Acts including Speed, Scowl and Ithaca voice opposition to Barclaycard sponsorship over financial services provided to defence companiesMultiple bands have pulled out of Download festival over Barclaycard being used as its official payment partner, in protest against Barclays providing financial services to defence companies supplying Israel.Download,...

Philadelphia Museum of Art This exceptional exhibition celebrates a trailblazing impressionist – one of the original group – who took the labour of women in her time seriouslyMary Cassatt’s paintings of mothers and babies were relegated to the untouchable category of “sentiment” by 20th-century critics and art historians. They have now become better...

Shakespeare was inspired by the homoerotic poetry of Richard Barnfield – so why has it taken so long to acknowledge the connection between them?The year 1594 was a fruity one in English literature, in part thanks to the influence from beyond the grave of Christopher Marlowe. Two of the dramatist’s most queerly themed plays made it into print that year:...

The actor said that he was the director’s choice to play the Man of Steel in 2003 but it ‘was a time when something like that could still be weaponised against you’The actor Matt Bomer has claimed that he missed out on being cast as the lead in an axed 2003 Superman movie Flyby because of his sexuality.Speaking on the Hollywood Reporter’s Awards Chatter...

British indie band no longer known as Easy Life after saying they did not have money to defend lawsuit It may not have the magnitude of Prince changing his name to a symbol, but the band Easy Life have changed their name to Hard Life after the threat of legal action from easyJet’s parent company.The British indie band said easyGroup had filed a lawsuit...

Billie Eilish’s third is a triumph, Shabaka goes woodwind and Yunchan Lim makes the most thrilling piano debut of the decade … here are our music team’s picks of the best LPs from the first half of the yearBeing called “overproduced” is generally a criticism but BMTH make it a virtue on this ridiculously high-intensity album. The glitched-up production...