willing” to address the escalating threats of inequality, poverty and environmental breakdown.

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© Photograph: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Juan Mabromata/AFP/Getty Images

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Supreme court paves way for South Carolina and other states to defund Planned Parenthood

Decision could embolden red states in US to block clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid funds

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US government’s main health insurance program for low-income people. About 80 million people rely on it.

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© Photograph: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

© Photograph: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

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Mamdani stood firm in his support of Gaza. The Democratic party could learn from him | Yousef Munayyer

Few issues highlight how out of touch Democratic leaders are than the issue of Palestine – Mamdani chose a different path

As the ballots were counted on Wednesday in the Democratic primary election for mayor in New York City, a young candidate with little national name recognition, Zohran Mamdani, stood atop a slate of candidates including the runner-up, and favorite, Andrew Cuomo.

There are several reasons why Mamdani was able to pull off this remarkable victory, putting him on track to compete favorably in the mayoral election in November, and many of them have implications for elections outside New York City.

But one area where the contrast between the candidates could not be clearer was on the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Mamdani, for his part, stood with protesters, demanded the release of Mahmoud Khalil, and called out Israel’s war crimes. Mamdani even pledged he’d have the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, an indicted war criminal, arrested if he came to New York City while he was mayor. Cuomo, on the other hand, volunteered to be part of Netanyahu’s legal defense team before the international criminal court.

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© Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

© Illustration: Guardian Design/Getty Images

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Ben Affleck has dated more Jennifers than there are famous Rebeccas. It’s time for us to rise up | Rebecca Shaw

We need more Rebeccas to become stars. If it’s too late for us, we need a new generation of possibly powerful Rebeccas

As someone from a big family who has a lot of procreation-aged friends, not a week goes by without the announcement of a new baby joining us. I love it, of course, and I’ll always give the baby its first “Like”.

My favourite part, however, besides the miracle of newborn life etc, is finding out what those people have called the child. I want to know all the names. I’ll click on the baby announcements of people I know, people I don’t know, and I’ll definitely click on a birth announcement from a celebrity, even if I’ve never heard their name before. It might surprise you to learn that I am not in the habit of judging these names, though. This is for two reasons – one, I’m a bogan from regional Queensland, I’ve heard names you can’t even imagine. And two, I have sympathy for the job!

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© Photograph: AaronAmat/Getty Images/iStockphoto

© Photograph: AaronAmat/Getty Images/iStockphoto

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What would you do with a scarily lifelike doll of your own mother? This is what a seven-year-old did

Polish photographer Aneta Grzeszykowska captured her daughter interacting with an eerie silicone replica of herself in her dark and humorous series Mama

In one photograph taken by the Polish artist Aneta Grzeszykowska, her seven-year-old daughter Francziska stands on the weedy banks of the Liwiec River, dressed in a purple swimsuit and denim shorts. Francziska has her face turned towards the boggy water; beside her, sitting inside a wheelbarrow, is her mother’s torso.

In the next ambiguous image, Francziska holds her mother’s head underwater. In the another, the two float, Ophelia-like, side by side.

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© Photograph: Aneta Grzeszykowska

© Photograph: Aneta Grzeszykowska

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Closing arguments begin in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex-trafficking trial

High-profile case enters its final stage after more than a month of testimony from 34 witnesses

Closing arguments began on Thursday morning in the federal sex-trafficking trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, signaling the final stage of the high-profile case.

Assistant US attorney Christy Slavik began her closing argument by describing Combs as the “leader of a criminal enterprise” who “doesn’t take no for an answer”.

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© Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

© Photograph: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters

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‘A new chapter begins’: Cristiano Ronaldo signs new two-year Al Nassr deal

  • Portuguese star will be 42 when deal ends in June 2027

  • News brings recent transfer speculation to a close

Cristiano Ronaldo has signed a new two-year deal at Al Nassr, extending his stay with the Saudi Pro League team to June 2027, when the forward will be 42.

“Al Nassr Club Company officially signed a contract extension with Cristiano Ronaldo,” the Riyadh-based club posted on X. “[The] Al Nassr captain’s contract will be valid until 2027.”

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© Photograph: Al Nassr Football Club/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Al Nassr Football Club/AFP/Getty Images

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In Tehran, we’re asking: what is this madness achieving for the people of Iran, Israel or the US? | Haleh Anvari

We are a country at war now – and while we try to restore our lives, we wonder how the Islamic republic will react to the past 12 days

On the morning after the 12th day of Israel’s war on Iran, those of us who had managed to get some sleep after Monday night’s heavy strikes in the heart of the city woke to text messages saying there was a ceasefire.

It turned out this was a three-way win, with all the parties congratulating themselves as the victors. Donald Trump managed to fly his B-2s all the way from Missouri without any help. No doubt it was a beautiful bombing. It hit the last target – the behemoth Fordow, deep in the mountains.

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© Photograph: Wana News Agency/Reuters

© Photograph: Wana News Agency/Reuters

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Test developed to identify women at increased risk of miscarriage

Study discovered abnormal process in womb lining, with potential for new treatments to prevent pregnancy loss

Scientists have developed a test to identify women with an increased risk of miscarriage, which could pave the way for new treatments to prevent pregnancy loss.

About one in six of all pregnancies are lost, most before 12 weeks, and each miscarriage increases the risk of another one happening.

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© Photograph: John Fedele/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

© Photograph: John Fedele/Getty Images/Tetra images RF

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UK study shows 8% of children aged eight to 14 have viewed online pornography

Ofcom says research shows need for stricter age checks being introduced in July, which most major sites have signed up to

Nearly one in 10 children aged eight to 14 have watched online pornography, according to the UK’s communications watchdog, as most adult content providers gear up to adopt stronger age checks ahead of a 25 July deadline.

Ofcom published research showing that 8% of children aged eight to 14 in the UK had visited an online pornography site or app over a month-long period. Boys aged 13 to 14 were the most likely viewers, with two out of 10 visiting adult sites.

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© Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

© Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

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EU leaders mull US tariff response as deadline looms over Trump’s 50% threat

European Commission expects to hear on Thursday whether leaders want quick trade deal or tough reaction

European leaders will tell the European Commission later on Thursday whether they want a quick trade deal with the US, or favour a tough response to Donald Trump’s tariff threats.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is expected to update EU leaders over dinner on Thursday on trade talks with the US ahead of a looming 9 July deadline.

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© Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

© Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

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Al Pacino on how he got his Modigliani film off the ground after 30 years

Exclusive: Actor talks of difficulties of getting ‘art film’ made about tortured artist, played by Riccardo Scamarcio

He is one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, having made his name in the 1970s gangster classic The Godfather. Yet, despite his fame and Oscars recognition, Al Pacino struggled for 30 years to make a movie about one of the 20th century’s greatest artists because “art films” are “always difficult to get off the ground”.

He refused to give up on a drama about Amedeo Modigliani, a tortured genius who faced repeated rejection before his life was cut short in 1920 by tubercular meningitis, aged 35.

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© Photograph: Sam Sarkar

© Photograph: Sam Sarkar

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