While once there would be a lone photographer taking pictures of the happy couple, now videographers and ‘content creators’ are also invited to document the big day, and even the clergy have had enough

Hiking to the top of the highest local peak in full wedding dress sounded dramatic, adventurous and romantic. A visual representation of feeling on top of the world; a jaunty juxtaposition between gorgeous wedding finery and the wilds of northern England. The resulting photographs were striking and memorable, recalls the photographer behind this scenario, Scott Johnson. The couple were lovely and it was one of his favourite jobs – but he wonders how their guests felt, having been left for two hours while they went off to hike up a hill. “You’re invited by the bride and groom to spend a day with them and they disappear, so I can see where the angst comes from,” he says. “But it’s what the couple wants, so we have to say yes.”

Johnson, in his 40s, says he is old enough to remember when his wedding photography jobs lasted around three hours – he was there to capture the arrival at the church or register office, shoot the ceremony and take portraits and photographs for an hour or so afterwards. “You didn’t do any bridal preparation, or stay for the party.” Now, he says, couples want coverage from early in the morning until midnight or later. “I used to just take one camera and one lens,” he adds; now he brings a van of equipment. “Couples are much more aware of what can be done than ever before.” And, anecdotally at least, many couples want much more. “Some want the more stylised coverage,” he says. “You see wedding photography online where you’re thinking, that’s not a wedding, it’s like a movie shoot.”

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© Illustration: RUBY ASH/Levy Creative/RUBY ASH/Levy Creative/The Guardian

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© Illustration: RUBY ASH/Levy Creative/RUBY ASH/Levy Creative/The Guardian

Exclusive: almost half of billionaire Tory donor’s last 100 reposts were in support of rightwing party

A Tory peer and former party donor has shared dozens of social media posts supportive of Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

During the course of the election campaign Peter Cruddas, the billionaire Tory donor who was controversially ennobled by Boris Johnson, has reposted a string of material calling on voters to back Farage and his party.

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© Photograph: House of Lords/PA

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© Photograph: House of Lords/PA

The appetite for drama based on real events seems insatiable, but a preliminary ruling that a British film defamed the original of one of its characters – along with legal action against Baby Reindeer – may give producers pause for thought

It’s enough to chill the blood of screenwriters, directors and producers everywhere – or at least provoke a wince of recognition, whether they are in UK legal jurisdiction or not. In a preliminary ruling, a British judge has ruled that the The Lost King, the film about the discovery in 2012 of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park, has a case to answer that it is defamatory of Richard Taylor, a former university official.

The Lost King covers the efforts spearheaded by Philippa Langley (played by Sally Hawkins) to uncover Richard III’s skeleton, and Lee Ingleby plays Taylor, the then deputy registrar of Leicester university. Taylor claims the film shows him “behaving abominably” and shows him taking credit for the discovery for himself and the university.

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© Photograph: Warner Bros/Graeme Hunter

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© Photograph: Warner Bros/Graeme Hunter

As Douglas Is Cancelled prepares to air, Moffat talks about career implosions, Bonneville relives past nude scenes – and Kingston recalls the ‘wandering hands’ warnings she used to be given

When Douglas, a nationally trusted news host, suffers a social media pile-on about a private comment revealed online, he consults his agent, who warns him – with a vagueness that may have pleased ITV’s lawyers – that he risks the fate of fellow broadcasters “whatsisname and the other one”. Many viewers will substitute the names Phillip Schofield and Huw Edwards, whose careers were cancelled after controversies about their conduct.

“They may well do,” admits Steven Moffat, writer of ITV’s four-part Douglas Is Cancelled. “But I wrote the first version of this – as a stage play that didn’t get put on – five years ago, long before the cases you mention. It doesn’t matter which period you put this story in: there will be somebody who fell from grace in TV.”

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© Photograph: Sally Mais/ITV

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© Photograph: Sally Mais/ITV

Article in US paper claims Robert Winnett, due to join from Telegraph, used material from self-described ‘thief’

The Washington Post has published an investigation that accuses its own future editor of using the work of a self-described blagger who stole private records to order.

Under the headline “Incoming Post editor tied to self-described ‘thief’ who claimed role in his reporting”, the newspaper claimed that Robert Winnett used material from a self-confessed blagger, John Ford, while working as a journalist on the Sunday Times during the 2000s.

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© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Dr. Vivek Murthy said he would urge Congress to require a warning that social media use can harm teenagers’ mental health.

© Susan Walsh/Associated Press

Enter lots of contests, think of prizes as potential presents but beware of scammers

Winning a competition can be a great feeling, but businesses don’t give away prizes out of generosity.

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© Photograph: ClassicStock/Alamy

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© Photograph: ClassicStock/Alamy

The former GQ editor’s memoir is a ‘precarious balancing act’, revealing parental abuse while emphasising his celebrity-heavy career

The efflorescence of men’s magazines in the UK lasted from about 1985 to 2010. You may recall their titles on newsagents’ shelves – Arena, GQ, Maxim, Esquire – near in time but now as defunct as the clay tablets of Babylon. They are gone, mostly, along with those newsagents’ shelves. It was a short-lived, almost parenthetical age. To revisit it in this new memoir by Dylan Jones, former editor of GQ, is to be transported to a world of scarcely imaginable glamour, of expense-account carelessness, of sybaritic indulgence unrivalled since the days of Rome. You can barely make it out through the rain of rose petals.

And squarely at the centre is Jones, scene-maker, master of the revels, and friend to the stars. Quite an irony today to read of his editorial perfectionism, and his insistence that every issue of his magazine should be an “art object”. This from the man who has just helped oversee the death warrant for the print edition of the 200-year-old London Evening Standard, having admitted to never reading a paper version of it himself. I wonder if it was not sufficiently “iconic” for him.

These Foolish Things by Dylan Jones is published by Constable (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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© Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images

Complaints about BBC coverage can quickly become the story, drawing attention away from the actual issue

• UK election live – latest updates

Nigel Farage knows the BBC will not allow him to join its televised Sunak vs Starmer leaders’ debate later this month. But the he also knows that a battle with the BBC can be an effective political tactic.

“If the BBC want a fight with me on this, they can have one,” Farage has said.

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© Photograph: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock

Versatile Arsenal and Everton striker who went on to become a popular football commentator

The footballer Kevin Campbell, who has died aged 54 after a short illness, won a league title, the FA Cup, a League Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup over a four-year period from 1990 until 1994 with Arsenal, the club he had supported, and joined, as a boy.

As a striker he scored eight times in 10 matches during the second half of the Division One championship in 1991, and during the victorious 1993–94 European Cup Winners’ Cup campaign he contributed four important goals across the knockout stages, including one in the semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain.

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© Photograph: Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images

ITV, helped by having the first three games, got off to a flyer with better opening titles and a new voice on refs’ decisions

As the rights-holder not tied to their regular set of white-soled Match of the Day pundits, ITV has made significant recent gains on the BBC for tournament coverage in being able to call up some big guns. Saturday lunchtime’s Trooping The Colour had also meant the baton was ITV’s for Euro 2024’s first three matches.

Inform, entertain, hope the football is actually good and don’t hit the “let’s go off to the England camp” button too early? That was the formula, once opening idents revealed these Euros are jointly sponsored by Qatar Airways and Lidl to remind where much of football’s power lies and of the cost-of-living crisis.

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© Photograph: Christina Unkel

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© Photograph: Christina Unkel

To add to its frustrations, the Labour leader’s wife hasn’t said anything silly and has refused to exhibit the couple’s children

It’s probably not coming up on the doorstep, but with limited material and time the opponents of Keir Starmer were bound, eventually, to alight on the question of his wife, Victoria.

That she appears to live a happy and productive life, works for the NHS, refuses to exhibit their children, turns up for formal and Labour party occasions, has not said anything silly and has yet, to add to these frustrations, to be convicted of overspending on clothes – are not, in the hands of ingenious analysts, insurmountable deterrents.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

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© Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

The news anchor, who will present the programme with Laura Kuenssberg, has spoken on Desert Island Discs about the insults and threats he has experienced as a broadcaster

Clive Myrie has detailed the racism he has experienced during his broadcasting career, as he prepares to present the BBC’s general election night programme.

Speaking to Lauren Laverne on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast on Sunday, the 59-year-old listed some of the insults and threats he has endured, including being sent faeces and pictures of gorillas in the post.

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© Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

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© Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Observer

A-listers queued up to add showbiz pizzaz before elections. Today, it’s seen as more effective for a member of the public speak out

David Tennant, Colin Firth, Jim Davidson and the late Kenny Everett all signed up to officially support a political party during past British general election campaigns, giving a touch of showbiz pizazz to the daily round of rainy hustings and churlish TV debates. After Tony Blair’s victory in 1997, the pavement in Downing Street was infamously lined with VIPs, from a Gallagher brother to a Mitchell brother (EastEnders’ Ross Kemp), all calling at his celebratory Cool Britannia event.

But the era of the high-profile celebrity political endorsement appears to be behind us as individual social media declarations, together with the complexities that surround divisive issues such as gender politics, climate change and the Middle East conflict, make these relationships more difficult to cement.

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© Photograph: Rebecca Naden/WPA rota/PA

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© Photograph: Rebecca Naden/WPA rota/PA

The term for England footballers’ wives and girlfriends first exploded in 2006 in Germany. The new generation watching the Euros are turning the old stereotypes on their heads

When England take to the pitch for their first game on Sunday night in Germany, eyes will be trained not just on the players but on the team sitting in the stands, cheering on the squad – the wives and girlfriends of the players, the so-called Wags.

The acronym Wags first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph in 2002 – apparently coined by the staff of a Dubai hotel where the players’ wives and girlfriends stayed. Still a relatively new phenomenon, it exploded like a glitterbomb on to the resort of Baden-Baden, where the England squad were based during the World Cup in Germany in 2006.

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© Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Dave Benett/Getty Images

Platforms send targeted messages to customers, reducing cancellations and encouraging them to return

Booking a table at your favourite restaurant no longer involves simply contacting the establishment and giving your details. Now it often involves the restaurant contacting you too – sometimes several times over.

Online booking platforms used by hundreds of restaurants in the UK now send out reservation confirmations, reminders, requests for feedback, future deals and news. Some send certain customers a “personalised booking link” after their visit, to encourage them to come back. “I hope you had a great time on your last visit … and that you’ll come back to see us again soon,” reads one example, sent on behalf of Som Saa, a Thai restaurant in east London, via booking platform SevenRooms.

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© Photograph: Safia Shakarchi/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Safia Shakarchi/The Guardian

Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book blames social media for a decline in teenage mental health. But is he right?

When I was 13, two of my friends were arrested for shoplifting. Along with two boys in our year, they had decided to bunk off school – our suburban grammar school renowned for its academic excellence – and get the train to a shopping centre nearby. The day had been going well until they reached HMV, where a security guard asked them about the CDs they had hidden in their coats. Cue a call to the police, and some time in a cell at the local police station. By the end of the day, news had travelled to the rest of us via an SMS on our Nokia 3310s and we gathered at one of our houses to discuss the situation. Most of us were crying.

It was but one dramatic moment in a lawless year. In year 7 we had been a fairly risk-taking group, but in the spring of year 8, a new girl joined our school and her arrival set things on fire. Beside the shoplifting habit, there was a lot of alcohol, stolen from parents’ cupboards or bought for us by strangers on the high street or by older siblings. We drank where teenagers have always drunk: in parks at night or during unsupervised parties at home. Blacking out was not uncommon, and more than once someone ended up in A&E. There was a lot of smoking, too, cigarettes and weed, and a lot of arguing about boys and each other (more crying there, too).

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© Illustration: Eiko Ojala/The Guardian

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© Illustration: Eiko Ojala/The Guardian

Apple rolled out a feature highly requested by both disabled users and podcast creators. Why did it take so long?

Ren Shelburne was fed up with trying to listen to popular podcast episodes her friends recommended. Shelburne, a photographer with partial hearing loss and an auditory processing condition, remembers struggling to finish a particular episode. It was a specific type of show: too many talking heads, complicated overlapping dialogue and, until recently, no transcription. “Those I’m just so lost on because there’s just too much going on at once,” Shelburne says. She couldn’t follow along, so she couldn’t discuss the show with her friends. “Podcasts are such a big part of pop culture and media at this point. I want to be able to be a part of that conversation.”

Weekly podcast listenership in the United States has more than quadrupled in the past decade, according to Pew Research. For some, though, the medium still feels inaccessible.

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© Photograph: Apple, Guardian Design

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© Photograph: Apple, Guardian Design

The TV presenter who died this month was full of ideas for single actions that could benefit body and mind

Dr Michael Mosley, the popular TV presenter, podcaster and columnist who died this month, was best known for surprisingly straightforward tips to improve your health and wellbeing.

As well as producing documentaries and regularly appearing on television, he presented more than 100 episodes of Just One Thing, a BBC Radio 4 series where each episode explored a single action you could take to improve your health.

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Shutterstock

Producer Shonda Rhimes opens London Stock Exchange as second part of show’s season three launches

The “Bridgerton effect” has been hard to ignore since the drama first appeared on our screens, inspiring clothing and interiors trends with a period twist and helped make afternoon tea and visiting stately homes sexy.

Now Netflix has put a big number on the worth of what it calls the “Bridgerton universe”, suggesting the period romp produced by the company Shondaland has given a £275m shot in the arm to the UK’s ailing economy over the past five years.

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© Photograph: James Manning/PA

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© Photograph: James Manning/PA

Shamin Vogel sets out the stark reality for today’s young women who face ridiculous societal expectations and high living and childcare costs. Plus letters from Rachel Fowler and Claire Elizabeth Brown

I read Emma Beddington’s column with delight (Young women are telling each other to ‘date rich’. How terrifyingly retro, 9 June). I was raised to think that I can achieve whatever I want, always with the reminder that generations of women before me fought for equality. Moving to London for my studies, I became acquainted with the concept of women studying just to find a rich husband and to be a housewife and mother. This idea was utterly foreign, even incomprehensible, to the career‑oriented 19-year-old me.

A decade later, I am surrounded by female friends who now regret not having found a rich husband – who are faced with rising living expenses, a ticking body clock, ridiculous housing prices, seemingly out‑of‑reach childcare and fertility costs, and a never-ending parade of hopeful online dating matches. Yes, life is hard working as a man, but for women there are some more items on the list: you need to push for a good career, look fabulous, find a nice husband, have kids, be part of Forbes’ 30 under 30, be an executive but not forget to have a clean white kitchen and make kids’ birthday cakes.

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© Photograph: Brothers91/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Brothers91/Getty Images

They say ignorance is bliss

• See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here

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© Illustration: First Dog on the Moon/The Guardian

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© Illustration: First Dog on the Moon/The Guardian

Concerns raised about behaviour when hosting Big Brother spinoffs were not properly escalated, says Banijay UK

Concerns about the behaviour of Russell Brand raised while he was working on several Channel 4 programmes were “not properly escalated or adequately addressed”, an investigation has found.

The comedian and actor turned wellness guru was accused of rape, assault and emotional abuse as part of a joint investigation by Dispatches, the Times and Sunday Times that was published last year. Brand has denied all accusations about his behaviour, which relate to when he was at the height of his fame between 2006 and 2013.

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© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Male body dysmorphia has rocketed – maybe because we’re desperate to assert a sense of control over our chaotic lives

Looking back, it was probably when I started checking how many grams of carbohydrates were in red onions and broccoli that my eating disorder began. I say “eating disorder” now, but, of course, as a man, I didn’t think of it as that at the time. It was just “cutting weight”.

I was 22 and had signed up for my first white-collar boxing match. Even though the weight classes were loose and barely enforced, I was determined to get into the best shape of my life – which I believed meant getting down from my natural weight of 90kg to 80kg. That’s like going from 36in to 32in jeans in the space of a month.

Tom Usher is a freelance writer

Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site.

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© Photograph: Cavan Images/Getty Images/Cavan Images RF

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© Photograph: Cavan Images/Getty Images/Cavan Images RF

The facial recognition start-up doesn’t have the funds to settle a class-action lawsuit, so lawyers are proposing equity for those whose faces were scraped from the internet.

© Amr Alfiky for The New York Times

From tracking your nemesis to chuckling at pets, there are myriad ways to waste time on the internet. We identify some of the worst and what you should do instead

In 2024, no one needs another reminder they’re spending too much time on their phone; that the internet, and specifically social media, is designed by thousands of Silicon Valley geniuses to keep us scrolling, helpless pawns in the attention economy, blah blah blah. But let’s get granular: what are the worst ways to be in thrall to your small shiny rectangle and its big brother, the larger electronic rectangle? I asked about people’s most irresistible, life-consuming, pointless and occasionally poisonous internet rabbit holes. Then I tried to work out what they (and I) could do instead.

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© Photograph: anniepaddington/Getty Images/RooM RF

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© Photograph: anniepaddington/Getty Images/RooM RF

On the social media platform X, which Mr. Musk owns, reactions to a vote that reaffirmed Mr. Musk’s $45 billion package were buoyant.

© Amir Hamja/The New York Times

Still, Elon Musk, who owns the platform, and his chief executive Linda Yaccarino, have work to do to grow the business, leaders told employees.

© Jason Andrew for The New York Times

Christopher Blair, a renowned “liberal troll” who posts falsehoods to Facebook, is having a banner year despite crackdowns by Facebook and growing competition from A.I.

© Greta Rybus for The New York Times

Customers keep filming employees behind the counter, in a bid to ensure their burritos are big enough

When Atulya Dora-Laskey clocks in to her job making tacos, burritos and salad bowls on the line at a Chipotle in Lansing, Michigan, she knows there’s a chance a customer will whip out a camera to film her assembling their lunch. If it does happen, “it’s immediately anxiety-inducing for my co-workers and me,” she said. She finds it “very stressful and dehumanizing” to be filmed at work.

These incidents of filming began last month, after rumors circulated on TikTok and Reddit alleging that Chipotle line workers skimped customers on the chain’s infamously large portion sizes – unless customers filmed workers making their order.

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© Photograph: Stephen Brashear/AP

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© Photograph: Stephen Brashear/AP

I set expectations when she saved up and got the phone – little did I know it would undermine them, and her mental health

The byline on this essay is a pseudonym.

My daughter is one of those kids the US surgeon general warned us about. Our nation’s children are “unknowing participants” in a “decades-long experiment”. Social media usage poses mental health risks to youth, who use it “almost constantly”, causing sleep deprivation, depression and anxiety.

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© Illustration: Ulises Mendicutty/The Guardian

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© Illustration: Ulises Mendicutty/The Guardian

A popular term captures the condition of being terminally online, with humor and pathos.

Shooter, getaway driver and organiser sentenced to 26-28 years for murder on busy Amsterdam street in 2021

A Dutch court has convicted three men of murder for their roles in the 2021 shooting of an investigative reporter, Peter de Vries, on a busy Amsterdam street, a brazen attack that sent shock waves through the Netherlands.

The shooter, getaway driver and organiser of the attack were convicted of direct involvement in the killing. The shooter and driver were sentenced to 28 years, and the man who organised the killing to 26 years and one month.

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© Photograph: Mike Corder/AP

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© Photograph: Mike Corder/AP

• Unit will pay for prosecutions of online abusers
• ‘We are doing things differently,’ says Mark Bullingham

The Football Association has funded a special unit within the British police to help them prosecute anyone who abuses England’s players on social media. The governing body has long been committed to passing on the evidence of such instances to the authorities and there has sadly been too much of it.

But as England prepare for their opening Euro 2024 tie against Serbia on Sunday night, the FA’s chief executive, Mark Bullingham, revealed a new move.

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© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

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© Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images

The paper’s reinvention, with the appointment of Will Lewis as publisher, is a mess – but there’s still time to turn things around

• Get Margaret Sullivan’s latest columns delivered straight to your inbox

What’s the point of owning the Washington Post if it’s no longer the Washington Post? By that, I mean the iconic US newspaper whose storied reputation is based on holding powerful people and institutions accountable, all for the sake of democracy? The paper that broke the Watergate story, thus helping to unseat a corrupt president, and that, following the New York Times, riskily published the Pentagon Papers?

When Jeff Bezos bought the Post in 2013, it was struggling financially, and its future was uncertain. The billionaire’s ownership not only restored the paper to profitability for several years, but allowed it to regain its prominence. While setting an ambitious tone for technical transformation, he properly kept his hands off the journalism, letting legendary editor Marty Baron do his job.

Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture

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© Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP

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© Photograph: Charlie Riedel/AP

The broadcaster, free of the paralysing attention focused on the BBC, has defined many of the moments on which July’s vote might hinge

ITV is leading the way during this election campaign, producing many of the moments that have defined the contest. Talk to people at the broadcaster and they will tell you it is more confident than the BBC, thanks to a scrappier commercial mindset; it has fewer resources so has to punch harder.

But it is also free of the BBC’s paralysing knowledge that every editorial decision will be scrutinised by rightwing media outlets – and a government that would like to abolish the licence fee. As a result, even in an era when live TV ratings are in steep decline, the channel has succeeded in capturing (and provoking) some of the growing public anger against the Conservative government.

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex Shutterstock

Disquiet over social media addiction is leading to a growing enthusiasm for Polaroids, postcards and the physical and analogue world

For Bea, it was moments like finding herself scrolling though the news on the toilet that made her feel the need to reassess her relationship with her phone.

The 37-year-old from London had began to feel uncomfortable with the way pinging notifications and the urge to pick up her phone were encroaching on her life. So when her iPhone broke, over a year ago, she decided it was time to switch to a device that allowed her to stay in touch with others while minimising distractions.

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© Photograph: Neil Setchfield/Alamy

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© Photograph: Neil Setchfield/Alamy

PM has said Sky – once derided by snobs as ‘council house TV’ – was among ‘lots of things’ he went without as a child

• UK general election live – latest updates

While scouring his memory for the “lots of things” he missed out on as a child, Rishi Sunak plumped for Sky TV as his best example of hardship.

But the prime minister, who attended Winchester College boarding school, did not acknowledge the role that snobbery may have played in that choice. As satellite dishes multiplied across the country, Sky was derided by critics as “council house TV” – and many wealthier families demurred from more than four channels.

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© Photograph: Fox Broadcasting Co/AP

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© Photograph: Fox Broadcasting Co/AP

How are Labour and the Conservatives approaching their online campaign strategies? Jim Waterson reports

“In the past, you just needed to square the BBC, ITV and a handful of papers, and you controlled what people were reading about the election,” Jim Waterson, the Guardian’s political media editor, tells Helen Pidd.

But that doesn’t work in 2024. “You’ve got to go into different places, which is why you see Keir Starmer popping up with profiles in women’s magazines or going on podcasts to talk endlessly about football.”

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© Photograph: WestEnd61/REX

JD Vance reveals he was asked whether he had committed a crime or had lied, prompting amusement on social media

JD Vance, a rightwing senator vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate, has inadvertently revealed that as part of his vetting for the role, he was asked questions that might disqualify Trump himself.

Talking to Fox & Friends, the Republican senator for Ohio told co-host Steve Doocy that his team had been asked “for a number of things” as part of a traditional background check for the vice-president role, adding that “a number of people have been asked to submit this and that”.

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© Photograph: Aaron Josefczyk/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Aaron Josefczyk/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

Word puzzles on LinkedIn. Logic challenges in The Washington Post. For news publishers and tech sites looking to both entice and engage users, games are serious business.

© Igor Bastidas

Readers on the loss of the TV and radio presenter who changed so many lives with his advice on health and fitness, particularly with regard to obesity and type 2 diabetes

The death of Dr Michael Mosley is truly a national tragedy (Michael Mosley: TV presenter found dead on Greek island, wife confirms, 9 June). During all my 50-plus years as a practising physician, I have never met a doctor who better melded the art and science of medicine with the single aim of improving the health of his fellow citizens.

Listening to the paean of praise from a former, previously obese MP on how Dr Mosley radically changed his life for the better and cured his type 2 diabetes was electrifying, and I know that there are thousands more grateful members of the public whose lives have been dramatically improved by following his advice. He was a very unusual doctor, one who had all the skills necessary to change human behaviour for the better, by measurable means, and that is a very rare gift indeed.

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© Photograph: SYSPEO/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: SYSPEO/SIPA/REX/Shutterstock

The groups say they are increasingly confused and frustrated by how major technology platforms moderate posts about abortion services.

© Ariana Drehsler for The New York Times

My true crime obsession led me to spend countless hours and thousands of dollars investigating a missing persons case. I didn’t crack it. But I nearly cracked under the pressure

Admit it: you have listened to so many true crime podcasts that you think you could solve a murder.

That was how I felt, anyway. Several years ago, when true crime was at its peak, I developed a severe case of an affliction blighting millennial women around the world: amateur detective syndrome. I had immersed myself in so many murder mysteries that I figured it couldn’t be that hard to investigate one. I have written about the ethics of true crime, but I didn’t think much about the ethics of my decision to embark on a true crime crusade. I just wanted to find a juicy story.

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© Photograph: Miodrag Ignjatovic/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Miodrag Ignjatovic/Getty Images

A new term has emerged to describe dubious A.I.-generated material.

© Andrew Paterson/Alamy Stock Photo

The $3,500 “spatial computing” device has gathered dust on my shelf. Can tweaks and upgrades save it from obsolescence?

© Clara Mokri for The New York Times

The social media star on performing to silent audiences, turning spite into success and still having to prove herself as a ‘proper’ comedian

Can you recall a gig so bad, it’s now funny?
I was once booked for an outdoor, family friendly village fete where none of the comedians had been warned that the jokes would have to be child-appropriate. In the early days of your comedy career, you only have five minutes of jokes so we didn’t have tamer ones we could swap in. The section of field directly in front of the stage had been roped off for the dog show later in the day (the main event), meaning anyone wanting to watch the comedy would have to watch from about 10 metres away with a whole load of nothing between us. Only five people stood behind the rope to watch, including an adult in a full Peppa Pig costume who heckled throughout. I performed five minutes to silence, before the next act got their microphone disconnected and the comedy cancelled after saying the C word.

What is your upcoming show, (Role) Model, about?
It’s about 55 minutes long … 57 with a good audience. I want it to feel like an incredibly fun conversation with your toxic best friend. But I guess it’s also a show about what it’s like to go viral overnight, or even worse, going viral for dancing with your parents. I’m trying to work out who I want to be versus what other people want me to be, and asking why are both impossible.

Abi Clarke: (Role) Model is at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, 29 July-25 August

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© Photograph: Dylan Woodley

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© Photograph: Dylan Woodley

Public service broadcasting has been threatened by a hostile government for years. A Labour win offers the chance for a reset

On 5 July, if polling predictions are correct, the Tories will be out of power. Among the repercussions will be that the BBC and Channel 4 – two of our great creative organisations – will have to get creative and start solving some of their own problems. Bailing out broadcasters won’t be a Labour priority.

The BBC’s licence fee, more than 100 years old, might be a good place to start. It’s clearly unjust in some regards: you pay it even if you want to watch every channel but those operated by the BBC, and a single mother in Barnsley pays the same as the king. All those clever people in the BBC (and an awful lot of people work there – more than 21,000 at last count) need to come up with an innovative alternative.

Dorothy Byrne is the president of Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. She is a former head of news and current affairs at Channel 4, and delivered the MacTaggart lecture in 2019

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© Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Since he was elected as the town’s MP, the Workers party leader has grown his huge online audience, but now faces a tough election battle with Labour

George Galloway was in full flow as he addressed tens of thousands of viewers online one evening in late March.

In a five-minute monologue, the newly elected Rochdale MP dismissed what he described as the “official narrative” of the murders of the US president John F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and senator Robert F Kennedy. They were, he said, “a pack of lies”.

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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian