(Atlantic)
How do you follow up the album that made you a star – and a caricature? In classic Charli style: with a pivot to guitar and a meta masterpiece about the instability of identity

After a decade spent trailblazing a unique kind of pop freedom from the genre’s fringes, A-list success seemed like the thing that might finally trap Charli xcx. Her 2024 club-rat opus Brat spawned memes, embarrassing political bandwagoning, Collins’ word of the year and possibly terminal damage to the bra industry. Its ludicrous cultural impact looked set to pickle her as a caricature of a Parliament-toting bad girl; the question of whether “Brat summer” could last – whether Charli could sustain the interest – was so rife she turned it into a mockumentary, The Moment. It made success look miserable: your creation turned cringe by execs wanting to milk their prize cow dry of every last acid-green drop.

Even for a pop star renowned for reinvention, it put a higher price on her next move. Pivot and risk losing new fans and looking wilfully contrarian. When Charli released the sub-two-minute single Rock Music, many heard it as a middle finger. “I think the dancefloor is dead,” she drawls over guitars that buzzed like speakers weathering interference from a Nokia 5110, “so now we’re making rock music.” There were boring thinkpieces about the dancefloor being very much alive, actually (as if Charli had ever ridden culture for clout then binned it off), and about whether she was trying to eject fair-weather new fans. But the key to this cheeky song is surprisingly earnest: “Jump off the stage / I hope they catch you today / But if they don’t it’s OK,” she sings naively, an affirmation to take creative leaps, and to come with Charli – or not, as you like – as she takes this one.

Reporting from some of the poorest seaside towns revealed how young people have been left isolated – but remain resilient and full of hope

If you were asked to summon up images of the coastline of England and Wales, you might think of sunny days, buckets, spades and carefree holidays. But for many young people growing up by the sea, decades of evidence tell a very different story. For them, rather than a picture-perfect horizon full of hope, the sea has become a boundary that swallows up opportunity.

With a 73% decline in funding for youth services in England over the past 12 years, and a lack of opportunities that has led to nearly 1 million 16- to 24-year-oldsnot in work, education or training (Neet), the situation for young people, especially in places of deprivation, has never seemed more desperate.

If Andy Burnham is minded to grasp the nettle, he will need to sell it to people like me. The right will call it a ‘death tax’ – why not a levy for ageing well?

One of the last things Andy Burnham did before entering Downing Street was to go and see his father.

Now living in a nursing home, Roy Burnham has Alzheimer’s and isn’t really aware of his son’s new job. But perhaps the prime minister wanted, in part, to try to explain why he might not be visiting so often in future.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Versions of Amy Winehouse and hundreds of other musicians are generating millions for beleaguered UK venues. But what is the emotional toll for the imitators, and are they pushing out original artists?

As peak heatwave sun beams down on to a field in Derbyshire, Amy Winehouse tells the crowd she is in need of hydration – so Robbie Williams fetches her a drink. Elsewhere, members of the public stop the Beastie Boys for selfies, Fred Durst grooves along as Diana Ross covers Al Green, and shirtless teenagers form a circle pit during Korn as a woman sits knitting in a camping chair just behind them. James Brown and Prince turn out to be the same artist – just dressed up in different clothes.

These are all scenes from Replika festival last month, which won the Guinness world record for the biggest tribute festival, with 108 acts performing across a very sweaty weekend. The punning deserves an accolade of its own: acts included Catfishing the Bottlemen, Pearl Scam, Wrong Jovi and Iffy Clyro.

Since I started doing search and rescue five years ago, I have found seven survivors. Sadly, the number I find dead is higher

In 2012, I was a student and had arrived in Taiwan from the Czech Republic. I soon discovered something that interested me far more than my studies: the mountains of Taiwan. I would leave the campus to explore untouched trails near Taipei. I was obsessed with old maps, often looking for routes that had vanished from modern ones, and hiking paths that no one had taken for decades.

I stayed in Taiwan because of my love for the mountains – there are more than 250 peaks that exceed 3,000 metres. Among the local hiking community, I became known for my speed and knowledge of remote regions.

The troubled Games looked doomed until Glasgow stepped in but this opening ceremony had plenty of feelgood factor

The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow opened on Thursday evening to the surreal sight of King Charles and Queen Camilla stepping out of a Tardis – and a mechanical Loch Ness monster roaring the first few bars of Flower of Scotland.

The Tardis was a nod to the fact that police boxes were designed by the Scottish architect Gilbert MacKenzie Trench. But the Doctor Who reference proved to be doubly apt given the Games faced being exterminated until Glasgow stepped in after Victoria pulled out due to financial pressures.

Evacuees have been told to leave using hundreds of mobilised boats or the only road linking the area with the mainland

Over in France, it’s not just the south-west that gets affected, but the country’s south-east regions are also being hard hit, AFP noted.

Dozens of fires flared up and are being fanned by the mistral wind around the historic village of Cotignac – officials saying around 25 houses had been destroyed since Tuesday.

PM will chair the inaugural meeting of the national economic council that will aim to shift economic decision-making away ‌from London

The Times has reported this morning that Andy Burnham is expected to “move quickly” to scale up North Sea oil and gas production as part of his policy blitz to tackle the cost of living.

Industry sources suggested to the newspaper that the prime minister and his new energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, are considering approving oil and gas production at the Jackdaw and Rosebank sites off the coast of Scotland to help drive down costs this winter.

In a joint report with Friends of the Earth in 2021, her organisation called for a total end to new drilling in the North Sea basin, the cancellation of all future licensing rounds, the revocation of all undeveloped licences and the rejection of any applications for development consent. Today, those who collaborated with her in the past are watching her first steps closely.

“She must hold the line against harmful fossil fuel expansion – including the highly contentious Jackdaw and Rosebank fields – make cheap, clean energy available to all and build on Ed Miliband’s efforts to scale up our renewable power capacity,” said Imogen Dow, energy lead for Friends of the Earth.”

New tariffs will replace 10% global duty and come after US supreme court declared many of the earlier levies illegal

Donald Trump has imposed a fresh round of tariffs on more than 80 countries to replace a 10% global duty that was due to expire, provoking a wave of criticism and protests from US allies and major trading partners.

In the latest attempt to instate aggressive trade policies despite challenges from the US supreme court, the president has imposed tariffs of between 10% or 12.5% on dozens of countries, including the UK, Mexico, Canada, Australia, India, China and the 27 countries that make up the European Union. It in effect replaces the blanket 10% tariff that Trump imposed in February, right after the supreme court declared many of his earlier tariffs were illegal.

Exclusive: Clinical assessments concluded Rudakubana could not be safely managed in prison, sources say

The Southport killer Axel Rudakubana has been moved from prison to a psychiatric hospital after clinical assessment, the Guardian can disclose.

He was transferred to Broadmoor high-security hospital from the category A prison Belmarsh this week after it was concluded that he could not be managed safely in a prison environment, sources confirmed.