Support is lowest in France, Spain and Poland, while 21% back authoritarian rule under certain circumstances
Only half of young people in France and Spain believe that democracy is the best form of government, with support even lower among their Polish counterparts, a study has found.
A majority from Europe’s generation Z – 57% – prefer democracy to any other form of government. Rates of support varied significantly, however, reaching just 48% in Poland and only about 51-52% in Spain and France, with Germany highest at 71%.
After US jury said it should pay oil pipeline firm $660m, Greenpeace is hoping to reclaim funds via EU anti-Slapp law
The outcome of a court case in the Netherlands could shape the right to protest around the globe for decades to come, campaigners have warned, as figures show a dramatic rise in legal action taken by fossil fuel companies against activists and journalists.
Greenpeace International is using a recently introduced EU directive to try to reclaim costs and damages it incurred when a US jury decided it should pay the oil pipeline corporation Energy Transfer more than $660m in damages earlier this year.
Sell-offs of public housing and the right’s promotion of home ownership has left too many unable to afford accommodation
Csaba Jelinek is an urban sociologist based in Budapest
When I left my family home to study at university in 2007 and moved to downtown Budapest, housing costs were hardly a topic of conversation among my friends. I rented rooms in centrally located flats for £80-£100 per month. Fast forward to 2025 and a similar room in a shared flat would set you back at least £200 – double the price of 15 years ago. Talk to anyone in their 20s in Budapest today, and the deepening housing crisis will inevitably come up as one of the defining struggles of their lives.
The statistics paint an equally grim picture. Between 2010 and 2024, Hungary saw the largest increase of the housing price index among EU member states. While the EU average rose by 55.4%, Hungary’s housing price index rocketed by 234%. Meanwhile, per capita net income only grew by 86% in the 2010s. Budapest, the capital, is the centre of this crisis. According to the Hungarian National Bank, residential property prices are overvalued by 5-19%. This is partly explained with the high proportion of investment-driven purchases: these accounted for 30-50% of all transactions in the last five years in Hungary. Unlike in many other EU capitals, property investors in Budapest are not primarily foreign nationals – who accounted for just 7.3% of transactions between 2016 and 2022 – nor are they institutional players. Instead, they are typically individual Hungarian citizens. As real estate has become an increasingly appealing investment for upper- and middle-class households amid growing economic uncertainty, the result has been a deepening polarisation within Hungarian society.
Ward Sakeik, 22, who came to US aged eight, tells of ‘joy and a little shock’ after more than four months in detention
Ward Sakeik, a stateless Palestinian woman who was detained in February on the way back from her honeymoon, was released from immigration detention after more than four months of confinement.
“I was overfilled with joy and a little shock,” she said at a press conference on Thursday. “I mean, it was my first time seeing a tree in five months.”
Russia launches drone attack on Kyiv hours after presidents’ phone call; US company Techmet to bid in first pilot project of US-Ukraine minerals fund. What we know on day 1,227
With narrow majorities and intra-party splits, Republicans faced a battle to give Trump his bill to sign – but they did it
Just a few months ago, analysts predicted that Republicans in Congress – with their narrow majorities and fractured internal dynamics – would not be able to pass Donald Trump’s landmark legislation.
On Thursday, the president’s commanding influence over his party was apparent once again: the bill passed just in time for Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
Democratic leader spoke for more than eight hours to rail against Trump’s sweeping tax-and-spending bill
The Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries broke the record for the longest House floor speech ever on Thursday after he spoke for more than eight hours to delay a vote on Donald Trump’s signature tax-and-spending bill.
Early on Thursday, after a marathon night of arm-twisting, cajoling and pressure by tweet, House Republicans said they were finally ready to vote on Trump’s $4.5tn tax-and-spending package – a colossal piece of legislation the president wants passed by Friday, the Independence Day holiday.
The team battled a notoriously strong current and used the stars as their guide to reach an island in an unstable vessel made of Japanese cedar
Dr Yousuke Kaifu was working at an archaeological site on the Japanese islands of Okinawa when a question started to bubble in his mind. The pieces unearthed in the excavation, laid out before him, revealed evidence of humans living there 30,000 years ago, arriving from the north and the south. But how did they get there?
“There are stone tools and archaeological remains at the site but they don’t answer those questions,” Kaifu, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Tokyo, says.
Costa Rica-based inter-American court of human rights says states have obligation to respond to climate change
There is a human right to a stable climate and states have a duty to protect it, a top court has ruled.
Announcing the publication of a crucial advisory opinion on climate change on Thursday, Nancy Hernández López, president of the inter-American court of human rights (IACHR), said climate change carries “extraordinary risks” that are felt particularly keenly by people who are already vulnerable.
Until 1992, when people heard Stuck in the Middle With You by Stealers Wheel on the radio, they might smile and nod and sing along to its catchy soft-rock tune and goofy Dylan-esque lyrics. But after 1992, with the release of Quentin Tarantino’s sensationally tense and violent crime movie Reservoir Dogs, the feelgood mood around that song forever darkened. That was down to an unforgettably scary performance by Michael Madsen, who has died at the age of 67.
Stuck in the Middle, with its lyrics about being “so scared in case I fall off my chair”, was to be always associated with the image of Madsen, whom Tarantino made an icon of indie American movies, with his boxy black suit, sinister, ruined handsomeness and powerful physique running to fat, playing tough guy Vic Vega, AKA Mr Blonde. He grooved back and forth across the room, in front of a terrified cop tied to a chair, dancing to that Stealers Wheel number, holding his straight razor, which he had removed from his boot – smirkingly preparing to torture the cop (that is, torture him further) by cutting off his ear.
Court halts ruling that allowed migrants to challenge removal to countries where they could be in danger
The supreme court has allowed the Trump administration to deport the eight men who have been held for weeks at an American military base in Djibouti to war-torn South Sudan, a country where almost none of them have ties.
Most of the men are from countries including Vietnam, South Korea, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar. Just one is from South Sudan.
An initial £45m bid was rejected by Forest last week
Newcastle look to bolster squad for Champions League
Newcastle United are optimistic of striking a deal to sign the Nottingham Forest forward Anthony Elanga after submitting an improved offer worth about £55m. Last week Newcastle had a £45m bid rejected but have returned with an increased offer.
Newcastle and Eddie Howe are long-term admirers of Elanga, who featured for Forest in every Premier League match last season, scoring six goals and providing 11 assists as Nuno Espírito Santo’s side qualified for the Europa Conference League, returning to European competition for the first time since 1995-96. Newcastle qualified for the Champions League after finishing fifth.
The US House of Representatives passed Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill on Thursday, handing the president the first major legislative victory of his second term and sending to his desk wide-ranging legislation expected to supercharge immigration enforcement and slash federal safety net programs.
The 218-214 vote came after weeks of wrangling over the measure that Trump demanded be ready for his signature by Friday, the Independence Day holiday. Written by his Republican allies in Congress and unanimously rejected by Democrats, the bill traveled an uncertain road to passage that saw multiple all-night votes in the House and Senate and negotiations that lasted until the final hours before passage. Ultimately, Republicans who had objected to its cost and contents folded, and the bill passed with just two GOP defections: Thomas Massie, a rightwing Kentucky lawmaker, and Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a Pennsylvania district that voted for Kamala Harris in last year’s election.
The minute’s silence was immaculate, poignant, loaded and ultimately broke into applause. “Rest in peace Diogo Jota,” spelled a series of cards held up behind Inês Pereira’s goal; the air was thick with emotion in those moments before kick-off and one of the first things to say is that Portugal’s players deserve the highest admiration for turning out to compete. They may not have shared a dressing room with Jota or his equally mourned brother, André Silva, but that cannot minimise the fact two members of their nation’s tightly-knit footballing family had been taken away in devastating circumstances.
It took guts and no little honour to show up and keep running, probing, scrapping, hunting for moments to take pride in while their opponents left no doubt that they are runaway favourites for this competition. Spain should be lauded, too, for resisting any temptation to go easy, starting at a rattling pace and completing a thoroughly professional job. In their case that often means administering a sound beating and there is no escaping that they delivered one here.
Lobbying effort by independent delegation follows Jamaica’s move to ask King Charles to request legal advice
Global campaigning for slavery reparations gathered pace this week with lobbying in Westminster and Brussels, days after the Jamaican government revealed it will ask King Charles to request legal advice on the issue.
On Tuesday, the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Afrikan Reparations, a group of UK MPs and peers calling for an apology and reparative justice for the historical and ongoing impact of slavery and colonialism, hosted an independent delegation of Caribbean researchers and activists who are lobbying for reparations.
An unforgiving pitch and some uninspiring bowling gave Shubman Gill’s tourists an inch … and they took a mile
The sun shone, the wind blew, the grass grew, and India batted. And batted. And batted. They batted on so long that summer’s roses had budded, bloomed and withered again before they were finished. Excited little kids who had taken seats in the family stand first thing in the morning left it as jaded pensioners in the evening.
It was even rumoured that a man who had come up from London to catch the end of the innings was able to use the newly finished HS2. Among all their other achievements India’s batsmen even silenced the Barmy Army, so that by the very end the volume in the Hollies Stand was reduced to the sort of somnolent hum usually heard at Lord’s.
Britain’s mens No 1 Draper beaten 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 4-6
Cilic previously reached Wimbledon finals, losing in 2017
The question that sprang into Jack Draper’s mind after this chastening defeat was simple: how did Andy Murray do it? Draper, the new hope of British men’s tennis, had come into these championships with expectations that he would leave his mark. Instead he was taught a grand slam lesson by the veteran Marin Cilic and leaves Wimbledon with fresh lessons to take on board in his burgeoning career.
There has been distinct excitement at Draper’s prospects in SW19 this summer after his heady ascent up the rankings and victory at Indian Wells in the spring. That this was only his fourth Wimbledon appearance and that none of his previous outings had gone beyond the second round was not given much weight. But perhaps a lack of experience told here, at least in how Draper managed the match, while the 36-year-old Cilic, a Wimbledon finalist in 2017, revelled in his own on-court Indian summer.
Maj Gen Mikhail Gudkov personally promoted by Putin and had previously led one of Russia’s most notorious brigades
A deputy commander of the Russian navy who had previously led one of the military’s most notorious brigades has been killed near the frontline with Ukraine, Moscow has confirmed.
Maj Gen Mikhail Gudkov, who was responsible for Russia’s marine units, was killed on Wednesday in a Ukrainian missile attack on a field headquarters in the Kursk region, amid reports the position had been revealed by poor security.
Diogo Jota and Andre Silva: England defender Lucy Bronze expressed her shock at the death of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva and said the Lionesses would be “thinking of them” along with the rest of the footballing and non-footballing world, writes Suzanne Wrack from Switzerland.
“It definitely shocked all the squad when we woke up this morning and the news started to spread, said Bronze. “Obviously we have a lot of Liverpool fans in our team, and football fans, but for people in general, everyone is just thinking of them – him and his brother. They were so young as well. We have seen all the messages on social media and stuff so you can tell what a great guy he has been. It’s just really sad and we were shocked by the news, really.”
Speaking on the day that Portugal play Spain in their opening game of Euro 2025, Bronze, who is half Portuguese, said: “We’ll be watching the games tonight, Portugal play their first game against Spain and I know there will be a minute’s silence held before that game.
Italy kicked off their Euro 2025 challenge with a controlled victory in their Group B opener in Sion. Arianna Caruso’s spectacular first-half goal proved the difference in a close encounter against a well-organised Belgium.
With the game evenly matched, it was one that required just a moment of quality. Caruso is Italy’s puppet-master, pulling the strings with ease from the heart of the midfield. Her goal was an example of what Italy can do when they are at their best.
The actor Michael Madsen has died aged 67 at his home in Malibu, according to authorities and his representatives. No foul play is suspected, the sheriff’s department confirmed, after deputies responded to the Los Angeles county home following a call to the emergency services on Thursday morning.
He was pronounced dead at 8.25am. In an email, Madsen’s manager, Ron Smith, confirmed his client had died from cardiac arrest.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) has arrested the Mexican boxer Julio César Chávez Jr in California and begun proceedings to deport him, citing cartel affiliations, multiple criminal convictions and an active arrest warrant in Mexico for weapons trafficking and organized crime.
Chávez Jr, 39, the son of the legendary world champion Julio César Chávez Sr, was taken into custody by Ice agents on Tuesday in Studio City, a Los Angeles neighborhood known for celebrity residences. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), he had been living in the US unlawfully and posed a significant threat to public safety.
Akash Deep removes both Duckett and Pope for ducks
The last time a visiting skipper in England notched up a double century was Graeme Smith in 2003 and it prompted Nasser Hussain to fall on his sword mid-series. Smith – or “what’s-his-name” as Hussain called him beforehand – was a captain killer on these shores, his South Africa team accounting for Michael Vaughan five years later.
Ben Stokes at least knew Shubman Gill’s name before this series and, in fairness, the England captaincy is unlikely to change hands in the next week. Nevertheless, Gill inflicted one of the toughest days of Stokes’ three years in charge as his chanceless and downright merciless 269 from 387 balls drove India to a position of dominance.
Israel-based study finds that by 2050 average daily milk production could be reduced by 4% as a result of worsening heat stress
Dairy production will be threatened by the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, a study has found.
Drawing on records from more than 130,000 cows over a period of 12 years, the researchers report that extreme heat reduces dairy cows’ ability to produce milk by 10%.
Russell confident of new contract amid Verstappen links
Mayer to stand against Ben Sulayem for FIA presidency
George Russell believes he “won’t be going anywhere” and is likely to have a new contract confirmed with Mercedes as he played down suggestions that he could lose his seat to Max Verstappen.
As he prepared for this weekend’s British Grand Prix, Russell, whose contract with Mercedes has yet to be renewed, said he thought the chances of him not being with the team next season were “exceptionally low”. Verstappen, in turn, flatly refused to comment on the matter.
Commissioner says two women were attacked by female elephant that was with a calf
Two female tourists from the UK and New Zealand have been killed by an elephant while on a walking safari in a national park in Zambia, police in the southern African country have said.
The Eastern Province police commissioner, Robertson Mweemba, said the victims, who he named as 68-year-old Easton Janet Taylor from the UK and 67-year-old Alison Jean Taylor from New Zealand, were attacked by a female elephant that was with a calf.
Madre fire, one of at least a dozen in the state, has burned more than 50,000 acres in San Luis Obispo county
A fast-growing wildfire in central California has become the largest in the state this year, surpassing the size of January’s wildfires that devastated parts of Los Angeles, as the flames spread in hot, windy conditions.
The Madre fire had exploded to more than 50,000 acres by Thursday morning, after breaking out in San Luis Obispo county on Wednesday afternoon and tearing through grasslands as dry. Extreme heat has raised the fire risk for large portions of the state before the Fourth of July holiday.
His loved ones’ lives are changed for ever and at one level this is not a sports story. But Jota’s footballing talent, heart and will should be cherished, amid the grief
Bad moon, bad times and a river that will be overflowing for some time yet. It is impossible not to feel a deep sense of pain, sadness and shared heartbreak at news of the sudden death of Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva in a car crash in Spain. Jota was 28, father to three young children and a husband to his long-term partner, whom he married 11 days before his death.
Things that happen in sport are often described, with due dramatic licence, as tragedies. This is not a sports story. But it is the most terrible human tragedy. Those who have suffered similarly can empathise. But it is above all a private horror, an event that will alter the lives of family and friends for ever.
Subject of a fierce bidding war, this charming debut shows Trevelyan has an impressive knack for character, but is let down by a predictable plot
Writing a story from a child’s perspective works like a filter over a lens. Novels such as Sofie Laguna’s The Eye of the Sheep, Craig Silvey’s Jasper Jones and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time use a younger person’s narration to process darker, adult themes and reveal the mythologies of the adult world. Jennifer Trevelyan’s debut A Beautiful Family uses a similar framing to tell an immersive yet imperfect coming-of-age mystery set in New Zealand.
It’s 1985, and 10-year-old Alix – a tomboyish, inquisitive girl who is never without her red Walkman and Split Enz cassette tape – is on holiday with her family, who have left their Wellington home for the nearby Kāpiti Coast. Her novelist mother normally prefers secluded spots, but this time she has curiously opted for a populous beach town. Between her parents’ bickering and her older sister’s burgeoning interest in boys and alcohol, Alix has often felt invisible. This has made her a keen observer, and she understands more than people think.
A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan is out now in Australia (Allen & Unwin, $32.99), UK (Pan Macmillan, £16.99, £15.29 on the Guardian Bookshop) and the US (Penguin Random House, US$28)
Chancellor unexpectedly joins NHS plan launch and tells media her upset was caused by a personal issue
Rachel Reeves has said she is “cracking on with the job” of chancellor, after a very public show of unity from Keir Starmer after her visible distress in the Commons.
In her first comments since her tearful appearance at Wednesday’s prime minister’s questions, Reeves said she had been upset about a personal matter, and that the only real difference to someone else having a bad day at work was that she then had to be seen on television.
Residents formed a safety watch after a neo-Nazi march in Lincoln Heights, but racist incidents still cause turmoil
Despite its proximity to a busy highway, Lincoln Heights’ rolling hills, parks and well-kept lawns are pictures of calm suburban life north of Cincinnati.
Today it’s home to about 3,000 mostly African American people a few miles from Kentucky and the Ohio River, which divided free northern states from the slave-owning south. In the 1920s, Lincoln Heights became one of the first self-governing Black communities north of the Mason-Dixon line.
The detention center visit seemed to represent a landmark in a defining issue since even before his first term: migration
Donald Trump’s tour of the bloodcurdlingly monikered – and hastily constructed – “Alligator Alcatraz” migrants detention center in Florida’s Everglades had the hallmarks of a calculatedly provocative celebration of the dystopian.
Accompanied by Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis and a phalanx of journalists, the US president saw only virtue in the vista of mesh fencing, barbed wire and forbidding steel bunk beds.
I have to say, the Stade Tourbillon is probably one of the most picturesque stadiums I think I’ve ever seen! The mountainous backdrop behind the ground is absolutely stunning. Anyway, onto the football now…
The teams are out! The national anthems are about to be sung. Kick-off is just a few moments away!
Syrian man, 32, was granted asylum in 2014 but lost refugee status because of a criminal conviction
Austria has returned a Syrian with a criminal conviction to his birth country in what it described as the first such deportation since the fall of the Assad regime.
“The deportation carried out today is part of a strict and thus fair asylum policy,” Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, said in a statement.
Combs remains jailed awaiting sentencing as more than 50 civil cases alleging abuse and assault move forward
After two months, the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs came to a close on Wednesday with a mixed verdict. The jury acquitted the 55-year-old music mogul of the most serious charges – racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking – but found him guilty on the two lesser counts of transportation to engage in prostitution.
Still, this verdict marks only one chapter in Combs’s mounting legal battles. Combs, who remains incarcerated at the Metropolitan detention center in Brooklyn, is now awaiting sentencing and faces a growing number of civil lawsuits against him alleging sexual assault and abuse.
The actor on working with Mike Leigh, death by disco ball and drinking on the job
Has your northern accent helped or hindered your career? Eluned51 They do call a group of actors a “moan” of actors. We like to have a good moan. When people hear a regional accent, they immediately make assumptions about your class, financial status and education. People generally think if you’ve got a strong regional accent, you can’t do much else. Obviously there are amazing actors like Jodie Comer who smash that to pieces because people don’t realise she’s from Liverpool. But because I came out the traps with the northern accent it’s probably helped.
Do you ever suffer from impostor syndrome and think: “Why are people so fascinated by me?” RealEdPhillips I don’t ever think people are – I think they are generally quite bored by me! Of course I have impostor syndrome. When you don’t get a job, you can’t help but think: “Why didn’t I get that job? Why don’t they think I’m good enough?” So there’s a healthy balance of inferiority complex and slightly prickly ego.
I recently chatted with a middle-aged co-worker about her friend who is unhappy being single and thinks she should lose weight. As Gen X women growing up in the 1980s, our biggest concern was weight and calorie counting to control it (now we can add wrinkles, yellow teeth and odd body hair to the list).
Lawyer claims families falsely told they would not get compensation unless they completed complicated forms
The lawyer representing families whose loved ones died in the Air India flight 171 crash has said he is “angered and appalled” by the airline’s “ethically outrageous” behaviour towards bereaved relatives.
Air India said the claims, which they take “incredibly seriously”, are “unsubstantiated and inaccurate”.
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