A Spree change: from Berlin to Oslo, Europe’s urban swimmers take the plunge

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 4:00 am

You be the judge: should my colleague stop bringing cakes into the office?

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

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Rampaging raccoons: how the American mammals took over a German city – and are heading across Europe

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 4:00 am

New York City might elect a truly progressive mayor – thanks to ranked-choice voting | Katrina vanden Heuvel

Mamdani’s campaign deserves credit for offering a clear, inspiring, progressive message. But ranked-choice voting is also helping make him competitive

With a week left until New York’s Democratic mayoral primary, one might have thought that the former governor Andrew Cuomo would be measuring the drapes at Gracie Mansion. Real estate developers, corporations like Doordash, a smattering of billionaires and even Billy Joel have shoveled cash into his campaign, with his Super Pac spending more money than any other outside force in the city’s political history. This is on top of his entering the race with major name recognition advantage, amounting to a 20- or 30-point lead as recently as May.

But according to a new poll, Zohran Mamdani – the insurgent state assemblyman and democratic socialist whom the Nation recently co-endorsed along with fellow mayoral candidate and New York City comptroller Brad Lander – has pulled ahead of Cuomo for the first time.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times

Published: June 18, 2025, 1:21 pm

‘Making sure everyone can see the plays’: can Hugh Jackman make theater less elitist?

Together with Sonia Friedman and Ian Rickson, the Hollywood star has helped to create a new initiative aiming to provide high-quality theater for a low price

One night last month in the West Village, I had the pleasure of being nervous for Hugh Jackman. On stage at the Minetta Lane Theatre, the 56-year-old movie star and Broadway veteran appeared startlingly undefended and vulnerable. In character as a middle-aged university professor infatuated with his 19-year-old pupil, Jackman addressed the audience for a play called Sexual Misconduct of the Middle Classes with the lights up, as if helming a lecture full of shy students put on the spot; when one viewer sneezed during Jackman’s monologue, he paused to say bless you.

I fretted a few rows from Wolverine, more aware of my fellow audience members’ faces and cellphones than I’ve ever been at a New York show and acutely attuned to the fact that this all could go awry at any moment. Theater is always a contract between audience and performer, but years attending big Broadway shows have inured me to its fragility. At the Minetta, with just the commanding presence of Jackman and the lit audience at his feet, that contract felt thrillingly, temporarily exposed.

Published: June 18, 2025, 5:12 pm

Crashing out: how gen Z adopted the perfect term for our unstable era

Overwhelmed by stress and social media, young people are finding new language to describe the inevitable irritation and anger that ensue ...

Name: Crashing out.

Age: Psychologically ancient, lexically new.

Published: June 18, 2025, 3:42 pm

Israel-Iran conflict live: hospital in southern Israel ‘extensively damaged’ by Iran missile strike

Netanyahu says ‘terrorist tyrants’ carried out attack on Soroka hospital; Israel attacks Arak heavy water reactor, Iranian state media reports

• Israel attacks Iran’s Arak heavy water reactor as Tehran strikes hospital

• Living in Israel: how have you been affected?

• Living in Iran: how have you been affected?

The leader of Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service has said that a directive had been issued to reduce the number of people on the floor that was hit at Soroko hospital in Beersheba, according to the Haaretz newspaper.

He added that there had been no hazardous materials incident at the hospital and that for now Magen David Adom was transferring patients to other hospitals in southern Israel instead of Soroka.

Published: June 19, 2025, 10:00 am

An implosion, a collapse or a transition: what would regime change in Iran look like?

Some western leaders have welcomed the idea of the toppling of Iran’s supreme leader, but no planning has been made for the aftermath if it happens

At the G7 in Canada, differences within Europe about the wisdom of regime change in Iran could not have been more stark.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, warned against toppling a government “when you have no idea what comes next”. Insisting that he had no time for the Iranian government, Macron argued that it was for the people of Iran to choose their rulers.

Published: June 19, 2025, 3:00 am

Israel’s assumption US would get drawn into Iran war is being put to the test

Donald Trump initially appeared to discourage attacks but Israeli officials claim they always had his support

Along the Ayalon highway, in the centre of Tel Aviv, two huge illuminated signs have appeared, portraying Donald Trump against a billowing stars-and-stripes backdrop and bearing the blunt appeal: “Mr President, finish the job!”

Israel’s attack on Iran may have been carried out with Trump’s approval, as government officials in Israel claim, but it appears to have been unleashed only in the expectation – rather than any certainty – that the US will ultimately be drawn into the war.

Published: June 18, 2025, 5:38 pm

Iranian opposition supporters grapple with US and Israeli regime change plans

‘We want freedom on our own terms,’ says one Tehran resident, while another writes, ‘Someone is helping us’

Despite a substantial internet blackout, news spread quickly in Iran on Tuesday night: the US was considering joining Israel in its war on Iran.

The US president, Donald Trump, wrote on Truth Social: “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now … Our patience is wearing thin.” Three minutes later, in a second post, he added: “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

When Mehnaz*, a 24-year-old student activist in east Tehran, heard the news, she did not think of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Instead, she thought of her fellow students who were detained, shot and executed by Iranian security forces during the “woman, life, liberty” protests in 2022.

Published: June 18, 2025, 6:08 pm

Iranian regime collapse would be serious blow for Russia

While some in Moscow have tried to put positive spin on Israel’s assault, Kremlin risks losing key strategic partner

When a group of Russian and Iranian foreign policy officials arranged to meet in Moscow for a conference titled “Russian-Iranian cooperation in a changing world”, they probably did not anticipate just how timely that phrase would turn out to be.

Seated around a table on Wednesday at the President hotel near the Kremlin, officials from both sides were forced to confront a stark new reality: Iran’s regime – a key ally of Moscow – is facing its most serious threat in decades.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:52 pm

US supreme court upholds Tennessee ban on youth gender-affirming care

Ruling is devastating loss for trans rights supporters in case that could set precedent for dozens of other lawsuits

• US politics live – latest updates

A Tennessee state law banning gender-affirming care for minors can stand, the US supreme court has ruled, a devastating loss for trans rights supporters in a case that could set a precedent for dozens of other lawsuits involving the rights of transgender children.

The case, United States v Skrmetti, was filed last year by three families of trans children and a provider of gender-affirming care. In oral arguments, the plaintiffs – as well as the US government, then helmed by Joe Biden – argued that Tennessee’s law constituted sex-based discrimination and thus violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. Under Tennessee’s law, someone assigned female at birth could not be prescribed testosterone, but someone assigned male at birth could receive those drugs.

Published: June 18, 2025, 2:40 pm

Only two years left of world’s carbon budget to meet 1.5C target, scientists warn

Breaching threshold would ramp up catastrophic weather events, further increasing human suffering

The planet’s remaining carbon budget to meet the international target of 1.5C has just two years left at the current rate of emissions, scientists have warned, showing how deep into the climate crisis the world has fallen.

Breaching the target would ramp up the extreme weather already devastating communities around the world. It would also require carbon dioxide to be sucked from the atmosphere in future to restore the stable climate in which the whole of civilisation developed over the past 10,000 years.

Published: June 18, 2025, 10:01 pm

Rodney Scott confirmed as head of CBP by US Senate despite ‘cover-up’ claim

Senate backs Trump’s nominee to lead Customs and Border Protection despite accusation by former official

The US Senate on Wednesday confirmed Rodney Scott as commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), despite a former top official accusing him of orchestrating a “cover-up” over the death of a man detained while trying to enter the country from Mexico.

Scott was confirmed on a party-line vote, with 51 Republicans in favor and 46 Democrats opposed, along with three absences.

Published: June 18, 2025, 10:25 pm

India illegally deporting Muslim citizens at gunpoint to Bangladesh, say rights groups

There are fears the crackdown against ‘outsiders’ is driving widespread persecution as expelled Indians are returned by Bangladesh border guards

The Indian government has been accused of illegally deporting Indian Muslims to Bangladesh, prompting fears of an escalating campaign of persecution.

Thousands of people, largely Muslims suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have been rounded up by police across India in recent weeks, according to human rights groups, with many of them deprived of due legal process and sent over the border to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:00 am

New Rio de Janeiro law requires public hospitals to display anti-abortion signs

Opponents view the controversial act as part of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict abortion access

A new law has just come into force in Rio de Janeiro requiring all public hospitals and clinics run by the municipal government to display anti-abortion signs bearing messages such as: “Did you know that the unborn child is discarded as hospital waste?”

Reproductive rights activists view the act as the latest example of a growing trend across Brazil to further restrict access to abortion in a country that already has some of the world’s most restrictive laws.

Published: June 19, 2025, 10:00 am

Mental health and poverty remain a struggle for Maui wildfire survivors, new study says

Two years after the devastating fires, many lack access to food, stable housing, work and healthcare

Mental health problems and economic hardship remain widespread among survivors of the Maui wildfire, as access to food, stable housing, work and healthcare remains a struggle for many, according to a study tracking 2,000 survivors.

Two in every five (41%) adults report declining overall health since the August 2023 fire, with the burden falling heaviest on those still exposed to ash, smoke and debris, according to the latest findings of the Maui Wildfire Exposure Study (MauiWES), a pioneering longitudinal research initiative by the University of Hawaii (UH) and local community groups.

Published: June 18, 2025, 6:00 pm

Lithuanian hunters refuse to kill bear that ambled around capital for two days

Government issued permit to shoot young female who entered Vilnius, despite there only being a few left in Baltic nation

A young female bear caused a stir after wandering out of the forest and into the leafy suburbs of the Lithuanian capital.

For two days, the brown bear ambled through the neighbourhoods of Vilnius, trotted across highways and explored backyards – all while being chased by onlookers with smartphones and, eventually, drones.

Published: June 19, 2025, 9:26 am

Putin says he would only meet Zelenskyy in ‘final phase’ of talks – Europe live

Putin’s comments come as fighting continues and Ukraine says Russia avoiding peace talks

Elsewhere, the Finnish parliament has just voted in favour of withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention that bans the use of anti-personnel landmines.

The move comes amid growing worries about Russia’s intentions in the region.

“With its aggressive military actions that violate international law, Russia has undermined the international rules-based system and endangered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. Large-scale and long-term warfare has returned to Europe. The risk of war expansion cannot be ruled out.”

Published: June 19, 2025, 9:55 am

‘Abducted by Ice’: the haunting missing-person posters plastered across LA

The handmade posters of immigrants have become a symbol of quiet resistance. Their creators reveal the story behind the project

“Missing son.” “Missing father.” “Missing grandmother.”

The words are written in bright red letters at the top of posters hanging on lampposts and storefronts around Los Angeles. At first glance, they appear to be from worried relatives seeking help from neighbors.

Published: June 18, 2025, 7:04 pm

‘He’s moving at a truly alarming speed’: Trump propels US into authoritarianism

A senator handcuffed, people snatched in public, military deployed – Trump’s slide towards autocracy has come quicker than critics feared

It reads like a checklist of milestones on the road to autocracy.

A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent.

Published: June 19, 2025, 8:00 am

Trump’s saber-rattling over Iran threatens to split his Maga base

America-first backers such as Steve Bannon urge restraint, while Republican hawks push for intervention

• US politics live – latest updates

The prospect of the US joining Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear program risks splitting Donald Trump’s support base asunder, amid sharp divisions on military intervention between the president’s most avid America-first acolytes and traditional Republican foreign policy hawks.

Some leading figures in Trump’s “make America great again” (Maga) movement have warned that such a move would amount to a betrayal of past promises to avoid US involvement in long-running overseas wars and could even destroy his presidency.

Published: June 18, 2025, 6:49 pm

New US visa rules will force foreign students to unlock social media profiles

Diplomats to look for ‘indications of hostility towards citizens, culture or founding principles of United States’

Foreign students will be required to unlock their social media profiles to allow US diplomats to review their online activity before receiving educational and exchange visas, the state department has announced. Those who fail to do so will be suspected of hiding that activity from US officials.

The new guidance, unveiled by the state department on Wednesday, directs US diplomats to conduct an online presence review to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States”.

Published: June 18, 2025, 8:36 pm

Trump asks Juventus squad for views on transgender players during awkward White House visit

• Team are in Washington DC for Club World Cup

• President asks if women could make Juve team

Juventus players and staff were involved in an awkward encounter at the White House on Wednesday when Donald Trump attempted to get them to enter into a debate on transgender women in sport.

The Italian football giants are in the US for the Club World Cup, and defeated Al Ain of the United Arab Emirates 5-0 at Washington DC’s Audi Field hours after a selection of players, coaches and executives had been with Trump.

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:21 am

Poison in the water: the town with the world’s worst case of forever chemicals contamination

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 4:00 am

One man, thousands of trees and heaps of determination: how regreening Guatemala transformed a village

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 9:00 am

‘This isn’t a gimmick’: the New Yorkers trying to restore the American chestnut

More than 120 years after billions of the trees were wiped out, blight-proof seeds are being planted

It was in New York City that a mysterious fungus was first spotted on an American chestnut, a blight that was to rapidly sweep across the eastern US, wiping out billions of the cherished trees. Now, 120 years later, there is fresh hope of a comeback for chestnuts, spurred not only by scientists but also eager New Yorkers planting blight-proof seeds in their back yards and local parks.

The American chestnut was once found in vast numbers from Maine to Mississippi and known as the redwoods of the east due to its prodigious size. But 4bn trees were killed off in the first half of last century by a blight introduced from Asia to which it had little defense, spread by spores carried by the wind, rain and animals.

Published: June 19, 2025, 10:00 am

How to Lose Your Mother by Molly Jong-Fast review – Erica Jong’s daughter on the worst year of her life

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 6:00 am

A local’s guide to the best eats in Turin

Birthplace of vermouth, grissini and espresso, the north Italian city is a fitting host for the annual World’s 50 Best Restaurants ceremony on 19 June. But you don’t need to have deep pockets to enjoy its great food scene

Many renowned dining destinations have hosted the annual “food Oscars” – the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list. This year is the first time the honour goes to Italy, with Turin, capital of Piedmont, holding the ceremony on 19 June. Although Emilia-Romagna is usually regarded as the country’s food capital, Piedmont has a proud gastronomic tradition, with white truffles, rice, chocolate, pastas and cheeses, not to mention wines such as barolo and barbaresco.

Greener than most Italian cities, Turin, the former capital of Savoy and briefly capital of Italy, also has elegant piazzas, royal palaces, possibly Europe’s biggest outdoor market and the wide Po River for strolling, cycling and kayaking. It is where vermouth (see below), grissini breadsticks and espresso coffee were invented.

Published: June 19, 2025, 6:00 am

Garmin Forerunner 970 review: the new benchmark for running watches

Premium sports tracker adds built-in torch, smartwatch and accuracy upgrades, plus useful new training tools, but costs far more than rivals

Garmin’s new top running watch, the Forerunner 970, has very big shoes to fill as it attempts to replace one of the best training and race companions available. Can a built-in torch, a software revamp and voice control really make a difference?

The new top-of-the-line Forerunner takes the body of the outgoing Forerunner 965 and squeezes in a much brighter display, useful new running analytics and more of the advanced tech from Garmin’s flagship adventure watch the Fenix 8.

Published: June 19, 2025, 6:00 am

28 Years Later review – sprinting zombies take evolutionary leap forward in badass threequel

This tonally uncertain revival mixes folk horror and little-England satire as an island lad seeks help for his sick mum on the undead-infested mainland

Here they are again, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s zombies – though unlike the usual stumbling slow-movers, of course, these things can sprint like Tom Cruise on steroids. Back in 2002, screenwriter Garland and director Boyle had a monster hit with their post-apocalyptic horror thriller 28 Days Later, about a “rage” virus that leaks from a lab and, turning people into aggressive zombies, causes a complete law-and-order breakdown in 28 days; Boyle famously made smart use of then-new lightweight digital tech which let him bring off miracles of unlicensed guerrilla shooting at dawn in the deserted London streets.

That was fierce, muscular film-making, though I have never been a fan of zombies whose massed presence (then as now) requires silly, gurning, ketchup-strewn extras who can’t be clearly looked at for any length of time without getting a laugh. (For my money it was only Edgar Wright’s zombie horror comedy Shaun of the Dead, which came out two years afterwards, which fully explored the real, intimate horror of zombie-ism: the gap between being bitten and transforming.) In 2007, a lacklustre sequel, 28 Weeks Later, brought the franchise stumbling to a halt.

Published: June 18, 2025, 9:00 pm

‘I dance the young people off the floor!’: joy and pain from the Windrush generation – in pictures

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 6:00 am

The US supreme court just undermined gender equality | Moira Donegan

The Skrmetti decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on transition-related healthcare for minors deprives children and batters the 14th amendment

By now, it is a ritual: every June, Americans endure several weeks of agonizing suspense, as we wait to hear how the supreme court will erode our freedoms, attack our dignity, undermine self-government and empower those who enrich themselves at our expense. The court, controlled by career politicians in robes who were hand-selected for their loyalty to the rightwing and their willingness to be wildly intellectually dishonest in pursuit of Republican policy objectives, has ended the right to abortion, desiccated the Voting Rights Act, made state gun regulations nearly impossible and declared the president functionally immune to criminal law. Many of us waited, with a mixture and terror and disgust, to see what cruelties the court would deliver for us in 2025.

The justices decided to start by attacking vulnerable children. In a 6-3 split, the court’s conservatives ruled on Wednesday that Tennessee’s law banning transition-related healthcare for minors can remain in effect. The law prohibits hormone therapies and surgeries only for their use in treating gender dysphoria; cisgender minors retain access to these drugs. The statute is on its face sex-specific and designed to mandate certain forms of gender conformity: the care that it bans, it bans on the basis of a patient’s sex. This is in straightforward violation of the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause, which has long been interpreted to ban facially sex-discriminatory laws and those that encourage sex-role stereotyping. The court decided to ignore this precedent and the plain intent of Tennessee’s statute, and in the process it both imposed a cruel and needless deprivation on trans children and their families, and also substantially weakened constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the sexes.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: June 19, 2025, 10:00 am

Easy regime change in Tehran is a nice idea. But look to history: it’s a near-impossible one | Martin Kettle

No one doubts the malignity of the Iranian government, but if we forget the tragedies of interventions past, we’ll make the same mistakes

On the eve of the 1991 Gulf war, a TV reporter asked the US commander Norman Schwarzkopf if he would topple Iraq’s Saddam Hussein. Stormin’ Norman replied with a memorable succinctness: “Easy say. Hard do.”

Schwarzkopf knew what he was talking about. The general was a lifelong student of the Middle East region – he spent some of his childhood years in Tehran – and of military history. Indeed his successful ground-war strategy for Saddam’s defeat in Kuwait was consciously modelled on the flanking tactics used to such devastating effect by the Carthaginian commander Hannibal to defeat the Romans at Cannae in 216BC.

Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: June 19, 2025, 5:00 am

Europe must stand without the US – but the latest war in the Middle East shows it has no idea how | Nathalie Tocci

If Europe was not so in hock to Washington, it would sanction Israel over Gaza and condemn its unilateral attack on Iran

The rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy. Europe most urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East.

Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump’s obscene plans for a Gaza “riviera” and “humanitarian” initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

Published: June 19, 2025, 4:00 am

The anti-Trump camp was in disarray. How has No Kings managed to unite it? | Emma Brockes

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

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Will the new Middle East crisis rock the world economy? The markets say no – but I fear they’re wrong | Larry Elliott

The oil shocks of the 1970s-90s had brutal economic impacts. As Israel attacks Iran, a moderate rise in oil prices rests on questionable assumptions

Financial markets picked up the clear message when Donald Trump cut short his stay at the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies this week. Despite calls from fellow western leaders to de-escalate the crisis, the president’s early return to the White House was taken as a sign that the US is considering joining Israel in its military action against Iran. Trump says he wants Iran’s unconditional surrender.

This is where modern summitry came in half a century ago. In 1975, the first meeting of what eventually became the G7 was convened at Rambouillet in France in an attempt to work out a joint response to the oil shock that accompanied the Yom Kippur war between Israel and its neighbours.

Larry Elliott is a Guardian columnist

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

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:56 pm

Few men can really rock a moustache. Timothée Chalamet is not one of them | Adrian Chiles

The actor seems to have inspired a generation of young chaps to grow wispy caterpillars on their upper lips. When it comes to facial hair, I’ve learned it’s best to go big or go home

What is it with all these wispy moustaches suddenly decorating young men’s faces? These things, which have crawled their way on to so many upper lips, aren’t fully formed moustaches. There’s no depth to them. They’re straggly, patchy, with skin showing through them. They look as though their owners aren’t fully committed to them. Or, worse, that they are trying their best, but this apology of a moustache is all they can manage. It’s the kind of moustache you grow when puberty first makes it possible to do so, the debut facial hair with which you aim to convince publicans that you’re old enough to be served alcohol.

The only thing I can say in their favour is that they are at least equal opportunity moustaches, in that even those who can’t muster much in the way of facial hair can have a fair crack at producing one of these. But otherwise, my firm view on moustaches, for the infinitesimally little it’s worth, is to go big or go home. I’m working on a documentary about Sir Edward Elgar. Now that’s what I call a moustache. Full, bushy, yet neat. A veritable symphony of bristle. It may be that spending so much time with Sir Edward lately is what led me to suddenly start seeing these miserable creepy-crawlies sullying faces everywhere.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:55 pm

The Guardian view on Israel, the US and Iran: you can’t bomb your way out of nuclear proliferation | Editorial

The age of disarmament is over. But military action only increases the dangers instead of ending the threat

Eighty years after the US dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and 40 years after the US and Soviet Union pledged to reduce their arsenals, the threat of nuclear war has resurged with a vengeance. The age of disarmament is over, a prominent thinktank warned this week: “We see a clear trend of growing nuclear arsenals, sharpened nuclear rhetoric and the abandonment of arms control agreements,” said Hans M Kristensen of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

The world’s nine nuclear-armed states have amassed the equivalent of 145,000 Hiroshima bombs. Israel’s illegal attack upon Iran is purportedly a last-ditch attempt to prevent it joining this club – as Israel did long ago, though does not admit it. While Tehran possesses the capacity to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to, US intelligence believes it has not made that decision – and would still need up to three years to build and deploy one. Israel does not appear to be striking Iran because US nuclear diplomacy has failed, but because it fears it might succeed. Many of its targets are unrelated to the nuclear programme, and some even to Iran’s military. Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly invoked regime change: more honestly, regime collapse.

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Published: June 18, 2025, 6:04 pm

Alexander-Arnold feels heat on Real Madrid debut as Al-Hilal make Club World Cup point

• Gp H: Real Madrid 1-1 Al-Hilal (G García 34; Neves 41pen)

• Federico Valverde’s 92nd-minute penalty saved

Xabi Alonso said in the buildup he was going to “ignite” his players at this Club World Cup, that Real Madrid were ready to rock’n’roll. In the event this was something more downbeat in Miami, 90 minutes of pub-rock, at times even a meandering shoe-gaze as a well-drilled Al-Hilal kept the new-era Madrid at arm’s length.

Madrid had a chance to win it at the death, but Federico Valverde missed a dubiously awarded 92nd-minute penalty. A 1-1 draw felt fair at the end of a Group H opener that flickered but never caught fire.

Published: June 18, 2025, 9:29 pm

Expect to see Premier League teams going longer more often next season

Playing out from the back works for top teams but sides at the bottom are giving away too many chances

By Opta Analyst

Long-ball football has, for better or worse, been on the decline for years. Football was once a kick-and-run game, shaped by long balls and the thinking that getting the ball close to the opposition’s goal as quickly as possible increased the chances of scoring, well, more quickly.

That was swiftly disproved and left further and further in the rear-view mirror as the game sped off into the Premier League era and further still in the Pep Guardiola-inspired 2010s. As the technical standard of players increased, the ball was kept on the floor more and more. The laws of the game have even been changed to allow teams to play passes so short from goal-kicks that they do not even leave the penalty area.

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Lakers to be sold to Dodgers owner at $10bn valuation, per reports

• Buss family sells team after 45-year tenure

• New owner Mark Walter also owns WNBA’s Sparks

The Buss family is entering an agreement to sell a majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers at a $10bn valuation, ESPN reported on Wednesday, marking the end of an era for one of the NBA’s most influential families.

Mark Walter, the CEO and chair of holding company TWG Global, is set to take the majority ownership under the agreement, ESPN’s NBA insider Shams Charania said in a post on X. Walter was already a minority owner in the Lakers and is also primary owner and chair of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball, and the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA.

Published: June 18, 2025, 9:50 pm

Browns rookie QB Shedeur Sanders cited after driving at 100 mph in suburban Cleveland

• 23-year-old was going 41 mph over speed limit

• Sanders dropped down draft earlier this year

Browns rookie quarterback Shedeur Sanders is accused of driving his pickup truck at 101 mph in suburban Cleveland earlier this week.

The Strongsville Police Department stopped Sanders at just past midnight on Tuesday in a 60 mph zone on Interstate 71 near the Ohio Turnpike, according to a report provided to local media.

Published: June 19, 2025, 3:35 am

WNBA to hand out fines after skirmishes and hard fouls in Fever’s stormy win over the Sun

• Caitlin Clark was poked in eye as fouls broke out

• Both teams critical of officiating during Fever win

The WNBA has upgraded the technical foul on Connecticut’s Marina Mabrey for shoving Caitlin Clark to the floor during Tuesday’s night game against Indiana to a Flagrant-2, a source told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

Any flagrant foul comes with an automatic fine. The person also said the league has fined the Fever’s Sophie Cunningham for her role in the on-court melee that occurred after she fouled Jacy Sheldon with 46.1 seconds left. Cunningham received a Flagrant-2 during Tuesday night’s game, which Indiana won 88-71.

Published: June 18, 2025, 7:54 pm

Football transfer rumours: will Gyökeres force a move to Arsenal or Manchester United?

Today’s rumours prefer baking

Viktor Gyökeres may or may not have spat the dummy out after reportedly refusing to hold clear-the-air talks with Sporting over his desire to move. Arsenal and Manchester United have been linked with the Sweden international but the Portuguese side want a wheelbarrow full of cash for his services, which is putting off potential suitors. Gyökeres wants the club to lower their demands but if the striker does not get what he wants, then he could go on strike to really show his employer who is boss.

In a further blow to Arsenal, the Athletic Club winger Nico Williams has told anyone who will listen that he only wants to join Barcelona this summer. It is now up to Barça to look down the back of the sofa for the cash to pay for him. If the Spain international does head from the Basque Country to Catalonia, it will end any chance of Marcus Rashford joining the Spanish champions. Rashford might need to turn to Italy where Napoli, Milan and Como are interested in helping him escape from Manchester United.

Published: June 19, 2025, 7:00 am

Florida is now the Stanley Cup’s semi-permanent home. What does that mean for Canada?

The NHL’s southern expansion was mocked in the 1990s. But it led to better hockey, more money and a long drought for the sport’s spiritual home

“There are a lot of things I do not understand about this proposed expansion,” New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey wrote in December 1992, as the NHL wrapped up its annual Board of Governors meeting in Palm Beach, Florida. During that week’s meeting, the league received expansion proposals for two teams. One was for a team in Anaheim, California, backed by Disney. The other was for a team in Miami, Florida, put forward by waste management-and-VHS-video magnate, Wayne Huizenga. “What makes it think the Sun Belt is ready for all these hockey teams?” Vecsey wondered.

At the time, the answer was money. With more time, the answer seems to be: because championship hockey teams can be built anywhere, including in the South. On Tuesday night in Florida, the Panthers won their second-straight Stanley Cup against the Edmonton Oilers, this time in six games – one fewer than they needed last season. If anything, you could now argue that there’s no better place to build a championship NHL team than the southern US. Since 1990, the Stanley Cup has been awarded to a team based in the South nine times – but five of those have come in the last six years. And three of those have also been against Canadian teams.

Published: June 18, 2025, 12:31 pm

Mykhailo Mudryk could face four-year ban after FA charge over failed drug test

• Chelsea winger was provisionally suspended last year

• ‘Presence and/or use of a prohibited substance’ alleged

Chelsea’s Mykhailo Mudryk could face a lengthy ban after being charged by the Football Association with doping offences. Under FA regulations the winger could be banned for as long as four years after providing a positive A sample last year. It is believed the banned performance-enhancing substance meldonium was found in Mudryk’s system.

The Ukraine international has not played since last November and was provisionally suspended while he and Chelsea waited for the results of a B sample.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:33 pm

Empty seats are everywhere at the Club World Cup. But does this miss the real point?

Put in a wider context, the attendance issues that have emerged during the tournament perhaps aren’t quite as embarrassing as they seem

If there’s a lesson to be learned from the Club World Cup so far, it’s that images of nothingness can still generate strong reactions. Empty seats – which are apparently a festering scourge upon the game of football or a tragedy representing the plastic bankruptcy of American soccer fandom and/or the Club World Cup – have been commonplace in the competition’s opening dozen games. Social media is awash in panoramic photos of empty banks of seats, informing you that this image, so obscene in its emptiness, was taken a mere 45 minutes before kickoff – or (gasp) even closer.

Why do we care? What is it about the sight of a whole lot of plastic folding chairs with nobody in them that inflames our passions? Since when did we all become Clint Eastwood at the 2012 Republican National Convention?

Published: June 18, 2025, 7:00 am

Shell boss warns of ‘huge impact on trade’ if Israel-Iran conflict escalates

Blockage of strait of Hormuz, through which about 25% of world’s oil passes, could shock energy market, says Wael Sawan

• Business live – latest updates

An escalation in the Middle East conflict could have a “huge impact on global trade”, the boss of the oil company Shell has warned, as Donald Trump suggested the US could enter the air war between Israel and Iran.

Shell, one of the biggest traders of oil and natural gas in the world, said it had contingency plans in case the conflict disrupted flows from the region. There is a risk that a blockage in the strait of Hormuz could shock the energy market.

Published: June 19, 2025, 8:10 am

Federal Reserve holds interest rates, defying Trump’s demand to lower them

Hours before the decision, the president called the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, ‘stupid’ for anticipated rate hold

The US Federal Reserve kept interest rates on hold, but signaled it might make two cuts this year, as Donald Trump continues to break with precedent and demand lower rates.

Policymakers at the American central bank lifted their projections for inflation this year, as the US president stands by his controversial tariff plans, and downgraded their estimates for economic growth.

Published: June 18, 2025, 7:45 pm

Trump’s Yemen bombings killed nearly as many civilians as 23 previous years of US attacks, analysis shows

Monitoring group says high death rate in two months indicates change in US policy that could affect Iran

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The US bombing campaign of Yemen under Donald Trump led to the deaths of almost as many civilians in two months as in the previous 23 years of US attacks on Islamists and militants in the country.

An analysis of Operation Rough Rider by the monitoring group Airwars has concluded that 224 civilians were killed between March and the end of the campaign in May, compared with 258 between 2002 and 2024.

Published: June 18, 2025, 1:28 pm

Jury finds Karen Read not guilty of second-degree murder in death of police officer boyfriend

Read, who was found guilty of drunk driving, was accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston officer John O’Keefe

A jury has found Karen Read not guilty of second-degree murder, but guilty of drunk driving in the death of her police officer boyfriend in a divisive and high-profile case that dueling lawyers presented as either a tragic love story or a sinister cover-up.

Read, 45, was accused of fatally striking her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, 46, with her SUV and leaving him to die in the snow outside a house party where other local police and a federal agent were closing out a night of drinking in 2022.

Published: June 18, 2025, 8:07 pm

Cambodia bans fruit imports and soap operas from Thailand as border dispute sours

The border dispute has led to a surge in nationalist sentiment and tit-for-tat actions by both governments

Cambodia has banned imports of fruit and vegetables from Thailand, the latest escalation in a series of retaliatory actions sparked by a long-running border dispute between the South-east Asian neighbours.

Tensions flared in May when troops briefly exchanged fire at a contested area of the border, killing a Cambodian soldier.

Published: June 18, 2025, 11:41 pm

Seven California men charged with ‘largest jewelry heist in US history’

Men allegedly stole $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds and luxury watches from an armored truck

Seven men in southern California have been charged in connection with what federal authorities are calling the “largest jewelry heist in US history” after allegedly stealing approximately $100m worth of gold, diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and luxury watches from an armored truck.

The US attorney’s office for California’s central district revealed the charges in a news release on Tuesday.

Published: June 18, 2025, 2:05 pm

Flavour of gin and tonic could be impacted by climate change, study finds

Volatile weather patterns may be altering taste of juniper berries – a key botanical in the spirit – scientists say

The flavour of a gin and tonic may be impacted by climate change, scientists have found.

Volatile weather patterns, made more likely by climate breakdown, could change the taste of juniper berries, which are the key botanical that give gin its distinctive taste.

Published: June 18, 2025, 11:00 pm

Youth-led Sunrise Movement to launch campaign to ‘villainize big oil’ and force climate action

With climate policies under siege by the Trump, young climate activists are intensifying their campaign

The youth activists who put the Green New Deal on the political map are launching a new campaign to “villainize big oil” which will push for the industry to pay for climate action so the costs don’t fall on ordinary people.

Seven years ago, the Sunrise Movement captured headlines when its members stormed the office of the incoming House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, demanding the rapid phase-out of fossil fuels and creation of good jobs.

Published: June 18, 2025, 3:00 pm

Climate crisis could hit yields of key crops even if farmers adapt, study finds

Production of staple crops projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C of heating

Some of our critical staple crops could suffer “substantial” production losses due to climate breakdown, a study has found, even if farmers adapt to worsening weather.

Maize, soy, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum yields are projected to fall by as much as 120 calories per person per day for every 1C the planet heats up, according to new research in Nature, with average daily losses that could add up to the equivalent of not having breakfast.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:20 pm

Antarctic seal numbers falling drastically due to melting sea ice, research shows

British Antarctic Survey finds one breed of seal has declined by 54% since 1977

Antarctic seal populations are drastically declining as the sea ice melts around them, new research has shown.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) have been monitoring the seal population in the sub-Antarctic since the 1970s, looking in particular at three different seal species in the sub-Antarctic on Signy Island: Weddell seals, Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals.

Published: June 18, 2025, 9:01 am

‘Ice raids while the wealthy party next door’: the migrants living in the shadow of Mar-a-Lago

Five residents of Lake Worth Beach – just 10 miles from Trump’s Maga fortress – share their stories of survival as an immigration crackdown takes its toll

Lake Worth Beach, a small coastal city of about 45,000, sits in the shadows of Donald Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago. A 10-minute drive from “Maga” HQ, it is sometimes optimistically referred to as “mini San Fran”, with a largely progressive, white middle class occupying its beachfront bungalows and a local economy built on tourism, retail and construction.

It is also home to many undocumented and temporary visa migrants, who work at fruit farms and restaurants, landscape gardens and support the area’s affluent households. Though data on undocumented people is notoriously hard to collect, the 2024 census estimates that nearly half of the city’s residents are Hispanic and include Guatemalans (many of whom are Indigenous Maya), Mexicans and Venezuelans.

Published: June 18, 2025, 11:00 am

‘Cancer is just everywhere’: could farming be behind Iowa’s unfolding health crisis?

A new study investigates possible ties to pesticides, nitrates and other farm-related risks

Six months ago, Alex Hammer was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. Dianne Chambers endured surgery, chemotherapy and dozens of rounds of radiation to fight aggressive breast cancer, and Janan Haugen spends most days helping care for her 16-year-old grandson, who is still being treated for brain cancer he developed at the age of seven.

The three were among a group of about two dozen people who came together last week in a small town in central Iowa to share their experiences of cancer. They are part of a new research project investigating potential environmental causes for what the American Cancer Society’s advocacy arm calls a cancer “crisis”.

Published: June 18, 2025, 2:00 pm

Thousands of families’ futures in the US could be helped by order to restore legal aid – will Trump comply?

Judge ordered services to be restored after officials violated settlement that forced government to repair impact of family separations

A US district judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore legal services for potentially thousands of migrant families after officials violated a historic settlement agreement that had forced the federal government to repair some of the devastating impact of the family separation scandal from the first Trump White House that sparked bipartisan uproar at the time.

Judge Dana Sabraw has mandated that the executive branch resume services by an independent contractor advising parents and children who were separated during Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy at the US-Mexico border in 2017 and 2018, when accounts of traumatic scenes spread around the world and a secret recording was made public of terrified, sobbing children being torn from their parents by federal agents, to be detained separately.

Published: June 18, 2025, 12:00 pm

Trump cuts leave hurricane-hit North Carolina town’s rebuilding plans adrift – in pictures

After Hurricane Helene’s flood waters slammed into Lake Lure’s century-old dam last September, the resort town was spurred on to seek federal funding for an ambitious rebuilding plan. While the initial response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency seemed encouraging when Joe Biden was president, Donald Trump’s plans to shrink or even abolish Fema – and push some of the costs of disaster response on to states – have injected uncertainty into the North Carolina town’s recovery

Published: June 18, 2025, 1:00 pm

Ukraine war briefing: Russia can defend itself, says Putin, as North Korea sends more soldiers

Death toll rises to 28 after Russian attack on Kyiv apartments; Zelenskyy planning to attend Nato summit in The Hague. What we know on day 1,212

Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was ready to meet with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy but only during a “final phase” of negotiations “so as not to sit there and divide things up endlessly, but to put an end to it”. Putin made his customary false accusation that Zelenskyy is not Ukraine’s legitimate president.

In a round-table interview in St Petersburg with international news agencies, Putin said on Nato: “We do not consider any Nato rearmament to be a threat to the Russian Federation, because we are self-sufficient in terms of ensuring our security.” Russia has brought in thousands of North Korean soldiers to help defend Kursk; and has relied on a flood of arms and ammunition from North Korea as well as Iranian drones and missiles to wage war on Ukraine; while also receiving suspected help from China to continue arming a “special military operation” that Putin thought would be over in three days. The potential collapse of the Iranian regime would be a serious blow to Putin, Russian affairs reporter Pjotr Sauer writes.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy is scheduled to attend the Nato summit in The Hague on 24-25 June, a source in the Ukrainian presidency told the AFP news agency on Wednesday. “The decision will be made on the eve of the summit. This is just the schedule,” the source said, describing the meeting as “an opportunity to maintain support and promote a ceasefire”. Nato leaders want to keep the summit brief so as not to aggravate Donald Trump and his short attention span, the Times has reported (£).

Senior Ukrainian officials at the G7 summit in Canada discussed with US counterparts the possibility of supporting defence projects in Ukraine under a joint investment fund set up in May, Kyiv’s first deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said on Wednesday. The talks included the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, Svyrydenko said.

The death toll from Tuesday’s Russian attack on Kyiv stood at 28, with more than 130 injured, as the recovery of bodies continued at destroyed apartment blocks.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces hit a Ukrainian troop position in the Sumy region with an Iskander missile. The Reuters news agency said it could not independently confirm the battlefield report, or determine exactly when it took place. Ukrainian authorities on Monday reported an Iskander missile strike on Konotop damaged flats in multi-storey buildings with no casualties. Ukraine is trying to drive Russian forces from the Sumy region where border areas are gripped by heavy fighting.

Slovak police have detained eight people, including defence ministry officials, in an investigation by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office into possible misuse of €7.4m for military aid to Ukraine at the start of the war in February 2022. Jaroslav Nad, who was Slovakia’s defence minister at the time, has called the police action “theatre”. Slovakia’s pro-Russia current prime minister, Robert Fico, has taken sharp policy turns since taking power in 2023 – stopping military aid to Ukraine and making a trip to Moscow that fuelled large and widespread protests in opposition to his stance on Ukraine.

Published: June 19, 2025, 12:19 am

Fake dentist charged by Czech police after treating dozens of patients

Tooth extraction and root canal work among procedures offered by self-taught 22-year-old and two family members

• Europe live – latest updates

A fake dentist and two assistants who treated dozens of patients after learning the trade on the internet have been charged in the Czech Republic.

The three family members opened a fully equipped dental practice, without a licence or the necessary expertise, in the central Czech town of Havlíčkův Brod in 2023, police said on Wednesday.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:33 pm

Teenagers who report addictive use of screens at greater risk of suicidal behaviour, study shows

Experts find link between compulsive use of social media, phones and video games and mental health problems

Teenagers who show signs of being addicted to social media, mobile phones or video games are at greater risk of suicidal behaviour and emotional problems, according to research.

A study, which tracked more than 4,000 adolescents for four years, found that nearly one in three reported increasingly addictive use of social media or mobile phones. Those whose use followed an increasingly addictive trajectory had roughly double the risk of suicidal behaviour at the end of the study.

Published: June 18, 2025, 3:00 pm

‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number

Chatbot tries to change subject after serving up unrelated user’s mobile to man asking for rail firm helpline

The Meta chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, called it “the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use”. But Barry Smethurst, 41, a record shop worker trying to travel by rail from Saddleworth to Manchester Piccadilly, did not agree.

Waiting on the platform for a morning train that was nowhere to be seen, he asked Meta’s WhatsApp AI assistant for a contact number for TransPennine Express. The chatbot confidently sent him a mobile phone number for customer services, but it turned out to be the private number of a completely unconnected WhatsApp user 170 miles away in Oxfordshire.

Published: June 18, 2025, 11:14 am

‘At one point, I stepped on a cow’s head’: Gulshan Khan on her best photograph

‘He is one of the “invisible people” of Johannesburg. Many of them reclaim trash from its biggest landfill site, sell it to buy-back centres, then spend the money on heroin’

This was a tough assignment. I was making images around Johannesburg for World Environment Day 2018 and I thought I’d follow the trash to Robinson Deep, the oldest and biggest landfill in the city. I had a basic idea of where the things we throw away end up, but seeing our trash in real life, in that quantity, and not disintegrating, was eye-opening. The smell was overpowering. The sounds of tractors churned against the constant noise made by baby mice squeaking under the huge mounds of waste. I was probably stepping on them but I couldn’t see them, nor do anything differently. At one point I stepped on a cow’s head. Thank God I was wearing rubber boots that day – boots that the dozens of people eking out a living on the landfill didn’t have. They didn’t have any proper protective gear: no gloves, masks or proper shoes.

This image of a man carrying a giant bag that looks like a cape, with an ibis hovering over him, was made with a long lens. I was too far away to get to him in time to ask his name before he disappeared over the hill, but I spoke to many others there. They spoke of being ill from working on the landfill but not having a choice. Some of them cook and eat their meals on the site. Some even live there. I recall the moment when a truck arrived bearing a new load and everyone ran toward this waterfall of garbage to get whatever they could – the plastic or glass that could be taken to the buy-back centres and exchanged for a few rand. This scene is not particular to Johannesburg. It happens every day in landfills all over the world.

Published: June 18, 2025, 2:10 pm

‘Grown-ass men cry in our arms!’ The political, powerful music of soul band Durand Jones and the Indications

Equally at ease with making sex-playlist jams and socially conscious songs, the revered group are fretting about fascism – but are determined to find common ground for Americans

If you looked to the skies in the UK on 12 May, you’d have seen the flower moon, the name given to that month’s full moon. Also known in agricultural circles as the hare moon or the corn planting moon, it’s closely associated with new life and new beginnings.

“Happy flower moon day!” beams Durand Jones, leader of soul outfit Durand Jones and the Indications, whose forthcoming album Flowers – led by the single Flower Moon – also deals with the theme of fresh starts. We’re serendipitously speaking on 12 May, along with his bandmates Aaron Frazer and Blake Rhein.

Published: June 18, 2025, 11:42 am

The Maga-flavoured faux pas that shook the games industry

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.”

Published: June 18, 2025, 2:00 pm

Beyond Mario Kart World: what else is worth playing on Nintendo Switch 2?

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?

Published: June 18, 2025, 8:00 am

That muscular back! Those fleshy breasts! The National Gallery’s ‘fake’ Rubens looks very real to me

How can anyone call Rubens’ sumptuous masterpiece Samson and Delilah a ‘fake’ and ‘a shoddy artefact’? The Flemish master is simply doing a superb job of copying his own favourite outlaw artist

Samson, a huge muscular hunk of a man, slumbers in the lap of his seducer Delilah, in a bedchamber sumptuously lit by candle. As Delilah looks down on the unconscious form of the great biblical hero, her accomplice is cutting the very tangled locks that hold his superhuman strength. Meanwhile, at the door, soldiers are waiting by torchlight. At the heart of it all is Samson’s rippled naked back, nestled on the woman’s pink silk skirts.

Is this a painting by the Flemish baroque master Peter Paul Rubens? Hell, yes. The wonder is that anyone would ever think otherwise. And yet some do. Michael Daley and his campaigning group ArtWatch UK, and the art historian Euphrosyne Doxiadis (among others), are getting traction with their claims that the National Gallery owns a “fake” or “modern copy” and is covering up that reality.

Published: June 18, 2025, 10:35 am

Deliver Me from Nowhere: first trailer for Oscar-tipped Bruce Springsteen biopic

The hotly anticipated music drama stars The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White as the rocker with Jeremy Strong and Stephen Graham also starring

The trailer for Bruce Springsteen biopic Deliver Me from Nowhere has offered the first real look at Jeremy Allen White in the lead role.

The award-winning star of The Bear plays the musician as he puts together his sixth album Nebraska in the early 1980s. The film, from the Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper, is based on Warren Zanes’ 2023 book.

Published: June 18, 2025, 12:17 pm

Kitchen gods and Chinese opera: views from the diaspora – in pictures

From Greek customs to a Kenyan returning home, this year’s winners of the OpenWalls Spotlight award show how migration shapes our culture – and the power of ancient rituals

Published: June 18, 2025, 6:00 am

The shorter man’s search for love: ‘One woman cried when I told her how tall I am’

Tinder is trialling a height filter, following in the footsteps of some other popular apps. What is behind the ‘6ft fixation’ in dating – and could it be scuppering the chance of true connection?

Height is often seen as a dealbreaker when it comes to romance, particularly within heterosexual relationships. But when Tinder recently said that it was trialling a feature that allows some premium users to filter potential matches by height, it quickly proved controversial. “Oh God. They added a height filter,” lamented one Reddit thread, while an X user claimed: “It’s over for short men.”

“I’ve experimented with not putting my height on my dating profile, or lying about it just to see, and the number of likes I get shoots up massively,” says Stuart, who is in his 50s and from the Midlands. “I know I get screened out by the majority of women from the off.” At 5ft 7in (170cm), Stuart is just two inches below the UK and US male average height of 5ft 9in, but a height filter would probably prevent him from receiving as many matches.

Published: June 18, 2025, 4:00 am

A moment that changed me: I stepped into the boxing ring – and decades of quiet anger lifted

As I punched and shouted, I knew I didn’t have to be demure, delicate or diplomatic. I could be as fierce as I wanted. Those three minutes set me free

On meeting me, you would never guess that I used to be an angry person. I’m talkative, sociable and self-possessed – but for nearly 20 years I lived with a quiet fury. It started with my parents, whose strict conservatism restricted everything in my life: what I ate, what I wore, where I went, what I thought. As immigrants from Bangladesh, they believed that control was the best way to protect their daughters, but it suffocated me.

I had to fight to go to university – for all the things that men in my community were given as a right. At first, my anger felt ambient – mild and ever-present – but it became something harder, more bitter, when I was pressured into an arranged marriage at the age of 24.

Published: June 18, 2025, 5:55 am

Rachel Roddy’s recipe for mini babas al rum | A kitchen in Rome

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.

Published: June 19, 2025, 5:00 am

Jess Cartner-Morley on fashion: finding the perfect summer jacket

This season’s three hot looks: the barn jacket, the leather blouson and the haute anorak

The summer jacket is one of the trickiest bits of your wardrobe to get right, because nobody really wants to wear one. I mean, isn’t summer supposed to be lovely and warm? Isn’t that sort of the whole point of a summer wardrobe? Sandals and shorts exist to celebrate carefree, balmy days. Sunshine is the raison d’etre of a sundress. The very existence of a jacket is a summer buzzkill. But you need one. Sorry, but you do. Seasons are unpredictable, heatwaves break, darkness brings a chill. So you definitely have to put some thought into a summer jacket unless you want your fabulous summer outfits to end up hidden beneath some random hoodie you grabbed off the banister.

Your summer jacket needs to do two things. It needs to keep you warm and dry when the weather turns chilly or wet. And somehow, at the same time, it needs to keep your summer vibe bouncing along, rather than kill the mood. Like I said: tricky.

Published: June 18, 2025, 1:00 pm

‘Fashion is about fantasy’: Max Mara’s short shorts are inspired by postwar Naples

Brand known for no-nonsense style and camel coats channels the glamour and poverty of the city in Italian cinema

Max Mara is known for its deep-pile camel coats and conservative northern Italian style. But in tune with the times, this season’s show at the baroque Palace of Caserta outside Naples opened with a pair of very short shorts.

Tight and high-waisted, the vibe was Vogue but the inspiration was the 1949 Italian realist film Riso Amaro (Bitter Rice) and a 19-year-old Italian actor, Silvana Mangano, in a paddy field wearing damp shorts and stockings, which ended up on global billboards.

Published: June 18, 2025, 12:31 pm

How to turn unripe stone fruit into a brilliant Japanese condiment – recipe | Waste not

Stubbornly unripe stone fruit are common in UK supermarkets, but it turns out they’re just the thing to turn into a classic, Japanese-style ferment

Umeboshi is a puckeringly sour and umami-rich Japanese condiment made with ume, an Asian plum that’s closely related to the apricot. It’s usually made with ripe but firm fruit, which aren’t all that dissimilar to the under-ripe and slightly flavourless apricots and plums found in most UK supermarkets and which make a great British stand-in for ume.

Published: June 18, 2025, 12:00 pm

A Saudi journalist tweeted against the government – and was executed for ‘high treason’

The death of Turki al-Jasser was the first high-profile killing of a journalist since the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi

The tweet posted by Saudi journalist Turki al-Jasser in 2014 was chillingly prescient: “The Arab writer can be easily killed by their government under the pretext of ‘national security’,” he wrote.

On Saturday, the Saudi interior ministry announced that al-Jasser had been executed in Riyadh, for crimes including “high treason by communicating with and conspiring against the security of the Kingdom with individuals outside it”.

This article was amended on 18 June 2025 to clarify that the US intelligence assessment of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi was released by Joe Biden in 2021, not in 2020, as we originally said.

Published: June 18, 2025, 7:00 am

Royal Ascot, a Highland show and nearly 12,000 drones: photos of the day – Wednesday

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

Published: June 18, 2025, 1:01 pm