Exclusive: Documents obtained by consortium of journalists show role of Moscow university in training operatives in military intelligence

Last April, Vladimir Putin visited the campus of Bauman Moscow state technical university, set on the banks of the Yauza River in the east of the city and home to some of the country’s brightest scientific minds.

He toured the campus, met undergraduates and boasted about Moscow’s ambitious plans for space missions to the moon and Mars. “You have everything it takes to be competitive,” Putin told the students.

In my constituency, volunteers chat with people in deprived areas – most of whom find they are to the left of their voting intentions. The results are exhilarating

Most people have made up their minds, and nothing you can say will change them: that’s the credo of parties such as Labour and the Democrats. Don’t challenge voters on the doorstep. Use focus groups to find out what they want, and give it to them. Follow, don’t lead. But all that’s on them, not us.

It’s true that conventional attempts at persuasion fail. A meta-analysis and original experiments by the political scientists Joshua Kalla and David Broockman found that “the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising” in US general elections “is zero”. But this says nothing about voters and everything about the useless approach of the parties trying to reach them.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

A lot of fitness advice is based on research into people who don’t have periods, give birth or go through menopause. How much of it should be modified – or even thrown out?

I can’t remember when I first became aware of the phrase: “Women are not small men.” But once I’d heard it, I started hearing it everywhere. Fitness types on social media kept alluding to it. Friends would talk excitedly about the new strain of female-specific exercise research, which was smashing the template we had all held dear for years. And the originator of the phrase, Dr Stacy Sims, was suddenly on every podcast you cared to name. A highly credentialed sports scientist with a huge social media following, she’s hard to avoid, if your algorithms skew vaguely towards self-optimisation content.

While her stance remains divisive in the sports science world, it has the kind of splashy, audacious quality that mainstream exercise advice does not. As a result, it has taken hold in a big way. You might say that Stacy Sims is to women’s exercise what Dr Chris van Tulleken is to ultra-processed foods: changing the conversation almost single-handedly while undaunted by any pushback.

Striker reflects on the ultimate high with Leicester and the role of the self-titled ‘Inbetweeners’ in his success

“I was just a little freak in the works.” Jamie Vardy is reflecting on his career with the usual levels of self-deprecation and pondering whether anyone could possibly board the same rollercoaster. “It’s not the common way of doing things, is it? I don’t think it will probably happen again, but it did happen for me and it was hard work. It really was tough, but all worth it.”

Humour has always been a preferred Vardy tool for removing the sting from a serious point. He is speaking to mark a new documentary about his rise, which brought him from warehouse work making walking frames and crutches to scarcely credible levels of Premier League success.

To celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s centenary, Madeleine Finlay catches up with natural history writer Patrick Barkham, who has met the celebrated presenter. They explore how the natural world has changed in the century that Attenborough has been on Earth, and how his programming has reflected his growing commitment to highlighting the devastating impacts of the climate crisis on nature and biodiversity

Clips: BBC, PBS

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Julie, once a circus elephant, and Kariba, from a Belgian zoo, are to be moved to a former ranch in Portugal

Europe’s first large-scale elephant sanctuary, which is opening to offer a more natural environment for some of the 600 animals still held in captivity across the continent, is to receive its first arrivals.

Julie, Portugal’s last circus elephant, will be moved next month to the animal charity Pangea’s multimillion pound sanctuary in the Alentejo, 200km (124 miles) east of Lisbon, close to the border with Spain.

About 5,000 councillors and six mayors up for election in England, while Scotland chooses 129 MSPs, and Wales selects 96 members of the Senedd

And here is the eve-of-poll statement that Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Plaid Cymru leader, issued yesterday.

Service is a value which has always sustained Wales. It’s a value instilled in me from a young age by my parents, both teachers. It’s a value I’ve sought to pass on to my children - the gift of giving back to the people and places who gave us so much.

Tomorrow is a chance for the people of Wales to choose who serves our nation for the next four years. It’s Plaid Cymru’s deep sense of service to Wales - focusing just on our needs and our future - that first drew me to politics.

Today is Scotland’s opportunity to choose a better future by voting SNP for real action on the cost of living, to lock Nigel Farage out of power, and to secure a fresh start with independence.

I urge people in every part of Scotland to unite behind the SNP to make it happen.

The SNP is the only party that has set out a positive vision for Scotland’s future - and we are the only party with a serious plan to support people with the cost of living.

We have set out our plans to bring down food costs, give families more support with the cost of childcare, lower the cost of your daily commute and provide more support for first time buyers.

The SNP wants to lower your bills – but all the other parties want to do is stop us.

They have no plan of their own and nothing to offer. They want you to vote for an opposition to stop things happening. I am asking people to vote for an SNP Government to get things done.

By casting both votes for the SNP, Scotland can elect a strong majority SNP government that will always stand up for Scotland, prioritise the cost of living, and deliver that fresh start of independence that Scotland needs.

That opportunity of a better future is now within touching distance. Let’s make it happen today by voting SNP.

President tells Iran to accept deal to end war or face new wave of bombing at ‘much higher level and intensity’

The US military fired on an Iranian-flagged oil tanker on Wednesday, shortly after Donald Trump issued a fresh ultimatum to Tehran, telling it to accept a deal to end the war or face a new wave of US bombing “at a much higher level and intensity than it was before”.

The US fighter fired several rounds and “disabled the tanker’s rudder” as it attempted to breach the US’s blockade of Iranian ports, US Central Command said in a social media post.

Argentina, where the MV Hondius cruise departed, consistently ranked by WHO as having highest incidence of hantavirus in region

Officials and experts in Argentina are scrambling to determine if their country is the source of a deadly hantavirus outbreak that has gripped an Atlantic cruise ship, amid reports that a number of passengers have already returned to their home countries.

Argentina, where the cruise to Antarctica departed, is consistently ranked by the World Health Organization (WHO) as having the highest incidence of the rare, rodent-borne disease in Latin America. Investigators there are working to contact trace the source of contamination.

US secretary of state will hold talks with Italian government, also berated by Trump for not supporting Iran war

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is to meet Pope Leo at the Vatican on Thursday in an effort to ease tensions after Donald Trump’s repeated criticisms of the first North American pontiff.

Amid unprecedented strain on relations between the Holy See and Washington, the US secretary of state is expected to meet Leo at the Apostolic Palace in the morning, before holding talks with the Italian government in a series of meetings.

IOPC has launched investigation into one serving and four former police officers for potential misconduct

A serving Metropolitan police officer and four former officers are being investigated over their handling of allegations of sexual abuse made against Mohamed Al Fayed, according to reports.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched an investigation into the five individuals for potential misconduct following complaints against the former Harrods owner, who died in 2023 aged 94.

Firm benefits from conflict to rake in $6.9bn as higher energy prices turbocharge profits

• Business live – latest updates

Shell has reported better than expected profits of $6.9bn (£5bn) after its oil traders reaped the benefits of soaring energy prices during the war in Iran, angering climate campaigners.

Europe’s biggest oil and gas company posted a 115% jump in first-quarter profits from the $3.2bn reported in the last three months of 2025.

Epstein’s cellmate in New York City says he found note after convicted sexual offender attempted suicide in July 2019

A federal judge unsealed an alleged suicide note written by Jeffrey Epstein on Wednesday, the first time the document has been made public.

Epstein’s cellmate at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City, Nicholas Tartaglione, said he found the note after Epstein unsuccessfully attempted suicide in July 2019, weeks before he was eventually found dead in his jail cell.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-8255. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

In the US, Rainn offers support for survivors of sexual abuse or assault on 800-656-4673. In the UK, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Napac) offers support for adult survivors on 0808 801 0331. In Australia, support is available at 1-800-RESPECT, or other places listed here.

Authorities investigate Florent Montaclair over award given to himself and others including Noam Chomsky

At a ceremony at the French national assembly attended by Nobel prize winners, former government ministers, MPs, decorated scientists and academics, all attention was on a previously unknown literature professor.

Florent Montaclair, then 46, a balding, bespectacled figure in an ill-fitting suit and rosé-coloured shirt, was receiving the 2016 Gold Medal of Philology - the study of linguistics – from an international society of the same name.

Exclusive: Taped conversations also cover playwright’s relationship with fame, self-doubt and communism

He was one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century and she was one of the greatest actors. In newly unearthed recordings made over a period of nearly three decades, Arthur Miller opened up about his short-lived marriage to Marilyn Monroe, saying she wanted a husband who was a “father, lover, friend and agent,” and the child she longed for would have been an “additional problem”.

In taped conversations with his friend and biographer Prof Christopher Bigsby, Miller said he had felt “death was always on her [Monroe’s] shoulder – always”. He had believed that if he did not “take care of her life” she would come to a “catastrophic end”.

Parents say the insistence on Mandarin in schools is eroding the country’s language and culture right from early childhood

Weeks after a Tibetan-speaking five-year-old started preschool, she had “completely stopped speaking Tibetan”, according to her mother. Nine months later, although the child could still understand Tibetan, she only answered in Mandarin, and at best a few single-word answers in Tibetan after some time.

Instead the girl “keeps saying that she can only speak Chinese … that she is Chinese and not Tibetan”, according to a researcher who met the family. “The mother thinks that the daughter is just repeating what she is constantly told at school and that the government aims to eradicate Tibetan.”

She hit the big time with 4 Non Blondes, then penned hits for everyone from Christina Aguilera to Courtney Love. But as an intimate new film about her life shows, she’s had to confront illness, family trauma and an identity crisis

When Linda Perry agreed to let the director Don Hardy film her at work in her studio, she had no idea what she was getting into. Perry – the singer, producer and wildly successful songwriter-for-hire – had been friends with Hardy since she scored his 2020 film, Citizen Penn, about the actor Sean Penn’s charity work in Haiti. If nothing else, Perry hoped she might use some of Hardy’s footage as content on her Instagram account: “So he just started showing up and I soon forgot he was there.”

After a few weeks, Hardy told Perry he had edited 30 minutes of footage and shown it to colleagues. “He said: ‘We think there’s an incredible documentary to be made here,’” she recalls. “And so I said: ‘OK, go ahead but don’t talk to me about it. I don’t want to know anything. Just do what you’re going to do and if I said it or did it, I’ll stand by it.’ And then things just started to go cuckoo for me.”

Ronnie is using Billy’s name to register for free streaming services and gyms, which Billy objects to. You get to preside over this trial
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Unlike the kettle or the wifi, my contact details aren’t for communal use. Plus it’s annoying

This astounding true story, written by Neil Forsyth, asks the question: what if the A-Team was comprised entirely of disgruntled customs officers?

Imagine The A-Team but instead of a band of wrongfully convicted US army commandos who become soldiers of fortune, it’s a group of dissatisfied baggage searchers and VAT investigators who have taken their ties off. Are you sold? Good! Because Legends is a six-part thriller by Neil Forsyth based on the true story of a group of ordinary men and women recruited from the rank and file of Her Majesty’s Customs in the early 90s, given three weeks’ training and sent undercover to infiltrate and bring down two massive drug cartels that were filling Britain’s streets with heroin and really pissing Mrs Thatcher – head of the party of law and order, don’t you know – off.

Steve Coogan – possibly in need of a spot of emotional relief after a career spent playing losers or Jimmy Savile-shaped villains – stars as former undercover police officer Don Clarke. He puts the team together for the home secretary (Alex Jennings – this is statutory) and HMC’s director of investigations Angus Blake (Douglas Hodge) despite neither of them seemingly offering any money or support for the project.

Glee Club, Glasgow
The masc lesbian comic from New York delivers a superb set with big laughs and twisty logic

Old-school standup celebrating the traditional masculine virtues? It’s fallen a little out of fashion. But it’s a different story when a masc lesbian comic delivers that material – a story of gleeful iconoclasm, big laughs and twisty gender logic. Ashley Gavin was a jobbing standup who blew up online during the pandemic, and whose output – including viral “crowd work” clips and the podcast We’re Having Gay Sex – has secured an ardent, largely queer fanbase. She’s like their best pal or big sis tonight, recounting how a woman who dresses like a teenaged wannabe car mechanic (and who – tongue firmly in cheek – considers more feminine women to be “a bunch of pussy-ass bitches”) came to be freezing her eggs.

The pleasure is in how Gavin lays siege to gender convention, with one routine after another scrambling the signifiers of what we expect men, women, or indeed masculine lesbians, to do and be. The opener finds “lesbian with a Brazilian” Gavin submitting herself to a waxing treatment. Elsewhere, the New Yorker ventures the argument – while savouring the discomfort it generates – that the clitoris is essentially a “tiny dick”. Later, she muses on penetration (might it not equally be seen as “envelopment”?) and contends that two “boy lesbians” hooking up with one another is “against God”.

A dead poet’s cluttered mansion is the setting for a heady brew of magic, mystery and mushrooms

“Man,” says one of Will Maclean’s characters on catching sight for the first time of the titular Solace House. “Gothic always tries too hard.” Here, perhaps, is a self-deprecating wink in a novel full of them – a novel that throws the (ancient, sinister, rusted taps coughing a disquieting red-brown liquid) kitchen sink at the problem of writing a good old-fashioned piece of gothic-flavoured weird fiction.

The present of the novel – though as things proceed and what David Tennant’s Doctor Who would call “timey-wimey” stuff starts to happen, the phrase gets harder to sustain – is the summer of 1993. Alex Lane stays on alone in his university’s hall of residence after the other students take off for the holidays. He’s broke. He’s lonely. He’s a bit freaked out by a sinister pale boy who seems to be the only other student left on campus. He can’t go home because of an unspecified family trauma involving what he alludes to only as The Last Day and The Annihilator. And now he’s receiving warnings that he’s about to be kicked out and charged for overstaying.

O, uncountable span I now surpass,
Incessant grey hours, turgid.
Noble opportunity wasted. Gone, alas!
In nullity endless deserted.

The West Sussex village of Amberley, near Arundel, is easy to reach by train and offers great hiking in the national park, castles and a newly reopened pub with a focus on local food

Wisteria and clematis hang from weathered cottage walls. Tulips and pink apple blossom spill out of several gardens. Thatched animals decorate the rooftops. There’s a Norman church, a medieval castle and an 80-hectare (200-acre) nature reserve. Amberley is the kind of place people assume you can only reach by car, but the village has its own railway station with regular direct trains, along the scenic Arun Valley line, from Bognor, Horsham and London Victoria.

This spring, the Black Horse pub reopened in Amberley. The new owners are the gourmet Gladwin brothers, Oliver and Richard, returning to their Sussex roots near Nutbourne Vineyards. Having founded five Local & Wild restaurants in London, the Black Horse is their first country pub and first place with rooms.

Eight birds play the lead in Hen – one for running scenes, one for pecking, one for staying still. And there’s even a cockerel love interest. Director György Pálfi explains why it’s his most normal movie yet

If oppressive regimes inadvertently give rise to striking artistic works of resistance, then Hen might just be a parting gift from Viktor Orbán’s far-right regime. This compelling, original film, told from the perspective of a hen, was only made because Hungarian film-maker György Pálfi could no longer create anything in his home country. Orbán’s 16 years of cronyism banished any chance of funding a film in Budapest, so Pálfi – who has directed eight wildly original films, from his near-wordless 2002 debut Hukkle to 2006’s visually striking and grotesque Taxidermia – was driven into exile. Searching for a universal story he could tell even when filming in a culture or country he didn’t fully understand, he and co-writer and partner Zsófia Ruttkay settled on a biopic of a factory-farmed chicken.

The hen escapes her gruesome, industrial birthplace in Greece and, through her naturally comic beady eyes, we witness the unfolding of a modern-day Greek tragedy, whereby a down-at-heel restaurateur is drawn into the brutal world of people-smuggling.

Let’s not draw the wrong conclusions from Hungary’s election or the US president’s troubles

Viktor Orbán’s crushing defeat in last month’s Hungarian election has led to an outbreak of democratic optimism. Across the globe, democrats are drawing lessons from the results and speculating about the decline of the far right. There is simultaneously a consensus that Donald Trump has gone from inspiration to “liability” for the global far right.

While the fall of Orbán has great symbolic significance and important consequences for EU politics (see the EU-Ukraine deal), we should be very careful not to read too much into it for three reasons.

Cas Mudde is the Stanley Wade Shelton UGAF professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, and author of The Far Right Today

As the traditional route of school, university and entry-level job is ever more precarious, it’s no wonder parents are feeling the strain

Called on to do long division, how would you fare? I had no illusions going in. I couldn’t do it the first time round and, four decades later, it seemed unlikely the situation had improved. (For a split second I thought AI might help, but it was like listening to street directions, only worse.) And so, while parents of 11-year-olds offer sympathy and support for their children ahead of year 6 Sats exams next week, let’s not lose sight of the real victims here, which is us parents who have been forced to revisit multi-stage maths problems when we had made large and deliberate life choices to avoid them.

Of course, Sats “don’t matter”, or if you’re a more liberal parent, exams as a whole don’t matter – a statement that, if it was a consoling lie at one time, seems to be becoming ever more true. Arguments around the value of testing have been going on for ever, but as AI eviscerates the entry-level job market and university degrees become increasingly expensive and at odds with the skills young people may actually need, you have to wonder whether the old systems of education are still fit for purpose – and if they’re not, what exactly should replace them?

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Presenting himself as a serious, sensible ‘grownup’ was essential to Starmer’s rise to power. His premiership has revealed how hollow that message is

Some big questions will be asked this weekend – about how Labour fell so far so fast, about when Keir Starmer goes and who takes his place – but at least one big thing will be clear: never entrust your country to people who keep insisting they’re grown up.

Think back to 2024 and the birth of Starmer’s government. “The adults are back in the room,” exulted Darren Jones as Labour went marching into Downing Street. Having chopped the party’s largest pledges into little pieces (Goodbye, Green New Deal! Farewell, securonomics!), the single greatest qualification Starmer, Jones and co had for office was not policy, but vibes. After a decade of blue-on-blue fighting and a string of gap-year prime ministers, all the reds had to be was serious, sensible, businesslike. Labour would own the mien of production.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist

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.

With her eye on No 10, the former deputy PM is apparently shedding bad habits. But isn’t a proudly imperfect leader just what we need?

Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, is the bookmakers’ favourite to be Keir Starmer’s successor. She is also someone who has recently given up vaping, according to the government minister Steve Reed, who had dinner with her at the weekend and told Sky News about it. These two facts about her – wanting to be PM and quitting vaping – are almost certainly connected.

Plainly, giving up vaping is preparation for the highest office. Rayner loves vaping: who can forget that fabulous photo of her, in the middle of the tax turmoil that led to her resignation last year, vaping in a dinghy off Brighton beach? You can get away with a huge amount of vaping as a middle-aged woman, owing to your fabled cloak of invisibility. I have vaped in committee room 10 in the House of Commons. I have vaped in the middle of an interview about whether or not vaping is bad for you. But I draw the line at vaping in the middle of the actual sea.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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.

Starmer is determined to see his five-year term through, even if it’s not what the country or the party wants

‘Twas the night before the elections, when all through No 10, not a creature was stirring, not even a hen. Mainly because Downing Street had come to the conclusion that letting Keir Starmer loose on the campaign trail was a surefire way to lose votes.

Canvassers from all over the country had confirmed what the polls were saying. That the prime minister was kryptonite to Labour’s chances. Mention his name to voters and people would turn their heads away. Some even made the sign of the cross. It was out of sight, out of mind. The less everyone saw of Keir, the more they decided they liked him. The new dialectics. Keir functioned best as an abstract idea rather than as a living person.

The leader of the Green party has faced antisemitic attacks, and yet his thoughts on the subject don’t count as far as the rightwing UK press is concerned

The surge of the Green party has emphasised an iron rule of British politics: those on the left cannot be treated as legitimate political actors. A case in point came at the weekend, when the Green party leader, Zack Polanski, was interviewed by Sky News’ Trevor Phillips, who barely concealed his contempt.

Two weeks ago, in an interview with Haaretz newspaper, Polanski was asked what the Green party’s response was to the recent wave of attacks against Jewish sites in the UK. His response: “I’m concerned about rising antisemitic attacks. We saw arson attacks on ambulances, for instance, and we know that, increasingly, Jewish communities are feeling unsafe. Now, there’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s a perception of unsafety or whether it’s actual unsafety, but neither are acceptable.”

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

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.

Climate action is something the vast majority of Britons agree on. But even the Greens are blocking the vital infrastructure we need to electrify Britain

• Katie White is the Labour MP for Leeds North West and minister for climate in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero

Strip away the politics, and the climate crisis debate isn’t complicated. We’re changing the planet in ways that are “damaging and dangerous”, and every country will be affected. “No one can opt out.”

Those quotes might sound as if they came from a leftwing Scandinavian leader, but they are, in fact, from Margaret Thatcher. Speaking to the UN general assembly in 1989, Britain’s then prime minister tore into world leaders and warned that there was “no good squabbling over who is responsible or who should pay”.

Katie White is the Labour MP for Leeds North West and a minister for climate in the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero

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.

Local and devolved elections will reveal fragmented party allegiances that cannot be fairly represented in parliament via first past the post

Some results in local council and devolved elections this week can be forecast with confidence, but none with precision. Labour will have a torrid time everywhere. Reform UK will probably do well, continuing the trend of recent years. The Greens will surge in parts of London. Plaid Cymru will enjoy a breakthrough in Wales. Those trends could produce a wide spectrum of outcomes in terms of seats on councils and in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments. Much depends on the way that tight races involving many parties are filtered through different electoral systems.

The first-past-the-post model used to elect local authorities in England is ill-suited to multiparty politics. It was already flawed in the era when political competition was defined by the rivalry between Labour and the Conservatives. Smaller parties were locked out. Too many voters felt their ballots counted for nothing in safe seats.

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.

For nearly a century, the Guardian has been challenging and delighting its readers with these puzzles. Here’s to 30,000 more

Late in 1928, the Guardian made plans to give its readers a weekly cryptic puzzle.

At the time, crosswords were considered a waste of time; other newspapers campaigned against them as a distraction keeping the working man from his duties, but the cryptic was different.

Readers respond to George Monbiot’s article on party funding

George Monbiot is surely right that large private donations poison democratic trust, whether or not corruption can ever be shown (Political donations are poison to our democracy – but there’s an easy antidote to that, 30 April). The damage lies not only in any favour bought but in the suspicion created. When one billionaire can appear to sustain a political party, politics begins to look less like representation and more like private ownership.

Monbiot’s membership-based model has moral weight. It would force parties to organise among citizens rather than flatter wealth and it would make politicians seek members, not patrons. That alone would change the culture.

A reader recalls her experience of trying to obtain a vasectomy for her husband on the NHS in the 1990s

Reading this article (Woman denied permanent birth control on NHS wins case with ombudsman, 1 May) reminded me of my husband’s and my experience of trying to obtain sterilisation on the NHS in the 1990s. At the time we were in our 30s and neither of us wanted to have children.

Rather than for me to continue taking the pill, we decided that the best option for us was for my husband to have a vasectomy. At the hospital consultation, I was flabbergasted when the doctor said that he was not going to approve the procedure on the grounds that at some time in the future my husband could leave me and want to have children with another woman.

Dr Stephanie van Eeden on a UK-wide research programme that is aimed at young adults. Plus a letter from Kenneth Low

With reference to the article by Hugh Davies about his experiences of having been born with a cleft lip (A moment that changed me: I cried about my cleft lip for the first time in my 60s, 29 April), it is fantastic to see cleft experiences given national attention, especially when there is still so much misunderstanding about what a cleft truly is. It is often assumed to be a small cosmetic difference. In reality, it shapes feeding, hearing, speech, dental development, facial growth and emotional wellbeing from the very first days of life. Someone in their 60s speaking openly about the lifelong impact of this is powerful.

The reforms that regionalised cleft care in the early 2000s have meant that experiences have changed since Hugh’s childhood. Today’s children benefit from coordinated surgical care, better speech and hearing support, and a far stronger understanding of psychological needs.

Paula McInally responds to an extract from Gemma Correll’s book on her relationship with booze

I read your article (Welcome to Anxietyland: I used alcohol to hide my fear – but booze became a very bad friend, 3 May) with the particular recognition of someone who is still in the middle of it.

I’m 37. I’ve spent the past few weeks signed off work with burnout and depression. And like Gemma, I found that alcohol was very good at taking the edge off. Until it wasn’t.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s trickery and imagination in Munich gave a reminder of the challenge facing Arsenal in the final

Well, it was never going to be quite the same. You only get one all-time high, one first kiss, one Catcher in the Rye, one loved-up alien-ball dreamscape of a game like the first leg between these two teams.

In the event Bayern Munich never really laid a glove on Paris Saint-Germain at the Allianz Arena. They trailed from the third minute to Ousmane Dembélé’s goal, drew level on the night through Harry Kane at the death, but looked in between like a team trying to generate energy from a standing start, always kept at one remove by the extended arm, the palm on their forehead, fists whirling in the empty air between.

After 10 years without a Women’s Super League title, City are champions once more – here’s how they did it

The sight of Rebecca Knaak fighting back tears on hearing the full-time whistle last Sunday summed up what this means. The Manchester City defender had sustained a painful shoulder injury during a victory over Liverpool snatched by her late header so probably had her own reasons for finding the combination of relief, soreness and joy a little overwhelming. But her emotions could have been felt by any of the longer-serving season-ticket holders in the stands after a decade-long wait for a Women’s Super League title.

When City lifted this trophy in 2016, the landscape of the English women’s game was wholly different. The club, then managed by Nick Cushing, completed the 16-game campaign unbeaten and clinched the title on a day when they deployed a starting XI featuring nine English and two Scottish players from a squad that included only six non-English players. It was a time before the wider, full-time professionalism of the league and the influx of overseas talent.

Something of an obsessive with tidiness, the interim coach has beaten all the club’s closest rivals in his short time in charge

We’ll get on to the more pressing business of whether Michael Carrick deserves the full-time Manchester United job in a moment. There’s plenty to discuss: tactics and philosophy, character and comportment, the squad he inherited from Ruben Amorim and how United might strengthen it in the summer window. But first: I want you to imagine eating an entire dover sole with the bones left in, while under the gaze of the former England international Trevor Francis.

You’re in a fancy restaurant in Birmingham. You’re 18 years old, and have ordered the fish with potatoes on the assumption that it will essentially be a posh chippy supper. The sole arrives, the waiter asks whether you want it filleted, and because you don’t know what that means, you say no. Immediately you feel the painful prickles on your tongue, the unsatisfying gnash of skeletal marine matter between your teeth. Naturally, you don’t want to look rude or foolish in front of your new manager. So you put on a brave face, and keep chewing. Meanwhile, Trevor Francis keeps watching.

Briton, who defends his WBO title against Daniel Dubois, talks Fury-Joshua, doping and his punditry sideline

“The only expectation I have is that it will end in a knockout,” Fabio Wardley says cheerfully as he looks ahead to his dangerous first defence of the WBO world heavyweight title against Daniel Dubois in Manchester on Saturday night. “Don’t Blink” is the promotional tagline for a battle between two powerful yet vulnerable heavyweights and, for once, this is less boxing bluster than reasonable advice for anyone watching a fight which could be the most dramatic heavyweight contest this year.

Wardley and Dubois are devastating punchers who also often look at risk of losing. Dubois has been beaten three times in 25 fights while dispatching his other opponents with brutal efficiency. Two years ago, the unbeaten Wardley came close to defeat against Frazer Clarke in their first fight, which ended up being a draw after a damaging bloodbath for both men. He knocked out Clarke after two savage minutes in the rematch but then lost every round against Justis Huni before producing a chilling late stoppage of the skilful Australian last June.

• Stonewood take minority stake in Champ club

• Pirates officials call it a ‘landmark’ deal

Cornish Pirates have stolen a march on some bigger sides in the Prem by becoming the first English rugby union club to complete a significant deal with wealthy American-based backers. The Champ club have joined forces with the Pittsburgh-based private equity firm Stonewood Capital with the aim of revitalising the prospects of the Penzance side.

The long-term arrangement would give Stonewood a substantial minority stake in the club for what is understood to be an initial seven-figure sum. Pirates officials are calling it a “landmark” deal and a “major milestone in the club’s evolution”.

In the space of a week the mood has changed, with positive energy replacing suffering, and two trophies are suddenly within reach

It was a soundbite designed to go viral, the kind the ex-pros in the TV studios are always looking to confect; snappy, heavy on hyperbole, bang in the moment. Thierry Henry made it pop on Tuesday night as he interviewed Bukayo Saka on CBS Sports after Arsenal had beaten Atlético Madrid to advance to the Champions League final. “We were the Invincibles. You will be the Unforgettables,” Henry said.

There it was, as laid out by one of the greats, the goalscoring hero of Arsenal’s unbeaten bolt to the 2004 Premier League title, the last one they won.

• Accounts for year ending July 2025 show improved salary

• Richard Masters had earned £1.9m the previous year

The latest accounts filed by the Premier League show the chief executive, Richard Masters, received £1m in a performance-related bonus.

Accounts by the Premier League for the year ending 31 July 2025 were published on Companies House on Tuesday and revealed Masters’ improved salary.

• Riders taken to hospital after Famenne Ardenne Classic

• Dung may have sprayed on to riders in wet conditions

Several cyclists, including riders due to start the Giro d’Italia on Friday, fell ill after a Belgian one-day race, with cow manure on the roads suspected to be the cause.

Three Lotto-Intermarché riders suffered from abdominal pain, diarrhoea, fever and vomiting, and were briefly taken to hospital, the team said from Bulgaria, where the Giro begins on Friday.

Exclusive: Voters remain split on issues critical to EU, such as support for Ukraine and dependence on Russian energy

More than three-quarters of Hungarians who voted for Péter Magyar in last month’s election want his government to do more to address the climate crisis, and more than 70% want him to protect LGBTQ+ rights, a poll has found.

Magyar’s opposition Tisza party won a supermajority in the vote, bringing an end to Viktor Orbán’s 16 years in power. The new prime minister will be sworn in on Saturday, weeks after the results set off celebrations in Budapest and Brussels.

Reform UK leader has registered wide range of financial interests on top of his Commons salary since July 2024

• Cameo, speeches, pushing gold bullion: how Farage has made millions since becoming an MP

Nigel Farage’s income since he was elected as an MP has now reached £2m on top of his parliamentary salary, analysis of the register of MPs has shown.

Farage’s earning power sets him alongside a small number of MPs who have been able to leverage their status for external income alongside their day jobs – drawing comparisons to Boris Johnson, who made about £5m on top of his MP’s salary in the six months after he resigned as prime minister.

Al Nahyans’ control over farmland in Europe has meant they receive proportion of payments to farms

The United Arab Emirates’ ruling royal family is benefiting from tens of millions in EU subsidies to grow crops destined for the Gulf, it can be revealed.

A cross-border investigation by DeSmog and shared with the Guardian found subsidiaries controlled by the Al Nahyans collected more than €71m (£61m) in six years for farmland it controls in Romania, Italy and Spain.

The 16-page report was led by Trump-ally Sebastian Gorka, and places drug cartels in the Americas at the centre of counter-terrorism efforts

The Trump administration has accused Europe of being an “incubator” for terrorism fuelled by mass migration, in a new counter-terrorism strategy unveiled on Wednesday.

The strategy also focuses on rooting out “violent left-wing extremists” including “radically pro-transgender” groups, as Trump’s conservative administration steps up its political attacks on opponents.

Nobel laureate says he previously considered himself a supporter of Israel, but ‘the campaign of annihilation in Gaza has changed all that’

Nobel laureate JM Coetzee has declined to attend an upcoming literature festival in Israel, writing a excoriating letter to organisers citing the country’s “genocidal campaign” in Gaza, stating: “It will take many years for Israel to clear its name”.

The 86-year-old author, who was born in apartheid South Africa and lives in Australia, wrote to organisers of the Jerusalem international writers festival in November.

As Reform vows to block solar and windfarms, energy leaders say renewables offer most secure future, insulating UK from hostile forces

• UK politics live – latest updates

• May elections: What’s at stake across England, Wales and Scotland?

The defining issue of Thursday’s local elections, feedback from doorsteps suggests, will be the UK’s soaring cost of living. But voters should be told about the links between inflation and the effects of fossil fuels and the climate crisis – or the remedies they choose – may make the situation worse, green campaigners have warned.

Ami McCarthy, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “With people’s bills and prices soaring from yet another fossil fuel crisis, these local elections have a global context – driven by the Iran war.

Intervention for farming and flood risk changes the unique systems as communities grapple with how to live alongside the vital waterways

When British settlers started building Christchurch city 170 years ago, they largely ignored the nearby Waimakariri River, which twists from the South Island’s alps towards the eastern shore.

But rain and glacial shifts compelled the braided river – a globally rare form of river with many woven channels – to take on a new shape, occasionally flooding land and depositing tonnes of shingle in its wake.

Austrian capital mulls expanding tram network and park-and-ride car parks in effort to reduce private vehicle use

When Leonore Gewessler hops on the underground trains and street-level trams that run like clockwork across the breadth of Vienna, she appreciates the ease, affordability and time she “gets as a present” instead of idling in traffic. But Austria’s former climate and transport minister is also aware that cars still dominate the capital’s streets. She says good public transport is just the “precondition” to changing how people move around the city.

Vienna’s network of trains, trams and buses have long been the envy of other European cities – let alone car-centric North American ones – but automobiles are still used for a quarter of journeys. In other capitals famed for world-class public transport, such as London, Paris and Prague, even higher use of cars has frustrated doctors and campaigners demanding cleaner air and safer streets.

Approval for exploration in 70 new areas prompts fierce backlash from fossil fuel opponents

The Norwegian government has been heavily criticised for approving plans to reopen three North Sea gasfields nearly three decades after they were closed to help fill the gap in energy supplies created by the Middle East war.

Amid sharp price rises in oil and gas since the US and Israel’s attack on Iran in February, Oslo has also given its approval for oil and gas companies to explore in 70 new locations in the North Sea, Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea.

Clifton George admits manslaughter but denies murder of Annabel Rook, whom he stabbed at least 22 times

A man fatally stabbed his partner and then triggered a gas explosion at their north-east London home last summer, a court has heard.

Clifton George, 45, is accused of murdering 46-year-old Annabel Rook during an argument at their home in Stoke Newington on 17 June 2025. George has pleaded guilty to manslaughter but denies murder.

Team of 100 extra officers is aimed at providing ‘more consistent model of protection’ for Jewish communities

• Politics live – latest updates

The number of antisemitic hate crimes recorded in April in London was the highest in two years, data shows, as the Metropolitan police commit to deploying 100 extra officers to protect Jewish communities.

The force says a “community protection team” will be set up, combining neighbourhood policing with counter-terrorism capabilities, as British Jews face “some of the highest levels of hate crime alongside significant terrorist and hostile state threats”.

In inner London boroughs such as Camden, home to PM’s constituency, Greens hope to capitalise on collapse in Labour support

• May elections: What’s at stake across England, Wales and Scotland?

In Highgate New Town, a north London housing estate whose brutalist architecture has been a fixture of film shoots, the enormous scale of the challenge Labour faces in the capital from the Greens was starkly evident.

“I’ve always voted Labour. My entire family has, but it feels like a time for a change,” said Cynthia Boampong after opening her door to Lorna Jane Russell, for now the only Green member on the local Camden council but who could be returned after 7 May at the head of a much larger group.

With support for Zack Polanski’s party expected to surge across the capital, nearby Hackney council is tipped to be the centre of a realignment of progressive voters, with polling suggesting the Greens could take the mayoralty and end up the largest party. The Labour bastions of Lambeth and Lewisham are also under siege.

Sarah Schloegl was unable to board flight home from Spain as 11-month-old lacked documents needed under new rules

A British woman from Aberdeen has been stranded abroad after her 11-month-old baby was prevented from boarding a flight because of new rules regarding dual nationals.

Sarah Schloegl was unable to board a Ryanair flight from Alicante last week after she went to Spain for a short break with her Austrian husband, Philipp, their three-year-old daughter and 11-month-old baby.

‘Clinical consensus statement’ also urges heart doctors to advise patients to not eat late at night, and chew slowly

Want to reduce your intake of ultra-processed food? If so, cook at home more often, don’t eat late at night and chew your food more slowly.

Those are among some of the tips doctors have offered to help people limit the amount of UPF they consume given the acute and growing danger it poses to human health worldwide.

Exclusive: Regime, which executed 243 people last year for drug offences, accused of investing in entertainment to whitewash its human rights record

The acclaimed Australian film-maker Phillip Noyce is being paid by the Saudi regime to make a feature film portraying the repressive state’s narcotics officers as heroes.

The Watchful Eyes, based on a real Saudi ministry of interior narcotics case, is billed as a dramatic depiction of the “heroism of security men in combating drugs”.

Russia vows ‘retaliatory’ strikes if Moscow parade if attacked – despite Ukraine offering truce; departing Orbán surrenders Ukrainian cash and gold. What we know on day 1,534

Video shows ‘looksmaxxing’ influencer shooting an apparently already dead alligator in the Everglades

A controversial social media influencer known as Clavicular is facing charges in connection with a live stream showing him shooting an apparently already dead alligator in the Everglades, local Florida media has reported.

Clavicular, whose real name is Braden Eric Peters and is known for the practice of “looksmaxxing”, faces charges of unlawfully discharging a firearm in a public place or residential property, according to legal files obtained by television station ABC6 in South Florida. The charges stem from his alleged actions in a 26 March live stream.

Zilis, an executive at Musk’s brain implant startup Neuralink, served on OpenAI’s board from 2020 to 2023

Shivon Zilis, a Neuralink executive and the mother of four of Elon Musk’s children, took the stand on Wednesday as one of the most highly anticipated witnesses in Musk’s case against OpenAI. The ChatGPT maker has argued that, while Zilis worked with OpenAI from 2016 to 2023, she was also involved in a secret relationship with Musk, acting as an informant for him.

Musk’s case against OpenAI alleges that the company’s CEO, Sam Altman, and president, Greg Brockman, co-founders of the company with Musk, broke a founding agreement when they restructured it from a non-profit to a for-profit enterprise. The Tesla CEO accuses Altman and Brockman of unjustly enriching themselves and wants both removed from their positions at the startup, one of the most valuable in the world. He is also seeking the undoing of the for-profit restructuring and $134bn in damages to be redistributed to OpenAI’s non-profit arm.

Profits jump to £122m at ticketing retailer but it expects flat or declining revenues over the coming year

• Business live – latest updates

Trainline has said the US standoff with Iran is hitting its revenues, with rail ticket sales to foreign visitors to Europe affected.

The UK-based international ticketing agent said it expected revenues to stay flat or decline over the coming year, citing “the effects of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East on inbound air traffic into Europe”.

Modella Capital, which rebranded shops as TG Jones, unveils radical restructuring plan, including rent holidays

Up to 150 former WH Smith stores are likely to close, putting thousands of jobs at risk under a radical restructuring plan by their new owner, which had rebranded the shops as TG Jones.

The investment company Modella Capital, which bought WH Smith’s chain of 480 high street stores for £76m last year, blamed “weak consumer spending” as it set out the plan to landlords on Wednesday.

Firms raising prices at fastest rate in three years, driven by soaring energy and wage bills but also extra materials costs

• Oil prices fall as Trump hails ‘progress’ on Iran deal

Airlines and other companies are increasingly using fuel surcharges to cover soaring costs, a survey has found, in a further sign of Iran war-linked inflation hitting the economy.

A poll of companies in the services sector, which includes airlines, found rising fuel prices had contributed to businesses raising prices at the fastest pace in more than three years in April.

Lucy Punch is brilliant as this comedy’s delusional, narcississtic lead and Joanna Lumley is magnetic as her mum. It’s not as delectably spiky as Motherland, but the comforting vibes are what make it worth watching

If God really does love a trier, he’d absolutely adore Amandaland’s Amanda Hughes. The former owner of west London boutique Hygge Tygge may be in her idea of the gutter – she’s a single mum recently relocated from a spacious house in Chiswick to a Harlesden maisonette (which she has to clean herself) and currently working in sales for a high-street kitchen company – but she’s fixated on those stars. Don’t be fooled by the outrageous laziness and negligence she brings to her actual job; when it comes to her true calling of becoming a successful influencer in order to promote her bland lifestyle brand Senuous, she’s really putting the hours in.

In this sense, Amanda slots neatly into a lineage of British comedy icons; file her next to the delusional, narcissistic, indefatigable likes of Alan Partridge and David Brent. Yet Lucy Punch’s character – who initially appeared in the modern-classic sitcom Motherland before landing her own spin-off – gets an easier ride than her peers. At first she was Motherland’s resident antagonist: a smug, slinky blonde securely installed at the top of the school mum food chain who spent her time exploiting her primary acolyte Anne (Philippa Dunne) and patronising permanently harried protagonist Julia (Anna Maxwell Martin). Later, we witnessed her divorce and dysfunctional relationship with her judgmental mother (Joanna Lumley). As the mask fell, her likability ballooned. By the end we were encouraged to think of Amanda as more of a flawed striver than a boo-hiss baddie.

The iconic fashion photographer has been crowned a master at this year’s Photo London – a rare exhibition of his stunning work in the capital proves why

Sir David is joined by celebrity fans and cast members to give the much-loved sitcom a proper send-off. Plus: suspicion falls on a bride-to-be in Bergerac

8pm, U&Gold
The shop doorbell tinkles as David Jason steps on to the set of Open All Hours a whopping 50 years after the sitcom first aired. Diane Morgan narrates this two-hour special that looks back at the show with Jason, along with fans such as Johnny Vegas and cast members including Maggie Ollerenshaw. There’s also a new concluding scene that has been recorded to give the show a proper send-off. Hollie Richardson

A follow-up to 2021’s gory big-screen adaptation of the much-played fighting game might finally show us the tournament but it’s all far too unexciting

A sequel to 2021’s gory, garish big-screen transfer of Mortal Kombat was an inevitability not just because of how the industry typically works and not just because video game IP is arguably hotter than ever right now but because of something far more crucial. While the film – the second attempt to bring the game to the big screen after a dodgy Christopher Lambert-led 1995 version - was a predictable string of fight scenes pieced together with what could generously be described as a plot, it pulled a major, and to some rather shocking, punch. For all of the fight scenes it did show, it stopped short of showing us those one would naturally expect, denying us an actual Mortal Kombat tournament.

It was all laboured scene-setting, one reason why it didn’t connect with many critics and fans, other than it also not being very good, another little problem. The film was part of Warner’s Christopher Nolan-alienating Covid year, when its slate was launched on both the big screen and HBO Max simultaneously, and while it did so-so theatrical numbers, it was the platform’s most-streamed movie of the year, beating out grander titles such as Dune. The sequel is receiving a splashier rollout but its predecessor’s outsized small-screen success wasn’t just a sign of that particular strange time but also where fans might best enjoy these films, on TV late at night, expectations that much lower. Treated like a premium format blockbuster does not do a film like Mortal Kombat II any favours, its junkiness less charming and more distracting, a street fighter suddenly forced to go pay-per-view. While this one might actually be true to its title – there is a Mortal Kombat in Mortal Kombat II - there’s still nowhere near enough here to warrant an Imax screen.

The restaurant drama dropped a special episode yesterday, without any warning. And it shows brief flashes of the magic that once made it so brilliant

A couple of years ago, a surprise episode of The Bear would have been one of the highlights of the year. The stressful, tightly compressed comedy-drama about a restaurant in Chicago hit television like a juggernaut when it launched. It felt like nothing else and it was all anyone could talk about.

How things have changed. Two disappointing seasons have taken all of the wind out of The Bear, so when it was announced that a special episode had dropped (before what is expected to be the final season this summer), you would have been justified to feel trepidatious.

Sophie Hyde’s semi-autobiographical tale about sexual identity and intergenerational dynamics falls flat, but is buoyed by Colman and Lithgow’s committed performances

Sophie Hyde has directed an earnestly intended but very indulgent film, somewhere between autobiography and autofiction; it blandly congratulates itself on its sensitivity and cathartic honesty, but is without the spark of her 2019 quarterlifecrisis comedy Animals. When the teen lead takes soulful photos on a hipstery disposable roll-film camera instead of on a smartphone like anyone else, it is frankly a little bit insufferable. Yet there are focused and committed performances from Olivia Colman and John Lithgow.

Adelaide-based film-maker Hannah (Colman), based on Hyde, goes on a trip to Amsterdam with her smiley husband and non-binary child Frances, played by Hyde’s own child Aud Mason-Hyde; this is to visit Hannah’s charismatic, brilliant and impossibly life-affirming father, Jim (Lithgow), adorably calledJimpa. He is a man who came out as gay to his wife and daughters in the early 70s and left them to live in Amsterdam as a radical lecturer and campaigner on issues such as housing and HIV.

A video of the Italian duo huffing cigarettes and pouring aperitifs on a Mediterranean balcony might have gone viral – but there’s nothing slapdash about their blissful electro evocations of la dolce vita

Even if you’ve never heard Mind Enterprises’ music, there’s a good chance you will have seen them. A clip of the neo-Italo disco duo standing behind a pair of decks on a balcony in a Mediterranean city, casually pouring themselves big glasses of Campari and blowing luscious smoke rings, has become a widely shared meme on social media over the last 12 months. Its message feels like an inversion of the “This is fine” cartoon dog: the world might be on fire, but in Europe we still have la dolce vita and, actually, that is fine.

Yet, when Mind Enterprises embarked on an 18-date North American tour at the start of this year, they had to fight to take their hedonistic hallmarks with them. “It’s been our daily diplomatic battle: every concert we’ve done, we always had to argue and discuss with the local production crew because they didn’t want to let us smoke. In some cases, they don’t even want to let us drink, and bottles are not allowed on stage,” Andrea Tirone tells me over a video call from his Barcelona apartment, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with his creative partner, Roberto Conigliaro.

The incendiary Japanese group who emerged out of late-60s unrest were suspicious of studios so their legacy was long left to bootleg obsessives. But unheard recordings are revealing their lesser-known gifts for melody

By 1969 student protests were raging across Japan, as anti-university, anti-war and anti-government movements mingled in strikes and classroom blockades. “Students were getting really violent,” Makoto Kubota recalls of Kyoto’s Doshisha University, leaving his studies in shambles. But when his quiet, magnetic fellow student Takashi Mizutani invited Kubota to the first gig by his band les Rallizes Dénudés, their deafening psych-rock became his calling. “I’d never experienced that amount of volume. My body ached.”

Les Rallizes Dénudés, which Kubota soon joined, have become the stuff of rock mythology: a mysterious, ever-shifting group whose early use of extreme distortion has won fans ranging from Osees’ John Dwyer to Lady Gaga. As its sole constant member since founding it in 1967, vocalist-guitarist Mizutani’s secretive nature and aversion to studio recordings have meant their story is still being pieced together, and their music chiefly circulated as live bootlegs. Discovering these had generated a cult international fanbase long after the band’s final gig in 1996, and Mizutani and Kubota reconnected in 2019 with plans to reunite – cut short by Mizutani’s death later that year. In his memory, Kubota is restoring and releasing their music, including an extraordinary lost album.

The composer himself never matched the joy, optimism and boldness of his first teenage symphony, as the chill of Stalinism settled on his music

This week we mark two extraordinary centenaries. Sir David Attenborough’s, of course, but only four days after the birth of the bona fide national treasure, Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Symphony also first saw the light of day – premiered in Leningrad on 12 May 1926. The 19-year-old’s composition was played by the Leningrad Philharmonic, conducted by Nicolai Malko.

The symphony’s four-movement structure is just about the only conventional feature it has. The teenage Shostakovich had imbibed all the lessons he could about what orchestral music should sound like and how it should behave, and was bold enough to subvert all those ideas and send them up. There is no forelock-tugging to earlier generations of Russian symphonists and orchestral pioneers; instead, Shostakovich’s First resounds with a self-confidence that’s both optimistic and deliciously sardonic.

Milton Court, London
The four siblings start with Webern before ditching traditional instruments for mics, voices, percussion and oud

‘We’ve done many concerts, but this is the first time I’m stressed,” the first violin confesses with a grin, lowering his instrument before a single note has sounded. But before he can launch into the story he’s interrupted by the cellist. “We’re actually supposed to play first!” she chides.

A string quartet is often compared to a four-way marriage. But what if the dynamic was closer to four siblings? One group that doesn’t need to imagine the answer is the Saad family: brothers Omar, Mostafa and Gandhi, and sister Tibah – AKA the Galilee String Quartet.

The feverish interiority of a young woman abroad is captured with offbeat wit and disarming candour in the first novel from the translator of Butter

Without meaning any disrespect to the now defunct noughties R&B trio Mis-Teeq, one would be hard pressed to think of many novels that open with an epigraph from their oeuvre. “You know you wanna sing with us (baby). That’s why you know you should be scared of us (baby),” from their 2003 single Scandalous, greets readers of Polly Barton’s debut novel, What Am I, a Deer? It hints at several of the book’s central preoccupations – romance, the disquieting force of desire, and the devotional catharsis of belting out a pop song.

Barton has written two nonfiction books – Fifty Sounds, and Porn: An Oral History – but she is a writer readers are likely to have encountered by accident. Primarily a translator of Japanese fiction, her work includes bringing Asako Yuzuki’s bestseller Butter into English.

Lerone Martin’s new book offers fascinating insight into the civil rights icon’s younger years

Lerone Martin, a prominent scholar of Black religious history, leads the Martin Luther King Jr Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. His new book, Young King: The Making of Martin Luther King Jr, grew from “professional and personal” roots.

Professionally, Martin “started coming across things that I had never seen before” about the civil rights leader’s childhood in Atlanta, his years at Morehouse College, and his time at Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania. One key episode happened in 1944, when King was 15. Travelling north from Georgia, he spent a summer working in the tobacco fields of Simsbury, Connecticut. It’s known as a transformative stay, vital in King’s eventual decisions to follow his father as a preacher and to fight for civil rights. Nonetheless, Martin found an underexploited resource.

A history of the social and cultural impact of DH Lawrence’s novel shows how it inspired comedy as well as controversy

Not known for his humour, DH Lawrence thought of Lady Chatterley’s Lover as a serious novel about the sacred nature of sex. But some of the activity between Connie and the gamekeeper Mellors is funny, either unintentionally (as in the scene where they garland each other’s naked bodies with flowers) or with a playful recognition of carnal absurdity: his penis is “farcical” and intercourse involves a “ridiculous bouncing of buttocks”. More comic still was the fallout from the book: customs officers seizing banned copies, high court jinks, innumerable skits and cartoons. As Guy Cuthbertson shows in his entertaining book, “It’s not a comic novel as such, but one way or another, it created laughter.”

On a steam railway in Devon, you can ride in a carriage called Lady Chatterley. Boots, blouses, thongs, earrings, pens, postcards and saris also bear her name and there have been endless jokey variations on the title: Lady Chatterley’s Pullover, Lady Chatterley’s Loofah, Lady Loverley’s Chatter and so on. Allusions to the novel turn up everywhere from lonely hearts ads to fancy dress parades. And as John Profumo and David Mellor discovered, if you were caught with your pants down in a sex scandal there’d be jokes about the new moral decrepitude that followed the unbanning of the book.

Eerie omens haunt this absorbing group portrait set over six months in an English village

Sitting stoned on a hill above his village, a young man muses on his place in the world. Connor is proud to have fenced pastures while his mates have been away at university. But it’s overwhelming to think of all their lives being equally real and urgent. Are they part of the same story or separate ones? A phrase comes to him from a book he hated at school: something about “the roar on the other side of silence”. In this fine, subtle and strange novel from one of the most probing writers of contemporary rural life, Melissa Harrison earns that nod to George Eliot, whose words she gives to an anxious and ecstatic labourer clutching a can of Fanta.

The Given World follows the inhabitants of one village in a river valley, a place “as old as anywhere”, for six months between the equinoxes of a year. The time is now, or an imminent future when the seasons seem to have “ceased their metronome”. At first, the central figure appears to be Clare, who knows each flagstone of the ancient priory that has been the centre of her life. The six months are her dying time, from diagnosis to last thoughts. But, in a way that pays tribute to the solitary Clare’s understanding of interconnectedness, the novel goes out from the priory to trace a web of lives. In the breezeblock bungalow next door, a desperate farmer tunes in at dawn to American evangelists on the radio. Like Saj the postman, we call at addresses where literary fiction rarely bothers to ring the bell.

James Bond games have always fallen short of capturing the precise feel of the classic movies. But Amazon’s first dip into the 007 mythology seems to have a character of its own

In the wake of the last James Bond movie, No Time to Die, there was a surge of articles asking whether it should spell the end for Ian Fleming’s secret agent. In that movie, Daniel Craig played the character as a fading force, mentally and physically exhausted, and out of touch. “The world has moved on,” Lashana Lynch’s younger agent told him at one point, and in a lot of ways she was right. A product of the cold war era, 007 was a sociopathic misogynist addicted to booze and amphetamines – Craig tried to play all that down, creating a more rounded character and, controversially, giving Bond the ultimate redemption arc at the end of his final outing.

But five years later, with the franchise’s new owner Amazon still trying to pull the next film together, we’re about to get what looks to be the best Bond game since GoldenEye. Created by the Danish developer IO Interactive, famed for its Hitman series of anarchic open-ended assassination sims, 007 First Light follows a fresh-faced Bond from his early career as an aircrewman to his first mission as a double-0 operative. The games press was recently given a three-hour hands-on demo to play, and reports suggest that it combines elements of the Hitman games (Bond navigating a gala event, either sleuthing or punching his way to the mission objective) with major set-piece shootouts, chase scenes and miraculous gadgets. (For more on its making, read this piece about how developer IO Interactive brought it together.)

More than a quarter of 20- to 34-year-olds still live with their parents. No wonder they are escaping into virtual properties that they can decorate and furnish as they like

Name: Cosy gaming.

Age: Has its origins in social simulation games such as Harvest Moon (1996) and The Sims (2000).

Meeting ‘my people’ – video gamers with very long memories – took me back to an era of machine play that lacked megabytes but had far more tangible presence

I want to tell you about the game that has made me the happiest this month. It’s a game I didn’t complete. It’s a game I didn’t even start. I just held it. And smiled. I have played the game before, but not for many years. Forty of them to be precise.

The game is Daley Thompson’s Super Test for the ZX Spectrum.

Hitman developer IO Interactive’s pluralistic take on the British secret agent – his first video-game outing in almost 15 years – promises a Bond for all eras. Here’s what you need to know

If you want to tell the tale of a young James Bond, you first need to pick which James Bond he’s going to grow into. This was the task handed to Hitman developer IO Interactive, the studio taking digital custody of the spy in 007 First Light, Bond’s first video game in almost 15 years. So what’s it to be? Will their agent take baby steps towards Sean Connery’s gruff masculinity, or is he practising Roger Moore’s arched eyebrow in the bathroom mirror? That’s if he’s a “movie” Bond at all. For a generation of gamers, the character exists most vividly as a hand at the bottom of the screen in GoldenEye 007.

As it turns out, 007 First Light’s Bond, depicted by Patrick Gibson (cornering a specific market, having played the serial killer-to-be in the Dexter origins show) is an amalgam: the facial scar is an Ian Fleming detail, but the sweet-talking charm is straight from the Pierce Brosnan playbook, and the second you barge a goon into a bookcase you know someone’s been studying Casino Royale on a loop. Trying to devise a Bond for all fandoms could risk satisfying none, but in the demo we played, the performance works. Crucially, Gibson brings an outsider’s unease that’s all his own, anchored by the arrogance that’ll one day be weaponised by MI6.

O2 Arena, London
The ambition of 2025 album Lux is scaled up even bigger by the Catalan megastar, delivered with operatic vocals and en pointe ballet moves as well as funny asides and glasses of wine

Wrapped in a vast white sheet, Rosalía is telling the audience a story about her youthful dreams of performing in London, undaunted by the fact that her English is, as she puts it “a little bit rat-a-tah”. It turns out her real ambition was to sing at the Royal Albert Hall – “which I’ve never done” – but no matter: “I have sold out two nights at the O2!” she cries triumphantly. “Crazy, crazy,” she adds, shaking her head.

You can understand the Catalan singer’s surprise. We are supposed to live in a hopelessly risk-averse era for pop, where what audiences are deemed to want is more of the same. While you might have expected her fourth album, Lux, to be greeted with critical hosannahs, the fact that she’s managed to fill one of the UK’s biggest venues twice off the back of a song cycle based on the lives of various female saints, sung in 13 different languages, and set to music that conjoined lavish orchestration with leftfield electronica – and provoked a debate about whether the results should be filed under classical rather than pop – seems pretty improbable.

Sadler’s Wells, London
Men in tutus and pointe shoes loving and parodying their art form never ages; it’s both simple and very sophisticated

Depending on how you look at it, drag ballet troupe the Trocks offer either lighthearted camp, an in-joke for dance megafans, or an existential question about the very nature of ballet and beauty. Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, to give the company its formal mouthful of a name, has been going since 1974, five decades in which the perception of drag, and of gender, has transformed. The 14-strong all-male company (or gender-skewering, they now usually say) dresses in tutus, pointe shoes and greasepaint, dancing mainly extracts from the classical ballet repertoire: Swan Lake, Paquita, etc.

They do it in a way that mixes slapstick comedy, hammed up to the hilt, with a deep love and knowledge of the art form. It is both broad and subtle, a bathetic tightrope act that apes and satirises the ideal of the ballerina; it mocks ballet tropes while also pulling off fouettés and arabesques and allegro pointe work. The technical feats are somehow more impressive because these aren’t otherworldly ballerinas but an assortment of bodies that feel real, imperfections and all. It’s a reminder how hard this stuff is, and that the drive to do it is really exceptional; we’re rooting for them.

Royal Opera House, London
As the tormented fisherman, Allan Clayton currently has few rivals. He is matched by a superb cast in this gripping revival of Britten’s opera

‘Who can turn skies back and begin again?” That’s the question the fisherman Peter Grimes asks the universe at the close of his brief aria in Act 1 of Britten’s opera – two and a half minutes of singular, breath-holding music, at the end of which the people around him all think he’s mad or drunk, but we the audience know he’s a man apart, who sees more clearly than any of them.

For someone who runs his life by watching those skies, the words are as succinct as they are beautiful – and there’s a simplicity to the way Allan Clayton sings them that encapsulates the balance of directness and poetry in his Grimes, a role in which he currently has few rivals. Perhaps it also sums up Deborah Warner’s staging, updated to a present-day, left-behind English coastal town, which has an almost workaday realism that feels like an invitation to take everything literally, and yet has touches of the fantastical right from the start. In the prologue, Grimes lies centre-stage reliving in his sleep the nightmare of his court appearance while a fishing boat, suspended from the flies, hangs like the sword of Damocles over his head; in the orchestral interlude that follows this scene, an aerialist tumbles slowly down to be caught by Grimes, again and again.

Chichester Festival theatre
David Haig shines as writer and star of this dramatisation about the fraught friendship of two entertainment giants and their debate over what is real or simply illusion

The admirable actor David Haig has a sprightly sideline as a writer of historical bio-dramas. My Boy Jack (1997), about Rudyard Kipling’s mourning for a son killed in the first world war, and Pressure (2014), concerning the Scottish meteorologist charged with finding Gen Eisenhower’s weather window for D-day, is followed by Magic, dramatising the fraught friendship of two giants of entertainment between the wars: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.

It overlaps with My Boy Jack in that, like the author of The Jungle Book, the creator of Sherlock Holmes is grieving for a war victim son. The hope of a reunion brings the writer to the spiritualist movement but creates tension with Houdini, the illusionist convinced that seances are as much a theatrical pretence as his own escapes from straitjackets and water tanks. Happy to have the Scot as a fan, the Hungarian-American is alarmed to discover that the writer believes him to be blessed with supernatural powers.

Demonstrators, angered by Russia’s inclusion at arts festival, shouted ‘Curated by Putin, dead bodies included’

The Russian pavilion at the Venice Biennale was forced temporarily to shut its doors on the second day of the preview after the activist group Pussy Riot staged a chaotic protest against the country’s inclusion in the art festival.

Wearing pink balaclavas, the protesters ran towards the Russian pavilion where they gathered outside and lit pink, blue and yellow flares while playing punk music and shouting slogans, including “Blood is Russia’s Art”.

In a rare interview, the director has said he wants to do justice to Homer’s ‘original non-linear narrative’. How will that translate on screen?

• New trailer for Nolan’s The Odyssey released online

The excitement around Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming film of the Odyssey has been taken up a notch this week with the launch of a new trailer and the director appearing on Stephen Colbert’s US chatshow to give a rare interview.

With fresh information emerging about the film, which is scheduled to be released on 17 July, it’s worth taking stock of what we know about Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus. And how faithful to the original poem is it likely to be?

Suit says director used Q’orianka Kilcher’s features without permission after seeing her in advert for The New World

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James Cameron and the Walt Disney Company are facing a lawsuit that claims the director based a key character in the Avatar franchise on a teenage actor without her permission.

The suit, filed by actor Q’orianka Kilcher, alleges that Cameron “extracted her facial features” and “directed his design team” to base the key Avatar character Neytiri on her appearance after seeing her in an LA Times advert for Terrence Malick’s 2005 film The New World. In the film Kilcher, who is Native Peruvian, played Pocahontas among a cast that also included Colin Farrell and Christian Bale.

US singer-songwriter talks about huge effort of controlling her behaviour, in interview with Amy Poehler

Billie Eilish has said she is “doing everything I can” to suppress her Tourette syndrome.

The singer-songwriter, who was 11 when she was diagnosed with TS, told of how frustrating it can be when others do not understand the condition.

The key lesson from Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s style is to keep the messaging simple

Carolyn Bessette Kennedy has been an insider style icon for ever, but this year she has flipped from under-the-radar reference to global phenomenon. Ryan Murphy’s Love Story, a glossy dramatisation of her doomed romance with JFK Jr, gave us nine delicious hours of lingering closeups of her white tank tops and jeans, her simple black dresses, perfect black oval sunglasses and tortoiseshell headbands. If you didn’t know you wanted to dress like CBK before you started watching, you did by the end.

Carole Radziwill, who was friends with Carolyn, has pointed out that copying CBK’s style is pretty much the least CBK thing you could do. Her friend, she told the Deuxmoi podcast, “pulled her hair back in a headband because she didn’t want to wash it every day. She did what felt natural to her and she dressed in things that made her feel comfortable and most like herself. Mostly jeans and button-downs and T-shirts. The takeaway is not to mimic her style, but to do and wear what feels most authentic to you. Be yourself. She was very much herself.”

Test yourself on topical news trivia, pop culture and general knowledge every Thursday. How will you fare?

Welcome to the Thursday news quiz, where it pays to listen carefully – although not necessarily to the extent of developing a question mark for an ear, as our illustration by Anaïs Mims may suggest. Have you been paying attention to the week’s events or just hearing half the story? Fifteen questions await on topical news, pop culture and general knowledge, generously sprinkled with some in-jokes. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 246

Warm weather got you itching for new greenery? Our expert shares the dos and don’ts of plant shopping with the planet in mind

• The best places to buy plants online, according to top gardeners

With spring in full swing, it’s time to go shopping for plants. While adding to or creating a garden has obvious green credentials, some plants are more sustainable than others.

Whether it’s hidden peat, throwaway plants, high water and energy use, transport emissions or plastic pots that can’t be recycled, here’s what to avoid – and what is better to buy instead – for a truly sustainable plot.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The actor talks well-brewed tea, never lending books, and the joy of dining at home with the Filter

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Kim Cattrall shot to fame when she played the sexually liberated Samantha Jones in the TV series Sex and the City. Her film roles span comedy, drama and thrillers including Police Academy, Mannequin and The Ghost Writer. She also appeared to rave reviews in stage productions of Private Lives and David Mamet’s The Cryptogram.

Born in Liverpool, she moved to Canada as a child and now divides her time between New York City, London and Vancouver. Cattrall is the face of a new Designer at Debenhams campaign, a collaboration between the retailer and the British designer Ashish.

From jugs to sticks, portable to refurbished models, which blenders are worth your money (and your fruit)?

• The best (and worst) chef’s knives – tested
• In the US? Check out our top-rated blenders there

Eating your five-a-day can be tricky – let alone the 10 a day recommended by some. However, a decent blender can push you in the right direction by blitzing up healthy, wholesome soups or nutritious smoothies to start the day right.

Unlike many kitchen appliances, most blenders are economical to run – so won’t increase your bills dramatically. Some can even heat your soup for tuppence (and we’ve tested them all to make sure that they’re energy-efficient). However, the difference in functions, versatility and maintenance can be startling. I put 10 blenders from some of the most well-known manufacturers through their paces to separate the smooth operators from the far-from-brilliant buys.

Best blender overall:
Braun PowerBlend 9 jug blender JB9040BK

Best budget blender:
Kenwood Blend-X Fresh blender BLP41.A0GO

Whether it’s a new season scent or a springy running shoe, your April favourites show you’re ready for a fresh start

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It’s easy to feel hopeful in spring, with blossom all around and sunny days bringing the promise of summer ahead. It feels like a fresh start, and it’s clear from your favourite things in April that you’re looking for rejuvenation.

Maybe that’s a new scent, or a cabin bag for a holiday. Perhaps it’s a health reset, with a pair of running shoes to kickstart better habits, or a celebrity-endorsed supplement. You’ve also loved sub-£20 skincare basics and high-street looks inspired by Matthieu Blazy’s Chanel. Here are your favourite things from April.

Softly braised vegetables combine with crisp-skinned chicken thighs in this reliable, versatile dish

The weather lately has been as temperamental as peas in pods. But peas are even harder to read than the sky: some pods contain sweet things no bigger than peppercorns, which explode when you bite them; the contents of others, however, are closer to small ball bearings, their size very likely a sign that all the natural sucrose has been metabolised and transformed to pea starch. The best thing for the tiny ones is to snack on them alongside a bit of cheese, whereas the path for big ones is the same as for dried peas, so pea and ham soup or a long-simmered puree.

Prepared for all the above, I first checked that there were frozen peas in the freezer. It was a packet I used to take for granted until, aged 14 and having finished all the biscuits, crisps, cereal and milk, I decided that peas were a decent late-night desperation snack. Fortunately, there was a packet, because I needed a good portion of it to make up for the pea shortfall caused by the huge and tiny ones found in one kilo of pods.

Transform this tough offcut into an intensely delicious compound butter that’s perfect with eggs, bread, gnocchi or anything else you can think of

Asparagus butts are a particularly tricky byproduct to tame because they’re so fibrous. I usually cut them very finely (into 5mm-thick discs, or even thinner), then boil, puree and pass them through a sieve (as in my green goddess salad dressing and asparagus soup), but even then you’ll still end up with a fair bit of fibrous waste. Enter asparagus-butt butter: a recipe that defies all odds, making the impossible possible by transforming a tough offcut into an intense compound butter that’s perfect for grilling or frying asparagus spears themselves, or for eggs, bread, gnocchi or whatever you can think of. The short fibres brown and caramelise in the butter, and in the process become the highlight of the dish, rather than the problem.

Asparagus, but maybe not as you know it: stir-fried with coconut, mustard seeds and curry leaves, and tossed with tamarind, chickpeas and pomegranate

Spring’s first asparagus always feels like a celebration, but there’s so much more to cooking those spears than just butter and lemon. Here, those tender stems combine with bold Indian flavours in two playful dishes. The thoran, inspired by Keralan home cooking, involves stir-frying asparagus with coconut, mustard seeds and curry leaves to create something warm and comforting (my friend Simi’s mum always used to drizzle it with a little lemon juice to give the flavours a lift). The chaat, meanwhile, tossed with tangy tamarind, yoghurt, spices, crunchy chickpeas and sweet pomegranate, is a delicious snack or side. Together, they show how versatile asparagus can be: easy to cook, vibrant and moreish even in unexpected culinary traditions.

You can cook it in many ways without boiling water – grill, airfry, bake or even microwave

I always blanch asparagus, but how else can I cook it?
Joe, via email
“Blanching captures that green, verdant nature of asparagus so well, and saves its minerality, too,” agrees Bart Stratfold of Timberyard in Edinburgh, but when the season is going full tilt, it’s just common sense to expand our horizons. For Billy Stock, chef/owner of the Wellington in Margate, that means salads, especially with spears that are really fresh: “Use a peeler to shave thin strips off the raw asparagus, and use them in a delicious variation on salade Niçoise.”

Another approach would be the grill, Stratfold says: “Coat the spears in rapeseed oil, then grill on an excruciatingly high heat for just a few seconds, until they develop some char.” After that, he rolls them in a tray of vinegar or preserves: “At the restaurant, that’s usually sweet pickled elderflower and elderflower vinegar.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

When I became pregnant, all I wanted was a healthy baby. Discovering I would be having a son gave me a new perspective on the narratives around masculinity

At the 20-week ultrasound, because of the baby’s position, my partner and I didn’t get any proper pictures to take home. Instead, the sonographer printed us a shot of the genitals. So, there it was, in black and white: I was having a boy.

Growing up, boys were a slightly alien concept. Our household was female-heavy – a mum, two sisters, a dad with no interest in conventional “boy stuff”. We did have two male cats, neutered, extremely fluffy and ironically named Mr White and Mr Orange by my dad (“Reservoir Cats”).

Vibe Check, a free and anonymous alternative to AI, talks teens through consent, boundaries and apologies

Val Odiembo volunteers at her former high school a few times a month, teaching teens about consent and healthy relationships. Now a sophomore at Rhode Island College, 19-year-old Odiembo isn’t much older than the students she’s teaching – which she thinks makes it easier for the high schoolers to come to her with their questions. But she knows she isn’t the only source they’re consulting.

“A lot of them confide in AI,” she said. A recent UK study found that one in 10 young adults has consulted AI for sexual health information, and a 2025 Pew Research Center report showed that one in five teens have had a romantic relationship with a chatbot.

I always knew my Vietnamese pot-bellied pig was smart and special – and he has brought love, chaos and happiness into my life

We have lots of animals in our home in Sacramento, California – a dog, two chicks, a pigeon, a bearded dragon, three rats and two rescue cows. But our pig, Merlin, is special.

I had a pig obsession for a while. I remember going to visit some animal sanctuaries and getting emotional when I saw the pigs. There’s just something about them that I felt a connection to. I knew how smart they were. I remember telling myself that one day I’d have a pig.

Linda lost her sexual appetite after a hysterectomy, but making a list of sex cues with partner Elias helped her regain her desire
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

Since everything on the list is something we both like, when he sends me a suggestion it turns me on

I’ve received 77 unpaid PCNs from TfL but it won’t accept they weren’t from my vehicle

Someone cloned my car number plate back in October and racked up £8,500 in Ulez fines. I appealed, but this was rejected.

Unfortunately, the cloned car is the same make, model and colour as mine. I’ve now received 17 “order for recovery of unpaid penalty charge” notices from Transport for London (TfL). The bailiffs will arrive next week, according to their letters.

Charges set out in a new contract for Aver Healthcare’s homes appear to contradict advice from the regulator

I hold power of attorney for my aunt who is in a care home run by Avery Healthcare. Avery recently sent relatives its new contract, which states that care home fees are payable for 14 days after a resident’s death, and levies an upfront £595 charge for “dilapidations” (damage or wear and tear).

These charges contradict advice given by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and are probably unenforceable.

After subscribing to the Claude chatbot, mystery payments started to appear on one family’s credit card bill. They are not alone

David Duggan* was so impressed with the ability of the Claude chatbot to answer medical questions and organise family life, that a $20-a-month (£15) subscription seemed like money well spent.

But then his wife spotted two $200 payments on his credit card bill for gift cards to use the artificial intelligence tool.

From a quintessential ‘chocolate box’ cottage to part of a grand stately home

While some are using AI to tailor programs better suited to their needs, others warn ‘it can be wrong, confidently so’

People have mixed feelings about AI. While many people regularly use it – 62% in the US and 69% in the UK – trust in the technology is low. In the US, only 26% of people have a positive view of AI, according to one NBC poll, and in the UK, 78% say they worry about negative outcomes from AI.

So it is perhaps no surprise that readers’ responses to our callout about AI and fitness were varied. Some said they rely on AI to shape their workouts and diets while others said they refuse to use it at all because of its impact on the economy and the environment. And many were somewhere in between – they found it a useful tool, but were less than thrilled about the technology’s impact overall.

Scores of women have told how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum for an awareness campaign

Women have had to undergo major emergency surgery, including a hysterectomy, when medical staff failed to detect they had a rare but potentially fatal complication of pregnancy.

Scores of women have come forward to tell their stories of how they were affected by placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) since the launch in February of a campaign to raise awareness among NHS staff and mothers-to-be of the dangers it poses.

Three people have died after an outbreak of hantavirus onboard a cruise ship travelling from Argentina to Cape Verde. The World Health Organization says a total of seven cases – two confirmed by laboratory testing and five suspected – have been identified on the cruise ship so far. It is also investigating whether rare human-to-human transmission of the virus could be behind the cases. Madeleine Finlay talks to Prof Jonathan Ball from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine to find out where the virus comes from, how it is transmitted to humans, and what health agencies will be doing to try to contain it

British crew member in need of urgent medical care amid suspected hantavirus outbreak on cruise ship

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My girlfriends and I have more fun, more adventures, more independence than ever before. And as for the sex …

I met my boyfriend when he was playing Bach in the park. I was taking my usual jog past London zoo and around the Regent’s Park boating lake when I was stopped in my tracks by the most beautiful music. Wafting across the rose garden was an exquisite guitar rendition of Bach’s prelude in E major. When the final notes hung in the air like gossamer, I congratulated the musician. A twinkly-eyed bloke smiled up at me. “Ah, no bother,” he said in a soft Irish burr.

At the sound of his mellifluous, velvety voice, my heart beat so loudly I felt as though it was coming through stereo speakers. His eyes seemed to smoke their way into me. I stared at him for what I estimate to be about, oh, a decade, but was probably only two seconds, before asking him for coffee. Pathetic, I know. A romcom “meet-cute” like this is not just cheesy; it’s deep-fried Brie in a bechamel sauce on a bed of melted cheddar.

Products that strike the right balance of wearable coverage with adequate sun protection

There are two things I invariably reach for at this lovely time of year: a trench coat and tinted sunscreen. The life-changing appearance of sunlight – if not quite blazing heat – means that most of us are venturing outdoors for longer periods while perhaps lightening our makeup load a little to be more seasonally appropriate. A tinted sunscreen in the right formula can kill two – or even three – birds with one stone, offering some makeup coverage, lighter moisture and high-factor sun protection in one portable product.

Garnier Ambre Solaire makes lots of terrific facial sunscreens at very good prices. The newish Vitamin C Wonder Tint SPF50 (£9.99) is among their best. Available in light, medium and dark, it’s a silky sunscreen that packs enough glycerin to moisturise skin as well as protect it, making it a good choice for drier skin types. The pocket-friendly bottle is compact and practical if, like me, you’re likely to throw on your makeup on the move. The three shades are inadequate, but give a sheer, natural-looking tint to most wearers.

Opening of ‘the dressed body’ show inspires Beyoncé, Kardashians and Skepta, as others pay tribute to fashion moments in art history

• Met Gala 2026 red carpet: the best looks in pictures

Two assets the modern 1% love to show off are their designer wardrobes … and their expensive bodies. The Met Gala opening of an exhibition about “the dressed body” presented an opportunity to do both, and it proved irresistible. The evening raised a record-breaking $42m (£31m) for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, with the lead sponsors Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos thought to have contributed $10m, and individual guests writing cheques for up to $1m in order to make the Anna Wintour-approved final cut.

The official dress code was “Fashion Is Art”. But the golden rule in fashion, as in life, is that those with the gold make the rules, and this elite crowd bent Wintour’s diktat according to their will. The red carpet was divided between looks that paid tribute to famous fashion moments in art history, and others that celebrated the body itself as a very modern masterpiece.

There are many online techniques for self-cutting a fringe – but would I end up looking like Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction or a low-budget Grimes?

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I have had a fringe since I was 15 years old. I will never forget this life-altering haircut. For years before it I had been suffering lingering effects from a bob cut I received unwillingly in primary school.

You were not a cool person if you had a bob as an adolescent in the early 2000s. But finally my hair had grown sufficiently for styling and I got it cut to sit neatly on my shoulders with front bangs.

Wilson is not the first high profile respondent to change her wardrobe for court, but fashion can also help plaintiffs express themselves when speech is constrained

Pitch Perfect star Rebel Wilson is being sued for defamation by actor Charlotte MacInnes. The trial has seen Wilson arrive in court wearing various iterations of white button-down shirt beneath neutral knitwear or suiting, paired with cropped black trousers and heels. Similar to the undeniably demure, court-appropriate uniform she also adopted during her trial against Bauer Media in the 2010s, her courtroom aesthetic sits in stark contrast to her usual glittery, vivacious style.

This isn’t the first time a celebrity’s courtroom look has diverged from their regular wardrobe. While it shouldn’t materially affect the outcome of a case, famous or not, how one presents at trial can carry real consequences.

Butcher’s shops and dive bars sit side by side in a district where you can swap the touristy beer halls of the city centre for raw creative energy

In the south-west of Munich, Schlachthofviertel is an area in flux; a jarring district that is home to a theatre, a techno club and a controversial active slaughterhouse.

This traditional neighbourhood ‘across the river’ is where the city’s creatives are heading as the centre heats up

Madrid’s current boomtown dynamics are driving the city centre way upmarket, pushing the average punter to outer barrios in search of cheaper rent. As seen in New York and elsewhere, the creative class is moving too – crossing the River Manzanares to open studios in the former factories and metalworks of Carabanchel. Now the city’s most populous district, this used to be a separate municipality, which was annexed to the capital in 1948 and built up into canyons of high-rise flats to house the postwar influx from the provinces, and later from Latin America.

After decades in the shadows, the residents of this historic quarter came together to launch local businesses and make the area an attractive proposition once more

My favourite way to enter Rione Sanità is by elevator: descending from a bridge into cobblestoned streets buzzing with mopeds and flanked by opulent but decaying 18th-century palazzi. Through the grand doorways of these once noble palaces are courtyards where bakers, butchers, cobblers and the odd contraband cigarette vendor do business.

This buzzy quarter is best enjoyed on one of the many tree-lined terraces, eating gourmet wraps, sipping bio wine and listening to live jazz

Named for its 19th-century neoclassical church, Notre-Dame du Mont was once a site where sailors who’d survived shipwrecks and storms made offerings of thanks. Now locals and visitors make a pilgrimage to this vibrant quarter for its restaurants, indie shops and street art. Voted Time Out’s coolest neighbourhood in the world in 2024, Notre-Dame du Mont has retained its laid-back charm while continuing to grow, stretching south on Rue de Lodi. Since December 2025, the church’s parvis has been pedestrianised. Removing the urban roar of scooters has returned the quarter to its village-like ambience – best enjoyed on one of the many tree-lined terraces.

Inkpen, Berkshire: There is far less birdsong now than in Lillian Watts’s day, but it is down to her that there is any at all

Lillian Watts’s bench has fallen into disrepair, so instead I sit on Arthur’s Seat on the common. Warmth rises from the heath, even on this chilly spring morning, and a lizard creates curvaceous lines under the dry, still-dormant heather.

It is both Lillian’s and my birthday, though she died in 1989, aged 93. I play a recording of her from 1975, from the village’s history society. Poet, potter, English teacher, naturalist and formidable campaigner, she, along with villagers such as Arthur Cooke (1898-1980), saved this place from development. Lillian’s voice is measured, soft and annunciated, with the clipped vowels of her time.

The author has become acutely aware of how the climate crisis is affecting women – and, in her new book, she argues that it’s time for mainstream western feminists to join the dots

Natasha Walter is halfway through explaining how she came to be politically radicalised when a young woman approaches the cafe table. We two middle-aged women look like “the most trustworthy people here,” she says, so could we watch her baby while she grabs a coffee? Like the solid citizen she is, Walter doesn’t take her eyes off the pushchair parked by the cafe steps for the next five minutes, though all we can see of the occupant is a tiny swinging foot. Sorry, where were we? Ah yes, the groundbreaking feminist writer who famously argued in her 1998 book The New Feminism that Margaret Thatcher had broken down barriers for women was explaining why she no longer really believes it’s possible to be rightwing and a feminist, as Theresa May or Amber Rudd insist they are.

“I can’t support just any woman getting into power, because I think a system that leaves too many women in the shadows – that condemns too many women to poverty or worse – is not a feminist system, and I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist if you’re going to prop up that system,” she says, eyes still glued to the baby for whom we are briefly responsible. “It’s not my kind of feminism.” Her younger self, she admits, would have thought her too uncompromising. But something in her seems to have hardened, facing a world she sees as threatened by the rise of far-right authoritarianism on one hand and a climate emergency on the other. “In the past I always wanted to be a broad church, I always thought any woman can be a feminist, but now I really am feeling … maybe I’ve been radicalised.”

As we approach a milestone in Guardian setting, here are some treats from the archive

The Guardian is approaching its millionth cryptic clue. There is, of course, no overall database that will let us know when the millionth appears but we can infer the number from a milestone that comes this week.

On Thursday, it will be Guardian Cryptic crossword No 30,000. We started work in January 1929: first weekly, then twice a week and soon daily, alongside quicks, quick cryptics, quiptics, Geniuses and all the rest of it.

The Melbourne declaration aims to direct funding and power to those most overlooked and affected by injustice. But for many its promise is a distant one

I first spoke to Shazia Khanum for a report I was writing on adolescent girls in informal jobs. The 16-year-old’s fingers moved swiftly as she talked, rolling bidis – tobacco in tendu leaves tied with string. She told me she rolls about 300 to 500 thin cigarettes daily, earning a little more than £1 on a good day (roughly 250 rupees for 1,000 bidis is the rate).

In the cramped workshop where she works in rural Yarab Nagar, in India’s Karnataka state, dozens of other girls do the same job. There are no toilets or sanitary facilities. When asked how she manages her period, Khanum just pointed to a makeshift curtained space where she changes and reuses cloth rags.

In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart. At its best, journalism can bring us together again, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner

I have a confession to make. It has taken me years to write this article.

For a long time, I have felt that something was missing in the public conversation about human connection and community and how they are being eroded. And yet I haven’t been able to articulate it. Thinking and writing have become harder. It’s as if the neurons in my brain don’t connect with each other in quite the same way. I go to check a fact and get instantly diverted by a hundred other distractions on my phone. I find myself unable to devote time to thinking and writing like I used to.

All signs point to a record-low performance for Labour in May in what will be a moment of high jeopardy for Keir Starmer

Labour is on track for its worst local election performance next Thursday, data analysed by the Guardian shows, in a blow that will pile further pressure on Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Barring a drastic change in fortunes, Labour’s vote-share could fall to historic lows across elections for councils in England and devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland on 7 May, with big gains for Reform, the Greens and nationalist parties, according to recent polling.

Jet fuel has doubled in price since the start of the war on Iran. How bad will the disruption get and could this accelerate the route to jet zero?

What happens to flights if the world runs out of oil? Well, obviously they will be grounded. To be more specific, is it possible, if the war in Iran does not resolve and the strait of Hormuz remains blocked, that airlines will simply run out of aviation fuel?

It’s not a question anyone has had to ask before. Air travel has hit some hurdles this century that nobody could have seen coming – Covid, of course, but also the Icelandic volcano in 2010, which closed much of European airspace for eight days, cost an estimated €3.75bn (£3.2bn) and caused untold supply chain chaos. There have been problems contained within a country or region – the Heathrow substation outage and the Iberian energy crisis, both last year, both closing airports – but since air travel began, it has never been globally impeded by a fuel shortage.

If you’re affected by the National Savings and Investments lost funds scandal, we would like to hear from you

This month the state-backed National Savings and Investments (NS&I) bank will share its plan to reunite thousands of bereaved families with their missing money.

In March it emerged that 37,500 people faced delays because of problems tracing the premium bonds of deceased customers. The families are collectively owed nearly £500m.

We would like to hear from people who converse with AI chatbots on a personal level

Lots of people now use chatbots as personal assistants, sometimes to the extent that they have formed an emotional attachment to them.

We would like to hear from people who converse with AI chatbots on a personal level. Have you formed an emotional bond to an AI chatbot?

We’d like to hear how you’re adapting your expenditure as the cost of living rises amid the conflict in the Middle East

Rising prices and economic uncertainty linked to the conflict in the Middle East are putting pressure on household budgets across the world.

The International Monetary Fund has warned the conflict is pushing up the cost of energy and food, increasing borrowing costs and weighing on economic growth. Surveys suggest millions of households are already making changes to cope – cutting back, dipping into savings or taking on debt.

Share a tip on a great train journey you’ve taken, whether long or short. The best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

Whether it’s a short hop across the Channel on Eurostar or a long-distance adventure crossing several countries, more of us are rediscovering the excitement and romance of rail travel. We’d love to hear about your favourite train-based trips in Europe.

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

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