Let X be a Banach space. If the natural projection p:X*** → X* is sequentially weak*-weak continuous then the space X is said to have the weak Phillips property. We present several characterizations of the spaces having this property and study its relationships to other Banach space properties, especially the Grothendieck property.

Let ${Rₙ}_{n=1}^{\infty }$ be a commuting approximating sequence of the Banach space X leaving the closed subspace A ⊂ X invariant. Then we prove three-space results of the following kind: If the operators Rₙ induce basis projections on X/A, and X or A is an ${ℒ}_p$-space, then both X and A have bases. We apply these results to show that the spaces $C_{\Lambda }=\overline{span}{z}^k:k\in \Lambda \subset C\left(\right)$ and $L_{\Lambda }=\overline{span}{z}^k:k\in \Lambda \subset L₁\left(\right)$ have bases whenever Λ ⊂ ℤ and ℤ∖Λ is a Sidon set.

We present a reflexive Banach space with an unconditional basis which is quasi-minimal and tight by range, i.e. of type (4) in Ferenczi-Rosendal's list related to Gowers' classification program of Banach spaces, but in contrast to the recently constructed space of type (4), our space is also tight with constants, thus essentially extending the list of known examples in Gowers' program. The space is defined on the basis of a boundedly modified mixed Tsirelson space with the use of a special coding...