UN says record numbers of people could face acute hunger if conflict continues

The world has become well versed in the importance of the strait of Hormuz to the world’s energy flows, but attention is increasingly turning to its vital role in another market – the fertiliser on which harvests depend.

A third of the global trade in raw materials for fertiliser passes through the maritime choke point, which is also the route for 20% of shipments of natural gas, which is required to make it.

We are at a critical point in the climate emergency and already struggling to meet emissions reduction targets. The UK government must hold its nerve

While the UK is only marginally involved in the war in the Middle East in military terms, the ramifications for this country are still potentially huge. And nowhere more so than in the energy sector. It isn’t a surprise, then, that commentary has focused on the impact potential policy interventions might have on the cost of energy to UK homes and businesses, and on whether the decisions the government takes will make the nation more – or less – energy-secure.

The usual suspects in Reform and the Tory party have used the war as an excuse to renew demands that the North Sea be sucked dry of its remaining oil and gas, in order – they say – to end reliance on fossil fuel imports and to guarantee energy security. More sensible heads have argued that the North Sea basin is a field that is way past peak production, and that has only limited amounts of oil and gas left, and that energy security can only be reached if we move further and faster on renewables. Extraordinarily, the real reason no further significant exploitation of North Sea oil and gas is planned seems to have been entirely forgotten, or at least set aside.

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of geophysical and climate hazards at UCL. His next book – The Fate of the World: a History and Future of the Climate Crisis – is published in May

Not sure where to begin or want to simplify your current regimen? Our expert demystifies the marketing with her step-by-step skincare guide

• The best anti-ageing creams and serums

Skincare has never been so overwhelming, as we’re bombarded with ads for complicated-sounding products and TikTok routines that promise dramatic results in just days. I get it. Despite having been a beauty journalist for more than 15 years, even I haven’t been able to escape the noise; I’ve stood in front of a bathroom cabinet full of half-used serums, wondering why my skin was left feeling worse, not better.

Somewhere along the way, we were sold the idea that more steps, more products and more intensity equals better skin. But it rarely does, and what works best, ultimately, is consistency – which is boring (sorry) but effective.

Fabric that once defined Northern Ireland’s capital is at heart of its stylish revival, embraced by designers, royalty and heritage farmers alike

On a cobbled street in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, next door to a hipster coffee shop and opposite an ice-cream parlour that has a near-constant queue since going viral on TikTok, the elegant Kindred of Ireland boutique is doing a surprisingly brisk trade in artfully oversized butter yellow linen blouses and exquisite Donegal mulberry tweed jackets finished with a length of rose pink linen tied in a bow at the nape of the neck.

Half a century after the Troubles, Belfast is finding a new identity through an industry that once defined it. Linen – the fibre that built its wealth and earned it the name Linenopolis – is being woven into a story of renewal. Almost a century after the postwar collapse of an industry that, at its peak, employed 40% of the working population of Northern Ireland, linen is returning as a marker of identity.

With alumni in every F1 team, Oxford Brookes University’s Formula Student team is the most prestigious in the country

At the Oxford Brookes Headington campus, more than 100 students are busy building the fastest, best designed race car possible for this year’s Formula Student competition.

Oxford Brookes Racing (OBR) is the UK’s most prestigious Formula Student team. They’ve won more design awards than any UK university, and frequently occupy the international race’s top spots.

Find out how bad your mental mush is

How bad is your brain rot? Tally up your scores to see your results.

None 3pts

1-3 2pts

4-6 1pts

6+ 0pts

Never 3pts

Sometimes 2pts

Frequently 1pts

Almost always 0pts

Meditate 3pts

Read 3pts

Watch TV 1pts

Doomscroll 0pts

Almost never 0pts

Less than once a week 1pts

At least once a week 2pts

2-3 times a week 3pts

Never 3pts

Occasionally 2pts

Frequently 1pts

Basically always 0pts

7+ hours 3pts

6-7 hours 2pts

Less than 6 hours 1pts

Almost never 0pts

Less than once a week 1pts

At least once a week 2pts

2-3 times a week 3pts

6+ hours 3pts

3-6 hours 2pts

1-3 hours 1pts

Less than an hour 0pts

Next to me, obviously 0pts

Somewhere else 3pts

Never 3pts

Occasionally, if it’s important 2pts

Pretty much every time 0pts

White House says Donald Trump has been briefed as US forces search for crew after jet shot down by armed forces this morning

• US F-15E jet confirmed shot down over Iran as Tehran releases wreckage images

Authorities in Abu Dhabi have reported two incidents of debris falling from intercepted aerial threats in the UAE capital, with one sparking a fire at a gas facility,

The official Abu Dhabi Media Office said authorities responded to an incident of falling debris at the Habshan gas facilities. “Operations have been suspended while authorities respond to a fire,” it said in a post on X, adding that no injuries were reported.

PM gets widespread backing after president’s mocking impersonation takes US-UK relationship to new low

Keir Starmer has been warned his relationship with Donald Trump may be beyond repair after the US president derided the prime minister for consulting his team about military decisions, in a mocking impersonation.

In a new low for UK-US relations, Trump appeared to imitate Starmer in a weak voice during an Easter lunch speech at the White House, and said the UK was “not our best” ally.

President also requests additional $63bn in DHS funds and proposes privatizing TSA security screening

• Trump announces ‘fraud’ crackdown in Democratic states

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email

A reminder that my colleagues are covering the latest out of the Middle East at our dedicated live blog.

This includes Donald Trump’s recent comments on Truth Social that “with a little more time” he could open strait of Hormuz. The president added that reopening the vital passageway would allow the US to “TAKE THE OIL, & MAKE A FORTUNE. IT WOULD BE A ‘GUSHER’ FOR THE WORLD.”

Victim of Woolwich shooting named as Eghosa Ogbebor as two boys and 18-year-old held on suspicion of murder

Three teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a 14-year-old boy was fatally shot in Woolwich, south-east London.

The Metropolitan police said officers received reports of a shooting on Lord Warwick Street, Woolwich, at about 3.40pm on Thursday.

Richard Walker says a possible September rate rise should be scrapped to reflect increase in petrol prices

A cut to fuel duty should be extended to reflect the rise in petrol prices, the government’s cost of living champion has said.

Richard Walker, the executive chair of the supermarket chain Iceland, urged Keir Starmer not to raise the levy in September, in light of the conflict in the Middle East.

Bosses write to home secretary and London mayor listing series of incidents staff have faced in past week

Marks & Spencer has called on the government and London’s mayor to crack down on retail crime, saying it has become “more brazen, more organised and more aggressive”, after reporting an increase in shoplifting and violence at its stores.

The M&S chief executive, Stuart Machin, has written to the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and its retail director, Thinus Keeve, has written to the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, saying greater resources are needed for police to tackle the crime effectively and target repeat offenders and crime hotspots.

Races have left the BBC as Oxford’s women, led by Olympic medallist Heidi Long, seek to end long wait for victory

Channel 4 has screened plenty of elite sport since launching in 1982. Test cricket, the Tour de France, the Paralympics and even, for those with long memories, Masters golf in the mid-80s.

Traditionally regarded as the most progressive and forward-thinking terrestrial TV channel, on Saturday a new string will be added to its sporting bow: the Boat Races, part of the English calendar since 1829. The plan is for an old event, famously and often controversially contested by Oxford and Cambridge universities, to acquire a new look.

Ticket bought in Bexley expires after 180-day claim period, despite extensive search for holder

For many people in south-east London, the thought of winning the lottery and becoming an overnight millionaire would be a wonderful dream. For one person, however, that dream is now a nightmare after missing the deadline to claim a jackpot of more than £10m.

National lottery players have 180 days to claim their winnings, but are entitled to nothing after the deadline has passed. Despite an “extensive search”, the national lottery said no valid claim had been made for a jackpot worth £10.6m for a Lotto ticket bought in Bexley on 4 October last year.

After six-minute firing of capsule’s engine, crew on track to reach farthest distance travelled by humans in space

The four astronauts on the Artemis II mission have passed 100,000 miles from Earth as they head towards the moon, putting them on track to reach the farthest distance humans have ever travelled into space.

The crew have left Earth’s orbit and fired their engines on Thursday for a “translunar injection”, sending the Orion capsule on its trajectory towards the moon.

People leaving Iran for Turkey tell of impact of bombs and internet blackouts, while others are travelling the other way to be closer to relatives in peril

He could not help but splutter out a laugh at the question. Amir, whose name has been changed for his safety, had just crossed the Kapıköy border point in eastern Turkey, a mountain pass between snow-topped peaks that is one of the few gateways to the west from Iran.

Until a few weeks ago, this was a busy place, popular among Iranian daytrippers coming across to Turkey to do some shopping in the lively city of Van, a further two hours drive west, or to spend a couple of nights out in its discreet Iranian-only nightclubs and bars serving alcohol.

Academics and youth workers say cuts to services and lack of public space help explain recent unrest in south London

It started with a flyer sent around on Snapchat. Teenagers were invited to gather at a south London basketball court to celebrate the start of the Easter holidays. They were told to bring their own weed and laughing gas because it was going to be a late one.

What followed in the hours after was chaos. Hundreds of young people came to the “link-up” last Saturday, and then gathered on Clapham High Street.

St Michael’s Mount and the people who live near it are still healing from the scars left by storm’s 100mph winds

Three months after Storm Goretti battered St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, the signs of the storm’s power are still evident in the scars left by uprooted trees, piles of logs and the shaking of heads from islanders who have lived there for decades and never seen the like.

“It really was something,” said Jack Beesley, a senior gardener. “We were shocked the morning after when we saw what had happened. We had been caring for these trees for years and to see so many of them down was very sad. We’ve worked hard to get the place ready for the Easter visitors but it will still be a month or more until we’re back straight.”

Feel like too much low-quality screen time is making you … dumber? From focusing on your environment to ‘washing’ your brain, experts share tips on how to sharpen up and keep your mind fighting fit
Plus: how rotten is your brain? Take our quiz to find out

Ever had one of those days when you get nothing done but still somehow feel exhausted? Of course you have: brain rot, the Oxford word of the year for 2024, isn’t yet in any medical dictionaries, but it’s probably best understood as the decline in cognitive abilities that comes from endless exposure to easily digestible information. And, thanks to the ubiquity of short‑form video and social media, it’s almost certainly on the rise.

“When we’re engaging with this sort of media, our brains are both underworked – because the information is easy to understand – and overworked because there is so much information to absorb,” says Dr Wendy Ross, a senior lecturer in psychology at London Metropolitan University. “That’s why you end up tired even if you’re just scrolling on your couch.” Want to throw the process into reverse and recover your attention? Here’s how.

From JFK’s modernist concrete to Obama’s ‘Tatooine sandcrawler’, the presidential library is where egos burnish their legacies. But the brash, bookless vibe of Trump’s, complete with giant golden statue, makes for the ugliest yet

With the unveiling of the prospective Trump presidential library, which, in its timing and substance looked for all the world like an April fool, the old adage that you can’t gild a turd but you can roll it in glitter has become bleakly redundant. It turns out that you can most definitely gild a turd.

At the heart of the proposed 47-storey skyscraper on Miami’s waterfront – 47 floors for the 47th President – is a giant golden statue of Trump giving off dictator-for-life vibes, his gilded fist triumphantly raised. Such an aureate monstrosity would not look out of place in Pyongyang or Ashgabat, though Turkmenistan’s former president Saparmurat Niyazov – another despot with a suspiciously luxuriant coiffure – went one better and had his $12m gold statue installed on a rotating pedestal so it would always face the sun.

Residents in at least 10 states are organizing campaigns to tax wealth in order to fund schools and other social services

Karen Sanchez likes to meet new people at trivia nights or concerts at her local brewery at the edge of Los Angeles county. Her opening line: “How do you feel about taxing the rich?”

Sanchez is volunteering to collect signatures to put a contentious “billionaire tax” on California’s November ballot, sponsored by her union, SEIU – United Healthcare Workers West. The proposal would impose a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s 200-plus billionaires to cover lost federal funding for California hospitals and emergency services and to fund public education and food assistance programs. She says most people have been eager to sign on – and want to see more of it.

TV’s most outrageous family is back – and for the Breaking Bad icon, it’s a great excuse to let rip ... and get naked again. The stars talk skivvies, chugging raw meat and being stung in the crotch by 60,000 honey bees

The intro to the new Malcolm in the Middle is quite the thing. Kids punch police officers. Santa Claus gets kicked in the face. A barrel full of faeces detonates inside a family car. This recap of previous episodes is so full of gross-out comedy and family fights that a grandma grabs her teenage grandson and crushes his testicles until he squeals. “And,” intones a voiceover at its end, “someone actually asked for more of this.”

Did they? It’s been 20 years since the Emmy-winning sitcom about an outrageous working-class US family with the titular child genius went off air. It’s a show whose fans remember it fondly for never dipping in quality throughout its seven seasons. But were they really clamouring for more?

Created in Italy and made with elderflower liqueur, the cocktail is sweeter than Aperol spritz and lower in alcohol

Pub gardens and bar terraces have been awash with a sea of orange in recent years as Italy’s love of Aperol spritz spread to the UK. But this year the cocktail’s cousin, a Hugo spritz, will be the drink of the summer, according to supermarkets and bars.

It is already being served across the country, including at Sea Containers on the banks of the Thames and Mayfair’s swanky Claridge’s hotel in London, 20 Stories bar in Manchester and the Bridge Tavern in Newcastle. Wetherspoons has the cocktail on its menu nationwide.

40ml St‑Germain elderflower liqueur.

60ml prosecco.

60ml sparkling water.

8-10 mint leaves.

Lime wedge for garnish.

Mint sprig for garnish.

Fill your glass with ice cubes.

Add in the mint leaves.

Pour sparkling wine and sparkling water over ice.

Add St‑Germain elderflower liqueur.

Gently stir.

Garnish with a mint sprig and lime wedge.

Wintershall returned to Trafalgar Square on Good Friday for its annual – and final – performance of the Passion of Jesus

Ten years after the Brexit vote, Trump’s disdain and insults are fuelling the belief that the UK should renew ties with Europe

Going anywhere nice this summer?

No, me neither, judging by the warning from the Ryanair boss, Michael O’Leary, that a global shortage of jet fuel caused by the Iran war may soon lead to cancelled flights. Suddenly a week in Cornwall looks a safer bet, though even that will be a stretch for some families as the cost of long car journeys heads through the roof. When the representatives of more than 40 countries held talks in London earlier this week to discuss unblocking the strait of Hormuz, they convened virtually, not in person. This is no time to be seen boarding a private jet.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Guardian Newsroom: Can Labour come back from the brink?
On Thursday 30 April, join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss how much of a threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here

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 this escalating cost of living crisis, so many are really suffering – yet Labour lacks the imagination, boldness and will to do anything about it

Six weeks ago, I was doing what I’ve always done – working as a plumber in people’s houses. I’d just completed a plastering qualification and was looking forward to putting it to good use. Now, I’m here in parliament, and to call it a culture shock would be an understatement.

It’s easy to see why a lot of MPs don’t understand how hard things in the country are right now. This place is a bubble. And there just aren’t enough of us here who get it; who come from working-class backgrounds, who’ve had ordinary jobs like me.

Hannah Spencer is the Green party MP for Gorton and Denton

Starmer should just admit we’re being held to ransom by Trump – but instead he’s making the king go on a state visit

Donald Trump has suggested that the war with Iran will be over in two to three weeks. The rest of the world just shrugs. We’ll believe it when we see it. The US president has said so many contradictory things over the past few weeks, it’s hard to take anything that seriously.

Artemis II’s astronauts packed their wedding rings, notebooks and a supply of maple syrup. Here’s what our writers would fly to the moon

If the idea was to shed some of the liabilities of the Epstein scandal by firing Bondi, the move seems likely to backfire

It was only a matter of time. The writing has been on the wall for months for Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, who was unceremoniously fired on Thursday after 14 months leading the justice department. Trump was rumored to be unhappy with Bondi; frustrated at the slowness and failures of some of her prosecutions of his political enemies, angry that she could not make the Epstein scandal go away, and disappointed by her rather wooden performances on TV.

For a while, it looked like Bondi would be the first cabinet secretary that Trump fired in his second administration – something he has been much more reluctant to do since returning to office in early 2025. But in October, when she was called to testify before a Senate subcommittee, Bondi made sure to issue vicious insults to her Democratic interrogators in front of the news cameras; she made a similar performance in February at a House judiciary committee hearing, where she lobbed ad hominem attacks on Democrats, including calling Representative Jamie Raskin “a washed-up loser lawyer.” These performances evidently endeared Bondi to Donald Trump enough that he decided to keep her around for a while; Kristi Noem, his onetime secretary of homeland security, became the first cabinet member to be fired in his second term. But the Epstein story persisted, and so did Trump’s dissatisfaction with his own mounting unpopularity ahead of the November midterms. He is not capable of blaming himself, and so he looked around for someone else to punish for his own failures. Pam Bondi was there.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Decisions on the White House ballroom, public media and journalists’ access to the Pentagon are heartening. But restoring our institutions is up to us

In another one of those strange and unprecedented moments of the Trump years, the president of the United States showed up at the supreme court the other day. No other presidents have done so, probably because they – to varying degrees – respected the separation of power among the three branches of US government.

But Trump has not shown himself to share in that basic principle.

The singer’s body-positive anthems once defined her. Now lawsuits, weight loss and flop singles have shaken her image

Lizzo’s ascent to mainstream stardom was the type of fairytale that pop dreams are made of. She was a long-hustling musician, Houston-raised then Minneapolis-made. She had a co-sign from Prince two years before she was even signed to a major label; then, it took another three years after debuting on Atlantic for the world to know her name.

When they finally learned it, it became hard to escape her. In 2019, she had sleeper hit after sleeper hit rise to the top of the charts. First, 2017’s bouncy break-up kiss-off Truth Hurts stormed to No 1, then 2015’s empower-pop anthem Good as Hell joined the song in the Top 10. For a few years following, Lizzo was unstoppable in spite of all the odds being stacked against her: she was a brown-skinned, plus-size pop star who put on athletic performances and dressed just as sexy as her skinny peers. Her image was brash, bold and radical, which made her controversial to many just for existing.

The president’s outbursts on allies and Nato were further confirmation that Europe cannot wait to bolster security – and Britain must play its part

“She had no more surprises for him; the unexpected in her behaviour was the only thing to expect,” Henry James wrote in his novel Daisy Miller. Leaders dealing with Donald Trump surely recognise the sentiment. James’s character was a young American out of her depth in Europe, falling victim to prejudices. Mr Trump is a real-world problem, and this time, Europe is battered by the prejudices and vengefulness of the American.

This week alone the US president has publicly mocked the British prime minister and armed forces (as weak), the French president (over his marriage), told allies to get their own oil – having set the Middle East on fire – and said leaving Nato was “beyond reconsideration”. Mr Trump’s wishful thinking has hit reality in Iran, where the war that he and Benjamin Netanyahu began will not be easily ended. His resulting frustration, concern about domestic political repercussions and desire to distract the public are matched by vindictiveness towards allies who rightly refused to join in.

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.

The ups and downs of the collection launched by Millicent Fawcett make it an apt symbol of an ongoing struggle

When the Women’s Library opened a century ago, the movement it documented appeared triumphant. Most British women had gained the vote in 1918, and in 1928 suffragist campaigners would ensure that they held it on the same basis as men. The London Society for Women’s Service, led by Millicent Fawcett, intended the library to become a home for the suffrage movement’s archives. But even as they continued their fight for the vote, they were looking beyond the ballot box to other issues. The library was to hold material relating to women’s work, too.

This year’s centenary is an opportunity to celebrate the institution’s unique holdings. It is also a reminder of a pivotal moment in women’s political history, as a new commemorative display at the London School of Economics (LSE), where the library is housed, shows. Among the organisations it features is the Six Point group headed by a former suffragette, Lady Rhondda. Equal pay for female teachers and equality in the civil service were two of its initial “six points” or aims. Such battles would continue long after the fight for equal suffrage had been won.

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.

This new ‘world order’, where rogue nations can pick and choose their next acquisitions, gives the green light to other bad actors, writes David Tayler. Plus letters from Peter Gregory, Rev Graham Murphy and John Gittings

In our crazy, unregulated world, we watch the unedifying spectacle of two rogue nations, each awash with nuclear weapons, going to war to stop a third rogue nation from acquiring similar weaponry (Editorial, 30 March). The resulting conflict is bringing chaos, death and destruction to the Middle East, and instability and unknowable consequences to the rest of us.

If this is the new “world order”, where rogue nations are free to pick and choose their next acquisitions, it surely gives the green light to those with more legitimate claims – China with Taiwan, Spain with Gibraltar, Argentina with the Falklands. So, what can be done to halt this descent into madness?

One reader shares their experience of fighting to receive the money they were owed, while Roy Grimwood offers insight into the disastrous effects of a flawed economic model

As witness to the cash-grabbing nature of these businesses (The great care home cash grab: how private equity turned vulnerable elderly people into human ATMs, 28 March), I would like to draw your attention to a specific practice: that of trying to deny grieving families the balance of fees owed to them when a resident dies in the home with full weeks already paid for.

I had already heard of this from someone else, so I was on the alert when the same thing happened to us. We were told that it was not their “policy to refund” when, policy or not, a careful reading of the contract showed that the money was owed. We appealed, and were successful.

Readers respond to an article by Lola Okolosie about whether calling a woman ‘auntie’ is a sign of ageism or a mark of respect

Re Lola Okolosie’s article (Is calling a woman ‘auntie’ ageist harassment – or a mark of respect? It’s a trickier question than you think, 31 March), I was interested to read uncle/auntie described as honorifics. Growing up (I’m 60-plus years old, Scottish), I think it operated as a familiar term. I was taught to call close friends of my parents Aunt Jane or Uncle John. Otherwise Mister/Miss.

Clearly, there is an honorific element – if I am (as a child) calling you Aunt, you are close to my parents, but it was not related to age – I would never have dreamed of calling anyone Aunt/Uncle on an age basis. Aunt/Uncle expired with age. Once I became a teenager, Aunt Jane just became Jane.
Douglas Leggat
Stockport

Geriatric US presidents are a symptom of a failing political order, says Dr Georgios Samaras, while Jim Hatley wonders who would take over if the present incumbent is replaced

Re Gaby Hinsliff’s excellent piece (Never mind leading the free world, if Donald Trump were your ageing father, when would you take away his car keys?, 30 March), the concern over Donald Trump’s age and judgment is fair, but it also feels quite belated. American politics has long recycled elderly men and presented them as vessels of reassurance and national strength. Ronald Reagan was celebrated as decline and confusion were quietly discussed. Joe Biden was defended as the steady hand even as public doubts grew louder. Trump is simply the ugliest culmination of the pattern.

The deeper problem is that the presidency has become a screen on to which a failing political order projects fantasies of rescue. Absurdity is not necessarily a weakness here. It can become part of the appeal. The rambling performance, the repetition, the shamelessness – they all feed a culture that prizes identification over substance. That is why asking whether the system can restrain a visibly unstable strongman, while necessary, still does not go far enough. The same system has repeatedly elevated these figures, then wrapped them in myths of authority. Trump emerged from a political culture that has spent years mistaking decline for wisdom. In that sense, Trump appears less as an exception than as the ageing patriarch of a decaying order, still holding all the cards and determined to impose his legacy on the future.
Dr Georgios Samaras
King’s College London

• Rosenior: ‘It’s disappointing for Enzo to speak that way’

• ‘You have to protect this club and culture’

Enzo Fernández has been dropped for Chelsea’s next two games, with Liam Rosenior suggesting the club’s vice-captain had “crossed a line” in recent comments over his future.

Following what he described as the worst 10 days of his career, Rosenior insisted he had to punish Fernández, who first questioned whether he would remain at Stamford Bridge beyond this season and then suggested he would like to live in Madrid – a comment widely viewed as courting a move to Real Madrid, a club with which he has frequently been linked.

Australian manager Joe Brady and New Zealand striker Ben Waine have guided League One strugglers to quarter-finals

The Port Vale manager, Jon Brady, left Australia as a 17-year-old to chase his dream of playing in the United Kingdom. Spells at Brentford, Swansea and Wycombe did not make a first-team debut a reality. The sacrifice would not be wasted as determination to make a career in England grew stronger, becoming a non-league stalwart, but always with an eye on what came next.

Like Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final opponent, Chelsea’s head coach Liam Rosenior, Brady plotted a route to the dugout from early on, earning his B licence at the age of 23. Twenty-eight years later, he has managed more than 500 league games, in charge of Brackley and Northampton before joining League One’s bottom club in January, and embarking on a surprising Cup run.

• Leicester earn precious point against Preston

• Hull frustrated after draw at lowly Oxford

Wrexham staged a dramatic second-half recovery to draw 2-2 at West Brom and move into the Championship playoff places.

Isaac Price’s free-kick deflected off George Dobson to give the hosts a lead that was built on before half-time by Josh Maja’s penalty – Albion’s first of the season.

• St Helens 34-24 Wigan

• On-loan hooker scores twice in last 10 minutes

The derby rarely fails to ­disappoint, but just when you think this 130-year-old rivalry ­cannot get any more ­unbelievable, this happens. The scoreline looks ­unremarkable, but that tells only a fraction of the story of the 367th meeting between St Helens and Wigan.

The pre-match talk was not who would win, it was how many Wigan, the league leaders going into the Easter programme, would win by. Saints, humiliated 52-10 at Hull KR last week, were without a dozen first-team regulars, many of them starters. They soon lost a 13th when prop Agnatius Paasi limped off after four minutes.

Updates from opening day around the grounds
Team-by-team guide | Email Tanya or comment BTL

A smattering/ripple/slurp of applause as the players take the field. Tom Haines and Daniel Hughes in the middle. A windswept Ian Holland with the ball, the umpire in gloves. Here we go…

Ali Martin spoke to Shoaib Bashir. I really hope he finds the pastures welcoming at Derby – must have been a topsy-turvy few years.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

• Italy have missed three consecutive World Cups

• Gattuso: ‘It has been an honour to lead national team’

Italy’s chaotic and miserable week on and off the pitch reached a ­predictable conclusion on Friday with the head coach, Gennaro Gattuso, leaving the role after the Azzurri’s failure to reach the World Cup.

Italy were beaten by Bosnia and Herzegovina in their World Cup ­playoff on Tuesday, the home side winning on penalties in Zenica, meaning the four-time winners have now missed out on the finals for three successive editions.

Centre wonders if he will play another Test but remains positive as his club side meet Saracens in Champions Cup

There have been some small but significant changes at Bath’s stately home training base at Farleigh House this week. Black flags, to complement their bespoke Champions Cup kit, flutter in the spring breeze and up in reception is the precise number of days and matches left this season should the club keep winning. “Choose Greatness” reads another motivational sign before their last-16 encounter with Saracens on Saturday.

One particular player, though, needs no extra impetus. One moment Max Ojomoh was accepting the man of the match award after a fine display for England against Argentina in late November, the next he was losing his Six Nations squad place. Even if he hadn’t turned up for this interview wearing a tight black bandana on his head, the 25-year-old would still look and sound like a man on a mission.

• UConn men and women are both in the Final Four

• 20,000 customers of Jordan’s Furniture could be repaid

College basketball players aren’t the only ones poised to win big in this year’s March Madness.

A New England furniture chain is offering to reimburse customers for products bought earlier this year if both the UConn men’s and women’s basketball teams reach the championship games.

US president makes baseless claims about fraud in blue states and says JD Vance will lead clampdown as ‘fraud czar’

Donald Trump announced a fresh crackdown on “fraud” in Democratic states and tapped JD Vance to lead the charge. Officials swiftly announced a string of arrests in California.

In a Truth Social post on Friday, the US president announced that his vice-president is now “in charge of ‘fraud’ in the United States”, claiming the problem is “massive and pervasive” and that Vance’s new role as “fraud czar” will be “a major factor in how great the future of our country will be”.

• Golfer has pled not guilty to DUI charges in Florida

• Footage shows Woods’s shock: ‘I’m being arrested?’

• Hydrocodone pills found in pocket following arrest

Bodycam footage of Tiger Woods’s arrest for DUI shows the golfer looking surprised when he was handcuffed by police officers at the scene of a vehicle crash last week and telling a deputy he had spoken to “the president” on the phone after the incident.

“I do believe your normal faculties are impaired, and you’re under an unknown substance, so at this time you’re under arrest for DUI,” Martin County Sheriff’s deputy Tatiana Levenar told Woods after officers conducted a series of field sobriety exercises on the 50-year-old.

Grandson of Reese’s cups inventor claims Hershey faked a pledge to switch back to original chocolate recipes

The grandson of HB Reese, the inventor of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, has accused the chocolate giant Hershey of faking a pledge to investors to switch back the recipes of its popular products – including KitKat – to the original milk and dark chocolate ones.

A confectionary-focused dust-up between Brad Reese and the $42bn Pennsylvania-based company began in February when Reese, 70, accused the company of “quietly replacing” the ingredients – or “architecture” – in his grandfather’s invention with cheaper “compound coatings” and “peanut-butter-style crèmes”.

NASUWT says full entitlement should be increased to 26 weeks and paternity pay also improved

Full maternity pay for teachers across the UK should be increased to 26 weeks to help stem the exodus of women in their 30s from classrooms, a union leader has said.

Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the NASUWT teachers’ union, said it was a “national scandal” that so many teachers who quit said inadequate maternity support was one of the reasons.

Judge threw out 10 of Lively’s 13 claims against her It Ends With Us director and co-star on Thursday as trial nears

Justin Baldoni’s lawyers have responded after most of Blake Lively’s claims against the director were dismissed by a federal judge on Thursday.

Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of the 13 claims that Lively had made against Baldoni and others, including allegations of sexual harassment, conspiracy and defamation.

Vibrant seagrass meadows once flourished around the UK but most have been destroyed. Now, communities and scientists are working to restore them

“There’s not many jobs where you get to be a sea gardener,” says Dr Oliver Thomas, senior science officer at Project Seagrass. He’s looking for flashes of eel grass that have survived the winter in the wide golden sand of Penrhyn beach on Ynys Môn (Anglesey), in north Wales.

But growing a meadow in the sea is not an easy job. Vast swathes of the gorgeous underwater swards, vital nurseries for fish such as cod, have been wiped out around the UK in the past century. Up to 92% have been lost. Restoring them – and their water-cleaning, carbon-storing, coast-protecting benefits – is a colossal challenge.

As a state-controlled company explores for oil in the fragile Equatorial Margin the government struggles to balance its ecological promises with fossil fuel expansion. In Oiapoque, the stakes could not be higher

Covering a densely forested area larger than Wales, the municipality and city of Oiapoque, in the state of Amapá, is an isolated yet renowned part of Brazil, thanks to a popular national saying. “From Oiapoque to Chuí” highlights the country’s northernmost and southernmost points, respectively, illustrating its vastness.

Although well known, it is a remote area with about 30,000 inhabitants where less than 2% of the houses have access to proper sewage treatment. One-third of its residents are Indigenous people from four ethnic groups living in 68 hamlets across three Indigenous lands, 66 of which have electricity for less than 12 hours a day.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Document shows partial felling last year, which led to legal action against Toby Carvery, was done by Ground Control

A mystery contractor who chainsawed an ancient oak in north London for the Toby Carvery restaurant chain has been identified by the Guardian, prompting more questions about the incident.

The unauthorised partial felling of the 500-year-old oak a year ago on Friday in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, prompted widespread public outrage and questions in parliament.

Exclusive: Group of MPs and animal charities call for end to practice after Scotland and Wales vote to phase it out

Keir Starmer is coming under pressure from backbench Labour MPs to ban the “cruel” practice of greyhound racing.

The Welsh and Scottish governments voted last month to phase out the practice. Animal welfare groups say thousands of dogs in the UK have died in recent years owing to racing in the “inherently dangerous” sport.

Anna Turley questions revised £25,000 figure for failed attempt to reach Chagos Islands on jet linked to billionaire

Labour has queried Nigel Farage’s claim that a return trip to the Maldives on a private jet linked to a billionaire donor cost as little as £25,000 as the Reform leader attempted to reach the Chagos Islands.

Farage initially recorded his two-day trip to the Maldives as costing £12,500 funded by Thailand-based Reform megadonor Christopher Harborne, before upgrading this to £25,000 in the latest register of interests.

Unite accuses authority of trying to ‘break’ industrial action as waste dispute enters second year

Unite has accused Birmingham city council of trying to “break” the bin strikes after analysis showed the council had doubled spending on agency staff since the start of the year-long industrial action.

Birmingham’s bin workers have taken part in an all-out strike since March last year over proposed pay cuts and role changes. The dispute has left residents without a fully functioning waste collection service and has led to towering waste and overflowing bins on the streets.

People receive rehab only three to four days a week in hospital – and one to two days once they are discharged, data suggests

The NHS is failing stroke patients and limiting their chances of recovery because of a shortage of rehabilitation care staff, health leaders have said.

More people are surviving strokes than ever before in the UK. But their hopes of getting better are being dashed because of a lack of physiotherapists and other specialist staff, according to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy and the Association of Chartered Physiotherapists in Neurology.

Havana makes a Holy Week ‘humanitarian’ gesture as Russian tanker is allowed to reach oil-starved island

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Cuban authorities have begun to free prisoners after announcing they would pardon 2,010 inmates, the second release in less than a month as the country faces heightened US pressure.

More than 20 inmates emerged from La Lima penitentiary in east Havana on Friday, holding their release papers, crying and hugging relatives who had been waiting for them all morning.

Min Aung Hlaing seized control five years ago and plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos

Min Aung Hlaing, the military general who plunged Myanmar into conflict and economic chaos when he took power in the 2021 coup has been appointed president, months after widely condemned sham elections.

Min Aung Hlaing, who is wanted by the prosecutor of the international criminal court for crimes against humanity against the Rohingya Muslim minority, was voted president by lawmakers on Friday. Myanmar’s parliament is dominated by the pro-military party, which won a landslide in one-sided elections earlier this year.

Ibrahim Traoré, who took power in 2022 coup, tells state broadcaster ‘we must tell the truth, democracy isn’t for us’

People in Burkina Faso should forget about democracy as it is “not for us”, the military president, Ibrahim Traoré, told the country’s state broadcaster.

Traoré took power in a coup in September 2022, toppling another junta that had taken power just nine months earlier. He has since stifled opposition and in January banned political parties outright.

Brady Ebert, a former member of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band, allegedly hit the father of Brendan Yates with his car

Brady Ebert, the former guitarist of the Grammy-winning US hardcore band Turnstile, has been charged with attempted second-degree murder after allegedly hitting the father of the band’s frontman, Brendan Yates, with his car.

On 29 March, police found William Yates outside his home with “trauma to his lower extremities”, with a broken bone protruding from his leg, according to the Baltimore Banner.

Alan Turing Institute told by funder to offer better strategy and more value for money after board was reminded of legal duties by watchdog

The UK’s leading AI research institute has been told to make “significant” changes by its main source of taxpayer funding.

The Guardian revealed last week that the board of the Alan Turing Institute was reminded of its legal duties by the charity watchdog after a whistleblower complaint.

OpenAI’s chief of strategy says acquisition of show will help company engage with public about AI as it evolves

OpenAI is wading into the media business by acquiring TBPN, a technology-focused talkshow closely watched by Silicon Valley insiders, its hosts said on Wednesday.

Co-hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays broadcast TBPN live for three hours every weekday from Los Angeles, lining up guests that include founders, venture capitalists and major figures in the technology world.

Affected cars include models in Peugeot, Citroën, Vauxhall, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Jeep and Fiat brands made since 2023

The European carmaker Stellantis has issued a recall for 44,000 UK vehicles after discovering a fault that could result in its cars catching fire.

The fault has been found in certain models across its Peugeot, Citroën, DS Automobiles, Vauxhall, Lancia, Alfa Romeo, Jeep and Fiat brands, produced between 2023 and 2026. Key vehicles affected by the recall include the Citroën C3, Peugeot 208 and Vauxhall Mokka.

Private credit investment firm’s move is latest sign of crumbling confidence in unregulated lending market

A major private credit investment firm, Blue Owl Capital, has imposed a cap on withdrawals after investors tried to pull $5.4bn from two key funds, in the latest sign of crumbling confidence in the unregulated lending market.

The New York-headquartered firm released filings on Thursday that showed a surge in redemption requests, with investors asking to take back 21.9% of the cash stored in Blue Owl’s $20bn (£15bn) Credit Income Corp fund between January and March. Meanwhile, investors requested 40.7% of funds from its $3bn tech lending fund.

Sadie Coles HQ, London
From holiday snaps to atrocities, Throbbing Gristle album covers to backsides in shorts, the Polish painter reproduces the scattered attention and flattened perspective of our social media age

Wilhelm Sasnal has transformed the ground floor of Sadie Coles’ elegant gallery into a parade of broken images: the Oval Office, a ghastly forest, a blasted tree trunk, the artist’s wife and daughter, a British post-punk band, and the sitting US president surrounded by cronies, his face resembling the burn produced by screwing a lit cigarette into a photograph.

These paintings, most of which are untitled, are broken in the sense that an online link can be broken: it is difficult to connect them to their source. (It would be useful to know the location of that tree, for instance.) They are also broken in that they do not fit together as a whole. What connects that revolting White House interior, with its acid greens and faecal browns, with a spooky forest? What links President Trump to the founders of industrial music?

In these turbulent times, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui has never been more vital, and returns to the stage starring the Sherlock star and with music by the alt-rockers. But, they say, they don’t just want to preach to the choir

When the former Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi defected to the Reform party, he described the UK as diseased. “Our wonderful country is sick,” he said. “Britain needs Nigel Farage.” At a far-right rally last year, Elon Musk told supporters: “Violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die.” These sentiments are expressed, almost verbatim, in Bertolt Brecht’s exacting 1941 satire about the rise of Hitler, who frequently referred to Germany as diseased, in danger and  in urgent need of protection.

In rehearsals for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming production of Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, the cast have been exploring the uncanny parallels between the blackly comic melodrama and current events in Britain and across the Atlantic. “It’s the same rhetoric,” says Mark Gatiss, who stars as Arturo Ui. “You just give it 80 years. The second world war generation has died out, so it’s fertile ground again. The same bullshit works. It’s really frightening.”

Dundee Rep
Cumming and Forbes Masson revive their cult 1994 TV sitcom with brilliant songs and a Beano-esque plot as budget Air Scotia is threatened with takeover

If someone tells you this musical spin-off from the cult 1994 TV sitcom is like a pantomime, they won’t just mean the jokes. Having been written by Johnny McKnight and the series creators, Alan Cumming and Forbes Masson, it is, of course, top-loaded with gags. They tumble out in a cross-cultural collage, referencing everyone from Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor to Sheena Easton (yes, some more topical than others), in a deliriously silly festival of wisecracks. The one about asthma alone is worth the ticket price.

But the panto roots go deeper than that. It is in the direct address, the community singalong, the underwater neon-tube dance and the two-dimensional approximation of a Brigadoon hotel, complete with tartan wallpaper, exuberantly designed by Colin Richmond. There is a man-size dog and two costume changes at the curtain call. Oh, yes there is.

A criticism of Superman stories is the guy’s near invincibility. And while a new trailer sees Kara tearing about like a cosmic gunslinger, there are hints her powers are at risk

If James Gunn’s aim with last year’s Superman was to give us a Man of Steel who stood out from those who came before him on the big screen, he nailed it. Even those who didn’t quite warm to this sunnier, weirder but more human incarnation could at least admire the way the film vaulted clear of almost every previous iteration. Delivering Kara Zor-El ought to be an easier job, for it is possible to argue that there has never been a definitive version of Supergirl on any screen, big or small.

Yet it is starting to look as if the newly formed DC Universe is once again ready to push outwards rather than merely backwards. This week saw the release of a new trailer, in which Milly Alcock’s Kara tears through alien bars, starships and off-world landscapes with the swagger of a cosmic gunslinger. But perhaps more intriguing were comments from director Craig Gillespie in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, which saw the film-maker open up about the story’s nine-world structure and the unusually heavy amount of planet-hopping involved.

Chase Infiniti stars in Margaret Atwood’s gripping sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale, plus Dan Levy’s irresistibly goofy new sitcom will thrill Schitt’s Creek fans

This expansion of the Handmaid’s Tale universe is adapted from Margaret Atwood’s 2019 follow-up to her epoch-defining 1985 novel. It’s set several years later, right in the heart of Gilead’s darkness – a preparatory school for elite future wives. Via tentative rebel student Agnes Mackenzie (played with stillness and depth by Chase Infiniti), we see the horrors and the hierarchies in action: the drama meticulously illustrates the ways disempowered people hoard what little agency they have. Agnes is initially at the top of the heap but when she’s given responsibility for enigmatic new girl Daisy, she starts to see Gilead for what it is. Claustrophobic and gripping.
Disney+, from Wednesday 8 April

The star returns as wealthy neighbourhood thief Coop in this rich dessert of a show. But as he tackles middle-age malaise, there’s a lot of heart – plus a guest appearance by James Marsden

Does Your Friends & Neighbours love its unhappy, very wealthy characters, or despise them? Does it laugh at the 1%, envy them, pity them? It does all of the above at once and, as we return to the fictional enclave of Westport, New York – an obvious stand-in for real financiers’ playground Westchester – this mischievous US dramedy is still a rich dessert of a show, unhealthy but oh so moreish.

Jon Hamm is Andrew “Coop” Cooper, a role that, if it were given to any other actor, would require them to do their best Jon Hamm impersonation. Sturdy, smooth – this is a man made of oak and mahogany, when the rest of us are bags of twigs and jelly – and seemingly always with a tumbler of $500 whisky in his fist, he is blessed with the ability to charm any man/woman into a deal/his bed. Other men have been handed their place in the banking elite and are now drifting through a life of luxury; Coop is better at playing the game than they are because he is sharp enough to see what a sham it all is. He has that trademark deep Hamm gaze, a tension behind the eyes.

BBC Philharmonic/CBSO Chorus/Storgårds
(Chandos)
Conductor John Storgårds pairs Shostakovich’s radical youthful 2nd symphony with the more assured 5th, in performances that emphasise clarity over drama

The latest in the Shostakovich series from the BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Storgårds pairs one of the most familiar symphonies with one of the least. The Symphony No 2 was commissioned as a piece of propaganda marking the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution; in the context of the composer’s later works it feels like a curiosity, except for what it tells us about the 21-year-old Shostakovich’s glee in experimentation. It begins with several minutes of foggy strings sliding up and down in an intangible, almost pitchless way – more sound effect than music – then builds up in a perpetual motion melee, before a klaxon introduces a celebratory chorus happily singing “October, the Commune and Lenin”. It’s brightly sung here by the CBSO Chorus, exclamation marks everywhere.

The Symphony No 5, written a decade later, could be by a different composer. Storgårds doesn’t quite find the depth of darkness that some do in the first movement, but there’s power in the way he warms the sound when the harmonies turn towards the light, and the third movement has a compelling feeling of stillness. The finale is full of small increases in tempo, tautly done, that wind up the tension – not a flashy performance, but effective nonetheless.

The Chicago band’s frantic, urgent guitar melodies celebrate hope, friendship and family in these uncertain times

From Chicago, Illinois
Recommended if you like Modest Mouse, Wilco, Car Seat Headrest
Up next Second album Something Worth Waiting For out 24 April, touring the US from April and Europe in summer

In Friko’s hands, a swirl of influences and experiments curve the many colours of indie rock into an endlessly inventive, radiant ramble. The Chicago band’s upcoming, cheekily titled second album, Something Worth Waiting For, explores the energy of yearning: for growth, for change, for stability. Across nine tracks, Friko take inspiration from their recent spate of touring to orbit the idea of finding things worth moving for and the value of the journey itself.

Irish Baroque Orchestra and Choir/Whelan
(Linn)
Conductor Peter Whelan leads a finely judged and agile period-instrument performance with only 13 singers.

Every year, the Irish Baroque Orchestra and their conductor Peter Whelan bring Messiah back to Dublin, the city of its 1742 premiere. Their recording of Handel’s oratorio – the first on period instruments by an Irish ensemble – attempts to recreate the version heard at its first performance at the Fishamble Street music hall, a hot-ticket event at which such a crush was anticipated that the ladies in the audience were requested to forgo hoops in their skirts and the gentlemen to leave their swords at home.

One of the attractions was the scandal-hit contralto and actor Susannah Cibber, who sang several arias including some more often sung today by other voice types: on the recording, gratifyingly, we get to hear a substantial share for Helen Charlston, her voice firm, slightly metallic and unflaggingly expressive. Also included is a less familiar duet-and-chorus version of How Beautiful Are the Feet, written for two of the countertenors from the Dublin cathedral choirs. Here and elsewhere Alexander Chance is in buoyant voice – he also gets the two arias Handel adapted later for his star castrato in London. Hilary Cronin’s sweet-sounding soprano stands out among the solo voices.

(10k/Tan Cressida/Surf Gang)
Earl’s post-Odd Future career swerved the mainstream to follow the path laid out by NYC underground rapper Mike, and their first double album lets both shine

Earl Sweatshirt swerved into public consciousness as part of the edgy but brilliant California rap collective Odd Future in the late 2000s. Practically from day one, he was considered the tastemaker’s choice member, virtuosic even as a teenager. Rather than play for the mainstream, Earl has spent the past decade or so immersing himself in New York’s underground rap scene, resulting in one of the most unique and unpredictable discographies of his generation.

One of his prime inspirations for that new path was Mike, the beloved underground New York rapper whose own body of work is thrilling and vital. Here, the pair link with Surf Gang, the producer-musician clique that credibly lays claim to the title of “the next Odd Future” on Pompeii // Utility, a hyperactive and engrossing double record that finds Mike taking one side and Earl the other.

Goyle, Chert, Mire by Jean Sprackland; The House of Broken Things by Kim Moore; The Tree Is Missing by Shannon Kuta Kelly; Dog Star by Michael Symmons Roberts; Horses by Jake Skeets

Goyle, Chert, Mire by Jean Sprackland (Jonathan Cape, £13)
The 45 unrhymed sonnets in Sprackland’s sixth collection coalesce into three spellbinding interwoven sequences. Set in the Blackdown Hills, a remote stretch between Somerset and Devon, the poems explore the friction between art and articulation, habitat and inhabitation. Here, the landscape is not a backdrop but a linguistic event: “a drop swells on the lip of a leaf and falls / like a word being said”. By removing the first person throughout, Sprackland makes us encounter the landscape intimately: it’s not mediated through a speaker’s interiority but in “mossy silence”, “the rumble of the combine harvester”, “the noise / of meltwater hurtling over stones”, or “the shattered pieces of yourself”. Overshadowed by an unnamed illness, the poems bear wounds but don’t broadcast suffering; this restraint fosters minute attention to “pilgrim gnats attending the water” and the mire’s “long translation from gley to peat”. Sprackland’s ability alternately to narrow and widen our focus – from a closeup on insect life to geological time – reveals how consciousness itself moves between scales. Unlike many nature poems that overanimate or sentimentalise, the book is alive to the limits of human agency: it knows “language itself is prone to collapse”. Yet in that collapse, we can find meaning; recognise the “spiky logic” of natural process, following it as “the sparrow enters / and follows” the “sprawling holly”. The unwavering sonnet form represents an act of courage, a disciplined response to illness and dissolution, creating order where language threatens to collapse. This is a profound, enduring collection.

The House of Broken Things by Kim Moore (Corsair, £14.99)
Moore’s new collection constructs an ambitious architecture for exploring intergenerational trauma and motherhood. At its best, we find her confessional signature, as in The Black Notices, cataloguing unidentified murdered women, or Giving Birth With Anne Sexton, where literary inheritance meets bodily terror. Sometimes, however, this commitment to sincerity and transparency results in poems that feel like pedagogic exercises: Damaged Cento catalogues the “eight stages” of domestic homicide, while The Trimesters documents pregnancy’s upheavals. The motherhood poems, though deeply felt, risk predictability in their exploration of well-trodden territory – breastfeeding, bedtime routines, and the spectre of parental loss (“I imagine someone taking her away, / or a car ploughing into the pram”). It’s technically hard to make this new. Moore clearly presents the “I” as a site of shared, unpolished vulnerability, prioritising emotional legibility over lyric innovation.

The author on being inspired by Michael Ondaatje and how Hilary Mantel helped her overcome her aversion to historical figure novels

My earliest reading memory
The headteacher in my village primary school used to recount terrifying Cumbrian ghost tales to the class, which I’m sure was formative. I can also still hear my mum sing-songing rhymes; “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s”. My dad read the Ant and Bee books to me, repeatedly – he’d drive back over a high upland road from work and get home in time for bedtime stories. But my earliest independent reading memory is The Story of Ferdinand by Leaf and Lawson. I loved that bull!

My favourite book growing up
Big books gave me the whirlies so it took a while for them to start landing.

A psychologist delves into the genetics of bad behaviour in a book littered with fascinating scientific findings

In 2021, the psychologist and writer Kathryn Paige Harden co-authored a paper outlining her research into the genetic patterns linked to a higher risk of developing substance abuse problems or engaging in risk-taking behaviour, such as having unprotected sex or committing crime. The paper referred to the genetics of “traits related to self-regulation and addiction”, but Harden thought of herself as studying the genetics of sin.

Harden is a professor at the University of Texas and the author of a previous book, The Genetic Lottery, on how our knowledge of genetics should shape our views on meritocracy. She once received a letter from a man who has been in prison since he was 16 for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman. “What would drive a boy to do such a thing?” he asked her. Her new book is a heartfelt, subtly argued response to his question, an attempt to outline how our expanding knowledge of what makes people do bad things – the interplay of our inherited tendencies and our life circumstances – should influence how we assign moral responsibility and blame.

A new book by historian Annette Gordon-Reed explores the former US president’s writings on race throughout his life

Thomas Jefferson’s interactions with enslaved people bookend his life. The third US president and a founder of the United States was born into a slave-owning family in a society upon which slavery was the bedrock. A Black woman was probably his earliest nursemaid – evidence shows that his mother did not breastfeed her children, so it is probable that a Black woman was also Jefferson’s wet nurse. His earliest memory, which he relayed to his grandchildren, was of being carried on a pillow via horseback by a man his family enslaved on a 50-mile journey to Tuckahoe, Virginia.

Given his status as an enslaver – Jefferson owned more than 610 people in his lifetime – those he held in bondage may have been the last people Jefferon saw before he died. An enslaved man, John Hemmings, built his casket. The omnipresence of slavery in his life and its clear contradictions with regards to his views on liberty, create a point of which much of the existing literature on Jefferson must attempt to make sense. Scholars have long tried to analyze and parse the juxtaposition of bondage and freedom for the former president. But in a new book by Annette Gordon-Reed, a Pulitzer prize-winning historian and a pre-eminent Jefferson scholar, Jefferson speaks for himself.

From a subtle Princess Peach lip jelly to a Yoshi egg that’s been traumatising children, the cosmetic chain’s latest tie-in is out of this world

When The Super Mario Bros Movie came out in 2023, it came with a rather unlikely tie-in: a range of skincare and bathing products from cosmetics chain Lush. The store, known for its devotion to natural ingredients and support for social justice causes, didn’t seem like the obvious partner for a major video game franchise. Because of this, I thought I should try them out, assuming that my dalliance with beauty journalism would be short-lived.

I was wrong. The collection was so successful, Lush later released a Minecraft range, which I also reviewed, and now there’s a Super Mario Galaxy range to tie in with the new movie. Somehow, I have become the Guardian’s Lush correspondent and it seems I am now trapped in a sweet-smelling cycle of video game-branded toiletries. There are definitely worse fates, so I’m just going with it.

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Deck Nine/Square Enix
Max and Chloe, the two teen protagonists of the 2015 game, reunite as adults – giving players the chance to finally finish their journey

In 2015, Life Is Strange stood out for two reasons: its female protagonists, a depressingly rare feature at the time, and its unique brand of millennial cringe. The thirtysomething Frenchmen who created this series may not have had the best grasp of the 2010s teen lexicon, but they did have a good gauge on what’s important about any coming-of-age story, and that’s the relationships between the characters. Max Caulfield, the shy, time-travelling wannabe photographer, and Chloe Price, the traumatised, punk-rock tearaway, had a memorably intense friendship. It was the heart and soul of that game, and now, 11 years later, they are reunited as adults in this final chapter of their story.

For a lot of players, Max and Chloe felt like more than best friends. The game’s original developers were not brave enough to make this explicit in 2015, but newer custodians Deck Nine retconned a romantic relationship between Max and Chloe into 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. You can still play Reunion as if the two really were just friends, resulting in some awkward ambiguity in some scenes. Whichever way you slice it, though, this is a game about first love, and how it always stays with you, even when its object does not. And damned if it didn’t make me feel something.

We are paying more for a PlayStation so that idiots can use ChatGPT to mislead people on dating apps – something is rotten in the state of gaming

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When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was listed at £449 in the UK. If you were to buy one at the recommended retail price today, it would be £569.99, or £789.99 for the updated Pro model. Sony has just raised the price of its console by another £90, the latest in a series of hikes. This is unprecedented: consoles have always decreased in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – the other day, I saw someone asking £200 for a SNES on Vinted). So, what’s going on?

Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining things for everyone. AI data centres need lots and lots and lots of computing power to be able to present you with lies whenever you Google anything, and this has pushed up demand and pricing for RAM and storage. This isn’t the only reason prices are rising – the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic disruption, and rampant inflation has eaten into many companies’ bottom line. But AI is the cause that’s easiest to get angry about, because it doesn’t need to be this way.

From an interactive session of Sex With Friends to improvised Robot Karaoke, the Friday Live celebration of play and performance amid the museum’s venerable halls was a reminder of gaming’s cultural clout

In the grand entrance of the Victoria & Albert Museum, beneath a looming dome with ancient statues visible through nearby arches, a programmer/DJ is busy live-coding a glitchy electronic music set. Either side of her, large LED displays show streams of code and strobing pixellated images as the bass pounds. She’s part of a group named London Live Coding, an experimental collective that makes music by writing and manipulating audio programs. It is loud, disorientating and brilliant, and I can’t help wondering what Queen Victoria and her husband would have made of it.

The set is part of the museum’s long-running Friday Late evening series, a collaboration with the London Games Festival. It showcased a range of independent video games and immersive interactive experiences, focusing on the link between play and performance. Visitors were given a map and left to wander the halls, corridors and galleries looking for installations. You could play the Bafta-winning comedy game Thank Goodness You’re Here! on a giant screen beneath a 13th-century spiral staircase. You could wander down the darkened Prince Consort’s gallery and find groups of giggling pals playing the hilarious erotic physics puzzler Sex With Friends, in which ragdoll-like characters have to be guided into (consensual) sexual encounters – much to the amusement of spectators.

Dorfman theatre, London
Comedy infuses Winsome Pinnock’s disarming but ebullient drama about two Black academics who are given the job of authenticating the diaries of an enslaver

You don’t imagine many laughs in a story about enslavement legacies and erased Black histories. But comedy infuses Winsome Pinnock’s ebullient drama about two Black academics who are given the job of authenticating a cache of 18th-century diaries written by an enslaver.

Fen (short for Fenella, played by Sylvestra Le Touzel), is a direct descendant of Henry Harford, now managing his illustrious country estate, and it is she who finds the diaries that catalogued life on his Jamaican farm run by enslaved people. She gives Abi (Rakie Ayola) and Marva (Cherrelle Skeete) full rein of the diaries, so that they can authenticate them for posterity. Harford showed every sign of having been an abolitionist, she says in mitigation, although Abi and Marva’s investigations turn up disturbing evidence of his brutality in Jamaica.

Poland’s leading figurative artist de-faces Trump, feminist art rebels squat in East Sussex, and the UK’s street art is captured – all in your weekly dispatch

Wilhelm Sasnal: family/history
The domestic meets the political in these unsettling new paintings of family life and global current affairs (including some greyed-out visions of the Oval Office) by Poland’s leading figurative artist.
• Sadie Coles HQ, London, until 23 May

Unicorn theatre, London
The Unicorn and RSC’s accessible adaptation is at its best in comic set pieces – even if the pared-down plot still feels cluttered

How to make Shakespeare accessible to a young audience? Cut out the tricky bits or throw them headfirst into the original? Co-directors Rachel Bagshaw and Robin Belfield have gone for a bit of both. This is a tightly trimmed version of the Bard’s romantic comedy with the original language intact. Playful captions have been fully integrated into the design and slapstick comedy woven throughout. It’s fun in fits and starts, although, like so many of the characters in this woozily magical play, it feels caught between two worlds.

This is the Unicorn’s first major co-production with the RSC and it feels like the start of a brilliant venture, still finding its feet. Belfield’s editing is smart but could have been more radical. The framing story in Athens – lots of complicated business with dukes and betrothals – has been cut down but not excised, which only makes it harder to understand.

Tron, Glasgow
The life-and-death choices that a stressed-out nurse faces on a short-staffed weekend are taken to gothic heights in this intense, atmospheric play

The standard colour scheme for hospital dramas is clinical white. You expect gleaming walls and antiseptic surfaces, institutionally bright. Mai Katsume takes the opposite tack.

In this co-production between Vanishing Point from Glasgow and Teater Katapult from Aarhus, Denmark, the designer dresses nurses, doctors and patients in black and lines them up across an ominously dark stage.

After a decade in pop’s underground, Larsson’s radiant fifth album turned her into one of the world’s biggest stars. It’s about time, she says, relishing the attention without sacrificing her morals

On a warm spring day, Brooklyn’s century-old Paramount theatre has been transformed into a base camp for all things Zara Larsson. Stage techs scurry past entourage members, managers furiously tap smartphones and various figures patiently await their moment with the Swedish superstar.

Down a plushly carpeted flight of stairs, Zara Larsson is on all fours, saying “puss puss” (Swedish for “kiss kiss”) into a camera. Despite all the craziness around her, she is locked in, wearing electric-blue stockings, tangerine booty shorts and a tiny blazer that makes her look like Malibu Barbie at graduation. A man powers up a leaf-blower, sending Larsson’s blond hair flying. After hitting a few poses, she tippy-taps over in maribou-trimmed stilettos and offers me a can of water. “Cheers!” she says as we clink.

The late-night host reacted to Trump’s prime-time address on the war and his firing of attorney general Pam Bondi

With most late-night hosts on holiday, Stephen Colbert recapped Donald Trump’s prime-time national address on the war in Iran and his firing of the US attorney general, Pam Bondi.

Royal Festival Hall, London
This thrilling and idiosyncratic concert moved from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos to Rachmaninov, Ravel and Schumann

Remember the poem by Jenny Joseph, warning that when she is old, “I shall wear purple / With a red hat which doesn’t go”? There was a hint of the same gentle anarchy in this remarkable performance by Argentinian pianist Martha Argerich and her Korean sometime mentee Dong Hyek Lim.

The advertised first half of piano duets including Schubert’s Fantasia in F minor D940 was scrapped in favour of Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major K448 and Ravel’s two-piano arrangement of La Valse – only for the Schubert Fantasia to reappear in the second half as a monumental, 20-minute encore following Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances in its two-piano original version. Between works, the two pianists meandered around the stage, chatting and occasionally bowing – Argerich leaning on Lim’s arm but driving nonetheless. There were onstage negotiations about whether or not to swap pianos after the first work. There were furious looks shot at page-turners caught on the back foot. Every movement started before the audience had settled.

As the daughter of refugees, Iranian American artist Sheida Soleimani’s work reframes caring for bodies – both human and animal - as a political act. Her new exhibition, Forest of Stars, will be on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery from 16 April to 22 May

Our wildlife series Young Country Diary is looking for articles written by children, about their spring encounters with nature

Once again, the Young Country Diary series is open for submissions! Every three months we ask you to send us an article written by a child aged 8-14.

The article needs to be about a recent encounter they’ve had with nature – whether it’s a marauding toad, a fascinating flower or a garden bird.

It was a slow ascent: I needed to check for wasps, snakes and scorpions

I was born in Tawau, a Malaysian city on the island of Borneo, and grew up around logging camps – my dad worked in the industry. In the early 90s, a lot of the forest here started being cleared for commercial use. At the time, I just thought that was the way things were.

That changed when I began working in conservation as a teenager at the South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership in the nearby Danum Valley. My job was to plant seedlings in places where the forest had been cut down. I began to learn about the importance of keeping the forest safe.

Gently scented with orange and vanilla, lightened by ricotta, and studded with rum-soaked raisins

This is a cake for the long, ambling tail-end of an Easter lunch. It’s gently scented with orange and vanilla, lightened by ricotta, and studded with rum-soaked raisins that bring bursts of sweetness to each slice. Ideally, they’d be soaked overnight to plump them into something luscious, but if time gets away from you, take a shortcut: put the raisins and rum in a microwave-safe bowl, zap for 20–30 seconds, then leave to cool and absorb. The chocolate glaze is optional; on days when you want something simpler (or lighter), a generous sifting of icing sugar is all this cake needs. Serve with a small glass of grappa or something similarly warming for a quietly perfect way to bring a feast to a close.

Whether it’s a tiered tulle skirt or a hardworking Henley tee, our fashion expert’s Easter basket is brimming with joy

• The best women’s spring wardrobe updates for under £100

I am a big fan of Easter, which is an underrated holiday in my opinion: lots of joy and food, but better weather than Christmas (or at least more daylight) and less stress.

So my April shopping list starts, naturally, with a chocolate egg. More goodies include not one but two stormingly gorgeous new-season high-street skirts. Also, an umbrella to keep you smiling through the inevitable spring rain – and the shades you’ll want when the sun comes out. Because that’s April for you!

Once a corporate trademark, the half-zip sweater is now fashion’s hottest look. Want to avoid cosplaying Rishi Sunak when you wear one? Our menswear expert reveals all

• Men’s spring wardrobe updates for under £100

You’ve probably noticed more quarter-zips around. This time, it’s not the City boys to blame. Rather, it’s that the fashion industry’s attitude has shifted. Once dismissed (not least by GQ, who named it “a joyless jumper for the joyless grind”), the style has been reclaimed by the very people who deemed it uncool – I even wore a Vivienne Westwood design to attend London fashion week.

In menswear circles, the rise has been slow and steady. IYKYK labels such as Mfpen and Amiri introduced them into their autumn/winter 2025 collections, before luxury houses Dior and Louis Vuitton followed suit for spring/summer 26. A few A-list celebs have been spotted wearing them (including People magazine’s sexiest man alive for 2025, Jonathan Bailey). The popularity is measurable, too – in the latest Lyst Index (a quarterly report of the world’s most coveted items in fashion), Polo Ralph Lauren’s cable-knit quarter-zip was named the top menswear buy.

Unlucky in love? Maybe ditch the apps. This new twist on Victorian-era ‘flirtation cards’ could spark your next meet-cute

• How do romance novelists celebrate love?

• Sign up for the Filter US newsletter, your weekly guide to buying fewer, better things

Tired of swiping, singles are attending flirting parties and even dating-oriented run clubs in hopes of meeting their future partner in real life.

But even those lack the romanticism of a true meet-cute. The Brooklyn-based stationery brand No Particular Order is offering a more serendipitous option: its new acquaintance cards that encourage more spontaneous connections.

Eid, Nowruz, Passover and Easter each tell their own story, but all are bound by generosity, memory and hope

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

Spring has a way of bringing us together. Light stretches into the evening, markets brim with green shoots and, across kitchens, tables begin to fill again. Over these weeks, four festivals – Eid, Nowruz, Passover and Easter – bring something distinct in story and ritual, yet all four are threaded with food, family and the quiet insistence of renewal.

Eid arrives at the end of Ramadan with a particular kind of joy – one sharpened by restraint and softened by generosity. The table is abundant but never careless: dates to break the fast, fragrant rice dishes, slow-cooked meats, sweets soaked in syrup or dusted with sugar. In many homes there is maamoul, a delicate semolina biscuit filled with dates or nuts, and whole spreads of celebratory dishes tied to memory as much as to taste.

Cannelloni made with sheets of fresh egg pasta are a treat, especially on a feast day, and they can be made the day before

Fresh sheets smelling of fresh air or fabric softener (or both) with hospital corners are one of life’s great pleasures. As are fresh sheets of egg pasta – the sort that comes in squat boxes protected by clingfilm and found in the fridge section alongside ravioli. They are also one of the most useful and certainly the most multi-talented of all the pasta shapes.

That they are labelled lasagne is limiting; of course, they can be lasagne, but they could just as easily be numerous other shapes. The most easy-going of which is maltagliati, meaning badly cut, which tells you everything you need to know about the approach required as you cut them (using a knife, pizza wheel or pair of scissors) into uneven bits that are ideal in all sorts of soups, but especially those with beans. With slightly more precision, the sheets can be turned into 1cm-wide ribbons (short tagliatelle, if you like) for meat or vegetable ragu. Similar ribbons, made with a fluted pasta cutting wheel, can be mafalde, while thicker ribbons create a sort of ersatz pappardelle. All ribbons, though, can be cut into quadrucci (little squares) – another shape ideal for soup. Larger squares can be mandilli de sea (silk handkerchiefs), which are great dressed with pesto. If the pasta is fresh enough, rectangles can also be pinched into farfalle (butterflies), although I think bow ties is a better description.

Few combinations tickle the flavour palate like booze and chocolate, it’s no wonder they mix well

Among my minor childhood traumas was the time my dad returned from a business trip to Belgium with a smart box of assorted chocolates (cue tiny violins). Expecting caramel, I bit into a truffle and was met by an explosion of very boozy liqueur. The box seemed to be an exciting change from the usual duty-free Toblerone, but after this incident, truffle assortments have always struck me as deeply unsafe. (I have tried liqueur-filled chocolates since, but still remain flummoxed by them.)

So you can imagine my feelings about chocolate-infused liqueurs. Personally, I think some things don’t need to mix, but in this era of edible collabs (see the recent Flying Goose sriracha x Heck sausages), brands can’t resist a dabble. Enter Bailey’s x Terry’s Chocolate Orange Irish Cream Liqueur, which will send fans of both products aflutter. Most creamy chocolate liqueurs use a neutral grain spirit as their base, which is mixed with dairy, sugar and chocolate flavouring – the base for Bailey’s, for example, is Irish whiskey. Waitrose is less specific about the base of its No1 Blonde Chocolate Cream Liqueur, which is inspired by the supermarket’s chocolate bar of the same name and made in partnership with a distiller in Burgundy. Apparently, it has “notes of caramelised white chocolate”, though I found it cloying. Such things are better served ice-cold, however – Waitrose recommends serving it on the rocks or over ice-cream; I might use it to spike a bread-and-butter pudding or chocolate tart.

An easy Sunday supper of a cheesy fish dish and a biscuity iced dessert

Sometimes all you want is a hot, bubbling dish and a spoon, and for me today’s cheesy haddock is that dish – a 15-minute supper to be enjoyed in front of the telly with a salad or a large bowl of hot buttered peas. Add a lemony, biscuity iced dessert, and you have a light, very easy and enjoyable supper that’s almost the perfect close to a long Easter weekend.

The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. Check ratings in your region: UK; Australia; US.

These recipes are edited extracts from The Racine Effect: Classic French Recipes from a Lifetime in the Kitchen, by Henry Harris, published by Quadrille at £40. To order a copy for £36, go to guardianbookshop.com

It sounds like you are so concerned about losing him, you are considering losing yourself, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. This bit is the mistake

• Read more Leading questions

I just discovered by chance, and to my complete surprise, after more than 20 years of what I thought was a happy and faithful marriage, that my husband has had a year-long and passionate affair with an accomplished, charming, brilliant career woman whom I also regarded as a friend. I am accomplished too, but not nearly at her level, and I am also a bit older and I have less panache than her. I don’t think I can compete with her, and in any case I feel too proud to try.

Here is the thing: he says he doesn’t want to give her up, though he also says he does not want to marry her (she is in any case married though, it seems, in an open marriage). He also says he loves me and wants to remain married to me. I think if I demand he gives her up, he will end up unable to love me. I also think I will barely, or possibly not at all, be able to bear the pain of him continuing to see her. I am so unsure what to do or indeed what I can bear doing. I so don’t want to lose him. I have been deeply in love with him ever since we first met. Do I give him the world in return for half his heart?

With public houses increasingly restricting or banning children, we asked for your thoughts on adult-only pubs

A growing number of pubs in the UK are restricting or banning children, citing safety concerns, changing atmospheres and lost trade. We asked people their thoughts on adult-only pubs.

Many who contacted us supported child-free pubs, believing adult-only spaces were important, but a good proportion said they would change their mind if children were “properly supervised by parents”.

Henry says Maggie is constantly losing them; she thinks her son is making a lot of noise about nothing. It’s up to you to give them a fair hearing

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Mum doesn’t look after her headphones because she knows I’ll always be there to buy her new ones

I’m 76, and don’t like online shopping. It only takes Henry 30 seconds to buy a new pair

If I can trust my boyfriend with my dog, the most important thing in my life, then I guess I can trust him again with my bruised and idiotic heart

Recently I got down on one knee and presented my boyfriend with some jewellery, and asked if he would commit to caring for a very long, cute, stinky boy.

While this is an apt description of me, I was not asking him to marry me and I was not presenting a ring – I was asking him an even more important question: would he consent to having his phone number engraved next to mine on my long stinky dog’s collar, complete with a cute little heart tag featuring our digits?

From a 300-year old building in the heart of ‘cheddar cheese and cider’ country, to a newly renovated smallholding in an area of outstanding natural beauty

Only way to avoid missing a flight because of EES rules: squeeze everything into a cabin bag and skip luggage check-in

Travellers to the EU risk missing their flights because bag drop-off times don’t allow for the long queues to get through a new security system.

My family of four missed our easyJet flight home from Málaga because, although we followed advice from the airport and arrived three hours before departure, the bag drop-off didn’t open until two hours before.

Calls for tougher laws as network stretching from Caribbean to Georgia generates riches for offshore tycoons by appearing to prey on the vulnerable

Immaculately groomed and beaming from ear to ear, Andres Markou looks every inch the golden boy of the gambling sector. The youthful boss of MyStake, a fast-growing digital casino, has been pictured shaking hands with the Brazilian football legend Ronaldinho over a lucrative branding partnership.

Elsewhere, he can be seen collecting industry awards, or offering “visionary” insights to interviewers. There is only one hurdle blocking Markou’s ascent to the very top of his trade: he does not exist.

Snappy performance, high-quality screen, best-in-class keyboard and trackpad show cheaper can still be great

Apple’s brand new entry-level laptop is powered by the chip from an iPhone and offers more than just the essential MacBook experience for a great price, putting the PC industry on notice.

The MacBook Neo is the first of its kind from Apple. A 13in laptop that runs on an A18 Pro chip and brings the starting price for a brand new MacBook down to £599 (€699/$599/A$899) – £500 or the equivalent less than the MacBook Air.

If a food is labeled ‘functional’, what does that mean? Not much, experts say

You’re at the grocery store, looking for a sweet snack. But these days, the chocolate aisle promises so much more than that: mental clarity, a stronger immune system, PMS relief and even sexual stamina – all in a few squares.

Chocolate is hardly the only treat to be reborn as a wellness product. Supermarket shelves now boast chips with added protein, gut-friendly sodas and collagen oatmeal – all part of the fast-growing “functional foods” market, which is expected to reach $586bn globally by 2030.

Cannabis policy still divisive two years in, with SPD hailing it while CDU minister says it is risk to young people’s health

It was a landmark piece of legislation passed by Germany’s previous, centre-left-led government: a measure that legalised the personal recreational use of cannabis for over-18s despite warnings from critics it would cause a steep rise in the drug’s use, including by teenagers, and boost criminal gangs.

Two years on, controversy over the move has still not been stubbed out, with critics and proponents at odds over its impact on consumption, youth welfare and organised crime.

One of the fastest-growing fitness trends is also one of the most divisive. To its fans, it promises a stronger, healthier body; to its critics, it’s another way to make women feel insecure. Time to sort fact from fiction

I have noticed something new in my London neighbourhood. Amid the sea of nail salons, vape shops and purveyors of fried chicken, sleek, opaque-fronted premises are popping up everywhere. There are several within 15 minutes of my home.

At weekends, you can spot clusters of devotees heading to these mysterious, vaguely aspirational temples of self-care, AKA reformer pilates studios. Many of these devotees conform to an aesthetic popularised on TikTok via hashtags such as #pilatesprincess. There is definitely a uniform: pink athleisure, Rhode phone cases and oversized pastel-coloured Stanley tumblers, jokingly referenced on Instagram as “emotional support” bottles. It is a trend that prompted New York magazine to run an article under the headline “Why Pilates Keeps Pissing People Off”: the workout has become inseparable from a very strict idea of womanhood.

Claims of benefits have been amplified by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. How does the evidence actually stack up?

• Read more in the Antiviral series

Influencers are telling their audiences that injectable peptides are the “glow up potion” they need for everything from clearing up hormonal acne, thickening hair, relieving back pain and even treating chronic UTIs.

These peptides, intended for research purposes (as some influencers do point out) and not approved for human use, are being increasingly sold through unregulated online channels.

The key to stopping pale colours feeling saccharine? Breaking them up with tougher textures – here are three ideas to whip up this weekend from our styling editor

Nevermind the trends, want to know how to dress for actual spring weather? Then read on

It all came to a head, as matters of getting dressed so often do, over black tights. I had wanted to wear my silver skirt, you see. It was a rare blue-sky day and the sunshine was making me crave reflective surfaces to maximise the light. Anyway, you know how it is when you just get a yen to wear something. So I pulled out said silver skirt and then realised I didn’t want to wear the black opaque tights I wear with it in winter, but it wasn’t anywhere near warm enough to wear it with bare legs as I do in summer. I was completely stumped. And it made me realise: I need a refresher course in what to wear at this time of year. Spring has sprung, but I have forgotten how to hop to it.

So here we have it: your pocket primer on how to dress for spring. I’m talking about the spring that happens every year, an actual real-world meteorological phenomenon, not about the fashion trends of this particular moment. The lengthening days, daylight commuting, the juicy greens and yellows of the landscape, the maverick unpredictability of rain. Whether zebra stripes are the new leopard does not concern us today. We don’t need fashion to provide the newness when newness is in abundance in the world. So we can flick back through the pages to remind ourselves of spring’s fashion classics.

Doctors warn viral off-label use lacks evidence, with unknown long-term risks and possible systemic absorption

Vaginal estrogen cream is prescribed to ease genital dryness, irritation and discomfort that results from the loss of estrogen during menopause.

The name tells you exactly where to put it. Yet a new trend has been making the rounds on social media. People are calling vaginal estrogen cream the new “filler” for the face and other body parts, claiming it can smooth wrinkles, reduce dryness and sagginess and plump up the skin.

Armani revamps a favourite, Clarins adds a tint to its serum and a new base from Carisa Janes will suit anyone who hates powders

Three very big hitters have new foundations: one risky reformulation of a cult classic; one addition to a wildly popular skincare franchise; and one to launch a new brand from a beauty legend.

Let’s start with Armani’s Luminous Silk (£49 for 30ml), loved by many for its buildable, versatile coverage, and perhaps the most worn bridal foundation of all time. While I’m not against a reformulation in principle (technology, regulations and ingredients move on, and that’s all for the better), Armani does seem to have reformulated here for little discernible reason beyond Google Analytics.

From Normandy to Provence, our readers enjoy great art, architecture and outdoor activities in France
• Tell us about a trip to Scotland – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Vichy is not on everyone’s radar as a must visit French town, but it really is a delight to spend a few days in. I discovered it while on a bicycle trip around central France, and its famous waters did wonders for my tired legs and muscles. Vichy is a historic spa town famous for its spring waters and its art nouveau and belle époque architecture. A thriving cultural scene means that, whenever you visit, you’ll find concerts, theatre, opera and exhibitions, especially at the town’s opera house and the iconic Grand Casino. Vichy is also a shopper’s paradise, with more than 500 boutique shops in the heart of the town. When all that shopping and walking has worked up a thirst, taste the famous Vichy waters for free at Hall des Sources (listed on the Accidentally Wes Anderson website). The city is easy to explore on foot or by bike, with riverside paths along the Allier River, pretty neighbourhoods with pastel-coloured villas, and plenty of outdoor cafes. Being there felt like witnessing a Renoir or Matisse painting coming to life before my eyes.
Nicoletta

Explore wild scenery, empty beaches and beautiful villages on the 110-mile Corfu trail, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year

The riverside was heaving. Families spilled from cafes. A marching band trooped on to the bridge, their tasselled metal helmets dazzling in the sun. Priests with bushy beards delivered ageless chants from beneath their cylindrical kalimavkion hats. Men let off shotguns, terrifying the air. Easter Monday in Lefkimmi.

We hadn’t planned this. Simply right place, right time. The capital of southern Corfu, Lefkimmi is a working town, untroubled by tourism. There are Venetian-style houses – variously neat, tatty and decrepit – but no “attractions” to speak of. Just Corfiots doing Corfiot things: chewing the fat in their finest for this religious celebration – Greek Orthodox Easter, which falls on 12 April in 2026 – plus zipping about on scooters, drinking coffee, buying baklava and ice-creams.

With its never-ending street theatre and labyrinthine medina, this timeless city swallows you whole – and reveals new secrets with each visit

The rising sun sets fire to the snow-covered caps of the Atlas mountains. Within moments, the shadowy gorges are gleaming with warm terracotta hues. I turn my back on north Africa’s highest peaks and look north where Marrakech – nicknamed the Red City – rests like a jagged ruby amid the jade swathes of palms and the silvery sheen of olive groves.

Swinging 800 metres (2,625ft) above the stony desert in a giant wicker basket, I try to imagine what this scene would have looked like when camel trains trooped this way, loaded with salt, spices and enslaved humans bound for Marrakech’s souks.

It’s a quintessentially Welsh experience of castles, cockles and cawl when you explore the south-west of the country by train, bus and a new footpath opening this week

Sit on the left when you catch the train from Swansea to Carmarthen, and you can watch huge sandy estuaries unspool outside the window. There’s a curlew standing by the water, an egret-haunted pool in the wetlands, and a boardwalk along the foreshore, part of the 870-mile Wales Coast Path. It has been a six-hour, four-train journey to get here from Essex, but I’ll soon be on foot.

Carmarthenshire has picturesque railways, a network of buses, and some epic long-distance paths, so it makes for an ideal car-free break. The 13-mile Tywi Valley Path (officially opening in time for Easter) will link Abergwili near Carmarthen and Ffairfach near Llandeilo, helping walkers and cyclists access some lovely scenery. I’m visiting just before Saint David’s Day, and there are daffodils everywhere. Carmarthenshire offers a quintessentially Welsh experience, packed with castles, cockles and cawl (stew).

It may be ugly, but this edible bulb gives substantial harvests and can stay in the ground in the colder months

It occurred to me recently that, understandably, I only write about the plants I’m really into. And what that means is there are certain crops that have yet to be honoured on this page simply because they’re not to my taste. So this week’s column is about one of the ugliest vegetables I’ve ever met – in looks and taste! – which some of you may well adore … the celeriac.

Celeriac reminds me of Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (that’s one for the millennials!) and I have a strong suspicion that these two little monsters taste about the same. Celeriac has been the ruiner of many a soup that I have been fed, overshadowing the taste of the other ingredients and dominating the flavour profile. Although I am not a fan myself, these vegetables are relatively straightforward to grow and garner a substantial harvest from. So if it is a taste you like, they are well worth a go.

Bianca Devins was 17 when she was killed by a man who then shared photos of her mutilated body on sites like Instagram and Snapchat – something her mother Kim describes as ‘psychological terrorism’. Here, she reveals her battle to get them offline

Early on a Sunday in July 2019, police arrived at Kim Devins’ house in upstate New York with a story that made no sense. They were there to do a “welfare check” on Devins’ 17-year-old daughter, Bianca. They said they had received reports from people who feared she may have been “hurt”. Bianca had gone with her friend Brandon Clark to a concert in New York City, a four-hour drive away. “Did they mean that they’d been in an accident?” says Devins. “The police bodycam footage from that time shows how confused I was.”

Amid it all, Devins called her dad, who lived close by, to ask him to come over. Somehow, while making that call, she realised that something dreadful had occurred. “I always pinpoint it to that exact moment, even though we didn’t understand what was happening,” she says. Her body knew before she did that she had lost her daughter. “All of me shook. I could almost see myself from the outside. It was as if my brain shut down to protect me and I left my body. I don’t think I’ve fully returned since.”

In week five of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic decided to let AI take the lead on a date. If uncanny valley was a conversational style, it’s this

• Sign up for AI for the People, a six-week newsletter course, here

I’m single. Is it because I am emotionally avoidant, waiting on a unicorn, or under 6ft tall? Perhaps a spicy meatball of all three?

Or could it be that I haven’t used the magic of AI yet?

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

Many Brazilians believe there is a ploy to free the younger Bolsonaro from baggage of his father’s name to return the family to power

He possesses one of the most famous family names in Latin American politics. But when the Brazilian senator took to the stage at a conservative conference in Grapevine, Texas, last weekend it was only his forename that was on people’s lips.

“Flávio! Flávio! Flávio!” the audience shouted as the 44-year-old politician announced he would run for president in order to fight the “radical environmental and woke” agendas he claims have made Brazil awful again.

Some would like Leo to be more vocal on world conflict, but others say he uses his influence discreetly

As Leo marks his inaugural Easter as pontiff, almost a year after his predecessor’s death, some Catholics are still trying to work out what kind of pontiff he is.

The feast – the most important in the church’s calendar – comes against the backdrop of war in the Middle East, sparked by the US-Israeli strikes in Iran.

Mission control confirms ‘toilet go for use’ after glitch sorted

A blinking fault light on Nasa’s Orion spacecraft signalled an unwelcome setback at the start of the historic Artemis II mission: the toilet was out of order.

Fortunately for the four astronauts on board for the 10-day mission, the issue was quickly resolved, with mission control confirming: “Happy to report that toilet is go for use. We do recommend letting the system get to operating speed before donating fluid, and then letting it run a little bit after donation.”

Do you agree with the guidance? Have you been limiting screen time for your child? How is that going?

Children under five should spend no more than an hour a day on screens and under-twos should not be watching screens alone, according to UK government advice.

The guidance was developed by a panel led by the children’s commissioner, Rachel de Souza, and the children’s health expert Prof Russell Viner.

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

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

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

We want to hear from owners of dogs, cats or other pets who have tried these trackers

With a growing number of pet fitness trackers on the market, owners can monitor the stats of their companions as never before. But these devices can be costly, and their necessity is debated.

We want to hear from owners of dogs, cats or other pets who have tried these trackers to hear if such health monitors have proved useful, neutral or problematic.

We would like to hear about your experiences of caring for elderly parents and how this has affected your life

In a recent Guardian opinion piece, Lucinda Holdforth described her experience of caring for her late mother, and her complicated feelings after she died.

It is a common human theme that good parents can never really rest for worrying about their children. But it seems to me that a reciprocal burden exists for good children. We are never entirely free from the psychic weight of our parents’ needs, love and ambitions for us in our youth, and increasingly we now find ourselves taking on guardian-style responsibilities for them during their prolonged old age.

I finally understood the accumulated heaviness of the burden I had carried about a year after my mother died. At 59, I was at last an orphan, which meant I could turn off my phone each night. I woke up one day with the most complete feeling of creative liberty and personhood I’d ever experienced. That feeling has not left me since.

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