The killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the veteran leader of Hezbollah, on Friday marks a turning point in the conflict in the Middle East. Both Nasrallah and the organisation he led were hardened by successive decades of conflict within Lebanon, against Israel and, latterly, in Syria. Both were powerful political and social forces with very significant regional and local influence.
Through more than three decades in charge of Hezbollah, Nasrallah built up a fervent personal following, steering the Shia Muslim movement through a number of transitions, balancing the demands of its military role with those of its expansive social welfare systems, building a political wing and negotiating the various crises that broke across the region. He earned adulation from supporters and bitter personal enmity from foes.
Research also reveals that a mixture of arable crops and cattle helps improve the biodiversity of the land
Cows may belch methane into the atmosphere at alarming rates, but new data shows they may play an important role in renewing farm soil.
Research by the Soil Association Exchange shows that farms with a mixture of arable crops and livestock have about a third more carbon stored within their soil than those with only arable crops, thanks to the animals’ manure.
Cosmetic surgery fuels the fallacy that looks bring happiness. But what is it like to live with a striking visible difference? The star of a new film about the subject shares his real-life experiences
Cosmetic surgery is back in the news. After six facelifts, a brow lift, neck lift and a lip lift, the reality star Katie Price has new “butterfly lips”, created with tape and filler that make the lips bigger and curled upwards. Price may have had more aesthetic surgery than most, but she’s not alone in going under the knife. Last year there were 35m such treatments around the world. Facial surgeries – eyelid lifts, rhinoplasties, lip fillers – rose by 20% in 2023. Whatever else is going on – pandemics, economic and political crises, wars, human rights abuses – we cling to the belief that if we fix our looks, we can improve our lives.
It’s an understandable – if solipsistic – belief, given the attention paid to beautiful people; they are the ones who seem to get the jobs, the relationships, the Oscars. We are far more likely to trust, forgive and believe people who are good-looking. And if we can have a piece of that, why would we not, despite knowing some treatments end in tragedy. Last week Alice Webb, a 33-year-old mother of five, died from complications following a non-surgical “Brazilian butt lift”.
(Transgressive/Future classic) Completed by her brother after her accidental death in 2021, the experimental pop producer’s second album is among the most inventive records of the year
A mischievously distorted “doo doot doo doo” announced the arrival of a singular artist in 2013. The track, Bipp, was not Sophie’s very first release. But this early, abstract banger ushered in a series of formally daring singles, later compiled as 2015’s Product album; warped earworms that were impossible to dislodge.
It was as though Aphex Twin had swallowed a 12-year-old girl’s Spotify account. This was playful, synthetic pop music – songs about love, or just as often, fizzy drinks – pared back to an austere digital minimalism; sounds so crisp and trickly, they sounded like CGI for the ears. And yet for all its foregrounded artifice, Sophie’s work spoke of heartache and yearning; of human connection. “I can make you feel better,” promised Bipp, kindly.
The space scientist, 56, talks about science and diversity, being made a Barbie, dyslexia and why she told Jools Holland we’d encounter aliens by the end of the year
I said we’d find evidence of alien life by the end of 2024. But I said that when I was on Jools Holland’s Hootenanny, and my thinking was that if I said something outlandish they’d invite me back – if only to humiliate me. I’m sure alien life does exist. It’s just a numbers game. But we probably won’t get confirmation of it in the next three months.
Sciencestarts out as magic. I’m fascinated by things that seem intangible in the moment, and I like to think of magic as a science that we don’t understand yet. Sometimes beliefs just don’t stand up against the rigorous investigation needed for something to be science, but I think the wonder inherent to magic is needed to get there in the first place. It’s why so much of science fiction becomes science fact – why the telecommunication devices of Star Trek became today’s mobile phones. It’s important for scientists to think beyond
The universe doesn’t scare me. Words do. I’m dyslexic and it takes me ages to start writing books and hit deadlines, because I’m so scared I’m going to get things wrong. I know a lot of people who are terrified by time and space – it makes them feel small and insignificant. And I’ll concede that it can be daunting stuff. I much prefer to see the wonder in being part of it at all. But the terror I feel teetering on the edge of the black hole, trying to start writing? That keeps me awake at night.
Scientists need humility. We need to be able to accept being wrong. If scientists can’t accept that possibility, then the scientific method doesn’t work. Sometimes science that turns out to be wrong was right based on the evidence of the time. Astronomy is a great example.
Guilfoyle has a personal interest in tearing the Democrat down at a time when Trump’s allies have warned him to lay off the attacks – but it isn’t very successful
Donald Trump has hired “tremendous numbers of women” in his time. Tremendous numbers! We know this not from looking at the actual data, which somewhat contradicts these claims, but because he has told us so himself.
Ugly, overcrowded and undermined by dithering over HS2, the unwieldy terminus needs an urgent rethink – or at least a few less digital billboards
Euston Road, which runs along the north edge of London’s congestion charge zone, is a strange, compromised mishmash of what should be a grand city avenue. A six-lane thoroughfare crammed with traffic, it is also home to the British Library, the Wellcome Collection and three major railway stations, of which by far the ugliest and least loved is the terminus that shares its name with the road: Euston.
Euston, to misquote the misquotation of Apollo 13’s message to mission control, has a problem. It is ill-designed, overcrowded and fraught with passenger frustrations. More long-term, no one yet knows whether it is going to be the London terminus of HS2, as was originally planned.
One craft will block the view of the sun from the other to deepen understanding of solar disruptions on terrestrial technology
European scientists are preparing to launch a space mission that has been designed to create total eclipses of the sun on demand.
The robot spacecraft Proba-3 will be launched by the European Space Agency (Esa) in a few weeks in a mission which will involve flying a pair of satellites in close formation round the Earth. They will be linked by lasers and light sensors, with one probe blocking the view of the sun as seen from the other craft. The effect will be to create solar eclipses that will last for several hours.
Mark Zuckerberg’s new revamp is a far cry from the zip-up hoodies and suits emblematic of earlier eras of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg is revamping his public image with new threads. With a trio of bold shirts worn in recent appearances, he’s communicating that he came, he saw, he conquered and he will win again at any cost. The fits might be sick, but we would do well to beware.
During a live, packed-auditorium podcast interview last week, the CEO of Meta wore a drop-shouldered black shirt reading “pathei mathos”, Greek for “learning through suffering”. At his 40th birthday party in May, he donned a black tee with the motto “Carthago delenda est,” which translates from Latin to “Carthage must be destroyed.” He wore a black shirt with black text that read “Aut Zuck aut nihil” during Meta’s Connect product demonstration on Wednesday.
Despite legal troubles and personal tragedy, the north-west London rapper has topped the album charts and has a huge date at the O2 lined up for the autumn. So why is he giving it all up?
After 12 years, five albums and four mixtapes, the curtain closes. Nines’ final project, Quit While You’re Ahead, will be his last. And though many are often sceptical about the idea of a rapper retiring, believing that any such promise will eventually be walked back on, the 34-year-old, real name Courtney Leon Freckleton, is serious about his sixth album being his ultimate.
“I ain’t coming back. I don’t care how much money they offer me,” he says, “If I made decisions based off money, I deffo wouldn’t have had the career I have. No money can make me come back.”
Ukraine’s interior minister said one person killed in initial attack before the site was hit again during the evacuation
Russia has filed “pre-trial claims” against Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland over the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, accusing the West of trying to “sweep the matter under the carpet”, Reuters is reporting.
The multi-billion dollar pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine.
138km to go: Our lead trio of Caroline Baur (Switzerland), Sara Martin (Spain) and Nina Berton (Luxembourg) extend the gap to 1min 12sec. It’s still pouring rain but a lot of the riders have removed their rain jackets having been out on the road for long enough to warm up.
142km to go: Defending champion Lotte Kopecky is fourth from the front of the main bunch, staying out of any potential trouble by holding a prominent position.
As the first anniversary of the conflict nears, communities in Britain reveal their internal divisions ... and a horrifying increase in overt antisemitism
The young couple getting on the 310 bus at Golders Green were unquestionably Jewish. He wore a black hat over his peyot, or sidelocks, and a heavy black coat despite the warmth of the day. Her hair was covered, her clothes modest, her shoes plain. On the 45-minute journey to Stamford Hill, they conversed quietly in Yiddish.
Until a few weeks ago, the journey on public transport between two areas of north London with significant Jewish populations required a change of bus midway. Jewish passengers had reported antisemitic abuse while waiting for the connection.
Former Chelsea midfielder looks at home in an Atlético shirt and can underline his worth against Real Madrid on Sunday
There were 18,752 fans there the day the Valley celebrated its hundredth birthday and Jude Bellingham made his first league start, at 16 years and 77 days. Charlton were second in the Championship, unbeaten in six games, and had the chance to go top. But on a bad tempered September afternoon in 2019 during which their coach, Lee Bowyer, was sent off for grabbing a spare ball that had been thrown on to the pitch, they were defeated 1-0 by Birmingham City and ended up relegated.
It was Bellingham who scored the goal, of course, celebrating arms wide before the stands. “As the son of one of the most prolific strikers to have graced the non-league game, he should have learned a thing or two,” said the Observer’s match report.
Goalkeeper on playing on despite family bereavements, his Afcon shootout heroics and the prospect of facing Haaland
Ronwen Williams can pinpoint when his life changed for ever. In 2002, the future South Africa captain was a 10-year-old from Gelvandale, a notorious suburb of Gqeberha, formerly known as Port Elizabeth, when his cousin was shot dead while working as a security guard.
“He was killed around the corner from where we were playing in the street,” Williams says. “The next thing you know, my cousin was being rushed to hospital. The area was filled with gangsterism, alcohol and drug abuse.”
Can’t decide between pasta or Chinese? Now you don’t have to …
My family and I adore an old-school Chinese takeaway, and we always order a Chinese curry (see here) and a chow mein. Sadly, we don’t have a takeaway near where we live, so I’ve tried many times to make something we love (nearly) as much at home, and now I think I’ve finally cracked it. There is no smoky wok hei, which translates to “breath of the wok”, because that’s difficult to achieve at home, and I’ve used spaghetti instead of noodles because we like it. This is a personal recipe straight out of the Sodha family recipe book, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
The comedy double act on playing it cool, bombing at Edinburgh, and how their friendship endured after they branched out on their own
Alexander Armstrong, 54, and Ben Miller, 58, are best known for their late 90s sketch show Armstrong and Miller. Former members of Cambridge University’s Footlights, they honed their sketches on stage before getting their first TV show commissioned in 1997. After four series, they branched out into acting (Miller has starred in Death in Paradise and Johnny English); presenting (Armstrong is a host of Pointless and Have I Got News for You) and writing. Armstrong’s debut novel for children, Evenfall: The Golden Linnet, and Miller’s new children’s book, Robin Hood Aged 10¾, are available now.
From basement builds to rooftops, revamped Whitehall ministries and once-were embassies, the capital’s hotels are in an opulence arms race to lure exacting guests
Jay Gatsby would have simply adored post-pandemic London. High-end hotels are springing up around the capital at Monopoly-board rates, filled with such an embarrassment of extravagances that even F Scott Fitzgerald might have struggled to parody.
But there are signs that the luxury boom is reaching its limit. Room rates at new places such as the Peninsula and Raffles at the OWO have dipped from a coronary-inducing £1,300-a-night to merely eye-watering levels of just under £900, travel agents say.
While election almost certain to be decided by swing states, pollsters explain why growth in national polls is meaningful
Kamala Harris has stretched her lead over Donald Trump in the US presidential election race, the latest polling averages show, even while the two candidates appear to be running neck-and-neck in most battleground states.
The Guardian’s newest poll tracker, based on a range of surveys conducted across a 10-day period, shows the vice-president and Democratic nominee at 48.2%, compared with 44.4% for Trump, the Republican candidate and former president – giving Harris a 3.6-point advantage.
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