Keyword – Sport
Trefwoorden – Jack Draper, Andy Murray, Tennis, Sport
Title – Andy Murray backs Jack Draper for Wimbledon return: ‘He’s bloody good’ | Jack Draper | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/seaningle
Link – Andy Murray backs Jack Draper for Wimbledon return: ‘He’s bloody good’ | Jack Draper | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T17:03:50.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/jun/17/andy-murray-backs-jack-draper-wimbledon-tennis

Sir Andy Murray has issued a bullish bulletin on the fitness and ability of Jack Draper before Wimbledon, revealing that he has been practising on court most days and hailing his tennis as “bloody good”.

Draper has plummeted to No 113 in the world due to a series of injuries, having been ranked fourth last year, and has not played since the Barcelona Open in April. But Murray, who has been working with the British player for the last month at the LTA’s National Tennis Centre as an adviser and temporary coach, believes that his body is now on the mend.

“Jack is supposed to be playing in Eastbourne next week,” Murray said at Queen’s Club. “He’s been training and getting ready for that. He’s been on the court most days for the last few weeks.

“His tennis is bloody good. He’s really good. Obviously he’s had lots of issues the last year with various injuries. I feel like he’s starting to come out the other side of that now. The next step is getting on the match court and getting a consistent run of tournaments and weeks under him and building trust again in his body.”

Draper has had knee and elbow problems, while his latest setback has been caused by an issue with his serving shoulder. However, Murray says he has been surprised by the quality of Draper’s play in the sessions they have done together.

“I get to spend a decent amount of time with Jack,” said Murray. “I also believe a lot in his tennis. In the sessions I’ve done with him, I’ve been more impressed probably than what I expected. And I thought he was bloody good before I started helping him.

“He’s a quick learner. He’s got very few holes in his game. He’s a more complete player than probably what I expected as well.”

Murray confirmed that while his partnership with Draper could continue for the build up to the US Open, his priority is being at home for his family. “I really like Jack, and I wanted to help him when he asked if I could,” said Murray, who retired after the Paris Olympics in 2024 and then coached Novak Djokovic for four months at the start of 2025. “But I was quite clear about what I could and couldn’t do.”

“I still want to be able to pick my kids up from school, drop them off at home,” he added. “If that wasn’t something that worked for him, then that was also absolutely fine. But I said I’d still love to help you if you would like that.

“He’s asked for me to help him over this next period. I’ve enjoyed being on court with him. We’ll see how the next few weeks pan out.”

Murray is yet to coach Draper from courtside in a match but insisted that he had no problems being in that role when working with Djokovic. “I didn’t find it weird when I was watching matches with Novak,” he said.

“The buildup to the matches and stuff I found quite hard. Because you need to get your communication with the player right. Making sure you’ve got the right courts booked, practice partners, balls, rackets, strategy. All of those sorts of things. You want that to go smoothly. And then once the player is out on the court, I found it quite easy.”

At Queen’s Club, Britain’s Arthur Fery shrugged off a bloody nose that delayed play for six minutes to overcome Adrian Mannarino and reach his first ATP quarter-final. Fery, a wild card who is ranked 140 in the world, had to be given medication by a physiotherapist after his left nostril started to bleed heavily at 1-1 in the second set.

But after the 23-year-old was treated with an anticoagulant and had a tissue stuck up his nose, he returned to court to wrap up the match 7-6 (7), 6-4 against the 44th-ranked Frenchman.

“It happens to me quite often,” admitted Fery. “I’m used to it. It was maybe nerves, tiredness or the heat. I don’t know why, but it happens here and there. The physio gave me an anticoagulant, a tissue, and then a bit of Vaseline in the nose, and it stopped the bleeding.”

Afterwards Fery, who was born in Sèvres, near Paris, to French parents but grew up in London, pronounced his win as the best of his career. After writing ‘It’s Coming Home’ on the TV cameras, Fery added: “It’s so special to be playing tennis back home in London where I grew up, it’s unbelievable. It’s the best result of my career. My first quarter-final in an ATP tournament.

“It’s not easy. There are lots of ups and downs so I’m happy to get through. I can’t put too much pressure on myself.”

Fery is the only British player left in the draw but the favourite remains the No 1 seed Alex de Minaur from Australia, who brushed aside Canadian Dennis Shapovalov 6-4, 6-1. “I’m very happy with the win,” said De Minaur. “I thought it was very close to a faultless performance. I felt sharp from the very first point till the last.”

Keyword – Fashion
Trefwoorden – Max Mara, UK news, Fashion, Life and style, China, World news, Asia Pacific
Title – From camel coats to guochao: Max Mara woos China’s luxury brand consumers | Max Mara | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jesscartnermorley
Link – From camel coats to guochao: Max Mara woos China’s luxury brand consumers | Max Mara | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T17:15:13.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026/jun/16/max-mara-woos-china-luxury-brand-consumers

“New York may be the city that never sleeps, but Shanghai doesn’t even sit down.” For the British designer Ian Griffiths, who encountered this line in the New Yorker, it summed up why China’s biggest city was the right place to celebrate Max Mara’s 75th anniversary.

“Max Mara is a product for metropolitan women, and it would be patronising to assume that a metropolitan wardrobe should be western-centric,” Griffiths said.

Knotted silk pankou buttons, cheongsam dresses and side-fastening jackets with standing collars translated Chinese aesthetic codes into the language of Max Mara on a catwalk in Shanghai’s Long Museum.

Such tributes are fraught with difficulty, as nods to cultural heritage can quickly tip into cliche or appropriation.

“We know that it isn’t good enough just to say that we didn’t intend to cause offence, so we had lots of conversations and consultations in advance about the designs,” said Griffiths, who hopes the homages will be viewed in the context of Max Mara’s long relationship with China .

As one of the first western brands to take China seriously, with stores in the country for 33 years – there are 27 boutiques in Shanghai alone – Max Mara has come to symbolise social status and professional success in the minds of Chinese women.

Navigating this delicate territory with grace is big business. With Chinese luxury consumption rallying from its post-Covid slump on the back of a rising stock market, European luxury brands are on a charm offensive. Chinese consumers account for about a quarter of the world’s luxury spending.

But the era of the Chinese consumer as a grateful recipient of western luxury is over, and brands who treat the country’s appetite for fashion as an ATM find themselves out of favour.

The most significant trend in Chinese fashion is guochao – “national wave” – a new appetite for style with local resonance. Guochao is not nostalgic patriotism, but a fashion-forward shift towards a consumerism closely linked to cultural identity, and which reflects the instinct of gen Z everywhere to centre their own experience.

Max Mara, which has aligned itself with the rise of Chinese female ambition, hopes to channel the spirit of self-confidence that is at the core of guochao. The show’s casting was almost exclusively made up of local models.

Star of the front row was the Chinese-American Olympic skier Eileen Gu. The cheongsam came stripped of decorative detailing, floral silk swapped out for pale stretch wool, a sophisticated riff on the office staple that is the sleek, body-skimming shift dress.

Max Mara recently provided wardrobing for a Chinese production of Prima Facie, positioning the brand’s visual language alongside the global cultural phenomenon of Suzie Miller’s one woman play, and in support of the story’s exploration of gender and empowerment.

Recent Max Mara catwalk shows made up an esoteric feminist history syllabus, with muses for recent collections including 18th century mathematician and physicist Émilie du Châtelet, medieval military strategist Matilde di Canossa, and Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel prize for Literature.

“There was a moment when people might have said Max Mara is safe and dependable, but maybe a bit dusty and boring. But hopefully we’ve left that behind,” Griffiths said.

Between the camel coats with which the brand is associated, the catwalk was spiked with red, which in China represents joy and luck. “There is something so primal about red. I think of it as the pre-eminent non-neutral colour. It is such a colour that it’s almost not a colour at all – almost a neutral, really,” the designer said backstage.

But he was not proposing red as the colour of the season. “There are no trends any more,” he said. “Fashion doesn’t dictate any more. Everyone chooses their own look.”

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, England, World Cup, Football, Sport, Croatia, Thomas Tuchel
Title – Tuchel says World Cup will ‘bring out the best’ in England against old foes Croatia | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jacob-steinberg,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/davidhytner
Link – Tuchel says World Cup will ‘bring out the best’ in England against old foes Croatia | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T00:30:17.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/17/thomas-tuchel-world-cup-opener-england-croatia

Thomas Tuchel has said the occasion and tension will bring the best out of England when they open their World Cup campaign with an ­awkward game against Croatia on Wednesday.

England cruised through ­qualifying, but have a patchy record against top opposition and much to prove before their first encounter in Group L. They have faced top-20 sides on three occasions under Tuchel, drawing with Uruguay and losing to Japan and Senegal .

Yet Tuchel is confident ­England will have a different mindset in a competitive game. The German cannot wait for his first World Cup to begin and believes his side will be ready for the challenge posed by ­Croatia under the Dallas Stadium roof.

“Because it’s not a friendly match, we will not try stuff,” England’s head coach said. “We will rely on us and the occasion and the tension will bring out the best in us.”

Tuchel’s aim is for England to play with the intensity of a Premier League side. “We should play brave and play to the strengths of the players,” he said. “I feel clearly that the players want it and that they are successful in club football like this.

“They compete in the ­strongest league, most of them. The others who are not in the league ­compete in the highest level in Europe and ­Champions League and they play in brave and active teams. It makes things excited and creates a ­certain energy and we need a connection with our fans who are here, with the fans at home, to create something special.”

England’s carefully planned buildup involved them ­acclimatising to the heat by flying to a Florida for a pre-tournament training camp two weeks ago. They have stepped up preparations at their base in Kansas City and Tuchel, who is expected to start Jude Bellingham over Morgan Rogers at No 10, feels his players require no special messaging about their World Cup starting here.

“They know,” he said. “I don’t feel any emotional fuel is needed to make everyone clear what is happening. We know.

“I see it even as an advantage that we’re very focused on what we can influence. We don’t put it in the ­bigger picture – just put it where it is. Go day by day, influence what you can ­influence. If we can stay there, I think we have an even ­better chance to compete and perform on our highest level.”

England could overpower an ­ageing Croatia side, but they must be wary of the craft of Mateo Kovacic and the 40-year-old Luka Modric in midfield. The 37-year-old Ivan ­Perisic is another danger and scored in ­ Croatia’s semi-final win over ­England at the 2018 World Cup.

“It is a very difficult start,” Tuchel said. “It is an experienced team, an experienced coach, in tournament knockout football. It’s a top football nation and a very strong opponent. The centre of gravity in their game has dropped a bit, into a back three, we expect.

“From a midfield three, which was the core of Croatia , it has only Kovacic and Modric still there. They’re ­playing in a midfield two now. They play with fluid No 10s and wing-backs. But the core is still Modric and Kovacic.

“Then they have Perisic, who is always a threat with the crosses. That is one of the most dangerous crossers in world football, maybe – left foot, right foot, he does not even need space to put a cross in. It is ­remarkable. And they are strong in set pieces”.

England have been working on their own set-pieces and looked in good shape when they thrashed Costa Rica last week .

There are few selection headaches for Tuchel. He must decide whether to risk Bukayo Saka , with the winger troubled by an achilles problem. Noni Madueke is an option to start instead of his Arsenal teammate while Ezri Konsa and John Stones are expected to get the nod over Marc Guéhi in central defence.

The full-back Tino Livramento is out of the tournament after ­suffering a muscular injury in ­training; Tuchel said scans indicated the Newcastle man would be out for four-to-five weeks. ­Chelsea’s Trevoh Chalobah has been called up in his place, a move that will free up Jarell Quansah to be a full-back option on both sides, together with Djed Spence. Chalobah will come in as a centre-half option.

The squad will play a behind-closed-doors game at their Kansas City base on Thursday, Tuchel said, to keep the players who do not get many minutes against Croatia ticking over. The opposition could be the local MLS team, Sporting Kansas City. England did the same thing after their friendly against Costa Rica last Wednesday, when they had a training match against Miami United in Florida the next day. England’s second World Cup group game is not until Tuesday, against Ghana at Boston Stadium.

“It is true that we try to play an in-house match after Croatia to use the time [well], we have many days [before the Ghana game],” Tuchel said. “It can give the players who don’t play minutes an extra match load. We did it after the Costa Rica game and we do it one last time on the day after Croatia.”

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 – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, World Cup, England, Croatia, Football, Sport
Title – England v Croatia: World Cup 2026 – live | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/scottmurray
Link – England v Croatia: World Cup 2026 – live | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T19:23:24.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2026/jun/17/england-v-croatia-world-cup-2026-live-updates

Luka Modric, who made his World Cup debut in 2006, 20 years ago tomorrow, coming on during a goalless draw with Japan, talks to ITV as well. “We did good qualifications … we played well … now is the real deal … we will see where we are at the moment … how good we are … I have a lot of confidence and belief in this team … a lot of young players … still some old guard … let’s see … age is just a number … this is how I see it … for me it’s not important … it’s important how you feel … what you do on the pitch.”

Thomas Tuchel speaks to Independent Television. “This is what we have worked for … the goal of the prep camp … to be ready for the day … I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world … so let’s go … ideal conditions … to play an intensive match … that’s our aim … we stick with the team that started so well against Costa Rica … we will not start and finish this match with 11 players … we need a strong bench … we have players who can influence and change matches from the bench … that is important … it was a 50-50 call to go with Jude [instead of Morgan Rogers] … I expected Mateo Kovacic to start so we have one slight tweak … we need to adapt our press … we are prepared for that … we are at the starting line … we let the players go and take the next steps.”

… so Jude Bellingham does indeed get the nod at 10 over Morgan Rogers. Anthony Gordon has been selected ahead of Marcus Rashford on the left, while Noni Madueke patrols the other flank; Bukayo Saka, not 100 percent fit, remains wrapped up safely on the bench. Ezri Konsa starts alongside John Stones in the centre of defence.

Croatia captain Luka Modric, 40, is about to appear at his ​ fifth World ‌Cup. He wins his 199th cap tonight. Ivan Perišić will make do with his 155th cap. Mateo Kovacic ‌is on the bench and dreaming of cap number 114.

The teams

England: ​Pickford, Konsa, O’Reilly, Stones, James, Rice, Anderson, Bellingham, Kane, Gordon, ​Madueke.

Croatia: Livakovic, Stanisic, Gvardiol, Sutalo, ‌Vuskovic, ​Modric, Mario Pasalic, Baturina, Petar Sucic, Perisic, Musa.

Way out west east. While the soccer stars get ready to rumble in Texas, art has broken out in Shoreditch, east London. “Dunno if it’s of interest but I’m sketching the England fans at the Old Blue Last,” writes Keith Williams, and very nice his work is too. Enjoy, observe, interpret, comprehend, appreciate, etc.

Some more scene-setting from our folk in Arlington. This comes to you from Guardian football writer and occasional meteorologist / retail trends analyst Ed Aarons.

It’s going to be a hot one at the Dallas Stadium for England’s opening game of the World Cup against Croatia, with temperatures expected to exceed 33 degrees when the game kicks off. Thankfully there is air conditioning throughout with a capacity crowd of 70,000 expected. Lots of England and Croatia fans have been gathering over the road from one of the entrances outside a Walmart, which I would imagine is much cheaper than buying drinks inside Fifa-land …

Some early team news. Courtesy of our man on the spot, Jacob Steinberg.

As predicted in today’s Super Soaraway Guardian, Jude Bellingham gets the nod at No10 for England. Anthony Gordon and Noni Madueke are on the flanks, with the latter preferred to Bukayo Saka, who’s been trying to shake off an Achilles problem. Ezri Konsa is picked over Marc Guehi in central defence too.

Time To Kill pt III. Our comprehensive Player Guide features every single player going to North America this summer, with potted bios written by experts from all around the world. Contains no trace of Trent Alexander-Arnold, and that’s an Official Guardian Guarantee™.

Time To Kill pt II. Bracketology allows you to curate your very own World Cup pipe dream. Click yon, drag hither, plot a route, reconfigure. Or if you’ve not got that much precious time to waste, hit shuffle and see what pops up. I’ve just done that and Curaçao have beaten Iraq in the final. Once again – because it’s the second time I’ve tested and trailed the shuffle feature – England didn’t get out of their group, and I’m beginning to suspect the coding for this was done in Glasgow. Anyway, it’s good fun, so get on it!

Time To Kill pt I. You want preview pieces? We got preview pieces.

Preamble

It’s day seven of the 2026 World Cup , and finally England are on their way. They are Tom’s 26. Hear the roar, of the red, white and … ah who remembers that cheesy old song anyway? Point is, after an interminable wait, England are at long last getting down to business.

Whether they’d have hand-picked Croatia as their first opponents is a moot point. On the one hand, England are a young and vibrant team, the sap rising, while most of Croatia’s first choice are in their 30s and their captain and talisman Luka Modric is now into his fifth decade. But on the other, this is a team that reached the final in 2018 and the semis last time round, and all of that Croatian experience has got to count for something.

There’s also the small matter of the head to head. England have won the last two meetings between the countries, in November 2018 and at Euro 2020 , but the big ones that really counted went Croatia’s way – in Euro 2008 qualifying and the 2018 World Cup semi – and those results cut deep. So yes, England would have probably preferred to start their campaign against Panama or Ghana, but here we all are. Can England get it right this time? Kick off is at 9pm BST, 3pm at the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas. It’s on!

Keyword – Art and design
Trefwoorden – Art and design, Installation, JR, Art, Culture, Paris, Europe, Christo
Title – ‘It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable’: French artist JR on transforming Paris’ oldest bridge into a cave | Art and design | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/kim-willsher
Link – ‘It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable’: French artist JR on transforming Paris’ oldest bridge into a cave | Art and design | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T14:11:18.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2026/jun/16/french-artist-jr-on-transforming-pont-neuf-into-a-cave-la-caverne-paris

W ith the backdrop of the Eiffel Tower to one side and Notre Dame to the other, Pont Neuf is not only Paris’s most picturesque bridge but, contrary to what its name suggests, it’s also the city’s oldest.

Yet as of today, Pont Neuf is no longer just a bridge but also an overground cave.

Vast swathes of fabric, woven to look like the stone on which Paris is built, have been inflated over the bridge, creating an art installation called La Caverne . It is a bonkers idea, and a direct tribute to Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude wrapping the Pont Neuf more than 40 years ago .

The monumental installation is the work of the French artist and photographer known as JR, often called the French Banksy , whose previous installations include making the Louvre pyramid disappear, placing large portraits of Israelis and Palestinians working in the same jobs facing each other along the separation wall and Kikito, a giant picture of a toddler peering over the US-Mexico border fence.

La Caverne finally opened on Monday, 10 days late after the fabric was ripped by sudden gusts of wind requiring emergency repairs. It is billed as an immersive experience, “a crossing”, a “move into the unknown” evoking primeval fears of the dark and being trapped underground unable to escape.

The printed fabric forms a rocky passage with pillars and fissures made to resemble the Lutetian limestone quarried from the underground basins of the Paris region and on which the city, is built. The Pont Neuf, Notre Dame and the Louvre Museum were constructed from the same stone.

The subterranean ambience is heightened by sound – and smell. Thomas Bangalter , one half of Daft Punk , has created an undulating wind-tunnel sound effect; the air has the barely perceptible mustiness of damp soil and rock, created by an expert who makes perfumes in her day job.

JR says he hopes the technically challenging installation, 120m long and 18m high, will lead visitors to forget they are crossing a bridge in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities.

All of which might have been possible were it not for the shouts of the (mostly American) groups of tourists whose overexcitement could not be contained by fake rock or “subtle soundscape” or the sudden jolt of material reality at the sight of the shop window immediately opposite the exit selling La Caverne souvenirs.

In an interview with the Guardian before the opening, JR, 43, explained his thinking behind the installation which came out of a meeting with Bulgarian-born Christo’s nephew Vladimir Yavachev, who runs the Christo and Jeanne-Claude Foundation .

“We were talking about the anniversary of the Pont Neuf wrapping and Vladimir suggested I do something. Not a wrap but my own thing,” he said. “And then I started dreaming and sketching and as I sketched, the idea of the cave emerged.”

He said the idea of a cave went back to the earliest origins of art when early humans designed on rock walls.

“You’re walking on the bridge. You know exactly where you are, you’re in the middle of Paris. But once you’ve passed the entrance you are somewhere else entirely, not just for a minute but for the whole time because you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“When we enter the cavern, we won’t see the exit. We’ll have to make a journey through our sources, our origins, to then catch a glimpse of the light. It’s supposed to make you uncomfortable in a certain way.”

Our interview takes place on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the original train of Agatha Christie murder mystery fame. A boy from the Paris banlieue, JR used to tag trains and public transport tunnels with his initials before he found a camera left on a train at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Today, he is journeying the other side of the tracks. Two years ago he was invited to design L’Observatoire , a suite in an early 20th-century Orient Express carriage that he redesigned with the help of more than 100 artisans from across Europe. At an eye-watering £60-£80,000 for the 26-hour journey from Venice to Paris, it is now the world’s most expensive train ticket.

JR appears to have had an open cheque from the train owner Belmond, part of the luxury LVMH group, to create the carriage suite complete with brass bathtub, skylight that opens and closes like a camera aperture and a sitting room with fireplace, but he says L’Observatoire is not about wealth. “It’s art in motion … and something that will last.”

La Caverne, an ephemeral installation and a spectacular feat of engineering, will not. Despite opening 10 days late, it will close as planned on 28 June when the fabric cave will be pulled down and the material recycled.

“It’s like a circus that comes, puts on a spectacle and then it’s gone. But anyone who sees it will remember it every time they pass the Pont Neuf.”

La Caverne is at Pont Neuf, Paris, until 28 June

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Mexico, World Cup, Football, Sport, Americas
Title – Protesters to rally against World Cup sponsor Hyundai before Mexico game | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/matthughes
Link – Protesters to rally against World Cup sponsor Hyundai before Mexico game | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T13:04:58.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/17/protesters-to-rally-against-world-cup-sponsor-hyundai-before-mexico-game

Hyundai will be targeted by protesters at a rally before the Group A game between Mexico and South Korea in Guadalajara on Thursday, due to the World Cup sponsor’s business dealings with the South American mining company Ternium.

A 2025 report from the environmental group Mighty Earth criticised Hyundai’s involvement in what they described as a “dirty steel supply chain”, as the South Korean motor company is a major buyer of iron ore from Ternium for use in steel production. Ternium has faced repeated criticisms for its destructive environmental impact and corporate governance policies from campaign groups, as well as its alleged links to the disappearance of two Mexican activists.

A rally will take place at the Plaza de La Liberación in Guadalajara, to highlight the fate of Mexico’s so-called 130,000 disappeared, some of whom worked in the mining industry.

Three years ago two men went missing in Guadalajara after being critical of Ternium for its role in the alleged destruction of rural areas. Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca, a renowned human rights lawyer, and Antonio Díaz Valencia, leader of the Aquila Indigenous community in the state of Michoacán, disappeared after attending an anti-mining community meeting in January 2023. The Guardian reported eyewitnesses at the time stating that the two activists were threatened and followed by several men in cars and motorbikes after they left the meeting in Aquila and headed towards the neighbouring state of Colima. Lagunes and Díaz were travelling in a white Honda pickup truck that was later found abandoned on the side of a highway riddled with bullets but no blood.

The protesters at the rally on Friday will accuse Hyundai of sportswashing by signing World Cup sponsorship deals and hold placards urging the company to show Ternium the red card. Hyundai and Kia are Fifa’s official mobility partners for the World Cup as part of a deal that also involves them providing transport for players, referees and other officials during the tournament. Hyundai has supplied Fifa with a fleet of 994 cars and 506 buses across the US, Canada and Mexico, while Kia will deploy 660 vehicles across North America.

Protest movements have been a significant feature of the Mexican element of the World Cup. Striking teachers succeeded in forcing road closures around the Estadio Azteca last week before the opening match between Mexico and South Africa , where about 200 protesters fought with police after attempting to force entry into the stadium.

Ternium Mexico has categorically denied any involvement in the disappearances. “Ternium expresses its solidarity with the families of the missing men, and with the community of Aquila,” a spokesperson said. “Ternium is against any type of violence and categorically rejects any speculation and/or defamation that tries to associate it with any type of illegal activity.

“We always operate within the law and with a broad sense of social responsibility. Ternium is a leading public company in the manufacture of steel in Latin America, which operates transparently and under the highest standards of control in all its operations.”

Hyundai declined to comment on the protests.

Keyword – Games
Trefwoorden – Twitch, Games, Culture, Social media, Digital media, Media, Technology
Title – ‘Streaming gave me a space to be myself’: Twitch creators on what it’s like to grow up on the platform | Twitch | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/keithstuart
Link – ‘Streaming gave me a space to be myself’: Twitch creators on what it’s like to grow up on the platform | Twitch | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T08:30:16.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/games/2026/jun/16/twitch-gamer-creators-twitchcon-rotterdam

A imee Davies, better known as Aimsey to their fans, is 24 but looks much younger. Sitting in a bland meeting room above the annual TwitchCon event in Rotterdam, they’re a barely contained whirl of energy in a beanie hat and T-shirt, all smiles and lightning-fast chatter. Aimsey (who uses they/them pronouns) is also a Twitch veteran, having started streaming eight years ago at the tender age of 16. A million subscribers tune in every week to see them chaotically play Minecraft and share snippets of their life. They have grown up, from teen to young adult, carrying a vast audience with them into maturity. What is it like to experience that?

“When you’re 16 you want to tell everyone everything about you,” they say as music blares from the event below. “When I came out as a lesbian, I told the world. Every part of my identity, my mental health struggles … I thought if I could help one person feel like they weren’t alone, I wanted to do that.”

For several years Aimsey was in a relationship with another content creator, Guqqie, and it played out in front of their fanbases with very little filtering – until it ended. It’s a situation common to streamers – they’re young and naive, they build an audience through sharing personal details with few boundaries, then the pressures of endless invasive attention take a toll. “Honestly, for a long time, the lines got blurred,” says Aimsey. “Streaming would seep into my real-life friendships, where I thought the only way people would be my friend was if I could give them something – because that’s obviously how it is on a stream.”

Recently however, Aimsey has learned how to step back and be a little more guarded. “I’ve been so open all my life, but I was falling into these cracks where I was like, God, who am I? I felt like I couldn’t figure that out. I think that in the last few months something switched in my brain. I’m living a little bit more of a reserved life. I’m still myself when I stream, but I’m trying my best to keep some things private – at least for now. I surround myself with people who definitely remind me that I’m not just content.”

Fellow Twitch star Sweet Anita is older at 35 years old, but she too is a veteran, having streamed since 2018. As a sufferer of Tourette syndrome, the platform has been a kind of emancipation. “Streaming has changed me a lot,” she says. “I used to be a timid person and quite apologetic – obviously I’d learned to be after a lifetime of dealing with Tourettes. I feel like streaming really gave me a space to be myself without constantly having to apologise to people. I have a lot more fun, I reach out to more people, I’m a lot more sociable now.”

It concerns her that so many children are now listing content creator as their ambition. “When I was a kid, it was astronaut or fireman, but now they desperately want to be in my position,” she says. “But it’s a little bit of a trap because once you’re here, people don’t forget you. You could leave tomorrow and someone might continue stalking you for the next 10 years. Once you’re in, you’re in. The only difference is how much security you can afford.”

For its part Twitch recognises the vulnerability of streamers. It has set up guilds to help specific minority groups navigate the platform and communicate concerns to the executives. It has created an AI-driven AutoMod feature, which polices chat during streams to delete abusive messages. “We’ve invested heavily in moderation tools so streamers can define what safety looks like to them,” says head of community Mary Kish. “It is going to be very important to be familiar with how you can protect yourself. I’m worried about anyone who might think on a whim, I’m going to go live. You need to be prepared – you need to have mods, or at the very least, turn Auto Mod on, you need to set your community up. We have a little work to do to make sure that anyone making their first stream understands what they’re getting into.”

Tellingly, neither Aimsey and Sweet Anita have plans to stop streaming any time soon. “Honestly, my vision is I’m probably always going to be streaming,” says Aimsey. “It’s something that’s been so consistent in my life and I adore it. That could change. But I’ve got so much more stuff I want to do with Minecraft – I want to do events, I want to do more stories and role-play, and there are so many more ideas in my head that there’s no point in even thinking about stopping.”

Sweet Anita has plans to move on from video games, at least some of the time. “I used to do animal rescue before this and I haven’t done enough for animals – that’s what I’d like to do next. I hope I get to go to animal sanctuaries, I hope I get to show people endangered animals. I’d love to do some rehab again, release some wild birds, that was the core of my existence before all of this.”

The maturation of both streamers and stream watchers is certainly something Twitch itself is thinking about. A huge majority of streams used to be about playing and watching video games, but recently categories such as Just Chatting and In Real Life (IRL) have become more popular. Streamers are getting out of their home studios and taking their viewers on days out, to restaurants, on walks, and beyond – top creator IShowSpeed has been streaming while scuba diving. Shayanelhawk literally sent his Twitch chat into space.

“Right now our biggest age group is actually 25-34 because people have aged up while using it and they keep using it,” says CEO Dan Clancy. “We’ve seen this in the growing diversity of content because as creators get older, they have new interests and their community stays with them. So I think we’ll see continued diversification. I’ve often conjectured that when the so-called Twitch generation gets to 60-70, we’ll see all these knitting and crochetting streams. As you get into retirement – the issue of looking for connection that you had as a teenager comes back, because the kids have left home, you’re looking for people, for community – and you have time. As we saw during Covid, Twitch is a platform that explodes when you have time.”

The one massive gamechanger lurking on the horizon is AI. There is already a successful AI avatar streamer, Neuro-sama, a cutesy anime girl with 1 million followers. Will Aimsey be part of the last generation of human teens who’ve had the chance to become, and grow up, as streamers? They think not. “No matter what happens there is always going to be an audience for human-made things. It doesn’t matter what we do, it doesn’t matter how big AI gets, there’s always going to be people who need that human connection to feel real.”

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, US news, Democrats, US politics
Title – Hillary Clinton says Biden’s re-election bid cost Democrats the 2024 election | Hillary Clinton | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joseph-gedeon
Link – Hillary Clinton says Biden’s re-election bid cost Democrats the 2024 election | Hillary Clinton | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T20:39:45.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/16/hillary-clinton-joe-biden-2024-election

Joe Biden ’s decision to seek a second term was “a terrible mistake” that cost Democrats the presidency and may have permanently damaged his legacy, Hillary Clinton has declared.

Speaking at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on Monday, the former US secretary of state and 2016 Democratic nominee said Biden had reneged on a prior commitment to step aside – and that the betrayal of that promise proved catastrophic. “He made a terrible mistake for himself, his legacy, and for the country,” she said.

Clinton argued that had Biden announced in late summer 2023 that he would not run, a genuine Democratic primary would have produced a stronger nominee.

“I believe whoever emerged from that contest, whether it was the vice-president or a governor or a senator or anybody else, would have beaten Donald Trump,” she said, calling the decision to stay in the race “a terrible miscalculation”.

Biden eventually abandoned his re-election bid in July 2024 following a disastrous debate performance against Trump, during which his wife Jill Biden recently revealed that she believed he was having a stroke while watching him. Biden then went on to hand over the nomination to his vice-president, Kamala Harris , in August, who went on to lose the general election to Trump a few months later.

Still, Clinton’s claim that any Democrat would have beaten Trump deserves scrutiny. A 2025 report from the left-leaning Way to Win into the 2024 defeat identified three core problems: voters wanted economic change; Republicans held a structural media advantage; and leftwing movements on Gaza, racial justice and immigration were badly out of alignment with the party. A controversial, and belated , internal review of the Democrats’ losses identified a slew of mistakes, describing a party that had lost ground at every level of government for nearly two decades.

In her remarks on Monday, Clinton explained that “once [Biden] didn’t move and did not, you know, admit that he had said he was going to step aside, and then decided not to, and held on for as long as he did, we were in a terrible dilemma.”

Keyword – Television & radio
Trefwoorden – Television, Television & radio, Culture, Harlan Coben
Title – I Will Find You review – seen one maddeningly watchable Harlan Coben adaptation? You’ve seen them all | Television | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sarahdempster
Link – I Will Find You review – seen one maddeningly watchable Harlan Coben adaptation? You’ve seen them all | Television | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-17T07:01:24.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/jun/17/i-will-find-you-review-harlen-coben-britt-lower-netflix

A lever groans, a pipe judders and thunk ; another length of premium-grade bunkum is extruded from the Harlan Coben Industrial Adaptation Complex™. This particular emission – an eight-part assemblage of fists and mumbling entitled I Will Find You – is the 13th of Coben’s novels to have been processed by Netflix as part of a 14-book deal. Which means – the pulse quickens – there is now just one more to go. On Netflix, at least. The author’s ongoing deal with Amazon suggests we could be trapped in an ever-spiralling cycle of preposterous thrillers for eternity. May God have mercy on our souls.

Helpfully, Netflix has titled its cluster of adaptations “The Harlan Coben Collection”, which makes them sound like the type of ceramic figurines advertised at the back of Sunday supplements: Regency belles, say, or dogs dressed as fictional detectives. Stun your family by collecting them all! Alternatively, watch just one – any one – of these adaptations and relax in the knowledge that you have now in effect seen them all, and thus need never again subject yourself to the sight of hitherto respectable actors remaining straight-faced while delivering lines of the “The past never changes. Until one day it does” genus.

I Will Find You, then. The gist is, as usual, this: somebody is missing. Somebody else is accused of a crime wot they did not do. The police are inept and/or corrupt, there is much scowling in expensive leisurewear, and everybody from stoic hero to snarling baddie speaks. Like this. To imply a sense of urgency. And gravitas. Whereas it merely makes them sound as if. They’re just back from. Zumba.

In a startling break with Netflix-Coben tradition, I Will Find You is set not in Europe but the US, which means the breathlessness comes with bigger guns and the captions shout things like BOSTON rather than LONDON, ENGLAND. In every other respect, however, I Will Find You is classic small-screen Coben, which is to say: maddeningly watchable crap with bells on.

So here is David Burroughs (Sam Worthington), a muscular everyman serving a life sentence in a Maine penitentiary for the murder of his young son. And yet he is innocent. Innocent, do you hear? But nobody believes our unshaven hero and so his days are spent dolefully punching fellow prisoners while immersed in thoughts of self-reproach (“A father’s job is to protect his child from harm. I failed,” etc).

Until! Ex-sister-in-law – and disgraced investigative journalist – Rachel Mills (Britt “Severance” Lower) turns up with a recent photograph of a frolicking youngster who looks very much like … no. Surely not. But yes. It seems David’s son may not be dead after all. “If there’s a chance …” gasps Rachel, pointing to the fact that said frolicker sports an identical birthmark to the formerly-dead Matthew, “… no matter how impossible, that he’s somehow still alive …”

And with that we’re off, bustin’ outta prison in the (complicit) governor’s Toyota Testosterone and straight into what Rachel’s ex-editor calls “the story of a lifetime!” He’s wrong, of course (it’s the story of eight 40-ish minute episodes plus ads), but there is enough “gas” in the tank to ensure an eventful ride for all.

Slowly, a labyrinthine global conspiracy unfolds and David and Rachel are up to their fugitive nostrils in questions: where is David’s son? If it wasn’t Matthew who was murdered, who was it? And who is the shadowy puppet-master to whom everyone from shifty prison warden to icy charity boss keeps sending cryptic texts?

The upshot? Palpable cobblers. The script is made of Play-Doh and our protagonists are but flaps of luncheon meat pegged to a washing line. And yet still we must – must! – find out what happens. And so we stagger, dazed, into the next episode. And the episode after that. Until many, many red herrings, narrative cul-de-sacs and splutter-inducing plot holes later, we are deposited at the end of another Coben adaptation with virtually no memory of how we got there. Confound it! That’s 13 down, one (??) to go. Stay strong, everyone.

I Will Find You is on Netflix now.