Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Nigel Farage, Reform UK, Party funding, Politics, UK news, Cryptocurrencies, Bank of England, Economic policy, Business, Technology
Title – Farage trying to block ‘Britcoin’ plans that could be costly for billionaire donor | Nigel Farage | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/tom-burgis,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/henry-dyer,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/rowena-mason
Link – Farage trying to block ‘Britcoin’ plans that could be costly for billionaire donor | Nigel Farage | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T10:30:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/18/nigel-farage-trying-block-britcoin-crypto-plans-bank-of-england-christopher-harborne

Nigel Farage has been trying to block a Bank of England cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for the billionaire bankrolling his party.

The Reform UK leader has said Christopher Harborne wants nothing in exchange for the millions he has donated to the party and the undeclared £5m personal gift to Farage that the Guardian revealed in April.

But Farage used a private meeting at the Bank to urge the governor to drop plans for a state-run alternative to the digital currency that has made his Thailand-based benefactor one of the richest people in the world.

Farage’s opposition to the proposal for a “Britcoin” is so strong that, after the meeting last September, he told an audience of crypto enthusiasts he would be “prepared to go to prison” to stop it, footage of the event shows.

Harborne’s £25m in donations to Farage’s Reform UK , formerly the Brexit party, account for about two-thirds of its funding. He is one of a handful of tech figures who own Tether, the company that issues the world’s most widely traded cryptocurrency.

Tether’s digital cash, known as stablecoins, is pegged in value to government-issued currencies, allowing users to exchange their money easily between the two. Registered in El Salvador with a small staff, Tether’s reported profits have surpassed those of Netflix and Coca-Cola.

If Harborne’s share of the profits is equal to his 12% stake, that would give him about £1bn a year. Those profits could fall, however, if the Bank’s governor, Andrew Bailey, proceeds with the Britcoin plan, which could cut demand for stablecoins such as Tether’s, according to a submission to the central bank by an industry body that represents the company.

Anna Turley, chair of the Labour party, said she would write to the financial regulator to ask it to investigate Farage’s actions.

Farage told October’s Zebu Live event in London he regarded the Bank’s plans for a digital pound with “total and utter horror”. He recounted the meeting he and his fellow Reform MP, the property developer Richard Tice, held at Threadneedle Street with Bailey. “I asked him straight: ‘Are you still progressing your plans for a British central bank digital currency?’ And the answer was: ‘Yes.’”

Farage’s dislike of Bailey’s governorship has recently become the subject of deepfake memes promoting crypto scams that depict the politician beating up the central banker at a falsified TV appearance.

Like his advocacy for crypto in general, Farage frames his position on central bank digital currencies as part of a campaign for freedom from an over-powerful state. Rather than linking his opposition to the possible threat to companies such as Tether, he claims to be concerned that Britcoin would rely on a digital ID system. Some critics have made this claim, but the Bank has not said this would be the case.

“I don’t want to live in a country with a central bank digital currency,” he told the crypto event. He added: “I’m prepared to go to prison to stop us having [central bank digital currencies] administered under digital ID. That is how committed I am.”

The Guardian sent the main points of this article to Reform and Harborne. Harborne’s lawyers said they contained “a number of unsupported insinuations, hallucinations, and conspiracy theories bearing no basis in reality” but did not give detailed responses, adding: “Mr Harborne will not comment on fantasy.”

A Reform spokesperson said: “This is utter rubbish. Nigel’s only focus is on saving the country.”

But in his opposition to Britcoin, Farage’s position appears to be closely aligned with Tether’s.

Digital Currencies Governance Group (DCGG), an industry body representing what it describes as a “full spectrum of key stakeholders in the ecosystem, including Tether”, made a submission to the Bank and the Treasury about the Britcoin plans in 2021. It claimed there was a “significant risk” that users might switch away from stablecoins such as Tether’s to the state-run digital currency, “stifling growth and innovation”.

The DCGG submission said that although “some argue that central bank digital currencies will restrict illegal activity”, the authorities should instead develop “a regulated market for private stablecoins”.

Tether stablecoins are popular as an alternative to currencies plagued by inflation, and to pricey money-transfer services. Billions in Tether stablecoins – which users can buy and sell without revealing their identity – are known to have been used by Russian people breaking sanctions, Asian perpetrators of “pig-butchering” romance scams , North Korean hackers, British drug gangs and transnational organised criminals. The company’s representatives say it collaborates with law-enforcement agencies in dozens of countries.

Harborne’s lawyers have stressed that he is a minority shareholder in Tether, not an executive. But he does appear to have sought to shape policymakers’ approach to crypto.

EU lobbying records say Harborne was registered as a DCGG lobbyist in 2020-21, seeking to influence Brussels’ crypto policy. He met the staff of at least one MEP, from the liberal Czech Pirate party.

Harborne’s lawyers point out there is no evidence his activities in connection with DCGG were undertaken for or on behalf of Tether.

Harborne also appears to have invited DCGG’s boss to a Conservative fundraising dinner in 2022, a period when he had temporarily switched his donations from Farage to the Tories.

Francesca Salierno, formerly an aide to a Ukip MEP, joined Harborne at the Victoria & Albert Museum for the exclusive event in June 2022. That was shortly after Boris Johnson’s government had announced its crypto policy, which included proposals for regulating stablecoins.

Founded by a reclusive Italian former plastic surgeon , Tether does not publish full accounts or undergo audits. It has found favour in the US under Donald Trump, who appointed its banker, Howard Lutnick, as his commerce secretary. A reported investigation into dirty money flowing through its digital currency appears to have ceased.

In the UK, the company has a champion in Farage. Talking up Tether on LBC radio in September, the month after Harborne gave Reform a record £9m, Farage said: “Stablecoins, crypto, this world is enormous, and I’ve been urging for years that London should embrace it. We should become a global trading centre for this stuff.”

As well as using his meeting with Bailey to object to the Bank’s digital currency plans, Farage has said he pushed the governor to abandon a proposed cap on stablecoin holdings by individuals in the UK.

At the Zebu Live event, Farage said he told Bailey: “Listen mate, you’re being a dinosaur.” Farage has claimed Bailey changed his plans as a result. Bank officials have said that following a consultation they are considering this and other options to address risks posed by stablecoins.

The Bank has refused a freedom of information request for details of Farage’s meeting with Bailey, saying that “disclosure would be likely to inhibit the free and frank provision of advice”.

Tim Picton, of the campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, said: “The Bank of England should disclose the full minutes of its meeting with Farage and Richard Tice last year. With the government at a critical stage of developing its landmark regulatory framework for crypto assets, it is vital that we have more transparency around the key players and vested interests trying to shape it.”

A Bank of England spokesperson said Farage’s meeting with Bailey was “part of the Bank’s engagement with political representatives” and acknowledged his “differing view” from the governor. The Bank was drawing up cryptocurrency policy with “feedback … from industry, academia, and the public”.

Additional reporting by Henry Dyer

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Health & wellbeing, Children, Life and style, Netherlands, Health and fitness holidays, Walking, Fitness, Europe, Family, Schools
Title – Dutch children are unusually happy and healthy. Is it because of this walking ritual? | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
Author – Hannah Docter-Loeb
Link – Dutch children are unusually happy and healthy. Is it because of this walking ritual? | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T04:00:45.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/16/dutch-children-unusually-happy-healthy-avondvierdaagse-walking-festival

I shouldn’t have been surprised that the rain didn’t stop the Dutch kids. All day it had been thunderstorming, and the forecast didn’t look so great for the evening. And yet at 5pm, hundreds of kids started arriving – many by bike – with their parents to Amsterdam’s Westerpark, a beloved city park that caters to a more residential area of the capital. Today, it functions as a starting point: volunteers coordinate registration, and groups of children gather, decked out in raincoats and eager to embark on either a 5km or a 10km excursion around the surrounding neighbourhoods.

It’s the second night of Avondvierdaagse (which literally means “four-day evening walk”) , organised by a group of neighbourhood volunteers . It’s not a race, but if children complete every night, they get medals, a bouquet of flowers and, if they’re lucky, a lot of sweets. It’s not just Amsterdam; across villages, towns and cities in the Netherlands, hundreds of thousands of Dutch people are doing the same: every year, kids spend four evenings in early summer exploring their neighbourhoods with their school friends and parents as part of the Week van de Avond4daagse . Some places had celebrated earlier; others were walking the following week. A variation of the tradition has even made its way to Suriname, one of the Dutch former colonies. There are also four-day cycling and swimming events. According to the Royal Dutch Walking Association (KWbN), which helps coordinate the events, half a million people take part every year, in 700 locations across the country, powered by tens of thousands of volunteers.

“The event is just so Dutch – they don’t have this really anywhere else,” says fellow volunteer Judith van Oudheusden as we cycle from one checkpoint to another to catch the wave of kids at another part of the route. We are responsible for stamping cards to confirm they have completed this part of today’s 10km walk. A full card means they can get their medal on the last day, a feat many are determined to accomplish. Tonight they’ll be walking along the west boundaries of the neighbourhood, making their way through green city parks such as Erasmuspark and Rembrandtpark, and charming residential streets, catching a glimpse of the historic Molen de Otter windmill on the way back to Westerpark. Van Oudheusden participated in the activity as a child, she says, and then walked with her own children when they were younger. Volunteering is a full circle moment for her.

Avondvierdaagse originated from military ideology, explains Inger Leemans, professor of cultural history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The first march was held in 1909 in Nijmegen as a military training event. But when the second world war broke out, different towns started to organise their own walks for soldiers. After the war, citizens were invited to walk along with them: the four-day marches in Nijmegen grew into an immensely popular event where tens of thousands of soldiers and citizens walked in solidarity. Aimed at older crowds, this is now the largest walking event in the world, with 45,000 participants from more than 80 countries, walking the same 30km, 40km and 50km routes each year. According to Arno van Gemert, a team leader for programmes and projects at KWbN, the Avondvierdaagse is like the event’s “little brother or sister”, mainly aimed at primary school children and their parents.

“It is interesting that this walk – with its military origins – grew into one of the national identity markers for the Dutch, a country that does not often self-represent as a military nation,” says Leemans, who also participated in the tradition when she was growing up in Leende, a village near the Belgian border. Most people now see it as a national event, comparable to other festivities such as King’s Day , a national holiday to celebrate the Dutch monarch’s birthday, involving street parties, flea markets, and lots of orange apparel. Avondvierdaagse even has its own traditional delicacy: half an orange, topped with a white Wilhelmina peppermint and wrapped in a piece of muslin, for kids to suck on as they walk. Many children were enjoying one along the route.

While the original walks were not necessarily to promote exercise, Avondvierdaagse has become a way to motivate kids to enjoy being outside and moving their bodies. “It’s important that children are physically active and can develop their motor skills from a young age,” explains Sanne de Vries, professor of physical activity in childhood at Leiden University Medical Center. Encouraging children to go through the whole week of walking – rain or shine – and rewarding them at the end can help build a positive association with physical activity. “Positive emotion that sticks is important.”

It also helps build resilience. “It’s been presented to them as a big challenge because it’s 5km and it sounds super hard,” says Fernanda Gomes, 44, who is walking the shorter route with her seven-year-old daughter, Alicia (who is snacking on the traditional orange as we speak). “Even if it’s raining, they do it and the message behind it is very great for the children.”

Dutch kids are consistently judged to be some of the happiest in the world. This year, a Unicef report again ranked them number one out of 44 western countries for overall wellbeing, and for mental health. Rich social relations were cited as a key factor. Research has shown that Dutch children have strong connections with their peers. In addition, many Dutch parents work part-time, so have more time to spend with their children. Children also have increased independence: parents let their kids roam more freely, and many start young, cycling to and from school by themselves.

Those social relations are at play at Avondvierdaagse: the walks are a chance for children to spend time with not only their parents but also their school friends, outside the classroom. Some even have matching shirts to represent their school: one reads “ Ren voor je leven ”, Dutch for “run for your life”. “It’s fun with friends,” says Robin Astill, 10, who is walking with her mum and a friend.

“I like that it’s something that happens each year and you get exercise out of it,” says Ansel Howard, 13. “It’s something that people have been doing for a long time and that you can do with friends and family and just enjoy.”

Parents also enjoy the Avondvierdaagse. Rebecca Astill, 46, participated when she was younger; as a parent, it’s a chance to explore more of her surroundings. She’s walked with her kids 10 times, first with her son and now with Robin. “You get to see more of your neighbourhood and walk through parts you don’t normally walk through,” she says. The organisers specifically pick out routes to expose participants to new places, and it’s a different route every year. “That’s the art and craft of the routemaster,” says organiser Philip Bueters, who walked as a parent with his own children years ago.

Astill also likes that it’s a social opportunity: a sentiment echoed by many other parents. “At school, you usually see other parents for a couple of minutes,” says Joost de Koning, 44, as his five-year-old, Noa, trails behind us at the beginning of a 5km walk. “But this is bringing the school community together.”

Avondvierdaagse is such a positive event, it’s hard to find any downsides to it. Some have questioned whether the walks are inclusive enough – for people with disabilities, for instance, or those from different cultural backgrounds. In Amsterdam, especially, the events’ participants may not necessarily reflect the diversity of the population, appealing more to higher-income parents in the neighbourhood.

Another problem: while the beauty of the event is its volunteer nature, it can be a huge undertaking. “In recent years, some events have had to stop because of a lack of volunteers,” says Bueters, who joined the neighbourhood organising committee when the last round of volunteers retired. “People are willing to chip in every now and then but not four days in a row.”

Avondvierdaagse is very much a communal effort. Locals provide their time, businesses donate food and flowers, and the KWbN supports the local committees (and provides the coveted medals) all because they know the importance of the event for the kids and the surrounding area.

“It has survived for decades because it brings communities together in a very simple, healthy and screen-free way,” says van Gemert of KWbN. As he explains, there is a specific Dutch word for it: Gezelligheid . The word doesn’t have a perfect English translation – perhaps cosiness or togetherness, but you know it when you see it. “It captures the Dutch spirit of being active outdoors regardless of the weather, combined with a highly organised community effort.”

And while Avondvierdaagse is uniquely Dutch, that doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way. “It’s not an invention of the government to make kids do sports; the formula can be copied,” says Bueters. Aicha Lagha, another volunteer, agrees. “I think it can be anywhere there is a community or you want to build a community,” she says.

And in Westerpark, as I wait at the finish line on the last day, when the sun is finally shining, that sense of community is strong. A few hundred metres from the finish line, volunteers hand out flowers, provided by a local florist. Family members wait patiently at the finish to celebrate the achievement: one grandma arrived 20 minutes early to make sure she could catch her seven-year-old grandson, walking with her daughter. “It’s a very special event,” she tells me, reminiscing about walking during her own childhood – “and that’s a long time ago”, she jokes.

As more and more kids pass the finish line, the area turns into a major celebration: children dance to Snollebollekes’ 2015 hit Links Rechts , jumping from left to right in a line during the chorus in what has become a national tradition of sorts. Some kids climb a statue for a photo opportunity. Parents are celebrating too: proudly taking pictures of their kids with their medals.

As I leave, Joost Klein’s 2024 Eurovision entry, Europapa (another local kids’ favourite), is playing for the third time in 20 minutes, and no one seems to care, nor do they mind that the weather seems to be turning overcast and rainy. They are more focused on the party. There are no English words to fully describe the feeling of pure joy that encapsulates the area. It’s just gezellig .

This article was amended on 16 June 2026 to clarify that Inger Leemans is professor of cultural history at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a researcher at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Disclosure Day, Science fiction and fantasy films, Film, Culture, Steven Spielberg, Alien life, Science, Animal experimentation
Title – Disclosure Day is great. But Spielberg overestimates our capacity for empathy | Disclosure Day | The Guardian
Author – Isabella Silvers
Link – Disclosure Day is great. But Spielberg overestimates our capacity for empathy | Disclosure Day | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T11:56:45.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/17/disclosure-day-aliens-spielberg-emily-blunt-and-josh-o-connor

S teven Spielberg has converted his longstanding fascination with the possible existence of aliens into considerable commercial and critical success and now, 49 years after Close Encounters and 44 after ET, the film-maker has returned to the subject for the sci-fi spectacular Disclosure Day.

The film follows cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) and weather presenter Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) as they become state-secret whistleblowers, working with Hugo (Colman Domingo) to expose nearly eight decades’ worth of evidence that the US government has known about extraterrestrial life.

The files are stolen from Wardex, a shady organisation run by Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) where Daniel and Hugo used to work, including video footage that shows US organisations not just meeting alien life forms but exploiting, vivisecting and killing them too.

When this footage is shown to Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson), with the warning that it’s “hard to watch”, it brings her to immediate tears, and provokes in this former novitiate almost as immediate crises of conscience and faith. And there is a similar reaction on a wider scale later in the film, when traffic is brought to a standstill by footage that a newscaster later apologises for streaming without warning.

Yet such evidence isn’t a world away from the sort of footage we already see, whether it be of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor , the people dying every day in Palestine, or those men, women and children detained in brutal conditions in US detention centres.

So forgive me if scenes of shock over the mistreatment of aliens don’t ring entirely accurate.

Othered groups have long faced abuse and discrimination at both state and social levels, been feared, misunderstood and used as scapegoats to explain declining standards of living. Unanimous worldwide outrage about this is notable for its absence.

So what makes aliens any different? There would surely be justifications of barbaric experimentation in the name of national security, and an acceptance that it’s better to test on aliens than humans. We already do the same to animals, who bear the brunt of cosmetic and scientific experiments in many areas of the world.

Strikingly, extraterrestrials show up in the form of animals in Disclosure Day , including moose, cardinals, foxes and deer. These are familiar shapes, and therefore less threatening to humans, and are arguably cuter than the long-limbed, bug-eyed, grey-hued look we’ve come to assign to aliens.

Some studies have shown that we’re more concerned by animal abuse than human abuse (although babies did come top of the list in a 2017 study by the Animals & Society Institute). But while campaigners against industrial farming in Denmark are putting animals as high as humans on the political manifesto, and Alabama homeowners protest a proposed cull of geese , is it really feasible that the world would respond to creatures from the cosmos with the same curiosity and compassion, rather than fear?

Disclosure Day is not a documentary, despite the film’s suggestion that modern presidents have been taken out of the loop of alien updates – an eerie echo of Barack Obama’s recent podcast furore . As far as we know, there is no evidence of alien life appearing to humans as animals, or imbuing a chosen few with the power to communicate with these visitors from across the galaxy. Colin Firth is not hoarding state secrets and Emily Blunt is not an intergalactic sleeper agent. But for an otherwise stellar cinematic experience, I couldn’t shake my disbelief.

This is not a film with an overt moral message. It asks questions, particularly about how religion governs social good, and whether a belief in Mary, mother of Jesus, can coexist with meeting Martians. Spielberg does not lay this on with a particularly didactic hand. Yet for all its subtlety and entertainment, Disclosure Day’s central assumption seems to stem from a world entirely unlike the one most people experience each day.

Keyword – Business
Trefwoorden – Gina Rinehart, News Corporation, Elon Musk
Title – Gina Rinehart says Australia should give Elon Musk islands to launch satellites into space | Gina Rinehart | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sarah-basford-canales
Link – Gina Rinehart says Australia should give Elon Musk islands to launch satellites into space | Gina Rinehart | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T08:03:00.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jun/18/gina-rinehart-elon-musk-space-satellites-australia-islands-ntwnfb

Gina Rinehart has proposed Australia should offer Elon Musk islands for free to build satellites and launch them into space in a bid to attract investment to northern Queensland.

Australia’s richest woman continued her battle against government regulation and high taxes in a speech delivered at News Corp’s bush summit in Townsville on Thursday.

According to Hancock Prospecting’s transcript of her speech, Rinehart proposed to “close all federal departments that overlap with state departments”, including the climate change, agriculture and industry departments, in order to save the federal budget billions.

The mining magnate, who made a “significant investment” in Musk’s SpaceX company earlier this week reportedly worth $1.4bn, said the trillionaire could be given free land at “sparsely or non-populated islands” near Townsville for SpaceX satellite construction and launches.

The islands marked on the map included Magnetic, Rattlesnake, Acheron, Palm, Orpheus and Pelorus islands.

“Add water and the infrastructure Elon needs. He needs land to expand, and an alternate weather place in an allied country for his multiple satellite launches,” she told the summit, according to the notes.

“Wouldn’t this be fantastic for Australian university student graduates, to be able to have the opportunity to learn near Townsville with world-leading proponents and facilities, instead of having to leave their families and go overseas?

“And satellite launches would definitely add a tourist attraction.”

Rinehart, who spoke after being introduced by Pauline Hanson, also said the land could be provided to skilled Israelis and their families to build “advanced war drones, and or other advances in defence, and or improve upon their Israeli style domes, and manufacture them here to sell to our country to help make our people and critical infrastructure safe”.

Taiwan’s computer chip industries could be attracted by offering them free use of the inland town of Prairie, 340km from Townsville.

“Apparently, we have land out near Prairie designated for toxic, asbestos riddled, bird and bat maiming, bird and bat killing wind towers. What a waste,” Rinehart said, according to the notes.

“Let’s stop this misuse and let the Taiwan computer chip industries know we have free land to offer for their world-leading microchip industry, with tax holiday, an international airport to go to and fro, and a port at Townsville.

“Taxpayers’ saved dollars could go on charter jets and cargo ships to Taiwan, to bring the high skilled staff they chose, and their immediate families to Townsville, plus equipment. And doctors and nurses and their immediate families, for a regional hospital.”

The billionaire patron used her appearance with Hanson at the summit to present the senator with an orange toy bulldozer, asking the audience to imitate the purr of the machine.

“I want some bulldozer noise,” Rinehart said.

“You might remember Elon Musk was given a big chainsaw to try to cut government [red] tape, and bureaucracies over in America.

“We need an orange bulldozer. Let’s hear the noise,” she said, with footage showing her imitating the sound.

Guardian Australia has revealed the depths of Hanson and Rinehart’s close relationship, including the gifting of a new private plane worth more than $1.5m.

Before the gift, Hanson and others including Barnaby Joyce had been flown numerous times in Rinehart’s own private jet .

Last week, the One Nation leader said she considers Rinehart an unofficial policy adviser to her and her party.

“My policy on pensioners being able to work unlimited hours and without losing their pension or healthcare card came from Mrs Rinehart. And I think that’s great. I listen to anyone who brings good policy to me,” Hanson told ABC radio in Perth earlier this month.

“I consider her a friend and I’m very … grateful for her support. She’s an Australian identity, she’s one of the highest taxpayers in the country.”

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – New York, Animals, US news
Title – Teenager dies after being thrown from horse-drawn carriage in Central Park | New York | The Guardian
Author – Associated Press
Link – Teenager dies after being thrown from horse-drawn carriage in Central Park | New York | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T11:19:12.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/18/central-park-teen-dies-horse-drawn-carriage

A teenager thrown to the ground Wednesday when a Central Park carriage horse bolted away from its driver has died, according to police.

The 18-year-old was riding in the horse-drawn carriage with three other passengers when the accident happened just before 3pm, according to the New York police department. At least two passengers were sent flying out of the careening cab.

The teenager was initially hospitalized in critical condition. The other passengers refused medical treatment.

A representative for the Transport Workers Union, which represents carriage industry employees, said the driver had dismounted to take a photograph of his passengers, which they are not supposed to do.

The horse had been in the park for only six weeks, according to Alexander Kemp, the administrative vice-president of the union’s local chapter. He said he wants a full investigation.

“Safety in the park has been a growing concern among many, and improvements are needed to be made with respect to all vehicles, including e-bicycles, delivery vehicles, pedicabs and horse-drawn carriages,” he said in a statement.

Video showed the horse sprinting through the park as two people appeared to jump from the four-wheeled carriage. A second video shows the cab toppling over after clipping the wheels of another carriage on the park’s busy loop.

It’s a fraught moment for Central Park’s 150-year-old horse-drawn carriage industry. The industry has long been seen as a quaint attraction that offers tourists a romantic remnant of a bygone New York, while providing hundreds of jobs to drivers, along with many farm and racing horses. But they are now facing the growing threat of a ban from opponents who say the rides are both inhumane to horses and a danger to city residents.

Wednesday’s event follows several recent horse-related problems in the park, including the fatal collapse of a horse last week.

The Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit which operates the park and came out last summer in support of banning horse-drawn carriages, said the back-to-back events should bring an end to the industry.

“A young man came to enjoy our park and lost his life,” the group said in a statement. “That is not an acceptable cost of an antiquated industry operating in the middle of one of the most heavily used public spaces in America.”

Central Park is nearly 850 acres and attracts millions of people every year.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – US news, Health & wellbeing, US healthcare, Health, Pharmaceuticals industry, Drugs
Title – The peptide boom: how the US got hooked on unregulated ‘miracle’ drugs | On the Ground | US news | The Guardian
Author – Adam Gabbatt
Link – The peptide boom: how the US got hooked on unregulated ‘miracle’ drugs | On the Ground | US news | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T09:16:37.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jun/16/the-peptide-boom-how-the-us-got-hooked-on-unregulated-miracle-drugs-on-the-ground

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Steven Spielberg, Disclosure Day, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, Culture
Title – As Spielberg confirms whether ET was ‘slimy or dry’, we enter a new age of the celebrity interview | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/stuart-heritage
Link – As Spielberg confirms whether ET was ‘slimy or dry’, we enter a new age of the celebrity interview | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-18T06:00:05.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/18/steven-spielberg-et-was-moist-but-never-slimy

F or the most part, Steven Spielberg has avoided most of the indignities of the modern day press tour. He hasn’t had to subject himself to any spicy chicken wings , or summon any witticisms when presented with a cloche-covered sausage roll . Unlike many other celebrities, he hasn’t chosen to promote Disclosure Day by answering softball questions while simultaneously fashioning a Lionel Richie-style clay approximation of himself for YouTube . For this he should be applauded.

Instead, Spielberg has spent this promotional cycle on something more suited to his stature. A maestro tour, if you will, on which he gets to position Disclosure Day against a body of work that is second to none. Publications have run long oral histories about his entire career . He was a guest during the prestigious final week of Stephen Colbert’s talkshow. He was interviewed by the New York Times about the exact texture of ET’s skin .

That last one really did happen. A clip of the interview has gone mildly viral, featuring interviewer Rachel Abrams straight-out asking Spielberg “Was ET slimy or dry?” before suggesting that this is a decades-old conundrum that had long foxed everyone she knows. To his credit, Spielberg answered the question with tremendous gusto, if a little bewilderment. “ET was a little moist but never slimy,” he replied, after shaking his head. He then explained that, while “ET was only dry when he got sick”, it would be wrong to call him slimy. Xenomorphs are slimy, he pointed out. “ET never had tendrils of drool.”

Now, why Abrams asked this question is another matter. The good faith interpretation is that Spielberg has spent the last half-century in the public eye, and been interviewed so many times that he has developed a tendency to become something of an anecdote jukebox, reeling out the hits unprompted. This is something that afflicts only the truly famous but it can be debilitating. There are, after all, only so many times that a person can hear Ringo Starr’s “ I thought it was you three ” story.

Viewed from this perspective, there is real value in extracting genuinely new information from A-list celebrities. The fact that ET is now canonically moist maybe adds something to the cultural conversation that wasn’t there before? If so, the question deserves to be commended. However, if Abrams just asked a deliberately dumb question to the director of Schindler’s List because she knew it would get clicks, then that is another matter entirely.

We must also question why the subject arose in the first place. Abrams’s justification that it was in the public interest, since it had long been a discussion within her social group, rings a little false, because presumably everyone in her social group has eyes and can see perfectly well for themselves that ET isn’t slimy. It’s right there! All through the film! We know what texture ET’s skin is because ET is a visible character throughout the entire movie. As everybody knows, ET’s skin is clearly pleather or pleather-adjacent, like the skin of a Mediterranean grandmother. There is certainly no slime there. If there was, then the film would have included a scene of Drew Barrymore skidding about in ET’s slug trail, or the climatic hug scene between ET and Elliott would have ended with Elliott looking down at his slime-covered clothes and tutting, “These were new on today.”

But none of that happened so we can reasonably ascertain that ET isn’t slimy and this was a stupid question to ask. Still, the new media landscape loves nothing more than a replicable format, so perhaps this is something we’ll see more of in the future. For all we know, the New York Times is working on a series called Famous Auteurs Answer Self-Evident Questions as we speak, and this time next week they’ll drag Martin Scorsese in to ask if Jake LaMotta had 12 ears, or Paul Thomas Anderson to ask if Daniel Day-Lewis is secretly a mouse. For the avoidance of doubt, I hope this happens.

Keyword – Environment
Trefwoorden – Plants, Insects, Hay fever, Environment, Rural affairs, UK news
Title – Country diary: Everybody loves to hate the stinging nettle – don’t they? | Plants | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/derek-niemann
Link – Country diary: Everybody loves to hate the stinging nettle – don’t they? | Plants | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T04:30:21.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/17/country-diary-everybody-loves-to-hate-the-stinging-nettle-dont-they

E yes smarting, throat tickling, nostrils dog-wet, I pick my way along a thready footpath up the combe, only half-prepared for the next irritation. Nettles, I am watching you. But not well enough it seems, for a sneaky one hidden under the skirts of encroaching grasses and umbellifers grazes the back of my bare calf. It induces that tingling somewhere between pain and pleasure – one that quickly develops into a needling throb.

It is hard to love a nettle. This much-loathed plant may be one of the first that many children learn to identify, for their own protection. It has a secondhand look, with wrinkly, crinkly jagged hearts for leaves. It has no sheen; it does not shine. Near-invisible fine hairs on the upper surfaces give the dulled green a dusty, soiled appearance.

Glass spines hang like malign stalactites from the undersides and poke their points out from the stems. Such small spikes, yet so much discomfort . Other than a bramble , no plant says no so emphatically, forming high, hairy phalanxes on these slopes, midsummer’s biggest block to off‑path wanderers.

A barrier to some; an opening for others. Close inspection picks out aphids aplenty, feeding, crawling, being. And the sap-suckers are being sucked, chomped and chewed by a red soldier beetle , alighting on the apex of one plant and finding meals on the downpipe. Spiders have hung out speculative chains between leaves and stems. A blackfly leg dangles halfway along one thread.

Most prominent of all are the little dark dots of insects swarming all over the purple-tinged flowers. Nettle flowers may be underwhelming, looking like over-tied knots of thin string, but they are irresistible to the aptly named nettle pollen beetles, locked into an orgy of eating and mating.

Tonight I will pay for breathing in during all this observation. The weather report might report a high grass pollen count for hay fever sufferers, but the air knows better. Those microscopic grains shooting the breeze include not just grasses, but also the near weightless dust of any wind-pollinated flower. And copious amounts are produced by the stinging nettle. Atishoo!

Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024, is available now at guardianbookshop.com

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Royal Ascot, Ryan Moore, Horse racing, Sport, Horse racing tips
Title – Unbeaten Bow Echo holds off Gstaad in Royal Ascot thriller as Moore gets ban | Royal Ascot | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gregwood
Link – Unbeaten Bow Echo holds off Gstaad in Royal Ascot thriller as Moore gets ban | Royal Ascot | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T19:51:42.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/16/bow-echo-bravely-holds-off-gstaad-to-stay-unbeaten-in-thriller-at-royal-ascot

Five races and two Group Ones into his career, Bow Echo remains unbeaten – just. He had only a short head to spare over Gstaad at the line in the St James’s Palace Stakes, having briefly looked likely to canter to victory passing the two-pole, but it was enough to secure a first Royal Ascot Group One for both George Boughey, Bow Echo’s trainer, and his 20-year-old rider, Billy Loughnane, whose best season yet just keeps getting better.

On the face of it, perhaps, this was a slightly scrambled success, given Bow Echo’s winning margin of nearly three lengths over Gstaad in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket last month, and the apparent ease with which it was achieved. But Ascot is a very different track, with a sterner climb to the finish, and Bow Echo is hardly the first colt to find that it has different demands.

The favourite was also involved in some early scrimmaging as the half-dozen runners looked for a good early position, interference that was enough to see Ryan Moore , Gstaad’s jockey, pick up a three-day suspension from the stewards for “careless riding for allowing his mount to edge left-handed without correction, causing Bow Echo and [third-favourite] Talk Of New York to become short of room and awkwardly placed.”

As a result, Bow Echo can be forgiven for needing the line at the other end of the race, against a rival who enjoyed a perfect, ground-saving trip after Christophe Soumillon, on Gstaad’s front-running stable companion, Puerto Rico, moved left at the top of the straight to allow the second-favourite a clear run up the rail. While it did not affect the result, the manoeuvre did not impress the stewards and Soumillon picked up an eight-day suspension for “riding his mount in such a way that intended to give an advantage to another horse from the same stable”.

“The first furlong was crucial and I got squeezed out early,” Loughnane said. “There were five of us in a line and I slightly lost my position and Bow Echo got lit up. It was then a case of trying to manage things. The Amo horse [Power Blue] came back into our lap and it meant I had to move probably sooner than ideal, but his guts got him through. He’s a very determined horse with a great turn of foot and fantastic ability.

“You have to adapt, and it was a case of getting him back relaxed, breathing again and into his rhythm. Once he found that, he was powerful.”

Goodwood, where Bow Echo is likely to head next for the Group One Sussex Stakes in late July, is a different challenge again, but this time a speedier track that should play to his strengths. He is favourite at around 7-4 to extend his streak to six if he lines up for what would be his first race against all-aged competition.

“I think that was the first time Bow Echo got into a proper battle,” Boughey said. “It was quite a scrap early doors [but] I think we’ll see a better horse now that he’s been in a scrap like that. He has done everything we’ve hoped. It’s fine margins in this game and luckily he was on the right side of it.”

Bow Echo and Gstaad’s memorable duel in the feature event was matched for excitement by a three-way conclusion to the King Charles III Stakes, as Mission Central edged out Rayevka by a head with the Australian-trained favourite, Overpass, three-quarters of a length away in third.

Mission Central, something of a rarity as an Aidan O’Brien-trained sprinter, was off the pace early but came with a powerful run towards the stands’ side to grab victory in the final strides.

Having seen off one of the southern hemisphere’s top sprinters at Ascot, Mission Central may now be tasked with repeating the trick on Australian soil in the Everest, the world’s richest turf race, in October.

“We have a slot in the Everest,” Tom Magnier, from the Coolmore syndicate that owns Mission Central, said. “It’s a great race and one we’d love to win. We will see how the horse pulls up, but it would definitely be a race that you could put on the radar for him.”

The first-day crowd was stunned into near-silence by the opening race of the meeting, as Ten Bob Tony, at 50-1, accelerated from last to first in the closing stages of the Group One Queen Anne Stakes. Ed Walker’s gelding was the longest-priced winner of the race for 76 years.

“It is just an amazing story,” Walker said. “Ten Bob Tony won a Group Three [at Epsom] 10 days ago and then turned up here and did that.

“Kieran [Shoemark] gave him an absolute peach of a ride [and] the miracle happened. We’d agreed we’d sit last and try to pass as many as possible.”

Hopes for a winner in the royal colours in the Ascot Stakes Handicap proved to be wildly optimistic as Reaching High, who was the subject of a significant gamble to start favourite at just 13-8, trailed home a long last behind Joseph O’Brien’s Kizlyar in the two-and-a-half-mile contest.

The king and queen’s search for a first winner at the meeting since Desert Hero three years ago will now move on to their colt Point Of Law, an 8-1 shot for the Queen’s Vase at 3.05 on Wednesday.

Take Daryz to dazzle

The betting suggests that the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot on Wednesday is close to a head-to-head between Ombudsman, last year’s winner, and Daryz, who took the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in October, but both Almaqam and Minnie Hauk, the Arc runner-up, have form that puts them in the mix and the race could well be the highlight of the week.

Daryz (4.20), though, is both the top-rated runner according to both the official figures and Timeform , and the only horse in the field with fewer than 10 runs in the book. He has also dropped back from the Arc trip to make short work of Group One on his two starts this season, over ten-and-a-half and then an extended nine furlongs at Longchamp.

Good-to-firm ground is an unknown for Francis Henri-Graffard’s colt but there will be plenty of water going on overnight, and while he was last of six on his only previous trip outside France for last year’s International at York, that was just the fourth start of his career and he looks much more the finished article this season.

Royal Ascot 2.30 Senorita Bonita, who cost a shade under £1m at the breeze-ups in the spring, made a successful racecourse debut at Nottingham despite finding all sorts of trouble in running and the turn of foot and attitude that got her out of trouble should be potent weapons here.

Royal Ascot 3.05 Andrew Balding’s Galiyan improved for a step up in trip and posted a strong time when breaking his duck at Chester in May and promises to be better still over an extra two furlongs.

Royal Ascot 3.40 The lightly-raced Catalina Delcarpio ran in the 12-furlong Ribblesdale here last year but has shown improved form dropped back in trip this season and a strongly-run race over the this stiff mile could be ideal.

Royal Ascot 5.00 A closer from a high draw tends to be the percentage call in the Royal Hunt Cup and Erzindjan is an ideal fit. The eight-year-old is not long with the excellent TJ Kent stable and was value for more than the official margin at Newmarket last time. With Ryan Moore booked to ride, he looks a big price at around 14-1 from stall 24.

Royal Ascot 5.35 Miss Nightfall was better than the bare result at Yarmouth last time and could find this set up for her fast-finishing style.

Royal Ascot 6.10 Robson de Aguiar’s Controlla was a big outsider on debut but the clock suggests her run into second was no fluke.

Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – US Open, Scottie Scheffler, Rory McIlroy, PGA Tour, Golf, US sports, Sport, European Tour
Title – Scheffler faces mighty Shinnecock test in bid to claim career slam with US Open victory | US Open | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/bryan-armen-graham
Link – Scheffler faces mighty Shinnecock test in bid to claim career slam with US Open victory | US Open | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T16:00:38.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/17/scottie-scheffler-us-open-preview-faces-mighty-shinnecock-test-in-bid-to-claim-career-slam

S hinnecock Hills is a study in restraint and attrition that has spent more than a century bringing the world’s finest golfers to heel. When the US Open returns here for a sixth time on Thursday, the current crop will once again face a rugged coastal masterpiece where calamity lurks around every corner and mistakes are punished with uncommon severity.

The William Flynn-designed layout, one of the United States Golf Association’s five founding clubs, is a 7,440-yard track of rare beauty and menace revered as one of the purest tests in championship golf. Three distinct clusters of holes form a rough triangle across the property, exposing players to shifting winds from different directions throughout the round. With gusts forecast to exceed 40mph at times, even players who know Shinnecock well acknowledge that controlling trajectory and accepting adversity will be every bit as important as making birdies.

The biggest storyline centers on Scottie Scheffler , the world No 1, who arrives with a chance to complete the career grand slam. Having won two Masters titles to go with the PGA Championship and Open Championship last year, the 29-year-old American needs only the US Open to join one of golf’s most select groups alongside Rory McIlroy, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Ben Hogan and Gene Sarazen.

Any perceived dip in Scheffler’s form is largely relative. He has a win this season, recorded seven top-five finishes and remains a fixture near the top of the leaderboard. “I feel like maybe I’ve just been a touch dull,” Scheffler said this week. “By no means is it a bad year. Is it up to the play I’ve had the previous couple of years? Probably not, but it’s not far off.”

Scheffler insists the career slam itself is not a motivating factor, but the significance of the moment is undeniable. A year after McIlroy completed the set at Augusta, Scheffler has an opportunity to follow him into the club and further cement himself as the dominant player of his generation.

Standing in his way is a field packed with contenders and a windswept course that has been rattling champions’ vulnerabilities since the 1890s. McIlroy, who successfully defended his Masters title in April, arrives as perhaps Scheffler’s most obvious challenger. The Northern Irishman has become one of the game’s most consistent US Open performers, posting six top-10 finishes since missing the cut at Shinnecock in 2018. His approach to the track is simple: discipline.

“This course demands so much patience,” McIlroy said on Tuesday. “It can really lure you into taking on things that you probably shouldn’t.”

Europe enters the week with unusual momentum. McIlroy’s Masters triumph was followed by Aaron Rai’s victory at the PGA Championship at Aronimink, marking the first time Europeans have captured the season’s opening two majors in the modern four‑major era. England’s Matt Fitzpatrick, the 2022 US Open champion, has been among the most consistent players on the tour this year, collecting three victories and arriving fresh off a runner-up finish at the Canadian Open.

Fitzpatrick would happily see the screws tightened further. “I don’t particularly like playing birdie-fests,” he said after watching course staff water parts of the layout during practice rounds.

The fear for players is that Shinnecock’s reputation for brutality and dread is on merit. When Brooks Koepka won here in 2018 at one over par, the championship descended into controversy as greens became so fast and firm that balls struggled to stay in place. Phil Mickelson famously incurred a penalty after striking a moving ball on a green during a chaotic third round. Organizers have attempted to avoid a repeat by keeping the course greener and softer in advance of this week’s expected winds.

The scoring history illustrates the challenge. In five previous US Open tournaments at Shinnecock, only three players have finished under par, while Retief Goosen’s four-under total in 2004 remains the lowest winning score in a US Open held at the course.

Koepka arrives after a hand injury forced him to withdraw from the final round of the Canadian Open last week, though the two-time US Open champion has indicated he expects to play. The 36-year-old arrives with a proven advantage on a course where he claimed the trophy in 2018, becoming just the third man since the second world war and the seventh in history to defend America’s national championship successfully.

Beyond the championship race, Shinnecock’s return places a spotlight on its place in American golf lore. The course sits on land intertwined with the history of the Shinnecock Nation, whose members helped build and maintain the layout for generations. It was also the site of a landmark moment in 1896 when John Shippen, a 16-year-old Black golfer and clubmaker, and the Shinnecock tribe member Oscar Bunn competed in the US Open despite objections from several British professionals. Shippen became the first Black player in championship history, while he and Bunn are believed to have been the first US-born competitors in the event.

History gives Shinnecock its meaning, but difficulty gives it its mystique. The world’s best arrive knowing they are competing on one of golf’s most storied stages, but also one of its most unforgiving. If Shinnecock bares its teeth over the coming days as expected, by Sunday night the champion may simply be the player who has suffered the least.