His mother was an Oscar-winning actor who had been exploited from a young age; Astin appeared in The Goonies at just 13. Now, he has followed in his mother’s footsteps again as a union leader. He talks Stranger Things, AI and why playing Samwise Gamgee cost him his house

Sean Astin is showing me around his new office. There’s framed movie prints on the walls, piles of paperwork and a stack of boxes of Stranger Things Funko Pops. “If you were here, you could look out this window and see a 10-storey building with our iconic Sag-Aftra logo on it,” he says proudly on video call, gesturing out of the window to the Los Angeles skyline. “But you just have to trust me that it’s there.” He shows me a framed photo of his mother, Patty Duke, aged 16, with the best supporting actress Oscar she won in 1963 (for playing Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker), and even more proudly, a framed copy of Duke’s business card from when she was president of the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-80s – the role he now occupies (Sag merged with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists in 2012). The 10 months of his presidency “has been a whirlwind”, he says.

It’s still slightly jarring to see Astin in a suit and tie, lanyard around his neck. We’re more accustomed to seeing him in the handwoven cloak and hairy feet of Samwise Gamgee, loyally accompanying mister Frodo into Mordor in The Lord of the Rings. Or as Winona Ryder’s short-lived partner in Stranger Things (before a Demodog got to him). Or as never-say-die college football underdog “Rudy” Ruettiger in the 1993 biopic. Or, for viewers of his own vintage, as plucky leader Mikey in The Goonies. Astin has been a member of the union he now represents for 45 of his 55 years, but he seems to have survived the perils of child stardom and a Hollywood upbringing remarkably unscathed. In fact, you could see it all as preparation for the role.

As heatwaves make the capital increasingly dangerous, outreach workers warn that vulnerable people face barriers to finding water and cool spaces

“You’ve just got to bear it. It’s like being in a hot country. It drains you,” said Tom*, a man in his 60s who has been homeless for a number of years. “I haven’t seen weather like this for as long as I’ve been outside.

“I keep to my routines, but you need to find somewhere to sit down and rest. Either some cardboard outside or you find somewhere they’ll let you sit and sleep a bit inside,” he added.

New tariffs, gas price rises, the deaths of thousands, insecurity … We’re living at the whim of one capricious, vain, easily bored man and his gang of stooges

You would be forgiven, as the US and Iran traded strikes over the past few days, for thinking that it was only last month that the two signed the Islamabad Memorandum, which formalised the process of ending the war and established a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal. That’s because it was only last month. But there has been so much talk and bluster and strike and turn tail that the conflict feels like it has started and ended several times already. The whole war is only five months old but is already settling into a sort of permanent feature of life, one that is all repetitive theatre now, each act indistinguishable from the one before it to all but the most plugged-in observers. The war is over. The war is at its peak. The Iranians are brave people. The Iranians are scum, not least their leaders. The Iranians don’t want a ceasefire. The Iranians are begging for one. The strait of Hormuz is open, it is shut, it is partly open.

To recap, where we are now in the war that was only supposed to last a few weeks but is now entering its sixth month is that the US has expanded airstrikes on Iran in a “major military punishment”. Iran has once again struck US base targets located across the region. The Houthis have claimed their own blockade over a second shipping chokepoint – the war now extends from the Gulf to the Red Sea. Trump can’t get out. Iran now understands the powerful leverage of the strait and its geographical, and therefore military, advantage in controlling it. Trump cannot end the war with that bargaining chip in its hands and the Iranians will not end the war without it. He can’t withdraw on terms that merely restore the prewar status quo. And Trump can’t go all in. Boots on the ground would be an extended bloody campaign that would claim many lives. In the US, the deaths of 18 troops so far and how the Pentagon appears to be trying to undercount that number has triggered outrage.

Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist

Four decades after he and George Michael became the first western pop act to tour the country, Ridgeley recalls silent gigs, awkward embassy receptions – and the ‘bloody ludicrous’ hiring of Lindsay Anderson as director

• Wham! special – read about George Michael’s great lost superstar duets album

There has always been something surreal about Wham!’s 1985 trip to China. George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley looked like alien visitors on the streets of Beijing, their bouffant hair and flamboyant outfits setting them apart from the Mao jackets and drab uniforms of the Chinese people they encountered.

Now the full strangeness of the duo’s brief trip, which made them the first western pop act to play in the country, is explored in a fascinating documentary film, Wham! 10 Days in China. Using previously unseen archive footage and featuring new interviews with many of the people involved in the tour, it shows the extraordinary impact Wham!’s two concerts had on their Chinese audience, as well as providing a snapshot of a country on the brink of great change.

It’s set in a UK racked by an unbearable heatwave and the rise of extremism – this adaptation of the 2010 novel feels horrifyingly apt

When The Rapture by Liz Jensen was first published, in 2010, it was set in a near-future when temperatures in the UK are rising to unbearable heights, culty-Christian groups with apocalyptic bents are springing up all over the place and there is a growing sense that the world is going mad. Swap out “culty-Christian” for “political extremists bent on embracing the apocalypse rather than trying to save us from it” and it would be a deluded soul indeed who wouldn’t place it among fiction’s more prescient offerings.

The adaptation that has arrived on our screens 16 years later – a study in physical and mental discomfort – is the perfect accompaniment to our current record-breaking, fear-inducing heatwave, and gains a lot of power from our growing collective awareness that the future is finally here.

Stephen Walsh was such a workaholic that none of his colleagues would believe he’d ever leave. But then he learned to dance and he’s now part of a dazzling tap troupe

When he was 57, Stephen Walsh found himself in hospital with a stomach bleed from an ulcer. As he lay in bed recovering, he thought about his future. “‘You always had this vague idea that you’d retire early,’” he told himself at the time. “‘Well, I’m going to do it.’”

Discharged from hospital, he gave his business partners three years’ notice. They had worked together at the General Electric Company, and after it was broken up in 1999, they launched their own training and consultancy business specialising in how to improve companies’ efficiency and outcomes.

Labour’s 2024 manifesto did not include any specific commitments on council tax but two models are being floated

James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, has accused Andy Burnham of planning “more ways to tax Middle England”. Responding to reports that Burnham wants to change council tax (see 10.03am), Cleverly said:

Andy Burnham and Labour are just looking for more ways to tax Middle England, and raise taxes on people’s homes.

Replacing council tax and stamp duty with a new house price tax would not be a tax cut for hardworking families – quite the reverse: people across England would end up paying more.

Firefighters in France and Spain face another day battling wildfires that have seen hundreds of thousands of people evacuated

• Pedro Sánchez says Spain is suffering effects of climate crisis as firefighters battle wildfires in France

Provisional data on wildfires in Spain shows that more than 170,000 hectares of forest land have been affected since the beginning of the year – a nearly sixfold increase on the almost 29,000 recorded in the same period in 2025.

35 major fires have been recorded so far, up from just 11 last year.

Coming to fame in The Goodies, Oddie was later known for his wildlife expertise and presented BBC Springwatch

The writer, comedian and conservationist Bill Oddie has died aged 85. Having come to prominence with the comedy group The Goodies, Oddie later established himself as an authority on wildlife, presenting television series including the BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch.

Oddie’s agent paid tribute to his “intelligence and wit”. In a statement, David Foster said: “It is with deep sadness that I announce the passing of Bill Oddie, the country’s best-loved birder. Bill was a multitalented celebrity – wildlife presenter, broadcaster, comedian, writer, songwriter, musician and conservationist. Yet it was never fame that he valued.

Ukrainian president will be first overseas visitor for new British prime minister

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will become Andy Burnham’s first overseas visitor as prime minister, in a visit that Burnham said underlined Britain’s “unwavering” backing for Ukraine.

Less than two weeks after Keir Starmer travelled to Kyiv for the final foreign visit of his prime ministership, the Ukrainian president will on Monday join Burnham at a naval base where Ukrainian forces have been receiving training.