The Guardian
In evidenza
Pioneering UK Nerve Lab harnesses AI to map effect of children’s screen time
Freedivers, leftover cables and bits of clay: Cuba gets inventive to save its pristine reefs amid US blockade
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New York man who killed gay dancer faces 25 years after hate-crime conviction
Dmitriy Popov fatally stabbed O’Shae Sibley in Brooklyn in 2023 and was found guilty of manslaughter as a hate crime A New York City man who was recently convicted of a hate crime in the 2023 stabbing death of vogue dancer O’Shae Sibley is facing a prison sentence of between eight and 25 years. Sentencing for Dmitriy Popov, who was 17 at the time of Sibley’s slaying, was tentatively scheduled for 30 June following his conviction. Continue reading...
‘Loneliness influencers’ are racking up views. After a breakup, I see the appeal | Dave Schilling
Following a failed relationship in my 40s, solitude is tempting. But I’m not giving up on finding love, warts and all My birthday is coming up next month. I will be, by my count, even more ancient than I was last year. I’ll be far enough from 40 to make it irrational to lie and say I’m actually in my late 30s. I’m solidly, unequivocally in middle age. And when you’re in middle age, you do a lot of looking back, soul-searching and other highly unproductive activities. I’ve been doing that even more thanks to being dumped by my girlfriend a month before my birthday. Yes, I am a 41-year-old man who uses the term “girlfriend”, a word that infantilizes me just typing it. What am I, a teenager sobbing to a Smiths song? In spirit, yes. I am. Continue reading...
‘Why would you put a toxic product into the hands of a young child?’: director turned activist Beeban Kidron on why big tech needs its ‘tobacco moment’
In her work as an online safety campaigner, the baroness and Bridget Jones director has seen things she can never unsee – and she’s furious at the tech overlords doing nothing to stop the abuse Through the open windows behind Beeban Kidron drifts the unmistakable sound of children playing. Her north London office is sandwiched between a school and a nursery, and the occasional playground shriek functions as an aural reminder of what we’re here to discuss: the safety and happiness of young people, growing up in an age of screens. Though our conversation takes some dark turns, only once does the film director turned crossbench peer and online safety campaigner for children lose her composure. “I have seen a lot of things I’d rather not see,” she says, slowly. “But the worst thing was not the most extreme. It was watching a child’s face as she realised that the person who she thought was her friend wasn’t her friend; that the sex acts she’d been doing weren’t for her friend; and that there may have been other people in the room. Continue reading...
Three teenagers arrested over death of man in Essex
Boy, 14, among three people held after 21-year-old was found critically injured in Central Park, Chelmsford Three teenagers, including a 14-year-old boy, have been arrested on suspicion of murdering a 21-year-old man in a park in Essex. Emergency services attended Central Park in Chelmsford at about 7pm on Friday, where the victim was found with critical injuries. Continue reading...
Head of Commons media committee denies writing article accusing BBC of bias
Excoriating article under Caroline Dinenage’s name remains on ConservativeHome website It was a crisis that toppled a BBC director general and his head of news. After contentious accusations of bias by a former external adviser, Michael Prescott, both Tim Davie and Deborah Turness quit the corporation. At the height of the media storm that ensued last November, the corporation was struck by another blow. A key figure in scrutinising the BBC – the chair of the Commons culture, media and sport committee – delivered an equally damning verdict. Continue reading...
The Knicks’ hedonistic NBA finals run has been a relief from the exhaustion of US politics
Immersed in the daily churn of Washington DC, I found an unexpected source of hope in the Knicks’ improbable season When it comes to the length of my relationship with the New York Knicks, I’m more Taylor Swift than Timothée Chalamet. But it was inevitable. For months, Knicks fever was slowly drawing me in. A close friend said the team was singularly healing her from a breakup. Another from depression. I had inadvertently been subjected to playoff games through friends, or the daily turmoil of them, through colleagues. Continue reading...
‘It reminds me of the love I felt for my faithful companion’: Tony Hertz’s best phone picture
Shadows glimpsed on a wall at sunset inspired this evocative portrait of the photographer and his dog, Lolly Lolly – a chow-chow-cocker spaniel mix – was Tony Hertz’s dog for 15 years. “She had long black hair with a little white on her mouth, ears, eyebrows and feet, and a partially marbled tongue. She was quite cute,” Hertz says. Hertz and Lolly were living in Pismo Beach, California, when he took this shot. At the time he was working on a photography series and book based around shadows, and he had taken her along on one of his regular sunset walks. Over a career spanning three decades, Hertz has photographed queens, popes and a president, but this was an attempt at something more personal. The photo was taken on a grassy area next to a Walmart. As Hertz sat down on a bench for a breather, he noticed in their shadows that Lolly was looking directly at him. “I positioned my phone so it couldn’t be seen in the shadow, composed the shot and then looked toward Lolly so that our profiles would be turned to each other,” he says. Hertz often wears his brimmed hats when seeking out new elements for his series, “to make them consistent with a little noir look”. Continue reading...
Sam Lau on the lottery of summer air travel – cartoon
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Pipers and dreams: World Cup fever grips Scotland again after 28 years
The country is ready to blow away decades of dashed hopes and celebrate, with marching bands and all-night parties Scotland is leaning into one its most treasured traditions: embracing the hope and anxiety of a football World Cup, with a healthy dose of self-deprecating style. There are brash new tartans, an Edinburgh bar offering free Irn-Bru-infused “fiery ginger” beers for patrons with red hair, a collaboration between Scottish whisky firms and a Brazilian distiller, and all-night parties in nightclubs repurposed as fanzones. Continue reading...
Palestinian American woman held without charge by Israeli military
Soldiers arrested university student Sama Safi, 20, along with members of Palestinian women’s national soccer team A 20-year-old Palestinian American woman has been held in Israeli military detention for nearly two weeks after Israeli soldiers stormed her family home in a pre-dawn raid on 2 June. Sama Safi, a psychology student at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, has not been charged with any crimes. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said she and three other women detained around the same time were arrested “after promoting hostile terrorist activity and additional terrorist-related activities”. Continue reading...
Nottinghamshire v Somerset, Yorkshire v Warwickshire, and more: county cricket, day two – live
Updates from the latest round of Championship matches Sign up for the Spin | Mail Tanya or comment BTL Tim Maitland has been scanning the skies. “The Met Office radar suggests you might be alright all morning in Blackpool, but Scarborough could be a bit dodgy. ”According to the predictive bit, Nottingham could get a little bit around 2 p.m.” After England’s stonking victory last night in the tournament opener, there are four more World Cup games today. West Indies v New Zealand, Australia v South Africa, India v Afghanistan and Scotland v Ireland. Tim de Lisle is watching things unfurl at Old Trafford. Continue reading...
Travel insurance: don’t let a health condition derail your holiday plans
A medical issue can send quotes for cover soaring but it is not worth risking going abroad without a policy “I nearly fell over when I saw the travel insurance quote,” says the retiree Bernie Lawrence. The 77-year-old from Fleet, Hampshire, says that after he developed heart problems, the cost of buying cover became “astronomical”. Lawrence, who usually travels with his wife, Barbara, 79, says he had always been active and fit before suffering chest pains while out running in 2018. Nine days later, he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Continue reading...
Toby Stephens: ‘I lost my dad to cirrhosis. The only difference between us was that, tragically, he couldn’t stop drinking’
The actor on missing his late mother, Maggie Smith, being mistaken for Damian Lewis, and looking ‘like a fridge’ Born in London, Toby Stephens, 57, is the son of actors Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens. He trained at Lamda and, in 1992, made his film debut in Orlando. In 2002 he played the Bond villain in Die Another Day. His television work includes One Day, The Split and Black Sails. On stage he has performed for the RSC and the National Theatre, and he is currently starring in Equus at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, until 4 July, and then Theatre Royal Bath, from 14-25 July. He is married to the actor Anna‑Louise Plowman, with whom he has three children, and lives in London. What is your greatest fear? To be completely alone. Continue reading...
Seven fights on the South Lawn: Trump prepares for UFC birthday spectacle at White House
Show goes on for Trump’s 80th birthday event – featuring a 92ft ‘Claw’, thousands of seats and a fighting cage – despite ominous weather forecasts There may be swarms of bugs, rain showers and thunderstorms, but this isn’t Exodus, or the apocalypse: the president of the United States will host the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the White House on Sunday, his 80th birthday. The iconic South Lawn – typically used by presidents to board Marine One on their way to summits, funerals and wars – has been blanketed by an octagon, ringed by thousands of seats in a mini coliseum, and dominated by a 92ft, 600-ton steel structure organizers have nicknamed “the Claw”, not unlike the alien tripods from the 2005 film War of the Worlds. Continue reading...
The hill I will die on: I really don’t like ‘like’ – or other imprecise and redundant speech | Louis de Bernières
Junk speak, like junk food, encourages verbal littering. It has to be one of the worst things about life in Britain I live in the Norfolk countryside, and what irritates me most about living here is the deluge of litter that gets thrown out of car windows in the lane outside my house. It is always from junk food outlets, so the question arises as to which way round things are: does junk food turn you into an antisocial moron, or is it that only antisocial morons eat junk food? Could it be an unfortunate confluence of both? I never eat it, and never throw litter out of my window. QED. I do find other ways of being antisocial, I suppose, but farts disperse on their own and don’t have to be picked up by passing dog walkers and irate householders. Louis de Bernières’s fourth novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, became a worldwide bestseller in 1994 Continue reading...
‘A movie for everyone, not just Drag Race fans’: stars of drag comedy Stop! That! Train! on making the summer’s funniest film
Director Adam Shankman and drag queen actors explain putting a brilliantly madcap twist on Airplane! style parody Drag queens are never more striking than when they’re set against an everyday background. “Kristen Stewart is a buoy … ” the Laotian American beauty Jujubee muttered spacily to herself in the hallway of Bleecker Street Media’s New York office, reading out the tag-line of a framed poster for the 2024 sci-fi/romance Love Me. The former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and star of the new disaster-comedy Stop! That! Train! was lingering outside an office cubicle in a structured blazer and fishnets as an attentive PR took her order for lunch. By that point she’d been in full wardrobe and make-up all day fielding press, including a mid-morning stop with her castmates at NBC’s Today with Jenna & Sheinelle. I’d heard Jujubee and her co-star Ginger Minj before I saw them, laughing like glamorous hyenas from another room. When they made an entrance, they did so in coordinated cheetah print looks, greeting me with the kind of mega-watt smiles that told me I was now their audience. I was impressed by how “on” they were, but could imagine it was taxing to keep up. How had the whirlwind of press been for them? “It’s been a lot of work but it doesn’t feel like it,” Ginger admitted. “The tour has absolutely mimicked the making of the movie.” “We have to schedule our sleep,” Jujubee added as she slowly began to peel off some cumbersome press-on nails. “But I’m so high on life and all of us have been able to stay in the moment, and live in this stormaganza of press.” They immediately started cackling again. Continue reading...
‘We eat and drink risk’: higher costs bring curtain down on more UK music festivals
Plans for new event at the Secret Garden Party site and Womad Glasgow are dashed, but others remain optimistic Hosting Scotland’s first Womad festival seemed like an easy sell for Glasgow, the country’s gig capital and self-proclaimed “dynamic global hub for music lovers”. However, last week the internationally renowned event celebrating performance from around the world, successfully staged in 30 countries since being co-founded by former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel in 1982, was cancelled due to low ticket sales. Continue reading...
Scotland v Ireland: Women’s T20 World Cup – live
T20 World Cup from 10.30am BST at Old Trafford Team-by-team guide | Mail Tim Morning everyone and welcome to a rather different World Cup. One in which expanding the tournament means going from ten nations to 12. One in which we never hear a word from a tinpot dictator. One in which every match official makes it through the airport. Today begins with a small piece of cricket history: the first meeting between Scotland and Ireland in a women’s World Cup. As Raf Nicholson, our resident expert, said in her tournament preview, it should be a cracker. Continue reading...
Drug diversion schemes cut reoffending rates more than prosecution, study says
Exclusive: Research in England shows people a third less likely to reoffend under decriminalisation-style schemes Drug diversion schemes led by police that steer people away from the criminal justice system and into treatment and education services are significantly more effective in reducing reoffending than prosecution, according to a new analysis. Researchers examined outcomes across 13 English police forces and more than 62,000 criminal incidents over the past four years, finding that people whose cases were dealt with through decriminalisation-style diversion schemes were a third less likely to reoffend than similar individuals prosecuted for drug possession. Continue reading...
What to read this summer by Mark Haddon, Samantha Harvey, Zadie Smith and more
Leading authors including Sarah Waters, William Dalrymple, Bernardine Evaristo and Anne Enright reveal their perfect holiday reading • Read our selection of 70 brilliant books for the summer Zadie Smith Margaret Busby’s Part of the Story: Writings from Half a Century is the record of one woman’s lifelong passion for the literature and life of Africa and its diaspora, wherever she finds it. A beautiful collection. The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while is Black Bag by Luke Kennard. Mark Haddon Can I recommend some metaphorical summer travel? Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King, won the International Booker prize so you’re legally obliged to read it. But there are three other books on the shortlist I would strongly urge you to get your hands on. The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin, brilliantly fictionalises the story of the film director WG Pabst who fled Germany before the outbreak of the second world war, felt ignored in Hollywood and made the foolish decision to return home. On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan, is a short, sharp cleaver-blow of political horror set in a Brazilian prison camp. And She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel, is the story of Bekija/Matija who escapes an arranged marriage in Albania’s Accursed Mountains by becoming a “sworn virgin” under the ancient laws of the Kanun and living her life as a man. Continue reading...
70 brilliant books for the summer
From dynamite debuts to must-read memoirs and magical children’s fiction, here’s our selection of this year’s hottest holiday reads • Leading authors Mark Haddon, Samantha Harvey, Zadie Smith select their favourites *** Continue reading...
USA blast out of the blocks and Canada get first ever point | World Cup Daily
On the podcast today: the USA … might actually be very good? They blew Paraguay away in their opening game in LA. Christian Pulisic, we owe you a huge apology. Elsewhere; Canada come back to draw with Bosnia and Herzegovina, an inspired triple substitution from Jesse Marsch turning things around, and if not for some brilliant Bosnian blocks they should have won it. Plus, a preview of the next batch of games including Haiti v Scotland, the developing domestic bliss between Max and Barry, and your questions answered. Continue reading...