The Guardian

Opening up the back doors means we have a few uninvited guests in the house, giving my wife the opportunity to practise her tea towel bird-catching technique

Our kitchen extension is typical of the area: a single-storey box with a big skylight, a picture window and glass double doors leading to the garden. It’s the sort of arrangement that advocates say brings the outdoors indoors. What they don’t say is: birds will get in.

It’s largely a summer problem, when the double doors are flung open and the sunlight through the glass creates the illusion that kitchen and garden are one. Sometimes a magpie will stroll in off the lawn, glance around in confusion and walk back out, as if he were looking for sporting equipment and mistakenly found himself in housewares. But it’s not usually that straightforward.

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days

The far-right proposal would require the government to put restrictions in place to limit the population by 2050

A national ballot on an unprecedented far-right proposal to limit Switzerland’s population to 10 million concludes this weekend, amid warnings of devastating consequences for the country’s economy if voters back the initiative.

A “yes” vote would require the Swiss government to take steps to cap the population at 10 million by 2050, enacting tough restrictions on family reunification, residency permits and asylum if the number reaches 9.5 million before that date.

Yusuf, 25, who works in finance, meets Hannah, 26, a PhD student

What were you hoping for?
Someone interesting, good chat is more important than anything. And a fun story. I like a random side quest.

The philanthropist always saw Epstein for who he really was – despite his meetings with her then husband Bill Gates. Now carving out a life on her own terms, she explains why she’s focused on the fight for women’s health

Melinda French Gates has entered a new phase of life, and it is “beautiful”, she says. It is five years since her painful, public divorce from the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and two years since she stepped down from their charity, the Gates Foundation, to focus her full attention on Pivotal, the philanthropic organisation she founded in 2015 to promote women’s empowerment. Her three children have all left home, she goes by “Nonna” to her two granddaughters, and as an empty nester she finds herself in the strange position of having time on her hands.

She has started visiting her local independent bookshop more often, chatting to the staff about what she should read next; when she finishes work at five, she often texts a friend to meet for a walk, and they go exploring new neighbourhoods of Seattle, decaf coffees in hand. She no longer runs daily but insists on a morning stroll to enjoy the natural beauty of her adoptive home town, Lake Washington glittering in late-spring light. This morning, she saw a blue heron, she says, sounding almost boastful.

After a week of violence and discord, this is clear: some politicians know images supersede inconvenient facts. And Labour has no good response

When voters in Makerfield head to the polls next week, their decision, as is increasingly the case across the nation, may come down to this: whether to be more swayed by a hopeful vision of the UK or by a narrative that defines the country as little more than the most shocking thing they have seen on their phone that day.

That quandary has been sharpened by something that has quietly become a regular fixture of social media: members of the public are now consistently fed a stream of exceptional images and videos that once might have only been seen by investigators or from the inside of a courtroom. It is so regular that it has become banalised, whether it’s of robbers smashing up a jewellery shop, or of extreme and graphic assaults akin to snuff films.

Jason Okundaye is a Guardian Opinion assistant editor

Ever since Stanley Tucci got me into fried courgettes, I’ve been obsessed. And, of all the ways I’ve used them since, this is by far my favourite

I had my head turned by fried courgettes while watching Stanley Tucci eat spaghetti alla Nerano (on Searching for Italy). So much so, in fact, that I went so far as to book a table at Lo Scoglio da Tommaso in Nerano while I was in Italy last year, only to be thwarted by a broken-down car. Still in search of the pleasure, my husband, Hugh, made that pasta when we got back home, and we slapped our thighs in amazement that so much flavour and pleasure could be achieved by frying courgettes until bronzed. I’ve been using them in all sorts of ways ever since and this is hands down my favourite.

Exclusive: Fighting Dirty taking legal action against government over proposal it says could import weaker standards

An environmental campaign group is taking legal action against the government over proposals that it claims could fast-track chemical hazard classifications from other countries with lower standards into UK law.

Fighting Dirty claims proposals to change the classification and labelling of potentially hazardous chemicals could result in the UK weakening standards on cancer-causing substances.

Other western acts have attempted to crack country’s music scene since singer’s breakout success in 2018

One week after announcing she was “cancer free”, the British pop star Jessie J did what any recovering patient would do and travelled thousands of miles around the world to perform for an audience of more than a billion people.

On 29 May, the singer-songwriter, whose real name is Jessica Cornish, belted out a stage-rattling rendition of Frank Sinatra’s My Way on the stage of Singer, a hugely popular Chinese singing competition similar to The Voice. She also performed her new song, California, briefly adapting the lyrics to change California to Changsha, the Chinese city where Singer is hosted.