Op de Swarttouwhaven in Barendrecht is donderdagavond een man zwaargewond geraakt tijdens een mishandeling. Het slachtoffer is vermoedelijk minderjarig, maar de politiewoordvoerder kan dit niet bevestigen

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

Thomas Hawk posted a photo:

The Mercury prize winner hasn’t been able to go home since falling ill last summer. In his only interview, he opens up about the ‘poignancy’ of finally releasing the new album his stroke shelved

At the end of July 2025, Michael Kiwanuka was back home in Southampton after a series of European gigs. His 2024 album Small Changes had been critically acclaimed and was kept off the UK No 1 slot only by Kendrick Lamar’s GNX. His fifth record, Fudge, was due that autumn. All was going perfectly for the virtuoso singer-songwriter, whose eccentric, genre-busting mix of psychedelic rock, prog soul, blues and gospel had marked him as a real one-off.

Kiwanuka had been expected to appear at the All Together Now festival in County Waterford, Ireland, in the coming days, when an announcement was posted to his Instagram story: “We are so sorry to announce that due to continued illness, and on the advice of doctors, Michael will sadly be unable to perform at the rest of his scheduled festival performances throughout the rest of the summer and the shows in North America in October.”

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I was a healthy 34-year-old when a mass of blood vessels ruptured close to my brain. It took three neurosurgeons and a risky 16-hour operation to fix me

On a Sunday in May 2017, I was at the gym and using a chest press when there was this pop. It wasn’t a sound – it was more like a sigh in my body. There was no pain, but I went limp. I shuffled along the wall to some mats. I thought I was having a stroke, but I wasn’t slurring and my eyes and arms seemed fine. But my left leg felt numb – it was the weirdest feeling. Lying on my back with my legs bent, both knees stayed upright when I looked at them. When I looked away, the left one fell to the side.

I ended up in A&E for hours at nearby St Thomas’ hospital in London. I was 34, healthy and had started regaining feeling in my leg, so they theorised it was a bruised spine and thought it was safe to discharge me. Overworked staff and shift changes meant that when MRI images of my brain went missing, nobody tracked them down.

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Elif Eralp wants lower rents and more public housing. It’s not rocket science but mainstream parties still don’t get why they are failing

Hope is a fragile thing. You can only hold on to it as long as you find reasons to believe tomorrow can be better. A woman, for instance, who has the resources and opportunity to rent her own flat will be more likely to leave her abusive husband and recover. A pupil who has their own room and desk to do their homework might find more meaning in thriving at school. And an elderly person who can afford to live in a neighbourhood where they feel safe and connected is less likely to become isolated and depressed.

It’s not by chance that the examples above all revolve around the same topic. Affordable housing is possibly the most personal and most urgent social issue of our time. In Berlin, a city where 85% of residents live in rented accommodation, rents have risen by almost 70% in the past 10 years. And that is despite a rent control law that has been in effect since 2015. How? Loopholes and illegal practices have allowed property owners to continue putting pressure on the housing market. The social anxiety caused by this crisis, far from affecting just low-earners and single-parent households, affects vast parts of the middle class, too.

Fatma Aydemir is a Berlin-based author, novelist, playwright and a Guardian Europe columnist

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A TV spot claims the US president is trying to sway October’s presidential vote in favour of Lula’s far-right opponents

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s presidential campaign has accused Donald Trump of wanting to “colonise” Brazil in order to capture its natural resources by meddling in next month’s presidential election.

The accusation came in a televised campaign advert that was broadcast on Thursday by Lula’s team amid growing fears over the impact alleged US interference could have on the vote.

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De activistische wiskundige Chad Topaz gebruikt dataonderzoek „om ongelijkheid aan te pakken”. Hij hoopt dat juristen meer kennis opdoen over kansberekening en statistiek.

Hufterig gedrag vinden we een bedreiging voor de samenleving, maar de oorzaken ervan zoeken mensen buiten zichzelf, blijkt uit een onderzoek. „Het is heel menselijk dat we het moeilijk vinden om naar ons eigen aandeel te kijken.”

‘Een kwestie van maanden, zo niet weken’, waarschuwden politici afgelopen weekend. Een Russische aanval op nóg een Europees land lijkt dichterbij dan ooit. Waarom slaan ze juist nu alarm? We zetten de beste journalistiek op een rij, op zoek naar antwoorden op de meest prangende vragen over deze dreiging.