Jacob Wulfson’s fellow airmen decided his fate after a court martial at RAF Lakenheath – a distressing week for Sarah Steele, the academic he assaulted

• Explainer: how the US bypasses British courts to try its military over crimes in the UK

When Sarah Steele woke up on the morning of 2 December 2023, she found herself in a pool of cold water in a bathtub. She was naked and in the apartment of an American fighter pilot she had met in person for the first time the night before. She was confused. Her head hurt, and so did her neck.

This was the account Steele, a British academic, provided to prosecutors. They later accused the pilot, Capt Jacob Wulfson, of drugging and strangling Steele in his apartment in the east of England, and penetrating her vagina with his penis without her consent.

From Cameron’s Brexit exit to Starmer’s Burnham bow-out, half a dozen PMs have gone. So who’s the best of the bunch?

The UK has had six prime ministers in the last 10 years – with a seventh likely to be in place by as early as mid-July.

John Crace ranks those who have been booted out of Downing Street between 2016 and 2026.

As the former teen heartthrob turns 60, we look at his most intense, ironic, lovable roles – from a sympathetic scientist to a peevish puppeteer

It’s the Great Depression à la Disney when a tomboy, Natty, rides the rails in search of her lumberjack father. This marked the first time I saw Cusack, impressive as a wise young hobo, though not the first time I saw Natty’s wolf-dog companion: it’s Jed, sled-dog from The Thing!

He’s almost certain to become the UK’s seventh leader in a decade. And with the rightwing press and the algorithm against him, he’s basically a meat sacrifice

Current state of British democracy: the guy who puts out the resignation lectern in front of No 10 is now so familiar that he has become a meme. On the internet, they call him Hot Podium Guy. William Hague’s old line about the Tory party being “an autocracy moderated by regicide” is now basically true of the country as a whole.

And so out Keir Starmer strides to give a speech that, in the grand tradition of Starmer oratory, occupies the curious liminal space between the instantly forgettable and the barely existent. What might comprise a Davina-style supercut of Starmer’s best bits? The time he described us as an “island of strangers”, or blurted out that Israel had the right to starve Gaza of food and water? When your most memorable quotes were so poorly judged, perhaps it might be best for everyone if you put the microphone down for a while.
Not everyone is a natural public speaker, which on one level, of course, is fine. What Starmer craved above all was a task, a clear set of instructions and a solution. To him the British state was essentially an item of flatpack furniture: insert legislation A into complex social problem B, screw voter demographic C as tightly as possible, and if in doubt, call the handy 24-hour helpline to speak to Morgan.

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

Our lovable yet unruly boxer Dusty forced me to wonder: if a dog has no morals, how do you teach it to be ‘good’?

When I carried my beautiful two-month-old puppy into our home for the first time, I couldn’t have imagined the scene six months later, as I led her through my local park experiencing such a toxic cocktail of emotions – guilt, regret, powerlessness – that I had tears in my eyes. It was a walk that many dog owners will recognise as having “gone badly”. My exuberant dog, Dusty, had approached another dog that did not wish to play with her. This shouldn’t have happened. I should have been able to call her back. Maybe I should have just kept her on the lead. Maybe I shouldn’t have got a dog in the first place.

Dusty started barking, jumping and circling the owner and her dog at high speed. “Do you want to have a dogfight?” the owner asked curtly, while I lunged around on the ground, all dignity jettisoned. “My dog just wants to play with yours,” I protested. “But mine doesn’t want to play,” she replied. “If you just let yours off the lead for a moment,” I countered, “I think mine would calm down. I promise you, she’s not aggressive.” Her reply: “So what do you call this?” Checkmate. As the seconds and then minutes passed, with Dusty still evading my reach, I began to wonder how long this might go on. Would the police have to be called?

Cornwall's housing crisis is forcing young people to live in vans. As second homes and short-term holiday lets drive up house prices, a growing number are turning to van life to stay in the place they love. The Guardian meets young people who say their van brings them freedom but also uncertainty, as they struggle to find water, safe places to park and secure a future

• ​’It can flip quickly from being idyllic’: the reality of life in Cornwall for young van dwellers priced out of the housing market

Some details in this film have been changed for safety reasons

Heatwave-related deaths climb in Spain, Italy and France as continent battles another day of extreme temperatures

Farryn Stock

Over in the UK, South East Water has announced a temporary hosepipe ban in Kent amid growing strain from the ongoing heatwave (31C today, 33C tomorrow).

“To safeguard that shared supply and prevent any homes from facing a sudden loss of water, we sadly need to ask our communities to not use their hosepipes immediately. We are deeply sorry for the disruption this causes, and we are incredibly grateful to everyone helping us protect Kent’s water.”

Second quake, at magnitude 7.5, was most powerful to strike the country since 1900, collapsing buildings in capital

• Venezuela earthquake – latest updates

Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has declared a state of emergency after the country was struck by two powerful earthquakes that collapsed dozens of buildings and killed at least 164 people, a toll that it is feared could rise significantly.

Rodríguez said 971 people were injured and more casualties were expected. The two strong earthquakes hit within a minute of each other shortly after 6pm local time on Wednesday. The first had a magnitude of 7.2 and the second 7.5, the most powerful to strike the country since 1900, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS).

Jury clears 16-year-old of murder and manslaughter over the death of Aria, who died from a single stab wound

A 16-year-old boy has been found not guilty of the murder of nine-year-old Aria Thorpe, who died after being stabbed with a kitchen knife.

Aria sustained a deep wound to her chest at her home in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, on 15 December last year.

Human Tissue Authority says bodies not transferred to freezer in time due to insufficient storage needs

Bodies in the mortuary at the NHS trust at the centre of the health services biggest ever maternity care scandal were found in a state of “advanced deterioration” due to not being transferred to a freezer in time, inspectors have said.

Human Tissue Authority (HTA) inspectors who visited Nottingham university hospitals NHS trust in March discovered eight bodies in a state of advanced decomposition due to not being transferred to a freezer within a sufficient timeframe.