In an exclusive extract from his memoir, Kiyoshi Tanimoto describes the terrifying trip across the city to locate his wife and child

• ‘I didn’t want to be a victim of the bomb’: read an interview with Tanimoto’s daughter Koko Kondo

Most of the people of Hiroshima had neither seen nor heard any plane. They heard no sound of explosion. They had seen only a strange flash in open daylight, or merely felt the reflection of the flash. However, there had been a tremendous explosion.

The parents of Mr Konda, one of our church members, had been waiting for a train at Yokogawa station, located 2km [one and a quarter miles] away from the centre of the bomb’s explosion. They saw a B-29 and a parachute dropping through the air. Before they had time to wonder at the sight, they fell unconscious. Afterward, they could not remember sensing any sound or light. When they regained consciousness, they found themselves lying on the ground, burned and without any clothing. The houses all around had been crushed to the ground. After getting to their feet, they ran toward the suburbs. Other people rushing along the Koi highway had the same experience.

Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay

In March, Anthropic, the cutting-edge artificial intelligence business that gave us the chatbot Claude, published an analysis on the impact of AI on employment, to help us assess the claim that intelligent robots were about to redefine human existence, ending demand for human labor.

Last year in May, Anthropic’s co-founder, Dario Amodei, claimed AI could wipe out half of all entry-level jobs in one to five years. Last January, he told us AI would probably become a “general labor substitute for humans”. In June he said we risk “a world where the economic trade-off dial is stuck on the hypergrowth, hyper-inequality setting”.

From a transporting historical saga to a tale of small-town betrayal, the authors of our favourite page-turners reveal the books they take on holiday – introduced by Jenny Colgan

It is important to follow a balanced diet on holiday. Too many “My Wife’s Sister’s Husband’s Psychopath”, and you’ll get confused and grumpy. Too much sugary romance and your teeth will fall out. Something too big and challenging you’ve been meaning to get round to for ages will make you feel guilty and more liable to give in to scrolling, and if you take too many supposedly upmarket “must reads” of the summer, you will simply prove to yourself just how much overhyped averageness there is out there, when all you want is something satisfying.

You need to be able to chop and change depending on your mood, which means fiction and nonfiction. And finally, you need to be able to throw all of these rules out of the window if you find a sandy old water-stained copy of, for example, James Herbert’s Domain in your holiday cottage and decide to devote yourself to 600 pages of post-nuclear mutant rat-strewn London, or choose to go for a full-on Maeve Binchy sesh.

The author on an encounter with the CIA, an embarrassing moment in church, and longing to hold hands with David Attenborough

Born in Glasgow, Andrew O’Hagan, 58, studied at the University of Strathclyde. In 1995, he published The Missing, a work of nonfiction. His debut novel, Our Fathers, was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1999; Be Near Me and The Illuminations were longlisted in 2006 and 2015. His recent novels are Caledonian Road and Mayflies. The latter was adapted for BBC television in 2022 and is now a play which will be performed at the Edinburgh fringe from 7 to 30 August. O’Hagan is editor at large for the London Review of Books; he lives in London with his wife and has a daughter.

What is your greatest fear?
I can’t say it.

In the Warrington suburb of Culcheth, people are hopeful about what one of their own can achieve as the first northern PM in half a century

The Cherry Tree pub is an unassuming local. On a busy road in the Cheshire village of Culcheth, it is a chain-run pub where four shots cost £8, every burger comes with a soft drink, and sport is shown all day on the big screens. It is also a favourite of Andy Burnham, the new prime minister.

Many of the drinkers have a story about – arguably – Culcheth’s most famous son.

Jacob, 27, a volunteer manager, meets Sophie, 28, a journalist

What were you hoping for?
To meet someone who I could connect with and possibly go on further dates.

Hundreds of firefighters battle blazes as strong winds drive fires towards Bordeaux and smoke prompts health warnings in Madrid

Unrestrained wildfires in Spain and France have forced more than 250,000 people to flee, authorities from both countries have said, as they struggle to contain the blazes.

About 70,000 people were evacuated from central Spain, while 197,000 people fled in France, including tens of thousands from the wine region city of Bordeaux.

Exclusive: Blunder at Rosebank, UK’s biggest undeveloped oilfield, comes as government considers granting licence

Production at Britain’s biggest undeveloped oil and gasfield could be delayed for months after equipment from a rig was accidentally dropped in the North Sea, the Guardian can reveal.

Andy Burnham’s new government is under pressure from the fossil fuel industry to allow oil to be retrieved from the Rosebank site despite opposition from climate campaigners and some Labour MPs.

Scotland Yard is looking at two £250,000 donations to the party by Britain Means Business before the 2024 election

Payments to Reform UK first revealed by the Guardian are now being investigated by the Metropolitan police.

The inquiry is scrutinising payments made to the party via a company controlled by its deputy leader, Richard Tice.

Comment follows news Axel Rudakubana was transferred from prison to psychiatric hospital

The lawyer for the families of Axel Rudakubana’s victims has said the Southport killer is “trying to retraumatise the families from his cell” after it emerged he had been transferred from prison to a psychiatric hospital.

Rudakubana, now 19, was given a life sentence for the murders of Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and the attempted murder of eight other children and two adults.