The Michelin-starred chef’s documentary is searingly painful to watch, as he talks about being sectioned by his wife and the repercussions for his family. Let’s hope he doesn’t regret the heart-to-heart with his son

The diagnosis around which Heston: My Life With Bipolar revolves is so recent that, when we meet him, the doctors are still adjusting his medication. It was only 18 months ago that police, firefighters and a man with a syringe arrived at his front door to have him sectioned at his wife’s request. “She had to do it,� he says. “Or I wouldn’t be here.� He woke up in what he would learn was a psychiatric hospital and stayed there for two months before returning home with his new medications as one of the 1.3 million people in the UK living with bipolar disorder.

Heston is Heston Blumenthal, of course, who made his name as the “molecular gastronomist� who invented snail porridge, bacon-and-egg ice-cream, sardine sorbet and a plethora of other extraordinary dishes that made him and his restaurant the Fat Duck in Bray famous, kickstarted a career as a TV presenter and turned him into a world-renowned brand.

Depending on who you ask, between 4 and 6 million people showed up – and according to one theory, this could be a turning point

The scale of last weekend’s “No Kings� protests is now becoming clearer, with one estimate suggesting that Saturday was among the biggest ever single-day protests in US history.

Working out exactly where the protest ranks compared with similar recent events has been a project of G Elliott Morris, a data journalist who runs the Substack Strength in Numbers, calculated turnout between 4 million and 6 million, which would be 1.2-1.8% of the US population. This could exceed the previous record in recent history, when between 3.3 million and 5.6 million people showed up at the 2017 Women’s March to rally against Trump’s misogynistic rhetoric.

While Ms Vacant was living up to her moniker, the PM perhaps wisely gave his G7 summit statement to MPs a miss

Be thankful for small mercies. If it was up to Priti Patel, the UK would already be at war with Iran. In a former life as international development secretary, Priti got herself fired for freelancing foreign policy on Israel. Now, as shadow foreign secretary, she’s at it again. Old habits die hard.

Out and about on the morning media round, Priti was volunteering to personally fly the US stealth bombers deep into Iran. To ride the Massive Ordnance Penetrator – the Americans are nothing if not relentlessly macho – bombs deep into the nuclear facility at Fordow. Her very own last-chance power drive.

The star of Showgirls, Bound and High Rollers answers your questions on missing out on The Matrix, being a gay hero and swapping faces with her cat

Gina, you are a spectacular and artistically brave woman and movie star. How do you rationalise – and, hopefully, enjoy – the fact that your audiences often encounter you as a beacon of beauty, sexuality and eroticism? Geroellheimer
People can see me in whatever ways they want. As long as what I do brings them joy or helps them think about things, I don’t contemplate how they view me – it’s too abstract. When people share their opinions about me with me, I wonder who they’re talking about, but I go along with it to be polite.

How do you move on and decompress after playing such intense roles? mansurz
After Showgirls and Bound, I had so much residual energy that I ended up going to Greece, cut off some of my hair and released it into the sea. I thought: “This is very Greek.� There was a lot of energy that came with playing Donatella Versace. When I played Nancy Sinatra, I don’t want to say “I channelled her�, but I tapped into her energy. The next thing I knew, I had all these stomach ulcers. I asked her about it. She said: “I’ve had seven or eight of those.� I thought: “Oh my God, really?�

Wondering how to keep your cool as the temperature rises? Experts share their top tips, from face mists to fans, anti-chafe cream to sun hats

• The best fans to keep you cool: 14 tried and tested favourites

Heatwaves used to be marked by years, recalled misty-eyed by those who remembered them with fondness, like the heatwave of ‘76. Now, in the era of global heating, heatwaves are a warning sign, not a pleasure – and as we enter a UK summer, it’s a case of when, not if, the temperature will become unbearable.

Always take care when it heats up – the NHS recommends staying in the shade, especially between 11am and 3pm, wearing sunscreen and hats, and avoiding exercise. It also advises taking showers, eating cold food and drinks, and avoiding alcohol, caffeine and hot drinks.

Amina says the constant influx of baked goods is too much. Ruby says she’s just trying to bring joy to the workplace. You decide who should bake off

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I’m not saying we should have no cakes ever, I just think we should stop assuming cake is always welcome

Bringing cakes in shows we care and adds a little joy to the office. I’m not force-feeding anyone

US president leaves window for negotiation after Israeli defence minister openly embraces regime change

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has set a two-week deadline to decide whether the US will join Israel’s war with Iran, allowing time to seek a negotiated end to the conflict, the White House has said.

The decision to leave a window for diplomacy came after Israel’s defence minister openly embraced regime change in Tehran as a war aim.

Speaking at a hospital hit by an Iranian missile, the Israeli prime minister invoked ancient Persia as he hinted at a historic mission

It was in the Beersheba, about 1,000km and 2,500 years from Babylon, that Benjamin Netanyahu suggested on Thursday that the time had come for the Jews to repay their ancient debt to Cyrus the Great and bring liberation to Iran.

The Israeli prime minister had just made a tour of Soroka hospital, which a few hours earlier had sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile on one of its buildings.

Iran has struggled to respond effectively after Israel killed many of its top military commanders

It is a week since Israel began its largest attack ever on Iran, and in conventional military terms it is clear that Tehran is under extreme pressure. Israel has been able to achieve superiority over Iran’s skies at extraordinary speed, within hours of launching its surprise assault. Its military claimed on Monday to have knocked out 120 Iranian air defence systems through a mixture of air and drone strikes – about a third of Tehran’s pre-war total.

In response, Iran’s most effective weapon has been its stock of high-speed ballistic missiles, estimated at about 2,000 by Israel’s Defense Force (IDF) at the outset of hostilities last week. But the heavy targeting by Israel of launch sites in western Iran, in underground bases such as at Kermanshah – coupled with Israel’s grimly effective targeted killing of Iran’s top military commanders – have left Iran struggling to respond militarily and presenting a significant threat.

Israeli prime minister prompts furious backlash for remarks in front of missile-struck hospital at height of Iran conflict

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Benjamin Netanyahu has evoked the spirit of London during the blitz, and pointed to his own family’s sacrifice amid the blood, toil, tears and sweat of his nation: the second postponement of his son’s wedding.

The Israeli prime minister’s remarks, solemnly delivered to the cameras against the backdrop of a missile-struck hospital building in the southern city of Beersheba, set off a howl of derision that echoed around the Hebrew-language internet, at the height of a war that Netanyahu unleashed on Friday.

Exclusive: The likelihood of a successful US strike on the Iranian nuclear facility buried deep underground at Fordow is a topic of deep contention, defense officials say

Donald Trump has suggested to defense officials it would make sense for the US to launch strikes against Iran only if the so-called “bunker buster� bomb was guaranteed to destroy the critical uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, according to people familiar with the deliberations.

Trump was told that dropping the GBU-57s, a 13.6-tonne (30,000lb) bomb would effectively eliminate Fordow but he does not appear to be fully convinced, the people said, and has held off authorizing strikes as he also awaits the possibility that the threat of US involvement would lead Iran to talks.

Exclusive: On eve of Commons vote, MP says legislators may not get another chance to do ‘the right thing’ for 10 years

The UK is “behind the curve� among progressive nations, the assisted dying bill’s sponsor, Kim Leadbeater, has said on the eve of one of the most consequential votes for social change in England and Wales.

The Labour MP said the circumstances may never be right again to pass such a bill, which would legalise assisted dying in England and Wales for terminally ill people with less than six months to live, subject to approval by two doctors and a panel of experts.

Vicky Foxcroft says she cannot support changes to disability payments ahead of key vote on welfare bill

The Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has resigned as a whip in protest at the government’s welfare plans, saying she will not be able to vote for the cuts to disability payments.

The government is braced for a major rebellion on the welfare bill, which includes significant changes to personal independence payments for disabled people.

Analysts say households are remaining cautious under ‘dark shadow of inflation’

Confidence among UK consumers has improved but remains fragile in the face of expected petrol price rises amid escalating conflict in the Middle East, according to a leading index.

The latest snapshot from the data company GfK says sentiment improved by two points in June but remained in negative territory at -18, well below the -12 of a year ago. A reading above zero indicates optimism; below indicates pessimism.

Concerns raised about lighting outdoor fires after more than 500 blazes in the UK this year

Fire chiefs have issued a warning over outdoor fires and barbecues after a sevenfold increase in UK wildfires, as amber heat alerts were issued across England before what is expected to be a scorching weekend.

The UK has already experienced more than 500 wildfires this year, with incidents up 717% compared with the same period in 2024.

London student who police fear may have drugged and raped more than 60 women receives life sentence

A serial rapist feared to be one of the worst sexual offenders in British history has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years for drugging and raping 10 women in the UK and China.

Zhenhao Zou, a 28-year-old PhD student, drugged and filmed himself raping women between 2019 and 2024 after luring them to his flat with invitations to study or have drinks. Police fear more than 50 other women could be victims.

Jennifer Abbott, 69, found dead with tape over her mouth in Camden flat and police say missing Rolex could be linked to stabbing

A 66-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a film director was found dead at home in north London with tape over her mouth.

The body of Jennifer Abbott, 69, who was known professionally as Sarah Steinberg, was discovered in her Camden flat on 13 June. She was last seen three days earlier, walking her pet corgi nearby.

School leaders call for action on adaptation measures as DfE research warns of potential impact of climate crisis

Children in England face prolonged “lost learning� caused by extreme heat and flooding at school, according to research on the potential impact of the climate crisis on education.

School leaders and teachers said the scenarios published by the Department for Education made for grim reading and urged ministers to move quickly to improve school resilience.

Two serving officers and one former officer to face hearing after woman was also handcuffed and put in spit hood

Two serving Metropolitan police officers and one former officer will face a gross misconduct hearing after a 90-year-old woman with dementia was targeted with a Taser, the police watchdog said.

The woman was also handcuffed and put in a spit hood during the incident in Peckham, south London, in May 2023, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said.

Government strategy includes spending £9bn a year on fixing schools, hospitals, courts and prisons

Ministers have pledged to spend £9bn a year on fixing crumbling schools, hospitals, courts and prisons over the next decade as part of the government’s infrastructure strategy.

Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, set out plans on Thursday to spend a minimum of £725bn over 10 years to boost UK-wide infrastructure and achieve a “national renewal�.

At 15, she began seeing an older man and conceived her beloved daughter. It was years before she properly understood it as abuse. Now she is working tirelessly in parliament for other survivors

Natalie Fleet is nervous about this interview. Her assistant has warned me and Fleet tells me several times, before and during. “I just feel sick,� she says. “I don’t know if it’s because it’s about me or because of the subject. It just doesn’t seem to get any easier.�

The subject is rape – specifically Fleet’s experience of being groomed by an older man when she was 15, becoming pregnant and having the baby. That daughter, “the love of her life�, is now 24. Since entering parliament last summer as the Labour MP for Bolsover, Fleet has spoken a good deal about rape, her life story and the lack of support for mothers whose children were conceived this way – and each time it upsets her. “My husband said: ‘I don’t want you to be the “rapey MP�,’ and I don’t want that either,� says Fleet. “But it’s such a massive void in our national conversation. If nobody’s talking about it, then people won’t report it or understand it, perpetrators won’t be prosecuted or convicted. And shame really does need to switch sides. That can only happen if we start telling each other that it’s not our fault.�

Two cancer patients want choice to decide when to die but man re-diagnosed with non-terminal condition urges caution

Ever since Pamela Fisher was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, the fear of dying in pain and discomfort has been keeping her awake at night. “I don’t want to die, not now. I love life and I want to live. But that said, I live in terror at the prospect of how my final weeks of life could turn out,� the 64-year-old said.

“I know that even with the best palliative care available, there are limits to what can be done. It’s a dead weight of fear I carry around with me.�

Army chief’s effusive welcome in Washington hints at strategic recalibration amid Middle East turmoil

After years in the diplomatic deep freeze, US-Pakistan ties appear to be quickly thawing, with Donald Trump’s effusive welcome for Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, signalling a possible major reset.

Once snubbed so badly that former prime minister Imran Khan had to board an ordinary airport shuttle after arriving in the US rather than being whisked off in a limousine, Pakistan is now enjoying top-level access in Washington, including a White House lunch for Munir on Wednesday and meetings with top national security officials.

Ride-hailing app’s ‘take rate’ – or cut – sometimes reaches more than 50% since introduction of dynamic pricing

• Uber drivers’ earnings cut after changes to secretive algorithm

More than a decade after being one of 19 Uber drivers who took the company to court in 2015, Abdurzak Hadi continues to drive for – and fight with – the ride hailing app.

The group won their claim confirming their entitlement to the legal minimum wage – but the Silicon Valley company’s insistence that its drivers were self-employed contractors meant the case went all the way to the supreme court. In 2021, Hadi and friends won there too.

The standup’s new crack comedy sees her discover that society’s underestimation of disabled people means they’re perfectly cut out for work as drug dealers. It’s a farce-packed watch involving a lot of spilt cocaine

Disabled people are routinely ignored, underestimated, overlooked and patronised. The perfect drug dealers, in other words. This is the gratifyingly sardonic concept behind comedian Rosie Jones’s new sitcom – co-written with Veep’s Peter Fellows – in which she stars as Emily Dawkins, a woman with cerebral palsy whose benefits are senselessly cut by the DWP. After a humiliating work capability assessment, she runs into old school mate Ewen in the loos. Once he remembers who she is (no, not the woman he shagged in the Co-op store room), Ewen is delighted to see her again – “I thought you died!� – and is soon offering Emily 50 quid to deliver a mysterious package for him. Initially Emily declines; too dodgy. But with the prospect of an actual paycheck from her charity work dwindling, she reluctantly gets on with the job – and is pleasantly surprised to find that her disability allows her to get away with murder. Well, distributing cocaine, at any rate.

Such a premise – impoverished disabled woman cornered into dealing drugs to survive contemporary Britain – could have produced an incredibly bleak show; criminal gangs do regularly exploit disabled people for financial gain. Yet Pushers comprehensively swerves sincere social commentary. Rather than being used by Ewen, Emily quickly becomes the enterprise’s driving force. While her childhood pal wants to shift the £500k worth of cocaine he has somehow acquired, then bow out of the game for good, his new employee opts to diversify into the heinous synthetic street drug spice behind his back. She also insists on recruiting a team to distribute the drugs faster. Two are sourced from Wee CU, the disabled-toilet-monitoring charity Emily volunteers for: Harry (Ruben Reuter), a dance lover with Down’s syndrome, and the stern, ruthless and neurodiverse-coded Hope (a brilliant performance from Libby Mai), who is keen to get stuck in (her qualifications include being “the treasurer of the official The Bill fanclub� and spending “42% of my spare time playing drug dealer simulations�). Emily also brings in local alcoholic Sean (Jon Furlong), who passes his days scaring the public by ranting to himself in the street. After Ewen insists his tough-as-old-boots mum be involved too, their crack team is complete.

The British composer broke into Hollywood as Yorgos Lanthimos’s go-to guy on Poor Things and more. But his heart remains in Shropshire – the backdrop to his ambitious, grief-stricken latest record

The sun is shining, birds are tweeting and a river gently flows just yards away as Jerskin Fendrix tells me about his love of growing up in Shropshire. “It was so gorgeous and majestic,� he says, sitting in the garden of a friend’s house where he spent a lot of time in his youth. “It was nature, forests and hills and then just normal teenage life. The combination of this numinous, big landscape and getting wasted in a cornfield with your mates listening to Kanye West on a Bluetooth speaker while seeing a massive sunset.�

Such vivid scenes fill his latest album, Once Upon a Time … in Shropshire. The opening track, Beth’s Farm, captures an idyllic scene where animals roam and rural teens party. “I thought it was a really nice symbol of this naive innocence,� he says. “Trying to get across how bucolic and heavenly this was before it starts to get corrupted.�

As more parents dress like their kids – and more children dress like grownups – some are asking if our offspring have become style inspirations … or even accessories

The Princess of Wales and her 10-year-old daughter, Princess Charlotte, seemed to have shared not just a carriage but also outfit notes at trooping the colour last weekend, since they were both wearing neighbouring blues on the colour wheel. They do it a lot, this so-called “mini-me dressing� – via tartans and tiaras, nautical details and nifty colour accents.

She’s not the only one. Kim Kardashian does it with her kids, Beyoncé does it with Blue Ivy. In fact, it tallies with the whole vibe of nepo babies, who are now appearing in the public eye wearing outfits that are sartorial embodiments of the relationships that will privilege them for life.

An unprecedented planetary-scale seismic event caused the earth to vibrate for nine days straight back in 2023, but the reason why was unclear. Scientists initially had more questions than answers, labelling the event an unidentified seismic object and undertook a mammoth scientific collaboration across multiple countries and institutions to get to the bottom of what really happened. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks into the mystery at the heart of this scientific investigation 

• Entire Earth vibrated for nine days

• The original study conducted by Svennevig et al. (2024) and published in Science

The civil service, judiciary and media are still dominated by the privately educated 7%. Lasting change is not a pipe dream – but it’s up to us

For the first time in our history, we have a cabinet made up entirely of people who went to state schools. Several, including prime minister Keir Starmer, come from working-class backgrounds; some, such as deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, were raised in conditions of poverty that feel as if they ought to belong to another age.

So far so good. What better signs could one ask for to show that Britain is a meritocracy, social mobility is real and anyone can rise to the top provided they have talent, commitment and determination?

Alastair Campbell is a former journalist turned strategist and spokesperson for the Labour party. He is now a writer, podcaster, consultant strategist and mental health campaigner

Labour now says the botched high-speed rail project will be further delayed. Why not just scrap it, as the Reform leader suggests?

Stop it now. Stop spending sums that you admit are out of control. Show common sense and send everyone home. HS2 is a bad joke, a fiasco.

Labour’s second transport secretary in a year, Heidi Alexander, claimed on Wednesday to be shocked by HS2. She was clearly new to the subject. After being briefed on the latest delays and cost overruns by the latest CEO, Mark Wild, she said that the project was “an appalling mess … a litany of failure … unsustainable�. It was as if she had just entered a morgue and disliked the smell.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

As his troops slaughter civilians in Gaza, he claims to be standing up for Iranian women’s autonomy. He is far from the first warmonger to do so

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has invoked the Iranian regime’s heinous women’s rights record to justify his heinous war on Iran. This is the man whose genocide of Palestinians in Gaza killed more women and children in its first year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.

“They’ve impoverished you, they’ve given you misery, they’ve given you death, they’ve given you terror, they shoot down your women, leaving this brave, unbelievable woman, Mahsa Amini, to bleed on the sidewalk for not covering her hair,� he told Iranians in an interview with Iran International.

Mona Eltahawy writes the Feminist Giant newsletter. She is the author of The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls and Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution

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.

As the president’s immigration policies take a toll on communities, some of his voters are shaken – but standing by him

By now, the cycle of Donald Trump supporters being slapped in the face by his policies is common enough that it shouldn’t warrant a response. What is noteworthy is the fact that his crusade of mass deportations seems to have taken the Maga crowd by surprise in a way that makes little sense if you’ve been paying attention to Trump, his campaign promises, his party and the people he surrounds himself with.

Even as they witness friends and family members hurt by this administration’s immigration clampdowns, some Trump supporters appear resistant to doing a full 180.

Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist

History tells us attacks on migrants are a predictable result of political failings, distorted media coverage and far-right opportunism

In early June, the violence began. Rumours of a foreigner assaulting a local woman resulted in groups roaming through a small British town, breaking windows of homes belonging to “outsiders�. A few days later, the police attempted to stop mobs from reaching another nearby multiracial area. Eventually they broke through, ransacking shops and burning down a house, while local media reported that the violence had developed into “something like a fever�.

Sound familiar? This isn’t Ballymena, the County Antrim town in Northern Ireland that has seen several nights of unrest in which immigrant homes were attacked after reports of an alleged sexual assault on a local girl by two teenagers, who had a Romanian interpreter read them the charges. These incidents actually took place more than a century ago, during the summer of 1919, as racial violence spread throughout south Wales, eventually reaching Cardiff and the diverse district of Tiger Bay.

Lanre Bakare is an arts and culture correspondent for the Guardian. He will be discussing his new book, We Were There, at the Southbank Centre in London on 11 July

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.

A new slogan has offered a non-partisan rallying point – and last weekend, protests overshadowed the president’s weird military parade

Two months ago, around the US, mass demonstrations against Donald Trump were organised in what felt like the beginning of the great unfreezing of the popular movement. Since the inauguration in January there have been plenty of ad-hoc anti-Trump protests, but compared to the huge numbers that turned out in 2017 – half a million at the Women’s March in Washington DC alone – the response has been muted. What was the point? The threat was so large, and the failure of the first movement apparently so great, that Americans have been suffering from what appeared to be a case of embarrassed paralysis: a sense, at once sheepish and depressed, that pink hats weren’t moving the needle on this one.

It looks as if that thinking has changed. On Saturday, in a follow-up to the protests in April, more than 2,000 coordinated marches took place in the US, organised by multiple groups under the umbrella No Kings Day and attended by numbers that at a glance seem startling. While in the capital on Saturday, Trump oversaw his weird, sparsely attended Kim Jong-un style military parade, an estimated 5 million people country-wide took to the streets to protest peacefully against him, including an estimated 80,000 in Philadelphia, 75,000 in Chicago, 50,000 in New York, 20,000 in Phoenix, and 7,000 in Honolulu. More heartening still were the numbers from deep red states, such as the 2,000 odd protesters who gathered in Mobile, Alabama, and a reported 4,000 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Mike Lee knows better than to turn tragedy into disinformation. But outrageousness has become the name of the game

National tragedy used to bring national unity. If only momentarily, partisanship was put aside, and people of all political persuasions came together.

No more. The nation received a startling reminder of that sad fact on Sunday when the Republican senator Mike Lee went online to share his reaction to the weekend’s horrible shooting of two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, is the author or editor of more than 100 books, including Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty

The US president promised to keep his country out of conflicts. The Israeli prime minister has other ideas

The maxim that wars are easy to start and hard to end does not appear to be troubling Benjamin Netanyahu. For the Israeli prime minister, conflict is an end as much as a means, extending his political survival. Under international pressure – however belated and insufficient – over the slaughter in Gaza, he launched the attack on Iran. Initially presented as essential to prevent Tehran from the imminent acquisition of a nuclear bomb, a claim running counter to US intelligence, it is increasingly discussed as the path to bringing down the regime. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “can no longer be allowed to exist�.

Donald Trump has generally seen armed conflict as a trap rather than an escape route. He said that the US would “measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end – and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into�. Yet his failure to achieve the Nobel-worthy peace deals he wants, and Mr Netanyahu’s manoeuvring, appear to have made him keener on US intervention. Israel wants US bunker-busters to attack the underground nuclear facility at Fordow. There is no guarantee that those would succeed. Israel’s regime-ending aspirations further undermine its claim to offer what might be called, in the term infamously used of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a cakewalk. There isn’t a bad plan for the day after; there is no plan.

Kim Leadbeater has led a strong campaign, but concerns about the likely impact on vulnerable people remain

The central issue before MPs, as they decide how to vote on the latest version of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill, is how to value individual autonomy relative to collective responsibility for vulnerable members of society when making regulations around the end of life. Should terminally ill people be allowed to end their lives with medical help? If so, under what safeguards? The question remains ethically, medically and legally complex.

Technological and social changes enabling people to live much longer have created challenges around the resourcing of care and experiences of ageing and dying. There are profound questions about how we manage the final stages of life – and what we owe to those living through them.

Remarkable bowler’s slingshot action will trouble batters at Headingley but fitness problems mean the tourists will have to manage him carefully

If there was an enduring image from the last Test series between India and England, it was probably that of Jasprit Bumrah detonating Ollie Pope’s stumps in Visakhapatnam – a feet-seeking yorker so ridiculously sweet that the Food Standards Agency could have marked it red on their traffic-light system.

A year and a bit on from England’s 4-1 defeat in India on Friday, Bumrah remains the standout in the two attacks going into the first of five blockbuster Tests, beginning at Headingley on Friday. Even saying this sells him a bit short. Of the 86 bowlers to go past 200 Test wickets, none have done so at a lower average than Bumrah’s 19.4. Only Kasigo Rabada, with a strike rate of 38.9 to Bumrah’s 42, takes his wickets more regularly.

Flying winger brushes off allegiance jibes and cannot wait for Australia after a testing Lions tour in 2021

Duhan van der Merwe does not want to shake hands. It is not that the hulking Scotland winger is being rude – he is polite to a fault – but after a gruelling gym session the British & Irish Lion has blisters as big as golf balls. A fist bump – a touch daunting given the size of his biceps – must suffice.

Van der Merwe’s war wounds are the first indication that public perception about him can be misleading and there are many to follow in the ensuing half-hour. From an impassioned response to accusations he is a “SpringJock�, to discussing why he runs roughshod over England once a year, Van der Merwe is illuminating company.

• Argentine’s 68th free-kick goal secures three points for Miami

• Win is MLS’s first in expanded Club World Cup

• Palmeiras tops Al Ahly in other Group A match

Lionel Messi connected on a free kick in the 54th minute to propel Inter Miami to a 2-1 victory over FC Porto in a Group A match of the Fifa Club World Cup on Thursday afternoon.

After Porto struck first on Samu Aghehowa’s penalty kick in the eighth minute, Marcelo Weigandt assisted on Telasco Segovia’s game-tying goal in the 47th.

• Chelsea manager still trusts winger

• Mudryk faces ban after failed drugs test

Enzo Maresca has said he has not spoken to Mykhailo Mudryk since the Football Association announced on Wednesday that the Chelsea winger has been charged with doping offences. Mudryk is facing a four-year ban if he is found guilty by the FA of taking a banned substance.

Maresca said he still trusts the Ukraine international and plans to check on his welfare soon, but Chelsea’s head coach added that he has had no contact with the 24-year-old since May. “I spoke with Misha in Poland when we played the Conference League final,� he said. “I didn’t speak with him since that time.

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While Football Daily didn’t get where it is today by performatively flip-flopping over various issues depending on which way the prevailing political wind is blowing, it would be fair to say Football Daily did get where it is today by performatively flip-flopping over various issues depending on which way the prevailing political wind is blowing. Like Groucho Marx, the world’s most daily football email has its principles and if you don’t like them … well, we have other ones. Those familiar with its work will be aware that Fifa is no different, but has still come as something of a surprise that having for so long publicly (if a little hollowly) purported to be against injustice of any kind, world football’s governing body abandoned its planned campaigns against racism and discrimination across the opening three days of the Copa Gianni being staged in the USA USA USA. Following a backlash, some pithy slogans were rolled out on Wednesday, albeit seemingly on the proviso that this token gesture would be for one day of this month-long jamboree only.

Hero of 2006 World Cup was second choice behind Claudio Ranieri and has not had a successful career as manager

Gennaro Gattuso said all the things he was expected to say at his first appearance as Italy manager. He talked about the need to restore enthusiasm to an Azzurri side whose morale has been dented by recent setbacks, as well as that sense of shared purpose that bonded him to teammates in the World Cup-winning side of 2006.

The word he kept coming back to was “family�, insisting: “That’s the most important thing, more than tactics or formations.� His is not a vision of paternalistic authority but of a group close enough to speak hard truths to each other’s faces.

• Top seed into quarter-finals with 6-4, 6-7 (7), 7-5 win

• Alcaraz victory longest match at Queen’s in 34 years

On a day of hot heads and high emotion, Carlos Alcaraz proved once again to be a master of escapology in the longest match at Queen’s Club for 34 years. With temperatures hovering over 30C on Andy Murray Arena, the Spaniard was 4-2 down in the final set, having lost four games in a row. To add to his sense of peril and woe, his serve was also misfiring and he had just hit his 50th unforced error. Yet he found a way – just as he had during the French Open final earlier this month.

A few minutes – and a series of inspired winners – later Alcaraz was shaking hands with his compatriot Jaume Munar having won 6-4, 6-7 (7), 7-5 in an epic that lasted a little under three hours and 30 minutes. It was the longest match at Queen’s Club since MaliVai Washington faced Mark Keil in 1991, with the second set alone taking an hour and 42 minutes. As Alcaraz pithily wrote on the BBC TV courtside camera: “Were we on clay?�

• Seven-year-old wins by seven lengths

• Fifth victory of meeting for Gosdens

It was simple but ruthlessly effective as Trawlerman and William Buick made all the running to win the Gold Cup on Thursday. The Gosden stable’s seven-year-old faced two four-year-old rivals with a touch more class but no experience of racing at two and a half miles and when Buick challenged them to catch him with a quarter of a mile to run, neither Illinois nor Candelari could summon a response.

Candelari was a spent force with half a mile left, while Illinois’s brief effort in the home straight scarcely made an impression on Trawlerman’s lead as he galloped on relentlessly for the line. He had a seven-length advantage at the post and it was seven more back to Dubai Future in third.

• Zimbabwean takes over from Thomas Bach next week

• Coventry speaks of making ‘right decisions’ in the role

Kirsty Coventry has promised to not let power go to her head when she becomes the first female president of the International Olympic Committee next week.

Her predecessor, Thomas Bach, would always stay in a suite paid for by the IOC at the five-star Lausanne Palace hotel, costing about £2,000 a night, whenever he was in the city. However, the Zimbabwean confirmed her family would not be following suit.

When a small Swedish town discovered their drinking water contained extremely high levels of Pfas, they had no idea what it would mean for their health and their children’s future

If Agneta Bruno closes her eyes, the soapy smell takes her back to childhood. Cycling home to the barracks where she lived with her father, an air force major, she would whiz through patches of snowy-white foam near the entrance of the base. The foam resembled the bubbles you get in the bathtub, just thicker. “I had to lift my feet up to avoid getting wet,� Bruno told me.

Aqueous film-forming foam (Afff) is a miracle of firefighting: it’s highly effective in putting out flammable liquid fires, such as those caused by jet fuel spills. Chemicals in the foam create a stable blanket over liquid fuel, trapping the flammable vapours and extinguishing the fire. At the air force base in Bruno’s home town of Kallinge in Sweden, firefighters were trained to douse flames using the foam. New recruits came every few weeks, so the training sessions were pretty constant. Afterwards, the foam would soak away into the sandy soil and disappear.

False claims obstructing climate action, say researchers, amid calls for climate lies to be criminalised

Rampant climate misinformation is turning the crisis into a catastrophe, according to the authors of a new report.

It found climate action was being obstructed and delayed by false and misleading information stemming from fossil fuel companies, rightwing politicians and some nation states. The report, from the International Panel on the Information Environment (Ipie), systematically reviewed 300 studies.

PM Pedro Sánchez says he wants a ‘more flexible formula’ that would make target optional or allow Madrid to opt out

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has rejected Nato’s proposal for member states to increase their defence spending to 5% of their GDP, saying the idea would “not only be unreasonable but also counterproductive�.

Sánchez said that he was not seeking to complicate next week’s Nato summit in The Hague, but he wanted there to be a “more flexible formula� that would either make the target optional or allow Spain to opt out.

States argued US transportation secretary lacks authority to impose conditions on funding appropriated by Congress

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s administration from forcing 20 Democratic-led states to cooperate with immigration enforcement in order to receive billions of dollars in transportation grant funding.

Chief US District Judge John McConnell in Providence, Rhode Island, granted the states’ request for an injunction barring the Department of Transportation’s policy, saying the states were likely to succeed on the merits of some or all of their claims.

LGBTQ+ standard disappears from Matlock high street as Christian bookshop manager says they are ‘not happy with the gay rights situation’

The spa town of Matlock in the Peak District is known for the joyful flags adorning its historic high street. The St George’s Cross, the union flag, the Derbyshire county flag and the Pride flag flutter brightly above the town’s many independent businesses.

That was until a row erupted that has divided the town, after the mysterious disappearance of a Pride flag turned out to be the work of the very council that had installed it.

Zak Starkey says his father made the comment after he was fired over a disagreement about his performance

Ringo Starr has reportedly criticised the way “that little man� Roger Daltrey runs the Who after Starr’s son was sacked from the band.

Zak Starkey, 59, who was sacked as the Who’s drummer over a disagreement about his performance, said he was proud that his father had come to his defence.

Government accused of making ‘secret exchange deal’ with fossil fuel companies to compensate for tax hike

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, told a fossil fuel company the industry would receive a “quid pro quo� in return for higher taxes on its windfall profits, it can be revealed.

In a meeting with the Norwegian state energy company Equinor on 27 August, Reeves suggested that the government’s carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) subsidies were a payoff for oil firms being hit with a higher tax rate.

Many in Kassel have embraced the animal but the EU classes it as an invasive species and ecologists are divided about what to do next

In Kassel, everyone has a story about raccoons. Some struggle with a family of them that moved into their roof and simply will not leave. Others recount how a picnic in the park turned into an ambush as gangs of the black and white animals, known in Germany as Waschbären, raided the food. Almost everyone seems to have a neighbour who feeds them, to the annoyance of the entire street.

“We are the raccoon city. They are everywhere,� says Lars, a Kassel resident, as he tends his allotment by Karlsaue park in the fading light.

Since 1999, Armando López Pocol and his team of volunteers have bucked the trend for deforestation, regenerating the landscape of the highlands with their Chico Mendes project

Armando López Pocol is showing off some of the thousands of trees he has planted in Pachaj, his village in the highlands of western Guatemala, when he suddenly halts his white pickup truck. Alongside an American volunteer, Lyndon Hauge, he gazes out over a charred field. Clouds of smoke are still billowing from the ground.

As he walks through the ash-covered field, his optimistic speech turns to sadness and he pauses in silence to take in the barren landscape.

‘Efficiency’ cuts across offices have left teams understaffed, firefighters underpaid and uninsured, and without adequate equipment

Summer temperatures are rising and the US is bracing for another hot, dry and hectic wildfire season. But with the promise of extreme conditions in the months to come, federal fire crews are also growing concerned that a series of changes brought on by the Trump administration have left them underprepared.

Severe cuts to budgets and staff have hamstrung the agencies that manage roughly 640m acres of the nation’s public lands, leaving significant gaps in a workforce that supports wildfire mitigation and suppression. The administration’s crackdown on climate science and the dismantling of departments that provided world-class research and weather forecasting, may also undermine early warning systems, slowing response and strategic planning.

Graham Flatman may have acted outside his remit in seven cases between 2013 and 2024, investigation finds

A psychologist who was found to have misled the family court about his qualifications had previously given expert evidence in at least seven other cases in which he may have been acting outside his remit.

Graham Flatman, an educational psychologist based in Kent, was suspended for six months by the regulator for taking work as a “clinical psychologist� and carrying out an assessment he was not qualified to make.

Exclusive: Telford survivors say people are ‘exploiting the exploited’ and push for women to shape new investigation

The political “tug of war with vulnerable women� abused by grooming gangs must stop before a new national inquiry into the crimes, survivors have told the Guardian.

Holly Archer and Scarlett Jones, two survivors who played a key role in a “gold-standard� local inquiry in Telford, have urged politicians and those without experience of abuse to allow women to shape the investigation.

Environment secretary indicates that calls from creditors for leniency from fines and penalties will be rejected

• Business live – latest updates

The environment secretary, Steve Reed, has said the government is stepping up preparations for temporary nationalisation of Thames Water, indicating it will reject pleas from the company’s creditors for leniency from fines and penalties.

Thames Water’s largest creditors control the utility and have made a bid to cut some of its debts and provide £5.3bn in new funding to try to turn it around.

Governor says rates still on downward path but hard to predict timing of reductions in ‘highly unpredictable’ world

• Rate decision leaves Reeves praying for an August cut

• Business live – latest updates

The Bank of England has left interest rates on hold at 4.25%, though it signalled further cuts in the cost of borrowing later this year after “clearer evidence� of rising unemployment amid a slowing economy.

Six members of the Bank’s nine-member monetary policy committee (MPC) voted to keep rates on hold while three supported a reduction to 4%, to add to the four quarter-point cuts since last August.

Leader says LGBTQ+ gathering in Hungarian capital will go ahead even if police try to impose a government-backed ban

The mayor of Budapest has vowed to go ahead with the city’s Pride march next weekend, declaring he will “come up with a plan C� even if the police try to impose a government-backed ban.

Hungarian police said on Thursday they were banning the country’s main Pride march from taking place in the capital, citing recent legislation passed by Viktor Orbán’s government that prohibits the promotion of same-sex relationships to under-18s.

Civil defence agency says Israeli fire killed 15 and wounded 60 on Thursday, bringing death toll this week to over 100

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Dozens more Palestinians were killed or injured in Gaza as they sought desperately needed aid on Thursday, with reports that Israeli forces close to one distribution point had opened fire, the third such incident in as many days.

More than a hundred people have been reported killed since Monday while either trying to reach aid points or waiting to stop and offload the limited number of UN and commercial trucks entering the devastated territory. There have been about 20 such incidents in the last four weeks.

Starship 36 was preparing for 10th test flight from Texas when it underwent ‘catastrophic failure’ while on stand

One of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starships has exploded during a routine test in Texas, authorities said, in the latest setback to the billionaire’s dream of turning humanity into an interplanetary species.

The Starship 36 underwent “catastrophic failure and exploded� at the Starbase launch facility shortly after 11pm on Wednesday (0400 GMT Thursday), a Facebook post by the Cameron County authorities said.

Police found 57 people allegedly held in fetid conditions in case known as ‘grape harvest of shame’

Three employees of a firm that provided workers to pick grapes for champagne has gone on trial for human trafficking, in one of the biggest labour scandals to hit France’s exclusive sparkling wine industry.

The employees of the firm supplying grape pickers for the champagne harvest in 2023 were charged with human trafficking and exploiting seasonal workers, submitting vulnerable people to undignified housing conditions, and employing foreign nationals without authorisation. The firm itself was also on trial for moral responsibility in the case.

The South African artist has exhibited everywhere, bagging awards in art and theatre, while his work sells for millions. So why did he find becoming an artist so unnatural? Ahead of a major British show, he reveals all

You only have to glance at William Kentridge’s family tree to realise why he is such an outsider. His maternal grandmother, Irene Geffen, was South Africa’s first female barrister while his mother, Felicia Geffen, became an anti-apartheid lawyer. Then there’s his father, Sydney Kentridge, the indomitable QC who represented Nelson Mandela in the 1960s and fought for justice for Steve Biko in the 70s. Studying law would have been the obvious path. “Public speaking, thinking on my feet, were natural and easy skills,� said Kentridge back in 1998. “Being an artist was a very unnatural and hard thing for me to do.�

That’s quite a statement. Because in the three decades since, Kentridge has conquered the international art world with the oomph and verve of an emerging twentysomething. He has exhibited in most major museums and biennales, and his work now fetches millions. Along the way, he has collected 10 honorary doctorates, numerous grand prizes in art and theatre, and a spot on the Time 100 list of influential people. Now, fresh from celebrating his 70th birthday in April, he has two solo exhibitions under way, two group shows, four touring operas, a touring feature-length film and a nine-part film series, Self-Portrait As a Coffee-Pot, streaming globally on Mubi “with an accompanying 836-page book�. It’s almost as if he was, indeed, a natural.

Twists come thick and fast, there’s tons of plot and action is set in a water-based community. The creator of the 90s megahit’s new show is an opportunity to wallow in nostalgia – albeit with added drug running

Do you miss Dawson’s Creek now that you’re all grown up? Kevin Williamson sees you. And he has reinvented his late-90s/early-00s tale of a close knit community round a watery area for an adult market. Not adult-adult, you understand – we’re talking drug-running and crumbling family empire rather than sauce – but the main ingredients of his first TV hit are all here. Namely, masses of plot and some lightly sketched characters to keep it moving swiftly enough that nobody has time to stop and say “Hang on, fellas – I simply don’t believe a word of this!� Those of us who sat through several young women choosing Dawson over Pacey are only here for the second part of the phrase “credible drama�.

The Buckleys and their fleet have long dominated the small fishing town of Havenport, North Carolina. They are rich and troubled. More so the latter as they become less of the former because business is getting tougher and mighty patriarch Harlan (Holt McCallany, charismatic, humourless) took his hand off the tiller to have two heart attacks and left his inadequate son Cane (Jake Weary, uncharismatic, humourless) to run things for a bit. Cane decided the best way to do this was to start shifting illegal narcotics for wodges of cash and an unseen gangster called Owen. Alas, we open with a set of Cane’s smuggling crewmen being offed by a gang of armed men, and Owen’s $10m shipment going missing. Cane asks his cousin Lynette (Bethany DeZelle), at whatever the nautical equivalent of the DVLA, North Carolinian office is, to amend some paperwork to say that he sold the murder boat three months ago. I am sure this is a foolproof cover and that nothing will escalate.

The Waterfront is on Netflix now.

Even more staggering than The Jinx, this riveting documentary shows the truly atrocious lengths the manager of a California crematorium went to undercut his rivals. Absolutely not for the faint-hearted

The smart thing about comparing something to The Jinx is that you’re essentially daring viewers to stick with you until the very end. After all, as good as The Jinx was, it didn’t reach legendary status until its final few moments, when notorious murder suspect Robert Durst paused an interview with his microphone still on, and muttered a confession while using the toilet.

The Mortician, it has to be said, is pound for pound more staggering than The Jinx. Joshua Rofé’s three-part documentary about California cremator David Sconce is a feat of construction, patiently doling out larger and larger transgressions until the whole thing becomes swamped in unimaginable horror. It’s the kind of documentary where, when the credits roll, you realise that you haven’t drawn breath for several minutes.

Pharrell Williams’s biopic visualised in Lego as vibrant waves and trippy imagery charts the musician rise to stardom, while Barry Keoghan is the outside who finds himself satirising British aristocracy in Emerald Fennell’s dark comedy

We’ve had Robbie Williams played by a CGI chimp so why not Pharrell Williams as a collection of small plastic bricks? This weird but joyous documentary from Morgan Neville uses Lego to encapsulate the life of the wildly successful Neptunes producer and musician. Williams having synaesthesia – he experiences sound as colour – means the film can go off on visual flights of fancy; the beats he creates becoming rainbow fireworks or vibrant waves. All this trippy imagery covers up the fact that his rise to stardom has been fairly frictionless, but contributions from Lego versions of Missy Elliott, Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg et al attest to his offbeat worldview and hyperactive creativity.
Saturday, 8.25am, 4.20pm, Sky Cinema Premiere

The star makes for a charmless lead in a rubbishy attempt to mash a female-led wedding comedy and an action caper

In Apple’s 2023 car crash Ghosted, things went from worse to genuinely never been this bad when the sounds of Uptown Funk erupted during another shoddily choreographed action sequence. It was a marriage so heinous that one would be tempted to think it was parody had it not existed in a film so entirely devoid of humour and self-awareness. The Chris Evans/Ana de Armas vehicle became the new nadir of the action comedy, a subgenre that has been run down into the sewer by streamers, carelessly cobbling together big stars and bad quips on an almost weekly basis.

But as dreadful as it was, there was something fascinatingly dreadful about it, a cacophony of bad decisions that became almost instructive to the industry in its of-the-moment awfulness. In this week’s Bride Hard, the latest tinny genre mix to get chucked at us, when Rebel Wilson’s shoddy kitchen-based fight scene is scored to Geri Halliwell’s It’s Raining Men, you’ll be too bored to even roll your eyes, if you’re even awake at that point.

In this powerful documentary, six former inmates revisit their old cells to reflect on the childhood trauma and domestic abuse that led them to prison

You can be told the statistics: 30% of women in prison spent time in care as children, and 70% have been the victim of domestic abuse. But what this powerful documentary from Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson (the latter of whom is the director of just-released film Lollipop) does is to demonstrate the cruelty and injustice of a system that incarcerates the vulnerable.

Shot in 2021, it follows six women returning to HMP Holloway in London before demolition began a year later. In the first scenes, they walk back into the prison, some into their old cells. The building is abandoned, ivy creeps up through the floorboards, but it’s still Holloway: “Fuck, I remember this smell,� says one. During a week-long workshop the women – brave and unfailingly articulate – share their stories. All of them experienced trauma in childhood, most masked it with drugs or alcohol, or unhealthy relationships. Of the six, two are now charity CEOs: Aliyah Ali and Mandy Ogunmokun, who both work to support disadvantaged women. The poet Lady Unchained is also in the group.

Neave Trio
(Chandos)
Works by Saint-Saëns, Mel Bonis and Sally Beamish’s imaginative reinterpretation of Debussy’s La Mer make for a disparate but rounded programme

Three French works make a disparate but rounded programme on this release from the Neave Trio. Saint-Saëns took years to write his Trio No 2, and the result was a sprawling five-movement work that gets an appropriately wide-ranging and meaty performance here. The first movement roils and surges, the players catching both the push and pull of the restless theme and the brief passage of stillness later on. The slow third movement sings .with wistful nostalgia, and the fourth flows by in a waltz-like whirl pitched somewhere between Chopin and Dvořák. But the second movement, with its obsessively repeated rhythmic motif, perhaps needs a little more imagination to make it work.

The two movements of Mel Bonis’s Soir et Matin, written in 1907, are the opposite way round in atmosphere from how you might expect: Soir (Evening) is soulful, expansive and melodic; Matin (Morning) altogether more strange, impressionistic and beguiling. Finally, there’s something unexpected on a chamber music recital: Debussy’s painterly orchestral showpiece La Mer. Rendering the orchestra’s highly textured writing for a chamber group is no easy task but this version, made by the composer Sally Beamish in 2013, is imaginative and beautifully judged, emerging more like a new work in its own right than a mere arrangement.

A former music journalist’s exploration of how we listen is informed by her life-changing experience of motherhood

When did you last experience total silence? In Hark, the author Alice Vincent goes to extreme lengths to eradicate noise as she spends time in an anechoic chamber, a heavily soundproofed space designed to swallow up sound waves. There she becomes aware of the noises of her own body, from involuntary swallowing to the soft, high-pitched ringing in her ears. But rather than feel unease, she is “confronted with a comfort I couldn’t have imagined – and a familiarity with quietude I didn’t realise I was living in�.

Hark is a book about listening, being heard and the author’s shifting relationship with sound in the early years of motherhood. While working as a music journalist in her 20s, Vincent had been surrounded by noise. But now, in her 30s and plunged into domesticity, she finds herself craving quiet. She also examines how others experience sound, investigating misophonia, an acute sensitivity to everyday noises; deep listening, a practice that ensures the speaker feels heard; and the concept of “deaf gain�, which turns the notion of “hearing loss� into something positive and empowering.

(Island EMI)
The Londoner’s trademark sentimental sweetness is balanced by a new unaffected singing style – his fourth album is his most impressive work yet

Loyle Carner raps like he has a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. Wonder, nostalgia, love, hurt, excitement, hard-won peace: these are the emotions his voice tends to catch on. When combined with his typically blissed-out sonics – feathery breakbeats, dreamy piano figures, delicate synth washes, gently plucked guitars – the results are often very nice. Sometimes a bit too nice. So it is on Feel at Home, the sentimental love song that opens the 30-year-old’s fourth album, Hopefully!

Carner – whose moniker is a spoonerism of his real name, Benjamin Coyle-Larner – never makes music that is boring or basic. As well as the slushy lyrics and comfortingly toasty chords, Feel at Home is buttressed by madly skittering percussion and what sounds like a blurry reproduction of young children’s playground chatter. But much like the outpouring of earnestness and loveliness on the Croydon-raised rapper’s first two albums, Hopefully! may well have you hankering for a shred of dissonance or disruption – especially after 2022’s Mercury-shortlisted Hugo, which gratifyingly offset Carner’s trademark tenderness with a more abrasive sonic palette. Initially, the musician seems to have moved on – or perhaps backwards – from that record.

Royal Albert Hall, London
After a cancelled arena tour, expectations are high for J Hus’s return – but for all his swagger and melody, he ends up falling short due to sound issues and a lack of vision

J Hus’s one-night-only show at the Royal Albert Hall, celebrating the five-year anniversary of his album Big Conspiracy, begins with the British rapper’s sister and collaborator iceè tgm reciting a poem in front of a black curtain. “It all starts with a question,� she posits. “What is the big conspiracy?� By the end, the show leaves even more unanswered questions.

When the curtain falls, it reveals a small symphony orchestra placed behind live band the Compozers. Hus opens with force: Helicopter, Triumph, Fight for Your Right, Fortune Teller, Reckless, and No Denying come in quick succession. He spits with braggadocious swagger, jumping from a protruding platform into the throes of the adoring crowd standing in the stalls. Even looking up towards the gallery, the venue’s grandeur feels entirely fitting for commemorating such a heavy-hitting UK No 1 album, which has become embedded in British rap, Afrobeats, dancehall, and general culture over the past five years.

In this frank, exposing memoir, Jong-Fast reflects on her dysfunctional upbringing as her family falls apart

In 2023, Molly Jong-Fast had the year from hell. Her husband, Matt, discovered he had pancreatic cancer; her father-in-law, aunt and stepfather all died; and her then 81-year-old mother, the novelist and poet Erica Jong, was diagnosed with dementia. “My mother is just a body now,� she states in How to Lose Your Mother. “Erica Jong the person has left the planet.�

That year also marked the 50th anniversary of Fear of Flying, Jong’s autobiographical novel. Hailed as a landmark of feminist literature, it made a star of its author, selling more than 20m copies and leading to appearances on The Tonight Show and the cover of Newsweek. The book coined the phrase “the zipless fuck� to describe casual sex. “Now think about being the offspring of the person who wrote that sentence. And pour one out for me,� writes Jong-Fast.

A young gay Black man escapes from grief into the hedonism of upper-echelon New York, in a lyrical tale of redemption

Lives can turn on one mistake. Smith’s comes when he is caught in the corner of a restaurant in the Hamptons on the last night of summer, snorting cocaine from a key. He walks calmly out with the two khaki-clad police officers, poses for a mugshot and posts his $500 bail.

Smith is Black, which won’t help, but he comes from wealth, which will. So he calls his sister, who calls his father in Atlanta, who tells his mother, who collapses on the floor in shock then starts calling lawyers. Smith prepares for his court date with a series of AA meetings and counselling sessions that will make it clear that this promising young man is on the road to redemption.

From buzzards in Oxfordshire to cranes in Kent – how once common birds left their mark in British place names

Old place names recall old ways of belonging. They often reference characteristics of the land or its use, the people who lived there, or the non-human lives they were enmeshed with. A great many of these vivifying genii loci are birds, although their identities aren’t always obvious because language evolves over time. We need a guide.

Enter Michael Warren: teacher of English, amateur ornithologist and a man who lives in a Britain different to the one most of us inhabit: a medieval one, which by some magic has “survived in another dimension parallel to our own�. The gift he bestows in this gorgeous book is that, by the end, we live there too, newly able to read the growth rings of place, and to perceive an alternative land shimmering over the one we already know.

A harrowing new book looks back at a dark period of US history as the Johns committee targeted Black and queer Americans, drawing parallels to what’s happening now

With his second book, Robert W Fieseler casts new light on a dark episode: the years in the 1950s and 60s when the Florida legislative investigation committee, commonly known as the Johns committee, persecuted Black and queer Americans in the name of anti-communist red scare politics.

“The state of Florida has a very poisonous political system,� Fieseler said, promoting a book published as Ron DeSantis sits in the governor’s mansion, whose virulently anti-LGBTQ+ policies had fueled, if briefly, his presidential ambitions.

Splitgate 2’s Ian Proulx thought his Musk gag was funny – but what it revealed was the major blind spots still in the business

One thing most game developers can agree on in the modern industry is that it’s hard to drum up any awareness for your latest project without a mammoth marketing budget. Last year, almost 20,000 new titles were released on the PC gaming platform Steam alone, the majority disappearing into the content blackhole that is the internet. So when a smaller studio is offered the chance to get on the stage at the Summer Games Fest, an event streamed live to a global audience of around 50 million people, it’s a big deal. Not something that you want to spectacularly misjudge.

Enter Ian Proulx, cofounder of 1047 Games. His short slot at the event earlier this month had him walking on stage with a baseball bat to promote the online shooter Splitgate 2 by announcing that he was “tired of playing the same Call of Duty every year�, while wearing a cap bearing the slogan “Make FPS great again�. It did not go well. Gamers and fellow developers criticised his decision to diss another studio’s game as well as his politically charged use of a Maga/Trump meme, especially with anti-ICE protesters being beaten and arrested just across town. Proulx defended his actions, denying that his use of the cap slogan was political, but four days later he made an apology via X explaining: “We needed something to grab attention, and the honest truth is, we tried to think of something and this is what we came up with.�

Nintendo has slept on new games for its new handheld but clockwork-puzzle murder missions, an RPG reborn and a beefed-up Yakuza 0 are the highlights from other developers

The Nintendo Switch 2 certainly makes a strong first impression, but once that gadget limerence begins to fade, it’s down to the games to stave off any creeping buyer’s remorse. We all know that Mario Kart World is undoubtedly a multiplayer masterpiece, and original Switch games from Pokémon Scarlet/Violet to Zelda have been updated to look amazing on the new console, but there’s otherwise a severe lack of Nintendo-made launch games for the Switch (beyond the £8 tech demo, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour).

Thankfully, other developers have stepped in to fill the gap, releasing a bunch of updated versions of games that have been out on other consoles for a while. What should you pick up when you’re tired of Mario Kart World?

Originally meant to release in 2022, Capcom’s futuristic game – featuring an astronaut and a mysterious blond-haired little girl – has just re-emerged from stasis; and it looks like it will be worth the wait

When Pragmata was first announced five years ago, it wasn’t clear exactly what Resident Evil publisher Capcom was making. The debut trailer featured eerie, futuristic imagery, an astronaut, and a blond-haired little girl, but there was nothing concrete or clear about its content. And when it missed its 2022 release window and was “paused indefinitely� in 2023, it wasn’t clear if Pragmata would ever come to be.

That all changed on 4 June, when a brand-new trailer was broadcast during a PlayStation showcase. The blond-haired little girl turns out to be a weaponised android, accompanying an astronaut called Hugh (of course) through space-station shootouts. I played about 20 minutes of the game during Summer Game Fest the following weekend. A lengthy, troubled development cycle is usually a bad omen, but my time with it was promising.

Pragmata will be out in 2026 for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.

PC (version tested), PlayStation 5, Xbox; Build a Rocket Boy/IOI Partners
A lot of work and ambition have gone into this strange, sometimes likable cover-shooter throwback

There’s a Sphere-alike in Redrock, MindsEye’s open-world version of Las Vegas. It’s pretty much a straight copy of the original: a huge soap bubble, half sunk into the desert floor, with its surface turned into a gigantic TV. Occasionally you’ll pull up near the Sphere while driving an electric vehicle made by Silva, the megacorp that controls this world. You’ll sometimes come to a stop just as an advert for an identical Silva EV plays out on the huge curved screen overhead. The doubling effect can be slightly vertigo-inducing.

At these moments, I truly get what MindsEye is trying to do. You’re stuck in the ultimate company town, where oligarchs and other crooks run everything, and there’s no hope of escaping the ecosystem they’ve built. MindsEye gets this all across through a chance encounter, and in a way that’s both light of touch and clever. The rest of the game tends towards the heavy-handed and silly, but it’s nice to glimpse a few instances where everything clicks.

The Courtauld, London
With works by Alice Adams, Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois, this exhibition revisits a 1966 show of pieces delving into the psychosexual and the human body

Pendulous, scuttling, slapstick, sinister and ribald, Abstract Erotic revisits a moment in 1966 when the young American critic and curator Lucy Lippard brought together the work of three women in New York in a larger show of eight artists at the Fischbach Gallery then on Madison Avenue. It was originally titled Eccentric Abstraction, but the eccentrically abstract isn’t nearly as sexy as the erotic – yet somehow neither title quite fits the strange and compelling sculptures and little objects, drawings and reliefs by Alice Adams, Eva Hesse and Louise Bourgeois that, even 60 years on, are as alive as ever they were.

Eccentric Abstraction was the first exhibition Lippard had ever curated, and was, she said, “an attempt to blur boundaries, in this case between minimalism and something more sensuous and sensual – that is, in retrospect, something more feminist� – although, at the time, feminism was far from her mind. The exhibition was crucial in the development of the now 88-year-old’s thinking and her subsequent activism.

Royal Court theatre, London
Kane’s emotionally unswerving gifts as a writer are on full display in a 25th-anniversary production reuniting the original cast

What must it have felt like to watch Sarah Kane’s final play, whose depressed protagonist plots imminent suicide, knowing that the playwright killed herself the previous year?

First staged in 2000, under the shadow of Kane’s death in 1999, it is back now with the original creative team, including director James Macdonald and its fine three-strong cast of Daniel Evans, Jo McInnes and Madeleine Potter. They play a divided self, it seems, reflecting on illness, shame, self-loathing, love, betrayal, medication culture and – importantly – the prospect of ending it all at exactly 4.48am.

A new retrospective shines a light on the turn-of-the-century Italian artist, one of the art world’s most obscure yet revered figures, whose legacy was eclipsed by his contemporaries

If you ask art dealers and auctioneers about the legacy of the turn-of-the-century sculptor Medardo Rosso, you are likely to be met with a uniform reply: “Medardo who?� There’s no judgment here. I’ve worked in and around the art world for 20 years, and until recently I hadn’t heard of Rosso either.

In artists’ ateliers, however, Rosso has long been a familiar and revered name. Auguste Rodin, the father of modern sculpture, was his champion and friend until the pair’s fallout. Émile Zola was a fan. The playwright Edward Albee owned a version of his sculpture Enfant Juif; French poet Guillaume Apollinaire described him as “without a doubt the greatest living sculptor�.

National Portrait Gallery, London
Saville’s colossal canvases are filled with bloodied mouths, epically thrusting nipples and meaty legs – and her tender Degas-like drawings are truly lovely

The posters and grand title of Jenny Saville’s retrospective scream paint! – in red, pink and bruise colours – but you need to look at her exquisite drawings to get the measure of her. In Neck Study II a woman, eyes closed, holds up her head so we can study the curves and dips of flesh on her stretched neck. Saville notes these anatomical realities with a pencil in precise nuances of shading, also observing every contour of her face and the bones under her thin shoulders. It is beautiful. It is true.

So what the hell – I thought – was she doing in the adjacent gallery where massively enlarged faces, pummelled by life and her art, are lit as harshly as flash photographs? They include her portrait of a boy with a bloodied beaten face, lip twisted, eyes dazed, used for the cover of a Manic Street Preachers album that was banned from supermarkets for being too disturbing. That was just a small reproduction. Here you are confronted by the colossal real thing, faces that truly get in your face.

The Cabaret and Pose star is making his UK directorial debut with Harrison David Rivers’ play about love and activism. We join rehearsals with Omari Douglas and Alexander Lincoln

When Billy Porter talks, people listen. They have no choice. The actor, fresh from a stint as Emcee in the London run of Cabaret, and about to reprise the role on Broadway, speaks in a poised, purposeful, regal fashion. Each word is selected with care and weighed in his hand as if it were an avocado in the fruit and veg aisle, the gaps between words so lengthy that it isn’t always clear when he has finished speaking. Seated around the table in the south London studio where Porter is overseeing rehearsals for This Bitter Earth, which marks his UK directorial debut, are the playwright Harrison David Rivers and the actors Omari Douglas (It’s a Sin) and Alexander Lincoln (Emmerdale). Everyone maintains an attentive silence while Porter is speaking, until there can be no doubt that he has completed his thought.

“The … beautiful … part of this play,� he says, easing his feet out of a pair of marshmallow-soft cream-and-ebony moon boots and nudging them to one side, “is we get to watch two people who love each other try … time … and time … and time … and time again … and they never give up … on themselves … or on love. There is hope … We don’t have to be divided. Having conversations that are complicated is what makes the healing happen … without blame … without shame.�

As the 80-year-old gears up for Worthy Farm, we pick the best of his post-Faces career, from moving ballads to silly, sleazy pop, and cover versions that became definitive

This is essentially a lyrical update of (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone or Where Do You Go to (My Lovely)? – in summary: peeved ex complains that former girlfriend now moves in lofty circles. But Baby Jane was as good as 80s-pop Rod got: very of-its-era arrangement, great melody, big old chorus, a UK No 1.

From combatting racist skinheads to fixing railway lines, these photographs and stories reflect the enduring, positive impact Windrush arrivals had on the UK. Portraits by Amit Lennon.

Ahead of her Glastonbury performance, the First Cut Is the Deepest singer will be taking on your queries about her star-studded career

She’s the singer with iconic 60s hits such as The First Cut Is the Deepest and Angel of the Morning, who has been called on as a collaborator by some of the biggest names in British music. And as she gears up for a performance at this year’s Glastonbury festival, PP Arnold will be answering your questions.

Born into a family of gospel singers in Los Angeles, Arnold could have easily never ended up in music: by the age of 17 she was a mother-of-two in an abusive marriage. But she auditioned for Ike and Tina Turner and was hired as an Ikette, fleeing her husband to perform backing vocals on tour and in the studio, with Tina becoming a mentor.

Parts of the Seine are opening to bathers and Berliners are pushing authorities to permit river dips, while other hotspots continue to delight city dwellers

The last time there was full-scale river swimming in Berlin’s city centre, before access was outlawed a century ago, there were probably fewer inflatable unicorns and fluorescent pool noodles.

But this week, a “Dip-Dip-Hurrah� demonstration to push for the lifting of the roaring 20s-era ban saw about 300 people, many with colourful swimming caps and assorted flotation devices, bob down the Spree river as the golden-hour sun bathed the old Prussian monuments of the historic Mitte district in a warm light.

From Birkenstocks to ballet pumps, jelly shoes to slingbacks, here’s our expert’s pick of the most stylish summer footwear for men, women and kids

• Scared of shorts? Here are 53 perfect pairs for every occasion

It’s official. Boot season is finally over; it’s time to let your tootsies breathe for a bit. But if just the thought of getting your feet out brings you out in hives, fear not – summer footwear extends far beyond just a pair of full-feet exposing flip-flops.

From funky trainers, mules, plimsoles and chunky flatforms, to ballet pumps in bold colours, and this season’s trending fisher’s sandals, your options for summer feet coverage for the whole family are varied and wide. So whether you’re running errands, off to work, picnicking in the park or summer lounging with your nearest and dearest, we have the shoes that fit.

Struggling to sleep and work in the balmy months? Chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling air con – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless

• Warm weather essentials: 42 ways to make the most of the sunshine

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.

Fans sell out when the mercury rises, so get ahead of the pack by ordering one in anticipation: there will always be another heatwave. Get a good fan, and you can also dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Air con is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.

Best fan overall:
AirCraft Lume
_{£149 at AirCraft}

Best budget fan and best desk fan:
Devola desk fan
_{£49.99 at Devola}

Best tower fan:
Dreo Cruiser TF518
_{£89.99 at Amazon}

Best travel fan:
Morphy Richards Air Flex USB fan
_{£39.99 at Morphy Richards}

Best evaporative cooler:
Swan 5-litre Nordic air cooler
_{£69.99 at Amazon}

This week: hay fever cures that actually work; festival essentials; and the best SPFs, tested

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The best things in life are a … a … wait, it’s coming … a … Achoo! Ew, sorry. Where was I? The best things in life are itchy and explosively sneezy. Picnics in freshly cut grass, walks in the woods, burying your face in the cat. Full of the joys of summer, and guaranteed to send your body’s allergy responses wild.

If you’re in the 49% of British folk who suffer from seasonal hay fever, you probably envy me for being asked to test hay fever remedies for the Filter. Here was my chance to have all my symptoms blitzed by the best cures medical science and TikTok had to offer. Sadly, it didn’t quite work like that.

Are boxers the new beach dress? Are bermudas really back? And is wearing shorts to the office ever OK? Here’s how to prepare yourself for the great unveiling

Happy shorts season. Not happy for everyone, though, is it? It’s probably not a stretch to say that for many of us, wearing shorts is up there with getting into a swimsuit or showing your feet for the first time that year. A watershed moment of dread that, unlike most scary things – eating out alone, caring what other people think – only gets worse as you get older.

But it’s also summer, and sometimes only shorts will do. Plus, this year, there really is something for every leg. Culottes are back, except they’re structured and called bermuda shorts – and you can even wear them to work. So are 1970s sports shorts, if your summer reference is more Ridgemont High. It’s not unseemly to wear boxer shorts, especially if you’re on the beach, just try them in seersucker – or if you prefer the freedom of a skirt, how about a skort? Hate all shorts? Try jean-shorts or “jorts� – they’re better than they sound. Here is a foolproof guide to getting over shorts fear.

Oozy, boozy miniature cakes to enjoy with a kick of caffeine

Someone I know and admire very much, and who seems in excellent health at between 82 and 89 years old, has an espresso and a mini baba al rum every day at about three o’clock – except Sundays, when he has ice-cream. Every now and then, I join him and we then walk for a bit (there is nothing like a caffeine-baba spring in your step), and congratulate each other for not smoking while both wishing that we had a cigarette.

In Poland, the word “baba� can refer to a variety of baked goods, and one in particular is made with rye flour and sweet wine. Baba al rum came about thanks to the greediness of twice king of Poland Stanislaus Leszczyński, who, exiled in Lorraine, thought his kougelhopf too dry, so asked for it to be soaked in rum. This inspired his pastry chef to perfect the dish and, in turn, subsequently inspired other pastry chefs, like baba dominoes. It is a project, though, and remember to chill the eggs.

Give it a squish to remove the moisture, then hard-fry in a robust coating – these are among the solutions our expert culinary panel suggests to achieving addictively crisp tofu

I want to like tofu, but I don’t because of its rubbery texture. How do I make it nice and crisp?
Anne, by email
“Moisture is the enemy of crisp tofu,� says Emma Chung, author of Easy Chinese Food Anyone Can Make, so the quest for cubes of bean curd that are crisp on the outside and soft on the inside starts by getting rid of as much excess water as possible (and choosing a tofu labelled “firm� or “extra-firm� in the first place). “I usually do this by wrapping the tofu in tea towels, placing it between two large plates and putting a heavy pot or pan on top,� Chung says. After 10 minutes, you “should have a nice and firm tofu that will have a lovely texture, and it will be a lot easier to crisp up�.

Guardian columnist Ravinder Bhogal, meanwhile, pops her tofu on a wire rack set over a tray and covers it with kitchen paper or a clean cloth: “Put a weight on top and leave it for a couple of hours, and ideally overnight – that will squeeze out the excess moisture.� She then pats the tofu dry and coats it in corn, rice or potato flour before frying (or putting in an air fryer) for an “off-the-Richter crunch�. Chung is simpatico, coating her tofu pieces in a thin layer of cornflour to create a crust that “turns extra crisp when fried or baked�. Simply put the cubed tofu in a bowl, cover “generously� with cornflour and give everything a good toss. “If you’re using slices of tofu, dip them in a shallow plate of cornflour to make sure they’re evenly coated.�

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

A tangy pea, potato and coconut curry, and a soupy, spicy delight from northern India – and both meat-free

The sweetness of fresh green peas works so well with Indian curries and spices, and June is the month to make the most of them, because they’re now at their peak. Even the empty pods have so much flavour and sweetness, which makes them perfect for a quick salad on the side (toss thinly sliced raw, blanched or even griddled pods with chopped tomato, sliced onion and coriander, drizzle over some fresh mint raita and sprinkle with chaat masala). Blanch the fresh peas without any seasoning before you make the curry, then add them to the simmering gravy near the end. You can swap them for frozen peas, too, if you like.