Nintendo has released a brand new game exclusively on mobile, as this month’s new releases also includes Slime Rancher and a new bullet hell shooter.

This month’s mobile games include that rarest of treats, a completely original Nintendo game, and Pictonico! certainly does not disappoint. There’s also a mobile port of cosy indie sci-fi farming sim Slime Rancher, excellent chess-based roguelite Gambonanza, and the peculiar but slightly broken Mystic Motors: Car Racing Game.

Pictonico!

iOS & Android, £6.99 and £5.39 (Nintendo)

Nintendo’s latest foray into mobile ignores all the Japanese game giant’s in-house IP and mascots in favour of using the contents of your phone’s photo album as the basis for its joyous, WarioWare-esque microgames.

It harvests all kinds of pictures, but is particularly fond of people’s faces, which are animated to laugh, cry, chat, smile, or chomp down canapés, in games that last a maximum of three seconds. It’s underpinned by Nintendo’s typically self-assured engineering standards, the pictures chosen and the way they’re animated never failing to amuse and impress.

Games are prevented from getting samey after extended play via cleverly integrated increases in difficulty. Initially it’s just figuring out what you have to do against a strict time limit, but soon enough actual skill is needed, and since each time you play a different friend or relative will be featured in its quick fire rounds, it keeps proceedings remarkably fresh. It may not be the sort of game you’d play for hours at a time, but it’s ideal for a swift, invigorating break in your day.

Score: 8/10

Perchang World

iOS, included with Apple Arcade subscription

Released 10 years ago, Perchang was a simple physics-based puzzle game about getting a marble into a funnel. The sequel takes that basic idea and really runs with it.

Now you’re rolling a series of marbles through sets of obstacles in multi-coloured 3D landscapes, triggering various pieces of scenery to boost them along their way. Flippers, columns, magnets, see-saws, and plenty more, gently roll or hurl marbles in the direction of their destination.

There’s a pleasing quality to its physics, with marbles flying and rolling consistently with the way they’re hit, and while it may not demand all that much creativity on your part it looks nice and does provide an increasing test of dexterity and timing. There’s even an enjoyably OTT plot that incorporates your marble flinging antics.

Score: 7/10

Gambonanza

iOS & Android, £5.99 (Stray Fawn Studio)

Along with Shotgun King, Pawnbarian, and a clutch of other recent releases, games subverting chess have been having a real boom period. Gambonanza is the latest.

Another roguelite, each of its levels is a puzzle that gets you to use chess pieces and moves to wipe out your computer-controlled opponent. Captured pieces disappear forever, but you can buy more between rounds, along with perk conferring gambits that stack, creating powerful combinations.

Your AI adversary occasionally makes confusingly foolish mistakes in early rounds, but that doesn’t diminish the significant challenge, in this highly polished and mentally taxing game that feels as though it was made for touchscreen.

Score: 8/10

Slime Rancher

iOS & Android, £7.99 (Playdigious)

First person space-based farming simulator Slime Rancher makes its mobile debut. Once again, you’ll be using your vac-pac to Hoover up friendly-looking slimes, along with their favourite food stuffs, before firing them into transparent walled pens and harvesting their freshly excreted ‘plorts’, which you can sell for cash.

Consuming the plorts of other slime breeds turns them into bulkier largos, but if they happen to then eat a third variety of plort, they’ll morph into aggressive monsters, so you need to take care when hybridising your flock.

Buy yourself a jetpack, water cannon, dash boots, new map areas, and cosmetic decorations for your ranch as you expand and automate your operation, in this quirky and modestly compelling game, whose mellow pace makes it ideal for touchscreen.

Score: 7/10

What’s the Password?

iOS & Android, £4.99 (Trampoline Tales)

Well, not a password so much as a PIN, but the premise of this single-minded puzzle game immediately lends itself to mobile, its keypad and clues fitting neatly on a single screen. Your job is to work out what four-digit number each clue is pointing you towards by simply keying it in.

Clues are pretty diverse, ranging from the extremely obvious to the cryptic, with some comprising clever conceits to obfuscate what is at heart quite a simple string of numbers, the game letting you skip and come back to any that truly stump you.

While occasionally head scratching, there are slightly too many of its levels that feel a little obvious, undermining the sense of satisfaction. Still, it’s a neat – if fleeting – distraction and solid use of a phone screen.

Score: 5/10

Phoenix 2

for iOS & Android, free (Firi Games)

Phoenix 2 is a vertical bullet hell shmup of the kind made famous in the late 1980s, although with a thoroughly modern high resolution 100Hz presentation. Originally released a decade ago, it’s recently received a game-changing update that lets you upgrade its 100 tiny, wonderfully detailed collectible spaceships with individual mods.

While not all of those add-ons are particularly useful, some prove spectacularly powerful, letting you augment abilities in genuinely new ways, adding an extra level of challenge to the game’s speed runs now that players are all equipped slightly differently.

The game’s high production values are typified by graphically diverse ships, each of which comes with its own main and auxiliary armaments, and exquisitely designed sound effects that are even more impressive wearing headphones. If you’ve ever enjoyed a 2D shooter this one’s well worth your time, and for PC owners it’s also just come out of early access on Steam.

Score: 8/10

Mystic Motors: Car Racing Game

iOS & Android, free (Tec Ventures)

Mystic Motors’ twist on standard driving games is that you can cast spells from behind the wheel. Why that is, and exactly what’s added a dash of Gandalf to motor racing, is never even addressed.

Instead, you just jump right in with a clutch of three spells you’re allowed to bring with you to each race event. Unfortunately, the ham-fisted attempt at arcade style car-handling is only the first of many problems.

Technically, it’s shaky right from the start, the first crash for us occurring on the loading screen for the tutorial race, the next when opening our inaugural loot crate. Spells launch and land without sound effects, and the whole enterprise has the air of something abandoned half-finished.

It’s abysmally poor, and exactly why its developer was optimistic enough to release it with a monstrous £199 microtransaction is a mystery for the ages.

Score: 2/10

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It’s widely understood Enzo Maresca will be the man to replace Pep Guardiola, but there are still negotiations ongoing between Manchester City and Chelsea

Chelsea are currently engaged in compensation negotiations with Manchester City, as the Cityzens look to bring Enzo Maresca to the Etihad. Lawyers representing both clubs are locked in ongoing discussions.

The talks centre on Maresca’s departure in January, when he left Stamford Bridge with three-and-a-half years still remaining on his contract. City are keen to reach an agreement before the end of the week.

Last autumn, Maresca informed Chelsea’s hierarchy that he had entered into discussions with City regarding the possibility of succeeding Pep Guardiola. At that point, Guardiola remained in charge at City and had yet to announce when he intended to leave.

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Maresca was ultimately dismissed by Chelsea on New Year’s Day after a home draw with Bournemouth left the west Londoners with just one victory from seven Premier League outings.

Moving to the present day, City are confident a deal for the former Leicester City boss can still be concluded, reports Football London. Ongoing talks are focused on the timing of his appointment, his coaching staff and various finer details.

Nearly a year after first alerting Chelsea to his conversations with City, Maresca appears poised to take over Guardiola’s mantle. It will represent a full circle moment for the Italian, who served as the Catalan’s assistant when City claimed the treble during the 2022-23 season.

During his final season at the helm of the Etihad Stadium, Guardiola defeated Arsenal to secure the League Cup and triumphed over Chelsea in the FA Cup final, while finishing seven points adrift of the Gunners in the Premier League.

If a deal goes through, Maresca will arrive at City as a Europa Conference League victor and World Club Cup winner. Former Arsenal midfielder Paul Merson recently told Sky Sports he believes Maresca is the perfect candidate to succeed Guardiola.

He said: “I liked him at Chelsea. I thought he was a good manager. He’s going into Man City, he’s been there before, he’s worked in the Premier League before. He knows some of the players at City.

“I think he ticks every box. He’s not coming in trying to get used to the place, he’s not coming into a league that he’s never been in. I think he’ll go in and settle quite nicely.

“They’ll need a few players as well. But this is the problem: Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea all need players.

“There’s not that many players around. Who’s going to be able to produce and give the most money to these players?”

Sky Sports, HBO Max, Netflix and Disney+ with Ultimate TV package

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Sky has upgraded its Ultimate TV and Sky Sports bundle to now include HBO Max, Netflix, Disney+, discovery+ and Hayu, as well as 135 channels and full Sky coverage of the Premier League and EFL.

Sky broadcasts more than 1,400 live matches across the Premier League, EFL and more with at least 215 live from the top flight alongside Formula 1, darts and golf.

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‘99% of people get this wrong.’

Modern cars have so many different features and buttons it can sometimes be hard to know what they all do. One such button features a curved arrow, almost reaching a full circle, inside an outline of a car. Its purpose is certainly not immediately evident and one online guide claims “99% of people get it wrong”.

Threads on social media see drivers asking “What is this button in my car?” and “When should I use it?”. One said: “It has to do with AC, I know that, and the car gets colder when I press it, but I don’t know what it’s called.”

Thankfully, there are just as many people online explaining what the button is for and when and why you should use it. There are also times it won’t work, which you’ll also find explained here. The button in question is the air re-circulation button. It is linked to your car’s air conditioning. If you turn it on, you are instructing your car’s air conditioning system to recirculate the air already inside your car, as opposed to drawing in new air from outside to heat or cool down.

It is particularly useful, for example, if you want to avoid some form of polluting influence outside like smoke from a fire, dust from a construction site or pollution from cars if you are in a traffic jam or a tunnel. It is also useful on particularly hot days — if you turn it on your car will recirculate the cooler air already inside your car instead of continuously pulling in warmer air from outside and working harder to cool it down.

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The Capturing Cars YouTube account, which has 10,500 subscribers, claims “99% of people use this button all wrong” and explains how to use it: “It is a recirculation button. Essentially, it shuts off the vents to the outside of the car, trapping the air that’s in it. So, when should you use it? On a very hot day, or very cold day, that is when you will first want to use this button.

“Let’s assume it’s really hot outside so you’ve turned your air conditioning to cold… what you will want to do is press this button. That will then trap the air inside the car and it will get colder on each pass, or hotter if you’ve got the heating turned on.

“If you don’t have it turned on you are bringing in boiling hot air from outside and trying to make it cold and it takes a bit longer. Turning that button on will accelerate the process of cooling down the car.”

Another driver explained: “Speaking from personal experience, I drive by a rock quarry every day on my way to work and I make sure the recirculation button is turned on because I do not want my car sucking in all that dirty outside air and pumping it into the cab.”

When would you want to turn the air recirculation button off?

The Capturing Cars YouTube account explains: “Let’s say you’re in the car, you’ve got wet clothing because you’ve been caught out in the rain — if your car is fogging up, which, let’s face it, we’ve all experienced, that is when you’ll want to turn this off [because] you are trapping humidity inside the car.”

In fact, he went on to explain that if you turned your air flow to focus on the windscreen to de-fog it, the air recirculation button would automatically no longer work.

Scrap merchants Ace Car Breakers add that you may not want to have it on for long periods of time. They said: “It’s important not to rely on it all the time. As us humans breathe in oxygen and breath out carbon dioxide, it’s crucial that we let the fresh air in too – fresh air is vital for preventing the air inside from becoming stale and ensuring there’s adequate oxygen levels and the CO2 is vented. You should therefore make a point of switching back to fresh air mode regularly.”

The findings come from a survey of 1,000 businesses by conciliation service Acas, which also revealed that larger employers are more likely to lay off staff than smaller firms.

Kevin Rowan, director of dispute resolution at Acas, told PA: “The results of our poll reveal that a third of businesses are considering redundancies by the start of next year.

“Organisations should look at all possible alternatives to redundancies first, but if employers conclude they have no choice, then they have legal requirements they must follow.

“This means they must consult with staff early to seek their views, or risk being subject to a costly legal process.”

What is redundancy?

Redundancy is when you dismiss an employee because you no longer need anyone to do their job. This might be because your business is:

• changing what it does
• doing things in a different way, for example using new machinery
• changing location or closing down

Strike action has begun at Glasgow Caledonian University, as staff walk out in a dispute over job cuts and possible compulsory redundancies 👇

𝘝𝘐𝘋𝘌𝘖: 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘴 pic.twitter.com/PrDaPmAnZl

— The Herald (@heraldscotland) June 3, 2026

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For a redundancy to be genuine, you must demonstrate that the employee’s job will no longer exist.

Redundancies can be compulsory or non-compulsory.

What are my rights as an employer?

Employees have certain rights and may be entitled to redundancy pay if they’re made redundant.

All employees under notice of redundancy have the right to:

• reasonable time off to look for a new job or arrange training
• not be unfairly selected for redundancy

Employers must try to find suitable alternative employment within the organisation for employees they’ve made redundant.

Employees can try out an alternative role for 4 weeks (or more if agreed in writing) without giving up their right to redundancy pay.

You must be fairly selected for redundancy, for example, because of your level of experience or capability to do the job.

You cannot be selected because of age, gender, or if you’re disabled or pregnant. If you are, this could be classed as an unfair dismissal.

Are you worried about keeping your job? Let us know in the comments

AS venues go, The Arts Barge offers something refreshingly different.

Moored in York’s Foss Basin, the venue provides an intimacy that few traditional spaces can match, and for a band like The Ocelots, whose music thrives on closeness, subtlety and connection, it proved to be an ideal setting.

Wexford, Ireland twin brothers Ashley and Brandon Watson arrived in York carrying the quiet momentum of their growing reputation on the UK, European and Australian folk circuit with a sound and style reminiscent of Keane, Turin Breaks and The Dunwells.

Their music is built on what might best be described as blood harmony, that unmistakable sibling vocal blend that feels both instinctive and deeply personal, and it was clear from the outset that the audience understood they were in for something special.

Opening with a cover of the Tom Waites classic Looking for the Heart of Saturday Night with a stripped-back arrangement of acoustic guitar, flute and vocal, The Ocelots immediately drew the audience in.

There was an honesty to their performance that resists theatrics as the duo leaned into their material with a sincerity that allows the songs to unfold.

Tonight’s setlist included Landlords, The Good of a Bad Year, Addlepated and Pulling at the Stops, songs that move between reflective, melancholic and quiet optimism, their songwriting rooted in themes of mental health, childhood Catholicism and relationships.

The Ocelots at The Arts Barge in York. Photo by Gareth John

The Ocelots deliver a rich literary quality and, on the Arts Barge, where the audience sits almost within touching distance, every lyric landed with clarity. There was a charming interplay between the brothers throughout and a looseness to their performance with a willingness to embrace imperfections in timing and delivery to create a lived-in feel.

Tracks Frank Sinatra, Side of Yourself, Front Door Key and Can’t Even Say Your Name were all excellent, delivered in a set where the charm lay in a sense of spontaneity of songs unfolding in real time. Instrumentally, the duo added subtle layers to their sound, incorporating harmonica and variations in guitar and banjo tuning that gave texture to their arrangements.

The Arts Barge itself played a key part in the evening’s success and as the evening air cooled the room, the setting amplified the band’s introspective mood. Between songs, the brothers engaged the audience with an easy warmth, their understated humour reinforcing the sense of intimacy.

The Ocelots at The Arts Barge in York. Photo by Gareth John

The flow of the performance felt deliberate, guiding the audience through a series of reflective spaces before building towards a more assured conclusion.

By the time the final song arrived, a cover of Keane’s Everybody’s Changing, there was a quiet sense of collective appreciation in the room. This was not a night of grand gestures or explosive climaxes but something more rewarding with a reminder of the power of simplicity and of well-crafted songs delivered with authenticity. This evening’s performances stood out for its restraint and emotional clarity and in a setting as unique as The Arts Barge, The Ocelots delivered a performance that felt entirely at home, unforced, engaging and quietly memorable.

A man suffered an arm injury consistent with a firearm being used

A scene was put in place after a man was shot in a horror incident in Liverpool on Wednesday night (June 3). Police and paramedics attended the scene in Toxteth at around 8.40pm.

Officers were called to Carlingford Close following reports that a 19-year-old man had suffered an injury to his arm consistent with a firearm being used, Merseyside Police said.

The incident is thought to have happened in the Upper Parliament Street area. The victim was rushed to hospital from the scene to be treated.

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An investigation is now underway into the incident, with house-to-house and CCTV enquiries being carried out by detectives. Anyone with information is being urged to contact police immediately.

Detective Inspector Jay Boardman said: “We are in the very early stages of this investigation and we are seeking witnesses and CCTV and Ring doorbell footage to piece together what has happened.

“Firearms and the reckless people who choose to carry and use them have no place on the streets of Merseyside and we would ask for the public’s help to locate who is responsible and bring them to justice.”

Anyone with information should contact Merseyside Police social media desk via X or Facebook @MerPolCC or call 101 quoting incident reference 1010 of 3 June. Alternatively, contact the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury have welcomed their second child together

Love Island stars Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury have announced the arrival of their second child together, sharing the joyful news with fans via an Instagram post.

Molly wrote: “….and then there were 4,” with a white love heart. The post was met with huge congratulations in the comments section.

The couple’s announcement was met with an outpouring of well-wishes from fans, with one commenting: “Congratulations to yous this is amazing,” while another enthused: “Ahhhhh congratulations.”

Although the pair kept the gender of their newborn under wraps, one eager fan speculated: “Am going to guess BOY xx”

Molly-Mae had initially surprised followers in February when she announced her pregnancy, having already quietly shared the news with close family and friends. At the time she disclosed she was already six months along, posting a throwback snap from her L’Oreal catwalk appearance the previous September, reports the Mirror.

And Molly-Mae captioned her post: “Little baby with me in this moment… and I didn’t even know.” Resharing her pregnancy announcement, she added: “Nearly 6 months on… and it still hasn’t sunk in.”

The couple’s three year old daughter Bambi featured prominently in the announcement, appearing in a touching black and white family photograph shared by Molly-Mae.

The pair have been an item since their appearance on Love Island back in 2019, aside from a brief period apart in 2024.

City have long been admirers of Newcastle academy graduate Anderson. The player is currently preparing for the tournament in the US, Canada and Mexico, but club-to-club talks can continue to take place.

Captain Bernardo Silva’s exit means City are looking to bolster their midfield and Anderson tops the list of potential targets.

Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali is another player understood to be highly rated by City, with reports, external suggesting the Italy international has been monitored as a long-term target.

Nico Gonzalez, who missed out on a place in the Spain squad for the World Cup and also fell out of favour under Pep Guardiola last season, may depart if the right offer comes in.

Sources indicate City are also looking to sign a right-back to supplement Matheus Nunes, 28, who excelled in the position this season after being converted from midfield.

City are eyeing the profile of a young full-back and one who is a natural in that position that can grow into the role in the future.

The new Call of Duty season adds a multiplayer map inspired by the Backrooms.

It’s shaping up to be a big week for Call of Duty fans, as Activision releases a brand new season of content on PlayStation, Xbox and PC.

Call of Duty Black Ops 7 and Warzone Season 4 adds a ton of new content in both games, including new maps, new modes, new Endgame content, new weapons, new gameplay features and a new Battle Pass with a variety of rewards.

If you’ve been itching for some new content to enjoy in Black Ops 7, Warzone, or both, then the good news is that you don’t have long to wait before Season 4 makes its debut.

Black Ops 7 and Warzone Season 4 has a June 4 release date on consoles and PC. The new content will officially go live at 5pm BST UK time.

That’s 9am PST / 11am CST / 12pm EST on June 4 for fans living in the US, or 6pm CET for European players.

To make sure you don’t miss a second of the action, fans can actually download and install the update ahead of schedule.

Pre-loading the update is most certainly worth doing, because the update weighs in at a whopping 45GB.

Leipzig Zoo in central Germany is a world-leading centre of great ape research. Recent studies have seen chimpanzees there using touchscreen controls to navigate virtual forests and locate food rewards – applying similar techniques to what they would use in the wild.

Other research (of which I was part) has investigated chimpanzees’ social curiosity. We discovered they actively seek out information about others’ interactions, even if it means forgoing food rewards. Keeping track of their peers’ latest social developments appears central to these great apes’ social wellbeing.

But in my decade working with Leipzig Zoo’s chimpanzees and bonobos, one question came up repeatedly. Were differences in how each great ape would cooperate and resolve conflicts simply down to its mood on a particular day? Or were there longer-term explanations – deep-rooted personality traits, for example, or their relationship history with other apes?

Long-term questions like this are very difficult to tackle in single studies, which often draw on just a handful of participants. So, my colleagues and I have developed EVApeCognition: a standardised database of 18 years’ worth of great ape experiences, decisions and relationships.

This lays the groundwork for answering many more questions about these extraordinary creatures’ cognition, intelligence and social behaviour. If a bonobo showed striking generosity towards a partner in 2008, for example, we can piece together whether that behaviour was linked with their stable disposition, a particular relationship, or some other factor.

Changing how we study great apes

In all, EVApeCognition comprises 262 experimental datasets from 150 scientific publications between 2004 and 2021. These were all overseen by the Wolfgang Köhler Primate Research Centre, headquartered at Leipzig Zoo. Eighty-one great apes participated in these studies, with the vast majority (78) taking part in more than one.

These wide-ranging social cognition studies have assessed how great apes think about other apes, how they cooperate, and to what extent they are motivated to help their peers. But there have been limitations to this research.

In the wild, great apes are social animals who live in stable groups with histories, hierarchies and relationships that change over time. In contrast, a large majority of the studies in our database were with apes in pairs that imposed strict control conditions.

So, moving to larger-group studies could offer a more ecologically relevant window on their cognition and social behaviour. Group settings can present apes with different problems that map more closely on to the social challenges they face every day in the wild.

Our most recent study, led by Kirsten Sutherland at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, found that great ape quartets maintained access to a pool of yoghurt for significantly longer than pairs did. Social tolerance played a key role, with more tolerant quartets maintaining access to the yoghurt for longer periods.

We found that cooperation was strongest when the highest-ranking individual showed restraint, emphasising the importance of tolerant leadership.

The new database also highlights an imbalance running through captive great ape research: chimpanzees dominate the record, while bonobos, gorillas and orangutans remain comparatively underrepresented.

Bonobos – which, unlike chimpanzees, are known to cooperate in the wild outside the limits of their group’s territory – would be particularly compelling subjects for this research shift towards studying larger groups.

Closing the gap with wild settings

Experimental performance does not occur in a social vacuum. A great ape’s willingness to cooperate on a task on a given Tuesday may not only reflect its intelligence, but whether it groomed its partner that morning, or if its status had changed within the group.

Providing this context is essential to understanding how everyday experience and social relations shape their cognitive development. Fortunately, the field is moving in promising directions, with the EVApeCognition database one piece of a larger picture.

The global ManyPrimates project, established in 2017, has already produced the most comprehensive overview of primate short-term memory. This shows that genetic lineage has played a larger role than ecology or sociality in the evolution of their short-term memory.

At the level of higher-order reasoning, we now know that chimpanzees update their beliefs by considering all sources of information before making a choice. A 2025 study showed they remained committed to an initial belief when counter-evidence was weaker, but revised this when the supporting evidence became stronger – a pattern long thought to be distinctly human.

Perhaps most ambitiously, the divide between captive and wild settings is also beginning to close. Research led by Sofie Forss at the University of Zurich, for example, has found a systematic “captivity effect” when presenting the same new stimuli to both wild and captive orangutans. The wild individuals responded far more cautiously to novelty than their zoo-housed counterparts.

Taken together, these efforts point in a common direction: toward an understanding of great ape cognition that is at once broader in scope, richer in context, and more faithful to the complexity of their social lives.