As the East Wing of the White House is being transformed into a ballroom, a less permanent structure has appeared on the South Lawn. The octagonal arena will be the venue of an Ultimate Fighting Championship event this weekend, ostensibly part of celebrations for the 250th anniversary of US independence.

But the “only milestone that actually falls on 14 June is Donald Trump’s 80th birthday”, said US politics specialist Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy on The Conversation. And UFC, the “world’s leader in professional mixed martial arts”, is the “de facto sport of Maga”, said Esquire.

What is UFC Freedom 250?
Fights will take place in a 26-metre-high octagonal cage nicknamed “The Claw”. Although Trump has promised a crowd of 25,000, only about 4,500 will attend. Thousands more may watch from the Ellipse, the parkland south of the White House. The highlight will be a bout between two-time interim UFC lightweight champion Justin Gaethje and lightweight champion Ilia Topuria. No women fighters will feature. 

Who is Dana White?
UFC CEO and president White has run the organisation for more than a quarter of a century. He’s managed to turn a sport “so savage” that it “wasn’t even carried on pay-per-view in many places” into a company that sold for $4 billion (£2.9 billion) in 2016, said Time.

The friendship between this “Connecticut-born amateur boxer-turned-businessman” and Trump has “spanned decades”, said The Times. The UFC has effectively “functioned as the sporting arm of the Maga movement”, said CBC. Fighters and the organisation have “pledged incredible support” to the president, and Trump has reciprocated and become a “ringside fixture”.

Has this weekend’s event faced any difficulties?
The list of celebrities who have declined invitations is “lengthening”, said The Times. Adam Sandler, Jared Leto and Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson are all believed to have turned down offers to attend.

Two people from Virginia have filed a lawsuit seeking to block the UFC extravaganza. They claim construction of the octagon was “authorised without congressional approval or environmental review”, said CNN. The UFC is also reportedly selling VIP packages for between $1 million and $1.5 million, and the lawsuit claims White and Trump are using the opportunity for financial gain.

Women in Britain are “apparently the angriest in Europe”, said Helen Coffey in The Independent. According to the latest Hologic Global Women’s Health Index, based on polls of more than 76,000 women, nearly one in four of us feel rage, compared with one in seven on the Continent. And rates of anger among British women were 47% higher than the previous year, while levels in Europe “remained fairly stable”.

The UK dropped from 41st to 48th out of 142 countries in the health index in only a year. This “fall from grace” of the world’s fifth-largest economy by GDP is “little short of a disgrace”. But it’s “depressingly unsurprising”.

‘Lack of hope’
I might account for all that rage “all on my own”, said Deborah Ross in The Times. I’m furious that less than 3% of reported rapes result in charges, and that about a third of women have experienced sexual harassment or assault on public transport. Three women are still killed by men every week. Care and domestic labour “still fall disproportionally on women”. And women are more likely to have their pain “dismissed by doctors”. 

Polling by Merlin Strategy for The New Statesman found that women aged 18 to 30 are 26 percentage points “less likely to feel positively about capitalism than young men”, said Emily Lawford in the magazine, and a “significant majority” feel ignored by the two main political parties. Women are fearful of Reform, but few seem to believe that voting Green will make a difference. A profound “lack of hope” has emerged over the past decade. “How could they not be angry?”

‘Make their mark’
Women in the West have never had it so good, wrote gender historian Zoe Strimpel in The Telegraph. Yes, there are problems, and (sometimes violent) misogyny persists, but if Western women “want to make their mark”, there is very little stopping them. These “furious young women” have rights that women of the past “could only have dreamed of”, yet seem unaware of “how far their sex has come”.

The internet is “abuzz with the topic of ‘angry young women’”, said Jack Davey in The Critic magazine, but the ones I’ve met aren’t angry – they’re politicised. Most are far more reasonable than the online caricatures, and “far more willing to compromise than polling would suggest”. But get used to them: angry young women are “here to stay”.

David Hockney poses in front of his “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire” at the Pompidou Centre in Paris in 2017. The celebrated British painter, one of the leaders of the 1960s pop art movement, has died at the age of 88.

Credit: Aurelien Meunier / Getty Images

County Durham: Broomshields Hall, Satley
An exceptional Grade II Georgian home in the Durham Dales, set within approx. 6 acres of landscaped, south-facing gardens and approx. 12 acres of woodland. Main suite, 3 further beds (2 en suite), family bath, kitchen/dining room, 3 receps, 1-bed self-contained cottage, garage. £1.75 million; Finest Properties.

Wiltshire: Combe House, Castle Combe
This handsome honey-coloured stone house sits in approx. 3.9 acres with well-tended formal lawns bordered by sculpted hedging and terraces. 4 beds, 3 baths, kitchen, 4 receps, outbuilding, parking. £1.65 million; Knight Frank. 

Aberdeenshire: Auchinclech, Queenie Brae
A striking art deco house in a peaceful rural setting, perched above well- maintained gardens, on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park. 5 beds, 2 baths, kitchen/breakfast room, 2 receps, outbuildings, garage. OIEO £450,000; Galbraith.

Kent: Wierton Hall Farm Cottage, Boughton Monchelsea
Fabulous Grade II farmhouse set in over two acres of gardens, including a mixed fruit orchard and a productive vegetable garden. 4 beds, 4 baths, kitchen, 3 receps, studio, garage. £1.225 million; The Modern House.

Boris wrote two Brexit columns. Both of them meant Leave 
Rachel Johnson in The Independent 
My brother “changed the course of British history” with a newspaper article declaring “his support for Leave”, writes Rachel Johnson. But “to clarify his thoughts”, he also wrote a second, unpublished column on reasons “to stay in the EU”. I’ve re-read both and “was struck by how limp” and “pallid” his Remain arguments were. This was no “ringing endorsement of the status quo” but rather a “true be-Leaver” trying to muffle his disappointment at putting “loyalty to his party and leader” first.

Those who drove John Healey to resign will pay the price
The Times’ editorial board
“Well done, John Healey,” says The Times. This “loyal Labour man” has put party interest and national interest “in the right order”. Healey was “driven to resign” as defence secretary “by the feebleness of the prime minister and the intransigence of the chancellor”. Keir Starmer “has, laudably, backed Ukraine and talked tough on bolstering Nato”, but “the money to back up this machismo isn’t there”. The PM has prioritised “handouts for the workshy over” defence spending, and his “credibility” is “shot”.

Britain has had enough of “common sense” politics
Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman
“Politics has all got a bit insane lately,” writes Rachel Cunliffe. But “don’t worry”: according to Kemi Badenoch, “all we need is a bit of old-fashioned common sense”. Yet the “common-sense device” is just “a beautiful fudge” that suggests “ease and consensus” while not “actually confronting the arguments” or “making the case to win over” opponents. “It’s lazy polemicism for people who don’t want to think too hard – and hope you won’t either.”