I traded booze for THC drinks. But are there hidden risks?

Giving up alcohol changed my life, but I wanted to know whether cannabis cocktails were too good to be true

Mark Zuckerberg, a billionaire, has said he avoids substances like caffeine because he likes “rawdogging” reality. I, on the other hand, do not. I mean, have you seen reality lately?

For most of my adult life, alcohol has been my preferred way to take the edge off. But, like a lot of other people, I got older and realized regular drinking was not doing me any favours. Last year, I experimented with “intermittent sobriety”, taking months off here and there. It helped, but it was also easy to slip back into bad habits.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:00 pm

No Squid Game? Or Patrick Schwarzenegger? This year’s biggest Emmy surprises

While Severance, The Studio and Adolescence triumphed, this year’s TV nominees also saw some major snubs

• Emmy nominations 2025: the list of key categories

I don’t know if you had the time or the energy to watch today’s Emmy nominations on YouTube, but if you did – and you followed along with the comments in real time – then you will know that there was one glaring omission that has sent the entire world into a screaming tailspin of panic and terror. I am talking, of course, about Thanos from Squid Game.

For some, Thanos – a purple-haired Konglish-spewing drug-addicted rapper played by the Korean performer T.O.P – was the standout actor of the entire year, in any genre or format. But not only was this a bad result for Thanos, it was a bad result for Squid Game altogether. A show that comprehensively did the numbers for Netflix found itself being locked out of all categories. Still, at least it finds itself in decent company; Black Doves, Netflix’s other wildly entertaining genre series, also found itself snubbed. As was The Handmaid’s Tale, which is admittedly a little less surprising, given the amount of heat it has lost in the years since it debuted.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:19 pm

Does Kash Patel deserve to run the FBI? Of course he does – and I’ll take a lie detector test to prove it | Arwa Mahdawi

He may be insecure and lack any obvious qualifications, but he’s also extremely devoted to Donald Trump. And isn’t that what really matters?

‘Once upon a time, in the land of the free, there lived a wizard called Kash the Distinguished Discoverer.” That piece of verbal wizardry is the opening line of a children’s book trilogy called The Plot Against the King (aimed at children aged three and above) by a Mr Kash Patel. The first book, published in 2022, is like Harry Potter for conspiracy theorists. Kash helps King Donald battle Hillary Queenton and a “shifty knight”, who have been spreading lies about the king working with the Russionians. In the final book in the trilogy (The Plot Against the King 3: The Return of the King) a couple of villains called Comma‑la‑la‑la and Baron Von Biden make an appearance.

Not so long ago, publishing deeply weird books about the president while also promoting wild QAnon conspiracy theories would get you put on some kind of watchlist. Now it gets you a top job as the guy in charge of watchlists. Patel is not just a children’s book author; he is also the director of the FBI. His chief qualification for the role appears to be his extreme devotion to President Donald Trump. He certainly didn’t have any FBI experience before getting the job as head of the agency.

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: July 15, 2025, 12:31 pm

CIA historian Tim Weiner: ‘Trump has put national security in the hands of crackpots and fools’

The longtime chronicler of the spy agency on his Legacy of Ashes follow-up and what keeps him up at night

It may seem perverse to pity the Central Intelligence Agency. The powerful spy organization’s history is rich with failures and abuses – from the Cuban missile crisis to the post-9/11 torture program to its role in the overthrow of a long string of democratically elected leaders. But among the many consequences of Donald Trump’s open hostility toward America’s intelligence community is that no less a CIA critic than Tim Weiner now sounds like a defender.

To understand why, Weiner – author of the unsparing history of the agency, the 2007 bestseller Legacy of Ashes – suggested a thought experiment in a recent interview: imagine spending years as an intelligence officer, working diligently to subvert the Kremlin, only to watch the US stand with Russia, Iran and North Korea, as it did in February when it voted against a UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine. In that moment, Weiner said: “You come to the realization, if you hadn’t already: ‘My God, the president of the United States has gone over to the other side. He has joined the authoritarian axis.’”

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:54 pm

‘I have a huge case brewing’: US readers’ frustrations with canceling various subscriptions

Readers share their experiences after a US appeals court vacated the FTC’s ‘click-to-cancel’ rule

Canceling subscriptions could continue to be a grueling process after the US court of appeals for the eighth circuit vacated the Federal Trade Commission’s “click-to-cancel” rule, which would have required companies to allow consumers to cancel subscriptions using the same method they used to sign up.

The court’s decision came down due to the commission behind it failing to follow required procedures under the FTC Act. In response, the Guardian asked readers to share their experiences while trying to cancel their various subscriptions - from Hulu, to Roblox, to dating apps. These are their stories.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

‘He didn’t think he was a good man’: new book reveals unseen portrait of JFK

In an exhaustively researched book, J Randy Taraborrelli looks at the private, public and secret lives of the president

J Randy Taraborrelli has already written five books on the Kennedy family but his sixth, JFK: Public, Private, Secret, is his first that’s directly about John F Kennedy, 35th US president from 1961 until his assassination in Dallas two years later.

“I have been writing about the Kennedys from Jackie’s perspective for 25 years,” Taraborrelli said, referring to Jacqueline Kennedy, the first lady who lived for another 30 years after he was shot, a figure of worldwide fascination.

Published: July 15, 2025, 9:13 am

Ukraine awaiting details on ‘billions of dollars’ worth of weapons promised by Trump

US president said to have discussed providing Patriot missiles and long-range Tomahawks but no agreement has been reached

Ukraine is waiting for further details of the “billions of dollars” worth of US military equipment promised by Donald Trump on Monday, amid confusion as to how many Patriot air defence systems will be sent to Kyiv.

At a meeting at the White House with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Monday, Trump said an unnamed country was ready to immediately provide “17 Patriots” as he said a “very big deal” had been agreed for European allies to buy weapons from the United States and then ship them to Ukraine.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:14 pm

How the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon

Maga’s obsession with the files shows how a fringe QAnon conspiracy theory has taken root in the pro-Trump movement

The release of the “Epstein client list” has long been the holy grail for the Maga movement. Supposedly, this list, once released, would incriminate a veritable who’s who of liberal elites complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex-trafficking operation and expose the moral rot at the heart of the Democratic establishment.

The mystery surrounding the Epstein files also became a vehicle for QAnon conspiracy theorists to push their ideas about a “deep state” cover-up of a network of global pedophiles into the broader tent of the Maga movement.

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:26 pm

Trump administration seeks to end bond hearings for immigrants without legal status

Under new policy, such immigrants would not be able to request bond from immigration judge before deportation

The Trump administration is reportedly seeking to bar millions of immigrants who allegedly arrived in the US without legal status from receiving a bond hearing as they try to fight their deportations in court.

The new policy would apply during removal proceedings, which can take years, for millions of immigrants who entered the country from Mexico in recent decades, according to a report from the Washington Post, which reviewed documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice).

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:57 pm

Family of US citizen beaten to death by Israeli settlers calls on Trump administration to prosecute killers

Sayfollah Musallet’s relatives criticize US government over West Bank killing: ‘Somebody needs to be held accountable’

Relatives of Sayfollah Musallet, a US citizen from Florida beaten to death by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, are calling for the Trump administration to arrest and prosecute those responsible for his killing.

The 20-year-old from Tampa was visiting his family in an area near Ramallah, and died last week trying to protect their farm from invaders, they said at an emotional press conference in Florida on Monday afternoon.

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:51 pm

Heavy rain kills two in New Jersey as subway and roads flooded in New York

Flash flood warnings were issued for parts of New York and Pennsylvania and an emergency was declared in New Jersey

At least two people were killed Monday evening in New Jersey amid heavy rain and flooding in that state and New York, according to authorities.

The pair died in the city of Plainfield when the car they were in was swept into Cedar Brook during flash flooding, local officials announced on Facebook.

Published: July 15, 2025, 7:06 pm

Former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini guilty of murdering father-in-law after property dispute

• 51-year-old also guilty of shooting mother-in-law

• Crime occurred after dispute over renovation project

Former MLB pitcher Dan Serafini was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 2021 shooting that claimed the life of his father-in-law and left his mother-in-law injured.

The attack took place in June 2021 in North Lake Tahoe, California. Serafini was found guilty of killing Robert Gary Spohr, 70, who was found dead in a house from a single gunshot. Serafini was also found guilty of shooting Spohr’s wife, Wendy Wood, then 68, twice in the head. She recovered from the injures but took her own life one year later. Her family said the trauma of the attack led to her death.

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:12 pm

New York county clerk rejects Texas’s effort to fine doctor in abortion pill case

A New York doctor faced a $113,000 penalty from Texas after being accused of shipping abortion pills across state lines

A New York county clerk again rejected an effort by Texas to fine a New York-based doctor accused of shipping abortion pills across state lines, in a case that could tee up a US supreme court showdown between states that protect abortion access and those that ban it.

On Monday, the acting Ulster county clerk, Taylor Bruck, rejected a court filing by Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, which sought to collect a $113,000 penalty against Dr Margaret Carpenter. Paxton had sued Carpenter in December 2024 over allegations she shipped abortion pills to a Texas woman in defiance of the state’s ban on virtually all abortions. When Carpenter did not show up to a court hearing earlier this year, a judge automatically ruled against her and ordered her to pay the fine as well as stop mailing pills to Texas.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:47 pm

Emmy nominations 2025: Severance leads while Adolescence makes impressive showing

Apple shows dominated this year’s TV nominations while the British Netflix hit scored 13 nods

• Emmy nominations 2025: the list of key categories

Severance and The Penguin lead this year’s Emmys nominations while the breakout drama Adolescence has also made an impressive showing.

Apple’s chilly workplace thriller has received 27 nominations for its second season, leading the drama categories while the tech giant’s new comedy The Studio has broken Ted Lasso’s record for most nominations received by a freshman comedy series. The Seth Rogen-led Hollywood satire picked up 23 nods.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:41 pm

Erotic mosaic stolen by Nazi captain in second world war returned to Pompeii

Wehrmacht officer gave relic to German citizen whose family contacted Italian heritage officials after his death

An erotic mosaic panel stolen from Pompeii by a German Nazi captain during the second world war has been returned to the site of the ancient Roman ruins.

The relic, which depicts a pair of lovers and dates from between the middle of the last century BC and the first century AD, had been among the heirlooms of a deceased German citizen who received the mosaic as a gift from a Wehrmacht captain responsible for the German military supply chain in Italy during the war.

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:44 pm

Mike Waltz grilled over Signal chat during confirmation hearing for UN role

Ex-national security adviser questioned about controversy during a Senate hearing to be US ambassador to UN

Just over two months after being ousted as national security adviser, Mike Waltz faced lawmakers on Tuesday during a confirmation hearing to be US ambassador to the UN, telling them that he planned to make the world body “great again”.

“We should have one place in the world where everyone can talk – where China, Russia, Europe and the developing world can come together and resolve conflicts,” Waltz told the Senate foreign relations committee about the UN. “But after 80 years, it’s drifted from its core mission of peacemaking.”

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:09 pm

Republicans may slash $9.4bn for public broadcasting and foreign aid in days

GOP racing to meet Friday deadline mandated by law for bill, known as a rescissions package, to pass Congress

Senate Republicans may as soon as Tuesday move to pass legislation slashing $9.4bn in funds Congress had earlier approved for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, as part of Donald Trump’s campaign of dramatic government spending cuts.

The GOP is racing to meet a Friday deadline mandated by law for the bill, known as a rescissions package, to pass Congress, otherwise the Trump administration will be forced to spend the money. The House of Representatives approved the legislation last month by a narrow majority.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:54 pm

Two-thirds of DoJ unit defending Trump policies in court have quit

Seven lawyers cite punishing workload and the need to defend policies that some felt were not legally justifiable

The US justice department unit charged with defending against legal challenges to signature Trump administration policies – such as restricting birthright citizenship and slashing funding to Harvard University – has lost nearly two-thirds of its staff, according to a list seen by Reuters.

Sixty-nine of the roughly 110 lawyers in the federal programs branch have voluntarily left the unit since Donald Trump’s election in November or have announced plans to leave, according to the list compiled by former justice department lawyers and reviewed by Reuters.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:43 pm

Trump unveils $70bn AI and energy plan at summit with oil and tech bigwigs

Pittsburgh event angers climate groups as Trump ties AI expansion to oil and gas, sidelining renewable energy

Donald Trump joined big oil and technology bosses on Tuesday at a major artificial intelligence and energy summit in Pittsburgh, outraging environmentalists and community organizations.

The event came weeks after the passage of a megabill that experts say could stymy AI growth with its attacks on renewable energy.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:16 pm

Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’

Exclusive: For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation

Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.

He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

‘A relentless, destructive energy’: inside the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon

An intimate account of an unprecedented trial

If we believe her parents, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, a baby girl was born on Christmas Eve, 2022, in the upstairs bedroom of Woodcutters Cottage in Haltwhistle, Northumberland. Her mother knelt against the double bed and gave birth without assistance or complication. The baby spent the first days of her life in the small stone-terraced cottage and then began her travels, mostly carried by her mother in a sling, hidden under a burgundy puffer jacket. She travelled far for a newborn, passing through bus stations and port towns, hotels and cafes, cities and fields, from north to south, west to east. We know she lived for at least two weeks, but we don’t know, and can never know, precisely how she died. She was called Victoria.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:14 pm

UK’s cavalier attitude leaves Afghans facing yet more fear and uncertainty

Leaked details are just another example of how the UK let down Afghans who believed in what Britain promised their country

This week’s revelations about the UK’s dangerously cavalier treatment of Afghans who worked with British forces are shocking but not surprising.

The carelessness with which Britain went to war in Afghanistan was matched by the carelessness with which it left the country and its people to Taliban rule two decades later.

Published: July 15, 2025, 7:02 pm

Arizona Democratic race for House seat highlights party’s internal debate – and previews the midterms

Gen Z activist Deja Foxx takes on Adelita Grijalva, a local official and daughter of the late Arizona congressman Raúl Grijalva

A gen Z influencer, a former state lawmaker and the daughter of a former representative are facing off in a special Democratic primary in Arizona on Tuesday that showcases the party’s internal debate in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Longtime Arizona representative and progressive stalwart Raúl Grijalva died in office from complications of lung cancer treatment in March at age 77, leaving open a seat representing southern Arizona and its borderlands.

Published: July 14, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘A rarefied world of privilege’: lives of the New England upper class – in pictures

Tina Barney’s decades-long exploration of the bourgeois set her family belonged to reveals the strange rituals and claustrophobic banality of rich people’s everyday lives

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Backlash against Mexico City gentrification echoes global anger at overtourism and rising rents

Protests this month laid bare the growing anger from locals against foreigners who have flocked to the Mexican capital since the coronavirus pandemic

The protesters tore through the city chanting angry slogans and leaving a trail of destruction in their wake: shattered glass, broken doors and furious graffiti – “get out of Mexico.”

Some, dressed in black, smashed windows of local businesses. Others marched peacefully but carried signs with angry messages: “You’re a colonizer not a fucking ‘expat’”; “Gringo go home.”

Published: July 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

Dad has never been afraid to bargain. The day I bought my car, I saw a master at work

My father wanted me to feel satisfied with my purchase. He also thinks I’m stupid with salespeople, liable to say and pay too much

I was nine when Dad first gave me the advice that would be a golden thread, a parable of wisdom conveying all his hard-earned knowledge in a few words.

He had just finished a long week at the mixed business we owned in the city, and we were at Menai Marketplace in Sydney’s south for a very special purchase. I was desperate for a PlayStation 1. I pointed at the Big W price tag and asked: “Dad, is this expensive?”

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:00 pm

The BBC has alienated everyone with its Gaza coverage. After this latest failure, who will be left to defend it? | Owen Jones

The decision to take Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone off iPlayer was not necessary – and has opened it up to further accusations of bias

For a genocide to occur, everything that people think is wrong has to first be turned on its head. There have been endless examples of this gruesome phenomenon in the past 21 months; Monday’s report on the BBC’s scrapped documentary about the plight of children in Gaza is just the latest instance.

Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone was a rare example of the unbearable experiences of Palestinians being properly investigated by Britain’s public broadcaster. But within the media, this documentary has become a bigger scandal than the suffering of Palestinian children.

Owen Jones 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: July 15, 2025, 9:51 am

Stephen Lillie on Donald Trump’s arms deal with Nato – cartoon

Published: July 15, 2025, 1:48 pm

In Trump’s game of chicken, the EU cannot afford to back down | Nathalie Tocci

When threatened with US tariffs, Europe was initially bullish. But the influence of nationalist leaders sympathetic to Trump has caused a split

Donald Trump’s trade policy has been labelled “Taco” – “Trump always chickens out” – by his critics. But when it comes to his latest trade war with the EU, it’s Brussels that risks chickening out. The US and the EU have been negotiating for months on an agreement. This week Trump made the shock announcement that the US would hit the EU with punitive tariffs on goods at a crippling 30% rate from 1 August. This was in addition to separate steel and aluminium tariffs, and cars at even more punitive rates.

Blindsided Brussels negotiators calculated the economic damage, and ministers talked about retaliation. Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, warned that “all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests” would be taken. But so far, despite the tough words, the EU is holding back.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:28 pm

Looking for a job? Who you know probably matters more than what you know | Zoe Williams

Forget polishing your CV – you’re better off working on your connections. That’s the depressing reality when every vacancy attracts thousands of applications, all written by AI

It’s only when you meet a couple of people who have just landed a job that you realise how long it’s been since you heard of that happening. I was chatting to two nearly-graduates last week, who both had something to go on to, and fair play, they were chemists, and I’ve never met one of those before. It’s possible they always saunter into work.

The story you hear far more often from graduates is that it’s a wasteland – that every new post has 2,000 applications, all identical because they’re AI-generated anyway, and it’s an AI bot that reads the damn things, so it wouldn’t be able to tell a personal touch even if there was one. Applying for work is like throwing your hat into a ring that’s on fire: your chances of success are mythically small and your hat – or, if you prefer, your self-esteem – will be destroyed in the process.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Women born in East Germany have lived between two worlds. That’s why we’re shaking up art and politics | Carolin Würfel

The stories of curator Kathleen Reinhardt and provenance expert Lynn Rother show how exclusion can be turned to powerful insight

In February 1990, the German news magazine Der Spiegel ran the headline “Why are they still coming?”, adding: “In West Germany, hatred for immigrants from the GDR could soon reach boiling point.” That year, resentment towards so-called newcomers from the east erupted without restraint. East Germans were insulted in the streets, shelters were attacked and children from the former GDR were bullied at school. There was a widespread fear that the weekly influx of thousands of people would overwhelm the welfare system and crash the housing and job markets. The public consensus? It needed to stop.

That same year, Kathleen Reinhardt and her parents moved from Thuringia in the former GDR to Bavaria. She was in primary school, and her new classmates greeted her with lines such as: “You people come here and take our jobs. You don’t even know how to work properly.”

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:00 am

The Guardian view on the children of Gaza: when 17,000 die, it’s more than a mistake | Editorial

Israel’s military blamed the deaths of six Palestinian children on Sunday on a technical error. But a staggering toll continues to mount

On Sunday, an Israeli strike killed six Palestinian children – and four adults – as they queued for water in a refugee camp. The deaths of children may be the most terrible part of any war. It is not only the suffering of the innocent and powerless, and the unimaginable pain of surviving parents – as dreadful as those are – but the knowledge of lives ended when they had barely begun, of futures that should have stretched long into the distance severed in an instant.

As shocking as Sunday’s deaths were, they are commonplace in Gaza: a classroom-worth of children have been killed each day since the war began. What marked them out was that so many deaths happened at once and publicly; and that Israel’s military felt obliged to acknowledge its responsibility – though without any great contrition. It claimed that a “technical error with the munition” caused it to miss its intended target and added that it “regrets any harm to uninvolved civilians”.

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: July 15, 2025, 5:40 pm

Tour de France’s phoney war gets dose of reality as Pogacar v Vingegaard hits the mountains | William Fotheringham

There are questions around the race contenders’ teams but Wout van Aert’s form could be key for the Danish challenger

There is always a sense of phoney war in the run-in to the Tour de France’s first stage in the high mountains, and at least one debate of the opening 10 days of this year’s race fits that context to a T. Has Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a Bike team at times been towing the bunch deliberately in order to ensure that Tadej Pogacar retains the yellow jersey? It’s a gloriously arcane question, the kind that only comes up in the Tour’s opening phase, but it distracts from a point that could be key in the next 10 days: how the two teams manage the race will probably be decisive.

Firstly, a brief explainer. The received wisdom in cycling lore is that holding the yellow jersey early in a Grand Tour can be as much a curse as a blessing, because the daily media and podium duties cut into recovery time. Hence the thinking goes that Visma might have been chasing down the odd move purposely to keep Pogacar in the maillot jaune, so that he will be answering media questions and hanging about waiting to go on the podium, while Vingegaard has his feet up. Only Visma’s management know if this was the case, but what is certain is that the febrile atmosphere between the two teams will intensify from here on in.

Published: July 15, 2025, 7:37 pm

Jets reportedly agree second $100m deal in two days to lock in star CB Sauce Gardner

• 24-year-old set to sign $120.4m extension through 2030

• Jets also set up $130m deal with WR Garrett Wilson

The New York Jets are making Sauce Gardner the highest-paid cornerback in the NFL.

The Jets and Gardner agreed on a four-year, $120.4m extension through the 2030 season, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the agreement had not been announced.

Published: July 15, 2025, 7:53 pm

NWSL and US Soccer’s lack of transgender policy targeted by conservative lobby groups

The NWSL’s transgender participation policy, thought to still be in place, was abandoned in 2022, the league confirmed

As the United States supreme court agrees to hear two cases in the fall intended to enforce bans on transgender women from sport, the Guardian can reveal that the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) has not renewed its 2021 policy on transgender players and is operating with no policy on the subject.

The NWSL established a policy in 2021, stating: “athletes who transition from male to female are eligible to compete” if they declare their gender identity is female – subject to testosterone levels being “within typical limits of women athletes”. The 2021 policy also stated athletes designated female at birth transitioning to male and undergoing testosterone hormone therapy were ineligible to compete in the NWSL.

Published: July 15, 2025, 11:00 am

Trump says Club World Cup trophy will remain in Oval Office after tournament’s end

• US president was given trophy earlier this year

• Chelsea won newly expanded tournament on Sunday

Donald Trump has claimed that the Club World Cup trophy that has featured prominently in the Oval Office will stay there, and that Fifa made a copy of the trophy that was awarded to Chelsea after their win in the tournament’s final on Sunday.

Trump attended the final along with numerous members of his cabinet and Fifa’s president, Gianni Infantino. The pair of presidents jointly presented the trophy to Chelsea captain Reece James, with Trump staying front and center despite the apparent confusion of Chelsea players and the pleading of Infantino.

Published: July 14, 2025, 7:45 pm

‘What is the point?’ Scottie Scheffler questions golf and life before Open

World No 1 vows to quit sport if it affects family life and asks why winning is so important for an ‘awesome’ two minutes

Since the age of three, when he was given a plastic set of clubs, Scottie Scheffler has wanted to be the best golfer in the world. He has won three majors, been ranked world No 1 since 2023, and is the favourite for the Open this week. But during an extraordinary press conference at Portrush on Tuesday, the American peered into an existential void as he asked himself: what is the point of it all?

Scheffler was clearly happy, and his determination to win this week was clear. He also spoke eloquently on the challenges of links golf. But a hitherto unremarkable press conference suddenly veered into a deeper philosophical search for meaning when the 29-year-old was asked how long he had ever celebrated a victory.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:37 pm

Dumper’s delight: Cal Raleigh becomes first catcher to win Home Run Derby

• Mariners star takes home $1m first prize for victory

• Oneil Cruz hits 513ft homer during contest

Seattle’s Cal Raleigh won his first All-Star Home Run Derby after leading the big leagues in long balls going into the break, defeating Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero 18-15 in the final round on Monday night.

The Mariners slugger, nicknamed Big Dumper, advanced from the first round on a tiebreaker by less than an inch over the Athletics’ Brent Rooker, then won his semi-final 19-13 over Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz, whose 513ft first-round drive over Truist Park’s right-center field seats was the longest of the night.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:28 am

Former NFL QB Bridgewater suspended from high school coaching job

The former Lions QB has been suspended while under investigation for allegedly providing impermissible benefits

Former NFL quarterback Teddy Bridgewater has been suspended from his position as a high school football coach in Miami while under investigation for allegedly providing impermissible benefits.

Bridgewater, 32, confirmed his suspension by Miami Northwestern in a Facebook post on Sunday but said he remains committed to his alma mater.

Published: July 14, 2025, 9:53 pm

Rage against the machines: ignore the fury at Wimbledon, AI in sport works | Sean Ingle

In the fevered environments within sporting arenas, anything that can help an official has to be a good thing

We are all suckers for a good story. And there was certainly a cracking two‑parter at Wimbledon this year. First came the news that 300 line judges had been replaced by artificial intelligence robots. Then, a few days later, it turned out there were some embarrassing gremlins in the machine. Not since Roger Federer hung up his Wilson racket has there been a sweeter spot hit during the Wimbledon fortnight.

First the new electronic line-judging system failed to spot that Sonay Kartal had whacked a ball long during her match against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova – which led to the Russian losing a game she otherwise would have won. Although, ironically, it happened only because an official had accidentally switched the system off.

Published: July 15, 2025, 7:00 am

Europe gives Iran deadline to contain nuclear programme or see sanctions reinstated

UK, France and Germany say without firm commitment from Iran by 29 August they will reapply embargos that were lifted 10 years ago

The EU will start the process of reinstating UN sanctions on Iran from 29 August if Tehran has made no progress by then on containing its nuclear programme, the bloc has announced.

Speaking at a meeting of his EU counterparts, the French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, said: “France and its partners are … justified in reapplying global embargos on arms, banks and nuclear equipment that were lifted 10 years ago. Without a firm, tangible and verifiable commitment from Iran, we will do so by the end of August at the latest.”

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:43 pm

JP Morgan chief defends independence of Fed chair amid Trump attacks

Jamie Dimon cautions against interference as treasury secretary says process to replace Jerome Powell has begun

The boss of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has defended the “absolutely critical” independence of the Federal Reserve chair, as Donald Trump continues to demand immediate cuts in interest rates.

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on Tuesday that a formal process for choosing a successor to the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, had already begun – despite the fact that his term does not end until next May.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:06 pm

Republican leading inquiry into Biden’s autopen use has digitally signed letters

James Comer has used a digital signature on documents throughout his investigation into Biden’s use of an autopen

A Kentucky Republican leading the Trump administration’s investigation into Joe Biden’s mental capacities during his time in office, including Biden’s reliance, like many other presidents, on an automatic signature machine, has been shown to have used a digital signature himself in the course of the investigation.

NBC reported that some letters and subpoena notices issued by James Comer, which were sent out in connection to his investigation into Biden’s use of the so-called autopen, bore a digital signature.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:28 pm

Recent ‘tough period’ is not the real existential threat facing the BBC

Shifting media landscape and declining income from licence fee point to tough financial choices ahead

As understatement goes, Tim Davie appeared to have mastered it as he presented the BBC’s annual report. Questions poured in over whether he had ever considered his position as a succession of problems landed on his desk this year. In response, he acknowledged he and the BBC had faced a “tough period”.

The failure to cut a Glastonbury livestream, missed opportunities to address the behaviour of former presenter Gregg Wallace and criticism over its handling of two Gaza documentaries have seen a huge amount of opprobrium heading the BBC’s way in recent weeks.

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:37 pm

US inflation rose in June as Trump’s tariffs start to show in prices

Inflation remains far below the peaks seen three years ago, when price increases reached as high as 9%

Inflation accelerated in June as the impacts of Donald Trump’s tariffs slowly started to show in US prices.

Business leaders have said for months that the high, volatile rates of Trump’s tariffs will force companies to raise consumer prices. Prices remained stable in the spring, particularly as many of Trump’s highest tariffs were paused; however, they started increasing in May and have continued to rise in June.

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:11 pm

Two men behind ‘senseless’ felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for more than four years

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, sentenced for act of criminal damage that sparked widespread sadness and anger

Two men who carried out a “moronic mission” to fell one of the most loved and photographed trees in the UK have been jailed.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each given prison sentences of four years and three months for an act of criminal damage that caused the Sycamore Gap tree to crash down on to Hadrian’s wall in Northumberland on a stormy September night in 2023.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:19 pm

Navalny’s widow leads calls for Italy to cancel concert by pro-Putin conductor

Valery Gergiev, an ally of Russian leader, is due to perform in Europe for first time since full-scale invasion of Ukraine

The widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is leading calls for Italy to scrap a performance by a Russian orchestra conductor with close ties to Vladimir Putin at a music festival in southern Italy.

Valery Gergiev, who has been a close ally of Putin since the early 1990s, will perform in Europe for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine after being invited to Un’Estate da Re festival in La Reggia di Caserta, a former Bourbon palace and Unesco world heritage site in Campania, on 27 July.

Published: July 15, 2025, 1:43 pm

Republicans complain to Canada over wildfire smoke despite supporting planet-heating bill

Lawmakers send letter railing against ‘suffocating’ smoke days after voting for Trump plan likely to boost pollution

A group of Republican lawmakers has complained that smoke from Canadian wildfires is ruining summer for Americans, just days after voting for a major bill that will cause more of the planet-heating pollution that is worsening wildfires.

In a letter sent to Canada’s ambassador to the US, six Republican members of Congress wrote that wildfire smoke from Canada had been an issue for several years and recently their voters “have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer”.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Trump administration dashes hopes of anti-pollution plan for JD Vance’s home town

The $1.6bn Biden-era plan for a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Middletown, Ohio, is indefinitely on hold

A Biden-era plan to implement a gas-powered blast furnace at a steel mill in Ohio, which would have eliminated tons of greenhouse gases from the local environment year over year and created more than a thousand jobs, has been put on hold indefinitely by the Trump administration.

Experts and locals say the setback could greatly affect the health and financial state of those living around the mill.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Could giving this pod of dolphins the same legal rights as humans help keep them safe?

With a bottlenose population threatened by fishing gear, boats and pollution, campaigners on South Korea’s Jeju island are lobbying to extend legal status to the vulnerable cetaceans

It is a beautiful sunny day on the island of Jeju in South Korea and as the boat cuts through the water all seems calm and clear. Then they start to appear – one telltale fin and then another. Soon, a pod of eight or nine dolphins can be seen moving through the sea, seemingly following the path of the boat.

But as they start to jump and dive, fins cutting through the air, it becomes apparent that one dolphin is missing the appendage, his body breaking the surface but without the telltale profile of his companions. His name, given to him by a local environmental group, is Orae, which literally translates as “long”, but in this context means “wishing him a long life”.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:00 am

Trump officials address ‘chemtrails’ conspiracy theories while spreading misinformation, experts say

EPA’s move comes as it slashes climate research funding and cuts weather forecasting and scientific agencies’ staff

Trump officials’ recent attempt to dispel concerns about “chemtrails” has perplexed and angered some experts who say the administration has itself promoted the conspiracy theory while also spreading climate misinformation.

“This is an intriguing strategy … in an administration that, depending on agency, is actively promulgating conspiracy theories or at least conspiratorial thinking,” said Timothy Tangherlini, a professor at the Berkeley School of Information who studies the circulation of folklore and conspiracy theories.

Published: July 14, 2025, 5:07 pm

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot melts down – and then wins a military contract

It was a week of lows and highs for the tech billionaire after the CEO of X resigned and its AI chatbot declared itself a super-Nazi – followed by scoring a contract of up to $200m

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. This week, Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, saw its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok go Nazi. Then its CEO resigned. In the past three years of Musk’s ownership of the social network, it feels like X has weathered at least one public crisis per week, more often multiple.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:23 pm

Trump permits Nvidia to sell advanced chips in China, CEO says

Chipmaker’s CEO, Jensen Huang, recently met with Donald Trump as US-China trade rivalry deepens

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, says the chipmaker has won approval from the Trump administration to sell its advanced computer chips used to develop artificial intelligence to China.

“Today, I’m announcing that the US government has approved for us filing licenses to start shipping H20s,” Huang told reporters in Beijing.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:39 pm

Boy in Minnesota survives fall that sent arrow through his brain: ‘It’s a miracle’

Gus, nine, fell face-first on arrow, which penetrated his head and came within less than an inch of exiting his skull

A hospital in Minnesota was left in disbelief after a nine-year-old boy survived an accidental fall that sent an arrow through his brain and nearly out the back of his skull.

Abby Deterding recently told the Minneapolis news station KARE “it’s a miracle” that the freak mishap did not kill her son, Gus. “We’re just thankful, so grateful,” she said.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Starbucks tells corporate staff in US and Canada to work in office at least four days a week

Seattle-based coffee chain offers payment to those who opt to quit instead as it seeks to ‘re-establish in-office culture’

• Business live – latest updates

Starbucks has ordered its corporate staff to work from the office at least four days a week from late September and is offering cash payments to those who choose to quit instead.

Brian Niccol, the chief executive of the Seattle-headquartered coffee chain, said many of its employees would be required to work in the office for a minimum of four days a week, up from three, from Monday to Thursday.

Published: July 15, 2025, 9:31 am

BBC to look at overhauling licence fee as 300,000 more households stop paying

Annual report says pace of change amid battle with streaming rivals is ‘a moment of real jeopardy for the sector’

A further 300,000 households have stopped paying the licence fee, as the BBC said it was looking at overhauling the payment to secure the corporation’s future “for the long term”.

As the broadcaster continues to battle the rise of YouTube and streaming services that have split audiences across numerous platforms, its annual report revealed 23.8m licences were in force at the end of the year, down from 24.1m in 2023-24. The drop means a loss of about £50m in revenue for the corporation.

Published: July 15, 2025, 11:00 am

Israel launches bombing raids in Syria and Lebanon

Israel targets state forces entering south of Syria after sectarian clashes, while other strikes in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley leave 12 dead

Israel has launched bombing raids against two of its neighbours, hitting government forces in southern Syria and what it said were Hezbollah targets in eastern Lebanon.

In Syria, the strikes hit forces loyal to the transitional government that had been sent south to the province of Sweida, which is near Israel. Syrian state media also reported Israeli strikes on Tuesday in the nearby province of Deraa.

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:15 pm

France signals willingness to discuss reparations for colonial massacres in Niger

Exclusive: French government says it is open to dialogue but does not acknowledge responsibility in letter seen by the Guardian

More than a century after its troops burned villages and looted cultural artefacts in the quest to include Niger in its west African colonial portfolio, France has signalled willingness over possible restitution, but is yet to acknowledge responsibility.

“France remains open to bilateral dialogue with the Nigerien authorities, as well as to any collaboration concerning provenance research or patrimonial cooperation,” the office of France’s permanent representative to the UN wrote in a document seen by the Guardian.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:00 am

Sudanese paramilitary RSF accused of killing almost 300 people in village raids

Rights group says targets of Rapid Support Forces in North Kordofan were ‘empty of military objectives’

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have killed nearly 300 people in attacks in North Kordofan state that began on Saturday, according to Sudanese activists.

The RSF has been fighting the Sudanese army in the area, one of the key frontlines of a civil war in Sudan that has raged since April 2023.

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:08 pm

Diljit Dosanjh is one of the biggest Asian stars in the world. So why can’t Indian cinemagoers see his latest film?

Sardaar Ji 3 is breaking box office records despite not being released to its most famous actor’s home audience

He is number one in the UK list of top 50 Asian celebrities in the world, has headlined arenas in the UK, US and across Europe as part of his sold-out Dil-Luminati world tour, and recently strutted the Met Gala carpet in an ivory-toned turban.

But despite Diljit Dosanjh’s stellar status, the Punjabi actor-singer has been caught in a cultural and political row that has halted the Indian release of his latest movie, Sardaar Ji 3.

Published: July 15, 2025, 5:00 am

In defence of Step Brothers: the platonic ideal of Obama-era comedy

Watching Will Ferrell and John C Reilly as a pair of large adult sons feels like witnessing the dying embers of the Gen X sensibility – before the world got cruel and idiots took over

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It’s 2008. George W Bush is wrapping up his presidency. The world’s economy is in turmoil, but Obama is ascendant. The US’s – and the world’s – problems will soon be solved once and for all.

The peak comedy of this era is, of course, Step Brothers. Adam McKay’s previous hit collaborations with Will Ferrell, Anchorman and Talladega Nights, hit a rich seam of man-children being elevated to folk-hero status. We could call it a thematic trilogy, if we were being a bit pretentious – like Ingmar Bergman’s faith trilogy, but with more prosthetic testicles.

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Published: July 15, 2025, 3:00 pm

‘The soldiers want you to see what they’re going through’: the heartbreaking follow-up to 20 Days in Mariupol

While Mstyslav Chernov was on the Oscars circuit with his first Ukraine war film, soldiers in his latest – made using bodycams – were dying. He explains why he needed to join them in the trenches

It was in Sloviansk, in the rear of eastern Ukraine’s frontline, that I first met journalist and film-maker Mstyslav Chernov. It was the autumn of 2023 and he was telling me about the film that would later win him and his team an Oscar: 20 Days in Mariupol, a horrifying documentary assembled from the news footage he and his team had gathered there, in the first month of the full-scale invasion. That September day of our interview, though – amid what would turn out to be Ukraine’s disappointing counteroffensive of 2023 – he was making his second film, one that took him to the heart of the combat zone, called 2,000 Meters to Andriivka. It is, if anything, even more powerful than its predecessor: a piece of frontline reporting that truly deserves the name, its footage gathered from soldiers’ own bodycams as well as from Chernov and his small crew on the ground among them. He puts the viewer into the trenches alongside the combatants. It is terrifying, bloody and heartbreakingly sad. You will not emerge from this film unchanged.

The soldiers on whom Chernov focuses are members of Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade. They have a mission: to liberate the village of Andriivka, in the Donetsk region, and hoist the blue-and-yellow flag above it. Their sole route to this village is through a narrow strip of forest with flat, open fields either side. The wood, with its sketchy cover, is both their protection and, in many cases, their grave. The painful, dangerous advance through this 2km provides the structure of the film. And yet, for all that the film borrows the conventions of a thriller for its propulsive plotline, it is its tenderness, both in its gaze and in the relationships between the men that it depicts, that really destroyed me.

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:00 pm

Dora and the Search for Sol Dorado review – plucky teen explorer goes looking for lost Incan magic

Inoffensive adventure story updates Dora the Explorer as she goes in search of the legendary golden sun that will grant one wish

If you have a bunch of eight-year-olds over for a sleepover and you’re looking for something to stick on the TV, you could do worse than this straight-to-streaming live-action adaptation of the animated show Dora the Explorer. It’s a follow-up of sorts to Dora and the Lost City of Gold from 2019, with a new star in the shape of Samantha Lorraine, and aimed at slightly older kids than the cartoon. There are action sequences looted from Raiders of the Lost Ark that had my eight-year-old squealing at the screen, though as it’s determined to be undemanding and inoffensive, it’s got that plasticky quality that middling kids’ films tend to have.

Lorraine plays Dora, a teenage explorer who’s grown up in the Amazon, raised on her grandfather’s stories about the Incas. For years, Dora has been searching for clues to find Sol Dorado, a legendary golden sun that will grant one wish, joined by her cousin Diego (Jacob Rodriguez). The scriptwriters deserve credit for resisting the temptation to bolt on a love interest; instead, we have cousin Diego in the role conventionally given to a female character: the pretty but non-essential sidekick.

Published: July 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

Tin Soldier review – Jamie Foxx leads with his hairdo in thriller about a soldier infiltrating a cult

Scott Eastwood and Robert De Niro also star in this confusing film about an ex-soldier sent to penetrate a cult compound

Make no mistake: this action thriller is a mangled, dreary, unlovely mess and so much less than the sum of its parts – despite relatively blameless supporting turns from Robert De Niro and John Leguizamo. There’s a more culpably hammy performance from Jamie Foxx, who rocks a ginormous, weirdly contoured afro so bizarre that it’s almost worth the price alone. (He is also one of many executive producers on the project.) But Foxx’s tonsorial effort is not enough to counteract the fact that this is a pretty lousy film, only worth it if you like “sneerwatching”.

None of the big names mentioned above play the lead here. Instead, the hero is one Nash Cavanaugh (a name that sounds generated by an AI bot), as incarnated by a typically lumpen Scott Eastwood. Cavanaugh is a former soldier who was once drawn into the cult created by Foxx’s Leon Prudhomme, also known by his much cooler cult leader moniker, the Bokushi (“pastor” in Japanese). It turns out Prudhomme was originally bankrolled by De Niro’s Ashburn, a shady government agent who had hoped to create a mercenary army. But the Bokushi has instead created his own private Jonestown, full of other ex-soldiers sold on his self-help preaching about how PTSD need not define them, or something like that. What makes him so charismatic is never well defined, but presumably the veterans must be smitten with his R&B-inflected gospel crooning with a special backup band – a vanity moment that’s pure cringe.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

Superman: identity crises, fascist space holograms and a super furry animal – discuss with spoilers

Has director James Gunn reinvented the superhero film – or just lovingly detonated it? Let’s have a deep dive into the new Man of Steel movie

• This article contains spoilers for Superman

James Gunn’s Superman is a curious film: so earnest, so heartfelt, and so defiantly weird it sometimes feels less like a reboot of the world’s most iconic superhero and more like an elaborate fan project. Most of us will be relieved we’ve said goodbye to the heavy metal space Jesus of the Zack Snyder years, and that Gunn has avoided paying too much retro cosplay tribute to the Christopher Reeve era. This is undeniably a Superman we’ve never seen before on the big screen: a Kal-El who’s deeply human, flawed, and more likable for it.

The new Man of Steel, played with boyish charm and the right amount of golden retriever energy by David Corenswet, spends most of the movie juggling black holes, battling clone siblings, and dealing with the looming realisation that his space dad might have been one bad day away from full-blown genocide. And yet there’s always the sneaking suspicion he would break off from all this in a second if you asked him to fix your router and play Enya until your existential dread subsides.

Published: July 14, 2025, 5:06 pm

‘The perfect accompaniment to life’: why is a 12th-century nun the hottest name in experimental music?

​A mystic who turned visions into beautiful chants, Hildegard von Bingen has inspired everyone from Grimes to David Lynch. Musicians including Julia Holter explain the hold she has on them

‘And behold! In the 43rd year of my earthly course, as I was gazing with great fear and trembling attention at a heavenly vision, I saw a great splendour in which resounded a voice from Heaven saying to me, ‘O fragile human, ashes of ashes, and filth of filth! Say and write what you see and hear.”

These are the words of 12th-century polymath Hildegard von Bingen (or Hildegard of Bingen), recalling the divine intervention that set her on the path to becoming one of history’s earliest and most influential composers.

Published: July 15, 2025, 10:00 am

DJ Nick León on Rosalía, regional Latin club sounds and rejecting success: ‘I was losing my edge’

Early success left the Miami producer feeling risk-averse. He quit touring to discover his muggy, magical sound – and accidentally scored another hit with Erika de Casier

A few years ago, Nick León made a hit. Not a hit hit, like a Drake/Sabrina/Taylor hit, but a hit in certain circles. His single Xtasis, made with the Venezuelan producer DJ Babatr, was one of the defining club tracks of 2022. Named track of the year by Resident Advisor and a staple at parties throughout the summer and autumn, it launched León from his status as one of Miami’s most interesting underground DJs into the international club circuit.

“It was like, we’re hitting the ground running – we’re gonna be touring and DJing all the time, and there was this mission of spreading the music that so many people have been playing already, from Latin America and the US,” León recalls of this period, sweating through his tie-dye T-shirt in an east London cafe in June.

Published: July 14, 2025, 11:07 am

Flesh and Code is an utterly jaw-dropping listen: best podcasts of the week

Brace yourself for the staggering tale of Travis, who has both real and bot wives. Plus, the wickedly gossipy duo of Graham Norton and Maria McErlane are back

This staggering tale of people falling in love with AI chatbots is baffling, tragic and terrifying. It’s full of jaw-dropping moments, as hosts Hannah Maguire and Suruthi Bala speak to Travis who “married” a bot despite already having a real-life spouse. There’s also the vulnerable teenager whose “companion” spurs him on to an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II (which ends with him being charged with treason). Alexi Duggins
Wondery+, episodes weekly

Published: July 14, 2025, 6:00 am

Toni at Random by Dana A Williams review – Toni Morrison’s editing years

A fascinating account of the Nobel laureate’s pioneering work as an editor at Random House

While a great deal has been written about Toni Morrison’s fiction, her work as a senior editor at Random House is less well known. Dana A Williams, professor of African American Literature at Howard University, sets out to fill this gap, offering an impeccably researched account of Morrison’s stint at Random House between 1971 and 1983, against the backdrop of the Civil Rights and the Black Arts movements. Reflecting ideas generated by that convergence, Morrison’s novels – described by the Nobel committee, when they awarded her the prize in literature in 1993, as giving life to an essential aspect of American reality – were driven by an unwavering belief in the possibility of African American empowerment through self-regard. Williams’s interest lies in showing how Morrison’s editorial career was informed by the same invigoratingly insular ethos. Whether writing or editing, her work was aimed at producing “explorations of interior Black life with minimal interest in talking to or being consumed by an imagined white reader”.

Morrison saw early on how that kind of insularity could be wielded as both a weapon and a shield. Addressing the Second National Conference of Afro-American Writers at Howard in 1976, she urged the audience to recognise that “the survival of Black publishing, which […] is a sort of way of saying the survival of Black writing, will depend on the same things that the survival of Black anything depends on, which is the energies of Black people – sheer energy, inventiveness and innovation, tenacity, the ability to hang on, and a contempt for those huge, monolithic institutions and agencies which do obstruct us”. These words could well have been repurposed as a mission statement for her editorial career, which, as Williams points out, consisted of “[making] a revolution, one book at a time”. Change was coming in America. Morrison’s contribution would be to work towards change in the overwhelmingly white world of publishing: “I thought it was important for people to be in the streets,” she said during an interview for the documentary Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, released in 2019. “But that couldn’t last. You needed a record. It would be my job to publish the voices, the books, the ideas of African Americans. And that would last.”

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:00 am

The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley review – teenage mothers and melodrama

This ambitious tale of solidarity and sisterhood in Florida has moments of poetic clarity, but falls short of the author’s dazzling debut

Writers sometimes talk of giving birth to their books, but probably very few are also working as doulas. It’s an experience that clearly informs Leila Mottley’s new novel, The Girls Who Grew Big, in which the struggles of pregnancy and motherhood loom large. Mottley’s work as a doula comes in addition to writing a bestselling debut novel, Nightcrawling, and featuring on Oprah’s Book Club; she was also youth poet laureate of Oakland, California, in 2018. But not much seems beyond the reach of the youngest ever writer to be longlisted for the Booker prize, back in 2022. The pity is that her considerable energy hasn’t translated into a more satisfying second book.

The Girls Who Grew Big tells the story of a gang of teenage mothers and the impromptu community they form in the humid disarray and general dysfunction of Padua, a fictional small town in the Florida panhandle. Led by their de facto leader, Simone, the Girls are a scrappy, ostracised handful of outsiders, variously rejected by their families and harshly judged by locals. Down on their luck and often abandoned by the adults in their lives, they resourcefully become a collective, based in the back of Simone’s truck.

Published: July 15, 2025, 8:00 am

Brooklyn and beyond: Colm Tóibín’s best books – ranked!

As the Irish author turns 70, we rate his best works of fiction – from his latest, Long Island, to his emotionally wrenching ‘masterpiece’

This dispatch from what we might call the extended Colm Tóibín universe is set near the same time and in the same place as his earlier novel Brooklyn (one character appears in both books). It’s the story of a widowed woman who struggles to cope with life after love. If it lacks the drama of some of Tóibín’s other novels, the style is impeccable as ever, with irresistibly clean prose that reports emotional turmoil masked by restraint. There is no ornate showing off. “People used to tease me for it, saying: ‘Could you write a longer sentence?’” Tóibín has said. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Published: July 14, 2025, 11:01 am

Poem of the week: Poem in which I’m a transnational drug smuggler by Bethany Handley

A sharp and witty look at the treatment of people with disabilities conveys its anger with arresting artistry

Poem in which I’m a transnational drug smuggler

Published: July 14, 2025, 11:12 am

‘The way a child plays is the way they live’: how therapists are using video games to help vulnerable children

Minecraft and other creative games are becoming recognised as powerful means of self-expression and mental health support, including for traumatised Ukrainian refugees

Oleksii Sukhorukov’s son was 12 when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. For months, the family existed in a state of trauma and disarray: Sukhorukov was forced to give up his work in the entertainment industry, which had included virtual reality and video games; they became isolated from friends and relatives. But amid the chaos, his boy had one outlet: Minecraft. Whatever was happening outside, he’d boot up Mojang’s block-building video game and escape.

“After 24 February 2022, I began to see the game in a completely different light,” says Sukhorukov. I discovered that Ukrainian children were playing together online; some living under Russian occupation, others in government-controlled areas of the country that were the targets of regular missile attacks; some had already become refugees. And yet they were still able to play together, support one another, and build their own world. Isn’t that amazing? I wanted to learn more about how video games can be used for good.”

Published: July 14, 2025, 9:00 am

Stephen Colbert on Paramount’s $16m settlement with Trump: ‘Big fat bribe’

Late-night hosts discuss Paramount’s settlement with Trump and Maga in revolt over handling of the Epstein files

Late-night hosts rebuke Paramount’s settlement with Donald Trump and mock the Maga movement infighting over the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:01 pm

‘I wish I’d enjoyed my fame a bit more’: Jim Sturgess on regrets, romance and the art of the mix tape

He broke Hollywood in his early 20s, and found it all extremely scary. Now starring in a beautiful TV romance, Sturgess talks love, Walkmans – and why he might have just found his forever screen partner

Like all good love stories, this one starts with a chance meeting and ends with a reunion. It was 2008, pre-Hardy and Hiddleston, post-Bale and Grant; Jim Sturgess was a rising star and the latest handsome young Brit to break Hollywood. Having landed the lead role in casino thriller 21, Sturgess needed a love interest: cue a slew of chemistry tests with a roll call of beautiful young women, a process Sturgess remembers now as “the most exposed blind date you could ever possibly put yourself through, with five producers watching you from afar”.

Kate Bosworth got the role, but one actor lingered in Sturgess’s mind: an effervescent Australian called Teresa Palmer. “When you do those chemistry tests, they put you through it, so we spent the whole day together,” Sturgess says. “I was really hoping she was going to get the part, because we got on really well. She’s Australian, I’m English, and we were both in Hollywood going, ‘Where the hell are we?’”

Published: July 15, 2025, 2:08 pm

Where Oasis, the Killers and Noddy Holder raised hell: Britpop’s debauched HQ, the Columbia hotel

Noel Gallagher named a song after it, Marc Almond practically moved in and the Killers had a bathtub reserved for puking in – but was it rock’n’roll, or just a bit tragic?

In the early 2000s, a member of the New York dance-punk band Radio 4 was walking upstairs when he realised he’d forgotten the key to his room at London’s Columbia hotel. Rather than walk back down the several flights he’d already climbed, he drunkenly decided to jump all the way down to the reception level. When he regained consciousness, a bemused Courtney Love was staring down at his prone body. As was an irate hotel manager, who swiftly barred the band from staying there for years, before the crumpled musician was scooped up to go and spend a few days in hospital.

It was not easy to get barred from the Columbia hotel, but Radio 4 were not the only ones who managed it. Once, at 6am, members of Oasis decided to throw all the furniture in the bar out of the window, piece by piece. When items landed on the hotel manager’s Mercedes, the band had to scarper before the police arrived. It played such a significant part in Oasis’s story that Noel Gallagher wrote a song in tribute to it, Columbia, based on his escapades there back when he was a roadie for Inspiral Carpets.

Published: July 15, 2025, 1:14 pm

‘Beautiful form isn’t enough’: National Ballet of Japan – picture essay

Photographer David Levene gained access to the ballet company as they prepared for Ballet Coffret, ahead of a UK tour this month where they will also be performing Giselle at the Royal Opera House. We spoke to one of the principal dancers, Yui Yonezawa

The three pieces of Ballet Coffret range from 1910’s Stravinsky-composed classic The Firebird by Michel Fokine through the mid-20th century Etudes by Harald Lander to William Forsythe’s The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude from 1996. Levene captured the training, preparations and performances of the National Ballet of Japan (NBJ) over three March days in Tokyo, as well as shadowing ballerina Yui Yonezawa and visiting the New National Theatre’s ballet school.

Principal dancer Yui Yonezawa prepares for Ballet Coffret in Tokyo, Japan

Published: July 15, 2025, 11:50 am

‘Don’t ever assume there’s anything to eat!’ 29 tips for perfect vegan holidays, from where to go to how to order

Nowhere should be out of bounds just because you have a plant-based diet. Seasoned travellers explain how to stay happy and hunger-free, whether you’re trekking in Thailand or on a mini-break in Berlin

This spring, I spent five weeks travelling around Mexico – my longest time away from home since becoming a vegan two and a half years ago. It was a learning experience: lots of incredible vegan food, gallons of fall-back guacamole and the odd cheese-related disaster. This is what I found out about being a vegan on holiday, and the advice I received from more seasoned vegan travellers.

Published: July 15, 2025, 9:00 am

The valleys of the Dolomites: exploring Italy’s new network of wild trails

The Via delle Valli is a series of 50 trails aiming to tempt mountain-lovers away from the region’s hotspots and towards lesser-charted country

Thick white cloud hangs outside the windows of Rifugio Segantini, a mountain hut 2,373 metres up in the Italian Alps. But it is shifting, revealing glimpses of the majestic Brenta Dolomites before us: a patch of snow here, a craggy peak there. The view is tantalising, and a couple of times I have run outside in a kind of peekaboo farce to see the full display, only for it to pass behind clouds again.

The refuge – cosy, wooden-clad and packed with hikers – is named after the Italian landscape painter Giovanni Segantini, who was inspired by these mountains. His portrait hangs on the walls and his name is embroidered on the lace curtains. A simple stone building with blue and white shutters in Val d’Amola, the refuge is dwarfed by its rugged surrounds, with Trentino’s highest peak, the snow-capped 3,556-metre Presanella, as a backdrop. The entries in the guestbook are entirely by locals.

Published: July 15, 2025, 6:00 am

Gaming in their golden years: why millions of seniors are playing video games

Adults over the age of 50 represent nearly a third of US gamers and are becoming more visible in the mainstream

Michelle Statham’s preferred game is Call of Duty. It’s fast and frenetic, involving military and espionage campaigns inspired by real history. She typically spends six hours a day livestreaming to Twitch, chatting to her more than 110,000 followers from her home in Washington state. She boasts about how she’ll beat opponents, and says “bless your heart” while hurtling over rooftops to avoid clusterstrikes of enemy fire. When she’s hit, she “respawns” – or comes back to life at a checkpoint – and jumps right back into the fray.

The military shooter game has a predominantly young male user base, but Statham’s Twitch handle is TacticalGramma – a nod to the 60-year-old’s two grandkids. Her lifelong gaming hobby has become an income stream (she prefers to keep her earnings private, but says she has raised “thousands” for charity), as well as a way to have fun, stay sharp and connect socially.

Published: July 14, 2025, 4:00 pm

Women in the US: if you’re single, tell us why

We’re keen to hear from women in the US why they are single, what they are looking for in a partner and whether they’ve given up dating

Based on Census Bureau historical data and Morgan Stanley forecasts, 45% of prime working age women (ages 25-44) will be single by 2030 – the largest share in history and up from 41% in 2018.

We’d like to hear from single women in the US why they are single, how they’re feeling about not having a partner and whether they are still looking for one.

Published: July 14, 2025, 11:23 am

Why homemade stir-fry sauces are always better than bought in ones | Kitchen aide

Don’t bother with bought-in bottles, which are often too sweet. It’s easy to make your own, say our cooks – just remember, it’s all about balance …

• Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Most stir-fry sauces are sweet, dense and cloying. Any lighter, fresher alternatives?
Louis, Falmouth
If Julie Lin, author of Sama Sama: Comfort Food from my Malaysian-Scottish Kitchen, were to hazard a guess, it would be that Louis is buying shop-bought sauces: “They’re always sweet and dense,” she says. “There’s a phrase we use in Malaysia, agak agak, which means to season until you know that it’s good for you.” And that’s only ever going to come from making it yourself, which for Lin often means her “master wok” sauce. To make a bottle, she combines 75g white sugar, three teaspoons of MSG, and 75ml rice-wine vinegar, and whisks until the sugar dissolves. Stir in 300ml light soy sauce and 100ml dark soy sauce, followed by 50ml sesame oil. Pour that into a sterilised jar or bottle, give it a shake and keep for a month at room temperature. That’s then ready to go, or customise it with, say, chilli or garlic, because one stir-fry sauce is not going to fit all. While the basic master wok number is a good shout for stir-frying noodles, rice or vegetables, however, “if you’re going for a lamb stir-fry, for example, you’ll probably want to add some cumin, garlic and maybe make it more vinegary.”

For Justin Tsang, author of Long Day? Cook This: Easy East Asian Recipes with a Twist, it’s all about balance: “The perfect stir-fry sauce has to be salty, sweet and umami, but it shouldn’t be one more than the other; it should work in harmony.” If your sauce is bordering on too sweet or dense, anything “a bit tart or fruity” will work wonders: “That could be some sort of acid, such as lime juice to finish, or vinegar, or a splash of sharp Worcestershire sauce,” says Tsang, who has also been known to add HP Sauce to the mix. Alternatively, get to know your onions: “Using the finest grater on a box grater, grate a white onion into an almost-pulp, then mix into your sauce, along with a splash of vinegar – that will cut through any sweetness and make it lighter.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Published: July 15, 2025, 12:00 pm

Filtered reality and the soul of Lebanon – readers’ best photographs

Click here to submit a picture for publication in these online galleries and/or on the Guardian letters page

Published: July 15, 2025, 3:00 pm

Houseplant clinic: how important is ‘plant hygiene’?

Just like humans, plants benefit from cleanliness: sterilise your tools and pots, wipe down leaves to remove dust, and check for pests or disease

What’s the problem?
I’ve heard “plant hygiene” mentioned, but I’ve no idea what it actually means.

Diagnosis
Good plant hygiene is the gardening equivalent of washing your hands – simple, essential, yet often overlooked. Neglecting plant hygiene can lead to the spread of pests, diseases and infections. Using dirty scissors, pots or tools can transfer fungi, bacteria or pests from one plant to another. Similarly, letting dust build up on leaves can restrict photosynthesis.

Published: July 15, 2025, 9:00 am

Terrible night’s sleep? Here’s how to make it through the day – and maybe even enjoy it – one step at a time

Coffee or no coffee? Almond croissant or exercise snack? Early night or bedtime as usual? You’ll be grateful you made the right choices

Ah, sleep – “nature’s soft nurse” to Shakespeare, “the foundation of our mental and physical health” to the less poetically minded neuroscientist and podcaster Andrew Huberman. By now, you hopefully know that getting a consistent seven to eight hours of shuteye is crucial for everything from your short-term decision-making to your long-term health, and you’re familiar with all the usual advice on getting it (have a consistent bedtime, make your bedroom really dark, no double espressos at 9pm). But one question that’s considered less is: what if you have one restless night? How do you best get through the day – and what can you do to avoid a single interrupted slumber snowballing into several? Let’s take it one hour at a time.

When you first drag yourself out of bed, it’s tempting to click the kettle straight on – but should you hold off your first hot drink of the day until you’re a bit less bleary-eyed? Increasingly, influencers advise delaying your first hit of tea or coffee for anywhere between 30 and 90 minutes after you wake up – the rationale being that caffeine mostly works by blocking the brain’s receptors for a molecule called adenosine, which ordinarily promotes relaxation by slowing down neural activity. Adenosine levels are at their lowest when you wake up, and so in theory, you might be “wasting” your first brew of the day by glugging it when there’s nothing for the caffeine to block. This seems plausible, but it’s also worth noting that caffeine’s effects take about 10 minutes to kick in, and it’s about 45 minutes before levels peak in the bloodstream. Caffeine’s also not just good for getting you going: if you’re planning a workout or a morning walk, it can help things along by producing feelgood endorphins and increasing the amount of fat you’re able to burn. Some people suggest that waiting a while before your first cup helps to avoid afternoon drowsiness, but according to an evaluation of the scientific literature published last year, “There is no evidence that caffeine ingestion upon waking is somehow responsible for an afternoon ‘crash’.”

Published: July 14, 2025, 4:00 am

The shining: my trip to the G7 horror show with Emmanuel Macron | Emmanuel Carrère

Deeply unpopular in France, President Macron relishes the international stage, where he projects himself as the leader best placed to handle Trump. Seven years after our last encounter, I joined him as he prepared for battle

Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is a small jumble of orange prefab buildings and low grey apartment blocks nestled on a stony outcrop on the edge of the ocean. There are no trees, but there’s a hill topped by the statue of Hans Egede, the Danish-Norwegian missionary who evangelised the world’s biggest island in the 18th century and which, as such, is threatened with removal by Inuit anti-colonialists. It was at his feet that I awaited the helicopters bringing back the Greenlandic prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron – referred to throughout this trip as “PR”, short for président de la république – from their excursion on the ice.

Published: July 15, 2025, 4:00 am

Trump promised to lower energy costs – his tax bill will raise them for people in red states the most

Household energy bills in some Republican-leaning states could rise by more than $600 every year, analysis of the so-called ‘big, beautiful bill’ finds

The cost of electricity is poised to surge across the US in the wake of Republican legislation that takes an axe to cheap renewable energy, with people in states who voted for Donald Trump last year to be hardest hit by the increase in bills.

As air conditioners crank up across the US during another sweltering summer amid an unfolding climate crisis, rising energy costs will become even more severe for households due to the reconciliation spending bill passed by Republicans in Congress and signed by Trump, who called it the “big, beautiful bill”, on 4 July.

Published: July 14, 2025, 2:00 pm

‘I couldn’t watch the forests vanish’: the man restoring Solomon Islands’ vital mangroves

Crucial for coastal communities, mangroves are threatened by land clearing, development and rising seas

As the morning light hits Oibola village in Solomon Islands, the receding tide drains water through a maze of tangled mangrove roots.

Dressed in muddy jeans and a worn T-shirt, Ben Waleilia moves carefully through the thick mangrove forest, searching for seedlings. Rows of young mangrove shoots stand high as Waleilia gently drops seedlings into a small plastic bucket.

Published: July 15, 2025, 1:13 am

Protests, fires and a child’s funeral: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: July 15, 2025, 12:50 pm