Burnham seems ready to use his power and influence. He understands the depth of this crisis: the task is persuading all those still in denial

“People pleaser!” That’s the insult Andy Burnham’s enemies sneer at him. And yes, he will need all his mightiest people-pleasing talents to win over voters to contribute to a new national care service. Choosing this forever failed policy (22 major reviews over three decades) as his first great challenge is a remarkable act of bravery. No mere people pleaser would dare step on this political live rail.

It will use up vast amounts of political capital to get a national care service off the ground. He hardly needed Tuesday’s Mail front page (“Burnham’s £18bn ‘death tax’ nightmare”) to remind him. But he has already fought on the battleground that is social care reform. “I do have some of the scars,” he said. How good to also hear him take a firm swipe at media attackers, who will now redouble their efforts. “You can’t create scare stories when people are already scared by what they’re seeing anyway through their own eyes in their own homes or in care homes,” he said. This is no grasp at low-hanging fruit, no search for a quick win. It’s a cause of deep conviction.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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Four women speak out about their underage experiences with the movie star and musician. Are the floodgates finally about to open?

Jared Leto has long been a person with something of a reputational issue. The public-facing side of this was bad enough – while playing The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, he reportedly sent rats, dead pigs and used condoms to his cast mates – but for years there have been upsetting rumours about what he does in private. After a lengthy investigation, the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret has finally brought at least some of them to light.

This is, as you might imagine, not a fun thing to watch. The film documents allegations of what are said to be decades of systematic criminal misconduct against teenage girls. The women interviewed here allege sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, sexualised grooming and statutory rape. They are backed up by anonymous male former co-workers who claim to have witnessed the machinery that Leto set up to procure underage girls from concerts.

Every time I get my hair done, I find myself confronted with rising costs, and dizzyingly long maintenance regimes

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This week, I tried to book in for some knotless braids at the last minute. I knew I was going to be writing about how the simple pleasure of getting a head of box braids is starting to feel increasingly complicated, and thought that it would be good to get some pictures of the process. Then, I found myself getting wound up as the subject of this newsletter began to play out on a sort of meta-level.

When I decided to get my hair done for this piece, I knew that booking a next-day braiding slot would prove to be a kafkaesque task. My usual place asks that you schedule around a month in advance. My second option says that we’d need a “private room” to bring a photographer, bumping the bill up to £600. While trying to write an immersive report on the difficulties that come with getting braids, I suddenly realise that I am living the report.

Laughter, disbelief and outrage over video appearing to show Saltburn player tricking umpire into giving batters out

At the Saltburn over-60s ukulele club there was a unanimous reaction to news that the town’s cricket club were being compared to the Argentina football team: laughter. Then a spirited rendition of I Love to Boogie.

On the seafront, a litter-picking volunteer was looking forward to the Wednesday night quiz just to get the gossip. But she had her own view. “All I would say is it’s just not cricket, is it?”

Fifa president Gianni Infantino has announced plans to sell off stakes in the World Cup to private investors in a new commercial entity worth $20bn. One of the leading would-be investors is Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump’s son-in-law Jared.

The plans have prompted an immediate backlash – with Uefa accusing Fifa of trying to ‘sell football’s soul’. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian reporter Paul MacInnes

Dominic Sessa stars as a conceited yet vulnerable young chef alongside Antonio Banderas – but the feelgood factor is compromised by what we know of the author

For all the drugs and punch-ups, this is an unexpectedly sentimental coming-of-age story – or maybe origin myth – about the formative youthful kitchen experiences of legendary badass chef Anthony Bourdain. It is taken from the opening chapters in his bestselling memoir Kitchen Confidential; Canadian film-maker Matt Johnson directs and Dominic Sessa (the callow kid from Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers) plays the conceited, smug yet lonely and vulnerable young college student Tony. “Anthony” is in the future.

It is the mid-1970s and Tony effectively runs away from home after failing to get a residential summer writing scholarship that he had assured everyone was in the bag. He shows up nearly penniless in the seaside vacation resort of Provincetown, Massachusetts – a place that is pretty similar to Amity Island in Jaws, which is showing at every drive-in. The reason is that he has a desperate crush on Nancy (Emilia Jones) who is there for the summer too and whom he desperately wants to impress with his smouldering intellectualism.

Exclusive: Sources say Fiona Cottrell told bankers the transfers, received 24-72 hours before her donations to Reform, came from her son

The convicted fraudster George Cottrell transferred a total of more than $2m to his mother, Fiona Cottrell, in the days before her 2024 donations to Reform UK, the Guardian understands.

Financial industry sources told the Guardian that Fiona received one deposit of $1.4m and two tranches of more than $300,000 each – money she attributed to having come from her son, George, when bankers asked about the deposits.

Environment Agency names seven regions affected by unusually hot and dry weather and shortage of water

Half of England is officially in drought, with July set to be the driest on record after winter floods, the Environment Agency has said.

The “flash drought” developed quickly because of unusually low rainfall and high temperatures.

Introducing the legislation would be ‘very challenging’ until care system improved, PM says

Andy Burnham has said the assisted dying debate needs to wait until palliative care and social care are fixed, as he set out his path to resolving one of the most intractable problems in British politics.

The prime minister said he was not opposed to having the debate on assisted dying, but told reporters it would be “very challenging” to introduce the controversial legislation until the care system was in a better place.

Riyadh’s decision to join US in strikes on Iran-backed militia further complicates widening and ‘unpredictable’ war

US-Saudi strikes on Iran-backed militia in Iraq have pushed the region into “uncharted territory”, analysts have warned.

Amid stark warnings of a widening and increasingly “unpredictable” conflict, Riyadh’s decision to publicly join the US in striking sites associated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), killing at least 20 fighters, has added another complicating dimension to the war.