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 – Culture
Trefwoorden – Games, Culture
Title – The best games of 2026 so far | Games | The Guardian
Author – Keza MacDonald
Link – The best games of 2026 so far | Games | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-11T09:00:18.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/ng-interactive/2026/jun/11/the-best-games-of-2026-so-far

007 First Light

Bond sets out to earn his licence to kill in IO Interactive’s hugely enjoyable retelling of the agent’s early years. Mixing the stealth and open environments of Hitman with the narrative drive of the Uncharted games, there are fistfights, cool cars and hi-tech gadgets aplenty. Read the full review .

Forza Horizon 6

The grand festival of car racing returns, this time bringing its automotive chaos to Japan, where bamboo forests, winding mountain roads and dense city streets play host to a wealth of driving challenges. With astonishing visuals and more than 500 beautiful vehicles, this is escapist gaming on a whole new level. Read the full review .

Forbidden Solitaire

Trapped in a hellish dungeon surrounded by monsters, your only way out is to play increasingly challenging rounds of solitaire while your sister figures out who the heck made this cursed game in the first place. A brilliant puzzler housed within a clever meta conceit. Read the full review .

Mythmatch

Cast out by the insufferable dudebros of Mount Olympus, aspiring goddess Artemis must prove her worth by helping the mortal inhabitants of a small village. Mixing the dynamics of a match-three puzzler with a warm narrative about kinship and perseverance, this is a multilayered treat. Read the full review .

Titanium Court

A fascinating combination of match-three puzzler, tower defence game and fourth-wall-breaking stage-play, Titanium Court has you crowned queen of a faerie citadel that you must defend from its mysterious enemies, matching tiles to arrange the battlefield to your advantage and exploring the court at night. Confused? You almost certainly will be. But in this spectacularly innovative game, that’s almost the point.

Pragmata

When contact is lost with a lunar research station, space cop Hugh Williams is sent to investigate – only to discover a seemingly abandoned base ruled over by a despotic AI. With the help of a charming android child, he attempts to shut it down, hacking robots and blasting drones as he goes. An engrossing sci-fi romp with a cute parental relationship at its core. Read the full review .

Resident Evil: Requiem

Rookie FBI operative Grace Ashcroft sets out to investigate a series of mysterious deaths tied to the destruction of Raccoon City many years before. Soon, she’s being stalked, spooked and kidnapped, while series hero Leon Kennedy closes in. Combining tense stealth and barnstorming action sequences, Requiem gets to have its zombie and kill it too. Read the full review .

Saros

Colonists have gone missing on a distant planet and as part of the team sent in to find them, you must battle cybernetic creatures, explore weird fractured environments and die over and over again. Saros is an action game with style and vision, placing truly uncompromising demands on brave (foolhardy) space farers. Read the full review .

Cairn

Aava is not a normal person; she is one of those fascinating maniacs obsessed with scaling places that no human ought to reach. On her trip up this forbidding mountain, you control her individual limbs, searching for hand and footholds in the rock. The higher you get, the more urgent the question becomes: why is she doing this, and what kind of person do you need to be to follow this kind of obsession? Read the full review

Pokémon Pokopia

The latest spin-off from the Pokémon series is a delightful life simulation in which you must restore a ruined planet by building, planting and exploring – all with the help of various Pokémon pals with distinct personalities. Combining elements of Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Viva Piñata, this is a cosy yet complex adventure that brings new dimensions to Pikachu and co. Read the full review .

Honourable mentions

Mario Tennis Fever

Mewgenics

TR-49

Marathon

Pieced Together

Life Is Strange: Reunion

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Steven Spielberg, Culture, Film industry, Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, The Fabelmans, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, Disclosure Day
Title – Alienated by Disclosure Day? You are not alone | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/mike-mccahill
Link – Alienated by Disclosure Day? You are not alone | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T06:00:48.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/16/disclosure-day-spielberg-et-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-et

A sage person once told me every noted director’s career is an ongoing conversation with the audience. Some film-makers – Michael Haneke, say – sit on high, like a headteacher at an assembly, and loftily number the ways in which we’ve let ourselves and the school down. There are others – Lars von Trier and Ari Aster spring to mind – whose work sidles up uncomfortably close, gooses the viewer and then flees the scene sniggering before the relevant authorities can be alerted. The career of Steven Spielberg – arguably the most remarkable career in the history of popular cinema – has long depended on the audience being on the exact same page, looking up wide-eyed and guileless towards the light: his greatest films, from Close Encounters to The Fabelmans, invite further discussion, an awestruck back-and-forth.

You can therefore understand why Spielberg has broached the subject of social division with Disclosure Day , his much-trumpeted return to the summer event movie: he has almost as much skin in this game as the rest of us non-trillionaires. Yet if early box office has been solid enough, secondary indices – not least a slew of disappointed foyer texts from friends and loved ones – would suggest the film has itself proved distinctly polarising. In the US, market research firm CinemaScore – which polls opening-day cinemagoers to assess a film’s commercial prospects – graded Disclosure Day a B, the joint second-worst for a Spielberg film, ahead of AI: Artificial Intelligence (recipient of a harsh C), dead level with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Headmaster Haneke again shakes his weary head.

Despite the proximity of aliens, the new film’s focus is primarily human: the secrets we keep, the lies we tell. Disclosure Day thereby dovetails neatly with the themes of several mature-period Spielberg works, notably 2015’s Bridge of Spies and 2017’s The Post . To locate the source of this interest, you need only revisit The Fabelmans – Spielberg’s probing and perceptive movie-memoir of 2022 – which dramatised the effects similar deceptions had on his own household growing up. Screenwriter David Koepp has form in this area, too: his script for last year’s spry and gripping Steven Soderbergh thriller Black Bag unpicked the alibis of bedhopping spies. Yet Disclosure Day’s weak spot is its tissue-thin and arbitrary-seeming plot, its own diaphanous cover story for some altogether antiquated and simplistic editorial.

The setup, granted, is strong: Close Encounters, updated for the information age. First contact here is no longer as harmonious as a five-note call-and-response; as demonstrated by Emily Blunt’s weathergirl, left speaking in tongues, it’s more a matter of mainlining everything on social media (news, multiple languages, a whole century’s crashlandings and cover-ups) in one fell swoop. Phones are bad and must be tossed and driven over. On the trusted list: ordinary people, organised religion, local news (framed as the right, digestible amount of information) and – this being Spielberg – the family home. This ageing viewer has some sympathy for all that, but as a directorial vision, Disclosure Day feels far more old world than new, more 20th century than 21st. How many X-Files reboots does one civilisation need? Set Disclosure Day against Spielbergian precedents, and it has an obvious personnel problem. No one in this cast disgraces themselves – and it’s fun watching Wyatt Russell’s goofball charm, so central to TV’s short-lived Lodge 49, bouncing around on an Imax screen – but Koepp’s characters neither register nor stick in the mind in the way Close Encounters’ Roy Neary or ET’s Elliott did. Rather than real, indelible, flesh-and-blood people, these are cardboard-cutout heroes and villains, moving parts voided of depth so as to be yanked around more efficiently. Colman Domingo is a fine actor, but not even he can sell us on a figure who’s some combination of underground resistance leader, directorial stand-in and part-time construction manager. In a cardigan. Wasn’t Spielberg meant to be reflecting reality here?

At a certain point, even Spielberg appears divided. The opening stretch is identifiably the work of the sharp, savvy Spielberg, confident enough to drop viewers in medias res and reassure us with slow-drip narrative intelligence; he almost casually pulls off a car chase through a rural farmhouse. Yet Disclosure Day hinges on a flatpack reconstruction of an old image: Domingo’s recreation of the Blunt childhood home, familiarly lit by Janusz Kamiński, mechanically scored by John Williams. Here, the sappy Spielberg takes over, and the film draws wearily on muscle memory: how we used to live, how Spielberg used to direct. (Although his VFX game used to be much stronger: how is it that a film-maker who once had us believing in dinosaurs should now struggle to conjure believable woodland creatures?) A twinge of summer movies past, nostalgic for popcorn paradises lost, Disclosure Day appears terribly hazy, if not outright befuddled, on crucial plot points. Could any viewer pin down what the threat coming out of Korea is? Or how that metallic doohickey works? Koepp’s script boils down to one word – the Blunt character’s final declaration of “listen”, positioned here as Dr Spielberg’s prescription for all our social ills. Some part of me – the part who’s grown up with Spielberg’s films, wrestled with them, made peace with them, admired the best of them – longed to respond with a hearty “hear hear”. But Disclosure Day’s closing hour is such a tail-off that it just sounds defensive, a last-gasp “hear me out”: the cry of creatives who haven’t quite worked out the story they want to tell, desperate to keep their audience on side.

Keyword – US news
Trefwoorden – Donald Trump, Germany, US politics, Europe, G7, World Cup 2026, Football
Title – German chancellor Merz gifts Trump football shirt at G7 – video | Donald Trump | The Guardian
Author –
Link – German chancellor Merz gifts Trump football shirt at G7 – video | Donald Trump | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T12:18:58.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2026/jun/16/german-chancellor-merz-gifts-trump-football-shirt-at-g7-video

Keyword – Art and design
Trefwoorden – Photography, Pride, LGBTQ+ rights, Art and design, Exhibitions, Art and design books, Books, Mexico, Culture
Title – Free as a bird: the Mexicans redefining gender – in pictures | Photography | The Guardian
Author –
Link – Free as a bird: the Mexicans redefining gender – in pictures | Photography | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T06:00:47.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2026/jun/16/free-as-a-bird-the-mexicans-redefining-gender-in-pictures-pieter-henket-birds-of-mexico-city

Keyword – Life and style
Trefwoorden – Health & wellbeing, Men’s health, Life and style, Diets and dieting, Fitness, Mental health, Health
Title – From man boobs to baldness: everything you wanted to know about midlife wellness … but were too male to ask | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joe-stone
Link – From man boobs to baldness: everything you wanted to know about midlife wellness … but were too male to ask | Health & wellbeing | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-12T14:00:48.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/jun/12/mens-guide-to-ageing-well-medical-health-diet-experts

Diet

According to the dietitian Rick Miller : “By the time a man hits his mid-40s, several physiological changes are already under way. Testosterone drops at around 1-2% annually from the mid-30s, insulin sensitivity decreases and the liver’s capacity to process certain nutrients changes. The diet that kept a man lean and energetic in his 30s simply stops working.”

Men’s metabolism also tends to slow during midlife. Miller says this isn’t down to ageing itself, but the loss of muscle that tends to accompany it – so dieting isn’t the answer. “Restricting calories – particularly if it comes at the expense of protein – simply accelerates muscle loss, which further slows metabolism, creating exactly the cycle men are trying to escape,” he says.

A better approach is to focus on increasing protein intake, alongside strength training in the gym. “The latest research suggests men over 40 need to eat between 1.6g and 2.2g of protein per kilogram of body weight a day to preserve the metabolic engine that regulates blood glucose, supports hormonal function and determines how well a man ages. Men should also limit refined carbohydrates, such as bread and pasta, to stabilise insulin.”

While protein is the most important “macronutrient” for middle-aged men, Miller says that men’s micronutrient needs also shift in this period. “Magnesium absorption becomes less efficient, vitamin D synthesis through the skin declines, and zinc, which plays a direct role in testosterone production, is frequently depleted in men eating a heavily processed western diet. This has negative effects on energy, cognition, mood and body composition.” To compensate, men should prioritise eating foods rich in magnesium (nuts, seeds and dairy products), vitamin D (eggs, cod liver oil and mushrooms) and zinc (shellfish and legumes).

Cardiovascular disease is the number-one killer of men aged 45-54 . It is often framed as a cholesterol problem, but Miller says this is an oversimplification: “A more accurate picture involves chronic low-grade inflammation, insulin resistance and endothelial dysfunction [the deterioration of the blood vessel lining].” All of these factors can be substantially modified with the right diet. Many of us eat too much omega-6 (found in refined oils and processed food) and not enough omega-3 (found in oily fish).

“Eating two to three weekly servings of salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring or trout directly addresses inflammation and cognitive function, alongside cardiovascular risk,” he says. “A high polyphenol intake (from colourful vegetables and berries) and adequate dietary fibre (particularly the soluble kind from oats and legumes) help to manage cardiovascular risk – as does avoiding ultra-processed foods, which cause inflammation and increase insulin resistance.” Alcohol use should also be moderated as it “suppresses testosterone production, disrupts the deep sleep stages where testosterone is predominantly synthesised, and adds inflammatory load at precisely the point in life when men can least afford it.” The UK chief medical officers’ guidance recommends no more than 14 units per week across at least three alcohol-free days.

Finally, beware late night snacking. “Eating the bulk of your food earlier in the day is aligned with the body’s natural cortisol and insulin rhythms, improving metabolic efficiency and sleep.”

Exercise

“Midlife is arguably the most important period for determining our future health and independence,” says David Vaux, author of Stronger: 10 Exercises for a Longer Healthier Life . “Many chronic conditions begin silently during these years, before emerging decades later.”

Mitigating these risks requires more than padding back and forth to the fridge. “Cardiovascular exercise remains essential for heart health, weight management and mental wellbeing,” he says. “But 10,000 steps a day won’t save us from frailty in older age. Research consistently shows that people with low levels of muscle mass and strength are significantly more vulnerable to early mortality. That’s why middle-aged men need both ‘steps and reps’.”

After 30, muscle mass begins to decline by 3-8% a decade, causing a decrease in strength and function. “Maintaining our skeletal muscle with strength training is akin to future-proofing our body’s ability to function normally,” says Vaux. “If we neglect it, our ability to heal from injury, fight infections or even think clearly will be compromised in older age. It’s not about aesthetics. It is about preserving function, resilience and quality of life.”

NHS guidelines recommend doing at least two sessions of resistance training (using weights, body weight or machines in the gym) a week. Vaux advocates functional strength exercises including lunges, squats and pull-ups as “these train multiple joints and muscle groups together, improving balance, coordination and real-world strength”. He suggests thinking of exercise as investing in a “strength pension, which underwrites virtually every aspect of healthy ageing”.

While resistance training becomes increasingly vital in middle age, he cautions against a “no pain, no gain” gym bro mindset. “Many men enter midlife still training with the ‘go hard or go home’ mentality they had in their 20s. Unfortunately, that often becomes counterproductive with age; you cannot train consistently if you are constantly injured. The solution is to recover with the same seriousness that we train. Learning to recognise fatigue, stiffness or pain and adjusting training accordingly is the difference between maintaining lifelong fitness and spending months sidelined with avoidable injuries.”

Skincare

Some good news! According to Dr David Jack , an aesthetic doctor, “Men begin with a structural advantage over women: thicker dermis, more collagen and more active sebaceous glands – all of which create a firmer appearance. During menopause women experience sharp collagen loss, whereas the trajectory is far steadier for men.”

The bad news? “Men tend to develop deeper-set lines, particularly across the forehead, and frown lines, as well as a dropping of heavier tissues in the lower face due to stronger muscles.” Meanwhile, “lower SPF use means men often have more advanced changes before seeking advice”. SPF should be your priority, he advises, as sun exposure remains the most dominant factor in skin ageing.

Other lifestyle factors also play a role. “Poor sleep affects the skin’s repair processes, while chronic stress elevates cortisol, which impacts collagen synthesis and damages your skin barrier.” Once again, protein is your best friend. “It supports collagen structure, while a diet rich in antioxidants found in colourful fruit and veg, nuts and seeds helps mitigate damage from UV rays and pollution.”

In an era awash with influencers and 12-step routines, skincare can feel daunting. According to Jack, three consistent steps in the morning are all you need. “A cleanser containing AHA (lactic/glycolic acid) or BHA (salicylic acid) will remove excess sebum and help men prone to congestion or ingrown hairs from shaving. This should be followed by an antioxidant serum (one containing vitamin C, for instance) and a moisturiser with broad-spectrum SPF 50 or above, which remains the most important way of preserving collagen and preventing pigmentation. In the evening, cleanse again before applying a retinoid – one of the most evidence-based ingredients for supporting collagen production and improving fine lines and texture. A simple moisturiser can be layered on top if needed.”

Feel like your crow’s feet require more heavy-duty measures? “Botox remains the entry point for most men, particularly for the forehead and frown lines, where it can soften a fatigued appearance,” says Jack. “Hyaluronic acid filler is increasingly popular, particularly when used to restore jawline definition or midface support. The emphasis should always be on deeper placement rather than volume in the fat pads, which can cause puffiness.” Meanwhile, lasers and microneedling can stimulate collagen and improve texture, tone and elasticity.

“The common thread is subtlety,” says Jack. “The most effective approach integrates a few treatments to give an overall impression of looking well. Small, well-planned interventions produce more natural results than more aggressive one-off treatments.” He recommends seeking practitioners with “a strong medical background, detailed understanding of facial anatomy and a conservative and tasteful aesthetic. Consultations should feel thorough, with a clear explanation of what is driving the ageing process and how each treatment helps. Transparency around risks and complications is also crucial.”

Mental health

Middle-aged men represent the highest suicide risk of any demographic; they are also less likely to seek help. According to Dr Jonathan Garabette, a psychiatrist and psychotherapist at Reborne Longevity : “Unemployment, divorce, financial strain, work and family responsibilities all peak during midlife, and can act together to significantly increase risk. Social isolation can further accelerate these stressors.” In addition: “Mental illness in men are often missed or labelled as anger issues or addiction, which may actually be secondary issues.” Alongside socioeconomic factors, biological and hormonal changes in midlife, such as the natural decline in testosterone, “can affect mood, energy, cognition and sexual function. These symptoms deserve medical attention rather than being dismissed as ‘just getting older’.”

Thankfully, lifestyle interventions can have significant benefits. “Regular exercise, good nutrition, adequate sleep, social connection and stress management can reduce depression risk by more than 50%,” says Garabette. “Exercise is particularly effective, with benefits comparable to medication for some people.”

Community and connection also cultivate good mental health. “Social support literally changes how the brain processes stress. It’s important to invest in these relationships before a crisis hits and not wait until breaking point to seek support. Small, consistent actions across multiple areas – physical health, relationships, meaningful activity – all add up to significant protection.”

As for therapy, only 33% of referrals to NHS talking therapies are for men, and according to Garabette, services haven’t always been designed with them in mind. “It may be helpful to reframe help-seeking as proactive maintenance, like going to the gym or servicing a car, rather than ‘admitting defeat’,” he says. “Psychotherapy comes in many different forms, and finding the right sort of therapy for each patient’s needs and preferences is important. Men should know that therapy can be practical and goal-focused, not just ‘talking about feelings’.”

Samaritans offers 24/7 support to anyone in distress (freephone 116 123). ANDYSMANCLUB has free peer-to-peer support groups across the UK and online.

Hair loss

Most men will experience hair loss in their lifetime, with 66% of men aged 35 already thinning. There are two main causes, says Dr Marco Nicoloso, a hair loss expert and medical director at Ouronyx . “The most common form is androgenic alopecia, male pattern hair loss, which is genetic and hormone driven. About 80% of men will experience this at some point – it could begin when they are 16 or when they are 60. The second most common form is telogen effluvium: shedding related to a stressful event. If the stress resolves, then the hair grows back.” A trichoscopy, in which a dermatologist takes close digital images of the scalp, can establish the cause.

As with skin ageing, lifestyle factors can hasten hair loss. Since the rise of Ozempic, Nicoloso increasingly sees patients who are losing hair through restricting calories. “Hair is 80-90% protein, so it’s particularly important to be eating enough protein if you want to maintain it,” he says. It’s also crucial to keep the scalp clean. “It’s a very oily environment full of bacteria and fungi, and needs to be washed every day. Shampooing removes the sebum, balances the pH and protects the hair follicles.”

While many men are content to lose their hair, 62% say that hair loss negatively affects their self-esteem, with 21% reporting feelings of associated depression. “Some patients accept it: they shave their heads and are completely fine,” says Nicoloso. “For others, it has a strong psychological impact.”

While transplants have surged in popularity, beginning medical treatments at the early signs of thinning can “delay or even avoid the need”. Nicoloso suggests asking your doctor about finasteride, a private prescription medication that acts as a hormone blocker to reduce the progression of thinning (there are potential side effects, including problems with libido and erections, although these should improve during treatment and in most cases stop once treatment is discontinued). This should be paired with minoxidil, which stimulates hair follicles to encourage growth and thickness, and is available as a prescription pill or over the counter as a topical treatment. If you do decide to progress to a transplant, medications will maximise the outcome by ensuring you have thick hair in the “donor area” from which hairs are harvested.

Transplants can be transformational for “the right candidate at the right time”, says Nicoloso. “I see a lot of patients who have transplants too soon, and without going on medication first. Transplanted hair is not sensitive to the thinning progression, so it will stay thick. But the existing hair will keep getting thinner without medication, so you end up having gaps. A 360 degree approach – correcting any deficiencies, having a healthy lifestyle, taking care of scalp health and considering medication – will maximise your outcome.”

Keyword – Society
Trefwoorden – Loneliness, Football, Sport, London, UK news, Apps
Title – ‘You make people a bit happier’: the football app building friendships in London | Loneliness | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/isaaq-tomkins
Link – ‘You make people a bit happier’: the football app building friendships in London | Loneliness | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-13T13:00:15.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/jun/13/football-app-building-friendships-london-footy-addicts

Cries of “Boss! Boss! Boss!” emerge from the pitch during a hard-fought game of football in a London park. There aren’t a lot of names used in this game, because most players only met just before kick-off. They were brought together by an app that’s injecting life into grassroots football.

Footy Addicts was invented to solve an infuriating problem for amateur players – the late dropout, which can lead to unbalanced teams and ruined games. The app brings together strangers who are desperate to play football, and who can step in after a cancellation to make up the numbers at short notice.

Raul-Julian Grelet, 28, and Jacob Jae Ellis, 23, (RJ and JJ as they are known) met on the pitch today. Grelet organised their match through Footy Addicts, which is something he’s been doing since the start of the year. He says the platform has been a “marvel to this community”, and hosts matches to give people a chance to play and improve.

“I do it because I know what it’s like to go into a game when you’re shy and you don’t want to play and you feel like you’re doing badly. These sessions are open for you to just come and have a kickabout – make some friends and get some exercise.”

That’s exactly what the Footy Addicts CEO, Konstantinos Gkortsilas, intended. When he came to the UK in 2006 from Larissa, a city in central Greece, he wanted two things: to play football, and build a community. The trouble was that Sunday League football was too much of a time commitment, and required a big upfront payment to take part. At the same time Gkortsilas didn’t know enough people to organise his own games.

So he started using meetup.com, a website which connects hobbyists, to find more players. As the community grew, he eventually launched Footy Addicts in 2013, an independent platform that gives individual footballers a group to play with. Since then it has exploded, with more than 323,000 registered players all over the UK.

Gkortsilas saw the difference he made first-hand. “I was coming out of games, meeting people, chatting with them, and it gave me this feeling of accomplishment,” he says. “You’re giving a little bit to people’s lives, making them a bit happier. For me that was the biggest victory.”

Two years ago, JJ Ellis had come back to London after finishing university, was working in hospitality, and wanted to get some exercise. “I don’t mind the gym but I don’t think it’s very nice or particularly human,” he says.

He found Footy Addicts and started playing with them instead. At the matches, it didn’t feel as if he was fighting an uphill battle to fit in, as many people do when they’re new to a job, or a city, or a country.

What began as a convenient means of making sure the game goes ahead has since led to blossoming friendships. Next year JJ is going to the wedding of someone he met through the platform.

Loneliness, especially among young men , is a problem the Footy Addicts platform can help solve. But it also creates a space for women to play more football. Stephanie Benneli, 33, takes part in a longstanding game in Highbury. She grew up in Brazil playing football all throughout her youth, but when she came to London as an adult, the opportunities to play dried up.

After an eight-year lull she discovered the service, which brought back her passion for the game. Now she plays football whenever she wants, and it makes a world of difference to her life.

“If I’m struggling – when I’ve been through difficult moments, football is the only thing that really takes me out of my house,” says Benelli. “I don’t care if it’s drizzly, raining, if it’s snowing, I just go out and enjoy.”

As Grelet’s match winds down in Barnard Park, the next team gathers on the sidelines, getting ready to take over. They are already introducing themselves, joking around, heckling the players on the pitch at times. The mood is jovial, as friendships form in real time.

Keyword – Books
Trefwoorden – Books, Culture
Title – Tell us: what is your favourite beach read? | Books | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/guardian-community-team
Link – Tell us: what is your favourite beach read? | Books | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-10T13:58:57.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jun/10/tell-us-what-is-your-favourite-beach-read

Summer is here, which means lazy days at the beach or the pool with a great book by your side.

We would love to hear from people about their favourite beach reads. What books have you loved reading on holiday? What are the page turners that you keep returning to every summer and always recommend to friends? We would love to hear what books these are and why they make a great beach read.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here . Read terms of service here and privacy policy here .

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Documentary films, Music, Culture, Film, Pop and rock
Title – ‘He experienced a full life of trauma’: documentary explores troubled tale of Gregg Allman | Documentary films | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jim-farber
Link – ‘He experienced a full life of trauma’: documentary explores troubled tale of Gregg Allman | Documentary films | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T09:00:17.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/16/gregg-allman-documentary

L ate in the afternoon on 29 October 1971, one of the world’s greatest guitarists, Duane Allman, was riding his motorcycle when he swerved to avoid colliding with a flatbed truck that suddenly stopped short in an intersection. He wound up slamming into the back of the truck with such force, it threw him under his bike which skidded and dragged him for 50 ruinous feet. Suffering a collapsed chest, a ruptured coronary artery and a damaged liver, Allman was pronounced dead three hours later. He was 24.

Four decades after that tragic event, when journalist Alan Light was hanging out with Gregg Allman to ghostwrite the musician’s memoir, titled My Cross to Bear, he couldn’t help but notice how present Duane remained in his life. “In Gregg’s house, he was surrounded by photos of Duane, notes from Duane and music from Duane,” Light said. “It was obvious that he was still very much a part of Gregg’s day-to-day existence. The sadness and loss never left him.”

In fact, it only exacerbated the sense of tragedy that had been with both Allman brothers nearly from birth. When Duane was three years old and Gregg two, their father was shot to death by a hitchhiker he’d picked up. “Gregg experienced a full life of trauma,” said James Keach, who has directed a comprehensive new documentary about the star titled Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul. “That level of trauma, suffered young, informs everything you do, especially if you’re an artist.”

But if trauma underlay Allman’s music, the way he used it as a singer, songwriter and musician couldn’t have been more rousing, creative or cathartic, something the performances in the film make abundantly clear. While much of the documentary covers his decades with the Allman Brothers – which suffered another tragedy with the death of their bassist Berry Oakley one year after Duane’s demise – its greater value comes in differentiating Gregg from the rest of the band. To do so, it emphasizes his unique role within their ranks, as well as his separate solo identity, delineated over a wealth of solo albums released before his death from liver cancer in 2017 at 69. “If Duane had never formed the Allman Brothers, Gregg would have become a solo artist with an affinity for Jackson Browne and Tim Buckley,” said Alan Paul, author of the definitive book on the group, One Way Out. “He wouldn’t have been out of place in the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter scene.”

That’s apparent not only from the craft and melodic range of his writing, which pushed far beyond the blues idiom he’s often associated with, but also the husky timbre of his voice and the weight of emotion in his singing. Heavy with sadness and hurt, Allman’s voice was the perfect expression of the burdened life he led, though as Paul pointed out, “Gregg would have been a great singer even if he lived a very different life.”

Early in that life music represented redemption. After the murder of the boys’ father, their mother never remarried, forcing her to raise the kids herself. Though she was enormously devoted to them, the job she took to support the family required her to live apart from them for some years, during which she sent them to military school. In those years, Gregg felt abandoned by both parents. Though Duane became a kind of parental substitute, he could be an intimidating one to the more inward Allman. “People have this image of Gregg as this hard-living rock’n’roll pirate,” Keach said. “But I always saw him as a shy and sensitive guy.”

Interestingly, Gregg took up guitar first, but Duane became intrigued and quickly surpassed him in skill. The younger brother reacted by developing his voice, modeled on the southern Black blues singers whose phrasing, gravitas and swagger entranced him. Though the boys were raised in the segregated south, they were drawn to Black culture. An early band the brothers formed, initially named Allman Joys and later dubbed Hourglass, earned a recording contract but the restrictive sound their record company required frustrated Duane, who quit to become a session guitarist at Muscle Shoals studio where he played on classic recordings by artists such as Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin. By 1969, Duane had an idea for his own band fired by an unusual lineup, with two harmonically attuned lead guitarists and two powerhouse drummers, the latter modeled on similar lineups in James Brown’s and Otis Redding’s bands. The sound Duane conceived wound up defining the Southern Rock movement, heard in bands from Lynyrd Skynyrd to the Marshall Tucker Band. Duane’s first hire for the Allmans was Jaimoe (John Lee Johnson), a Black R&B and jazz drummer, making them one of the few major integrated bands in the Jim Crow south.

Gregg found his way into the group by tackling an intimidating instrument: the Hammond B3 organ. “Gregg was never a flashy organ player,” said Chuck Leavell, the master keyboardist who joined the Allmans in 1972. “You’re not going to listen to him and say, ‘wow, this guy’s got incredible chops!’ What you do hear is melody and feeling and sensitivity. He was a very tasteful player.”

More, Gregg could write songs like Whipping Post and Midnight Rider, which gave the group a compositional authority few jam bands ever muster. The Allmans’ third album, Live at the Fillmore East, universally hailed as one of the greatest concert recordings ever released, made them national stars but the same week that it went gold Duane lost his life. “I was angry,” Gregg says bitterly in the film. “I was angry at him for dying. I was angry at God for taking him. I was angry at the whole thing.”

The documentary reveals that Gregg, already a heroin user, overdosed the same night Duane died, though he was later revived. Alan Paul’s book adds another shocking fact: bassist Berry Oakley also nearly died that night in a terrible car crash he managed to walk away from. Gregg took to bed for weeks afterwards. By then he was addicted to heroin and alcohol, dependencies that plagued him for decades. “The reality of what he had to deal with was just too much,” Keach said.

Oakley’s death one year later was eerily similar to Duane’s – again from a motorcycle accident, though the bassist was fully conscious in the aftermath. When Oakley was asked if he wanted to go to the hospital, he said no, a decision that may have doomed him. “A lot of people make that mistake,” Keach said. “They think they’re OK but don’t realize their internal organs may have been crushed and they’re bleeding to death inside.”

Given the multiplying deaths, Gregg started to feel cursed. “He had this sense of, ‘why am I the one who made it through all this?’” Light said. “All around me, again and again, this tragedy keeps happening.”

During that period, Paul reveals, the killer of Gregg’s father wrote letters to him to try to apologize. “Gregg threw all of them out,” Paul said.

For a short while, the band thought about stopping but, said Keach, “if they quit, what was going to happen? None of these guys went to college. They were great musicians. So, they did what they knew how to do.”

In fact, they did so to an astounding degree, reinventing themselves in a way that made them more popular, and respected, than ever. Knowing they could never replace the singularity of Duane, they instead added a prominent keyboardist – Chuck Leavell. According to the pianist, “that was a happy accident. They weren’t looking for a piano player. We just started these jam sessions, and everybody said, ‘This is unique.’ And I guess I provided a certain degree of rhythm under (surviving lead guitarist) Dickie Betts, and also offered a foil. The twin guitar harmonies they had before I could cover on piano but with a totally different tonality and texture.”

Leavell’s first album with them, Brothers and Sisters, shot to the top of the charts, fired by the smash single Ramblin’ Man, whose lyrics briefly referenced the murder of the Allmans’ father. Betts wrote and sang that song, along with others on the album, making him the band’s biggest star. At first that was cool with Gregg, who was in no emotional shape then to lead the group. Eventually, though, it led to tensions. “Watching Dickie move into that position obviously rankled Gregg,” Light said. “He talked a lot about that.”

The ever-escalating drug use of both Gregg and Betts made things far worse. (Betts was permanently booted from the band in 2000.) At the height of their fame, Gregg began to feel overwhelmed by the group’s jam-band focus, leading him to inaugurate a parallel solo career with the Laid Back album in 1973. In the film, Gregg says anger inspired the move. After presenting the band with a song he was especially proud of, Queen of Hearts, one member sneered, “Man, that ain’t saying nothin’.” In an interview used in the film, Gregg doesn’t reveal who said that, but Paul believes it was drummer Butch Trucks. Gregg had the last laugh, though. His solo album quickly went gold, buttressing the Allmans’ success which, by then, turned them into America’s biggest band.

Harnessing that influence, they began to hold early fundraisers for a then little-known Jimmy Carter, an extreme dark horse running for president. The idea of a long-haired rock band endorsing a politician was incredibly rare then yet so effective that Carter later gave them credit for helping him win the White House in 1976. More importantly, the ascendence of Carter and the Allmans offered a radically new image of the south, one that was racially inclusive. “Before you had southern politicians like George Wallace and Lester Maddox who were adamant segregationists,” Leavell said. “Now we had guys who grew up in the deep south with Black people as neighbors and childhood friends and a whole new perspective.”

That didn’t go over well with everyone. There’s speculation in the documentary that anti-Carter forces were behind a nearly ruinous drug bust in the Allmans’ camp. To gain immunity from that, Gregg testified against the band’s road manager, Scooter Jennings. “There was a lot of feeling that Gregg had ratted on his friend,” Leavell said. “Some felt his testimony went beyond what was necessary. In reality, Gregg was put in a box.”

Jennings himself forgave Gregg and took the fall but the bad feelings broke up the band for a while. More controversy arrived when the Allman singer married Cher, making them music’s odd couple of the hour. (It was one of seven marriages for Allman.) “People were always going to think, ‘How the hell did that happen?’” Light said. “But they only had good things to say about each other.”

For the shy Allman, Cher’s level of Hollywood fame proved intolerable. The issue for her was his heroin addiction. When I asked Cher about their relationship a few years ago, she expressed abiding love for the man she called “Gregory” (as did all his closest friends). At the same time, she said she couldn’t have him using heroin around her children, which scotched the relationship for her.

Allman didn’t get sober until the late 90s. Leavell believes part of the reason it took so long was because “Gregg could drink a quart of liquor and still perform. So I think he felt he could get away with it. But there came a time when he couldn’t.”

Though he finally got clean and received a liver transplant in 2010, the hepatitis C he contracted previously endured, and in 2017 he died of liver cancer . Knowing he was dying, Allman recorded a final album, Southern Blood, released four months after his death. It stands as one of the greatest self-penned musical epitaphs ever released. While Gregg knew of his impending demise, it was never announced to the public, something Paul considers a shame. “When he died, he was treated as a major musical figure,” Paul said. “It would have been nice if he had been around to see that his cultural relevance went way beyond the Allmans.”

More, the depth of that recognition might have offered a sweet counter to the many traumas he endured in his life, including the suicide of the band’s drummer Butch Trucks just four months before his own death. Given the weight of such events, Light said, “Gregg felt haunted until the very end of his life. Sadly, that will always be a part of his story.”

Gregg Allman: The Music of My Soul is in US cinemas for one night on 17 June with release dates elsewhere to be announced

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Jo Cox, Far right, Brexit, Communities, Politics, UK news
Title – Division in UK probably worse now than in run-up to Brexit, says Jo Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater | Jo Cox | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/nosheen-iqbal
Link – Division in UK probably worse now than in run-up to Brexit, says Jo Cox’s sister Kim Leadbeater | Jo Cox | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-16T05:00:46.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/16/division-in-uk-probably-worse-now-than-in-run-up-to-brexit-says-kim-leadbeater

Political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit referendum, when Jo Cox was murdered, says Kim Leadbeater, Cox’s sister who is now also a Labour MP.

Speaking to the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast Leadbeater, who was elected to the same Yorkshire seat held by Cox in a 2021 byelection , said everyone in public life had a responsibility to try and ease tensions.

Referencing the response of some politicians to the murder of Henry Nowak, which was followed by disorder in Southampton , Leadbeater said people should remember that those calling for division were “in the minority” but were very vocal.

Other people, she argued, “have got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country”.

“After Jo was killed, there was a period where people said all the right things and said: we need to do things differently, we need more compassion, we need more understanding,” said Leadbeater in an interview to mark the 10th anniversary of Cox’s murder by a far-right terrorist on 16 June 2016.

She said: “And it was very short-lived. And sadly and regrettably, I think over the last decade, if anything, things are worse. And I think we have to be honest about that.”

With the anniversary approaching, Leadbeater said, it was time to “have a look at how we can change that narrative”.

In comments marking 10 years since Cox’s death, Keir Starmer said the values she had lived by – that “we have far more in common than that which divides us” – were being tested anew.

He added: “At a time when those values are being tested, her legacy feels as vital and urgent as ever. The best way to honour her memory is to stand firmly against hatred and division, to bring communities together, and to show, through both big acts and small, the compassion, decency and solidarity that define our nation at its best.”

Leadbeater said the responsibility for that change lay with “everybody … including politicians and people in public office”.

“We have a voice,” she added. “We’re very lucky to have a voice and to have a platform. But with that voice and with that platform comes a very significant level of responsibility.

“Recently we saw the horrific murder of that wonderful young man, Henry Nowak, and we saw his family’s response, and they pleaded with people: please do not allow Henry’s murder to be used to divide communities.

“I’ve been in that position, and I know what that feels like. It is unbelievably painful. But what you do not want to see is more anger and more hatred and more division on top of what you’re already going through. Then the opposite happened. Only from certain quarters, though. You’ve got to remember: those voices who are sowing the division are in the minority, and it doesn’t always feel like it.”

“They are very loud. But the rest of us then have got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country, call out bad things where they happen.

“Absolutely, be angry. I’ve got no problem with people being angry. I am really angry about what’s happened to my life. I’m pretty furious, to be honest. But you then have a choice what you do with the anger. And you can use that anger for good. You can use it to make a difference.”

Cox was 41 and had been an MP for just over a year when she was fatally shot and stabbed by Thomas Mair , a rightwing extremist, before a constituency surgery in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.

In the interview, Leadbeater recalled that she had been collecting her car from a garage when she received a phone call saying Cox had been attacked.

She said: “I remember getting in the car. My legs were shaking and I just couldn’t stop shaking. And instinctively I knew this was not good. And I don’t know if that’s a sister thing. I don’t know if it’s just an instinct thing. I don’t know what it was, but I just knew straight away.

“I remember saying to my partner, who was saying, as people do: ‘It’s going to be OK, it’s going to be OK.’ And I just remember saying: ‘I just don’t think it’s going to be OK.’ And I sort of knew.”

Leadbeater had not previously been involved in politics, but when Cox’s replacement in the Batley and Spen seat, Tracy Brabin, stepped down after being elected West Yorkshire mayor, she was persuaded to stand for Labour, winning the byelection .

Leadbeater said she had decided to stand after speaking with her parents and Cox’s children, in part because she “did not want our community and our country to be defined by Jo’s murder, because that isn’t what our country looks like and that isn’t who we are”.

The foundation set up in Cox’s name campaigns in part on tackling loneliness, and Leadbeater said that with people like Mair, it was important to take account of what she called “the intersection between extremism and loneliness”.

This, however, should not be used as a reason to avoid challenging extreme beliefs, she argued. “If we reduce Jo’s murder to an isolated act, then we are misunderstanding the context within which it happened. And we are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the views of the individual who killed Jo.

“This is someone who was a far-right extremist. And we have to call extremism out, whatever that looks like. We have to have an honest conversation about that.”