Table of contents for 1544 in The Week

Water company bosses, six of whom were banned from receiving bonuses this year owing to their firms’ environmental and other failings. The sanction, which is being imposed for the first time, applies to the chiefs of Thames Water, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water, Wessex Water, United Utilities and Southern Water. Over the past decade, water firms have paid out £112m in such bonuses, though sewage spills have hit record levels. Residents of Birmingham, after bin workers voted to continue their industrial action. The Unite union said 97% of its members had voted in favour of more strikes, on a turnout of 75%.…

55% of parents with children under 18 believe that they had “better childhood experiences” than their offspring. 54% thought their childhood was easier; 63% thought it was safer. Only 25% said that their children played with either a friend or parent every day. YouGov/NSPCC 71% of Labour members have a favourable opinion of Angela Rayner, up from 46% in April. 74% have a positive opinion of Ed Miliband, making him the most popular minister. The least popular is Rachel Reeves. Survation/LabourList Boris Johnson’s allies say he is the only person to take on the Reform UK threat, but according to a YouGov poll, only 15% of 2024 Reform voters think he’d make a better PM than Nigel Farage.…

The perks of child stardom Isaac Hempstead Wright was ten when he was cast as Bran Stark in the TV mega-hit Game of Thrones; and by the time the first series had finished, he was a global star. So he is well placed to reflect on what the future holds for the three young actors cast in the new TV adaptation of the Harry Potter books, says Dominic Maxwell in The Times. “What a ride they’ve got in store,” he says of the trio. Admittedly, times have changed since 2009, when Game of Thrones started. Back then, social media was in its infancy and “there wasn’t quite the level of hatred” there is now. “But I’m excited for them, for the experiences they’re going to have, for the parts of…

A fitness instructor has won her battle to keep using her suburban garage as a pole dancing studio. Samilou Saunders faced complaints from her neighbours that the studio had “devastated” their lives, owing to parking issues and sounds of “grunting and loud music” coming from her bungalow in Christchurch, Dorset. But planning officials have now ruled that she can keep running her business, which she describes as a “modest and sustainable” small social enterprise. A therapist from Northern Ireland has set the world record for completing the most backflips in 30 seconds while engulfed in flames. Ryan Luney, 28, said he’d wanted a new challenge after bagging the record for the most fire-breathing backflips in one minute (17). Wearing a fire-retardant hood and underclothes soaked in refrigerated gel, he managed…

CHINA Playing havoc on the roof of the world Project Syndicate (Prague) Catastrophe is brewing “on the roof of the world”, says Brahma Chellaney. “For over two decades, China has been engaged in an aggressive and opaque dam-building spree” centred on the Tibetan Plateau – the source of ten major Asian river systems, supplying water to around 20% of the global population. Already, Chinese mega-dams have brought water levels in the Mekong River “to unprecedentedly low levels”, devastating fisheries and livelihoods across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. And yet Beijing refuses to agree a water-sharing treaty with down-river countries, and since the area is off-limits to outside observers, it’s impossible to know “the full extent of China’s destruction”. Meanwhile, the international community has been “deafeningly silent” – through not “ignorance…

Orlando Bloom is known for his hippyish ways: he starts his day with “brain octane oil”, and uses Buddhist chanting “to navigate the nastiness”. Now, the actor has taken his love of alternative therapies to a new level, by undergoing a £10,000 treatment that claims to remove microplastics from the blood. According to its inventor, the two-hour procedure works by splitting the plasma from the blood, “cleansing” it of “forever chemicals” – and then reinserting it back into the body. Many doctors are sceptical, however: one told the Daily Mail that the only thing it would remove from Bloom was “a lot of cash”. Eight years after complaining that it was a “disgrace” that he still hadn’t been knighted, David Beckham is finally set to receive the honour in the…

“An election is no time to discuss serious issues.”Attrib. former Canadian PM Kim Campbell, quoted in the National Post “People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”Isaac Asimov, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle “When bad things happen, good people ask, ‘What did I do wrong?’ They put their house in order. But bad people ask, ‘Who did this to me?’”Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, quoted on Aish “Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.”Pablo Picasso, quoted in ArtNews “I’m not offended by blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb … and I also know that I’m not blonde.”Dolly Parton, quoted in Woman’s Day “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of…

Nicholas Hytner first staged Shakespeare’s “over-familiar comedy of romantic confusion” at the Bridge Theatre in 2019, said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. It was a raging success: a “funny, beautiful, revelatory and, yes, sexy” immersive production in which “circussy high jinks” were melded with thrilling design – locations emerging through the floor and then vanishing in the twinkling of an eye – and first-rate acting. His great triumph with this revival is to make the “complex, hilarious and utterly exhilarating” show stir just as much wonder the second time around: even if you’re re-encountering it, it “still seems fresh and strange, a shared reverie you never want to end”; it is the “finest Dream” I’ve seen. In this production, the “rules of gravity are forgotten”, said Kate Wyver in…

Screening weeks after the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of “woman” in the Equalities Act, BBC3’s What It Feels Like for a Girl “arrives at a critical point in LGBTQ+ history”, said Emily Baker in The i Paper. Yet for all the strength of feeling around the subject, this eight-part trans coming-of-age drama is not overtly political nor preachy. The series is adapted from a memoir by the trans broadcaster Paris Lees, who is fictionalised here as Byron (Ellis Howard), a “friendless” gender-questioning 15-year-old growing up in Nottinghamshire at the turn of the millennium. As the tale opens in 2000, the internet is already crawling with perverts – and before long Byron is receiving a graphic “dick pic” from a stranger, said Ed Power in The Daily Telegraph: the…

Susan and Joy are at odds over new customer strategies for the shop. In the playground, Alice tells Chris she’s convinced that Martha has foetal alcohol syndrome; they agree to see a doctor. As they plan Open Farm Sunday, David opens up to Ruth about having flashbacks to the abattoir incident. At the surgery, Azra says Martha’s development seems fine but, for reassurance, she refers her to a paediatrician, which only makes Alice worry more. Jill asks David if he’ll read her eulogy at Peggy’s funeral. Fallon has friends over for a surprise 40th for Harrison, but at the last minute he can’t make it. At The Laurels, Lilian and Justin meet Arthur, a friend of Peggy’s, and learn that she gave her money to a local dementia support network.…

A Ukrainian chef’s dream When Eugene Korolev was fighting Russia on the front line, he would “entertain his comrades” with stories about the restaurant he planned to open, say Andy Silvester and Lottie Tellyn in The Times. It would, he’d tell them, be in London, and serve food that reimagined traditional Ukrainian cuisine. In 2024, Korolev was discharged from the Ukrainian army and moved to London – and his dream has now come true. Last month, he and his business partner Polina Sychova opened Sino (meaning “hay”), in Notting Hill. Everything about the place pays “homage” to the country they left behind: the cocktails are “curated” by a Ukrainian mixologist; the crockery is made by a Ukrainian ceramic studio; the kitchen staff are Ukrainian. Korolev, who says Ukraine’s culinary identity…

● Revive limp salad leaves by immersing them in ice-cold water for 15 minutes, before patting dry. If they are too far gone, blitz them into a pesto with parmesan, pine nuts, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. ● Overripe tomatoes make the perfect base for a sauce, which can be frozen. Sauté onion and garlic until translucent, add the chopped tomatoes and cook for five minutes until reduced. Cool then freeze. ● Instead of throwing away leftover bits of lemon, cut them into wedges and freeze. You can then defrost them when you next need a lemon for a recipe, or add to drinks. ● Bake or air fry seasoned vegetable peelings, and serve like crisps with a dip. ● Make a mirepoix (a flavoursome base to many French…

Marthe Cohn 1920-2025 Marthe Cohn, who has died aged 105, was an Orthodox Jew living in northeastern France when the War broke out; aided by her Aryan looks, she survived the Nazi occupation and, following the liberation of France in 1944, she enlisted in the army as a nurse. By chance, a senior officer discovered that she was fluent in German, said The Daily Telegraph – and assigned her to intelligence work instead. So it was that, in the last few months of the War, she was sent aged 24 behind enemy lines to gather information on German troop movements. Her cover story was that she was a nurse, searching for her missing fiancé, a Nazi soldier. Her own fiancé had been a French Resistance worker, who had been executed…

What happened The Spending Review After fraught last-minute negotiations with colleagues, Rachel Reeves delivered her first Spending Review this week. It outlined the Government’s priorities, setting out how much funding each department will receive for day-today spending across three fiscal years – 2026/27 to 2028/29 – as well as the level of capital spending over these years and the following one. The Chancellor announced a £113bn boost in capital spending, funded by borrowing, which she said would help renew Britain. It will be invested in nuclear power, social and affordable housing, local transport infrastructure, and science and technology projects. Overall, day-to-day spending is set to grow by an average of 1.2% a year in real terms over the Spending Review period. Most of this increase will go to the NHS:…

Young men are now more likely to spend money on facial “tweakments” than young women, according to new analysis by Barclays based on data from debit and credit cards. This suggests that 23% of men aged 18 to 34 have had Botox, fillers or dental veneers, compared with 21% of women of that age. Across all age groups, 12% of men and 13% of women have had a tweakment in the past ten years, though these are not cheap. Botox costs from £150 and lasts three to six months. Residents of a famously “Instagrammable” street in London’s Notting Hill are trying to deter hordes of visitors by painting their colourful houses jet black. They say the influencers who flock to Lancaster Road make life there “hell”.…

The Government committed £14.2bn of investment to build the new Sizewell C nuclear plant on the Suffolk coast. The project will create 10,000 jobs, and thousands more in the supply chain, and will generate enough low-carbon energy to power six million homes, the Treasury said. The previous government gave Sizewell C the green light in 2022, but projected costs have doubled to £40bn; private investment is required (see page 40). The plan faces opposition, locally and nationally, from those who think it will prove to be a costly mistake. Ministers also pledged £2.5bn in investment for small modular reactors.…

Graz, Austria School massacre: Thousands of Austrians held a candlelit vigil for the victims of a horrific killing spree carried out at a school in the city of Graz this week, the deadliest rampage in Austria’s recent history. Ten people, nine of them teenage students and one a teacher, were killed and 12 injured. The 21-year-old lone gunman, who had himself attended the school but never graduated, used a shotgun and a pistol in his attack, before killing himself in the school toilets. A suicide note was later found at his home. “There are no words for the pain and grief,” said the Austrian chancellor, Christian Stocker, who has declared three days of national mourning. Paris Pensions anger: France will face serious consequences if, by 2045, the retirement age has…

1 Lose Yourself by Marshall Mathers, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto, performed by Eminem 2 Lord of All Hopefulness… by Jan Struther, performed by Matthew Steynor (organ), The Choir of Queens’ College Cambridge and The Cambridge University Brass Band Ensemble (cond. James Weeks) 3 Overture and A Prisoner of the Crusades (From Chains to Freedom) by Michael Kamen, performed by the Greater Los Angeles Orchestra (cond. Patti Fidelibus) 4* Tender, written and performed by Blur 5 Trustfall by Alecia Moore, Johnny McDaid and Fred Gibson, performed by Pink 6 Fast Car, written and performed by Tracy Chapman 7 Something’s Missing by Irene Sankoff and David Hein, performed by the Come From Away Company 8 Thunderstruck by Angus and Malcolm Young, performed by AC/DC Book: The Diddakoi by Rumer Godden Luxury: a solar-powered torch * Choice if allowed only one…

Cocaine’s journey to the recreational British user involves an elaborate network of cartels, traffickers and street-level hustlers. It usually starts with the drug being smuggled into Ecuador by road from Colombia, Peru or Bolivia. In Ecuador, the drug is stashed in warehouses before being transported to ports; South American cartels partner with European groups, such as Albanian gangs, the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta or the Dutch Mocro Maffia. Most cocaine travels via cargo ships carrying goods such as bananas from the port of Guayaquil, which has emerged as the drug-exporting capital of Latin America (and has, as a result, seen soaring numbers of cartel-related homicides). It is then transported, sometimes via west Africa, to ports such as Antwerp, Rotterdam or Gioia Tauro in Italy, and distributed across Europe. Most drugs reach the…

Democrats must learn to speak to men David French The New York Times The Democrats want to fix their “man problem”, says David French. The party is spending $20m on a strategic plan to reverse its loss of support among young male voters. The initiative – codenamed SAM, which stands for “Speaking with American Men” – will apparently analyse male-dominated online communities in order to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces”. Although critics have laughed at the idea of the Democrats paying consultants to learn how to speak to men, as if they’re some alien species, it’s a worthy goal. But too many people are “getting the challenge of reaching young men backwards”. They’re looking for a political message when what really…

Almost 2.5 million people in England are estimated to have ADHD, including 1.7 million who have not yet been diagnosed with the condition, the symptoms of which can include restlessness, poor time management, forgetfulness, difficulties in following instructions, impulsiveness and lack of focus. Around 550,000 people in England were awaiting assessment at the end of this March, up from 416,000 at the same time last year. Of those waiting in March, around 304,000 had been on the list for at least a year, owing to NHS services struggling to keep up with rising demand. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence estimates that 3% to 4% of adults and 5% of children and young people have ADHD. NHS prescriptions for it have doubled since 2019; this is believed to…

Even “the most optimistic of Labour strategists” hadn’t predicted victory in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election last Thursday, said Kitty Donaldson in The i Paper. Scottish Labour MPs were privately fretting that their candidate, Davy Russell, would be pushed into third place; the SNP was insisting it would be a two-way fight between them and Reform UK. But in the end, Labour did win the Holyrood seat (left vacant by the death of the former MSP, the SNP’s Christina McKelvie). Labour took 8,559 votes; the SNP came second, with 7,957; Reform was third, with 7,088, and the Conservatives were a distant fourth, with 1,621. “It’s a truism of by-elections that voters use them to kick the Government”, but in this case the electorate had two options – and they…

Sunday’s French Open final between Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz was the “first such grand slam showpiece between two men born in the 2000s”, said Oliver Brown in The Daily Telegraph. And it proved a “duel for the ages”. Over five-and-a-half hours of electric drama, the two men elevated “their craft to levels of speed, endurance and mental fortitude that few had imagined possible”. In the process, they showed that men’s tennis need not worry about the passing of the “big three”. These two players, both in their early 20s, could well be treating us to the “same scintillating battles for another decade at least”. Sinner, the world No. 1, went into the match as the “best performer in the draw”, having reached the final without losing a set, said…

To The New Statesman In 1950, my parents had to give up our modern house in Birmingham because they couldn’t make ends meet, and we moved to an old terrace house with an outside toilet and no hot water. The present houses in Ladywood would have seemed lovely. We, of course, had no phone and no car, and our clothes were hand-me-downs (so was my bike) or were made by my mother. But we had a radio and a cat, I played cricket and football in the street, I could go to the park and to the library, a government scheme enabled us to build a bathroom, I had two parents who loved me and loved each other, and through Mr Tunnicliffe and Miss Swift at Rookery Road Junior School…

John Singer Sargent was the pre-eminent society portraitist of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, said Andrew Pulver on Air Mail. Indeed, “sitting for – and paying for – a portrait by Sargent was a mark of social clout in itself”. And the American expatriate painter (1856-1925) was well placed to become the chief artistic chronicler of a “phenomenon” that thrilled fin de siècle London: dozens of “wealthy American heiresses” arriving in Britain to marry into the aristocracy. Collectively – and somewhat dismissively – known as the “dollar princesses”, these women “were the reality-TV stars of their day”, stalked by gossip columnists and satirised by novelists and songwriters. They were often regarded with snobbery by the British upper classes, and castigated for disloyalty back home. But Sargent, “never slow to…

Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene, 1958 (Vintage £9.99). Greene spent some time in MI6 and returned to espionage themes many times; to my mind, this comedy is the best of those books. On one level the story has elements of absurdity, with a vacuum-cleaner salesman feeding dodgy intelligence back to credulous spies in London, yet it also tells you something still relevant about how and why bad intelligence can start flying around. A Spy Alone by Charles Beaumont, 2023 (Canelo £9.99). A recent first novel by a former MI6 operative, this has a terrific plot involving an Oxford spy ring, but also gives real insight into the modern way in which Russia runs its spies, and how it’s possible to track them down, including by using investigative skills.…

Programmes NASA, Nazis and the Space Race Declassified documents shed new light on Operation Paperclip, which allowed former Nazi scientists to move to the US and help NASA in its space race against the Soviets. Sat 14 Jun, C4 20:35 (60mins). America’s Veterans: The War Within Bafta-winning filmmaker Deeyah Khan interviews US army veterans, to shed light on the War on Terror’s devastating psychological effects on soldiers, and its long-term impact on US society. Sun 15 Jun, ITV1 22:20 (75mins). Storyville: The Contestant The extraordinary true story of a Japanese comedian who spent 15 months alone in a room, naked and unaware that he was being broadcast on live TV. Tue 17 Jun, BBC4 22:00 (90mins). Dispatches: Britain’s Car Theft Gangs Exposed Undercover investigation on the trail of the gangs behind rising…

Serves 6 For the shortcrust pastry: 225g plain flour, plus extra to dust a pinch of fine salt 60g chilled unsalted butter, diced 60g chilled lard or vegetable shortening, diced 3-5 tbsp water For the filling: 2 courgettes, trimmed 100g feta 75g podded broad beans, skinned 4 medium eggs, plus an extra 2 yolks 200ml double cream 1½ tbsp wholegrain mustard 1 tbsp chopped chives salt and white pepper • For the pastry, put the flour and salt into a bowl, add the butter and lard or shortening and rub in using your fingers until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add just enough cold water to bring the dough together. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface, knead briefly until smooth, then wrap in cling film. Chill in the fridge for 30mins.…

Lillyroo’s Glamping near Deal, Kent, is set in tree-lined fields, and has canvas bell tents complete with log-burners. There’s an on-site chef if you want to order breakfast or dinner (from £110; lillyroosglamping.co.uk). Bert’s Kitchen Garden is an eco-retreat on the Llŷn Peninsula, Wales, with shepherd’s huts in the kitchen garden, supper clubs and a beach restaurant (from £175; bertskg.com). Guests in the stylish off-grid bell tents at Rushbanks Farm, in Suffolk’s Dedham Vale, can paddle to a nearby pub in a canoe (from £90; rushbankscampsite.co.uk). A working farm with donkeys and sheep, Humble Bee Farm near Filey, North Yorks, has pretty yurts, cabins and bell tents with BBQs and mini fridges; some have hot tubs (from £200; humblebeefarm.co.uk). There are two luxury safari tents with beds for up to…

Singing in the Peaks Amateur choral singers with a good level of experience might enjoy a trip with the likes of Singers Abroad (singersabroad.co.uk), run by Graham Ross of Clare College, Cambridge. But you can find lovely holidays for singers of all abilities – such as HF Holidays’ three-night break in the Peak District. Coach Su Grainger (founder of Singing Our Socks Off, a community choir in Liverpool) leads sessions in a “no-pressure” environment, and there’s lots of time for walks in the area (hfholidays.co.uk). Folk under sail in Italy Fans of folk music could try one of the many courses on offer at Halsway Manor – the National Centre for Folk Arts – in Somerset. But there are more adventurous options too, such as the tall-ship voyages run by…

WPP: drop the pilot It’s been an open secret in the ad industry for months that WPP’s boss, Mark Read, was “on the brink”, said Cameron Clarke in The Drum. Now, it seems, he really is off – triggering only the second succession search in the group’s 40-year history, as it struggles with a near five-year low in its share price and an industry-wide AI upheaval. WPP is far from the only big player in difficulty. Yet its performance has trailed competitors. After three decades at the top, the British outfit lost its symbolic position as the world’s biggest ad group to French rival Publicis at the end of 2024, while its two largest US rivals, IPG and Omnicom, are merging into one American heavyweight. There’s “a gnawing sense” of…

Flash return Three years after its last attempt to go public hit the skids, Circle Internet – creator of the world’s second-biggest stablecoin, USDC – has staged one of Wall Street’s “splashiest debuts in years”, said Bloomberg. Shares in the group “more than tripled” from their $31 starting price on their first day of trading, and continued rising. By start of play on Tuesday, they were up by some 271%, giving the coin merchant a market cap of nearly $28bn. Momentum Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to the value of another asset – typically, a fiat currency like the dollar or a commodity like gold, said MarketWatch. Their main use is as a fast, low-cost medium of exchange. Circle’s big pop is down to expectations that “a friendlier regulatory backdrop”…

Tijmen and Bob Zonderwijk “The boom in classic football shirts shows no sign of fading,” said Paul MacInnes in The Guardian – music to the ears of the Dutch brothers who quit legal careers in 2017 to set up MatchWornShirt, which specialises in unique sports memorabilia. The pair are renowned for taking great pains to provide buyers with full authentic garments, while protecting celebrity sellers. At their Amsterdam HQ is a contraption that “destroys” DNA (allaying concerns “that the genetic material of Cristiano Ronaldo might escape into the wild”), but preserves the “scent of dried-in sweat” and grass stains that collectors prize. The pair often hand-deliver, to better understand their customers. “It’s people from all walks of life.” Jonathan Anderson A fashion house needs a strong identity, especially during a…

The week’s best shares Auto Trader Group Investors’ Chronicle The “go-to” platform for car sales consistently generates operating margins above 50%, due to its capital-light business model. Resilient to changing economic conditions, with recent growth driven by used car demand. Buy. 805p. Chemring Group Investors’ Chronicle The strategic defence review could “materially” boost Chemring: in areas from biological warfare investment to a new “digital targeting web” for the UK Armed Forces. Profits are up, amid soaring orders. Buy. 518p. Diageo The Daily Telegraph Weak financial performance has weighed on the Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff and Guinness owner. Yet it’s a high-quality business with an impressive stable of brands. Sales are up as it cuts costs. Long-term recovery potential. Buy. £19.91. M&G The Times A juicy 8.5% dividend, combined with growth hopes…

THE WEEK CROSSWORD 1469 Two Connell Guides and three Week-branded items will be given to the sender of the first correct solution to the crossword and the clue of the week opened on Monday 23 June. Send it to The Week Crossword 1469, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London W2 6JR, or email the completed grid/listed solutions to crossword@theweek.co.uk. By Tim Moorey (timmoorey.com) This week’s winner will receive Week-branded items, as well as two Connell Guides (connellguides.com). ACROSS 6 Current group in school (6) 8 Lock up naughty child? Polite denial recalled (8) 10 Kennedy team with reason boasted (6,4) 11 Singer in Berg opera? (4) 12 Sponge in complimentary pack (8) 15 Rubbish put away in turn (6) 16 Instruction to bankers for when the King arrives? (8,5)  18 Conservative Republican is…

What happened On the orders of Donald Trump, some 700 US marines arrived in Los Angeles on Tuesday to join a controversial crackdown on protests against the president’s immigration policies. Trump had earlier defied the city’s leaders, and California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, by deploying 4,000 troops from the National Guard, America’s largest reservist force, to LA. It was the first time a president had called in the National Guard against the wishes of a state governor in 60 years, and triggered accusations from Trump’s critics that he was fanning the flames of the unrest to fire up his Maga base. The deployment failed to put a stop to the protests, which continued for a fifth consecutive day on Tuesday, and spread to other cities, including New York. The unrest…

M&S, which resumed online trading, six weeks after its services were halted by a cyberattack. The retailer said that “a selection” of its fashion ranges were now available for home delivery in Britain, with more products being added daily and deliveries in Northern Ireland resuming “in the coming weeks”. Lilo & Stitch, Disney’s live-action remake of the 2002 animated film, which is set to be the biggest box-office hit of 2025. Although it was mauled by the critics, the film has so far grossed nearly twice as much as Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, and is on track to break the $1bn mark. Anglican priests, who are getting a pay rise of 10.7%. The increase will take the minimum stipend from £30,110 to £33,350 from next April. Priests are…

Police were attacked with petrol bombs and fireworks during two nights of rioting in Ballymena, Co. Antrim, this week. The disorder first broke out at a protest related to the appearance in court on Monday of two 14-year-old Romanian boys, who are accused of the attempted rape of a teenage girl. Hundreds of people rioted, and cars and homes were set alight in what police described as a display of “racist thuggery”. In total, 32 officers were injured, and six people were arrested. Some homes in Ballymena now display stickers stating their residents’ nationalities.…

Washington DC Travel ban takes effect: The White House has banned the citizens of 12 countries from entering the US in what it described as a “common sense” measure to “protect Americans from dangerous foreign actors”. The nations in question are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen; citizens of a further seven, including Venezuela and Cuba, face much tighter visa restrictions under the executive order. Donald Trump made a similar order in 2017 against seven countries, all with large Muslim majorities. This time only nine of the 19 affected states have mostly Muslim populations; it has been suggested that some of the states were included to make it easier to overcome court challenges citing anti-Muslim bias. The White House…

“Modern costume dramas, with their irritating anachronisms, their ‘yoof’ speak and their colour-blind casting, show little interest in the rich, lost world of the past on its own terms – only in its use as a cipher for the preoccupations of our own day. (Much blame must be laid at the door of Bridgerton.) It’s a sort of chronological myopia which implies that these characters can only ever be interesting if they, under the bodices and bonnets, think and act exactly like people of today. That, ironically, is what kills the costume drama’s charm, which is surely to remind us that the folly and fierceness of the human heart transcend time, costume and attitudes.” Madeline Grant in The Spectator…

The special needs that oil sheikhs enjoy Ian Birrell The i Paper No matter how bad things get in neglected parts of the public sector, some will find a way to profit from it, says Ian Birrell. So it proves with the crisis caused by surging demand for special needs education. Unable to meet it within the state system, English councils have turned to private providers, where the cost per place is more than twice as much on average as the public provision. So, smelling blood, the “sharks of private equity” have ruthlessly colonised this sector, “loading up debt” on the private companies running the schools, “while milking vast profits”. A classic example is Pontville School in Lancashire. It charges at least 13 councils up to £116,611 per special needs…

Exercise wards off colon cancer Regular exercise can slash the odds of colon cancer patients dying by more than a third, a landmark study has found. The study involved 889 people with a median age of 61 who had completed surgery and chemotherapy for advanced colon cancer, but still faced the risk of their cancer coming back. Half embarked on a three-year programme in which they met regularly with a personal trainer, and typically built up to doing about 45 minutes of brisk walking four times a week. The others were given the standard advice on exercise and healthy eating. Five years on, those in the structured exercise group were 28% less likely to have had a recurrence of the cancer, and eight years after their treatment, they were 37%…

It used to be considered a “distasteful hobby horse of the radical Right”, said Oliver Moody in The Times. Yet in the past few weeks, the cause of reforming the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has reached a “tipping point”, driven by growing concerns about mass migration. Nine EU states, led by Denmark and Italy, have published an open letter demanding more sovereignty over how they combat irregular immigration and deport foreign criminals. They argue that, by blocking efforts to expel migrants, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has “extended the scope of the convention”. This week, the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch went further, launching a review into whether the UK should leave the ECHR altogether. Whatever the method, said The Times, “Strasbourg’s wings must be clipped”.…

The verdict from the boss was withering, said Tom Allnutt in The Sunday Times. Thomas Tuchel accused his England players of a “lack of seriousness” on Saturday night, after watching them trudge to an unconvincing 1-0 victory over one of the minnows of world football: Andorra. Despite boasting players of the calibre of Harry Kane, Jude Bellingham and Cole Palmer, the visitors struggled to break the 173rd-ranked team down, and went into half-time goalless – before Kane eventually secured victory with a “scrambled finish” in the second half. What an utterly “lame” performance this was, said Ian Ladyman in the Daily Mail. “Has there ever been a more dispiriting watch?” It was Tuchel’s third game in charge, and while England under him have a 100% record, and are six points…

Edmund White 1940-2025 Edmund White, who has died aged 85, was passing the Stonewall Inn – a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York – in the early hours of 28 June 1969 when the police raided the premises. It was the second raid in a week, and this time, the bar’s patrons fought back, leading to what became known as the Stonewall riots. This event proved to be a turning point. “Up till that moment we had all thought that homosexuality was a medical term,” White wrote. “Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group – with rights, a culture, an agenda.” He was not a “blazing militant” himself, said The Guardian; with the sensibility of a “midwestern Marcel Proust”, he did not “do anger”. But in…

Can the G7 survive Putin and Trump? Flavia Krause-Jackson Bloomberg A half-century after the leaders of the world’s leading industrial nations gathered in the Château de Rambouillet outside Paris “to forge a collective response to an oil crisis”, the G7 looks to be “on borrowed time”, says Flavia Krause-Jackson. That the US president plans to show up at all to this week’s meeting in the Canadian Rockies is noteworthy, given he “waited until the 11th hour to RSVP”. But even without this show of discourtesy, it’s clear the G7 ticket “isn’t what it used to be”. The club now accounts for less than 30% of global GDP and 10% of the population. And its “waning relevance” has been accelerated by three blows: “Putin, Brexit and Trump”. Hopes were high when…