A symbol of global inequalities and shifting geopolitical fortunes, some passports offer their holders far more freedom to travel than others

Passports can resemble abridged memoirs, their stamps telling romantic stories of wanderlust, freedom and belonging.

But they are also a symbol of global inequalities and shifting geopolitical fortunes. Passports from some places allow their holders to travel abroad simply by booking a flight and packing a bag. Others, however, entail booking an appointment at the nearest consulate, presenting documents to prove identity and financial means, then waiting weeks for a decision.

While many people in the UK recognise the need to preserve water, others are furious and planning to flout the ban in their area. The target of their anger? Failing water companies and frighteningly thirsty datacentres

‘Plants are like your babies,” says Harry. And accordingly, he argues, most people would do anything to keep them alive, including break the law. This is what he plans to do this week – defying a hosepipe ban in place across large parts of England, to ensure his shrubs maintain a steady pulse.

He may not be alone. On Tuesday, Thames Water became the latest company to ban hosepipes – a restriction that will affect more than 10 million people. Since mid-July, Welsh Water, Anglian Water, Affinity Water (serving Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Surrey), Southern Water and Cambridge Water have all announced hosepipe bans. And earlier this week, South East Water extended its existing ban to cover an additional 1.5 million.

Industrial poultry farming is killing our rivers. But rather than stop it, the government has been facilitating it. Will Andy Burnham end this ecocide?

There’s a slightly mean question I often ask British people with an interest in the living world: can you name the environment secretary? I don’t intend to show them up: it’s not them I’m testing. I watch the brows knit, a finger go up, the mouth open and close. “It’s, you know, the one who … no, they went, didn’t they? That other one …” It’s been like this for seven years.

Why? Because throughout this period, we’ve not had environment secretaries. We’ve had portals through which corporate lobbyists may pass. The last incumbent to represent the wider public interest (and I can scarcely bring myself to type these words) was Michael Gove. In his other roles, he’s widely remembered with loathing and disgust. Out of office, he continues to poison public life, as editor of the Spectator. But in this role, to general astonishment, he placed the public good above special interests.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

With the outbreak of this year’s war, Iraq’s balancing act between the two antagonists has collapsed, exposing a perilously fragile state

• The summer issue of the Long Read magazine is out now. Click here to order

One week after the United States and Israel killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and ignited a regional war, drones started flying over Basra in southern Iraq. They were targeting Iraq’s oil industry. They hit an oilfield operated by BP, as well as a cargo terminal at Basra airport and a large compound that houses foreign companies that service the oil sector. Another attack on 6 March hit the same compound, striking offices and warehouses used by Halliburton and KBR, two US companies that have been in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. The attack sparked a massive fire that lit up the night sky.

In the wider war, it was not a particularly notable day – but in Iraq the strikes laid bare just how weak the state had become and “how easily sovereignty could be violated”, as one senior Iraqi security official put it to me. For 40 years, the US, Iran and Israel existed in an uneasy equilibrium of neither peace nor war. As this has come to a sudden, dramatic end, Iraq finds itself caught in the middle.

Glasgow stepped in at the last minute to host the games, after Victoria in Australia pulled out

“A lot of people aren’t fully aware it’s happening,” says one man working on a stall selling Commonwealth Games merchandise in Glasgow city centre on Wednesday, a day before the competition begins.

“It’s been slow – the first two days we didn’t really sell anything but it’s picking up now.”

Judy Bain, 81, spent most of her life unaware she was a direct descendant of the daring pilot Arthur Whitten Brown

In the spring of 1944, Elsie Barber, a member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, had a fling with a Royal Air Force pilot named Arthur Brown, known as Buster. The liaison at the RAF base near High Ercall in Shropshire was clandestine. She was 24 and single, he was a recently married 21-year-old.

Buster died months later, on D-day, when his Mosquito fighter plane crashed in the Netherlands, leaving Elsie with a lonely dilemma. She was pregnant, and after giving birth to a daughter, made the decision to give her up for adoption.

Burnham says relief for vape shops and other ‘non-positive’ businesses to be reviewed as part of £100m plan to fund cut

Pubs, clubs and live music venues in England will receive a 20% cut to their business rates bills from April under plans unveiled by Andy Burnham as part of a £10m package aimed at supporting high streets and easing cost of living pressures.

The prime minister said the package would be fully funded, including through a review of relief for businessesdeemed not to make a positive contribution to communities, such as vape shops.

Three others in group, believed to know each other, are in hospital after incident at West Mersea

A teenage girl and a woman in her 40s have died after several people got into difficulty in the water at an Essex beach.

A third person remains in hospital in a serious condition, and two other people are in hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, Essex police said in a statement on Thursday morning.

CBA chair says contempt charge over closing speech by Rajiv Menon KC has left lawyers fearful of doing their job

The prosecution of a leading human rights barrister for contempt of court over his closing speech during a trial of Palestine Action activists has left lawyers fearful of doing their job, the chair of the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has said.

Rajiv Menon KC is due to stand trial next week, accused of breaching the judge’s directions in the trial of six people for a direct action protest at an arms factory of the Israeli subsidiary Elbit Systems UK in Filton, near Bristol, in 2024.

PM says ‘those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared’ as scandal spirals into widespread anger

Narendra Modi has vowed to set up “fast-track courts” to speed up the punishment of officials accused of leaking examination papers, as the Indian prime minister seeks to quell a youth-led “cockroach” protest movement that has rocked Delhi and posed one of the biggest challenges to his government.

In his first public remarks on the movement, Modi posted on X: “Nothing is more important than the welfare and future of our youth … Those who try to harm the future of our youth will not be spared.”