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.

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.

Restaurant critic and award-winning author Jimi Famurewa visits the best London bakeries where family food traditions  meet contemporary British baking. First stop: Panadera in Soho, for a Filipino-inspired leche flan Danish. Then it’s south-east London and Bunhead, where the owner folds together the flavours of her Palestinian and British heritage into a chocolate, date and smoked salt bun. Finally, Farha in east London, a Middle Eastern-inspired cafe selling out of its banana brûlée.

Episode 1 of Feed with Jimi Famurewa — sampling the UK’s tastiest food trends

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.

(American Dogwood/Empire)
Beneath the Hollywood narrators, Pink Floyd-y interludes and accompanying comic books lies songwriting that proves the Tipsy singer’s breakout success was no fluke

It’s fair to say that if Shaboozey never released another note of music, his place in history would still be assured.

He wasn’t the only Black country-leaning artist brought to a wider audience by a guest appearance on Beyoncé’s 2024 album Cowboy Carter, but no one else capitalised on the exposure quite so remarkably. Released two weeks after his guest appearance on that album’s Spaghettii, his single A Bar Song (Tipsy) unexpectedly eclipsed Beyoncé’s success, becoming the biggest-selling country single of the year – more than 1.75bn streams and counting on Spotify – and for a time, the joint longest-running US No 1 of all time. He’s received three nominations at the Country Music awards, an event traditionally resistant to artists of colour. The accompanying album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, was by far the most successful sustained attempt to fuse hip-hop and country, two genres that have been warily circling each other for some time, spawning the occasional novelty hit such as Nelly and Tim McGraw’s Over and Over Again, the Ludacris-featuring 2010 remix of Jason Aldean’s Dirt Road, and Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road; the baleful, rap-influenced spectre of bro country; and the deep underground sub-genre of hick-hop, a hidden world of Maga politics, confederate flags and festivals held at Georgia mud holes. The album is still on the US chart, 112 weeks after its release.

With most monuments in London made by men, Claire Mander envisaged the Artist’s Garden as a way to redress the balance. Now, she says, it could be turned into a generic space for VIP events and cocktails

Ten years ago, when Claire Mander was studying for an art history MA at the Courtauld Institute in London, she stumbled upon the neglected roof terrace of nearby Temple underground station. She found herself strangely drawn to the overgrown expanse with its stunning views of the Thames and the London Eye.

“It was dirty, abandoned and a magnet for antisocial behaviour,” recalls Mander, now director and curator of theColab, an arts charity and incubator specialising in large-scale outdoor sculptures. She researched the history of the abandoned space, which was built as part of the Victoria Embankment in 1870. Before that, the ground beneath the site housed a 17th-century sculpture garden created by the Countess of Arundel.

Major incident declared, Sizewell B power station closely monitoring blaze and RSPB nature reserve closed to visitors

People staying in a holiday park with about 200 caravans on the Suffolk coast have been evacuated after a wildfire broke out, causing the nearby Sizewell B nuclear power station to closely monitor its movement.

A major incident was declared as firefighters battled the large heathland fire at Dunwich Heath, near Leiston, which is about 3 miles from Sizewell B.

Exclusive: Reform’s Robert Jenrick says party confident it followed all rules at the time, after latest Guardian revelations

The Electoral Commission has been asked to investigate whether Reform UK has broken donations rules, after the Guardian revealed that the convicted fraudster George Cottrell transferred more than $2m to his mother in the days before her donations to the party in 2024.

Labour’s new chair, Bridget Phillipson, wrote to the commission on Thursday asking for it to examine the donations and whether they had been recorded correctly. A party spokesperson said Reform was “up to their neck in sleaze and dodgy money”.

UK’s highest court gives permission for Huda Ammori to challenge court of appeal ruling

The co-founder of Palestine Action has won permission to challenge the ban against the group at the UK’s highest court.

The direct action group was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July last year but its co-founder, Huda Ammori, has been fighting to have it overturned amid a mass civil disobedience campaign.

• Uefa vote passes 55-0 at emergency meeting on Thursday

• Boycott would begin with next year’s Women’s World Cup

European countries have agreed to boycott all Fifa competitions if Gianni Infantino pushes forward with his proposals to sell chunks of the World Cup to US-based private investment.

In an extraordinary development all 55 Uefa members resolved not to participate in future World Cups or other Fifa-run events, saying in a statement that they “unanimously and unequivocally reject” the proposals. An emergency meeting that lasted just short of two hours ended with a united front despite earlier fears that smaller countries, attracted by the money on offer through Infantino’s scheme, would be swayed in favour.

This story will update