Thousands of students are graduating into an employment crisis, leaving them feeling hopeless and overqualified, as well as dealing with enormous debts from tuition fees. When higher education was transformed, teenagers were offered a deal - pay £9,000 a year and secure a ‘bright future’. But as the Guardian’s economics commentator Aditya Chakrabortty accurately predicted, for many the reality has been very different.

Honest Bob was rattled at the idea of joining cross-party talks on social care. Why bother behaving as a serious opposition?

When you’ve lost the trust of GB News, when you’re too deranged, too extreme and too outright mendacious for your biggest fan, then you know you are in trouble. You can almost sense the panic beginning to set in at Reform HQ.

No longer topping the opinion polls. A new prime minister resetting the dial, the public increasingly choosing optimism over grievance. A party mired in financial sleaze. A leader turning into a laughing stock in his head-to-head with a dustbin. It was never meant to be this way for Reform. They thought they were the winners.

To coincide with a new exhibition in London about the Davies brothers, we rate the best of a band who brought a sociologist’s eye to hard rock, gentle pastoralia and so much in between

The quality of Kinks albums declined precipitously from the late 80s: you sensed their hearts weren’t really in it. Even so, Ray Davies couldn’t stop himself writing the occasional gem: from their final studio album Phobia, Scattered is a sweet, sad reflection on the Davies family’s complexities, powered by jangling guitars.

Ferocious flames continue to rage in parts of France and Spain, with no sign of abating. We chart the destruction in graphics and pictures

The hellish infernos that have torn through parts of France and Spain have caused deaths, the evacuation of 330,000 people from their homes, widespread destruction and clouds of toxic smoke. Records have already been smashed and with the fourth heatwave of the European summer setting in, there are few signs of the waves of wildfires ending.

France has already surpassed the worst previous year for the size of the area burned, with August, usually the hottest month, yet to come.

Stop guessing and start probing with our writer’s pick of the top thermometers, including smart Bluetooth and leave-in models

• Readers’ favourite barbecue tips and tricks

While fewer of us are eating meat regularly – I refer you to the rise of “beef days” – if you’re going to cook it, it needs to be done properly. Overcooked beef with the texture of shoe leather, or undercooked poultry with a side of food poisoning, will put off even the most devoted carnivore.

A reliable meat thermometer solves both problems. It takes the guesswork out of cooking, helping you achieve melt-in-the-mouth steak and the best of any cut, with no special skills required.

From Audrey Hepburn to Pedro Pascal, cellists have become a movie shorthand for sensitivity, intensity and emotional depth. But why has Hollywood turned one orchestral instrument into a character in its own right?

There’s a throwaway line in 2012’s The Avengers, after a character’s death, when his partner is alluded to. “There was a cellist, I think,” muses Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark. It’s a spot of pathos amid the punch-ups – but also rather telling. Because when even a superhero blockbuster reaches for the cello, you know the instrument is carrying more than just a melody.

Earlier this month, a trailer dropped for the upcoming Pedro Pascal drama Behemoth!, in which he plays a celebrated cellist returning to Hollywood to score films. Real-life cellist and film composer Hildur Guðnadóttir says the instrument “is definitely having a moment right now. But it’s always been present.”

Exclusive: Electoral Commission urged to look into donations made by mother of convicted fraudster

• Revealed: George Cottrell transferred $2m to his mother days before her donations to Reform UK

Labour has accused Reform UK of being “up to its neck in sleaze” as it called on the Electoral Commission to urgently investigate substantial donations made to the party by the mother of a convicted fraudster.

Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s new chair, called on the commission to examine whether any rules had been broken, after revelations in the Guardian that George Cottrell transferred more than $2m to his mother in the days before her donations to the party in 2024.

US president claims his Board of Peace has reached ‘historic agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza’

• US launches fresh strikes on Iran after days-long pause, amid fears the war is widening

A liquefied natural gas tanker controlled by QatarEnergy exited the strait of Hormuz overnight – the first such vessel ⁠visible on ship-tracking data to ⁠leave the waterway ​since 11 July, data from analytics firms showed on Thursday.

The Al Areesh tanker, which loaded a cargo at Qatar’s Ras Laffan terminal around 4-6 July, sailed ⁠out of the strait overnight on 29 July, according to Kpler and LSEG data.

Local leaders say plan will transform funding so English regions no longer rely on Whitehall handouts for projects

England’s regional mayors will be able to break out of the “death grip of the Treasury” by borrowing to invest in big projects under “transformational” plans to shift power out of Whitehall.

For the first time, mayors will keep a share of income tax generated in their area from 2028, as well as business rates totalling tens of millions of pounds by April 2027.

Unknown number of people have swum and waded into Spanish enclave that neighbours Morocco

The Spanish government is deploying extra troops and police officers to its north African enclave of Ceuta after thousands of people swam and waded into the tiny territory from neighbouring Morocco in a matter of hours.

Videos shot at Tarajal beach on Thursday showed crowds of people walking around the breakwaters and running on the beach and roads.