Keyword – The Grid
Trefwoorden – The Grid
Title – The grid unlocked: how does a greener power network actually work? | The Grid | The Guardian
Author – Helena Pozniak
Link – The grid unlocked: how does a greener power network actually work? | The Grid | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-03-30T10:14:27.000Z
Category – Labs
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/the-grid/2026/mar/30/how-a-greener-electricity-grid-works

In the 20th century, the UK’s electricity grid was shaped by coal-fired power stations, clustered in the industrial heartlands. The once world-leading system was designed for a one-way energy flow from power plants to consumers – whose use of electricity was modest and predictable.

The shift to cleaner energy and growing electrification of all aspects of life means the grid of 70 years ago is no longer fit for purpose. With power generated from a wider and more disparate range of sources, significant investment and pioneering technology are required to deliver a grid that can match supply with ever-increasing demand.

“It’s way more complicated than energy in equals energy out,” says Robert Friel, member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s Sustainability and Net Zero Policy Centre. “We are trying to integrate tens of thousands of energy sources into a grid that was designed to take coal energy mostly from the Midlands and move it around the country. This is a complete transformation. We’ve got to build for the future.”

Increasing demand

For instance, most of the UK’s wind power is generated off Scotland and in the North Sea, where a single turn of a turbine at Dogger Bank wind farm generates enough electricity to power a home for two days . But transporting that electricity to London and the south-east, where demand is higher, requires an overhaul of national transmission and distribution networks to overcome bottlenecks after decades of little expansion.

By 2035, Ofgem forecasts that the UK’s renewable generation capacity will grow from 120GW in 2024 to 300GW, resulting from ambitious targets for wind and solar power, which should largely free the UK from volatile prices of imported fossil fuels.

But the new grid isn’t just about integrating more clean power; it is also about helping the system cope with huge increases in demand.

UK consumers will be using twice as much electricity by 2050, the Climate Change Committee predicts [pdf], as petrol cars and gas-powered heating systems are displaced by electric vehicles (EVs) and heat pumps. As well as transport and heating, households are using electricity more than ever for entertainment, communication and home working, with on average 13 electrical devices per household – although more efficient appliances help keep energy use lower. As reliance upon cloud-based services and artificial intelligence (AI) grows, datacentre usage is expected to more than double by 2030.

To help meet this soaring demand, record levels of investment in the UK’s transmission network were recently announced by Ofgem , the UK’s energy regulator, as part of its framework for ensuring the companies operating the UK’s energy networks have sufficient revenue to invest in and run them. Nicola Connelly, CEO of SP Energy Networks, which plans to invest almost £12bn to 2031 in delivering critical energy infrastructure, noted: “If the UK wants to deliver on its ambition to be a clean energy superpower and capitalise on its natural resources, then it needs the electricity grid to match demand. We are committed to delivering that at pace, combining unprecedented levels of investment with a focus on ensuring fair returns for consumers and investors.”

Changing consumer habits

There’s a cultural change afoot too, as customers move from being passive consumers of energy to generating their own and, in some cases, selling it back to the grid. Faced with the upfront costs of installing EV chargers and solar panels, many hope to reap the benefits.

Aggregators – companies that bring together smaller energy producers – will play an increasing role from a consumer perspective in selling and buying electricity at the best price.

Consumers are also getting smarter at using power when it’s cheaper, aided by growing levels of automation, which will affect demand, habits and usage down the line.

Technological innovation

To cope with increasing demand, technologies are being introduced to increase the capacity of existing infrastructure and reduce the amount of new power lines that are inevitably needed to transmit twice the electricity we use today.

Much of the new infrastructure planned will be offshore and under the sea – which wasn’t an engineering option back in the 1950s when the supergrid’s overhead transmission lines were conceived and built.

However, the infrastructure being built and upgraded needs to be smarter, flexible and more responsive to the flow of energy moving in different directions across the network, and increasingly automated. The continued use of AI will help improve management of supply and demand in real time.

“It’s possible that AI tools could see problems emerging in a system with thousands of generators in a way that a few control engineers just couldn’t,” says Friel.

Friel says there’s also scope to understand far more about household consumption and generation at a granular level and “how potentially thousands of domestic batteries and millions of electric cars will come together. Smart meters are part of [supplying this data] but we need more information to enable a digital system to emerge.”

As well as providing vital data, smart technology is helping give customers more flexibility, says Rozlyn Brennan, smart solutions director at ScottishPower. “Households are now often producers of energy as well as consumers, and smart technology is allowing people to choose when they use their energy, whether it’s smart EV charging, or saving money by using appliances out of peak times.”

Innovations are creeping in. SP Energy Networks, for example, has created a detailed “digital twin” of Britain’s electricity network. Using AI, it allows the modelling and testing of digital solutions to manage increased electricity demand on its real-life counterpart, helping to prevent outages and identify the most efficient way to operate the network.

Other emerging uses of AI include using it to enable individual PV panels on solar farms to dynamically adjust to different lighting conditions and accurately find the optimal operating point.

But to get the benefits of emerging technologies and modernise the grid, the UK needs to get going, says Friel – and this requires vision and commitment of the kind that inspired the first supergrid.

Its successor must be built to meet the needs of a cleaner, more digital and decentralised world. This isn’t just an engineering challenge but a social one, demanding collaboration between grid operators, policymakers and consumers to create a system that’s resilient, efficient and fit for the future. “We’ve come further than we might have imagined in the last 10 years, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” adds Friel. “Transforming the grid [will require] billions of pounds, but the danger is we don’t think big enough.”

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – US politics, US voting rights, US news
Title – Experts alarmed as Trump launches broad-front attack on US voting rights | US politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peter-stone
Link – Experts alarmed as Trump launches broad-front attack on US voting rights | US politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T11:00:07.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/16/trump-voting-rights-elections

The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations, and an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials.

Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the DoJ, the FBI and elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.

The justice department has also filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections – and the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and a few other swing states that Trump lost in 2020.

Trump in late March this year issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules, which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder.

The administration’s multi-pronged push to change voting rules is under way despite laws that empower states and Congress to set election rules, sparking lawsuits from states and nonpartisan voting rights groups.

In early April, for instance, officials from 23 Democratic states including California and Washington DC filed a lawsuit to block Trump’s executive order to curb voting by mail, arguing that the order was an unconstitutional effort to interfere with states’ administering their elections.

The administration’s aggressive steps to tighten voting rules come as Trump and many Republican allies have voiced strong fears that the November midterm elections are likely to give Democrats control of the House, and possibly the Senate too, limiting Trump’s powers and possibly leading to his impeachment again.

At a Republican House retreat in January, Trump stressed the stakes are high for his future if Democrats win control of the House. “You gotta win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be … I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump told lawmakers.

Former federal officials with voting expertise are sharply critical of the Trump administration’s moves to limit voting rights with phony charges of voting fraud.

“The Department of Justice has no authority to sweep up the voter rolls, which contain private information like drivers’ licenses and social security numbers, from every state in the nation,” Eileen O’Connor, a senior counsel with the Brennan Center who spent eight years in the DoJ’s voting section of the civil rights division, told the Guardian.

“The department has 30 active lawsuits against states and the District of Columbia to force the turnover of these sensitive records. So far, eight courts have issued rulings in these cases, and the DoJ has lost each one.”

O’Connor stressed that “lawsuits against the states are only one part of a broader campaign by the Trump administration to interfere with elections. The administration has targeted election officials, attempted to rewrite election rules, pardoned January 6 rioters, and elevated election deniers.

“It has also raised the prospect of deploying federal immigration agents at polling sites – but federal law explicitly bans federal officers from interfering in elections and prohibits armed federal agents from being deployed anywhere an election is held.”

Other ex-election officials voice alarms about Trump’s moves to revamp voting rules and curb voting rights.

“Trump continues to falsely claim that voting by foreign nationals, which is illegal and rarely occurs, and practices such as mail-in voting resulted in a fraudulent election in 2020 and will result in the 2026 midterm elections being rigged against Republicans,” Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at the American University, told the Guardian. “However, numerous audits and lawsuits have failed to find any meaningful fraud in the 2020 election.”

Noble added: “Trump apparently believes that Democrats winning an election is proof enough that there was fraud because, as Trump has brazenly charged, “[I]f they didn’t cheat, they could not win … ”

Such criticism has not deterred Trump and top officials at the DoJ and other key agencies from claiming the voting changes and investigations they are pursuing are needed to combat what they falsely insist was widespread voting fraud in 2020. Acting attorney general Todd Blanche, for instance, told Fox News last month there was “a ton of evidence that the election was rigged” in 2020.

In a potential harbinger of voting fraud charges ahead in the fall elections if Trump doesn’t like the results, Trump quickly claimed that California’s early June primaries were rigged when Spencer Pratt, a Trump-backed mayoral candidate in Los Angeles, lost an early voting lead in the nation’s largest state, where final results often take longer to tabulate.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that it was “Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had… 3rd World Nation.”

Further soon after the primaries were held Trump claimed without details that they were “under investigation by the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles”. The DoJ also sent a federal prosecutor to observe ballot processing in Los Angeles.

The DoJ’s heavy tilt to election denialism became palpable soon after Trump took office in 2025 as the department’s voting section in the civil rights division was revamped to align with Trump’s election denialist views and its staff was sharply reduced last year from about 30 lawyers to less than half that number, according to a former DoJ lawyer.

To implement Trump-backed changes in voting rules and curb voting rights, the DoJ has recruited a number of new lawyers whose resumes include efforts to fight Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

The justice department in April, for instance, tapped ex-Republican congressman Dan Bishop of North Carolina, an avid election denier in 2020 who had been serving as a US attorney in his state for just five months, to lead a national drive to ferret out voting fraud including debunked allegations from 2020.

In related moves, Democracy Docket disclosed in May that William Mohrman, a Minneapolis lawyer who was involved in lawsuits that sought to overturn Biden’s victory, had been hired as a senior counsel by the DoJ’s voting section, according to court filings.

Court documents show that Mohrman entered his first appearance on behalf of the government in a lawsuit seeking Georgia’s unredacted statewide voter registration records from 2020.

Mohrman is one of a growing list of attorneys the section added since 2025 who were involved in 2020 election challenges or who worked with well-known election deniers. Among others, the current acting head of the section, former California prosecutor Eric Neff, reportedly has various links to election-conspiracy promoters.

These new hires coincide with shifts in the DoJ’s voting section away from its traditional priority of voting rights enforcement towards lawsuits seeking sensitive voter records from states and counties nationwide. In another big break from nonpartisan traditions, the DoJ last year backed the legality of a Texas redistricting plan that could help Republicans pick up five House seats in the midterms, while it challenged unsuccessfully a California redistricting plan voters approved that could help Democrats win five seats.

On another election front that tracks Trump’s bogus voting-fraud claims, the FBI has made investigating 2020 voting fraud a growing priority. The FBI has active inquiries into voting fraud in 2020 in Georgia and Wisconsin which critics say perpetuate lies about Trump’s loss and may intimidate election workers and voters.

This year, the FBI raided an election hub in Fulton county, Georgia, seized election data and images of ballots in Arizona, demanded ballots in Michigan, and in May expanded its inquiries to include the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, according to the Washington Post .

FBI agents, the Post reported, visited homes of former and current Wisconsin election officials as part of an investigation into discredited election conspiracy theories pushed by Trump.

The FBI has tried for months to seize ballots , obtain access to poll workers’ personal information, and talk to election officials in swing states, moves that mirror Trump’s debunked claims that he won the 2020 election.

Elsewhere, Trump’s March 2026 executive order on voting by mail has ignited a firestorm of lawsuits and alarms from voting experts.

The gist of the order charges the USPS with deciding who may vote by mail and authorizes it not to deliver ballots sent by individuals who are not included on newly developed federal mail voter lists. The order, ominously, threatens criminal penalties for election workers, mail carriers and others who deliver or send ballots to people the administration claims are ineligible.

In a related step, the order instructs the Department of Homeland Security to develop lists of citizens in every state using unreliable and incomplete federal data materials. The Brennan Center and other voting rights advocates have warned that if implemented, the order would create chaos and curb voting by eligible US citizens.

The Brennan Center and other groups, both nonpartisan and partisan, as well as states, have challenged the executive order in court, just as they challenged Trump’s March 2025 executive order changing key voting rules.

To date, several federal courts have blocked major parts of Trump’s 2025 order that would require citizens to show a passport or similar document to register to vote, which the administration has appealed.

Notably, some Republican veterans also foresee big risks with Trump’s executive orders on voting.

“These attempts are clearly unconstitutional. States run elections, not the feds. One executive order even directs the US Postal Service to decide which voters can receive mail-in ballots and which not, as if they could manage such an assignment,” said veteran Republican consultant Charlie Black.

Noble warned: “Trump’s executive order requiring the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list of verified US citizens eligible to vote and the Postal Service to limit mail-in voting, could very well disenfranchise millions of voters while doing nothing to eliminate virtually non-existent voter fraud.”

In Noble’s eyes, “Trump is using lies to justify an unprecedented effort to have the federal government take over the administration of elections, despite the constitution giving the states that power.”

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Accessories, Men’s fashion, Fashion, Life and style, Brad Pitt, Film, Daniel Craig, Ian Wright, Timothée Chalamet
Title – Brad Pitt in the frame as older men embrace ‘hot professor’ glasses | Accessories | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laurencochrane
Link – Brad Pitt in the frame as older men embrace ‘hot professor’ glasses | Accessories | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T13:44:31.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jun/12/brad-pitt-men-embrace-hot-professor-glasses

A heart-throb for more than 40 years, Brad Pitt is no doubt used to people looking at him. But this week, that gaze was distracted by an addition to his face – aviator-style glasses.

Worn to watch the tennis at Roland Garros and with a pink trenchcoat when out for dinner in Paris, these retro glassesare more typically worn by younger men. That’s changed recently – they’re now becoming central to a makeover for men entering their “late life” era, but who aren’t willing to submit to the fashion invisibility associated with ageing.

Gary Lineker, 65, wore glasses like this to appear on Louis Theroux this week. Ian Wright – a 62-year-old man with an impressive collection of glasses – wore bold aviator styles as a pundit for the first game of the World Cup. Daniel Craig is perhaps the early adopter. After appearing in the Loewe campaign in a pair of yellow-tinted glasses and jumper in 2024, the 58-year-old actor has doubled down on fashion-friendly specs. In January 2025, GQ called a pair he was wearing, similar to Pitt’s, “hot professor glasses” .

Johnny Davis, luxury director at Esquire, has noticed the trend. He says it’s a clever trick. “They’re not trying to disguise the fact that they’re of an age where they need to wear spectacles,” he argues. “They’re making them part of their look.”

For Pitt, they’re part of a wider shift. On last year’s press tour of F1 , the actor worked with Taylor McNeill , the same stylist who creates viral looks for Timothée Chalamet and Kendrick Lamar. Pitt – her oldest client by some distance at 62 – wore 90s silk shirts, crushed velvet and even tie dye. Style commentators online dubbed it “the reinvention of Brad Pitt”. Similarly, since the Loewe campaign, Craig has leaned into more kooky fashion choices such as a jacket with a skeleton on it from the Japanese brand Kapital, or a sweater with holes in it. Wright, meanwhile, who is often on the front row at Burberry shows and the face of Marks & Spencer, has a style that is fun but also attainable.

According to Esquire’s Davis, these glasses do a lot of heavy lifting. “They say: ‘I have taste. I pay attention. I know who I am.’ You can wear a fairly simple outfit – like Lineker’s dark tops – and the glasses provide the character.”

This is an idea that goes beyond celebrity. Jaki Baranski, a senior frame buyer at Specsavers, is familiar with shapes like the ones worn by Pitt. The retailer has a design called the Glover , popular with men in their 50s and upwards. She sees these glasses as part of a wider trend in how men look at fashion. “Men are taking a bit more time choosing a pair of frames from an aesthetic point of view,” she says. “It’s more in line with how someone selects a watch or trainers.”

Like these other accessories, glasses are a shortcut. “Not everyone feels comfortable wearing bright colours, fashion-forward tailoring or more extreme trends, but a pair of distinctive glasses is different,” says Davis. “They allow you to signal that you still care about style without feeling as though you’re trying too hard.”

While Pitt might have drafted in help from McNeill to reinvent his look, Baranski says a lot of men at this age are confident with their style. “They know who they are and what they like. These frames all work into that. It’s not like they are super understated, they talk to some sort of personal expression.”

Davis agrees, and says the symbolism of the glasses can be misconstrued. “People sometimes compare this sort of thing to the classic midlife-crisis Porsche, but I think it’s almost the opposite,” he says. “A sports car says: ‘Look at me.’ Interesting glasses say: ‘This is who I am.’”

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, G7, European Union, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, France, Emmanuel Macron, US news, World news
Title – European leaders urge Trump to host Zelenskyy-Putin talks | Ukraine | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – European leaders urge Trump to host Zelenskyy-Putin talks | Ukraine | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T12:54:20.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/16/g7-summit-european-leaders-urge-trump-to-host-zelenskyy-putin-talks

European leaders at the G7 summit have urged Donald Trump to try to break the deadlock over ending the Ukraine war by taking up the proposal for him to host talks in the US between Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin.

The US president lamented “the great antipathy” between the Ukrainian and Russian leaders that made it difficult to reach a settlement, and vowed to do what he could. He said Moscow “should make a deal”, noting that it had “lost a great many people, just like Ukraine”.

Zelenskyy, attending the summit in the spa town of Évian-les-Bains at the invitation of the French president, Emmanuel Macron , is attempting to re-engage Trump in the hope that the US administration will be less distracted now it has agreed a 60-day ceasefire in Iran.

Macron, caught on a hot mic at the summit, was heard admitting to Zelenskyy he had had difficult discussions with Trump on Monday concerning Ukraine.

Speaking at a morning session of G7 leaders and Zelenskyy, Trump said he would do what he could, and German sources claimed Trump recognised that Russia was in a weaker position than previously.

The leaders of the G7, which comprises the US, Japan, France, Canada, the UK, Italy and Germany, also agreed to step up sanctions on Russian energy. The European Union is already preparing its 21st sanctions package, including restrictions on the sale of LNG tankers to Russia.

Zelenskyy – who did not initially have a bilateral meeting with Trump scheduled – eventually met the US president alongside Macron for his first face-to-face meeting in four months. Zelenskyy tried to convince Trump that Ukraine was no longer losing on the battlefield, and the US role should not be that of a messenger between the two sides but of a mediator supportive of Ukraine. The meeting delayed the start of the full summit.

Trump spoke to Zelenskyy and Putin on Sunday before travelling to the G7 and claimed both men were open to a meeting. He described the death toll in the war as “ridiculous”.

Trump – who lost patience with his inability to force home a deal in which Ukraine gave up territory it had not lost on the battlefield – still seems to regard the US as neutral in the conflict, and above all eager to see economic sanctions on Russia lifted so projects such as an Alaska-Siberia tunnel can be considered.

Zelenskyy and his main European partners – the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer; the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and Macron – realise talks with Russia in the short term may be unlikely, but hope Trump’s engagement could make them possible in the autumn.

The E3 – UK, Germany and France – also want to be directly represented at the talks, since they are now providing almost all the financial and military support to Ukraine.

Putin’s special representative, Kirill Dmitriev, kept up a steady flow of social media posts denigrating the Europeans during the G7 talks, including welcoming Starmer’s political demise. “EU/UK warmongering ‘poison pills’ to derail peace discussions are too obvious and delay peace by pushing tired, unrealistic solutions,” he wrote. “Hypocrisy does not work well when exposed.”

In his remarks at the G7, Zelenskyy told the leaders he was making reforms to army pay to make frontline recruitment levels sustainable. The US vice-president, JD Vance, the most consistent critic of Ukraine in the US administration, has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine is bound to lose the war because of Russia’s superior ability to recruit soldiers.

Zelenskyy also confirmed Ukrainian drones had set on fire Moscow’s largest oil refinery, which is about 9 miles (15km) from the Kremlin and 300 miles (500km) from Ukraine. “Russia must be forced to end its war against our people. And Ukraine’s long-range weapons are one of the important components of such pressure,” he said. “This is a just response to Russian strikes – and to the dragging out of a war that must be ended.”

European leaders are pushing to be involved in any talks. “The right negotiation is one in which Ukraine and Russia are at the table, but with Europeans and Americans present as well,” Macron said on Monday.

German government sources said that the most realistic format would pair Ukraine and Russia with the United States and Europe but the hardest question was who speaks for Europe. They argued Kyiv now negotiated from a position of strength, because Russia cannot win on the battlefield and its economy is straining.

Internal European discussions about appointing a special representative to lead Europe at the talks suffered a setback when the Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, rejected taking up the possible post. “Personally, I do not see myself as a representative in this matter,” he said. “I believe this should be led by the major players, namely France, Germany and the UK.” Diplomats are looking for a heavyweight figure such as a former prime minister.

But he backed the idea of talks, saying: “We are currently in a situation where Ukraine holds strong positions militarily, politically and economically. Therefore, I believe the time has come for Europe to establish contact with Russia’s leadership, specifically President Putin, in order to conduct diplomatic negotiations.”

Keyword – Stage
Trefwoorden – Theatre, Musicals, Broadway, West End, Sonia Friedman, Michael Bond, Paddington, Culture, Books, Film, Stage, New York, US news
Title – ‘What an adventure Broadway will be!’ Paddington musical packs suitcase for New York | Theatre | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/chriswiegand
Link – ‘What an adventure Broadway will be!’ Paddington musical packs suitcase for New York | Theatre | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T12:30:53.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2026/jun/16/paddington-the-musical-broadway-new-york

Marmalade bagels at the ready: London’s Paddington Bear musical is to open on Broadway next spring. The phenomenally successful show, which won seven prizes at the Olivier awards, will begin performances on 30 March at the Al Hirschfeld theatre in New York, currently home to Moulin Rouge! The Musical.

Luke Sheppard, the director of Paddington: The Musical , said that the well-mannered ursine hero “approaches life with curiosity, kindness and an unwavering sense of adventure – and what an adventure Broadway will be”.

It’s a long way from 32 Windsor Gardens, where the clumsy but lovable bear from Peru is taken in by the Brown family and (eventually) wins over the whole neighbourhood. The show, based on Michael Bond’s 1958 book A Bear Called Paddington and the 2014 film adaptation, opened in London at the end of last year to many five-star reviews, including in the Guardian . The production received nine WhatsOnStage awards and won the Critics’ Circle award for best new musical.

Paddington: The Musical has a book by Jessica Swale and music and lyrics by McFly’s Tom Fletcher. “The response from West End audiences of all ages has been unlike anything I’ve ever experienced,” said Fletcher. “It’s a great privilege to welcome New York audiences into Paddington’s world of curiosity.” Producers Sonia Friedman and Eliza Lumley said: “As the home of so many of the world’s great musicals, there is no more exciting place to produce new work than New York, and we cannot wait to share Paddington’s world with Broadway audiences.”

Casting for the Broadway run has not yet been announced. In London, the bear is played by a duo: James Hameed provides the voice and is the remote puppeteer, while Arti Shah performs wearing the furry costume. Together they won the Olivier award for best actor in a musical, while Tom Edden (as the local busybody Mr Curry) and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (as the dastardly Millicent Clyde) also won Oliviers for their performances.

Tickets for the New York run will start at $69 and are now on sale. The majority of London performances for the musical in June and July are sold out on the official website. It is booking at the Savoy theatre until February 2028.

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Australia, USA, World Cup, Football, Australia sport, Sport
Title – Australia won’t ‘baby’ players about social media use before USA World Cup clash | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – Reuters
Link – Australia won’t ‘baby’ players about social media use before USA World Cup clash | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T02:02:29.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/16/fifa-world-cup-2026-australia-national-team-players-social-media-socceroos-v-usa-match

Australia’s players are mature ⁠enough to handle the ⁠hype ahead of ​their high-profile World Cup match against co-hosts the United States and do not need staff to tell them to get off ⁠social media, assistant coach Hayden Foxe has said.

The Socceroos meet the USA in Seattle on Friday, with both sides pumped up by home media and ⁠football pundits after winning their Group D openers against Turkey and Paraguay respectively.

Several US commentators ​have written off Australia as a problem ‌for the co-hosts, including ‌former centre back Alexi Lalas who judged them an “average team by any measure” in his ‌pre-tournament rankings of the 48 participating nations.

Foxe said there was no need to shield Australia’s players from the outside noise.

“We can’t baby them. They’re their own selves, we want them to be their own selves,” the former Socceroos centre-back said. “Social media’s out there, they’re aware of media and the comments and what’s being said.

“But we’re ‌concentrated on us. They’re old enough and mature enough to understand what gets said and what doesn’t get said.”

Australia, who have never got past ​the round of 16, enjoyed a dream start in upsetting Turkey 2-0 with classy goals by livewire attacker Nestory Irankunda and Connor Metcalfe.

Irankunda said Australia’s players were fired up by Turkey captain Hakan Calhanoglu describing his team as more talented than the Socceroos.

“It did piss off a few ⁠boys, but at the end of the day, these guys can talk ​all the shit … we ​don’t really care,” he said.

Metcalfe ​said Tony Popovic-coached Australia would go into the US match “full of energy, ​full of confidence”.

Foxe warned ‌his players not ​to get too ​carried away, though, reminding how everyone got excited at Qatar 2022 when Saudi Arabia upset eventual champions Argentina only to crash out of the group.

“Fantastic win against Turkey. Memorable, great. Enjoy that moment,” he said. “Now that’s gone. Now we move on to the US.”

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Drama films, Romance films, LGBTQ+ rights, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Asia Pacific, Culture, World news
Title – Girlfriends review – love and growing pains in queer coming-of-age tale that goes from Hong Kong to Taiwan | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/cathclarke
Link – Girlfriends review – love and growing pains in queer coming-of-age tale that goes from Hong Kong to Taiwan | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T08:00:49.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/16/girlfriends-review-love-and-growing-pains-in-queer-coming-of-age-tale-that-goes-from-hong-kong-to-taiwan

I t can stretch credibility a little when an actor plays the same character over a long time span in one film. Richard Linklater solved the problem in Boyhood by shooting scenes over succeeding years; AI and de-ageing effects are now an option. With this intimate queer coming-of-age drama, film-maker Tracy Choi instead casts a trio of actors to play one woman from high school to her mid-30s. The three don’t look particularly alike; their temperaments overlap but are by no means identical. The point is perhaps to show how intense the transitions into adulthood are, how unrecognisable are the people we used to be.

Working backwards, Girlfriends begins in Hong Kong , where 34-year-old film director Lok (Fish Liew) lives with her actor girlfriend Bei (Jennifer Yu). Five years earlier, Choi released a feature film, but her career has stalled. She is directionless and restless. Bei is also applying pressure to buy a flat and have a baby. The film then rewinds 12 years, to Taiwan, when Lok was a student with spiky orange hair, known as Choi (played by Elizabeth Tang). Some of the best scenes in the film come when her parents visit from Macau; Choi and her girlfriend Qing (Han Ning) have been pretending to be flatmates. Then, as the four of them eat dinner one night, unwilling to keep up the charade, Choi grabs Qing’s hand fiercely over the dinner table. She is coming out to her parents; they understand but say nothing. Another film might give us a big showdown, but this is probably how it would have happened in real life.

The film is full of natural-feeling moments like this, though some of its carefully observed, thoughtful scenes meander a little. Girlfriends is romantic too – with sex scenes that don’t feel icky. In the final section in Macau, played by Natalie Hsu, Lok is 17 and falling head over heels for her first love. It’s an interesting film but not perfect.

Girlfriends is in UK cinemas from 19 June.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Horror films, Iceland, Culture, Europe, World news
Title – Thirst review – member-dismembering Icelandic gore fest rips it up in trashy 80s style | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/cathclarke
Link – Thirst review – member-dismembering Icelandic gore fest rips it up in trashy 80s style | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T10:00:05.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/16/thirst-review-icelandic-gore-fest-body-horror-genitals

W ibbling willies! This gore fest from Iceland starts as it means to go on: parked on a quiet back road, where a balding 1,000-year-old vampire has lured a middle-aged man into his car with the promise of a quickie. The vampire’s head lowers into his poor victim’s lap. “Not quite so hard,” the man implores, unheeded. Just three minutes into the film, we get sight of a dismembered member – the first of many to come. Filmed in trashy 1980s style, with plenty of red smoke and a synth-heavy soundtrack, Thirst is over-the-top and deliberately ridiculous, though I couldn’t stop myself yelping at one or two moments.

This is not a film graced by first (or even second) rate acting, though Hjörtur Sævar Steinason gives an entertaining performance as the vampire Hjörtur, all weary nihilism with the occasional wrench of spiritual anguish. One night, he takes a shine to a young woman called Hulda (Hulda Lind Kristinsdóttir), who is being harassed by local cops over the death of her brother from a drug overdose. After watching him split the skull of a local thug in two, Hulda is understandably petrified. But Hjörtur reassures her that he is only interested in men. One of the cops pursuing Hulda is Jens (Jens Jensson), a uniformed officer of retirement age. His wife is a religious crank in a tracksuit who makes broadcasts for TV warning that the end is nigh – which it certainly is for some of Reykjavík’s residents.

There is no meaning or message here, no obvious metaphor for the vampirism. Just a midnight movie with the spectacle of Hjörtur relieving his male victims of their dangly bits, and another vampire tucking into the internal organs of his (still living) victim. There is a lot of yuckiness, but not really any bite. Though one or two scenes – I’m thinking of Hjörtur tucking into hotdog with a twist (“I don’t eat processed meat”) – may be destined for cult status.

Thirst is on digital platforms from 22 June.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Wimbledon, Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Sport, Tennis, US sports
Title – Serena Williams back at Wimbledon after being granted doubles wildcard with Venus | Wimbledon | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tumaini-carayol
Link – Serena Williams back at Wimbledon after being granted doubles wildcard with Venus | Wimbledon | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T10:13:41.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/16/serena-williams-wimbledon-doubles-wildcard-venus-tennis

Serena and Venus Williams will rekindle their doubles partnership at Wimbledon this month after receiving a wildcard into the women’s doubles draw. The All England Club announced the recipients on Tuesday morning in one of the most highly anticipated wildcard announcements in recent memory considering Serena’s return this month after four years of retirement.

Serena, a seven-times singles champion, did not request a singles wildcard and the 44-year-old has remained coy about whether she plans to return for singles. Venus, a five-time singles champion, has also not received a singles wildcard. Venus has competed on the tour since her debut in 1994, only stopping due to health-related issues. She turns 46 on Wednesday.

Wimbledon had some more complicated decisions to make. Maja Chwalinska, who reached the French Open women’s singles final as a qualifier, has also received a wildcard. Despite not making the rankings cut for Wimbledon, with the deadline coming just before the French Open, Chwalinska will assume the rare status of being a wildcard and a seeded player at a grand slam tournament due to her sharp jump. She is ranked No 21.

They have also awarded singles wildcards to the veterans Stan Wawrinka, who will retire this year, and Grigor Dimitrov. Britain’s Dan Evans, who will retire after the Championships, is not on the initial singles list, but he has received a doubles wildcard alongside his compatriot Henry Searle.

Serena will take the next step in her comeback today when she competes with Karolina Muchova, the singles No 10, in the first round of the Berlin WTA tournament against Erin Routliffe and Giuliana Olmos. She returned to competition last week at Queen’s Club, winning her first match with Victoria Mboko against Routliffe and Nichole Melichar Martinez.

However, Mboko was forced to withdraw from their next match and the remainder of the grass court season after tearing her medial collateral ligament.

The Williams sisters are one of the most successful doubles pairings, winning 14 grand slam titles together, the joint-second highest in the open era, and six women’s doubles titles at Wimbledon , the highest in the open era. They have also won three Olympic gold medals in women’s doubles and reached No 1 in the WTA rankings.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – US-Israel war on Iran, Donald Trump, US news, World news, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Nuclear power, Oil
Title – The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s Iran deal: a pause is not a triumph | Editorial | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/editorial
Link – The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s Iran deal: a pause is not a triumph | Editorial | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-15T17:33:06.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/15/the-guardian-view-on-donald-trumps-iran-deal-a-pause-is-not-a-triumph

T he US-Iran agreement to halt fighting for 60 days is welcome, because even cynical diplomacy is better than war. But Donald Trump should not be allowed to call this a triumph. He has bought a pause after an illegal war of choice that failed to secure its declared aims, devastated Iran, destabilised Lebanon and sent shocks through energy and fertiliser markets, leaving many people poorer and hungrier . A campaign launched to display US military strength is likely instead to be remembered for demonstrating its limits.

A deal with Iran is better than war with Iran. But the US president is hailing as victory the partial easing of a crisis that he, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu , helped create. The measure of success will not be the reopening of the strait of Hormuz, which war had closed, but whether the next two months produce a verifiable nuclear settlement and put out the flames fanned by the US-Israel attacks.

If that fails, the war will not look like the prelude to peace. It will confirm to every Gulf monarchy, oil trader and military planner that Iran has a chokehold over the global economy. This episode may belong in future histories of US decline because it exposes the gap between American military capability and American strategic control. That is why Mr Trump wants to present Iran’s position as submission . Tehran sees something else: a case for compensation, sanctions relief and leverage over Hormuz. The final agreement, if it happens, will depend on which story wins out.

Leaked drafts revealed competing narratives of what has been agreed. US officials told Reuters that the unfreezing of assets and the lifting of trade restrictions would be conditional on Tehran’s compliance, while Iranian sources say the draft includes oil waivers, the release of frozen funds and a halt to hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon. The first test of Mr Trump’s Iran deal is not whether he can announce it, but whether he can enforce it on America’s friends as well as its enemies. Defiance from the Israeli cabinet, and reports of lethal drone attacks in Israeli-occupied parts of Lebanon, suggest its leadership is a reluctant participant in peace.

Mr Trump is negotiating over a nuclear programme once contained by the Obama-era deal that he ripped up, while trying to reopen a strait closed by a war he chose to start. The 2015 accord cut Iran’s uranium stockpile by 98%, capped enrichment at 3.67% (significantly below bomb-ready), imposed monitoring and offered sanctions relief – all without war.

Mr Trump now seeks a version of that after a conflict that has killed thousands of civilians and exposed US vulnerability. The irony is that Iran had offered better nuclear terms before 28 February. Mr Trump gambled that decapitating Tehran’s leadership would win him more. Instead , he has ended up with less.

The US president is trying to hide the difference with bluster. In a revealing interview with the New York Times on his 80th birthday, he claims that he has forced Iran into a nuclear climbdown and turned America into the paid guardian of the Gulf. Iran has a very different view, believing that it has proved the price of excluding it from the Middle East’s order, and that reopening the strait of Hormuz is a concession for which Washington must pay. Between those two interpretations lies the next crisis.

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