Judge blocks evidence from Luigi Mangione backpack in UnitedHealthcare CEO murder case

Luigi Mangione was apprehended by police in a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, days after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Ryanair has plans for 'armageddon' scenario as CFO warns weaker European carriers may not survive jet fuel crunch

Ryanair said it has plans for an "armageddon situation," amid the jet fuel crisis.

Middle East crisis live: Trump warns ‘clock is ticking’ for Iran to reach peace deal

US president says there ‘won’t be anything left’ of country if it doesn’t come to an agreement

• UAE blames Iran or its proxies for drone strike fire near nuclear plant

Friedrich Merz has been embroiled in a row with Donald Trump over his war on Iran ever since the German chancellor suggested the Trump team was being outplayed in its negotiations with Tehran and said he would not advise his children to study or work in the US in the current climate.

The Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, Deborah Cole, has looked at the declining relationship between the two leaders in this story. Here is an extract:

Disputes over trade and military aid for Ukraine have fuelled tensions between the US and its European allies and tested the Nato alliance.

Merz is struggling to revive an anaemic German economy and has said the impact of the US-Israeli military action in Iran and the ensuing closure of the strait of Hormuz has been severely damaging to European interests.

We strongly condemn the renewed Iranian airstrikes against the United Arab Emirates and other partners. Attacks on nuclear facilities pose a threat to the safety of people throughout the entire region. There must be no further escalation of violence.

Iran must enter into serious negotiations with the USA, stop threatening its neighbours, and open the strait of Hormuz without restrictions.

Greenland decries US doctor’s visit with Trump envoy as ‘deeply problematic’

Health minister issues stern rebuke, saying Greenlanders are not ‘experimental subjects’ of geopolitical interest

Greenland’s government has criticised the arrival of a US doctor in Nuuk alongside Donald Trump’s special envoy, Jeff Landry, saying that Greenlanders are not “experimental subjects”.

Joseph Griffin said he had joined the delegation as a volunteer to “assess the medical needs” of the Arctic island, which the US president has repeatedly threatened to invade.

Pressure on Mexico after two ex-officials surrender to US over alleged cartel ties

Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum denies any links between her Morena party and organized crime

Pressure is mounting on Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, after two former top officials from the country’s Sinaloa state – both members of her Morena party – gave themselves up to US authorities over alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

The state’s former security minister, Gerardo Mérida Sánchez, crossed the border into Arizona last week and was taken into custody by US marshals, Mexico’s security ministry said. Sinaloa’s former finance minister, Enrique Díaz Vega, was taken into custody in New York.

England play Tetris to build pyramid towards extending global dominance

Red Roses showed the hunger needed to defend World Cup in 2029 by clinching an eighth successive Six Nations

If the top of the pyramid is defending their Rugby World Cup title in 2029 then this Women’s Six Nations has formed the base from which England can build. The world champions won their eighth straight Six Nations and proved they can succeed even when they have to stretch their squad to the maximum.

Blooding new talent was always the plan for the head coach, John Mitchell, but not in the manner it happened. The team knew they would be without some of the pillars of their side because of retirement or pregnancy but the sheer volume of injuries is not something they could have foreseen. Stars such as Hannah Botterman, Alex Matthews and Morwenna Talling were ruled out for either all or large chunks of the tournament with others like Sadia Kabeya and Maddie Feaunati missing the odd game.

Josh Johnson: Symphony review – a masterful HBO special from a generational comedy talent | Tyson Wray

US comedian has a remarkable ability to transform amusing, if somewhat banal, anecdotes into meticulously crafted joy and preposterousness

In terms of both quality and quantity, Josh Johnson is producing standup at a more prolific rate than any other comedian on the globe. How often would you expect a professional comedian to release an hour-long filmed and edited set consisting of 100% brand new gear? Once a year? Every two years?

For Johnson, it’s every week. Every Tuesday since 2023, the American comic and rotating host-correspondent of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has uploaded fully fledged, highly topical routines to his YouTube channel. Filmed from his own tours and club drop-ins, many have eclipsed the 5m view mark. To call him a disruptor of the conventional comedy career path would be a heavy understatement; Johnson is playing by his own rules and the comedy cognoscenti around the world are undoubtedly watching with a keen eye.

U.S. creates $1.7B 'lawfare' fund in exchange for Trump dropping $10B IRS suit

Trump sued the IRS in late January over the leak of his tax information by an IRS employee Charles "Chaz" Littlejohn in 2019 and 2020.

Trump settles IRS lawsuit, sets up $1.7B fund for claims of "weaponization"

President Trump had accused the Treasury Department and IRS of unlawfully allowing a government contractor to leak his tax returns and those of his sons and company.

Starbucks Korea CEO resigns over ad evoking massacre of pro-democracy protesters

‘Tank Day’ event causes outrage with ‘malicious mockery’ of deadly crackdown during dictatorship era

The chief executive of Starbucks in South Korea has been fired after the company ran a promotional event using slogans that evoked a massacre of pro-democracy protesters during the country’s dictatorship era, sparking outrage and boycott calls.

The coffee chain launched a “Tank Day” campaign on 18 May for its “Tank” tumbler series. The date coincides with one of the most politically sensitive days in South Korea’s calendar, when citizens commemorate the 1980 democratisation movement in Gwangju, 167 miles (270km) south-west of Seoul.

U.S. announces Ebola-related travel restrictions amid outbreak in Congo, Uganda

The Trump administration announced it's restricting people who don't have U.S. passports from entering the country if they have been in Congo, South Sudan or Uganda amid the Ebola outbreak.

Tech firms face tougher UK rules on intimate image abuse

Ofcom to update codes of practice amid rise in ‘revenge porn’ and AI-generated deepfakes targeting women and girls

Social media, messaging platforms and online forums that publish intimate image abuse – often intended to humiliate women and girls – are being instructed to follow new guidelines to stop it spreading.

Ofcom said it would change its codes of practice to force service providers to detect and quash intimate image abuse – sometimes called “revenge porn” – and crack down on AI-generated deepfakes. A wave of deepfakes emerged in January when Elon Musk’s Grok AI was widely used to create sexualised videos of women in bikinis.

Could the UK really rejoin the EU? - The Latest

The Brexit debate has been reignited after Labour leadership contender Wes Streeting called it a ‘catastrophic mistake’ and said the UK should rejoin the European Union. His comments put pressure on rival Andy Burnham, who has previously advocated for rejoining the bloc but is fighting a byelection in the leave-voting Makerfield constituency. But how would rejoining work and would the EU even agree to it? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley

Meta layoffs starting this week stress harsh AI reality inside Zuckerberg’s company

Meta is starting layoffs this week, with 8,000 jobs expected to be cut, as employees brace for a new era of AI.

Luís Castro eclipses famous namesake after taking Levante to verge of safety | Sid Lowe

Unheralded coach has presided over a remarkable turnaround as club navigates La Liga’s epic relegation battle

Luís Castro was 11 when he started vomiting blood. Taken to hospital and diagnosed with purpura, initially doctors told his parents there was no chance of him living and even when he was cured they said he couldn’t do any physical exercise ever again. But three lonely years later, driven by an inner strength he ascribed to a higher power, he was back on a football pitch, building a career that took him through the lower leagues in Portugal as a player and around the world as coach, winning trophies in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Brazil, until one day in December his name landed on the president’s desk at Levante: just the kind of man the Spanish club needed in their impossible fight for survival.

Oh, wait. No, that’s not right. “I had heard of another Luís Castro but not this one,” Pablo Sánchez admitted on Sunday night, “and this one turned out to be the ideal coach for our club.”

Inflation rate projected to hit 6% in the second quarter, top economic forecasters say

The recent surge in inflation is likely to get worse over the next several months, according to a survey Friday.

Trump dismisses $10bn suit against IRS and creates $1.7bn ‘anti-weaponization’ fund

Democrats criticize deal as a slush fund that ‘funnels taxpayer dollars’ to Trump’s political allies

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Donald Trump moved to dismiss a $10bn lawsuit against the IRS on Monday and his administration created a $1.776bn “anti-weaponization” fund to compensate allies for supposed persecution by the government.

The fund will be overseen by five commissioners – four of whom would be appointed by the attorney general and removable by Trump – who would oversee the body’s work. A fifth commissioner will be appointed “in consultation” with congressional leadership. The fund also has the power to issue “formal apologies” and will send a quarterly report to the US attorney general outlining who has been paid from the fund.

The Fed will have to raise interest rates in July to appease 'bond vigilantes,' Yardeni says

Sent to the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, incoming Chair Kevin Warsh instead may have to push for higher levels.

Homebuilder sentiment improves on late spring surge in demand

Builders are feeling slightly better about the housing market, as they see improved buyer traffic in a potential late spring surge.

NextEra Energy to acquire Dominion in a $67 billion utility deal

The combined company will serve about 10 million utility customers across Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Tornado levels family's brand new house: "Most terrifying thing I've experienced"

A mother and daughter hid in the basement of the home they moved into just two weeks ago when a destructive tornado tore across their Nebraska community.

The Unknown review – Léa Seydoux gets invaded in uncanny and bizarre body-swap horror

Cannes film festival: A man is terrified to wake up in Seydoux’s body in this metempsychotic mystery film about gender identity

Arthur Harari’s film is adapted from a graphic novel he wrote with his brother Lucas called The Case of David Zimmerman. It is a doomy, murky and intriguing supernatural noir mystery, hardly visible within the dark toxic cloud of its own strangeness, populated by people bearing stricken expressions of misery and fear. There are some genuinely uncanny and disquieting moments. Maybe it is a parable for the crisis of gender identity – or just identity, and everyone’s occasional experience of the profound, unreconcilable unknowability of our own bodies. There is also something of the mood of Blow-Up, or Basil Dearden’s Brit pulp chiller The Man Who Haunted Himself, or indeed David Robert Mitchell’s modern classic It Follows. But this one, sadly, is flawed by that perennial problem of how to end a story with a great premise.

Niels Schneider plays David Zimmerman, a photographer in his late 30s documenting the way in which his home town has changed over the past century – a project inherited from his photographer dad. (He has an old photo of them both seated on the pavement, apparently mimicking Chaplin and the Kid.) David is overworked, dishevelled and depressed, but is just about persuaded to go along to a raucous New Year’s Eve party where he is stunned to glimpse a woman staring at him, played by Léa Seydoux, whom he realises he photographed a few months’ previously.

Mohamed Salah’s spiky leaving of Liverpool puts Slot in awkward spot

Forward was dropped after a previous attempt to undermine coach, but doing so now could spark mutiny

We can safely say how Arne Slot would like to respond to Mohamed Salah’s latest attempt to undermine him. The Champions League trip to Inter in December, when Salah was left at home as punishment for his incendiary interview at Leeds three days earlier, provides as clear an indication as any. But should a repeat offence result in a repeat sanction on Sunday? Liverpool and their besieged head coach could do without inflaming a potential mutiny at Anfield.

Salah decided to draw up battle lines before his departure, with Saturday’s social media post criticising Liverpool’s direction under Slot. His concerns are widely shared by the Liverpool fanbase and the Liverpool squad, it seems, given the support it received from Curtis Jones, Dominik Szoboszlai, Andy Robertson and several members of last summer’s underwhelming recruitment drive. Arrive at great expense, fail to deliver and fuel the sense that a toxic civil war is erupting behind the scenes: thanks for your efforts lads. It is impossible to say what prompted each individual like on Instagram but that is the impression the collective has given.

The nice guy who finished first: why all of golf was glad to see Aaron Rai lift US PGA Championship

Hard work, respect and family values made Englishman a popular winner of the Wanamaker Trophy among his peers

By the time Aaron Rai was walking to the 18th tee, 71 holes into the week, 17 holes into the round of his life, three shots clear, Rory McIlroy was already in the clubhouse doing the media rounds. “Looks like he’s going to win,” McIlroy said, as he glanced at Rai on one of the TV monitors dotted around, “which is great. You won’t find one person on property who’s not happy for him.” He was right. Or at least if there was anyone out there who felt differently, he wasn’t among any of the many men Rai had just beaten to win the Wanamaker Trophy.

“There’s very few people that are nicer and kinder human beings than Aaron,” said Jon Rahm, three shots back. “He’s such a good dude,” said Xander Schauffele, five behind.

Berkshire Hathaway has revamped its portfolio — Here's how the new stocks are trading

Berkshire Hathaway took a $2.6 billion stake in Delta Airlines and increased its shares in Alphabet by 224%.

Cuba's leader says country poses "no threat" to U.S. after military drone report

The Trump administration has placed intense pressure on Cuba's communist leadership.

Pete Songi on Nigel Farage and Brexit – cartoon

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The Supreme Court avoids taking up a fight over Voting Rights Act enforcement for now

After recently weakening the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court avoided for now taking up a legal question that may severely limit enforcement of the law's remaining protections for minority voters.

Football Daily | Celtic, the ‘old man’ and a possible pitch invasion hat-trick

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An occasionally contrary but invariably entertaining studio regular on Jim White’s TalkSport show before and between stints at Celtic this season, Martin O’Neill made himself available this morning to discuss his side’s dramatic weekend title heist. It’s not often a game of fitba completely overshadows the FA Cup final but Saturday’s denouement at Celtic Park was the rare exception. O’Neill could scarcely have been more complimentary about his players, his staff and the unprecedented levels of global interest generated in the Scottish Premiership by a completely unexpected Hearts title challenge that came up agonisingly short. For 12 minutes O’Neill traded good-natured barbs with White and Sidekick Simon Jordan while joking about “the two Japanese lads” in the dressing-room openly wondering “who is this old man?” on his first day in interim charge. It was only when the trumpeting of the giant elephant in the studio klaxon reached an ear-splitting crescendo that White asked his special guest about the pitch invasion that greeted Celtic’s third goal and whether it suggested “a lack of class” on Celtic’s part.

Gone. Get rid. I’ll tell you why. It’s killing spontaneity in the ground. I’m a season ticket holder at Everton. Killing spontaneity. You can’t celebrate a goal because you think someone somewhere in an industrial unit is going to rule it out. So that’s a bad thing. But No 2, it doesn’t get decisions right. You could put up with it if it then got decisions right, but it doesn’t get the decisions right and it’s not consistent” – Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor reportedly building a potential bid to become the new prime minister, is asked on the burning issue of the day: the war in Iran, the cost-of-living crisis VAR!

I think Michael Lloyd might be on to something with his suggestion for crowd entertainment during VAR reviews (Friday’s letters). Stadium announcers could play songs that match the (alleged) infraction under consideration - maybe Johnny Cash’s ‘I Walk the Line’ for offside reviews, Timbaland’s ‘Hands in the Air’ for when the ball has been leathered against an outstretched digit from incredibly close quarters, or Justin Bieber’s ‘Hold Me’ for set-piece grappling (if it’s one of those scenarios that has to be replayed 17 times, then some or all alternative tracks with the same title by Wilson Phillips, Santana, Alabama Shakes or Tom Waits could also be played). Finally, for dubious decisions made in added time, in games that have a direct impact on the destination of a league title, there is only one possible track: Prince’s ‘Controversy’” – Paul Taverner.

Can I be one of 1,057 others to suggest that Andy Burnham would be better to sport an Everton shirt sponsored by NEC if he wanted to curry favour with the Labour Party hierarchy” – Chris Richardson (and no others).

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

John Oliver on factoring companies: ‘This industry is full of predators’

Last Week Tonight host spoke about structured settlements and the problematic industry surrounding them

John Oliver took aim at factoring companies on his HBO show and the industry that takes advantage of people with structured settlements.

On Last Week Tonight, he explained that the story grew out of “the JG fucking Wentworth ads” which have been a “pop culture staple” due to the “infuriatingly catchy” jingle that was even part of a Curb Your Enthusiasm storyline.

Du pain, de la bière, du Boursin? Why the French are now drinking more beer than wine

For the first time ever, beer has overtaken wine as the drink of choice in France. Bad news for national identity, but potentially good news in terms of alcohol consumption

Name: French beer

Age: About 11,700 years.

My rookie era: In my 30s, I went for my driver’s licence test – and failed four times

Learning to drive as an adult is humiliating because everyone knows how to drive, and frustrating because no one knows how to drive properly

Last year, at the age of 35, I decided it was time to grow up and get my driver’s licence.

I had considered it before, but it had never stuck. As a teenager, I thought driving was scary and significantly less cool than sitting on the bus, listening to the same eight songs on my MP3 player. As a news reporter in my 20s, not driving was inconvenient to both me and my editors, but so was spending days off learning how to parallel park.

Trump drops IRS lawsuit, paving the way for a settlement

The president sued the IRS and the Treasury Department in January, demanding $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns years ago.

Belgian ex-diplomat dies before standing trial over 1961 murder of Congolese leader

Étienne Davignon, 93, was last living person targeted in investigation into assassination of DRC’s first PM, Patrice Lumumba

A 93-year-old Belgian former diplomat who became the first person to be charged in the murder of the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba has died before he could stand trial.

The death of Étienne Davignon, an aristocrat who served as a European commissioner during a decades-long career as one of Belgium’s leading diplomats and industrialists, was confirmed by the Jacques Delors Institute thinktank, where he had served on the board.

The Premier League title is Arsenal’s to lose. But pressure does strange things to teams | Jonathan Wilson

The Gunners seemingly have the easier end-of-season schedule, but Manchester City are clinging to hope that anything can happen

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The title race should be done. All logic says it’s already over. Arsenal lead Manchester City by two points which means two wins in their final two games of the season would seal the title – and those two games are tonight against Burnley, who have been relegated, and, on Sunday against Crystal Palace, who will be preparing for the Europa Conference League final three days later. It’s hard, frankly, to imagine a better pair of fixtures for Mikel Arteta’s side to play at this stage of the season.

City’s games appear harder. On Tuesday they play away at Bournemouth, who are still fighting for Champions League qualification, whether by claiming fifth above Liverpool, or by taking sixth and hoping Villa win the Europa League but finish fifth. (It makes little sense but, under Uefa regulations, if Villa finish fourth and win the Europa League, there would be no sixth Champions League slot for Premier League clubs.) Man City finish at home against Aston Villa, who will just have returned from Istanbul and a Europa League final.

Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda declared global health emergency

At least 80 deaths have been reported in a new Ebola disease outbreak in Congo and Uganda, authorities said.

Mother and daughter describe terrifying tornado that leveled newly-built home

A destructive tornado tore through parts of Nebraska, sending debris flying into the air in Howard County, which is about two hours west of Omaha. A mother and daughter survived in their basement, the only part left of their newly-built home. Rob Marciano reports.

At least 6 Americans in Congo were exposed to Ebola virus, sources say

The World Health Organization this week declared the Ebola outbreak in Congo and Uganda a "public health emergency of international concern."

Andy Burnham says he will not try to return UK to EU

Burnham vows to have ‘relentless domestic focus’ in Makerfield in first speech since announcing byelection run

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has said he will not try to return the UK to the EU, saying Britain would be stuck in “a permanent rut if we’re just constantly arguing”.

Burnham said Labour’s offer in general to voters had “simply not been good enough”, in his most explicit comments yet that he intends to stand to replace Keir Starmer as prime minister, should he win the Makerfield byelection. “If I get to stand, a vote for me will be a vote to change Labour, because Labour needs to change if we are to regain people’s trust.”

Cuba warns US of ‘bloodbath’ if military action follows drone claims

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, says any US strike would be catastrophic after reports of 300+ drones

Cuba’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, has warned that any US military action against his country would lead to a “bloodbath” with incalculable consequences for regional peace and stability.

“Cuba does not represent a threat,” Díaz-Canel said in a post on X.

A milky protest and a UFO in London: photos of the day – Monday

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Supreme Court tells lower courts to take new look at 2 voting rights cases

At issue in the cases was who can bring lawsuits in federal court to address potential violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Trump talks up trade deals with China, but experts see no big wins for U.S.

President Trump's trip to China could bolster economic relations, but failed to deliver a breakthrough deal, some trade and energy experts said.

Infectious diseases such as hantavirus and Ebola becoming more frequent and damaging, say experts

Pandemic report warns of growing global threat as health teams in Africa move to contain Ebola outbreak

The world is becoming less resilient to outbreaks of infectious diseases, experts have warned, as health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda scramble to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

The Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) said in a report published on Monday that “as infectious disease outbreaks become more frequent they are also becoming more damaging”, warning that pandemic risk is outpacing investments in preparedness and “the world is not yet meaningfully safer”.

El Niño could bring "double whammy" of high tide flooding, NOAA warns

The upcoming El Niño could trigger frequent and widespread flooding in coastal areas around the United States, even when storms aren't actively taking place, scientists warn.

Tell us about your favourite family summer holiday

Share a tip on your most memorable family break in the UK and Europe – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

What makes the perfect family holiday? Whether you travelled with toddlers, teenagers or as part of a multi-generational group, tell us about the choice of destination and fun activities that made your trip successful, or even special. Where did you go in the UK or Europe, what did you do and what made it work?

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

Purple pain: backlash over Mexico City’s ‘axolotlisation’ for World Cup

Mayor’s attempt to beautify the city with murals of mascot and plum paint jobs criticised as waste of resources

The giant purple axolotl peered up at Manuel Martínez from the black bitumen of the street. It was the second such painting of the rare amphibian he had walked past that morning. In recent weeks he had seen axolotl murals pop up in neighbourhoods across Mexico City.

“It’s a waste of money,” he said. “You could use that budget for fixing potholes, traffic lights, security cameras. They’re spending on something that doesn’t benefit us at all – it’s just for tourists.”

Experts locate bodies of four missing Italian divers inside Maldives cave

Spokesperson for Indian Ocean island nation says they will try to recover explorers in next couple of days

Rescuers have located the bodies of four Italian divers deep inside an underwater cave in an atoll in the Maldives, four days after they were reported missing.

Searches had resumed after being suspended following the death of a local military diver during a perilous mission to try to reach them.

Hope review – non-stop gonzo alien battling is top-quality entertainment

Cannes film festival: Na Hong-jin’s melee of running, chasing and shouting at the angry invaders is uproarious fun, mixing digital work with old-school spectacle

Some uproarious rock’n’roll moviemaking from Korean director Na Hong-jin, a sci-fi action thriller mixing digital work with old-school analogue entertainment values, serving up a spectacle with cheeky touches of Spielberg, Walter Hill and one other director and movie franchise that it would be unsporting to specify at this stage.

We are in the remote and sleepy retirees’ town of Hope in South Korea near the demilitarised zone (DMZ), where people already constitutionally used to the possibility of war and bloodshed, are astonished to hear of a farm animal killed and mangled – though not for food – by an unidentified beast.

‘The film humanised Russians at a time when Rambo was killing them’: how we made Letter to Brezhnev

‘All of Kirkby turned out for the premiere – many of them had been extras. And 500 people crammed into my mum’s council house for a party. It’s still talked about’

I started banging out the script for this on a typewriter in my scruffy flat in Toxteth, Liverpool, in 1981. Four years later, the film had its British premiere. My idea was for a working-class romance between a couple of girls from my native Kirkby and two Russian sailors on leave around the port of Liverpool, with a subtle political message at a time when the Thatcher premiership and the cold war were at their heights. There was a lot of anti-Russian propaganda in the press, but I was not prepared to hate a whole nation just because they had been demonised by the likes of press baron Robert Maxwell.

Families and taxpayers are funding youth treatment programs. Do they work?

Two teens enrolled in residential treatment programs and left with very different experiences. CBS News investigates youth residential treatment programs and whether they're providing the help that teens may need to improve their mental health.

‘Capitalism has to become more humane’: a Stanford economist on big tech, power hoarding and democracy

Mordecai Kurz argues tech oligarchs erode democracy through monopolies – and predicts how the trend may end

The billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality. In his new book, Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, publishing 19 May, he argues the US is living through an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated itself since industrialization: technological power concentrating in the hands of a few, which is eroding democracy.

According to Kurz, technological moguls have long seen themselves as superior beings whose natural role is to shape society – so they have no problem disrupting the institution of democracy. During the first Gilded Age, in the late 19th century, as the US was enjoying its first ascent as an industrial powerhouse, wealthy industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller “invented all kinds of theories about human evolution”, twisting the logic of social Darwinism to convince themselves that their success was a sign they had been selected by nature to influence society, Kurz explained. Now, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has suggested his technology has a mystical potential to become a transcendent good. He’s also openly acknowledged it could lead to mass unemployment.

‘I had been silent for a very long time’: how a chance meeting at a burger van revived techno genius the Field

A run of immaculate albums ended in 2018 with an identity crisis and the producer becoming a kindergarten chef. Now he’s back with a blissed-out new record

When Axel Willner went to Stockholm’s Funky Chicken food truck last February, he only expected to leave with a burger. While waiting, Willner – AKA the Field, artisan of looping minimal techno masterpieces – noticed another Axel standing two places behind him. This was unlikely enough given the unpopularity of the grandpa-ish name amid 40-something Swedish men. “I was like, oh, how will they call our burgers now?” says Willner.

Unlikelier still, not least given how out of the way the spot is, the Axel was fellow Scandi club music pioneer Axel Boman, co-founder of the joyous dance label Studio Barnhus. They got chatting during the long wait. “He asked if I had any music, what am I doing, because I had been silent for a very long time,” says Willner. He left with an invitation to send Boman some tracks, which eventually resulted in a new label deal and his first record since 2018, Now You Exist.

What's next for Alex Murdaugh's case?

After the South Carolina Supreme Court overturned Alex Murdaugh's murder convictions, his lawyers are set to hold a press conference Monday to discuss new developments in the case. Meanwhile, prosecutors say they may seek the death penalty in a retrial.

3 people in custody after 4 injured in shooting spree across Austin, Texas

Four people were injured in a dozen random shootings over the weekend in Austin, Texas, that police say started with a car being stolen. Three suspects have been detained, including two teenagers. Ian Lee reports.

Rising prices are Britons’ biggest money worry as inflation stays high, survey finds

Households ‘increasingly gloomy’ about finances amid fears of interest rate rises due to higher fuel prices

• Business live – latest updates

Rising prices have become the top financial concern for UK households, according to a monthly consumer confidence survey, before Wednesday’s official figures, which are likely to show inflation remaining stubbornly high.

Amid fears of higher interest rates owing to increased fuel prices after the closure of the strait of Hormuz amid the conflict in the Middle East, households have become “increasingly gloomy about their financial situation”, the report said.

Americans largely disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, CBS News poll finds

A new CBS News poll finds seven in 10 Americans say they're frustrated about President Trump's approach to the economy. Two-thirds of Americans think the president's policies are making it worse and 77% say incomes aren't keeping up with inflation. Ed O'Keefe reports.

The issues behind the Long Island Rail Road strike impacting thousands of workers

For the first time in decades, the Long Island Rail Road, which services hundreds of thousands of riders every weekday, is on strike over wages and health benefits for workers. Jericka Duncan has the latest.

2 Navy jets crash in midair during air show in Idaho

All four crew members are in stable condition after two Navy jets collided in midair during a military air show at the Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho on Sunday. Jonathan Vigliotti reports.

Cult hero Mancini delivers derby win for Roma after Serie A scheduling nightmare | Nicky Bandini

After a spring of boardroom civil war, the Giallorossi’s two-goal hero put his side on the verge of a historic return to Champions League

A Rome derby on the penultimate weekend of a Serie A season could never be a low-stakes occasion. Scudetto wins come rarely in Italy’s capital city – Roma and Lazio have only five between them – leaving neighbourly bragging rights as the next-most important prize on offer. It is an intense, bitter rivalry that has produced countless iconic moments – from Francesco Totti taking selfies under the Curva to a cup-winning goal by Senad Lulic – if sadly also many violent clashes between supporters.

And, of course, it matters more when either side has tangible objectives left to play for. As recently as late April that did not appear very likely. Roma were sixth – five points adrift of the Champions League places – and Lazio ninth. But then the Giallorossi got on a roll, just as Milan and Juventus started dropping points. A win in the derby now could propel them into the top four, if either of those sides slipped up again.

BBC staff strike as new director general warns of ‘tough choices’ on his first day

Matt Brittin begins task of finding budget cuts as World Service and Radio 4 journalists protest against plan to increase workloads

Matt Brittin, the BBC’s new director general, has warned staff that “tough choices are unavoidable” under his tenure, as his first day coincided with a strike by a group of the corporation’s journalists.

Brittin, formerly Google’s most senior executive in Europe, arrived at the corporation’s New Broadcasting House while a group of journalists from the World Service’s Newshour and Radio 4’s The World Tonight were picketing in response to a plan to increase their workloads.

Tribe review – compelling, unsettling search for a lost sect in the California mountains

Dan Asma’s impressive debut feature follows a retired professor, played by the director himself, whose research leads him to Lovecraftian terrors

Dan Asma’s superbly unsettling debut feature could well be California’s answer to The Blair Witch Project, as it follows a retired professor protagonist heading out into the Cuyamaca mountains and into the bowels of Mount Shasta on the trail of a lost sect. Updating and complicating the found-footage movie for the era of too-many browser tabs, it comes with an icy Lovecraftian hint of terrors beyond and packs a hefty eschatological kick.

Our intrepid academic Devin (Asma) has bitten off more than he can chew, judging by the riverbed of bloodshot veins disfiguring his face and failing mental faculties that have left him unable to drive his car out of the wilderness. Still able to access his past recordings, he jogs his own memories about what led him out there in the first place: ex-wife Kate (Nicole Jones) dropping off old camcorder excerpts of college hangouts with pal Charlie (Keaton Asma), who recently killed himself. An orphaned member of the mysterious Church of Heaven’s Light cult, as a child Charlie was found staggering out of the Cuyamacas alone – but brought with him a wild cosmic pontification or two about superior beings stalking mankind.

High risk yet home to thousands: the makeshift towns at the mercy of landslides and floods in Peru

Like many informal settlements, communities that have sprung up on the edges of Ayacucho in the Andes are on the frontline of extreme weather events

In December 2009, a late‑afternoon storm unleashed torrential rain over Ayacucho, in Peru, hitting poor hillside neighbourhoods hard. The deluge overwhelmed drainage systems, turning streams into lethal flows of mud, stones and debris that flooded houses and streets and trapped drivers at a busy junction.

Ten people died, 18 were injured, and 530 houses were destroyed or damaged, according to a government inquest. “It was a disaster,” recalls Edgar Castro, a leader in Ayacucho’s largest informal neighbourhood, Mollepata.

Trump cuts to weather data could make forecasts less reliable, warn experts

Use of AI is a valuable tool for weather prediction but only when it’s trained with ample data, experts say

As the US prepares for hurricane season and a summer of record-breaking heat, experts fear the Trump administration’s cuts to climate and weather data programming could make the federal government’s weather forecasts less reliable when they are needed most.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) late last year launched a suite of artificial intelligence-powered global weather forecast models which it said would improve “speed, efficiency, and accuracy”. In March, an agency official said those models were being trained with centuries of weather data.

Ryanair has ‘near-zero concerns’ on fuel shortages but warns of future price rises

Airline’s CEO says uncertainty is making travellers book later, keeping summer holiday fares down

• Business live – latest updates

Ryanair said it has “almost zero concerns” about its jet fuel supplies this summer amid fears over widespread cancellations linked to the Iran war but warned that holidaymakers booking their flights later this year could face higher fares.

The budget airline’s chief executive, Michael O’Leary, said Europe had now found plenty of alternative sources of jet fuel, but persistent consumer uncertainty had led to lower summer bookings than usual, keeping fares down.

Meet the pilots flying Spirit Airlines' yellow jets to the desert

Special pilots have been moving Spirit's fleet of yellow jets to the desert.

Sen. Bill Cassidy loses primary. And, WHO declares Ebola outbreak a global emergency

Sen. Bill Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump, lost the Republican primary in Louisiana. And, the WHO has declared a global health emergency over a new Ebola outbreak.

Fighter jets' crews eject from air show crash: "A lot of luck involved"

The Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho was locked down following the midair crash during the Gunfighter Skies Air Show.

Starmer is not setting out timetable for his departure, says David Lammy

Deputy PM’s comments come as Starmer says he will back Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate ‘100%’

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer is not about to set a timetable for his departure from Downing Street, David Lammy, one of the prime minister’s closest cabinet allies, has said, urging Labour to get beyond the “spectacular own goal” of repeated leadership speculation.

The prime minister visited Labour HQ on Monday and told staff the whole party should show “100%” support to help win the crucial Makerfield byelection, as sources said he was not considering stepping aside for Andy Burnham should he win.

No 1 seed Pistons rue NBA playoff exit as Cavs advance to Conference finals: ‘That game sucked’

• Cleveland clinch series with blowout victory

• Cavaliers will play Knicks for place in NBA finals

• Pistons’ Bickerstaff praises team’s progress

Donovan Mitchell scored 26 points, Jarrett Allen and Sam Merrill each added 23 and the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons 125-94 on Sunday night in Game 7 to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.

The fourth-seeded Cavaliers ousted the East’s top seed and will face the third-seeded New York Knicks. Game 1 of the series tips off on Tuesday in New York.

Nul points! The UK’s 10 biggest Eurovision flops of all time

From MP-baiting abominations to Engelbert Humperdinck, the UK has sent some real stinkers to the song contest – some so bad artists have even had to change their name. Here are the worst offenders

Well, this is awkward. The UK continued its run of disastrous results in the Eurovision song contest on Saturday night, when Look Mum No Computer finished rock bottom of the scoreboard. Cue the usual geopolitical conspiracy theorising and head-scratching about how to remedy matters next year. Paging Cliff Richard and faxing Bucks Fizz …

It put the cherry on top of a chastening week for Britons in Vienna. No less than Boy George had been roped in to add star power to San Marino’s entry, but it failed to even qualify for the final. The UK now hasn’t won the annual pop party for almost three decades. But where does this latest fiasco figure in the all-time hall of shame? We count down the UK’s 10 biggest Eurovision flops, from least bad to absolute worst. Hello Europe, this is humiliation calling.

The return of Westworld is perfect timing for the flattery-oriented age of AI

Now that real life has caught up with science fiction, the imminent danger isn’t malfunctioning cowboys, it’s the robots convincing us that we’re great and everything is totally fine

All the best science fiction movies eventually get overtaken by reality. Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report predicted personalised advertising and biometric identification. Spike Jonze’s Her correctly guessed that AI would probably arrive as emotionally responsive digital companions that sound like Scarlett Johansson, rather than rampaging killer machines. RoboCop imagined militarised law enforcement on the streets of America long before the Pentagon decided to get in on the action.

Could Westworld become the latest science fiction franchise to catch up to the future? Deadline reports this week that a new film based on Michael Crichton’s 1973 movie about rich thrill-seekers heading to a techno-pleasure park for violence, fantasy and consequence-free debauchery is in the works at Warner Bros, with David Koepp attached to write. It will reportedly bypass the more recent TV reboot from Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, which ran for four seasons between 2016 and 2022.

Magic mushrooms could be effective treatment for cocaine addiction, study shows

Participants who got single dose of psilocybin were more likely to abstain from cocaine than those who got placebo

Results from a new clinical trial show that a single dose of psilocybin could be an effective treatment for cocaine addiction.

The study, published in Jama Network Open this month, showed that 19 participants who received a single dose of psilocybin were more likely to abstain from cocaine than 17 participants who received a placebo of diphenhydramine, a common antihistamine.

Wannabe prime ministers are nakedly ambitious to run the UK, but why? That is the burning question | Stefan Stern

As Starmer, Burnham, Streeting, Rayner, Polanski and Farage line up, I say ambition for power is no bad thing. It’s what they would do with it that counts

Ah, Mr Burnham, come in, take a seat. Mr Streeting, good to see you. We’ll also be interviewing Mr Starmer, then Ms Rayner; Mr Farage and Mr Polanski come in this afternoon. So, this prime minister job: what are you in it for?

That’s how I would do it. The “what are you in it for?” question gets to the heart of personal ambition. Of course we all tell prospective employers that we are hard-working, able, conscientious and ambitious. But that last claim, in particular, needs to be followed up and tested a bit. Ambitious for what? Ambitious for whom?

St Pauli’s Bundesliga dream dies as Eriksen inspires Wolfsburg in relegation thriller | Andy Brassell

Cult club of Hamburg gave everything at Millentor, but Dane inspired visitors to a dramatic victory that kept their survival hopes alive

There were few tears at the end, just as there were few gazes directed to phone screens during the game to check scores elsewhere. St Pauli scarves were raised to the sky in the stands of Millentor as You’ll Never Walk Alone rolled out of the stadium’s speakers, with the players and staff forming a huddle in the middle of the field to share words of commiseration.

This club apart will live to fight another day, after a day on which they had given everything and on which it just was not enough. It would be simplistic, on a day when Europe’s premier counter-cultural club played a club that have traditionally been seen by Bundesliga fans as the embodiment of corporate football with salvation the prize, to say that Wolfsburg needed this more than St Pauli. This meant plenty to this left-leaning neighbourhood of Hamburg too, where innovative measures like selling supporters shares in the stadium to raise funds have shown how determined they are to prove that there are ways to thrive and survive in the top leagues of the modern game without shedding their traditional values.

Why catching insider trading is so tricky nowadays, and just how helpful is it for kids to sleep in?

Millions of dollars have been made through eerily well-timed bets on prediction markets like Polymarket. We look at why they're so hard to police. And, a new study that supports kids sleeping in.

Pop star Shakira is acquitted in a Spanish tax fraud case

The decision follows years of tax troubles in Spain for the Colombian superstar. Spanish tax authorities did not prove that the singer was a resident of Spain, the court said in its decision.

The pet I’ll never forget: Nya, the therapy dog who makes everyone smile

She might look like a wolf, but Nya’s temperament is so sweet that she now helps people who have a fear of trains and travel

I got Nya, a German shepherd, when she was a puppy. She has such a good temperament – she’s really calm around people.

When she was five years old, I decided to register her with Pets As Therapy, an organisation that brings therapy pets into hospitals, care homes, schools and other places to befriend people, and help reduce stress and anxiety.

Woken review – shonky post-apocalyptic horror sends an amnesiac into the plague zone

The acting is fine and the imagery brooding, but this tepid sci-fi – all creepy neighbours, hazmat squads and crustacean-faced infected – is in thrall to better films

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, getting caught in one pandemic may be regarded as misfortune; getting caught in two looks like your agent may be keen on riding the post-Covid zeitgeist. After her turn as part of Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal’s posse in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Erin Kellyman makes another plague outing in this good-looking but ineffective post-apocalyptic thriller (originally made in 2023).

Kellyman’s bewildered survivor Anna, waking up in a shabby cottage on an isolated island, doesn’t even know she’s in the midst of a pandemic at first. Amnesiac and heavily pregnant, she has to trust grinning neighbour Helen (Maxine Peake) when she says Anna has had a bad fall and that James (Ivanno Jeremiah) – also prone to smiling a bit too much – is her husband. It’s only when a swan-shaped pedalo boat deposits a pair of crustacean-faced, infected castaways, and her seemingly lovely friends shoot and burn them, that she begins to realise this is no island paradise.

The French are hitting their protein goals - thanks to a cheese that looks like ectoplasm | Emma Beddington

La cancoillotte, a low-fat liquid cheese product, has somehow taken the country of haute cuisine by storm

Exciting news from over the Channel: a viral cheese has dropped, but good luck spelling, or saying, it. As Libération reports, la cancoillotte (even native speakers struggle with the pronunciation, apparently), a liquid cheese from Franche-Comté in the east, is taking over fitness social media, thanks to its 16g of “prot” per 100g (as the French muscle bros and girls say), low fat content and bargain price. Its secret ingredient is a skimmed milk product, metton, traditionally a byproduct of butter-making repurposed by thrifty peasants to avoid waste.

Those Franc-Comtois(es) peasants could hardly have imagined where their waste-not-want-not gloop would end up. In April, the social media personality Johan Papz said that discovering cancoillotte was “the best day of my life”, flamboyantly flinging the pale ooze over a plate of potatoes like a moister Salt Bae, then flashing the abs its impressive macronutrients allowed him to cultivate. Another cancoillotte-fluencer has made 178 TikToks on the topic and travelled more than 300 miles on a pilgrimage to Franche-Comté. Julie Morin, the president of the association for the promotion of cancoillotte, called online enthusiasm for the product “incredible”, while the supermarket Carrefour told Libération sales of the garlic variety (of course) rose 16% last month.

Thousands of U.S. countertop workers could have damaged lungs, safety expert says

Over 550 men in California have fallen ill after cutting natural or factory-made stone countertops. But epidemiologists say this isn't just a California problem.

Inside the "troubled teen" industry, when help sometimes does more harm

A CBS News investigation into youth residential treatment programs finds allegations of abuse, a lack of federal oversight, and families left to navigate a multibillion-dollar industry largely on their own.

A house for £1? What a day at a property auction taught me about the UK housing crisis

Some of the homes have been repossessed, while others are being sold off by debt-laden housing associations. Who buys them – and who will end up living there?

Amid the high-stakes bustle of numbered paddles shooting up and gavels banging down, an unexpected voice calls desperately from the corner of the auction room. “That’s my house,” shouts the woman, watching her home of 20 years up for sale.

“I live there. You can tell the people who are bidding I’m not coming out of my house,” she continues.

What we know about hantavirus cases tied to deadly cruise ship outbreak

Health officials have identified at least 10 confirmed or suspected cases of hantavirus tied to an outbreak on the M/V Hondius cruise ship.

Weather tracker: Europe braces for swing from Arctic chill to extreme heat

Temperatures in France and England could rise by 15C, while hot air could to give way to snow in parts of US

After a prolonged spell of cool conditions across much of Europe, a dramatic swing in temperatures is expected in the coming days as warmer air surges north into western and central parts of the continent.

A large blocking high over the North Atlantic and slow-moving low pressure across southern Scandinavia dragged Arctic air southwards last week, sending temperatures 10-15C below the seasonal average for more than a week.

Why the Supreme Court's voting rights ruling could play a big role at the local level

The Supreme Court's recent ruling threatens the power of racial-minority voters in Voting Rights Act cases about not just Congress, but also at least 17 state and local governments, NPR finds.

Religious anti-abortion center finds opportunity in town without OB-GYNs

A crisis pregnancy center in Sandpoint, Idaho, wants to expand women's healthcare three years after the labor and delivery unit at the town's hospital closed and its OB-GYNs moved out of state.

‘An antidote to all things stressful’: why Stardust is my feelgood movie

The latest in our series of writers calling attention to their most rewatched comfort films is a celebration of the star-packed 2007 fantasy

For a period of time in my tweens, our Sunday nights followed a certain ritual. Me and my two siblings would sit on the sofa, ignoring the fact that school was on the next day, and put on our battered DVD copy of Stardust.

The first time we watched it is lost to history, but its effect isn’t. Over time, it has become something of a cure-all, treating everything from a bad day at work to an overdose of adult cynicism.

Drones reshape war in Colombia as deaths and injuries mount

Civilians left increasingly exposed as a dangerous new front opens up in the country’s decades-old conflict

As night fell over southern Colombia, and a group of children began their weekly Tuesday football match, a drone appeared overhead.

The children looked up, and the drone dropped a grenade, its blast killing a 10-year-old boy and injuring 12 more civilians. The child’s death, in southern Cauca in 2024, marked the first known time a person in the country had been killed in a weaponised drone attack.

For 20 years, Stephen Colbert distinguished truth from truthiness

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ends on Thursday. Here's how he has evolved to meet the moment.

It takes a village – or a Phoenix suburb – to wrangle a wayward tortoise

When a large tortoise named Rex got loose, a Phoenix-area neighborhood went into a tizzy. More than just a fun commotion, Rex's daring getaway shows the challenges of sulcata tortoise ownership.

Spain’s conservatives forced to rely on far-right Vox party after losing majority in Andalucía

People’s party wins regional election but loses absolute majority, opening door to possibly months of negotiations

Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) won Sunday’s Andalucían regional election, but lost its absolute majority, leaving it dependent on the support or abstention of the far-right Vox party to form a new government.

After the poll in Spain’s most populous region – which will serve as a barometer of wider electoral opinion before next year’s general election – the socialists slumped to an all-time low and Vox picked up one additional seat.

Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa review – lost voices from an Irish asylum

Forgotten psychiatric patients are resurrected with imagination and compassion in this extraordinary book

Cork Mental Hospital, also known as Our Lady’s, was once the longest building in Ireland: a monster of 19th-century gothic, much added to before its closure in the 1990s, that stares from the north bank down to the River Lee and the city beyond. In recent years, a lot of the complex has been turned, predictably, into apartments. A developer’s website now invites you to “Live comfortably, live conveniently, live with us”.

This, surely, is a spectral sort of invitation: hard for “us” not to conjure, amid bright mockup interiors, the fretful shades of the unwell – and the unwilling. When Doireann Ní Ghríofa – celebrated poet and author of the nonfiction A Ghost in the Throat – began exploring the derelict site several years ago, she recognised it straight away as a place she might herself, but for historical fortune, have ended up. Said the Dead is an intimately researched but also wildly imaginative study of lives (mostly female) lived and often concluded during the hospital’s first 70 years or so.

I've interviewed Reform UK voters – and they're much more progressive than you might think | Sacha Hilhorst

Over the past five years, I’ve spoken to people struggling to get by in former mining towns. They’re crying out for more radicalism, not less

Among other defeats, the recent local elections saw Labour lose heavily across the Midlands and the north of England. The results are reminiscent of the 2016 Brexit vote and, with the return of those electoral geographies, some of the old tropes have resurfaced, too.

Once again, England’s post-industrial towns are cast as the angry, reactionary counterparts to booming, progressive cities. Certainly, Reform UK is winning there now, but that is not the full picture. These places should not be chalked up as lost causes for the left.

Sacha Hilhorst is a Hallsworth Fellow at the University of Manchester and a senior research fellow at Common Wealth

Is it true that … saunas can reduce your sperm count?

Exposure to high temperatures won’t have a noticable effect – unless your sperm count is already low

Could your post-gym spa habit affect your ability to have a baby? It’s a belief that gets repeated regularly online. But Prof Colin Duncan, a fertility expert at the University of Edinburgh, says things aren’t as clearcut as people make out. Cisgender men produce sperm in the testicles. It’s from here that these male reproductive cells are released to inseminate the eggs women produce.

Duncan says that repeated exposure to higher temperatures, such as those found in saunas, do inevitably have some effect on how much sperm is made by them. “Testicles are located outside the body because they work better when they’re cooler. If you’re incubating them in a sauna then they don’t work quite as well.”

Alice Levine and Greg James finally team up: best podcasts of the week

The broadcasting favourites are up to mischief in their first pod together. Plus, a cool new take on Radio 4’s hit series A History of the World in 100 Objects

Nothing Phone 4a Pro review: premium aluminium meets quirky design

Mid-range Android stands out with huge screen, slick software and dot-matrix display, but falls just short of greatness

Nothing’s latest quirky smartphone is a huge aluminium Android with three cameras and a big LED matrix screen on the back that challenges the notion mid-range phones can’t be just a bit more fun.

The Phone 4a Pro is a bit of a departure from UK-based Nothing’s previous glass-clad transparent designs. It still has a touch of those elements but only in the camera island at the top, with the rest of the body now solid aluminium – a rare sight in the world of Android phones.

‘It fails under testing, but it’s what we have’: ban forces Palestinians to make their own cement from rubble

With Israel blocking imports of building materials, those rebuilding in Gaza are recycling ruins to make new homes

It is difficult to see through the dust inside the cramped, low-roofed tent on the eastern edge of Khan Younis. Ibrahim al-Aloul works alongside four others, with a piece of fabric tied over his mouth and nose as his only shield against the toxic grey powder as he sifts and grinds.

Outside, a skinny donkey waits with a cart to carry the finished product to the next tent along, where it will be mixed with gypsum, calcium and binding agents before being bagged in flour sacks and sold.

A new start after 60: I dedicated myself 100% to saving soil – and a life of wild adventure began

When Sousan Samadani saw a video about soil degradation, she suddenly knew she would commit everything she had to the cause. Soon she was travelling thousands of miles to raise awareness, skydiving, hitchhiking and cycling

Sousan Samadani was watching videos on YouTube one day when she came across a post about how the world’s soil was degrading so rapidly that it was in danger of extinction.

The video – posted by the Save Soil movement – “was like a shock for me”, Samadani says. “I thought: ‘How is it possible that the soil that gives us food is dying?’”

Preppy polo players, timeless tuxedos and … fishing rods: the history of the Ralph Lauren catwalk – in pictures

Ralph Lauren the brand turns 60 next year, with the designer himself now in his ninth decade. A new book, Ralph Lauren: Catwalk, written by veteran fashion journalist Bridget Foley, explores the history of the all-American label’s influential catwalk shows from 1972 to now