Historic run to the last 32 and a match against England have left proud fans back home dancing late into the night

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) had not been at a World Cup finals tournament for 52 years – but they are making up for lost time in North America. After a draw against Portugal, a narrow defeat by Colombia and a 3-1 victory against Uzbekistan – inspired by Yoane Wissa’s two goals – they have already made history by booking a place in the knockout phase. Now they face England.

“We deserve to play England,” Wissa said when the match-up had been confirmed. “We have worked hard for this. You know, it’s not easy in our country. There is war in eastern Congo. Every time we wear this shirt, we think about them.”

Former goalkeeper and US Soccer general manager is hosting the Spain team at his training camp in Chattanooga

At the foot of Signal Mountain on a bend in the Tennessee river, over the little level crossing like a postcard of America, past the sheriff at the gate and through an avenue of pines, the perfect pitch awaits Lamine Yamal, Rodri and the rest. So does a man. He’s 6ft 3in, 78 years old, his name is Bill Nuttall, and he’s here every day.

“I’ve got nothing else to do,” he says, laughing. He’s done it all: he cleaned out Pelé and got cleaned out by Gordon Banks, coached Gerd Müller and built a US national team from scratch, the hosts making history in 1994. He also brought Spain here, an even better host now than he was back then.

It feels as if we are being abandoned to our fate by those in power, with further extreme heat expected next week

In the summer of 2019, I had a “fun” idea for a piece. Paris was due to experience its hottest day in history, and I proposed travelling around the city trying out its various cooling-off strategies to see if they would help. Reader, it was not fun and they did not help.

Last week, Paris experienced its worst period of catastrophic heat on record, worse than that day in 2019, and worse than in 2003, when a sustained heatwave killed nearly 15,000 people. I now live in a neighbourhood in Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest département in mainland France and one of the most exposed to extreme heat, and, to add to the complications, am seven months pregnant. So how did my week go this time?

Figures spell out the highs and lows of a force of personality who could swing games in his team’s favour

He swept Nathan Smith for six on an acid-trip of an afternoon, his last on the field as a Test cricketer. He nearly shredded Will O’Rourke’s fingers with a straight drive and swung his way to 30 as an agent of chaos. But was it ever going to last much longer?

In his finest moments, Ben Stokes would grind before the burst, scoring two off his first 66 balls at Headingley in 2019 before tub-thumping to an unbeaten 135. Holding on for a half-century in the World Cup final that same summer before a last, desperate release of power, 34 coming off his next 17 balls at Lord’s. He could make batting look harder than anything else and then, only then, would he play the shot of a lifetime.

There are images that flicker in the mind before sleep: the loss, the resilience and then the strange mundanity of it all

What was it like? Is the question I am often asked when I return from working in Ukraine, where I have been travelling regularly since 2022. There’s an understanding implicit in the question that the answer will not – not quite – lie in the accumulation of reporting. For good reasons the reporter keeps her eyes steady and focused outward, collecting the essential information, conveying it as clearly and smoothly as possible. The reporter reins in and disciplines her subjectivity, while, ideally, recognising its existence and understanding its contours. The reporter knows that the facts of the matter are the thing.

At the same time, feelings and impressions cannot wholly be untangled from the facts. Feelings are inevitable, if you are functioning as a human in any sense at all. They are the tentacles of empathy that reach out in an attempt to understand people and situations. Feelings have an epistemic role – a part to play in acquiring knowledge. Nevertheless, they must be tidied into the background. Respect for your readers and your subjects demands it; the rituals and rules of journalism demand it.

Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer

Ukrainian Lessons by Charlotte Higgins (Cape, £22) will be published in August. To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a time of war with Charlotte Higgins and guests
On Wednesday 30 September, join Charlotte Higgins and our panel of acclaimed Ukrainian writers to reflect on the profound connections between war, art and life. With Olia Hercules, Sasha Dovzhyk, Olesya Khromeychuk, and Shaun Walker. Book tickets here

We are proud to announce that no AI was used whatsoever when writing this list of reasons to love summer.

1. It’s hot out.

Normally before writing, we’d Google this topic to see what other people have said to make sure we’re adding something new to the conversation. However, it’s pretty hard to avoid Google’s AI overview these days, and we don’t want that to influence what we write, so we’re just going with our first thoughts on this list, which is that summer is hot, which is why summer is great. Don’t like it? Kiss our perfectly ethical rumps!

2. There’s sunshine!

When summer’s here, you can finally shake off the winter blues and get out in the beaitiful sunshine! FYI, we messed up typing that, and “beaitiful” automatically corrected to the proper spelling of “beautiful.” Obviously spell-check and autocorrect type of stuff has been around for a while, but it definitely seems like it could be using AI to catch those mistakes, so because we’re not taking any chances we changed it right back to beaitiful. REMINDER: NO AI WAS USED HERE!

3. Did somebody say BEACH BALLS?

Nobody did, but if they had, it would’ve been a human, because this list is 100-percent human generated. And beach balls are such an epic part of summer! They’re inflatable balls that you can play with at the pool or beach, and that makes us love summer. Honestly we doubt AI has ever even touched a beach ball. Not sure how that would even work!

4. You can reconnect with nature. 

Summer isn’t a time to be in the house—it’s a time to reconnect with nature. And look, we know that sentence construction is extremely characteristic of AI, but we actually wrote it ourselves. And we’re not going to change our writing style because computers have co-opted it—we’re going to change it because we decide to do so. And we don’t. Got a problem? Kiss our ethical rumps once more!

5. Swimming. 

Swimming is an amazing thing you can do in the summer, and you can still do it because AI hasn’t drained all the world’s water, or whatever is happening or going to happen with that. We didn’t contribute to that though, because this wasn’t written by a computer, but instead four humans who each make $32,500 a year. Now get outside and enjoy the weather! Happy summer!

We are proud to announce that no AI was used whatsoever when writing this list of reasons to love summer.

1. It’s hot out.

Normally before writing, we’d Google this topic to see what other people have said to make sure we’re adding something new to the conversation. However, it’s pretty hard to avoid Google’s AI overview these days, and we don’t want that to influence what we write, so we’re just going with our first thoughts on this list, which is that summer is hot, which is why summer is great. Don’t like it? Kiss our perfectly ethical rumps!

2. There’s sunshine!

When summer’s here, you can finally shake off the winter blues and get out in the beaitiful sunshine! FYI, we messed up typing that, and “beaitiful” automatically corrected to the proper spelling of “beautiful.” Obviously spell-check and autocorrect type of stuff has been around for a while, but it definitely seems like it could be using AI to catch those mistakes, so because we’re not taking any chances we changed it right back to beaitiful. REMINDER: NO AI WAS USED HERE!

3. Did somebody say BEACH BALLS?

Nobody did, but if they had, it would’ve been a human, because this list is 100-percent human generated. And beach balls are such an epic part of summer! They’re inflatable balls that you can play with at the pool or beach, and that makes us love summer. Honestly we doubt AI has ever even touched a beach ball. Not sure how that would even work!

4. You can reconnect with nature. 

Summer isn’t a time to be in the house—it’s a time to reconnect with nature. And look, we know that sentence construction is extremely characteristic of AI, but we actually wrote it ourselves. And we’re not going to change our writing style because computers have co-opted it—we’re going to change it because we decide to do so. And we don’t. Got a problem? Kiss our ethical rumps once more!

5. Swimming. 

Swimming is an amazing thing you can do in the summer, and you can still do it because AI hasn’t drained all the world’s water, or whatever is happening or going to happen with that. We didn’t contribute to that though, because this wasn’t written by a computer, but instead four humans who each make $32,500 a year. Now get outside and enjoy the weather! Happy summer!

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

Lesmurdie Falls WA

Stueyman has added a photo to the pool:

Upper cascade, Lesmurdie Falls WA