Côte d’Ivoire v Norway: World Cup 2026 last 32 – live

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

Pre-match postbag. “This one is an interesting game. Ivory Coast are a team who when I looked at squad before the tournament, I was surprised at the number of good players they have and they’ve done well so far beating Ecuador and almost holding Germany (although yesterday might be putting that result in perspective). Norway are favourites but I’ve got to think the resting of so many players against France and basically throwing that game has put them under enormous pressure today. Lose today and that decision will come under enormous scrutiny. I heard the great Phillipe Auclair on World Cup Daily mention a lot of Norwegian fans were not happy with that and something like that can puncture the feel-good mood around a team. Despite all that, I’m going for Norway to win 3-1 with Haaland getting at least two goals” – John

“Will be an engaging match and both teams are quite physical and pressing in their game. But can anyone stop Haaland when he is in his groove?” – krishnamoorthy v

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:30 am

I pushed myself too hard at the gym – and ended up in the hospital

Reckless exercise can lead to exertional rhabdomyolysis, a condition that has risen due to the popularity of high-intensity workouts

In January 2025, I attended my first bootcamp class.

I had spent the day hunched over my laptop, anxious and craving an intense workout that would dispel my worries. I booked the class at a nearby gym, and the five-star reviews promised the all-consuming exercise I wanted: “Militant style instructor, but very motivating,” read one. Another: “Hardest workout of my life; extremely rewarding.”

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:00 am

Doubt that Elon Musk ‘earned’ his trillion? Rightwing media says you’re in an ‘impotent envy cult’ | Arwa Mahdawi

The lovefest from Musk’s conservative fans completely overlooks the unscrupulous tactics behind his immense wealth

For 12 glorious days in June, Elon Musk experienced something nobody else in the history of humankind has ever experienced: trillionaire status.

Did all those zeros make Musk happy? Did the army of children he has sired love him more? Did he find inner peace? We’ll never know because Musk was dragged back to being a boring old billionaire last Wednesday, after shares in Tesla and SpaceX plunged amid a broader tech sell-off.

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:00 am

‘We thought we were safe here’: what New York queer community feels ahead of America’s 250th birthday

While events celebrating America take place ahead of Fourth of July, the LGBTQ+ community faced a more complicated reality during their own month of celebration

Most people know that the first Pride was a riot – a 1969 protest outside the New York City gay bar the Stonewall Inn – that changed the course of US history for queer and trans rights. But as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, queer and trans people are watching things go backwards into a more repressive era.

Attacks from federal and state governments marred a month of celebration, including in states with explicitly pro-LGBTQ+ elected officials and policies in place. And as other communities face attacks – whether through ICE’s deportation campaign or repression against protesters exercising the first amendment in speaking out against it – the American history LGBTQ+ people seem to be holding up most is one of protest and riot, a legacy that traces back to the country’s founding.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

‘There’s this deep mystery of what, actually, is this thing?’: the philosopher inside Google DeepMind AI

Since 2017, Iason Gabriel has worked at the tech giant, trying to anticipate – and think through – the impact of AI. But as commercial and geopolitical pressures escalate, can ethicists make any difference?

In 2017, a 33-year-old political philosopher named Iason Gabriel was told by a friend that he ought to apply for a job at DeepMind, the London-based subsidiary of Google where much of its AI research was concentrated. The suggestion was not an obvious one.

Gabriel was a cheerful but intense junior academic with a passion for Vipassana meditation and what his brother calls “enthusiastic” rock climbing. The eldest son of a Greek management professor and a British documentary maker, Gabriel split his time between teaching and international development work. At the University of Oxford, where he was a fellow at St John’s College, Gabriel taught courses on political theory and wrote papers on the moral contortions of “yuppie ethics” and the ethical blind spots of effective altruism. When he wasn’t there, he did crisis work for the United Nations Development Programme in Sudan and Lebanon.

Published: June 29, 2026, 9:00 pm

‘I was devastated’: the Nigerian with albinism deported under Trump’s asylum crackdown

Ladidi Shaibu’s two siblings both gained asylum before the Trump administration’s changes to immigration policy. But instead of being allowed to join them, she is being deported to Uganda

Growing up and living with albinism in rural Nigeria was tough for Ladidi Shaibu. She and her two siblings with the condition were shrouded in stigma and lived in constant fear of being mutilated or killed. Her sister was attacked twice and her brother was kidnapped as a child by people who wanted to sell his body parts.

Three years ago, Shaibu, 35, entered the US via the border with Mexico and registered as an asylum seeker. Her brother had already been granted asylum and her sister’s case was soon to be successful, too.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

US supreme court upholds birthright citizenship in blow to Trump agenda

Court rules against Trump administration on policy that people born in the United States are citizens

• Supreme court decisions – live updates

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The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda.

The president had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to deny automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:23 am

Alleged Epstein victim and Trump accuser living in fear of retaliation, relative says

Trump administration faces an escalating controversy over handling of ‘Jane Doe 4’ documents in Epstein files. White House has called her allegations ‘completely baseless’

A woman known as Jane Doe 4 in the Jeffrey Epstein files is “staying off the grid” and lives in fear of retaliation from the Trump administration amid an escalating controversy over its handling of her case, according to a family member.

“Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys,” said the relative, who described the woman’s life as layers of abuse dating back to early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”

Published: June 30, 2026, 2:00 am

ICE releases Texas nun intercepted walking to church dressed in her habit

Diocese officials in south Texas say a nun was released after members of Congress intervened

A Roman Catholic nun was released from the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after the agency arrested her while she walked to mass in her habit in south Texas.

Sister Leticia Ugboaja was walking to Our Lady of Sorrows church in McAllen, Texas, just a few miles from the US-Mexico border, when she was detained by ICE officers, the church said in a statement on social media.

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:10 am

David Lammy to ask US about case of woman strangled by American pilot in UK

Parliament comments follow investigation revealing how man was tried at court martial on US airbase

• A US military worker killed my son in Britain, and still we fight for justice. I’m angry others are waiting too

David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, is raising with the US government the “extremely concerning” case of an American fighter pilot who avoided a trial under English law for strangling a woman at his home in Cambridge.

Lammy, who is also the justice secretary, told parliament that he wanted the US government to give a full account of the case of Sarah Steele, an academic who was assaulted by the pilot.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:00 am

World Cup matches played in potentially dangerous heat as players’ union makes climate warning

Nine of the group stage games played in severe heat, analysis finds, as union points to lessons for the whole sport

Nine matches in the World Cup group stage were played amid potentially dangerous heat and humidity, a Guardian analysis shows, as the global players’ union Fifpro warned that heat would have to “play a bigger part” in the sport’s future scheduling decisions.

The findings come as probably record-breaking heat and humidity will hit the midwest and eastern US this week and could make conditions even more challenging for players and fans at some games.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:00 am

Republican returns to US House after months of absence over ‘depression’

New Jersey’s Tom Kean Jr, who last voted in March, says he was diagnosed with depression after entering hospital

Tom Kean Jr, a Republican congressman who disappeared from the Capitol for nearly four months with little explanation, re-emerged on Tuesday and said that he was absent while dealing with depression.

“Several months ago, due to health concerns, I entered the hospital for some testing. I did not believe that this would result in a long-term stay. I was given the diagnosis of depression,” Kean said in a speech on the floor of the House Tuesday morning.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Jetway jackpot: man wins $3.3m on slot machine at Las Vegas airport

‘That’s one way to spend a layover,’ says gambling company after lucky traveler wins big on $10 stake

Generally people want whatever happens in Vegas to stay there – but this might be an exception!

A lucky traveler transiting through Las Vegas’s Harry Reid international airport on Sunday won more than $3.3m from a slot machine there, prompting facility officials to write on X on Tuesday: “Now that’s one way to spend a layover.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:58 am

Wimbledon 2026: Serena Williams returns against Maya Joint; Swiatek and Zverev battle through – live

Updates from day two | Serena on her SW19 return
Swan glides through but Boulter beaten | Email Daniel

Next no No 3: Alex de Minaur (5) v Roman Andres Burruchaga.

Next on No 2: Otto Virtanen v Ben Shelton (4).

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:28 am

NPR retracts ‘inaccurate’ story saying supreme court justice Samuel Alito retiring

Story from Nina Totenberg removed and replaced with editor’s note as organization regrets ‘misunderstanding’

The US public broadcasting organization National Public Radio (NPR) on Tuesday took the unusual step of formally retracting a major news story, after it published what seemed like a bombshell scoop that supreme court justice Samuel Alito was retiring.

The story was written by Nina Totenberg, one of the most prominent chroniclers of the supreme court in American media.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:41 am

Trump administration puts religious freedom at heart of US health policy

Critics say the new focus could reshape LGBTQ+ healthcare, abortion access and vaccine policy

The Trump administration is moving religious freedom to the forefront of its health policies, a move that will likely affect reproductive health, LGBTQ+ healthcare, and vaccine policy.

“They are very much putting religious freedom front and center,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco. But “it tends to privilege a conservative form of Christianity and, for example, protect discrimination against LGBTQ people.”

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:01 am

US-Iran talks over $6bn Iranian assets to restart

Two sides yet to have face-to-face meeting since signing deal to reopen strait of Hormuz

Talks at an indirect level between US and Iranian officials over unfreezing at least $6bn Iranian assets will recommence on Wednesday in Doha, Iran has said. The two sides are yet to have their first face-to-face meeting since signing a deal to extend the ceasefire and reopen the strait of Hormuz.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Qatar on Tuesday for talks covering regional issues including the Iran ceasefire and Lebanon, but Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed Al-Ansari, stressed these were with Qatari mediators. “They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians,” he said.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:12 am

US treasury secretary warns oil and gas companies to lower prices: ‘we’re watching’

Scott Bessent says he ‘encourages them to be good actors’ after Trump ranted about prices not dropping fast enough

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, issued a veiled warning to oil and gas companies to lower their prices on Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump berated those retailers on social media for not dropping their prices fast enough and demanded they target $2.50 a gallon.

“I would encourage them to be good actors, especially in the 250th anniversary, because we’re watching,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday morning, addressing big oil, independent and international retailers.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:25 am

A US champion of ‘freebirthing’ always claimed there had been no maternal deaths linked to the movement. Is Stacey Warnecke the first?

Guardian investigation exposes full links between a US business linked to baby deaths around the world and Australian ‘birth keeper’ Emily Lal, the central witness at the inquest into the death of a Melbourne wellness influencer

• How a Melbourne woman’s death is shining light on the dangers of non-medical births – Full Story podcast

• Find more from The birth keepers series here

During her time at the helm of a multimillion-dollar organisation linked to baby deaths around the world, Emilee Saldaya has always avowed one thing: she’s never heard of a woman dying after a freebirth.

“I’ve never heard of a mother dying in childbirth in the sovereign birth world,” the Free Birth Society founder said in a December 2024 appearance on The Way Forward podcast, adding: “In the sovereign birth world we aren’t losing mothers.”

Published: June 29, 2026, 6:00 pm

What to know about the US supreme court ruling on birthright citizenship

What will Trump do now after justices’ stunning rebuke?

In a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump’s aggressive anti-immigrant agenda, the US supreme court ruled against the president’s highly contentious attempt to end the right to US citizenship for children born in the United States.

The justices ruled that the Trump administration violated a provision of the 14th amendment, which was affirmed by the supreme court 128 years ago.

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:17 am

‘Tonnes of rubble’: 58,000 buildings estimated destroyed in Venezuela earthquakes

Preliminary analysis of satellite data suggests magnitude of natural disaster could dwarf official estimates

More than 58,000 buildings may have been damaged and destroyed by the twin earthquakes that hit Venezuela last week, according to a preliminary analysis of satellite data that suggests the scale of the destruction could dwarf official estimates.

Last Wednesday’s back-to-back quakes – which measured magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 – killed at least 1,943 people, injured more than 10,571, and left tens of thousands missing amid the rubble. The UN migration agency has said that up to 6.8 million people could be affected by the disasters, and would require shelter, water, sanitation, healthcare and essential relief items.

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:26 am

‘But we’re just 1% of emissions’: do smaller countries’ climate efforts matter?

Past and present leaders of wealthy nations such as UK and Germany have argued their actions are insignificant

On first hearing, it is a position that sounds reasonable. “When our share of global emissions is less than 1%,” Rishi Sunak argued when he was the UK prime minister in 2023, “how can it be right that British citizens are now being told to sacrifice even more than others?”

Sunak is not the only world leader to have cited such figures while delaying cuts to pollution. In 2019, Scott Morrison, Australia’s then prime minister, used his country’s 1.3% of global emissions to reject any suggestion Australia was not “doing our bit” on climate breakdown. In July, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, pointed to his country’s 2% share of global emissions while supporting loopholes in European climate targets. A few months later the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, followed suit, flagging the EU’s 6% share.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:53 am

San Francisco archdiocese to pay $395m to settle over 500 child sexual abuse claims

Settlement requires archbishop to write apology letter to each survivor and implement child protection reforms

The San Francisco Catholic archdiocese has agreed to pay $395m to settle more than 500 lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by church officials, plaintiffs’ attorneys said on Monday.

Salvatore Cordileone, the San Francisco archbishop, will have to write an apology letter to each survivor as part of the settlement.

Published: June 29, 2026, 3:30 pm

Trump administration targets California coastal agency in escalation of energy production fight

US commerce department accuses state of ‘environmental terrorism’ and plans to evaluate its coastal agency

The Trump administration plans to evaluate the performance of the California Coastal Commission, in the latest escalation of a dispute between the state’s Democratic leaders and the federal government over energy production.

Per federal law, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) is required to conduct reviews of federally approved coastal management programs, which take into consideration “the extent to which the State of California has implemented and enforced the program approved by the [commerce] Secretary”.

Published: June 29, 2026, 5:00 am

One person killed and one injured in shooting at California World Cup ‘fan zone’

San Jose police say Sunday incident in area that has been hosting watch parties ‘is being investigated as a homicide’

One person was killed and another seriously injured on Sunday night ⁠in a shooting at a popular entertainment spot in San Jose, California, that has been hosting a World ⁠Cup “fan zone” as well as screening ⁠matches, police ​said.

There were no World Cup games being screened at the time of the shooting, with the only match ⁠of the day in the tournament finishing at about 2pm local time.

Published: June 29, 2026, 5:11 am

‘I’m not a quitter!’ Rubén Blades, the salsa supremo who acted with Jack Nicholson, inspired Bad Bunny – and served as Panama’s tourism minister

As he prepares to play the UK, the 25-Grammy-winning musician (and Harvard law graduate) looks back on his astonishing journey from the barrios of Panama City to global stardom

“Well, I’ve been around,” says Rubén Blades, accurately. One of the most influential Latin musicians of the past half-century, the Panamanian singer-songwriter, 77, has been a defining force in salsa, collecting 25 Grammy awards – 13 Latin, 12 mainstream – and getting shout-outs from a new generation including Rosalía and Bad Bunny.

Blades has moved between music, law, politics and film as if they were all part of the same conversation. He has a Harvard law degree, made a presidential bid in Panama – he was also the country’s minister of tourism from 2004 to 2009 – and has had film roles alongside Jack Nicholson, Brad Pitt and Denzel Washington, all of which he sorted out on his own. “A manager would go crazy,” he laughs, his grey eyes crinkling on a video call from his home in New York City, ahead of a gig he’s playing in London.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:07 am

Who did it best? USA 1994 versus World Cup 2026 – then and now

From the hairstyles to the stadiums, the kits to the celebrations, we take a look at the changing face of the game.

Tap on the images below to fade between the visuals

It’s 32 years since Diego Maradona went berserk down the barrel of a TV camera after scoring for Argentina; since Bebeto rocked an imaginary baby to sleep; since Roberto Baggio blazed his spot-kick into orbit (the tournament’s second worst penalty after Diana Ross’s blooper during the opening ceremony); since Carlos Valderrama wowed the world with his luscious blonde mop.

The visuals from the World Cup in 1994 were rich and cinematic, but does the beautiful game look that different on its return to the United States? Has football lost its style and soul? Or will this year’s tournament live just as long in the memory as its predecessor?

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:00 am

It’s a love story – or is it? The surprising conflict and chaos in Taylor Swift’s songs about commitment

A pop superstar widely perceived as a romantic has in fact mostly written love songs troubled by strife, ghosts and delusion. Ahead of her wedding, we strip away the gossip to see what Swift-as-songwriter has spent 20 years telling us

When she was 19 and already had her second album under her belt, Taylor Swift made a point of telling a would-be beau he was all wrong for her: “I’m not your princess, this ain’t our fairytale … It’s too late for you and your white horse to catch me now,” she sang in her 2008 song White Horse. Then as now, Swift liked a happy ending: she had no qualms rewriting Romeo and Juliet to end with marriage in Love Story, or imagining stealing a boy from his no-good girlfriend in You Belong With Me, both from the same album as White Horse. She just didn’t want a guy to come and rescue her from the messiness of life, like a prince in an early Disney movie whose appearance signals marriage, a happily-ever-after and, effectively, the end of a young girl’s life.

This story has always been an easy one to reject; even Disney was poking fun at it as early as Sleeping Beauty. And like many women of her generation, Swift has had a complicated relationship with all that marriage implies, at least in how she’s written about it. When she met Travis Kelce, the man she is now set to marry, she was fresh from her 2022 album Midnights, in which she made it repeatedly clear she can and will ditch any man, even a perfectly nice one, who stands between her and her ambition. “He wanted a bride / I was making my own name,” she sang on Midnight Rain. In Bejeweled, the tone toward a neglectful “baby boy” is even sassier: “I miss you … but I miss sparkling.” No man is going to end the Taylor Swift story, because there are only two forces that can end the unfolding of that story. One is God; the other is Taylor Swift.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:03 am

Seven ways to get the most out of a window air conditioner during extreme heat in the US

These affordable units can provide cool relief, but need maintenance and care

As the Fourth of July holiday weekend approaches, Americans are also preparing for a weeklong heatwave. The National Weather Service recommends wearing light clothing, staying hydrated, and ensuring access to air-conditioning or other cooling areas. If you live in an older home or apartment, you’re less likely to have central air and may have a window air conditioning unit instead, says Darcy Carbone, vice-president of sales at APA HVAC Technologies and a member of the residential buildings committee at the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers. These units cool, circulate, filter and dehumidify air.

Here’s what you need to know to use your window AC efficiently and safely.

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:09 am

Muskets in hand, re-enactors ready to refight revolutionary war 250 years on

‘Living historians’ have stepped back into the spotlight as US prepares to celebrate its semiquincentennial this week

In 1972, a young man named Joe Ryan was teaching his middle school class in northern Westchester about the American revolutionary war when one of his students posed a question.

“Mr Ryan, were our ancestors stupid?” he asked.

Published: June 30, 2026, 5:00 am

Citizen Vigilante review – Armie Hammer returns to obliterate the imaginary woke piñata of Europe-stan

Low-budget film-maker Uwe Boll sets Hammer up for a further fall from grace by cannibalising all manner of tired tropes in this incoherent schlocker

Oh, Armie Hammer! Has it come to this? It doesn’t seem that long since you were in the Oscar-winning film Call Me By Your Name giving a sensitive liberal performance opposite Timothée Chalamet. Now here you are, striding around the streets and public parks of Zagreb, shooting Muslims, tasering teens and topping complicit deep-state judges to protest against what your character robustly describes as an “unfriendly takeover by Islamist extremists and the blind-sided woke left”.

Much has happened to this once garlanded actor and great-grandson of oil tycoon Armand Hammer. His reputation plummeted after allegations of sexual assault by former partners in 2021, relationships that Hammer has maintained were consensual. Criminal charges were since dropped for lack of evidence, Hammer has now returned to the silver screen – and here he is in a very cheap, incoherent and embarrassingly badly acted schlocker, written, produced and directed by Germany’s low-budget exploitation maestro Uwe Boll, which cannibalises all manner of revenge tropes. More importantly, the film has been promoted and publicised globally online with monumental hypocrisy by Elon Musk who like JD Vance is very keen to divert America’s attention from its own issues to the fiercely imagined lawless migrant-caliphate of Europe-stan. It’s another piece of shit to flood the zone.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:00 am

Is heterosexuality hopeless? | Arwa Mahdawi

Some argue that it is now embarrassing, particularly for women. But the fatalism of Extremely Online discourse obscures the actual picture

As we wrap up pride month, I think the International Committee for Homosexual Advancement should give itself a pat on the back. Despite a challenging geopolitical environment, the gay agenda continues apace. Judging by recent headlines, heterosexuality has become somewhat embarrassing, particularly for women – a congenital condition you don’t really want to admit to in public and wish there was a cure for. But while there is no remedy for this modern malaise, there is a snazzy name for it: “heteropessimism”.

Asa Seresin is the scholar responsible for foisting this term (later amended to “heterofatalism”) on to the world. In a viral essay for the New Inquiry in 2019, Seresin explained it consists of “performative disaffiliations with heterosexuality … or hopelessness about straight experience”. That essay spawned a heteroload of thinkpieces and memes, a classic of the genre being a Vogue piece that asked: Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?. Even Zohran Mamdani weighed in on this very important question. For the record, he said no: “But if you’re worried that your boyfriend will embarrass you, you should probably get a new boyfriend.”

Published: June 30, 2026, 5:40 am

From developing photos in a toilet to a viral Messi shot: 40 years shooting the World Cup – video

From taking the photo that became the most-liked post on Instagram as of recording, to developing film in the stadium toilets, legendary World Cup photographer Shaun Botterill speaks with Guardian Australia's picture editor, Carly Earl, about how capturing the World Cup has changed throughout his 40-year career

Published: June 30, 2026, 12:27 am

‘No one congratulated us’: Inside Mauricio Pochettino’s strange clash with the US press pack

The US manager has enjoyed a solid rapport with the media, but a key difference in custom has rankled the Argentinian

• USA say they’re ready for surprises in Round of 32

Mauricio Pochettino’s most recent press conference should have been a routine affair. The US had lost 3-2 to Turkey, yes, but they’d played well enough in the second-half aside from conceding the last-minute winner. What’s more, the match was statistically meaningless, with the US having secured top spot in Group D days earlier. It was their best ever World Cup group-stage showing

Instead, the team’s head coach went out of his way to chide those in attendance.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:21 am

Celebrations and bottle-throwing on Dutch streets after dramatic Morocco win

The police were pelted with bottles in The Hague but there were hugs between sets of fans in Amsterdam after a tense last-32 tie

In the Netherlands the country’s World Cup last-32 tie against Morocco was always going to be about more than football. When the Atlas Lions dumped Ronald Koeman’s team out of the tournament in a penalty shootout after an epic contest, joyous 6am celebrations were sparked among the Moroccan community in Amsterdam. In The Hague, on the other hand, the atmosphere turned grim.

Approximately 440,000 people of Moroccan descent live in the Netherlands, and approximately 440,000 of them were asked the same question before this game: “So who will you support, then?” It was mostly good-natured, and the former manager Ron Jans displayed genuine interest when putting the dilemma to his fellow pundit Ibrahim Afellay on Dutch national television. Afellay, capped 53 times for the Netherlands, expressed and explained his support for Morocco. In the real world, the most common reaction has been one of understanding, if not sympathy, regardless of which side someone picked.

Published: June 30, 2026, 2:59 am

Every World Cup needs a cult hero: 2026 has given us touchline dreamboat Sebastián Beccacece

The Ecuador manager is a beautifully manicured buzz of energy with Bolivarian liberation in his heart. The tournament is all the better for him

An underrated pleasure for spectators at every World Cup is observing the managers. If club football, an increasingly regimented domain of set pieces and systems, is all about structure, international soccer is much more a matter of style – and at this tournament, the theatrics of the sport’s touchline strutters have been rich with emotion and figurative power.

Didier Deschamps patrols his technical area with the watchful pride of an outer-arrondissement charcutier. Luis de la Fuente is a veteran wealth manager at Banco Santander. Japan’s Hajime Moriyasu is about to go postal at his dreary office job in a Kiyoshi Kurosawa film. Socceroos coach Tony Popovic looks like he’s on his way to MC a wedding at Sydney’s King Tomislav Croatian Club. And Carlo Ancelotti is … well, he’s just Carlo Ancelotti, a man with Champions League-winning eyebrows whose fierce allegiance to his three-piece suit, even through the worst of a North American summer, suggests he’s somehow in command of his own climate.

Published: June 30, 2026, 12:00 am

Meet Wisconsin-born Esmir Bajraktarević, the man who could bring down the US

The former New England Revolution midfielder came up through the US system, but felt a pull toward his parents’ homeland

Esmir Bajraktarević’s uture offered two options with little overlap.

Born and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin, a Midwestern river town where Harry Houdini also came of age, Bajraktarević’s development took him from the nearby Chicago Fire’s academy to the New England Revolution. He began representing the United States at youth levels, first the U-19s and then the U-23s. He was included in Gregg Berhalter’s squad camp in January 2024, making his senior debut against Slovenia. He was involved at Olympic level too, helping the US qualify for Paris 2024.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

Mexico face up to their most terrifying opponent: the ghost of World Cup game four

El Tri have made a habit of qualifying from the group stage and then falling at the first hurdle. They are hoping the memory of 1986 will help end the curse

In Mexico, the phrase ya merito (“almost there”) is closely linked to the country’s men’s football team.

In Mexican Spanish, it’s a colloquial, almost affectionate expression; a way of describing something that’s close enough to touch, but that can never quite be reached. Now the phrase seems to capture something more profound about Mexico’s national team – shorthand for El Tri’s habit of not exactly failing, but always just falling short.

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:00 am

David Squires on … World Cup penalty pain for Germany and the Netherlands

Our cartoonist on the latest knockout drama as Jonathan Tah does a Chris Waddle and Casemiro has a brat summer

• Buy David’s cartoons | Some of his favourite works

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

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:30 am

LeBron James reportedly leaving Lakers, opening door for union with Curry at Warriors

• 41-year-old won title with Lakers in 2020

• Reports have linked James with move to Warriors

LeBron James looks set to leave the Los Angeles Lakers, with ESPN reporting he has told the team he will leave the team and continue his NBA career elsewhere.

James, who will turn 42 during the 2026-27 season, won an NBA championship with the Lakers in 2020, two years after he joined. His longtime representative, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul, said that he is not retiring.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:31 am

Gravity is undefeated: Ja Morant’s spectacular fall back to Earth is complete

The guard was once touted as the future face of the NBA. Now, after off-court problems and injuries, he has been hustled out of the city that made him a star

When Ja Morant jumps into the air, he levitates past the natural apex of his arc, as if gravity decided to give him an extra half-second of respite. Men a foot taller or with 50 lbs more muscle don’t have as much spring as is packed in his 6ft 2in frame. He can end up almost fully horizontal when he dunks. He is hardly a one-dimensional player though: he sees the game in higher definition than his peers too, zipping passes to teammates a beat before his opponents process the situation. Morant is rarely the best player on the floor at a given moment, but he often seems to be having the most fun. His highlights invite smiles. What could be cooler than a little guy outperforming giants with craft? Imagine if, in the NBA finals, Jalen Brunson had dunked over Victor Wembanyama. Morant knows what that would feel like, because he’s done it.

The Memphis Grizzlies drafted Morant second overall in 2019. They watched him blossom into 2020 Rookie of the Year and a two-time All-Star as the franchise player on a semi-reliable playoff team. In 2022, he scored 47 points in a playoff win against the Golden State Warriors, the eventual champions that year. As a young star with such a particular style, Morant figured to reach even greater heights, on the Grizzlies and as one of the faces of the league.

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:38 am

Tottenham win race to sign West Ham’s Mateus Fernandes for club record £85m

• Spurs beat Manchester United to signing of midfielder

• Fernandes due to have medical before completing deal

Tottenham are poised to break their transfer record after beating Manchester United to the signing of Mateus Fernandes for £85m.

The Portuguese midfielder is heading for a new challenge after West Ham’s relegation from the Premier League and will strengthen Roberto De Zerbi’s options in central midfield. De Zerbi, who helped Tottenham to narrowly avoid relegation last season, has been handed significant funds this summer and also hopes to sign the Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:51 am

‘I’m going to miss this place’: Aqueduct bids farewell after 132 years as New York City’s racetrack

The last thoroughbred racetrack in New York City went dark after its final races on Sunday, closing the book on 132 years of history and one of the city’s last great communal spaces

For the better part of a century, the subway ride to Aqueduct Racetrack followed a familiar rhythm. The closer the train drew to Ozone Park, the more animated the conversations became. Men with folded racing forms debated trip notes, overlays and bombs. Regulars swapped tips while newcomers eavesdropped, hoping to catch a profitable whisper. By the time the doors opened at the Aqueduct-North Conduit Avenue stop, thousands of New Yorkers had arrived at what many considered the city’s most democratic sporting venue.

That ritual took place for the last time on Sunday. After 132 years, Aqueduct hosted its final day of thoroughbred racing before closing for good, marking the end of the last racetrack within New York City limits and a fixture of city life that had endured since the Gilded Age.

Pictured above: A towering 60ft-by-80ft mural depicting Secretariat, painted by renowned Los Angeles street artist David Flores, has welcomed visitors to Aqueduct for years. Pictured below: Scenes from around Aqueduct on Sunday’s closing day. All photographs by Lauren Caulk.

Published: June 30, 2026, 1:30 am

US supreme court rules states can exclude trans athletes from female sports

Justices voted to overturn judgments issued by lower courts in favor of trans students who sued after being barred from competing in West Virginia and Idaho

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The US supreme court has upheld laws in two conservative states excluding transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in a far-reaching ruling likely to pave the way for similar bans throughout the US and handing Donald Trump a key “culture war” victory.

The court voted to overturn previous judgements issued by lower courts in favor of two trans students who had sued after being barred from competing in West Virginia and Idaho respectively.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:46 am

Novak Djokovic battles through while next generation shine in Wimbledon first round

• 39-year-old Djokovic survives challenge from Wu

• Teenagers Fonseca and Jódar both win in straight sets

In his 21st Wimbledon and 116th match at the All England Club, the 39-year-old Novak Djokovic fought like a lion as he kicked off his quest for a men’s record-equalling eighth title with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 win against China’s Wu Yibing.

The scoreline tells only half the story. Djokovic looked comfortable in the first set but Wu, a huge talent whose career has been badly affected by injury, began to cut loose, slapping winners from the baseline, especially on his forehand. The third set was crucial as Djokovic snatched the vital break and then won a long deuce game to seal it. In the fourth, he withstood huge pressure from Wu before breaking in the ninth game and serving out to love to maintain his record of having never lost in the first round at Wimbledon.

Published: June 29, 2026, 3:53 pm

A generational shift is transforming the US-Israel relationship | Kenneth Roth

The Iran war has accelerated the fraying of ties. An end to unconditional US support would force a reckoning with reality

A generational shift is under way in the relationship between the United States and Israel. Tensions were already palpable because of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Benjamin Netanyahu’s role in pushing Donald Trump to join a counterproductive war against Iran was the last straw.

Stopping unconditional US support for Israel would certainly be important for curbing US complicity in Israeli war crimes. It may also be the best thing for Israel if it is to have any hope of avoiding the dangerous dead end of relentless military escalation. And it is a prerequisite for Palestinians to have any prospect of escaping Israel’s endless occupation.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

Published: June 30, 2026, 5:00 am

A US military worker killed my son in Britain, and still we fight for justice. I’m angry that others are waiting too | Charlotte Charles

As Harry Dunn’s mother, I’ve demanded accountability. The Guardian’s discovery of other victims of US personnel shows how urgent that is

• David Lammy to ask US about case of woman strangled by US fighter in UK

When I read about the case of Sarah Steele, the woman strangled by an American pilot, I felt a familiar sickness in my stomach. It took me straight back to the day I lost my son Harry and to the months and years that followed, when the US authorities did everything they could to deny us justice. It is almost unbearable to think that another British family has now been put through the same ordeal. I thought those days were behind us following our high-profile case, and that the US military and British police had learned their lesson. Clearly not.

What happened to Sarah, as revealed by a Guardian investigation, should shame every institution that allowed her case to slip quietly into the shadows. A woman abused on British soil by an American officer. The man responsible was a guest in our country. Yet instead of a clear and confident assertion of British jurisdiction by Cambridgeshire police, the case was allowed to drift into the US system, where a male military jury acquitted him of the more serious charge. I do not know whether the outcome would have been different under our system. That is not the point. The point is that Sarah was entitled to the protection of the law of the country in which she lived.

Charlotte Charles MBE is the mother of Harry Dunn

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 30, 2026, 10:00 am

The supreme court has again undermined the power of Congress | Moira Donegan

The Trump v Slaughter decision allows the president further influence over agencies Congress itself created

What is Congress for? According to the supreme court, not very much. On Monday, the supreme court overturned Humphrey’s Executor, a 91-year-old precedent, nullified the Federal Trade Commission Act, a 112-year-old law, and presumed to settle a 250-year-old debate on the scope of presidential authority when it reapportioned power away from the people’s representatives in the House and Senate and gave it instead to Donald Trump. In Trump v Slaughter, the court ruled that the heads of independent agencies that Congress created cannot be protected from arbitrary firings by laws that Congress passed. Instead, Donald Trump is now free to fire agency heads at will and to replace them with political loyalists, regardless of what Congress has said about it.

The ruling has one key exception: Donald Trump does not, according to the justices, have the ability to fire members of the board of governors of the Federal Reserve without cause and without proper procedure. A separate decision found for Lisa Cook, the Joe Biden appointee who was the first Black woman to serve on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, and who was fired via social media post by Donald Trump last year. In addition to Cook’s job, the decision protects the independence of the Federal Reserve and the health of financial markets, to say nothing of the considerable personal wealth of the justices themselves.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Published: June 30, 2026, 2:00 am

Why is Elon Musk boosting an anti-immigrant film loved by the far right? | Mehdi Hasan

Does anyone seriously think this kind of amplification is harmless?

Elon Musk has long described himself as a “centrist”. He likes to pretend that he hasn’t changed his views; it’s the Democrats who have lurched to the left. He’s merely a free speech advocate; a self-styled “moderate” resisting the excesses of the “woke mind virus”.

But when you pay attention to his actual digital footprint – the tweets, the retweets, the algorithmic amplification – a very different, much darker picture emerges. The world’s richest person clearly isn’t interested in cultivating a neutral marketplace of ideas; rather, he has turned Twitter/X into a platform where far-right and racist content is repeatedly rewarded and amplified.

Published: June 30, 2026, 7:00 am

Progressives are winning in American cities. Can they win rural voters too? | Bhaskar Sunkara

Democratic socialists need to do more than win in the big American cities. And they can, with the right message

I joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in April 2007 at the age of 17. DSA back then was a small group with an ageing membership and an almost negative amount of buzz. If you’d told me its candidates would someday sweep primaries across New York City, I would have been surprised to say the least.

Last week, they did. Darializa Avila Chevalier, an organizer in her early 30s, beat the five-term incumbent Adriano Espaillat in an uptown-and-Bronx seat. Claire Valdez, another socialist, took the open seat Nydia Velázquez is leaving in Brooklyn and Queens. Add the state races, and DSA will seat at least 15 of its endorsed candidates in Albany next year. The movement that made Zohran Mamdani mayor is starting to look less like a pressure campaign and more like a bloc that can govern.

Bhaskar Sunkara is a Guardian US columnist. He is the president of the Nation, the founding editor of Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

The Guardian view on Colombia’s election: Trumpism has gone transnational | Editorial

A warning from Latin America about US money, platforms, data and paranoid politics should not be dismissed lightly

When Colombia’s leftwing presidential candidate, Iván Cepeda, conceded defeat last week, he did so with notable grace. His ally, the outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, was much less composed. In a series of social media posts, Mr Petro argued that Donald Trump had interfered in the contest that brought the far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella to power. The claim should not be taken as proof of a stolen election. But nor should it be dismissed as paranoia.

Mr Trump did publicly endorse Mr de la Espriella. His razor-thin win was in contrast to the scale of his alarmingly rightwing programme. He promises mega-prisons, a war on rebels, a shrunken state, renewed oil exploration, fracking and corporate tax cuts. This won’t be easy. Mr Petro’s Pacto Histórico is the largest party in the country’s congress. Unsurprisingly, Mr de la Espriella wants to govern through executive decree coupled with militarised state power. He aims to “disembowel” the left.

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 30, 2026, 10:50 am

‘They will attack me if I stay’: immigrants in South Africa flee for safety amid violence and anti-foreigner protests

More than 2,000 anti-foreigner protesters march through Durban city centre as the arbitrary deadline passes for undocumented migrants to leave the country

South Africa was holding its breath on Tuesday as mass anti-immigration protests were held across the country. They come after a weeks-long campaign against foreigners that has seen at least four killed and tens of thousands fleeing for safety.

In the coastal city of Durban, where violence had been expected, the streets were unusually quiet and shops were shuttered as tension hung thick in the air.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:43 am

Blake Lively files to receive $8m in legal fees from Justin Baldoni and his studio

Attorneys slam ‘scorched-earth tactics’ from Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios over $400m countersuit against the actor

Blake Lively has filed for $8m in fees and costs that she says resulted from her battle against Justin Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios.

That figure is to cover the legal costs that Lively incurred from January to June 2025 in her fight against her director and co-star in the 2024 film It Ends With Us, as well as a petition for damages that was still pending when Lively v Baldoni was settled in May 2026.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:48 am

Pope Leo pleads with ultra-conservative sect not to ordain own bishops

Pontiff warns that defiance by Society of Saint Pius X would be ‘schismatic act’

Pope Leo has made a last-ditch attempt to persuade a rebel group of ultra-conservative Catholics to abandon plans to ordain its own bishops without Vatican approval, calling the “schismatic act” a “sin of extreme gravity”.

The Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), founded in the Swiss village of Ecône in 1970 to oppose liberalising reforms in the Catholic church, plans to ordain four new bishops at its seminary there on Wednesday.

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:13 am

Florida woman swimming in river killed in rare alligator attack at state forest

Officials say 31-year-old woman’s arm was severed in attack at a river in Seminole county’s Little Big Econ forest

A woman swimming in a Florida river was killed recently in a rare alligator attack that severed one of her arms, state officials said.

The deadly attack took place at Seminole county’s Little Big Econ state forest, about 25 miles north-east of Orlando, on Sunday as the 31-year-old victim was in the Econlockhatchee River.

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:19 am

Number of billionaires globally soars by 13% amid AI shares boom

Billionaires’ wealth grew by 25% on average in the year ended in April, research from Swiss bank UBS finds

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The number of billionaires in the world has jumped by 13% to a record 3,302 people, new figures show, as the super-rich accumulate wealth at an accelerating rate.

Billionaires’ wealth grew by 25% on average in the year ended in April, compared with a 10.8% rise in average personal wealth around the world, the Swiss bank UBS found.

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:37 am

Six feared dead after ‘bizarre’ sinking of charter boat off Canadian coast

The vessel, thought to have been carrying 10 people, did not issue a mayday call before sinking in the strait of Georgia

Search teams in Canada have launched a recovery effort for six people believed to have drowned in a “bizarre” sinking of a fishing charter off the coast of Vancouver.

Police and rescue crews praised a couple who were passing in their yacht for making a critical mayday call and saving stranded passengers by pulling them onboard their craft.

Published: June 30, 2026, 10:02 am

Manhunt under way after Ukrainian-born tycoon injured by Monaco bomb

Normally safe principality left reeling from apartment blast that also injured Vadym Iermolaiev’s wife and child

• ‘He isn’t political’: the Ukrainian-born oligarch targeted by a Monaco bomber

An international search is under way for a suspected bomber after a Ukrainian tycoon and his family were injured in an explosion in Monaco in an unprecedented attack that has shaken the normally ultra-safe principality.

Stéphane Thibault, Monaco’s public prosecutor, told reporters that a man entered an apartment block on Monday evening, left a package in the lobby and walked away. Moments later, as three occupants of a ground-floor flat approached the entrance, the package exploded, he said.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:14 am

China is a clear winner from Trump’s war in Middle East, report concludes

Beijing, whose stockpiles and renewables industry allowed it to withstand energy shock, is now gaining from global solar and EV push

China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday.

The report by the geopolitical consulting firm Asia Group concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:11 am

Silicon Valley donations make Colorado Democratic primary one of state’s most expensive

Manny Rutinel’s House campaign draws millions from big tech as pro- and anti-AI factions spar over regulation

Political groups funded by top tech executives have been homing in on one local race in Colorado, as the state’s Democratic primary vote gets under way on Tuesday. Democrat Manny Rutinel, who’s running in the competitive eighth congressional district for a seat in the House, has seen his campaign boosted with at least $2m in donations from committees led by the former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and crypto billionaire Chris Larsen.

Rutinel is a progressive candidate running against former state representative and centrist Democrat Shannon Bird. During his campaign, he has focused on his Latino heritage and centered his platform around affordability and regulating Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:26 am

Trump officials to slash public input on fossil fuel drilling on federal lands

Plan to limit scrutiny of polluters and shift financial risks to taxpayers is attack on democracy, advocates say

The Trump administration is attempting to shrink public comment periods for fossil fuel leasing on federal land while shifting the financial risks of cleanup to taxpayers and allowing for more planet-warming emissions. It’s part of a broader effort to dismantle public input processes and save polluting companies money, advocates say.

“By ignoring public comment [requirements] while propping up companies,” said Alexa Dietrich, research director at the science advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists, “they’re really attacking democracy in a very clear way.”

Published: June 29, 2026, 4:30 am

Five Americans die every hour from toxic vehicle emissions, study finds

Research suggests 41,800 premature US deaths in 2024 were attributable to road pollution

Roughly five Americans die every hour due to exposure to toxic road vehicle pollution, a new study has found.

It’s the latest warning showing fossil-fueled transit is a major driver of mortality.

Published: June 29, 2026, 3:00 am

‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds

Teams painstakingly combed endangered Atlantic habitat over several years, helping to grow 8m native trees

A small band of volunteers has helped to grow nearly 8m native trees in Scotland, crucial to efforts to restore lost parts of the Atlantic rainforest, after collecting 11m seeds by hand.

About 100 volunteers, including retired teachers and doctors, office workers and young families, have spent tens of thousands of hours venturing into often remote woods in the western Highlands and islands to search out seed-bearing trees.

Published: June 29, 2026, 7:06 am

Four men allegedly stole over $529,000 in elaborate ATM heists in Connecticut

Four men arrested and charged for allegedly taking part in ‘jackpotting’ scheme targeting ATMs at rest stops along I-95

A group of four robbers netted more than $500,000 in an elaborate “jackpotting” scheme targeting ATMs at rest stops along Interstate 95 in Connecticut, federal prosecutors in the state have alleged.

The men targeted at least nine cash machines during a 10-day spree in August, according to a press release on Monday by the US attorney’s office, which charged the four with a range of federal offenses.

Published: June 30, 2026, 9:30 am

New Orleans man named Santa Claus arrested in child predator sting

Police allege the 75-year-old tried to meet someone he believed was a 15-year-old boy after explicit online chats

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A New Orleans man who legally changed his name to Santa Claus was jailed recently on allegations that he tried to use a dating app to sexually prey on someone he believed to be an underage boy.

Claus, 75, initiated contact through the app with an undercover detective who was posing as a 15-year-old boy as part of a sting operation being carried out over the weekend to arrest potential child predators, said a statement from police in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner.

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:25 am

Kash Patel draws flak for posting FBI case details on social media ‘to make himself look good’

FBI veterans believe director may have flouted legal rules by prematurely divulging details of UFC attack plot inquiry

Kash Patel may have flouted legal constraints and the FBI’s disciplinary code in prematurely divulging arrests in an alleged plot to attack this month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship bout at the White House, bureau veterans have alleged.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

Nuclear weapons storage in spotlight as US plans $4bn boost for its UK airbases

Exclusive: Pentagon files suggest some new facilities will store nuclear arsenal, with $163m also earmarked for secretive spy base

More than $4bn (£3bn) is to be spent upgrading the US government’s military and spy bases in the UK, according to official documents that shed light on the UK’s apparent role as a secretive site for American nuclear weapons.

The construction plans include building new bunkers in Suffolk, which will seemingly be used to store nuclear weapons, and modernising facilities to help covert units run secret operations.

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:00 am

Italian MEP suggests government wants to ‘hide truth’ about Albania migrant centre

Cristina Guarda says delegation was denied access to cells in offshore detention facility, at which six people have attempted suicide

An Italian MEP has questioned whether the Italian government is trying to “hide the truth” about conditions at an offshore migrant detention centre in Albania after a delegation she was part of said they were prevented from conducting a full inspection.

Cristina Guarda, from Italy’s Greens and Left Alliance (AVS), said staff at the Italian-run facility in Gjadër had refused to give MEPs from the Greens/EFA group key information, such as how many people were being held at the centre, and that they had not been allowed to access their cells.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:30 am

People with strong chest and back less likely to have a heart attack, analysis suggests

Researchers think people with greater muscle density in torso area, who are also less likely to die prematurely, are those who exercise more

People with strong chest and back muscles are less likely to have a heart attack or die prematurely, analysis using artificial intelligence suggests.

Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh used AI to examine hospital scans of 1,722 patients, aged mostly in their 50s, who had chest pain.

Published: June 30, 2026, 7:00 am

Elon Musk promotes ‘anti-migrant’ Armie Hammer film with free download on X

Citizen Vigilante, which follows a businessman taking bloody revenge on immigrant criminals, was posted by the tech trillionaire in the wake of damning reviews

A German film starring Armie Hammer that was allegedly denied a certificate by the German ratings board for “inciting violence against immigrants” has secured worldwide distribution and an explosion in its viewing figures after a bizarre intervention by Elon Musk.

Citizen Vigilante, a thriller starring Hammer, and written and directed by Uwe Boll, was posted free on Musk’s account on X from Thursday to Sunday, resulting in a major boost to its marketing and commercial profile. The film was released in the US on 19 June by Quiver Distribution, which according to Variety, has now acquired worldwide rights. Musk also posted: “Citizen Vigilante 2 will be even better.”

Published: June 30, 2026, 4:41 am

The original Moana: did a 1926 documentary give birth to a 21st century Disney blockbuster?

Long before the 2016 hit animation and its forthcoming live-action remake came a pioneering silent film that established a whole new genre

Next week sees the release of Moana, the live-action remake of the 2016 Disney animation smash – again starring Dwayne Johnson. But that was not the original Moana. That honour goes to a Moana released a full century ago: a glimpse of Polynesian life now largely forgotten but none the less offering some inspiration to the makers of today’s iteration.

“Someone at Disney picked the bones of the 1926 Moana to make their movie,” believes film historian Bruce Posner.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:24 am

From card game to a tool of divination: the artistic history of tarot

A new exhibition follows the unlikely route of tarot cards all the way from 15th-century Italy to its association with the occult now

Once the territory of bohemians such as Pamela Colman Smith – an intimate of William Butler Yeats whose art won the admiration of Alfred Stieglitz – and mystics such as Aleister Crowley (among other things, inventor of his own religion), the tarot has now gone mainstream. Searches for how to do tarot readings soared during the pandemic, and decks are proliferating at a dizzying pace – your local independent bookstore probably sells at least a dozen of them.

It’s never been easier to get a reading – or at least a quick card pull – and the Morgan Library & Museum’s new show, Tarot!, capitalizes on the practice’s increasing popularity to lure in the curious and knowledgable alike. Tarot! starts by charting the cards’ evolution from Renaissance Italy up through the 21st century, then offers up the tarot-themed work of more than two dozen artists – among them Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, as well as new art by the celebrated British painter Chris Ofili.

Published: June 30, 2026, 2:00 am

Spider-Man’s web of lies: what would actually happen if you were bitten by a radioactive spider?

Aside from perhaps a tingling in the nether regions, your newfound spidey abilities might leave you a lot worse for wear than the franchise would have us believe

This year, perhaps more than any other, is make or break for the MCU. Once such an unstoppable pop culture colossus that even Martin Scorsese had a take on them, superhero movies have spent the last half-decade wobbling dangerously. The recent commercial disappointment of DC’s Supergirl is a sign that the public is still fatigued from all the endless variations on a theme, and it is into this minefield that Marvel plans to release two huge movies in the coming months, in the form of Avengers: Doomsday and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

Will these films succeed where previous MCU films have suffered? Perhaps not now that science has revealed that Spider-Man is a lie. A new press release from Glasgow’s Kelvinside Academy has revealed precisely what would happen if Spider-Man was a real person who actually existed, and it isn’t pretty.

Published: June 30, 2026, 7:14 am

Minions & Monsters review – a smart premise descends into more of the same

The hugely successful, gibberish-heavy franchise travels back to old Hollywood for an adventure that swaps out nifty ideas for repetitive chaos

The yellow, cylindrical, overall-clad creatures known as the Minions first appeared as loyal henchmen to Steve Carell’s villainous Gru in Illumination’s Despicable Me, which chronicled Gru’s attempt to steal the moon with the help of three orphaned girls. Along the way, Gru learned affection, the girls grew up, and the Minions – well, the Minions always stay the same. They are cute, defenseless and incompetent. They speak in “Minionese”, a gibberish mishmash of languages endlessly memed by a generation with a nearly dadaist devotion to babble. Despicable Me sequels have, in the past 16 years, coalesced into the highest-grossing animated franchise of all time, in part because of the Minions’ viral success.

With Minions & Monsters, the seventh entry in the franchise and third movie in the Minion-centered spin-off series, returning director Pierre Coffin retreads much of the territory covered by 2015’s Minions. Like that movie, Minions & Monsters starts with a peripatetic tribe of Minions in search of their next despicable boss. But instead of winding up exiled in an ice cave, this time the Minions find themselves riding a train off the rails and into the Bright Brothers’ studio lot in late 1920s Los Angeles, at the height of Hollywood’s silent era.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:59 am

Supergirl: doggy distress, frontier justice and a new direction for superhero movies – discuss with spoilers

Craig Gillespie’s far-out adventure is something of a quirky oddity compared to bigger blockbuster outings – so why is it failing to fly at the box office?

James Gunn’s Superman was the major make-or-break moment for DC’s latest cinematic reboot. And yet its follow-up may ultimately prove just as revealing, not least because it offers up a first real indication of the kind of universe Gunn intends to build once the novelty of the man of steel’s return has worn off. Will every chapter of the DCU be chained to the kind of world-saving spectacle we remember from the older Zack Snyder films? Or is there room for stranger, smaller stories to take place in the same shared reality?

With Supergirl, the answer appears to be yes. Craig Gillespie’s film heads in some unexpectedly far-out directions, makes one particularly bold change from its source material, Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s acclaimed comic Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and quietly suggests that DC’s greatest strength may lie not just in trying to out-Marvel Marvel. Here’s the lowdown for those who’ve seen it – and don’t forget to let us know your thoughts in the comments on how this affects Gunn’s wider universe.

Published: June 30, 2026, 5:57 am

Louis CK: Ridiculous review – the troubled comedian returns … with a whimper

The fallen star, who was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017, is back in a Netflix special which has its moments but not enough of them

Louis CK is back, again. It’s been nearly a decade since the comedian, actor and writer-director admitted his guilt in a series of sexual misconduct allegations, resulting in a number of organizations severing ties and sending him into relative exile – for a few months, anyway. Since then, he’s toured extensively (often to a crowd reception implying he was the one wronged) and self-released four comedy specials, among other endeavors, so it’s not as if the existence of a new one is especially surprising. But it is notable that Ridiculous is backed by Netflix – a full-circle moment for a comic whose last pre-scandal hour titled 2017 was a Netflix release as well.

It’s less a triumphant return than a gradual slinking back, an unspoken assumption that no one really cares that much about his behavior; no particular defense or apology, just a shruggy emoticon. When describing a tour of his elderly father’s prospective nursing home in the special, Louis CK says: “The theme of the tour is: ‘This Is What This Is’,” implying a sense of grim acceptance. It feels a bit like that’s the theme of the Ridiculous tour, too – whether we want it to be or not.

Published: June 30, 2026, 12:01 am

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

Candice Carty-Williams, Patrick Freyne and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

I just finished reading Wimmy Road Boyz by Sufiyaan Salam. I absolutely adored this book, a fantastic combination of violence and vulnerability set on Manchester’s Curry Mile. I became completely attached to the three main boys, and I loved all of the perspective shifts to different characters throughout the book. I fully weeped at the end – it was an unexpected but completely understandable ending. 10/10, everyone should read this.

Queenie Is Working on It is published on 2 July by Trapeze. To support the Guardian, order your copy from guardianbookshop.com.

Published: June 30, 2026, 11:24 am

Queenie Is Working On It by Candice Carty-Williams review – a smart sequel to a breakout bestseller

Queenie’s ticking biological clock drives her chaotic misadventures in this sage and funny follow-up

A gynaecological examination is a good analogy for the kind of painful self-inspection at which Queenie Jenkins excels. The heroine of Candice Carty-Williams’s 2019 debut Queenie memorably begins that novel with a medical appointment for a mystery ailment that turns out to be a miscarriage. The sequel, Queenie Is Working on It, picks up the story eight years on, with the now 33-year-old Queenie back on the gurney, this time for a fertility checkup. “I didn’t realise they did condoms for anything other than … penises,” Queenie observes lamely as the unsmiling doctor sheaths a probe. Life has changed, but in many ways, Queenie has not.

Carty-Williams’s first novel about a stumbling Jamaican-British woman living in London, navigating romantic disaster and a mental health crisis, was a breakout bestseller. Reassuringly, her keen ear for female friendships – the deep affection, the stubborn solidarity, the ribald humour – endures, as does her understanding of how the particular experience of race suffuses the ordinary lives of Black women. These are the qualities that made Queenie feel unique and interesting in 2019. She remains so in 2026, but your patience for the new novel rather depends on your tolerance for her continued misadventures.

Published: June 29, 2026, 11:00 pm

No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed review – a buzzy and political queer love story

Two gay Afghan men find each other in Istanbul, in a much-hyped debut that fails to sustain the killer energy of its opening act

Everyone in No God But Us is performing. Families perform respectability; lovers perform fidelity; NGOs perform goodness; autocrats perform power. The drag queens in Bobuq Sayed’s anticipated debut novel are the most honest performers of the lot. They’re the only ones who admit they’re in costume.

Delbar is the “door bitch” at a drag club in Washington DC. Fresh out of college and not yet out to his family, he has no idea who he is. He knows who he is expected to be: the well-buttoned son of Afghan immigrants. He also knows who he might become under the spotlight; his drag persona, Sharia Raw, is waiting in the wings.

Published: June 29, 2026, 3:00 pm

Creative play and a curious cat – readers’ best photographs

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

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:00 am

Waldmüller: Landscapes review – the rule-breaking radical whose ‘delicate fingers’ drove bourgeois Austria wild

National Gallery, London
He painted leaves, grass and even bark with the precision of a chef applying a micro-garnish with tweezers. The result? Looking at his work feels a lot like eating your greens

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793-1865) is regarded as one of the most important figures in 19th-century Austrian art; an influential and admired teacher, and a somewhat radical figure regarding the established Viennese Academy. He worked during the Biedermeier movement which spanned the end of the Napoleonic wars until 1848 when various revolutions shook the ruling Habsburg empire and Austrian political elite. Biedermeier reflected the tastes and aspirations of a rising bourgeois society; terribly nice landscapes, genre scenes, floral and portrait pieces for the upwardly mobile drawing room. Within these genteel confines, Waldmüller intently focused on a more unflinching mode of depiction, concerned more with accuracy and integrity than the sentimentalising efforts of his peers, while also criticising the Academy’s teaching methods and eventually in 1857 even calling for the abolition of all academies.

If this collection of relatively small, minutely detailed landscapes is representative of an impassioned, radical painter tearing up the rule-book, it is far from obvious from their tightly controlled, rather unimposing visual appearance. Each shows a vista of a specific location – The Ruins of the Temple of Juno Lacinia near Agrigento (1846), View of the Dachstein from the Sophien-Doppelblick near Ischl (1835) – accompanied by captions which systematically list topographical details of note, followed by some light technical analysis: for the latter, “Waldmüller has distinguished the successive elements in the landscape with distinct changes in tonality, from the soft green of the valley to the blue-grey of the most distant mountains.” In the show’s only portrait, 1828’s Self Portrait as a Young Man, which incidentally dwarfs everything else here in scale, the caption draws attention to “his delicate fingers proclaiming his sensitivity and talent”: delicacy and sensitivity are the operative descriptors for the entire show.

Published: June 30, 2026, 7:47 am

‘He’d been wounded deeply’: the wild photographic life of Ed van der Elsken – in pictures

The Dutch photographer believed mastering colour was the sign of a truly skilled artist – and pioneered an influential style best described as ‘organised chaos’

Published: June 29, 2026, 11:00 pm

Chris Martin’s lost James Bond theme goes on auction with unheard Coldplay tapes

Acoustic recording of a song titled The World Is Not Enough included in wide-ranging auction featuring formative Coldplay recordings

A lost demo recording of a song Coldplay’s Chris Martin reportedly intended for 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough is going up for auction, alongside other recordings from the band’s earliest years.

For the auction by Wax Poetics, the British producer Chris Allison is making available an archive of recordings the band made prior to their Allison-produced second EP The Blue Room, released in October 1999.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:06 am

Absolutely sensational! My week savouring life’s little pleasures – from drilling holes to licking trees

We are surrounded by sights, sounds, smells, tastes and textures – and most of it barely registers. Time to slow down and take it all in …

What was the last thing that made your body feel good? Maybe it was the first sip of tea or blast of water in your morning shower, the warm silk of a cat’s back arching to meet your fingers, pulling on a T-shirt softened by repeated washing or the moment you align the numbers on your bike lock and it releases with a weighty clonk? Maybe somewhere you encountered a paper coffee cup with a cardboard sleeve embossed with ridges that offered “a surprisingly gratifying tactile delight”? Maybe you’ve never considered paper cups much; I hadn’t before I read that in Ian Bogost’s The Small Stuff: The Sensory Enchantment of Everyday Life.

The Small Stuff is a manifesto for tuning into the tiny opportunities for gratification being human offers, even in increasingly frictionless, AI-enabled, automated lives. Starting from that paper cup, Bogost – an interdisciplinary academic at Washington University, video game designer and writer – explores how we’ve become what he calls “dematerialised” and how to fight back, analysing the idiosyncratically pleasing qualities of plastic drinking fountain tumblers, using “steel-crank-roll paper towel dispensers” and – don’t tell me this one doesn’t resonate – peeling the plastic protective film off, in his case, a wooden knife block (I have happy memories of doing this on our microwave door).

Published: June 30, 2026, 2:00 am

Return of the ‘greybeards’: AI backfired – so Ford had to rehire humans

The US motor company found that the hundreds of AI cameras being used for design and manufacturing checks were prone to pitfalls

Name: “Greybeards.”

Age: There’s a clue in the name.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:04 am

What to wear in extreme heat: five tips for keeping it cool

People are trying to stay cool amid extreme heatwaves in Europe and the US. Experts say you can maximize comfort with smart clothing choices

Western Europe is currently being scorched by the most severe heatwave in its history. The brutal temperatures have resulted in more than 1,000 schools across the UK being forced to close and a surge in hospital admissions. The central and eastern US is also expecting a heatwave ahead of the Fourth of July holiday.

What does one wear when it’s scorchingly, miserably hot outside?

Published: June 29, 2026, 10:39 am

Oura Ring 5 review: a stunning generational leap for smart rings

Slimmer, longer lasting and much easier to live with, new Oura sets a very high new bar for health-tracking wearables

Oura’s new Ring 5 is a massive upgrade for smart rings, dramatically shrinking in size and weight to bring them right into line with standard wedding bands and other jewellery. It is finally a smart ring you can genuinely forget you’re wearing.

The Ring 5 is a straight replacement for the popular Ring 4 and costs from £399 (€399/$399/$A649), though it requires a £5.99 (€5.99/$5.99/A$9.99) a month subscription to access anything but basic daily metrics. An Oura is not a cheap proposition.

Published: June 29, 2026, 11:00 pm

Musical fruit or unsung hero? A beginner’s guide to cooking with beans

Long before becoming TikTok’s latest main character, food cultures around the world have been soaking and stewing beans to delicious effect. And yes, you can tone down the side-effects

For months, TikTok home cooks have been spilling the beans on the nutritional power of soaking and simmering pots of cannellini, borlotti and black beans. There are more than 13,000 TikTok videos under the hashtag #beantok, with cooks claiming the humble legumes have alleviated their anxiety, perimenopause and inflammation. Pair that with “fibremaxxing”, and the bean has found itself recast from back-of-the-pantry afterthought to wellness main character.

But for many cooks and chefs, none of this is new. Beans are native to the Americas and arrived in Europe by the 16th century, but they were so readily adopted into Mediterranean cooking that it’s now hard to imagine those cuisines without them. “The Tuscans are even known as ‘mangiafagioli’: bean eaters,” says food writer Emiko Davies, who points out that beans were once the everyday nutrition of a largely peasant population.

Published: June 30, 2026, 8:00 am

Six of the best long-distance European trails to walk in summer

From a less-crowded camino and the Slovenian Alps to a stunning river trail and Ireland’s remote Beara peninsula

Distance up to 74 miles
Duration 3-9 days

Published: June 29, 2026, 11:00 pm

Rocky week for AI as shares slump but no sign of crash – yet

The markets are souring on artificial intelligence, but is this the bubble being burst? Meanwhile, California proposes a tax on billionaires

Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you after fending off sunburns at the beach. Today, we’re discussing a rocky week for the AI industry’s finances and how California’s proposed billionaire’s tax is changing the political posture of the state’s governor.

Impact of social media ban for under-16s in UK hinges on how firm it is

UK under-16s social media ban: which apps will be blocked and how will it work?

‘Tech firms are losing the public’: social media age bans near tipping point

OpenAI staggers AI model release after Trump administration request

Meta pauses employee tracker for AI training amid privacy concerns

‘It’s dangerous and it’s going to erode trust’: redesign of US government websites stokes surveillance fears

California billionaire tax will appear on ballot after deadline for deal passes | Technology | The Guardian

Published: June 30, 2026, 6:14 am

Grieving relatives still seeking answers as US normalises ‘drug boat’ strikes

Family of St Lucian fisher Ricky Joseph left suspended in raw grief, while media coverage of attacks is waning

It has been more than four months since Ricky Joseph left his home for the last time.

His partner, Lucille Charles, and their chidren were still asleep at home on the Caribbean island of St Lucia, when Joseph, 35, set out to sea early in the morning on 13 February to fish for tuna, ballyhoo and snapper.

Published: June 30, 2026, 3:00 am

How I survived the record Paris heatwave while seven months pregnant

It feels as if we are being abandoned to our fate by those in power, with further extreme heat expected next week

In the summer of 2019, I had a “fun” idea for a piece. Paris was due to experience its hottest day in history, and I proposed travelling around the city trying out its various cooling-off strategies to see if they would help. Reader, it was not fun and they did not help.

Last week, Paris experienced its worst period of catastrophic heat on record, worse than that day in 2019, and worse than in 2003, when a sustained heatwave killed nearly 15,000 people. I now live in a neighbourhood in Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest département in mainland France and one of the most exposed to extreme heat, and, to add to the complications, am seven months pregnant. So how did my week go this time?

Published: June 30, 2026, 12:00 am

Classroom nap and a looming wildfire: photos of the day – Tuesday

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

Published: June 30, 2026, 5:07 am