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 we near the end of the group stage, writers from our newly expanded US soccer team Alexander Abnos, Pablo Maurer and Jeff Rueter are now online answering your World Cup questions

Post yours below the line now

AncientFootsteps asks: Many of the pitches used appear to be quite small (perhaps because they are designed for American football which uses a narrower field). Is this really the case? And, if true, are teams taking this into account in their selection and tactics?

Jeff: Field dimensions are uniform across every venue at every World Cup, so that’s 105 meters (115 yards) long by 68 meters (74 yards) wide. The difference, as you’ve spotted, is that their stationing in an NFL stadium shows just how narrow those fields are by really cutting into the space around the pitch. Throw-ins and corner kicks look claustrophobic. Fans are perhaps unusually close to the benches. There are no expansive running tracks to serve as a dryland moat, as there were at Italia 90. I think a lot of casual American sports fans are coming to appreciate the amount of space available in this sport – just wait until they learn you can comfortably fit a regulation basketball court inside one penalty box.

Jeff: Surprise: Cape Verde! I’ll be gutted if they can’t advance after famous draws against Spain and Uruguay – though I expect them to beat Saudi Arabia.

Disappointment: I had Ecuador into the business end because of how stout their defence is, but I completely overlooked the lack of chance creation and alternative scoring threats beyond Enner Valencia.

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!

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

Temperatures linked to third child’s death in France, where three-quarters of country is under extreme heat alert

• Europe live – latest updates

The UK and Switzerland both recorded the hottest-ever June temperatures on Thursday, while brutally hot conditions supercharged by the climate crisis were linked to the death of a third toddler in France and a sharp rise in medical emergencies across Europe.

The UK’s new provisional high of 36.4C (97.5F), recorded in Yeovilton, Somerset, surpassed Wednesday’s June record of 36.1C in Gosport, Hampshire, which had beaten the previous peak of 35.6C set in Southampton in 1976.

US among nations sending help to search for survivors on country’s north coast where dozen of buildings flattened

• Venezuela earthquake – latest updates

Rescue teams are racing to Venezuela’s shattered northern coast after almost simultaneous earthquakes reduced dozens of buildings to rubble, with thousands of people feared dead.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said the defence department would help search and rescue teams deploy to the affected region after Venezuela’s main gateway, the Simón Bolívar international airport, near the capital, Caracas, was badly damaged by 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude quakes less than 40 seconds apart, late on Wednesday afternoon.

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.