Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Yves Saint Laurent, Fashion, Life and style, Photography, Art and design, Exhibitions, Museums, New York, Culture, Irving Penn
Title – Fashion goes pop! How Yves Saint Laurent created photography magic – in pictures | Yves Saint Laurent | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/briana-ellis-gibbs
Link – Fashion goes pop! How Yves Saint Laurent created photography magic – in pictures | Yves Saint Laurent | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T09:00:27.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/gallery/2026/jun/17/yves-saint-laurent-created-photography-magic

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Andy Burnham, Labour, Politics, Labour party leadership, Keir Starmer, North of England, UK news
Title – Who is Andy Burnham, the ‘man of the people’ likely to be next UK prime minister? | Andy Burnham | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/daniel-boffey
Link – Who is Andy Burnham, the ‘man of the people’ likely to be next UK prime minister? | Andy Burnham | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T17:47:57.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/22/who-andy-burnham-likely-next-uk-prime-minister

I n the story that Andy Burnham tells about himself, “the turning point” in his political life came in 2009 when he was booed at a football ground in the north-west of England. He had been an ideologically reliable middle-ranking minister under Tony Blair, the centrist New Labour prime minister between 1997 and 2007, and had gone on to be appointed as secretary of state for culture, media and sport under Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown.

On the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster – the fatal crowd crush that killed 97 Liverpool fans in 1989 – Burnham was representing Brown’s administration at Anfield, Liverpool’s famous stadium. But as he began to offer his words of condolence into a microphone on the pitch, the then 39-year-old minister’s speech was interrupted by loud and angry calls from the stands for justice for those who had been killed due to no fault of their own. A series of British governments had refused demands for a public inquiry into the disaster.

Footage from the day shows Burnham, who was born in Aintree, a suburb of Liverpool, rattled and close to tears, before nodding and mouthing “OK”. He later explained: “My journey away from Westminster began at Anfield that day. It was the turning point in my life. To be honest, I fell out of love with it.”

On Monday, as a result of Keir Starmer’s announcement that he intends to resign as prime minister once a successor has been chosen, Burnham, 56, looks likely to be the country’s next leader.

After spending the last nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham is on the brink of taking the top political job in the land on the basis of a certain sort of boyish charisma and charm but also with a promise that he will be different to those who have gone before, offering a politics that understands the motivations and concerns of those outside London and who feel unheard.

His political shtick as a man of the people was given a healthy boost during the Covid pandemic when Burnham went to battle with Boris Johnson’s government over its treatment of his region during the Covid pandemic. While Burnham’s critics characterise him as “Captain Flip-flop”, on the grounds that his politics have appeared to change over the decades, others see him as a man who is listening.

Burnham, whose father was a phone engineer and his mother a doctor’s receptionist, has described his childhood in the village of Culcheth, Cheshire, as “fantastic”. He was inspired to join the Labour party at the age of 14, after being moved by the BBC TV drama Boys from the Blackstuff, about being long-term unemployed in Liverpool. His two brothers were the first in their family to go to university but Burnham did well enough at school to win a prestigious place to study English at the University of Cambridge, where he went on to meet his now wife, Dutch-born Marie-France van Heel.

After graduation, he moved to London where he spent a brief period working on trade magazines, including Tank World and Passenger World Management, before starting work as a researcher in the parliamentary office of the Labour MP Tessa Jowell. After that he became an adviser to the then culture secretary, Chris Smith. He was elected as MP for his home town of Leigh in Greater Manchester in 2001. He first served as a junior minister under Blair, but joined the cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury, and later culture secretary and then health secretary, under Brown.

Burnham ran for the Labour leadership in 2010 offering “aspirational socialism” but came fourth out of the five contenders, losing to Ed Miliband, who had offered to take the party a bit more to the left. When Miliband lost at the 2015 general election, he stood again with a centrist pitch that sought to emphasise his business-friendly credentials. He launched his campaign at the headquarters of the accounting and professional services firm Ernst & Young. Entrepreneurs, he suggested, should be treated “as much our heroes as the nurse”. He lost to the leftwing candidate, Jeremy Corbyn.

Unlike many of his generation of politicians, Burnham accepted a shadow cabinet position in Corbyn’s team, taking up the position of home affairs spokesperson. He was also one of the few not to resign from Corbyn’s team in 2016 when the Labour leader’s lack of energetic support for staying in the EU was blamed by some for the leave campaign’s Brexit victory.

Burnham only left Corbyn’s side in 2017 to stand to become the first mayor of Greater Manchester. He won the contest with more than 60% of the vote and was re-elected by an even bigger margin in 2021.

During his time in Manchester, he has drawn praise for his transformation of the region’s transport system by taking the buses under public control. His vocal championing of the area, which has economically outperformed much of the rest of the country, earned him the moniker “king of the north”. There remain questions over quite what Burnham’s politics are today but he is seen within Labour as the best chance the party has to steal votes back from Nigel Farage’s rightwing anti-immigration Reform UK and the Greens on the left. He has offered a “turning point” for the country.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Books, Thrillers, Crime fiction, Culture
Title – The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup | Books | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laurawilson
Link – The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup | Books | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T11:00:31.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/19/the-best-recent-and-thrillers-review-roundup

The Pinnacle by Abir Mukherjee (Harvill, £16.99) In the eponymous Mumbai apartment block, the immensely rich and those who serve them exist side by side but worlds apart. Fading American actor George Abercrombie, married to superstar Sweety Sahota, finds himself advertising Indian whiskey while his younger wife’s acting career continues its stellar trajectory. Waking on the sofa with a hangover and only hazy memories of the night before, George discovers Sweety stabbed to death in the marital bed and one of his shirts, blood-stained, in the laundry basket. He knows he will be the prime suspect, but not only have Sweety’s phone and laptop disappeared, so has his assistant, Amit … Told from the points of view of George, Amit and Sweety’s put-upon PA Gemma – with Amit and Gemma both having secrets of their own – and laced with dry humour and social commentary, this is a tense, fast-paced tale of class, power and corruption.

A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (Faber, £9.99 ) Set in LA, award-winning American novelist Harper’s latest novel is a dark and topical tale. Jake, who livestreams crime scenes to an audience hungry for sensation, is currently tapping into the market for serial killer nostalgia with episodes on the LA Ripper, “up to three victims and counting”. Kara works for Sub Rosa, a concierge service that provides the very rich with whatever they desire, legal or otherwise. And Gibson is a public defence lawyer who reluctantly agrees to act for a wealthy predator who threatens to bring down “the pillars of this whole goddamn town”, including Sub Rosa’s clients, before apparently killing himself in his cell. When Kara’s colleague goes missing and she suspects it’s the work of the Ripper, the three protagonists’ worlds converge. Told in apocalyptic language, there are shades of both James Ellroy and Tom Wolfe in this story of greed in all its forms, played out in an intense, chaotic and thoroughly amoral world.

Murder on the Red River by Marcie R Rendon (Viper, £9.99 ) Native American playwright and poet Rendon’s debut novel is set in 1970, on the North Dakota/Minnesota border. Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman, is a farm worker, her evenings spent playing pool for beer money. Her world is one of low expectations, limited opportunities, poverty and alcoholism; a hardscrabble childhood with a series of foster families has made her self-reliant, her only real friend being Sheriff Wheaton, who has tried to look out for her since she was “legally kidnapped” from her mother and siblings. When an Ojibwe man is murdered, she helps to gather intelligence for Wheaton’s investigation, putting herself at risk. Beautifully written, with an appealing central character, this is the first novel in a projected series; Rendon prepares the ground well, focusing as much on the larger, systemic crimes committed against the Native American people, such as the forcible removal of children from their families, as on the individual investigation. More, please.

The Devoted by Catherine Cho (4th Estate, £16.99 ) There’s more generational trauma and limited choice in Cho’s Hong Kong-set debut novel, this time among the rich and powerful. As the daughter of a key player in the Triad crime syndicate, the narrator Eunha has her life mapped out for her, but her pampered existence as a “ tai tai ” (wealthy wife) comes to an end when her young son is kidnapped and, despite his safe recovery, she is judged not fit to look after him any more. It is only when she steps away from her safe haven and takes a job as a nightclub hostess that she starts on the long road to understanding the extent to which not only she, but other family members, have been caught up in the machinations of her father’s criminal world. Told in chapters alternating between present and past, this is a moving story of secrets, betrayal and how women are denied agency: The Godfather, seen through a female eye.

The Repentants by Kate Foster (Mantle, £18.99 ) Foster’s fourth historical mystery begins in 1790, in St Monans on the east coast of Scotland, where the Rev Mitchell is determined to keep his flock on the straight and narrow. When Florrie Aitken, the underappreciated wife of important local businessman Jonny, is caught with a lover, she is forced into a humiliating public act of repentance; there she encounters Eliza Wood, similarly punished for failing to attend church. Eliza is one of Jonny’s indentured labourers, with no choice but to work for him – first harvesting sea salt then, when Florrie accompanies Jonny to Iceland where he hopes to expand his operation using British prisoners from the hulk in Reykjavík harbour as labour, as their servant. As Jonny plans revenge on his wife, a bond forms between the two women – both, in their different ways, as captive as the men on the prison ship – who begin to plot their escape. Intelligent, atmospheric 18th-century domestic noir.

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Family, Photography
Title – Jack Rooke looks back: ‘Nan was a real prankster. I took the show we made together to Edinburgh’ | Family | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/harriet-gibsone
Link – Jack Rooke looks back: ‘Nan was a real prankster. I took the show we made together to Edinburgh’ | Family | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T13:00:34.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/21/jack-rooke-standup-comedian-big-boys-looks-back

Born in Watford in 1993, Jack Rooke is a comedian, actor and writer. He studied journalism at the University of Westminster, and began his standup career in 2014. Rooke’s breakout show, Good Grief, was written with his grandmother, Sicely, and documented their experiences of bereavement following the death of Rooke’s father, Laurie, from cancer. His next show, Happy Hour, became the basis for his two-time Bafta-winning Channel 4 comedy, Big Boys. Rooke is taking an updated version of Good Grief on a UK tour, starting at the Roundhouse in London on 14 August. Rooke is an ambassador for the suicide prevention charity Calm .

I am three years old and being pushed by my nan on a swing. She’s in a lovely powder-blue two-piece while I am sporting an iconic all-in-one black-and-white striped mini boiler suit dungaree scenario. For reasons we will never know, I look rather unimpressed.

This sums up most of my childhood – hanging out with Nan. My parents worked a lot, so she’d pick me up from school every Tuesday and Thursday. We were always out and about, often in a park, supermarket or shopping centre. She was an ex-dinner lady, and her energy was soft and gentle. She was very active and a real prankster. Her name was Sicely. “Nicely but with an S,” she’d say. It’s a non-name and nobody I am related to has any idea why she was called that.

By comparison, my grandad was quite strait-laced – a man who liked brass rubbings and Emmerdale. Nan was always on charm offensive, and liked musicals, laughing, and had a regular slot down the bingo hall. Mostly, Nan understood creativity as catharsis. Older generations have a reputation for having a stiff upper lip and being stoic, but she was very conscious of mental health and being emotionally available.

As well as our shared curly hair, we were also both the non-drivers of the Rookes. Everyone else in our family was either a mechanic or a black-cab driver, so it felt like a joint rebellion. When I was old enough to drive, I refused to learn because gays don’t drive. Gays are born to be driven.

That said, I never spoke to Nan about being gay. She must have known I was a bit fruity, but my sexuality never came up in conversation. Being gay feels quite low down on the list of things about my identity that I am most preoccupied about. Grieving, or class or size, are far more prevalent subjects in my mind. Size especially. Nan would always wind me up about being bigger, in an affectionate way. Her love language was food, and she was always popping a Werther’s Original in my pocket or making huge amounts of spaghetti bolognese or shepherd’s pie for me. She used food to feed, nourish and also mock me. There was one time I came home from school and opened the fridge. Inside was a big plate with a lid on top and a note saying: “Homemade apple pie for you.” When I took the lid off, I realised it wasn’t a pie – it was a stack of carrot sticks and a Post-it that said “lose some weight” with a smiley face next to it. Nan had quite a laddie sense of humour.

When my dad died, I was 15 and Nan was 80. We were experiencing this huge loss and both missed him in different ways. Our common ground was that nobody was talking to us about it and everyone was being awkward. She was annoyed at certain friends who didn’t know how to address the fact that her child had passed away, and at school I felt people would be weird with me, making me feel like The Boy Whose Dad Had Died. We had lots of great mates, but both felt isolated sometimes. That was where the idea for my show Good Grief came from.

Before becoming a writer, I thought I wanted to be a documentary-maker. More specifically, I thought I wanted to be Stacey Dooley – an ambition I still hold to this day. I was 21 and in my third year at uni when I asked Nan if she would be up for talking about her experiences of grief with me. She was elated and so encouraging. I was the first person in my family to go to university, and she was chuffed to help. She probably would have wanted to go herself if she had had the money or the education or access. Instead, she wanted to make sure I did the best I could do.

On Father’s Day in 2014, I brought my uni friends to her council estate in Harefield, west London, to film our conversations together. We would sit around her kitchen table and chat. At first she was reluctant to be filmed; she hadn’t done anything like it before, so it took her a while to open up. We had to make sure we got her right side, and eventually she warmed up. It was emotional at times – not Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on the Wicked press tour emotional, but more quiet and considered. Often the most powerful stuff was when my nan was saying nothing. She would stare into space reflecting for a few moments and then say something like: “At least we’ve got a fucking holiday booked.”

In 2015, I took the show we made together to Edinburgh. It was on at four o’clock in the smallest room and I was out flyering every day. Within a week the first three reviews were all five stars. Nothing will ever beat that buzz. Winning a Bafta was nice, but the summer when I realised people liked my show, when audiences were coming to see it – when the New York Times were coming to see it – that was all that me and Nan could have hoped for.

Nan died quite suddenly, before she ever got to see me on TV, way before Big Boys. She’d been ill for a few months. The grief I felt for her was different from when Dad died. This time it was less traumatic because through making Good Grief, I had this wealth of film, audio clips and photos of her that I just didn’t have with my dad. When someone dies, they vanish overnight and it is so painful. Whereas with Nan, I can see and hear her whenever I want. My mum often says she misses Nan more than my dad, which is weird, because obviously my nan’s my dad’s mum. But Mum had never had a mum – hers died when she was six. To my mum, and to me, Nan was a huge crux of support.

Experiencing a lot of grief early on in my life means I’ve been to a lot of funerals. Sometimes I think that if my career ever fucks up, I’ll become a humanist celebrant, as I am now the family’s designated speech writer for funerals. Whenever someone dies, my mum or auntie will be like: “Oh, you do it, Jack, you write such wonderful words.” I’ll always do it, even if I barely knew them, because I think funerals need a rebrand. People should not be defined by their death, but celebrated for who they were in life. I’d much rather hear about the holiday in Magaluf where they got rat-arsed than platitudes about how they will be missed.

I owe my nan my career. Good Grief was the first time I made something, the first time I could be creative professionally. And that all comes down to Nan – that she was always so emotionally available and encouraging to me. For that I feel very lucky.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Culture, John Waters, Judi Dench, The Babadook, Nathan Lane
Title – ‘Sheer outrageousness’: writers on their favourite LGBTQ+ movie characters | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/el-hunt,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/juan-a-ramirez,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/louis-staples,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/miriam-balanescu,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/benjamin-lee-film,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/shrai-popat,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/veronica-esposito,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/owen-myers,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/eleanor-margolis
Link – ‘Sheer outrageousness’: writers on their favourite LGBTQ+ movie characters | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T10:00:22.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/22/writers-on-their-favourite-lgbtq-movie-characters

Corky, Bound

Forget about dimly lit period dramas where miserable women with no access to electricity gently sob in their heaving corsets and accidentally-on-purpose brush hands in the trembling candlelight; overblown, bombastic heist-capers and brooding, butch anti-heroes are far more up my street when it comes to lesbian cinema. What, after all, could be more intensely gay than immediately committing to a life of crime with someone you’ve only just set eyes on? My favourite of the entire bunch has to be the swaggering ex-con turned plumber Corky, who helps to save Violet from the clutches of her mob boss husband in 1996’s cult classic Bound. Though we first meet Corky trussed up in a literal closet, the metaphor doesn’t play out how you might expect: unapologetic and visible in a time when few films explored queerness full stop, she flexes a labrys tattoo, spends her down time swigging beer in grotty dive bars, and eventually drives off into the sunset, her new partner-in-crime in tow, in a beaten-up Chevy pick-up. The sheer simplicity of Corky as a queer heartthrob was, somehow, ridiculously ahead of its time, and her magnetic influence has played out everywhere from Bottoms to Love Lies Bleeding. El Hunt

Eric Hunter, Edge of Seventeen

The lead of this undersung romantic comedy can be pretty corny: a suburban Ohio teen trying his best Boy George lewks at the local gay bar (they don’t work) and driving miles to surprise a one-time hookup and see if he’s still down. It’s far from abjection or self-ridicule – rather bursting with the emblematic charm of 90s’ New Queer Cinema that didn’t bother to explain itself – but Eric’s messiness is what makes it so real. The brilliance of Todd Stephens’ autobiographical, ’80s-set script is its twinning of queer people’s dual rebirths, coming out and coming of age. Eric’s not just figuring out life beyond his family, but actively creating how he’ll look and act within his chosen new one. In its earnest, unassuming way, and through Chris Stafford’s tender performance, the film captures the thrill of self-fulfillment, jumping from stanning a left-of-center pop act to creating a life to meet its fantasy. Juan A Ramirez

Frank Dillard, Mrs Doubtfire

When I think of Mrs Doubtfire, I don’t just remember Robin Williams’s hilariously inconsistent Scottish(-ish) accent, but the raspy tones of the actor Harvey Fierstein. In the 1993 movie, Fierstein plays Frank Dillard, the flamboyant gay brother of Daniel Hillard (Williams), a slightly manic divorced dad who stages an elaborate octogenarian drag act so that he can spend more time with his kids. Frank is a makeup artist who helps his brother transform using wigs, prosthetics, makeup and a wardrobe of tights and cardigans. I remember finding it groundbreaking that there was a film like this in 1993 – a time of moral panics around HIV/Aids – which featured a gay character who wasn’t a sad or tragic figure. (Frank was in a happy relationship with a man who his nieces and nephews adorably called “Aunt Jack.”) And it was also quietly radical that the gay brother was the “expert” in this scenario, tasked with helping his brother assimilate into a femininity. Mrs Doubtfire is a film about strained family relationships, but creating custom prosthetics to help your brother to transform into an eightysomething British woman? That’s real love. Louis Staples

Divine, Pink Flamingos

Few onscreen characters are as likely to brazenly emboss themselves onto your eyeballs as the high-eyebrowed (but unapologetically low-brow), beehive-haired, mermaid-flared Divine. Known now as the flamboyant linchpin of John Waters’s “Trash Trilogy”, Divine is the drag persona of Harris Glenn Milstead, who erupted into the Baltimoron counterculture at the tail-end of the 60s. Here, Divine has the title of the “filthiest person alive”, figuratively and literally: a murderess and thief steering a merry band of misfits, deviants and rogues on a veritable tour of vulgarity, with grisly stop-offs including oodles of eggs, stolen babies and turds. Trouble arrives when two nasty nitwits, the Marbles ( David Lochary and Mink Stole ), conspire to oust Divine from her foul throne and claim the title for themselves. But they cannot beat her to such levels of sheer outrageousness, nor has any character since – and Pink Flamingos still wears the crown in terms of cinematic notoriety. Miriam Balanescu

Barbara Covett, Notes on a Scandal

While it will always be particularly warming to see queer characters who might represent us at our most tender and vulnerable moments, there’s also something specifically thrilling about watching them speak to us at our nastiest too. Neatly disguised as prestige Searchlight Oscarbait, 2006’s Notes on a Scandal was instead a depraved little surprise, a darkly amusing and entirely scabrous thriller about a character who could, in the wrong hands, be a grotesque cliche – the bitter, sexually frustrated older lesbian. But with the bracingly nasty yet keenly specific words of Patrick Marber and a never-better, or freer, Judi Dench in the driver’s seat (the actor once called it one of her favourite roles), repressed and reviled schoolteacher Barbra Covett was both entirely, offensively uncensored and, at times, disarmingly, pathetically relatable. Her actions, and diaries, might be morally indefensible (even if falling in love and lust with Cate Blanchett might be understandable to us all) but the tragedy of never coming to terms with who and what you are as a queer person and how that then might curdle your every want and impulse remains effectively stinging to the film’s bitter, and refreshingly cynical, end. Barbra might be the worst of us but it doesn’t make her any less real. Benjamin Lee

Helen Cooper, Kissing Jessica Stein

Kissing Jessica Stein is one of my favourite queer films – and not because of the titular Jessica (she’s cute, but too vanilla for my tastes). Rather, it’s her spiky, spunky love interest Helen who will forever reside in my personal Hall of Fame of fictitious women. When we meet Helen, not only is she wearing a pleather, pinstripe blazer, we see her return from a roll-around with one of her multiple boyfriends to eye-fuck a butch-y lesbian guest and gossip with her gay guy friends. In short, she is living my dream life. Helen is direct, sexually empowered, and would probably choke on her martini if anyone called her “wifey material”. She’s here, she’s queer, and she never fitted into the confines of hetero-monogamy. She’s a reminder that, contrary to retro stereotypes that bisexual women are patriarchy pick-mes, bisexuality is the ultimate disruption to the status quo. Megan Wallace

Albert Goldman, The Birdcage

There is a moment in The Birdcage, when Armand (Robin Williams) tries to teach his partner, Albert (Nathan Lane), how to spread mustard on toast “like a man” – smearing it with gritted teeth rather than dainty hand movements. Albert fails hilariously, piercing the toast and descending into hysteria. The couple, who are desperate to convince their son’s ultraconservative future in-laws that Albert is just an uncle, quickly realize that plan might be futile. It’s a perfect scene that captures the absurdity of performative masculinity and the brilliance of Albert. An aging drag queen with impeccable taste, Albert is never the butt of the joke. Instead, Lane plays him with such unapologetic self-hood that he is the source of nearly all the laughs in Mike Nichols’s joke-a-minute comedy of errors. Albert commands every room, even when decked out in a wig and pearls to try and pass as his son’s mother. It was the first film I saw featuring two men living in bliss. While they are forced to hide their relationship for much of the film, every re-watch proves their bond is the truest thing in the movie – and most of the mess is just straight people drama they are forced to clean up. Shrai Popat

Megan Bloomfield, But I’m a Cheerleader

Jamie Babbit’s incurably campy satire of conversion therapy is centerpieced by Natasha Lyonne’s pitch-perfect performance as Megan Bloomfield, who desperately wants to be a normie in spite of her undeniable queerness. Megan tries so hard to be a high school cheerleader and kiss her hunky boyfriend, but it’s just not her, and one day her family stages an intervention and ships her off to the most hilariously ineffective conversion camp imaginable. What makes Bloomfield sing is her naivete – literally everyone realizes she’s a lesbian before she does – and that in turn powers the utter ridiculousness that makes But I’m a Cheerleader so memorable. And there’s a lot of it – RuPaul as a camp enforcer who sports a “Straight is Great” T-shirt but is clearly gay himself, obsessive fealty to gender norms in hopes that enough pink will make a girl straight, and Megan herself finding lesbian love while at the conversion camp. A wonderful addendum to Lyonne’s performance is that 25 years later she has again become iconic, this time for her quietly queer performance as Charlie Cale in the ongoing series Poker Face, giving us as idea of what an again Megan might have matured into in due time. Veronica Esposito

Sérgio, O Fantasma

Sérgio is a garbage collector with the body of Saint Sebastian and the sex drive of a dog in heat. He is all id and proudly so, prowling the outskirts of Lisbon by night, pawing through the trash of a sexy biker, having (unsimulated) sex with strangers in a gimp suit, and choking himself with a shower cord while masturbating. Is he turned on by the memory of last night’s hookup or getting off on the feeling of being leashed? The low-lit city streets might not immediately feel like the loveliest landscape, but in director João Pedro Rodrigues’s hands, a back alley illuminated by a garbage truck’s brake lights can look like a painting. I love O Fantasma for its totally unsanitised portrait of ennui and social detachment of a true freak who refuses to fit in. Pride Month is a good time for queer people to remember that we don’t have to. Owen Myers

The Babadook, The Babadook

This year marks a significant 10th anniversary for the LGBTQ+ community. In 2016, according to queer folklore, Netflix accidentally placed Australian indie horror The Babadook – a film about a mother and son whose grief at losing the boy’s father manifests as a monster in a top hat – in its LGBTQ+ section. A screenshot of this purported error went viral, and, gay presto, the dapper but horrifying character – somewhere between Papa Lazarou from League of Gentlemen and a Edward Gorey illustration – became a fixture at Pride parades across the globe. While it’s unclear whether Netflix were actually at fault, or if the screenshot was a mockup based on an already existing “the Babadook is gay” meme, the fact remains that queer people have embraced this weird little guy in the way that they have done so many weird little guys before him. That is to say; with gusto. And whether or not director Jennifer Kent intended, the Babadook is for sure non-binary, and for sure in a polycule with Pennywise, Count Orlok and that thing from Pan’s Labyrinth with the eyeballs on its hands. Eleanor Margolis

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Armenia, Europe, World news, Christianity
Title – An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue | Armenia | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/pjotr-sauer
Link – An Armenian tycoon has a private zoo. Now he wants the world’s biggest Jesus statue | Armenia | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T07:00:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/21/armenian-tycoon-private-zoo-worlds-biggest-jesus-statue-gagik-tsarukyan

Behind the walls of a sprawling estate on the outskirts of Yerevan, six tigers prowl behind a fence, three lions pace their enclosures, and alligators bask in the afternoon heat.

Further into the compound, more animals appear. Beneath a gilded, hand-painted ceiling, a dining hall houses a taxidermy menagerie: white tigers reared on their hind legs, a stuffed eagle perched atop a table, bear and wolf pelts spread across the floor. All of these, the owner proudly said, had been shot by him.

The scene offers a glimpse into the tastes of Gagik Tsarukyan, Armenia’s most flamboyant business tycoon and opposition politician, whose displays of wealth have long been the stuff of local folklore.

Having secured less than 4% of the vote in this month’s parliamentary election , Tsarukyan’s chances of ever leading Armenia look slim, but one of Armenia’s richest and most divisive men remains determined to leave his mark on the country.

His chosen monument: erecting the world’s tallest statue of Jesus Christ, perched atop a 2,500-metre (8,200ft) mountain overlooking Yerevan.

It is, depending on who you ask, either a celebration of the small Caucasian nation’s ancient Christian heritage or the ultimate expression of one oligarch’s appetite for excess.

“This will be Armenia’s calling card,” Tsarukyan said during a rare interview at one of his homes in the village of Arinj, where he was born. “Christianity will become Armenia’s new brand.”

A former athlete turned businessman and politician, Tsarukyan built his fortune in gambling, alcohol and mining during the turbulent decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Dressed head-to-toe in white linen and matching trainers, the barrel-chested one-time arm wrestling champion said the project was designed to resonate with a growing international movement that blends religious faith with nationalism and cultural conservatism – a trend most visible in Donald Trump’s Maga movement and among far-right parties across Europe.

“Trump is, of course, invited. We hope he comes,” Tsarukyan said, adding that an unofficial American delegation from the US embassy had already visited the mountain site.

Once completed, the 101-metre (331ft) statue will stand atop Hatis, a mountain about 25km (15.5 miles) east of Yerevan, making it visible from much of the Armenian capital. Tsarukyan noted with evident satisfaction that it would dwarf Brazil’s iconic Christ the Redeemer and stand slightly taller than New York’s Statue of Liberty.

“We are the oldest Christian nation in the world,” Tsarukyan said. “It only makes sense we should have the biggest Jesus statue in the world.”

Although most of its neighbours today are Muslim-majority countries, Armenia is widely regarded as the world’s oldest officially Christian nation, traditionally dating its conversion to AD301.

But the Armenian Apostolic church has repeatedly opposed the project, arguing that its mass scale and style sit uneasily with Armenia’s religious and architectural traditions.

Church leaders say Armenian Christianity has historically expressed itself through monasteries, churches and khachkars – intricately carved stone crosses unique to Armenia – rather than colossal statues modelled on monuments elsewhere in the world.

The proposal has also drawn criticism from environmentalists, who warn that construction could cause lasting damage to the natural landscape of Hatis.

Tsarukyan brushed aside the clergy’s and activists’ objections, insisting he enjoyed good relations with the Armenian Apostolic church and pointing to the eight churches he says he has financed across the country.

More importantly, Tsarukyan said, the monument was intended to appeal to a far broader audience than Armenia’s faithful alone.

He claimed that 10 million tourists a year would eventually visit the site. “There’s nothing else like it in the world. From ocean to ocean, everyone will be talking about it.”

At present, however, the monument, which has been under construction on and off since 2022, looks less like the centrepiece of a future pilgrimage site than a giant relic abandoned in a construction yard outside Yerevan, where it is being pieced together before its eventual ascent to the mountain.

On the Guardian’s recent visit to the site, Christ’s vast white figure loomed over piles of stone, cranes, and workshop buildings, appearing almost surreal against the sparse landscape.

Back at the estate, Tsarukyan appeared tired after a bitter election campaign that had only just ended.

Voting results showed his nationalist and Russia-friendly Prosperous Armenia party hovering just below the 4% threshold needed to enter parliament, a result the party was challenging in court.

The poor showing continued a reversal for a politician who, for two decades, had been one of Armenia’s most durable power brokers.

Tsarukyan built that position on close ties to the former president Robert Kocharyan, expanding his empire as part of a small group of politically connected businessmen who came to dominate much of Armenia’s economy.

With his private zoo, marble mansions and fleet of luxury cars, he can seem like a relic of the post-Soviet boom years, when fortunes were amassed at dizzying speed and displayed with little concern for subtlety.

That image made him a natural target for the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who rose to power in the 2018 Velvet Revolution pledging to dismantle Armenia’s oligarchic system.

Pashinyan has repeatedly cast Tsarukyan as a symbol of the country’s corrupt old order, at times reviving dark episodes from his Soviet-era past, including a 1979 gang-rape conviction that was later overturned after Armenia gained independence.

In his victory speech on 7 June, Pashinyan further vowed to jail his political opponents, singling out Tsarukyan, Kocharyan and the billionaire businessman Samvel Karapetyan.

The following day, investigators arrived at Tsarukyan’s estate to formally charge him with tax-related offences. Local media reported that he had attempted to flee the country before the charges were announced.

Tsarukyan rejected the allegation, saying he had merely planned a short trip to the United Arab Emirates but had been prevented from boarding his flight and returned home.

Yet Tsarukyan strongly dismissed suggestions that the authorities could derail his construction plans, arguing that the Jesus project had become too significant to abandon and would bring substantial benefits to Armenia’s economy and tourism industry.

“How can a man be afraid?” he said. “Why be afraid? What will they put me in prison for?”

For now, he said his team appeared more concerned with the practical challenge of getting Christ to the mountaintop.

The logistics of building the monument have proved almost as ambitious as the project itself.

Tsarukyan said the original plan was to transport sections of the statue by helicopter. The idea was eventually abandoned in favour of a more conventional solution: hauling the enormous pieces up the mountain by truck before assembling them onsite.

And the Jesus statue, he insisted, is only the beginning.

Construction has already begun on another biblical attraction nearby: a giant Noah’s Ark. Pulling out images of the project on his phone, he described a vessel 134 metres long, 24 metres wide and 18 metres high. The ground floor would house a museum, the first floor a hotel and the second a cafe.

“These projects are sacred,” he said. “This is how I will inscribe my name in history, for the world to see during my lifetime and long after.”

For now, though, on the hillside above Yerevan, the world’s largest Jesus has yet to rise.

In the summer heat, passersby stopped to photograph the towering figure and debate its merits.

“It’s beautiful. It will make Armenia known across the world,” said Arman, a 54-year-old taxi driver who had pulled over to admire the statue. “I am really proud of this.”

Others were less convinced.

“I don’t quite understand why it has to be this big,” said Mariam, a local resident, looking up at the monument. “It’s all a bit crass.”

Keyword – Science
Trefwoorden – Astronomy
Title – Starwatch: how to spot Hercules the hero, jewel of the summer skies | Astronomy | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dr-stuart-clark
Link – Starwatch: how to spot Hercules the hero, jewel of the summer skies | Astronomy | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T05:00:51.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/jun/22/starwatch-how-to-spot-hercules-the-hero-jewel-of-the-summer-skies

H ercules, the hero, is a jewel of the summer skies but one that requires a little bit of sleuthing to track down. The chart shows the view looking high in the southern sky from London at 11pm on Monday. The view, however, remains essentially unchanged all week.

The easiest way to locate Hercules is to identify the bright star Vega in Lyra, the lyre, and orange Arcturus in Boötes, the herdsman. Hercules lies between these beacons. Look for the four modest stars that form a lop-sided square: this is the keystone asterism, marking the body of Hercules.

From there, you can trace the hero’s arms and legs, and realise just how big the constellation is. Of the 88 modern constellations recognised by the International Astronomical Union, Hercules is the fifth largest by area.

In Greek mythology, Heracles – the name Hercules is the Roman equivalent – was the son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmene. In an attempt to tame his volatile nature, he was set 12 labours by King Eurystheus. These tasks took him to distant lands and the underworld.

Hercules was one of the 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the second century. From the southern hemisphere, it can be seen low in the northern sky during the evening.

Keyword – Music
Trefwoorden – Music, Culture, US news, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Music industry, Whitney Houston, Aretha Franklin, Aerosmith, Alicia Keys, Patti Smith, Carly Simon, Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, Dionne Warwick
Title – Clive Davis: music industry executive who signed Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen dies aged 94 | Music | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laura-snapes
Link – Clive Davis: music industry executive who signed Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen dies aged 94 | Music | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T15:51:27.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/music/2026/jun/22/clive-davis-music-industry-executive-who-signed-whitney-houston-and-bruce-springsteen-dies-aged-94

The famed US music industry executive and record producer Clive Davis has died aged 94, his family has confirmed .

He had recently been hospitalised with respiratory problems and was recovering at home. He had also been diagnosed with neurological condition Bell’s palsy in 2021.

“To the world, our father was the iconic music legend whose vision, instincts, and relentless pursuit of excellence shaped the soundtrack of countless lives,” a statement on social media read. “He discovered, mentored, and championed the greatest artists in modern music history, leaving an indelible mark on culture that will endure for generations. To his family, Clive was Dad and Granddaddy, the steady presence at the center of our lives, the source of wisdom, strength, encouragement, and unconditional love.”

Davis signed many of the defining musicians of the 20th century, among them Bruce Springsteen , Janis Joplin , Laura Nyro , Santana, Whitney Houston , Billy Joel and Aerosmith . He helmed the major record labels Columbia, Arista, Sony imprint J Records, the RCA Group and BMG North America, and at the time of his death had been chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment since 2018.

Davis was born on 4 April 1932 and raised in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighbourhood. After his parents died in quick succession while he was a teenager, Davis graduated from New York University College of Arts and Science with a degree in political science in 1953; three years later, he graduated from Harvard Law School. The loss of his parents put Davis in a precarious financial situation: if his grades dropped, he would lose his scholarships and have to sever his studies. “There’s no question that maintaining a work ethic became very much a part of my life and career,” he told Rolling Stone .

CBS subsidiary Columbia Records hired Davis from the law firm that represented the company, first as general counsel – during which he impressed his superiors by successfully renegotiating Bob Dylan’s contract – and then as administrative vice president and general manager in 1965. Within two years, he was president of the label, signing Donovan and – after a revelatory trip to the Monterey Pop festival – Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Santana.

“I learned on the spot,” Davis told Leaders magazine . “I accidentally discovered I had a totally unexpected and unexplained gift – ears. This was quite a surprise, but I could, and would, discover great all-time artists.”

Then mostly invested in middle-of-the-road pop, Broadway cast albums and classical music, CBS doubled its market share in three years after Davis pioneered the signing of rock acts. “Music was changing, and I had to really watch and observe and see how it all went,” he told NPR .

Of Springsteen, he told David Letterman: “I saw him as a real original, someone who was not just the new Bob Dylan or another Bob Dylan, that was the kiss of death in those days” – although he did encourage Springsteen to move around more on stage to cement the difference between them. Aerosmith memorialised the moment he pitched them at New York City venue Max’s Kansas City in their song No Surprize: “Old Clive Davis said he’s surely gonna make us a star / I’m gonna make you a star / Just the way you are.”

However, Davis wasn’t shy about pushing artists in the direction he thought best. He told the New York Times that Simon and Garfunkel were “aghast” that he selected Bridge Over Troubled Water to be the first single of their 1970 album of the same name. “Yes, it was a ballad; yes, it was lengthy,” he said. “But you’ve got to know when you have a home run. You can’t play everything by the rules.”

Davis’s ambition was noted early on. In his 1975 memoir, he claimed sole credit for the success of the aforementioned artists. He prided himself on never outbidding other labels for artists – he valued bonding over an authentic musical connection – and admitted to having a fear of failure. The two signings he always regretted missing out on, he said, were John Mellencamp and Meat Loaf .

Davis brought disco into CBS when he signed a distribution deal with producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff to create Philadelphia International. “For me to find A&R men to do this would have been impossible,” Davis told Vibe in 1996. “The best way was to go to masters of hit-making to encourage them to sign artists. And of course they came through with Harold Melvin and Teddy Pendergrass, with Billy Paul, and the O’Jays.”

But he became embroiled in a scenario in which an employee with alleged mob ties claimed that CBS and Philly International had been involved with payola – the illegal practice of paying or in any other way bribing a radio station to play your song – and created false expense reports, including one that Davis had used company funds to pay for his son’s bar mitzvah. Davis was charged with six counts of tax evasion. He pleaded guilty on one count and was otherwise exonerated. Nonetheless, he was fired from CBS in 1973. Davis claimed the process was a “witch-hunt” conducted out of the company’s paranoia that, as a public broadcaster, its licence could be endangered.

In 1974, Davis founded Arista Records – named after his high school honour society – the label he would run until the year 2000. There he signed the likes of Aretha Franklin – overseeing a controversial move away from her more political work at Atlantic – Dionne Warwick, Patti Smith, the Grateful Dead and Alicia Keys, and perhaps his most famous protege, Whitney Houston, whom he signed at 19 years old in 1983.

Davis mentored Houston, putting her on TV to perform two weeks after her signing, such was his pride in her, and was involved with all but one of her albums. But her vast pop success came at a price: her popularity with white audiences led to claims that she was “not Black enough” from Black music fans. “It bothered her and me,” Davis told Vibe. “I mean, Whitney is a Black woman. It’s silly and shallow, the criticism you get when you cross over.” Her ex-husband, Bobby Brown, also alleged that Davis forced Houston to suppress her rumoured relationship with her friend Robyn Crawford , a suggestion Davis dismissed as “crazy”.

Davis attempted an intervention in Houston’s life in 1997, in the wake of her non-fatal overdose and her notoriously turbulent relationship with Brown. She rallied to release one more successful album, 1998’s My Love Is Your Love, but spiralled in the next decade, and was hurt when Davis left Arista in 2000. Davis said that neither the 2017 documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me nor the 2018 documentary Whitney did her life justice. He is a producer on the forthcoming Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody, produced by Sony Pictures, in which he will be portrayed by Stanley Tucci.

At Arista, Davis developed a reputation as a ballbreaker, shaping artists’ images – and not always to their liking. Artists including Barry Manilow and Melissa Manchester complained that they were not allowed to sing their own songs. He oversaw a comeback by Carly Simon, who commented on Davis’s ruthlessness. “His energy, his testosterone, all his hormones were ignited by having the biggest No 1 records,” she told the New York Times . “He is on the side of the winner at all costs, and the cost can be very high. The cost can be somebody’s career or somebody’s innateness.”

During his time at Arista, Davis also founded Arista Nashville, the label’s country arm; and – despite professing not to understand rap – LaFace Records with record executive LA Reid and producer Babyface, and Bad Boy Records with Sean Combs, AKA Puff Daddy .

But in 2000, he was ousted from Arista and replaced by Reid. Davis founded the label J Records, signing artists including Jazmine Sullivan, Rod Stewart and Maroon 5.

His controversial reputation was reignited thanks to a feud with Kelly Clarkson , the first winner of American Idol. She recalled that Davis called her a “shitty songwriter” over her 2004 single, Because of You – a Top 10 single in the US and the UK – an opinion Davis affirmed in his 2013 memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life. Clarkson responded in a blogpost: “Growing up is awesome because you learn you don’t have to cower to anyone – even Clive Davis.”

Davis won four Grammy awards as a producer on albums by Jennifer Hudson , Kelly Clarkson and Santana, and two of its industry awards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s non-performers category in 2000 and funded the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University.

In 2008 Davis was named chief creative officer for Sony BMG, later Sony Music Entertainment. His later-career projects included the Houston biopic and an eight-part series on Franklin for Disney+.

Davis is twice divorced and has four children. In his 2013 memoir, he came out as bisexual, later calling it “the most misunderstood sexual identity”, and said he had been in a relationship with a man since the end of his second marriage. In 2015, he was honoured by the Equality Forum as an icon of LGBT History Month.

He also retook the bar exam in 1996. “I wanted to bring up to date the fact that there should be no question mark on the record,” he told the New York Times , referencing the incident in which he lost his licence to practice law. “Plus, I love school and I love exams, and I had no problem doing it.”

In 2013, Davis told NPR that he had “never” tired of the music business. “Extending the careers of these iconic artists has been a source of great reward and fulfilment to me. If your health is good, if the report cards are good, you keep on doing it. And I love it.”

Tributes have started to appear online from figures including Patti Smith. The singer shared a picture of the pair together on Instagram, writing : “This is thanking Clive Davis for transforming music, and on a very personal note, for believing in me, shepherding my efforts and a half century of your love and support.”

Bruce Springsteen wrote on Instagram: “He treated me with the same respect and kindness as a 22-year-old nobody as he did after all my success. A great man. All our prayers and love.”

In an Instagram story, Barry Manilow wrote: “My heart is heavy with the loss of my friend Clive Davis. For fifty years we worked together, created together, argued together, and celebrated together. Yes, some would say it was business. But to Clive, it never was. It was family.

Keyword – UK news
Trefwoorden – Northern Ireland, Democratic Unionist party (DUP), UK news, Politics
Title – Jeffrey Donaldson found guilty of child sexual offences including rape | Northern Ireland | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rorycarroll,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/lisaocarroll
Link – Jeffrey Donaldson found guilty of child sexual offences including rape | Northern Ireland | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T16:18:29.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/22/jeffrey-donaldson-found-guilty-of-child-sexual-offences-including

Jeffrey Donaldson has been found guilty of 18 sexual offences against two victims who were children at the time of the abuse more than 30 years ago.

The former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader was remanded into immediate custody after a jury at Newry crown court on Monday convicted him of 18 offences including rape, indecent assault and gross indecency. The judge, Paul Ramsey, said a “lengthy” prison sentence was inevitable.

Standing in the dock with his hands clasped, Donaldson, 63, showed no visible emotion and stared straight ahead as he was found guilty of each charge.

The verdict completed a stunning fall for an establishment figure who had dominated unionism and played a key role at Westminster during post-Brexit negotiations over Northern Ireland’s position in the UK.

The jury found that Donaldson’s wife, Eleanor, had aided and abetted her husband’s offending. The judge deemed the 60-year-old unfit to stand trial on mental health grounds so she faced a trial of the facts, which tests the evidence but does not result in a criminal conviction.

In a four-week trial , Donaldson pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and other counts of gross indecency and indecent assault spanning a period from 1985 to 2008.

Prosecutors had urged the jury of five women and seven men to recall the “pain and hurt still so visible” on the two victims, referred to as complainants A and B. “The sexual abuse they suffered has consequences – consequences that cannot be ignored and brushed under the carpet any longer,” said Rosemary Walsh KC.

Complainant B told the trial she still lived with the memory of Donaldson’s assault: “What happened that night will live with me for ever.”

The verdict will shred what was left of the reputation of the former Lagan Valley MP, a polished media performer and towering political figure in Northern Ireland who helped to broker the Windsor framework.

His arrest in March 2024 shocked Westminster and Stormont. Donaldson stood down as an MP and resigned from the DUP, which scrubbed his name and image from its website and appointed Gavin Robinson as the party’s new leader.

“Jeffrey Donaldson must now feel the full force of the law,” Robinson said in a statement. “He stands guilty of abusing and betraying the trust placed in him by many people over the years.” The abuse detailed during the trial was “filthy and vile”, Robinson said. “Abuse, preying on the innocent and taking advantage of the vulnerability of children in particular is evil.”

Political leaders and children’s rights groups paid tribute to the victims who made the accusations to police in 2024 and persisted with the case despite delays in the trial and denials from Donaldson, who accused the women of lying.

A phalanx of cameras greeted Donaldson each day as he arrived at the court in Newry, 40 miles (65km) south of Belfast. Flanked in the dock by court employees, he appeared composed and took notes during proceedings and for two days in the witness box proclaimed his innocence.

Complainant B said she was raped when she was of primary school age and was of secondary school age when Donaldson lifted up her top and fondled her breasts. The jury heard that Donaldson’s wife witnessed part of the latter incident and walked away.

Complainant A said she was of primary school age when Donaldson began to be “physical” with her and put his hands up her top. She recalled waking up in the night on several occasions with a sexual feeling and having nightmares about “men doing horrible things to children”.

He once kissed her and put his tongue in her mouth, and when she later complained he laughed it off as a joke, the court heard. Donaldson also used a light to look at her genitals, she said.

The trial heard that in the 1990s the victim told a pastor about the abuse, after which Donaldson met and apologised to her at a Christian centre in County Antrim. Prosecutors also told the jury of a letter Donaldson wrote to Complainant A in 2020 in which he expressed regret for causing “hurt, pain and distress” and asked forgiveness for his “sinful nature”.

Donaldson said those apologies referred to other matters, not abuse, which he said never happened and was made up by the complainants.

Walsh said both victims kept memories “locked away inside” until reaching “turning points” in adulthood that prompted the “huge, huge” decision to report the offences to police in 2024. Neither woman had complete recollection and some memories were “fragmentary” but they were telling the truth, Walsh said. “This is what happened and they have made a decision to call it out.”

The prosecutor said Eleanor Donaldson knew of the risk her husband posed but instead of intervening she “facilitated” the abuse. The trial heard Jeffrey Donaldson had had a brief affair with a woman in 2008 and his wife, suspecting another affair, had a listening device planted in his car in 2020.

Donaldson’s barrister, Kieran Vaughan KC, said there was no medical or forensic evidence and urged the jury not to be “swept along” on a tide of emotion: “When all is said and done, that is what it is about: their word against his word.”

He disputed the complainants’ accounts, saying some claims defied belief and were “farcical”. For the jury to convict, they must be sure, said Vaughan. “Nothing less will do. Suspicion is not good enough. You have to be sure.”

Until his arrest Donaldson had embodied unionist probity. Born into a Presbyterian family in the fishing village of Kilkeel, he married Eleanor in 1987 and served apprenticeships in the Ulster Unionist party before defecting to the DUP at the turn of the year in 2004. He was knighted for political services in 2016 and became DUP leader in 2021.

Leaders from across the political spectrum expressed revulsion at his crimes and called for his knighthood – awarded in 2016 for services to politics – to be stripped.

“No matter what your title, no matter what your status, no matter how much power you have in society, you are all equal under the law,” said Jon Burrows, the UUP leader. “Now we need to see Jeffrey Donaldson stripped of that title of sir. He deserves nothing of that nature.”

Burrows lauded the survivors as “heroes” for coming forward to report the crimes and seek justice. “I hope this sends a message to the vulnerable in our society that the law is there to protect them.”

Jim Allister, the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice, also called for Donaldson to be stripped of the knighthood.

John Finucane, the Sinn Féin MP for north Belfast, said the complainants showed bravery and won accountability. “But it will not undo the horrific abuse that they suffered or the horrific experience I can only imagine they had to go through in giving evidence, as well.”

Claire Hanna, the Social Democratic and Labour party leader, said the victims were vindicated. “Despite the mountain they had to climb going up against someone with every privilege in the world, they took their courage and they won,” said Hanna.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said the former DUP leader had betrayed his position of trust in the community. “The victims in this case, now adults, have shown immense courage in coming forward and giving evidence after decades of living with the impact of Jeffrey Donaldson’s abuse.”

In the UK, the NSPCC offers support to children on 0800 1111, and adults concerned about a child on 0808 800 5000. The National Association for People Abused in Childhood ( Napac ) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In the US, call or text the Childhelp abuse hotline on 800-422-4453. In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, or Bravehearts on 1800 272 831, and adult survivors can contact Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International

Keyword – World news
Trefwoorden – Iran, US-Israel war on Iran, Israel, US foreign policy, Trump administration, JD Vance, Donald Trump, Middle East and north Africa, Strait of Hormuz, Lebanon, Hezbollah, US politics, World news
Title – Iran agrees to UN nuclear inspectors’ return as part of agreement with US | Iran | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonathan-yerushalmy,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/patrickwintour
Link – Iran agrees to UN nuclear inspectors’ return as part of agreement with US | Iran | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-22T16:42:35.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/22/iran-us-talks-progress-pakistan-qatar-lebanon-israel

Iran has agreed to allow UN nuclear inspectors back into the country as part of an agreement under which Washington will lift sanctions on Tehran’s oil exports and the strait of Hormuz will reopen, the US vice-president, JD Vance , has said.

Long-term independent monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme, which it says is for energy purposes only, was in effect halted last summer after Israel and the US attacked the country. Tehran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in response to strikes on its nuclear facilities.

Donald Trump wrote on social media: “Everybody is fully aware that Iran will agree to have Major Weapons Inspections in order to ensure “Nuclear Honesty” long into the future.”

Tehran, sensitive to domestic criticism, said it had made no new concessions on its nuclear programme, and that the outcome of any negotiation would be subject to the supreme national security council, the body which brings together Iranian political and military decision makers.

A “deconfliction” mechanism has also been set up involving Washington, Tehran and Beirut to try to bring about a working ceasefire in Lebanon, which Israel has continued to bomb and where the Iran-aligned militant group Hezbollah is based. A Lebanon ceasefire is one of Iran’s key demands.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, and Vance hailed the progress made during nearly 18 hours of talks in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.

Technical experts from the two sides and mediators from Qatar and Pakistan are to stay behind at the Doha-owned Lake Lucerne resort to work on the detailed implementation of the plan, including working parties on Iran’s nuclear programme and the establishment of a high-level political committee to oversee the process intended to seal a comprehensive deal between the two sides in under two months.

Early signs on Monday suggested commercial oil tankers were starting to move through the strait of Hormuz. Four liquefied natural gas tankers controlled by Qatar headed into the Gulf and through the strait on Monday, while two supertankers, which can carry up to 4m barrels of crude oil, crossed into the Gulf heading for the Iraqi port of Basra.

The talks nearly broke down on Sunday when a stream of violent threats from Donald Trump infuriated the Iranian delegation.

Vance told a press conference: “What we told the Iranians yesterday is that when you guys engage in what us millennials might call trash talk, you can’t expect the president of the United States not to respond and not to correct the record.

“Yes there was a little bit of threatening and a little bit of whining but at the end of the day the talks continued and we made great progress.”

He hailed Tehran’s decision to let UN nuclear inspectors back into Iran for the first time since Israel attacked the country last year. “That is a major milestone for the American people, and the first step in permanently denuclearising or permanently ending a nuclear weapons programme in Iran,” he said.

In practice, lengthy talks lie ahead on the intrusiveness and scale of the IAEA inspectors’ mandate, including their access to Iran’s bombed nuclear sites.

In a development vital to unlocking progress, the US treasury is preparing to issue a 60-day waiver that will lift sanctions on Iran’s oil, petrochemicals and derivatives. Tehran said this meant its central bank would be able to sell oil to customers, principally China, and receive payments without the threat of repercussions.

Qatar and Iran also signed a memorandum about the release of Iranian assets frozen in Qatari bank accounts as a result of secondary US sanctions. Vance said the deal required Iran to spend its unfrozen assets on food such as soya produced by US farmers.

The economic measures may help lift some of the pressure on Iran’s exchange markets and gradually slow runaway inflation, the country’s biggest domestic concern at present.

The joint statement by the mediators focused on new implementation mechanisms to turn the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed last week into reality over the next 60 days – the timeline set out to reach a comprehensive agreement on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme and the lifting of sanctions on its economy.

Araghchi said in a statement that the first real test of the understandings would be the cessation of Israeli attacks on Lebanon , which has emerged as the biggest threat to the MoU between Washington and Tehran.

Explaining the thinking behind the deconfliction body on which neither Israel or Hezbollah will sit, Vance said: “Sometimes a junior guy fires a drone that didn’t have approval from the high command. Of course, Israel has to respond to that, but then sometimes we could have a more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of a conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region.

“There has not been a mechanism to have those conversations.”

He said the US wanted Israel’s security and Lebanon’s sovereignty to be protected.

Iran had said over the weekend that it had reinstated its blockade of the strait of Hormuz in protest at the continued Israeli strikes on Lebanon , and that Trump was allowing Israel to breach the MoU, which calls for a ceasefire on all fronts. Israel killed more than 30 people in attacks in central and southern Lebanon on Saturday.

The US military denied the strait had been closed again, but Trump responded strongly on Sunday. “You close it and you won’t have a country,” he wrote on social media. “You won’t even make it back to your fucking country,” he added in a threat to the Iranian negotiators.

Iran had sought to hold back the nuclear element of the talks until the US blockade of its oil ports was lifted, a clear sanctions waiver on oil sales was in place and half of its estimated $24bn (£18bn) in overseas assets were unfrozen and returned to Tehran. Most of those goals have been achieved although the US treasury did not issue a formal sanctions waiver on Sunday.