‘My mayor Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish’: who’s behind the Knicks chant uniting New York?

As the Knicks edge closer to winning the NBA finals for the first time in decades, a viral chant – posted by Kalshi – has become New York City’s anthem

The New York Knicks are 3-1 up in the NBA finals, one game away from winning the championship for the first time since the 1970s. The mood in New York is electric, the city is strewn with blue and orange, crowds roar outside Madison Square Garden, and – at least last week – a viral chant has become a new unofficial New York City anthem:

My mayor Muslim

My bagel’s Jewish

My mayor still Muslim

My bagel’s still Jewish

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:35 am

Unfortunately, I’m allergic to my adorable kitten – here’s what doctors advised

Cat allergies affect millions of people. Experts explain how to manage symptoms without necessarily giving up a pet

When I got a kitten in February, I thought I had done everything right.

I’d considered getting a cat for years and carefully thought through the decision. I am allergic to them, but I had lived with a cat before and managed symptoms like sneezing and itchiness with antihistamines. I rationalized that I’d probably be OK, especially if I found a “hypoallergenic breed” (more on that later).

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:00 am

Bananas could vanish from US school meals. Here’s why

New Farm Bill places caps on non-US foods; nutritionists say it restricts availability of healthy meals for kids

School nutrition workers and advocates have “lots of concerns about bananas”, said Erin Ogden, policy associate for federal child nutrition programs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

Bananas are nutrient-dense foods that many children like. That makes them popular offerings in school cafeterias, since any healthy food that a kid will eat prevents waste and ensures that child isn’t eating either nothing or something less wholesome instead.

Published: June 11, 2026, 10:00 am

'A shameless cash grab': can the World Cup be saved?

For the next 39 days, 104 matches will be played throughout the United States, Mexico and Canada until a World Cup winner is crowned on 19 July.

Amid the excitement around the world’s biggest sporting event, there has also been intense controversy and scrutiny. Ticket prices, transport costs, climate threats and security concerns have left fans with mixed emotions.

“The US of Donald Trump is tonally different to any host of a major sporting event that has preceded it: a country that actively wants you to see the darkness in its heart, the inhumanity at its core, that gets off on your revulsion,” writes Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew.

But ultimately who takes the blame? Fifa, argues Jonathan.

• Opinion: how the Omar Artan scandal reveals Gianni Infantino for what he is: one of sport’s greatest cowards

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:57 am

‘It’s cheesy umami’: the woman behind some of the best US spices shares her 19 kitchen essentials

Sana Javeri Kadri, co-author of the new Diaspora Spice Co Cookbook, told us about cooking for her two toddlers and hauling 30lbs of rice on flights from India

• The seven best nontoxic cooking pans in the US, tested in a food lab

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Sana Javeri Kadri, founder of Diaspora Spice Co, wants you to stop letting the spices in your pantry languish. “I think people are really scared of their spice cabinet, or they ignore it,” she said.

A decade ago, she started a successful spice company with the goal of building a more transparent spice supply chain and putting fresher goods on grocery shelves. Now with Diaspora Co Cookbook, which came out in March, Javeri Kadri wants to share what you can do with all that turmeric, black pepper and cardamom: “This book teaches you how to use spices very intuitively,” she said.

Diaspora Co Everything Grill seasoning

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:15 pm

Trump’s claims about California vote-rigging are a grim preview of November | Moira Donegan

The ‘fraud’ he sees is in the very concept of democracy, in the idea that people who don’t agree with or fawn over him might have a say, too

By now, it is an event as regular and predictable as the tides: a Democrat wins an election, and Donald Trump says that that election was rigged. There does not need to be any evidence for this; indeed, there never is. Trump will say it anyway.

He rallies the rightwing media ecosystem to spread the lie; he convinces his followers to believe it. That this, by now, a repetitive spectacle, devoid of suspense, does not mean that it is not dangerous.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

Military strikes on water facilities in Iran may constitute a war crime, experts say

Strikes on Bemani damaged key water reservoir for 20,000 people living in area amid a historic drought in the country

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Military strikes that damaged two water storage facilities in southern Iran may constitute a war crime, military and legal experts say, after reviewing media reports and visual evidence of a 10 June strike on Bemani, a small district about 2 miles from the strait of Hormuz.

It’s unclear if the strikes deliberately targeted the district’s water tanks, or if they unintentionally destroyed a key reservoir for about 20,000 people living nearby. But if the tanks were the target, then the legal question becomes critical, Brian Finucane, a former state department lawyer, said. “It’s either a military objective or it’s a civilian object: attacking one is lawful, attacking the other is a war crime,” Finucane said.

Published: June 11, 2026, 1:30 pm

Trump nominates Jay Clayton as top US intelligence official after pushback on Bill Pulte

US president had faced widespread criticism of his decision to install a controversial ally, Bill Pulte

Donald Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, former head of the top US markets watchdog, to be the country’s leading intelligence official.

The US president faced widespread criticism of his decision to install a controversial ally, Bill Pulte, as acting director of national intelligence while searching for a permanent candidate.

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:29 pm

Before-and-after photos: Trump’s $14.2m makeover delivers … a blue pool

President steered no-bid contract for project that he said would cost $1.8m to company that worked on his golf resort

The final drops of water have been added, and the nanobubbler switched on. Donald Trump’s “beautiful” makeover of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic attractions, is officially complete, and the public is getting its first glimpse of how the project’s $14.2m was spent.

Contrary to the president’s predictable assertion that it was receiving “rave reviews”, however, early impressions are decidedly mixed. Some of the first visitors declared themselves underwhelmed by the 2,000ft pool’s somewhat dull color – American flag blue, according to the specifications.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:47 am

Raúl Jiménez seals Mexico’s win against nine-man South Africa in World Cup opener

Was that it, then? Was Sphephelo Sithole being caught in possession nine minutes into the opening game, Julián Quiñones running on to lash the ball through Ronwen Williams’s legs, was that when the football took over, the moment when concerns over the aggression of the major co-host faded away and the world got on with celebrating the great festival of humanity the World Cup ought to be?

It seems unlikely. Donald Trump’s war with Iran goes on, as do the outrages of his immigration police. But it’s not just that. Gianni Infantino has opted to run this tournament, uniquely in the modern age, without a local organising committee. That may not explain the shambolic organisation at the Azteca – the chaotic traffic, the non-existent signage, the absence of WiFi, the general lack of order – but it does make it harder to fix.

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:17 pm

El Niño forms in Pacific as experts say it will likely turbocharge extreme weather

Meteorologists predict it will be the strongest of century, while UN secretary-general calls it ‘urgent climate warning’

El Niño, the climate phenomenon that supercharges weather around the world, has officially arrived and could intensify to historic levels in the fall, US officials said on Thursday.

US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) forecasters confirmed the formation of El Niño in the warmer than usual Pacific Ocean near the equator, which affects global weather patterns.

Published: June 11, 2026, 6:50 am

AI wealth boom sending San Francisco home prices surging: ‘It’s ridiculous’

Employees at artificial intelligence companies are coming into gargantuan sums of money amid boom in IPOs

Home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area’s already expensive market are skyrocketing as employees at leading artificial intelligence companies come into gargantuan sums of money thanks to a boom in initial public offerings.

With San Francisco’s OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as SpaceX, which operates a major facility in the Los Angeles area, eyeing debuts on the stock market, the hot housing market may not abate soon. If their initial public offering (IPO) is well-received, the companies’ multibillion-dollar valuations are poised to produce massive wealth for employees and executives holding shares, which experts say could trigger an uptick in demand for the Bay Area’s limited housing stock.

Published: June 11, 2026, 7:00 am

Man pleads guilty to assassinating top Minnesota Democrat and her husband

Vance Boelter changes plea in murders of Melissa and Mark Hortman as prosecutors agree not to pursue death penalty

The man charged in the political assassinations of the top Democrat in the Minnesota house and her husband, as well as the non-fatal shootings of a state senator and his wife, pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

Vance Boelter was charged with murdering Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota house speaker, and her husband, Mark Hortman, and with shooting state senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette Hoffman. Boelter came to their doors in the early hours of 14 June 2025, disguised as a police officer and driving a fake squad car.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:26 am

‘Thank God for the Knicks’: New Yorkers abuzz after historic Game 4 comeback

Largest comeback in NBA finals history galvanizes city and inspires morning-after chants of ‘Knicks in five!’

New Yorkers woke up on Thursday morning – those who had even slept in the city that never sleeps – still jubilant after the Knicks men’s basketball team had made history the night before.

The team staged the largest comeback in NBA finals history to overcome the San Antonio Spurs in the dying seconds of the fourth game of the finals – and put themselves 3-1 up and within one game of a rare championship win.

Published: June 11, 2026, 10:30 am

Video shows angler freeing great white shark after surprise catch at Nantucket

Footage shows Elliot Sudal hauling the shark from the surf before releasing it within seconds, sparking online reaction

An angler who reeled in a rare great white shark at a Nantucket beach said he posted extraordinary video of the encounter to social media as an example of how to safely catch and release one of the ocean’s greatest predators.

Elliot Sudal said he was “testing the waters” off the Massachusetts beach he regularly uses when he inadvertently snagged the shark on Sunday.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:40 am

US authorities investigate huge etching of ‘8647’ on National Mall grounds

Live webcam footage from atop the Washington Monument shows a highly visible ‘8’, while the others appears fainter

US federal authorities are investigating what appears to be a massive etching of “8647” into the grass of the National Mall.

Live webcam footage from atop the Washington Monument as of Thursday afternoon shows the markings, with a highly visible “8,” along with less visible “6”, “4” and “7”.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:16 pm

Democrats to call on Vance to testify to House committee over Epstein files

Plan comes after major New York Times report alleges files became source of crisis within Trump administration

Democrats on the House oversight committee, led by Representative Robert Garcia, plan to call on JD Vance to testify on the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files following a major report on Wednesday from the New York Times, which described how the Epstein files became the source of an internal crisis within Trump’s administration.

Garcia will call on the committee chair, James Comer, to summon the vice-president to speak, according to a post from Max Cohen, a reporter with Punchbowl News. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether Vance would agree to appear.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:53 pm

Republicans split on following Trump’s demands for restrictive voting bill

US president urges congressional Republicans to use budget reconciliation procedure to enact his priorities

Donald Trump has demanded that congressional Republicans get to work on a party-line measure that would ensure defense spending reaches its highest level in decades and also make a likely fruitless attempt to impose a host of new restrictions on voters nationwide.

In a post on Truth Social on Wednesday, the president said he was “calling on Republicans in Congress to IMMEDIATELY advance and pass the forthcoming $350 Billion Reconciliation Bill”, which would also include the Save America Act, a rightwing makeover of elections that his allies in Congress have sought to pass for months, without success.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:49 am

US supreme court overturns conviction of Twitter employee accused of spying

Unanimous ruling says US secured conviction of Ahmad Abouammo for spying for Saudi Arabia in the wrong state

The US supreme court overturned on Thursday an obstruction conviction of a former Twitter employee accused of spying for Saudi Arabia, saying he was tried in the wrong state for knowingly falsifying a document to impede an FBI investigation.

The justices unanimously ruled that the US justice department wrongly in 2022 secured Ahmad Abouammo’s conviction in California from a jury in San Francisco, when his only interactions with FBI agents had been at his home in Seattle in Washington state.

Published: June 11, 2026, 10:38 am

‘It’s torture’: prisoners’ letters expose subterranean Oklahoma ‘dungeon’ known as the tombs

Exclusive: Letters from inside the underground H Unit of Oklahoma state penitentiary allege beatings, vermin, degrading punishment and in many cases no access to a most basic necessity – natural light

• Oklahoma prison criticized for allegedly incarcerating people in squalid underground cells with no natural light

“Down here in the tombs, there aren’t any windows,” writes Tremane Wood from inside his cell, in a modern-day American “dungeon” that few people have ever heard of.

“It’s really like living in cave,” he writes in another letter. “It’s dark and damp. Sometimes this place drives people mad. The hardest part is the isolation.”

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Sasquatch ‘sightings’ reignite fervour and scepticism about ape-like beast

Latest reports from rural Ontario add to tales going back decades about bipedal creature also known as Bigfoot

On a recent evening, residents in a corner of rural Ontario reported a series of strange encounters.

“The birds stopped, the wind seemed to die down, and it got oddly quiet. That’s when I noticed movement ahead of me,” one witness wrote. A “strong, earthy smell” hung in the air. Then, “a massive figure slowly stepped out from behind the trees, and my heart instantly started racing”. Moments later, it vanished back into the forest and “everything slowly went back to normal”.

Published: June 11, 2026, 7:30 am

California parents sue i-Ready maker over student data collection

Lawsuit against education software company fuels wider debate over privacy, screen time and learning

Two California parents are suing Curriculum Associates – whose online education program i-Ready is used by thousands of schools for diagnostic testing, tracking student progress and online assessments – claiming the program violates privacy laws, which has led to a debate over whether i-Ready is actually beneficial to students.

The lawsuit alleges that Curriculum Associates collects student data and shares it with third parties for commercial purposes, without adequate consent from parents and students. The plaintiffs further accuse the company of unjust enrichment, or wrongfully profiting off the collection and sale of student data. Curriculum Associates denies all claims detailed in the lawsuit.

Published: June 11, 2026, 6:00 am

Accused LA wildfire arsonist wanted ‘revenge on society’, prosecutors say as trial opens

Defense says no evidence occasional Uber driver Jonathan Rinderknecht ignited deadly blaze on New Year’s Day 2025

The trial of 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of starting last year’s deadly Palisades fire, kicked off on Wednesday with opening arguments. Prosecutors cast him as a vengeful arsonist who sought to hide his role from authorities, while his defense attorneys argued that the fire was caused by fireworks.

On New Year’s Day in 2025, firefighters extinguished a small blaze in the Pacific Palisades, a coastal Los Angeles enclave. But the flames continued to smolder underground, before reigniting as they were picked up by strong winds. The Palisades fire, the most destructive wildfire in city history, tore through roughly 23,000 acres, incinerating thousands of buildings and killing 12 people.

Published: June 10, 2026, 5:49 pm

A conservative California county is trying to kill mail-in voting

Shasta county passes measure requiring elections to be held in person on one day and limiting absentee ballots

Northern California’s Shasta county, best known for its radical conservative politics and thriving election-skeptic movement, appears on track for another clash with the state over a newly approved ballot measure that would transform local elections.

In last Tuesday’s election, the majority of voters in the rural county backed Measure B, which requires elections to be held in person on a single day and limits who can cast an absentee ballot – effectively putting an end to vote by mail – while also requiring photo ID and a hand count.

Published: June 10, 2026, 2:10 pm

FBI searches southern California facility where chemical incident spurred evacuation

Chemical tank overheated in May and forced evacuation of 50,000 nearby residents due to danger of explosion

The FBI is searching a southern California aerospace facility where an overheated chemical tank forced 50,000 residents to evacuate last month, after federal authorities served a search warrant there on Wednesday.

Signed by a federal judge last week, the warrant approved the seizure of records related to the “storage, use or disposal” of methyl methacrylate, the chemical stored inside the tank that authorities feared could explode.

Published: June 10, 2026, 12:29 pm

Taylor Swift’s viral ‘Stevie Knicks’ shirt is the merch you can make yourself

Want to wear your support for your team, but nothing is arriving on time? Take a leaf from the singer’s fit to fashion your own merch

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

From jerseys to baseball caps featuring the viral “My mayor Muslim, my bagel’s Jewish” chant, everyone, whether a bandwagoner such as singer-songwriter Noah Kahan or a lifelong fan, has been eager to display their support for the New York Knicks. In the fourth game of the 2026 NBA Finals, Taylor Swift may have won the celebrity merch game: she wore a royal blue T-shirt with orange lettering, emblazoned with “Stevie Knicks” across the chest.

Ahead of Saturday’s fifth (and possibly final) showdown between the Knicks and the San Antonio Spurs, you may be seeking your own blue and orange merch. If you’re hoping to steal Swift’s viral T-shirt, sellers on marketplaces such as Etsy and Teepublic are offering versions.

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:47 pm

AI absolutism is breaking our brains. The apocalyptic future we’re being sold isn’t inevitable

Nor is the dreamy promise that this tech will unlock boundless potential and productivity

Everything we hear about artificial intelligence is conflicting, and hearing about it feels inescapable. AI is terrible. AI is wonderful. It will break the world. It will transform the future. It’s essential to embrace it. It’s a moral imperative to abstain from using it.

Already, AI is projected to generate nearly unfathomable amounts of revenue. In the last quarter of 2025, it represented nearly 60% of the growth in the US economy. Already, pundits and economists wring their hands about what calamity will befall us if and when the AI bubble bursts.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:30 am

‘This is honest art. Like Dostoevsky’: Tim Allen and Tom Hanks on Toy Story 5, tech peril and the joy of rusty nails

Pixar’s new film tells young viewers that technology has stolen their childhood and that parents need to wise up fast. Its stars answer your questions on the series’ radical new message

What is the thing you’ve learned most from this new film? Secretmission
Tim Allen [the voice of Buzz Lightyear]: It sounds really self-gratifying, but it’s taking about 20% less time to make a better product. I know now how to focus and isolate my voice. I don’t do as many takes. Sometimes they’ll even say to me: “I think we got it. You can stop.”

Tom Hanks [Sheriff Woody]: Really? I will sometimes ask: “Please tell me you have it because I’m so done with this.” I find it to be exactly the same as it was at the get-go, except maybe there’s a little more importance put on it. I don’t think anybody picks our takes doing a Toy Story movie lightly. But I found everything else is just one damn thing after another.

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:30 am

‘I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way’: Kathleen Turner’s best films – ranked!

As she nears her 72nd birthday, we honour the actor whose ‘smoked honey’ vocals added to her vampy persona on screen, whether bringing Jessica Rabbit to life or crushing Michael Douglas between her thighs

Turner goes full-on drill sergeant for one scene as a dog-trainer, her forearms covered with scratches. Marley the irrepressible yellow labrador retriever knocks her to the ground and gives her a more vigorous humping than any co-star since William Hurt in Body Heat.

Published: June 11, 2026, 7:47 am

I’m 17 and very sensitive to graphic content. Does this mean I’m immature? | Leading questions

Maturity has little to do with watching things you don’t want to, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. But it might help to be curious about why you feel differently from your peers

• Read more Leading questions

I’m 17, and feel like a sore thumb among my peers due to my aversion to almost everything stereotypically adult. I don’t want to consume drugs or alcohol, I’ve never been in a relationship and, in particular, I’m very sensitive to graphic content.

Earlier this year, I tried to warm myself up to several films featuring either explicit violence or sex, but a part of me felt uncomfortable beyond what was probably intended by the film-makers. The entire time, it felt as if I was pushing down my real self. After consuming various media, I quit the process of numbing myself, retreating back to only films and television with “moderate” or “mild” classification ratings.

Published: June 11, 2026, 8:00 am

How did Mexico’s president become the world’s most popular leftwing leader?

Claudia Sheinbaum started as an activist. Now she is Mexico’s president. Has she stayed true to her ideals?

The president’s dressmaker works at home, down a narrow road in a working-class neighbourhood on the southernmost edge of Mexico City. There is no sign, just the house number marked in chalk on a rusted metal door. In the brightly lit, pink-walled room at the back of her modest house, Olivia Trujillo sits at her sewing machine, piecing together the president’s signature suits and dresses. Trujillo sews everything here, accompanied only by her family, three dogs, and one green parrot. Once finished, an assistant spirits away the items by motorcycle straight to the National Palace, where the president lives. Claudia Sheinbaum’s clothing – tailored from modest fabrics produced in Mexico and featuring Indigenous motifs – is one of the many ways that her administration communicates its slogan: “For the good of all, first the poor.”

The dressmaker has just one problem with the president. People who wear made-to-measure clothes normally sit for the tailor twice: first, to have their measurements taken, then a second time for final adjustments. “Not once has she done a fitting for me, never!” says Trujillo, an exacting and neatly turned-out woman in her 60s. She knows the president is busy. “Still,” she objects, “any normal woman does a fitting for important clothes, like their wedding dress.”

Published: June 10, 2026, 9:00 pm

World Cup 2026: Mexico’s opening ceremony and El Tri’s winning start – in pictures

The best images from Mexico City Stadium as the 2026 World Cup got under way, with Shakira and Burna Boy starring in the first of the tournament’s three opening ceremonies before El Tri made easy work of their opener against Bafana Bafana

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:10 pm

Welcome to Trump’s World Cup, a depressingly angry version of football uniting the planet | Barney Ronay

Ted Lasso will deliver a message of hope before the USA’s first game, in an America that is not a fit or desirable host right now

Shortly before 6pm local time on Friday night at the Los Angeles Stadium, the actor who plays Ted Lasso – the fictional manager of a fake team in a falsely heartwarming version of football – will tell hundreds of millions of TV viewers tuning in to watch the start of the American leg of the Fifa World Cup that football unites the world.

In an interesting twist, the actor Jason Sudeikis will do this at a time when the World Cup host is simultaneously bombing the second-ranked country in Group G, having recently murdered its head of state. The message of unity is one likely to be heard by the US president, Donald Trump, who has initiated six military conflicts in his second term, and whose brutally divisive immigration policies have now led to the barring of Omar Artan, the reigning African referee of the year.

Published: June 11, 2026, 5:44 am

Iran’s World Cup camp in Tijuana unfolds under armed guard and political shadow

An improvised base in Mexico has become Team Melli’s unlikely World Cup home as security fears, visa disputes and political divisions shape their tournament

Open-top trucks patrolled the surrounding roads outside the Estadio Caliente today, mounted by men in helmets and masks and wielding machine guns. They pass by the main entrance every few hours, guarding the massive city block, otherwise chocked with cars and smog, that the Iran national team has made its temporary, and largely improvised, home for this World Cup.

This has become business as usual here in northwest Mexico, at an arena that most teams in the domestic league hate to visit thanks to its distance from the country’s other footballing hubs and its brutal artificial turf playing surface.

Published: June 11, 2026, 1:49 pm

The United States enter a charged World Cup asking: what is enough?

Unlike most other countries, the US are playing the 2026 World Cup not just for themselves, but for the future of their voice in the sport

• World Cup newsletter | Daily podcast | Download the app

Mauricio Pochettino paused. The microphone signal flickered. He tried, for a second time, to say a few things to the 5,500 fans who had gathered in the sun Monday at Championship Soccer Stadium in Irvine, California – the United States’ World Cup home base – for an open training session. Nothing. Then something. More choppy audio. By the time things came back online, he had developed a quip.

“We are in the greatest country in the world,” he said in his Rioplatense-accented English. “But the technology does not work.”

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:01 am

Nike instructs federations to steam World Cup jerseys to fix shoulder seam issue

After acknowledging an issue with bulging shoulders in the shirts’ March debut, the company offered a solution that comes down to different treatment

• World Cup newsletter | Daily podcast | Download the app

When Nike’s World Cup kits debuted in March, many fans identified a bizarre detail: an unsightly bulge along the shoulder seam. It was subtle on some players, but, on others, such as France’s Kylian Mbappé, it was borderline comical.

It felt entirely unrealistic that the design of the shirts would be fundamentally changed three months before the start of the World Cup and on Wednesday a source familiar with Nike’s plan confirmed they had not altered the shirts in any way. What Nike had done, the source said, is offer instructions to member federations on how to wash them before wearing and steam the shoulder seams.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:14 am

Knicks fans target Victor Wembanyama with jeers, thrown egg after Game 4

• Video shows egg tossed toward star as he entered hotel

• Players had condemned apparent attacks on Spurs fans

A brutal night for Victor Wembanyama continued even after he returned to his New York hotel on Wednesday, as he was pelted with boos from jeering Knicks fans and nearly struck by a flying egg.

A video shared online showed at least one egg tossed in the direction of the San Antonio Spurs superstar as he entered his hotel, flanked by security, after the team’s Game 4 loss to the Knicks.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:30 pm

Real Madrid confirm José Mourinho’s return as manager after 13 years away

• 63-year-old leaves Benfica to move back to the Bernabéu

• Marco Silva agrees deal to replace him at Portuguese club

José Mourinho’s blockbuster return as Real Madrid manager has been confirmed. The 63-year-old, who was in the dugout at the Bernabéu from 2010 until 2013, joins the 15-times European champions from Benfica on a three-year contract.

Mourinho’s appointment comes after a torrid season at Real Madrid, with Xabi Alonso sacked in January amid player unrest. Álvaro Arbeloa came in as interim head coach, but failed to turn around the campaign as Real exited the Champions League to Bayern Munich at the quarter-final stage and Barcelona cantered to the La Liga title. Disharmony within the squad also continued, with Fede Valverde taken to hospital to have stitches after a confrontation with his teammate Aurélien Tchouaméni.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:29 am

‘Out of reach’: George Russell refuses to think about F1 title after Antonelli surge

• British driver says pressure is off following bad run

• Antonelli 68 points ahead of Mercedes teammate

George Russell insists the pressure is off in the battle for the Formula One drivers’ championship. A succession of mishaps – combined with the exemplary form of his Mercedes teammate, Kimi Antonelli – has left him 68 points off the pace.

Sunday’s round seven is the newly styled Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, with the Spanish Grand Prix shifting to a new venue in Madrid in September. Mercedes are expected to excel again this weekend, but it is the 19-year-old Antonelli who has established a firm grip on the drivers’ championship after five consecutive victories.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:37 am

Elliot Anderson on the rise as face of England amid Manchester City transfer talk

Midfielder’s meteoric climb could enter different stratosphere if he inspires World Cup glory and seals record move

The numbers around Elliot Anderson are rising fast – to extraordinary levels. A little like the player himself. At the beginning of last week, when he flew to Florida with the England squad for their pre-World Cup camp, he was the Nottingham Forest midfielder who had finished a gruelling club season, which featured four managers, on the right side of the relegation line.

The 23-year-old had established himself as a first choice in Thomas Tuchel’s England team over the course of the campaign, albeit he remained in single digits for caps. There was a lot of noise about Anderson on the transfer market. The richness of the promise was there for all to see.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Somali referee barred from US for World Cup is handed Super Cup final by Uefa

• Omar Artan to officiate PSG v Aston Villa in August

• ‘Football is made to connect people,’ says Uefa head

Omar Artan, the Somali referee prevented from officiating at the World Cup, will take charge of the Super Cup in August, Uefa has announced.

Artan found himself at the centre of controversy after being denied entry to the US, with the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, suggesting he was powerless to overrule Donald Trump’s administration. Somalia is one of 12 countries on a travel ban list introduced by the US president last year.

Published: June 11, 2026, 6:39 am

American Ja’Kobe Tharp smashes 110m hurdles world record at college championships

• 20-year-old finished in blistering time of 12.75sec

• First world record at NCAA championships since 1976

American Ja’Kobe Tharp broke the 110m hurdles world record with a blistering time of 12.75sec at the NCAA outdoor track and field championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, on Wednesday.

Tharp’s effort in the heats of the 110m hurdles improved upon the previous world record mark of 12.80sec, set by Olympic champion and fellow American Aries Merritt in Brussels in 2012.

Published: June 11, 2026, 5:12 am

Serena Williams’ return ends prematurely at Queen’s Club due to Mboko injury

• Mboko forced out with knee injury after heavy fall

• Williams’ focus now shifts to Berlin wildcard spot

Serena Williams’s first tournament since coming out of retirement has ended prematurely after her doubles partner, Victoria Mboko, was forced to withdraw from the Queen’s Club tournament after injuring her knee when slipping on the grass in her singles match.

Williams made a sensational return to competition at 44 after a four-year absence on Tuesday alongside Mboko as they defeated the third seeds, Nicole Melichar Martinez and Erin Routliffe, 7-6(2), 6-2. The pair were scheduled to face Leylah Fernandez and Laura Siegemund on Thursday afternoon.

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:50 am

F1 leaders agree 2027 and 2028 engine changes to placate Verstappen and co

• Changes will address energy management issues

• Verstappen one of most outspoken critics of current rules

The key players in Formula One have come to an agreement to settle the proposed changes to the sport’s engines for the 2027 and 2028 seasons. These have been seen as crucial in addressing widespread driver dissatisfaction with the current formula, not least for the four-time champion Max Verstappen who has repeatedly threatened to leave the sport owing to how unhappy he is with the current engine rules.

Verstappen has been particularly outspoken, declaring the rules “anti-racing”, but he has been far from alone. The FIA, teams, engine manufacturers and F1’s owners have since been in discussions looking at ways to address the issue. Notably their resolution does not reach the minimum scale of improvement Verstappen believed was needed until 2028.

Published: June 10, 2026, 1:27 pm

What my dad taught me about the inevitability of death | Amanda Sloat

Most fathers would shield their children from death. Mine, a psychologist, did the opposite

My dad and I kept a running list of ways we didn’t want to die. Being buried alive was always No 1. Whenever we learned about unusual deaths – accidents involving farm machinery, medieval torture, mobsters encasing victims’ feet in cement before throwing them in the ocean – we added them to our shared catalogue.

Most fathers would shield their children from such morbid fascinations. Mine, a psychologist, did the opposite. He saw death as life’s most honest teacher and ensured I wouldn’t meet it as a stranger.

Amanda Sloat is professor of practice in international relations at IE University in Madrid, Spain

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

Alabama wants to execute a man by nitrogen hypoxia. That is cruel | Austin Sarat

To put it plainly, nitrogen hypoxia kills by starving someone of the oxygen needed to sustain life

The eighth amendment prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is among the most noble and valuable constitutional protections. It is the only provision of the constitution that recognizes the dignity and humanity of everyone, even those who commit the vilest crimes.

But in the last several years, this great legal and moral achievement has taken a beating at the hands of conservative judges and justices. They have done much to empty it of its meaning by tethering it to the views of the people who wrote it more than two centuries ago.

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Those tedious errands, tasks and chores that AI wants to replace? They help keep you fit | Manoush Zomorodi and Keith Diaz

There’s a downside to too much convenience: it harms our bodies

There is a seductive fantasy being floated by AI executives that all the efficiency their products will bring us will lead to humans finally returning to their essential, best selves. Picture it: when this day arrives, we’ll spring from our chairs, push aside our keyboards and, supposedly, do all things we’ve been meaning to do: hike, cook and finally take a pilates class.

It’s true – AI has already taken some workday drudgery, such as reading and writing contracts, presentations and quarterly reports, off some people’s plates. Within a few years, we’re told, a team of invisible digital assistants will take over mundane domestic chores too: making medical appointments, renewing our car insurance and planning. The vision is enticing: finally, the moment when we can stop switching-switching-switching between screens and devices, put our health first and flourish. Unfortunately, if the history of innovation teaches us anything, it’s that labor-saving technology has rarely, if ever, triggered healthier habits.

Drive-throughs and microwaves did not lead to more time spent walking in nature. When escalators replaced stairs, email took over from walking over to talk to a colleague, and wandering through the video store was swapped out for streaming from the couch, few of us considered how these tiny conveniences would chip away at our physical health, year after more efficient year. A task that took almost no effort used to be described with the saying: “You hardly need to lift a finger.” Now, we literally lift a finger and – tap – the chore is done.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

Ben Jennings on the World Cup and the US war on Iran – cartoon

Continue reading...

Published: June 11, 2026, 10:32 am

The EU is inviting the Taliban to Brussels. Europe’s credibility lies in tatters

As ICE-style deportation rules come into force, the unsavoury circle the EU wants migrant deals with includes the Afghan regime. This is a nadir

I sometimes think of the former EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson, who just six years ago spoke of crafting a European migration policy with “cool heads and warm hearts”. What’s happened since is the exact opposite.

Governments across Europe – with the exception of Spain – are cracking down harder than ever before on migrants through measures they once dismissed as politically toxic. It is a dream come true not only for the EU’s far right but also for mainstream conservatives and centre-left politicians such as Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen.

Published: June 10, 2026, 9:00 pm

Police fire plastic bullets in effort to contain race riots in Northern Ireland

PSNI receive reinforcements from Great Britain amid further condemnation of violence

Police have fired plastic bullets and received reinforcements from Great Britain in an effort to contain race riots in Northern Ireland.

The force has fired 17 of the projectiles since disturbances erupted on Tuesday, pitting officers against crowds that have thrown rocks, petrol bombs and other missiles.

Published: June 11, 2026, 10:45 am

US lawmakers demand Trump officials halt plan to send Afghans to DRC

Government urged to reconsider proposal for 1,100 Afghans, currently stranded in Qatar, who worked with US forces

Dozens of US lawmakers urged the Trump administration on Thursday to roll back any plans to ship to unsafe third countries Afghan nationals who worked with US forces during the war in their homeland.

In a letter seen by Reuters, more than 80 House of Representatives members, including at least three Republicans as well as Democrats, appealed to secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to reconsider plans for 1,100 Afghans who have been stranded in Qatar awaiting relocation.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:41 pm

Canadian mother sues OpenAI, alleging ChatGPT led her daughter to kill herself

Suit filed in US alleges chatbot told Alice Carrier, 24, ‘maybe this is just the end’ as she struggled with suicidal thoughts

A Canadian mother sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman, in US court on Thursday, alleging that ChatGPT encouraged her daughter to kill herself. The lawsuit is the latest in a slew accusing the company of failing to address dangerous conversations between users and the company’s chatbot.

Kristie Carrier said in a lawsuit filed in San Francisco state court that her daughter, Alice, told ChatGPT about her suicidal ideations more than a dozen times leading up to her death but that OpenAI’s safety systems never flagged the conversations for human review or terminated them.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:14 pm

FBI agents driven out under Trump assault form support network: ‘I’m still a human’

Former intelligence officers sound alarm over ‘devastating’ impact of president’s bid to overhaul US security agency

For generations they have borne the mantle of strength and authority inherited from J Edgar Hoover’s Depression-era G-men, a label supposedly affixed after the arrest of Machine Gun Kelly in 1933.

Now hardened veterans of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) are projecting a different face as they seek to fight back against what many say is the systematic undermining of the bureau’s values under a drive by Donald Trump to turn it into an instrument of retribution.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

Chicago officials search for suspect after burnt cross found in Grant Park

Police released photos of person of interest in Tuesday’s cross burning, often linked to white supremacy and racism

Chicago authorities are searching for a suspect after a cross was burned in Grant Park earlier this week.

At about 2.30pm on Tuesday, Chicago’s fire department responded to reports of a cross set ablaze in the park. No injuries were reported and firefighters quickly extinguished the flames.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:09 am

Brad Lander found not guilty of blocking elevator at New York ICE facility

Judge says ex-city comptroller was not willingly obstructive while sitting in front of lift at Manhattan federal building

New York City Democrat Brad Lander on Thursday was found not guilty of blocking an elevator during his attempt to inspect rooms holding detained immigrants, with a Manhattan federal court judge saying the politician looked low-energy when he sat in front of a lift – not willingly obstructive.

“He seemed tired and he seemed a bit resigned to the situation,” the magistrate judge Henry Ricardo said moments before he formally acquitted Lander, the former New York City comptroller, who is competing for incumbent Democrat Dan Goldman’s congressional seat.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:26 am

Toronto police officer shot while investigating US consulate attack

Suspect, 19, still at large after officer dies in hospital having been shot while searching an apartment

A Toronto police officer has been shot dead as police raided an apartment allegedly linked to the March attack on the US consulate, the city’s police chief, Myron Demkiw, said.

Demkiw said 43-year-old constable Marc Pinizzotto was shot while conducting an early-morning search warrant in the north-west of the city and later died at a hospital.

Published: June 11, 2026, 8:23 am

Subterranean fungi networks more than 100 quadrillion km in length, study finds

First ever global mapping of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi shows scale of hyphal systems that sustain plant life

Our planet’s soils contain enough of the subterranean fungi that sustain plant life and help regulate the climate to stretch from the Earth to the sun almost three-quarters of a billion times, a groundbreaking new study has found.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are networks of tubular cells called hyphae that sustain life on Earth by forming critical partnerships with more than 70% of plants. The networks, which have been forming for about 475 million years, provide nutrients and water in exchange for the carbon produced by the plants, and help to regulate the climate by drawing carbon into soils.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Helen Mirren speaks out about being called ‘evil Zionist’ on the street in London

Responding to an incident in which she was verbally abused, the actor said that ‘evil forces are rising everywhere’, as well as expressing support for MobLand co-star Tom Hardy

Helen Mirren has commented on being called an “evil Zionist bitch” while being harassed in the street in London, saying she was “attacked by mistake by a man who was maybe a little over passionate or maybe mentally not quite stable”.

Footage circulated last month of an incident, believed to have taken place last year, while Mirren was walking with her husband, film-maker Taylor Hackford. They were approached and filmed by an unidentified person, who commented on Mirren’s support of Israel and then launched a volley of abuse at her.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:57 am

Scientists reveal surprising mechanism behind Venus flytrap’s rapid snap

Intricate tests show hair-trigger detection causes cells on outer surface of leaf to soften, prompting closure

The Venus flytrap is one of nature’s most impressive predators, luring insects with the intoxicating scent of nectar before capturing them with a snap of its jaw-like leaves.

Now, scientists have revealed the mechanism that allows the carnivorous plant to react with lightning speed, resolving a problem that stumped Charles Darwin and many researchers after him.

Published: June 11, 2026, 11:00 am

Deepest and most extensive whale graveyard discovered in Indian Ocean

Some remains found in Diamantina fracture zone date back more than 5m years and reveal species and ecosystems unknown to science

The oldest, deepest and most extensive whale graveyard yet discovered has been found in the south-eastern Indian Ocean, with fossils dating back more than 5m years.

Whale falls – the term for dead whales that sink to the ocean floor – are not uncommon, but most have been found at depths of less than 4km (2.5 miles). By contrast, the newly discovered necropolis reaches depths of more than 7km, and extends hundreds of miles across the sea floor.

Published: June 10, 2026, 8:00 am

Record winter temperatures in Antarctic raise fears over speed of climate breakdown

Temperatures above 15C ‘very strange’ say scientists, as snow melts and rain falls on glaciers in usually frozen region

Temperatures in the Antarctic climbed above 15C this month, shattering the previous winter heat record for the usually frozen region and raising concerns about the speed of climate breakdown.

The new winter peak temperature was logged by the Argentinian Esperanza base on the Trinity peninsula on 6 June amid a protracted heatwave, when the maximum daily temperature exceeded zero degrees for three consecutive weeks.

Published: June 10, 2026, 11:32 am

The rightwing campaign to control how US judges view the climate crisis

US energy secretary Chris Wright featured in seminars to judges when he was a fracking executive

As cities and states sue big oil for billions in damages over allegations that it covered up the dangers of its products, rightwing organizations are attempting to discredit the wave of litigation. They claim the lawyers behind it are teaming up with an environmentally focused legal education non-profit to bias federal judges against oil companies.

But it is actually fossil fuel-backed organizations that are attempting to sway the judiciary in their favor, one of those law firms is countering. Evidence of this includes judicial seminars hosted by one such group featuring pro-industry speakers such as the current energy secretary, Chris Wright, in his former occupation as a fracking executive.

Published: June 10, 2026, 5:00 am

Fund linked to key Trump allies backed push to sow doubt about 2024 election

Guardian review finds group tied to Cleta Mitchell and Heather Honey funded misleading ads in swing states

As the 2024 election approached, advertisements began popping up in key swing states suggesting local officials had discretion not to certify elections.

The advertisements, reported at the time by ProPublica and Wisconsin Watch, were misleading. Certification is not optional, and officials are required to certify the vote once the proper process for any election challenges are complete and an official challenge is complete. The warnings, nonetheless, arrived at a moment when Donald Trump and allies seemed to be gearing up to contest the election results if he lost.

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Florida to use US House districts drawn by Republicans for midterm elections

State supreme court ruling aids nationwide redistricting effort aimed at helping party retain slim House majority

The Florida supreme court on Wednesday allowed new US House districts drawn by Republicans to be used in the midterm elections, marking another victory for the GOP in a nationwide redistricting effort aimed at helping the party retain its slim House majority.

Attorneys for voters who sued had argued that the new congressional districts violate a state constitutional prohibition on partisan gerrymandering, and that the court should order the state to continue using the same districts as in the previous election. The supreme court, in a 6-1 decision, denied their request for a temporary injunction without ruling on the merits of the case. The judges said they lacked jurisdiction to intervene while the lawsuit gradually plays out in the lower courts.

Published: June 10, 2026, 4:06 pm

Pope Leo rails against migrant deaths on visit to Spain’s ‘dock of shame’

Pontiff calls on leaders to treat migrants more humanely as he concludes week-long Spanish tour in Gran Canaria

The constant flow of people embarking in small, rickety boats to migrate abroad should force a reckoning as to why we have built a world where so many “must risk death to seek life”, Pope Leo has said as he warned: “We cannot grow accustomed to counting the dead.”

Thursday’s speech in the Canary Islands, on the final leg of the pontiff’s week-long tour of Spain, contained Leo’s most pointed comments to date on migration.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:47 am

Wegovy weight-loss pills to be available for patients in UK to buy

Regulator approval means patients who meet criteria will be able to purchase tablets with private prescription

Patients in the UK will soon be able to buy the Wegovy weight-loss pill, the medicines regulator announced on Thursday.

It is the first GLP-1 receptor agonist tablet for weight-loss to be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), making the UK the third country to authorise the pills, behind the US and the United Arab Emirates.

Published: June 11, 2026, 9:25 am

Crans-Montana fire bereaved ask for murder charges against bar owners

Lawyers ask prosecutors to upgrade charges from manslaughter in light of text messages discussing fire risk

Lawyers for victims of the deadly New Year’s Eve fire in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana have formally asked prosecutors to upgrade the charges against the bar’s owners after text messages emerged discussing the danger.

Forty-one people were killed and 115 injured in the blaze at Le Constellation bar, which investigators believe started in the basement when sparklers attached to champagne bottles were held too close to sound-insulating foam on the ceiling.

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:22 am

Brazilian woman, 38, accused of years of ‘elaborate fraud’ by posing as a child

Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira faces fraud charges after allegedly persuading family to take her into their home

A 38-year-old woman has been arrested in Brazil accused of pretending to be a 12-year-old girl to deceive a couple who took her into their home for more than a year.

Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira was charged in the southern state of Santa Catarina with fraud and false identity offences.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:34 am

‘She slept in the hallway on a lawn chair’: how Bettina’s astonishing art outgrew her Chelsea Hotel room

The reclusive figure spent decades filling every surface of her apartment at the legendary New York hotel with artworks that rose in teetering piles. Some are now on display for the first time in Glasgow

When the artist Yto Barrada stepped through the door of room 503, up on the fifth floor of New York’s Chelsea Hotel, she was overwhelmed by what she saw. Every inch of the walls was plastered with Xeroxed word art, graphic reproductions of geometric sculptures, hundreds of photographs of passersby in the street below and collections of leaves laid out in grids. Piles of cardboard boxes and crates, full of yet more artworks, prints, books and maquettes, created teetering canyons through which Barrada had to turn sideways to navigate. Every visible surface was covered with sculptural forms in brass, marble and wood. In the midst of it all, on a small daybed surrounded by this aggregation of 40 years of fervent work, was Bettina, as the resident artist of the famous New York landmark was simply known.

“One sees Bettina and understands that some disaster has taken place, long ago,” writes Barrada in Bettina, the book she edited with the designer Gregor Huber, published by Aperture in 2022. Barrada was one of only a handful of people the reclusive artist had permitted to enter 503 since she moved into the Chelsea in 1972. Despite the bohemian buzz around the hotel, with neighbours including Patti Smith, Bob Dylan and many of Andy Warhol’s entourage, Bettina chose to lock herself away, devoting her life to conceptual works that seemed to flow unstoppably from deep within, a creative impulse she likened to a divine energy.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

Stop! That! Train! review - RuPaul-led zany drag comedy is a riot

With a whip-smart drag queen cast and celebrity cameos, Adam Shankman’s film is a refreshingly kooky twist on the summer movie caper

Given the grip it exerts on the drag world in the US and beyond, it’s almost quaint to remember the janky beginnings of RuPaul’s Drag Race, which debuted in 2009 with cheap plywood sets, a “lounge” sponsored by Absolut Vodka and special guests including Michelle Williams (the less famous one). Now, it’s a high-gloss spectacle that has won 14 Emmy awards, is credited for bringing pageant-style drag fully into the mainstream and is a magnet for star guest judges including Ariana Grande and Lady Gaga.

There’s a sense that latter-day Drag Race is running on fumes, with 29 seasons including All Stars spinoffs and finale viewing figures that peaked in 2016. But the cottage industry that has grown up around it has never been bigger: former contestants like Trixie Mattel and Katya host a wildly popular podcast, while Bob the Drag Queen toured with Madonna and Jinkx Monsoon is the toast of Broadway with roles in Oh, Mary! and Chicago. Meanwhile, the show’s production company World of Wonder cannily keeps access to Drag Race’s 14 current international spin-offs exclusive to their own streaming platform, Wow Presents Plus.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

‘Life has always managed to crawl through’: docuseries takes us back to mass extinction events

Co-creator of Walking with Dinosaurs returns with Surviving Earth, a blockbuster new series that shows ‘how life bounced back’ from deadly events throughout history

Almost three decades have passed since producer Tim Haines reimagined natural history with Walking with Dinosaurs, using CGI and animatronics to bring to life the beasts that roamed these lands millions of years ago.

With his latest project, Haines is applying that same visual magic to look even further into the past. Surviving Earth, a docuseries premiering on Thursday on NBC, explores eight mass extinction events going back 450m years through the lives – and eventual annihilation – of the creatures that preceded or existed alongside the dinosaurs.

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:00 am

From Vecna to Mr Burns: TV’s greatest ever villains

Violent drug barons, brutal monarchs, interdimensional murderers … television has no shortage of horrifying baddies. Here’s our pick of the worst

Javier Bardem biting off toes in Cape Fear. Richard Gadd stomping on heads in Half Man. Nightmare neighbour David Morrissey whipping up mob violence in Tip Toe. Yes, TV villainy is everywhere. Which got us thinking about the biggest baddies in small-screen history.

When compiling our list, we discounted children’s TV, which is a whole separate category. We also omitted reality TV pariahs, from Nasty Nick to Lisa Vanderpump, as well as talent show judges such as Simon Cowell and Craig Revel Horwood. Instead, we concentrated on comedy or drama, where villainy is at its fictional worst.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:03 am

The Evil Lawyer review – gripping, twisty and ludicrously hammy

The lead character in this Thai courtroom drama may have more than a whiff of pantomime villain about her, but this a fun, very watchable show – albeit one that is faintly ridiculous at times

If the title of this Thai crime-thriller-cum-courtroom-drama feels a little splashy, wait until you meet the scoundrel in question. Her name is Jittri and she is, at least at the show’s outset, a pantomime villain in a power suit, her hair even bigger than her ego. Known for getting murky clients off the hook by any dirty trick necessary, she stiletto-struts in slow motion, flashes a trademark crooked smirk after each victory, and (like all bona fide wrong ’uns) wears sunglasses inside. If she had a moustache, she would absolutely be twirling it.

But don’t be fooled; one boo-hiss baddie does not a pantomime make. Directed by Nottapon Boonprakob, whose 2025 drama Mad Unicorn won a clutch of awards, this eight-episode series may be tonally erratic and at times faintly ridiculous, but it also has confronting questions about power, corruption and systemic injustice plus a gripping, twisty plot.

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:00 am

Strictly Ballroom review – Baz Luhrmann’s dizzying, dance-tastic swirl of fun is a classic ugly-duckling tale

Luhrmann’s goofy and lovable film is reissued for generations who don’t know where TV’s Strictly Come Dancing got part of its name

Generations who don’t know why TV’s Strictly Come Dancing is called that (or even what the old Come Dancing show used to be) need to catch up with Baz Luhrmann’s debut directing feature from 1992; it is goofy, lovable and as sweetly romantic as you like. It was the feelgood crowdpleaser from Australia that made Luhrmann a star, and that “strictly” sounded a defiant note. Ballroom dancing may not have been cool (though it is now, more or less), but the film revealed it had passionate fans and underdog cred, like being an Abba nut in PJ Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding from 1994, which also starred veteran Oz comedy turn Bill Hunter in a very similar role.

Strictly Ballroom also laid down the narrative template for Strictly Come Dancing; the film’s pairing of the brilliant dancer and the gutsy ingenue became the professional/celeb partnership on TV, and the not-so-secret eroticism of their growing relationship in the rehearsal studio became the small-screen’s all-important practice montage and backstory content. Brilliant young ballroom dancer Scott Hastings (smoulderingly played by Paul Mercurio) has been preparing for a prestigious national championship since he was six years old. His blowsy mum Shirley (Pat Thomson) is a teacher and frustrated dancer, while timid dad Doug (Barry Otto) is depressed, as a result of an awful dance-related trauma climactically revealed at the end. Scott has in the past got into trouble for departing from the strictly conceived dance steps, controversially improvising flashy moves of his own devising, but now looks as if he can win, reined in by his competent but uninspired partner.

Published: June 11, 2026, 1:00 am

‘Dangerous for being free’: Mon Laferte on calling out injustice as Chile’s biggest pop star

The musician opens up about her mental health, government corruption and why conservative backlash won’t stop her speaking her mind

Mon Laferte has a sore throat. Halfway through our conversation, in a studio with no windows at the Sony offices above New York’s Madison Square Park, singer Norma Monserrat Bustamante Laferte meekly asks her manager for a latte without lactose, or coconut milk, if they have it. It’s the first truly hot day of spring. She’s in between arena dates across Latin America of her Femme Fatale tour. Tonight, she’ll skulk through Manhattan with rhinestone-studded eyelids and a Marilyn Monroe wig to film the Femme Fatale music video. Today, her hair is dyed red, cropped in spiky Marcel waves. She’s wearing a black slip dress and a pair of artful, lace-up tabis.

With a career spanning over two decades, Laferte holds more Latin Grammys than any other Chilean singer and is the country’s biggest female streaming star, with more than 18 million monthly listeners. In October 2025, Laferte released her 10th record, Femme Fatale, a jazz album that saw her step into a vampy alter ego; this month sees the continuation of the story with the companion album Femme Fatale Vol 2. Like the archetype, her vision of pop stardom is biting by design. “The archetype is the dangerous one, no? Dangerous for being free, secure,” she tells me in Spanish. “Femme Fatale is a name the press have given me.”

Published: June 11, 2026, 4:00 am

Kelsey Lu: So Help Me God review | Alexis Petridis's album of the week

(Dirty Hit)
Aided by Jack Antonoff, Kim Gordon, Sampha and more, the cello-playing singer-songwriter’s abstracted yet tuneful second album is worth the seven year wait

Seven years separate the release of cello-playing singer-songwriter Kelsey Lu’s debut album, Blood, from its follow-up. Lu has suggested the long gap was an act of artistic rebellion against a music industry obsessed with providing a constant stream of new product – “tuning into my intuition, trusting myself and building a team to support that”, as they put it.

Perhaps they wanted to carve their own path after a cover version – of 10cc’s I’m Not in Love, used in HBO drama Euphoria – became their most successful song, or perhaps they simply didn’t have the time to make an album amid their plethora of other interests. They have scored two movies: the Bafta-winning Earth Mama and the Netflix documentary feature Daughters. They have collaborated with Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Yves Tumor, Mykki Blanco, Jamie xx, Boys Noize and visual artist Kevin Beasley and contributed a version of Manchild to a Neneh Cherry tribute compilation and more. They have been photographed by Nan Goldin for a Gucci campaign and staged a performance art piece at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. They have also appeared on stage with Debbie Harry, while dressed as Kermit the Frog, recreating the Blondie vocalist’s famed 1981 appearance on The Muppet Show.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:00 am

The Artist by Lucy Steeds audiobook review – a sensory feast in Provence

A reclusive artist is the reluctant subject of a journalist’s attention in a rich world of scents, scenery and secrets

When a British journalist named Joseph Adelaide tracks down a reclusive artist to his remote farmhouse in the south of France, his plan is to interview him for a magazine profile. Edouard Tartuffe is a revered painter who was taught by Cézanne and is known on the Parisian art scene as the “Master of Light”. But then he retreated from the limelight amid rumours of a feud with his former mentor.

Tartuffe – known as Tata – now lives with his 27-year-old niece, Ettie, and is blind in one eye. Joseph quickly learns that Tata also has an explosive temper and rules the household with an iron fist. On meeting Joseph, he barks that he will not be giving an interview but that his guest can stay on one condition: that he model for him for a new portrait.

Published: June 11, 2026, 7:00 am

Frida Slattery As Herself by Ana Kinsella review – will-they-won’t-they in a skilful theatrical romance

This impressive and charismatic debut novel revisits an actor and a director over various collaborations

The central characters of Frida Slattery As Herself, Ana Kinsella’s debut novel, are the eponymous Frida, 23 when the novel opens, and John Reddan, five years older. Both live in Dublin. Frida loves acting but has never had a significant role, and didn’t even get into drama school. John is a writer-director who has just had a play put on at a “real theatre”. What’s compelling about Frida is not necessarily what she says, thinks or does, but the way she is, and a large part of that lies in the physicality Kinsella writes into her. Frida, we learn, is “addicted” to the theatre. “Every time she came off stage she felt like a prizefighter. The curtain fell in the community theatre and there she was, rolling her neck, bobbing on her feet.”

However, Frida’s acting aspirations are going nowhere. She eventually confides in her friend Catherine, who at university was a much more successful actor in student productions, but now has a proper job (“She owned an espresso machine and Frida lived in a bedsit”). “I just want something to happen,” Frida says. Catherine introduces Frida to John. They meet in Kehoe’s pub, then he asks Frida to accompany him on an errand which turns into a long, mystifying walk through Dublin, during which he interviews her. She asks in return what he is working on: “Are there any roles for women in their early twenties?” To which he responds, “Is that how you think of yourself, Frida? As nothing more than ‘a woman in her early twenties’?”

Published: June 10, 2026, 11:00 pm

No fairytale: what happened to the real children behind fiction’s best-loved characters?

Peter Pan, Christopher Robin and Alice in Wonderland … being the star of a classic story might seem like a dream, but there’s a dark side, argues the author of The Children

I’d loved the children for years before discovering they were real. I can almost summon the magic I felt when I first saw the photographs that proved it: the little boy clad in an approximation of hunters’ skins, posing victorious. The dark-haired girl with the offset gaze, her interior expression that of a person just growing used to being looked at.

And – this is the one that really kills me – the big-eyed, dimple-chinned seven-year-old in a soft sweater and tenderly mummish haircut, clutching the teddy bear that would end up even more famous than he would.

Published: June 10, 2026, 6:26 am

Lovers XXX by Allie Rowbottom review – a wild journey through the 80s LA porn scene

A young woman begins a career in the adult industry while, 30 years later, her friend tries to find out what happened to her, in an addictive, twist-filled story

Just as there is a lack of pornography made by women, there is a lack of books about making pornography written by women. Recent nonfiction titles such as Polly Barton’s Porn: An Oral History and Fiona Vera-Gray’s Women on Porn have sought to address the silence and moral confusion, while Rufi Thorpe’s novel Margo’s Got Money Troubles imagined a student mum paying her way with OnlyFans.

Now Allie Rowbottom, author of a memoir, Jell-O Girls, and a novel, Aesthetica, braves the dicey terrain in her sleazy, cinematic second novel. Published into a contemporary landscape where algorithms promote increasingly extreme content, Lovers XXX takes us to the so-called golden age of the Los Angeles porn industry, through the eyes of two teenage runaways who trade troubled homes for big-city dreams.

Published: June 10, 2026, 1:00 am

The best games of 2026 so far

If you fancy roaring around Japan’s open roads, scaling impossible mountains and playing with post-apocalyptic Pokémon, this year’s highlights mean you can do so without leaving your chair

Published: June 11, 2026, 2:00 am

The 7th Guest Remake Review – a spirited reboot of a ghost story classic

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch; Vertigo Games
This clever update captures the 1990s magic of the original… including some of the technical issues

The 90s were a gold rush for adventure games. LucasArts kicked off the decade with its legendarily irreverent Monkey Island games. Then, Cyan Worlds materialised to deliver a series of atmospheric and boundary-pushing odysseys with Myst and Riven. Nestled between these primary genre texts is The 7th Guest, a lesser-known but still notorious adventure that earned plaudits for its unique FMV visual style, blending live-action filmed footage with pre-rendered 3D backgrounds. It was remade originally for VR, and now has been reconfigured into something playable on PC and consoles, its digital cobwebs cleared and tricky puzzles tinkered with for a fresh (or nostalgic) audience.

We are dropped into the ectoplasmic shoes of an amnesiac apparition, arriving at the gloomy haunted home of a toy-maker. Armed with a time-bending lantern and a Ouija board-shaped map, your job is to solve a historical whodunnit by literally illuminating events from the past. It’s a melodramatic, surprisingly campy adventure that effectively evokes the overzealous CD-Rom horror of its original era.

Published: June 11, 2026, 5:00 am

AI backlash, single-player epics and Y2K nostalgia: eight trends from Summer Game Fest

From horror galore to Chinese action games, the key trends, trailers and surprises from Summer Game Fest’s many, many hours of streams and broadcasts

• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Did you spend hours of your weekend watching a relentless series of video game adverts? No? I don’t blame you – Summer Game Fest, the collection of livestreams that has arisen in place of the giant annual E3 video game expo in Los Angeles, is extremely overwhelming. There are the bigger, longer shows: the PlayStation and Xbox streams, the main SGF show hosted by Geoff Keighley and Lucy James, Future’s duet of the Future Games Show and the PC Gaming Show. Each show is two hours long. Then there are all the indie showcases: cosy games, women-led games, Black voices in gaming, Day of the Devs. Between them, they show off hundreds of games that might pique your interest.

I picked out exactly 34 highlights here: the biggest news, the most interesting-looking smaller games. But from the barrage of trailers I was also able to discern some trends. Here’s what we can learn.

Published: June 10, 2026, 5:30 am

‘The enormity of the idea helped me’: how Patrick Gibson became gaming’s new James Bond

As Hollywood searches for its next iteration of the superspy, the actor explains how he earned pop culture’s most sought-after role – and how he’s taking 007 back to basics

• They expect you to die! The history of Bond in video games, from the good to the bad

Is any acting gig more contested than James Bond? Each week seems to bring a din of audition speculation so loud that it must be exhausting for the Elordis, Cavills and Dickinsons who are at the centre of it all. But when one of them does finally bag the role, perhaps they should seek the counsel of the actor who has quietly played the part for the last five years: Patrick Gibson. He’s the star of 007 First Light, the video game that has sold 2.7m copies since it was released two weeks ago.

As a computerised Bond, Gibson is the first video game actor to lend both his voice and likeness to the role. With endorsement from both Amazon MGM and previous brand guardians Eon there’s a case to be made that he is the seventh official Bond (and the second Irish one). Not that he knew this when submitting a self-tape to Danish developers IO Interactive. “There was talk of martinis in the audition sides that gave me an inkling,” says Gibson. “Although at that point I didn’t believe there was any way it could be that.”

Published: June 10, 2026, 4:00 am

Seth Meyers on Republicans claiming rigged elections: ‘You’re the ones undermining voter integrity’

Late-night hosts discussed Trump getting booed at a Knicks game and Republican attempts to undermine US elections

Late-night hosts spoke about Donald Trump’s delusions over his reception this week at a Knicks game and how Republicans are continuing to spread false claims about elections.

Published: June 11, 2026, 7:40 am

Lola Young review – buoyant, brilliant return from British pop’s great oversharer

O2 Apollo Manchester
The Messy hitmaker is back after taking time away from live performance, and this charming, relatable set shows why she is such a gen Z icon

The rollercoaster ride towards international pop stardom seldom runs smooth, but few rising stars have been flung through its loops and freefalls as publicly as south London singer-songwriter Lola Young. In 2024, gen Z anthem Messy became her breakthrough moment, but social media scrutiny surrounding her open struggles with addiction and a stage collapse in New York last year brought live performances to a halt.

When the 25-year-old musician strolls on stage in a baggy black hoodie, she seems relieved to be here. Casual though the look may be, she is worshipped as a Y2K style guru, as evidenced by the young crowd: a blur of bleached mullets and denim jorts cry every word of her single Sad Sob Story!.

Published: June 11, 2026, 6:00 am

‘Now they can’t afford me’: Steven Spielberg was turned down to direct Bond – twice

Film-maker says he approached producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli after Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were hits, but was knocked back both times

Steven Spielberg said that he was turned down twice by the producers of the James Bond movies – and now they couldn’t afford him.

Spielberg was speaking to The Rest Is Entertainment podcast and was asked if he had any “regrets” about not directing a 007 movie. Spielberg said that he had approached Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the legendary Bond producer who worked on every “official” Bond film between Dr No in 1962 and License to Kill in 1989, after Spielberg’s 1975 shark thriller Jaws became a major hit, but was turned down. Spielberg said: “I’d always wanted to make a James Bond film from the day I saw Dr No. So I called Cubby Broccoli after Jaws and I volunteered. I said, if you need a director, I would love to direct one. And he said, no. And he moved on.”

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:13 am

Who you gonna maul? Why Paul Feig’s derided all-female Ghostbusters dazzles a decade later

Ten years ago, the Ghostbusters reboot was released into a firestorm of rage and revulsion. What did the onslaught show us about film, fandom – and does it stand up today?

Criticism of Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot began more than two years before its release. Specifically, it started the moment that the director of Bridesmaids and The Heat announced, in 2014, that he and writer Katie Dippold were to cast four women as paranormal exterminators. The fate of their film was all but sealed.

A year later, the first trailer for the film swiftly became the most disliked film trailer on YouTube – and then most disliked YouTube video ever. Such a concerted campaign of vitriol did not lessen with the film’s release.

Published: June 11, 2026, 3:04 am

You be the judge: should my girlfriend make better use of our shared calendar?

Jordan wants one catch-all digital resource for him and Charlene, so their social lives don’t clash, but she prefers to communicate in person. You decide whose time is up

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

I’m not trying to control her but having one shared calendar helps us plan our lives together

Published: June 11, 2026, 12:00 am

‘I’m hoping to meet a river goddess’: a wild journey through Britain’s mythic waterways

Follow the folklore and you will discover a landscape full of wonder and powerful women – from a fearsome Scottish warrioress to the first queen of a united England

It’s just past midday and I appear to be inside a rain cloud. Soaked to the skin, my walking boots squelching through tufts of grass and black bog mud, I can hear hundreds of streams rolling off this wide mid-Wales peak, each vying to be the fastest. I’ve hiked around more than 8 miles (13km) of Hafren Forest trails to the top of Mount Pumlumon Fawr (Plynlimon), to reach a wooden post carved with the words Source of the Severn. And I’m here, alone, because I’m hoping to meet a river goddess.

It’s perhaps not as strange as it first sounds. Starting about 150 years ago, the folklorist John Rhys travelled across Wales to archive as many local myths as possible, and among them was the very tale that brought me to this peak: the story of the birth of the River Severn, in which three sisters – Hafren (Severn), Rheidolyn (Rheidol) and Gwy (Wye) – each choose their own route to the sea. My trip to the river’s source was itself a moment of mythically inspired travel, something that has been common practice in the British Isles for as long as we’ve told stories, not least as a means of passing them on.

Published: June 10, 2026, 11:00 pm

Sonos, Wrangler, Asics: 23 very best Father’s Day deals in the US for every kind of dad

Discounts from Papier, Lindt and Tom Ford to gift the dads in your life

• Superfood rice and cable ties: 10 things readers loved in May

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Father’s Day is on 21 June – and perhaps you’re hoping not to procrastinate on gift-buying this year. Be it a techy gadget or a summery pair of sunglasses, dad probably has a few items he’d be thrilled to unwrap.

Luckily, Father’s Day sales are steadily rolling in, and we’ve come across some at serious discounts (we’re talking up to half off and more). They’re from brands we’ve personally tested and recommended, such as DeWalt, Garmin and Tom Ford. If you’re thinking about what you’ll bring to the family barbecue, here are 23 Father’s Day gifts on sale for every kind of dad.

Published: June 10, 2026, 7:17 am

Belle Burden should have known: the more money, the more brutal the divorce | Amy Polacko

Burden’s divorce memoir illustrates how wealth can make things ugly once a marriage implodes

Cassandra had built the kind of life many women are told to want.

She had a sprawling multimillion-dollar home along the “gold coast” of Connecticut, a manicured lawn, fancy cars and a country club membership, and sent her children to private schools. But when the marriage to her high-earning husband cracked, so did the illusion that their wealth was a good thing.

Published: June 10, 2026, 5:00 am

‘A big pouffy dress is not really me’: the brides who got wed in a suit – long before Dua Lipa

When the singer got married in London last month, her skirt suit made headlines. But she was hardly the first to reject tradition. Here are the stories behind some other beautiful but unconventional outfits

For some people, wearing a big white dress on their wedding day feels as key as the rings. For others, less so.

When Dua Lipa wore a Schiaparelli couture white skirt suit as she wed the actor Callum Turner in London last month, she joined a long line of women who have opted for a suit. Not least Bianca Jagger, whom Lipa was speculated to be emulating – the model and activist caused a stir when she got hitched to Mick Jagger in 1971, wearing a Yves Saint Laurent Le Smoking jacket and bias-cut skirt.

Published: June 10, 2026, 4:00 am

‘Russian’ manicures are on the rise – but experts say a lot can go wrong

More customers are seeking out meticulous e-file manicures, but there are concerns about the risk of infection with the cuticle-raising beauty treatment

A drill with a speed of 35,000 revolutions per minute sits on Alina Huck’s orderly work station. The drill bit is the length of an almond, and as soon as it touches the client’s nail it whips up a fine dust of dead skin.

“It’s definitely a satisfying experience,” says Huck, a Sydney-based nail technician who has spent nearly a decade specialising in e-file manicures, also known as Russian manicures.

Published: June 10, 2026, 8:00 am

Rise of the fraysexuals: how sexual interest fades in some long-term relationships

Those with this orientation find strangers more alluring than people they know well – and their sexuality is often misunderstood as an attachment disorder

Name: Fraysexuality.

Age: Twelve years, but only just picking up steam.

Published: June 11, 2026, 8:36 am

From lardy cakes to simple scones: classic bakes that need no reinvention

The relentless desire to jazz things up is to blame for the disappearance of fond favourites. But there’s always pleasure to be found in old-school cakes

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

I got into a small and pointless argument with a friend recently when she announced that a certain bakery chain (expanding across England with astonishing speed) was the only place in her London neighbourhood where she could buy scones. Surely not, I said. Then I thought about where, if I wasn’t going to make my own (pictured top), I’d find them near my own home, and realised she may have a point. (FYI, fellow N1 folks, Quince Bakery always has them on the counter.)

A few days later, I was asked to go on BBC Radio 4 to comment on the decision by Somerset’s Burns the Bread to stop selling iced buns, which naturally made me desperately crave an iced bun. But were there any to be found near me? No. Thankfully, I’ve since realised you can get an excellent example for just £1.60* at Raabs the Bakers on Essex Road in London. But, before this turns into a food guide to my neighbourhood, may I point you in the direction of Ruby Tandoh’s lemon zest-spiked recipe, or Helen Goh’s strawberry finger buns should you also suddenly have a craving for soft, pillowy dough with a crackly smear of sugar on top. Both would be just as good not jazzed up.

Published: June 11, 2026, 5:02 am

‘Demonized, called hysterical’: the rise of witchcraft retreats where US women go to defy man and church

In an age of spiritual isolation, witches are flocking to the woods of Ireland and elsewhere to form covens of ‘sisterhood’

On the floor of a sun-drenched room in a 200-year-old Irish estate, a group of 15 witches gather to commune with the spirits. Everyone has someone they want to talk to – dead ancestors, forest fairies, the witches who came before them – and the room has the same expectant charge as the first day of school. Some of the witches wear long black capes and bandannas. Some wear Columbia fleeces, spaghetti-strap tank tops and Adidas sneakers.

Isabella Ferrari, known as Penny the Witch, guides the women as they make divination maps, sheets of paper covered with “yeses” and “nos” that work like Ouija boards: the witches ask their questions and the spirits guide the crystal pendulums in their hands towards the answer. One of the women, Tara Monte, screeches as her pendulum begins circling uncontrollably. “Isabella, do I stop this? Someone really wants to talk to me.” Later, she will confess she believes it was her archangel Michael letting her know yes, her parents were proud of her. Yes, they still loved her.

Published: June 10, 2026, 7:28 am

Should you send that midnight text? 11 essential rules for phone etiquette

What about using voice notes, or calling someone totally unannounced? Experts give their verdict on how to use your phone without causing offence

It is not news that many of us are addicted to our phones and nor is it a revelation that inconsiderate public behaviour now appears to be the norm, but when the two collide it can cause anger. Last week, at the end of a performance of the drama Inter Alia in London’s West End, the actor Rosamund Pike took to the stage after the curtain call to announce that she had seen someone texting during the performance. “I just wanted to say for anyone going to the theatre, it’s a huge thing that we’re trying to give you. I am trying to tell you a story, and I’m feeling you, and I hope you’re feeling me too … Maybe it was very important, and maybe you’re a doctor, and you’re saving someone’s life, and I hope you are, but we do see these, we do feel them.”

What is the correct etiquette when using your phone? Myka Meier, author of Modern Etiquette Made Easy, says: “It is always thinking about other people before yourself when you’re on the phone.” This also means being aware of how disabled people might use, and rely on, their phones. As an academic with hearing loss pointed out to the BBC after Pike’s comments, bans on phones in theatres, or public shaming, could exclude disabled people in audiences, such as those who use hearing aid apps and need to adjust the settings.

Published: June 10, 2026, 2:00 am

‘Highway of death’: the Ukrainian drone campaign menacing Russian logistics

Remote aircraft targeting supply traffic on route connecting occupied regions to Russia

Russian forces call it the “Novorossiya” route, the crucial main supply line that snakes through the Ukrainian territories under Moscow’s occupation, linking Rostov-on-Don in Russia to Melitopol, Mariupol and Crimea via the Sea of Azov coastline.

In recent months, however, Ukrainian forces have given the R-280 a new name – “the highway of death” – in reference to the Ukrainian drones that dominate the airspace above the road, hunting down convoys of Russian military traffic.

Published: June 10, 2026, 9:00 pm

Trump the unreliable narrator fails to force reality to match his story on Iran

A cycle of threat, detente and deadlock repeats itself wearisomely as the president’s war in Iran drags on

As the story of the US-Iran war is written direct to social media, Donald Trump may be the genre’s premier unreliable narrator.

Since the war began, Trump has again and again threatened Iran with fearsome consequences if Tehran doesn’t come to the table and sign a peace deal that the US president said was imminent weeks ago. And he has also repeatedly claimed that an Iran deal is “close” – without any result. (A CNN tally put the number of times he’s claimed it at 38.)

Published: June 10, 2026, 10:00 am

Is he Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump? Protest vote complicates Graham Platner’s victory

Democrats have rolled the dice in Maine as they pursue a post-Trump future. Will it work?

It was over the moment he received the endorsement of Maine’s most famous resident: Stephen King, the master of horror, who announced on Tuesday that he voted for Graham Platner.

More than 100,000 Democrats in Maine agreed, making Platner, a marine veteran and oyster farmer, their nominee for the US Senate against the Republican incumbent, Susan Collins, in November.

Published: June 10, 2026, 5:18 am

Bosphorus dolphins and a wakeboarder in a storm ditch: photos of the day – Thursday

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

Published: June 11, 2026, 5:34 am