Cenk Uygur was due to appear at SXSW alongside streamer Hasan Piker but Home Office cancelled travel authorisation UK politics live – latest updates A leftwing US political commentator has described the UK government’s decsion to ban him from entering the country as “haunting and hilarious” and “Kafkaesque”. Cenk Uygur, the founder and a host on Young Turks, a well-established progressive media outlet, was banned earlier this week from entering the UK to attend a speaking engagement alongside Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer who has become a popular figure on the US political left. Continue reading...

The country’s defence minister said the IDF will not withdraw from southern Lebanon and will not allow the ‘return of the population’ Israel and Lebanon agree to renew ceasefire as Trump seeks to overcome barriers to Iran deal The Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, said the US-brokered ceasefire agreed last night between Lebanon and Israel could come into force within 24 hours of all concerned parties approving it, Reuters reports. The comments appeared to refer to Hezbollah, which has yet to comment on the ceasefire. Hezbollah previously said it is opposed to the Israel-Lebanon talks. Continue reading...

Civil rights scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw warns Birmingham City University’s decision part of extremist campaign that has ‘travelled across Atlantic’ A leading US civil rights scholar has urged Birmingham City University (BCU) to reverse its decision to close its black studies course, comparing it with the attack on diversity, equity and inclusion in the US. Kimberlé Crenshaw, a professor of law at the University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University, expressed “profound concern” about plans to withdraw the MA in black studies and global justice, just months after the course was launched. Continue reading...

Updates from the first day of the series at Lord’s Sign up for The Spin | Follow us on TikTok | Mail Tim Morning everyone and welcome to the first Test of the English summer. Ashes, what Ashes? There’s a lot to look forward to here. It’s the 150th Test at Lord’s, the first ground to reach that milestone. The next one looks like being Melbourne, some time in the 2040s, so here is one facet of cricket where England still rules the world. Continue reading...

Nigel Farage’s party published the donations as part of its requirements with the Electoral Commission Robert Jenrick, the Reform UK Treasury spokesperson, was doing a media round this morning. Asked to respond to Labour claims that Nigel Farage was stoking divison in his response to the murder of Henry Nowak, Jenrick said that was a “ludicrous” claim. He said: I was absolutely stunned by those ludicrous comments. There’s nothing that Nigel Farage has done which has encouraged division. He has simply shown leadership in setting out the course of action that now needs to be taken to make sure that we fix this problem and treat everybody equally before the law. Continue reading...

When Dave Grimstead left the police after more than 30 years, he knew just what he wanted to do: solve some of its most intractable mysteries. The founder of Locate International explains why the country needs him and his volunteers When it comes to cold cases, crime dramas get a lot wrong. “In reality, you’d never reach the end in nine neat episodes, all wrapped up, with a timeline that moved nicely along, building tension,” says Dave Grimstead, who spent more than 30 years in the police. Real cold cases are rollercoasters of false leads, rabbit holes and dead ends. “They’re never solved by one heroic detective, either,” Grimstead adds. “It requires a much bigger team than you see on TV.” But one cliche does ring true – the detective who can’t give up. Most will have at least one unsolved case that stays with them long after the spotlight has moved elsewhere. In a free moment, they will find themselves following a lead, putting in calls. Decades later, they might still wake up thinking about it. One of these cases, for Grimstead, was the disappearance of Melanie Hall in June 1996. Hall was 25 and never came home from Cadillacs, a nightclub in Bath where she was last seen arguing with her boyfriend. Grimstead was a detective constable in Avon and Somerset’s major crime team at that time, and what began as a missing person investigation soon began to resemble a murder inquiry. Hundreds of hours of interviews and CCTV footage, searches, reconstructions and TV appeals failed to reveal what had happened to Hall. In 2009, one of Grimstead’s supervisors, Mike Britton, was still investigating it, fitting it round his caseload, when her body was found in a bin liner beside the M5. Although this happened just days before Britton’s retirement, he cancelled his plans so he could work on the case as a civilian investigator. It is still unsolved. Continue reading...

Restaurant dining is a terrific and expensive treat, so how can you be sure to get the best from every menu? Experts give their advice, from looking for the strangest dish to going easy on the booze For many of us, going to a restaurant is a real treat, so you want to make the most of every mouthful. From starters to small plates, how can you ensure that you have the best possible dining experience? Restaurant critics share the insider secrets to ordering well when eating out. Continue reading...

The Center for Photography at Woodstock (in Kingston, New York) recently opened the first-ever New York Upstate Photography Biennial, featuring the work of 39 artists who live and work across the Hudson valley and beyond. The show, co-curated by Marina Chao and Adam Giles Ryan, highlights the diverse work of photographers in the upstate region. Their images will be on view until 6 September 2026 Continue reading...

Everything you need to know (and more) about every squad member. Click on the player pictures for more information Continue reading...

He’s pink, dotty and as British as a Boots meal deal. In recent months he’s duetted with pop stars, appeared on Saturday Night Live and been declared the UK’s equivalent of Mickey Mouse. What’s behind this strange comeback? Margaret Thatcher wasn’t to blame for the closure of Britain’s coalmines. Mr Blobby was. A harrowing spoof documentary exposed this horrific truth during the finale of Saturday Night Live UK’s debut season. Back in 1992, drilling activity at Nottinghamshire’s Grimethorpe Colliery awoke an evil entity buried underground. Mr Blobby promptly went on an unstoppable murderous rampage, ripping off miners’ limbs and becoming “an atom bomb made flesh”. Mr Blobby being disinterred is an apt metaphor. Recent months have seen the pink-and-yellow agent of chaos unearthed and on the comeback trail. He has appeared on primetime TV shows, duetted with popstars, and convinced nostalgic punters to part with a surprising amount of cash to get their hands on Blobby-themed merchandise. What has prompted the comeback of a character once considered irredeemably naff? Continue reading...

Enrique Riquelme held Madrid shirt with Haaland’s name City bid rejected for Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson Manchester City are considering legal action against Enrique Riquelme after the Real Madrid presidential candidate held up a Madrid shirt with Erling Haaland’s name on the back during a TV appearance in which he claimed a clause in the striker’s contract would allow him to sign Haaland if elected. On Wednesday Riquelme said that Haaland, who agreed a record nine-and-a-half-year deal in January 2025, wanted to join Real. The Spanish businessman also promised that Rodri would leave City for the record 15-times European champions. Continue reading...

Business secretary Peter Kyle to meet European counterpart over proposals to almost halve amount of tariff-free imports The UK business secretary, Peter Kyle, is to raise concerns about EU plans to dramatically reduce tariff-free imports of British steel with its trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič in Brussels on Friday. The UK steel industry has previously warned of “devastating” consequences from the new quota system being planned by the EU, which will cut overall tariff-free imports from non-EU countries by 47% on 2024 levels from 1 July. Continue reading...

The violence of male entitlement is embodied in the charismatic son of a Mississippi pastor, in a sharp portrait of cruelty and inheritance ‘To woman he gave a womb, and to man he gave dominion’, that’s what I teach my boys,” the Rev Sabre Winfrey Jr tells his wife, Priscilla, midway through Addie E Citchens’s formidable Women’s prize-shortlisted debut novel, Dominion. In Citchens’s hands, that dominion is exercised not only through violence, but through charisma, piety and the banality of male entitlement. Set in the fictional town of Dominion, Mississippi, at the turn of the millennium, the novel follows the Winfreys, a prominent Black church family whose putative grandeur conceals a deep and hereditary decay. Sabre leads the largest congregation in the state from the pulpit of Seven Seals Baptist church, dispensing wisdom through sermons and local radio broadcasts, exuding the oily confidence of a man convinced that God speaks exclusively in his register. The longsuffering Priscilla writes those sermons, raises their five sons and silently maintains the machinery of his authority without ever receiving credit for it. Continue reading...

From rising fuel, fertiliser and feed costs linked to the conflict in Iran to the impact of climate change, farmers around the world are facing a range of pressures. We want to hear how these challenges are affecting you Farmers are facing rising costs for fuel, fertiliser and animal feed as a result of the conflict in Iran, adding to existing pressures on the industry. The sector is also grappling with extreme weather after the UK’s hottest May day on record, alongside wider concerns about the impact of climate change. Europe also experienced record-breaking temperatures in late May and the UN has warned about the imminent return of El Niño – a powerful weather pattern that raises global temperatures and worsens some rainfall. Continue reading...

Move prevents ‘risk and injury to players and attendees’ Fans concerned about heat and access to drinking water Spectators will not be allowed to carry reusable water bottles into World Cup venues owing to safety concerns, Fifa has said, after a last-minute change to its stadium code of conduct. The governing body had earlier permitted empty, transparent, reusable plastic bottles inside stadiums but said the updated code prohibited that. Other items such as bottles, cups, jars and cans are also banned to prevent the risk of injury if thrown. Continue reading...

A first win at a World Cup is the floor-level target for a team that still relies heavily on the ability of Mohamed Salah This article is part of the Guardian’s 2026 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 48 countries who qualified. theguardian.com is running previews from three countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 11 June. Continue reading...

It was another season to remember for Lamine Yamal and Barcelona, along with Getafe, Rayo and one naughty fan Lamine Yamal wore the crown and flew the flag. With the last kick of the opening game of 2025-26, Barcelona’s new No 10 – the teenager handed the shirt Ladislao Kubala, Luis Suárez, Diego Maradona, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho and Lionel Messi once wore, the kid Spain coach, Luis de la Fuente, had claimed was “touched by God’s wand” and had been anointed by Him too – scored against Mallorca. It was his first goal as an adult and he celebrated by conducting his own coronation. La Liga’s title race had begun. The day after it had been run, nine months on, as Barcelona’s bus made its way through the streets, from the top deck of the victory parade Lamine Yamal held a Palestine flag. “This is something I don’t normally like but I spoke to him and if he wants to it’s his decision,” Hansi Flick said. “He’s old enough: he’s 18.” Coming of age in the public eye wasn’t easy – isn’t easy – and the season hadn’t been either. There had been injuries and, Lamine Yamal later admitted, an “internal abyss”, but he had his third league title. Flick, the father figure whose own dad died on the morning they won the league and chose to share that with his other “family”, had his second. Have you ever felt so much love, the coach was asked. “No, never,” he said. Continue reading...

While small pool of talent and elite clubs in women’s game makes switches between rivals inevitable, this move is contentious. But some reaction has gone too far The red neon lights flicker in the dark for a moment, then the room is blue, and there is Katie McCabe, a grin on her face and a Chelsea shirt on, her controversial switch across London complete after 11 years with Arsenal. The reaction has varied dramatically. At times it has been hilarious, with witty comments and memes abundant. There has been valid rage too, an intense rivalry having developed between the two sides as Chelsea swept up domestic honour after domestic honour and sought to eclipse Arsenal’s reputation as the most successful club in women’s football in England (in the modern era at least). Continue reading...

As the largest display of Native North American art ever seen in Britain arrives in Yorkshire, its artists are asking timely questions about their history, our planet, and humanity’s place within it Hold to This Earth, the largest exhibition of contemporary Native North American art to be shown in Britain, arrives as the United States gears up to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Selected from Santa Fe’s Tia Collection, its artists represent more than 35 tribal nations, offering a counterpoint to that colonialist history. Their work explores a continent whose beliefs and traditions date back not centuries but millennia, and whose more recent past is marked by its original people’s exploitation, their experiences too often buried or ignored. Perhaps above all, though, “the work is incredibly timely”, as the show’s curator, Sarah Coulson, points out. “These artists are dealing with pertinent issues now.” Many artists tackle present-day concerns head-on. Yatika Starr Fields’s sculptures, for instance, use tents salvaged from an encampment of thousands of demonstrators fighting the Dakota access pipeline that threatened the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux. Politics mixes with pop culture and global tradition in another new commission, a huge vessel by the ceramicist Diego Romero. It has a palette that recalls ancient Greek pottery, but its celebratory comic book-style characters are drawn from an old sci-fi movie about Mayans going to space. Continue reading...

Drawing on his own family’s experience, the Real Madrid and Germany defender is advocating for refugees and challenging stereotypes As a child, Antonio Rüdiger would look out of his bedroom window to see whether anyone was playing on the field it overlooked. It was not a big pitch, but it had two goals, enough room for six-a-side and was where a young Rüdiger honed the skills that would take him to the top. He grew up in Neukölln, Berlin, in a community largely made up of refugees, where his parents settled after fleeing civil war in Sierra Leone. It was, by his own account, a tough area, and football kept him out of trouble. Continue reading...

The Oprah-approved book is said to have left out important financial details, so why does the writer remain a pin-up for wronged women? A strong contender for the most satisfying TV clip of the year comes from a recent interview by Oprah Winfrey with the writer Belle Burden, whose memoir, Strangers, was parked at the top of the US bestseller lists for months. Burden tells the story of how her husband coldly walked out on his family, only returning, she tells Winfrey, to inform the kids the marriage was over and demand of the wife on whom he had cheated, “I’m starving – can you make me a sandwich?” There are many small cruelties in the book, but this, among the worst, triggers outright pantomime incredulity from Winfrey, who murmurs, “Even the cameraman said ‘oh’.” Burden wanted to model kindness in front of her daughters; she wanted to show her husband exactly what he had walked out on. “So,” says Winfrey, arriving at what appears to be the outer limits of her famous ability to empathise, “you made him the sandwich?!!” Burden smiles, weakly. “I made the sandwich.” Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...

Charles and Alice have reconnected in their 60s, but he finds her soggy sponges foul, while she says his ashtrays are worse. You tell us who is giving you that sinking feeling • Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror Whenever I see Alice’s cloths, I imagine all the bacteria that must be crawling over them Charles would prefer to throw all dishcloths away immediately after using them Continue reading...

With the Test team under pressure and desperately craving engagement, a returning firebrand could salvage the summer The winged elephant swoops down Deansgate towards the ship canal, its wings glowing neon orange, a feral roar rising and falling unevenly in volume. A black taxi drives the wrong way down a rain-moistened street. A menacing urchin child with a dozen fingers stands in front of a disused steampunk factory, holding an outsized Victoriana bat. Now there’s a bowler, who’s actually a wicketkeeper, who may actually be Jos Buttler in batting gloves. There are three batters at the crease, one of them in white and the other two in red. Aiden Markram runs up and bowls sideways. There is no ball in his hand. “Red in the dark, blue in the sea,” a haunting voiceover sings. The sun is out. The floodlights are on. Continue reading...

Schapiro’s stunning images of jazz greats in New York – from Dizzy Gillespie to Elvin Jones – make up a new book featuring a foreword by late saxophone icon Rollins Continue reading...

Global report provides an alternative to climate breakdown, political extremism and economic tensions Humanity can raise living standards, reduce inequality and keep global heating within a 2C rise, according to a sweeping vision for planetary survival. The new report by the World Inequality Lab (WIL) aims to be the most comprehensive attempt yet to navigate the polycrisis that is pushing the world toward climate breakdown, political extremism and ever greater economic and social tension. Continue reading...