Keyword – Global
Trefwoorden – Newsletter sign-up
Title – Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email | Newsletter sign-up | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – Sign up for the First Edition newsletter: our free daily news email | Newsletter sign-up | The Guardian
Publish date – 2022-09-20T10:16:38.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/global/2022/sep/20/sign-up-for-the-first-edition-newsletter-our-free-news-email

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Climate crisis, Environment, Extreme weather, Drought, United Nations, World news, Water, Papua New Guinea, Health, Asia Pacific, Pacific islands, Society
Title – Half of world’s children exposed to at least three climate hazards, Unicef says | Climate crisis | The Guardian
Author – Mason Bunting
Link – Half of world’s children exposed to at least three climate hazards, Unicef says | Climate crisis | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T05:00:46.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/16/half-of-worlds-children-exposed-to-at-least-three-climate-hazards-unicef-says

Half of the world’s children are exposed to at least three overlapping climate hazards threatening their health, education and survival, according to a Unicef report.

Globally, children face increasing threats from heatwaves, storms, floods and droughts as the climate crisis worsens, with more than one billion facing at least three of these at once.

Striking footage released by the UN agency shows children in Papua New Guinea swimming across a crocodile-filled river to get to school after a vital footbridge washed away during heavy rains and was not replaced.

Lorna, 15, is one of those who has to swim across the Kemp Welch river in Launkalana, in the Rigo district of Papua New Guinea, to get to school. The community owns a few small boats, according to Unicef staff who visited, but the youngest children are prioritised.

“During our periods, our elders do not allow us to cross the river to attend our classes as they think it will attract crocodiles … My dream is to become a teacher or pilot. We want a new bridge so we can go to school safely every day,” Lorna said.

According to Unicef, the community has been unable to raise funds to replace the bridge, which washed away in 2012, and is faced with increasing challenges further exacerbated by the climate crisis.

Lorna’s headteacher, Charlie Vali David, said the loss of the bridge was taking a huge toll on the community.

“During monsoon season, heavy currents, dead trees and debris block the river – causing injury and death,” he said. “Many children fall sick from the cold, dirty river water. That creates a learning gap. Especially for the females.”

The Children’s Climate Risk Report found rising temperatures and extreme weather are putting more stress on infrastructure, and warned that key roads and bridges are being hit, with dire consequences for the local community.

It found that almost every child around the world, including those from high-income countries, is now exposed to at least one hazard, while 123,000 experience more than six in their lifetimes.

“The lives of children continue to be upended by the impact of heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods,” said Unicef’s executive director, Catherine Russell. “Half of the world’s children are now living with at least three overlapping climate threats shaping their daily lives.”

Unicef analysed young people’s exposure to eight climate hazards: coastal floods, droughts, extreme heat, fires, heatwaves, river floods, sand and dust storms, and tropical storms.

It found the Sahel region of Africa is one of the hardest hit globally, with more than 4 million children facing the triple threat of heatwaves, extreme heat, and sand and dust storms. Meanwhile, children in Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Myanmar and Pakistan were found to be exposed to more climate hazards than anywhere else in the world.

High-income countries are not immune to overlapping climate shocks. In Italy, for example, more than 6 million children are exposed to prolonged heatwaves and drought.

Unicef outlined a plan to better protect children, calling on governments and businesses to reduce emissions and improve climate adaptation with a focus on the services children rely on.

Russell said: “This analysis can help governments and decision-makers plan better and invest more effectively in resilient services. When we strengthen health and education systems, and improve infrastructure with children in mind, we protect them from today’s climate threats and help secure their future.”

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – US news, US politics, Donald Trump, Washington DC
Title – Algae thwarts Trump’s $14.2m attempt to turn reflecting pool ‘American flag blue’ | US news | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/callum-jones
Link – Algae thwarts Trump’s $14.2m attempt to turn reflecting pool ‘American flag blue’ | US news | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T12:35:58.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/16/algae-trump-lincoln-memorial-reflecting-pool

Donald Trump ’s $14.2m bid to turn the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool from what the US president described as a “filthy” and “dirty” site into a “beautiful” monument has encountered a hitch.

The water is green again.

Days after the renovation was finished, algae has frustrated Trump’s attempt to transform the shade of the pool to “American flag blue” in time for the country’s 250th birthday.

The reflecting pool – one of Washington DC’s most historically symbolic attractions, and the scene of Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I have a dream” speech – has been one element of Trump’s efforts to recondition the country’s capital during his second presidency.

A no-bid contract to waterproof and repaint the site, which dates back over a century, raised eyebrows. It was awarded to a Virginia-based company, Atlantic Industrial Coatings, which had previously carried out work on a swimming pool at one of the president’s golf clubs.

The administration had claimed “residual” algae would be cleared in the immediate aftermath of the renovation. But it has proliferated amid warm weather.

The US Department of the Interior has claimed in recent days that the installation of a water treatment system which a spokesperson described as “nanobubbler technology” would help address the algae issue.

“The nanobubbler technology has successfully destroyed the algae bloom that has plagued every pool reopening since 1922,” a spokesperson told the Guardian on Tuesday. The spokesperson claimed the pool had been “broken and disgusting” days after a project that took place while Barack Obama was president.

“Now, due to deploying the advanced nanobubbler technology, the algae is dead and being vacuumed up as we speak,” the spokesperson added. “We thank President Trump for fixing the reflecting pool for good.”

In a 5 June post on his Truth Social platform, Trump claimed the renovation he ordered of the reflecting pool would stand the test of time. “This was not a paint job,” he said. “This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last for 100 years, applied by very talented people.”

Administration officials have repeatedly claimed that other presidents tried and failed in years gone by to beautify the pool with “extremely costly” projects.

While Trump initially put the cost of this latest effort at about $1.8m, it quickly rose beyond $14m .

National Park Service employees were seen using skimmers on Monday in a bid to clean algae from the reflecting pool and return to it to the intended hue.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Literary criticism, Books, Culture
Title – The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren review – can the ideal society ever exist? | Literary criticism | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/stevenpoole
Link – The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren review – can the ideal society ever exist? | Literary criticism | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T08:00:49.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/16/the-uses-of-utopia-by-joad-raymond-wren-review-can-the-ideal-society-ever-exist

B y definition, utopia cannot exist. In 1516, educated readers of Thomas More’s Utopia would have appreciated a tension between two possible derivations of this novel word: the Greek “eu-topos”, meaning good place, and “ou-topos”, meaning not a place at all. It might have been a compact warning that one should never attempt to turn utopias into reality. Those who have tried usually witnessed the model societies they founded devolving into grungily dysfunctional communes, weird sex cults, or both.

In this richly diverting intellectual history of the idea, we begin, as we must, with Plato, and the zany prescriptions of his Republic (“we should neutralise the poets’ influence on mothers”). Passing in silence over the potentially utopian aspects of Jesus’s thinking, we arrive at More’s utopia, where “nothing is private”, and so “the common affairs be earnestly looked upon”. The great Renaissance scientist Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis portrays a utopia of rational scientific experimentation – which, Wren suggests ingeniously, might have inspired Wakanda in the Marvel Black Panther films. The 17th-century duchess Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World imagines the author as a goddess elected by a world of human-animal hybrids who like science. In the 18th century, Sarah Scott’s Millenium [sic] Hall imagined an ideal society of women without men, as did Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland during the first world war.

Some patterns emerge: many utopias employ a framing device in which the narrator is accidentally or fantastically transported to a new land, and then subjected to reams of expository monologue about how it all works. Families are often abolished, with children raised in common. And in Edward Bellamy’s 1888 fantasy Looking Backward, Wren explains straightfacedly, “there are no law schools or lawyers, abolished here as in most utopias”.

Families are allowed, though, in Voyage en Icarie, by the 19th-century French socialist Étienne Cabet, which envisions a sternly regimented communism. In 1849 Cabet founded his own model society, Icaria, in Illinois. Alas, after a few years, “Cabet’s citizens were hoarding possessions; they indulged in vices including hunting and fishing, swearing, tobacco and alcohol; the women wore makeup, jewellery and perfume.” Cabet’s solution to this disgraceful state of affairs was to insist on even stricter rules, and to make himself president “for four years instead of one”. Just so does utopia always threaten to turn into dictatorship.

It is odd, then, that Wren never mentions a famous reckoning with the concept of utopia. In 1974, the American political philosopher Robert Nozick published Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which argues that the only morally permissible state is a “minimal” one that guarantees property rights and security, and enforces contracts. People should be free to build whatever forms of association they like on top of that, as long as membership is never coerced. But for Nozick utopias are always coercive because not everyone will agree freely with their values. “It is helpful to imagine cavemen sitting together to think up what, for all time, will be the best possible society and then setting out to institute it,” Nozick writes. “Do none of the reasons that make you smile at this apply to us?”

Many features of the utopias in Wren’s splendid catalogue, after all, are rather sad. In Gilman’s Moving the Mountain, “There are almost no pets, as they’re wasteful.” In Voyage en Icarie, “The decorative prints are full of useful information, as opposed to pointless landscape paintings.” The Victorian artist William Morris, in News from Nowhere, describes an elite “samurai” class, his society’s natural nobility, who “must not act or sing … they can’t play or watch competitive sport.” But inasmuch as utopias are primarily “organic machines for thinking about the premises of our thought”, Wren argues, they are more like science fiction – and some indeed have been science fiction. He mentions here the 1970s “anarchist utopia” of Ursula K Le Guin’s The Dispossessed, but probably the most popular strain of utopian fiction over the last few decades has been the epic series of Culture novels by Iain M Banks, which posits fully automated luxury communism in space among a pan-galactic society of augmented humans.

Still, things regularly go awry in this ideal society, from attack by intolerant fanatics, to rogue AI utilitarianism, or unfeasibly ancient alien artefacts. The best utopian fiction therefore ends up implicitly anti-utopian as well; at its highest level of practise, perhaps, utopia vanishes into the great flow of literature itself.

The Uses of Utopia by Joad Raymond Wren is published by Allen Lane (£25). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Transfer window, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Football, Sport
Title – Real Madrid announce signing of Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella in £52m deal | Transfer window | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jacob-steinberg
Link – Real Madrid announce signing of Chelsea’s Marc Cucurella in £52m deal | Transfer window | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-15T09:18:58.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/14/real-madrid-marc-cucurella-chelsea-transfer-window-football

Real Madrid have announced the signing of Marc Cucurella from Chelsea in a package worth up to €60m (£52m).

News of the deal emerged on Sunday, with this Spanish club now revealing a six-year deal has been negotiated. “Real Madrid CF and Chelsea FC have reached an agreement for the transfer of the player Marc Cucurella, who will be linked to our club for the next six seasons, until June 30, 2032,” a club statement released on Monday morning read.

Chelsea also released a statement confirming the move has gone through. “Marc Cucurella has completed a permanent transfer to Spanish La Liga side Real Madrid,” it read. “Everyone at Chelsea FC would like to thank Marc for his efforts during his time at the club and for the role he played in our recent achievements.”

The Spain left-back, who is preparing to face Cape Verde in the World Cup, threw his future into doubt when he criticised the Chelsea hierarchy during the March international break. Cucurella said the team paid for “inexperience” when thrashed by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, and he raised misgivings over Enzo Maresca’s departure as head coach.

A return to Spain has been on the cards and Cucurella has signed a contract at the Bernabéu until 2032 on after four years at Stamford Bridge. Madrid will pay an initial €55m plus €5m in add-ons for the 27-year-old.

Chelsea will regard this as the right time to cash in on Cucurella, who overcame a difficult start after joining from Brighton for £62m.

They felt his level dipped after Christmas and were encouraged by the form of Cucurella’s deputy, the 20-year-old Netherlands left-back Jorrel Hato.

Madrid, who are revamping their squad after two trophyless years, are moving quickly after appointing José Mourinho as their manager and have bolstered their defence with moves for the Netherlands right-back Denzel Dumfries and the former Liverpool centre-back Ibrahima Konaté. They have also agreed to sign the former Manchester City midfielder Bernardo Silva on a free transfer.

It remains to be seen whether Madrid look to do further business with Chelsea by attempting to sign Enzo Fernández. The Argentina midfielder joined Cucurella in speaking out against the hierarchy towards the end of the season.

Fernández has made little secret of his desire to join Madrid but Chelsea will look for more than £100m for the former Benfica midfielder.

Chelsea, who missed out on qualification for Europe, will also be guided by the wishes of their new manager, Xabi Alonso.

They are not under pressure to make sales but Fernández, unlike Cole Palmer and Moisés Caicedo, is not regarded as one of the club’s untouchables.

Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Games, Culture, The Simpsons, Animation on TV, Television
Title – Mr Monopoly vs Mr Burns: The Simpsons take over Monopoly Go | Games | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bex-april-may
Link – Mr Monopoly vs Mr Burns: The Simpsons take over Monopoly Go | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-15T11:00:23.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/15/mr-monopoly-vs-mr-burns-the-simpsons-take-over-monopoly-go

E very generation gets its own Simpsons game. Them’s the rule-diddly-ules. For some, it was the arcade cabinets that swallowed pocket money throughout the 1990s. For others, it was The Simpsons: Cartoon Studio. For millennials like myself, it was The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Joe Zanetti, vice-president of operations at Monopoly Go! developer Scopely, traces his Simpsons gaming nostalgia back to Konami’s 1991 brawler, The Simpsons Arcade Game. “That’s the one that made such an impression on me,” he says.

It certainly did, because Springfield has just crash-landed in Monopoly Go! itself through a collaboration involving Simpsons writers, animators and voice talent alongside a new animated short starring Dan Castellaneta, Nancy Cartwright, Harry Shearer and Will Ferrell. While most licensed TV games have faded into obscurity, The Simpsons keeps finding new digital lives .

“It was a true Simpsons little episode,” says Loni Steele Sosthand, a co-executive producer who is in her sixth season writing for The Simpsons. She’s speaking to us from the Fox lot in Los Angeles, where she is currently working on the show’s 2027 Treehouse of Horror episodes – just to give an idea of how long these projects are in the works.

The Simpsons has always felt unusually suited to games. Unlike many sitcoms, Springfield isn’t just a setting but an entire densely populated world with hundreds of characters, dozens of recognisable locations and decades of running jokes waiting to be explored, from the Stonecutters to Mr Sparkle.

That flexibility has allowed the franchise to move effortlessly between genres, from arcade beat-’em-ups to open-world adventures. Monopoly Go! is simply the latest stop on the gaming monorail.

Sosthand thinks the reason is simple. “At heart it’s a family show,” she says.

It’s also a show that has always thrived on mischief, which gives the creators permission to be naughty themselves. “It’s not: ‘This is our box,’” says Zanetti. “It’s more: ‘How can we break the box?’”

The most unusual thing about the new Monopoly Go! collaboration – a two-month Springfield takeover featuring original storylines, animated shorts, themed mini-games and dozens of Simpsons characters – is the level of creative involvement behind the scenes. Rather than licensing characters and applying a yellow coat of paint, Scopely worked directly with Simpsons writers, artists and animators for months. It was less about borrowing Simpsons characters and more about borrowing Simpsons writers.

“We weren’t just providing a homage,” says Zanetti.

The team obsessed over details. Characters such as Rich Texan and Homer’s pet pig Plopper made their way into the game alongside familiar faces. One of Sosthand’s favourite inclusions is Cowboy Carl, a nod to her Writers Guild award-winning episode Carl Carlson Rides Again, which explored the character’s Black cowboy heritage.

“We were trying to come up with a joke for every mechanic,” Zanetti says. “That one really felt very writers’ roomy.”

Veteran animator Eric Keyes, who has worked on the show since the beginning, acted as an unofficial quality controller. “He can just glance at something and see if there’s not the right number of eyelashes,” says Sosthand.

Decades ago, a Simpsons video game typically meant a TV show adapted into interactive form. Today, the relationship runs both ways. “I’ve been impressed with the richness of this world we’re creating,” says Sosthand. “I have a newfound respect for games.”

Live-service games such as Monopoly Go! are places where audiences spend years rather than hours. For a franchise as established as The Simpsons, they can offer something television increasingly struggles to provide: an endlessly expandable world.

Over nearly four decades, the series has survived every major shift in entertainment: broadcast television, DVDs, streaming, social media. Most franchises eventually become trapped by nostalgia; The Simpsons seems to dump it straight back into the Springfield nuclear power plant and convert it into fresh fuel.

Perhaps that’s why the showdown between Mr Burns and Mr Monopoly in the game feels oddly natural. As Zanetti puts it, both occupy “a really important place in the zeitgeist”.

More than three decades after Homer first walked into Moe’s Tavern, Springfield remains woven into the fabric of popular culture. And if the journey from arcade cabinets to Monopoly Go! proves anything, it’s that The Simpsons’ greatest trick was never predicting the future . It was finding new ways to belong in it.

The Simpsons season of Monopoly Go! is running until 29 July as a free download on iOS and Android.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Football, Leicester City, Sport, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Championship, League One
Title – Leicester appoint Russell Martin as Wolves unveil César Peixoto as coach | Football | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dominic-booth
Link – Leicester appoint Russell Martin as Wolves unveil César Peixoto as coach | Football | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-15T21:33:31.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/15/leicester-appoint-russell-martin-as-wolves-unveil-cesar-peixoto-as-coach

Leicester have confirmed Russell Martin’s appointment as manager, on the same day as Wolves unveiled César Peixoto as head coach, replacing Rob Edwards.

The two Midlands clubs were relegated from the Championship and the Premier League respectively last season and have moved quickly to restructure their setup, with Martin joining Leicester eight months after his nightmare 123-day stint in charge of Rangers came to an end.

The 40-year-old has signed a ⁠contract until 2029 and his remit will be to inspire an immediate return to the second tier after Leicester’s shock relegation to League One in 2025-26, amid a litany of off-field problems including a points deduction.

“I’m delighted to be here and excited to begin working with the ‌players and staff,” said Martin, who previously had spells in charge of MK Dons, Swansea and Southampton. “This is a club with great history, strong support ​and high expectations. My immediate focus is on the team: building strong relationships, setting clear standards and creating performances that Leicester City supporters can connect with.”

Leicester’s chief football officer, Jon Rudkin, described Martin, who is known for his possession-based football, as “a strong leader, a clear decision-maker and ​someone with ‌a defined way ​of working”. He insisted Martin “is well placed to help us move forward with purpose and direction”.

Peixoto, meanwhile, has joined Wolves from the Portuguese top-flight club Gil Vicente, with whom he finished sixth in the Primeira Liga in 2025-26. He will be tasked with restoring their Premier League status after they finished rock bottom with 20 points under Edwards, who replaced Vítor Pereira in November.

Edwards’ sacking last week came out of the blue after the former Middlesbrough coach had reportedly been a major factor in the recent signings of Raúl Jiménez and Kieran Trippier. Peixoto’s appointment means four of the past seven Wolves managers have been from Portugal.

“I’m proud to be here at this big, historic club in England,” he said. “It’s a big opportunity for me and I’m prepared to do everything to put Wolves where it belongs in the Premier League.”

The Wolves chair, Nathan Shi, said: “Throughout our discussions with [Peixoto], it became clear very quickly that he possesses many of the qualities we believe are important for the future of this club.”

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Nigel Farage, Immigration and asylum, Reform UK, Robert Jenrick, Race, Politics, UK news
Title – Reform UK’s Honest Bob stands up for the little people like him | John Crace | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/johncrace
Link – Reform UK’s Honest Bob stands up for the little people like him | John Crace | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-15T16:22:08.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/15/reform-uk-robert-jenrick-little-people-like-him

N ow is not a good time to be a white Brit born in this country. Nigel Farage is clear about this. So much so that he wrote a 6,000 word Substack piece about it at the weekend. Or rather someone did. Possibly an intern who had been told to channel their inner Nige.

Or maybe, if Matt Goodwin was involved, ChatGPT helped out. “Write me an essay in the style of an even more deranged Rupert Lowe.” Don’t hold back. Go for it. The UK is unrecognisable. Foreigners everywhere. It’s time that black and disabled people started paying reparations to white people. For all the benefits they have taken off us.

No one has suffered more than Robert Jenrick . A man who has only ever wanted to do the right thing for his country. Apart from the times when he was actively doing bad things. Like making sure a Tory donor and pornographer was granted a previously denied planning permission with just hours to spare to avoid charges of £50m in the council’s community infrastructure levy. Nothing matters more than looking after your friends. Like painting over murals of cartoon characters in an asylum seeker reception centre for migrant children. It’s what they would have wanted.

Honest Bob. Always the victim. Take the Tory leadership election of 2024. He had been certain he would win. It had been obvious to him that he was by far the best candidate. But the vote had been rigged because Tory members had all been told to positively discriminate in favour of a black woman. It was now impossible for a white man to get on in the modern-day Conservative party.

Kemi Badenoch had been handed the job that should have been his. Enough was enough. Like Nige, he too thought the time had come to reassert white privilege. Just look at the world. Full of foreigners. Most of whom had come over to the UK. True Brits had been demoted to the bottom of the pile.

No more Mr Nice Guy for Honest Bob. He’d always been one to stand up for the little people. The oppressed. The people like him. For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse. And for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing. Now he was Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen combined. The voice of protest. The fight back started here. Time to see more white faces in the boardrooms of the top FTSE 100 companies.

Nige has been so downtrodden that he too is now on benefits. Albeit ones handed out to him as a £5m gift from a Thai crypto-billionaire. And that’s before we get to the £1.4m second – or is it third? – home that he already owns. He too was the victim in all this. If he had been black then he would have been given at least £10m. And no one would have batted an eyelid. Because that’s what every black person is getting a week on universal credit. The discrimination is never ending. Which is why Nige has gone to ground.

So it was left to Honest Bob to take the press conference on Monday morning. It was scheduled to start at 11am but there was still no sign of him by 10 past. He talks a lot about the honesty of alarm clock Britain. He appears to have his on snooze. Or maybe he was just sulking, having just discovered that Kemi Badenoch was trying to steal his thunder with a press conference of her own at the same time. The attendance at Reform HQ was … sparse, to say the least. Yet another example of Kemi using her black privilege against him. Not for much longer.

Eventually Jenrick was coaxed into the room and made his way to a lectern with “British Workers First” written across the front. That’s the type of nativism that warms his heart. First he had things to get off his chest. Foreigners. They were everywhere. Taking all our jobs. Costing us hundreds of billions of pounds. Using our roads, hospitals and schools. He didn’t have the exact figures, but didn’t want to interrupt his stream of unconsciousness. It was a FACT. Foreigners were forcing Brits on to benefits.

So here was the plan. Reform was going to scrap Rachel Reeves’s employers’ national insurance hike. But only for British workers. And by British, he meant British. Not those with indefinite leave to remain. Not EU workers with settled status. Even if they were married and had children who were born British, they would still be deported. It was far better for kids to have no parents than parents who weren’t British. They could go to the workhouse. Or be put up for adoption. Who cares? Because if your parents aren’t British, then neither are you. Not really.

And if employers did choose to retain an immigrant workforce, there would have to be a foreign worker levy. The less the staff earned, the higher the levy would be. That was the only way of getting employers and workers to see sense. For the last time. Foreigners should just go home. The sooner the better. He couldn’t say what the levy would be right now. Because that would be irresponsible. People expected more from Reform than figures. But rest assured it would be a lot.

By now almost everyone in the room was slightly bemused. Was Honest Bob a halfwit? Or was he worse than that? A quarterwit. Because it had been clear to the entire country that the reason Brits weren’t working in care homes wasn’t because the foreigners had pipped them to the jobs. It was because they didn’t want to do them. They would rather not look after old people and those with disabilities. There again, maybe they instinctively knew what was good for the country. Old people and the disabled have also had it easy for far too long.

There was just time for one question on the social media ban for under-16s that Keir Starmer had announced a few hours earlier. Honest Bob equivocated. He believed in free speech. What was really needed was a social media ban for foreigners. Then Brits could get back to being Brits.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Tennis, Emma Raducanu, Sport
Title – Emma Raducanu fights back from shocking start but loses Queen’s final to Donna Vekic | Tennis | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tumaini-carayol
Link – Emma Raducanu fights back from shocking start but loses Queen’s final to Donna Vekic | Tennis | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-14T14:59:51.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/14/emma-raducanu-fights-back-from-shocking-start-but-loses-queens-final-to-donna-vekic

Emma Raducanu walked through the famous clubhouse at the Queen’s Club and down to the stadium court smiling widely. She had arrived at this occasion, another noteworthy final in front of a home crowd on a historic court, playing some of the best tennis of her life. It had the makings of the second perfect day in her career.

That smile was wiped off her face by a ruthless performance from one of the few true grass court enthusiasts in Donna Vekic of Croatia, a lucky loser, who produced an inspired attacking display to clinch the biggest title of her career, beating Raducanu 6-0, 7-6 (6) in the final.

Despite a torrid start, the British player gave herself many chances to force a final set and keep alive her shot at a second career title after the stunning US Open triumph in 2021 .

Raducanu, who went into the match as the world No 42, fought brilliantly to lead 5-2 in the second set and held two set points on her serve at 5-4 but was too tentative in the decisive moments. She was painfully disappointed at her inability to at least extend the match.

“I haven’t really played much this season, but to think I have made two finals so far, which I haven’t done in years, it has to be celebrated. It’s a good achievement for me and I’m proud of it,” said Raducanu. “Right now it obviously really stings, so I’m just going let myself feel it today but try to get over it pretty quick.”

Her performances this week still represent a massive step forward. Raducanu had not won a match since March after a post-viral illness, her latest in a long line of physical ailments, had sidelined her for two months. She found her way again by performing at an excellent level throughout the week. The next step is for her to learn how to perform consistently and remain healthy enough for an extended period of time so she can put herself in these positions more regularly.

“I think I have been training well the last months,” said Raducanu. “I have been doing the same thing every day. On the clay, I just didn’t have the results, but I was applying myself the best I possibly could each day. Even when I didn’t necessarily feel like it, even when I felt down about the results, I kept showing up. It was great to see the result of that this week.”

Despite her loss in qualifying and her current ranking of 76, Vekic is a formidable player and at her strongest on a grass court. The 29-year-old reached the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 2024, just missing out on the final, shortly before earning an Olympic singles silver medal in Paris. She reached a career-high ranking of No 17 last year. There is nothing surprising about a player of Vekic’s calibre winning a WTA 500 event.

Her path to the title is another example of how odd this sport can be. Vekic lost her final qualifying match in straight sets to Anna Blinkova, who was then bulldozed 6-0, 6-3 in the first round by Raducanu.

Vekic had felt so sick on the weekend that, after losing to Blinkova, she had been hoping not to be drafted in as a lucky loser. She relied on antibiotics to help see her through the opening rounds before playing freely from the semi-final stage, defeating Katie Boulter and Raducanu in consecutive days. “I was just really grateful that I had another opportunity to play,” she said.

At her best, Vekic is one of the best servers on the tour and a big, flat ball-striker. She pulverised the ball off both wings, particularly her stellar two-handed backhand, and was untouchable behind her serve.

Raducanu had entered the final after a dramatic Saturday in which she won two matches, including a semi-final victory against the world No 19, Iva Jovic, and recovered after appearing to hurt her thigh when slipping in the first match. The combined weight of Raducanu’s fatigue, physical niggles and tension complicated her attempts to counter a spectacular Vekic. Raducanu lacked pace on her groundstrokes and struggled to absorb the immense pace generated by Vekic across the net. Her serve, a pillar of her success this week, was poor, and she looked uncertain out of the corners.

Still, Raducanu fought hard and she should have contested a final set. After failing to serve out the second set at 5-2, she generated two set points at 5-4. On the second, a strong first serve set up an easy forehand right on top of the net, but she tried to wrongfoot Vekic, who stood her ground and rolled a sweet backhand lob over her head. Quickly down 5-6, Raducanu valiantly saved three match points on her serve to force a tie-break but Vekic re-established control of the baseline and held her nerve to complete an unforgettable recovery from her sickbed to her most significant title.

J ust about everyone reckons Vladimir Putin is in deep trouble in Ukraine. Everyone – meaning Volodymyr Zelenskyy , his European backers and western military analysts and commentators – seems to believe Russia’s dictator is heading for humiliation. They could all be wrong, of course. But what if they’re right? How might a desperate, cornered Putin, fearful for his policy and person, react to the prospect of defeat? On past form, he will escalate, not capitulate. His options range from trolling YouTube to waging nuclear war.

For Ukraine, the latest news is mostly good. Using sophisticated Ukrainian-made drones and missiles, it has forced the invaders on to the back foot. Russia’s tally of dead and wounded is said to be running to 30,000 each month . Its advance has stalled – and in some places has been reversed. Ukrainian airstrikes deep into Russian territory are bringing the war home to a misled, disillusioned public. St Petersburg burns . Fuel shortages cause panic buying. Prices and taxes are rising . Putin’s 2022 “special military operation”, which was supposed to bring swift victory, has now lasted longer than the first world war.

Ukrainians still suffer daily, ever more indiscriminate air attacks. But speaking to the Guardian last week, Zelenskyy sounded optimistic that the nightmare may be near an end. His view is backed, up to a point, by western experts. Jack Watling, a land warfare specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, wrote this month that Russia’s battlefield combat power is faltering and a ceasefire may be within reach. “Putin’s savagery is exceeded only by its futility. Slowly but surely, he is losing his war ,” wrote the US commentator Seth Stodder.

All well and good. But three awkward questions arise. First, does Putin actually realise he’s losing? Russia’s leader is a conservative, old-school thug. He thinks Russia is still a superpower, not what he’s made it: a despised rogue state and Chinese client. Out-of-touch Putin doesn’t use a smartphone or the internet. He’s said to rely on inner circle apparatchiks, loyalist generals, spies and state media , who tell him what he wants to hear. If so, he’ll just keep going regardless.

Yet this assessment raises a second, alarming question: what will Putin do if and when his Kremlin bubble bursts and it suddenly dawns on him that a devastating strategic and personal defeat looms? Don’t expect him to sue for peace. Only last week he contemptuously dismissed Zelenskyy’s offer of ceasefire talks , stubbornly reiterating his war aims wishlist.

Putin’s more probable reaction would be to double down by expanding the active war zone beyond Ukraine, potentially drawing European Nato member states into the open-ended, direct confrontation they have avoided until now. In many respects, this is already happening. Hence a chorus of urgent warnings from European security, intelligence and military chiefs about how Russian sabotage, subversion and coercion are accelerating, the more it struggles in Ukraine.

“The frontline is everywhere,” the head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, warned. “The export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in the Russian approach to international engagement.” It was the product, she said, of Putin’s “aggressive, expansionist and revisionist mindset”. Keir Starmer says western intelligence believes Russia could attack a Nato country within the next four years – which makes the furious row over future UK defence spending all the more relevant.

Anne Keast-Butler, head of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency, claimed last month that Moscow’s forces were “ going backwards on the battlefield ”. Putin’s response entailed intensifying pressure on Ukraine’s allies and neighbours, notably through cyber-attacks and covert disinformation campaigns. Moscow was “relentlessly targeting critical infrastructure, democratic processes, supply chains and public trust”, she said.

Russia’s offensive is becoming more physically aggressive, too. Armed drone and combat jet incursions into Nato airspace are multiplying. Thousands of GPS interference incidents, disrupting civilian aviation and maritime navigation, are blamed on Russia. Poland’s rail network, which supplies Ukraine, has been sabotaged. Germany and the UK have suffered similar attacks. Baltic undersea pipelines and internet cables have been cut. In this undeclared war, Norway’s land border with Russia, the North Sea and the North Atlantic approaches are emerging fronts.

The expanding battlefield has a strong geopolitical aspect. The EU, having imposed additional sanctions on Russia last week, is finally opening formal membership talks with Ukraine. Next month’s Nato summit will see renewed pledges of solidarity, notwithstanding US backsliding. On Europe’s eastern frontier, most recently in Moldova and Armenia , Russian influence campaigns have been repulsed. Viktor Orbán’s defeat in Hungary was a big setback for Putin and pro-Moscow far-right populist-nationalist forces. The western Balkans are another testing ground.

Russia is expected to further intensify hybrid warfare operations across Europe, the Centre for Democracy & Resilience thinktank said. A key aim is undermining coordinated western action by spreading fear and confusion. At some point soon, it suggested, European states will have to abandon one-off responses , acknowledge they are collectively under attack, and hit back by imposing greater “direct, asymmetric costs” on Russia. Amid the biggest planned rearmament in Europe since the 1930s, it’s but a short step to head-on east-west military conflict.

The more robust the pushback, the more extreme may be Putin’s reaction. His original decision to risk a full-scale invasion of Ukraine was not rational. He has since resorted to grotesque “human wave” infantry assaults, mass child abductions, innumerable war crimes against civilians, reckless attacks on nuclear power plants and “deranged” hypersonic ballistic missile strikes . These are not the actions of a normal, level-headed person. So when ex-president Dmitry Medvedev, Putin’s mouthpiece, threatens Europe with nuclear weapons , as he often does, that ultimate madness cannot be wholly ruled out.

How does this end? Maybe it doesn’t. A third awkward question arising from Putin’s foundering Ukraine campaign concerns the shape of any future “peace” agreement. Ukraine and Europe are aching for it all to stop. Knowing this, Putin may try to freeze the conflict while reorganising and re-arming; or he could accept Zelenskyy’s ceasefire offer without sincerely committing to a lasting settlement. Herein lies great danger for Kyiv. Public pressure to bring the troops home and hold fresh elections could fracture Ukraine’s fragile unity. If the Russian threat appeared to recede, European governments might reduce military support. A ceasefire without cast-iron, pre-agreed security guarantees could render Ukraine more, not less, vulnerable to renewed aggression.

Current western optimism may be misplaced. Yet it helps to remember that one man alone is the primary cause of all this pain and suffering – not history, geography, identity or ideology. The Russian people have a responsibility, to Ukraine , the world and themselves, to remove him from power, as previously argued here. Without Putin, everything is possible. With him, it’s war without end.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator