As the self-professed geeky rockers release their conceptual 20th album, Rivers Cuomo and Patrick Wilson discuss dodging failure, being saved by fans and their obsessive creativity

The first song Rivers Cuomo wrote for Weezer’s new album, their 20th, blatantly mimics the US rockers’ 1994 debut single, Undone (The Sweater Song). On the track CEO, the singer-guitarist grumbles over a slow, Velvets-y backing about having to crank out “another 90s jam” and wishing he could do “something new – but nobody wants to hear that”. It’s a deliciously meta moment, but also one that allows Cuomo to gently vent “my frustrations over people wanting me to just write songs about our first two albums”.

Cuomo wrote the song straight after SZNZ, the four-album song-cycle Weezer released throughout 2022, each album named after a season. That project fed his notoriously intense, analytic and occasionally obsessive approach to songwriting. Thanks to the kind of data artists have at their fingertips in the streaming age, though, he realised that, with each subsequent SZNZ, “fewer and fewer people were listening to them”.

Using weight loss drugs like Ozempic is not ‘cheating’ – and why does it matter how a person changes their body anyway?

As you might know if you read my columns, see me a mile away, or talk to me for five seconds, I am a card-carrying lifelong member of the Fat Lesbian Club. However, ever since I first laid eyes on the television show Roseanne (very important to me) as a small child, the actor John Goodman has held a special place in my heart. It was confusing for me: did I want to be Dan Conner, or be with Dan Conner? I’m still not sure. He has always been so hot to me, from Dan on Roseanne to Fred Flintstone to Walter in The Big Lebowski. His body has now drawn attention in the last week or so, after a photo of him showing significant weight loss went viral.

It’s not Goodman’s 74-year-old body (his choice) I want to discuss, but instead the arguments that broke out about how he lost the weight. On one side there were many people congratulating him on his hard work. Then there were people claiming he had taken Ozempic so it wasn’t actually hard work, and then there were people defending that by saying he’d been losing weight for years, so he’d done it the “right way”, actually.

From feelgood romances to heated interactions, here are the films that best capture the seasonal moment

Let’s begin at the end. 2 September 1962: the final night of the summer vacation; one last big blowout before adult life intervenes. George Lucas’s rambunctious salute to footloose youth paints vivid vignettes of Modesto, California, rocking around the clock with its loose-knit gaggle of characters. But this has one eye on the meter and knows that time is running short.

Newcastle, Arsenal, Brentford, Everton, Leeds, Coventry, Aston Villa, Hull and Ipswich have all brought in exciting players

By Opta Analyst

Anthony Gordon will be a difficult act to follow at Newcastle, but Touré could be a shrewd replacement. Blessed with electric pace, the 20-year-old is a bit more of an old-fashioned winger in that he predominantly plays from the left and is left-footed. As a result, he was more of a creator than a goalscorer for Hoffenheim last season.

Family relationships remain damaged and there is no clarity on how Sussexes’ security concerns have been resolved

Just as the departure of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’ from the UK six years ago came as a complete surprise, so too is their shock announcement they now intend to return.

Their unilateral decision could fairly be said to have blind-sided the royals. King Charles was only informed on Sunday and is said not to have been involved in the decision making. No mention was made when Harry, Meghan and their two children visited Charles at his private home, Highgrove, last month.

A young activist thought her father’s disapproval of her leftwing views was purely political. Then one evening, a kiss goodbye sent her on a remarkable journey that continues today

• Last chance to buy the summer issue of The Long Read magazine, now with 15% off. Click here to order

As a child, Analía Azic used to pretend she was secretly a princess, the heiress to a magical distant kingdom. In real life, she was the daughter of a greengrocer named Juan Antonio Azic and a demure housewife named Esther Abrego. The family lived in the province of Buenos Aires, which, as anyone from the area will tell you with a dash of pride, is not the city of Buenos Aires but its rougher neighbour. Analía was not royalty, but she had an iron will and audacity out of proportion to her small stature.

Analía cared little for grades at the Ladies Institute of the Sacred Heart, where she rolled with the dominantes, girls who hiked their school skirts up so high they served as little more than belts, and dreamed of the weekend when they could finally trade in their school uniforms for designer jeans and tight tank tops and sashay into Electric Circus, the one local club that allowed in minors. There, Analía would climb atop the speakers and dance, then leap back down to toy with the boys from the Argentine air force’s technical trade school.

Exclusive: Bridget Phillipson says politicians have helped fuel hatred and that police are not taking violence against women and girls seriously enough

Racism and sexism have become normalised in Britain, the equalities minister has said, as she warned that young men were being sucked into violent misogyny by the “cesspit” of social media.

Bridget Phillipson said she was increasingly worried about how commonplace misogyny and racism had become, fuelled by online interactions and statements by politicians she said would not have been acceptable a few years ago.

Prime minister wishes couple well in their move back from the US to a non-royal residence outside London

• Harry and Meghan: key moments and controversies since US move

Security arrangements for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex while living in the UK are a “private matter”, Andy Burnham has said, after news that Harry and Meghan intend to relocate to Britain from the US this month.

The UK prime minister refused to be drawn on security funding, saying: “This is a private matter. It’s a matter for Harry and Meghan, and we wish them well in the moves that they’re making.”

Exclusive: Mitchell Palmer has also argued for privatising the NHS and immigration as way of cutting poverty

Reform UK’s new economic adviser has previously called the pensions triple lock unsustainable, advocated privatising the NHS and welcomed migration as a poverty alleviation tool, the Guardian can reveal.

Robert Jenrick, Reform’s economic spokesperson, has appointed Mitchell Palmer, a rightwing economist at the free-market Adam Smith Institute, as one of his key aides.

Overall results slightly better than last year, with share receiving grades 7, 8 and 9 rising by 0.1 of a percentage point to 23.1%

Almost one in four boys in England received top grades in maths while results in English improved across the board, helping to propel improved GCSE results for this year’s cohort of 16-year-olds.

The stronger performances in maths helped pupils taking GCSEs in year 11 reach a record level for higher grades in England outside the Covid pandemic years, when exams were replaced by teacher assessments.