F-35 fighter jet crashes near San Diego Marine Corps base, sparking fire

An aerial photo shows a smoking F-35 fighter jet next to scorched vegetation in a field at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.

Commonwealth Games 2026: Wales cyclist Morris wins gold but stripped of silver – live

• Latest track cycling and athletics action in Glasgow

• Medal table | In pictures: day eight | And mail Taha

Boxing: Scarlett Savannah Delgado of Canada and Preeti Preeti of India will contest the women’s 54kg final after winning their respective semi-finals. England’s Lauren Mackie and Zambia’s Catherine Mwape will fight for bronze.

Up next it’s a 65kg home nations derby between Kaci Rock (Northern Ireland) and Caitlin Rainey (Scotland). Rock is the daughter of the former Irish boxer Jim Rock (the only man to hold Irish titles in four different weight divisions) and idolised Katie Taylor growing up. Initially her father tried to dissuade Rock from taking up boxing. “Sometimes when your mum and dad tell you you can’t do something, you want to do it more and I think that’s what happened,” she told BBC Sport.

New York sues Kalshi, alleging it enables illegal gambling

A growing number of U.S. states are seeking to crack down on prediction markets, but face pushback from federal regulators.

‘It ain’t the same’: inside the bitter battle to free Ben & Jerry’s

Ben Cohen says his ice-cream company has been silenced by corporate ownership – and a boycott of Magnum brands could force a sale

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream in the tub is still great, but the brand’s newest chocolate-covered ice-cream bar on a stick?

“It ain’t the same,” Ben Cohen, the company co-founder, told the Guardian. Sure, the chocolate coating is still thick enough, but the ice cream itself is “kinda fluffy”, Cohen said – an insult in the ice-cream world that suggests extra air was added to cut costs.

Middle East crisis live: Trump says ‘Israel is very happy’ with Gaza peace plan but doesn’t say if withdrawal or Hamas disarmament comes first

The agreement is a ‘great breakthrough’, the president says in response to media questions

• Trump claims agreement for ‘complete disarmament’ of Hamas in Gaza but support uncertain

• Saudi Arabia prepares sea and possible land offensive against Houthis

Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud has reported the mood in Gaza this morning following news of Hamas’s potential disarmament.

Palestinians have heard repeated statements about their fate in the three years since the current war began between Israel and Hamas, so last night’s announcement by Donald Trump wasn’t met with any particular joy or celebration. “There is scepticism and cautiousness among Palestinians,” Mahoud writes from Gaza City in the north of the Strip.

Gavin Newsom reveals personal income of $1.7m-$2m in tax return release

California governor and wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, release 2022-2024 filings amid Trump investigation

Gavin Newsom and his wife made from $1.7m to $2m annually from 2022 through 2024, and paid about half a million a year in federal and state taxes, according to tax returns released by his office.

The California Democratic governor’s office released more than 700 pages of tax filings spanning four years for reporters to review, offering a window into Newsom’s finances as he prepares to leave office and considers a 2028 presidential bid. Newsom’s office did not release returns for 2025, because the couple filed for an extension and will complete those returns in October.

Analysis: Markets heard a dovish Kevin Warsh. The Fed chairman's own words suggest a rate hike

Investors saw Warsh’s press conference as dovish, but a closer reading of the Fed chair's prepared remarks suggests he may be close to raising interest rates.

GM to launch proprietary in-vehicle AI system later this year

General Motors plans to launch a proprietary in-vehicle artificial intelligence system that's better tailored for its customers later this year.

Families sue Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube over deaths of 4 teens

The families of four children who died by suicide allege that using social media led to depression, anxiety and other mental health problems.

FIFA tests the limits of private equity in sports with World Cup subsidiary sale

UEFA and Concacaf's rejection of FIFA's plan to sell a 20% stake in the World Cup's commercial operations highlights uneasiness with private equity in sports.

Infantino under huge pressure after plan for World Cup sell-off sparks resignation and rebuke

• Cordeiro quits as senior adviser to Fifa president

• Lamour: sell-off plan ‘defies belief and imagination’

The walls started closing in on Gianni Infantino after another dramatic day that saw one of his senior advisers resign and brought a scathing rebuke from Fifa’s own chief operating officer.

Infantino is under huge pressure after his plan to sell chunks of the World Cup to private investors met a tide of opposition from around the globe. European countries have already promised to boycott Fifa competitions if he does not shelve the scheme but Friday’s developments, which saw two key members of his inner circle distance themselves from him, may prove equally damaging to any prospects of salvaging his presidency.

Trump backtracks from promise to let Ukraine build Patriot missiles

US president tells reporters during Camp David cabinet meeting technology ‘a hard thing to give away’

Donald Trump has backed off a promise to let Ukraine manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors, telling reporters that handing over the underlying technology was “a hard thing to give away” during a cabinet meeting at Camp David.

The retreat, billed by the White House as “something different” for the cabinet to experience together, was the first such meeting at the presidential compound of Trump’s second term.

High court clears way for clinical trial giving puberty blockers to children

Legal challenge to King’s College London research study claimed it could harm participants but was rejected

A clinical trial of drugs that can delay puberty can go ahead after a high court judge threw out a legal challenge on Friday.

Campaigners had launched the attempt to halt the planned research into puberty blockers, to be run by researchers at King’s College London (KCL), on the grounds that they believed it could harm the children taking part.

At least 57 people die as tens of thousands cross to Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco

Pedro Sánchez decries ‘violation of territorial integrity’ as other EU countries criticise Madrid over incident

At least 57 people have died trying to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta after as many as 50,000 migrants entered the tiny territory from Morocco in what Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity”.

The huge influx, which took place over the course of just 24 hours, overwhelmed the city of 85,000 people, triggered a political crisis for Madrid and led to a mixed reaction from other EU countries, including calls for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen free-movement zone.

Google pauses AI satellite images, after fears of deepfakes in the sky

Journalists, human rights advocates and open source analysts recoiled in horror at the initial decision: "The opportunities for abuse and disinfo are literally boundless," said one.

Lawyer for Rep. Miller's ex-wife files for restraining order amid abuse claims

The ex-wife of GOP Rep. Max Miller asked a court to issue a restraining order blocking Miller from contacting her lawyer, as the Ohio congressman faces allegations of abuse — which he denies.

Burnham risks first revolt as PM over apparent support for North Sea drilling

Labour MPs fear No 10 team lack up-to-date energy insight and don’t fully recognise voters’ climate concerns

Andy Burnham was told he could face the first revolt of his premiership as Labour MPs and climate experts condemned his apparent support for renewed drilling for oil and gas.

As the UK suffers through drought, fires and heatwaves, the prime minister gave the strongest indication yet on Friday he was minded to allow new drilling. His comments came just hours before the UN secretary-general warned “every new fossil fuel project” made heatwaves more dangerous.

India’s monsoon rains in danger as UN chief warns planet is ‘on fire’

António Guterres says strengthening El Niño will help push the world’s climate crisis into ‘uncharted territory’

India’s monsoon is in danger and hotter, drier conditions are forecast across much of the world as a stronger El Niño weather system is taking hold, weather experts have warned.

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, said the strengthening El Niño was “adding fuel to a planet already on fire” and pushing the world into “uncharted territory”.

3 states would face Colorado River water cuts under federal plan

Arizona, California, and Nevada would take less water from the Colorado River under a federal proposal to stave off a crisis in the river.

Washington Post’s opinion editor resigns after just one year in role

Adam O’Neal did not give reason for his departure at end of August in another major shakeup at US publication

The Washington Post had realized a state of relative calm in the five months since the paper was turned upside down in February, when nearly half the newsroom was laid off and its unpopular publisher, Will Lewis, abruptly resigned.

But on Friday, staffers were shocked to find out that Adam O’Neal, a millennial hired last year to lead its opinion section, was already leaving.

Netflix sued for allegedly losing unreleased Nicolas Cage movie

A lawsuit alleges that a drive storing a $45 million spy film starring Nicolas Cage was "stolen right off a Netflix desk."

U.S. probing if Iran was behind cyberattack on water systems in 7 states

Malicious cyber activity affected technology at water systems in at least seven states this week, including Minnesota, leading authorities to dig into whether Iranian actors are behind the attack, CBS News has learned.

Women’s Tour de France under pressure to reroute Ventoux stage amid wildfire risk

• Authorities want stage altered if risk is ‘extreme’

• 2025 champion Ferrand-Prévot faces sterner challenge

The Tour de France Femmes is facing pressure to reroute part of its key stage to the summit of Mont Ventoux next Friday because of the wildfires threat in Provence.

The women’s Tour, which begins in Lausanne on Saturday, is expected to keep the famous climb to the top of the “Giant of Provence”, but the current routing of the stage through the Ventoux’s foothills could be affected.

BP puts North Sea oil and gas business up for sale

Move will end six decades of production in area, as new CEO tries to simplify company and cut debt

• Business live – latest updates

BP has put its North Sea oil and gas business up for sale as it looks to end six decades of production from the basin.

The firm announced on Friday morning it had launched a formal process to market its North Sea business for a potential sale. The move comes as BP’s new chief executive, Meg O’Neill, tries to simplify the company and cut its debt levels.

As Warsh’s Fed faces pressure to act on inflation, these indicators show it’s at its lowest in years

Trimmed mean measures are painting a different picture than the headline numbers.

Mahershala Ali on Marvel’s collapsed Blade reboot: ‘If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it’

Two-time Oscar winner was to take on role of vampire-hunting antihero but said project is no longer happening

The two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali has confirmed that his Blade reboot is no longer going forward.

The star of Moonlight and Green Book had been attached to play Marvel’s vampire-hunting antihero in 2019. The role had originally been played by Wesley Snipes in three films between 1998 and 2004.

Florida woman’s autopsy report reveals extent of alligator attack

Brittany Clark struggled for her life before dying from brutal injuries in rare attack, autopsy report confirms

A woman who was killed in a rare alligator attack while swimming with her boyfriend in Florida struggled for her life before dying from the brutal injuries inflicted on her by the animal, newly released autopsy results confirmed.

The report containing the results of Brittany Clark’s autopsy, published on Thursday, also contained new details about the extent of the 28 June mauling that unfolded in Seminole county’s Little Big Econ state forest.

The Guardian view on England’s centralised state: Andy Burnham must unbundle it | Editorial

Devolution should finance transport, skills and industry, not become a rightwing contest to promise the largest tax giveaway

That England is among the rich world’s most centralised countries underpins Andy Burnham’s critique of the economic history of the past 40 years. Only post-communist Europe deindustrialised as rapidly as Yorkshire and the Midlands did in the 1980s. Centralisation did not close every factory or pit, but left regions without the powers, finance or institutions to cushion the shock or build a resilient, replacement economy. Hence Mr Burnham’s radical and welcome plan to unbundle English government.

There are three facets to his devolution programme. The first are the detailed and concrete proposals contained in a cabinet paper Mr Burnham released on Friday. This appears to be a blueprint to create a decentralised state organised around mayors as the key regional economic actors, while jointly governed pan-regional agencies could emerge, say for transport, energy, investment and industrial systems, that cross mayoral boundaries. Regions without mayors will get a chance to have one – or limit themselves to weaker powers.

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.

Will Trump be Burnham’s undoing, or the making of him? The answer lies in Europe | Jonathan Freedland

In an increasingly dangerous world, our European neighbours are finding safety in numbers – but Britain is on the outside. The new PM’s task is to change that

There is an orange cloud in the sky. I’m not referring to the wildfires ravaging parts of Europe and East Anglia, though they are connected. I mean the looming pall from across the Atlantic that threatens to spoil the sunny start to the premiership of Andy Burnham – and whose name is Donald Trump.

Burnham’s first 10 days or so in office have gone about as well as he or any of his team could have dared hope. His net approval rating has risen by 17 points, according to one early poll, gaining ground with every category of voter except supporters of Reform UK, though they too like some of what they see. His easy manner, no-notes speech-making and agility on social media have won plaudits, including from a usually sceptical press.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

HIV prevention drug could reduce cases globally but USAID cuts prevent access, say experts

Injectable PrEP drug holds promise but investment in HIV prevention has declined dramatically worldwide

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New innovations in HIV prevention could dramatically reduce the number of new HIV cases around the globe, but US foreign aid cuts will mean that those that most need the new medication will be unable to access it, according to experts at the Aids 2026 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

One year ago, the World Health Organization recommended that governments around the world prioritize expanded access to lenacapavir, an injectable version of the HIV prevention medication PrEP that requires only two injections annually. PrEP, which also comes in the form of daily oral medications and bimonthly injections, is 99% effective in preventing sexually transmitted HIV for people who take it consistently.

Tony Romo on leave from CBS Sports after arrest

Romo was arrested in Wisconsin last week, accused of operating a vehicle while intoxicated.

‘It’s OK to mess around’: how ‘mop man’ stole the show at Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games

CJ Miller from West Lothian has delighted global audiences with ‘sheer stupidity’ of his half-time dances

The 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow have already provided plenty of highlights. But fans across the world have been dazzled by one particular breakout star: the “mop man”.

When a cleaner came out at half-time during a netball match to wipe down the court before the restart, everything appeared normal. But as the cleaner swept, and the first bars of Queen’s I Want to Break Free rang out in the venue, he went from sweeping to a standing split.

Glen Hansard obituary

Oscar-winning singer, songwriter, actor and founder of the Dublin rock band the Frames

Glen Hansard, who has died aged 56 in a motorcycle accident, was one of Dublin’s musical heroes – a one-time busker who became an Oscar-winning international star, successful both as a singer-songwriter and as an actor.

He had already built up a local reputation busking regularly on Grafton Street, Dublin, when he decided to form a band, the Frames, along with other musicians he had befriended on the streets.

‘He lived here a long time, so it feels poignant’: Nick Cave thrills Brighton passersby with secret rooftop gig

Prior to playing huge outdoor show in city’s Preston Park, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds set up on a record shop balcony – and play to fans visiting from across the world

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ only advertised UK live performance of 2026, a show in Brighton’s Preston Park, arrives with other events across the city attached. The Duke of York’s Picturehouse cinema is hosting a weekend-long Nick Cave takeover, featuring films curated and introduced by the singer-songwriter. There is a pop-up shop replete with exclusive merchandise, and a postbox where physical letters can be sent to The Red Hand Files, the website Cave started in 2018 where he answers fans’ questions on topics ranging from faith and grief to his favourite brand of hair dye (L’Oreal, apparently). Even the announcements at the train station have been changed: arrivals are temporarily greeted by the sound of Nick Cave welcoming them to Brighton.

All these have been well-publicised, but judging by the crowd gathering in Kensington Gardens, a narrow pedestrian road in North Laine – not far from Jubilee Street, the subject of a Cave song – word also seems to have leaked out about a theoretically secret event: a live performance on the roof of Resident Records, which is hosting the two-day Nick Cave pop-up shop.

Arsenal target Bruno Guimarães not on Newcastle’s flight to pre-season camp

• Midfielder could still fly to La Manga on Sunday

• Howe says he stood down ‘to recharge and take a break’

Bruno Guimarães was not on Newcastle’s flight to Murcia on Friday lunchtime as Eddie Howe’s former players prepared to meet their new head coach in southern Spain.

As Guimarães, who is believed to be in Brazil, appeared to inch closer towards a transfer to Arsenal, Matthias Jaissle was completing his managerial move from Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ahli. Howe’s successor is expected to arrive at the club’s pre-season training camp at La Manga at some point this weekend.

Ariana Grande: Petal review – calm, controlled anger at exes, fans and the media

(Republic)
Casting herself as a flower trampled underfoot, the superstar’s eighth album swaps the ​glitz of her Wicked years ​f​or dark blooms of haunted electronics

‘Tell me who’s to blame?” Ariana Grande asks, exasperated, on the title track of her eighth album, Petal. “Is it the people or myself?” As bleary, fuzzed-up drums threaten to drown her out, this shadowy carousel-ride of a song cycles through more questions than answers. Does her success only make her need more of it? Can her new record of No 1 singles stave off heartbreak? Does Grande’s life shape her music, or does her music shape her life?

Moody and muted, Petal is a riposte to the glitz and sparkle of the pop star’s Oscar-nominated turn in Wicked and the theatre kid energy of her last album, 2024’s Eternal Sunshine. She describes this record as one of “unfiltered rage”, and there’s plenty Grande could be angry about: just this week she filed a lawsuit against hackers who allegedly stole and sold numerous unreleased songs.

Can Trump’s Hamas disarmament plan work and will Israel agree to withdraw from Gaza? - The Latest

Donald Trump has declared a breakthrough in negotiations over the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, but IsraelI government officials have voiced scepticism over the deal.

Lucy Hough speaks to Julian Borger, the Guardian’s senior international correspondent

Hobbies can improve your health – here are four tips for choosing one

From sea swimming to painting, doctors are ‘prescribing’ hobbies – but you don’t need a doctor’s note to get started

In 2020, the year Amanda lost her mother, husband, job and pre-pandemic normalcy, she was diagnosed with major depressive disorder. “My life was just spiraling down and down and down,” she says.

To help with her symptoms, in addition to an antidepressant prescription, Amanda was given a “social prescription”: a referral to a non-medical, community-based activity, typically involving movement, nature, art or service. Amanda lives near Devon, England, and became curious about sea swimming after reading about its health benefits and watching other women do it at her local beach all year round. When she told this to her mental health nurse, she was prescribed a spot in Chill Therapy, an eight-week course that teaches swimming, floating and breathing techniques to build skill and confidence navigating the open water.

Charley Hull doubles down on caddie prank after strong start to Women’s Open

• English player’s actions called ‘extremely cruel’

• Shiho Kuwaki sets early halfway lead at six-under

News that Charley Hull had slept for only three hours before her second round at the Women’s Open fuelled an obvious conclusion. With noisy fallout continuing from the 30-year-old’s prank on her caddie, it was assumed to be affecting her off the course. Not so, as it transpired. In typically emphatic style, Hull urged those who cannot accept criticism to “grow a pair of balls” after signing for a resilient 71 at Royal Lytham & St Annes.

After Hull tricked her bag man Adam Woodward into believing he had won £100,000 from a fake scratchcard, some of the reaction was fierce. Laura Davies, one of the greats of women’s golf, called Hull’s actions “extremely cruel”. After round one at Lytham, Hull told her detractors to “loosen up”. That, too, fuelled castigation of the Englishwoman. Rather than back down, she has doubled down.

Canelo Álvarez prepares for his return to the boxing ring

Boxer Saúl "Canelo" Álvarez spoke exclusively to "CBS Mornings" about his return to the ring, building his career and his future in the sport.

Amazon hikes 2026 capex to $220 billion due to higher memory costs

AWS sales expanded 37% year over year, which trounced analysts' expectations for 31% growth.

U.S. investigates potential Iran link to water system cyberattacks

Investigators are examining whether Iran was involved with a series of cyberattacks on water systems in Minnesota and other states. Nicole Sganga reports.

Amazon says it got $600 million in Trump tariff refunds and will pass return along to some customers

The company previously hadn't disclosed whether it would recoup tariff costs after the Supreme Court ruled many of President Donald Trump's levies were illegal.

What does protest look like in 2026? | Fiona Katauskas

You could say we’re in a polycrisis

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

On tour with the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth and Foo Fighters: raw music documentary captures Australia’s ‘best summer’

In 1995, US film-maker Tamra Davis travelled to Australia to capture the one-off Summersault tour on her camcorder. Thirty years on she has made The Best Summer, an intimate snapshot of an era that can never be repeated

There are only a few shots in Tamra Davis’ documentary The Best Summer that were filmed this century. They’re the very first ones: shaky footage of a clattering box of videotapes being loaded hurriedly into a car boot as Davis evacuated her home in Malibu during the Palisades fires last year. Almost everything else in the film was in that box, forgotten for nearly three decades, a time capsule of a one-off tour of Australia and Asia featuring some of the most influential musicians of the 80s and 90s.

Summersault, pulled together by twentysomething promoter and future Modular Records founder Steve “Pav” Pavlovic, brought Sonic Youth, Pavement, the Beastie Boys, Bikini Kill, Beck and more to five Australian cities over new year’s 1995/96. It had started as Pav booking a Beasties tour that snowballed as the bands – many of them close friends – liked the sound of a break down under.

Pat Rafter: ‘Why aren’t we producing players like Spain? I don’t know’

The former tennis No 1 on the current dearth of top Australian players, the excitement surrounding Cruz Hewitt, and a newfound love of padel

Pat Rafter is Australian sporting royalty. A man whose genuine friendliness still radiates into mid-life and whose looks once made him an underwear model, with a tennis career that took him to No 1 in the world.

He is the kind of person anyone would want on their team, so it is no surprise to see him named as a member of the Aussie Crocs. They are the national squad of tennis-adjacent pursuit padel – a kind of miniature form of the game – and are due to compete in an exhibition at the Sydney Opera House starting 15 August.

Iran strikes tankers under US escort in Hormuz strait as Trump gathers cabinet to discuss war

Energy prices have soared again since fighting between US and Iran resumed two weeks ago as conflict spreads across Middle East

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Iran has said it struck two tankers trying to pass through the strait of Hormuz under the escort of the US military as Donald Trump gathered his cabinet to discuss the stalling war and rising prices as midterm elections in the US loom.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday that the “non-compliant oil tankers … were struck and brought to a halt, while four other oil tankers quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions”. The military body said the ships had tried to pass through the strait via an “undeclared route” and under US aerial escort.

Keeping cool without AC: Our readers share their tips

We asked our readers to tell us how they've fended off heat without the refrigerant blasts of an air conditioner. Here's what they shared.

Hold the front page! Marilyn Monroe is Dakota Johnson’s ninth cousin three times removed

The vogue for celebrity ancestors can be traced back to Robert Pattinson descending from Dracula and Benedict Cumberbatch being related to just about everyone

To mark Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday, a short film will premiere at this year’s Venice film festival. Entitled Flesh Impact, the film has been written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and will star two versions of Monroe. The first, played by Ellen Burstyn, will apparently be “a version of Monroe the world never got to see”, while Dakota Johnson will play Monroe in her pomp.

Ahead of its premiere, a photo of Johnson dolled up as Monroe has been released. And it has to be said that the resemblance is actually pretty good. This could be down to one of two reasons. The first is that Monroe is so iconic that you could slap a wig and a beauty spot on Phil Mitchell and you’d immediately see who he was trying to emulate. Or it could be because Marilyn Monroe and Dakota Johnson are literally related.

Fed officials who voted to hike rates say action is needed now against inflation

Kashkari and Hammack joined Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan in dissenting against holding the Fed's key overnight borrowing rate steady.

OCTROT heated blankets and throws recalled after fires and injuries

Chinese-made electric bedding poses "risk of serious injury or death," according to U.S. product safety regulators.

A bitter pill: are you wasting your money on supplements?

Will collagen make you look younger? Could magnesium help you sleep better? Or are the benefits overstated? A dietitian reveals which are worth taking

Multivitamins are one of the most commonly used supplements worldwide – but for most people, there isn’t evidence of a huge benefit.

Chelsea fined £10m and given suspended transfer ban by FA over agent breaches

• Club escape suspended six-point deduction on appeal

• Owners admitted secret payments by previous regime

Chelsea have been fined £10m by the FA and served with a suspended transfer ban for multiple violations of transfer rules during the Roman Abramovich era.

The sanction reflects a similar punishment handed to the Blues by the Premier League earlier this year after the club were found to have used unlicensed agents and sought to obscure the nature of their transfer dealings between 2009 and 2022. Deals involving Chelsea legends Samuel Eto’o, Eden Hazard and Willian were among those found to have breached the rules. The commission originally handed down a stronger sanction that would have given Chelsea a suspended six-point deduction, but it was overturned after an appeal by the club.

Here comes the alt-bride: wedding gowns enter a more experimental era

Celebrities including Charli xcx and Gabbriette and avant-garde brands honour tradition while also rejecting it

If a wedding day brings to mind a bride dressed in a big white dress, the styles coming down the aisle in the near future may strike you as a little different. Whether it is through celebrity references, or new brands, wedding gowns are entering a more experimental era.

For Charli xcx’s marriage to the 1975 drummer George Daniel last year, the bride wore a minidress and sunglasses.

Amazon surges 14%, Apple falls 9% as investors pick post-earnings AI winners

Amazon reported a surge in revenue at its key cloud business while Apple issued disappointing guidance.

Dwindling cash and soaring memory costs: Tech's AI buildout has ballooning price tag

Amazon, Alphabet and Tesla all reported negative cash flow in the latest quarter, while Meta's cash generation plummeted by 91%.

In Nebraska, Americans begin to lose Medicaid under Trump's work rules

Nebraska's Medicaid director, in an exclusive interview with nonprofit news organization Tradeoffs, said roughly 200 people will lose health coverage on Aug. 1.

Drifting SpaceX rocket heading for accidental collision with moon

Scientists and sky gazers will watch intently as rocket’s upper stage slams into lunar surface on Wednesday

A drifting SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon after launching a pair of lunar landers more than a year ago.

The rocket’s upper stage will unintentionally slam into the moon on Wednesday, carving out a crater and sending up a plume of dust and rubble that scientists – and sky gazers – are eager to observe.

State department to offer Trump-branded US passports nationwide

Passports with the president’s portrait, previously only available in DC, will be offered at 27 agencies nationwide

• US politics live – latest updates

Americans outside the nation’s capital will soon be able to get limited-edition passports that feature a picture of Donald Trump and celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, the state department announced.

The department’s 27 passport agencies nationwide will start offering the special travel documents next month. They previously had only been available at the Washington DC passport office for in-person applicants.

A World Cup with no participants – it could be Gianni Infantino’s boldest move yet | Marina Hyde

You’ve got to admire the Fifa president’s chutzpah in trying to flog off football’s greatest prize. If only Uefa wasn’t being so pesky about it all

Imagine a plan so distasteful that even the Americans and a Middle Eastern nepo-royal football boss can’t be doing with it. Such is the status of Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s scheme to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. More historically, perhaps, the 55 nations that make up Uefa have reacted to this horror show by voting unanimously to boycott Fifa tournaments, including World Cups, if Infantino presses ahead. That would mean Spain and Portugal boycotting their own men’s World Cup next time around, which you’d think – not to call it too soon – would come off as slightly bad vibes.

A testing moment, then, for the haunted cue-ball. Again. Can it really already be time to turn to Infantino once more, even after he appeared in this spot only on Tuesday, after his 15-page Instagram crash-out about his haters? Yes. Yes, I’m afraid it can. Demanding the federations of the world sell off the World Cup to some fund led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s brother will regrettably draw attention to you in ways that will prove difficult to control. As indicated, the Fifa president’s plan has contrived to appear vulgar to the North American confederation, Concacaf, as well as the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Why undercover footage exposing lobbyists raises concerns for journalism – video explainer

A Guardian investigation has revealed that a political lobbying firm, founded by the former electoral strategist for David Cameron and Boris Johnson, secretly pays journalists to write pieces for British newspapers that are favourable to its clients.

In a practice that appears to create a back door for private companies to influence public opinion, lobbyists for CT Group, which was co-founded by the campaign strategist Lynton Crosby, told an undercover reporter they had paid journalists to place apparently independent stories in newspapers.

In a statement, CT Group said: 'We do not comment publicly on work we do for clients and we therefore cannot respond to the specific allegations you have made.' CT Group said the events had been 'deliberately mischaracterised' and it did not engage the undercover journalist to do anything and did not pay him anything. It said the journalist was looking for work and 'chased us relentlessly over a period of more than six months'

• Lobbying giant filmed offering reporter payment for flattering client coverage in national press

Franco Baresi was not only the captain but the moral heart of great Milan team

The late centre-back defined an era of Italian defending and his collection of honours is eternal proof of his class

There are very few players who become bywords for their position, who enjoy universal acclaim. But for anybody who watched football in the late 80s or early 90s, Franco Baresi was the central defender. He was unsurpassed, obviously the best in his position in the world, the definition of the art of the defending. The oddity is, he really wasn’t like very many other defenders at all.

Baresi had just turned 19 when he won his first scudetto at Milan under Nils Liedholm. It was 1979 and Italian football was still dominated by the ideals of catenaccio. Most defences comprised a libero, two man-markers and, if you were lucky, an attacking left-back. But not Liedholm’s. The Swede was a pioneer in Serie A of zonal marking, and the idea that the game was not a series of physical battles but a question of space. Baresi was only 5ft 9in and a teenager. More traditional coaches might not have trusted him. But Liedholm saw an impeccable reader of the game, even at that age. Baresi was an ever-present, not only in the league but in the Coppa Italia and Uefa Cup as well.

‘Change is happening! I can cut off my hair and misbehave’: Vicky Krieps on rage, rebellion, and rejecting Hollywood

After her star turn in Phantom Thread, everyone expected a move to Tinseltown – but the actor embraced indie European films instead. It’s because of a lifelong instinct to be bold, she says

Back when she was a rising actor, Vicky Krieps had her fill of people telling her what not to do. When she got pregnant in her 20s, she was advised not to have the baby as it would derail her career, but she did it anyway. When, after playing a fashion designer’s muse in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread, she went back to making low-budget French films, she was, she says, “actually laughed at. It just seemed absurd to these people that I would turn my back on Hollywood and invest so much energy and passion in something that wasn’t giving me money.”

Yet Krieps’s determination to forge her own path has reaped rewards. For the last decade she has had one foot in the Hollywood mainstream, appearing in Fede Álvarez’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web and M Night Shyamalan’s Old, while keeping the other firmly in independent cinema where she has freedom to experiment. Krieps also does her utmost to avoid the pantomime of red-carpet events. On the occasions she does make an appearance, she will stick out her tongue or give photographers the finger. “I always smile when I’m doing it. But I’m telling them: ‘Guys, this is really ridiculous and the shouting is a bit much. Just talk nicely to me.’”

Alien erotica, football coaching and making Meryl Streep cry: Ted Lasso’s new star Tanya Reynolds opens up

She lit up screens as Sex Education’s steamy sci-fi writer, wowed Streep in the West End and now she’s starring in the return of TV’s feelgood footie hit. The star talks about pretending to be sporty – and why she’s a total cheese string

By the time its third season came to an end in 2023, Ted Lasso was a Big Deal. The cosy comedy about an indefatigably positive American football coach gee-whizzing his way into the hearts of a London football team had won 13 Emmys and racked up more than 25bn minutes of viewing.

Contributing exactly zero minutes to this staggering stat was Tanya Reynolds, who joins the series in its fourth season as Ted’s assistant coach, Alice.

BTS are back: return of K-pop superstars sparks US economic boom

Cities in North America hosting 14 concerts in August and September – and economic impact is set to be significant

BTS’s “Army” fanbase is descending on New York this weekend as the K-pop supergroup continues their first world tour after a four-year hiatus, sparking an economic boom wherever they land.

After shows in South Korea and Europe, the group are back in North America, with 14 shows in six US cities in August and September.

Digested week: As wildfires rage, should I buy a helicopter or marry a guy with a bunker?

Plus, train toilet roulette, an astonishingly stoic hiker and the tradwife paradox

As I read the headlines about Europe on fire, and imagine – or is it true? – I can smell smoke from the Suffolk wildfire encroaching on a nuclear power facility a county away from me, I’m remembering the wisdom of a friend who told me years ago that she wasn’t aiming to buy a house but a helicopter. “Because,” said Sarah, gesturing around us, “it’s going to be no good trying to get across flood waters or dusty plains or great drifts of virus-ridden corpses. You’re going to need to go up.”

Trump announced a deal for Hamas to disarm. And, the U.S. economy slowed a bit

President Trump says a deal has been reached for Hamas to completely disarm and Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza. And, the U.S. economy slowed some, but Americans continued to spend.

The Tech Download: Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf talks AI in warfare and manufacturing push

CNBC's Arjun Kharpal sits down on The Tech Download podcast with the defense company chief.

AOC 2028: could she be the first female US president? | Politics Weekly America

Leftwing Democrats are having their political moment in the sun, with Zohran Mamdani in New York, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and the endless calls for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028. Has Democratic socialism shifted from the political fringe to the mainstream? And can this group lure back the all-important swing voters? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bhaskar Sunkara, the president of the Nation magazine, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

‘A universal human story’: Clean Start’s thought-provoking tidying sim tells immigrant’s tale

Playing as recent arrival Lena, your challenges include learning a new language and uncovering family secrets – its developer hopes it will spread ‘a little more compassion’

The cosy house-sorting sim has become a much-loved staple of the PC indie scene. Titles such as Unpacking, A Little to the Left and Momento charm players with their detailed interiors and quiet narratives of lives lived and shared within the same four walls. For Clean Start, Polish developer Serious Sim has taken a different approach – here you play as domestic cleaner, Lena, an immigrant who has arrived in an unspecified western country with little knowledge of the local language, and a family to support back home.

From here, you’re tasked with cleaning a series of houses and apartments, polishing tables, tidying shelves and scrubbing muddy pawprints from kitchen floors. It seems you’re able to rearrange the rooms, giving them a personal feel, which is after all one of the most pleasing elements of the genre. You can also, we are reassured, pet the dog.

Release schedule: when to wee and when to wait during this summer’s biggest movies

With run-times hitting three hours, you will probably need to take a bathroom break during this season’s blockbusters. Here’s a handy guide for your urination calculations

• ‘An intermission is a must’: why Greek cinemas are adding a loo break to The Odyssey

You will almost certainly need to urinate during Christopher Nolan’s epic. Do not make the same mistake I did, and sneak off after the big cyclops setpiece. You might assume that the plot will relax after this, but you will be wrong. If your cinema’s toilet is as far from the screen as my cinema’s, you will end up missing most of the Trojan Horse section. Much better would be to cling on until after the horse, because then you’ll only miss the Laestrygonians. These are the giants depicted on the film’s poster but you pretty much get the gist of the scene from the poster anyway.

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in July

Max Porter, Daisy Johnson, Avni Doshi and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I recently read Gaining Ground by Joan Barfoot. It’s one of the best novels I’ve ever read about what it means to live with others, or decide not to; what we owe the people we love, the natural world, and ourselves. I also really enjoyed Robert Frost, by Robert Frost and Stacy Skolnik. It’s not that Robert Frost; it’s an itinerant young American Robert Frost who jots down his thoughts and observations on homelessness, food, value, music, drugs, the philosophical wastelands of contemporary life, and Stacy Skolnik has turned them into these delightful, oddly profound, poems. Also, coming soon, End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor. Everyone should read it. It tells us exactly what’s going on.

The best recent poetry – review roundup

Small Birds Singing by Matthew Welton; The Channel by Jana Prikryl; Stepmother by Helen Mort; Drunken Driving by Martina Evans

Small Birds Singing by Matthew Welton (Carcanet, £12.99)
Written in unrhymed couplets that shrink and grow across the page like a concertina going through its scales, Welton’s poems focus attention on the city through the seasons: weeds through concrete, wasps emerging from the gaps between bricks, frozen towels on a clothesline, the shadows of jackdaws on a lawn. His gaze is neutral, and it often falls on that which we’d normally turn away from, things slightly out of place, or that disturb our sense of propriety: “more cardboard in the recycling bin / than the recycling bin can contain”. This is a poetry of things, like the poetry of Francis Ponge, but as Welton says: “no thinginess without thought”. Welton’s thoughts – though whether they are his or whether they emerge from his surroundings or from the act of writing itself, it is impossible to say – are couched in deliciously riddling couplets: “it is not the habit of patterns / to emphasise the pattern of habits”. He reminds us forcefully that poetry is all around us and within us, that anything can go in a poem: a sandwich, a desiccated lump of duck shit, the pile of junk left outside a house during a refurbishment. Poems can mirror our world in all its messiness, and in doing so let us see it a little bit better.

The Channel by Jana Prikryl (Faber, £12.99
The casual violence of King Lear, the greed, the bureaucracy, and the indifference to human life, make the play particularly resonant to contemporary audiences. In her fourth collection, Prikryl channels the voice of Cordelia to think back through her own family story of displacement from the Czech Republic. Shakespeare’s Lear becomes “a document of fact / of things that happened and keep happening”, enabling Prikryl to explore her own separation from friends and family and her experiences of migration, where home is nowhere. In Dover Calais a ferry trip to France is meshed with the story of Cordelia’s exile, morphing into an account of a ferry disaster which in turn cuts to a scene where refugees make for shore in small boats: “Waves / unreal, and driving rain, the two-year-old / left face-down on a beach nine years ago / came up for me”. Like the scissored-off hospital undershirt in In the Mould, Prikryl’s language cuts off, ending abruptly: “or was the famous sweetness / of grandmother a bluff / which through and through was too”. This rewiring of the sentence creates dazzling leaps of thought, jumping from refugee camps to Shakespeare’s Fool battling with a tsunami of text messages to dissident window cleaners out of the novels of Milan Kundera to tender moments shared with her father. It’s a bold “stepping out of form” that turns its back on the neatness of the lyric, and by doing so creates a new poetic language which, like the language of Calvino in Invisible Cities, is able to connect everything to everything.

Robots on parade and a German warship wreck: photos of the day – Friday

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

Ryan Gosling is entering the Marvel Cinematic Universe – on a motorbike, in flames, wearing a leather jacket. What could go wrong?

After coveting the role for years, Gosling has been announced as the new Ghost Rider – a superhero stunt rider with powers bestowed by Satan. Is this a smart move all round or has he sold his soul to the devil?

Steven Spielberg once said: “If a person can tell me the idea in 25 words or less, it’s going to make a pretty good movie.” And Marvel’s most popular big-screen superheroes can be described using less than half that number. Iron Man is a tech bro in a tin suit; Spider-Man has the powers of an arachnid; Thor is a Norse god. Go and watch a film featuring any of these characters and you know exactly what you’re going to get.

But then there is Ghost Rider, who, according to reports from San Diego Comic-Con last week, will be the subject of a new Marvel Cinematic Universe film directed by Deadpool & Wolverine’s Shawn Levy, and starring Ryan Gosling. There is no quick way to explain what is going on with this guy. In the 1972 origin story, stunt motorcyclist Johnny Blaze sells his soul to Satan to save his adoptive father from cancer. The cure works but its beneficiary is killed almost immediately. The devil then tries to claim Johnny’s soul and, when that fails, binds him to the demon Zarathos. This, if Christopher Marlowe is to be believed, ought to result in corruption, despair and eternal, fiery damnation. Yet somehow our hero emerges from the arrangement with a cool flaming skull, vast supernatural powers and a motorbike capable of riding up buildings and across dimensions. Blaze regards the whole arrangement as a curse, but to the casual observer his principal penance is to roam the Earth passing judgment on people more wicked than he is, while looking good in a leather jacket.

Iran targets strategic U.S. assets in Kuwait, Bahrain after Egypt drone attack

Iran's army said it launched attacks on strategic U.S. assets and military bases in Kuwait and Bahrain.

‘If a space is cared for, everything improves’: Meet four gardeners transforming their urban communities

From improving biodiversity to managing antisocial behaviour, the benefits of greening towns and cities are massive. These names are leading the charge…

The importance of green space in Britain’s increasingly urban landscape – from city parks to community gardens and allotments – is unequivocal. Public Health England reports that regular exposure to green space reduces stress and improves wellbeing and physical fitness, while the Natural History Museum has highlighted its value in cooling city infrastructure and reducing pollution. Functional cities depend on functional greenery, yet the upkeep of these vital environments remains precarious. With parks and green spaces classified as non-statutory services, local authorities continue to slash their funding, relying increasingly on volunteer groups to maintain them.

A leading voice advocating for change is John Little of Care Not Capital, a community interest company offering free training for gardeners working in the public sphere so that they can have a greater influence on the spaces they maintain and those who govern them. “Green spaces are not sustainable unless you have someone looking after them,” says Little. “Yet in the public realm, the investment is often about infrastructure – overly designed landscapes and extravagant architecture – and rarely the ongoing care.” Investment in skilled gardeners, he argues, leads to positive outcomes far beyond good horticultural upkeep, from biodiversity increase and climate crisis mitigation to better community engagement and reduced antisocial behaviour.

The dead doctor and a dicey diet: how a ban made a hero of Egypt’s rogue medic

Diaa al-Awadi claimed insulin was a fraud, smoking was safe and chemotherapy useless. But despite losing his medical licence and dying at early age, his reach continues to grow

It had been a struggle with conventional treatments. For Fatima Adel, a 50-year-old author living in Cairo’s upmarket Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood, the misdiagnoses and medical errors she had experienced had began to erode her confidence in doctors.

But when the videos of Diaa al-Awadi began circulating – an Egyptian doctor who spoke plainly, invoked the Qur’an, and told his audience that their bodies could heal themselves if they changed their diet – Adel, like tens of thousands of other Egyptians, listened.

I study the boreal forest. This summer wildfires came for my home | Julee Boan

Here are things that will – and will not – help us fight the threat of wildfires

I have spent much of my career studying boreal forests and I know fire is part of how they renew themselves. That knowledge did nothing for the lump in my throat last week as wildfires closed in on my community in northwestern Ontario.

Over 150 fires were burning in the region almost at once, displacing at least 1,800 people from more than a dozen communities, most of them Indigenous. Namaygoosisagagun First Nation burned to the ground, its residents narrowly escaping by boat.

Julee Boan is Partnerships Director, Global Nature, International, at the Natural Resources Defense Council

Back in HG Wells’ time machine: the Stephen Collins cartoon

Continue reading...

Week in wildlife: snub-nosed monkeys, amorous cobras and a milk-snatching fox

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Who's driving a bookmobile full of Epstein files? The quiz knows!

Plus: scandalous Senate drama, Grammys drama and Homeric drama.

My family is coming apart – so it’s time for one last video game session | Dominik Diamond

I wanted our last family games night to be the best fun we’ve ever had. Maybe we should have stuck with Mario Kart …

It is the end of an era for the Diamond family. For 20 years, there have been five of us living together. It has not been easy. Militant vegan daughters, sons who have inherited Scottish tempers, and a youngest child who attracts trouble like an industrial magnet, have meant our house has been conflict-laden at times. Throw in the fact that we are beset with all manner of mental health bobbins and chronic illnesses that resulted in two of our three kids almost dying in hospitals and you get a family that is combustible – but extremely close.

Through it all, we had games. They always brought us back together. Not just us all hunkering over Super Mario Kart like some kind of UN-mandated family therapy, but the conversations that happen when any of us spy another playing something new. Games are a cultural touchstone that helped us crack through the veneer of disagreements and distrust and remind us that we have more things in common than we sometimes feel.

Jacqueline Crooks: ‘Toni Morrison’s voice made me want to find my own’

The novelist on learning empathy from Charles Dickens, the playfulness of Irenosen Okojie and avoiding Jane Austen

My earliest reading memory
I was eight when I was given The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley, after being moved from my grand­mother’s care to live with my mother and her husband, who I barely knew. The story is about leaving one world, adapting to another. Surviving. It gave shape to unnamed feelings and developed my survival imagination: imagining beyond my circumstances.

My favourite book growing up
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. I followed David’s journey from exclusion to belonging. Dickens vivifies his characters; you grow alongside them. The novel taught me empathy, and that some relationships sustain us while others must be left behind.

450K borrowers say they were ripped off. Their student loans are being erased

The borrowers say they were defrauded by their colleges, but the class-action lawsuit to erase their federal student loans has been tangled up in courts for years.

Democrats show divisions on Israel amid competitive midterm elections

Democratic socialists are on the ballot in high profile races coming up in Michigan and Wisconsin, putting mainstream Democrats in a tough position when it comes to the issue of Israel and Gaza.

Morning news brief

President Trump says he may pull Todd Blanche's nomination, Trump says a deal has been made to disarm Hamas and withdraw Israeli forces from Gaza, the U.S. economy is growing, but at a slower pace.

Weather tracker: Wisconsin hit by rare tornado and meteotsunami

Unusual atmospheric phenomenon causes widespread damage in US state, while heat continues to grip Europe

A rare and powerful tornado developed over north-east Wisconsin on Monday, lasting 26 minutes and carving a 12-mile path of destruction in western parts of Appleton and Menasha before dissipating over Lake Winnebago.

The US National Weather Service classified the tornado as an EF3, making it the fourth of that strength to strike Wisconsin in 2026. EF3 tornadoes are relatively rare in north-east Wisconsin, and this year’s total is already the state’s highest since 1984.

Arca: XXXXX review – a wild, brilliant album that taps into our bodies’ most feral frequencies

(XL)
In the follow-up to her Kick series, Arca jumbles the building blocks of electronic music to create a beautiful, disorienting sound world

XXXXX, the new album by Venezuelan producer-vocalist Arca, is reportedly laden with meaning: a press release claims that “suspended between posthuman augmentation and raw emotion, XXXXX exposes the mainframe”. But the reason Arca, real name Alejandra Ghersi, has become such a star of electronic music – and a mainstream-adjacent one at that – is not because she lets philosophy postgrads in Berlin write her marketing copy: it’s because, for well over a decade, she has been putting out records like XXXXX, which seem to tap into the body’s most primal, feral frequencies better than nearly anyone else. That ability has resulted in recent callups to collaborate on Madonna’s Confessions II and remix pop singer Addison Rae, and she has amassed a large, loyal fanbase – uncommon for someone making such outre music.

The follow-up to her phenomenal Kick series – five albums, each highlighting a different side of Arca’s work – XXXXX sometimes channels the frenetic feel of Aphex Twin (as on Everything) and zeroes in on the wild, footwork-y high-tempo club music she made her name with (like on Fxck, a breathless and grimy rebuke to patriarchy). But it also delves more deeply into worlds the musician has previously skirted around. The sound of a tolling bell on Willow rings into a song that’s harsh and uncompromising; Raver jumbles the building blocks of classic mainstream EDM into a piece of beautiful, disorienting sound design.

How India's 'cockroach' protests toppled a government minister – video

For the first time in more than a decade, a government minister in India has resigned following pressure from a street protest movement. The demonstrations erupted after the chief justice compared unemployed youths to cockroaches.

For many young Indians, the remark became the tipping point after years of high unemployment and repeated exam paper leaks that had shattered the hopes of millions of job seekers. The Guardian spent a week embedded with protesters as they faced police crackdowns, arrests and intimidation, documenting an extraordinary week that culminated in the education minister Dharmendra Pradhan's resignation.

Ebola outbreak in DRC the fastest growing in the history of the virus

As the death toll rises to almost 1,500, and with a vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain potentially still months away, health workers face a battle to slow the outbreak

The latest numbers of confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has made this latest outbreak the fastest growing in the known history of the virus.

At 3,360 confirmed cases, the disease is now affecting people in five provinces in the east of the DRC, with 1,487 deaths recorded, representing an overall case fatality rate estimated at about 45%, according to Congolese health officials. Health responses to the outbreak have been badly hampered by conflict in many of the affected areas.

SingStar Take That anyone? The strange joy of charity shop video games

Hidden gems can be unearthed, but you have to dig deep into the bargain bins of countless outdated Fifas, Wii Fits without the controllers and partially finished quizshow games

As an eternally optimistic charity shop fan, I hold on to the fantasy that one day I’ll walk into my local Oxfam and find a pristine copy of the Sega Saturn shooter Burning Rangers for £1.50. Or perhaps a box full of old Neo Geo carts for a quid each. Sadly, this is now unlikely. Charity shops have caught on to the fact that old video games – like old vinyl albums – are highly collectible, and so they’re putting the good stuff on eBay. That’s fine, it’s their job to raise money, not to provide opportunist swine like me with bargains. But what games can you find tucked away in your local branch of Barnardo’s? To find out I visited about 40 charity stores across the country. Here is what I discovered on the shelves … And please do share your own charity shop gaming finds in the comments!

SK Hynix, Samsung shares skyrocket to clock best days as AI rally roars back

South Korea's chip heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics soared more than 20% on Friday, tracking a sharp rally in U.S. technology stocks.

‘I was born without self-esteem’: Hannah Einbinder on Hacks, her buzzy queer horror – and being Hollywood’s most outspoken star

The Hacks lead was cast in meta-slasher sensation Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma for her ‘deranged physicality’ – but it’s a fitting role for an actor who has made a point of confronting shame and speaking her mind

‘God is good all the time,” laughs Hannah Einbinder. She’s fresh off a plane from Los Angeles and curled up barefoot in an armchair. This, she says, is “a crazy time in life. Starring in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma in the midst of Hacks ending … it’s definitely an embarrassment of riches.”

Hacks is the HBO comedy that ended earlier this year; in May, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Jane Schoenbrun’s queer meta-horror, became the breakout hit of this year’s Cannes film festival.

The Burnham bounce is eclipsing the Green surge – and Zack Polanski’s radical hope is being tested | Gaby Hinsliff

The new PM is enjoying a honeymoon period but, longer-term, the Greens have the freedom to say whatever Labour won’t

Cackling happily into their pints, the two most powerful men in the country scoff their way through a selection of pub snacks.

Pork scratchings or scampi fries? Or maybe old-school peanuts? It’s hardly the toughest choice currently facing Andy Burnham and the chancellor, John Healey, so some may find this week’s made-to-go-viral Instagram reel of them gleefully ranking crisps a bit silly. (I’m writing this, laptop balanced on my knee, beside a hospital bed; right now I couldn’t care less whether the chancellor likes bacon fries.) But I do care, intensely, about a government that is promising once-in-a-generation reform of care for elderly people winning the public’s confidence for long enough to actually carry out that promise, and weirdly in 2026 that means chomping crisps on camera to establish your bona fides with people who’d scroll straight past conventional political content.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

John Tilbury: At Home album review – an eclectic and extraordinary treasure trove

John Tilbury
(Another Timbre, four CDs)
The great interpreter of Morton Feldman and a towering figure of experimental music signs off with four discs of intimate, revelatory recordings

Few have made a more significant contribution to the fields of contemporary, improvised and experimental music than John Tilbury. When, at 82, he decided to end his live appearances, Simon Reynell, founder of Another Timbre, asked if he might occasionally visit the pianist’s home in Deal, on the Kent coast, and record whatever happened to be on his mind. Eight years later, Tilbury has decided to hang up his hat for good, hence this four-disc set celebrating a unique artist and musical pioneer.

Morton Feldman admired the “swagger” of Tilbury and the British avant garde, and the pianist went on to become perhaps the US composer’s leading interpreter. His recording of Madame Press Died Last Week at Ninety is authoritative, a masterclass in spontaneous phrasing and sonic sensitivity.

Jacaranda by Gaël Faye review – the limits of forgiveness after Rwanda

This bold family saga explores a search for healing and truth in the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide

How to forgive the unforgivable? How to live in the aftermath of atrocity? Following 2016’s Small Country, French-Rwandan rapper and writer Gaël Faye takes on huge questions in his second novel, Jacaranda, which explores the seismic events of the Rwanda genocide and the aftershocks that continue to ripple through the generations.

Structurally bold, the story opens in summer 1994 with Milan, Faye’s then 12-year-old protagonist, enjoying an extended break from school. Milan’s father is white French and the family’s life in Versailles is the embodiment of first world ease – their holiday that year, as usual, spent sailing at the Île de Ré. Milan’s mother, though, is Rwandan. Venancia arrived in the 1970s, establishing a life for herself, a successful clothing boutique, a family. However, she cannot share the French ease, much less her thoughts on the disturbing reports from Rwanda now making the evening news.

Luxury is coming for our teeth – but should we really be paying £20 for a tube of toothpaste?

Minty fresh flavours are out, gold plated toothbrushes are in, and dental experts are sceptical

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First it came for handwash. Then deodorant. Now, the fancification trend has claimed its next victim: dental products. From £20 toothpastes to bottles of mouthwash that sound more like a perfume than a breath freshener, a new wave of oral care is blurring the lines between function and fashion.

Rather than being shoved in an old tumbler on the back of the shelf, today’s iterations of toothbrushes and pastes are at the forefront of social media sink shots, proudly displayed alongside a three-wick candle and curated pile of skincare.

Benjamina Ebuehi’s summer berry dutch baby recipe

Think giant sweet yorkshire pud filled with a lake of summer berry compote … that’s some brunch!

This pancake/yorkshire pudding hybrid is nothing if not fun. The edges crisp and puff up in the most dramatic way, making for a very impressive brunch centrepiece that makes a change from regular pancakes. Although delicious just with some icing sugar, I’ve filled this one with a quick fruit compote to make the most of summer berries. The juices soak into the base, making way for my favourite part of a yorkshire: the slightly soggy bottom.

Drones offer alternative to balloons for weather research

Pre-programmed flights gather data at different altitudes then return to bases to recharge and download

Weather happens in the boundary layer, the atmosphere from ground level to a few thousand metres, but this can be difficult to study in detail: weather stations are too low, and aircraft are expensive. Instrumented weather balloons are the traditional solution, and thousands are released every day. But these are at the mercy of the wind and use irreplaceable helium.

Drones offer an alternative and the US company Meteomatics has taken the idea further with Meteobase, a base station on the ground with a drone that can be launched and recovered automatically. It carries out a pre-programmed flight, gathering data at different altitudes, then returns to recharge and download data which the Meteobase sends to researchers.