The photographer got as close as he could when cadets’ endurance, strength and teamwork were tested at Canada’s Royal Military College

Every year, as spring blooms, first-year officer cadets of Canada’s Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, take part in a series of competitions. The challenges and obstacle course aim to test their strength, endurance and teamwork.

“As long as you don’t mind getting a little wet and don’t step on any of the smoke canisters, you can get really close to the action,” says Elliot Ferguson, who had captured the event before in his capacity as a news and sports photographer.

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© Photograph: Elliot Ferguson

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© Photograph: Elliot Ferguson

This is no ‘tragic mishap’ | Votes and phones for teenagers | D-day and Dunkirk’s domination | On the hunt for Private Eye | One-word slogans

I was transfixed by the look in the eyes of the boy in the centre of the photo of devastation in Gaza (‘Bodies everywhere’: the horrors of Israel’s strike on a Rafah camp, 29 May). This is no “tragic mishap”, but an act of war. Instead of platitudes, the UK should immediately cut off the supply of arms to this out-of-control regime in Israel.
Mike Godridge
Brampton, Cumbria

• I have met numerous under-16s with more common sense than many MPs. If Labour legislates to allow a person to vote the day after their 16th birthday, how can parliament legislate to prevent that same person owning a smartphone the day before their 16th birthday (MPs urge under-16s UK smartphone ban and statutory ban in schools, 25 May).
Kim Thonger
Collyweston, Northamptonshire

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

The photographer had to gain the trust of women in south Iran to capture this image

Iranian photographer Forough Alaei has a special interest in women’s rights: she has documented female football fans prohibited from entering her country’s stadiums, and for this project spent a month on Hengam Island. Alaei explains that here, in the south of Iran, “the women have a major role in the economy of the family. While they are very traditional and do housework, they also do fishing and crafts, and have jobs. This is Marziyeh; she’s 38 and a chef in an independent restaurant serving delicious, spicy seafood to the increasing number of tourists in the region.”

Alaei stayed for an extended period in order to gain the women’s trust, and found it easiest to document their lives and work using a phone. “They’re familiar objects,” she says. “Digital cameras can be intimidating or off-putting to people in the small, traditional regions.”

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© Photograph: Forough Alaei

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© Photograph: Forough Alaei

Commons education committee chair says online world poses serious dangers and parents face uphill struggle

MPs have urged the next government to consider a total ban on smartphones for under 16-year-olds and a statutory ban on mobile phone use in schools as part of a crackdown on screen time for children.

Members of the House of Commons education committee made the recommendations in a report into the impact of screen time on education and wellbeing, which also called on ministers to raise the threshold for opening a social media account to 16.

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© Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Westend61/Getty Images

Top camera, chip, seven years of updates and advanced Google AI tools beats the competition

Google’s latest mid-range A-series Pixel handset steps it up a notch, bringing almost every feature from its high-end phones down to a more affordable price, including the latest AI and camera tricks.

The Pixel 8a starts at £499 (€549/$499/A$849). That may be £50 more than last year’s 7a, but the new model improves just about everything, and undercuts the Pixel 8 by £200.

Screen: 6.1in 120Hz FHD+ OLED (430ppi)

Processor: Google Tensor G3

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 128 or 256GB

Operating system: Android 14

Camera: 64MP + 13MP ultrawide, 13MP selfie

Connectivity: 5G, Sim and eSim, wifi 6E, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3 and GNSS

Water resistance: IP67 (1m for 30 minutes)

Dimensions: 152.1 x 72.7 x 8.9mm

Weight: 188g

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© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

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© Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Daisy Greenwell from Smartphone-Free Childhood says move likely to have domino effect in other parts of UK

“This is mega!” said Daisy Greenwell from the Smartphone-Free Childhood campaign. “We are absolutely thrilled and we believe it’s going to have a domino effect.”

She was reacting to news that St Albans in Hertfordshire is attempting to become the first UK city to go smartphone-free for all children under 14.

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© Photograph: Peter Cripps/Alamy

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© Photograph: Peter Cripps/Alamy

The photographer and her husband came across an abandoned boat while out walking and took the opportunity to float a surreal idea

Every September, Carla Vermeend and her husband go on holiday to Terschelling island, in the Netherlands.

“It has lots of nature, right in the middle of the Wadden Sea, which is listed by Unesco as a world heritage site,” says Vermeend, a Dutch photographer. During their visit in 2014, the couple were walking by the sea together.

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© Photograph: Carla Vermeend

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© Photograph: Carla Vermeend

The invisible downside to our online lives is the data stored at giant energy-guzzling datacentres

It’s been called “the largest coal-powered machine on Earth” – and most of us use it countless times a day.

The internet and its associated digital industry are estimated to produce about the same emissions annually as aviation. But we barely think about pollution while snapping 16 duplicate photos of our pets, which are immediately uploaded to the cloud.

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

Google and Samsung used to update smartphone software for only three years. That has changed.

© Derek Abella

New chatbot technology can talk, laugh and sing like a human. What comes next is anyone’s guess.

© Warner Bros.

Travel-focused A.I. bots and more eco-friendly transportation options in online maps and search tools can help you quickly organize your seasonal getaway.

© Layla

The company continues to lean on customers’ appetite for apps and services, as demand for its devices weakens.

© Qilai Shen for The New York Times

Meta, Google and others are driving a renaissance for voice assistants, but people have found the technology uncool for more than a decade.

© Derek Abella

It doesn’t take a lot of work to keep copies of your phone’s photos, videos and other files stashed securely in case of an emergency.

© Apple; Google

This fall, the company will begin allowing customers to replace broken parts with used iPhone components without its previous software limits.

© Ulysses Ortega for The New York Times

The $700 Ai Pin, funded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Microsoft, can be helpful — until it struggles with tasks like doing math and crafting sandwich recipes.

© Andri Tambunan for The New York Times