The writer made headlines when she accused the world’s wealthiest man of lacking joy, culture, a sense of beauty … Meanwhile, her own life has been an attempt to understand and explain the world. She talks us through her latest book

‘Many people, including myself, spend a lot of time thinking about the past. And if you’re living in the same house you were living in with a spouse, the spouse is all around. Nonetheless, it’s not healthy to live in the past; I think we all know that.” Joyce Carol Oates is speaking to me from a book-lined room – one that makes you finally understand what “den” means – at her home in Princeton, New Jersey. She teaches at Princeton University as well as teaching advanced creative writing at Rutgers, also in New Jersey.

The author turned 88 this month, but she looks little changed from the 1960s, when she came to prominence: weightless like a sprite, focused and serious like a librarian. She has been a prolific writer, with more than 60 novels and many volumes of short stories to her name, earning her five Pulitzer prize nominations and a National Book award, among others, since the start of her career. Blonde, a haunting, fictionalised account of the life of Marilyn Monroe, Them, part of the Wonderland quartet, and Zombie, loosely based on the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, are often name-checked as career highs, but her consistency is striking. When she wanted to write mysteries, she did so under the pseudonyms Rosamond Smith and Lauren Kelly. Her works of nonfiction, mainly criticism and memoir, would constitute a career on their own.

Tournament could hold up a useful hand mirror to the isolationism and divisiveness of Trump’s joint-host nation

One of the best parts of following football across the world is the way it drags you into special places, local shrines, objects of profound cultural connection. The US, of course, has these holy spaces too.

The queue of pilgrims in Philadelphia on Thursday morning stretched down the sun-blasted steps to the plaza at the bottom. Edging forward, the people in their ritual colours approached the figure at the top, arms outstretched in supplication, in a state of hushed deference. Called finally for his moment of communion, the man at the front of this line straightened his Ronaldinho shirt, clenched his fists above his head for the ceremonial Insta pic and shouted: “Adrian! I did it.”

The influential role vacated by the new Makerfield MP will be fiercely contested by Labour, Reform and the Greens

As Andy Burnham maps out the final steps on his path to Downing Street, he may feel that his future is clear. But a look back over his shoulder reveals a cloudier outlook, inviting the question: what now happens to his former role as Greater Manchester’s mayor?

An election has been set for 30 July, and with the job widely seen as having grown under Burnham’s tenure to become one of the most influential in British politics outside Westminster, Labour is desperate to cling on to it – but parties to its right and left both see an opportunity.

We’ve rounded up stylish and comfy summer footwear for every occasion, whether you want beach perfection or office-ready

• The best sunglasses for every budget

I’m over clunky shoes the minute there’s a glimmer of sunshine in the sky. And because flip-flops will only get you so far (literally and figuratively), a range of sandals is constantly in rotation for me during the summer months.

Sandals have also become an unlikely favourite for men’s event dressing, with Alexander Skarsgård stepping out in a pair of Valentino Rockstud flip-flops on the Sundance red carpet earlier this year. And while thong sandals aren’t for everyone, plenty of more reserved options offer additional coverage.

If the Makerfield MP is to be our next PM, he needs some immediate and memorable cost of living policies to avoid his predecessor’s fate

Pause here before we rush headlong into the turbulent future. Stop and inhale last week’s rare political triumph, revel in the sunshine of cheery optimism. It was a precious but unfamiliar sensation when life on the progressive side of politics in Britain is so often a litany of hopes dashed and disappointments.

Andy Burnham’s comprehensive victory in the Makerfield byelection, surpassing expectations, was a precious moment. He demolished £5m-Nigel Farage’s party of loathsome Reformers, whose every election candidate seems more repugnant than the last. Hostile hard-right politics in Britain needs defeating time and time again, every time nativists and hate-stirrers – from Enoch Powell to the BNP – erupt in our politics.

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
A stream of high-profile guest stars included Johnny Marr, Little Simz, Shaun Ryder, Sparks, Yasiin Bey, Bootie Brown and Fatoumata Diawara

Gorillaz’s first stadium show is quite the event. It’s a staggering hi-tech spectacle, a two-and-a-half hour mini-festival with a seemingly endless stream of high-profile guest stars, and its audacious ambition and military precision all stem from the fecund imagination and magpie mind of one man.

Damon Albarn has never come across a genre of music that he doesn’t want to turn inside-out to see how it works. In recent years, he has turned Gorillaz from the mildly gimmicky virtual band he co-conceived with graphic artist Jamie Hewlett into a sprawling expression of his own musical curiosity and rampant eclecticism.

Ministers say Starmer will set out his intentions on Monday morning with an autumn departure the most likely option

Keir Starmer is expected to announce a timetable for his departure on Monday morning, clearing the way for Andy Burnham to become prime minister without a formal contest by the autumn.

Cabinet ministers say Starmer will set out his intentions outside No 10 Downing Street, starting a process of the UK installing its seventh prime minister in a decade.

Talks expected to continue for rest of the week despite disruption caused by US president’s threat to bomb Iran and kidnap negotiating team

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran are expected to continue for the rest of the week in Switzerland, after a tense start that saw Iranian negotiators walk out in protest at a stream of threats issued by Donald Trump on social media.

The US president had threatened to bomb Iran and even to kidnap the Iranian negotiating team unless the strait of Hormuz was reopened, forcing mediators Qatar and Pakistan to continue negotiations in the background.

Wow. The continuation of Cape Verde’s fairytale may have serious repercussions for Marcelo Bielsa and Uruguay. The heroics of Cape Verde in holding Spain to a draw mean Uruguay should have been forewarned and forearmed in Florida. Instead, this tiny nation with a population equivalent to that of Bristol embarrassed World Cup aristocracy once more. What fun, what glorious fun.

Uruguay now head into Group H’s final game against Spain with their tournament involvement in serious jeopardy. Uruguay had already failed to beat Saudi Arabia. Cape Verde will hold high and legitimate hopes of seeing off the Saudis on Friday. They might not even need to, with an aggregate of three points from another draw potentially good enough for the last 32. The Blue Sharks, swimming in bigger waters than ever before, are the story of this World Cup. Uruguay have desperately underperformed thus far.

Head of Greater Manchester force refutes claims of anti-white bias but says he understands where it comes from

Policing in Britain has “adopted the language of activism” and official guidance has “over-corrected” to combat accusations of racism, one of the UK’s most senior officers has said.

Sir Stephen Watson, the chief constable of Greater Manchester police, said he did not believe that “two-tier policing” existed or that forces were biased against white people.