Abstract art like this gives all abstract art a bad name, just meaningless concoctions that avoid proper scrutiny

One thing is obvious about Ed Sheeran the painter: he doesn’t want to ruin his clothes. He paints in a white protective suit, photos reveal, as if paint was radioactive material or sewage. It’s a telling contrast with a real artist like Jenny Saville, who gets completely covered with paint like a naughty three-year-old, let alone Van Gogh, who ate the stuff.

Sheeran isn’t claiming to be one of those artists – is he? He’s in it for fun and charity. And his paintings have more energy than you’d think from the prissy hazmat suit. He must have moved about a bit, flicking and pouring the fizzy greenish blues, hot orange, lime, mixing them as if making cocktails.

The prime minister has repaired broken relations with France, but Britain still looks perilously isolated in a world of shifting alliances

Gilded carriages and royal banquets are not essential tools of modern diplomacy, but nor are they obsolete. In a digital age, when intergovernmental business could easily be conducted online, the analogue grandeur of a state visit feels potent as a bestowal of favour.

This week Emmanuel Macron is the beneficiary. In September it will be Donald Trump. The sequence is not meant to indicate preference. Both relationships are special, say officials. There are enough champagne receptions and sleepovers at Windsor Castle to go around.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

One year of Labour, with Pippa Crerar, Rafael Behr and more
On 9 July, join Pippa Crerar, Raf Behr, Frances O’Grady and Salma Shah as they look back at one year of the Labour government, its current policies and plans for the next four years

Researcher says tech could replace nearly all human labour within 20 years and societies urgently need to prepare

If Adam Dorr is correct, robots and artificial intelligence will dominate the global economy within a generation and put virtually the entire human race out of a job. The social scientist doubles up as a futurist and has a stark vision of the scale, speed and unstoppability of a technological transformation that he says will replace virtually all human labour within 20 years.

Dorr heads a team of researchers who have studied patterns of technological change over millennia and concluded that the current wave will not just convulse but obliterate the labour market by 2045. What cars did to horses and carts, and electricity to gas lamps, and digital cameras to Kodak, are templates for the coming shock, he says. “Technology has a new target in its crosshairs – and that’s us. That’s our labour.”

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I am also an extreme people pleaser. If my living room was filled with judgmental spirits, it felt disrespectful to remain such a mess

About a year after I moved into my apartment in Los Angeles, I was woken up by three loud knocks on my bedroom door at 3am. I thought there might be an intruder – but I got up, opened the door, and there was nobody there. I went to the front door, thinking I had misheard it, but there was nobody there either. I thought I had imagined it. Then it kept happening about once a week.

I thought it must be my upstairs neighbours, perhaps working a night shift, but after I introduced myself to them to ask about the noise, they assured me they wouldn’t be awake at that hour. I asked the man who looks after our 70s-built apartment block if there were problems with the pipes. He said no. At one point, I started putting my dresser in front of the door, because I was so scared. I couldn’t shake the idea that somebody was getting into my apartment, even though there was no evidence of it. I didn’t tell anyone for ages – because if I had, I would have had to recognise how crazy I sounded.

The rhetoric of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government tries to blur the slaughter and plans for ethnic cleansing. Words matter

Visiting Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu delighted in telling Donald Trump that he had nominated him for the Nobel peace prize. The Israeli prime minister cited Mr Trump’s efforts to end conflicts in the Middle East. But in truth he is grateful to the US president for joining his war against Iran last month and for allowing carnage in Gaza to continue after a brief pause. He is also eager that the US president does not strong‑arm him into another ceasefire. Perhaps the indirect talks between Hamas and Israel in Qatar will reach a temporary deal again, with hostages released and possibly more aid allowed in. Even so, few expect that a lasting peace would result.

Words matter. They have become so detached from reality when it comes to Israel’s war in Gaza that it is not merely absurd, or despicable, but obscene. The defence minister, Israel Katz, has laid out plans for a “humanitarian city”: this means forcing all Palestinians in Gaza into a camp that the military would bar them from leaving. Prof Amos Goldberg, a historian of the Holocaust, used the accurate words: it would be “a concentration camp or a transit camp for Palestinians before they expel them”. The “emigration plan” which Mr Katz says “will happen”, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, is in fact an ethnic cleansing plan. No departure can be considered voluntary when the alternative is starvation or indefinite imprisonment in inhuman conditions.

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Dull questions, awkward silences, excruciating gaffes: socialising can be a minefield. Here’s how to avoid disaster – and even enjoy yourself

The cliche about small talk is that everybody hates it. The misapprehension is that it has to be small. In fact, conversational interactions are objectively good. “The person who starts the conversation is in a better mood afterwards; they tend to feel more connected – and not just to the person they’re talking to,” says Gillian Sandstrom, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Sussex. “We all have a fundamental need to feel connected, valued and seen.” Even if small talk were not socially beneficial, society would demand it nonetheless – we are coming in to wedding season and we are all going to need some moves.

However, we have this perception that there are rules, which haven’t really changed since the 50s: keep things light and relevant, avoid sex, religion and politics, stay on safe territory, such as the weather. But anodyne topics tend to be boring and difficult to segue out of.

Brian Langstaff urges overhaul of compensation system, which report says was designed without consulting victims

Victims of the infected blood scandal have “not been listened to” by ministers, the chair of the inquiry has said in a report urging an overhaul of the compensation system.

The additional report lays bare the failings of the government’s detailed compensation scheme, and sets out recommendations to make it fairer and faster. In particular, it criticises ministers for designing the scheme without consulting the scandal’s victims, as was recommended in the inquiry’s May 2024 report, which it says has led to “obvious injustices” that could have been avoided.

UK prime minister is facing MPs in the Commons before talks with Emmanuel Macron later today

The BMA strike decision must be a tempting topic for Kemi Badenoch at PMQs, which is starting very soon. The Conservatives have repeatedly criticised the government for the way they swiftly settled public sector pay disputes when they took office; they argue that Labour was too generous to the unions, thereby encouraging them to threaten further strikes.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

Streeting says he is “disappointed” by the proposed strike, and he insists resident doctors have had a relatively good outcome on pay. He says:

I remain disappointed that despite all that we have been able to achieve in this last year, and that the majority of resident doctors in the BMA did not vote to strike, the BMA is continuing to threaten strike action.

I accepted the DDRB’s recommendation for resident doctors, awarding an average pay rise of 5.4%, the highest across the public sector. Accepting this above inflation recommendation, which was significantly higher than affordability, required reprioritisation of NHS budgets. Because of this government’s commitment to recognising the value of the medical workforce, we made back-office efficiency savings to invest in the frontline. That was not inevitable, it was an active political choice this government made. Taken with the previous deal I made with the BMA last year, this means resident doctors will receive an average pay rise of 28.9% over the last 3 years.

He says the NHS is “finally moving in the right direction” and that a strike will “put that recovery at risk”.

He offers to hold meet the BMA to hold talks to avert the strike. He says:

I stand ready to meet with you again at your earliest convenience to resolve this dispute without the need for strike action. I would like to once again extend my offer to meet with your entire committee to discuss this.

As I have stated many times, in private and in public, with you and your predecessors, you will not find another health and social care secretary as sympathetic to resident doctors as me. By choosing to strike instead of working in partnership to improve conditions for your members and the NHS, you are squandering an opportunity.

Regulator and government accused of colluding with water industry to dump potentially toxic waste without oversight

• Millions of tonnes of toxic sewage sludge spread on UK farmland every year

• ‘A Trojan horse’: how toxic sewage sludge became a threat to the future of British farming

An Environment Agency (EA) insider has broken ranks to expose what they describe as a “deliberate and ongoing cover-up” of the public health and environmental dangers of spreading sewage sludge on farmland.

They accuse the regulator and government of colluding with water companies for years to facilitate the dumping of waste under the guise of soil enrichment – without oversight, transparency or testing.

• Laurent Mekies appointed as Horner’s replacement

• Red Bull have had turbulent time on and off track

Christian Horner has been sacked as Red Bull’s team principal with immediate effect. Horner, who has been in charge of Red Bull since the team was formed in 2005, will be replaced by the principal of sister team Racing Bulls, Laurent Mekies.

Horner’s surprise removal as principal and chief executive of Red Bull Racing was confirmed in a statement from Red Bull’s parent company on Wednesday morning and comes just over 17 months since Horner was embroiled in a scandal involving accusations of inappropriate behaviour by an employee, though he was later cleared by an investigation.