© Photo Illustration by Philotheus Nisch for The New York Times
News, previews and more as the tournament beings
The narrative arc of women’s football in Switzerland is a familiar one: from apathy to hostility to mockery to inertia to change. Now the country will host one of the biggest events in the sporting calendar…
Speaking of predictions, be sure to let me know your picks for;
Tournament winners
Finalists
Top goalscorer
Player of the tournament
Dark horse
Breakthrough star
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© Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/AP
© Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/AP
This unfinished biography evokes Corfu and Alexandria – but leaves disturbing questions unanswered
Spirit of Place is a collection of minor travel pieces published by Lawrence Durrell in 1969. “Spirit of Place”, though, could easily serve as a descriptor for the entire arc of Durrell’s literary output: Prospero’s Cell (1945), an account of three years spent on Corfu before the second world war, the Cypriot memoir Bitter Lemons (1957), and the career-making Alexandria Quartet (1957-60). The islands and littorals of the Mediterranean gave Durrell his subject, remade by him into a theatre in which men and women, displaced by the political and social violence of the mid-20th century, stumbled towards each other amid the ruins of ancient civilisations.
It feels right, then, that this biography of Lawrence Durrell, only the second major one since his death in 1990, is by Michael Haag, who spent his career writing about the eastern Mediterranean. Haag’s best book was Alexandria: City of Memory (2004), which drew on the writings of Cavafy, EM Forster and Durrell to reconstruct the polyglot culture of the Greek, Italian, Jewish and Arabic population that flourished for centuries on the shores of north Africa. By the time of his own death in 2020, Haag had completed this biography of Durrell up to the year 1945, and the decision was made to publish posthumously. The result reads like an abbreviated account of Durrell’s life rather than an amputation: despite not becoming a significant literary figure until 1957, most of Durrell’s formative experiences had taken place by the time he left the city at the end of the war.
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© Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
© Photograph: Bettmann/Bettmann Archive
Dolly Parton adds star power to this formulaic music documentary about Ed and Dean Roland’s band
Unless you are a big fan of what the American charts call “mainstream rock” and entering late middle age round about now, you may never have heard of 90s outfit Collective Soul. And yet this clearly band-endorsed documentary hypes them so much, you may question your own remembrance of things past. For instance, much is made of Collective Soul’s first big hit, Shine from 1993, which first broke out via airplay at an Atlanta college radio station, with the film giving the impression that everyone was humming this tune back in the day. This may not in fact have been the case: you might associate the time more with the likes of Whitney Houston, Nirvana and dancefloor fillers like Rhythm Is a Dancer.
It turns out that Collective Soul, named after a phrase in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, is a classic rawk outfit with a guitar-heavy, chunky-riff and wailing-vocals sound, somewhat generic but enjoyable. The group is built around Stockbridge, Georgia, brothers Ed Roland (the lead singer and songwriter) and his rhythm guitarist brother Dean; they are the sons of a preacher man and father figures and old friends feature very heavily in their story. The film works its way through the band’s pre-history and story methodically, with Ed Roland dominant throughout as literally and figuratively the group’s loudest voice.
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© Photograph: Publicity image
© Photograph: Publicity image
Pat McFadden says U-turn will change calculations, as IFS says tax rises in autumn look increasingly likely
There will be “a cost” to the government’s climbdown on welfare changes at the budget, one of Keir Starmer’s senior ministers has said, as a leading fiscal thinktank said new tax rises appeared increasingly likely.
Pat McFadden, the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, defended Starmer and the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, after the second reading of the government’s main welfare bill only passed its first Commons test after a central element was removed.
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© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
© Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian
Ofgem opens investigation into National Grid as report finds incident that cut airport power was preventable
The root cause of the substation fire that shut Heathrow airport in March was a preventable technical fault that National Grid had been aware of seven years ago but failed to fix properly, investigators have concluded.
The final report by the National Energy System Operator (Neso) into the incident found said the fire that cut power to the airport, affecting more than 1,350 flights and almost 300,000 passengers, was “most likely” caused by moisture entering the insulation around wires sparking the electrical fault.
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© Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters
© Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Reuters
Pep Guardiola has plenty to think about over the summer after a last-16 defeat to Al-Hilal in the United States
A manager rejuvenated is no overblown assessment of Pep Guardiola, whose friendly wave to this correspondent during a morning training session at Manchester City’s Boca Raton camp was emblematic of a man who oozed energy and commitment for the challenge of elevating his side again throughout the Club. World Cup. Immediately after the winding blow of Monday’s 4-3 defeat by Al-Hilal in Orlando, the 54-year-old blended disappointment with a measured optimism, fairly pointing to how if chances had been taken then City would be facing off against Fluminense in Friday’s quarter-final, back at the Camping World Stadium.
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© Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters
© Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters
They say say tech instead of people on court is progress, and perhaps it is. But society has hard calls to make: sometimes perfect is not worth having
It’s the perfect Wimbledon. The sun is out, the Brits are firing and as for the scoring, that too will be somewhat perfect, this being the first Wimbledon since the tournament told the line judges, long the arbiters of accuracy, that after 148 years, their services will no longer be required.
Arguments, unpredictability and, as the cameras zoom in to the line judge whose eyesight judgment prompts a participant explosion, buttock-clenching awkwardness in close-up: goodbye to all that. Hello, AI and sharp-eyed robots, analysing in real time 18 lots of footage.
Hugh Muir is a Guardian columnist
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© Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
© Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images
Plus: top scorers for two clubs in one season, very old under-21 players and much more
Mail us with your questions and answers
“Has a team won the Champions League without beating any reigning champions?” asks Paddy French. “And if not, which teams have beaten the fewest champions to win it? And which teams have beaten the most champions in winning the Champions League/European Cup?”
Let’s just clarify that Paddy is referring to reigning league champions, here, not reigning European champions, to which we had a few answers. Even in an era in which many Champions League teams are also-rans from the big leagues around Europe, the answer to the first question is no.
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© Photograph: Phil Noble/PA
© Photograph: Phil Noble/PA
Paramount said it would pay the $16m to Trump’s future presidential library and not to Trump himself. It also said the settlement did not include a statement of apology or regret.
CBS parent company Paramount on Wednesday settled a lawsuit filed by Donald Trump over an interview broadcast in October, in the latest concession by a media company to the US president, who has targeted outlets over what he describes as false or misleading coverage.
Paramount said it would pay $16m to settle the suit with the money allocated to Trump’s future presidential library, and not paid to Trump “directly or indirectly”.
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© Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images
Alien spaceships, parallel worlds… the Israeli writer’s seventh collection is vast in reach, yet grounded in the bewildering absurdity of modern life
‘It’s time we acknowledge it: people are not very good at remembering things the way they really happened. If an experience is an article of clothing, then memory is the garment after it’s been washed, not according to the instructions, over and over again: the colours fade, the size shrinks, the original, nostalgic scent has long since become the artificial orchid smell of fabric softener. Giyora Shiro, may he rest in peace, was thinking all this while standing in line to get into the next world …”
That’s quite the opener for a story, isn’t it? The apt but just slightly ridiculous metaphor, which is then revealed as not an authorial pronouncement but a character’s ruminations. And then we meet the character – excellently specific name – and we find out he’s dead, and, in that drolly formulaic aside “may he rest in peace”, we meet the author too.
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© Photograph: Rolf_52/Alamy
© Photograph: Rolf_52/Alamy
Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader releases video statement in run-up to 90th birthday celebrations
The Dalai Lama has said the centuries-old Tibetan Buddhist institution will continue after his death, ending years of speculation that started when he indicated that he might be the last person to hold the role.
Speaking at prayer celebrations ahead of his 90th birthday on Sunday, the Nobel peace prize-winning spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism said in a recorded statement that the next Dalai Lama should be found and recognised as per past Buddhist traditions.
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© Photograph: Sanjay Baid/AFP/Getty Images
© Photograph: Sanjay Baid/AFP/Getty Images
Colombian artist and photographer Isabella Madrid explores the ‘click to be saved’ economy of hope in her project, Lucky Girl Syndrome
Growing up in Colombia – and online – has defined the way I create art: my identity has been formed by a country riddled with superficial and conservative values; a happy country but also one of the most violent; a country where men pray to virgins and kill the ones who are not.
The internet felt like a safe space where I could be anyone – as a vulnerable young girl who felt out of place where I lived, it helped me define my personality and interests but it also alienated me from the real world and made me hyper aware of the way I looked and existed.
Isabella Madrid is a Colombian artist and photographer
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© Photograph: Isabella Madrid
© Photograph: Isabella Madrid
From moving family reunions to voguing drag stars, this year’s Recontres d’Arles is promising a host of ‘disobedient’ images
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© Photograph: Tony Albert
© Photograph: Tony Albert
Ellie Wilson’s piece titled Moth x Human assigns different sounds to the species on Parsonage Down in Salisbury
They are vital pollinators who come out at night, but now moths have emerged into the bright light of day as co-creators of a new piece of music – composed using the insects’ own flight data.
Ellie Wilson composed Moth x Human in a protected habitat on Parsonage Down in Salisbury, Wiltshire. She assigned each of the 80 resident moth species a different sound, which was triggered when it landed on her monitor.
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© Photograph: Pauline Lewis/Getty Images
© Photograph: Pauline Lewis/Getty Images
History comes to life on a hike through the woods and wagonways of County Durham, which takes in mining, trains, an award-winning museum – and corned beef and potato pie
The Great Northern Coalfield once provided the raw fuel that powered Britain through the Industrial Revolution. For over two centuries, coal from the mines of Durham and Northumberland was trundled down a maze of wagonways and rail lines to the coast to then be shipped to London.
The mines are long gone, but eight miles north of Durham city, relics of the north-east’s industrial heritage can be found hidden amid ancient woodland and a steep-sided gorge.
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© Photograph: David Steele/Alamy
© Photograph: David Steele/Alamy
We rode through the dark, through winding mountain roads to reach scenic nooks I otherwise would never have seen. From then, I had the confidence to make friends and travel more
As I watched the sleek, white motorbike roll out of the hire shop in Thakhek, Laos, I wondered if I was making a dreadful mistake. It was March 2017 and I had agreed to go on a road trip with a stranger – an American named Travis, whom I had met a few weeks earlier. We were classmates on a Rotary International Peace Fellowship, which brought together people from sectors such as academia, farming and activism to learn about conflict resolution, in Thailand. I tended to have my guard up around people I didn’t know but Travis’s constant gentle efforts to get to know me had worked, and we bonded over a shared sense of humour. When he suggested we explore Laos together, it felt like a natural progression of our budding friendship.
Travis wanted to visit a climbing hotspot, I wanted to see the Laos that wasn’t on the typical tourist trail – and it seemed like the only way we could do both was to travel by motorbike, a mode of transport I actively avoided for many years.
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© Photograph: Dhruti Shah
© Photograph: Dhruti Shah
Ten Britons will play in second round at SW19
Jack Pinnington Jones leads charge with fine win
It was always asking a lot for there to be a repeat of the heroics of the opening day at Wimbledon but thanks to Jack Draper, Dan Evans and Jack Pinnington Jones, the world No 281, Britain has 10 players through to the second round, the joint-best tally since 12 won through in 1976. What’s more, the total of seven British men into round two is the best at any grand slam event since Wimbledon 1997.
Another searingly hot day began with a check through the history books to find out the highest number of British first-round winners in the Open era, which was 13, in 1968. That always looked out of reach but Pinnington Jones’s brilliant 7-6 (4), 6-3, 7-5 win over Tomás Martín Etcheverry, the world No 53 from Argentina, took the tally into double figures.
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© Photograph: John Walton/PA
© Photograph: John Walton/PA
Tumultuous 24 hours capped by last-minute climbdown on cuts to Pips could define rest of Starmer’s time as PM
Hours before MPs were due to vote on the government’s welfare bill, Angela Rayner conveyed an urgent message to Downing Street.
She had spent the day in intense talks with Labour rebels including Sarah Owen and Florence Eshalomi, and come to the conclusion the concessions offered just days earlier had failed. Dozens of them were still planning to vote against the government, and one of Keir Starmer’s major economic policies hung in the balance.
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© Photograph: Carl Court/Reuters
© Photograph: Carl Court/Reuters
With net zero targets under attack from the populist right, dangerously high temperatures should refocus minds
At times like now, with dangerously high temperatures in several European countries, the urgent need for adaptation to an increasingly unstable climate is clearer than ever. From the French government’s decision to close schools to the bans in most of Italy on outdoor work at the hottest time of day, the immediate priority is to protect people from extreme heat – and to recognise that a heatwave can take a higher toll than a violent storm.
People who are already vulnerable, due to age or illness or poor housing, face the greatest risks from heatwaves. As well as changes to rules and routines, public health warnings are vital, especially where records are being broken and people are unfamiliar with the conditions. In the scorching European summer of 2022, an estimated 68,000 people died due to heat. Health, welfare and emergency systems must respond to those needing help.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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© Photograph: Salas/EPA
© Photograph: Salas/EPA
Funding is plummeting as needs grow, with the closure of USAID, the slashing of UK and European aid budgets, and the obstruction of debt reform and cancellation
When one door closes, you would hope that another opens. As USAID was formally shut down on Monday, a once-in-a-decade development financing conference was kicking off in Seville. But while initially intended to move the world closer to its ambitious 2030 sustainable development goals, it now looks more like an attempt to prevent a reversal of the progress already made.
A study published in the Lancet predicted that Donald Trump’s aid cuts could claim more than 14 million lives by 2030, a third of them among children. For many poor countries, the scale of the shock would be similar to that of a major war, the authors found. More than four-fifths of the US agency’s programmes have been cut, with surviving projects folded into the state department.
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
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© Photograph: Desmond Tiro/AP
© Photograph: Desmond Tiro/AP
President says immigration jail in Florida Everglades is a ‘little controversial, but I couldn’t care less’
Donald Trump on Tuesday toured “Alligator Alcatraz”, a controversial new migrant detention jail in the remote Florida Everglades, and celebrated the harsh conditions that people sent there would experience.
The president was chaperoned by Florida’s hard-right governor, Ron DeSantis, who hailed the tented camp on mosquito-infested land 50 miles west of Miami as an example for other states that supported Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
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© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
© Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Portugal and Spain suffer historic temperature highs for June, as French schools close because of heat
Outdoor working has been banned during the hottest parts of the day in more than half of Italy’s regions as an extreme heatwave that has smashed June temperature records in Spain and Portugal continues to grip large swathes of Europe.
The savage temperatures are believed to have claimed at least three lives, including that of a small boy who is thought to have died from heatstroke while in a car in Catalonia’s Tarragona province on Tuesday afternoon.
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© Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP
© Photograph: Luca Bruno/AP
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