Studies show one in two Greeks will not go on holiday this year as average salary remains low

From a booth facing the ferries moored at Piraeus, Tassos Papadopoulos cuts tickets for passengers heading to the isles of the Saronic Gulf.

It’s 5pm on a hot summer’s day and through the sun-streaked haze he takes in the cars and trucks lining up to cross the steel ramp into the hold of the Aegina-bound vessel. Last year the queues were much longer. “People aren’t travelling it seems,” he says with a shrug. “The weekend traffic is heavier but ticket sales are down by, I’d say, 50%.”

Stoner was a small child when they began acting professionally – and their experience included extreme pressure, dangerous diets, rehab, dashed hopes and self-doubt. Now, with a new memoir, they consider how they escaped ‘the toddler to train-wreck pipeline’

When Alyson Stoner was nine, a wardrobe assistant on the set of a TV show noticed the child actor’s dark leg-hair and told Stoner it was “dirty and unladylike”, and that they couldn’t wear shorts in the show until it was removed. “I started to view my body in a detached way where it was just something to control, to fix, to manipulate for whatever standard was presented to me,” says Stoner. “In this case, the extreme beauty standards of the industry.”

It was a lot for a nine-year-old to take on, but by then Stoner had been working for several years – they were a Disney regular, and appeared in films such as Cheaper By the Dozen – and were used to doing whatever adults asked. As a teenager, this would lead to an excessive exercise regime and an eating disorder requiring inpatient treatment.

I was working non-stop as a standup comedian, and thought I loved the hustle. But when I found myself sobbing into the carpet after a back spasm, I had to reassess everything

For as long as I can remember, I have been ambitious and desperate to prove myself. It started with a competitive spirit at school sports days, then a determination to land parts in local theatre productions, then a place at drama school. I was between acting jobs when a friend suggested I try standup. One gig and I was hooked.

I quickly decided comedy was my future and I would do whatever it took to make it work. The rest of my life went out of the window. I gigged constantly – often six nights a week – determined to hone my craft and establish myself as a comedian. I was always knackered, but I revelled in it, telling myself I loved the hustle. I trod the boards at comedy clubs, art centres, theatres … anywhere that would have me. I performed for six years at the Edinburgh festival fringe – the first two to very little fanfare (and audience numbers), but after that, things started to rev up. I was booked for bigger shows, sometimes abroad, sometimes on TV. I felt as if I was really hitting my stride.

Near Dobropillia new trenches are visible, drone attacks continue and there is no sign of the fighting easing

Over dinner on Monday, a simple barbecue of meat and roasted vegetables, the soldiers of Ukraine’s 150th reconnaissance and strike battalion have other things on their mind. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is in the White House and Donald Trump has just promised to give Ukraine “very good protection”.

When this development is passed on to the group around, one of the soldiers pipes up “From who?” and laughs, such is the uncertainty about who the US really supports. But in reality the troops are not following the news closely. After three and half years, the war has its own momentum, technology and schedule.

With the number of very hot days rising as well as average temperatures, more and more animals are vulnerable. But while some species can adapt, others are seeing huge population declines

The residents of Tecolutilla, Mexico, knew the heatwave was bad when they heard the thuds. One by one, the town’s howler monkeys, overcome with dehydration and exhaustion, were falling from the trees like apples, their limp bodies smacking the ground as temperatures sizzled past 43C (110F) in spring last year.

Those that survived were given ice and intravenous drips by rescuers. At least 83 of the primates were found dead in the state of Tabasco, though local veterinarians estimated hundreds throughout the region probably perished.

The script is often dodgy, and there is no involvement from the family of murdered student Meredith Kercher, but this show that’s executive-produced by Knox and Lewinsky is an astonishing tale of justice’s flaws

Two things need to be borne in mind about The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, a new true crime drama. The first is that Knox and Monica Lewinsky – both members of “The Sisterhood of Ill Repute”, as Knox has described them in the past – are executive producers of the show. The second is that the family of Meredith Kercher, the 21-year-old British exchange student with whose murder Knox and others were charged in 2007, were not involved in the series. Her sister Stephanie said last year to the Guardian: “Our family has been through so much and it is difficult to understand how this serves any purpose.”

To the first point: it is undoubtedly true that the subject of The Twisted Tale is Knox and her survival of an extraordinary and extraordinarily awful experience, and while not hagiographic, it is not a warts-and-all profile either. Then again, how much warts-and-all can there be for an ordinary 20-year-old excited to be studying abroad – in Perugia, Italy – for the first time? If you set aside the salacious narrative built up around her by a rabid press and fuelled by the preconceived prosecutorial notions around the crime, that is what she was.

Broxbourne council leader hopes to ‘go down same path’ as Epping, which has blocked people being housed in hotel

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Councils across England are weighing up their own legal challenges after a high court ruling blocked people seeking asylum from being housed in an Essex hotel.

The Conservative-run Broxbourne council in Hertfordshire said it was taking legal advice “as a matter of urgency” on whether it could follow the example of neighbouring Epping Forest district council, which successfully applied for an injunction to stop asylum seekers being accommodated at the Bell hotel in the town.

Reported plans could raise up to £40bn while preserving pledge not to raise income tax, VAT or national insurance

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Rachel Reeves is considering plans for a tax on expensive homes in an effort to raise billions of pounds and close a large hole in the public finances.

The UK chancellor has ruled out increases to income tax, VAT and national insurance, but Treasury officials have been tasked with exploring other options to boost revenue.

Exclusive: Olajuwon Ayeni racially abused and falsely labelled a paedophile as far right weaponises clip of family in park

A family say their lives have been ruined after a video of a black man and his brother playing in the park with his white granddaughters was shared by Tommy Robinson and weaponised by the far right.

Olajuwon Ayeni, a musician from Redcar, North Yorkshire, has been racially abused and falsely labelled a paedophile in the week since the family video was stolen from the TikTok account of his wife, Natalie, whom he married five years ago, and shared by extremists online.

Natural climate variation is most likely reason as global heating due to fossil fuel burning has continued

The melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the past 20 years, scientists have reported, with no statistically significant decline in its extent since 2005.

The finding is surprising, the researchers say, given that carbon emissions from fossil fuel burning have continued to rise and trap ever more heat over that time.