A record of what was published, when, and how it changed.

Lego sales jump 21% to nearly £5bn, helped by World Cup and F1 ranges

By Sarah Butler

Danish toymaker also scores success with KPop Demon Hunters, Star Wars and botanicals products Lego sales have risen by more than a fifth as tie-ups with the football World Cup, Formula One and the hit film KPop Demon Hunters as well as its flower-based and Star Wars kits drive demand. The toymaker said its revenues had increased by 21% to 41.9bn Danish kroner (£4.8bn) in the first six months of 2026, driven by stron

Meta goes on trial as Silicon Valley faces a growing backlash

By Blake Montgomery

Also: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed his surprising sympathy over the construction of datacenters across the country Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian, writing to you from a sunny park in New York City, which was supposed to endure rain all weekend but in fact delivered the best weather of the year. ‘We are hitting a different chapter’: OpenAI leader warns of threa

Boy injured in crocodile enclosure discharged from hospital

By Jamie Grierson

Family of three-year-old allegedly thrown into pit at Cambridgeshire zoo say he is happy to be back at home A three-year-old boy who was seriously injured in a zoo’s crocodile enclosure has been discharged from hospital and is settling back in at home, his family has said. The child returned home a few weeks ago and was “happy to be home, playing with his toys, sleeping in his own bed and being a big brother”, his pa

WSL academy teams to play in third tier after FA approves controversial plan

By Guardian sport

Four WSL academy teams will play in WNL from 2027-28 FA says move will raise standards and help young players Four Women’s Super League ­academy sides will play in the third tier of the ­pyramid from the ­2027-28 ­season after the ­controversial ­proposal was approved by the ­Football ­Association’s board. The change forms part of what the FA described as a package of reforms to the Women’s National League “designed

Russian stadium says it will not host Kanye concerts – but promoter says shows have not been cancelled

By Laura Snapes

The controversial rapper now known as Ye was due to play two huge shows at St Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena, which now states it cannot host performances for contractual reasons The St Petersburg stadium that was set to host two concerts by Ye – making the rapper formerly known as Kanye West the biggest western act to play in Russia since start of the Ukraine war – has now said that the concerts will not take place at t

Two planned datacentres will have higher UK carbon emissions than ExxonMobil, analysis finds

By Pippa Neill Environment reporter

Exclusive: Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire sites predicted to emit 4.5m tonnes a year when fully running The carbon emissions from just two planned datacentres in England will exceed all of the fossil fuel company ExxonMobil’s UK emissions, analysis has revealed. Experts have said this demonstrates the “serious threat” datacentres pose to the UK’s legally binding climate goals. Continue reading...

‘The day I disclose, my career is over’: the journalist facing an $800 daily fine to keep her sources secret

By Jeremy Barr in Washington

If Catherine Herridge’s petition to the US supreme court fails, she’ll be on the hook for a daily fine until she discloses her sources – a case unsettling press freedom organizations For 18 days this summer, veteran journalist Catherine Herridge walked to her Washington DC mailbox and dropped off a check for $800. The money was required by law to cover a judge-imposed sanction after she was found in contempt of court

As a doctor, I say this: before we even consider assisted dying, fix how we care for the most vulnerable | Zubir Ahmed

By Zubir Ahmed

A person’s wish to die can be shaped by whether they have access to proper palliative care – and in England and Wales, too many do not Zubir Ahmed is a transplant surgeon and former Labour minister As a doctor, I have spent much of my professional life caring for people at some of the most vulnerable moments they will ever face. I have seen the anxiety that surrounds the prospect of dying, and the desperate wish of p

Man dies after car crash during police pursuit in Warwickshire

By Neha Gohil Midlands correspondent

Another driver in critical condition as result of collision after man failed to stop for officers in Stratford-upon-Avon A man has died and a woman is critically injured after a police pursuit in Warwickshire. Police said officers tried to stop a black Audi on Birmingham Road in Stratford-upon-Avon at 5.23pm on Monday but the vehicle failed to stop and drove towards the A46. Continue reading...

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Kate Cheka: The Last Funny Woman review – pregnant standup calls for comedy industry to grow up

By Anya Ryan

Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh Cheka considers her tendency to ‘live life like a joke’ in a frank hour, with her frustrations leaving a lasting impression Kate Cheka wasn’t supposed to be here. After her debut hour two years ago, she swore she would never do the fringe again. But now she’s back, mic in hand and eight months pregnant, walking us through her life’s greatest romantic escapades, from Marseille to Texas and Nepa

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Fishy business: who really profits when sardines go viral? - video

By Richard Sprenger, Andrew Braun, Kyri Evangelou, Noah Payne-Frank and Katie Arnold

Once a cheap store-cupboard staple, sardines are fast becoming a luxury food item. Last year, #SardineGirlSummer saw influencers promoting the health benefits of sardinemaxxing, while sardinecore became the must-have fashion trend. Now, demand is accelerating just as Morocco’s sardine stock has collapsed, causing shortages on supermarket shelves. The Guardian travels to Matosinhos in Portugal, the cultural home of th

Food has turned into a class war – and it’s ruined my appetite | Zoe Williams

By Zoe Williams

More than half of what Brits eat is ultra-processed. Now we’re a nation of food snobs – with no ingredient safe from judgment Lewis Bassett is a young sociologist and chef who I first encountered through his podcast, The Full English, where he thinks about the cultural meaning of, say, Delia Smith; gazpacho; whelks. This was thinking you didn’t know you needed until you heard it. Now he’s written a book of the same n

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Rise of the Footsoldier: Retribution review – never-ending hardman-on-a-mission franchise heads to Ibiza

By Catherine Bray

The seventh in the series takes longstanding lead gangster Tate, played to the hilt as always by Craig Fairbrass, to the White Isle to knock some heads together The seventh instalment in this seemingly never-ending series opens with a line of voiceover from star Craig Fairbrass, summarising forthcoming proceedings nicely: “They killed my best friend, now they all have to die.” The real-life hardman Pat Tate might hav

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US Treasury’s Scott Bessent ‘will lose’ battle with bond markets, former mentor warns

By Graeme Wearden

Trump ally should cut budget deficit rather than try to suppress bond yields, says billionaire Stanley Druckenmiller Scott Bessent’s attempt to calm the bond markets and push down America’s cost of borrowing have attracted a rebuke from the US Treasury secretary’s former mentor. The billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who worked with Bessent at George Soros’s fund management firm in the 1990s, has warned that

David Squires on … boos, barcodes and buzzcuts as the Premier League returns

By David Squires

Our cartoonist looks back at the big storylines and fresh looks as the English top flight swung back into action Buy a cartoon | Some of David’s favourite works And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now Continue reading...

Yorkshireman believed to be first Briton to die fighting for Russia against Ukraine

By Raphael Boyd

Bradley Townsend reportedly killed by a drone on 10 June in Donetsk region after joining up with separatists A man from South Yorkshire is believed to be the first British citizen to die fighting for Russia in its war against Ukraine. Bradley Townsend, a 33-year-old fisher from Barnsley, left Britain in April to join up with Russian separatists in eastern Donbas to aid in their invasion of Ukraine, despite having no

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Savinho seals £75m Spurs move from Manchester City – and changes name to Sávio

By David Hytner

Spurs could pay £85m including add-ons for winger De Zerbi says Sávio will bring ‘imagination and quality’ Savinho has completed his £75m move to Tottenham from Manchester City and marked the beginning of a new chapter in his career by indicating that he wants to be known as Sávio from now on. The Brazil winger, who will cost up to an additional £10m in add-ons, will have Sávio on the back of his shirt. The fee repre

The whitewashing of the Green India Mission forest expansion project

By Niha Masih

The flagship environmental initiative has achieved ‘negligible’ results. Why so little progress, and what are the risks as the planet gets hotter? Plus, fusion dance pioneer Usha Jey • Don’t get This is India delivered to your inbox? Sign up here India set out to expand its forested areas a decade ago. Last week, however, we learned that the forest cover programme had barely taken root when the government’s auditors

A Pocket Full of Slagford – a retro-futurist take on Thatcher-era northern England

By Elliot Gardner

Developer Patrick Grant was born in Australia and lives in New Zealand, but a childhood of British TV inspired him to set a comedy game in a bleak vision of the north Something is amiss in the dingy town of Slagford, and curious scamp Pip Bunting is the only one who can find out what. So quit your mithering, it’s time to discover just how grim it truly is up north. A Pocket Full of Slagford is an upcoming retro-style

I once saw Enes Kanter speak truth to power. Now he only punches down | Bryan Armen Graham

By Bryan Armen Graham

Nearly a decade after I watched him defy Erdoğan at great personal cost, the ex-NBA player is using his hard-won freedom to turn transgender people into a punchline Nine years ago, I watched Enes Kanter ask America to take him in. It was May 2017, inside the National Basketball Players Association’s offices in midtown Manhattan. Kanter had just returned from a frightening detention at Bucharest airport, where Romania

Luka Dončić looks like a superstar adrift at the Lakers

By Owen Lewis

The Slovenian is one of the best players on the planet. But factors largely beyond his control have started to turn his career into a slog Luka Dončić must feel as though, these past few months, he’s been twirling in a washing machine. He announced a separation from his fiancee in March; reports followed of a prolonged custody battle over their two daughters. As Dončić plays in the NBA and his children live in Sloven

From Scotland, I look at England’s water privatisation disaster. I wish you had done what we did | Devi Sridhar

By Devi Sridhar

Listening to debate, you’d think bringing English water companies into public ownership was a radical socialist idea. Here, we call it common sense Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh Every few months, there are more shocking headlines about the behaviour of England’s water companies. The latest are about the ever-increasing pay of the chief executives and chief financial

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Year of after-school care now costs £2,800 a child in parts of UK

By Donna Ferguson

Bills have jumped 42% in England over the past 10 years – and that excludes the cost of breakfast clubs and extracurricular activities Parents of primary schoolchildren in England will pay 42% more for after-school childcare this year than they did 10 years ago, with annual bills now exceeding more than £2,800 a child in some parts of the UK. A Guardian analysis of data collected by the children’s charity Coram has r

Heatwave health risks threaten insurer earnings, rating agency S&P warns

By Kalyeena Makortoff Banking correspondent

Rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and illness, especially among older people, could drive up premiums Europe’s intense heatwaves could hit insurers’ earnings as companies face a rise in claims linked to heat-related deaths and worsening health conditions, the rating agency S&P has said. While a long summer of extreme heat will have increased drought and wildfire-related claims, the rating agency said there

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From ‘old people music’ to owning the streets: 60 years of Notting Hill carnival and me

By Lloyd Bradley

As a child, being taken to the Caribbean celebration was a drag. But once sound systems arrived in the 1970s, it became an unmissable yearly pilgrimage offering a sense of freedom My earliest memories of the Notting Hill carnival are of being mildly irritated. In its 1960s infancy, the event was strictly a Caribbean affair, transplanted to Ladbroke Grove as authentically as was practical. Its purpose was as obvious a