The Guardian
In evidenza
A Mexican waver and a giant pencil sharpener – the weekend in pictures
Simone Biles resting after serious health scare: ‘Almost dying wasn’t on my bingo card’
Tutte le notizie
Atonement review – guilt and love battle for an unhappy ending
Chichester Festival theatre This stage version of Ian McEwan’s devastating class novel shows inspiring touches and the cast play adeptly, yet the tale’s emotional sweep feels underpowered Ian McEwan’s novel begins with a play. It is written by 13-year-old Briony Tallis, who has a gift for telling stories. It is perhaps appropriate that Briony’s tale – the one she is constructing through the course of McEwan’s novel – has been adapted for the stage itself now, although it is a hard act to follow the magnificence of the book and also Joe Wright’s celebrated film starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. The plot reflects on the healing power of storytelling but also its potential to cause damage and destroy. It opens in 1935 in an aristocratic English country home, when one evening, after seeing the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (Jasper Talbot), having sex with her sister, Cecilia (Miriam Petche), she wrongly accuses him of raping her 15-year-old cousin Lola (Yanexi Enriquez). Briony lives with the guilt of that lie long after Robbie has been sent to prison and then the frontline of the second world war. Continue reading...
Natalie Cassidy looks back: ‘EastEnders’ amazing matriarchs taught me everything about acting’
The actor on becoming famous as a child, being an old soul, and caring for her dad in his final years Born in Islington, London, in 1983, Natalie Cassidy is best known for playing Sonia Fowler in EastEnders. She joined the soap in 1993, and after leaving in 2007, she returned several times before making her final exit in April 2025. As well as theatre work, Cassidy has appeared in TV shows including Psychoville, Motherland and Boarders. She hosts the podcast Life With Nat and co-hosts Off the Telly. Natalie Cassidy: Caring Together is on BBC One and iPlayer now. This was taken on the freezing cold set of EastEnders when I was 13. It was Sonia’s mum’s wedding, so they’d given her a trumpet to play at the ceremony. A genius idea from the writers, as the trumpet brought light and comedy to the role. Sadly, like most soap characters, she got downtrodden over the years. Humour has a tendency to fade after a long time on Albert Square. Continue reading...
The health tracker backlash is here – so ditch the data and set yourself free | Emma Beddington
A rebellion is rising against the dull, highly optimised lives big tech wants for us. It’s not a second too soon Has the optimisation rebellion begun? Something seemed to shift in the collective psyche recently when the world discovered the entrepreneur and podcaster Steven Bartlett’s reaction to having had “a couple of glasses of wine” on a school night. Speaking with Chris Williamson (the Love Island alumnus turned “wisdom” podcaster, God help us), Bartlett had explained what happened when he decided to test the effects of drinking after a year of sobriety – a sombre catalogue of catastrophes recorded by his Whoop tracker (“#ad, #sponsor”). He slept less, ate poorly, skipped the gym and – prepare yourself – “podcasted worse”. “It ruined three days of my life,” he said, seemingly in earnest. Continue reading...
The three things Democrats must do to regain rural America’s trust | Anthony Flaccavento
After decades of alienating working-class and rural voters from the Democratic party, it’s time the left bridges the divide It was a warm morning in rural Virginia. I was cutting into a pile of downed logs – wild cherry, oak and black locust – left behind when a piece of land was cleared for a small house. A young guy pulled up, stepped out of his truck and gave me a nod, the way people do out here. Chainsaws in hand, we quickly figured out we both knew the owner and had her permission to take the wood – me for our home and greenhouse, him for much the same. Then we got to it – work. Continue reading...
Readers reply: If an alien asked you: ‘What is music?’ what would you play for them?
The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions comes up with an epic extraterrestrial playlist for Earth’s first contact from beyond the stars This week’s new question: Experts say we should use passkeys, but can a smartphone PIN really be safer than a password? If an alien landed and asked you: “What is this thing you call music?” what would you play for them? And why? Heather, Kent Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com. Continue reading...
Anthony Head obituary
Stage and screen actor best known for playing Rupert Giles in the US television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer Anthony Head found fame as half of the Gold Blend couple in commercials that captured the imagination of the British public in the late 1980s and 90s. They paved the way to success for him on US television in the supernatural horror series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), playing the “watcher” and mentor of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s title character. As the prim English librarian Rupert Giles at Sunnydale high school, he is assigned to Buffy Summers, a cheerleader there, by the secret Watchers’ Council of Britain, which oversees slayers who use their superhuman skills to fight evil forces. Increasingly, he becomes a father figure to Buffy and her friends Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon). Together, he and those students form the core of a group known as the Scooby Gang (or Scoobies). Continue reading...
Pete Hegseth’s D-day speech on immigration condemned as ‘grotesque stupidity’
Historians and campaigners accuse US defence secretary of desecrating memory of soldiers who fell in Normandy The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, has been accused by historians and rights campaigners of “grotesque stupidity” and desecrating the memory of the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy after he sought to link immigration to the D-day anniversary, saying Europe was facing a different “invasion” of its shores. Speaking in north-west France on Saturday to mark the 82nd anniversary of the D-day landings, Hegseth seized on the moment marking the wartime liberation of Europe to reiterate the US administration’s longstanding attack on European immigration policies. Continue reading...
Monaco Grand Prix: Formula One – live updates
Lap-by-lap F1 updates from 2pm UK time Antonelli pips Verstappen to pole position You can email John | Sign up for The Recap It’s a gala weekend for McLaren, a team with such rich history. McLaren, as leader, driver and designer, motivated by inexorable will, battled on. In 1968 he took their first win at Spa, a mighty result for the still fledgling outfit, and more would surely have followed but for his death in 1970. While testing the team’s M8D sports car at Goodwood, McLaren was killed when he spun off the track and struck a concrete marshal post. He was 32. Yet he had already instilled such passion and motivation in his team there was no consideration of not continuing. “He was the greatest leader of men I have ever met in all my life,” Ganley said. On they went, Emerson Fittipaldi, also in Monaco this weekend, took their first drivers’ championship in 1974 and more followed. James Hunt’s title in 1976 and then under Ron Dennis’s leadership from 1981, McLaren claimed seven constructors’ titles between 1984 and 1998, a level of success that was admired and envied. The British driver, having taken time to reset and regroup since Montreal, maintained that he was unaffected by the setback in Canada, which was beyond his control. “In the past I’ve never really sort of believed in: ‘This is going to determine my destiny.’ I’m pleased that I did the job that I knew I was capable of and delivered in every moment when it was required,” he said. “Of course it was annoying, but I didn’t lose much sleep over it and I think I can continue doing that job for the 17 races to go. Continue reading...
French Open 2026: Flavio Cobolli v Alexander Zverev, men’s singles final – live
Game-by-game tennis updates from 2pm UK time You can email Daniel | Sign up for The Hotspot Salut à tous et bienvenue à Roland-Garros 2026 – dernier jour! Broadly speaking, we invented sport because we wanted to know who was the fastest, the strongest and the best. But that was a while ago now, and the behemoth we nurtured now serves an entirely different purpose: in a fragmented, atomised, divided world, sport is company and in sport is community, a real-time, real-life friend and family. If we’re sad, lonely or bored, we know sport has our back, caring, nurturing and teaching with gentle omnipresence, asking nothing in return. If we’re happy, in company and engaged, we know sport has our back, caring, nurturing and teaching with gentle omnipresence, asking nothing in return. Continue reading...
The London school that has screen-free days for pupils, teachers – and parents
Holy Family Catholic primary school says enthusiastic response from parents has been biggest surprise Schools banning pupils from having smartphones are commonplace. But what about a school where pupils ban teachers from using their smartphones, and then get their parents to join in? And not just phones: at Holy Family Catholic primary school in west London teachers are also barred from using laptops, monitors or tablets during the school’s screen-free Mondays, after an idea that came from the pupils themselves. Continue reading...
Manhole mystery grips New York – just what are city’s ‘mole people’ up to?
Video of figures clambering in and out of manholes sparks intrigue – and comparisons with crime-fighting turtles It started in early May. Under cover of darkness, three people pried open a manhole cover in Queens, New York, and clambered down into the sewer. The incident might have gone unnoticed, but the subterranean quest, which was caught on film, captured New Yorkers’ interest when it happened again, and again, in the same month, with two other groups filmed making their way in and out of the sewer system in Brooklyn. The string of events have seen those involved dubbed “mole people” by the local press. Continue reading...
How to make keema peas – recipe | Felicity Cloake's Masterclass
This classic mince dish uses cheap cuts of meat, but is endlessly rich in flavour and can be prepared in many different and delicious ways If I see the word keema on the menu, I’m sold. Literally translating to mince in Hindi and Urdu, as with many such everyday dishes that use inexpensive cuts of meat, it’s rarely much to look at, yet inevitably punches far above its weight in the flavour department. Prepared in many different and delicious ways, consider this basic recipe a good jumping-off point for further experimentation. Prep 15 min Cook 50 min Serves 4 Continue reading...
England end New Zealand’s brief resistance to seal victory in first Test
1st Test, D4: England, 140 & 226; New Zealand, 113 & 138 Gus Atkinson takes five for 30 as home bowlers dominate England wrapped up victory over New Zealand before lunch at Lord’s on day four, claiming the first Test of a three-match series. New Zealand resumed on 55 for five, still 199 runs from their target after a rain-hit third day. Their hosts struck quickly, Josh Tongue trapping Will Blundell lbw for just four in the first full over of the day. Simon Burnton’s full report will follow Continue reading...
Russian drone hits building storing spent nuclear fuel near Chornobyl
Attack was ‘extremely vile’ and deliberate, says Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy A Russian Shahed drone has substantially damaged a building used to store spent nuclear fuel close to the disused Chornobyl nuclear power plant in what Ukraine’s president described as a deliberate and “extremely vile” attack. While the structure – the reception building of the spent fuel storage facility – was empty of containers at the time, the targeting of the sensitive site appeared to be direct messaging from Moscow amid an intensifying battle of long-range aerial strikes that has seen high-profile locations hit on both sides. Continue reading...
Rachel Reeves may be unpopular, but she is quietly rebalancing UK plc
Policy U-turns could define her stint at No 11 despite many sure-footed advances on devolved spending to help kickstart growth An air of unreality settled on a Westminster conference room last week, as Rachel Reeves, upbeat in a powder pink power suit, gave a speech about boosting jobs and growth along the “OxCam corridor”. “If we get this right, working together, this corridor will not just compete globally, it will lead globally. We can do that together!” she told the audience of investors, policymakers and entrepreneurs. Continue reading...
“Far right groups prey on it”: Olivia Laing on the weaponisation of loneliness
A decade after The Lonely City was first published, the writer reflects on what’s changed – and how the feelings that drove them to write their bestseller are key to understanding our turbulent politics I first had the idea of writing a book about loneliness in 2012. I was 35 and had just moved to New York City when I became lost in a labyrinth of isolation and misery. A love affair had ended abruptly while I was still sky-high with expectation, buoyant with relief that I was finally entering settled coupledom. To have failed in this transition, to have been rejected and left alone, filled me with a shame that felt literally unspeakable. So there I was: alone in the city, an exile condemned to watch the world go by. It was a humiliating and very frightening feeling. The pain was intensified, as a broken leg or even a broken heart would not have been, by the fact that my loneliness felt inadmissible, a thing that could not be said for fear of repelling other people. This was the most alarming aspect of the experience, in that the need for concealment further entrenched the isolation, so that loneliness grew ever more inescapable, a fortress of solitude whose bulwarks and ramparts would not stop growing. Continue reading...
Should we ditch the idea of three meals a day?
Our rigid eating habits date to the Industrial Revolution – it’s time to embrace culinary spontaneity ‘One of the stupidest things in an earnest but stupid school of culinary thought is that each of the three daily meals should be ‘balanced’.” So argues American food writer MFK Fisher in her 1942 book How to Cook a Wolf. She goes on: “In the first place not all people need or want three meals each day. Many of them feel better with two or one and one-half, or five.” Fisher wrote her book ostensibly as a guide on how to feed yourself pleasurably and nourishingly during a period of food shortages caused by war, but there is much in her insightful advice to inspire and provoke us today. More than 80 years later, threats to the sacred breakfast-lunch-dinner mode of eating can still make the news: “A nation of snackers: Britons no longer eat three meals a day”, gasped one recent headline in the Times. Deviations from the “standard” model are the subject of research by academics and health professionals, and food retailers commission studies in an attempt to understand (and shape?) when and how customers consume their food. Continue reading...
Labour doesn't seem to like Send schools for kids like mine – but here's what we'll lose if these precious places are forgotten | John Harris
An autism school in Wiltshire exemplifies what’s so different about education in a tailored environment, and the outcomes for children speak for themselves In the old Wiltshire milltown of Calne, there is an autism specialist school called the Springfields Academy. About 250 children and young people between the age of four and 19 go there. Class sizes are no larger than 12. In each room, every child has their own dedicated table. There are no end of seating options, described by the headteacher, Nicola Whitcombe, as “wobble stools, wobble cushions, ball chairs, standing desks and booths”, with “pods” elsewhere for one-to-one teaching. And across a broad, multi-level curriculum based around personal development, every lesson follows the same basic structure. “From an autistic perspective,” she says, “that’s really important: ‘I know I’m going into the same thing, so therefore I feel safe.’” Every year the school takes in a lot of primary school leavers who would find a mainstream secondary pretty much impossible. “If you’ve got five different lessons in a day, in five different classrooms with five different teachers, and this before we’ve talked about the corridors, and the smells, and where you have lunch – it’s overwhelming,” Whitcombe said. “So at our school, we have to get our environment right.” Over the past six years, no one who has been to Springfields has begun post-school life as a Neet (not in education, employment or training) – which is quite some achievement. John Harris is a Guardian columnist Continue reading...
‘Görli is our garden’: Berliners fight to stop mayor locking their park at night
Kreuzberg campaigners win court ruling against €2m fence aimed at shutting out drug dealers The “hollow” in Görlitzer Park was heaving with revellers who had gathered in reaction to a court ruling against Berlin’s mayor who wanted to lock it up at night. “Görli is our garden,” said Monika, a retired psychiatric nurse who lives nearby and had joined the crowds on Monday night for a beer and a bop on the popular deep bowl-shaped meadow in the Kreuzberg district. “Görli is where we socialise and where my daughter grew up,” she said, using the affectionate nickname for the centrally located green space covering 14 hectares (35 acres). Continue reading...
Dining across the divide: ‘I’m not a climate denier, but aiming for net zero by 2050 is unrealistic’
An ‘apolitical’ retired IT manager and a ‘far left’ biologist disagree over tackling global heating – but are they in harmony over truth and reconciliation? • Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how Don, 74, Farnham Occupation Retired IT project manager Continue reading...
Billions spent and hypothetical returns: the AI boom explained with six charts
Expenditure is growing fast and consumer take-up accelerating. But alarm bells are sounding The race is very much on. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which makes AI models as well as space rockets, announced last week it is seeking a $1.77tn (£1.31tn) valuation on the US stock market while Anthropic, the startup behind the Claude chatbot, said it had filed for an initial public offering. OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, is expected to follow. This latest peak in the AI market comes amid a multitrillion-dollar spending spree on related infrastructure such as datacentres. Meanwhile, companies are attempting to deploy the technology in a way that makes investing in it worthwhile. Here’s a look at what stage the AI boom is at and six key charts that tell us how we got here. Continue reading...
Why are so many Black women dying at the hands of their partners?
Black women are two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than white women are. This is a public health crisis In April alone, at least half a dozen Black women were allegedly killed by their partners, including the high-profile cases of Cerina Fairfax, estranged wife of the former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax, and Nancy Metayer Bowen, vice-mayor of Coral Springs, Florida. Shaneiqua Elkins survived a shooting by her husband, Shamar Elkins, that wounded her and killed seven of her children and one of their cousins in Shreveport, Louisiana. These tragedies are shining a light on the killings of Black women and the systems that allow that violence to continue. Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist Continue reading...