Bahrain Mujagata is just 21 years old and balances taxi driving with university studies and acting classes

“I’ve got T-shirts older than you!” The joke draws laughter from a table of black-cab drivers gathered in the Astral cafe on Regency Place in Westminster. Around the table, cabbies swap stories accumulated over decades behind the wheel: picking up the England World Cup hero Geoff Hurst, ferrying senior politicians around London, and navigating the capital long before smartphones and satnavs existed.

At just 21, Bahrain Mujagata is an anomaly among them. In late 2025, he became London’s youngest licensed black-cab driver after completing the Knowledge – the notoriously demanding test of the capital’s streets – in just two years and five months. Most candidates take three to four years to qualify, according to Transport for London.

Milly Alcock’s Supergirl joins with Eve Ridley’s Ruthye to fight an evil intergalactic human trafficker

The sexual politics of perceived female maturity has always been a problem in this particular set of superhero films. Quite why Kara Zor-El gets to be a “supergirl” while Kal-El gets to be a “superman”, despite not being that much older, is not obvious. Even that notorious wokester Friedrich Nietzsche went with the non-gender term “Übermensch”. The issue is in fact pre-emptively raised here in an early scene, but the dialogue breaks off without the question being explicitly resolved. Maybe there is a copyright issue. If our heroine really did have a title exactly corresponding to “Superman”, the spirit of Shirley Conran would no doubt angrily barge on to the screen with a phalanx of lawyers and a bag of defiantly unstuffed mushrooms.

Well, after her brief walk-on in last year’s muddled and boring Superman reboot feature, Supergirl now gets a sprightlier and sparkier film of her own, with 26-year-old Australian actor Milly Alcock in the lead. Rising British comer Eve Ridley, as gutsy alien teen Ruthye Marye Knoll, joins forces with SG to avenge the death of her dad at the hands of the evil intergalactic human trafficker Krem of the Yellow Hills, an odious pirate who kidnaps women for breeding stock purposes, played with watchable relish by Matthias Schoenaerts. SG is after Krem, too, because he has taken her adorable dog Krypto, of all the appalling things (though sadly Krypto hasn’t yet got his own little cape). Meanwhile, Jason Momoa turns in a cheerfully cigar-smoking man-mountain performance as Lobo the bounty hunter, who is schooled by Ruthye in how to escape from prison – the movie’s one clear feminist moment.

Debate is raging back home about whether Neymar, Casemiro, Endrick – and others – should be in the World Cup team against the Tartan Army

The big stars have turned up for the 2026 World Cup. Lamine Yamal returned to the Spain team to help them to thump Saudi Arabia. Lionel Messi is the tournament’s top scorer, giving Argentina hope of pinning “la cuarta estrella” to their shirts. And Kylian Mbappé, Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Cristiano Ronaldo are all vying for the Golden Boot as their teams look towards to the next stage.

However, the five-time champions Brazil are failing to convince. They finished fifth in the Conmebol qualifying table with 28 points from 18 games, their worst qualifying campaign. Being competitive in a 2-1 defeat against France in March, before wins against Croatia, Panama and Egypt in friendlies, perhaps gave false hope.

Update the classic outfit when you want to look slick and office-appropriate … in a low-key, faux-effortless kind of way

Jeans and a nice top is a tried-and-tested formula when it comes to dressing for an evening out. It is the little black dress of real life. A local dinner, an outing to the theatre or cinema, a birthday gathering in the pub: these do not require a cocktail dress. Still, you want to look nice. So you wear jeans and a nice top.

If jeans and a nice top is the real life LBD, then jeans and a jacket is the normcore power suit. It is the no-nonsense, I’ve-got-this formula you need for daytime. It is an outfit that comes together in seconds and keeps on looking good and feeling comfortable for hours. It is grown up but not stiff, alpha but not snooty. It is – and this is important in our capricious climate, and when your commute can take you straight from overheated train carriage to chiller-cabinet level air conditioning – pitched neither too warm nor too cold, and offers flexibility. (You are wearing something under the jacket, you see. We will get to that.)

The first portable fan from Dyson is stylish, easy to use and powerful. Did someone mention a 55mph top speed? Perhaps, but it’s so noisy you may not have heard them

• The best handheld fans

Two things will strike you when you pick up the Dyson HushJet Mini Cool fan for the first time. The first is that flesh-pink (stone/blush) is a bold colour choice for a product that already looks like it’s escaped from a certain NSFW section of the Filter.

However, once you’ve retrieved your mind from the gutter, you’ll notice that the different form of pleasure the HushJet Mini offers – impressively powerful wind speeds to keep you cool in heatwaves – comes at a price. This thing is loud with a capital L, and becomes even more so as you progress through its five settings. More “jet” than “hush”.

Climbing the career ladder may soon be a thing of the past, as workers prioritise their mental health and lifestyle. But job-dropping has its drawbacks …

Name: Job-dropping.

Age: About a month.

Temperature of 35.8C recorded in West Sussex, beating previous record of 35.6C, while France records hottest day nationally

• Europe heatwave live – latest updates

The UK has broken its all-time temperature record for June, as the World Health Organization chief says Europe’s heatwave is “putting lives at risk”.

Temperatures bolstered by climate breakdown hit 35.8C at Wiggonholt in West Sussex, according to provisional data from the Met Office.

Ockenden inquiry finds ‘bullying’ and ‘cruel’, dismissive attitude to women contributed to avoidable deaths

• Ockenden report – latest updates

• Key findings from maternity scandal report

• ‘Truly horrific’: five stories from the scandal

More than 500 mothers and babies came to harm or died as a result of inadequate care in Nottingham, an inquiry into the NHS’s biggest ever maternity scandal has revealed.

A total of 444 women and 76 newborn babies suffered “potentially avoidable” outcomes because they received substandard treatment over 13 years from Nottingham University hospitals NHS trust (NUH), a damning report led by the childbirth expert Donna Ockenden has found.

Appointment of James Purnell, former chief executive of Flint Global, described by one Labour MP as ‘very bad sign’

The advisory firm led by Andy Burnham’s incoming chief of staff counted BP, Amazon, Jaguar Land Rover and Uber among its clients, transparency records reveal.

Burnham is facing unease within Labour over the lobbying links of James Purnell, a longstanding friend and former cabinet minister who was most recently chief executive of Flint Global.

James Desborough told team searching for missing men he enjoyed gory scenes in serial killer series, prosecution says

A fan of the television serial killer show Dexter murdered two men before dismembering and burning their bodies in Cornish woodland surrounding the cabin where he lived, a jury has heard.

James Desborough, 40, allegedly killed Claudio Aquilino and Daniel Coleman and hid their bodies in the dense undergrowth close to his cabin near St Austell.