The life of the Brooklyn Bridge’s chief engineer inspires this multifaceted novel

Washington Augustus Roebling, or “Wash”, was the chief engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, which, when opened to the public on 24 May 1883, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was quite an achievement, but he didn’t do it alone. On the one hand there was his father, the austere and tyrannical John Roebling, who had designed and begun the bridge before his untimely death in 1869. On the other there was his wife, the accomplished and capable Emily, who, as well as providing moral and secretarial support, took on ever more responsibility for the project after Washington’s own health began to fail mysteriously.

Wash is something of a companion piece to Chief Engineer, Erica Wagner’s 2017 biography of Roebling. Spurning what she calls in her afterword “the clock’s time”, she has instead structured the narrative in accordance with “the soul’s time”; that is, by jumping backwards and forwards in time and place in a series of short chapters emphasising those individual moments, choices and encounters that together made this remarkable man who he was. It is a bold and engaging, if somewhat disorienting approach, giving this slender novel a vividness and intensity that might be smoothed over in a more traditional narrative arc.

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Christian theology becomes an unsettling and visually ravishing mystery in early film from the Ghost in the Shell director

This 1985 anime is a true curio: a furtive, portentous odyssey into a hollowed-out landscape told largely in symbolist images. A million miles away from director Mamoru Oshii’s often-logorrheic films (such as his best-known work, Ghost in the Shell from 1995), it still swills around plenty of philosophical concepts linked to his fascination with Christian theology. But like the egg being lugged around by the film’s nameless female protagonist, or the giant fish shadows swimming across the town facades, this is Christian theology as if half-remembered millennia later, or in the aftermath of a bad dream.

The waif (voiced by Mako Hyōdō) carries this ovum under her petticoats, like some pre-pubescent immaculate conception, while scavenging a dark, mittel-European-style city for flasks of water. One day, she’s startled to see a skinny princeling (Jinpachi Nezu) step out from a giant mechanised war machine trundling down the street. She scarpers, but later runs into him and his weird cruciform gun sitting on a set of steps. Showing him the egg, she accepts him, at least temporarily, as a protector in this shadowy burgh, where bands of fishers run after fish silhouettes. But it’s far from clear if he’s benevolent. “If an egg is not cracked open, there is no way of telling what it contains,” he says.

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There have already been so many historic moments at this tournament, including Scotland’s first World Cup win in 36 years. Mo Salah is hoping to replicate the moment and end Egypt’s long wait of 92 years for a victory at the tournament. The team have their first game against Belgium today to try and make history:

Spain, who start their campaign today against Cabo Verde, are among the favourites to win the World Cup after their European Championship success in 2024. Here’s a piece on how the team are embracing the tag and how they are using one trophy-winning tournament to potentially lift another:

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UK prime minister says move will bring ‘real change for our children’ amid growing concerns over harmful online content

Access to social media will be banned in the UK for users under 16, Keir Starmer has announced, in what he described as “real change for our children and our future”.

“Social media is making children unhappy, it’s making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them, and it could even be harming their mental health,” he said, setting out plans briefed over the weekend, which will go further than a pioneering ban in Australia.

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date stamped on slide October 1967

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De 29-jarige zoon van de Noorse kroonprinses Mette-Marit is door de rechter schuldig bevonden aan twee verkrachtingen. Tegen Høiby was zeven jaar en zeven maanden cel geëist, voor veertig strafbare feiten.