Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Games, Fighting games, Sports games, Culture, MMA
Title – UFC 6 review: a bloody, brilliant MMA fighting game | Games | The Guardian
Author – Kirk McKeand
Link – UFC 6 review: a bloody, brilliant MMA fighting game | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T09:00:28.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/17/ufc-6-review-mma-fighting-game-ea-sports

B ecoming a professional fighter takes years of repetition, drilling techniques and training footwork until everything is instinctual. Your body needs an automatic answer for every limb, from every angle. In MMA , which encompasses every martial art, it’s even harder.

EA Sports’ UFC 6 realistically captures the grind of this brutal discipline. Throw on Career Mode and you spend most of your time working on combos and techniques. It’s all about making the complex controls feel second nature, increasing the effectiveness of every strike thrown by your fighter. With simulated six-week-long training camps between bouts, you can sometimes spar 12 times before a fight that could be over in a matter of seconds.

It’s an authentic fighter experience. In real life, these athletes spend relatively little time actually trying to take each other’s heads off with a shin, and most of their time training. In a game, however, it’s a bit of a slog. Once you’ve proven that you can ace these drills you can skip them, but you get fewer benefits. And it’s still laborious, as is tending to your inevitable injuries.

Happily, the fighting itself is excellent. UFC games have had a bit of a rock-’em’-sock-’em quality to them, but this latest instalment does a great job at creating more natural animations, flowing beautifully between the different levels submissions, wrestling, and stand-up — of an MMA fight. It looks almost worryingly realistic, too. From the pores on their skin to the wrinkles on the soles of their feet, these character models are the most detailed I’ve seen in a sports fighter, as impressive as Fight Night was when we saw HD video games for the first time. You can even tell who’s a standup fighter and who’s a wrestler by who has the most disfigured ears.

Every fight takes its toll on their bodies, too, with bruises and cuts appearing in direct response to your strikes. Blood droplets fly through the air and stain the canvas. When you land a knockout punch, the slow motion replay cranks up the volume so you hear the crunch of bone on bone and see cheeks wobble like a basset hound barking at a hairdryer.

A welcome new addition is The Legacy, a story mode that mythologises the rise of an up and coming fictional wrestler who’s trying to escape the shadow of his famous father, while brewing up a rivalry with another prospect at the same gym. It’s fully acted-out melodrama, your very own Rocky story, shining a light on how violence occasionally spills outside the Octagon and stains careers; inbetween fights, you attend press conferences and respond to provocations on social media.

The story does a great job of pulling you along for the first few hours as you go from rivals to friends and back to rivals again. It gets you invested in the action and raises the stakes, but the narrative climaxes near the beginning of your UFC career and then fizzles out. It feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to keep you engaged when you reach the top and have to defend your belts. Nonetheless, between the fluid fighting and the story-mode razzmatazz, this is the best version yet of EA’s fight-sim series.

UFC 6 is out now; £69.99

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Spain, World Cup 2026, Cape Verde, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – ‘Stung’ Spain have digested shock start but know repeat is not an option | Spain | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sidlowe
Link – ‘Stung’ Spain have digested shock start but know repeat is not an option | Spain | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T04:00:21.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/21/stung-spain-have-digested-shock-start-but-know-repeat-is-not-an-option

C ape Verde are not the only ones to have kept Spain out at this World Cup. Turns out it was even harder to get past security on the gate of the team hotel in downtown Chattanooga. Two days after the 0-0 draw in their opener , Luis de la Fuente gave his players the day off, a chance to clear their heads and leave the disappointment behind. Lamine Yamal went to Nashville, Dani Olmo headed for Hamilton Place mall and Rodri strolled the Tennessee river with his partner. When Borja Iglesias got back before the 9pm curfew, they didn’t recognise him and wouldn’t let him in.

“It was funny,” Iglesias said, standing at the side of the pitch at Kennesaw State University 30 miles north-west of Atlanta on Saturday, moments before the selección ’s final session in preparation for their second game. “It happens to me in Spain , so how could it not happen here? I didn’t have the accreditation with me so I have to wait for someone to come and get me. Lamine laughed at me: ‘I love it, they didn’t let you in.’ The good thing is I told a couple of them and they said it had happened to them before too.”

It can’t happen again. Up next for Spain are Saudi Arabia back in Atlanta on Sunday and this time they have to find a way through. “I’m not sure it’s fair to say that the forwards have to ‘improve’, but yes, we need goals,” Iglesias said. “We had various chances and didn’t score; other times you only get one chance and you do score. So, be calm. I have seen them train and there’s no problem. They will go in next time, for sure.”

And then things will be different. “If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match . “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”

Few others saw the good in the game, especially not from the outside. Cape Verde were supposed to be easy and with this format no one entertained the possibility of Spain being knocked out anyway, which may have been part of the problem. “Maybe the fact that it was the first game conditioned things,” De la Fuente conceded. The following day Mikel Merino had talked about a “mourning” ; it was a metaphor, he insisted, but it had hurt. “The players are stung, and tomorrow will be different for sure,” said De la Fuente.

And yet, he said, there were “zero doubts”; Spain must “insist on the same idea”. Yet the conclusion that the only thing missing was a finish did not entirely convince. In the opening half an hour, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch. In that period, six players made more passes than Pedri, who is supposed to be the playmaker but who appeared too advanced, his energy expended chasing down defenders while the game was played behind him instead of in front of him. With Gavi and Torres on the wings, what width there was came from the full-backs.

Which leads to the other element which has occupied everyone – probably too much. The absence of Lamine Yamal until 71 minutes has eclipsed almost everything else in a national team developing a dependency that goes beyond the pitch. An 18-year-old is cast as Spain’s hope and salvation, almost as their everything. Unable to play since April with a hamstring injury, De la Fuente had said Lamine Yamal was in “perfect” condition before facing Cape Verde and that the way the game went would decide when he was put on but that claim was disproved by how long the coach waited and the conversations with the medical staff that preceded the winger’s introduction. Nico Williams, also returning from injury, got just nine minutes. “The freshness of Lamine and Nico is what it is,” De la Fuente said then.

“The good news is that Lamine is back,” he says now. The important questions are how many minutes Lamine Yamal can play against Saudi Arabia, and which minutes; De la Fuente seemed to imply that he would prefer the second 45, which is where games are won, to the first 45. But on the eve of the match the numbers he threw out were “55, 58, 63”.

“We would be in a better mood if we had won but today we have taken our run to 32 games unbeaten,” De la Fuente said then; six days on, the mood is better still, a sense if anything that the negative reaction to their opening game was a bit much, that the critics had got carried away, that it’s not so bad. And, importantly, that they would show those critics how wrong they were. There was that word: “stung”. De la Fuente said: “There’s no feeling of pressure, no sense of emergency. Sometimes the criticism motivates you and this is a generation of players that is very competitive. Players see [what’s said].”

He added: “There is a moment when it stops being about tactics. This team has heart and always responds.”

They are not going to let it divide them, certainly: this is a close group, they keep saying. On Saturday, Laporte was talking about playing Fortnite with the kids, who enjoy winding him up. And it is just one game, which they didn’t even lose. Uruguay’s draw that same night also meant that they don’t even have a deficit to make up.

“We were sad those first 24 hours but we have turned it around now,” Zubimendi said on Saturday. He also rejected suggestions that Spain’s circulation of the ball had been slow – “I’m surprised because if this midfield has a characteristic quality it’s not exactly that it slows the game down” – and defended Rodri from unexpected criticism, asking: “What am I even supposed to say to that?”

Zubimendi added: “It was not a brilliant game but nor was it really bad: there are things we can take from it. We have to come up with improvements, especially that fluidity, that freshness in the final third which I think is going to be the key. I don’t think it’s a physical problem, I think it’s more that touch of precision. The day after wasn’t easy but that shows we care, that we’re pissed off at not winning, and that we feel the need to win. Our confidence has not dropped; we have walked a long path together and we trust each other to turn this around.”

This time, they can’t let anyone stop them. “We were annoyed, which is the way it should be,” Laporte said. “But it’s also true that we are unbeaten in 32. We have the ambition and the confidence to look to the next game, think positively, and try to win, as we always to. To say: ‘We’re here.’”

Keyword – Travel
Trefwoorden – Amalfi coast holidays, Public transport trips, Travel, Italy holidays, Europe holidays
Title – Salerno: the charming and affordable gateway to Italy’s Amalfi coast | Amalfi coast holidays | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-furseth
Link – Salerno: the charming and affordable gateway to Italy’s Amalfi coast | Amalfi coast holidays | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T06:00:02.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jun/20/italy-salerno-affordable-budget-amalfi-coast-train-ferry

T he ferry from Salerno to Amalfi town was set to take about 35 minutes, and we were debating whether to risk the windswept top deck, fearful our packed lunches might fly into the Tyrrhenian Sea. (My father and I were taking a pragmatic approach on our Italian holiday, opting for light midday meals to save space for the primo and secondo courses at dinner, and ample lemony desserts.)

As our ferry sped across glittering water, we admired the views as the Amalfi coast unfolded, incandescent with charm. But we could also see the crawling traffic on the narrow roads that cling to the cliffs. That could have been us, up there in one of those toy-sized rental cars, squeezed between a tourist coach and a fed-up local leaning on their horn. Thankfully, we were on a boat instead, sea breeze in hair and coffee in hand.

The Amalfi coast has a reputation that draws tourists from all over the world. It seems everybody wants to see this string of sorbet-coloured towns, to wander the narrow streets where houses climb the hills like stacked blocks, and to sip limoncello while gazing out across the impossibly bright, blue waters. But as eager as I had been to experience these famous graces, the idea of white-knuckling it on hairpin turns in a Fiat 500, inches from certain ruin, didn’t seem like my idea of fun. That’s when an Italian friend gave me some priceless advice: stay in Salerno – it’s a nice town with good restaurants, and you can do all your excursions via public transport from there.

Salerno is tucked just under the Sorrentine peninsula and about half an hour south of Naples on the fast train. It’s an ideal base for jumping on trains to inland attractions such as Pompeii and Paestum, but also for catching ferries to every destination along the Amalfi coast, as well as Capri and Sicily. What’s more, Salerno is a more affordable base than the honeypot towns of Positano or Ravello, where accommodation and restaurant prices are around double what you’d pay here.

Originally a Roman colony, Salerno was reshaped by the Normans in the 11th century. It’s a pleasant and relaxed town to wander, its wide and luxurious promenade dotted with palm trees, benches and street performers. What it lacks in Amalfi glamour, it makes up for with a more authentic tableau of local Italian life. (After a day of eating overpriced ice-cream from hollowed-out Amalfi lemons, we found Salerno’s lack of performance refreshing.)

Dad and I got a holiday rental on the edge of the historic centre, near Salerno Cathedral , which houses the relics of Saint Matthew. We wandered in one morning and were surprised to find that although the duomo is on the modest side, the crypt is a real showstopper, with intricate marble details from top to bottom. The town is also home to the Schola Medica Salernitana , which dates back to the 9th century and was the pre-eminent source of medical knowledge in its heyday, before closing in 1811. Today, the adjacent Garden of Minerva botanical terrace is the city’s most picturesque attraction. Its organising principle is the four humours of man (the Ancient Greeks theorised that our temperament and health are dictated by a balance of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile). That’s certainly something to think about while wandering the gardens, where the plants are labelled according to which “mood” they affect.

But Salerno is all about the food for me, most notably the glistening, black squid ink pasta dish I ate at La Botte Pazza and still salivate over months later. The menu, scribbled on a tiled wall, described the dish simply as spaghetti mare . The wine came out of taps in the wall, and the buzzy atmosphere only got louder as the evening progressed. The bonhomie was all the more welcome after spending the day wandering among the ghosts of Pompeii (40 minutes up the coast by train), which was buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago.

Another worthwhile rail excursion is to Vietri sul Mare – the first town in the string of pearls that make up the Amalfi coast, and the only one that can be reached by train. We hopped on an eight-minute service out of Salerno for a wander through the town famous for its colourful ceramics, but also because I wanted to swim – Salerno’s seafront has a nice promenade, but beach lovers are left wanting.

You can swim in Amalfi town too, but the beach in this more famous spot was already getting busy when we visited in late March. As much as I enjoyed Amalfi, I felt relieved to be there early in the season – its narrow streets weren’t built for crowds.

Vietri sul Mare is sleepy in comparison, and I was thrilled to find a peaceful stretch of sand, where I changed quickly under the arches before running in for a bracing dip in the turquoise water.

For Dad, who takes a dim view of anyone who goes in the sea in March, Paestum was more of a highlight. After speeding south for about half an hour, the train dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, by a gravel road that promised a 10-minute walk to the ruins of the once-great Greek city. We were in our element now – at Paestum, visitors can wander about freely as the approximately 27-hectare (66 acre) site unfolds, with the occasional noticeboard sharing a story of what used to be here, but mostly leaving it to your imagination.

Paestum’s crown jewels are the three temples looming large and golden in the landscape; they are about 2,500 years old yet very well preserved. Dad was pleased to find a working model of Archimedes’ screw, an ancient hydraulic tool for elevating water, while I was tickled by the Tomb of the Diver, with its fresco of a gentleman diving into a pool, starkers.

Osteria Canali gave us our last meal in Salerno, and again we had the pleasure of being surrounded by local people in an inviting neighbourhood taverna. The regional menu was rich with aubergine and mozzarella, and then came the main course of baccalà – a piece of white fish with figs, wrapped in paper and simmering in its own juices. More creamy Amalfi lemon desserts to finish, of course, and we figured we should try the limoncello as well – when south of Rome, right? But as much as I like a citrus tang, this was finally too much lemon for me.

Choosing Salerno as our base opened up a different side of the Amalfi coast, allowing us to come and go by boat and train without the stress of traffic jams and impossible parking situations. We only missed a train once, but another came along half an hour later, and while we waited there was nothing to worry about except where to go for ice-cream.

Intercity trains run from Naples Central to Salerno and take about 35 minutes (€9.50). Regional trains from Salerno central take about 40 minutes to Pompeii ( €2.80); 30 minutes to Paestum ( €3.40); and eight minutes to Vietri sul Mare (€1.40). Timetables at trenitalia.com . Several ferry companies run year-round services from Salerno to the towns along the Amalfi coast. The Travelmar passenger ferry sails direct to Amalfi town from Salerno’s Concordia terminal ( 35 minutes , €26 return) . Plan your journey with FerryHopper

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Japan, Tunisia football team, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonathanwilson
Link – Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T06:22:47.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/21/japan-tunisia-world-cup-group-f-match-report

Perhaps the manager wasn’t the problem after all. Tunisia sacked Sabri Lamouchi after last week’s 5-1 defeat to Sweden, appointing Hervé Renard as their seventh manager since qualifying began. But it turned out a diffident side lacking defensive conviction are a diffident side lacking defensive conviction whoever has to do the press conferences. Tunisia were well beaten by a Japan side inspired by the Feyenoord centre-forward Ayase Ueda, who scored twice and led the line with intelligence and imagination.

Renard had only three days with his players. He may have performed heroics to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Zambia in 2012 and three years later become the first manager to win two Cups of Nations with different teams as he ended Côte d’Ivoire’s 23-year trophy drought. But he is not, as he has stressed, “a magician”.

Attempts to break into the mainstream of French football with Sochaux, Lille and the France women’s team have faltered and the 57-year-old seems to have accepted that his role now is with aspirant nations in Africa and the Middle East rather than at the apex of the European game. Renard still wears his trademark white shirt but whatever luck it may once have brought seems to have worn off. Not that this mess could, in any realistic sense, be blamed on Renard. He’s just the well-remunerated sap paid to try to explain how Tunisia are out of the World Cup already.

In the end, Renard simply seemed resigned. “We were hoping for a better reaction, a better performance,” he said. “Unfortunately the score was heavy, but this reflects the difference between the teams. Today we were lacking good defensive organisation. In the first 20 minutes of the second half we were more rigorous but this was not enough.”

This was a landmark game for the World Cup, the 1,000th in its history. What began in chilly Montevideo with simultaneous matches between France and Mexico and the US and Belgium has arrived, 96 years later, in steamy Monterrey with the largest victory for an Asian side in the tournament’s history.

The day before the game, a violent and protracted thunderstorm had led to flooding in the stadium compound and had transformed the main access road into a raging torrent. The only evidence of that on matchday, though, was a film of mud over the tarmac and concrete.

Tunisia’s problems were less easily disguised. Renard retained the same basic shape as Lamouchi and made only three changes, most notably in goal, where Aymen Dahmen replaced Mouhib Chamakh, who had been at least in part responsible for Sweden’s first two goals last week. But a similar lineup had a similar outcome; Tunisia were never in the game.

“The players didn’t get too caught up in the opponent and were able to fully show what we wanted to do,” said a delighted Hajime Moriyasu, Japan’s manager. Japan should have had a penalty within 70 seconds as Ueda was clipped by Ellyes Skhiri as he tried to turn – a mystifying non-award by the Romanian referee, Istvan Kovacs, and an even more mystifying non-intervention by VAR for an obvious foul – but they were ahead within four minutes anyway, a neat move dragging Tunisia across the pitch and leaving space for Keito Nakamura on the Japan left. The wing-back crossed low into a crowded box, the ball cannoning in off the heel of an unsighted Daichi Kamada. Renard advanced towards the edge of his technical area, a look of bewildered horror on his face.

Moriyasu actually made one more change than Renard after his side’s impressive 2-2 draw with the Netherlands. Takefusa Kubo was injured, but the other three tweaks were tactical – and they worked. Having played largely without the ball in that game, Japan poured forward in waves and, but for a last-gasp clearing challenge from Dylan Bronn and then a sprawling save from Dahmen that clawed Takehiro Tomiyasu’s deflected shot away a millimetre from fully crossing the line, Japan would have increased their advantage within the first 10 minutes.

The second, though, was always going to arrive sooner or later and it came after 31 minutes as Ueda, receiving the ball in an inexplicable amount of space, turned, ignored the run of Junya Ito and whipped a shot through the legs of Montasser Talbi and into the bottom corner. Renard’s expression this time was rueful.

Renard can at least take credit for having tightened things up after the break but by then it was too late. Japan were watched from the VIP box by Hisako, the widow of Norihito, grandson of Emperor Taishō, who travelled with her husband to South Korea shortly before the 2002 World Cup for the first visit by the imperial family since the second world war. What she saw was a very good side who spent the second half conserving energy and playing within themselves against a far inferior team.

Ito added a third from Ueda’s flick after 69 minutes, played onside by Mohamed Amine Ben Hmida who was dallying a good three or four yards behind the rest of the defensive line. Renard, incredulous, watched the replay on an iPad and spent much of the subsequent drinks break standing purse-lipped staring into the middle distance. Ueda’s clever looping header made it four and by then, Renard looked broken.

He’s surely too long in the game ever to have imagined the Tunisia job might be a long-term appointment but, given recent precedent, Renard will be lucky to make it to Thursday’s final group game against the Netherlands.

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 – Info
Trefwoorden – Information, Football, Newsletter sign-up
Title – Sign up for the Football Daily newsletter: our free football email | Information | The Guardian
Author – Guardian Staff
Link – Sign up for the Football Daily newsletter: our free football email | Information | The Guardian
Publish date – 2022-11-14T09:05:50.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/info/2022/nov/14/football-daily-email-sign-up

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Politics, Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, Makerfield byelection, UK news, Labour party leadership, Labour
Title – Starmer expected to announce departure on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Burnham for PM – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/yohannes-lowe,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heatherstewart,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker
Link – Starmer expected to announce departure on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Burnham for PM – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T12:25:31.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/jun/21/keir-starmer-expected-resign-resignation-monday–andy-burnham-makerfield-labour-uk-politics-latest-news-updates

Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday

The Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker , has more on the prime minister’s intentions going forward:

Keir Starmer is expected to announce on Monday that he will step down as prime minister, after overwhelming pressure from Labour MPs to make way for Andy Burnham to become Labour leader.

The prime minister and his allies had insisted for weeks that they would fight a leadership challenge from Burnham, or anyone else, before the Makerfield byelection in which Burnham was hoping to secure a return to Westminster.

But on Sunday morning, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that Starmer was spending the weekend “making time to reflect on the political realities” he faces.

Speaking for the government, Kyle refused to say what he thought Starmer’s plans were, or what he had asked the PM to do. You can read the full story here:

Labour backbencher, Barry Gardiner, has said he doesn’t want to see a Labour leadership contest, but that the PM should go.

Gardiner, who has been a Labour MP continuously for almost three decades, said he believes Keir Starmer should be “able to go with dignity”.

Speaking to Sky News , Gardiner said:

I think what we will see is the prime minister setting out a timescale. I want him to be able to go with dignity. I think it should not be, in any way, a contest that humiliates him. Although I do understand why people say it would be good to have a contest so people can set out their stalls and we can be clear about exactly what Andy Burnham is offering.

Labour MP for Chesterfield, Toby Perkins, a Starmer loyalist, said it needs to be clear whether a new leader would take the party on a “radical departure” from the manifesto it was elected on two years ago.

Meanwhile, the former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who resigned from the government in May , said candidates should at least present their ideas to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

“I very much hope that over the next week, at least, that whilst we may not end up with a full-scale contest, that there is an opportunity to properly question, in somewhat of a public forum, what’s coming next?,” she told the BBC.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has written in the Mail on Sunday that her party would never sign up to an electoral pact with Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader.

“We are not the same, and voters are not ours to trade like football cards,” she wrote, as she claimed that Reform are in favour of a bigger state, nationalisation and “unfunded giveaways”. “Reform dress like Thatcherites but act like Corbynites,” Badenoch wrote.

“Farage may be trying to unite the right, I am trying to unite the country.” This statement jars with the reality of the Conservatives trying hard to win back some of their voters by adopting divisive Reform-like stances on issues such as immigration and asylum policy.

At national level, Badenoch, whose party has consistently trialled behind Reform in national polls, and Farage have both rejected talk that they could go into the next election with some sort of electoral pact.

A string of conservative MPs and former ministers have defected from the Tories to Reform over recent months , citing their disillusionment with the party. But their defections have led many to question how different Farage’s party is to previous Conservative administrations that he blames for huge failures in governance and policy – especially on immigration.

The Guardian’s economics editor, Heather Stewart , has written an interesting analysis piece suggesting it would be wise for Andy Burnham to set clear expectations about tax and spend if he is not to spook the bond markets in the likely event he becomes prime minister. Here is an extract from her analysis in our weekly economics viewpoint column :

Burnham’s every pronouncement – and that of whoever he picks as chancellor – will now be watched intently by the markets.

If his team are serious about nationalisation of key utilities , they may well want to borrow significantly more – something Rachel Reeves’s rules allow for, where the government gets a financial asset, such as a shareholding, in return.

The logic is that the nation’s balance sheet has barely changed, if it takes on a new liability to bondholders, but that’s matched with something that generates a financial return.

The bond markets may be wary of taking such a laid-back view, however, if a Burnham government cannot show that when it comes to day-to-day spending – pensions, benefits, public services – it has a plan to make ends meet.

Under Labour party rules, any MP who wishes to challenge to be leader needs the backing of at least 20% of the parliamentary party, or 81 MPs.

The former health secretary, Wes Streeting, has pledged to seek the top job and says he has sufficient backers, but allies of Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham are sceptical.

His candidacy will become less likely if wavering Labour backbenchers conclude that they would prefer to back a likely winner and swing behind Burnham.

Starmer’s departure will set the UK on course for a seventh prime minister in 10 years, just two years after he led Labour to a sweeping general election victory, winning a majority of 174 seats.

His premiership has been battered by controversies and U-turns, including over winter fuel payments to older people and the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington .

Labour has slumped in the polls, and Starmer himself is enormously unpopular with much of the public. Reform UK has led for more than 300 consecutive national polls and many Labour MPs are increasingly convinced that without a change of leader, Nigel Farage will win the next election.

The former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak has given Andy Burnham some advice in a piece for the Sunday Times . As a reminder, in July 2024 Sunak lost to Keir Starmer in what was the Tory party’s worst general election defeat in its parliamentary history. Sunak, who is still the MP for Richmond and Northallerton, wrote:

Burnham must recognise that if he reaches No 10, he’ll never have more power than on his first day in the job . It is vital he has a clear and achievable plan for what he wants to do in those opening hours .

Those around Burnham will want to get him there by forcing Starmer out through ministerial resignations and the like. Burnham shouldn’t want to become PM by default , though.

I remember on the morning after Boris Johnson dropped out in October 2022, I kept suggesting to my team that we should want a contest, that it would be good for us.

They assumed that I was just emotionally preparing for another candidate getting the necessary nominations and having to go through a leadership election. But I actually meant it. Without one, your mandate is weak, and you end up being bound by commitments that aren’t your priorities .

Some commentators have said Andy Burnham is just a better communicator than Keir Starmer, but have questioned how different he is on policy.

The Guardian’s policy editor, Kiran Stacey, has helpfully looked at the political projects a Burnham government would likely pursue in this useful explainer:

Foreign secretary tells Starmer to stand down – report

The foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has told Keir Starmer he should stand down as prime minister, Sky News is reporting .

Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, and transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, have all also urged the prime minister to lay out a timetable for his departure from No 10, according to other news reports.

As he spent Sunday at Chequers considering his premiership, Keir Starmer took the time to post on social media about father’s day. He wrote on X :

Being a dad is my greatest joy.Today, I’m thinking about my dad, and the father I am to my children because of him. Happy Father’s Day.

The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, said nothing will fundamentally change if Andy Burnham replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister because the Labour party is “addicted” to debt and borrowing – and that is something that will continue under new leadership.

On Burnham specifically, Stride told Sky News: “This is somebody who has flip-flopped all over the place. You have seen it even in this byelection itself.”

“He doesn’t apparently understand what the fiscal rules are. He said rather foolish things about the bond markets in the past. The markets are watching,” Stride said, in reference to Bunrham previously suggesting the country should be less in hock to the reaction of bond traders . The outgoing Greater Manchester mayor has since bolstered his team of economic advisers in an apparent attempt to boost his fiscal credibility.

Stride went on to say that Burnham taking over as prime minister would be “bad and in the wrong direction”. The Conservatives would like Starmer to stay as leader because of his deep unpopularity across the country, as reflected in Labour’s disastrous election results across England, Scotland and Wales in May.

Peter Kyle has been speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday politics programme. The business secretary repeated very similar lines to the ones he gave Sky News earlier this morning, notably that Keir Starmer is taking the time this weekend to think through the “political realities” he faces “today” (compared to the last two weeks). He said Starmer will reflect on what is in the country’s best interest.

Peter Kyle said Labour should not descend into infighting in the way that the Conservatives did whenever they faced a “moment of political challenge”. The Tories were readily defeated at the 2024 election by Starmer after churning through five prime ministers in seven years, including three during 2022.

When asked if he thinks it is in the country’s interest for Keir Starmer to go, Peter Kyle tellingly dodged the question and said it was imperative for the government to continue to function despite the political turbulence. He told Sky News:

My priority when I think what my role is in putting the country first is to uphold the authority of this government to make sure we can govern through a moment of political challenge and that we are 100% focused on delivering.

Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday

The Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker , has more on the prime minister’s intentions going forward:

Keir Starmer is expected to announce on Monday that he will step down as prime minister, after overwhelming pressure from Labour MPs to make way for Andy Burnham to become Labour leader.

The prime minister and his allies had insisted for weeks that they would fight a leadership challenge from Burnham, or anyone else, before the Makerfield byelection in which Burnham was hoping to secure a return to Westminster.

But on Sunday morning, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that Starmer was spending the weekend “making time to reflect on the political realities” he faces.

Speaking for the government, Kyle refused to say what he thought Starmer’s plans were, or what he had asked the PM to do. You can read the full story here:

Starmer is reflecting on the ‘political realities and challenges’ he currently faces, cabinet minister says

The business and trade secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that he has not spoken to Starmer since Friday – but he had a “very detailed conversation” with him then, which he said was “private” and “personal”.

“The prime minister was calm. He was thoughtful. He led the conversation,” Kyle told Trevor Philips.

“Repeatedly, the prime minister asked about the country. Not once in that conversation, which was a lengthy conversation, did he ever ask about self-interest; it was always about the country . And I think that is the tone of the conversation I had with him.

“ It was frank , and I think that is the mindset that the prime minister is in as he goes into this weekend, through which he has been working very hard as prime minister, as he always does, but also trying to make time to reflect on the political challenges at the moment .”

Kyle went on to say that Starmer is “ making time to reflect on the political realities , challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in ”. Over the weekend, the prime minister has been at his country retreat, Chequers, spending time with his wife, Victoria, and children.

Starmer reportedly expected to resign on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Andy Burnham for PM

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is expected to resign on Monday and is preparing to set out a timetable for an orderly departure from No 10, according to the Observer .

The paper reports that Starmer, who has insisted he would fight any leadership challenge, now recognises his position is untenable after talking with cabinet ministers, party donors and trade union leaders over the last couple of days.

“He’s come up hard against the reality that the support isn’t there,” one source told the Observer. “The truth is everyone knows this is no longer a tenable proposition. There’s a sadness about it all, of course, but sometimes there’s just an inevitability in politics and as Boris Johnson said, ‘When the herd moves it moves’.”

No 10 has denied the report that Starmer is about to resign and said he is getting on with the job of prime minister.

The number of MPs backing Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership surged following his triumphant byelection victory in Mankerfield last week which showed he could fight off Reform in a general election.

The Greater Manchester mayor is expected to be in Westminster on Monday to be sworn into the House of Commons. He is reportedly planning to speak to Starmer afterwards and present him with a list of backers – which he is said to be seeking to get up to 200 – in an attempt to press him to step down and set out a transition.

Allies of Burnham favour a longer wait to allow them to prepare for government, which could mean Starmer could remain prime minister for months.

The number of Labour MPs publicly calling for Starmer to go has exceeded 100 – just under a quarter of the party’s MPs – and includes many who want a transition of power without the spectacle of a potentially messy leadership contest.

Starmer is under pressure to reveal his plans before a crunch cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where a number of ministers are expected to tell him his time is up.

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Culture, Music, Indie
Title – Post your questions for Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column | Culture | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laura-snapes
Link – Post your questions for Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column | Culture | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T12:46:10.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/19/post-your-questions-for-the-durutti-column-vini-reilly

A t the end of July, the Durutti Column will release their first new music in 16 years: the stunningly beautiful Renascent. It’s a prime time for Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell and Keir Stewart to return as the Durutti influence is everywhere: sampled by Blood Orange on his latest album Essex Honey; cited by Harry Styles on his new LP Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, as well as by Mark William Lewis and Yung Lean; played on The Bear.

Not that the group need the endorsements: since 1978, they have been one of the UK’s most distinctive acts, their dreamy instrumentals offering a sunlit alternative to the crags of post-punk, as last year’s reissue of their debut, The Return of the Durutti Column reminded us. The record’s deviation from the norms of the era, wrote Alexis Petridis in a five-star reappraisal, “ultimately worked in its favour: other than the sound of the primitive rhythm tracks, there’s nothing to tie the music here to a specific era, which means it hasn’t dated.”

You can ask Reilly about being the first act to sign to Factory Records, having that debut album compiled against his will by producer Martin Hannett, working with Morrissey, learning to play guitar again after suffering a stroke, and quite how this new album came about. “I’ve got a good excuse to stop now because I’ve got arthritis,” he told us in 2023 – yet here we are, with as gorgeous a record as they’ve ever made.

Post your questions in the comments by the end of 23 June and the best answers will appear on Guardian music soon.

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Dance music, Pop and rock, Culture, Music, IVF, Life and style, Fertility problems, David Guetta, Sia Furler
Title – David Guetta and Sia’s song Titanium got me through my fertility treatment | Dance music | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/deborah-linton
Link – David Guetta and Sia’s song Titanium got me through my fertility treatment | Dance music | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T06:00:04.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/20/my-cultural-awakening-david-guetta-sia-titanium-fertility-treatment

A t the end of 2011, party season was under way but I was in no mood for festivities. Two years into fertility treatment, my body was pumped full of synthetic hormones and felt like a pin cushion, while my head was filled with both the fragile hope of having a baby, and the exhaustion of failed clinical attempts to do so.

I was in my late 20s. I met my husband when I was 22; we got married when I was 25. “I want to have kids young,” I’d told him. It was a feeling I’d harboured since my teenage years. But I’d also had the nagging sense that it might not come easily to me. As it turned out, my intuition was right. Approaching 28, I was a regular on the infertility merry-go-round.

I was recovering from my second miscarriage that year when I heard Sia’s raspy voice on the car radio belting out words that sounded emotionally weighty for an electronic dance number – her David Guetta collaboration, Titanium.

It’s not a song I would have necessarily rated or listened to again – I’m more likely to play 00s R&B and hip-hop – but it came at the perfect time in my life. I had forgotten how days felt before fertility drugs and the diarised cycles of administering them. I’d been constantly wearing a brave face and cramming in hospital appointments before and after work, going about my job through a fog of longing and hormones. It had left me in a “cry on the bedroom floor” kind of a heap. I needed something to drag the hope back into me.

I turned the radio up and listened to the lyrics: “I’m bulletproof, nothing to lose / Fire away, fire away.” It felt as if it was talking to and about me, issuing a riposte to all those shots of disappointment that had been fired our way. As Sia’s vocals ascended through the chorus with Guetta’s soaring synths – “Ricochet, you take your aim” – I cried, but I felt myself gaining power with her, too. “You shoot me down, but I won’t fall / I am titanium.” Those were the words I needed to hear.

I felt like a puppet pulled upright again. I streamed it on repeat in the days that followed. I might not have been able to face the work Christmas party but I wasn’t going to languish on the bedroom floor any more.

Over the next months, I spent a lot of time in my car, travelling to work and to fertility appointments to get my blood tested, hormones measured or insides scanned. Listening to Titanium became routine. Each time, its cinematic surge had the same empowering effect and I’d turn up the volume, wind down the windows and defiantly sing along in my terrible voice so it could wash over me.

The following May, when my husband and I headed to the clinic for another IVF embryo transfer, I let it motivate me; when we drove back from scans confirming we were six weeks, then 12 weeks pregnant, I celebrated with it. As I nervously made my way through my pregnancy, I turned to it when I needed the boost.

In January 2013, our first son was born. Today, he is the eldest of three: his brother arrived 15 months later, via IVF too (the last of our fertilised embryos) and four years later, another brother, without fertility treatment. We consider ourselves unspeakably lucky; for many, the outcome is not the same.

In our family, everyone knows Titanium is my fight song. It’s the only big commercial dance hit on my playlists, and a marker of something I overcame.

My kids call me in whenever it streams or plays on TV. When I made my husband a playlist for our 15th wedding anniversary, it’s the song that represented our 2011. And the other week, when he was out with friends, he sent me a voice note from the bar: he’d recorded it playing in the background.

There’s something all-consuming about fertility treatment: you view life only through the filter of your efforts to get pregnant. If you’re lucky, the filter lifts. It did for me, but the fight song remained. So, now, elsewhere in life, when I need a shot of strength and find myself alone in the car, down goes the window and on it goes.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Arizona, Extreme heat, National parks, Texas, Oregon, Alaska, Florida, Arkansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, US weather, West Coast, US news
Title – Grand Canyon on ‘extreme heat’ watch, with temperatures set to soar | Arizona | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/anna-betts
Link – Grand Canyon on ‘extreme heat’ watch, with temperatures set to soar | Arizona | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T19:36:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/20/grand-canyon-extreme-heat-watch

Extreme heat is set to hit lower parts of the Grand Canyon from Monday, the US National Weather Service (NWS) warned, with temperatures projected to exceed 100F (37.7C).

An alert published on Saturday will be in effect from 10am local time on Monday through 7pm on Tuesday.

Temperatures could climb as high as 112F (44.4C), according to the NWS’s office in Flagstaff, Arizona , compounding concern about warm conditions. Three hikers in the national park have recently died in heat-related incidents.

Forecasters warned “dangerously hot conditions” were possible below 4,000ft, with daytime temperatures expected to range between 97F (36.1C) at Havasupai Gardens to 111F (43.8C) at Phantom Ranch.

“Most individuals will be at risk for heat-related illnesses without effective cooling or adequate hydration, especially with prolonged outdoor exposure,” the agency’s Flagstaff office said. Such “extreme heat watch” notices are “reserved for only the hottest days of the year”, it added, and “issued when temperatures could rise to dangerous levels”.

Weather officials urged hikers to avoid being in the canyon between 10am to 4pm, and advised against physical activity.

The warning follows a series of recent heat-related deaths in the park. On Friday, the National Park Service (NPS) said that Grand Canyon park rangers and emergency personnel responded to two separate heat-related incidents, on 12 June and 16 June, that resulted in three deaths.

“In both cases, the deceased hikers were hiking trails in the Inner Canyon, where temperatures can exceed 109F in the shade during midday hours,” the agency said .

According to park officials, on 12 June, a 72-year-old male “succumbed to symptoms of heat-related illness” along the South Kaibab Trail. And on 16 June, in a separate incident, a 67-year old man and a 68-year-old woman also appeared to have “succumbed to symptoms of heat-related illness” on the North Kaibab Trail, although the investigation is “still ongoing”.

“Despite rapid response and aerial support, all three individuals were found deceased when responders arrived,” the statement said.

Earlier this month, an 18-year-old man also died in the park after experiencing what the authorities described as “heat-related symptoms”.

“Hiking in Grand Canyon can be a challenge for anyone, especially during the heat of summer,” the park service said on Friday. “Recent increase in heat-related incidents comes as summer temperatures in the Inner Canyon have reached dangerous levels, creating conditions that can quickly overwhelm hikers during the hottest parts of the day.”

Elsewhere in Arizona, evacuation orders have been issued for some communities between Sedona and Forest Highlands as firefighters work to contain a the Pocket fire located just north of Sedona in the Oak Creek Canyon area.

Meanwhile, extreme heat watches have also been issued for parts of Oregon from Monday through Tuesday evening, and for portions of California from Tuesday evening through Thursday, with forecasters warning of potentially dangerous temperatures.

In Texas, the NWS office in San Angelo, said that “triple-digit heat” can be expected from Sunday into early next week.

Heat advisories are currently in effect for parts of Alaska, Puerto Rico , Florida and Texas. The advisories have also been issued for Sunday in portions of Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico.

The heat comes as the US is currently co-hosting the Fifa World Cup, alongside Mexico and Canada. Earlier this week, a Guardian analysis found two matches of the tournament’s first round were played at a level of severe heat that a football players’ union has previously said should trigger the delay or postponement of games.