When a ‘heat dome’ hits, AC units can provide relief, but they need more maintenance than you think

The central and eastern US have been hit with a heatwave this week, with several cities recording their highest temperatures of the year thanks to a “heat dome”. High humidity and night-time lows are contributing to oppressive and potentially dangerous weather, making it difficult for many people to keep cool.

When one’s abode starts to feel more like the inside of an armpit, air conditioning can provide sweet relief. But if you live in an older home or apartment, you’re less likely to have central air. That means you have to drag out whatever machine you use to keep cool.

As another piece of art falls victim to social media, Florence’s Uffizi gallery is placing restrictions on visitors’ behaviour. Is this a sensible safeguard – or simple snobbery?

It’s that time of year again. As the crowds grow, historic Italian cities and museums become the setting for a You’ve Been Framed-style sequence of absurdist moments. Last year it was a young woman embracing a (replica) Giambologna statue in the streets of Florence. This year the Uffizi gallery, guardian of Florentine art, has been defiled as a man posed for a photo in front of a portrait of Ferdinando de’ Medici. While imitating the hand-on-hip, baton-wielding pose of this scion of the soon-to-be-extinct Medici family, he slipped and put his hand through the canvas. This comes shortly after an incident in a Verona museum, where a tourist sat on an artwork in the form of a crystal chair, also for a photo, and shattered it.

The Uffizi’s director says it will now take action against the swarm of visitors “coming to museums to make memes or take selfies for social media … We will set very precise limits, preventing behaviour that is not compatible with the sense of our institutions and respect for cultural heritage.” But is it really fair to see everyone who takes a selfie with a painting, or shares their travels on social media, as part of a barbarian horde intent on destroying civilisation? If so, the battle is lost.

Seems like it’s back to regularly scheduled programming from our mentally unstable president.

In 1985, a groundbreaking show curated by Lubaina Himid tore down barriers – and appalled critics. As a new exhibition revisits that pivotal moment, the artists remember the prejudice they faced – and what they have achieved since

It is November 1985 and in a corridor of London’s ICA, a pivotal moment in British art history is about to take place. Curated by Lubaina Himid, The Thin Black Line displays work by 11 Black and Asian women artists, hung on the walls of the museum’s narrow walkway – to signify just how they’ve been marginalised. Their work – which explores social, cultural, political, feminist and aesthetic issues – comes as a shock to the stuffy art establishment.

Critics dismiss it, or deride the works as “angry”. And yet this show, placing Black women artists firmly at the centre of contemporary British art history, will come to be seen as a turning point, paving the way for future winners of the Turner prize (Himid and Veronica Ryan) and Venice Golden Lion (Sonia Boyce).

Cooking at home tends to be healthier and cheaper than eating out or ordering in. So how does one start cooking? We asked the experts

Food is more than just nutrition: it can be joyful, social and exciting. But the act of preparing it can feel awfully daunting.

Many beginner cooks suffer from a fear of failure, a lack of foundational knowledge and a poor understanding of how long it actually takes to prepare a dish, says Sam Nasserian, founder and CEO of Cozymeal, a culinary services company. But “once people learn the basics and try a few recipes, they’re surprised by how easy and fun cooking can be”, he says.

How to start meditating

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Thomas Fugate apparently makes up for his lack of experience with fervent loyalty to the president.

Public childcare network is a win for everyone – kids, parents and the government, and the Quebec model is a shining example

When asked how much she pays for childcare, Leah Freeman chuckles and says she isn’t sure. “It’s like C$93 (about $67) every two weeks or something. I barely see it leaving my bank account,” she said.

To most parents in the US, where the average cost of childcare is $1,000 per month and can reach more than $2,000 a month in some states, the idea of paying so little sounds impossible. But it’s happening – north of the US border in Quebec, Canada, where Freeman’s three-year-old daughter, Grace, attends a subsidized early childhood education center (centres de la petite enfance, known by its acronym CPE), for C$9.35, or less than $7 a day.

​As they announce a dystopian new album and play Glastonbury, Karla Chubb and co explain why they’re not keeping quiet about Palestine and sexism

Between the so-called “Craic Pack” actors (Cillian Murphy, Saoirse Ronan, Barry Keoghan), a tranche of garlanded authors (Sally Rooney, Paul Lynch, Anna Burns) and the zeitgeist-dominating likes of Kneecap, Fontaines DC and CMAT, Irish culture is evidently having a moment. Sprints are delighted to be riding the wave of the “Irish renaissance”, as the Dublin band’s frontwoman Karla Chubb wryly refers to it. “We’re definitely in a good time for being Irish internationally,” nods drummer Jack Callan, before swiftly puncturing this optimistic sentiment. “I’m just waiting for it all to crash and burn now, like someone’s going to ruin it.” Chubb zeroes in on the worst-case scenario: “Paul Mescal’s going to do something terrible!”

Mercifully, at the time of writing at least, Mescal remains secure in his position as the internet’s most-wanted boyfriend – not that Sprints need to cling to their countryman’s coattails. Since forming in 2019, the band – which also features Sam McCann on bass and guitarist Zac Stephenson – have risen through rock’s ranks by gigging relentlessly with their cathartically boisterous, brutally candid post-punk. In 2023 they supported Suede on tour, finding a champion in Brett Anderson, who tended to linger side of stage during their sets. (McCann would often turn to suddenly see “a menacing black silhouette” standing there. “Like Slenderman,” says Callan.) The following year, their blistering, brooding, hook-riddled debut album, Letter to Self – which doubled as an unflinching, aphorism-strewn account of Chubb’s mental health and ADHD struggles – reached the UK Top 20. In January it was shortlisted for an RTÉ Choice music prize, Ireland’s biggest music award.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

Alejandro Barranco describes in CNN interview how his father was detained while doing landscaping in California

A US marine veteran has described feeling “betrayed” after Trump administration immigration agents beat and arrested his father at his landscaping job, the latest example of immigrant agents targeting the family members of American military personnel with no criminal records.

In an interview Monday with CNN, Alejandro Barranco recounted how his father, Narciso Barranco, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents two days earlier while doing landscaping at an International House of Pancakes (IHop) restaurant in Santa Ana, California.