The Byzantine city, in the Dakhla oasis region, was a “remarkably preserved secret”, said the Egypt Independent. Eighteen tombs were also uncovered from the Marina el-Alamein archaeological site near Egypt’s northern coast.

Aside from the historical knowledge gained from these sites, the discoveries could also attract more tourists to the country.

A ‘thriving’ city

The Dakhla oasis site could offer a “detailed glimpse” into urban development and economic activity in Byzantine Egypt, said The Independent. The ancient city had a “meticulously planned layout” that allowed for open and public spaces.

Key structures discovered include a basilica church and the remains of two watchtowers, said head archaeologist, Mahmoud Massoud in The Guardian. Archaeologists also observed “heavily fortified structures” and homes, including the house of Tisous, a church deacon from the second half of the fourth century

Other artefacts found included kitchen tools, bronze coins, and more than 200 pottery fragments. The pottery fragments were used to record daily transactions and correspondence, according to Diaa Zaharan, head of the Islamic, Coptic and Jewish antiquities department at the Supreme Council of Antiquities. These artefacts offer a “direct window into the past”, said The Independent.

The Dakhla oasis is on the Unesco tentative list, but now could be a “step away” from being added to the official list, said The Guardian. Unesco’s world heritage list recognises cultural and historic landmarks for their “outstanding universal value to humanity”.

Tombs and tongues

The second archaeological discovery was of 11 rock-cut tombs and seven surface limestone-built tombs at the Marina el-Alamein site, west of Alexandria, said The Associated Press.

Archaeologists found gold pieces inside the mouths of some of those buried there, a funerary practice known as the “golden tongue”. In addition, they found a 2.5-metre-long granite sarcophagus containing skeletal remains, and remains of a plaster sphinx statue, said mission chief, Eman Abdel-Khaliq.

This brings the total tombs uncovered at the Marina el-Alamein site to 48, said The Guardian. The site was discovered in 1986 and archaeologists believe it to be part of the ancient port city of Leukaspis.

As well as providing insight into life in fourth-century Egypt, these sites will also be “simultaneously bolstering” the nation’s crucial tourism sector, said The Independent.

Over the past decade, the country has been rebuilding its tourism appeal after years of political turmoil, violence, and the pandemic. Last year, Egypt saw a record 19 million visitors, said the AP, a 21% increase from 2024.

The best cookbooks can be read from multiple directions. A compendium of utilitarian recipes that can be both browsed and zeroed in on. An anthropological telescope through which you gape at a cuisine. The history of a food told through a kitchen aperture.

If a cookbook achieves one of those objectives, it warrants consideration. If it attains all three, the angels sing, the pots clang and the fridge door swings wide open. Rachel Roddy’s “An A-Z of Pasta: Recipes for Shapes and Sauces from Alfabeto to Ziti, and Everything in Between” is that style of cookbook.

Pasta, then and now

Roddy, a Brit who has lived in Rome for the last 20-odd years, notes that only a “genius or an idiot” would try to gather the stories of the “350 to 600, depending on who you talk with” pasta shapes used across Italy. “I am neither, at least not in this context, so I haven’t tried,” she writes.

You could wager she is instead both a genius and an idiot. With the valiant undertaking of “An A-Z of Pasta,” she does the near-impossible: She captures, across 50 pasta shapes, the lifeblood of an ever-shifting subject.

In the chapter on paccheri, those chunky, dried elongated tubes akin to rigatoni on ’roids, Gragnano, a town near Naples, is the main character. You learn that in the 18th century there were “22 mills and 97 pasta factories” in the area. Now there are “23 pasta factories,” only some of which “bear the mark Pasta di Gragnano DOC, that Gragnano is the city of pasta.” The present clings to the past, like fava bean pesto should adhere to al dente paccheri.

The entry on busiate jumps even further back, to 12,000 years ago, when wheat was first domesticated, then on to cultivated wheat’s appearance in Italy in 6500 B.C. Sumerians, Greeks, Arabs, Vikings; Greek and Roman texts, plus the Jerusalem Talmuds — all played their part in pasta’s ascendance as a commonplace food.

Flip to the “L”s, and we time-warp to the present, as Roddy sits with a pasta maker in the region of Le Marche, “examining uncooked pasta like dermatologists, admiring the pores and rugosity.” She offers a recipe for linguine, dressed in a silken sauce of thinly-sliced onion and zucchini, egg yolks and Parmesan. If this is food-history whiplash, bring on the 17-car pileup.

Bags of opportunity

Should your pasta pantry be forever stocked with an array of shapes, like a menagerie of delicious rigidity, flip through “An A-Z of Pasta” and be astounded. You might gasp and nod so much at the book’s recipes, that your jaw remains unhinged and your head frozen in descent.

Those wagon wheels, aka ruote, untouched because you cannot quite figure out how to use them? Drape them with Gorgonzola, sage and walnuts, or mascarpone and, again, walnuts. Jaded by your staple spaghetti with tomato sauce? Wander the week with nine tomato-based recipes, tripping from a raw sauce with dried oregano, to spaghetti alla Norma with eggplant, tomato and ricotta salata, to the apotheosis of leftovers, a frittata made with day-old spaghetti and tomato sauce.

Pasta will tell you how it wants to be treated in the kitchen, if you listen. Roddy, with “The A-Z of Pasta,” teaches you the foodstuff’s centuries-old language. Lend an ear, and put some water on to boil.

Disney is fighting back against President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission. The company bowed to government pressure last year when it briefly suspended ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. But now the FCC is taking aim at ABC programs and broadcast licenses. The network and its parent company are defending what they say are “bedrock First Amendment principles.”

‘War against the media’

The White House has mounted a “multifront war against the media” since Trump’s return to office last year, said The New York Times. That war includes FCC scrutiny of TV programs that have raised the president’s ire. The agency is currently investigating whether ABC’s “The View” violated federal rules requiring broadcasters to “give equal time to political candidates from both parties” when it interviewed Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico in February. That rule has been applied to entertainment programming. News shows have long been largely exempt, however, and the FCC ruled in 2002 that “The View” belongs in the latter category. “Nothing about ‘The View’ that the law cares about has changed” since that decision, the company said this week in an official filing, per the Times.

The network’s response to the FCC was “fiery,” said The Wrap. The Trump administration has “trained its attention on daytime and late-night television” programs that are “perceived as unfriendly to the current administration,” ABC said, per the outlet. But the First Amendment “does not permit the government to sit in an editor’s chair” nor to “grade speech by its viewpoint and decide who is a ‘real’ journalist and what is ‘real’ news.”

The FCC has received an “unprecedented 77,611 comments” from the public regarding the investigation, said TV Tech. ABC in June asked viewers for their support in its “free-speech fight” against the government, said CNN. The FCC “wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show,” the network said in one advertisement, per CNN.

‘More legal leverage’

Disney’s “aggressive defense” of “The View” is a “notable departure” from its previous acquiescence to the president, said Axios. In addition to its quickly rescinded suspension of Kimmel, the network in 2024 paid $16 million to settle a Trump lawsuit filed over anchor George Stephanopoulos’ comments about E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault defamation case. ABC has “more legal leverage now” that the administration’s attempts to punish media companies have run into a series of adverse court rulings.

Other challenges remain. A group of “prominent conservative organizations” has petitioned the FCC to deny license renewals for eight local stations owned and operated by ABC, said The Guardian. The network “cozies up to the Communist Chinese Party and airbrushes over religious and ethnic cleansing,” the Center for American Rights said in a filing with the agency, per the outlet. There is “no clear timeline” to resolve that case.

‘What a viral photo of white supremacists on the Metro reveals’

Theodore R. Johnson at The Washington Post

A photo of “white supremacist group Patriot Front” members inside a “packed Metro subway car” in Washington, D.C., standing alongside a “young Black woman, perfectly alone,” was “evoking imagery from the civil rights era on the day the country marked its 250th anniversary,” says Theodore R. Johnson. Above ground, there were “celebrations of American exceptionalism; beneath the surface, though, there was evidence of a country regressing — or one that hasn’t changed as much as it thought.”

Read more

‘Who wants to tax a billionaire?’

Soumaya Keynes at the Financial Times

Californians will “vote on a 5% tax on billionaires’ wealth,” and in “theory this is a marvelous opportunity for rich economic discussion,” says Soumaya Keynes. But some “worry the choice will be reduced to a grim question: Are you a jealous wealth-basher or a shameless shill for the rich?” Some billionaires themselves are “keeping quiet, perhaps hoping that if California’s version passes, it will at least quieten the demands for them to pay their fair share.”

Read more

‘The World Cup is exposing the contradictions of national identity’

Mohamad Elmasry at Al Jazeera

The 2026 World Cup has “demonstrated, perhaps as clearly as any global event can, that modern national identity is complex, contested and far from straightforward,” says Mohamad Elmasry. Many of the “players on the national teams” come “from immigrant families.” In an “era of increasingly exclusionary nationalist politics in North America and Europe, some of the countries engaged in the most intense debates about national identity are being represented on the world’s biggest sporting stage by multicultural teams.”

Read more

‘How Lebanon continues to confound the US’

Geoffrey Aronson at The American Conservative

The “recent memorandum of understanding between Israel and Lebanon is not the first time the U.S. has placed itself at the center of Lebanese affairs,” says Geoffrey Aronson. These “efforts attest to Lebanon’s outsized ability to engage Washington at the highest level, and highlight the at best limited, short-term effectiveness of that involvement.” Hezbollah’s “expansive role in Lebanon today reflects the political and military mobilization of Lebanon’s historically underserved Shia community, especially in the south.”

Read more

What happened

A federal judge in Manhattan Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll the $5 million a jury awarded her in 2023 for sexual abuse and defamation. Trump “has been stalling this case for years,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in Thursday’s ruling, and after the Supreme Court last week denied his appeal of the verdict, “it is time ⁠for him to ‘do equity’ and pay the judgment.”

Who said what

Trump’s legal team had asked Kaplan to pause releasing the $5.8 million held in escrow — Trump’s deposit plus interest — until the Supreme Court decided whether to reconsider his appeal. Kaplan denied the request. In the “highly unlikely ​event” the justices accepted his petition and overturned the verdict, he wrote, Trump could sue to “recover any funds erroneously disbursed.” The “American People” stand with Trump and “demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes,” Trump’s legal team said in a statement.

What next?

The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Thursday night rejected an emergency motion by Trump to prevent the release of the money. “Carroll has waited more than three years for a jury’s verdict to be paid,” her lawyers wrote in an appellate filing. “She should not have to wait any longer.”

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday ended the two-day NATO summit in Turkey with warm words for U.S. allies, a promise to let Ukraine produce Patriot air-defense missiles and renewed fighting with Iran. After declaring the ceasefire “over,” Trump ordered a second night of strikes on Iran, which again fired at U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. Iran’s leaders are “scum” and “sick people,” Trump told reporters. If Iran keeps bombing ships in the Strait of Hormuz, he said on social media, the “retribution” will “get much worse!”

Who said what

Trump began the NATO summit “publicly bashing the alliance and reciting a list of grievances,” Politico said, but “behind closed doors” he “was far more positive” with fellow leaders. “There was a lot of love in that room,” Trump told reporters. “A lot of unity.” The Ankara summit “amounted to a master class in how to manage a mercurial president and minimize damage,” CNN said. “It’s a lesson clearly not absorbed by, or of much interest to, Iran.”

What next?

The reignited battle over the Strait of Hormuz reflects a “divide among Iran’s leadership” between “hard-liners seeking lasting control of the waterway” and “pragmatists” seeking sanctions relief, The Associated Press said. It also leaves Trump back “mired in an unpopular war that he cannot seem to end,” The Washington Post said, “with midterm elections less than four months away.”

What happened

Graham Platner Wednesday suspended his campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), saying in a video he intended to file “paperwork to withdraw” from the pivotal Senate race. The Maine Democratic Party shortly before had announced that if Platner bowed out, his replacement would be chosen at an expedited party convention.

Platner’s political and financial support evaporated Monday after an ex-girlfriend accused him of rape, and his last major backer, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), urged him to quit the race on Tuesday.

Who said what

“We believe that for the movement to continue, it can’t be me,” Platner said in his 11-minute exit video. “I know that some will think it’s an admission of guilt, and it most certainly is not.” Former state Sen. Troy Jackson, brewery owner Dan Kleban and ex-congressional staffer Jordan Wood jumped in the race Wednesday, and more candidates are expected.

“Platner and his supporters have sought to influence who replaces him,” The Washington Post said, but few potential successors “appear hungry for his endorsement,” and some ruled it out. For all the new uncertainty, Platner’s exit “will be an enormous break for Democrats,” Nate Cohn said at The New York Times. Few of the likely replacements are “especially well known,” but “in this political environment,” Collins “would be in jeopardy against any one of them.”

What next?

The pop-up Democratic convention, to be held before July 27, will include “500 delegates elected proportionally by county committees” and the roughly 100 state party committee members, said the Bangor Daily News.

Democratic socialists are winning Democratic primaries and Republicans see an opportunity. GOP candidates are increasingly tagging their rivals as “communists,” an approach embraced by President Donald Trump. The United States “did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America,” Trump said during his Independence Day speech. Democrats say the attacks harken back to discredited “red-baiting” smears of earlier eras. Will the accusations help the GOP in this fall’s midterm elections?

What did the commentators say?

The attacks come as U.S. voters increasingly “take on a positive view of socialism,” said The Washington Post. The longstanding Republican accusation that Democrats are socialists is no longer an “attack that stings as much,” GOP strategist Alex Conant said to the outlet. That leaves conservatives trying a message they hope will work with voters “old enough to remember Soviet-era nuclear drills and spy dramas,” said Axios. Trump himself “came of age” during the Cold War, historian Beverly Gage said to the publication. Whether accusing opponents of being communists resonates with younger voters is an open question, however. “Is the United States actually still susceptible to that kind of political language?"

“It was only a matter of time before Donald Trump went full Joe McCarthy,” Heather Digby Parton said at Salon. Republicans have used “red scare” tactics for nearly a century, and McCarthy’s right-hand man was a lawyer named Roy Cohn who later mentored Trump. The challenge for Republicans is that the policies advocated by upstart Democrats are “standard issue Bernie Sanders-style progressivism” that is popular among young voters and “some of the more populist MAGA types.” That ideology “certainly isn’t communism.”

Despite “media dismissals,” it is actually true that the “majority of the Democratic Socialists of America’s leadership identifies with Marxist ideology,” said Stu Smith at City Journal. The DSA was “not always” aligned with communism, but the organization’s recent “leftward shift” has attracted “members with Communist political tendencies.” Trump is “correct” in linking communism to the DSA’s “toehold in the Democratic Party,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. But the president’s demand for partial government stakes in companies such as U.S. Steel, Nvidia and OpenAI reveals he has “more in common with Communists than his hostile rhetoric lets on.”

Communist accusations against Democrats are “laughably false,” Sara Pequeño said at USA Today. National Democrats “barely want” DSA members in the party. “Why on earth would they suddenly be welcoming Marxist theory with open arms?”

What next?

Polls show “most Americans disapprove” of Trump’s job performance but there are also “warning signs” for Democrats, said USA Today. A majority of battleground state voters say Democrats are “too far to the left,” a sign Republicans “could find fertile ground” by raising the specter of communism. Democrats could be hurt if the midterms become a “referendum on the craziest ideas” of democratic socialist candidates, Third Way’s Matt Bennett said to the outlet.

“Nobody asked for a prequel to ‘Legally Blonde’,” said Anita Singh in The Telegraph, but here it is, because “ker-ching! – there is money to be made from rinsing the original”.

The result is “Elle” (Amazon Prime Video), “a cute but pointless series” in which we meet Elle Woods as a 16-year-old high schooler in 1990s Beverly Hills. She’s living her best life, until her parents announce that they have to move to rainy Seattle. So Elle is transplanted to the “epicentre of grunge”, where her “Barbie-pink outfits and perky demeanour are greeted with horror” by her hoodie-wearing peers. It is “a re-run of the film” – but “not half as funny”.

Lacks ‘fizzy dialogue’

Stretched over eight episodes, it sorely lacks the sharpness of the 2001 movie, said Adam White in The Independent, as well as its stacked supporting cast (Jennifer Coolidge, Selma Blair etc.), “fizzy dialogue” and comic set pieces.

The TV show also has a large plot hole: presumably, in the second season, Elle (Lexi Minetree) will undergo a “sociopolitical lobotomy” to explain why, in the film, she rocks up to Harvard so shocked by the way she’s greeted despite her experience in Seattle.

‘Slick nostalgia fix’

The series is an odd concept, said Carol Midgley in The Times: a spin-off of a film adored by a generation that is now well into middle age, but seemingly aimed at teenagers.

Still, it’s really not bad. Minetree looks like the film’s star, Reese Witherspoon, and captures some of what made her so brilliant in the part; and it has some good lines. It’s probably not a show for “a fogey like me”, but this “slick nostalgia fix” is good fun.

“Empires fall. Glaciers melt and oceans rise. Monarchs and prime ministers are crowned and toppled,” said John Nugent on Empire. “But the Minions cannot be halted, will never cease, will outlive us all.” And so they are back, in the seventh instalment of the “Despicable Me/Minions” franchise.

As ever, these small yellow gibberish-spouting creatures are searching desperately for a “villainous master to serve, which sees them encounter everyone from the tyrants of revolutionary France to a fearsome cyclops”.

Eventually, the “ageless goofballs” land in silent-era Hollywood, where they try to make their own monster movie. The tone is “as juvenile as ever” – in a film that is “goofy and giggly and resolutely wedded to stupidity” – but happily for “cine-literate parents”, there are some “absurdist treats”, including “the first ‘Citizen Kane’-based fart joke in cinema history”.

The film is “a hoot”, said Ed Potton in The Times, with “world-class slapstick” and a plethora of enjoyable movie references, not just to “Citizen Kane”, but to everything from Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton to “Jaws”. And it boasts a “tremendous” voice cast: Jesse Eisenberg features as a deluded robot, Trey Parker as a small monster, Allison Janney as a museum curator, and George Lucas (as himself) and Jeff Bridges as a pair of Warner brothers-like studio bosses.

It has been billed as returning director Pierre Coffin’s “love letter” to old Hollywood, said Rafaela Bassili in The Guardian, but the pleasures of this set-up prove short-lived. Later acts are “cluttered with extraneous characters and absurd situations”, and you feel you are just watching more of the same Minions fare.

Couple-swapping dramas had their heyday during the sexual revolution, said David Sexton in The New Statesman. And even the most famous of them, such as 1969’s “Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice”, look like “curiosities from another era” now. “Yet somehow, sexual perplexities remain in 2026.” “The Invite” started life as a play, by the Catalan writer/director Cesc Gay, which has since been turned into a film everywhere from Italy to South Korea. Now we have an American version, from director Olivia Wilde, and it is “not to be missed”.

Seth Rogen is “better than ever” as Joe, a failed musician unhappily married to frustrated housewife Angela (Wilde). One day he comes home to find that she has invited their hot upstairs neighbours – Hawk (Edward Norton) and Piña (Penélope Cruz) – to dinner. Joe is furious. He doesn’t want their company, he wants them to stop having noisy sex, which is keeping him awake at night.

The dinner is a disaster: Angela has failed to check Piña’s dietary needs (“no gluten, no dairy, no meat, no sugar”) and Joe didn’t get any wine in. As the evening descends into “mayhem”, Hawk and Piña reveal that they are into sex parties, and have come to see if their hosts are open to one. Brilliantly executed, “The Invite” is “the funniest film so far this year”.

“If there is more pleasure to be had than watching great actors behaving badly, I would genuinely wish to know about it,” said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. Cruz is wonderful, as sexy and charismatic as you could hope; Norton is “insufferably smug”; and Rogen proves he can do “emotional depth” when he tries.

The film is “hilarious”, said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, but it is also profound, “offering a genuinely insightful peek into the human, and marital, condition”.

The best newly published holiday reads.

All In by Claire Powell

Very few authors write about “contemporary Englishness as astutely, mercilessly and affectionately as Claire Powell”, said The Guardian. In “All In”, she “puts her perfectly observed characters in the pressure cooker” of an all-inclusive family holiday, creating a “kind of meta-beach read”. Best known for “At the Table” (2022), Powell has a knack for creating “characters you feel you really know”, said The Times. “Funny and moving”, this is a “brilliant summer read”.

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This! by Liza Minnelli

From “drug addiction to choosing unsuitable lovers, Liza Minnelli inherited plenty” from her mother Judy Garland, said The Telegraph. It has made for a fascinating life, which she documents in an “intimate, chatty style” in this “rip-roaring memoir”. The most vivid sections focus on Garland, whose mood swings Minelli had to manage as a teenager, said The Sunday Times. But Minnelli’s love life also “makes for anecdotes galore”.

Transcription by Ben Lerner

On his way to interview his literary hero, the narrator of “Transcription” drops his iPhone in the sink. He has no means to record the conversation, but presses ahead with the interview anyway. From this simple premise unfolds an “intelligent, absorbing” study that “plays with the boundary between the truth and fiction”, said the Financial Times. A deserving winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, this “compact and endlessly surprising” novel “exerts a powerful grip”, said The Times.

Land by Maggie O’Farrell

The “Hamnet” author’s latest is set in Ireland just after the Great Famine, and begins with the story of a cartographer and his son surveying a windswept peninsula, said The Independent. “Moving and magnificent”, it is O’Farrell’s “most ambitious book to date”. Incorporating elements of folklore and the supernatural, this is a “gripping” work about a land and its people, said London’s The Standard. “You’ll struggle to look up” from it while on holiday.

Jan Morris: A Life by Sara Wheeler

“From reporting on the first ascent of Everest in 1953 to transitioning in the 1970s”, Jan Morris led a “unique and astonishing” life, said the Financial Times. And it is superbly captured by Sara Wheeler in this “engrossing authorised biography”. For all that she was trail-blazing, Morris was “not a lovely person”, said The Times: “she was sharp-elbowed, slapdash, imperious and narcissistic”. It’s to Wheeler’s credit that she acknowledges such traits in her “sympathetic but candid biography”.

London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe

When Zac Brettler, a middle-class 19-year-old, fell to his death from a Thames-side apartment in 2019, police initially treated his death as suicide, said The Telegraph. But this “extraordinary” work of investigative journalism presents a darker, more complex take. At once a portrait of a family’s grief and of “a city at a particular point in its history”, said the Financial Times, “London Falling” is “a masterpiece” from the award-winning author of “Empire of Pain”.

Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley

There can’t be many romantic novels that feature “Boris Johnson’s ICU stay”, said The Guardian. But in this “treasure” of a book, Jessica Stanley braids the personal and political as she chronicles the relationship between copywriter Coralie and journalist Adam. Full of “on-the-nose” references, this is a “stellar summer read”, said The Times.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

This epistolary novel about a 73-year-old retired lawyer who lives alone in Maryland was a “startling word-of-mouth success”, said The Times. “When you read it you’ll understand why.” Sybil, the protagonist, is someone “you want to spent hours with”, said The Independent. The winner of this year’s Women’s Prize For Fiction, this book is the “best kind of summer read”.

Fair Play by Louise Hegarty

When a group of friends holds a murder mystery party and one is found dead, we seem set for a conventional “whodunnit”, said The New York Times. But this “terrific debut” works on several levels: part “knowing homage to classic detective fiction”, it’s also a “sensitive examination” of grief. It’s the “most original crime novel you’ll read all year”, said The Guardian.

The time it takes for a property to sell has hit a record high, and there are plenty of reasons for delays.

A mix of “buyer financial uncertainty and a shortage of conveyancing firms”, means it now takes “longer than at any time in at least a decade” to sell a property, said The Times.

Figures from property data firm TwentyCi show that it takes an average of 211 days – or 6.9 months – between a property being listed for sale and new owners moving in.

Meanwhile, almost half of homes listed on property portals over the past three years have failed to sell, according to Zoopla.

Unrealistic pricing

The “biggest sticking point” is pricing, said Zoopla. “Overambitious and unrealistic” values are the “biggest reason homes remain unsold”.

In many of these cases, the appropriate course of action is to lower the asking price, as this is often “the only way to attract a buyer”.

Reduced demand

Sellers are also suffering from a lack of demand, amid concerns about geopolitical tensions, while “political uncertainty is emerging as another headwind for the market”, said the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

High mortgage rates are also impacting buyer budgets, and leading to hesitation.

Competition

Data from property website Rightmove shows the number of homes for sale is at its highest level since 2015.

This makes it a “buyers’ market”, said MoneyWeek, so sellers need to be “more flexible on pricing to attract interest amid high levels of competition”.

Poor first impressions

Lower levels of demand and high supply make it more important that your home is accurately priced and attractive to sellers.

Think about “first impressions”, said the HomeOwners Alliance, such as the state of your garden and whether your wheelie bins are on show.

Buyers may struggle to look beyond the wear and tear inside your house, so you may need “enhancements or staging to help it sell”.

Additionally, while buyers expect to do “some work to a house” they buy, it could be worth your while sorting out problems such as damp, subsidence, or anything that could be flagged in a survey, before listing, rather than “waiting for a buyer to find out”.

Market conditions

There may be market conditions outside your control such as high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty. These can “shape how confident buyers feel and how quickly properties move”, said the Guild of Property Professionals. This may mean sellers have to “adapt their expectations and strategies accordingly”.

Many sellers don’t realise how much “seasonality matters”, said Lynch Brother Homes, with January, February and March producing the “quickest average time to sell”, while late November to Christmas is typically the “deadest period”.

The wrong estate agent

Not all estate agents are “created equal”, said agency brand Tucker Gardner. Factors such as “dark, blurry photos or a minimal description” on online listings may mean potential buyers “simply scroll past to the next property”.

So, if you aren’t getting viewings and your agent seems to have put your property “on the back burner”, it might be time for a change.

The Dordogne is a region renowned worldwide for everything from gastronomy and gorgeous castles to grottos and grand cru vintages. Quite understandably at this time of deep uncertainty and major conflict in the Middle East, British travellers are opting to visit Europe rather than venturing farther afield. And, just an hour’s flight time from London, there are few more lovely places to visit than the southwest of France.

What to see

Among the many natural wonders of the Dordogne, a true highlight is the Padirac Caves. The largest underground natural heritage site in Europe, it is the most famous cave in France, welcoming 500,000 visitors a year.

The limestone cave system dates back to the Jurassic period 170 million years ago, when dinosaurs walked the earth. It was discovered in 1889 by the intrepid French explorer, Edouard-Alfred Martel. He descended 60 metres on a rickety rope ladder into a chasm known as the Devil's Pit.

More than 100 metres deep and 20 kilometres long, Padirac is a breathtaking place to visit. You travel part of the way in a boat which has the feel of Charon’s ferry to the underworld. You are steered through an astonishing limestone canyon, crossing turquoise water where only tiny snails and blind shrimp are capable of living. The caves are adorned with 60-metre-long stalactites which descend from the roof like mesmerising aliens.

The high point of Padirac – literally and figuratively – is La Salle du Grand Dôme. An astonishing piece of natural theatre, it is a 93-metre-high cave large enough to fit the entire Notre Dame Cathedral. It's a temple to the power of nature.

Around a two-hour drive from here lies the beautiful medieval city of Limoges that’s famed for its leather. You can spend a very enjoyable morning at the recently opened La Cité du Cuir (City of Leather) museum. It is housed in the city’s former tannery in nearby St Junien beside the River Vienne.

As well as a comprehensive display about the process of making leather, featuring many vintage implements, the museum offers a demonstration by an expert cutter of the immense skill required to craft a fashionable pair of leather gloves.

The museum also has a fascinating exhibit about the social history of leather. This includes the iconic moment when the American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a defiant Black Power salute during the US National Anthem at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City. The relevant aspect of their protest? Their hands were clad in black leather gloves.

Like Padirac, this charming, atmospheric cheese shop, La Maison du Fromage, in the medieval centre of Limoges, is a sublime subterranean experience. You descend three storeys to the building’s ancient cellars, where you can try a selection of the region’s marvellous cheeses and wines by candlelight. The 250-plus cheeses are kept fresh in the constant 11C temperature.

Where to stay

A fairytale castle dating from the 14th century, the Château de la Treyne hotel near Lacave appears to be teetering in an impossibly precarious spot atop a rugged cliff on the banks of the Dordogne.

The interior, which has 18 very different bedrooms, is equally impressive. It is easy to see why Henri IV felt at home when he stayed here. I spend the night in a grandiose red-hued room called Gothique, which has a suitably regal double bed.

The dishes on offer in the château’s Michelin-starred restaurant are equally sumptuous. Please do not leave without sampling the divine dessert of Caribbean coffee-chocolate delice with a hint of tonka beans and cacao nibs. Truly, food fit for a king.

With 14 rooms, three suites and a villa, La Chapelle Saint Martin, is set in 40 acres of parkland near Limoges.

In the splendid Michelin-starred restaurant, you can sample such delicacies as the signature Limousin rack of veal with meat ragout and truffle sauce. In a clever nod to the regional speciality of porcelain, it’s all served on plates by local makers Bernardaud, decorated by the artist Marco Brambilla.

Another stand-out hotel serving Michelin-starred food is Le Vieux Logis, in Trémolat in deepest Dordogne. It occupies a lovely former medieval priory and features an immaculately kept formal garden. In the restaurant, in a capacious room that used to be a tobacco-drying chamber, you can delight in dishes from a menu of seasonal specialities.

The verdict

The Dordogne is a breathtaking region. If you're looking to avoid long-haul flights in these turbulent times, this is the ideal short-haul destination.

The famous French film director Claude Chabrol, who spent six weeks in Trémolat shooting the psychological thriller “The Butcher” in 1970, signed the visitors’ book at Le Vieux Logis, writing: “To leave paradise and return home is the height of sadness. Pity me!"

I know exactly how he feels.

James Rampton was a guest of Château de la Treyne; La Chapelle Saint Martin and Le Vieux Logis.

Nasa has launched a spacecraft to catch a falling telescope, an unprecedented mission that could pave the way for similar future rescues.

The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory telescope, known simply as Swift and launched in 2004, detects some of the most powerful explosions in the Universe. Its name comes from its ability to point at a new target in the solar system in a matter of minutes, compared to other space telescopes such as Hubble, which can take up to two days to focus on a target.

Because of its success spotting distant gamma-ray bursts, Swift’s mission has been repeatedly extended. But now it is sinking faster than expected due to recent solar storms and is at risk of crashing back to Earth in a matter of months unless something is done to change its orbit.

‘Mind-bogglingly short’ turnaround

To carry out the mission Nasa has turned to Arizona-based Katalyst Space Technologies. Swift has no engines of its own and was not built with docking hardware, so Katalyst engineered a “custom capture mechanism” that will use three guided robotic arms “to latch onto a structural feature without disturbing Swift’s instruments”, said Astronomy.

Having successfully launched last week, Katalyst’s Link spacecraft is now carrying out a series of navigation and propulsion systems checks before approaching Swift. It will survey the telescope to determine the best point of contact, and eventually capture and lift the observatory, which is about the size of a small car, back into its correct altitude.

The capture itself will be “especially tricky because Swift was never meant to be touched again once it reached orbit”. Katalyst CEO Ghonhee Lee told Aerospace America that it has been made even more complicated because “nobody took a picture of the backside of Swift before it launched”.

Katalyst was awarded the contract only last September, a “mind-bogglingly short” turnaround time, said Space. If it succeeds in saving Swift, the company will have done something unprecedented: “reboosting an ailing space telescope using a spacecraft developed in less than a year to rescue a target that was meant to be left in space on its own forever”.

‘A spacecraft worth saving’

At a cost of $30 million, the mission to save “a nearly 22-year-old space telescope, well past its prime” seems, “on paper” at least, not great value for money, said Space. But “Swift, it turns out, is still worth it, according to Nasa”.

“We didn’t want to set the precedent that anything that comes out of orbit has to be boosted, because it is part of our space ecosystem to have things deorbit frequently,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, Nasa’s astrophysics division director, in June. But Swift is “not just any spacecraft” and has a unique ability to “quickly pivot across the night sky to find things that go boom in the night”.

“In short,” said BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh, “there is nothing like Swift, and Nasa deemed that it was a spacecraft worth saving.”

Such an “ambitious” mission “has never been carried out before” and “a lot will have to go right if it is to succeed”. If it does, however, “attention will turn to whether the next rescue mission could be to save the even more famous Hubble Space Telescope”.

“A weekend spent at a water park might be the perfect family trip,” said Sophie Dickinson in The Telegraph. And “mercifully”, given the heat, the UK boasts plenty of options. Spoilt for choice with most parks having both indoor and outdoor facilities, they are equally attractive in a “heatwave-filled summer” or on a “gloomy Sunday afternoon”.

Here are some of our favourite spots, including toddler-friendly options and thrilling attractions for older children to explore, not to mention those that are secretly a lot of fun for adults too.

Alton Towers Waterpark, Staffordshire

Alton Towers is known as one of the most “iconic (and arguably best)” theme parks in the country, said Adam England on Time Out. But its water park is “unmissable” too. Its famous attractions, the “Master Blaster coaster, Rush ’N’ Rampage waterslides, and the interactive Wacky Waterworks” draw visitors from across the UK.

Lagoona Bay, Bubbly Wubbly Pool and Volcano Springs are all more suitable for younger children, and adults who are wanting to take a break, “until it’s time to resume the fun”. Entry to the water park is not included with a standard ticket, but “if you enjoy hurtling down flumes it’s well worth the additional cost”.

altontowers.com

Alpamare, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

“The ever-popular Alpamare combines rides with relaxation”, said Dickinson in The Telegraph. Its four major slides – “twisting Snow Storm, frightening Black Run, double-tube Olympic Run and thrilling Cresta Run” – will keep the whole family “entertained for hours”. Every 30 minutes, the wave pool kicks into gear to add a bit more excitement into the mix. But don’t worry if it all “gets too much”. There’s an infinity pool overlooking the bay that’s a “breathtaking place to swim” away from the chaos.

alpamare.co.uk

Coral Reef Waterworld, Bracknell, Berkshire

Londoners have been trying their best to “stay as cool as a cucumber” in the heat, said Katie Forge on Secret London, but the majority end up “resembling something slightly more similar to a tomato”. Coral Reef Waterworld is within “splashing distance” of the capital, and is “squeal-inducingly thrilling”.

It boasts a “whopping” five slides, which vary in speed and scariness, so it’s guaranteed that something will “float your boat”. To top it all, there is a “humungous” pirate ship in the middle of the pool, and there’s even an erupting volcano, because “why not?”. There’s also an adults-only spa: the “perfect antidote” to the water-filled frenzy of the water park.

everyoneactive.com

Let’s Go Hydro, Belfast, Co Down

This is undoubtedly one of Northern Ireland’s “best” gigantic inflatable playgrounds, said The i Paper. If indoor slides and wavepools aren’t your thing, and you’re looking for something more active and adventurous, this is well worth a visit. Hosted on the Knockbracken Reservoir in Carryduff, the outdoor features “seven-foot-high slides, climbing walls and floating trampolines” among other obstacles.

Fans of “Total Wipeout” are in for a treat, and for teams or larger groups there is a “floating rugby and football pitch” and a “beach arena for volleyball”, not to mention a “Puddle Park” for the smallest visitors. With an on-site spa, and self-catering barbecue pod options letting you “cook up a storm”, you will leave more revitalised than when you arrived.

letsgohydro.com

Sara Duterte, vice president of the Philippines, has appeared in court to face impeachment proceedings in a trial that has brought long-standing political tensions to a head.

The 48-year-old daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte is accused of corruption, bribery, misappropriating millions in government funds and threatening to have the current president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, assassinated.

Duterte, who in 2024 became the first Philippine leader to face impeachment proceedings, denies the charges, calling them political harassment. The trial, which began on Monday, is the culmination of the fallout and feud between the Marcos and Duterte families, the country’s most powerful political dynasties.

Who are the Duterte and Marcos families?

Rodrigo Duterte ruled the Philippines with an iron fist from 2016 to 2022. In the 2022 election, Sara was the running mate of presidential candidate Marcos Jr, son of the dictator who ruled for 20 years before being deposed in 1986.

The two younger scions were “unstoppable”, said the BBC. The so-called “Tiger of the North” and “Eagle of the South” – in reference to the families’ geographical origins – were “seen as a dream team” and won a landslide. In the end, however, “there was not enough power to share between them”.

Cracks appeared when Marcos’ allies in the Senate began investigating Duterte for alleged misuse of government funds. The pair also disagreed on their approach to Beijing; Marcos ordered the navy to “stand up to China” in the South China Sea, said Al Jazeera, in “sharp contrast” to pro-China Duterte. This trial shifts the “power struggle” to “a new battleground”, said the BBC, which will now “play out on livestreams for the entire nation”.

What is the case against Duterte?

In October 2024, Duterte said “her relationship with Marcos had become so ‘toxic’ that she sometimes imagined beheading him”, said Al Jazeera. She also “threatened to dig up the remains of Marcos’ father” and “dump them in the sea”. In November, Duterte claimed during a “profanity-laced” livestream that she had told someone: “If I get killed, go kill BBM” (Marcos’ nickname is Bongbong so he’s commonly referred to as BBM) and his wife.

His supporters filed an impeachment complaint based on this livestream, and the alleged misuse of funds. But last year that case was “derailed for procedural reasons”, said Foreign Policy. Marcos’ supporters then refiled the case, leading to a new trial.

What is the significance of the trial?

Prosecutors see the case as “a test of accountability ‌and public trust”; the defence denounces it as “a politically driven bid” to unseat an elected official, said Reuters. The outcome could “shape the 2028 presidential race”, in which Duterte has announced she intends to run. Marcos cannot run as Philippine law permits presidents only a single term, but his family and coalition “expect to remain powerful”, said Al Jazeera.

There are “fears of widespread protests” and political turmoil that would “impact the Philippines’ economic growth” should Duterte – the current frontrunner – be convicted and barred from standing in 2028.

But “conviction will be difficult”, said Foreign Policy. Two-thirds of the chamber, 16 senators, must support impeachment. Of the 24 sitting senators, 14 are “Duterte allies”. However, “those allies are coming under pressure”, with two arrested on corruption charges and one “on the run from an ICC warrant”. More pro-Duterte senators may “come under fire in what looks like political pressure tactics”.

A parasite capable of causing extreme diarrhea has been found in 18 states, with a particularly large outbreak in Michigan. Though the source of the infections has yet to be identified, experts recommend taking precautions with fresh produce and practicing good hygiene to reduce the risk of contracting the disease.

What is cyclosporiasis?

Cyclosporiasis is a form of food poisoning that comes from the parasite Cyclospora cayetanensis. It can cause “watery, and sometimes explosive, diarrhea and other stomach problems,” as well as a low-grade fever in some cases, said the Cleveland Clinic. Symptoms can start any time between two and 14 days after consuming contaminated food or water. The parasite is more common in tropical countries, but in mid-June, 145 cases were reported in the U.S.

“People became sick after eating food in the United States and did not report any travel during the 14 days before they got sick,” said the CDC. Those infected ranged from ages 5 to 86 years old, and though there have been hospitalizations, there have yet to be any deaths from the condition.

There has been growing concern about cyclosporiasis because Michigan, “which typically identifies about 50 cases of cyclosporiasis in a year, has reported at least 170 cases” in under two weeks, said CNN. There is “currently no evidence of a single, multistate Cyclospora outbreak linking all cases,” said the CDC. Instead, researchers are “working to identify various potential clusters and sources of illness in multiple states.” Though Michigan has had the most cases, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin have also had reported infections.

Investigators have yet to pinpoint the cause of the current outbreak, but the most likely culprits are “cilantro, basil, plants that grow and that you might put in a salad or use as a garnish,” or “strawberries, blueberries, melons, things that grow in fields,” David Freeman, a professor emeritus of infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said to CNN.

What can be done?

Taking precautions is key to preventing illness. Cooked food is safer than fresh produce, as heat can kill the parasite. Washing produce can also help reduce the chance of ingesting the parasite. “Thoroughly washing hands and kitchen counters, as well as cutting surfaces, is important too,” but “bleach doesn’t kill the parasite,” said CNN. “Handwashing with soap and water and a follow-up with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer are safer bets.”

If you contract cyclosporiasis, antibiotics can help clear the infection. If not treated, “symptoms may last for a month or longer” and increase the “risk of severe dehydration and other complications,” said the Cleveland Clinic. “With proper diagnosis and treatment, most people feel better after a week or two,” but you “may still have occasional bouts of diarrhea for up to a month.”

The Trump administration has officially brought the Presidential Fitness Test back from the dead after it was discontinued in 2013, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is lauding it as a major step forward for children’s health. But some health experts aren’t so sure that the revitalized test will improve youngsters’ lives in a meaningful way.

‘Not much has changed’

The test, which was sunsetted during the Obama administration in favor of a different regimen called the Presidential Youth Fitness Program, is now back by executive order from President Donald Trump. But “compared to previous iterations of the test, not much has changed: It includes a timed run, an upper-body strength test and a core test, with benchmarks set by a child’s age and gender,” said Chelsea Cirruzzo at Stat News. Health experts worry that such a stringent “focus on specific physical activity benchmarks could turn some kids off exercise.”

The “worst experiences that people tend to report” from childhood fitness tests are “something having to do with embarrassment,” Matthew Ladwig, an assistant professor of integrative human health at Purdue University Northwest, told Stat News. Negative memories of exercise as a child are “associated with adult sedentary behavior” later in life, a 2018 study co-authored by Ladwig found. Embarrassment is a “leading indicator. A lot of people felt that with the old test, which, unfortunately, shares a lot of similarities with the new one.”

Others question “whether a fitness test alone will be enough to move the needle on physical activity and exercise,” said Mary Kekatos at ABC News. “When you think about a math test and English test, it’s private failure. If you don’t do very well on a test, the teacher knows and you know, but the rest of your classmates don’t know,” Jackie Goodway, a kinesiology professor at Michigan State University, told ABC. “But if you come in last in the mile run and everybody’s laughing at you, it’s public humiliation.”

‘A healthy nation can only exist if its citizens are fit’

Others believe that the physical promises of the Presidential Fitness Test outweigh any negatives. A “healthy nation can only exist if its citizens are fit,” and “policymakers are finally recognizing the problem,” said K. John Lee at The Oklahoman. The reimplementation of the exam comes at a time when many children cannot “pass a military physical fitness test,” and “whether or not a student ever serves in uniform,” that “should concern us.”

“Too many young people are spending less time moving and building healthy habits,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) in a statement. Reviving the test will “give students a positive goal to work toward and make physical activity a bigger part of their everyday lives.” By “bringing back the Presidential Fitness Test,” said Kennedy in the same statement, America is “giving parents, schools and communities the tools to help children build healthy habits, strengthen their bodies and discover what they’re capable of achieving.”

On its own, a physical test would be more of a “performative gesture than a real public health campaign to tackle the childhood obesity epidemic,” The Washington Post editorial board said in an August 2025 op-ed, after Trump announced the test’s return. But a “focus on the health of America’s children is welcome, especially if it draws added attention to the need for more school time devoted to physical activity.”

For many people busy ferrying their kids to camp or embarking on vacations, summer is a time to let their TV backlog swell. But if you’re the kind of person who streams as usual during the summer months, there are some terrific options for you this July.

‘Silo’ season 3

“Silo” has become one of the most beloved dystopian sci-fi series of the decade, in large part due to its magnetic central character, Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson). The show returns for a third season with a major surprise.

Instead of focusing exclusively on the post-apolyptic bunker dwellers of the title, the new season also leans on a second timeline, set in a near-future Washington, D.C. There, Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) and journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) — introduced in the season 2 finale — navigate the events that led to the apocalypse, including a war with Iran. It’s “fun and incredibly interesting,” said Jean Henegan at Pop Culture Maniacs, and the “final stretch of this season is just spectacular across the board.” (on Apple TV+ now)

‘The Westies’

MGM+, a relatively new streamer, may have its first big hit with this real-life tale of dueling New York crime families set in the 1980s. Eamon Sweeney (J.K. Simmons) and his deputy, Jimmy Roarke (Tom Brittney), lead an upstart Irish-American syndicate battling their Italian mafia rivals for the spoils stemming from a major construction project, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Hamish Allan-Headley (“Mayor of Kingstown”) plays John Gotti, the leader of the far larger and more powerful organization. This “gritty new drama” ultimately “takes a Shakespearean turn, as the new generation clashes with the old” in both families, said Erin Maxwell at TV Insider. (July 12 on MGM+)

‘Lucky’

Anya Taylor-Joy (“The Gorge”) found perhaps her biggest success in the 2020 Netflix mini-series “The Queen’s Gambit,” and here she’s the centerpiece of Apple TV+’s seven-part limited series “Lucky.” Taylor-Joy plays Luciana “Lucky” Armstrong, a seasoned criminal aiming for one final heist before going straight. To complicate the narrative, her mom, Priscilla (Annette Bening), is a mob boss and her dad, John (Timothy Olyphant), is a career criminal. With “adrenalized action, tense familial drama, and a classic ‘one last job’ hook, the omens are strong” for this highly anticipated thriller, said Jordan King at Empire. (July 15 on Apple TV+)

‘The Hawk’

Comedy legend Will Ferrell has starred in several beloved sports parodies, including the car-racing satire “Talladega Nights” and the figure skating send-up “Blades of Glory.” This time he brings his many talents to a TV series about golf.

Ferrell stars as Lonnie “The Hawk” Hawkins, a pro golfer two decades past his prime who seeks one last big tournament win even though his wife, Stacy (Molly Shannon), and golf phenom son, Lance (Jimmy Tatro), want him to retire. Lonnie is a “loud, silly and gloriously arrogant” man whose “on-the-green rivalries take on an extrafamilial dimension,” when he ends up competing against Lance, said Luke Buckmaster at The Guardian. (July 16 on Netflix)

‘Gone’

Respected Bristol schoolteacher Michael Polly (David Morrissey) displays a strange lack of emotion when his wife, Sarah, goes missing, triggering the suspicion of Detective Sergeant Annie Cassidy (Eve Myles) in this engrossing, six-part pressure cooker from “Lupin” writer-creator George Kay. The setup sounds similar to the superb HBO Max drama “The Staircase.”

The couple’s daughter, Alana (Emma Appleton), is caught in the middle as Michael becomes the prime suspect, while the audience is left to figure out who is telling the truth. “If there is a tauter, clammier or more engrossing drama this year I will eat my mortarboard with chips,” said Sarah Dempster at The Guardian. (July 23 on BritBox)

‘Your Day Will Come’ by Chanel Beads

★★★

“Of all the so-called ‘cloud rock’ bands dissolving the line between analog and digital, Chanel Beads have the most evocative melodies and moments of unlikely beauty,” said Kieran Press-Reynolds in Pitchfork. Or maybe we should credit Chanel Beads’ band, because Chanel Beads is also the stage name used by frontman Shane Lavers, who’s now put out a second album that bears the title of his group’s acclaimed 2024 debut. It’s another “nervy tangle of organic and digital sounds,” filled with songs that are “even more expressive, stricken, and achingly contradictory.” It also helps clarify how the New York City–based group, which includes multi-instrumentalist Maya McGrory and violinist Zachary Paul, leaped from playing clubs to opening for Lorde at arenas last fall. Though Lavers’ songs “have earworm qualities,” they “nevertheless unsettle,” said Grant Sharples in Paste. The song “Tyler Richard,” which references Lavers’ deceased brother, is a “pointed examination of grief and regret” that throws in a scream before settling back into a repeated piano figure and “luxe” strings. The music and Lavers’ impressions of the world feel “real and unreal at once.”

‘The Ground Above’ by Beth Orton

★★★★

“Death hangs over The Ground Above,” said Mark Richardson in The Wall Street Journal. “But for Beth Orton the inevitability of the end electrifies the present.” As she ponders mortality, the former darling of Britain’s trip-hop era continues a career resurgence that began with 2022’s Weather Alive. Acting as her own producer and working with musicians ranging from Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley to Smile drummer Tom Skinner, she’s evolved a plaintive, sprawling sound that recalls both 1980s Van Morrison and “the shadowy atmosphere of a Daniel Lanois production.” Her voice has evolved to match her somber themes, becoming “scuffed and battered” like Marianne Faithfull’s. “She stretches her breathy, cracked vocal style over songs about death, friendship, and other big themes that tend to become preoccupations in middle age,” said Will Hodgkinson in The Times (U.K.). On the album’s closer, “Otherside,” a sleepless Orton seeks clarity amid a blackbird’s morning call. She’s grateful for another day to set things right “as the track builds into a ‘Hey Jude’–like sing-along begging to be belted out in town squares the world over.”

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Fiona Sampson’s new book, Becoming George, is a biography of the cross-dressing 19th-century writer George Sand. Below, the award-winning poet and author of Two-Way Mirror, a biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, recommends six other life stories.

‘How to End a Story’ by Helen Garner (2025)

Journal extracts from the Australian author create a compelling portrait of the nation’s counterculture, 1980s feminism, and, latterly, an abusive relationship with a fellow writer. But above all, this page-turner by one of today’s great nonfiction writers is alert to the glories and terrors of daily inner life. Buy it here.

‘The Years’ by Annie Ernaux (2008)

Not so much a group biography as the autobiography of the author’s generation, The Years examines the life choices, culture, and politics of France’s Baby Boomers. Ernaux, the surprise French Nobel winner, packs this absorbing panorama with domestic, academic, and pop-cultural details. Buy it here.

‘Come Back in September’ by Darryl Pinckney (2022)

Pinckney, writing like a gossipy angel, captures the fun and anxiety of a high-octane life at the heart of New York City’s literary village in the 1970s and ’80s. Come Back is both self-portrait of the artist as a young gay Black man, and a nuanced homage to his mentor, the novelist and critic Elizabeth Hardwick. Buy it here.

‘A Fortunate Man’ by John Berger and Jean Mohr (1967)

In 1966, writer John Berger and photographer Jean Mohr spent three months following a country doctor through picturesque landscapes made famous by Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” as the doctor ministered, often futilely, to the rural poor. Evocative images and writing lyrical with anger capture a lifetime’s devotion and its cost. The “fortunate man” went on to kill himself. Buy it here.

‘Hold Still’ by Sally Mann (2015)

It seems unjust that a photographer as visionary as Mann should also be able to write. But she truly can. This story of her emergence as a photographer—as well as a wife, mother, and farmer—always sends me running back to my desk. Buy it here.

‘Flush’ by Virginia Woolf (1933)

The evergreen Flush is a life portrait both of the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and of her adored pet spaniel. Barrett Browning helped transform 19th-century verse, and as her biographer, I should probably mind this approach. But as a dog lover, I’m delighted. Buy it here.

‘Villa Coco’ by Andrew Sean Greer

Personal style that appears effortless often requires much invisible work, said Jacob Brogan in The Atlantic. “I thought about this distinction often while reading Andrew Sean Greer’s witty and, yes, stylish new novel.” The narrator, an American, is looking back on a sojourn in Tuscany when he was hired to work at the home of a scheming 92-year-old baronessa. But he also comes under the sway of other larger-than-life characters, including a male romantic interest, resulting in a “relentlessly charming” coming-of-age tale. Because Greer “has such a light touch,” the book “reads like a grand adventure, not a lesson,” said Chris Hewitt in The Minnesota Star Tribune. Perhaps because the Pulitzer-winning author of 2017’s Less has earned the privilege, Villa Coco “has the summery feel of someone writing whatever he feels like writing.” I have zero complaints—“other than that I wish it were longer.”

‘Rasputin Swims the Potomac’ by Ben Fountain

“Is it even possible to write a satirical novel about American politics anymore?” asked Laura Miller in Slate. If so, Ben Fountain, the author of the Iraq War–era send-up Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, “is a good candidate to try.” This time out, Fountain gives us a U.S. president who could only be Donald Trump plotting to win an unconstitutional third term by tapping as his running mate a wrestler named Rasputin. But a billionaire cabal prefers Rasputin at the top of the ticket, and as the drama levels up, Fountain’s prose “fizzes with a Dickensian color that makes the novel a blast to read.” A novel that also features a likable reality TV star turned White House staffer, a reporter named Clarence Thomas Jr., and a weeping epidemic is “a lot, for sure,” said Michael Schaub in the Los Angeles Times. “But Fountain pulls it off with his gleefully absurd sense of humor.”

‘Dolly All the Time’ by Annabel Monaghan

“Romance readers have found their book of the summer,” said Kimberly Ramirez in Los Angeles magazine. “A radiant and tension-filled love story,” Annabel Monaghan’s latest best seller revolves around a single mom and kindergarten teacher who’s pushing 40 when she returns to her Rhode Island hometown for the warmer months and agrees to a wealthy heir’s suggestion that she pose as his girlfriend. Because Dolly prizes her independence and they both have family burdens, the novel develops into a “gripping” read “packed with passion and doubt.” When the pair strike their deal, “only the truly inattentive will be shocked that complications ensue,” said Joanne Kaufman in The Wall Street Journal. That’s fine, because “the settings—sailboats, lush gardens, elegant townhouses—couldn’t be lovelier,” and resourceful Dolly “deserves every nice thing that seems to be coming her way.”

‘The Children’ by Melissa Albert

“Contemporary fantasy could certainly do with more sophisticated takes on the genre like this one,” said Jessie Lethaby in The Times (U.K.). Melissa Albert’s first foray into adult fiction hooks the reader from the moment it introduces its protagonist, Guinevere, a woman who was made famous as a child by her mother’s fantasy novels and is now releasing a dishonestly rosy memoir about her upbringing. Albert takes too long to bring the story to resolution, but as The Children advances along three timelines, there’s no denying “the sheer pleasure” of the reading experience. All along, you wonder how the fire started that killed Guinevere’s parents, said Lucy Rees in the Chicago Review of Books, and why she and her artist brother have long been estranged. “The answers converge with the meeting of the timelines in a sequence of pages so dazzling I had to take breaks to seep in the complexities.”

‘Pool House’ by Mary H.K. Choi

“Brace for the kind of heartbreak reserved for mothers and daughters who have more in common than they care to admit,” said Elisabeth Egan in The New York Times. When a former TV actor dies by suicide, his beautiful Korean American co-star and Stevie, her 20-year-old daughter, open their L.A. home to another of the show’s co-stars, who, to Stevie, is both a brother figure and a longtime crush. The house is unaffordable. Stevie wants out but can’t escape her mother’s orbit. And the domestic drama that then unfolds feels “unexpectedly perilous.” In reality, Stevie and her mom have been renting out their home and living in its pool house, said P. Claire Dodson in Vogue. As Choi tracks this unusual Hollywood trio, “Choi writes like she’s inviting you inside the joke, to the blood and sweat that make up the fame machine and the lives within it.”

‘The Shampoo Effect’ by Jenny Jackson

In her “deeply satisfying” new rom-com, Jenny Jackson “flips the usual romance novel progression of initial friction-laced attraction that melts into undeniable love,” said Carol Iaciofano Aucoin in WBUR.org. Caroline, a New York City–based writer, and Van, an environmental scientist, hook up shortly after Caroline arrives in a Massachusetts shore town, and the suspense lies in whether the pair will be torn apart, particularly after Van learns that he’s impregnated a member of his tight local friend group. The scandal, the sex, and the coastal setting “make for a perfect summer beach read,” said Julia Vitale in Air Mail. After all the complications, The Shampoo Effect emerges as “a breezy, fun novel whose ending is tied with a neat bow, as all endings of books read between Memorial Day and Labor Day should be.”

For the first time since consolidating power to rule the Gaza Strip in 2007, Hamas will disband its Government Emergency Committee that has coordinated day-to-day life across the territory, according to the Palestinian militant group. This clears a path for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), known as a technocratic committee, to assume control as part of President Donald Trump and his Board of Peace’s plan for the beleaguered region. But by playing coy about next steps, Hamas has given observers and critics plenty of reasons to be suspicious about this latest development.

‘Caretaker framework’

The governmental dissolution “marks a significant political shift” by Hamas, said Al Jazeera. But while the militant group has “repeatedly said it is prepared to step aside from day-to-day governance” of Gaza, the “question of its disarmament remains unresolved.”

The decision to dismantle the governing authority was made to “remove any pretexts for the occupation, which continues its aggression and war of extermination,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem to AFP, per Le Monde. Hamas seeks the “swift entry” of the technocratic committee and “affirms its readiness to hand over governmental responsibilities to the committee to ensure its success.” The committee, in turn, is “fully prepared to assume its national responsibilities as soon as the necessary resources and capabilities are available,” said NCAG Chief Commissioner Ali Shaath on X.

For Hamas, the move is designed to transform the group’s “existing governing structure” into a “caretaker framework,” said The Times of Israel. Hamas officials claim that “technical and professional staff” will “remain in place” after the governmental dissolution to “maintain continuity in service to civilians in Gaza,” said The Jerusalem Post.

Unsurprisingly, Israel has rejected that characterization. The dissolution of a Hamas government wherein “all of the Hamas members stay in their positions” is a “spin that has no significance,” said one Israeli official to The Associated Press.

‘Actions, not promises’

Any assessment of Hamas’ plan will be “guided by actions, not promises, to meet the critical needs of the people of Gaza,” said the Trump-led Board of Peace on X. The “core principle” of eventually turning over full control of Gaza to the technocratic committee “remains one authority, one law and one weapon,” which in turn means “consolidation of all weapons under the control of the NCAG as provided for in the Comprehensive Gaza Peace Plan and United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803.”

The change “does not concern its military wing,” about which mediators are “still negotiating,” said Haaretz. Israel, meanwhile, is “not allowing members of the technocratic committee, who are currently in Cairo, to enter the territory.” Israel has “ruled out allowing Hamas to rule” the embattled Gaza Strip following the yearslong war between the two groups, said Al Jazeera. Israel “also rejected a direct takeover” by the Palestinian Authority, which controls the occupied West Bank, “at this stage.”

American women in the workforce have long been outearned by their male counterparts. And though the difference narrowed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the gap is now increasing as overall wage growth slows and the economy shifts to jobs dominated by men.

What did the commentators say?

U.S. wage growth is “steadily slowing,” but for women it’s “slowing even more,” said Marketplace. The gap got narrower during the last three decades of the 20th century due to “more women entering the workforce, broader minimum wage protections and better access to contraception.” That progress has “stalled” during this century, pausing briefly when “demand for low-wage labor spiked” during the Covid-19 lockdown. Now the gap is widening again, largely because women are “more likely to be in lower-paid, stretched-thin jobs, covering the households’ basic needs,” said Elissa Braunstein, a professor of economics at Colorado State University, to the outlet. Overall, women “earn 16% less than men on average,” said Forbes.

“When women dominate a field, pay goes down,” said Mary Noble-Tolla at Lean In. When parks and recreation jobs shifted from a male-dominated field to one largely staffed by women, for example, “wages dropped by 57%.” Mothers are “hit the hardest” by the disparity, but closing the wage gap would be broadly beneficial. Paying women “fairly” would “cut the U.S. poverty rate in half and inject over $1.6 trillion” into the American economy.

“Women aren’t born wanting to earn less money,” said Maia Mindel at The Argument. Some commentators have made the case that women earn less than men “simply because they choose to” by taking less paid overtime and more unpaid time off. But the preference for “predictable, flexible schedules” comes “almost entirely” from women with children at home. Policymakers can bridge the gap by “broadening access to public services” like childcare and early childhood education.

The wage gap means most American households have “far fewer resources” to pay for “housing, food and healthcare,” Stefanie O’Connell said at MarketWatch. And that struggle “follows women throughout their lives,” as women over the age of 65 are more likely than men their age to live in poverty. The gap is also a “major drag on the economy” because women “make most household purchases.” When they do not have as much money to spend, “both businesses and investors pay the price.”

What next?

“There is no single policy that will close the wage gap,” said Emma Cohn and Elise Gould at the Economic Policy Institute’s Working Economics Blog. Possible solutions would include “pay transparency” laws that require employers to “include wage information in job postings.” Expanded medical and family leave requirements, universal childcare and an improved minimum wage would also help. Such efforts could “build an equitable economy that works for all.”

‘The end of reading is here’

Rose Horowitch at The Atlantic

“Americans, once members of a proudly literate society, read much less than they used to,” says Rose Horowitch. Even “demographics that traditionally read the most — retirees, women and college graduates — have seen a collapse,” and the “books that people do read are simpler than they used to be.” People are “losing the higher-order abilities of comprehension.” America “isn’t illiterate. It’s postliterate.” The “people who make a living from words are not the only ones who lose out in a postliterate age.”

Read more

‘A tax too far: Don’t punish immigrants sending money to family’

Marcos Cruz at The Hill

Immigrants “want to know how to safely transfer money to relatives” overseas, as these remittances “create a massive flow of capital out of wealthy nations and into lower- and middle-income countries,” says Marcos Cruz. This year, a “new 1% excise tax was added on money sent abroad,” and “although a 1% tax appears small when expressed as a decimal, its implications are strategic.” By “taxing remittances and lowering incomes,” Washington will have “worsened the root cause of the immigration problem.”

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‘The US had the biggest opportunity in the history of American soccer. They wasted it.’

Alexander Abnos at The Guardian

What do people think “about what the U.S. produced on Monday night during their 4-1 defeat against Belgium?” says Alexander Abnos. What “inspiration was there to be found in the team’s disjointed moves forward, of the missed defensive assignments, of the lack of poise the team played with?” Millions were “tuning in on Monday night for their first U.S. men’s national team experience,” and “their first impression was a side that was not up to the task.”

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‘Stop mourning the old NATO. Build the new one.’

Galip Dalay at Time

This “must be the moment Europe stops mourning the alliance it once knew and begins building the one it actually needs,” says Galip Dalay. Europe should “strengthen the collective weight of European NATO members, not the European Union members or EU as an institution alone, within the alliance.” Europe “needs a continent-wide security architecture” and an “honest reckoning with an uncomfortable truth: any post-American security framework cannot simply replicate the existing NATO-centric order.”

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For many Americans, an auto loan is a sizable chunk of their monthly budget. Refinancing can be one way to get that payment down. This is particularly true lately, as auto loan refinance rates have been falling at a faster pace than rates for original auto loans, making the potential savings that much more notable.

“Drivers who refinanced in the first quarter of 2026 saw a 2.24 percentage point interest rate decrease on average from their original loan, compared with a 0.47 point decrease two years earlier,” said Experian, per The Wall Street Journal. In terms of real dollars saved per month, “buyers with high payments found that refinancing drove their costs down by an average of $81 a month in the first quarter,” said the outlet.

Here is what to know about how auto loan refinancing works and how to determine whether the payoff is actually there.

How does auto loan refinancing work?

When you refinance your auto loan, you effectively take out a new loan with its own interest rate and terms. This loan replaces your existing auto loan. Upon approval, the new lender pays off your existing loan and then assumes the remaining balance.

Ideally, the new loan will offer more favorable terms than your existing loan, such as a better interest rate or lower monthly payments. You will go through the loan application process again for a refinance loan, and the terms will hinge largely on your credit profile.

What are the benefits of auto loan refinancing?

As mentioned, refinancing your auto loan could result in paying a lower interest rate. Maybe your credit has improved since you initially applied, and you have since consistently made on-time payments on your loan. Or, “you might have accepted a higher rate at a dealership than you could have qualified for elsewhere, and you now want to reduce that rate through refinancing,” said NerdWallet. An improved interest rate environment could also open up more competitive rates.

Refinancing may additionally allow you to pay off your loan sooner, which in turn could save you in total interest charges over the life of the loan. You could also refinance to lower your monthly payments, which will come in handy if you are struggling to repay your car loan. Just keep in mind that “while extending your loan term can lower your monthly payments, it will take longer to pay off your car, which could result in higher overall interest costs,” said PNC Insights, PNC Bank’s personal finance blog.

When should you think twice before refinancing?

A baseline to evaluate when deciding whether to refinance your auto loan is whether or not it will save you money. But even if it will, there are still downsides to consider, and in certain situations, it may not be worth pursuing.

In some cases, “financing fees outweigh the benefits,” such as if you have to pay a hefty prepayment penalty to your existing lender alongside origination or application fees, said Credit Karma. Applying for a new loan also has an impact on your credit, which you may want to avoid if you are planning to apply for other new credit soon, like a mortgage on a home purchase.

It is lastly important to evaluate the value of the car itself. “Refinancing to extend your term or taking cash out of your equity could leave you owing more than what your car is worth, referred to as being upside-down on your loan,” said NerdWallet. In this case, “if you decide to sell or trade in your car, you would have to pay the lender the difference.”

What happened

An ICE agent fatally shot a Houston man in his car early Tuesday during a “targeted enforcement operation,” the agency said in a statement. “From information we are receiving,” Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, “refused to follow multiple verbal commands and weaponized his vehicle,” causing the agent to fire “in self-defense.” Local officials and civil rights groups demanded that ICE release all video footage as part of an independent investigation.

Who said what

Araujo’s family said the father of three was a construction worker who had been in the U.S. for 35 years and was in the process of getting his work permit. In most of the 20 recent cases where immigration agents have shot people in their cars, The New York Times said, officials said it was justified “because the vehicles had been ‘weaponized’ and the agents’ lives were in danger.”

ICE’s account of Araujo’s killing “echoed many of the statements the agency quickly issued in other shootings,” The Washington Post said. But in the killings of Renee Good in Minneapolis, 23-year-old Ruben Ray Martinez in Texas and “several” other instances, video evidence established that “the officers were not in danger and, in some cases, acted as the aggressors.”

What next?

ICE said the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General is investigating Araujo’s shooting.

What happened

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen Tuesday announced she will run for president in 2027, hours after an appeals court cut short her five-year ban on seeking public office.

The court upheld the 2025 embezzlement conviction that prompted the ban, handing Le Pen a three-year prison sentence for her National Rally party’s misuse of $3.2 million in European Union funds. But the judges suspended two years of her sentence and said she could serve the third wearing an electronic monitor.

Who said what

Tuesday’s “stunning turnaround” in Le Pen’s fortunes makes her the “front-runner” to replace term-limited President Emmanuel Macron, The New York Times said. But running with a criminal conviction is a “remarkable political gamble,” the BBC said.

“As recently as last week,” Politico said, Le Pen “said she would not run for president if wearing an ankle monitor and would cede the role” to 30-year-old protégé Jordan Bardella, who is “slightly more popular” with voters. But Le Pen also announced she was appealing the ruling to France’s highest court, a process that “will suspend her requirement to wear an electronic bracelet” until a decision arrives, likely in January, The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

If the high court upholds Tuesday’s ruling, the Journal said, “Le Pen would be required to wear the bracelet” while campaigning, limiting her movement before April’s election.

What happened

President Donald Trump arrived in Turkey Tuesday for a two-day NATO summit, and “within hours of landing” he “revived a host of grievances” against America’s closest allies, Politico said. Trump criticized Europe for not helping with his Iran war and threatened to pull U.S. troops from NATO countries if he didn’t gain control of Greenland. His “sour mood” tempered hopes for a “low-key,” constructive summit focused on collective defense.

Who said what

Greenland “should be controlled by the United States, not by Denmark,” Trump said during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Being refused control of the semiautonomous island is “what hurt my relationship with NATO.” Denmark’s prime minister and other European leaders once more firmly rejected Trump’s demand, but he returned to the idea this morning. “Greenland is very important to the United States,” he said. “We need it for protection of the world.”

NATO “sought to demonstrate that its European members were heeding Trump’s ​calls to spend more on their own defense,” Reuters said. “Announcing billions in arms deals” was “an attempt to appease the mercurial U.S. leader,” The Associated Press said.

What next?

Trump “surprised NATO leaders” by launching airstrikes on Iran Tuesday night, soon after a dinner hosted by Erdogan, the AP said. This morning he told reporters that the ceasefire with Tehran was “over.” Talks can continue, he said, “but I think they’re wasting their time.”

Sunset strolls by the sea, snorkelling and picnics on the beach: it’s hard to beat an island holiday. Europe is dotted with picture-perfect isles that lie waiting to be explored. From a tiny island nestled within a Tuscan archipelago, to a quiet Greek haven at the southern tip of the Peloponnese, these are our favourites.

One of Tuscany’s most tranquil islands

The Tuscan island of Giglio hit the news in 2012 when a cruise ship, the Costa Concordia, ran aground here and capsized, with the loss of 32 lives. Today, it is hard to imagine that such a tragedy should have struck this beautiful, “laid-back” place, says Elizabeth Heath in Travel + Leisure. An hour by ferry from Porto Santo Stefano, on the Monte Argentario peninsula, the island has a “completely away-from-it-all feel”. The main town, Giglio Porto, is “colourful” and charming, and there are some good, if occasionally steep, hiking trails (Giglio is five miles long), with views to the larger island of Elba, 30 miles to the north. Hire a boat to reach hidden coves – perfect spots to “swim, snorkel or picnic” – and be sure to look up the island’s summer theatre season and its festivals of opera, film and wine. The stylish La Guardia hotel has rooms from £280 a night.

A beloved, less-visited Greek island

I grew up in Greece and have visited many of its islands – but “none has captured my heart quite like Kythira”, says Alexis Conran in The Times. Sitting alone, off the southeastern tip of the Peloponnese peninsula, it is quite big, and offers plenty to see and do; but with no international airport nearby, it never feels too busy. On a recent trip, I stayed in a “beautiful” villa run by Kythera Houses, near the central village of Potamos, which has a great farmers’ market on Sundays. There’s an attractive beach, Kaladi, not far away, but my favourite of the island’s beaches is Limnionas. The drive to it, passing the massive caves of the Agia Sofia, is “dramatic”, but the beach sits in a protected cove, and has lovely “clear”, calm waters. Eat if you can at Platanos, a “lovely” traditional taverna in the nearby village of Mylopotamos.

An arty stay in the heart of Sardinia

In the Costa Smeralda, Sardinia has one of the Med’s most glamorous tourist destinations, but the island’s interior is a world apart from its glitz, says Emma J. Page in House & Garden – “deeply agricultural” and steeped in tradition. Set next to the “rugged” Supramonte mountains, Su Gologone makes a great base. This family-run hotel has a huge collection of folk art, and offers a diverse range of art classes and outdoor activities. Ancient choral songs are sometimes performed during the communal feasts served in its terraced gardens, and there are wonderful artisans’ studios to visit in nearby villages. Also unmissable are the street murals in Orgosolo. Dating back to the 1970s, they address social and political themes, and lend this former bandit town an “edgy air”.

The Blytonesque charm of St Martin’s

Of the five inhabited Scilly Isles, none is more enchanting than St Martin’s, says Paul Miles in The Telegraph. Situated in the north of the archipelago, it is a “Famous Five” sort of place that has barely changed since the 1950s. Home to just 140 people, it lacks the “upmarket” shops and holiday lets of Tresco (more popular with “well-heeled” tourists). But it has seductive beaches of “almost-white” sand, lovely walking paths, and with the island’s mild climate, it “feels like a garden”, peppered with exotic species such as “tall” echiums and blue-and-white agapanthus. It’s worth hiring a kayak to visit the uninhabited islands nearby, and dropping in at the community observatory, with its two telescopes: on clear nights, the skies here are “tar-black” and full of stars.

A lonely cottage on a Cornish island

Fifteen minutes by boat from Cornwall’s southeast coast, Looe Island is a great place to connect with “the wilder world”, says Carol Donaldson in The Guardian. Managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust, the 22-acre island welcomes day-trippers, but also has two places to stay – a bell tent sleeping two, and a “cosy” one-bedroom cottage that was home, long ago, to a “pipe-smoking, fist-fighting” smuggler called Black Joan and her brother, Finn. There’s also a tiny museum and a house where the island’s wardens live. I rented the cottage for three nights, and spent my time reading and wandering the island’s woods and meadows. I also swam in a “little-visited” cove, and watched local seals frolic on the rocky shore.

If you are after a good cry, these films will have you reaching for the tissues. From stories of survival and life-changing decisions to heartbreak and hope, here are some of the best tragic tales brought to the big screen.

Titanic (1997)

Director James Cameron became “king of the world” in the 1990s with this “wildly over-the-top weepie romance” between Rose (Kate Winslet) and Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) on the so-called unsinkable ship, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

Our heroine is “not suited for life in the gilded cage”, said The Hollywood Reporter, and finds herself saved by Jack, “whose joy for life and eagerness for living it to the fullest soon revitalise the young Rose”. Their love is not only tested by class boundaries, but with the “horrible outcome” of the voyage.

If the story was “made of showbiz and hype”, said Roger Ebert, “well – so was the Titanic”. The 194-minute, $200 million (£151 million) epic was “flawlessly crafted, intelligently constructed, strongly acted and spellbinding”.

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Frank Capra’s Christmas classic is repeatedly voted Britain’s favourite festive film for a reason. It is an “uplifting story of family, love and hope”, said the BBC. It’s “also the story of one man’s struggle with life’s knockbacks”. George Bailey, played by James Stewart, is brought back from the brink of suicide with the help of an angel, Clarence, played by Henry Travers.

George is shown how “worthwhile his life has been and what treasures, largely intangible, he does possess”, said Bert Briller in Variety, when the film first came out in 1946. This recounting of his life is “just about flawless in its tender and natural treatment”.

Atonement (2007)

Another romance set during a tragic historical period, “Atonement”, reflects on how a single error “destroys all possibility of happiness in three lives”, said Roger Ebert. Based on Ian McEwan’s book of the same name, the film begins with a “breathless celebration of pure heedless joy”, as heiress Cecilia (Keira Knightley) falls in love with the housekeeper’s son, Robbie (James McAvoy), on an English country estate.

But the actions of Cecilia’s younger sister Briony (Saoirse Ronan) and then the couple’s separation during the Second World War force us to “think deeply about what betrayal and atonement might really entail”.

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

In this “truish story set in 1980s San Francisco”, Will Smith’s Chris Gardner is a “newly single dad juggling bankruptcy, childcare, and high hopes of an internship” at a stockbrokers for no pay, said Tim Robey in The Telegraph. Smith is “sublime and moving” in this “tailor-made, sweetly serio-comic, Julia-Roberts-in-‘Erin-Brockovich’ Oscar vehicle”.

Chris and his son Christopher Jr. (played by Smith’s own son Jaden) navigate poverty, eviction and homelessness, but the hope portrayed in the movie is enough to “turn even the strongest of viewers into a puddle of tears”, said Harper’s Bazaar.

Graveyard of the Fireflies (1988)

Isao Takahata’s animation about two orphaned siblings in Japan during the Second World War is “one of the greatest films to have ever been made about children in wartime”, said Robbie Collin in The Telegraph. Made at Studio Ghibli, it has a “quiet but devastating power that breaks every heart it finds”.

The film creates “magical moments of natural beauty and childish delight” that only make the tragedy of Seita and his little sister Setsuko “even more harrowing”, said Steve Rose in The Guardian. It’s a “war story as wrenching as any live-action movie”.

Never Let Me Go (2005)

On the surface, the three main characters – played by Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley – are embroiled in a love triangle, but “this romantic drama tells an entirely more complicated story than you might expect”, said Entertainment Weekly. Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s “devastating dystopian novel”, the film “dives into heavy themes of mortality and ethics with striking clarity”.

The characters are “expertly acted” and played “with such conviction” that “we get caught up in their doomed romance”, said The Hollywood Reporter.

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

The first mainstream film to approach the subject of Rwanda’s genocide, “Hotel Rwanda” focused on the story of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who sheltered more than 1,200 people.

Turning such a “brutal and heart-wrenching subject” into “entertainment” has its risks, said the BBC at the time. But director Terry George’s decision to choose the “One Man Who Made A Difference” angle, as seen in “Schindler’s List”, gave “filmmakers the freedom to inject suspense, humour and romance – all the stuff that an audience actually wants to see – into otherwise sombre material”. Cheadle offers a “thrilling portrait of ordinary heroism, a performance that’s matched only by the magnificent Sophie Okonedo as his wife Tatiana”.

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

Meryl Streep delivers a performance “of such measured intensity” that encapsulates the “tragic, voluptuous” heroine of William Styron’s novel “Sophie’s Choice”, that “the results are by turns exhilarating and heartbreaking”, said Janet Maslin in The New York Times when the film first came out.

Sophie, a Polish immigrant, is forced to make an unconscionable decision which will have life-changing and haunting consequences. It’s not a flawless film, but it is a “unified and deeply affecting one” that “casts a powerful, uninterrupted spell”, thanks largely to Streep’s “bravura performance”.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

A “dreadfully sad musical”, said Vogue, “Dancer in the Dark" is “painfully bleak, but very beautiful”. Björk stars as Selma, an immigrant mother losing her vision while trying to provide for her son.

Director Lars von Trier “pushes the limits of modern film-making”, said the BBC, combining the “extreme styles” of “hand-held documentary melodrama” and an “all-singing, all-dancing Hollywood musical shot in vibrant Technicolor-style”. There are “many moving and heartfelt scenes, if you can cope with the burst of a song or two”.

The Notebook (2004)

A romance that “transcends obstacles, space, and time”, said Marie Claire, “The Notebook” follows the romance between Allie (Rachel McAdams) and Noah (Ryan Gosling) from “youthful intoxication to old age”, said Vogue.

Switching from scenes showcasing the “urgency of young romance” to the tragedy of an older Allie “disappearing into the shadows of Alzheimer’s”, it’s a “sentimental fantasy”, said Roger Ebert.

The story builds a relationship that will make you “root for the pair to beat the odds against them”, said Stephen Holden in The New York Times.

The endless will-he-won’t-he drama surrounding Prince Harry’s visit to the UK could be the final straw for hopes of reconciling with the royal family, said The Sun’s Clemmie Moodie.

“Following weeks of frenetic speculation concerning Harry’s possible rapprochement with his estranged father”, hours before he was due to land in the UK on Monday the Duke of Sussex said he had accepted an invitation to stay at Buckingham Palace. Minutes later royal sources counter-briefed, clarifying that Harry had not formally accepted the invite in time, and that the offer had since been withdrawn.

“It’s all just so terribly ‘EastEnders’ with Received Pronunciation”, and a world away from the late Queen Elizabeth II’s famous motto: “never complain, never explain”.

What did the commentators say?

“It has taken quite some time for the King to lose patience with his younger son” but it seems he has “finally had enough”, said The Telegraph’s royal editor Hannah Furness. Charles, “whose parenting has hitherto been criticised for being too indulgent, has drawn a boundary for his 41-year-old son in a sharp lesson to be learnt publicly”, namely that “Buckingham Palace is not available on lastminute.com”.

Debate has raged over whether the briefing debacle, which comes on top of an ongoing row over security, was a genuine case of miscommunication, or an attempt by Harry to try to “bounce” his father into reversing his decision, said the Daily Mail’s royal editor, Rebecca English. A third possibility is that “the furious prince simply doesn’t care any more and wants to cause his family maximum embarrassment”.

Either way, Harry’s long-planned trip to Britain is “once again mired in the same smorgasbord of chaos, confusion, claim and counter-claim that has characterised all of his dealings with Buckingham Palace in recent years”.

“As if he needed another reminder, Prince Harry has just learnt once again that the House of Windsor will always win,” said The Express’ deputy royal editor Rebecca Russell. The “real tragedy” is that the Duke of Sussex “has spent years fighting for control of his narrative, yet he remains completely blind to how he is being outplayed”. The institution “has marched on without him; it does not collapse under the weight of his attacks”.

What next?

Both fans of the Sussexes and royal traditionalists had been “united in their desire for meaningful reconciliation” after “arguably the most fractious time in royal history”, said Moodie in The Sun.

“And yet, here we are again”; all the good work the royals do has been “dismantled by behind-the-scenes bickering and now a very public comeuppance”. Charles has “given his petulant son a chance here, and if Harry blows it, he might not get another”.

A rekindling of brotherly love between Prince Harry and Prince William “seems even less likely”, said BBC royal correspondent Sean Coughlan. “They remain on very different trajectories, with William's life heading remorselessly to the point where he will take to the throne.”

“The only thing more riling than a referee’s interference in a sports event is a politician’s,” said Sally Jenkins in The Atlantic. The red card issued against US star striker Folarin Balogun for “stepping on an opponent’s ankle” during the World Cup match against Bosnia-Herzegovina, was a “terrible call”. But Fifa’s regulations “couldn’t be clearer”: a red card means “automatic suspension for the next game”.

Instead, the tournament organisers “magically lifted” the 25-year-old’s suspension in time for the host team’s last-16 clash against Belgium on Monday, after a phone call by Donald Trump to “his good friend Gianni Infantino, the president of Fifa”.

The US president later thanked Fifa for “doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice”. The world governing body has given “such a feeble procedural explanation” for the reversal that the “entire sporting globe” is “incensed over the garbage-y scent of an inside job”.

A ‘balanced measure’

“Reviewing the legal consequences of red cards in football is nothing new in the modern game,” Mohammad al-Kamali, chair of Fifa’s disciplinary committee, said in a statement. The red card was “not overturned”; its effects were suspended “based on an explicit provision of the applicable regulations” in what he called a “balanced measure”.

Fifa’s disciplinary code allows the judicial body to decide to “fully or partially suspend the implementation of a disciplinary measure”, opting instead for a probation, said The Independent’s senior sports writer Kieran Jackson. Balogun has essentially received a “suspended sentence”, active for one year.

There is a “high-profile precedent”: Cristiano Ronaldo was banned for three games after his red card against the Republic of Ireland in November’s qualifiers. The Portugal captain had the latter two bans “suspended” too. But Fifa was “widely condemned for that decision”, too, which came a week after Ronaldo, who plays in the Saudi Pro League, visited the White House with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Still, no one can claim Trump “fails to advocate for American interests with a doggedness that borders on obsession”, said Nicole Russell in USA Today. I’m not surprised he made the call, nor should anyone be – this is just “Trump being Trump”: a World Cup red card was “never going to be the exception”. But Infantino “could have said no”.

‘Crossed a red line’

Critics say this latest episode is “symptomatic of deeper problems at Infantino’s Fifa”, said the Financial Times’ sports editor Josh Noble. They argue its decision-making is “increasingly designed to further political and commercial goals”.

European governing body Uefa said the decision to suspend Balogun’s ban “crossed a red line”. Sorry, but “we crossed that line a few moral galaxies ago”, said The Guardian’s Marina Hyde. Maybe when Infantino was “butching it out in the photocall at Trump’s Gaza Peace Summit For Ghoulishly Rapacious Businessmen”, certainly when he “inaugurated the auto-satirical Fifa peace prize and awarded it to Trump” just a few months before the war on Iran.

Even former Fifa president Sepp Blatter (who somehow managed to be cleared of corruption charges on appeal last year) is thundering that “red cards are not overturned by political phone calls”. Blatter suggesting Infantino is corrupt? “If irony could kill, we could be looking at a bloodbath”.

The US’s exit from the tournament “allows this rotten case to be quickly brushed under the rug”, said The i Paper’s chief football writer Daniel Storey. But it has “slipped a viper into the tent of football’s governance and started a civil war between Fifa and Uefa”, and all for the host nation to lose 4-1 to a “barely functional Belgium team”. During this tournament, the US national team had gained fresh admiration from supporters and new levels of interest from a “football-sceptic population”, but now that “reputation has been torched”.

The US-UK relationship is being tested again by two high-profile legal cases in which American military personnel were tried by US authorities over alleged offences that took place on British soil.

What were the cases?

Four women and a 16-year-old girl accused US airman Hannes Marschalek of indecent exposure in 2022, while he was stationed at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk, the largest US airbase in the UK, said The Guardian.

Cambridgeshire police initiated the investigation, but the case was turned over to American forces three weeks later. Court martial documents show that in July 2022, Marschalek texted two friends to say he “definitely just flashed a couple ladies walking from the train. LOL.”

Marschalek accepted a plea bargain and was dismissed from the air force by a military judge and sentenced to two months in a correctional facility at Lakenheath. However, in April this year a US military appeal court dismissed the guilty verdict on the grounds that prosecutors had charged him under the wrong offence. He remains on the sex-offender registry in the US, but had he been “prosecuted in the English criminal courts, Marschalek would have faced up to two years in jail”.

In December 2023, Sarah Steele accused Jacob Wulfson, a US air force captain also based at Lakenheath, of drugging, assaulting and strangling her after meeting via a dating app. Steele, a University of Cambridge academic, claimed that the subsequent court martial heard testimony about “how many people he’d killed, supposedly to get him a lower sentence for committing a serious violent crime against me”, said the BBC.

Wulfson was convicted of strangulation, dismissed from the military and given “six months’ detention”, but was cleared of sexual assault by an “all-male panel” of air force officers.

How does a court martial work?

A court martial is a legal proceeding undertaken by the military to try personnel accused of wrongdoing within a military context. In the US, the trials are governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which in addition to criminal offences, includes some perceived moral transgressions such as infidelity.

The US military justice system has a “distinct legal framework and is separate from British civilian courts”, said ITV News. There are also significant deviations from US civilian law, said law professor Joshua Kastenberg on The Conversation. Judges are “uniformed officers” who are “subject to the chain of command”. A court martial also only needs a two-thirds majority to establish guilt, instead of unanimity, with a jury panel “made up of military personnel who outrank the accused service member and are picked to serve by senior commanding officers”.

Why weren’t the cases tried in the UK?

American forces in the UK are governed by the 1951 Nato Status of Forces Agreement, which was incorporated into British law in the Visiting Forces Act 1952. As well as outlining visa exemptions and the right to bear arms, this “obscure” agreement allows the US government to prosecute overseas military personnel under certain conditions, said The Guardian. Traditionally, this has covered offences committed while on duty, or against a member of the US military or their dependents.

Outside those criteria, the British police have jurisdiction. However, in practice, the “process is ambiguous”. In the cases involving Marschalek and Wulfson, local British police handed control over to the US. The US military is claiming a “much wider jurisdiction – and British police and prosecutors are allowing them to do it”.

This week, Justice Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy told the Commons officials were “working across government to establish the full facts” of the two cases, said the East Anglian Daily Times.

The prime minister’s spokesperson said that Wulfson’s was “clearly a deeply distressing case”. It was “very concerning that a case like this never reached the CPS” and was “heard in front of an all-male panel” of US air force officers.

A US air force spokesperson said it is “dedicated to working transparently with our British partners to ensure the fair administration of justice”.

“What can there possibly be left in the Sedaris backstory that the writer hasn’t already mined?” asked Emma Brockes in The Guardian. The American humourist has written nine volumes of essays over his decades-long career, which leaves you wondering whether he’s “suffering from a problem that comes to all writers in the end” – a “dearth of usable material”.

But his latest collection reveals that he hasn’t run out of ideas yet. While reading Sedaris is a “glitchier experience” than it once was, his “tone still charms, even as it advances to a state of crankiness that makes him look like a gay Larry David”.

In the 28 pieces that make up “The Land and its People”, Sedaris sticks to his tried-and-tested formula of harvesting from “everyday experiences with his husband, Hugh, his siblings and his friends”. The book is peppered with “laugh-out-loud moments”, like his experience of a No Kings protest against Trump in which he finds himself “baffled by his fellow protesters’ lack of focus”. But there are also sections that “an editor could have put a red line through”, where he veers into an “occasionally too rote adoption of the grumpy-old-man trope”.

Inevitably some of the essays “have more going for them, and more in them, than others”, said Roddy Doyle in The New York Times. Is it as funny as his earlier books? “We’re very lucky to have both.” Sedaris has grown older and the “world seems weirder”. That’s why I love reading his work: “for him, being alive has always been strange and atrocious, contradictory, unfair and hilarious”. Now approaching 70, he “examines ageing with the same vigour, curiosity and grim glee” that brought his other books to life.

It is when he reflects on the “minutiae of everyday life” that his writing “really shines”, said Buzz Magazine. Whether he’s “documenting a humdrum car journey” or “arguing in bad French with an AI assistant on Duolingo”, Sedaris remains a “masterful storyteller” who is “always outrageous and highly entertaining company”.

Sometimes “ill-tempered and frequently hilarious”, he brings readers with him on a “touchingly honest journey through life’s peaks and troughs”, and continues to “mine gold from both the mundane and absurd”.

The matriarch of one of Thailand’s richest families has finally dropped a lawsuit against her son just days before it was scheduled to come to court. Chiranuj Bhirombhakdi was suing her son under the 1908 “ungrateful child law”, claiming his actions had caused material and reputational damage to the family.

In May, Siranudh “Psi” Scott, heir to the Singha beer dynasty, caused a “firestorm of controversy” when he made allegations that he had been sexually abused by his older brother and a babysitter, said The Japan Times.

Thailand is not the only country to have a law demanding filial support, with similar legislation in existence and in development across the continent.

Allegations ‘stunned’ the public

Psi’s allegations “sparked a crisis” in the Bhirombhakdi family, owners of the Singha beer company and one of the wealthiest families in Thailand, said the South China Morning Post. He had “stunned” the public two months ago after claiming he was sexually abused by his older brother, Sunit. Despite “strenuously” denying the allegations, Sunit was removed from executive roles at Singha’s parent company, Boon Rawd Brewery, soon after the allegations were made.

“Matriarch” Chiranuj Bhirombhakdi said that her decision to withdraw legal action was an act of “opening the door to dialogue about everything that has happened and to discuss how we should move forward”. “As a mother, it deeply pains me that I have had to rely on the court process. This is never something any mother would wish for,’’ she said in a statement last week.

Psi reportedly first told other family members of the alleged abuse about three years ago, but “accepted financial compensation from them to keep quiet”, said the Taipei Times. However, after his mother sued him this year over a property dispute, he decided to speak out.

Some experts believe that this case “marks an unprecedented shift in Thailand”, providing an opportunity for Thais to discuss sexual abuse cases more openly. Patinya Kuantrakul, scion of one of Thailand’s best-known golf courses, and influencer Taylor Srirat, have since shared their own personal experiences.

‘More on the way’

This “bitter” legal case was centred around a “century-old law reinforcing traditional values of obedience and hierarchy”, said The Telegraph. Known as the “ungrateful child law”, the 1908 legislation is used to “protect parents from neglectful children”, enabling them to withdraw gifts or financial donations if their children are deemed “ungrateful, physically abusive, neglectful in old age, or responsible for serious reputational harm”.

The “closest English translation would be ‘ingratitude’”, said Jiraporn Laocharoenwong, an anthropology professor at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. But the Thai term “carries a much stronger moral meaning”.

Cases invoking the law “rarely reach the public eye”, often resolved via court-mediated negotiations. An exception to that rule came in 2021, when an elderly couple in Bangkok sued their son and his wife, after they were told to leave the family home. Ruling in the parents’ favour, the judge also ordered other properties that had previously been transferred to their son to be returned to the older couple .

Some of Asia’s biggest countries have similar laws, and “more are on the way”, said Asia editor Richard Lloyd Parry in The Times. China, Singapore and Taiwan all place “varying legal obligations on children under civil or criminal law”. Officials in the Philippines are considering pushing for a Parents Welfare Act, which would punish neglectful offspring with 10 years in prison”. Malaysia is also considering introducing a law that would “oblige children to care for their ageing parents”.

At their core, such laws “codify an assumption that was common in most pre-modern societies”: whatever joy they bring to their parents’ lives, “children are a form of investment”, delivering “returns” as financial support when they start work, and as “physical care when their parents become feeble in body”. Yet, as the Singha beer dynasty case demonstrates, such statutes and penalties may be “crude tools for dealing with the fraught emotional dynamics of families”.

After more than four years of war between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a rare admission that the conflict has caused his country a problem. In this case, it is a significant fuel shortage driven by Ukrainian drone strikes that is exacerbating economic strain across Russia, and the issue may not be abated any time soon.

‘Certain deficit’

Putin has very rarely acknowledged that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to challenges. But his country is now facing a “certain deficit” of fuel, the Russian president said in an interview with state television. Russians are “well aware that problems for ⁠drivers and for businesses persist,” Putin also told his senior officials of the petroleum industry, according to Al Jazeera. “Unfortunately, there are still queues at petrol stations too.”

The shortage largely stems from Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil infrastructure. Russia must “reduce to a minimum the impact of terrorist attacks on our civilian targets and infrastructure,” Putin told his senior officials. Ukraine has “stepped up attacks on Russian energy facilities in recent months, hitting Russia’s crude oil,” said Al Jazeera. The attacks have led to significant fuel deficits. The “amount of crude oil Russia processed into fuel in June was down 25% from a year ago, to 3.95 million barrels per day — the lowest level in over two decades,” said Gary Peach, an oil markets analyst at Energy Intelligence, to The Associated Press.

While Ukraine has been utilizing drones for a while, what makes the current onslaught different is that Ukraine has “clearly scaled up the quantity of their drones and the quality of their drones,” Christina Harward, an expert at the Institute for the Study of War, said to Deutsche Welle. Ukraine has “improved the range of their drones and, for the past couple of months, they’ve also been undertaking an effort to identify and destroy Russian air defense systems.”

‘The situation is not very good’

The fuel shortages have led to social and financial unrest in many parts of Russia. The “lines are growing at Russian gas stations — and so is the frustration and uncertainty” as the deficits drag on and oil prices go up, said the AP. “I think the situation is not very good,” one motorist waiting in line told the outlet. Numerous cities have rationed fuel, with “hourslong queues of cars snaking beside roads.”

These struggles have been highlighted across social media, with one post reportedly showing farmers “struggling to afford fuel for harvest, while another describes a farmer having to drive his combine harvester to a regular gas station after he was not allowed to fill a can,” said Reuters. Some Russian drivers have also started to “crowdsource maps and trade tips about which stations have fuel and shorter lines,” and “online searches for ‘how to siphon fuel’ rose to more than ⁠9,300” in June from just 697 a month earlier.

And it doesn’t appear the crisis is going anywhere, as “half of Russia’s 83 regions are now reporting shortages,” said the Center for European Policy Analysis. For now, Russia has “enough fuel for the army, key industries, and agriculture — but everywhere else the choice is between paying more and waiting longer.” A Gallup survey found that “60% of Russians interviewed between March and May said their local economic conditions are getting worse.”

Google’s alliance with the film studio A24 shows how AI companies are “deepening their influence in Hollywood,” said John Semley in Wired. The tech giant’s artificial intelligence lab, DeepMind, last month announced a $75 million “research partnership” with A24, the indie studio behind critically acclaimed films such as Moonlight, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and this year’s horror megahit Backrooms. The studio says it will lean on Google’s AI expertise “to learn, iterate, and build” new tools “and workflows.” But it’s one in a “line of controversial marriages between Silicon Valley and Hollywood” that has made viewers and craftspeople uneasy. Nearly 1,000 actors, agents, and parents last week signed an open letter protesting a new clause in Hasbro’s contracts with child actors on the animated kids’ series Peppa Pig that asks them to hand over rights to their voices for AI cloning. Fans of A24, which has a reputation as a bastion for “serious artists,” are also worried that the tie-up with Google will introduce more “AI slop.”

Film lovers shouldn’t be concerned, said Brian Welk in IndieWire. This is not an “IP deal nor a data-training deal,” like the Lionsgate partnership with Runway or Disney’s stake in OpenAI. It’s a logical attempt by A24 to understand how these new tools can “support filmmakers when they are designed from the start to serve creative vision.”

AI on its own hasn’t produced anything “people would pay to see,” said Charles Pulliam-Moore in The Verge. Rather, human artists are starting to test how they “can leverage the technology in compelling ways.” Dear Upstairs Neighbors, an animated film written and directed by Pixar veteran Connie Qin He, was originally conceived on paper using acrylics. But Google AI brought it to life and further enhanced it “with stylized assets” that turned out to be very successful. AI is everywhere in Hollywood, said Jake Kanter in Deadline, you just don’t know it. It’s being used surreptitiously “to smooth rough edges, alter dialogue, and polish visual effects,” akin to cosmetic surgery. Producers are “terrified of audience and industry backlash.” But if the technology “is genuinely helping creatives make better movies,” then audiences should be educated about how it’s used.

The fact is that Hollywood doesn’t yet have a grip on its feelings about AI, said Aaron Pruner in CNET. Some industry legends like Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino “look down” on the technology. Others like Martin Scorsese are embracing it. There are “very real concerns that AI will make” many Hollywood careers obsolete, and that “stress is palpable.” But not everyone has given up hope that “strong and unique storytelling” can still “cut through the slop.” Better to “get familiar with the tools,” because “AI is obviously here to stay.”

Christopher Donahue was “one of the military’s superstars,” said Max Boot in The Washington Post. The four-star general led Delta Force, the Army’s top special-ops unit, commanded the 18th Airborne Corps, and rose to Army commander in Europe and Africa. Revered by soldiers and fellow officers, he fought ISIS in Iraq and Syria and helped Ukraine beat back the Russians. “Without a doubt,” he’s the Army’s “most experienced warfighter,” said retired Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli. But Donahue, 56, was forced last month into early retirement by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, making him the “latest casualty of the secretary’s insidious purge of the senior ranks.” Hegseth has removed at least two dozen respected admirals and generals and blocked promotions for dozens more, disproportionately targeting women and Black officers. Senior commanders can be relieved for cause, but “what’s unnerving” about these ousters is the lack of any “public explanation.”

Some of Hegseth’s “animus” toward Donahue may stem from the 2021 fall of Kabul, said Aaron MacLean in The Free Press. As 82nd Airborne commander, Donahue was the last U.S. soldier out of Afghanistan, and Hegseth has decreed that heads should roll for our chaotic departure. But blaming Donahue, who arrived to help impose order only after scenes of desperate Afghans swarming military cargo planes “shocked the world,” is “like blaming the fire department for starting the fire.” Canning Donahue defies Hegseth’s own metrics, said Mike Nelson in The Dispatch. He claims to want to rid the Army of “woke” distractions and focus on “lethality,” but is instead removing the battle-hardened commanders who have “the vision, skills, and excellence he claims are a priority.” Perhaps these warfighters are “a threat to his frail ego.”

Hegseth’s critics see an unsettling “agenda” at work, said Michael R. Gordon and Lara Seligman in The Wall Street Journal: “squeezing out officers with valor and command experience for less accomplished political loyalists.” The campaign “has unsettled military officers up and down the ranks who fear retaliation for expressing the wrong political opinion.” All Americans should be alarmed, said David French in The New York Times. The Trump administration is pushing the military to the breaking point with its failed war against Iran, potential war crimes in the Caribbean, and purge of officers. The institution can hold because its commitment to integrity, while not perfect, runs deep. But it “cannot hold forever.”

So it isn’t just a New York thing, said Eliza Collins in The Wall Street Journal. Last week in Colorado, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), defeated 15-term incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette, 68, in a Democratic primary to represent the deep-blue Denver area. The win by Kiros, who most recently worked as a barista while studying for a Ph.D., is “the latest advance for a socialist groundswell that is forcing a reckoning for Democrats.” DSA candidates swept primary races in New York City last month, and insurgent leftists are now eyeing wins in the upcoming Michigan Senate primary, where progressive Abdul El-Sayed leads the polls, and the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary. The Democratic establishment fears this Tea Party–like rebellion could cost them the midterms, because DSA policies—rent freezes, abolishing ICE, ending U.S. aid to Israel—could repel moderates in November. For now, centrist Democrats are talking tough, said Andrew Howard in Politico. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has downplayed the significance of “a handful of primaries,” while 15 moderate House Democrats and candidates signed a letter reaffirming their commitment to “growth, competition, and broad prosperity.’” But in private they’re “freaking out” that “the Left’s winning streak is potentially just starting.”

Republicans can’t believe their luck, said Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch. They’ve long caricatured Democrats as anti-American communists. But in a truly “crazy” figure like Darializa Avila Chevalier, one of the New York DSA-ers now headed to Congress, they’ve been gifted that “caricature made flesh.” Avila Chevalier has denounced relationships between minority men and “ugly [white] colonizer women”; attended a pro-Hamas rally the day after Palestinian terrorists massacred Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023; and wants to abolish prisons, preferring to send murderers back to their “community.” Kiros is similarly extreme: She refuses to describe last year’s deadly firebomb attack on pro-Israel protesters in Boulder, Colo., as antisemitic. To call the DSA a “hate group” is not hyperbole, said Noah Rothman in National Review. And while its venom is right now focused on Jews—or “Zionists,” in members’ preferred euphemism—ultimately “what it hates is America.”

Focusing on the DSA misses what’s really going on with Democrats, said Nia-Malika Henderson in Bloomberg. Yes, the party’s voters are “fed up” with its graying leaders, whom they blame for not blocking Trump’s second-term agenda. But that doesn’t mean they want “socialism.” Voters’ overriding hunger is for young, authentic “anti-candidates” willing to fight Trump head-on. In progressive areas like New York City, that translates to wins for the DSA. But in deep-red Texas, voters rejected a progressive and chose young moderate James Talarico as their Senate candidate. The DSA’s rise shows Democrats need to embrace a “bolder, less cautious approach” to politics, not necessarily “move further left.”

Voters aren’t electing socialists because they dislike President Trump, said Harold Meyerson in Prospect. They’re electing socialists because working Americans are being ground down by the cost of gas, housing, and health care, and because they’re tired of watching the “Barons of Silicon Valley” game politics to expand their fortunes and lower their tax bills. Democrats shouldn’t embrace every radical policy of every DSA firebrand. But you’d think a party that’s been fretting for a decade about how to win back the votes of working people would recognize the DSA’s rise as a sign of what needs to happen for Democrats to “return to power and hold it.”

What happened

Overturning a 91-year precedent, the Supreme Court last week handed President Trump sweeping authority to control previously independent agencies—all except the Federal Reserve. In Trump v. Slaughter, the six conservative justices ruled that Trump was empowered to fire Rebecca Slaughter, a federal trade commissioner, last year because her views didn’t align with the White House’s agenda. The decision guts the precedent set by the 1935 Humphrey’s Executor decision, which held that Congress could limit the president’s ability to remove certain federal agency officials without cause. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that because the FTC “unquestionably exercises executive power,” it “must therefore be controlled by the chief executive.” In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling gave the president “power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”

In a separate case, though, the court made the Federal Reserve exempt from that new presidential power. Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in Trump v. Cook to rule that Trump overreached when he tried to fire Lisa Cook, a Fed governor, after accusing her of mortgage fraud. Roberts wrote that the Fed was different from other federal agencies because it was “uniquely structured” to maintain independence, and that the president must present legitimate cause before removing a Fed governor. Trump said he would begin that process “immediately” so he could proceed with ousting Cook. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, meanwhile, was skeptical of the Fed carve-out. “The court’s holding is in serious tension with Trump v. Slaughter,” she wrote in her dissent. “Might history sanction other exceptions too?”

What the columnists said

The Roberts court just took a “wrecking ball” to the separation of powers with Slaughter, said Alexis Romero in Slate. Now not just the FTC but dozens of other federal agencies designed by Congress to be insulated from partisan politics are “fully under Trump’s thumb.” You can bet a newly empowered Trump “will begin to make Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre look like a normal weekday.” He’s now free to retaliate against any agency leader who dares to investigate him for a violation of the law, refuses to attack his political rivals, or pushes back against attempts to manipulate elections. “This is the world the Supreme Court has created.”

The ruling “invites presidential abuse,” said Victoria Nourse in The Economist. Trump can now pressure leaders at the SEC or the National Labor Relations Board to ignore wrongdoing by his cronies. He can lean on the National Transportation Safety Board or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to waive safety requirements for his friends’ companies. At the Federal Election Commission, he could replace commissioners with “loyalists who deny that he lost the 2020 election.” He may not even need to fire people: Just “the threat may be enough.”

Yet it “may be premature” to declare the death of agencies’ independence, said Ilya Somin in Reason. That’s because Slaughter and Cook, as Barrett noted, appear completely incompatible. Sure, “central bank independence is a long-standing tradition,” but “the same is true of many other independent agencies.” More exceptions could follow. The two rulings are at odds because Slaughter “is good law and good policy,” said National Review in an editorial, and Cook is a mess. “If the president controls the executive branch, and doesn’t control the Fed, then what is the Fed?” It’s not a legislature and it’s not a court. “The Constitution doesn’t mention a fourth branch. But now we have one.”

It’s no surprise Roberts and Kavanaugh are willing to shield the Fed but not the other agencies, said Elie Mystal in The Nation. They “didn’t feel like crashing the global economy and tanking their 401(k)s.” Most federal agencies are there to protect the little guy the justices don’t care about: The FTC goes to bat for consumers, the NLRB for employees. The Fed, though, “protects the monetary policy that capitalists rely on to make their billions.”

The conservative justices are unruffled by this obvious double standard, said Zack Beauchamp in Vox. They consistently rule that their “own policy preferences are constitutionally mandated” while those they disagree with get extra scrutiny. The result is that the president has “an electoral dictatorship” in areas where the justices agree with him. Everywhere else, “the court sets policy.”

What happened

The Supreme Court last week struck down President Trump’s attempt to radically curtail birthright citizenship, a policy pursued by Trump for more than a decade, but greenlit other major elements of his hard-line immigration agenda. In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled against an executive order signed by Trump on the first day of his second term, which declared that future children born in the U.S. to undocumented migrants and most visa holders would not be considered citizens. Conservative justices John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberals in declaring that the order violates the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which grants citizenship to nearly all children born on U.S. soil. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the order was constitutional but violated federal law. In a 91-page dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the 14th Amendment was intended only to grant equal rights to freed slaves; Justice Samuel Alito called the ruling a “mistake that will seriously affect the country’s future.”

Days earlier, the court ruled the administration could strip Temporary Protected Status from more than 350,000 Haitians and 6,100 Syrians, setting the stage for mass deportations. That status lets migrants live and work in the U.S. if their home countries are deemed unsafe due to war or natural disasters. The administration tried to end TPS for both groups last year, drawing lawsuits that argued it had not followed proper procedures and was motivated by racial animus. In a 6-3 vote, the conservative majority said the TPS statute bars courts from reviewing the administration’s actions; on the discrimination issue, Alito wrote there was “insufficient” reason to believe Trump—who has said Haitian migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the U.S.—was driven by racism.

The ruling sowed panic among Haitians and Syrians in the U.S. Many people deported to gang-violence-wracked Haiti “are going to needlessly die,” said Geoff Pipoly, an attorney for the Haitian plaintiffs. Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine urged the Trump administration to reconsider, saying his state would lose valuable workers in manufacturing and especially health care. White House aide Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown, dismissed such concerns, saying if he had “a loved one in the hospital” he’d want “a licensed American nurse, not the illegal alien from Haiti.”

What the editorials said

The birthright decision was “a welcome, necessary defeat” for Trump, said the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. But the court “could have reached no other logical result.” The 14th Amendment is crystal clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” are U.S. citizens. But that win “doesn’t ease the human tragedy” of the TPS decision, which will allow a president driven by “seething racial bigotry” to uproot people who’ve worked and raised families here—forcing them back to places the State Department deems unsafe.

We oppose ejecting immigrants “who have put down roots and contribute to the country,” said The Wall Street Journal. But this was “an open and shut case.” The TPS law Congress passed in 1990 says there will be “no judicial review” of the administration’s determination of whether a country’s citizens qualify for the program, even if there are “procedural errors.” Justices’ job is “to interpret the law as written, not to impose their policy preferences.”

What the columnists said

Haitian communities “from Florida to Ohio” are bracing for what comes next, said Maria Sacchetti and Lauren Kaori Gurley in The Washington Post. Distraught immigrants “began making plans to sell or rent their homes, secure bank accounts, and figure out thorny issues like child-custody arrangements.” Factory and nursing-home owners steeled for the loss of key workers, and longtime residents reeled at the thought of being forced back to “conflict-ridden homelands they barely know.” It’s “the sickest and most evil thing somebody could do,” said Harlaine, a 38-year-old Florida nurse who left Haiti at age 7.

It’s also rank racism, said Adam Serwer in The Atlantic, and it’s astounding Alito would claim otherwise. Administration officials “have made no secret of their desire to purge the United States of nonwhite immigrants.” In her forceful dissent, Justice Elena Kagan cited Trump’s own words: that immigrants have “bad genes,” that Haitians “all have AIDS” and eat household pets, that America doesn’t take in enough “people from Norway and Sweden.” All this damning evidence was presented to the court, “yet the right-wing majority shrugged it off.”

While he’s faced the occasional setback, Trump is “winning the immigration wars,” said Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark. In a second ruling last week, the court ruled that the administration can block asylum applications from outside the U.S., further limiting the ways people fleeing violence and repression can enter the country. And now it has “license to take away in an instant” the legal status of 1.3 million people living under TPS, all of whom “followed the rules to get here.”

The birthright decision was “a relief,” said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. But the fact that the ruling was 5-4 and not 9-0 is “nothing short of stunning.” To judge Trump’s order unconstitutional “is the only remotely plausible reading of the 14th Amendment and its historical record.” Yet four justices ruled otherwise. That “shocking development” should “upend all expectations that this court can be trusted” to protect “the most basic constitutional guarantees.” If Trump came within a single vote of rolling back a constitutional amendment, then “everything is on the table.”

‘When law enforcement takes on immigration, our safety is the cost’

Amy L. Solomon at USA Today

The White House is “using federal money and incentives to push state and local agencies more deeply into immigration enforcement,” says Amy L. Solomon. The “question is not whether immigration laws should be enforced, but whether federal dollars are now driving police, sheriffs, prosecutors and other justice agencies toward a mission that could pull them away from their core responsibilities: preventing crime, solving serious cases, protecting victims and maintaining public trust.” This is a “distortion of mission.”

Read more

‘Lessons from the Graham Platner disaster’

Michelle Goldberg at The New York Times

Graham Platner’s Senate campaign has “become a shameful catastrophe,” says Michelle Goldberg. What’s “left — besides finding a Democrat to run in his place — is figuring out what, if anything, can be learned.” Platner’s campaign “represented an electoral insurgency against the Democratic Party; now, there are going to be furious recriminations against those who launched it.” Democrats “went out on a limb for him, and he had every reason to know it was going to be sawed off.”

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‘Sam Altman offers a Trojan Horse to American taxpayers’

Gautam Mukunda at Bloomberg

Sam Altman believes “giving the government a 5% stake in the company he runs, OpenAI, is the best way to ensure that Americans shared in the promised bounty from artificial intelligence,” says Gautam Mukunda. But the White House “should organize a group trip to see Christopher Nolan’s new movie ‘The Odyssey,’ whose opening act is the most famous gift in Western literature: a giant wooden horse, wheeled through the gates of Troy.” The “lesson translates. Beware of CEOs bearing gifts.”

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‘Is the FCC’s investigation having a chilling effect on “The View”?’

Tom Jones at the Poynter Institute

Maybe “intimidation and threats work after all — even when it comes to important topics like a free press,” says Tom Jones. “Whether or not the show qualifies as a news program, the FCC investigation appears to have had a chilling effect on ‘The View,’” even as “newscasts, news interviews, news documentaries and on-the-spot news coverage are exempt from the equal-time rule.” But the “bar for having a political candidate on the show is high.”

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Anti-abortion politics helped make the modern GOP. Activists supplied energy and votes to the conservative movement for nearly a half-century after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. That energy has dissipated a bit in recent years, but justices may have handed the right a new rallying cause: birthright citizenship.

‘A new bloody shirt’

The Supreme Court’s narrow ruling last week upholding birthright citizenship “just handed right-wingers a new bloody shirt to wave in every single political campaign,” Georgetown University’s Aderson Francois said to The Atlantic. The topic “will become the new Roe v. Wade” for Republican politicians trying to appeal to anti-immigration voters who want to keep the American-born children of migrants from automatically becoming citizens. The issue will be more salient because the court voted 5-4 in the case. Conservative activists “now know they are only one vote away from eliminating birthright citizenship by judicial fiat,” said The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer.

“The conservative legal movement is far better equipped today” than the antiabortion movement was in 1973, Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute said at First Things. The right overturned Roe through “decades of activism, thought leadership, strategic litigation and judicial appointments.” That model “should now be aimed” at birthright citizenship and must “act as a litmus test for every future conservative nominee.” Granting unquestioned citizenship to the children of migrants “incentivizes illegal entry, rewards birth tourism and erodes the meaning of citizenship for generations to come.”

The debate about birthright citizenship is “about to get worse,” Jonah Goldberg said at The Dispatch. We have seen this story before. Rather than settling the issue, Roe v. Wade failed to spare the country an “ugly debate over abortion.” The same will be true of citizenship. The court has “more than likely turbocharged” the debate over immigration.

‘Just getting started’

Justices actually gave the country a “reverse Roe v. Wade” in the birthright case, Thomas G. Moukawsher said at Newsweek. The court in Roe created a “privacy right to abortion that was previously unknown” while in the citizenship ruling it refused to “take away a birth-based citizenship right that was universally known.” The Trump administration’s attempt to overturn that right via executive order “contradicted a bedrock assumption about who was an American” that a majority of the court could not abide.

The conservative movement “turned Roe into its jurisprudential white whale,” said Jay Willis at Balls and Strikes. The right “spent five decades organizing around the goal of someday killing” that ruling, and did so in 2022 even though the legal arguments had not really changed. The only difference across 50 years was that conservatives “at last marshaled the five votes they needed to do it.” The crusade against birthright citizenship is “just getting started.”

Republican voters are “sounding more and more” like President Donald Trump on the issue, said Sarah Longwell at The Bulwark. Birthright citizenship is going to be a policy touchstone for any “GOP presidential aspirant in 2028 and beyond.”