In this new climate, having an enviable job, while not being a straight white man, is grounds for suspicion

Wayne Brown was a trailblazer, a man who made his own small piece of history by becoming Britain’s first black fire chief.

He worked his way up as a young firefighter, rising through the ranks, serving the public through dark times including the 2005 London terror attacks and the Grenfell fire.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

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Guardians will highlight bravery of ‘unseen, unheard and undervalued’ protectors of natural world, prince says

Wildlife rangers perform “one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet”, the Prince of Wales has said at the launch of a docuseries highlighting these “unseen, unheard and undervalued” heroes of the natural world.

William, who presents Guardians, a six-part series launching on Friday, said championing the protectors of the natural world was particularly special as he had met many of them on his travels.

Tropical and floral notes mix with the fresh tang of lime in this glorious cake that’s made for sharing

This cake is inspired by the scent of the gorse bushes along the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, where my family and I go walking on summer holidays. The scent can be elusive, but occasionally, on a warm, sunny day, the breeze catches those golden flowers and diffuses their distinct, sweet scent – a mingling of coconut, vanilla and almond. I’ve added lime to freshen things up, should those flavours prove a little heady or rich.

Who broke the rules? Who wore a protest T-shirt? And why are there always so many models at Cannes? The best looks from the 12-day film festival’s red carpet and photocalls

After a surprisingly effective trilogy of horrors based on the RL Stine novels, a return to the throwback franchise is a frustratingly inert letdown

The Fear Street trilogy was one of the many casualties of the cinema-shuttering Covid pandemic, originally scheduled for an ambitious one-film-a-month summer release by Fox before being offloaded to Netflix. But while it was a little disappointing to see horror films made with such unusual cinematic flair released straight-to-smartphone, it was also a wise business decision, the unorthodox original strategy unlikely to have paid off.

Based on the series of books by teen favourite RL Stine, the three films set up an exciting, expansive world, shifting between the 1660s to the 1970s to the 1990s, gliding from teen slasher to queer romance to supernatural fantasy and within a genre that typically fails to win critics over, they were surprise successes (each boasts a Rotten Tomatoes rating over 80%). It was a rousing win for writer-director Leigh Janiak, whose steady tonal balance of serious and silly showed so many others how it can and should be done, and it opened up a new universe of potentially interconnected horrors for Netflix, the first of which lands this week.

They were the chart-topping, Corbyn-supporting band taking potshots at the Tories – so why do they sound so jaded about politics? As they gear up for album four, the alt-rockers explain their journey to self-discovery

Paper tablecloths, blazing sun, spitting grill, plastic chairs, dishes of tzatziki, an expectant cat sidling up to diners: we could be in Greece. “It’s like a holiday,” marvels guitarist Joff Oddie, sipping an enormous iced coffee. But Wolf Alice are not on a Mediterranean jaunt – they’re at a restaurant on an industrial estate in Seven Sisters, north London, a few doors down from the studios where they wrote their upcoming fourth album The Clearing and its chart-topping predecessor, Blue Weekend. “We used to call this street Anchovy Mile,” reminisces front woman Ellie Rowsell. “Because it smelled like fish.” That might be the tip round the corner or, thinks bassist Theo Ellis, a nearby brewery (“something to do with filtering through fish scales”). Either way, such an odour would only cement the seafront ambience of “Costa del Tottenham”, as Ellis names it.

The only thing that could disrupt the serenity of this scorching Wednesday lunchtime is a spin of Wolf Alice’s new single. Bloom Baby Bloom is a genre-bending rock bonanza: squealing guitars, bone-shaking bass, ostentatious drum fills, but also honky tonk piano and a dreamy pop chorus. Throughout Rowsell veers between breathy folk croon and a hair metal wail. To underline the retro vibe – and the vocal gymnastics – the video has Rowsell writhing in a sparkly, glam cut-out leotard amid a Fame-style dance troupe; in the promo images she is clad in cherry-red hot pants and matching knee-high boots.

Keir Starmer is not blameless when it comes to Brexit, but he is moving in the right direction. Even the Tories attacking him know that

For the Tories to attack Keir Starmer’s first step towards a Brexit reset is monumental hypocrisy. Their Brexit led to £4.7bn being spent on implementing post-EU border arrangements, according to the National Audit Office, including a vastly expensive “take back control” border post at Sevington in Kent. No other country in the world can have erected such ludicrous barriers against its biggest trading partners. All are now wasted. At least the nonsense can stop. Memorial plaques to Boris Johnson should be pinned to their gates and passersby invited to sign a 50-page customs form in his memory.

Meanwhile, Starmer should hang his own head in shame. He was Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit henchman back in 2019, when Labour voted down Theresa May’s bid to negotiate a soft Brexit deal that would certainly have gone beyond what was signed this week. It was Starmer who helped to scotch at least a possible Commons coalition against hard Brexit and in favour of sanity. It was Corbyn and Starmer who could have stifled five years of the greatest act of self-harm by a British government since the Great Depression.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

EU defence commissioner says he expects a lot of loan requests from member states under €150bn programme

A €150bn (£126bn) loans programme to rearm Europe that was finalised this week could be “a very important breakthrough” in the EU’s military support for Ukraine, the bloc’s defence commissioner has said.

Andrius Kubilius, a former prime minister of Lithuania who is the EU’s first defence commissioner, said he expected a lot of member states to request EU-backed loans under the €150bn Security Action for Europe (SAFE) scheme, which was approved on Wednesday.

Starbase in Texas, where the world’s richest man has a rocket-launching facility, was incorporated this week. Mars obsessives are flocking there – but some long-term locals are far from happy

Along a flat coastal highway in south-east Texas, surrounded by wetlands and open plains, the artefacts of a new American oligarchy appear in quick succession. Three towering rockets stand upright on the horizon. A fleet of Tesla Cybertrucks speeds by. A large mural of the Shiba Inu “doge” dog stares ahead, its arms crossed. There is a 12ft-tall bust of the world’s richest person, painted in bronze, facing a dusty roadside. “ELON aka MemeLord”, a plaque beneath reads. It’s not exactly romantic poetry, but the whole scene reminds me of the sonnet by Shelley: “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

While old Ozymandias may have seen his fiefdoms crumble, Elon Musk’s empire is possibly only just beginning. Here in Cameron County, on the southern tip of the Lone Star state, where Google Maps proudly displays the newly declared “Gulf of America” just offshore, Musk has situated his self-described mission to save humanity and populate Mars. Just a few miles from his painted bust is the Starbase industrial complex, a rocket-manufacturing facility and launch arena, which commands the vista for miles. It is also the site of the multibillionaire’s latest venture to acquire even more political power.

Around the globe, conflict and the climate crisis have caused 83.4m people – a record number – to become refugees within their own countries. Three people from Bangladesh, Sudan and Colombia tell their stories

In 2024, the number of internally displaced people around the world reached 83.4m, the highest figure ever recorded. Men, women, children, whole families and generations have been forced to flee their homes within their country as a result of conflict, violence, or natural disasters.

“Internal displacement rarely makes the headlines, but for those living it, the suffering can last for years,” says Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, commenting on the latest figures from the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).

Researcher records Cooper’s hawk in New Jersey making use of pedestrian crossing and line of cars while hunting

It is a tactic worthy of Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt: wait until a beeping pedestrian crossing indicates a traffic queue has formed then use the line of cars as cover to reach your target. But this isn’t a scene from Mission: Impossible – it’s the behaviour of a young hawk.

The discovery is not the first time birds have been found to make use of an urban environment. Crows, for example, are known to drop foods such as walnuts on to roads for cars to crush them open.

My clients are comforted by having their loved ones immortalised in an original artwork

I’ve always enjoyed painting and drawing. I planned to become an artist, but when I was offered a job as a stockbroker at 19, the pull of a glamorous lifestyle and the earning potential compared with that of an impoverished artist was too strong. But, during my 15-year career, I kept up art as a hobby, dabbling in pottery and jewellery-making as well as painting.

In 2008, I took a break from work and ended up living in Hawaii for seven years. Inspired by the landscape, I took some art courses, which reignited my energy and excitement for it.

In an Oval Office encounter in which the US president made false claims of ‘white genocide’, Cyril Ramaphosa kept his cool

• Trump’s ‘white genocide’ claims ignore the reality of life and crime in South Africa

Many South Africans praised their president Cyril Ramaphosa for staying calm when Donald Trump ambushed him in the Oval Office with a video purporting to back up his false claims of a “genocide” against white Afrikaner farmers.

Others asked why Ramaphosa, who brought ministers, golfers and a billionaire with him, chose to walk into what he knew was likely to be a trap.

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Blue tarpaulins cover the partly ‘crushed’ 5,000-ton destroyer as it lies on its side at the northeastern shipyard of Chongjin

Satellite images have revealed the extent of a navy shipyard accident in North Korea that resulted in serious damage to a warship and infuriated the country’s leader Kim Jong-un.

On Wednesday, Kim watched as the 5,000-ton destroyer was partly “crushed” during its launch at the north-eastern shipyard of Chongjin. Kim called the incident a “criminal act” that could not be tolerated, according to state media.

Other images displayed by Trump during meeting with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa were false or misleading

The evidence of supposed mass killings of white South Africans presented by Donald Trump in a tense White House meeting on Wednesday were in some cases images from the Democratic Republic of Congo, while footage shown during the meeting was falsely portrayed as depicting “burial sites”.

“These are all white farmers that are being buried,” said Trump, holding up a print-out of an article accompanied by a picture during the contentious Oval Office meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

More than a decade after China passed a groundbreaking mental health law, victims and activists say that involuntary hospitalisation remains common

Zhang Po was barely one year out of school when an out of control mine-cart barrelled into him deep in a pit in Anhui province, causing injuries that ended his brief career as a coalminer. Since the accident in 1999, he has been living off disability allowances provided by his former employer in Huainan, Anhui’s coal city. But in 2024 Zhang was sent to hospital once again – this time to a psychiatric ward.

Zhang was sectioned for 22 days in June after he protested outside the office of his former employer, demanding an increase in his disability allowance. “I endured more than 20 days of humiliation in there. There was no phone, and my belt and shoelaces were taken away,” Zhang said in a recent interview with Chinese media. Zhang said that he was forced to take medicines and tied to his bed for several hours a day. After the three weeks in hospital, he was sentenced to eight days of administrative detention for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

Claims of a recent sighting of the animal in the vast Fiordland wilderness reignites public fascination in a story that has endured for decades

Over 100 years ago, a ship dropped anchor in the frigid fjords of New Zealand’s South Island and released 10 nervous moose on to the shore. The crew watched as the animals – the last survivors of a weeks-long voyage from Saskatchewan, Canada – skittered out of their crates and up into the dense, lonely, rainforest.

The moose had arrived on a flight of fancy, as part of the then premier’s grand vision to turn Fiordland national park into a hunters’ paradise. It was the second attempt to release moose into the region – in a country whose only native land-based mammals are bats – after nearly all of an earlier herd died crossing the seas. Red deer and wapiti, or elk, were also released around the same time for game-hunting.

Northern Irish group say charge is ‘political policing’ to stop them speaking out about ‘genocide in Gaza’

The Northern Irish rap trio Kneecap have claimed a campaign is being mounted to prevent their performance at Glastonbury this summer, at a surprise gig staged a day after one of its members was charged with a terror offence.

The group told the crowd at the 100 Club in central London on Thursday night that they were being used as a “scapegoat” because they “spoke about the genocide [in Gaza]” at Coachella in April.

Chelsea braced for City Ground cauldron, Rodri back on the scene and party vibes all round at Anfield

• Golden Boot: how the leading scorers stand

Bournemouth’s hopes of European football were vanquished after defeat to Manchester City on Tuesday but the Cherries, 11th on 53 points, could still achieve ninth spot and match their best finish in the Premier League (under Eddie Howe in 2016-17, although that was achieved with only 46 points). A home game against relegated Leicester looks to offer the perfect opportunity but the closing stretch has been tough for Andoni Iraola’s side, with the past 12 league games producing only two victories. Remarkably, a three-game league form table puts Leicester in fourth after home wins over Southampton and Ipswich either side of a 2-2 draw at Nottingham Forest. Perhaps this won’t be the walkover most are expecting, and there could be a wistful feeling in the air at the Vitality on Sunday afternoon. No one can deny it has been a strong season but what a party it might have been. With Dean Huijsen off to Real Madrid and Milos Kerkez linked heavily with the champions, Liverpool, how many of the goodbyes on the traditional end-of-season lap of honour will be permanent? David Tindall

In Bi Gan’s ambitious alternate reality, where humans can live indefinitely, a reincarnating dissident dreamer travels through history in different guises

Bi Gan’s new movie in Cannes is bold and ambitious, visually amazing, trippy and woozy in its embrace of hallucination and the heightened meaning of the unreal and the dreamlike. His last film Long Day’s Journey Into Night from 2018 was an extraordinary and almost extraterrestrial experience in the cinema which challenged the audience to examine what they thought about time and memory; this doesn’t have quite that power, being effectively a portmanteau movie, some of whose sections are better than others – though it climaxes with some gasp-inducing images and tracking shots and all the constituent parts contribute to the film’s aggregate effect.

Resurrection is, perhaps, a long night’s journey to the enlightenment of daybreak; it finishes at a club called the Sunrise. It is also an episodic journey through Chinese history, finishing at that historic moment which continues to fascinate Chinese film-makers whose movies are a way of collectively processing their feelings about it: New Year’s Eve 1999, the new century in which China was to bullishly embrace the new capitalism while cleaving to the political conformism of the old ways.

• Dutch player fails to make playoffs after 6-2 defeat

• Luke Littler sets points record by seeing off Humphries

Michael van Gerwen was knocked out of the Premier League after failing in his win-or-bust Sheffield mission as a record-breaking Luke Littler won a sixth night. The seven-times Premier League champion has had a miserable campaign and came into the final weekly night having to win to stay in contention for the playoffs.

But Van Gerwen fell at the first hurdle, losing 6-2 to Nathan Aspinall, whose victory guaranteed him a top-four spot and completed the lineup for next week’s playoffs at the O2 in London.

• Leigh 12-26 Hull FC

• Hull score 26 unanswered points in the first half

John Cartwright has already enjoyed some wonderful moments as Hull FC coach and transformed the club’s fortunes in just three months in charge, but this win at Leigh could well turn out to be his finest victory yet.

There is no escaping the fact that after a wonderful start to 2025, Hull have endured a difficult few weeks. Injuries and a loss of form have resulted in them exiting the Challenge Cup at the hands of their biggest rivals and tumbling outside the playoff places as the midway point of the season approaches.

Critics of Israel’s atrocious conduct in Gaza should be clear that their focus is the authors of that violence – not Israeli civilians

Israel’s campaign of bombing and starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza is inexcusable. It reflects a massive war crime, as the international criminal court has already charged, and arguably genocide. But it in no sense justifies the murder of two young Israeli embassy workers in Washington by a man who then chanted: “Free, free Palestine”. Nothing justifies violence against civilians.

The killing of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim occurred on Wednesday evening outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting a reception for young diplomats. The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, was detained shortly after the shooting. His social media accounts indicated that he had been involved in pro-Palestinian activism.

Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch (1993-2022), is a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. His book Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments was published by Knopf and Allen Lane in February.

G7 finance ministers and central bank governors pledge to address ‘economic imbalances’, without naming China

Top finance officials from the world’s seven wealthiest democracies have set aside stark differences on US tariffs and agreed to counter global “economic imbalances”, a swipe at China’s trade practices.

Ahead of the meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors there had been doubt about whether there would be a final communique, given divisions over US tariffs and Washington’s reluctance to refer to Russia’s war on Ukraine as illegal.

Tourists are in England for the first time in 22 years and faced dual threats of hostile batting and cold weather

Of course the first morning of the summer was the worst morning of the summer. Test cricket, like a bank holiday picnic, is a reliable way to send the English sun running, and Zimbabwe’s first day of Test cricket in this country in 22 years started under thick ripples of ominous grey cloud, and in a freezing breeze. In the shop at the bottom of the Radcliffe Road Stand staff were sent running to the stock room to fetch up fresh boxes of beanie hats and hooded tops, as the crowd, caught short by the sudden dip in temperature after weeks of good weather, made an unexpected run on their supplies of winter clothing.

Zimbabwe won the toss, which was the last thing that went their way all day. “We’ll have a bowl,” said their captain, Craig Ervine, and it must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Ben Stokes admitted he would have done the same thing himself given the conditions overhead.

Leading figures say compulsory program is ‘ethically unsound’ and would be challenged in courts

• Explainer: What are the ‘radical’ proposed reforms to UK criminal sentencing?

Leading experts on the use of chemical castration for managing sexual offenders have said they would refuse to be part of any programme in the UK that makes the intervention compulsory.

Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, confirmed in the Commons on Thursday that she was examining whether she could force offenders, including paedophiles, to take pills or injections to suppress “problematic sexual arousal”.

Advocates say families with children among those detained in LA, Phoenix, New York, Seattle, Chicago and Texas

Federal authorities have arrested people at US immigration courts from New York to Arizona to Washington state in what appears to be a coordinated operation, as the Trump administration ramps up the president’s mass deportation campaign.

On Tuesday, agents who identified themselves only as federal officers arrested multiple people at an immigration court in Phoenix, taking people into custody outside the facility, according to immigrant advocates.

Meme coin buyers may have gotten dinner with president, but they lost millions, Guardian analysis reveals

Donald Trump will host the top holders of his cryptocurrency at a gala tonight at his private golf club near Washington DC. Though the president has called the $Trump token “The Greatest of them all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”, nearly half the gala’s guests suffered losses from purchasing it, according to a Guardian analysis of their public cryptocurrency wallets.

The attendees are winners of the US president’s meme coin competition. Last month, Trump announced that the 220 crypto wallets with the largest holdings of $Trump between 23 April and 12 May would win a ticket to a private dinner at the Trump National golf club. The top 25 holders would also be invited to a “Private VIP Reception” with the president beforehand. The news caused the coin to spike more than 50%.

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem posts copy of department’s letter to university on X

The Trump administration has said it is halting Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students and has ordered existing international students at the university to transfer or lose their legal status.

On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration notified Harvard about its decision following ongoing correspondence regarding the “legality of a sprawling records request”, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Not many at Old Trafford are suited to the manager’s trusty 3-4-2-1 but replacing them will cost hundreds of millions

Everything always seems clearer in the morning, and in the cold grey light of Thursday, the prognosis for Manchester United is bleak. While Tottenham face an awkward calculation – weighing up whether the delirium of a first European trophy in 41 years offsets their worst league season in terms of proportion of games lost – for Manchester United the equation is far starker.

Ruben Amorim will only play in one way. He is committed absolutely, uncompromisingly, irrevocably to the 3-4-2-1. Liverpool considered him, looked at their squad, realised the two things did not go together, appointed Arne Slot and won the league. Manchester United looked at their squad, flinched at the horror, and seem to have reasoned it was such a mess that it was impossible to find a manager whose philosophy would fit. There was a dissenting voice, Dan Ashworth, but at the court of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, reasoned doubts are as unwelcome as a free lunch.

Exclusive: Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah witnessed visiting base set up to drive Palestinians from homes

Two violent Israeli settlers on whom sanctions were imposed by the UK government this week have joined a campaign to drive Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank village of Mughayyir al-Deir.

Neria Ben Pazi’s organisation, Neria’s Farm, had sanctions imposed by London on Tuesday, as the UK suspended negotiations on a new free-trade deal with Israel over its refusal to allow aid into Gaza and cabinet ministers’ calls to “purify Gaza” by expelling Palestinians.

All the key points laid out in the US president’s House-approved sweeping bill as it awaits Senate consideration

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Thursday passed the One Big Beautiful Bill act, which would enact Donald Trump’s taxation and spending priorities. The legislation will now be considered in the Senate, where the Republican majority will probably make its own changes.

Here is what the version of the bill passed by the House would do:

Legislation would dismantle regulations in farming, mining and energy, increasing risk of widespread destruction

Environmental activists in Brazil have decried a dramatic rollback of environmental safeguards after the senate approved a bill that would dismantle licensing processes and increase the risk of widespread destruction.

The upper house passed the so-called “devastation bill” with 54 votes to 13 late on Wednesday, paving the way for projects ranging from mining and infrastructure to energy and farming to receive regulatory approval with little to no environmental oversight.

Maha report ignores leading causes of death for children, firearms and crashes, and focuses on lifestyle and vaccines

A new report led by the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, lays out a dark vision of American children’s health and calls for agencies to examine vaccines, ultra-processed foods, environmental chemicals, lack of exercise and “overmedicalization”.

Kennedy has made combatting the chronic disease “epidemic” a cornerstone of his vision for the US, even as he has ignored common causes of chronic conditions, such as smoking and alcohol use.

Our cartoonist looks at the Tottenham coach fulfilling his prophecy by lifting a trophy in his second year with the club

• Liberty stake sold at record $450m team valuation

• New funds will help build Liberty’s Brooklyn facility

• Latest sign of surging value in women’s pro sports

New York Liberty owners sold shares in the WNBA team at what would be a record valuation of $450m for a women’s pro sports franchise, the Athletic reported Thursday.

The capital raised from the sale, which represent a percentage share in the “mid-teens”, is believed to be earmarked toward construction of a practice facility in Brooklyn, per the report.

In a major escalation between Trump and Harvard, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem says move should ‘serve as a warning’

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, has accused unnamed European officials of “toxic antisemitic incitement” he blamed for a hostile climate in which the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington took place, Reuters reports.

Israel has faced a blizzard of criticism from Europe of late as it has intensified its military campaign in Gaza, where humanitarian groups have warned that an 11-week Israeli blockade on aid supplies has left the Palestinian territory on the brink of famine.

Mauricio Pochettino faces an uphill battle to change the USMNT’s culture without their most important players.

If the 2022 World Cup was the debutante ball for a shiny new generation of United States men’s national team players, the 2025 Gold Cup was supposed to be a general rehearsal for the big dance: next summer’s World Cup.

Instead, still-somewhat-newish US manager Mauricio Pochettino will go into this summer tournament for the continental title shorn of a great many of his leading players. As such, his first and only chance to work with his team for an extended period of time before the start of the 2026 World Cup will present all kinds of challenges.

Sam Altman and Jony Ive say mystery product created by their partnership will be the coolest thing ever

Everything over the last 30 years, according to Sir Jony Ive, has led to this moment: a partnership between the iPhone designer and the developer of ChatGPT.

Ive has sold his hardware startup, io, to OpenAI and will take on creative and design leadership across the merged businesses. “I have a growing sense that everything I have learned over the last 30 years has led me to this place, to this moment,” he says in a video announcing the $6.4bn (£4.8bn) deal.