The US president met with his family at Camp David, after a disastrous debate performance last week led to calls for him to drop out of the election
Joe Biden’s family have urged him stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.
One person was killed and at least nine others injured in Kharkiv; a 14-storey apartment building in Kyiv was set on fire after Russia strikes. What we know on day 859
One person was killed and nine others including a baby were injured in a Russian strike on a post office in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, local authorities said. “A man, a post office employee, was killed,” the head of Kharkiv’s regional administration, Oleg Synegubov said on Telegram. The city of Kharkiv has been regularly targeted by Russian troops in recent months, but military analysts say the frequency has dipped since the US authorised Ukrainian use of its weapons on certain Russian targets.
In Kyiv’s Obolon suburb, the local military administration said falling fragments from a Russian missile started a fire and damaged balconies on a 14-storey apartment building. Emergency services, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said five female residents were treated for stress, and mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 residents had been evacuated. The head of the military administration of Kyiv region said missile fragments had also fallen outside the capital, causing injuries and damage, though no details were provided.
Drone footage from Ukraine’s military has shown what appears to be bodies in a civilian area in the embattled eastern town of Toretsk, which has come under heavy Russian bombardment in recent days. The attacks in the war-torn Donetsk region have prompted a scaled-up evacuation effort by Ukrainian rescue services. Local officials said that powerful Russian glide bombs have also been used in the town. Glide bombs are heavy Soviet-era bombs fitted with precision guidance systems and launched from aircraft flying out of range of air defences.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a post on Telegram, said Russia had used more than 800 glide bombs on Ukrainian targets in the past week. He issued a fresh plea in his nightly video address for better weapons systems. “The sooner the world helps us deal with the Russian combat aircraft launching these bombs, the sooner we can strike – justifiably strike – Russian military infrastructure … and the closer we will be to peace,” he said.
Bulgaria’s Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Metropolitan Daniil – who experts see as pro-Russian in a church traditionally considered very close to Moscow – as its new leader. Daniil supported the Kremlin in a lengthy video message published in 2023. The Bulgarian patriarch is elected for life unless he himself decides to step down.
Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report
Readers respond to an editorial on the inadequacy of first past the post, and the need for electoral reform
Your editorial on electoral reform (21 June) rightly points out the inadequacy of the first-past-the-post (FPTP) electoral system. However, it is not enough simply to call for proportional representation (PR), as there are a range of different systems under that label. It seems obvious to me that we need a royal commission on achieving a better system.
One option that might be considered could be based on the alternative vote (AV), which was offered – but not seriously – in a referendum in 2011. There are problems with any form of PR, which would be met by AV. The constituencies would be far bigger – leading to fewer people identifying with them and their representatives.
The standard of the election’s televised encounters between party leaders could have been a lot higher, argue Richard Bryant, Daryl Birden and Peter Wrigley
Has there ever been such a wretchedly dismal general election campaign (The Guardian view on televised election debates, the voters deserve better, Editorial, 27 June)? Such a miserable indictment of the current state of our politics and thoroughly rotten political system. This has culminated in the sordid betting furore, as potential MPs – public servants, let us remember – gamble on the “game” that is our shared future.
The final straw was last Wednesday’s desperate “debate” (it was no such thing) between the two leaders, one of whom will be our prime minister as of Friday. Who on earth thinks there is any value in the increasingly impolite exchange of unsubstantiated claims and counter-claims?
From newly published novels to timeless classics, Elizabeth Strout, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Irvine Welsh, Tessa Hadley and other writers choose their holiday favourites
Booker prize-nominated author of Caledonian Road and Mayflies
The irony of publicising a seaside supplement next to a headline about effluent in the sea was not lost on readers
Not many readers will have failed to notice the irony of the front page of last week’s Observer: a masthead proclaiming “Free magazine – The Great British Seaside”, and underneath: “20,000: the major sewage leaks total in past decade”. Then open the supplement to read “The water’s lovely… come on in’ – but only in Rachel Cooke’s “glory days”! Elizabeth Adams
London N22
Anita Sethi is right to praise North Landing, Yorkshire, for its loveliness (“Oh I do like to be beside the seaside”). However, it is not “off the beaten track and quite unknown”. An hourly bus runs from Bridlington to North Landing, where there are two cafes, a fish and chip van, ice-cream van, large car park and toilets. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust runs popular birdwatching trips from the beach in traditional fishing boats. The beach also featured in the finale of the 2016 film version of Dad’s Army. Virginia Schroder
Bridlington, East Yorkshire
President cites daily strikes in appeal to allies; Russian attack on Donetsk villages kills four while five dead in Ukrainian strikes on Russian village. What we know on day 858
Russian forces fired missiles at the town of Vilniansk, outside the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing seven people and injuring 31 others on Saturday, officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy repeated his appeal to allies to provide Ukraine with more long-range weapons and enhanced air defences to stop what he said were daily attacks on his country. The prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said two missiles were fired on the town in Ukraine’s south-east, damaging infrastructure, a shop and residential buildings. Emergency services put the death toll at seven, including two children, and said eight of the 31 injured were also children. Firefighters had put out blazes in several buildings and completed rescue operations.
Zaporizhzhia’s regional governor, Ivan Fedorov, said the Vilniansk strike was “yet another dreadful terrorist act against the civilian population”. It occurred in “the middle of the day, a non-working day, in the town centre, where people were out relaxing, where there were no military targets”, he said in a video posted on Telegram. Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram its missiles had struck a nearby area in the Zaporizhzhia region where it said Ukrainian trains unloaded arms and military equipment, killing soldiers and destroying armoured vehicles and missiles. Neither side’s battlefield accounts could be independently verified.
Russian attacks on frontline villages in the Donetsk region in the east killed four people, Ukrainian officials said. Three were in the village of Zarichne, the region’s head, Vadym Filashkin, said on social media. Another person, a resident of the frontline village of New York, “also sustained fatal injuries”, Ukraine’s general prosecutor said later.
Ukrainian forces shelled parts of southern Russia’s Kursk region throughout Saturday after carrying out an overnight drone attack on a village which killed five people, including two children, the regional governor said. Alexei Smirnov posted on Telegram that the five fatalities occurred in a house in the village of Gorodishche, east of the regional centre of Kursk. Two family members were being treated in hospital. A video posted on Smirnov’s Telegram channel showed him at a destroyed house amid piles of rubble and building materials.
Ukraine and Russia said priests were among the dozens of captured soldiers and civilians they had exchanged earlier this week. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests taken captive in Moscow-occupied Berdiansk were handed back to Ukraine thanks to the mediation of the Vatican. Russia said a high-ranking Ukrainian Orthodox cleric was handed over to Moscow along with two other priests. Moscow and Kyiv exchanged 90 prisoners of war and some civilians each earlier this week.
Rescuers in Dnipro said several residents remained missing after at least one person was killed and 12 wounded, including a seven-month-old girl, after a Russian strike destroyed the top four floors of the apartment block in central Ukraine on Friday evening.
Those who got £100 or £150 tickets – already sold out – can judge King Charles’s design choices at Aberdeen estate where late queen died
The royal family is opening the doors of Balmoral Castle to the public from Monday and giving extensive tours for the first time in more than 170 years.
Visitors will be able to take a guided tour of a number of rooms in the Aberdeenshire castle, such as the entrance hall, red corridor, main and family dining rooms, page’s lobby, library and drawing room.
Volunteers work to herd Atlantic white-sided dolphins found Friday in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, into deeper water
More than 100 dolphins have become stranded in the shallow waters around Cape Cod on Friday in what an animal welfare group is calling “the largest single mass stranding event” in the organization’s 25-year history.
A group of Atlantic white-sided dolphins were found Friday in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, about 100 miles south-east of Boston, in an area called the Gut – or Great Island at the Herring River – which experts have said is the site of frequent strandings, due in part to its hook-like shape and extreme tidal fluctuations.
Nigel Farage has announced he is boycotting the BBC, accusing the broadcaster of bias over his reception on Friday night’s Question Time.
The Reform leader took part in a leaders’ special episode, a half-hour Q&A session with a live audience, in which he was heavily criticised. One audience member called him a racist and another asked why his party attracted extremists.
Police say another seven injured amid clashes with demonstrators in Essen, where party is meeting after best ever EU election result
Two police officers have been hospitalised after clashes with hooded protesters outside the congress of Germany’s far-right AfD, as the party met weeks after its record European Union election result.
About 1,000 police were deployed in the western city of Essen on Saturday, where demonstration organisers said 50,000 protestors marched towards the congress. The police have not yet provided figures.
Officials in Scotland have said they are doing “all we can” to ensure every voter can take part in the general election, amid delays in people receiving their postal votes.
The Scottish first minister, John Swinney, said he was worried some voters would be disfranchised by delays due to school holidays beginning in Scotland.
Met police began investigating on Friday after being made aware of video allegedly filmed at HMP Wandsworth
A woman has been arrested after the emergence of a social media video apparently showing a prison officer having sex with an inmate in a cell.
The Metropolitan police said it began investigating on Friday after being made “aware of a video allegedly filmed inside HMP Wandsworth”, adding that a woman had been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office the same day and remained in custody.
Greater Manchester police say dog was ‘destroyed at the scene as the last possible option’ and two men arrested
An XL bully dog has been shot dead by police after a woman was attacked and injured.
Greater Manchester police said officers were called to Gladstone Road in Eccles at 9pm on Friday after several reports of a dog dangerously out of control.
Yorgos Lanthimos teams up with Emma Stone for the third time in this off-kilter and provocative tale, while Emma Myers leads the new YA drama adaptation from Holly Jackson’s smash-hit novel
Kinds of Kindness Out now
Yorgos Lanthimos is, simply put, one of the best directors working today, fearlessly bringing his off-kilter visions of everything from dating to monarchy to misogyny to the big screen with characteristic biting wit and dark humour. His latest is a provocative triptych starring Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons and Willem Dafoe, set in the worlds of work, relationships and religion.
Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, says prosecutor, as president again rejects claims of ‘self-coup’ to boost popularity
A Bolivian former army chief accused of leading a failed coup attempt has been given six months “preventive detention”, a top prosecutor said on Friday, as the president again denied the attack was a “self-coup” designed to boost his flagging popularity.
General Juan José Zúñiga Macías has been handed charges of terrorism and armed uprising, state prosecutor Cesar Siles said. Zúñiga has said he was following an order from the president, Luis Arce, following Wednesday’s fleeting insurrection in La Paz. In the moments before he was detained, the ex-army chief claimed: “The president told me the situation was fucked and that he needed something to boost his popularity.”.
Infant among six injured, with at least one dead and more trapped in building in central Ukraine; 10 Ukrainian civilians freed from Russia and Belarus jails in Vatican-mediated deal. What we know on day 857
A Russian missile strike hit a nine-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least one person and injuring six others, officials said. The death toll would likely rise as more people remained trapped in the building, where four upper storeys collapsed as a result of the attack, said the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko. A photo posted on Telegram by the governor, Serhiy Lysak, and other images on social media showed a badly damaged building that had smoke rising from a gaping hole in its upper storeys. A seven-month-old infant was among the injured, Lysak said. Three people were in severe condition.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said 10 civilians including a politician and two priests taken prisoner in Russia and Belarus had been freed in a deal mediated by the Vatican. Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners throughout their two-year conflict but the release of civilian prisoners is rarer. “We managed to return 10 more of our people from Russian captivity,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram. It was not immediately clear if the release was part of an exchange deal involving Russian prisoners held in Ukraine. Some of those released had been in prison since 2017, he said, arrested in Russian-controlled parts of eastern Ukraine that at the time were run by Moscow-backed separatists.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed its forces had taken control of the settlement of Rozdolivka in eastern Ukraine, but the Ukrainian military said heavy fighting was raging in areas around the settlement. The Russian ministry said on Friday that Russia’s “southern” military grouping had taken up what it called more favourable positions after pushing Ukrainian forces out of the settlement. Rozdolivka is in the Donetsk region, the focal point of Russia’s slow advance across eastern Ukraine. It lies north of Bakhmut and Soledar, two localities brought under Russian control last year.
The Ukrainian military’s general staff said Russian forces had launched 19 attacks in a broad sector that included Rozdolivka. “Our soldiers resolutely held their defences and repelled 15 of the assaults,” the evening report on Friday said. “Four armed confrontations are continuing.” The battlefield accounts from either side could not be verified.
The Biden administration will provide Ukraine with $150m worth of weapons and ammunition, including Hawk air defence interceptors and 155mm artillery munitions, two US officials said. The weapons aid package was expected be unveiled on Monday, they said on Friday, declining to be named. The administration is responding to Ukraine’s desperate requests for air defence support as Russia has pounded Ukrainian energy facilities in recent weeks via aerial attacks.
Vladimir Putin said Russia should start producing short- and intermediate-range missiles that were previously banned under a now-defunct arms treaty with the US. The Russian president was referring to missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500km (300-3,400 miles) that were banned under the cold war-era intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) treaty. Washington withdrew from the deal in 2019, citing Russia’s failure to comply. The Kremlin said at the time that it would abide by a moratorium on production if the US did not deploy missiles within striking distance of Russia. In a televised address to his top security officials on Friday, Putin said the US had started using such missiles in training exercises in Denmark and “we need to react to this”.
Russia’s defence minister has ordered officials to prepare a “response” to US drone flights over the Black Sea, the ministry said, in an apparent warning that Moscow may take forceful action to ward off the American reconnaissance aircraft. The Russian defence ministry noted a recent “increased intensity” of US drones over the Black Sea, saying they “conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by western countries for strikes on Russian facilities”.
The International Monetary Fund’s executive board has voted to approve a $2.2bn payout for Ukraine under an existing loan programme, and lowered its growth outlook following “devastating” Russian attacks against the country’s energy infrastructure. The much-needed funds would be used for “budget support” and bring the total amount disbursed under the 48-month loan agreement to about $7.6b, the IMF said on Friday.
Readers respond to Barney Ronay’s account of touring Germany for Euro 2024 football games
Barney Ronay’s article resonated very strongly with me (‘On a journey through Germany, the horror of the past lurks close to the surface’, Sport, 22 June). He spoke with clarity on how past horror echoed in his encounters with places and spaces in everyday Germany, from mundane buildings to the seemingly innocent woodland clearing. I too am from a “Jewish enough” family displaced from Nazi Germany. Our family has those seemingly improbable stories of survival, and I sometimes wonder if I should have existed at all.
That Gestapo knock on the door has cast a long shadow and, throughout my “improbable” life, has caused me to ask how this terror arose. I wonder what its harbingers are, so we might not make such terror again. But right now we are witness to it. We can all see it raising its grotesquely mundane yet human head, with larger-than–life characters encouraging us to devalue and demean those who are different.
Elliot Lane, Beth McFarland and Geraldine Blake respond to an article on how to make your outdoor space into a diverse habitat
I couldn’t agree more with your article on bringing wildlife into your garden (Build a hedgehog highway! 33 ways to welcome more wildlife into your garden, 26 June). If all of us who own a garden or other outdoor space could do one or two things to encourage wildlife, it would have a huge impact. There is a difference between gardening for wildlife and rewilding, and that is scale. I don’t have a large garden, so planting needs to earn its place. The trees I planted have blossom and fruit; I have three ponds, birdhouses and bee hotels; and I make sure I plant open flowers for pollinators. I was amazed how quickly the wildlife came. Elliot Lane Brighouse, West Yorkshire
• I live in Germany and have a garden that was a haven for my daughter and her friends growing up. I can’t bear imposing a hierarchy of my own devising on it, so I only subdue the real bullies such as ground elder and ground ivy. There’s wildlife, and I needed to make a pact with the voles. They can eat what they want after it has flowered, not before. Once they have munched their way across the garden, the ground is perfect for replanting.
Politicians are refusing to acknowledge the link between Brexit and falling living standards, says Robin Prior, while Chris Webster says voters must accept responsibility for their choices
Larry Elliott is correct that Brexit is a live issue in this election, even if politicians are doing their best to avoid it (Brexit may have felt absent from this election – but it will still define it, 26 June). And he is spot-on when he says that there is “no real difference between Labour’s growth strategy and its Brexit strategy. If one fails then so does the other”.
Keir Starmer says Labour will boost economic growth while continuing to hobble trade and relations with our nearest major market. It’s as if his shoes are tied together, but he’s refusing to untie them while also promising to win an international running race. Does he really take us for fools?
Readers respond to a long read on how Britain’s libraries provide much more than books to local communities
I volunteer at my local library in Richmond, North Yorkshire, in the prime minister’s constituency. It’s a lovely place, staffed by committed librarians who rely on a group of willing volunteers. I feel privileged to be able to work there. I visit libraries wherever I go and am always charmed.
I read with interest Aida Edemariam’s long read on libraries (‘If there’s nowhere else to go, this is where they come’: how Britain’s libraries provide much more than books 25 June) and recognised many of the situations she described. As I was reaching the conclusion, I received an email from our volunteer coordinator who was trying to find someone to fill a shift on Saturday. If a volunteer can’t be found to support the librarian, the library has to remain closed. Sadly, this scenario occurs occasionally.
Wendy Shillam and Prof Roger Brown reflect on the party’s proposals to tackle the housing crisis
I enjoy the Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast series as it gives a bit more air to issues of immediate importance. The episode on Labour’s housing plan (24 June) got me thinking. I used to work on Gordon Brown’s eco-towns project and found that the biggest objection was that new towns had failed in the past. We need to convince people that this programme signals change. This time, we need to do better.
Surely the best way is to use the new new towns to repair some of the less successful old new towns. Take Livingston, near Glasgow – not a disaster, but a “could do better”.
In Odesa, a city attacked by Russian rockets, with daily power outages and air-raid sirens, the street and social documentary photographer Richard Morgan explores to what extent the football is still important, if the game still has meaning, if the match really matters
This is not a story about how a football tournament is taking hold of a country’s imagination for one glorious, fleeting summer against a dark backdrop of war. It is not a tale of how Ukraine’s participation at Euro 24 is providing people with “some light relief from the harsh realities of war”, as the cliche goes. It is not My Summer with Des, Ukrainian-style.
For it is impossible to escape from the horrors of war in Ukraine, to find relief in the football, because the war is in the very experience of following the football here: it’s in the walk to the game past anti-tank defences, sandbags, covered monuments, and boarded-up churches; it’s in the pre-match motivational messages from frontline fighters to the footballers; it’s in the air-raid warnings of rocket attacks flashing across the TV screen as you watch the game in the pub; it’s in the power cuts before kick-off. Euro 24 is not a convenient distraction from war in Ukraine, but yet another way to live it.
Andriy shows off his new national-team tracksuit, a gift from his mother before the Euros. Behind him stands a row of Czech hedgehogs, the anti-tank defences that block main roads around Odesa’s central station and Kulykove Pole Square (above). A group of friends, excited about the tournament, play keepie-uppie on Holy Trinity Day in front of the bombed Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral, a towering symbol of the war. The cathedral was badly damaged by a Russian rocket attack and now huge boards protect the windows from rocket blasts (below left). A football-styled car aerial sits above a damaged windshield on Derybasivska Street (below right).
With Euro 2024 under way, much of the world will be turning its attention to football this summer. But while the focus might be on the big stadiums and national teams, the game continues to be played every day on street corners and in parks across the globe. In Spain, the southern gateway to Europe, football can play a transformative role in migrant communities, bringing hope and opportunity to many of the thousands who arrive each year from South America and Africa. In 2023, nearly 57,000 migrants arrived in Spain, travelling by sea and across Europe’s land borders, and there were more than 160,000 first-time applications for asylum, including from 2,505 minors.
Many of them have joined football clubs formed in Spain’s towns and cities with the aim of giving migrants a chance to flourish in their new homes.
Justice department announces $10m reward for information on 22-year-old Amin Timovich Stigal, who remains at large. What we know on day 855
A Russian has been charged with conspiring to hack and destroy computer systems and data in Ukraine and allied countries including the US, the US justice department said on Wednesday, and announced a $10m reward for information. Before the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Amin Timovich Stigal, 22, who remains at large, targeted Kyiv’s government systems and data with no military-related role, the department alleged. Computer systems in the US and other countries that provided support to Ukraine were targeted later, it alleged.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich went on trial behind closed doors in Ekaterinburg on Wednesday, 15 months after his arrest in the Russian city on espionage charges that he, his employer and the US government vehemently deny. The 32-year-old was arrested in March 2023, while on a reporting trip to Ekaterinburg, in the Ural Mountains, with authorities claiming without offering any evidence that he was gathering secret information for the US.
The EU is expected to sign a security agreement with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday, pledging to keep delivering weapons, military training and other aid to Kyiv for years to come. The agreement will lay out the EU’s commitment to help Ukraine in nine areas of security and defence policy – including arms deliveries, military training, defence industry cooperation and demining, according to a draft seen by Reuters.
European Union countries agreed a sanctions package against Belarus on Wednesday, EU diplomats and Belgium said, to try to close off a route to avoiding restrictions on Russia. “This package will strengthen our measures in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including combating circumvention of sanctions,” Belgium, which holds the EU presidency until the end of June, said on X.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made an unannounced visit to the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine to bolster morale among troops, amid continuing advances by Russian forces. The Ukrainian president recorded a video address against the backdrop of Pokrovsk, a city with a prewar population of about 61,000 that has experienced some of the most intense fighting during the 28-month-long full-scale invasion. Zelenskiy made the trip alongside Brig Gen Andriy Hnatov, the newly appointed commander of the joint forces.
During the visit, Zelenskiy signalled that he was getting tough on officials he suspects are shirking their duties. He said that back in Kyiv he would speak to “officials who must be here and in other areas near the frontline – in difficult communities where people need immediate solutions.” He continued: “I was surprised to learn that some relevant officials have not been here for six months or more. There will be a serious conversation, and I will draw appropriate conclusions regarding them.”
Five Lithuanians were wounded when they came under fire in eastern Ukraine as they delivered aid to troops, officials and team members said Wednesday. The volunteer workers were in a car that was shelled on Monday in Pokrovsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, a colleague Valdas Bartkevicius told AFP. The region’s governor reported that five people were killed and dozens wounded in Russian strikes on Pokrovsk on Monday.
Representatives of Russia’s and Ukraine’s human rights offices held a meeting for the first time during an exchange of prisoners of war on Tuesday, Kyiv said. The two countries each released 90 captured soldiers in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates, the latest in more than 50 prisoner exchanges that have taken place throughout the war. But it was the first time Russia had agreed to hold a direct meeting between human rights representatives during the exchange, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets told AFP.
Nato’s 32 nations on Wednesday appointed outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte as the alliance’s next head. Rutte will take over from secretary general Jens Stoltenberg on 1 October after major powers – spearheaded by the US – wrapped up his nomination ahead of a summit of Nato leaders in Washington next month.
Adrian Carter is using polling to help him vote tactically. Plus a letter from Keith Flett
In an otherwise thoughtful article, John Harris neglects one important virtue of pre-election polls (I’ve seen all the ‘landslide’ polls – but they can’t tell us what’s really going on in this election, 23 June). I have spent most of my adult life in constituencies where, in retrospect, voting for the government I wanted would have been best served by voting locally for another party. I do not need help in deciding which issues are important to me or which government is more likely to deliver the outcomes I want, but I do need help in deciding where my vote would best be placed to secure the national outcome I favour. Well-structured polls are a help with this.
To give an example, it is clear from an overview of the six MRP polls I have examined that the party I’m inclined to favour has little chance of winning in my constituency. But if I want to rid myself of the worst government in my lifetime, armed with MRP data, the logical thing for me to do is to vote not for my favoured party but for a third party that has a chance of beating the Conservatives in this seat. I shall know on 5 July whether I have made the right choice, but my chance of doing so is much enhanced by the existence of constituency-level polls. Adrian Carter Penselwood, Somerset
Assange has been released from prison after striking a deal with the US justice department. We look back at his life so far, including his time in custody, his interactions with supporters and celebrities at the Ecuadorian embassy in London – and the global protests calling for his freedom
Kenya is in shock after unprecedented scenes in Nairobi left parts of parliament ablaze and gutted, as protests over proposed tax hikes turned deadly, prompting the government to deploy the military
Throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Mike Abrahams travelled the country photographing National Front marches, prison life and people’s everyday struggles
Mining companies accused of colonial ‘divide and rule’ tactics in their pursuit of the precious metal that lies under the country’s salt flats
• Harriet Barber in the Salinas Grandes, Argentina. Photographs by John Owens
In the vast white desert of the Salinas Grandes, Antonio Calpanchay, 45, lifts his axe and slices the ground. He has worked this land since he was 12, chopping and collecting salt, replenishing it for the seasons ahead and teaching his children to do the same.
“All of our aboriginal community works here, even the elders,” he says, sheltering his weathered face from the sun. “We always have. It is our livelihood.”
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