The Guardian travelled 100 miles along the EU’s longest river, where some residents are struggling to secure drinking water

For centuries, the rock was seen as a warning. When it began to emerge from the Danube, beneath Gellért Hill in Budapest, it meant the river had fallen so low that floating mills could no longer operate, crops were probably failing, and hunger would almost certainly follow. That is why, in the Hungarian capital, where over time the boulder became little more than a legend, it was named Ínség-szikla – the Rock of Starvation.

Today, amid record-low water levels on the Danube, the rock has not only emerged from the water, but surfaced almost in its entirety, along with the sandy riverbed on which it rests, astonishing geologists and government scientists sent to examine it. And, much as the rock was said to warn, Hungary is now facing an unprecedented energy crisis that has forced the country to shut down all but one of its Danube-cooled nuclear reactors for the first time in 44 years.

Student unrest sweeps India, Portugal and Mexico as grievances and pressure for good grades in tough job market collide

Families with teenagers in education know the private, hidden pain of exam season. But this year, what might have been a summer of quiet family anxiety has erupted in several countries into public unrest.

Exam-related turmoil has led to mass student protests in Mexico after nearly 60,000 university applicants were forced to resit tests amid suspected cheating, while Portugal’s disastrous attempt to digitise school exam marking sparked the country’s worst education crisis in decades.

The hottest ticket in theatreland will soon be Cate Blanchett in Electra/Persona. Caged female rage continues to capture audiences

It feels like a very Greek summer here in the UK. The ground is scorched, it last rained months ago, and the giant publicity machine for Christopher Nolan’s billion-dollar-grossing The Odyssey – from red-carpet frocks to professorial disapproval – is a Charybdis, swallowing all other cultural events in its gaping maw. Mere Mortals – San Francisco Ballet’s astonishing work inspired by the story of Pandora – runs in Edinburgh this month before going to Sadler’s Wells in September. And Greek tragedy continues to fill London’s theatres.

Last week, I went to see Simon Stone’s reworking of Aeschylus’s Oresteia at the Bridge theatre in south London, and it was packed. Even on a Thursday afternoon, there was a huge audience for the story of a family who turn on one another, wreaking intergenerational violence until their whole house lies in tatters and madness. Partly that is because of the excellent cast: David Morrissey and Mary-Louise Parker play Christopher and Montie – a modern Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, their marital squabbles fizzing back and forth until he cracks and she snaps. Their children are the ones who will have to try to reconcile the impossible: duty to their murdered father, respect to their murderous mother.

As parts of Beth Chatto’s visionary drought-tolerant gardens in Essex turn brown, the head gardener offers advice

Her debut book, in 1978, was titled The Dry Garden. Since then, the late Beth Chatto created a rich legacy with her expertise as a plantswoman and by setting up one of the oldest unwatered public gardens in England.

Once a car park but transformed in 1992 into an experiment to test what plants were drought-tolerant in Essex, the driest county in the UK, Chatto’s gravel gardens south of Clacton are being visibly tested this year.

The Arctic Monkeys, Pet Shop Boys and Pulp collaborator was at the height of his powers as Britain’s most in-demand music producer when leukaemia struck. ‘I realised life is exceptionally fragile,’ he says

There was a moment outside the door of a recording studio in rural France, staring at a half-eaten apple that he believed possessed psychedelic properties, when James Ford knew things had really got out of hand. He was stood with Klaxons; all of the band members were hypnotised by this rotting fruit which throbbed on the floor with kaleidoscopic intensity. They were convinced that its blooming mould was in fact their spiritual guru.

The band had been riding the wave of their huge, scene-defining debut album, 2007’s Myths of the Near Future – which was produced by Ford – and were now trying to record the interminably difficult follow-up, aided by daily doses of a concoction they’d taken to calling “the five-star general”.

The Guardian’s fans’ network looks ahead to the new season: fresh talent, weak links, and who will be sacked first

Having finally got the title monkey off our back, and with much of the competition in a state of flux, there’s plenty of optimism. Obviously the target is for Arteta to sustain the same appetite and intensity to mount a credible defence. The big questions are whether we can reproduce the same resilience at the back with Saliba on the long-term missing list, and will the introduction of Guimarães be the catalyst for the sort of midfield chemistry we’ll need to carve open opponents who plan to park the bus?

Bernard Azulay onlinegooner.com; @GoonerN5

Jonathan Pritchard

New rules could affect nine in 10 rental properties in duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster and at Sandringham

King Charles and Prince William could be forced to spend up to £10m upgrading hundreds of rental properties on their private estates to meet planned energy-efficiency rules.

The government has announced that landlords will need to ensure their properties have energy performance certificate (EPC) ratings of C or higher by 2030 – up from the current requirement of an E.

Kyiv launches what may be its largest attack wave of war, with fire breaking out at warehouse near Russian capital

Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people overnight, according to Russian authorities.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 822 drones, while the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, reported that 600 drones were launched towards the capital’s region, of which 201 were destroyed.

Exclusive: Campaigners say millions are missing out on key rights including sick pay and protection against unfair dismissal

Andy Burnham is being urged to protect 4 million gig economy workers by prosecuting companies that use widespread “bogus” self-employment practices to deny people their rights.

As the prime minister fleshes out his agenda, the Fabian Society and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have warned that millions of workers are missing out on key statutory rights including parental leave, redundancy pay and protection against unfair dismissal.

Mark Nelson released from immigration detention on bail after lawyers challenge decision to remove him

A Jamaican man who has lived more than half his life in the UK and was facing imminent deportation has been allowed to reunite with his British family after a legal challenge.

Mark Nelson, 47, came to the UK in 2000 and later set up his own car-mechanic business. He has five British children and a British partner. He faced deportation in 2022 after serving a four-year prison sentence for possession with intent to supply a class B drug, abstracting electricity and two offences of racially aggravated intentional harassment. He had not committed any further offences.