Fans have been defending nations’ culinary reputations
Hamburg stall-holder: ‘Don’t mess with our currywurst’
First it was Albanian fans taunting their Italian rivals by snapping uncooked spaghetti in front of them. Then the Austrians followed suit, breaking baguettes in the faces of French supporters before their Euro 2024 meeting.
Visitors flocking to Germany for the month-long tournament are entertaining themselves with good-natured “food wars” looking every bit as spicy as the games themselves. As well as the desecration of national foods in the streets – which has sparked more laughter than outrage – food banners are springing up in stadiums.
Q: [From Emma in Greenwich] How will you protect single-sex spaces for girls, while making it easier to get a gender recognition certificate?
Starmer says he is passionate about protecting single-sex spaces. As director of public prosecutions, he dealt with a lot of cases involving violence against women and girls.
The person I have in my mind when I say working people is people who earn their living, rely on our services, and don’t really have the ability to write a cheque when they get into trouble.
Royal Ascot gets off to its traditional flying start with a Group One event over a mile, and the race in which the mighty Frankel put up the greatest performance of his career, according to the ratings at least. There is, of course, nothing in today’s race that would get to within half a dozen lengths of the greatest horse of recent decades, but that does also mean that it is a highly competitive renewal and also one in which there are a few questions for some of the principals to answer. The good-to-firm ground may not be ideal for either Big Rock, who would be a very warm favourite on easier going having posted an immense performance to win the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes over track and trip in October. A similar comment applies to Facteur Cheval, the runner-up behind Big Rock in that race, while the merit of the form in the Lockinge Stakes in May, when Audience raced alone and beat Charyn by one-and-three-quarter lengths, is questionable, as the winner’s time was no more than middling-to-decent. I still grind my teeth when recalling Maljoom’s desperately unlucky run in the St James’s Palace Stakes here two years ago, when he carried the additional burden of being the Guardian’s nap of the day but should really have won by a cosy length. He has not shown much in just two runs since, though, and I’m going to take a chance instead on Harry Eustace’s Docklands, who put up one of the handicap performances of the season to win the Britannia Handicap over this course and distance 12 months ago.
What happens when a beach goes viral on social media? Thousands of people start visiting, leaving tampons, toilet paper and countless cigarette butts ...
Name: TikTok beaches.
Age: TikTok has been around since 2016; beaches slightly longer.
China has urged Nato to “stop shifting blame” over the war in Ukraine after the western military alliance’s chief accused Beijing of worsening the conflict through support of Russia.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, on Monday called for China to face consequences for what US officials have called a major export push to rebuild Russia’s defence industry.
There are reports Putin will be staying at the Kumsusan guesthouse in Pyongyang, which also housed Chinese leader Xi Jinping during a 2019 state visit to North Korea in 2019.
The mansion is located near the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, where Kim Jong-un’s father Kim Jong Il, and grandfather Kim Il Sung, lie in state.
A combination of a more efficient vote and a rise in tactical voting gives Ed Davey an opportunity to double Commons representation
The Liberal Democrats could increase their total seats in the new parliament owing to a more efficient vote distribution across the UK, say experts, despite the party polling a lower national vote share than in 2019.
The Lib Dems are polling at 10-11%, slightly lower than the 11.6% they won in 2019, which led to 11 seats in parliament.
Residents of Ruidoso told to leave belongings behind as South Fork fire bears down of community of 7,000
Residents of a village in southern New Mexico were ordered to flee their homes on Monday evening without taking time to grab any belongings due to a fast-moving wildfire.
“GO NOW: Do not attempt to gather belongings or protect your home. Evacuate immediately,” officials with Ruidoso, a village home to 7,000 people, said on its website and in social media posts at about 7pm.
Crowe plays an ex-cop receiving treatment for dementia who revisits one of his old cases, only to unearth some uncomfortable but entertaining memories
Entirely preposterous as it is, there’s a fair bit of entertainment to be had in what might be called an erotic pulp-noir from screenwriter turned director Adam Cooper, adapted from the 2017 crime bestseller The Book of Mirrors by Eugene Chirovici. I can imagine Brian De Palma being interested in it – and he might have wanted to twist the eroticism dial clockwise a click or two more.
Russell Crowe plays Roy Freeman, a depressed ex-cop whose wife left him long ago, battling to stay on the wagon, living in squalor and undergoing an experimental treatment to reverse his early onset dementia; he has labels on everything in his apartment to remind him what they’re for – but still occasionally opens the microwave to find the TV remote, completely fried. One day he is visited by a prison charity worker, begging him to visit a former junkie and burglar now on death row for the murder, 10 years previously, of charismatic psychology professor Joseph Wieder (Márton Csókás) – a case which Roy once worked with his partner Jimmy, a tough detective played by Crowe’s fellow Gladiator cast member Tommy Flanagan.
The party may find that, like Macron’s Renaissance, using consultancies quickly leads to bad decisions and low popularity
Keir Starmer is likely to be the prime minister in a few short weeks. Is there another, similar leader who could give us an insight into how he might behave in office? Starmer’s early promise was similar to that of Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, the electable face of an amicable centre-to-left. But Starmer abandoned that pretence the second he became Labour leader. He wishes he were Joe Biden, to the extent that he has followed the US line on foreign policy so closely as to alienate voters over his stance on Gaza.
In terms of his demeanour, he is reminiscent of Germany’s Olaf Scholz, and if elected, he may find himself similarly buffeted by history and unable to revive a stagnating economy. But lately, as reports have emerged of Labour enthusiastically courting consultants and lobbyists, Starmerism increasingly resembles the politics of France’s leader, Emmanuel Macron.
Oliver Haynes is a freelance journalist, and the co-host of the Flep24 podcast, covering the French legislative elections
For millennials, financial security feels like a fairy tale. What will the next 40 years look like?
Claire*, 42, was always told: “Follow your dreams and the money will follow.” So that’s what she did. At 24, she opened a retail store with a friend in downtown Ottawa, Canada. She’d managed to save enough from a part-time government job during university to start the business without taking out a loan.
For many years, the store did well – they even opened a second location. Claire started to feel financially secure. “A few years ago I was like, wow, I actually might be able to do this until I retire,” she told me. “I’ll never be rich, but I have a really wonderful work-life balance and I’ll have enough.”
Barbican, London Piano arrangements of Philip Glass’s music for his operas based on the French director’s films come complete with bespoke scents
Regular Barbican concertgoers might have been forgiven for thinking that the fragrances wafting through the auditorium during the Labèques’ recital were part of the latest attempt to disguise the hall’s famously malodorous toilets. But renovation of the noisome loos has finally begun, and the scents were actually part of the concert. Specially created by Francis Kurkdjian, with lighting design by Mehdi Toutain-Lopez, they were part of the sisters’ performance of Philip Glass’s Cocteau Trilogy, arrangements for two pianos by Michael Riesman of music from the three operas that Glass based on films by Jean Cocteau.
Composed in the 1990s, these scores contain some of Glass’s finest music, and each treats the original film in a different way. The first to be composed, Orphée, is a conventional chamber opera, while in the second, La Belle et la Bête, the spoken words of the film are replaced by Glass’s setting of the same text, lip-synced in live performance to a screening of the film, and Les Enfants Terribles became a dance opera, with the accompaniment of three pianos. Even though the ingredients of Glass’s style are the same as ever, the music seems peculiarly French, and a reminder too that he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger between 1964 and 1966.
Girl, 14, named as Khandi, along with Amelia, aged nine, and Malik, seven, may have travelled to London
Police are searching for three children who are missing after a day out at a theme park in Surrey.
A 14-year-old girl named only as Khandi was with two younger children – Amelia, nine, and Malik, seven – at Thorpe Park on Monday, before they were reported missing at 7pm, Surrey police said.
In the run up to July's election, the Guardian video team is touring the UK looking at issues that matter to communities. In the town of Port Talbot, in the Aberafan Maesteg constituency, many voters are worried about the future of the steelworks where at least 2,800 jobs are on the line. We spoke to businesses, food banks and charities and politicians, all worried about the knock-on effect on families who have been steelworkers for generations. We also heard voters' other concerns and asked politicians what people were saying about the steelworks on the doorstep
BBC says presenters ‘regularly reminded of guidelines’ on promoting clothing after Lineker wore green T-shirt
The BBC has said on-screen presenters and contributors are “regularly reminded of the guidelines in relation to clothing” after Gary Lineker appeared to be wearing his own range of clothing on air.
While fronting the coverage for the BBC for England’s opening Euros game against Serbia on Sunday, the Match of the Day host wore a pale green knitted T-shirt, and put on a sage green jacket at half-time.
Labour leader says families of three people stabbed to death have had ‘horrific experience’, as Barnaby Webber’s mother challenges him on radio phone-in
Keir Starmer has committed to a judge-led inquiry into the Nottingham attacks if Labour wins the election, saying there are “too many examples of victims and family members being let down”.
Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates were stabbed to death last year by Valdo Calocane, who was sentenced to a hospital order after pleading guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to paranoid schizophrenia.
Immigrants who have resided in US for 10 years would be able to pursue legal status while living in country
Joe Biden was set to announce a new action opening a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented spouses and children of US citizens, a sweeping initiative that could provide relief to hundreds of thousands of “mixed-status” families in the country, according to senior administration officials.
Biden is expected to announce the new actions at a White House event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or Daca, which presently shields from deportation nearly 530,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the US as children.
Sometimes, it’s hard to be the main man. And it’s thus far been a mixed Euros for the alphas. Luka Modric got enveloped in Rodri’s spider’s web. Toni Kroos’s month-long mic drop began with giving John McGinn the pure runaround. Memphis Depay’s attempt to look and act like legendary NBA maverick Allan Iverson saw him overshadowed by big Wout Weghorst once the getting-it-launched button was pushed. Christian Eriksen staged that beautiful Lazarus moment then ran out of gas in the manner that marred his second season at Manchester United.
Just wondering how you feel about D Man assisting for Romania at the Euros? I presume he got sick of having to supervise your ‘work’ and moved on to better things” – Patrick Fahy.
With all the talk about complexities such as positional versus relational (or whatever it is), you can understand if footballers sometimes forget the basics these days. Obviously, Ukraine can be forgiven more than most for having other things on their mind. Perhaps they should enlist a certain stalwart of Nominative Determinism FC and simply Mark D Man?” – Mark Read.
It’s often said the war between Britain and Spain was caused by Jenkin’s Ear. Who knows what will happen from the War Of Mbappé’s Nose?” – Kev McCready.
AI is power-hungry, and that’s causing problems for Apple.
We’re still working through the ramifications of the company’s worldwide developers conference, where it revealed how it intends to incorporate AI into your daily life – but only, for the most part, if your daily life involves a brand new iPhone:
Apple’s new AI models will run on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the only two devices the company has yet shipped with its A17 processor. Macs up to three years old will also be able to take advantage of the upgrade, provided they have a M1, 2 or 3 chip, and so too will iPad Pros with the same internal hardware.
At the core of Apple’s privacy assurances regarding AI is its new Private Cloud Compute technology. Apple seeks to do most computer processing to run Apple Intelligence features on devices. But for functions that require more processing than the device can handle, the company will outsource processing to the cloud while “protecting user data”, Apple executives said on Monday.
To accomplish this, Apple will only export data required to fulfil each request, create additional security measure around the data at each end point, and not store data indefinitely. Apple will also publish all tools and software related to the private cloud publicly for third-party verification, executives said.
Shocks and low-scoring games have been great entertainment but the ICC must guard against saturating the market
This has been a truly global T20 World Cup. With 20 teams involved for the first time it’s been much more inclusive than previous editions, and it’s been great to have fixtures you would not normally see, with some creditable performances from the associate countries – even in defeat.
Scotland showed a lot of power in their batting and variety in their bowling, coming so close to beating Australia after victories over Oman and Namibia and a rained-off contest with England in which they amassed an unbeaten 90-run opening stand. They leave the tournament with plenty of credit. Nepal lost to South Africa by just one run, Canada beat Ireland, a Test side, and USA have played some really convincing cricket to advance to the Super Eights.
A voluptuous chilled bowl full of summer’s finest fruits
In a chilled bowl, whip 150ml of cream until it starts to feel heavy on the whisk. It should sit in soft folds, rather than be stiff enough to stand to attention. Stir 100ml of yoghurt into the cream. Avoid over-mixing them. Chill in the fridge.
Take 2 medium-sized, ripe mangoes, and by ripe I mean fruits that are giving to the touch, deeply fragrant and maybe with a golden bead of juice already appearing at their stalks. Peel the mangoes, using a small, sharp knife, then remove their cheeks, either side of the stone, followed by the rest of the flesh. Catch as much of the juice as you can.
It may all be a bit twee, but fun abbreviations give people a casual way to talk about their lives and their struggles
If you’ve spent any time online recently, you’d be forgiven for thinking there’s something in the water. Some grown adults – usually of the millennial, Gen Z variety, though not exclusively – have regressed to a kind of cutesy, baby language, even while discussing serious topics. In this language, the cost of living crisis is the “cozzie livs”; the upcoming general election is the “genny lec”, and a mental breakdown is a “menty b”. Meanwhile, holidays are “holibobs”, and the wine formerly known as sauvignon blanc is “savvy b”– best paired with a jacky p (jacket potato) for a comforting dinner that’s not too “spenny” (expensive).
This linguistic phenomena of, well, very silly abbreviations, has created so much confusion, particularly from North American social media users, that decoding British slang is now its own genre in US celebrity interviews (they’ve all done them – Billie Eilish, Emma Stone, Halle Bailey and more). Meanwhile British social media users regularly share their thoughts on the latest language in posts ranging from joy to derision. “If I am re-elected,” joked Labour MP Stella Creasy, “I promise legislation to ban the terms ‘genny lec’ and ‘snappy gen’.” (“Snappy gen” was briefly in the running for the election abbreviation du jour, before being superseded by the overwhelming popularity of “genny lec”.)
Coco Khan is a freelance writer and co-host of the politics podcast Pod Save the UK
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PC, PlayStation 5 (version played), Xbox; The Chinese Room/Secret Mode This horror game creates great atmosphere with its acting and visual design, but is regularly brought to its knees by uninspiring gameplay
The premise here is a genre classic: one day, workers on the oil rig Beira D hit something with their drill they shouldn’t have, and soon, a nameless horror descends on the ship and picks off the crew one by one. When it happens, Glaswegian electrician Cameron “Caz” McCleary is already on his way off the rig, fired from the remote job he fled to in order to dodge the police after a serious scrap at a bar. It’s his work boots we step into as he desperately searches for an escape.
While the team that made Still Wakes the Deep is almost entirely different from the incarnation of developer The Chinese Room that made its previous hits Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, all share high visual fidelity, realistic sound work and affecting acting as their trademark. Still Wakes the Deep’s setting is probably the most realistic oil rig in any media to date, down to hundreds of little hissing valves and a labyrinth of perilously groaning metal staircases. Even without an encroaching horror from the deep, this isn’t a place to tell health and safety about, and the rig is without a doubt the game’s most outstanding character.
The French actor was one of the key faces of the New Wave, starring in classics by directors including Federico Fellini, Jacques Demy and Claude Lelouch
Anouk Aimée, the French star of European New Wave classics including La Dolce Vita, A Man and a Woman and Lola, has died aged 92. Her daughter Manuela Papatakis announced the news on social media on Tuesday.
Papatakis said: “We have the immense sadness to announce the departure of my mother … I was close to her when she passed away this morning, at her home in Paris.”
Arcola theatre, London Set in a chronically understaffed treatment centre, Laura Waldren’s searing play homes in on the hellish cycles and contradictions caused by the condition
For anyone who has ever lived with an eating disorder, Laura Waldren’s Papatango prize-winning play feels like a blow to the head. It is set in an adult eating disorder unit – a land segregated from the rest of life, where patients fight against their internal voices in an effort to get better. Their key nurses treat them like infants, telling them what to eat, when they can use the phone, and to avoid using “negative” words. But when you’re under the sway of a secret demon, can any of that really help at all?
Eighteen-year-old Sam (Hannah Saxby) arrives at the unit fresh from a stint at a similar children’s facility. She is desperate to get well enough to go to university and start anew. Zoe (Sirine Saba) is in her 40s, a cynical revolving-door patient who has so far been unable to escape the grasp of her illness. Group sessions, meal plans and physical check-ups form the basis of the broken, chronically understaffed system that they’re pushed through. Honesty is required for the process to work, they’re told repeatedly, but the lies about relapses and secret bouts of exercise fall out of the women with ease.
Increasing use of fans, air coolers and air conditioners is placing ‘serious’ strain on grid in north of country
Engineers in India have warned of the possibility of prolonged power outages in the north, where a heatwave has brought misery for millions of people.
Demand for electricity has soared due to fans, air coolers and air conditioners being run constantly, placing a strain on the grid in Delhi and elsewhere in the north. Manufacturers of air conditioners and air coolers report sales rising by 40-50% compared with last summer.
“I’ll vote Labour, 100%,” said Sean, 36, a married designer and homeowner from Chester who voted Lib Dem at the last election. “The party is a lot more centrist now than it was in 2019.
“Keir Starmer may not be the most electrifying politician, but he is what we need right now. A safe, competent pair of hands who can bring some stability. And I’d absolutely trust Labour more with the NHS than the Tories. Labour will probably be more willing to invest in it.”
Unite union also considering employment tribunal claims for unfair dismissal against Whitbread
Workers are planning to demonstrate at Premier Inn owner Whitbread’s annual shareholder meeting over plans to cut 1,500 jobs amid rising profits.
The employees of restaurants including Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Beefeater plan to protest outside the company’s investor meeting in Dunstable, Bedfordshire on Tuesday.
Don’t miss the chance to have your say in the vote to choose the next UK government
• This article was amended on 13 June 2024. An earlier version said that “voters in England” now need to show photo ID at polling stations in general elections; in fact, this is a requirement across the UK.
Next month’s Test double-header on South African soil will write a new chapter in an increasingly rancorous struggle
No sooner had Ireland claimed a 13-8 win over South Africa in the Rugby World Cup last year – an epic tussle in a tournament littered with all-time encounters – a thumping rendition of the Cranberries’ Zombie rang out around Stade de France. The song’s connections with the Troubles, the IRA and Ireland’s struggle for peace was lost on most South African fans that sweaty Saturday night in Paris. Their primary reaction to Ireland’s adopted anthem was rage.
“What’s in your heeeeaad, in your heeeeeeeaaaaad!” It was hard for them not to feel this was meant as a jibe; that the Irish, who have never seen their players lift the sport’s most glittering trophy, who had never even seen them reach the semi-finals of a World Cup, were rubbing South African noses in their success. That their No 1-ranked team had wormed their way into the subconscious of every South African by relegating the Boks to a stepping stone on their march to glory. The face of Rassie Erasmus, South African rugby’s god-king, said it all. He was seething. What was a friendly rivalry had now become personal.
This is an extract taken from our weekly rugby union email, the Breakdown. To sign up, just visit this page and follow the instructions.
Bloviators and untruths continue to generate more news than common sense and the environment. But some parties are trying to make a difference
I’m sitting in a room with Catherine Mayer and Sandi Toksvig, who founded the Women’s Equality party (WEP) nine years ago, and Caroline Lucas and Siân Berry, departing and prospective Brighton Pavilion Green MPs respectively. In theory this is a political meeting, but it doesn’t feel like politics, because nobody appears to be lying, and everyone makes sense.
In a sane world, Toksvig would be the political insurgent, because she’s saying what everyone is thinking, and Nigel Farage would be the entertainer, because, well, people seem to find him entertaining. Toksvig talks about real people, and how their lives could be improved; how to reorder society so that it values unpaid labour, how to make policy that thinks in terms of decades, not five-year stints, how to break out of polarised debates so that you’re not endlessly repeating the same pantomime in ever baser terms. She says things that are self-evidently true, such as: “We have been brought up in an old system that is dying, and that is great. We should party at its bonfire.” Yet somehow, to make it into the news cycle, you can only say things that are untrue or irrelevant. She points out things that are ludicrous, such as: in the Conservative manifesto, the word “poverty” appears only once, and that’s in relation to international aid. It’s as if the conditions of the people living in this country do not matter to the people who seek to run it. And that’s somehow priced in to the mainstream debate, considered normal. Why would the Conservatives care about poverty, stupid? That’s not who they are.
Former pro Dan Lobb’s perky documentary follows the irrepressible athletes as they compete for glory in their age groups’ world championships
Three sinewy octogenarians and one unfeasibly hale-looking nonagenarian are the focus of this perky documentary looking at tennis players still holding their own in a late tiebreak with father time. A mixture of ex-pros and dogged late starters who picked the game up in middle age, they all converge at the International Tennis Federation senior world championships in Croatia; a tournament with more matches than Wimbledon. As serial winner King van Nostrand – a former maths teacher who was 85 at the time of filming – points out, small margins of age count; at a given point, a younger player of inferior ability will statistically start beating their older betters.
A stooping Floridian with a rapier grin, Van Nostrand has dominated the seniors circuit winning a record-breaking 43 titles and is still not tired of winning. His doubles partner is 87-year-old John Powless, a varsity-league and pro player whose beautiful stroke and attaboy magnanimity are intact, but whose energy is being sapped by chemo. Refusing to acknowledge her age (82), Etty Marouani is a coquettish former Parisian model who took up tennis at 42. Her girlish hair ribbon belies a killer determination to add the world title to her French seniors one. Most remarkable is 95-year-old Ukrainian Leonid Stanislavskyi, an amateur who picked up a racket to keep body and mind ticking over. He’s generally resigned to being battered by his juniors, with only two other nonagenarian competitors available. “Even if I lose, I’ll come third,” he says.
Savage gets job after being ‘offered senior role elsewhere’
Seventh-tier club say he will ‘judged solely on results’
Robbie Savage has been appointed as the head coach of Macclesfield FC. The former Wales midfielder was director of football at the phoenix club, as well as a shareholder, but after another club approached him he decided to take control of the first team.
Savage will be assisted by Peter Band while his former Leicester teammate Emile Heskey has been appointed in a “position-specific role as and when required”. Savage moving into the dugout means Michael Clegg, who was appointed as manager in February, has left the club.
Number of rail trips using season tickets now 13%, down from 34% before the pandemic
The use of rail season tickets in Great Britain has plummeted to the lowest level on record, driven by a rise in working from home since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The number of rail journeys made by people using season tickets fell to 13% in the year to 31 March, from 15% in the previous year, according to figures from the Office for Rail and Road, the industry regulator. This is the lowest figure since records started in 1986-87.
Tony Sinclair had worked all his life – but still found himself sleeping rough. Then even his tent was taken away from him
In a way, 70-year-old Tony Sinclair was lucky to be in his tent on the day last year when the police arrived. The canvas that kept him from the elements ended up in the bin, but, unlike several of his neighbours, he was able to save his most important possessions from going the same way.
On 10 November, he was in Huntley Street in central London, in one of 10 tents pitched in a row next to University College hospital. Officers turned up “demanding my details, name, date of birth. But I stood my ground and refused, because I’d done nothing wrong.” They said they were enforcing a section 35 dispersal order, under powers introduced 10 years ago to target antisocial behaviour. Sinclair thought such an order couldn’t be used to move someone away from their home – “and this was my home”.
The screenwriter of Alan Clarke’s classic drama, who died in December, describes how the untried young actor secured his approval
My first sighting of Tim Roth was from an office window that looked down on to Soho Square, close to Oxford Circus in London’s West End. Director Alan Clarke had chosen Tim to play the leading role in Made in Britain, the last of a quartet of films I had been commissioned to write about young people and their experiences within the education and social services. As I looked out of Alan’s office window, Tim was clearly at odds with another youth sporting a flamboyant purple and red Mohican haircut. Quite a scrap was going on and it took time for a passing policeman to break it up.
In 1978, as producer of the Play for Today series, Margaret Matheson was responsible for Roy Minton’s Scum, about life in a borstal. It was banned by the BBC amid a huge media outcry. Also directed by Clarke, Scum then went on to be produced as a feature film. At Central Television, Margaret commissioned me to write four standalone feature films under the generic title of Tales Out of School. Each film had a different director, different actors, and so on. The final film of the four was Made in Britain, to be directed by Clarke. It features Trevor, an articulate and intelligent young skinhead, permanently at odds with the system – and himself.
With the tournament kicking off this week, we look at the players who will be decisive in the US this summer
One of the beautiful things about soccer in the Americas is the mix of players who suit up at the international level. Peru will once again trust 40-year-old Paolo Guerrero at a Copa América, Chile will turn to 41-year-old goalkeeper Claudio Bravo while future stars like 17-year-old Kendry Páez of Ecuador and 19-year-old Valentín Carboni of Argentina will play in their major international tournament.
Between the extremes, there are plenty of players in their primes who will dazzle. We trust you’re familiar with Lionel Messi, Vinícius Júnior and Luis Díaz, so here are 10 players who should star – if not shine as brightly as the Ballon d’Or contenders – in the US this summer.
The party’s electoral strategy is based on an outdated stereotype of the northern voter – and it will come back to haunt Starmer
In the 2024 general election campaign, both major parties seem intent on being as grimly, greyly unadventurous as possible. Moments of farce aside, the dearth of talking points has at times made me feel weirdly nostalgic for the heady days of late 2019, when talk of the “collapse of the red wall” dominated a rather more dramatic contest. Nearly five years on from the upheavals of 2019, what has happened to the “red wall” which became such a defining psephological cliche of that moment?
In fact, while the “red wall” phrase has somewhat fallen out of fashion, the idea that Labour’s electoral success depends on its ability to win back imagined hordes of socially conservative voters in the distant north and Midlands remains central to the party’s self-image. While coherent Labour policy announcements have been rather thin on the ground lately, the mood music of Starmerism – if such a thing exists – is dominated by themes of security, patriotism, toughness on immigration and the fact that Keir Starmer’s father was once a blue-collar worker. All of this apparently in the hope of appealing to a “white working class” whose heartlands lie in a vague northerly terrain called something like Outside the London Bubble.
China accounts for more than 90% of North Korea’s trade and has been its most dependable aid donor and diplomatic ally. But as Vladimir Putin’s imminent visit to Pyongyang proves, the secluded state’s behaviour is being increasingly influenced by its security and economic ties with Russia.
Britons have cut back on their supermarket shopping and traditional summer purchases because of recent poor weather, even though grocery price inflation slowed further, according to a report.
Supermarket prices were 2.1% higher than a year ago in the four weeks to 9 June, according to the retail researchers Kantar. This is down from May’s 2.4% inflation rate, and marks the 16th month that price rises have slowed. Kantar found costs are falling in nearly a third of the categories it tracks, including toilet tissue, butter and milk, an improvement from last year when just 1% of categories showed price declines.
Manchester City will begin their pursuit of an unprecedented fifth consecutive Premier League title away to Chelsea. The match on Sunday 18 August will pit Pep Guardiola against his former assistant Enzo Maresca, who was appointed by Chelsea after guiding Leicester to promotion.
The FA Cup winners Manchester United will host the opening game of the campaign when Fulham visit on Friday 16 August.
Shaina West’s heroine thwacks, hacks and quips her way through this pulpy action movie, leaving Mickey Rourke and his henchmen in her wake
British martial artist and stunt performer Shaina West (she was one of the assassins in Black Widow and also appeared in The Woman King) graduates to star with the title role of this pulpy, retro action flick. Her Jade is an English ex-pat who has been stranded in some nondescript US town for a little while, still mourning the death of her brother, who was killed in an overly complicated backstory, laid out in a big chunk of animated screen time before the titles come up.
Once that exposition dump is finished, director James Bamford (a stunt coordinator by trade) and the team get stuck in to the kicking, hand-chopping, stabbing and shooting stuff as Jade is persuaded to hide a mysterious hard drive for a soon-to-be murdered friend from her gang days. She gets captured but makes light work of escaping as she thwacks and hacks her captors, henchmen employed by big-boss big-bad Tork (Mickey Rourke, texting his performance in, one laconic barely discernible emoji at a time.)
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, but what about judging it by its contents page? Scanning the list of chapters in The House of Beckham, Tom Bower’s allegedly “explosive” book on the celebrity couple, will certainly give you a good impression of what you’ll be getting. Wreckage! Shame! Agony! Cheapskate! Sex Scandal! Downfall! Warfare!
It’s safe to say this relentlessly mean book hasn’t been written with the blessing of Posh and Becks (or Thin and Thick, as Bower reminds readers they were often referred). But is it really as scandalous as it looks? Here are some things we learned from it.
Charities are calling for more help for women trapped with mortgages they cannot change because they are controlled by an abusive partner
A woman whose controlling partner’s abrupt departure left her with an unaffordable mortgage has accused Barclays of refusing to help her as she struggled with the fallout.
Sally James*, a mother of two teenage daughters, says the bank refused to restructure her repayments when she could no longer afford them after being left as a single parent. And when the ombudsman ordered Barclays to do so, it trashed her credit score.
The UN human rights chief on Tuesday warned that the rights situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, was drastically deteriorating, while there had been “unconscionable death and suffering” in Gaza.
Reuters reports Volker Türk, UN high commissioner for human rights, said “The situation in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is dramatically deteriorating.”
For Karani, Euro 2024 in Germany has the distinct air of a home tournament about it. “That Turkey qualified, and the national team is now here is a really nice feeling for me and many others of Turkish origin,” he says, trying to suss out via a weather app if he can trust the forecast enough before the Turkey v Georgia game on Tuesday to put out the cushions on the terrace of his café in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district.
“Of course I’m proud. I hope we get far. A Turkey-Germany final would be the best outcome, though I admit in that case I would struggle to know who to support.”
Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
Iceland’s chairman, RichardWalker, says Kantar are correct that the cost of living squeeze isn’t over – before squeezing in a plug for his supermarket:
Back in January, Walker (a former Conservative supporter) announced he was backing Labour, saying Keir Starmer understood how the cost of living crisis has put an “unbearable strain” on families.
An extract from new book Travelling follows the Canadian songwriter’s restless adventures in psychoanalysis and psychedelia from Hejira to Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter
In the 1970s, Joni Mitchell was reaching out, taking it all in. The shy girl and the party girl did a little boho dance inside her, trading places depending on what day it was. “I’m always talkin’, chicken squawkin’, bigawwk, bigAWWWK!” she yakked in Talk to Me, musicalising the women’s art of conversation as it goes off the rails. That song, from Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, is an extrovert’s embarrassing indulgence, the final shove from a pushy broad. Mitchell liked to run her mouth off. But then she would retreat into solitude. Reflecting on this period later, she’d describe the 1970s as a time when she moved away from the introversion that had reached its nearly claustrophobic peak on Blue and toward a new role as an observer, telling others’ stories as she encountered them on the road. Yet in another, fundamental way, she remained inwardly focused. She just had a different framework for doing so, one emblematic of the time. A silent listener sits across from her in Hejira’s songs as she recounts her excursions. Herself, in the role of analyst.
“I tried to run away myself,” Mitchell sings in Coyote, “to run away and wrestle with my ego.” Hejira’s opening salvo identifies her travels as both geographical and psychological. She ranges through her own mind as much as anywhere else, but her lyrics show signs of a new mindset. The scholar David Shumway identified the Freudian couch as the source. “Ambivalence is a characteristic of neurotic states, but it is also a product of the work of analysis,” he wrote in his book Rock Star. “Mitchell’s work depends heavily on the discourse of, if not psychoanalysis proper, then the therapy of the talking cure in a general sense.”
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