The great naturalist, who is about to turn 100, is still surprised by wildlife in his new series about British gardens. But not every pet owner will be happy with his top tips

Whenever David Attenborough speaks, the world listens – so his latest BBC programme, which heralds the broadcaster’s 100th birthday, is bound to attract attention.

Secret Garden, which features five different UK gardens, might not be what people normally expect from Attenborough, says the show’s series producer, Bill Markham, as “there’s no lions and tigers”.

Presidential decisions can mean life or death for millions around the world, that’s why constitutional safeguards exist. But do they work in practice?

Donald Trump’s cognitive skills are amazing. So amazing! So great! So much better than any other dumb presidential contender you could mention, at least according to Trump himself, who bragged once again last week of how he had repeatedly aced what he calls “a very hard test for a lot of people”. (It’s thought he means a screening tool for mild cognitive impairment in elderly people.)

Sure, the 79-year-old leader of the free world recently interrupted a cabinet meeting in the middle of a war to ramble on at length about a conversation he supposedly had with the head of the Sharpie pen company over supplying bespoke presidential felt-tips, of which the firm said it could find no record. And made a baffling joke about Pearl Harbor during a press conference in front of an alarmed-looking Japanese prime minister. And called the strait of Hormuz the “strait of Trump”, before adding that that was absolutely deliberate because “there are no accidents with me”. But anyway, to be clear, his mental state is great. The greatest!

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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By far the biggest musician to have joined the membership-based platform, Dylan’s posts have so far been puzzling – and therefore entirely in character

A couple of years back, the august music writer David Hepworth came up with a great line about Bob Dylan. Dylan, he averred, “is like China: we can see what he’s doing, but never quite work out why he’s doing it”. That’s certainly true about the unexpected launch of the 84-year-old singer-songwriter’s Patreon. Everything about it is confusing.

For one, there’s the choice of platform. Plenty of major music stars have flocked to the newsletter provider Substack in recent years to share their thoughts or show their workings and, perhaps, earn a little cash on the side: everyone from Patti Smith and Dolly Parton to Charli xcx and Rosalía. But Patreon, where fans pay monthly subscriptions for exclusive content from all sorts of creators – podcasters, visual artists – has never really taken off with big rock and pop musicians: the biggest name it could boast, until now, was Ben Folds.

The looming oil crisis caused by the Iran war gives the Conservative leader a platform from which to jump to the wrong conclusions

Losing sleep over the war in Iran? Worried sick about the cost of living? Can’t pay your energy bills? Then relax. Because Kemi Badenoch has a displacement activity for you.

It’s becoming increasingly easy to understand the Conservative leader by viewing her as a hyperactive five-year-old at the back of the class who is constantly disruptive. Who can’t get through a lesson without some kind of attention-seeking behaviour. Who has a constant desire to be indulged even though her first reactions are invariably wrong. Who flies into a temper tantrum when anyone dares to challenge her.

Their shows caused mayhem. Now Tamm Reynolds – AKA Midgitte Bardot – is really going for the jugular, hitting back at prejudice with a wild new act

Most performers want attention when they’re on stage. Tamm Reynolds, however, gets it all the time – even when not dressed in fishnets and push-up bra as their alter ego, Midgitte Bardot. “I also like having my bush and ass out,” Reynolds adds. Before we meet at Woolwich station in London, where the artist has kindly agreed to pick me up in their car, they send me a text: “I’m assuming you know what I look like.” Sure enough, they are hard to miss. As a non-binary trans drag queen with dwarfism, Reynolds must be in a minority of one.

Yet to define Reynolds purely in those terms would be to do them a massive disservice, since they are also a writing and performance powerhouse. Three years ago, in Travis Alabanza’s queer cabaret revue Sound of the Underground, Midgitte climbed aboard a cherry-picker in order to sing a filthy blues rock tune called Hot Piss, brandishing a jug of frothy yellow liquid. The climax can’t adequately be described in a family newspaper, but it resulted in the loudest cheer I’ve ever heard at the Royal Court. Eat your heart out, Jerusalem.

MAFS Australia fans are appalled that a horrendous dinner party wasn’t pulled – but it’s not without precedent. From nightmarish model makeovers to a grotesque fight night, here are the worst scenes that caused outrage

After so many years and such incontrovertible proof that the experiment never works, you have to assume that Married at First Sight now attracts a very specific type of applicant. Someone happy to put short-term notoriety over long-term emotional peace, maybe, or someone who would gladly become an object of scorn and ridicule if it meant people noticed them.

On the most recent episode of Married at First Sight Australia, this nightmarish mishmash of problematic personalities finally boiled over. A contestant named Brook Crompton, who had previously left the show, returned for a surprise appearance at a dinner party, with the apparent intention of bullying everyone else as unpleasantly as possible. Crompton tore a strip through the other guests, spewing arbitrary hatred at all the other brides. The whole thing was so hard to watch that Crompton ended up grovelling on Instagram that: “This behaviour is not a reflection of who I am at my core and I hope that Australia will one day see this.”

Oil prices on course for record monthly rise amid risk of further escalation and mixed messaging from US

Donald Trump has threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power stations and fresh water plants if Tehran does not agree to peace terms “shortly”, even as he claimed diplomatic progress in ending the war that was instigated by the US and Israel.

Tehran has remained defiant during the month-long conflict, describing US peace proposals as “excessive, unrealistic and irrational” and firing waves of missiles at Israel.

Unlikely grouping of Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey steps up efforts to broker ceasefire and curb dominance of Iran and Israel

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The meeting on Sunday of the foreign ministers of Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey in Islamabad not only represented the best hope for a ceasefire in Iran but was also the embryo for a new order designed to curb Israeli and Iranian dominance after the war.

Although the four nations have met as a quartet before, the one-day meeting of foreign ministers in Islamabad on Sunday was, in a way, the official opening ceremony of an initiative that is intriguing diplomats.

War is testing operating principle that has guided Trump for decades: construct a narrative, declare it to be true and relentlessly force the world to submit to it

“Let me say, we’ve won,” he told a rally in Kentucky on 11 March. “I think we’ve won,” he said on the White House south lawn on 20 March. “We’ve won this war. The war has been won,” he said in the Oval Office on 24 March. “We are winning so big,” he promised a fundraising dinner on 25 March.

Donald Trump keeps declaring victory in Iran. But saying it over and over does not make it so. While the US president insists that his military campaign in the Middle East is a historic success, the world is bracing for a conflict that continues to metastasize and could wreak havoc on the global economy.

Prime minister says 7 May vote is coming at time of ‘war on two fronts’ as Labour braces for heavy losses at polls

• UK politics live – latest updates

The 7 May elections are taking place against a backdrop of “war on two fronts”, Keir Starmer has said, as he pledged action to tackle the resurgent cost of living crisis.

Launching Labour’s English local elections campaign in Wolverhampton on Monday, the prime minister said: “We’re facing a war on two fronts – the Ukraine war, now four and a bit years in … and now the Iran war, which I know is causing huge concern.

Knesset approves measure that has been criticised by European countries and rights groups

Israel’s parliament has passed a law imposing the death penalty on Palestinians convicted of fatal attacks, a measure sharply criticised as discriminatory by European countries and rights groups.

The legislation makes the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank found guilty of intentionally carrying out deadly attacks deemed acts of terrorism by a military court.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky says Russian security services may seek to create a ‘sense of vulnerability’ in Britain

Vladimir Putin is likely to stage another Salisbury-style attack on UK soil unless the government adopts more aggressive tactics against the Kremlin, the exiled Russian billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky has said.

The former oil tycoon has emerged as a leading figure in Russian diaspora opposition circles and claims to be well-informed about current thinking and developments among Moscow’s elite.

Negotiations deadlocked as No 10 wants more action on beach patrols but France has concerns over safety

The UK’s agreement with France to pay for beach patrols is on the verge of collapse amid wrangling over the number of small boat interceptions and the safety of asylum seekers in French waters.

Negotiations over plans to revamp the three-year, £480m deal remain deadlocked, despite the involvement of ministers including Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary. The deal expires at midnight on Tuesday.

Radio 2 breakfast show presenter departs over claims said to relate to a ‘historic relationship’ in latest crisis for BBC

• Analysis: BBC has acted with shocking speed

The BBC has been plunged into a new crisis after sacking the Radio 2 presenter Scott Mills over allegations about his personal conduct.

Mills, who hosted Britain’s most popular radio breakfast show, was blindsided by the decision to take him off the air last Tuesday. The corporation has opted to terminate his contact after claims made against him.

Leader understood to have spoken to 10 trade unions after party claimed working class voters are turning to them

Zack Polanski has kicked off a charm offensive designed to convince trade unions to stop funding Labour and throw their weight behind the Green party, as he delivered the first in a series of speeches to union conferences.

The Green leader has had “good conversations” with 10 trade unions, including some affiliated to Labour, according to party sources, and is due to address the University and College Union and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, not affiliated with Labour, in the coming months.

One twin wanted to take parental responsibility from the other for child P after both had sex with child’s mother

A woman who had sex with identical twins within four days of each other is unable to ensure one of them takes parental responsibility because it is “not possible” to know which is the father, the court of appeal has said.

One of the twins was registered as the father on the birth certificate of the child, referred to as P. His identical twin, along with the mother, sought to take over parental responsibility by asking the court of appeal to overturn a previous family court decision.

Cable signed by Marco Rubio and seen by Guardian suggests staff work with Pentagon psychological operations unit

The United States has directed every American embassy and consulate across the world to launch coordinated campaigns against foreign propaganda and endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it.

The cable, signed by the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, on Monday and obtained by the Guardian, also suggests embassies and consulates work alongside the US military’s psychological operations unit to address the problem of rampant disinformation. It lays out a sweeping set of instructions for how embassy staff should push back against what it describes as coordinated foreign efforts to undermine American interests abroad.

Titanic singer will perform 10 shows in Paris in September, after six-year break due to stiff-person syndrome

Céline Dion has announced her long-awaited return to performing live after a lengthy break caused by a rare health condition.

Addressing fans on social media in a video released on her birthday, the 58-year-old singer called the news of her comeback “the best gift”. She said her condition had improved and she would perform a series of shows in Paris, beginning in September.

Aarti Holla-Maini of the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs is primed to spot a potential planetary strike – and a year ago, she thought the moment had come

The UN official had trained for this moment. She had run drills and table-top exercises at her offices in Vienna, housed inside a grey and unassuming 1970s concrete tower complex next to the Danube River.

Aarti Holla-Maini, a British lawyer with a background in the satellite business, needed to have at least played out the scenario step by step. As the director of the UN’s Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), she was required to know exactly what she was expected to do if – and it was a big if – she were informed that a significantly large asteroid was on a possible collision course with Earth. Or, as she says with a laugh: “Armageddon.”

As ties with Washington sour, China is reviving a cold war strategy to defend against a US attack

Dotted across the mountainous roads of Sichuan and just a few hours’ drive from some of China’s most bustling cities, the crumbling ruins of an abandoned military experiment are eerily quiet.

Top secret factories that once housed thousands of workers are now overgrown with vegetation; nearby villages, empty of young people who were once shipped in from across the country to build China’s future, are plastered with advertisements for hearing aids and, in once case, a bundle deal on coffins.

Millions of workers were deployed to these remote mountain locations as part of a huge defence program that stayed secret for over a decade.

Amid lurid speculation, the decision has been taken with unusual speed in the last days of Tim Davie’s regime as director general – and it appears to be final

In a valedictory podcast appearance, Tim Davie, whose resignation as BBC director general takes final effect on 2 April, thanked his neighbours for smuggling him out through their gardens when the media were camped outside his house during various BBC scandals.

After Monday’s sudden announcement that the Radio 2 breakfast show presenter Scott Mills had been summarily sacked over a so-far unspecified failure of “personal conduct”, Davie may be relieved that he has only three more days of running with his head ducked past next door’s rhododendrons.

As thousands of US soldiers and marines arrive in the Middle East, Iran is accusing Washington of privately plotting a ground assault while publicly touting ceasefire talks. Donald Trump threatened to ‘obliterate’ Iran’s energy infrastructure, said his ‘preference would be to take the oil’ in Iran and that US forces could seize the regime’s export hub on Kharg Island, while also claiming he was in talks with a new ‘reasonable regime’. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi forces have also entered the conflict, bringing the threat of further damage to the global economy.

Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian columnist and host of Politics Weekly America, Jonathan Freedland

Stefan Golaszewski’s exquisite new show about life after baby loss is a feat – an unsettling, funny, moving and emotionally devastating TV triumph

Lisa and Stephen are good. “You good?” asks Stephen (Paapa Essiedu), plonking himself next to his wife on the sofa. “Yeah,” replies Lisa (Siobhán Cullen) from the depths of her oversize fleece hoodie. “Good,” says Stephen. “All good.”

Lisa and Stephen love each other and when Lisa has a miscarriage, then another miscarriage, they don’t talk about it, not really, because you don’t, do you? It’s just one of those things. “Gotta stay positive,” as Stephen says. “Eyes up, move forwards.”

Language experts say you should learn in the right order and shift to a growth mindset

If there’s one thing guaranteed to make a pop-culture character look cool and sophisticated, it’s being multilingual. Think James Bond, Yasmin from Industry or Scrooge McDuck.

Learning a new language not only makes you look cool – it also allows you to familiarize yourself with another culture, connect with new people and enjoy a wider variety of art and media. And it’s good for your brain. Studies have shown that learning a new language is associated with improved concentration, stronger communication skills, a more powerful memory and greater creativity.

The great old warhorse of British boxing, who faces his 50th and final bout on Saturday, reflects on retirement, Deontay Wilder and his friendship with the Reform leader

“Nigel’s here,” Derek Chisora says as he gives me a nudge when we walk into a restaurant called Boisdale in Belgravia. The great old warhorse of British boxing and I have been ambling around this stretch of London in search of a place where we can sit down and talk. He settles on Boisdale, which tags itself as “a British restaurant” and “a carnivore’s delight”.

Even though we are not dropping in for lunch, Chisora has enough of a swagger to blag us a private room. We look more ragged than the diners, including Nigel Farage, and I’m not sure the seemingly bewildered staff have a clear idea who Chisora is, but we sweep through the restaurant, climb the stairs and find ourselves in a discreet room. After Chisora orders a bottle of water for us to share he asks the waiter to let Farage know he is here.

‘The string section we got in thought I was the tea boy. When I asked for a psychedelic improvisation like A Day in the Life, they went: “Why is this guy telling us what to play?”’

We’d made our first album and were waiting for it to come out. But we wanted to carry on writing more stuff while we were in the mood. I even cut Christmas dinner short at my uncle’s in Brixton, London, so we could get back to the studio. We would work until we passed out, then I’d sleep underneath the mixing desk with my head in the bass drum, as that’s where the pillow was.

Devotees who paid $450 for a fun-filled “experience” in Florida last weekend were met with a concrete-floored warehouse and a $1 Barbie-branded hand sanitiser. Could this top the notorious Willy Wonka Experience?

Name: Barbie Dream Fest.

Age: Barbie has been around since 1959, so technically of pensionable age, even if she doesn’t look it. Barbie Dream Fest took place last weekend, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The Maseratis are borrowed, the helicopters rented by the hour. But deep down Dubai is a lonely place, built by oppressed people

For people living in close proximity to a war zone, the lack of sympathy for Australian and British expats and influencers in Dubai has been, on the face of it, curious.

Since their adopted home was bombed in the initial days of the war, they have faced mostly ridicule and contempt in their home countries.

Keir Starmer is running out of patience with the social media platforms, after Meta and Google’s landmark legal defeat in Los Angeles. But this ‘strongest intervention yet’ comes years too late

I’m past the stage in my parenting journey where I could have any influence over my kids’ screen time. They would be much more likely to invade my privacy, grab my phone, perform some search in settings that I don’t understand, wonder out loud how it’s possible for WhatsApp to take up that many hours in a person’s day, and I would say, “What goes on between a person and their phone is a sacred and never-to-be-breached thing.”

But, I still keep up with government pronouncements on the matter of phones and young people, in my quest to unlock a deeper mystery: how did Labour get so unpopular? I know why they’re unpopular with me; I could make a stab at why they’re unpopular with Reform voters and with Conservatives. What I don’t understand is how they fell foul of the squashy middle: the people who, given the choice, would always rather agree with the guys in charge; the people who’d identify as the centre; the people who determinedly don’t follow politics, don’t have strong views, and just wish it could go about its business more quietly. That army of compatriots whose impartiality makes them, let’s be honest, extremely easy to hang out with must have also turned against the government, otherwise it wouldn’t be getting such awful polling numbers. Last week marked new heights for a governing party in attracting negative attention. Explanations such as “Everyone hates politicians now”, and “They can’t seem to make their minds up, and people don’t like that” seem plausible but insufficient.

US bank will get deal it doesn’t really need as it would be far too embarrassing for Treasury to see investment sail away

The way Rachel Reeves told it last November after her budget, it seemed to be a done deal that JP Morgan would build a 279,000 sq metre (3m sq ft) tower in Canary Wharf to serve as its European headquarters. The chancellor was “thrilled” the Wall Street bank had chosen London and hailed “a multibillion-pound vote of confidence in the UK economy and this government’s plans for growth”.

And, to be fair to Reeves, Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s big boss, also presented the plan as final. “The UK government’s priority of economic growth has been a critical factor in helping us make this decision,” he said.

The government’s plan was clear and effective, and communities have eagerly followed its guidance – with young people leading the way

Roughly six years ago, the UK went into its first lockdown as an emergency response to Covid-19. Since then, the government’s many Covid policies, from severe restrictions on our movement to the test-and-trace debacle, have been picked apart. One of the questions I am most often asked is whether we’re better prepared for the next pandemic. It’s been tricky to answer. Although we learned much from the experience that should mean we’re better placed next time around, the stringent measures taken from 2020 to early 2022 have contributed to a backlash against public-health interventions, scientific research and vaccines, which coincides with declining trust in government after various political scandals.

Colleagues and I have often wondered: if we did face another disease spreading in Britain, would anyone listen to experts? Or is the public too far gone in its fatigue and distrust? So when the health alarm bells started ringing about an outbreak of meningitis in Kent, there was concern about what this would mean in terms of the public response.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

To see this war as archaic, the last squawk of the Middle East hawks, is at once maddening and hopeful

From the moment the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the news seemed incongruous with the year 2026. A war to kill the Ayatollah and overthrow the government – this was the fantasy of neoconservatives after September 11, before today’s college students were born. Hadn’t every president since, Donald Trump most boisterously of all, repudiated regime-change wars in the Middle East?

When he announced the strikes in an overnight video, decked out in a USA ball cap, Trump evoked an even more distant era. The president barely bothered to claim that Tehran posed some kind of imminent threat. Instead, he recited the litany of misdeeds perpetrated by the Islamic Republic since it took power in 1979.

If there is any consistency to Trump’s policy, it is a series of frantic attempts to justify his original blunder and extricate himself from its dire consequences

Donald Trump has lost his Iran war. He is the Iranian hostage. Unlike the US embassy personnel captured as hostages for 444 days, Trump threw himself into Iranian hands. Less than a month into his “short-term excursion”, his stated objectives have been scattered to the winds. There is no regime change, no uprising and no access to oil wealth along the Venezuelan model. The decapitation gambit – assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian leadership – has failed to destroy the regime. Despite the massacre, it is Trump who stands exposed to slings and arrows for the rashest military adventure since Custer at the Little Bighorn.

Iran maintains a chokehold on the strait of Hormuz and, through its narrowest passage of 21 miles, on the global economy. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecasts a spike of inflation to 4.2% in the US, a 40% increase since Trump returned to office. The stock market has dived into correction territory. Iran has also demonstrated its capacity to wreak existential destruction on the Gulf states whose rulers’ delusion of their invulnerability and US protection has been shattered. “I’m the opposite of desperate,” Trump declared on 26 March. “I don’t care.”

Without diplomacy or restraint, the economic shock will deepen and US soldiers may become embroiled in a quagmire

The fifth week of Donald Trump’s illegal war on Iran has confirmed the absence of any overarching strategy. The US continues to hit Iranian targets while building up forces in the region. Iran continues to launch missile and drone attacks on Israel and neighbouring Gulf states. Tehran’s proxies in the region have entered the fray. Its closure of the strait of Hormuz has seen oil prices shoot up and had knock-on effects already visible across fuel, fertiliser and supply chains. No amount of contradictory social media posts from Mr Trump can negate the shortages felt across the world, from Asian factories to European diesel markets. The pain is likely to get worse. There is no sign of imminent US victory or Iranian collapse.

This instead looks like a war of attrition. Each side can point to successes and their opponents can highlight failures. That is what sustains the conflict. The stakes extend far beyond the battlefield. The war is embedding itself in the global economy, shaping what is produced, moved and ultimately affordable. Even European ministers now admit they are losing sleep over what comes next – not just the war but its economic consequences.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Increased openness is a change for the better. But cuts have made the courts’ work far harder

Opening up family courts in England and Wales to journalists was never intended to solve all their problems. This is a public service that, like so many others, is chronically overloaded and underfunded. While the number of children in council care fell slightly last year, the figure of 81,770 in England was still 16% higher than a decade ago. Recent increases in legal aid fees applied only to immigration, housing and criminal cases – leaving family lawyers out.

But new rules about what can be reported are an important legacy of the court’s president, Sir Andrew McFarlane, who retired on Monday. These apply both to public law cases, involving care proceedings, and private law cases, which are usually disputes between couples. Following the national rollout of transparency orders, which enable reporters and legal bloggers to write about cases as long as they protect anonymity, his successor – who is yet to be announced – will inherit a more open family justice system.

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Readers respond to an editorial on the UK competition watchdog’s investigation of vet chains and the cost of treatment

The Competition and Markets Authority report on vet chains is welcome, but your editorial (24 March) does little to clarify things for struggling pet owners. The remedies include a further levy of between £600 and £1,000 per year, to be paid by practices to the regulator. This represents an increase of approximately 5% in our small independent referral practice, and will necessarily lead to increased prices, which have been displayed on our website since opening. Reform of the Veterinary Surgeons Act 1966 may lead to similar rising costs.

Current median salaries for veterinary surgeons are less than those of teachers and nurses. While pet owners may wish that care was cheaper, they also depend on it being available. Veterinary qualifications involve a minimum of five years’ undergraduate training, without the benefits of clinical years bursaries offered to doctors and dentists.

Paul Marshall says calling for an end to fossil fuels is impractical, in response to church leaders’ criticisms of GB News’s stance on climate science

The net zero consensus is crumbling – that is the background to the open letter addressed to me last week from 60 well-intentioned but misguided clerics (Church leaders criticise Christian owner of GB News over channel’s climate attacks, 26 March). I share their concerns for stewardship of the planet and their belief in the importance of human flourishing. I also agree that the planet is in a gradual warming phase and that carbon emissions have contributed to this.

Where we differ is on their policy response. Calling for an end to fossil fuels is an impractical and ideological policy position that leads to the emasculation of our main sources of energy at the expense of millions of jobs. It is subject to what is called a collective action problem. Net zero might work for the UK if the whole world had signed up to same timeline. However, India and China have very different and distant schedules. And now that the US has left the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UK is left pursuing a path of unilateral economic disarmament.

It is frontline staff who promote change in everyday interactions and set positive goals to help reduce reoffending, says Natasha Porter

The role played by prison officers is so often overlooked and misunderstood, and your editorial (22 March) is right to highlight staff when addressing some of the issues facing prisons. Those on the frontline are uniquely placed to drive change across the system, and good prison officers can radically improve outcomes for those in their care. To build a prison system that promotes rehabilitation, staff must be at the heart of these efforts and we need to be recruiting, training and developing outstanding frontline leaders.

The challenges in prisons are well documented and reoffending rates remain stubbornly high, costing the taxpayer billions every year. With so many prisoners spending more than 22 hours in their cells every day, the officers on the landings are the most influential members of staff in a prison. Only they can reach all prisoners, even those who refuse to engage with the rest of the system. The success of efforts to reform the system – including many of those introduced by the new Sentencing Act – requires transformative leaders on the frontline.

John Sommer and Dr Ginevra Read on the declining standard of food in schools

Regarding your article on school dinners (School dinners in England dominated by grab-and-go foods such as pizza and sausage rolls, 27 March), the declining standard of school meals has a lot to do with the way that secondary schools organise lunchtimes. There has been a tendency to shorten lunchtimes, often to deal with behavioural issues, but also to reduce the cost of supervision. This can be shortsighted as the rush for lunch becomes more intense, adding to tensions rather than reducing them.

The system encourages the grab-and-go mentality. Perhaps in addition to minimum nutrition standards, government guidance on the organisation of lunchtimes would make delivery of good school lunches a reality.
John Sommer
Bristol

• De Zerbi is only candidate currently talking to Spurs

• Tottenham intend to give Italian a long-term contract

Roberto De Zerbi has moved closer to becoming Tottenham’s new manager after further negotiations on Monday. The club have made him their prime target to replace Igor Tudor and save them from what would be a ruinous relegation to the Championship.

De Zerbi is in fact the only live candidate given that Spurs are not talking to anyone else. The makeup of his backroom staff has also been discussed.

• Arsenal duo unavailable for Japan game on Tuesday

• ‘We did medical tests. I saw them,’ head coach says

Thomas Tuchel has plotted a diplomatic course through the storm that has followed the withdrawals of Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka from the England squad, saying the optics may look bad but he has “100% trust” in their integrity.

The England head coach gave Rice and Saka last week off, letting them rest rather than play in the 1-1 draw against Uruguay at Wembley on Friday – along with nine others. His idea was to have all 11 back for the game against Japan on Tuesday, also at Wembley, for which he would release a group of players.

• Veteran returns to club 44 years after being sacked

• ‘It boils down to two words: energy and enthusiasm’

Roy Hodgson insisted he does not require “a crutch” after making a shock return to Bristol City at 78 years old and believes he is healthier than when last coaching two years ago, when he was taken ill at Crystal Palace. The former England manager, who took training at the Championship club for the first time on Monday, has taken interim charge for the final seven games of the season.

Hodgson left Palace in February 2024, four days after collapsing at training, but he was tempted out of retirement by Richard Scudamore, the former Premier League chief executive who joined City’s board last October. Hodgson was at home in Richmond, west London, when he received a message out of the blue from Scudamore, a lifelong City fan, asking if he could pick his brains.

Not everyone is optimistic it will be the case, but players should start the season believing performances will be noticed by the England setup

Peter Moores could be forgiven for raising an eyebrow at England’s backing for Brendon McCullum after four years as head coach and that bleak Australian winter. Moores was afforded barely three during his two spells in the job, neither of which included an Ashes series.

But as his Nottinghamshire side begin the defence of their County Championship title away at Somerset on Friday, Moores is keen to look forwards. During his Ashes mea culpa, the England team director, Rob Key, said he wanted better communication with the counties on selection, music to the ears of the leading domestic coach.

F1 has five weeks before the next race in Miami and they will need every minute to fix a hugely complicated problem

Oliver Bearman emerging unhurt from a huge accident at the Japanese Grand Prix was considered a lucky escape. Formula One must think it is catching a break given there is a full month to work out how best to reduce the chance of such an incident happening again. F1 is going to need every minute of that time given the complexity of the problem.

Bearman’s Haas car was travelling at 307kph (191mph) when he was forced to veer off‑track as he came up behind the relatively slow moving Alpine of Franco Colapinto. The closing speed between the two cars was 50kph, a frightening pace. The scenario was one many had been warning about before the season had even begun. With the deployment of electrical energy, and its subsequent recovery now an integral part of F1, Bearman was using his boost mode while Colapinto was recovering energy, hence the big difference in speed.

The expansion of this summer’s 48-team tournament mean Tuesday’s games will be the best we see until the round of 16

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There is always a slightly odd rhythm to the World Cup. The final round of qualifying games is almost invariably more exciting than the early games at the tournament itself, and now with 32 teams making it through the group stage and into the knockout rounds, that is likely to be even more true for the 2026 edition. Those final qualifiers in November were thrilling and meaningful – Troy Parrott’s hat-trick! Scotland scoring two absurdly good goals in the same game! DR Congo beating Nigeria on penalties as bottles rained down from the stands! Honduras failing to score against Costa Rica! – and Tuesday will be too as 12 teams battle for the six remaining slots.

But for those not involved in World Cup playoffs, there is an unsatisfying phoniness to the friendlies they must play instead, with experimental line-ups and weary players going through glorified training exercises. While it’s never good to be letting in five goals, neither the USA nor Ghana should be too concerned about the defeats to Belgium or Austria.

• Aaround 5% of tickets will cost more than $1,000

• Tickets for general public to go on sale on 9 April

Tickets for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games will go on sale to the general public on 9 April, organizers said on Monday, as LA28 also moved to reassure fans over ticket security by naming a group of verified resale platforms.

A presale for residents in qualifying areas of Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, which will host softball and canoe slalom events, will begin on 2 April.

Next racing at the famous venue will be in October after work is done around a hole that appeared in January

If you were planning a day at Cheltenham before the end of the jumps campaign, think again. The home of National Hunt racing said on Monday it will not stage another fixture until autumn, having taken the unprecedented decision to cancel its three remaining meetings in order to start major drainage works on the home straight over the summer months.

The two-day meeting scheduled for 15-16 April and the track’s traditional season finale, a hunter-chase fixture and concert on 1 May, attracted a combined total of nearly 25k spectators in 2025. That is a long way short of the 56k daily average at the festival this month, but will still represent a significant loss in ticket sales and race-day revenue from food, drinks and betting.

Marc Skinner laments City’s advantage after Vivianne Miedema shines and Brighton welcome back Kiko Seike

With her hat-trick in Arsenal’s 5-2 win over Tottenham, Alessia Russo took her tally to 25 goal contributions in 31 games this campaign. It is a notable return from a player in her prime, not just in her buildup play, but also her finishing. Arsenal’s attacking dominance – they have scored 18 goals in their past five games – is down to the fact that many of their attacking players are in form. Stina Blackstenius has three goals in her past four games while Caitlin Foord also scored on Saturday, her first appearance since returning from the Asian Cup. Renée Slegers has spoken about the versatility in the type of goals her side produces and the need to be ruthless in both penalty areas. Spurs’ two goals meant an end to Arsenal’s 106-day streak of not conceding in the WSL. While all runs must come to an end, Arsenal still boast the meanest defence in the league. Sophie Downey

City regulator reduces number of loan agreements in line for compensation from 14m to 12m

• Explainer: how will the payout scheme work?

Victims of the car finance scandal will be in line for payouts worth £830 on average, as the City regulator tightened the rules of its compensation scheme to cover fewer contracts.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) released the final details of its planned redress programme, saying it had narrowed the number of loan agreements eligible for payouts from 14m to 12.1m contracts.

Saturday’s protests drew millions of people across the US and around the world. The Guardian spoke with some of them to see why they were there and what’s next

• So you went to a No Kings protest. Now what?

Saturday saw the greatest number of protests in US history, when more than 8 million people at 3,300 No Kings events took to the streets to oppose the policies of Donald Trump.

In the past few months, the Trump administration has sent more than 3,000 federal immigration agents into Minnesota’s Twin Cities, causing fear and havoc that was only furthered when agents killed two residents. Trump has also launched strikes on Venezuela and waged a war in Iran that has so far cost the US about $30bn to $40bn. That is on top of the US continuing to fund Israel’s war in Gaza; the ongoing immigration raids in other US cities, towns and rural regions; and the threats to trans rights, voting rights and more.

Nearly 6,000 people forced to flee, human rights group says, as it criticises ‘abandonment’ from authorities

At least 70 people have been killed and 30 injured during an attack in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region, significantly more than official estimates, a human rights group has said.

Police initially reported 16 dead and 10 injured, while a preliminary report from civil protection authorities suggested 17 had died and 19 were wounded.

Lawyers for paper say investigator’s disputed claims were used to recruit prominent figures to case

Public figures such as Doreen Lawrence and Elton John were “induced” to sue the Daily Mail’s publisher on the basis of a private investigator’s now disowned claims of illegal activity, the high court has heard.

Seven people including Prince Harry have accused Associated Newspapers Ltd (ANL) of using unlawful information gathering to obtain stories. John’s partner, David Furnish, and the actor Liz Hurley are also among the group. ANL denies all the claims.

Songwriter and musician best known for the enduring hit Wild Thing, made famous by the Troggs and Jimi Hendrix

In a career spanning seven decades, Chip Taylor, who has died aged 86 of cancer, wrote songs recorded by a huge array of artists from Willie Nelson, Linda Ronstadt and the Hollies to Janis Joplin, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Emmylou Harris. Yet it was the primitive but irresistible Wild Thing, composed in a matter of minutes, that became his best-known calling card.

He wrote it in 1965 when commissioned to write a song for Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones, but their version was not a hit. However, when the Troggs recorded it the following year it topped the US chart and became a smash around the world.

Five miles from their former city zoo, seven gorillas are exploring their new ‘African forest’ home

It has been an eventful few months for Bristol’s gorillas. The troop made headlines around the world when an urban explorer snapped pictures of them looking downbeat in their old, almost deserted home near the city centre. Then they were moved – under armed police escort – to a new out-of-town base and promptly suffered a shock bereavement.

On Monday, in warm spring sunshine, the western lowland gorillas were to be found exploring a new woodland habitat at Bristol Zoo Project, five miles from their former city home. They clambered up the horse chestnut tree, as tall as a three-storey building, sampled the green shoots of a hawthorn and scanned the floor for treats.

For decades, there was no record of Andrena rehni exisiting in the US. In 2018 it was found in Maryland and five years later I found it in New York State

I’ve loved insects ever since I was a kid and spent summers looking for them. My mum would always tell me that from the age of one – even before I could walk – I would happily sit outside, watching ants and trying to follow them back to their colony.

As an adult, I take people out to meadows with nets to catch insects and take a close look at them. It’s about trying to cultivate a childlike curiosity that people have lost or forgotten in daily life.

President is convening so-called ‘God squad’ to override provisions of Endangered Species Act for ‘national security’

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Donald Trump is dispatching a so-called “God squad” of top officials to revoke protections for endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, purportedly to protect national security by expanding oil and gas industry operations.

If successful, the administration may kill off dozens of protected species – from Rice’s whales and whooping cranes to sea turtles.

Home to one of the world’s largest deposits of freshwater, the Great Lakes region will soon host next-generation generators – just as prices are being hiked across the US

Submersible hydroelectric technology deployed across the Great Lakes could become a key cog in clean energy efforts, supporters say, amid surging electricity demand and costs.

Home to one of the largest deposits of freshwater on the planet, the Great Lakes region has on its shores some of the largest cities in North America in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal and Detroit, where electricity demand is growing. While none of the five Great Lakes have significant tides or currents to fuel hydropower, several of the waterways that link the lakes do.

UK plans to take economic control from Chinese owner Jingye a year after stepping in to run plant, sources say

British Steel is on track to be fully nationalised within weeks, the Guardian understands, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner.

The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, was taken under government control last April amid fears that the owner Jingye was planning to shut down the site.

As Iran war continues, ministers debate several options for extending support to households

• Business live – latest news

Families hardest hit by the looming energy crisis caused by the Iran war could be given funds dispensed by local councils, under plans being considered by UK ministers keen to keep a lid on costs.

As concerns increase about the impact of rising fuel and energy costs in response to a drawn-out conflict in the Middle East, a government official said several options for extending support were being debated inside Whitehall.

Scheme for accusers of store’s former owner Mohamed Al Fayed to close before end of retailer’s internal investigation

Harrods has been accused of being “neither fair nor just” over its decision to close a compensation scheme for survivors of alleged sexual abuse by the luxury department store’s former owner Mohamed Al Fayed.

Kingsley Hayes, partner at KP Law, which is representing nearly 280 survivors, questioned why the scheme was being closed on Tuesday 31 March, before Harrods had completed an internal investigation into what happened and who knew about it.

Critics say films lauding country’s attitude to women and green credentials could damage corporation’s reputation

The BBC has been accused of making “glossy propaganda films” for Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and taking money from a “repressive regime”.

BBC Storyworks, the corporation’s commercial arm, has entered into a partnership with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). The broadcaster has made a series of films and written articles lauding the country’s supposedly progressive attitude to women and eco-friendly credentials. These are hosted on a mini-site that carried BBC branding.

Ayman Ghazali, naturalized US citizen from Lebanon, often consumed content linked to Lebanese group online

The assailant who attacked a synagogue in Michigan earlier this month was inspired by Hezbollah, the FBI said on Monday.

Jennifer Runyan, head of the FBI’s Detroit field office, announced during a press conference that Ayman Ghazali, 41, had frequently consumed Hezbollah-related content online before the attack. In a video recorded before he drove his truck into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield Township – a north-western suburb of Detroit – on 12 March, Ghazali said he wanted to “kill as many of them as I possibly can”.

Exclusive: UK owner’s version of Old Man with a Gold Chain reunited in Chicago with undisputed work by Dutch master

A portrait in a UK collection that has long been dismissed as a workshop copy of an almost identical painting by Rembrandt was in fact also painted by the 17th-century Dutch master, according to a leading scholar.

Each of the paintings, titled Old Man with a Gold Chain and dated to the early 1630s, is a near-lifesize depiction of an older man wearing a gold chain and a plumed hat.

Two AH-64 Apache helicopters on training run maneuvered near hillside home of Trump-supporting musician

The army has launched an administrative review after two AH-64 Apache helicopters on a training run hovered near the hillside home of Kid Rock as the outspoken supporter of Donald Trump saluted their crews.

Kid Rock posted two videos on social media on Saturday. Each shows a helicopter hovering alongside his swimming pool while the entertainer claps, salutes and raises his fist in the air. The Nashville skyline can be seen in the background.

Collien Fernandes accuses ex-husband Christian Ulmen of sharing sexually explicit deepfake images of her online

A high-profile German TV star’s allegations that her ex-husband spread AI-generated pornographic images of her have triggered a national debate and put pressure on the government to tighten laws around digital violence against women.

In an interview with the news magazine Der Spiegel last week, Collien Fernandes accused her former husband Christian Ulmen, a prominent TV presenter and producer, of impersonating her online for years and sharing sexually explicit deepfake images.

The factories, which buy cheap crude and turn it into fuel, are struggling as higher oil prices threaten their razor-sharp margins

The towns that are the bulwark of China’s energy security can, at a moment of global crisis, appear deceptively quiet. Trucks carrying oil trundle along wide-open highways that have little traffic, while a few boarded-up shops in crumbling low-rise buildings hint at a long-forgotten local buzz.

A ramshackle noodle shop serving hand-pulled ribbons of dough was empty at lunchtime, save for a few construction workers and a teacher watching videos on Douyin, the social media platform, with his meal.

Exclusive: Pubs, restaurants and hotels warn of mounting pressure days before rates rises and higher wage bills take effect

One in five hospitality businesses fear collapse in the next 12 months, according to an industry-wide survey that comes days before rises in tax and employment costs kick in.

From Wednesday, many pub, restaurant and hotel companies face the prospect of a higher bill for business rates paid to their local authority, while an increase in minimum wage thresholds takes effect on the same day.

Brent crude jumps 51% since start of March and gold suffers fifth-largest monthly fall in 50 years

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The Brent crude oil price is on track for its biggest monthly gain on record in March after the Iran war caused mayhem in the markets.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, has climbed by 51% since the start of March, LSEG data shows, beating the previous monthly record of 46% in September 1990 after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, leading to the first Gulf war.

Exclusive: Research finds sharp rise in models evading safeguards and destroying emails without permission

AI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.

AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission.

Radicalised by the inventiveness of groups such as the Harlem Renaissance, the LA-based musician is determined to reclaim the radical possibilities of culture in an age of institutional and algorithmic exploitation

‘For many years, I’ve called myself a surrealist blues poet,” says Aja Monet in her warm, deep voice. Sitting in a London cafe, the Los Angeles-based artist looks striking, with her blue braids woven up in an intricate style. She was up late uploading the final master recordings for her new album, The Color of Rain, which she says was heavily influenced by her reading around how “surrealism was a real intentional device that artists used in response to the rise of fascism throughout history”.

High-minded and yet invested in the cut-and-thrust of our lives today, it’s a typical comment from Monet. With themes around love, resistance and the absurdity of our current times, her performance, poetry and music offers a balm for the suffering and abuse meted out by establishment power. Already in 2026, her second poetry book Florida Water was nominated for an award by the foundational US civil rights organisation the NAACP, and she performed alongside Stevie Wonder at Time magazine’s event celebrating Martin Luther King Day.

Soft Opening, London
Deadpan 90s photographs of seemingly ordinary buildings only hint at the queer bacchanalia within – and stand as a record of lost and beloved safe spaces

At first, they look like ordinary buildings, photographed in an ordinary manner. Each is shot formally from across the street, framed by thick black utility cables and poles, barbed wire fences, graffiti and flyposters carving horizontal and vertical planes, with glimpses of cerulean California sky and Arcadian palms beyond. It’s the city, but there are no people in sight, and the streets are clean of debris and dirt, except for a few oil stains left behind in a parking lot. The pictures are strangely silent.

None of these buildings have windows – if they do, they are boarded up, shuttered, blacked out. In only one photograph, the door is left mysteriously open – inside, I can just make out a security door, latticed iron bars, and beyond it a neon arrow sign directing the way in. These are photographs to tease your deepest voyeuristic desires. Only the titles direct you to what’s going on inside these locations – “12 stalls, 1 leather bunk bed, outdoor garden, 1 water fountain, 1 barber’s chair, glory-hole platform, Chinese decor” reads one.

Dogged detective work tracked down the instrument that had vanished more than 50 years ago, but the true story behind its theft injects a note of sadness

It sometimes feels as if a week doesn’t go by without a legacy-building documentary about Paul McCartney. The latest is this geeky tale about the 1961 Höfner bass guitar, the unmistakable violin-shaped instrument which, as a teenager in 1961, he bought for the equivalent of £30 in Hamburg, and which became a part of the Beatles’ iconography. After the band split, it went missing and was finally recovered in 2024, after more than 50 years, thanks to some dogged detective work, initiated by Nick Wass, a Höfner employee, and involving a certain ambulance service worker called Steve Glenister who responded to Wass’s calls for information, but was weirdly reluctant to say quite how much he knew.

It is an amiable tale with a happy ending but, oddly, the film can’t quite absorb the sadness, and even shame, that are disclosed in the denouement. Stealing by people who are hard up, and for whom opportunistic thievery is an instinctive mode of survival and whose grownup children may not, a generation later, want to think about what their parents did – these are big, sombre ideas with big sombre implications that don’t quite mesh with the documentary’s happy mood board.

The latest in our series of writers paying tribute to their comfort films is a journey back to 2000 when Danny Boyle transported us to paradise

I can’t listen to Porcelain by Moby without picturing a secluded beach and reminiscing about roads less traveled. Somewhere halfway through Danny Boyle’s sun-drenched film The Beach, there’s one scene that captures a sense of awe at life’s extraordinary moments, something I think we need to feel more of. In a world where holidays (or even life itself) are often neatly packaged in all-inclusive, predictable deals, The Beach stands out for showing the opposite. It’s not about tourism – it’s about living, wildly.

Led by a dapper young Leonardo DiCaprio, fresh from the success of Titanic and accompanied by a truly stellar soundtrack I still listen to on long bus journeys, The Beach starts as an adventure into the unfamiliar. A restless Richard (DiCaprio) ditches the daily grind in search of something more, and drifts through Thailand on a relentless quest for a feeling he can’t quite name.

First of a six-part series from the creator of Mum and Him & Her dealing with pregnancy loss. Plus: the final part of Norma Percy’s gripping Clash of the Superpowers. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC One
In Stefan Golaszewski’s new six-part drama, Siobhán Cullen (The Dry) and Paapa Essiedu (The Capture) are achingly convincing as Lisa and Stephen, an ordinary London couple in their 30s trying to have a baby. The pair navigate the rollercoaster of pregnancy, loss and grief more than once, as they continue to get through life’s mundanities and special little moments. Meanwhile, Charlotte Riley and Jack Bannon play Amanda and Dave, a seemingly oddball new couple who Lisa and Stephen catch up with over dinner. But as the series plays out, and there are more surprise pregnancies and revelations, these friendships are tested. Hollie Richardson

Documentary follows a resident of a Norwegian village for people with learning disabilities, spotlighting his connection with a Danish care worker

This is a sweet, slight, gentle film about Ola Henningsen, a man in early middle age with a round, placid face who lives in a village community in eastern Norway for people with learning and developmental disabilities. (The original title in Norwegian translates as Ola: A Completely Ordinary Unusual Guy.) Director Ragnhild Nøst Bergem interviews Ola and follows him around the village; Ola describes himself as “slow” and yet also appears perfectly intelligent and articulate.

But the film shows us something over and above this: Ola’s relationship with Lasse, a Danish care worker who once lived in the community alongside the residents, helping with activities, and who did nothing to discourage Ola thinking of him as his “best friend”. But Ola was clearly very hurt, even heartbroken, when Lasse (inevitably) had to leave the community and go back to Copenhagen because his employment term had come to an end. The second part of the film shows Ola going on a trip to see Lasse (which would have been impossible without Bergem accompanying him as his carer) and to some extent confessing to him his feelings of abandonment.

M Gessen explores the wild truth about his cousin, who keeps kidnapping his own child. Plus: will the world of porn really be Screwed By AI?

“Anyone’s first cousin could be plotting murder …” New York Times columnist M Gessen is the reporter and host of this leftfield five-parter released under the NYT/Serial Productions banner, with shades of its previous series such as We Were Three and S-Town. A braggart with a problematic habit of kidnapping his own son, M’s “idiot” cousin Allen is charged with ordering a hit on his ex-wife, Priscilla. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, Cardiff
Moving from Schubert through Chopin to Liszt, the young pianist brought deep interpretative insights

Moving from Schubert through Chopin to Liszt, this recital by Alim Beisembayev – the Kazakh-born winner of 2021’s Leeds international piano competition – described an arc delineating the passionate surge of Romanticism over the span of 30 or so years from the 1820s to 1853.

Beisembayev’s approach to Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, D780, was calm and understated, perhaps as a way of underlining the vast contrast with the Liszt yet to come. Using the fine acoustic of the Dora Stoutzker hall to his advantage, he created an intimacy where Schubert’s characteristic slipping in and out of major and minor modes was quietly evocative. Tellingly, the two Moments in F minor – No 3 where sadness and insouciance dance together and No 5 with its more dramatic outbursts – presaged the key of Chopin’s Fantaisie, Op49.

Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Elgar’s more-tea-vicar salon Victoriana sat primly beside Simpson’s cataclysmic celebration of occultism, while Sibelius’s climactic payoff needed a bigger buildup

Elgar’s much-loved Serenade for Strings was given its unofficial 1892 premiere by the amateurs of the Worcester Ladies’ Orchestral Class. The perfect piece of salon Victoriana, it was an ideal more-tea-vicar, bone-china-and-bread-and-butter scene-setter for the cataclysmic eruptions of Mark Simpson’s The Immortal.

Inspired by Victorian occultism, Simpson’s 2015 oratorio invites its audience to a Victorian seance. Texts collated by Melanie Challenger represent the scattered anxieties, pleas and nonsense of the automatic writing produced by mediums of the time. Against these are set the words of Frederic Myers: founder of the Society for Psychical Research, obsessed with the afterlife since the suicide of his childhood sweetheart.

As I sat in a park during the pandemic, listening to the Evermore album on my headphones, one song finally released the grief that I’d pent up for five years

When the pandemic hit in 2020, it had been five years since my sister, Emily, had died. She had lived with cystic fibrosis her whole life, yet we were a close, tactile family. We laughed, hugged and sang often. When Emily died, relatively suddenly, aged 30 (I was 27), I coped with it as well as anyone could. In fact, I prided myself on how outwardly resilient I seemed: I spoke to a therapist, started a new job. I poured myself into a packed diary and a big city.

It wasn’t until time stopped, in a way, in 2020, that I really sat with my grief. I was forced to – made redundant like so many others that summer, my days had no shape. Like many people living in city flatshares, my one little freedom was a daily walk.

The fortunes of a single family are entwined with the turmoil of the 20th century in this ambitious, gothic-inflected debut

This gothic-inflected saga has received much attention in Europe for its quirky and confident take on 20th-century Hungarian history. It is sobering to reflect that its author not only has no personal memory of the end of communist rule in eastern Europe, but that he wasn’t even alive when the twin towers fell. Born in 2003, Nelio Biedermann is among the first wave of gen Z writers of fiction and Lázár is his debut novel.

The opening pages introduce us to a world straight out of gothic fable. In an isolated manor house by a forbiddingly dark forest, a strange-looking baby is born. This unearthly child, Lajos, is fated to carry forward the family name of the Lázárs, a noble dynasty with an alarming tendency to go mad, die violently, or both. Meanwhile, in another wing of the house lurks the baron’s older brother, Imre, who is barred from the baronetcy by reason of insanity.

A deep dive into the horror novelist’s archives reveals pedantry, penny-pinching, and a total redraft of Carrie

When Caroline Bicks first met Stephen King she was worried. As a teenager she had scared herself silly with his books – Carrie and The Shining were the two that crept under her skin and refused to budge – but now she found herself in the odd position of being Stephen E King professor at the University of Maine. King had endowed the chair at his alma mater in 2016 for the study of literature, and Dr Bicks was a Harvard-trained Shakespeare specialist. What, beyond a name, would they really have in common?

At the time of her appointment, Bicks’s employers had told her not to initiate contact with the famous author in any way. But four years into the job she got a phone call from “Steve” who turned out to be a teddy bear: “I couldn’t believe it. The man responsible for terrifying generations of readers – including me – was so … nice.” Not quite a meet-cute, but promising.

Deborah Green was a charismatic woman who established a ‘free love ministry’ in California, claiming to be a vessel for God. She was also a controlling, cruel sadist. Her daughter Sarah talks about her terrifying upbringing – and dramatic escape

Sarah Green realised things weren’t right in the religious community where she was raised when her mother forced three of its members to live in a locked shed. All three were women, disowned by their husbands, and forced to live off scraps of food. Her mother, Deborah Green, said they had been judged by God and this was their punishment. One of the women, an old family friend called Maura, was made to wear a white sackcloth dress and renamed Forsaken. The other two women were renamed Barren and Despised.

Sarah is a strong, striking woman with a keen sense of irony and a joyous cackle of a laugh. But now she’s in tears. “I felt sickened to my gut. Even though I’d been groomed and my mom told me, ‘I’m God’s oracle, so therefore I hear what God wants for everybody, and this is what they have to go through because they’re sinning’, it didn’t make sense to me.” She sniffs back her tears. “Sorry, I’m getting emotional. So when they locked the people in the shed, I’d sneak them food. I just didn’t understand why Maura, who was part of our membership, had kids, all of a sudden was being forced to live like an animal and do the most degrading things. I didn’t understand why.” Sarah is wailing, as if she’s been transported back to the little girl she was at the time. “What had she done? I didn’t see anything, and I grew up around them. So from that moment you lived in fear, because you could be the next person on the chopping block.” Sarah eventually discovered that Maura’s sin was that she had refused to beat her children.

As her dark debut about a tradwife who wakes up in the past is made into a film by Anne Hathaway, the novelist explores the sinister truth behind the barefoot influencers

Gingham dresses, linen aprons; toddlers smiling toothily out from their perch on a perfectly cocked hip. And the mothers holding these babies? They’re beautiful, obviously. They speak in a whisper. Their skin tone is varied in the exact range and spectrum of honey.

Tradwife. It’s a frilly word, the kind that holds a gun to your head and demands you say it in sing-song. The media coverage of the phenomenon has been as breathless and decidedly feminised as the term itself. I have yet to find an article on the topic that was not written by a woman, which feels ironic, given that the term – as well as the vision therein – was originally coined and circulated by men, born out of the dank, murky caves of online “incel” forums, where anonymous usernames set forth the deeply unoriginal vision of a wife who would do everything the real women in their lives refused to do: manage the house, give birth to children, have sex on command, and most importantly, ask nothing in return.

Retail sims aren’t my thing, but the tactile, nostalgic pleasures of hit indie title Retro Rewind have me yearning for the era of physical media, smoking indoors and uncomplicated geopolitics

It’s early doors, but 2026 may be the biggest bin fire of a year in my lifetime. Wars starting, then ending, then starting again in the course of a week. People running their cars on hopes and dreams because a tank of petrol costs more than the vehicle. Manospheric morons making millions. Several depressing celebrity deaths before I’ve so much as eaten my first Creme Egg of the year.

I had no idea that the antidote to my anxiety and rage would be a cheap little title, made by two French blokes, in what I usually regard as the most turgid gaming genre. Retro Rewind is the moment’s indie darling, selling more than 100,000 copies on Steam in a week. In it, you run a video rental shop in the 90s. You need to buy videos. Display them well. Drop flyers. Serve your customers. Buy more stuff. It’s no different from any other retail sim out there, and I normally shun them because I play video games to escape the boring world of work and into an exciting one of dragons, aliens, and being brilliant at sports.

As physical media makes an unlikely comebac​k​ among younger gamers, the humble VHS emerges as an unexpected archive of gaming’s messy, magical evolution​ that I saw first time around

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As I am nostalgic and of a certain age, I recently bought a VHS video recorder, just for the retrospective thrill of it; then I won a 32-inch CRT television at an auction in Shepton Mallet. Partly, this was to play a few old videos I had found in my loft, including one of me appearing in a 1990s youth TV show talking about sexism and Tomb Raider. (I was against the sexism, to be clear). But it was also because I wanted a new way of spending my money on fragile video-game nostalgia.

The rise of the games industry in the 1980s and 90s coincided with the explosion of the home-video business, and the two crossed paths in lots of interesting ways. There are the obvious treasures I want to get hold of: VHS copies of Street Fighter: The Movie and the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie, naturally, as well as early games-inspired hits such as The Last Starfighter, The Wizard and WarGames. I rented most of these from my local video shop in the 80s – which, like many others, also sold computer games by the budget publisher Mastertronic, another interesting (at least to me) crossover between these two entertainment formats.

Huge cuts announced this week show that truly no developer working in games is safe from corporate whims

The video game industry is currently experiencing a seemingly endless bout of ruinous deja vu. Every month, another publisher posts an all too familiar statement about job losses in its development studios. There will be airy expressions of regret and platitudes praising the skill and contribution of the imminently jobless; it is all filtered through layers of corporate doublespeak intended to disguise the human cost of downsizing.

On Tuesday, it was the turn of Epic Games, creator of Fortnite, one of the most successful titles on the planet. In a note posted online, CEO Tim Sweeney announced that more than 1,000 jobs would be lost – this followed the cutting of 830 staff in September 2023.

From owing a debt to obscure Japanese horror Sweet Home to the influence of Aliens and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the franchise continues to petrify players three decades on

To many of us playing and writing about video games in the 1990s, Resident Evil seemed to come out of nowhere. The emerging PlayStation and Saturn consoles were all about slick, bright arcade conversions – the shiny thrills of Daytona and Tekken – and Japanese publisher Capcom was in a rut of coin-op conversions and endless sequels to Street Fighter and Mega Man. Scary games were rare at the time and mostly confined to the PC. So when the news of a horror title named Biohazard (the Japanese name for the series) started to emerge in 1995, it caught the attention of games journalists as it seemed radically out of step with prevailing trends. Games were about power, but as early demos quickly revealed, Resident Evil was about vulnerability.

Thirty years later, it’s still here. The series has sold more than 180m copies worldwide, with 11 core titles and dozens of spinoffs and remakes, as well as film, television and anime tie-ins. Its characters and monsters are icons, its tropes now embedded in game design practice. What has allowed it to not only survive but flourish in such a rapidly changing industry? Why do we still let it scare us?

Finborough theatre, London
Irritable passions ferment beneath the frowsty knits and beads in atmospheric 1935 psychological thriller

Lonely lives, falling between the gaps, are at the heart of this 1935 psychological thriller by Rodney Ackland, adapted from Hugh Walpole’s novel. It’s an atmospheric period piece, but isn’t entirely a stretch to reflect on our own concerns about solitude in an ageing population.

The three ladies in an English cathedral town are without partners, families or much of an income. They eke out their genteel poverty in a rickety boarding house. They weren’t raised to work; Miss Beringer, in desperate need of a job, can only imagine becoming a paid companion or, possibly, flower arranging.

In Brigid Larmour’s finely etched production, irritable passions ferment beneath the frowsty knits and beads. The characters are prey to spite and greed, nerves and night terrors. Voices are tremulous; eyes glance at a fearful future.

Beringer is the new lodger: Catherine Cusack, whittled by anxiety, timidly nibbles on a scallop-edged biscuit. She is welcomed by Julia Watson’s Mrs Amorest, flustered but keeping up appearances. Down to her last £10, she writes into the void to a long-absent son.

The third lady is Agatha. Fruitily overblown in the novel, that’s how Edith Evans played her in 1935 (“a monstrous and poisonous plant, grotesque and bulbous,” according to one review). Abigail Thaw makes her disconcertingly eccentric: forbidding in jet black, she mocks and snaps at quivering Miss Beringer (“Do you know when you’re going to die? Do you want to know?”). She covets Beringer’s one cherished possession – a translucent chunk of amber from a beloved female friend.

It’s a play of cross-hatched conversations and melodramatic plotting. Larmour’s design team help turn the screw: the dank-toned house and clothes in tones of moth and cobweb, a bitter wind blowing (set, costumes and sound by Juliette Demoulin, Carla Joy Evans and Max Pappenheim).

Ackland’s plays about rackety lives are increasingly revived. He, Walpole and John Gielgud, the play’s original director, were all queer artists, and it’s tempting to imagine them drawn to these lives on the margins of British society. Though these ladies don’t so much rage against the dying of the light as wait, fearfully, to be snuffed out.

• At the Finborough theatre, London, until 19 April.

Who needs Worthy Farm? From woodland raves and psych freakouts to fell walks and barbecue hoedowns, there’s a festival for everyone this summer. And some of them don’t even require a tent

Download
10 to 14 June, Donington, Leicestershire
If you needed another reminder of the cultural capital currently wielded by the sounds and styles of the early 2000s, witness nu-metal veterans Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park headlining the UK’s biggest rock festival alongside Guns N’ Roses, who continue to fly the flag for Donington’s Monsters of Rock heritage. Further down the poster you’ll find the really adrenalised stuff: Blood Incantation’s cosmic death metal; Drain’s febrile hardcore; and Die Spitz’s peerlessly cool doom-punk hybrid. Huw Baines

Barbican Centre, London
From Stavros to Wayne Slob, Loadsamoney to DJ Dave Nice, the 64-year-old distilled whole characters and social types

To younger audiences, Harry Enfield may be best known for his Prince-turned-King Charles in Channel 4 satirical soap opera The Windsors – and it’s in character as the monarch that he enters the stage for this Audience With … event, reviewing his whole career. By the end, he’s staked a strong claim to be considered head of our comedy state, with a show anthologising a formidably comprehensive array of personae, catchphrases and showbiz anecdotes from Enfield’s 40-plus years making funny TV.

Not for the first time in career retrospectives like this, I came away marvelling at just how many indelible characters and sketches of Enfield’s have entered common currency; have become totems, indeed, of the times in which we live(d). Not that Enfield makes any such claims for himself; there’s nothing self-congratulatory about this show. Quite the opposite: the 64-year-old wears his iconoclasm like a badge of pride, with material that’s often as indelicate as the best of the jokes with which, back in the 80s and 90s, he made his name.

Lyric Hammersmith, London
Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy – following a day in the life of a Harlem braiding salon – is filled with humour and hijinks

‘Don’t touch my hair” is a racially-charged statement of Black femininity, encapsulating the personal as political. Hair is political here too, though there is plenty of consenting touching in Jocelyn Bioh’s comedy following a day in the life of a Harlem braiding salon.

Bioh’s follow-up to School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play, is again directed by Monique Touko and has dazzled audiences on Broadway. You can see why: it contains such abundant charm, humour and insuppressible, crowd-pleasing energy that it is hard to be anything but seduced by its radiating warmth.

Stand By Me co-stars Wil Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell joined Billy Crystal and a dozen other stars on stage at the Academy Awards to pay tribute to the film’s director

Stand By Me star Corey Feldman has said he was sorry to be omitted from the tribute to Rob Reiner at the Oscars earlier this month.

At the start of the Academy Awards’ in memoriam section, Billy Crystal took to the stage to pay extended tribute to the writer and director and his wife, photographer Michele, who were killed in December.

Dern will play Miami Herald reporter Julie K Brown in first scripted take on the Epstein story, based on Brown’s book

Laura Dern is taking on the Jeffrey Epstein investigation, in a new limited series executive produced by Adam McKay based on journalist Julie K Brown’s work busting open the story.

Dern will play Brown, the Miami Herald investigative reporter on the late, disgraced financier’s tail when no one else was, for the first scripted take on the Epstein case. The screenplay will be based on Brown’s 2021 book Perversion of Injustice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story. Sharon Hoffman, a writer on the 2020 limited series Mrs America, will write the project and serve as co-showrunner with Eileen Myers (The Night Agent, Masters of Sex). McKay, the writer-director of Don’t Look Up and executive producer on the HBO juggernaut Succession, among other credits, will serve as executive producer alongside Dern and Brown.

The British pop star will lead the 2026 London literature festival in collaboration with her Service95 book club, as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary celebrations

Brit award-winning pop star Dua Lipa is to curate this year’s London literature festival at the Southbank Centre, organisers have announced.

The festival, now in its 19th year, will run from 21 October to 1 November, with Lipa shaping a programme of events across the opening weekend and beyond in collaboration with her Service95 book club. The news comes as part of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary programme and during the UK’s National Year of Reading.

‘Zombie filler’, or using cadaver tissue that’s been sterilized and branded as Alloclae, is the latest cosmetic surgery rage. Is it safe?

The residential block at 655 Park Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side is so storied it has its own Wikipedia entry. It has housed luminaries from bestselling romance author Danielle Steel to esteemed yachtsmen and the 20th-century heir William Kissam Vanderbilt II. A more recent resident, on the ground floor, is Alpha Male Plastic Surgery, a clinic offering a broad menu of elective procedures catering to the needs of the modern man.

On a coffee table in the waiting room, fanned-out brochures tout facelifts, non-surgical penile implants, and Tesamorelin – an FDA-approved peptide injection targeting stubborn visceral belly fat. Flatscreen monitors mounted behind the front desk shuffle through ads for a “Full Male Model Makeover”, proprietary procedures like BodyBanking® and the 360 TorsoTuck®, and for the gym rat who habitually skips leg day, even “Amazing New Calves”.

The 34-year-old plumber last month secured the Green party its first byelection victory and a record fifth concurrent MP. She discusses the problem with career politicians – and being screamed at by voters

Hannah Spencer presents nothing like a politician – open, frank, friendly, wearing hot-pink joggers. I don’t want to say I’ve never encountered these qualities in an MP, but I’ve never encountered them in the same person. Her house tells the story of her recent byelection victory. The path and the hall are filled with mostly empty cardboard boxes that once contained leaflets.

When Spencer, 34, won Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester for the Greens last month, there was a 26% swing from Labour. She won more than 40% of the vote, up 28 percentage points on the party’s performance in the 2024 general election. It was billed as a shock to the political establishment, a seismic blow to Labour (who were knocked into third place) and a reality check for Reform, who had peacocked their certain victory beforehand yet finished a distant second. But it wasn’t that much of a surprise to the Greens.

Spring has officially sprung, but your March favourites tell us you’ve still got one cosily socked foot in bed

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March claims to be spring – and some of it even reckons it’s British summertime – but even the sunniest days are “summer in the sunshine, winter in the shade”. Judging by the products you loved most, you haven’t decided whether to emerge from hibernation yet, either.

Pillows and bed socks accounted for a quarter of all your favourite things this month, and your fashion must-have was a snuggly hoodie. But your enthusiasm for a glow-up eye cream and a legendary hot brush suggests you’re harbouring an itch to get out.

With an egg-cellent roster on offer, which chocolate treats are the most moreish and which aren’t worth shelling out on?

• The best novelty hot cross buns

At the age of 45, my Easter egg hunt is about seeking out quality, transparency and flavour, rather than just finding the most eggs. Then again, I haven’t been on one for about 35 years, and my tastes have since changed, as has the market. Beyond those foil-wrapped novelties of yesteryear, there’s now a genuinely impressive selection of thoughtfully made, handcrafted chocolate eggs aimed at those with a more mature palate.

As with all chocolate, certifications matter: Fairtrade guarantees a minimum price, fairer working rights and investment in climate resilience, while the Rainforest Alliance focuses on environmental standards and farm sustainability. The quality and processing of the chocolate is also important. Most eggs contain the likes of invert sugar syrup, soya lecithin and E471, so rather than highlight every additive, I’ve instead flagged products with minimal processing, as well as those that use palm oil. I haven’t marked down for high sugar content – it is Easter, after all – but I have included the percentage of sugar.

This pricey infrared therapy mat claims to help mood, sleep and muscle recovery. It felt more like a glorified heating pad

• Plastic-free cutting boards and $17 bike lights: 11 things you loved in March

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I have a $1,400 mat stashed under my pink velvet couch.

It’s my roommate’s PEMF and infrared therapy mat, and yes, it costs nearly as much as my monthly rent. Measuring 6ft in length, made of vegan leather, layered with bright-blue amethyst and obsidian crystals and weighing as much as a Siberian husky, the HigherDose mat makes my basic yoga mat feel like a flimsy slab of cardboard.

Keep your lawn neat – and avoid petrol models – with our pick of the best electric mowers, from cordless to budget-friendly to rented options

• How to create a more eco-friendly lawn: six things you can do right now

Leaving your lawn to develop naturally into a meadow of pollinator-friendly wild flowers is the best option from an ecological perspective, but many of us still like to have at least a small area of grass, whether it’s to break up your flower beds or provide a space for the kids to play. And every lawn needs a mower.

Your family’s lawnmower might have been a fossil fuel-guzzling petrol beast, but today, an electric model is far more energy-efficient and kinder to the planet. I’ve tested electric mowers from five manufacturers to find out which are the best.

Best overall and best cordless lawnmower:
Makita DLM432PT2

Best budget lawnmower:
Einhell GC-EM 1600/37

A rich roasted carrot dish and a flavour-bursting side to serve together for a luscious Easter celebration

The intense sweetness that comes from roasting carrots should not be underestimated. And, when that’s topped with a savoury, nutty crumble, it’s a great combination. Add the wonderfully seasonal purple sprouting broccoli on the side, and it’s a luscious Easter celebration. A few low-waste tips, too: always use the parsley stalks, and try pickling the shallots in leftover gherkin brine. Trust me! And it wouldn’t be a spring recipe without our beloved wild garlic, so make the most of that while it’s about.

A simple, moreish meat-free main that looks as wonderful as it tastes

Pithiviers look absolutely beautiful at the table. For the classic shape, you can buy circular all-butter puff pastry (Picard does an excellent one, with two sheets in one packet) or cut regular puff pastry into circles. That said, it’s just as delicious and there’s more bang for your buck with a big rectangle. Either way, it’s filled with moreish artichokes, olives and feta, with fresh lemon and parsley to lift the flavours. It’s 100% the type of meat-free main that everyone else wants to try, too.

These fun, charming little treats are easy and quick to put together – and make for a great Easter activity with kids

Much as I love Easter eggs – and I really do, despite being that irritating person still nibbling away at them at Christmas time – these charming, crunchy little nests full of colourful treasure are up there with hot cross buns as my favourite seasonal produce. Top tip: they’re even easier to make if you enlist a small sous chef or two to help stir the pan!

Prep 20 min
Cook 5 min
Chill 2 hr
Makes About 12

This is simply some deliciously spicy, baked grated potatoes, with an egg on top and a moreish chutney to go with it – you can thank us later

Eggs are very Easter-appropriate, and some of my favourite egg recipes come from the egg-obsessed Parsis (descendants of Persian Zoroastrians, who emigrated to India thousands of years ago). Their obsession extends beyond the kitchen, too: achoo-meechoo, for example, is a custom where an egg is waved around a person’s head (six times clockwise, once anti-clockwise), then broken to ward off evil. When it comes to cooking, meanwhile, Parsis will put an egg on anything, and one favourite dish is kanda papeta par eeda, or eggs on potatoes, which I ate when staying with friends in Mumbai’s Malabar Hill and which inspired today’s recipe.

When Merlin came to live with me, his only job was to clear the weeds from my fields. But his calm, affectionate nature has made him a vital part of my therapy practice

Merlin the sheep came to me by chance four years ago. A friend of mine had a lamb she was bottle-feeding, but she couldn’t look after it any more so she asked me if I could take care of it. I live in Moortown, Leeds, and rent about three hectares (seven acres) of land in Eccup, a small village nearby, where I’ve kept horses for about 13 years. I needed some help clearing the weeds that the horses wouldn’t eat and sheep seemed like the best solution because they’ll eat anything – so I said yes.

The lamb was called Bambi and when I came to collect her, my friend offered me another lamb, Merlin. Shortly after, Bambi died and it was just Merlin left. It wasn’t long until he started to show his special powers.

Emigrating to be with your partner sounds wildly romantic, but what happens when the person is right and the place very much isn’t?

I met my wife in Queensland in 2001. She’s from Bern, but was in Australia to study marine science. She needed help collecting fish for her project, and had heard that I was handy with a spear gun. We hit it off straight away, and began our romance on semi‑deserted islands near the Great Barrier Reef.

We went on to make a life together. My wife liked Australia and eventually got citizenship, but after we had our first son she wanted to be near her family.

The singers and sisters on growing up in west London, finding fame in the 90s and relaunching their music as a duo

Born in Canada, Natalie and Nicole Appleton are singers best known as members of the group All Saints. Raised between Ontario, London and New York, the sisters joined the band in 1996 alongside Shaznay Lewis and Melanie Blatt. After the success of their self-titled 1997 debut and a string of hits including the chart-topping singles Never Ever and Pure Shores, All Saints split in 2001. The sisters released music together as Appleton in 2002, and have since reunited with All Saints for three albums. Appleton’s new single, Falling Into You, is out now.

Sandra and Roy are adapting to sex as new parents, from postpartum pain to acting fast when they have a private moment
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

Sex was a reminder that I’m still me. That this identity still exists, which is really important because you do lose it a bit, especially in the early weeks of becoming a mother

From council tax to water, broadband to stamps, costs climb again from next month …. and that’s before any knock-on effects from Iran war

• UK savers told to act now before Easter Sunday cash Isa deadline

Next month, UK households face a bill surge in which the annual cost of essentials, including council tax and water, increase by more than £200 – and that is before the full impact of price jumps caused by the Iran war hit your pocket.

The “awful April” increases are particularly unwelcome as the financial turmoil caused by the Middle East conflict has pushed up mortgage rates, fuel prices and energy bills for rural households.

From a former wartime ‘shadow factory’ in London to converted country mansion in Yorkshire, homes with open living

Mid-range handset gets chip, storage and MagSafe upgrades to offer more essential iOS features for less

The cheapest new iPhone has been upgraded for this year with a faster chip, double the storage, automatic portraits and MagSafe, providing even more of the core Apple smartphone experience for less.

The iPhone 17e is an upgraded version of the mid-range “e” line launched last year with the first iPhone 16e and is the latest member of the iPhone 17 family. It starts at £599 (€699/$599/A$999), undercutting the iPhone 17 and iPhone 16 by £200 and £100 respectively to be the cheapest new iPhone sold by Apple.

Screen: 6.1in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (460ppi)

Processor: Apple A19 (4-core GPU)

RAM: 8GB

Storage: 256 or 512GB

Operating system: iOS 26

Camera: 48MP rear; 12MP front-facing

Connectivity: 5G, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, USB-C, Satellite and GNSS

Water resistance: IP68 (6 metres for 30 mins)

Dimensions: 146.7 x 71.5 x 7.8mm

Weight: 170g

Fraudsters exploit isolation and search for human contact to often devastating effect. These are steps you can take to avoid them

As you have got older, retirement has left you with more time on your hands. Loneliness has set in. Luckily, you have found a friend through one of the online motoring groups you are in, and a close bond has blossomed over your common interest in cars.

But your new friend has found themselves short when it comes to paying for their university textbooks, and has asked you for £50. It’s not much, and you get on so well that you agree to pay via bank transfer.

When Ubokobong Amanam lost his fingers in an accident he teamed up with his brother John, a special effects artist, to design a prosthetic that suited him – now they run a thriving business

On a humid morning in Uyo, Nigeria, Ubokobong Amanam shows off the lifelike prosthetic where his fingers once were. The skin bears tiny wrinkles, and the nails are naturally shaped. Seven years ago, he was badly injured in a firework accident. Doctors could save him, but not his fingers.

The prosthetics available at the time were clumsy, poorly fitted and designed for bodies nothing like his.

Pushing yourself to the limit, training through injury and choosing the gym over socialising are all signs that you may have an unhealthy reliance on exercise

At the peak of his adventuring career, Luke Tyburski was a man of extremes. The former pro-footballer, then in his early 30s, had dedicated himself to intense endurance challenges, of the sort that make a marathon look like a fun run. Beginning with the Marathon de Sables (a notorious multistage ultramarathon in the Sahara desert), he then ran the world’s highest ultramarathon at Mount Everest base camp, battled dehydration during a 100km run on a tropical island, and took on the vividly named Double Brutal Extreme Triathlon in north Wales. The endgame in all of this was a self-designed challenge, which saw him swimming from Africa to Europe, cycling through Spain and running to Monaco – 2,000km in total, in just 12 days.

Tyburski was a professional adventurer, financing his pursuits via magazine articles and speaking gigs, and even making a documentary about his quest. His whole raison d’etre was to push past his limitations, showing what a person is capable of when their mindset is strong enough. Yet, privately, he was dealing with depression, related to a loss of identity after the end of his footballing career, which took in Australia, the US and Belgium before he tried out for clubs in the UK. “Training and racing creates an escape, and the highs are extremely high,” says Tyburski. “But when I returned home from an adventure, the lows were extremely low, because I hadn’t addressed what I was running away from.”

The popular fitness trend is all over social media, and curious, I tried a few classes – they left me totally out of air

I have spent years in and out of the gym, trying the latest fitness trends. Consequently, my social media feed often populates with shirtless, sweaty men promising to transform my workouts.

Then it started. First, it was the occasional video of athletes grinding through a series of herculean tasks: pushing plate-laden sleds, collapsing over rowing machines, sprinting laps and throwing weighted balls at a wall inside of what looked like an aircraft hangar. That trickle became an avalanche, and I became curious.

At 59, I was at last an orphan. I woke up with the most complete feeling of liberty and personhood I’d ever experienced

Looked at one way, the modern longevity narrative is an inspirational story of human scientific and social progress. Looked at another you could say that we are now condemned to longevity – our own and other people’s. It’s placing a massive economic, social and psychological burden on us as individuals and as a society.

There are now so many old people that new categories of demographic definition have been created to describe them. Those considered the “young old” are aged between 55 and 65. That’s me: At 63 years of age, I’m a young old. By all the rules of human history, I should have been dead for years. Instead, when I look 20 years into the future, I foresee an even older me who will need to plan for the outside possibility that I may have another 20 years to go. This is not necessarily, in my view, a glorious prospect.

Prepare for bouclé jackets, quilted chain-link bags galore and an outfit formula that is proving to be consumer catnip

Just six months after Matthieu Blazy unveiled his debut collection for Chanel, and a week after it landed in stores, excitement over the new designer has reached fever pitch. There have been queues outside shops, grapples at the tills and dozens of social media posts bragging about purchases. Now, Blazy’s Chanel effect is coming for the high street. Prepare for bouclé jackets and quilted chain-link bags galore.

“It is a good sign that it has become immediately a reference point for the high street,” says Mario Ortelli, a managing partner at the luxury advisory firm Ortelli & Co. “When a new product and new creative direction is successful it is copied by the high street. If not, it means it is not relevant or is only relevant for a niche set of consumers.”

Show draws almost entirely from collection of Lancashire schoolteacher Peter Smithson, a fan since he was 10

Peter Smithson’s wife, Belise, has never minded when he receives a corset from Japan or a pair of fur-trimmed knickers and they are not for her.

“No, she’s never seen it as strange,” said Smithson, a chemistry teacher and Vivienne Westwood supercollector. “She has never judged it. She gets it. She knows it is part and parcel of who I am.”

From flannel shirts to herringbone tailoring, Pep Guardiola’s stylistic pivot hint​s at a man renegotiating his identity ​in the twilight of ​his footballing era

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Last Tuesday, Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola lost to Real Madrid in a £270 shirt.

The grungy flannel number from the cult Swedish menswear brand Our Legacy was so noteworthy it consumed more post-match oxygen than the news that Manchester City had been dumped out of the Champions League before the quarter-finals. Never mind that Guardiola is beginning to look bereft of ideas for the first time in his career. All anyone cared about was whether he’d hired a stylist.

It will come into its own in summer. Until then, try layering it with spring-ready jackets and chill-proof knitwear

Beyond the Belgian capital’s more obvious sights lies a thriving district known for its classic Belgian cuisine, alternative art scene and gigantic flea market

The Brusseleir dialect that’s still spoken in much of the Marolles dates back to the middle ages, a symbol of the independence of this proudly working-class neighbourhood in central Brussels. Located between the Palace of Justice and Halle Gate, it’s always been an inclusive refuge for immigrants from Europe and north Africa. The must-see Brussels tourist attractions of the Grand-Place central square and Mannekin-Pis statue are within walking distance, but the Marolles offers a very different experience: fashion, antiques and bric-a-brac shopping; alternative creative centres and provocative graffiti; characteristic estaminets (hybrid pub, cafe, bistros) specialising in hearty local dishes; and artisan breweries.

Join the Famous Five in Dorset, relive Springwatch in the Peak District … our selection of Easter treats will keep all the family entertained

Spring has arrived at Wicken Fen, one of Europe’s most important wetlands, and with it the first summer migrants. Chiffchaffs are usually the earliest, with their rhythmic song ringing out across the fens. Then, if the weather is mild, blackcaps and willow warblers might join them. Listen closely, especially early morning or at dusk, for the foghorn-like calls of the booming bittern across the reedbeds. There’s a pushchair- and wheelchair-friendly boardwalk around Sedge Fen, and wheelchair-accessible wildlife hides. Look out for the electric blue flash of a kingfisher, and male marsh harriers performing their dramatic sky-dancing flights as the breeding season gets under way, before the cuckoos arrive in late April.
From £10 adults, £5 children (under-5s free), nationaltrust.org.uk

The luscious chocolate and apricot torte is the stuff of legend in the grand, old world of Viennese coffeehouses. But which makes the tastiest?

I’m on a tram on Vienna’s Ringstrasse as towering facades, columns, statues and domes drift past, each more ornate than the last. Here, the State Opera; there, the Austrian parliament, built in the Greek neoclassical style.

As I gawp, I shove cake in my mouth. After all, Vienna isn’t just the city of music, or lavish architecture. Thanks, in part, to its centuries-old coffeehouse culture, it’s also one of Europe’s finest pastry destinations. Cake (or more precisely, torte, kuchen or Mehlspeisen) has its own day here – “Sweet Friday”, the most delicious of Catholic customs, when meat dishes are replaced with sweets. I have been introduced to it via the medium of Marillenknödel – apricot dumplings.

Your top tips for seasonal outings from birdwatching to gorgeous gardens, amazing architecture and more
• Tell us about a trip to Spain – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Last April, I based myself in Oban and took my teenagers puffin-watching at Lunga, off Mull, in the Treshnish Isles, with an organised tour (Staffa Tours) by ferry and foot. It was a real delight. The guides were brilliant and helpful, especially with my mobility issues, and we were surprised and amazed at how tame and friendly the puffins were – allowing us to get great views of their faces from as near as 5ft or so. Next spring, we are going again as this is the best time to see them arriving in their thousands.
April

Th nswrs t tdys pzzls

Earlier today I set you the following puzzles. Listed below are ten common phrases or sayings in the English language, five of which are found in Shakespeare. Each letter is replaced by a box the same width and height as the letter. Consonants are blue, vowels are green.

The solutions are presented as a group at the bottom.

Slumped on the pavement, she wasn’t breathing – and I wouldn’t have realised if I’d been listening to music as usual. Time to stop blotting out the world …

For years I walked the streets of London wearing noise-cancelling headphones, absorbed in playlists, politics podcasts or long voice notes from friends, and a million miles away from wherever I was. One damp January evening last year, I was walking home from my parents’ house, headphones dead in my bag, when I noticed a small figure slumped on the pavement with her eyes closed. I might not have noticed her had I been in my own world, fixated on what was playing in my ears.

I asked for her name. “Can you hear me?” I tried several times, my voice tightening. She didn’t respond, and worse, she didn’t seem to be breathing. My mind raced back to the one first aid class I took in school, but drawing a blank and worried that I might get it wrong, I dialled 999 and frantically tried to figure out if I could feel her pulse.

One thinks mirgrants take advantage of Britain being a generous country, the other thinks they need more safe routes. Can they find common ground in the rise of the Green party?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Abdal-Jabbar, 56, Manchester

Occupation Monitors offenders on electronic tags

Examining the packaging is key to avoiding illegal and potentially harmful devices, as millions are seized each year

You buy a vape from a shop on the high street. Nothing looks unusual but after charging the unit and using it for a few days, you notice it is getting hotter and hotter.

The vape is a fake and one of the thousands on sale illegally in shops around the UK. By not installing a simple circuit to prevent overheating, the manufacturers have saved a couple of pence but risk it catching fire.

Abel Ortiz was brought from Mexico to LA when he was just two months old and has been​ living undocumented​ ever since. Now 38, he has a full life​ cutting hair, building a community, loving​ a city that has never fully loved him back.​ ​In a time of escalating ICE raids and the ache of uncertainty, Abel has made a radical decision: he’s leaving – not because he has to, but to escape perpetual limbo and be free to see the world

Judicial independence is under threat as populist politicians target judges and authoritarian governments attempt constitutional reforms

• Revealed: Five EU governments found to ‘consistently’ dismantle rule of law

In March last year, a Paris court found Marine Le Pen guilty of embezzlement and barred her from running in next year’s presidential race in France. The far-right figurehead took to the airwaves to slam a “political decision” and “denial of democracy”.

Le Pen, who has appealed, said she had been subjected to a “tyranny of judges” and a “political assassination”. The “system” had dropped “a nuclear bomb” on her. The presiding judge was then threatened by others on social media and her home address shared.

Leonid Radvinsky’s widow has been left with a crucial role in deciding what happens to the business that made her husband a billionaire

Yekaterina Chudnovsky, online biographies say, is a mother-of-four who “enjoys spending time with her family and teaching them the importance of giving back and helping others”. They add that Ukrainian-born Chudnovsky, known as Katie, finds sanctuary in walks on the beach.

In interviews, Chudnovsky has spoken warmly about her commitment to philanthropy, her dedication to supporting cancer research and her work as a lawyer for an unnamed global technology firm. Pornography is never mentioned.

A once robust American anti-war movement is significantly weaker than it was in its heyday. The immensely unpopular war on Iran offers a real opportunity to rebuild it

In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson asked Congress for authorization to use military force in south-east Asia. His resolution passed unanimously in the House, and only two voices dissented in the Senate. As for the public, 77% of Americans said they trusted the government to do what is right, and more than 60% supported war.

It is common today to hear that the US war in Vietnam was unpopular, but it certainly did not begin that way. It took several years, billions of dollars, tens of thousands of deaths, and constant anti-war mobilization before Americans changed their minds.

We’d like to speak to people in the UK who are cutting back on fuel use after the increase in petrol and diesel prices linked to the war in Iran

We’d like to speak to people in the UK who are cutting back on fuel use after the increase in petrol and diesel prices linked to the war in Iran.

Are you taking fewer journeys or using alternative modes of transport? Are you still travelling to work the same number of days a week? Have you cited fuel costs as a reason to work from home?

As some landlords introduce bans or restrictions, we want to hear from pub-goers about their experiences and views

A growing number of pubs in the UK are restricting or banning children, with some landlords citing safety concerns, changing atmospheres and lost trade. Others argue that pubs should remain welcoming community spaces for people of all ages.

We want to hear from pub-goers, both parents and non-parents, about their experiences and views.

Were you surprised by your bill? How did you manage the cost? We would like to hear from you

The UK’s competition watchdog has ordered vets to cap prescription fees at £21 and proposed a cost-comparison website.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said public satisfaction with the cost of services was “low” after a two-and-a-half-year investigation that found “there is not strong competition between veterinary businesses”.

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing

Across the UK, many small charities face increasing financial pressures, forcing some to shut their doors. When this happens, it can leave the people who relied on those services without support - and volunteers and communities trying to step in and keep things going.

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing. Have you or others tried to continue the work informally and what were the challenges of doing that? Did you try to keep it going - and what difficulties did you face? What happened to the people who depended on the service?

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