Growing number of studies assessing whether heat training can help people prepare for scorching temperatures Even as summer temperatures soar, the sauna trend is booming, with some venues touting them as a way to beat the heat. But while experts have urged caution about sweating it out in hot weather, a growing number of studies are considering whether heat training could help people prepare for heatwaves. With parts of the UK experiencing their fourth heatwave of the year, the UK Health Secu...

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world Continue reading...

Russian retires from match against Kristina Liutova Venus Williams and Katie Boulter beaten in Washington Ekaterina Alexandrova collapsed on the court before retiring from her match against Kristina Liutova at the Memphis Classic due to heat-related illness. Alexandrova, the tournament’s No 1 seed, was two points away from defeat to the 16-year-old Liutova, who was making her WTA debut. The temperature was around 97°F (36°C) in Tennessee as the two Russians played out a gruelling first-roun...

Composers from Purcell to Birtwistle have created passionate dramas inspired by ancient Greek stories – and none of them require you to sit through three hours of solemn spectacle without an interval For me, the most astonishing thing about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is its barnstorming popularity. I found this cinematic epic for the ages visually bloodless, expressively monotonous and very, very long. Mind you, it is good to know that Nolan thinks that war is, on balance, you know, once...

Don’t pour it down the sink. This subtly tangy liquid is naturally acidic, adding flavour and fluffiness to your baking Mozzarella comes in a bag or pot surrounded by whey or brine. This is known as latticello in Italy, and has all the flavour of the cheese and more – it’s lactic, sour and subtly sweet, with a powerful, salty, umami-rich depth of flavour. It’s delicious as a drink in it’s own right, but it’s also great to cook with. It can be used instead of buttermilk or yoghurt in marinades...

Frontman of chart-topping band the Frames had huge success as the star of 2007 romantic drama Once Glen Hansard, the Irish folk-rock musician and actor who fronted the band the Frames and had Oscar-winning success with the 2007 film Once, has died aged 56. He died in a motorcycle crash in Lucan on the outskirts of Dublin, early on Wednesday morning. Without naming him, Irish police said he was treated at the scene for his injuries but died a short time later. Continue reading...

The White House fails to understand that Mark Carney and Canada’s regional leaders can’t cave in to the US president: it’s too toxic to voters • Matt Gurney is a journalist based in Toronto Though many hate to admit it, Canadians have long wished for more attention from the US. Well, we’re getting it now. And it turns out that President Trump and some of his top supporters in the Maga movement don’t much like us. The first big hint was when he started talking about annexing us, saying we coul...

Findings can inform conversations about global climate reparations and financing for mitigations, researchers say Caribbean nations suffered $53.2bn (£40bn) of damage from climate-fuelled disasters between 2000 and 2024, research into the cost of the climate crisis to developing small islands has found. The figure is more than 90% of the total $57bn in economic damage caused by floods, storms and drought across 39 developing island nations in the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indi...

Veteran medical adviser likely to face questions over disputed ‘lab leak’ theory in investigation seen by scientists as ‘vilification and harassment’ of 85-year-old Sign up for US Breaking News email Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. Senators are expected to question Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak” in a high-profile hearing later today. Conti...

Rise to £1.1bn in first six months of year for bakery chain largely down to opening of new stores Iced matcha lattes and a bigger range of salads and chicken rolls helped Greggs to boost its sales during the string of summer heatwaves, as the bakery chain continues to expand across the UK. Total sales at Britain’s biggest fast food business rose to £1.1bn for the first six months of the year, 7.2% higher than the same period a year earlier. Continue reading...

The task now is to stop mourning the old order and build the foundations of the new multipolar world America is in decline. And so is Pax America: the American-led world order. While there are many genuine dangers of American decline, there has never been a better chance to say clearly how much the unipolar order always left to be desired, and to imagine a multipolar world that might secure peace better than the old order ever did. Idealizing the American peace since 1945 and its “rules-based...

The US vice-president is facing a barrage of allegations and complaints from inside and outside the Republican ranks. Good news for Marco Rubio – but not for the rest of the world There’s something a bit off about JD Vance. And I mean that literally: the vice-president has been snacking on sauerkraut and other fermented foods as part of a weight-loss regime. Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr got a number of Trump officials, including Vance, on to the diet, and is thrilled with the results....

Updates from Wednesday’s live action in Glasgow Medal table | Hunt wins silver in storm | Mail Tom Tom will be with you shortly. Here’s what to look out for today: Morning (10am-1pm BST) Weightlifting - women’s 77kg final Athletics and Para-athletics heats Swimming and Para-swimming heats Bowls and Para-bowls (through the day) Continue reading...

Experts say lower-severity charges for American service personnel are deepening traumatic impact on survivors American service personnel accused of rape on British soil are being charged with lesser offences by their military courts, a discrepancy that experts say is deepening the traumatic impact on survivors long after verdicts are passed. There are more than 12,000 personnel stationed in US military bases across the UK, most of them in England. Although UK law enforcement has primary juris...

Drop comes after South Korean company SK Hynix’s results undershot investors’ expectations Business live – latest updates Shares in companies linked to AI have plunged further after disappointing results from the South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, sending the country’s stock market tumbling for the second day in a row. Seoul’s Kospi index, which is dominated by semiconductor manufacturers, slid by as much as 12.6% at one point on Wednesday, following on from a near 11% slump the previous day,...

Authorities fear progress in containing the fires in the Gironde and Madrid regions may be set back by temperatures expected to hit the low 40s France and Spain are braced for the fourth heatwave of the summer to hit just as they were making progress battling destructive wildfires, with temperatures once again expected to cross into high 30s and low 40s celsius later today. Sophie Brocas, the ⁠prefect of Gironde and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, said overnight that the fire remained containe...

The director of Ganja & Hess, Bill Gunn, turns analogue video and improvisation into a work of startling intimacy, humour and emotional force In 1980, Bill Gunn, director of cult 70s horror Ganja & Hess, took on this quietly amazing micro-budget video project with author Ishmael Reed. It is an improvised melodrama in two parts about Black lives in New York, originally intended for television, and shot on analogue video. It is rough and ready, and the sound mix is sometimes very muddy indeed, ...

In this disorienting book, a poet argues we have been looking at nature – and ourselves – the wrong way The eastern breakwater of Granton harbour is almost 1km long, and swimmers can follow its crooked finger, heading straight out into the Firth of Forth, while benefiting from its reassuring presence. One Thursday lunchtime, I thought: why not, let’s give it a go, and headed for its tip. I felt cold, but, as I progressed, I seemed to grow strangely warmer. I did not notice the complaints from...

Energy regulator’s plan would mean upfront fees or financial security via letters of credit, bonds or cash deposits Datacentre projects in Britain will be forced to put down significant upfront fees to secure an energy connection under proposals to ease an electricity grid logjam. Ofgem, the sector watchdog, said there are 315 datacentres currently queueing to connect up, representing 73GW of demand. This is almost 30GW above the entire country’s peak energy demand of 45GW. Continue reading...

Plus: UK prime ministers’ football allegiances, top-flight W teams in England and united Uniteds Mail us with your all of your questions and answers “Kazuyoshi Miura recently scored in the Emperor’s Cup at the tender age of 59 – is he the oldest goalscorer in football history?” asks Terry Winter. If we were picking an all-time Knowledge XI, ‘King Kazu’ would be in the mix for a place. He’s appeared in various age-related queries over the years, and tales of his exploits always give us hope ...

Introducing legislation would be ‘very challenging’ before improvement of care system, says prime minister UK politics live – latest updates Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he delivered a speech to set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics. The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be “very challen...

Andy Burnham wants to fix social care. If he does this and nothing else he would have achieved more than most other UK leaders It feels like the UK has a prime minister again. Not the Maybot paralysed with indecision. Not the clown-like Boris Johnson who crumbled under the weight of his own narcissism. Not the ridiculous Liz Truss. Not the steamrollered Rishi Sunak for whom everything was impossible. Not the automaton-like Keir Starmer who was never entirely sure what he wanted to do. But a p...

Musa Ahmed was being treated in intensive care in London hospital after being pulled from West Mersea sea A seven-year-old boy has died a week after an incident off the Essex coast in which his teenage cousin and her mother died as they tried to rescue him. Musa Ahmed was being treated for life-threatening injuries after being pulled from the sea near West Mersea beach on 22 July. Continue reading...

Layoffs will come in admin and development divisions in Germany, with production operations unaffected BMW is planning to cut as many as 8,000 jobs in Germany, according to reports, in the latest sign of Europe’s largest carmakers reducing costs under pressure from Chinese rivals. The Munich-headquartered company has started a voluntary redundancy programme agreed with employee representatives, a BMW spokesperson said on Wednesday. Continue reading...

Every time I get my hair done, I find myself confronted with rising costs, and dizzyingly long maintenance regimes Don’t already get The Long Wave in your inbox? Sign up here This week, I tried to book in for some knotless braids at the last minute. I knew I was going to be writing about how the simple pleasure of getting a head of box braids is starting to feel increasingly complicated, and thought that it would be good to get some pictures of the process. Then, I found myself getting woun...

French authorities investigate death of musician who performed at Paris Olympics, but say ‘no suspicious elements’ at play The French electronic musician Kavinsky, known for the song Nightcall which achieved iconic status after its inclusion in the Ryan Gosling film Drive, has died aged 50. A police source speaking to French newspaper Le Figaro indicated that the suspected cause of death was a stroke. Kavinsky, real name Vincent Belorgey, had reportedly been complaining of headaches in recent...

J Street’s liberal Zionist politics are landing with the Democratic establishment but the electorate may have moved on When Daniel Biss addressed his supporters after clinching the Democratic nomination in Illinois’s ninth congressional district this past March, he did something politicians rarely do: he paid homage to a lobby group. “This victory belongs to J Street,” Biss declared. Continue reading...

Manuela Zinsberger and Alexandra Popp have made surprise moves to third-tier club looking to join elite Located in Austria during a pre-season training camp, the Borussia Dortmund women’s team, squad as well as staff, are plotting how to reach the 2. Bundesliga after missing out on promotion during their rapid rise last season. Dortmund finished two points off the top and a place in the regional playoffs despite a goal difference of +101, and the club have wasted no time in signing big names ...

US military says it intercepted all Iranian missiles, as fighting threatens to resume. Plus, how Armenians seek to breathe more easily by heading underground Good morning. The US military has claimed it knocked down an Iranian missile barrage and worked with Saudi forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days. In what Washington cast ⁠as “an attempted surprise ⁠attack” by Tehran, Iran had launched multiple ballistic missiles at US forces...

Two big franchise deals power 10.3% increase IPL second only to NFL in per-match brand value The Indian Premier League’s value has surged to an estimated $20.6bn (£15.5bn), boosted by ownership deals involving two of its biggest franchises, according to a report by the investment bank Houlihan Lokey. The T20 competition’s value rose 10.3% over the past year, underlining its position as one of the world’s most valuable sports brands, it said. “On a per-match basis, only the NFL ranks ahead o...

Is it normal for a sitting senator to have to routinely submit proofs of life to a public who suspect he might be braindead? Just asking for 340 million friends Is it normal for a sitting senator to have to routinely submit proofs of life to a public who suspect he might be braindead? Just asking for 340 million friends in the US. Mitch McConnell was hospitalized for a medical event on 14 June and we are now in week six of What on Earth is Going On With Mitch? a mystery that has riveted the ...

Today’s tittle-tattle is walking on sunshine After waving Robert Lewandowski off into the sunset at the end of last season, Barcelona are in need of a new striker. The only one on their books scored the winner in the World Cup final. Julián Alvarez is at the centre of a Spanish tug of war this summer – he wants to leave Atlético Madrid and is wanted by Barcelona and Real Madrid, who had a £129m bid roundly rejected in June. With Atlético suits so far refusing to sit down with Joan Laporta for...

Fragrances with superior tones are cutting through the sugary, cheaper efforts that have been pervasive recently After a lengthy sabbatical, I’m ready to let fig fragrances back into my life. There were years when I couldn’t get enough of lush, green Philosykos by Diptyque – a bona fide masterpiece and the greatest of all fig scents. Then a million sugary, inferior dupes sullied the whole category, cynically transporting it from the fruit groves of Turkey to the air freshener aisle at Halford...

At least 135 medics in Lebanon have been killed by Israel’s bombardment since March From Ukraine and Sudan to Gaza: why have hospitals become a target of war? Moustapha Hamze can see his house from the hospital where he works; from a distance, he tries to make out if it has been damaged. The surgeon heads to the balcony every third explosion to make sure his home was not the one targeted. His house, on the hillside village of Kfar Roummane, is about a five-minute drive from the hospital wh...

PM will not discuss details but will focus on need to find ‘common ground’ and to build political consensus Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has said he made an “inadvertent mistake” by sharing an Instagram post of a man wearing a T-shirt featuring an image of a guillotine and the phrase “we’re only making plans for Nigel”, but he repeatedly said he would not apologise to Nigel Farage. Aletha Adu has the story. Good morning. Andy Burnham is this morning giving a speech on social care. ...

Committee apologises for not concealing email addresses when alerting witnesses to final report Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast A Victorian parliamentary committee investigating the harmful impact of cults accidentally sent the email addresses of anonymous survivors who made submissions to current members of such groups and to journalists. The committee, which had its report into “cults and organised fringe groups” tabled in parliament on Wednesday, emailed hundr...

Association was unaware of Infantino’s plans Members given 19 September deadline to endorse move Concacaf has joined Uefa in criticising Fifa’s plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors. In a strongly worded statement the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football expressed deep concerns about Fifa’s governance and a lack of due process, revealing that they were unaware of the proposal to sell stakes in a new commercial entity that has bee...

How do you choose what makes the front page? How hard is genAI making the job of the picture editor? Fiona Shields is the Guardian’s global head of photography, overseeing all the images across our websites and print publications. She’ll be taking your questions at 3pm on Wednesday BST Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion Join us as 3pm on Wednesday 29 July, as the Guardian’s Fiona Shields answers your questions about the art, sciences (and logistics) of covering th...

As Labour enjoy a ‘Burnham bounce’, post by Green leader that appeared to welcome violence against Nigel Farage has left some supporters bemused It is just coincidence that a very public mishap by Zack Polanski arrived at the same time as new polls showed Labour in the lead. But it did neatly illustrate the point that while Andy Burnham is enjoying a political honeymoon, the Green leader’s now seems over. This is not to say the Green party in England and Wales is too worried about the arriva...

A group of holidaying friends get trapped in a cave system with a bull shark in a solidly entertaining b-movie lifted by a toxic central friendship We’ve officially reached maximum shark movie this year, with around six released so far and even more on the way and so the drop of yet another one, in the middle of Shark Week, begs a number of questions: is it in any way essential? Will anyone ever come close to matching what Steven Spielberg achieved with Jaws or, more realistically, Renny Harl...

Four women speak out about their underage experiences with the movie star and musician. Are the floodgates finally about to open? Jared Leto has long been a person with something of a reputational issue. The public-facing side of this was bad enough – while playing The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, he reportedly sent rats, dead pigs and used condoms to his cast mates – but for years there have been upsetting rumours about what he does in private. After a lengthy investigation, the BBC docume...

ChatGPT developer says activity by autonomous tool was not at severity or scale of what occurred at Hugging Face OpenAI has revealed that a cyber-attack carried out by a rogue AI agent had more than one victim. The ChatGPT developer said the agent – an autonomous tool that can carry out sequences of commands without human help – had located and used four logins to access four other, unnamed “publicly-available services” in addition to the US startup Hugging Face. Continue reading...

Richard Tice referred to parliament’s standards watchdog over undeclared sum from Farage aide George Cottrell Richard Tice has been referred to parliament’s standards watchdog over an undeclared loan of nearly £80,000 from Nigel Farage’s aide, George Cottrell. The development opens up the prospect of another inquiry into a Reform UK MP by the watchdog, which was investigating Farage after the Guardian’s revelation that he received an undeclared £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher...

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said. The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures. Continue reading...

A delicacy for centuries and a key part of Native tradition, the lake whitefish has seen its population crash. Researchers know why … but stopping it is another matter From the basement of the Sandusky library, page 29 of the book Sandusky of To-Day proclaims the town to be the “largest fresh water fish market in the world”. Two pages later, an image of the lake whitefish, referred to as “Sandusky’s pride”, takes up the entire page. But the book was published in 1888. Continue reading...

Exclusive: British garden staple becomes most frequently reported plant for hot weather problems, charity reports With their lush foliage and blooms which turn pink, purple or blue depending on the soil, hydrangeas are a firm favourite in Britain. The shrubs bloom throughout summer and have historically thrived in the mild, damp British climate. But hotter summers and heatwaves such as the one hitting parts of England this week are putting the flower at risk in the south of the country, the R...

Districts are reducing routes and exploring new ways to get students to class as transportation costs climb Education officials across the United States are increasingly facing a fundamental challenge: how do they ensure that school students can actually get to their classrooms? The bright yellow school bus might be a visual icon of US education famous around the world, but in reality it is becoming harder for districts to steer. Continue reading...

Actor known for his haunting film roles was president of Hollywood CC and his estate helps to fund the Windrush cricket festival September 1954 and with the first Ashes Test just two months and 10 days away a crowd gathered at Tilbury Docks to see off England’s cricketers as they departed for Australia. The previous night the traditional dinner had been held at Lord’s in their honour and according to one report the players indulged so freely of “an endless supply of champagne and cocktails” t...

European football has shown an increased willingness to talk tough with Fifa but words can only be wielded so many times • FA joins criticism of Fifa plan to sell off World Cup stakes As the World Cup neared its conclusion one leading figure in European football pondered how Gianni Infantino might attempt to rinse away the damaging stain of the Folarin Balogun scandal. It all came down to money. “He will just announce more funds for everyone,” was the gist, although the tournament passed with...

Ryder Williams, 16, saved a boy from drowning in Santa Cruz, California – the first rescue of his career A rookie, teenage California lifeguard who saved a young boy from drowning amid massive waves – while a bystander recorded dramatic video – has spent his whole life preparing for such a moment, according to his father. Ryder Williams, 16, said he refused to let go of the child because he knew the boy would almost certainly die if he did, the lifeguard’s father, Shane, recounted on Tuesday,...

More than 900 fires are burning as experts warn Canada lacks a body to coordinate a growing climate threat As more than 900 wildfires burn across Canada, prompting evacuation orders and pushing Ontario into its worst wildfire season on record, officials are renewing calls for the country to develop a national wildfire strategy through the creation of a federal agency. Canada is the only G7 country that does not have a national emergency agency that is mandated to respond to wildfires. Contin...

Rescuers pulling people from the wreckage in southern Japan in a haunting repeat of disaster that struck 10 years ago ‘Race against time’: Japan earthquake death toll rises as rescue teams search for missing “There was a voice coming from the collapsed house, and I could see a hand,” Tomohide Nagata, a volunteer firefighter, told the Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun. “One of our senior members crawled in and pulled him out. He was bleeding from the head, but I’m so glad he survived.” Nagata had ...

Five years ago, I wrote an open letter asking climate scientists to speak out against fossil fuels. Now governments are in retreat, it is surely time to act France and Spain race to contain huge wildfires before fresh heatwave begins Such is the astonishing scale of the wildfires burning at the gates of Bordeaux and Madrid, that if they had happened 20 – even 10 – years back, they may well have shocked the world into taking action on the climate crisis. But like the proverbial frog in a po...

Hearing is part of a longtime Republican investigation into pandemic’s origins, led by Senator Rand Paul Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid) who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Covid-19 pandemic, is due to testify on Wednesday at a high-profile US Senate hearing. Senators are expected to question Fauci about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak”, a claim virologists have argued ...

Breakin’ the Cycle had celeb performers who hoped it would go to Cannes. Until they realised its creators were still running a drug gang while filming – and it all went very wrong The story of the making of the 2005 British film Breakin’ the Cycle is surely more compelling than the film itself. Nobody can say for sure, because a rough cut was confiscated by the Met police and the raw footage was considered lost. But the film’s origins and subsequent unravelling is extraordinary. Two of Hackne...

A drone pilot has captured what is believed to be only the fourth complete humpback whale birth ever recorded on film anywhere in the world, and the first ever documented by drone. While conducting aerial observations of migrating humpback whales off the NSW north coast for the Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia (Orrca), Alexander Forrest witnessed an adult female give birth in calm sea conditions, capturing the newborn calf's first moments of life, including i...

Underground clinic’s fate hangs in the balance after government withdrew state funding For most people, spending hours deep underground in darkness would seem an odd prescription for better health. Yet every morning, a handful of Armenians descend 250 metres beneath the earth into an active salt mine where they spend six hours in cavernous chambers carved from rock salt, hoping the air below ground will help them breathe more easily. Continue reading...

CAA says airport can recoup £320m through higher airline charges, which are usually passed on to travellers Heathrow passengers face decades of higher fares after the airport was given permission to recover early costs from developing its expansion plan. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) announced it had permitted Heathrow Airport Limited (HAL) to recoup £320m spent on its proposal to build a third runway since the start of last year. Continue reading...

Emergency workers are continuing their search for survivors in southern Japan after yesterday’s powerful earthquake ‘Race against time’: Japan earthquake death toll rises as rescue teams search for missing Emergency workers are continuing their search for survivors in southern Japan after yesterday’s powerful earthquake left widespread devastation, with buildings collapsed, roads severely damaged and emergency teams digging through rubble. At least 13 people have been killed and many repor...

An amnesiac loner arrives in a remote town for who knows what reason … this may sound familiar but this time we’re on a remote Scottish island and surprises lie in wait A man washes up at the harbour of a small coastal village, his memories vague, an eerie sea fog rolling in all around him. As beginnings go, this couldn’t be more Silent Hill – an amnesiac loner drawn to a remote town for who knows what reason. But this time, we’re not in the Pacific Northwest of the original games or the Japa...