Portugal v Uzbekistan: World Cup 2026 – live

⚽ Kick-off: 12pm local/1pm EST/6pm BST/3am AEST
⚽ Player guide | Bracketology | Golden Boot | Mail Sarah

One Ronaldo opinion is already in from Justin Kavanagh:

Between Ronaldo’s endless narcissism and Bruno Fernandes’ endless narkyism, Portugal have become a hard team to like. Not to mention their coach’s lack of backbone for making a decision to drop a 41-year-old which shouldn’t be all that hard. It’s a shame, because they’re a country with a fine footballing tradition who have graced many international competitions. Still, it could be (and probably will be) worse. They’ll probably be managed by Mourinho at the next World Cup.

Reader Q&A: Rafael Behr answers your questions – live

It’s 10 years since Brexit – and it’s also another one of those weeks in British politics … Guardian columnist Rafael Behr is online now answering your questions about Burnham, Starmer, Brexit and more.

Sign up here to join the discussion and post your questions

LadyPercy asks: I don’t hate Keir Starmer. Am I alone?

Raf: No. I don’t hate him either. I was sceptical to begin with, then started extending the benefit of the doubt, then stretched it as far as it would go – some might say too far – and accepted, eventually, that he wasn’t up to it. I find the levels of vitriol directed at him perverse and demoralising. He has become a receptacle for many years of disappointment with successive prime ministers. Something about the nature of his failure, the way he set himself up as the totem of Change and then delivered what felt so much like more of the same, seems to have distilled public disappointment into an exceptionally potent venom. He came to be seen as the archetypal deceiving politician who promises it all and delivers nothing, and ended up suffocating under a weight of incumbency that covered not just his own government but every government that preceded it. A tragic fate, in some ways.

Raf: It’s an intriguing question because one of Starmer’s weaknesses has been his inability to signal the kind of keenness on priorities that you describe. What is his big thing? What would he have imagined his legacy might one day be when he started? He seemed to get bounced into so many of the choices he made as part of the endless tactical grind to get through another week. I remember one of his many relaunches being pegged to a big announcement on AI, but does anyone now think of that as Starmer’s signature policy? But for this reason, I think a lot of what he started will carry on for the simple reason that a lot of things that would be very controversial ended up being abandoned or never started. Digital IDs were made non-mandatory, for example, which makes them simpler to roll out. The steps towards utility nationalisation are very much in the direction that Burnham has indicated he wants to travel. The EU reset, being negotiated behind the restrictive red lines, is low-stakes enough that a new prime minister can easily nudge agreement over the line. The social media ban for under 16s might get tangled up in the legislative process, but that could easily have happened if Starmer stayed on. Nothing much can lose prominence because the most prominent feature of his leadership was the absence of distinctive prime ministerial agenda.

Supreme Court rules ex-inmate can't sue prison officials for shaving dreadlocks

The Supreme Court rejected a former Louisiana inmate's effort to sue state prison officials after they shaved his dreadlocks in violation of his religious beliefs.

Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham have met away from No 10 to discuss transition – UK politics live

Prime minister said to have left Downing Street for secret meeting with his probable successor

• Burnham adviser calls for billions of pounds in borrowing for infrastructure

Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.

The Liberal Democrats are marking the tenth anniversary of Brexit by enjoying their favourite pursuit – being rude about Nigel Farage.

Nigel Farage pocketed a £5m “reward” for the damage he’s caused, while the rest of us are paying for it dearly. When he promised we would be better off, he clearly only meant himself. We are taking over billboards across the UK today to say enough is enough.

Key to a serious Jones run seems to what he makes of Burnham’s economic policies in the coming days - including public control of utilities. And whether Ed Miliband ends up as chancellor.

France records hottest day ever as 40 people drown across country

French weather service says temperature hit 44.3C in Pissos as heat forces Louvre and Eiffel Tower to close early

• Europe heatwave live – latest updates

France has registered its hottest day on record as 40 people across the country were confirmed to have drowned while swimming in unsupervised areas over the last few days.

“There is a tragic scourge of drownings,” prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday. “The latest figures we’ve received are 40 deaths since 18 June. Most of the victims are young people.”

Judge blocks Trump administration's SNAP limits on sodas, candy

The ruling deals a setback to the "Make America Healthy Again" campaign, which seeks to curb purchases of foods officials say are unhealthy.

SpaceX stock climbs 5%, rebounding from three-day losing streak

Gains have been pared back at the space and AI company following an initial surge off of its record-breaking IPO.

Tech stocks tumble for a second day. Here's what is behind the selloff.

Nvidia, Alphabet and other technology stocks fell as Wall Street shifted from rewarding AI spending to demanding evidence that it will produce outsized returns.

Trump says six people have been arrested and seven cited over reflecting pool changes – US politics live

President keeps up steady stream of posts following botched reflecting pool renovation, posting photos in apparent attempt to show water is back to blue

Marco Rubio is to meet Gulf allies today and tomorrow in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.

The Gulf is divided over the deal. While Qatar has played a central role in mediating the agreement, some countries – notably the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain – are fearful it hands Iran substantial sums that may be ploughed into its military.

Etan Patz case: 1979 disappearance of NYC boy continues to haunt investigators

"48 Hours" goes inside the painstaking investigation through the eyes of those who have spent more than three decades trying to find the 6-year-old boy and to bring closure to his heartbroken parents

A scientist says he can scan prisoners’ brains for signs of evil. Did his disputed science put a man on death row?

Kent Kiehl convinced the US legal system he can find violence in prisoners’ brains. His theories have been since used by defense lawyers – with grave consequences for prisoners

A Revolutionary War soldier's DNA links him to living relatives

Continental Army soldier John Pumphrey enlisted as a teenager in 1777 and fought at significant battles before his death in action against the British in Camden, S.C.

Meta announces new smart glasses starting at $299, as Zuckerberg keeps pushing wearables

Meta executives have said they see the lightweight smart glasses as a step towards a more advanced device that includes screens in the lenses.

Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison

Activists accused of being part of antifa face harsh sentences in case seen as test of Trump’s crackdown on dissent

A group of Texas protesters convicted of terrorism charges received harsh sentences of at least 50 years in prison Tuesday in a closely watched case that was widely seen as a test case of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent.

After a three week jury trial, the nine activists were all found guilty of a slew of criminal charges in March, stemming from a Fourth of July protest at an immigrant detention facility in Alvarado, Texas, south of Fort Worth. The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

Merz backs plans to raise Germany’s retirement age to 70 in pension changes

Recommendations from commission propose gradual rise in retirement age by the early 2090s

• Europe live – latest updates

Germany will gradually raise its retirement age to about 70 by the early 2090s under recommendations backed by the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as a means of future-proofing the pension system for an ageing population.

Presenting its findings on Tuesday, an expert commission set up to explore reforms to the pension system said retirement age should be linked to rising life expectancy and early retirement should be scrapped.

When David Narey scored a screamer for Scotland against Brazil – and Jimmy Hill put his foot in it

Narey’s goal at the World Cup in 1982 was a spectacular, unexpected and beautiful strike. But was it a toe poke?

By That 1980s Sports Blog

If you are going to score one international goal, you might as well make it special. José Luis Brown scoring for Argentina in the 1986 World Cup final takes some beating. Kieran Trippier scored his only England goal in a World Cup semi-final. Gary Mackay’s only goal for Scotland helped the Republic of Ireland reach Euro 88. And the general hilarity of Davide Gualtieri’s sole strike for San Marino ensures that it lives on in the memory.

Another player who can be added to this list is David Narey. His only goal for Scotland was a screamer against Brazil at the 1982 World Cup. The response to Narey’s moment of glory has added to its impact. Little did he know the story his right boot was about to tell as he let fly on that sweltering evening in Sevilla.

Europe battles record-breaking heat: is this the new normal? - The Latest

Europe is dealing with a debilitating heatwave, with schools closed, trains cancelled and France holding an emergency meeting after heat-related deaths.

António Guterres, the UN chief, is urging the world to act on fossil fuels as the continent braces for record-breaking heat.

Lucy Hough speaks to Europe environment correspondent Ajit Niranjan

Afghan Taliban hold first, closed-door talks with EU on deportations

Rights groups criticized the meeting, saying it undermines the EU's human rights obligations.

Former Pinochet agents convicted over 1976 Washington DC carbomb murder

Attack targeted former Chile ambassador Orlando Letelier and his US colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt

Fifty years after Gen Augusto Pinochet’s secret police detonated a car bomb in the heart of Washington DC, killing Orlando Letelier, a former Chilean minister and ambassador to the US, and his American colleague Ronni Karpen Moffitt, a Santiago court has convicted three former agents of Moffitt’s murder.

Judge Paola Plaza, a special minister for human rights in Chile, sentenced Pedro Espinoza, José Zara, and Raúl Iturriaga to 15 years in prison for their roles in the killing of Moffitt, 25.

Quantum of Solace: a heartbroken James Bond is fuelled by rage in Daniel Craig’s most underrated 007 film

The sequel to Casino Royale was plagued by a writers’ strike, but its shaky-cam style and erratic action aligns perfectly with our hero’s fractured state of mind

In the final moments of Casino Royale, a piercingly blue-eyed Daniel Craig holds the conniving career criminal known as Mr White (Jesper Christensen) at gunpoint on the steps of his Lake Como villa. “The name’s Bond,” the spy says coolly to his captive. You can probably finish the rest of that sentence.

Despite the intense scrutiny Craig endured prior to its release, the 21st entry in the 007 franchise would prove to be an era-defining take on a truly modern-day Bond. If past iterations saw him reduced to a smattering of cliches, all parodied to death over the years, Craig’s debut as the suave secret agent was lauded for being a stripped-down, back-to-basics approach to a character audiences were already familiar with.

Kirsten Tibballs’ chocolate custard pastry stack – recipe

The MasterChef Australia guest judge and chocolatier shares a creamy, crunchy creation that can be made ahead of time

At this time of year, I’m always drawn to desserts that feel a little more luxurious. Something rich and chocolatey with lots of texture and contrast. This recipe brings together silky chocolate custard with crisp filo pastry in a creamy, crunchy combination.

While you will need to start at least four hours ahead of time to allow the chocolate custard to set, it doesn’t demand hours of effort, and making the filo pastry in advance as well means assembly is quick and stress-free when it’s time to serve. The custard can be stored in the refrigerator for up to three days, while the cooled pieces of filo pastry can be kept in an airtight container for up to five days.

Kirsten Tibballs appears as a guest judge on MasterChef Australia on Wednesday 24 June at 7.30pm. MasterChef Australia season 18 airs on Sundays at 7pm and Monday to Wednesday at 7.30pm, and is available to watch and stream on 10 .

Blue passports, Big Ben and Bpoplive: the Brexit referendum anniversary quiz

Who put Theresa May’s back up on Instagram, what did Boris Johnson say about bananas and much more

It is 10 years since the British public decided to pack up its troubles in its old kit bag, give Jacques Delors the final up yours and march off into an EU-free paradise. Opinions may differ on how that has worked out. Certainly several of the architects of the whole thing are enjoying lovely well-paid retirements on the speaking circuit or have seats in the House of Lords. Anyway, here are 18 questions about Brexit and the referendum campaign. How much do you remember about some of the weirder aspects of those few weeks, months and then years as the UK negotiated its exit?

The Guardian 10th anniversary Brexit referendum quiz

Factory job cuts in June neared financial crisis and Covid levels, S&P says

Though the firm's manufacturing index ran better than expected for June, it came largely from an inventory rebuild and despite sharp job cuts.

‘There’s a way to fly mindfully. Like, I don’t have my own plane any more’: can DJ megastar Alok make dance music more sustainable?

The Brazilian musician, who collaborates with Indigenous artists and puts millions into philanthropy, explains his mission – and defends his jetsetting

When Alok, the most successful Brazilian DJ of his generation, was brainstorming the concept for his new live show, he considered calling it Rave New World. “But when I asked a gen Z kid, the daughter of my creative director, she made me realise how pretentious my idea was,” he says. “The grownups trying to find an easy way out for all of our problems.” Instead, “I started figuring out that it’s not about a new world, it’s about this world. We need to ‘Rave the World’.”

That new title might still seem trite to some, or hypocritical, coming from someone at the heart of a dance music industry with a heavy carbon footprint from constant flying: when I meet Alok, he’s about to board another plane at a private airport outside São Paulo. But dance music has often had a utopian bent to it, and Alok – who champions Indigenous Brazilians in his work and has partnered with the UN on climate initiatives – is certainly making efforts to better the world.

JD Vance has written another book? Couldn’t he just concentrate on his day job? | Arwa Mahdawi

As the US tries to limit the damage from the Iran war, its vice-president has admitted he doesn’t understand diplomacy. Of course not: he’s been too busy churning out another memoir

Has JD Vance been injecting Barron Trump’s new energy drink straight into his veins? It would explain a few things, including how the man manages to juggle so much. First there’s the parenting: Vance has three young kids and a baby due soon. Then there’s the vice-presidenting. But despite his long to-do list, Vance still makes time for endless holidays. And he’s even managed to get some writing done: the bestselling Hillbilly Elegy author recently published his second book. It’s a memoir about his spiritual journey called Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith.

So, should you find your way to a bookshop to buy a copy? Most book critics seem to say no. It’s hard to know exactly what regular readers think because two of the biggest review platforms have restricted feedback. Amazon says reviews are limited to verified purchasers because of “unusual review activity” (translation: a torrent of one-star reviews), while Amazon-owned Goodreads has suspended reviews altogether. It’s a shame that Usha Vance, a voracious reader whose Goodreads account notes she just finished Communion (shortly after reading Death Comes for the Archbishop), hasn’t had a chance to give hubby a five-star review.

Fifa leadership ‘overruled US-based staff’ opposing World Cup dynamic pricing

• Some staff in Fifa’s US office favoured different strategy

• Fifa says policy agreed ‘with all areas of the organisation’

A number of Fifa’s US-based staff advised against the use of dynamic pricing at the World Cup but were overruled by the world governing body’s leadership, according to multiple sources involved in delivering the tournament.

The Guardian has been told that some staff in Fifa’s US office, which is based in Miami, initially favoured a different ticketing strategy to the one that has been used this summer, with the emphasis on more affordable pricing in general admission areas.

Tomljanovic accuses anti-doping chiefs of being out to get players after Vondrousova ban

• Australian veteran says four-year ban is a ‘disgrace’

• ITIA says strong testing means unpredictable timing

Ajla Tomljanovic has described the lengthy doping ban administered to Marketa Vondrousova, the 2023 Wimbledon singles champion, as a disgrace and she has accused the tennis anti-doping authorities of being out to get players even when they have done nothing wrong.

The International Tennis Integrity Agency announced on Monday that Vondrousova had been handed a four-year suspension by an independent tribunal after the Czech player had refused to provide a sample to a doping control officer at her home last December at around 8pm.

EU faces fierce criticism over plans to host Taliban in Brussels

Rights campaigners and MEPs say meeting would normalise regime that erases women from public life

Rights campaigners and MEPs have warned that a meeting between EU officials and a Taliban delegation in Brussels risks normalising a regime that has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade and sought to erase women from public life, while its ranks include two leaders accused of crimes against humanity.

A spokesperson for the Afghan foreign ministry confirmed that a delegation representing the ⁠Taliban had travelled to Brussels after the Belgian foreign ministry issued five single-day visas.

Murder inquiry after body found in search for missing girl, 14, in south Wales

Formal identification yet to take place but family of Lilly, who was reported missing on Saturday, have been informed

Police have launched a murder investigation after the discovery of a body believed to be a missing 14-year-old girl in south Wales.

The body was found in the Duffryn Park area in the town of Blaina, Blaenau Gwent at approximately 10.10pm on Monday, Gwent police said in a statement.

From yoghurt to luxury sails: how to shade your home from supercharged UK heatwaves

As hot weather becomes more common, companies and homeowners are coming up with innovative ways to keep properties cool

When graphic designer Marc Alabaster had a new set of glass doors installed at his West Sussex home eight years ago, he soon realised how they magnified the heat of the afternoon sun.

“The kitchen was 40-plus degrees,” he said. Then he went on holiday to Spain and saw an apartment building wrapped in louvre-like rows of angled fins or blades that shaded the external walls against the sun.

‘A new world has been opened up’: how a London street got filled with art – and brought the neighbours together

From a mural in a baby’s bedroom to a sound sculpture designed to be played out of a convertible, top contemporary artists rose to the challenge of making work for one lucky community

In 1986, an exhibition called Chambres d’Amis took contemporary art beyond the confines of the museum setting and into the homes of 58 residents in Ghent. Forty years on, a similar experiment is taking place, but on a small street in Peckham, south-east London.

Rooms of Neighbours is the brainchild of curator Ben Broome, who came across Chambres d’Amis when he was between institutional jobs. With time on his hands and an urge to get to know his neighbours better, he began to wonder how he could apply the idea to his own community, but with a broader focus. Unlike the exhibition in Ghent, which mostly took place in the homes of art world friends and museum patrons, his own street – a mix of council and privately owned flats and houses – represented a wider demographic, with different age groups, social classes and diasporas. Few of the residents had any prior connection to the art world, he tells me: “The majority of people have never been to the Tate; they have never even been to the South London Gallery, which is a local institution. But that’s not to say some of the neighbours aren’t really creative.”

Hantavirus quarantine ends for Americans held for six weeks in Nebraska

The US health department said the enforced 42-day quarantine was necessary to protect the public

Eight Americans quarantined for six weeks in Nebraska after they were exposed to a deadly hantavirus outbreak were released on Monday, including one who accused the government of holding her against her will.

The US health and human services department (HHS) confirmed that it had ended the required isolation for the group, who were among dozens evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship in the Canary Islands early in May.

Nigel Farage: I can spend £5m gift on Ferraris or betting on horses if I want

Reform leader says it is ‘purely private matter’ and it is not hypocritical to criticise Keir Starmer for receiving glasses

• UK politics live – latest updates

Nigel Farage has said his £5m gift from a crypto billionaire is “not any of your business” as it was given unconditionally to be spent on anything from Ferraris to gambling on horses.

The Reform UK leader bristled at questions about the £5m gift from the British Thai-based businessman Christopher Harborne in two radio interviews on Tuesday, saying it was “a purely private matter”.

Football Daily | The World Cup stage is set for a Golden Boot shootout for the ages

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In 10 of the past 12 World Cups, six goals has been the standard to bag yourself the Golden Boot. Usually a goal per game will suffice. In fact, on two occasions (in 2006 and 2010) a mere five strikes has been enough. Yet a quick glance at the current 2026 Geopolitics World Cup Golden Boot standings after most teams have played two games sees Lionel Messi top of the tree with five goals already from his two outings, having broken Miroslav Klose’s all-time tournament scoring record in the process. The Argentinian’s latest two goals came in a 2-0 victory over Austria in which neither Argentina nor Messi did anything of note other than score – aside from the great man shanking an early penalty miles wide, which is becoming quite the common occurrence for Messi. Think how many World Cup goals he would have if he could beat a goalkeeper from 12 yards (answer: 21, three more than he has).

Lurking just behind are the pretenders to Messi’s golden throne, Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé, who between them are tearing up Group I with four goals apiece. Both the Norwegian and French frontmen have been donated at least one goal by careless Iraqi and Senegalese defenders so far, but have looked razor-sharp up top and will soon meet in a tasty decider to see who tops the group. Both, you suspect, will have designs on ensuring Messi does not hold the World Cup scoring record for long, with Mbappé already level with Klose, two behind the Argentinian. Haaland, in his debut World Cup, is already one goal behind legends like Raul, Romario and Roger Milla, who only managed five across their careers.

The Fifa suits must be loving the fact all the big sexy names are firing on their global stage. It’s as if Big Gianni himself wrote the script, beaming in the knowledge that goals are a universally beloved currency, a useful tool in helping brush all the unpleasantness under the carpet. Even aside from the aforementioned trio, Harry Kane has bagged a double in his only game, Vinícius Júnior has two for the tournament so far and two of the host nations have superstar strikers (of sorts) in the shape of USA USA USA figurehead Folarin Balogun and Canadian ace Jonathan David. There is a significant striking name missing from this list, a longtime rival of Messi’s, but Football Daily is struggling to remember who that might be. Gah.

Consider that this unique GWC will give top strikers an extra game in which to fill their scoring boots and maybe Just Fontaine’s record of 13 goals in a single World Cup, which has stood since 1958, might come under threat. It is possible, likely even, we will get a player in double figures for the first time since Gerd Müller hit 10 in Mexico 1970. What seems certain is this is a golden boot race for the ages, contested by the best players on the planet. For all the cynicism and moral fatigue surrounding this GWC, that is something most lovers of football can get on board with. More goals please, guys.

ITV’s Sam Matterface on Egypt scoring against New Zealand: ‘They’ll be celebrating that goal all the way from Cairo to Giza!’ Coming soon (hopefully): England celebrate a goal all the way from London to Heathrow airport” – Keith Razey.

May I also wade into English v Spanish GWC viewing debate (Football Daily letters passim). I’m Team Telemundo, owing to existing subscriptions and a well-founded antipathy towards Fox Corp. While I can’t understand a thing, I was delighted to see journeyman striker Roque Santa Cruz acting as a pundit the other night. It also got me intrigued to know equivalent figures in each language’s coverage: I’d love to know from our Spanish-speaking friends if there are Telemundo Roy Keanes, Mark Chapmans, Kelly Cates, Ian Wrights, Andy Townsends or (shudder) Robbie Savages out there. ¡Te deseo lo mejor! “ – Martin Clifford.

As a Spurs fan I am keener than ever for the GWC to be over and the new season of the Premier League to commence. However, if you call up the table for the 2026-27 season, it is listed in alphabetical order and by this sorting method, Tottenham already sit bottom. I never thought that I would find a reason to regret West Ham being relegated” – Greg Wynn.

I fear James Vortkamp-Tong’s missive (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) is a familiar spin on an email seen here many moons ago. Possibly about Watford. However, like Dad’s Army repeats, it is admittedly more amusing than newer material. Can’t beat the classics” – Andrew Taylor.

Peter Murrell jailed for five years after embezzling £400,000 from SNP

Estranged husband of Nicola Sturgeon is sentenced for stealing from party over 12-year period

• Montblanc pens to Le Creuset ramekins: police photos show Peter Murrell’s spending habit

• UK politics live – latest updates

Peter Murrell has been sentenced to five years and three months in jail after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the Scottish National party while he was its chief executive.

Murrell stole the money over a 12-year period, splashing out on a luxury motorhome, a Jaguar SUV, Montblanc pens and luxury watches, a set of Lalique salt and pepper grinders and 2kg of coffee granules.

'I like their money': Trump threatens lawsuits against ABC for reporting on Reflecting Pool

The latest action against ABC comes as the broadcaster faces two investigations from the Federal Communications Commission.

Kenyan minister orders halt to construction of US Ebola facility

Decision comes after Aden Duale was held in contempt for ignoring previous high court ruling to stop work

Kenya’s health minister told a court he had ordered preparations for a US-run Ebola quarantine facility to stop, after being held in contempt for ignoring a previous order to end work.

Many Kenyans strongly oppose the facility, with deadly protests erupting since the complex was announced in May for US citizens evacuated from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is grappling with a widespread Ebola outbreak.

‘Lawns don’t need watering!’ How to garden in a heatwave, from recycling bathwater to making the most of shade

Whether you have a few pots on a balcony or an expanse of greenery, here’s how to help everything thrive when the mercury spikes

After the two hottest May days on record in the UK last month, gardeners may be surveying the damage and dreading the summer months ahead. “Heatwaves early in the summer can result in scorched, brown leaves,” says Leigh Hunt, the principal horticultural adviser at the Royal Horticultural Society. “When temperatures climb over 35C, there are more extreme effects.” (Thermometers hit 35.1C in London on 26 May.)

But don’t put down your trowel in defeat just yet. “Plants were caught out by the sudden change in temperature,” says Hunt. “They are a bit more naturally resistant later in the summer.” Plus, there is plenty you can do to support them without wasting gallons of water or installing an inefficient sprinkler system – and the payoff is massive. “Plants provide shade and release moisture; they cool our towns and cities by 2C to 4C,” says Hunt. “Your little bit of greenery is part of a network of greenery doing its bit. It makes the places we live better and cooler.”

N.Y. House primaries test Mamdani's influence, and more races to watch today

Voters are going to the polls Tuesday for contests in New York, South Carolina, Maryland and Utah.

Surfside condo started failing 3 weeks before total collapse, federal report says

A new federal report shows the likely cause of the 2021 Surfside condo collapse in Florida that killed 98 people. According to the report, the structure failures began three weeks before the building fell when two connections between garage columns and the pool deck gave way.

UK prioritised ties with UAE over averting mass atrocities in Sudan, MPs to be told

Foreign Office failed to act on warnings of genocide due to ‘pressure’ from emirates, Yale human rights investigator will tell a parliamentary select committee

The British government had received intelligence that Ethiopia appeared to be supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan’s civil war as far back as 2024 but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a parliamentary committee will hear.

In May 2024, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, that “significant private pressure” from the UAE meant the UK would not publicly divulge information linking Ethiopia and the emirates to their support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Senate passes landmark housing affordability bill after bipartisan breakthrough

The Senate passed a bill aimed at lowering housing costs on Monday after a major breakthrough and rare bipartisan consensus.

Audit firm to Gupta metals empire fined and banned for ‘egregious’ failures

UK watchdog gives King & King severe reprimand for failing ‘to identify clear self-interest’ when conducting audits

• Business live – latest updates

The UK’s accounting watchdog has fined and temporarily banned a tiny audit firm for “egregious” failures and “widespread deficiencies” linked to its work in signing off accounts of several companies in Sanjeev Gupta’s metals empire.

King & King and its managing partner Milankumar Patel have been fined a total of £378,184, received a “severe reprimand”, and hit with serious restrictions on audit work after a four-year investigation by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC).

Marco Rubio to meet Gulf allies amid division over US-Iran ceasefire deal

US secretary of state to reassure UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain that his country remains committed to their security

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, is to meet Gulf allies on Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to reassure them that the US remains committed to their security and the 60-day ceasefire deal struck with Iran last week will not embolden Tehran.

The Gulf is divided over the deal. While Qatar has played a central role in mediating the agreement, some countries – notably the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain – are fearful it hands Iran substantial sums that may be ploughed into its military.

You’re only supposed to blow the bloody hooves off: AI Michael Caine narrates Odyssey audiobook

AI company ElevenLabs unveils its officially licensed replica of the iconic actor’s voice in a retelling of Homer’s epic poem, while director who previously recorded the star recalls real-life experience

Next month, Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster version of The Odyssey is set to storm cinemas around the globe. Auguries suggest the almost three-hour drama will repeat the success of Nolan’s previous film both at the box office (Oppenheimer took nearly a billion dollars) and the Academy Awards (it won seven Oscars).

But before that, a new audiobook version of Homer’s tale has been released starring one of Nolan’s most frequent collaborators: Michael Caine, with whom he has worked on eight films, including the Dark Knight trilogy.

Trump again alleges vandals damaged Reflecting Pool: "They went in there with a knife"

President Trump is again blaming vandals for the issues with D.C.'s Reflecting Pool, but when asked, the president has still not offered evidence. The landmark is set to be drained for repairs. Ed O'Keefe reports.

Trump says proof that vandals cut Reflecting Pool will be provided in court

President Trump has insisted that vandals, rather than questionable craftsmanship, are responsible for the enduring problems following the Reflecting Pool's $14.7 million sealant job.

Nancy Guthrie ransom note, believed to be from abductor, said she died, sources say

Authorities believe two ransom notes addressed to Nancy Guthrie's family — including a note that said she had died — were likely sent by the person or group of people who abducted her.

U.S. agrees to temporarily lift Iran oil sanctions amid progress in negotiations

The U.S. Treasury Department issued a two-month license for Iran to produce, sell and deliver oil without placing U.S. penalties on buyers. The agreement is in exchange for what the White House called progress in negotiations. Weijia Jiang reports.

Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) review – Tyshawn Sorey’s meditations yield their mysteries slowly

Sorey/BBC Singers/Tines/Gibson/GBSR Duo
St Giles’ Cripplegate, London
The Pulitzer-winner’s sprawling amalgam of Morton Feldman and African American spiritual felt meandering, but the GBSR duo, the BBC Singers and Ruth Gibson’s viola were luminous and charismatic

Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) by Pulitzer-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey demands patience. Subtitled “A meditation on Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel”, the work uses a similar ensemble – percussion, keyboards, a viola, a choir, a solo voice – and a similarly abstract dialogue of rhythms and pitches to Feldman’s 1971 tribute to the US painter. But where Feldman’s meditative soundscape lasts half an hour, Monochromatic Light sprawls across 80 minutes and discloses only in its final bars a second vital anchoring in the African American spiritual Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.

Such a score is not ideally experienced from a hard pew in a hot church during a week of record-breaking temperatures. There were moments between its opening, barely detectible murmur of tubular bells and its closing revelation of the bass-baritone soloist’s single line of text (pieced together syllable by syllable over 50 minutes) when I struggled to hold on to a sense of musical architecture, when the pinpricks of dissonance and slow-motion scatterings of instrumental lines began to feel meandering. Other details offered more rapid gratification: elemental rumbling on bass drum and timpani using sticks with heads like candyfloss; a glistening sheen of bowed marimba on a rare, mill-pond calm octave unison from the choir; wild bass-baritone melismas plunging acrobatically across the voice.

Manfred defends MLB’s response to Bible verses on players’ Pride caps

• San Francisco Giants pitchers wrote Bible verses on hats

• MLB had warned players over violation of league rules

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has defended the league’s policy over Pride celebrations in a letter to Republican senator Josh Hawley.

Most of MLB’s 30 teams celebrate Pride month with a themed game to acknowledge the LGBTQ community and its baseball fans. During a 12 June game against the Chicago Cubs, San Francisco pitchers Landen Roupp, JT Brubaker and Ryan Walker wrote Bible verses on their hats, which featured the Giants’ logo in rainbow colors, while pitcher Sam Hentges chose not to wear the themed cap at all.

Ransom note about Nancy Guthrie's disappearance says she died, according to reports

Note reportedly said kidnappers didn’t mean to kill mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, but she died shortly after her disappearance

A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie – the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie – said the 84-year-old had died, CNN and other news organizations are reporting, citing law enforcement sources.

Some media outlets had previously reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case in the days after Guthrie’s disappearance in early February from her home in the foothills just outside Tucson, Arizona.

Guardian staff contributed reporting

Charlie Kirk murder suspect's ex-roommate can't testify at hearing, judge rules

The Utah judge in the murder case of Charlie Kirk's alleged killer has denied a defense request to force Tyler Robinson's former roommate to testify in person during the preliminary hearing.

A super El Niño threatens disaster. Trump is handling it recklessly | Terry Garcia

The administration interrupted data streams that are key to forecasting. These systems should not be vulnerable to political whims

In 1877, North Americans experienced an unusually mild winter – it was known as the “year without a winter”. It coincided with one of the strongest El Niño events ever recorded. Scientists suspect the same El Niño was a major factor in one of the worst environmental disasters in history. As much of the world was enveloped in drought, harvests collapsed in India, China, parts of Africa, and Brazil. The drought, compounded by colonial and other socioeconomic policies, led to the “Great Famine”, which killed between 30 and 60 million people, about 3% of the world’s population at the time.

What distinguishes us from the victims of 1877 is not luck but data. When I served as deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, I saw modern ocean monitoring and forecasting provide the advance warnings the Victorians lacked. This lead time saves thousands of lives and billions of dollars each year. Today, we can anticipate climate shocks before they arrive.

Terry Garcia is a former deputy administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Why are my scones dry? | Kitchen aide

The volume and choice of liquid is important, say our experts, as is turning up the heat – but, after that, you really can just flavour to taste

Why are my scones always dry and tough? And any fun flavour ideas?
Paul, by email
It mostly comes down to applying a light hand, so touch the dough only as much as is strictly necessary. “Also, although it sounds old-fashioned, always use a knife to cut in whatever fat you’re using,” says Verena Lochmuller, head of product development at Ottolenghi. “It’s OK to have a few lumps, too.” Though it might seem obvious, it’s worth checking your leavener as well: “If it’s old, get a new one,” says Lochmuller, who goes for baking powder plus baking soda or bicarb. “You’ll get more air bubbles from the bicarb, but you need something to react with it.” Her liquid of choice is buttermilk, kefir or soured cream let down with a little water.

Insufficient liquid is another possible culprit for Paul’s scone plight, says Anna Higham of London’s Quince bakery and the soon-to-open Clementine. “Depending on the weather and how old your flour is, it will absorb different amounts of liquid on different days,” she says, so it’s not a case of simply following a recipe: “It’s also about how the dough feels.” Generally speaking, the wetter it is, the better, Lochmuller says. “People think if it’s wet, it’s going to be heavy, but it’s actually the opposite.” But don’t be daft and pour all the liquid in at once – instead, go slow.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email [email protected]

Sens. Warren, Kelly press Trump administration on effects of tariffs on manufacturing

A pair of Democratic senators is asking for answers from the Trump administration on the effect of tariffs on U.S. manufacturing.

Merlin the duck and a Van Gogh pool: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

The experience that coloured everything Britten went on to write

Three months after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin performed there. Survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was ‘transfixed’ – as she told the composer when they played together decades later

In 1945, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin was on a short tour of Germany, offering recitals to survivors of the concentration camps. On Friday 27 July 1945 he reached Bergen-Belsen, liberated three months earlier, and gave two concerts, in the cinema at the camp. The experience had a profound impact. “I shall not forget that afternoon as long as I live,” said Menuhin. “After Belsen, Yehudi was never the same again,” his sister Yaltah Menuhin reported. Anita Lasker, a survivor of Belsen, was present at one of those concerts. Nineteen years old, and a cellist, as a child she had been at Auschwitz, where she played in the women’s orchestra, under the direction of Alma Rosé, the niece of Gustav Mahler.

Lasker wrote to her cousin about the concert. “Who would ever have believed that Belsen Camp would hear Yehudi Menuhin playing? A wonderful evening”, which included “the Bach/Kreisler Prelude and Fugue, the Kreutzer Sonata, Mendelssohn’s Concerto, something by Debussy and several smaller, unfamiliar items”.

Feds fight planned sale of personal items salvaged from the Titanic

Court documents referenced RMS Titanic's plan to sell artifacts including a bronze cherub, a necklace of gold nuggets and a heart-shaped pendant.

U.S. lifts Iran oil sanctions. And, federal judge rules SAVE voter tool unlawful

The U.S. has temporarily lifted oil sanctions on Iran as peace talks continue. And, a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration's data system, known as SAVE, is unlawful.

‘When my brother died, it separated us’: the grief and trauma pulling apart siblings of homicide

When André Robinson Jr was shot and killed in Oakland in 2020, his family was upended – how do siblings navigate the fallout from violent loss?

The Robinson family once looked forward to Sundays. It was the day they would gather with dozens of their closest relatives and friends to eat, laugh and catch up. “Sunday was the day that we cherished the most,” said RoShanda Robinson, the oldest child in the family.

But in the fall of 2020, these get-togethers abruptly stopped. A day that used to include bountiful meals and booming laughter suddenly became a painful reminder of life-changing loss.

Can the UK kick its cod habit? Fish and chip shop favourite slips down the menu as prices soar

The cost of the traditional takeaway has doubled since 2019, and more outlets are trying to tempt customers with cheaper options such as coley, pollack and hake

In late April, visitors to Harbour Lights in Falmouth, Cornwall, may have raised an eyebrow. The fish and chip shop was in the midst of a “cod-free week”, its owners having removed cod from its menu entirely.

It was the second time owner Pete Fraser had undertaken the experiment, 15 years after the first. He also removed cod from his shops in Penzance and Helston, replacing it with coley, pollack, hake and hoki. The result was very different. “Some of the feedback we had, which certainly wasn’t what we got when we ran it years ago, is ‘Can you repeat this?’ Before, it was like, ‘Have you guys lost your head’?”

Who would pay for Trump's proposed $300 billion Iran reconstruction fund?

It's still unclear who would fund a proposed $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran. Former National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan called the whole approach "something entirely new."

Childbirth room? It’s next to the period room … the astonishing Kerala homes designed for women’s bodies

The tharavad is a traditional style of housing designed for and run by women. Our writer went on a pilgrimage to find her own family’s – and uncovered a way of life fast disappearing

A chance conversation with a distant family member led me to Palayil, the name bestowed on my ancestral tharavad. The latter is the name given to a house designed around women. Ours had stood, in some form, since at least the 17th century. My great-grandmother, Palayil Sreedevi, was the last woman in my line to live in one. It was in the southern Indian village of Tholanur.

My great-grandmother belonged to the Nair community, a matrilineal caste with its origins in the state of Kerala. Historically, it was a martial nobility that served royal dynasties. For centuries, Nair boys left home at 12 to train as soldiers before being dispatched to serve the Travancore royal family. When men returned, they often slept in outhouses – satellites to the tharavad of women.

Air pollution is a fixable problem – just look at how London and New York have cleaned up their acts | Sadiq Khan and Michael Bloomberg

We’ve shown that rapid, measurable progress is achievable in our cities. Here’s how that can now be replicated worldwide

• Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London. Michael Bloomberg is a former mayor of New York City

Some public health threats make global headlines: Covid-19. Ebola. Famine. When these disasters hit, photographs and videos of people suffering and dying spur countries to respond, international bodies to cooperate and individuals to donate supplies and money. Yet one of the world’s deadliest threats gets almost no attention at all, because it is largely invisible to the public and mostly absent from media coverage: air pollution.

Every day, billions of people are inhaling air that is shortening their lives and making them sicker with every breath. Every year, air pollution kills more than 8 million people worldwide. That’s more deaths than HIV, malaria and tuberculosis combined. It hides in plain sight and strikes without mercy, leading to heart and lung disease, cancers and other deadly conditions.

Sadiq Khan is the mayor of London. Michael Bloomberg is a former mayor of New York City

Actor James Handy's alleged killer found mentally incompetent for prosecution

A judge has found that a man charged with murder in the stabbing of actor James Handy isn't mentally competent for criminal court proceedings.

When falling housing prices are good news — and when they're not

Denver renters are celebrating falling housing costs. But sometimes cheaper housing is a sign of economic decline. How can you tell the difference?

The Breakdown | End-of-season rugby union awards: best games, players and more

From that crunch classic in Paris to the Red Roses’ trailblazing and Rhys Carré’s try, our pick of the moments that made the 2026-27 season

Best games attended
1) 14 March, France 48-46 England. Thirteen tries – including four for Louis Bielle-Biarrey – and a last-gasp winning penalty from Thomas Ramos. Truly magnifique.

Millions of bees escape after truck crashes in Texas: "Remain indoors"

The owner of Moore Honey estimated that only about a quarter of the 408 hives would survive.

Sizzle reels: nine films to watch in a heatwave

Whether you fire up the outdoor projector or Netflix and chill in a cool, dark place – let the escapism of cinema be a balm amid the punishingly hot weather

As you will no doubt have noticed, it is quite warm out. Historically warm, in fact. By the end of the week it is likely that the UK will have seen its warmest June day since records began. The Met Office has issued a red warning, recommending that people stay out of the sun entirely. Which sounds an awful lot like code for “stay inside and watch films.”

But which films? It seems only right to watch something that reflects this apocalyptic weather somehow. Here are some suggestions:

‘I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget’: Madonna says biopic was scrapped after ‘falling out’ with studio

‘Maybe they just didn’t believe in me,’ the pop star said of Universal, which was set to make a film about her life starring Julia Garner

Madonna says that the long-gestating movie about her life that she was personally overseeing was cancelled after she fell out with Hollywood studio Universal over the size of the film’s budget.

Speaking to Interview magazine, Madonna said: “We had a falling out, me and Universal, regarding budget because I needed – I’ve had an extraordinary life. I’ve had a huge life, so I needed a big budget.”

David Squires on … the big names putting on a show at World Cup

Our cartoonist on the heroes, villains and superstar performances in week two of the tournament

• Buy a cartoon | Some of David’s favourite works

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

I could listen to gardeners chat for hours. It always sounds like they’re up to no good | Zoe Williams

Blame my uncle and his contempt for rules and regulations

My uncle has a mature and beautiful gingko tree, which also goes by the name of memory tree, which is a little ironic because he can’t remember where he put his hearing aid batteries, and yet he can recollect with pin-sharp detail the exact moment this tree’s predecessor was confiscated by a customs official on the way back from the unnamed country he was smuggling it in from.

“Smuggling” was a large and entirely wrong word for a tiny sapling that wasn’t harming anyone, he said, but they took it off him anyway and destroyed it, a decades-old outrage that felt pretty fresh. I’m a little hazy on how the current tree came to arrive in his garden, whether that first one was a decoy and he was packing two trees, but let’s just say that couldn’t possibly have happened because this definitely isn’t the same uncle who brought seven varieties of seed potato back from a family wedding in Germany in 1985, by putting them in my and my siblings’ pockets, because what kind of customs monster would search a child?

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.

Rory Kennedy revisits Boeing in new film sparked by whistleblower’s death: ‘We’ve got to stay at this’

Film-maker talks about her documentary on John Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who killed himself in 2024

It is widely recognized that for the Kennedys, tragedy has come often and from unexpected quarters. The filmmaker Rory Kennedy, born six months after the assassination of her father Robert Kennedy, has known her share. But in 2024 it was a loss outside the political dynasty that shook her to the core.

John Barnett, a quality inspector turned whistleblower at Boeing, one of the world’s biggest plane manufacturers, was found dead in his truck outside a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. Affectionately known as “Swampy” because of his roots in Louisiana, Barnett had a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

In Iran, Trump’s victory claims only deepened a self-made catastrophe | Sidney Blumenthal

What the US president succeeded in obliterating was any rationale he offered for going to war

Before Donald Trump finally surrendered in his Iran war, he declared victory several dozen times, including on day eight– “We’ve already won!” – day 10 – “The war is very complete”– day 12, proclaiming he had won five times in 13 seconds – “We’ve won, let me say we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won, we won, we won the bet in the first hour it was over”– and day 39 –“Total and complete victory, 100%. No question about it”– and claimed a deal to end the war was just around the corner 38 times. The first time he raised the prospect of peace, on day 24, he said the two sides had reached “almost all points of agreement”.

Trump boldly affixed his signature with a sharpie to the Memorandum Of Understanding on day 110, 17 June, at the Palace of Versailles, where the ruinous treaty concluding the first world war was signed. He seemed oblivious to the historical symbolism of the place, but bedazzled by its gold. “Versailles is not gold leaf – Versailles is the real deal,” he remarked.

‘Some are prayers, some are protests’: 76 musicians reimagine America the Beautiful

The iconic song has been given a diverse new set of versions thanks to pianist Min Kwon’s ambitious musical project

Despite what you may have heard, there is no definitive version of the song America the Beautiful.

Katharine Lee Bates wrote its lyrics as a poem in 1893, inspired by an ecstatic road trip from the Massachusetts house she shared with her longtime companion Katharine Coman to a teaching gig in Colorado. Over the next few decades, dozens of musicians set it to music, including New Jersey’s Samuel A Ward. His 1882 uniting of the text to a hymn he’d previously composed became, in time, a standard. In 1972, Ray Charles recorded the more or less definitive performance of it. But everyone from Pete Seeger to Tammy Faye Messner have tried their hand at Bates’s ode to equality between peoples and equanimity with nature. At Joe Biden’s inauguration, Jennifer Lopez belted it into a medley, while Carrie Underwood struggled through it at Donald Trump’s second one.

A U.S.-Iran dispute over nuclear inspections clouds work to finalize a war-ending deal

As U.S.-Iran talks continued, a break in the shipping bottleneck through the Strait of Hormuz appeared to be in the works.

How Europe is grappling with extreme heat as red alerts issued in Britain, France, Spain and Italy

Several European countries issued red weather alerts as a fresh bout of extreme heat pushed temperatures beyond 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

‘I don’t know how to save my daughter from her husband’: the brutal reality of the Taliban’s new marriage law

The latest decree from Afghanistan’s rulers makes it impossible for women and girls to leave unwanted or abusive relationships, even with family support

When Fatima arrived at a district court in northern Afghanistan in late 2025 with her parents, she hoped a judge would finally allow her to leave her calamitous marriage.

She had never met her husband before their arranged wedding in the summer of 2024. Each time her family asked to see him, they were told he was shy. It was only on the wedding day, relatives say, that Fatima understood what had been hidden from her: her husband had severe intellectual and physical disabilities and could not eat, wash or dress himself without help.

Goodbye, pilates princess – hello, gym goblin: how the just-got-out-of-bed look took over fitness

The colour-coordinated ‘clean girl’ athleisure aesthetic is dead. Now it’s all about mismatched outfits and vintage sportswear

At first, the goblins came for our downtime. Going “goblin mode” was a lifestyle confined to the home – to the bed, mostly. The “comforts of depravity” it brought (“watching 90 Day Fiancé on mute while scrolling endlessly through social media, pouring the end of a bag of chips in your mouth”, for example) weren’t compatible with doing anything productive.

Enter the gym goblin. The optics remain much the same – think ancient T-shirts, knackered socks, oversized cardigans – but the setting has changed, with goblincore devotees rising up from unmade beds, Diet Cokes in hand, to hit the treadmill. It’s Diana, Princess of Wales’s oversized college sweatshirts meets Josh O’Connor’s half-tracksuit look for the Disclosure Day press tour – and the polar opposite of the matcha-drinking, Lululemoned “clean girl” aesthetic that dominates fitness circles.

‘Devastating’: lives of nurses and patients upended by Trump migrant crackdown

Withdrawal of TPS designation puts workers who fill vital role in peril – and risks further shortages in US health system

When Dolores Jacoby’s doctor told her there was little she could do to treat her acute myeloid leukemia, a deafening silence filled the hospital room, where she was surrounded by her family. Dolores had only recently been diagnosed with the rare aggressive cancer. Her beloved nursing assistant, Janeth, was standing just outside her room. After the doctor left, Janeth entered with a tray containing each family member’s favorite beverage. “If there’s anybody who can recover, it’s your mother,” she told John Jacoby, Dolores’s son, before leaving the room as inconspicuously as she had arrived.

It was 2012. More than a decade later, John still remembers that day in his mother’s hospital room in the San Francisco Bay Area clearly. “We had just heard the worst news of our lives, and Janeth injected life into my mom, into her veins, into the atmosphere, you know, for all of us,” he said.

Reader, I married him: couples tell us how books brought them together

From book club meet-cutes to shared English Literature lectures, romance has blossomed beyond the page for these bibliophiles

Dua Lipa and Callum Turner have been honeymooning in Italy, after throwing a star-studded wedding in Palermo earlier this month. But their relationship began with a book: running into each other at an LA restaurant, the pair realised that they were not only reading the same novel – Trust by Hernán Díaz – but had both just finished the first chapter. “So, we’re on the same page,” Turner said to Lipa. Here, four other couples share the literary sparks of their love stories.

Trouble getting weight loss drugs covered by insurance? Here's what to know

If your doctor prescribes a GLP-1 medication for weight loss but your insurance won't cover it, you have options.

As Republican Party looks to future without Trump in office, Utah could be a road map

In 2028, President Trump will not be on the ballot, leaving Republicans to decide the future of the party. Utah — which has a complicated relationship with the president — could be a starting point.

Artwork removed from National Portrait Gallery after row over Churchill’s role in Bengal famine

Turner prize winner Helen Cammock withdraws piece after 50 peers criticise claim former PM ‘starved people’

An artwork by a Turner prize-winning artist has been removed from the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) after a row about the role Winston Churchill played in the 1943 Bengal famine.

The Persistence video installation by Helen Cammock was taken down on Monday after a week of criticism as pressure mounted on the gallery.

Fantastic Kingdom by Helene von Bismarck review – an outsider’s guide to British politics

This stranger’s-eye-view of an eccentric nation promises insight but delivers only conventional wisdom

‘Continental people have sex lives; the English have hot-water bottles.” So observed Hungarian journalist George Mikes in How to Be an Alien (1946), one of the finest examples of a tradition in which foreigners explain Britain to itself. From Voltaire to VS Naipaul, outsiders have often illuminated national peculiarities, revealing contradictions so embedded in British life that they pass unnoticed. Helene von Bismarck’s Fantastic Kingdom is the latest contribution to this genre.

Von Bismarck, a distant relative by marriage of the Iron Chancellor, seems ideally placed for the task. The name alone gives her project a certain piquancy; there is something almost Pynchonesque about a German historian with that name attempting to decipher Britain for the British. Raised across Europe as the daughter of a diplomat, educated at the same Brussels school attended by Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, and a frequent visitor to the UK for two decades, she possesses the combination of distance and familiarity that can produce genuine insight. Her grand theme is that Britain is a “bewildering, complex, and wildly contradictory place”: a monarchy and a liberal democracy; a state of four nations; hostile to immigration yet remarkably pluralistic; obsessed with hierarchy yet strikingly informal. These tensions provide the book’s organising principle.

‘Geldof started flicking Vs at Farage’: the story of the Brexit campaign, told by those with a front-row seat

How five months in 2016 that encompassed Boris Johnson siding with Vote Leave, Jo Cox’s murder and David Cameron’s resignation shaped the UK’s future

David Cameron, having promised in 2013 that a future Conservative government would offer a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, announces the date of the vote: 23 June 2016. The next day, Boris Johnson, then the mayor of London, says he will campaign for leave.

Fit with just five minutes’ exercise a day? I don’t believe it | Devi Sridhar

Everyone these days wants to optimise their workouts, but when a study seems too good to be true, it usually is

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

We live in an increasingly polarised world – and I’m not talking about politics, I’m talking about exercise. There’s a fitness community obsessed with constant optimisation and hacks: how can you get from 50 press-ups to 100, from an eight-minute mile to seven minutes, or increase your deadlifts from body weight to double or triple body weight – ideally using just “one weird trick” or novel method no one has seen before.

It seems as if no one is happy with basic fitness or steady progress. Or people are overly concerned with what’s secretly holding them back, from sleep to “I had a couple of glasses of wine … it ruined three days of my life” (that’s Steven Bartlett’s podcast).

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

Awake Awake by Fiona Mozley review – in pursuit of false memories

From the Booker-shortlisted author, a tantalisingly unreliable account of childhood, history and mental uncertainty

The historian and novelist Fiona Mozley acknowledged in a 2018 piece for the Guardian that the city of York had a major influence on both her careers. Childhood and adolescence in a place such as York, full of time and times, can generate conflict between “the desire to live in the past and the need to extract oneself from it”. Awake Awake, a follow-up to her previous novels, 2017’s Booker-shortlisted Elmet and 2021’s Hot Stew, engages with two types of memory: the personal and the historical. They’re not exactly at odds, but as far as living in the past is concerned they feed on one another in a complex, entangled relationship.

Narrator Mary Mooney – also a novelist, also from York, and whose first book is also shortlisted for a major prize – tells the story of her mental illness. Or she seems to. She begins in childhood. We’re introduced to her parents and her parents’ friends, religious academics in York; to her home in Cathedral Close; to school and her school friends, with whom she will stay in contact as she grows up. Life is a round of family occasions, church events and church politics, spiced with adventure and wild excitement in the countryside, mischief in the classroom. Detail is piled on detail and presented with photographic clarity, from her father, with his “large, pointed nose and grey eyes that looked greener than usual when he was outside in the vegetable patch”, to the fall of the Twin Towers, which she recalls seeing “on a television in the school staff room … looking through the door from the outside and glimpsing it on the tiny screen”.

Self-doubt, burnout … and Taylor Swift: why Toy Story 5 is the ultimate millennial girl movie

Nostalgia hits hard for anyone who has grown up with the franchise. But little could prepare me for the emotional punch of this latest film – and the very specific vulnerabilities it taps

Emily named her daughter Jessie. Any millennial woman watching Toy Story 5 over the weekend just about held it together before finally letting the sobs roll at this discovery. The film takes our yarn-haired cowgirl back to her first kid’s home, where she ends up at the tree they used to play in. An unearthed memory box is packed with photos showing Emily grown up, happy and cuddling the child she gave her beloved toy’s name to. Many thirty- and fortysomething women sat watching the scene in the cinema next to their own daughters; some were thinking of the ones they want but don’t have; and others reflected on a decision to be child-free. All of us, though, also took a teary minute for our own girlhoods.

Toy Story has always spoken to adults as deeply as it does to kids, and flock-herding feminist Bo Peep gave a lesson on living life on your own terms away from traditional expectations in the fourth film. But this reveal is the moment that truly tugs the hearts of women who grew up with the franchise.

Whoosh! Jacques Henri Lartigue’s world of colour – in pictures

The French artist is best known for his black-and-white images of high society, but a new exhibition shows us that he was also a bold and brilliant colour pioneer

The 2026 FIFA World Cup schedule and how to watch

With 104 World Cup games being played in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, it's like "a Super Bowl every single day for five weeks," U.S. team captain Tim Ream told CBS News.

‘I feel entirely vindicated’: three Guardian columnists debate Brexit and its legacy | Aditya Chakrabortty, Polly Toynbee and Simon Jenkins

Ten years on, our writers met to reflect on whether leaving the EU has made the UK richer or more racist – and how the union is doing without us

• Read more from the Brexit Vote: 10 Years On series

Aditya: I have three distinct memories of that entire period: the sense of anger, the sense of the confusion in Westminster and then, afterwards, this quick curdling into a really base form of racism. I remember reporting around south Wales and the north-east of England and then coming back into London, and noticing that one group were talking about their anger and frustration and the other were talking about facts.

Pajeon and japchae: Joo Won’s recipes for Korean-style vegetarian starters

Rather than being relegated to side orders, vegetables take centre stage in everyday Korean cooking, as these pancake and noodle dishes show

Vegetables play a central role in Korean cuisine, and they form the backbone of everyday meals, rather than simply acting as side dishes. They provide balance, nutrition, colour and variety, often through preparations such as kimchi, namul and seasonal banchan. Our vegetable cooking focuses on simplicity and preserving natural flavour, often using techniques such as blanching, light sauteeing, fermenting and pickling, and typically seasoning with garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce and fermented pastes such as doenjang and gochujang. This approach reflects Korea’s long tradition of plant-focused cooking shaped by seasonality, resourcefulness and the need for preserved foods. Together, vegetables create harmony and contrast within a meal.

Country diary: Birds of a feather in a noisy argument | Mary Montague

Queen’s University, Belfast: The corvids in the branches above me spring a surprise – there’s a black crow among them

The rain hurries me to shelter at the woods’ edge, but I’m scarcely under the branches of a mature sycamore when the canopy starts to thrash. Abrasive voices erupt from the foliage as a rabble of crows dispute. One leaps into a gap between the leaves, crouching, its ash-grey body low over a branch and fanning its black tail. The throat inflates to bray the bird’s anger. In response, the object of its fury hops on to the branch above it, all the while giving as good as it gets. Something niggles me about that one – I squint, then blink in surprise. It’s a black crow.

As a bookish youngster growing up in rural County Fermanagh, it took a while for me to grasp that the crows I encountered in real life were not, in fact, black. The hooded or grey crow is the common crow across all of Ireland. With its two-tone livery of grey torso and black extremities, it’s a handsome bird. The “hoodie” is also found in the north of Scotland. The closely related all-black carrion crow is a far more familiar sight throughout the rest of Britain, with sparse numbers along the east coast of Northern Ireland.

‘Nightmare’ shooting in Montreal leaves three dead including police officer and bystander

Videos showed suspect armed with a long gun shooting at police in Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood

A suspect armed with a long gun opened fire on Monday at a Montreal hotel, killing a police officer before officers returned fire, killing him, police said. A civilian also died but it wasn’t immediately clear who fired that shot.

The police chief, Fady Dagher, said a second officer was seriously injured in the shooting in the city’s Côte-des-Neiges neighbourhood but is in stable condition.

Three in five gen Z Britons would like new vote to rejoin EU, poll finds

Exclusive: Data reveals 60% of 18 to 28-year-olds would vote to rejoin bloc if given the opportunity

A generation of young Britons who were locked out of the 2016 EU referendum because of their age now believe that Brexit has failed, with a majority demanding a fresh vote to rejoin the EU, exclusive polling shows.

Gen Z Britons show deep dissatisfaction with the UK’s departure from the EU, according to new polling of 18- to 28-year-olds conducted by the thinktank More in Common and shared with the Guardian.

‘Navigating the unknown together’: me and my idiot AI boyfriend

I believe that chatbots have no place in a decent society, and am repelled by the topic of AI in general. But could I be seduced?

I received a text message from my editor: “Um, is it unethical to ask you to get an AI bf?? You can prob say no.”

Resentment. Contempt! Sorrow. Unease. I love text messaging. I have text message exchanges with, let’s say, 15 people a day. If you want me to do something, you should ask via text message. My editor knows this. She also knows, though it’s more complicated, that I love boyfriends. An AI boyfriend is a boyfriend who always, only texts back, immediately.

I find it hard to express my emotions openly. (No.)

I thrive to develop healthier, more trusting relationships. (Yes, though I prefer to use “thrive” correctly.)

I want a partner who supports my life aspirations. (Crossbow?)

I worry about being judged for what I want in a relationship. (Yes.)

A thousand years old and 20 storeys high: tracking down Taiwan’s tallest trees

The country’s biggest tree – named Heaven Sword of the Da’an River – is a carbon-storing behemoth hosting whole neighbourhoods of wildlife. But this and other giant trees are under threat

The higher you climb up the gigantic, millennia-old trees of Taiwan’s forests, the more layers of habitat and life emerge. On the forest floor, ferns thrive in the moist shade. Flying squirrels and owls sleep inside the hollow tree trunks. Yellow bell-shaped rhododendron flowers spring from the lower tree canopy. Higher still, dense lichen spread. Up in cloud-drenched branches, a rare, hardy orchid, Bulbophyllum ciliisepalum, can be spotted.

“In one tree, every species has their preferred location,” says Dr Rebecca Hsu, assistant researcher at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute. “Every metre the temperature, the wind, the sun, the light is different.”

Lionel Messi breaks record for most career World Cup goals

Lionel Messi made history Monday as he scored the 17th and 18th goals of his World Cup career, a new record. Lilia Luciano reports.