Solidarity between LGBTQ+ people and unions has saved an event denied ‘a single penny’ of council money

As the annual Pride parade weaved its way through Durham, the rainbow flags, trans rights placards and sequined cowboy hats filled the medieval city’s cobbled streets with a huge splash of colour.

But this year, the rainbow flags were almost matched in number by trade union banners, as miners, postal workers, and train drivers swelled the parade’s ranks in solidarity, making it the biggest in Durham Pride’s history.

Many teams have fans abroad, but the bond between the north London club and ordinary Africans is on a different level. A continent expects

If Arsenal win the Champions League final later today, expect euphoria across Africa. Judging by the scenes after last week’s Premier League title win – their first in 22 years – the celebrations will be immense. Boisterous fans flooded city centres in Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Kampala and Lagos. In Nigeria’s Zamfara state, people celebrated in the streets despite rising insecurity as a result of Boko Haram’s terrorism.

For outsiders, the obvious question is: how did a club from north London become so deeply woven into African popular culture?

Sean Henry Jacobs is the founder of Africa Is a Country and edits the Eleven Named People newsletter

More competition and loss-making sites are among the challenges for the new turnaround chief executive

With its comfy sofas and a menu of gourmet treats including Béarnaise smash burgers and trendy Whispering Angel rosé wine at £47 a bottle, Everyman has thrived as the go-to chain for a luxury cinema trip.

Yet a quarter of a century after reinventing the movie-going experience, growing from a single venue in Hampstead in London to a national player with 49 sites, the arthouse chain finds itself struggling as rivals ape its successful formula.

Mothers with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) explain how it has affected their relationship with their families

Laura Daly was six the first time she suspected something was wrong with her mum, Wendy. Furious at locking herself out of the house, Wendy reversed and rammed the car into their garage door once, twice, then three times, as Laura cowered silently in the back, her head flopping forwards with each smash. On the seventh smash, the garage door contorted just enough for Laura to squeeze under, get into the house and fetch the keys.

“It was like I was watching myself,” Wendy Barker, 56, says of this moment now. “Nothing would’ve stopped me.”

St Mary’s Stadium, Southampton
Elephants, clowns, aerialists hanging by their hair … the Big Top concept doesn’t let up at this hugely enjoyable outing for a boy band with hits to spare

Take That have never been shy when it comes to repackaging their past. In 2018, they followed two official best-of collections with Odyssey, a Stuart Price-produced curio in which they “re-imagined” their greatest hits. Around the same time, band captain Gary Barlow – now overseeing just two teammates, Mark Owen and Howard Donald – was brutally honest about the band’s standing as a legacy act more focused on ticket sales than streams. “Even if [the album is] a flop, we’re still going to go on tour next year and play to 600,000 people.”

Fast forward eight years and the band have sidestepped the studio time and are instead lightly “re-imagining” an entire old tour. And not just any tour. When it first played stadiums in summer 2009, Take That Presents The Circus became the fastest selling jaunt in UK history, making more than £40m in profit. Without an obvious anniversary peg, on paper this unusual reboot of a widely seen show (even the DVD release broke sales records) has the feel of profit-obsessed businessmen stuck in a creative cul-de-sac.

The actor on his fear of pigeons, his dashed boyband hopes, and having a crush on the entire male cast of Neighbours

Born in London, Hugh Skinner, 41, trained at Lamda and appeared in the BBC’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles in 2008. From 2014 to 2017, he played Will in the comedy series W1A; he also appeared in Fleabag and The Windsors. His films include Les Misérables and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. In 2024, he starred in The Importance of Being Earnest at the National Theatre. He reprises the role of Will in Twenty Twenty Six, and stars in the new BBC drama Two Weeks in August. He lives in London.

What is your greatest fear?
Pigeons. One got stuck in my flat once for quite a long time and it really changed how I feel about them.

Jab brought ‘unprecedentedly strong responses’ in patients whose disease had become resistant to chemotherapy and immunotherapy

Doctors have hailed “unprecedented” trial results that show a triple-action cancer jab can eradicate entire tumours in patients.

In an international trial spanning 11 countries, the injection was offered to patients whose cancer had spread or come back and whose disease had failed to respond to other treatments.

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“They’ve got a wonderful group of players and a great manager in Mikel Arteta but having come so close three times on the bounce I felt these guys needed it,” Sol Campbell says of Arsenal winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years since, in 2004, he was the cornerstone of their defence for the Invincibles. His team remained unbeaten throughout that historic league season, but the pressure on his successors has been immense.

“The wait has been so heavy and it was all pent up, building year after year, always coming so close but never getting over the line,” he says. “That’s why you saw such an outpouring of joy and togetherness. It’s been incredible because we’ve been waiting such a long time.”

Guardian investigation shows how US presidency blurs line between policy and enrichment of American ruling family and those around it

On a graffitied Sarajevo backstreet, a path leads past an overgrown patch of garden to a white door. Beyond is the registered office of a company that is on the brink of winning contracts worth more than $1bn.

AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is close to securing a concession to build and operate a pipeline across the Balkans to allow fossil gas shipped from the US to replace supplies that come from Russia. “This could be the most important infrastructure project ever in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says one of the country’s top officials, who, like others, asks to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive negotiations.

Former safeguarding minister calls for sentencing guidelines review and fears crime now seen as ‘content for an eyeball economy’

The former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has said victims of sexual offences committed by children are being asked to “suck it up” for the sake of their attackers’ rehabilitation and called for a review into sentencing guidelines.

In the past month, cases of teenage boys given lenient sentences after being convicted of rape and sexual assault have provoked public outrage.