From female art trailblazers to playful performance fests, a ridiculous funk wannabe to a clubby Argentinian dance spectacular, our critics pick the arts events that will light up your summer

National Treasures
Twelve museums across the UK, closing dates vary
Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire visits Tyneside, Artemisia Gentileschi shows at the Ikon in Birmingham and Caravaggio goes to Belfast in this epic tour of paintings from the National Gallery. The revered London museum has collected art for the nation since 1824 and this celebration sees its masterpieces more widely spread than ever. Jonathan Jones

Game-changing books that offer hope, as recommended by speakers at this year’s Hay festival, including Theresa May, Tom Holland, Helen Garner and Jon Ronson

chosen by Lenny Henry, actor and comedian

Nadeem, 57, an academic, meets Anona, 59, an environmentalist

What were you hoping for?
That he could make me laugh, had hair and wouldn’t bore the pants off me.

John Krasinski and Ryan Reynolds go family-friendly in their new imaginary-friends comedy, while the singer swaps introspection for lust on her long-awaited new album

If
Out now
In what has to be one of the more enviable showbiz lives, John Krasinski has played Jim in The Office, married Emily Blunt, and written and directed acclaimed horror franchise A Quiet Place. Now he turns his hand to family entertainment, writing and directing this part-animated fantasy about imaginary friends made visible with a little help from Ryan Reynolds and Steve Carell.

Supporters gather enough valid signatures to put measure – that would enshrine abortion rights into constitution – on to ballot

Voters in Colorado will have a say on abortion rights this fall after supporters collected enough valid signatures to put a measure on the ballot, part of a national push to pose abortion rights questions to voters since the US supreme court removed the nationwide right to abortion.

The Colorado measure officially made the ballot on Friday and would enshrine abortion rights into the constitution in a state which already allows abortion at all stages of pregnancy despite the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade.

Medical professionals and women who had bad experiences themselves respond to the findings of the birth trauma report

The maternity trauma report is deja vu all over again (Women having ‘harrowing’ births as hospitals hide failures, says MPs’ report, 13 May). I cannot read about it because it makes me want to scream.

I was around for the Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust report a couple of years ago. All those dead babies, all those mothers and parents talking about not being listened to or respected. All that handwringing from service providers, all those promises from politicians. The recommendations were set up to prevent the experiences we heard about this week (‘I was left lying on the ground in pain’: shocking stories from UK birth trauma inquiry, 13 May). For instance, continuity of midwifery care through the maternal pathway prevents so much of the stuff we read about now.

We can only address the politics of Israel/Palestine by recognising the suffering of both Jewish and Palestinian people, writes Lynne Segal. Plus a letter from Ron Mendel

It is indeed a tragic time for Jewish people, as Dave Rich argues (The 7 October Hamas attack opened a space – and antisemitism filled it. British Jews are living with the consequences, 16 May). He rightly insists on the extreme dangers of historic and continuing antisemitism, today rising and falling with the extremities of conflict in Israel/Palestine. Yet he fails to address the specific grief of thousands of Jews, observant and secular, who have like me worked for decades for peace, and an end to occupation and land grabs in Israel/Palestine.

Rich’s article was published the day after Nakba day: commemorating the catastrophe of 700,000 Palestinians forcibly dispossessed of their homes and sent into exile to enable the establishment of Israel in 1948. Jewish criticisms of Israel’s dispossession of Palestinians have always existed, but they tend to be immediately dismissed to allow only one narrative to be heard.

Azerbaijani flags have sprung up at demonstrations in Pacific territory, while separatists from French territories have been invited to Baku

France’s government says it has no doubt that Azerbaijan is stirring tensions in New Caledonia, despite the vast geographical and cultural distance between the Caspian country and the French Pacific territory.

Azerbaijan has said it rejects the accusation that it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the government in Paris.

Readers respond to Marina Hyde’s article about the former TV presenter’s recent baptism in the River Thames

Marina Hyde might be surprised to learn that this Baptist minister shares much of her opinion on the baptism of Russell Brand (So Russell Brand was baptised in the Thames, and all his sins were washed away. Cheaper than a lawyer, I suppose, 14 May).

Baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity does indeed signify the washing away of sin, since it marks the transition into a new life in Christ. But this does not exculpate the individual from the earthly consequences of their wrongdoings. Quite the contrary: baptism is performed on the basis of repentance – which will be marked by a willingness to participate in due process of law, where that is needful, and/or to make amends, where that is appropriate. Repentance, in other words, is a facing up to sin and the harms we have done, not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Readers remain unconvinced about how the rightwing MP can help the party’s ‘national renewal’

Who could argue with Keir Starmer’s desire for the Labour party to be “less tribal” or being welcoming to those “who want to join in our object of national renewal” (Labour should be ‘less tribal’, says Keir Starmer after Elphicke defection, 10 May). But platitudes are normally expected of leaders operating at the fag end of a failing government, not those poised to take power.

Natalie Elphicke may have apologised for the moral offence of insulting sexually assaulted women. She may deny the ethical offence of lobbying on behalf of her disgraced ex-husband. But neither she nor her Labour cheerleaders have explained how her rabidly rightwing vision will produce the romantic synergy with Labour policies that’s necessary to achieve “national renewal”.
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk

Dutch photographer Jelle Krings has been documenting the workers of the Ukrainian railway since the war began. Here, he revisits the families that have kept a war-torn country moving, often to great personal sacrifice

• Words and pictures by Jelle Krings

In the early hours of 24 February 2022, when Russian bombs and rockets struck Ukrainian cities and infrastructure throughout the country, railway workers boarded trains heading east. Determined to get as many people as possible to safety, they would end up evacuating millions to Ukraine’s borders in the west.

Ukraine’s new railway chief Yevhen Liashchenko was in the team that guided the network through the first stages of the war. He says his people acted not because they were instructed to but because “they didn’t know any other way”. There was no time for bureaucracy, “decisions were made by the people on the ground, and they love the railway, not as a business but as a family”.

The railway station in Lyman, Donbas, destroyed by shelling

From an AI that ‘creates’ family photos to images printed on glass – and then broken – these artists nominated for this year’s prize use radical methods to achieve groundbreaking results

State of emergency in place because of deadly unrest over bill that will let French people vote in provincial elections after 10 years of residence

Armed forces were protecting New Caledonia’s two airports and port and hundreds of French police were on their way to the Pacific territory after a third night of violent riots that have killed four people.

In three municipalities of the French collectivity, gendarmes faced about 5,000 rioters, including between 3,000 and 4,000 in the capital, Noumea, said France’s high commissioner, Louis Le Franc.

A Guardian survey of leading climate scientists revealed their despair about the future. John Coghlan, Rachael Orr, Natalie Bennett, Dr Robin Russell-Jones and Gregory Johnson find reasons to keep on fighting

I must commend the Guardian and Damian Carrington for the excellent reporting on the views of leading climate scientists (‘Hopeless and broken’ Why the world’s top climate scientists are in despair, 8 May). I have experienced climate despair, which has led me to take part in non-violent protests, and I can certainly bear witness to the fact that this kind of collective action goes a long way to offset the despair. However, protest is not for everyone. There are other ways to play our part.

We can help to accelerate the energy transition. Some 51% of final energy consumption is for heating and cooling, and 32% is for transport, according to the International Energy Agency, so we must ditch the old boiler and invest in a heat pump, and swap our petrol car for an electric model. By fitting solar panels, we can also generate renewable energy to power both transport and heating. Having done these things myself, I have found that the lightening of my carbon footprint brings with it a lightening of climate despair.

Physician-assisted suicide is incompatible with doctors’ duty to patients as spelled out in the GMC's guidance, writes Dr James Haslam

I write in response to Dr Jagat Aulakh’s letter (A form of assisted dying already happens in hospitals, 8 May). It must be made clear that withholding or withdrawing futile treatments is not and never has been assisted dying. Stopping – or not starting – treatments that are not wanted, are not working or are not worthwhile is good medicine and the law of the land. Whereas “assisted dying” is the modern euphemism for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia, both forms of medicalised killing.

The General Medical Council’s Good Medical Practice guidance states: “Patients must be able to trust medical professionals with their lives and health. To justify that trust [doctors] must make the care of patients [their] first concern.” Assisted suicide and euthanasia is incompatible with such a duty. How can patients trust professionals who facilitate their killing?

The US secretary of state, who performed with a Kyiv band in a bar this week, is the latest musically inclined politician to hit the stage

Name: Rocking politicians.

Age: The latest example of the trend came on Tuesday night, in a basement in Kyiv.

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