Nigel Farage’s constituency takes in genteel resorts and one of England’s poorest villages. With a snap byelection approaching, what do the residents want from the Reform UK leader – or the bin who’s challenging him?

‘If it’s the Tin Man, then I suppose I’ll vote for Nigel,” says a Clacton resident, a retiree on a slow stroll towards the seafront, when I ask whom she will vote for in the forthcoming byelection. “I would sooner have Farage than the Tin Man!” As political slogans go, it is as good as any.

The sun is beating down, but the sky is hazy, which accurately describes the mood of this constituency since the Reform UK leader quit as MP for Clacton on 7 July, forcing a byelection that sent shock waves through Westminster and confusion through Clacton. I am spending a couple of days here with the photographer Andy Hall, traversing the coast between Jaywick to the west and Walton-on-the-Naze to the east. An incessant wind is blowing from the North Sea, sending waves crashing on to Clacton beach. Nicky Friday, who at 11am is already handing out 99s from her aptly named kiosk, Seabreeze, isn’t exactly exercised by the Reform UK leader’s latest gambit. “This is going to sound terrible, but I’m so busy running this business and working here,” she says. “I don’t really do politics.”

Nicky Friday, who owns and runs the Seabreeze kiosk in Clacton

Handful of ticketholders will be selected at random for up-close visits to ancient site throughout August

Trips to Stonehenge can be a little hectic. Tens of thousands of people turn up to celebrate summer and winter solstices and most other days the site is a place of bustle, excited conversation and selfie action.

But throughout August, English Heritage is offering visitors the chance to win some guaranteed solitude within the hulking stones.

The Tories and Reform had it easy when Keir Starmer was self-destructing – but a new PM with ideas exposes how vacant the opposition has become

Andy Burnham’s recollections of Britain in the 1970s must be pretty hazy. He was nine when the decade ended. Kemi Badenoch, born in 1980, can remember nothing. Lacking first-hand experience, the Conservative leader evokes the turmoil of a bygone era with cautionary zeal borrowed from an older generation. In a speech last week, she accused the new prime minister of pining for “endless strikes, rubbish not being collected, bodies not being buried, inflation at 25% and a chancellor going cap-in-hand to the IMF”.

This is more incantation than argument, a ritual fondling of beads on the Tory rosary. It is a symptom of a leader under stress, affirming her faith in Our Lady Margaret Thatcher and warding off socialist devils. Burnham has done nothing to support the claim that his government is a 70s tribute act, unless you count the appointment of a man named Healey as chancellor and the imposition of price controls on buses.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

As extreme heat claims the lives of workers in India’s poorest areas, many fear the true mortality rate is being dangerously undercounted

The morning air was already hot and cloying when Palli Mahalaxmi rose at about 5am. It was May, and in the summer heatwave that had engulfed this corner of southern India, even night-time did not give the villagers respite.

A single ceiling fan hung above Mahalaxmi, her husband and her son as they slept in a small windowless room made of thick concrete. Mahalaxmi set about preparing breakfast, and the family ate together from steel plates, just as they did every morning. Sweat dripped from their foreheads as the sun rose higher.

If you thought he was just a shady rule-dodging reprobate, the Fifa boss’s latest 15-page Instagram rant might make you think again

I hope you have found time to enjoy Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s 15-page Instagram meltdown about his World Cup. The last time I saw this many defiant words, they were inked on someone sitting cross-legged on the floor of a Salvadoran supermax prison.

Infantino has been clapping back at his haters – putting them on blast, in the parlance of our times – and on this evidence seems mesmerisingly close to picking out a Chicano script font and getting STILL I RISE needled across his corporate clavicles. Right next to the ones reading THROUGH THE FIRE, UNBREAKABLE and BUILT DIFFERENT.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Marina Hyde’s new book, What a Time to be Alive!, is out in September (Guardian Faber Publishing, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

Ukrainian and Israeli leaders converge on Washington with criss-crossing fortunes, but knowing they can count on little from US counterpart

The converging visits of Benjamin Netanyahu and Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington offer an unusually eloquent snapshot of a world in turmoil, unmoored from decades-old certainties.

Some things remain the same. The US is still an almighty military and economic power and for both foreign visitors, a White House encounter with Donald Trump is critical to their governments and the wars they are fighting.

PM will not discuss details but will focus on need to find ‘common ground’ and to build political consensus

The Andy Burnham social care event is starting.

Yvette Cooper, the health secretary, is speaking first. She starts by thanking Jewish Care, the organisation hosting the event in north London this morning. She says Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, and Sarah Sackman, the local MP (Finchley and Golders Green) are there too.

It is absolutely extraordinary to me that we do not recognise or see dementia within society, but also within the kind of public services.

It’s like it’s a big hidden problem. It’s the thing that we fear the most.

Oil price spikes after flare-up of fighting and claimed Iranian attacks on three tankers in strait of Hormuz

The US military said it knocked down an Iranian missile barrage and worked with Saudi Arabia forces to strike sites in Iraq that Tehran-backed militias have used to launch attacks in recent days.

In what Washington cast ⁠as “an attempted surprise ⁠attack” by Tehran, Iran had launched multiple ballistic missiles at US forces in the Middle East, shattering a brief pause in fighting. Iran’s target was a US base in Jordan, Axios cited a US official as saying.

Emergency workers are continuing their search for survivors in southern Japan after yesterday’s powerful earthquake

• ‘Race against time’: Japan earthquake death toll rises as rescue teams search for missing

Weather officials in Japan have warned of another hot day across wide areas of the country, including in the southern Kumamoto prefecture on the island of Kyushu where the earthquake hit.

Temperatures are forecast to reach 35C in Kumamoto, according to the Japan meteorological agency, with highs of 38C in Miyazaki on Kyushu island.

US president makes positive posts as Ukraine seeks more firepower and Israeli PM seeks to repair relationship

Donald Trump hosted back-to-back White House meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, as Ukraine seeks more firepower for its air defenses and the Israeli prime minister tries to repair his strained relationship with the US president.

Trump described both meetings in positive terms on social media Tuesday evening, remaining vague about what was discussed.