When it comes to scandal, seeing is believing – which is why these images caused such a stir

Words can tell a story, but it’s pictures that will make you believe in it. Such is the power of a photograph; the ability to strip away illusions, to illuminate something hidden, and sometimes force us to accept unpalatable truths. When it comes to scandal, seeing is believing – occasionally even to the point that a picture changes the course of history.

How might life have been different for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor had he not been photographed clutching the midriff of the 17-year-old girl he would later claim he had never met? Without this haunting triptych of the former prince, the late Virginia Giuffre and Jeffrey Epstein’s fixer, Ghislaine Maxwell, hovering in the background, there would have been nothing physical to connect the then prince with a trafficking victim. Though for years Andrew’s friends insisted that the photograph must have been doctored, buried within the Epstein files recently released by the US Department of Justice is a note from Maxwell that appears to confirm it is real.

Viral reviews of artisan cafes across the capital are sparking a debate over cost, culture – and who gets a slice of the city

The video that started it all was innocuous enough: a woman in her 20s posted on TikTok about how she spends a perfect weekend in north London. On her list were the bakeries Jolene and Gail’s, and the De Beauvoir Deli.

The reaction, however, was anything but. Many locals commented that they had never heard of the businesses she mentioned. One north Londoner, Moses Combe, 21, was equally incredulous. “If this is where all the north London girlies come in the morning, I’d be a bit surprised,” he said in a viral video.

Britain is reportedly considering aligning with EU rules in what Daily Mail is calling the PM’s ‘breakfast reset’

The story is, in Fleet Street terminology, a marmalade dropper. The name marmalade is being dropped.

But is it?

As Trump’s administration aims to bring ‘warrior culture’ back to the military, young service members express anxiety and snark online over potential deployment

If posts coming from the White House were to be believed, the US-Israel war on Iran looks something like scenes from Top Gun, Braveheart and Deadpool – or how a fifth-grade boy might imagine combat. The Trump administration has also presented Operation Epic Fury as a video game, borrowing gen Z parlance to describe the US armed forces as “locked in” on the conflict.

Such macho posturing squares with secretary of defense Pete Hegseth’s desire to bring “warrior culture” back to the military. The former Fox News host has railed against DEI, “fat troops” and “beardos” (troops with beards), and envisioned a military full of “the right people” who fit his imposed standards of virility and masculinity.

Sinking into a cup of cocoa softens many of life’s problems, but quality varies. Which are fudgy pleasures and which are simply powdered pap?

• The best supermarket coffee, tasted and rated

A hot cup of cocoa is one of life’s great pleasures, especially for the feeling of sheer comfort and nostalgia it conjures up.

These days, there is drinking chocolate of exceptional quality out there, which just didn’t exist in my childhood. It’s made with some of the finest chocolate in the world: bean-to-bar, single-origin or even single-estate, and often made from grated bean-to-bar chocolate and nothing else.

Royal visitors have long been popular in the US, and Charles has decades of diplomacy under his belt. But can soft power save the special relationship?

What’s the worst that could happen when King Charles visits Donald Trump in Washington at the end of this month? And what will be the best outcome from Keir Starmer’s point of view, since it is the prime minister who directed the visit to go ahead in the hope of improving our battered, supposedly special relationship? While the relationship is still apparently meaningful to Britain, to the US it appears to not mean so much – especially now.

The king goes where he is told, whether he would prefer to stay at home or not. This time to a land whose president denounces our aircraft carriers as toys and accuses us of cowardice, and whose defence secretary talks derisively of our Royal Navy. Perhaps Charles ought to wear his naval admiral’s uniform when he goes to the White House, medals and all.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said it was combing an area near where plane came down in south-western Iran

• ‘I’m regretting everything’: #MilitaryTok reactions to war stray from White House messaging

Iran has executed two men convicted of membership in a banned opposition group and carrying out disruptive actions aimed at overthrowing the Islamic republic, the judiciary said.

The executions on Saturday were the latest in a series targeting members of the banned People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), after four other convicted members of the group were executed earlier in the week.

Exclusive: Guardian investigation finds several clinics making potentially unlawful claims about benefits of unregulated therapies

• What are peptides, are they safe and is there evidence to back up the hype?

The medicines regulator is investigating whether UK clinics are breaking the law by making claims about the benefits of unregulated, experimental peptide therapies, the Guardian can reveal.

Interest in experimental peptides has boomed in recent years. The substances are delivered by injection and are touted by sellers, influencers and even some medics as aiding everything from anti-ageing to recovery from injury.

Met police say 19-year-old was detained in connection with attack after officers recognised him at arraignment

A fourth person has been arrested in connection with the arson attack on Jewish volunteer ambulances in north-west London, the Metropolitan police has said.

The force said the 19-year-old man was arrested on Saturday morning at Westminster magistrates court, where three other men were charged over the arson attack.

Storm expected to cause Easter weekend travel disruption, though warm weather could return next week

Storm Dave is expected to cause travel disruption this Easter weekend, with warnings for heavy snow and gale-force winds issued across northern parts of the UK, but a reprieve from the cold snap could be on the way, with temperatures forecast to reach the mid-20s next week.

The Met Office has issued a yellow severe weather warning in Scotland for heavy snow and blizzards causing some travel and power disruption. Up to 30 centimetres of snow could fall. An amber weather warning for wind has been issued for parts of northern England, Scotland and Wales on Saturday evening.

• Dark-blue women end eight years of rivals’ dominance

• Light-blue crew power to four-length win in men’s race

Oxford’s women ended eight years of Cambridge dominance in their Boat Race with a sensational performance led by the Olympic medallist Heidi Long, while Cambridge overpowered their dark-blue rivals in the men’s race after a fiercely contested opening for a fourth consecutive win.

On a windy and largely overcast day in London, Oxford’s women forged a lead as soon as the first race of the day sped away from Putney and led by about six seconds at Hammersmith Bridge. Tens of thousands of fans cheered the boats on from the riverside, lining the 6.8km course all the way.

US National Park Service lawyers cite materials that will be installed to make ‘heavily fortified’ facility

Donald Trump’s administration is arguing that a judge’s order to halt construction of a $400m White House ballroom creates a security risk for the US president as his team asks a federal appeals court to pause the ruling.

In a motion filed on Friday, US National Park Service (NPS) lawyers say that the federal judge’s order to suspend construction of the new facility is “threatening grave national-security harms to the White House, the president and his family, and the president’s staff”.

Astronaut calls fellow Canadian Ryan Gosling’s movie ‘extraordinary’ ahead of Artemis II crew’s lunar fly-around

The new space movie Project Hail Mary starring Ryan Gosling has gotten a rave review from more than halfway to the moon.

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen said on Saturday that he and his Artemis II crewmates got to watch the film with their families before launching on the lunar fly-around. He said it was “a real treat” to view the movie while getting ready for his own space adventure.

The former Little House on the Prairie star said husband was ‘last person in world who would hurt a child’

Melissa Gilbert has staunchly defended her husband and fellow actor Timothy Busfield in her first interview since New Mexico prosecutors charged him with child sexual abuse in early February.

In part of a conversation scheduled to be broadcast on Monday on Good Morning America but circulated in advance as a preview, Gilbert told ABC host George Stephanopoulos that she believed the Emmy winner whom she married in 2013 to be “the last person in the world who would hurt a child”.

With 84 and a half minutes on the clock, Mikel Arteta presumably suspected Viktor Gyökeres, one of his substitutes, had taken an absorbing FA Cup tie to extra time. Gyokeres cancelled out Ross Stewart’s first-half strike, seizing on his first whiff of goal, but it was Shea Charles, a second-half arrival for Southampton, who earned the Championship hosts victory and passage to the semi-finals. Another sub, Cyle Larin, started the move, protecting the ball with his back to goal.

Charles, who was also involved in the buildup, calmly gathered Tom Fellows’ pass and found the corner to cue ecstasy in the stands. For Saints, just the fifth team to beat the Premier League leaders this season, the spirit of 76 lives on. For Arsenal, after suffering Carabao Cup pain at Wembley, this spelled successive defeats for the first time this season and now their season really is at risk of unravelling.

The rightwing populist has been in power for 16 years but a new generation of voters are preparing to vote for his opponent, polls suggest

• Hungary elections: what is at stake and who is likely to win?

As he rushed to finish off his cigarette before heading to class, Ákos, 20, confessed that he has more at stake than most as Hungarians prepare to head to the polls in the coming days.

“If things remain the same, or get even worse, I can’t see a future here,” said the aspiring teacher. “There are many people who want to try living elsewhere, and that’s totally fine, but I’m not one of them. For so long I’ve dreamed of working and teaching here.”

In turbulent times, experts recommend building up a store of food if possible – focusing on long-life, no-cook items

People should have an emergency stockpile of food in their homes in case conflicts, extreme weather or cyber-attacks shut down supplies, leading UK experts have told the Guardian.

In an ever more turbulent world, they say it is essential to choose long-life items that can be eaten without cooking – think tinned beans, vegetables and fish, rice crackers, and oats that can be soaked. But it is also important to choose items you actually like to eat, and some treats such as chocolate or crisps to keep your spirits up. You will also need water – lots of it – not just to drink but for washing too.

From schools in Ghana to workplaces in Britain, underpinned by the colonial roots of ‘respectability’, conversations around natural hairstyle persist

Last month a Jamaican woman said her teenage son had been pulled from lessons because school staff had deemed his afro hairstyle inappropriate.

“The dean of discipline called me to state that my son has been removed,” Michelle Scott said. “You’re telling me that you took him, a fifth-form student, out of classes to go and get a haircut?”

Rachel, 32, a consultant, meets Josh, 34, an accountant

What were you hoping for?
A lovely meal on a misty Saturday, hopefully with someone I’d like to see again.

When Marisha Matthews first saw ‘cool minister’ Paul, she noticed his kind eyes and jewellery. Their growing relationship was a slow burn over many years

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

In the summer of 2014, I was living in Adelaide with my two young children in a very hot rental house with a low ceiling and a rat problem. It also had a slightly leaky pool, which was good for entertaining.

It was coming up to Australia Day, which I’ve always had mixed feelings about. I couldn’t stomach inviting people over for a plastic flag-fest, so I suggested my guests bring items to make a welcome package for refugees. As a first-generation Anglo Indian British Australian with Chinese siblings, and previously married to a Persian refugee, my family is full of the newly arrived.

The novelist on working on a trawler, his near miss rock climbing, and being jailed for indecent exposure

Born in Oslo, Jo Nesbø, 66, played for Norway’s premier league football team Molde before injury ended his career. After military service, he gained an economics degree, then worked in finance. He also formed the band Di Derre, which topped the Norwegian charts. In 1997, he released The Bat, the first of his bestselling Harry Hole novels. His work has been published in 51 languages and he has sold more than 60m books. In 2017, his novel The Snowman was made into a film starring Michael Fassbender. A new series, Jo Nesbø’s Detective Hole, premieres on Netflix on 26 March. He has a daughter and lives in Oslo.

When were you happiest?
When Molde won the Norwegian premier league in 2011, the year the club was 100 years old.

Easter Monday race will lead runners through minster, town hall and Piece Hall in what is thought to be first UK event of its kind

Hear the words “trail race in West Yorkshire,” and thoughts of mud-streaked runners traipsing across the moors may come to mind.

But at the launch of the inaugural Halifax Urban Trail this Easter weekend the phrase will take on a whole new meaning as runners swap paths for pavements and stiles for staircases while racing through the town’s historic buildings.

Spotlight intensifies on Liverpool’s manager, but what of a group of players who effectively surrendered against Manchester City?

Budapest or bust it is, then, for Liverpool’s hopes of silverware this season and quite possibly Arne Slot’s prospects of remaining in his job, although thoughts of this team reaching a Champions League final appear ludicrous in light of their gutless exit from the FA Cup.

A pity whistle on 90.04 from the referee, Michael Oliver, sounded an appropriate death knell for a pitiful performance by the fading Premier League champions. So much for a shot at redemption for Liverpool and Slot as a defining period of five matches in 16 days commenced in humiliating fashion.

It will take more than a thumping FA Cup quarter-final victory over the worst team in League One to ignite Chelsea’s season as it enters the defining stretch. This was, at least, a step in the right direction. Or, perhaps, it was just good for the club to avoid any further chaos.

The occasion was framed by Liam Rosenior’s decision to ban his vice-captain, Enzo Fernández, for the game and Chelsea’s next one, which is here against Manchester City in the Premier League next Sunday. The manager felt he had to act after Fernández’s none-too-subtle message to Real Madrid during the international break. Basically, he is bang up for joining them.

• São Paulo player spent five days in hospital after fainting

• Oscar won two league titles in five years at Chelsea

The former Brazil international Oscar has been forced to retire at the age of 34 with cardiac problems, São Paulo confirmed on Saturday.

The attacking midfielder spent five days in hospital after fainting during a routine medical in November and has not played since. A vasovagal syncope, caused by a sudden drop in blood pressure, heart rate and cerebral blood flow was observed, forcing Oscar to call time on his career. He had a contract that was due to expire in 2027.

• Champions Cup last 16: Bath 31-22 Saracens

• Second-half turnaround sends Bath through to quarters

Henry Arundell’s two tries helped Bath to a tight victory over Saracens as they squeezed their way into the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup. The English champions trailed 10-0 at the break against a Sarries side unrecognisable from the one crushed here in the Prem, but the introduction of their heavyweight bench, with Thomas du Toit to the fore and man of the match, turned the contest.

The game, in which the referee, Nika Amashukeli, was replaced at half-time for Ben Connor after coming off second-best in a collision with the Bath back-row Josh Bayliss, went down to the wire and a late try from Noah Caluori set up a nervy finish. But Arundell’s second with the final play settled the outcome for a relieved Bath and booked a last-eight tie at home to Northampton on Friday night.

Most of what has gone wrong this season can be put down to poor recruitment – but the manager must share the blame

Even when the fixture list was revealed last summer, it was perhaps predictable that the middle of March would represent the crisis point for Newcastle. If they had reached the Champions League quarter-finals and won the Tyne-Wear derby at St James’ Park, a lot of other frustrations could have been forgotten. Even better, that game against Sunderland would have had to be postponed had Newcastle reached a third Carabao Cup final since 2023.

Those days of celebration a year ago feel a long time ago now, but the mood could easily have been very different. Newcastle were the better side in the home leg against Barcelona in the last 16 of the Champions League. Only the concession of a daft late penalty denied them victory and they were a persistent threat on the break in the first half of the away leg. Only in the second half of the second leg did the game get away from them: a 7-2 defeat made the difference between the sides seem much greater than it actually was.

The Lancashire seamer’s victims included James Sales, 21 years after Anderson had dismissed his dad, David

Again apologies that things are slow this morning, the wifi keeps dropping in and out and the hotspot on my phone is also being disobedient. Here, quickly, before it drops again, Ollie Robinson has sent nightwatchman Scriven on his way, before taking himself off. Weatherald and Holland drop anchor.

With an hour gone, let’s trot round the grounds.

• Danny Rohl’s side move above Hearts on goal difference

• Hibernian and Falkirk cement top-six spots

Danny Rohl told his Rangers players to stay “on the front foot” in the Premiership run-in after a 4-2 win over Dundee United took the Gers top for the first time in more than two years. Goals from Ryan Naderi, Dujon Sterling, Thelo Aasgaard and substitute Bojan Miovski proved too much in the end for the visitors, who scored through Amar Fatah and Zac Sapsford.

Rangers were 13 points behind Hearts when Rohl took over as manager in October, but they lead the Jambos on goal difference with six games remaining, albeit their rivals have the chance to go back to the top when they travel to Livingston on Sunday. Third-placed Celtic, five points behind their Old Firm rivals, face Dundee at Dens Park later the same day.

• Muriqi strikes late winner for relegation battlers

• Bayern Munich come from behind to beat Freiburg

Real Mallorca dealt a major blow to Real Madrid’s title aspirations as Vedat Muriqi struck an added-time winner to seal a shock 2-1 win for the hosts, leaving Real four points behind Barcelona before the leaders play Atlético Madrid later on Saturday.

The hosts withstood Real’s pressure early in the game, the goalkeeper Leo Roman denying Kylian Mbappé with two diving saves, before Mallorca took the lead from their first shot on target in the 42nd minute as Manu Morlanes converted Pablo Maffeo’s cross.

Arsenal meet Brighton with their sights set on reaching a second semi-final while Tottenham could be facing Chelsea at just the right time

Riding high after their Champions League quarter-final win over Chelsea, Arsenal are ready to push on in the FA Cup. The WSL title may be almost certainly out of sight following Manchester City’s impressive victory over Manchester United, but the chance to go for a European and domestic cup double is very much there. Brighton stand in the way of securing a second cup semi-final within six days. Last weekend Dario Vidosic’s side earned a first WSL win since their 23 January defeat of Everton, securing a 1-0 win over bottom-placed Leicester. The Seagulls sit sixth in the WSL, eight points behind Tottenham and only ahead of London City Lionesses on goal difference. They are seven points off of last season’s total with four games remaining. However, those four games are against Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs and inconsistency has blighted their campaign. The hope will be that they face a tired Arsenal after their Champions League exploits, with the 1-0 second-leg defeat to Chelsea a frantic and exhausting match. That is perhaps an ambitious ask given the depth at Arsenal’s disposal and the form they are in, Wednesday night’s inconsequential defeat being their first loss since 21 January.

The brutalisation of global norms by figures like Pete Hegseth must be seen as an ethical issue. It’s a fight against chaos, and all major religions must play a role

That combative old hymn, Onward Christian Soldiers, is not much heard these days, though it was once a favourite with church congregations and school assemblies. Written in 1865 by Sabine Baring-Gould, an English clergyman and religious scholar, its belligerent refrain urges the faithful on to battle, victory and conquest: “Onward, Christian soldiers / Marching as to war / With the cross of Jesus / Going on before!” Its martial tone suited the Victorian zeitgeist but it made succeeding generations uneasy (though it was still sung in my primary school in the early 1960s). Nowadays, this sort of triumphalism gives religion a bad name.

Pete Hegseth, US defence secretary, and a leading Christian soldier, would certainly disagree. He probably hums it on his way to work. At a recent Christian worship service in the Pentagon – an irregular event, given the constitution’s dislike of anything smacking of state religion – Hegseth, referencing Iran, prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy”. Hegseth’s creed is killing. He describes Iranians as “religious fanatics”. And he should know. His intolerant brand of evangelical Christian nationalism is extreme even by US standards – yet has Donald Trump’s backing. Trump was a Presbyterian until 2020, when he abruptly declared he wasn’t. God knows what he is now.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Jesse Watters gave a litany of reasons why women shouldn’t lead before denying he agreed. But peddling these ideas normalizes them

Oh dear, it looks like Jesse Watters’ mother needs to give him a good talking to again. The Fox News host regularly spouts so much deliberately provocative nonsense that his mum, a liberal, has called into his show to ask him to use his voice “responsibly”. Instead of listening to her, however, he’s told his audience of millions that men shouldn’t eat soup in public because it’s effeminate, shared his creepy fantasies about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s sex life, and urged America to bomb or “maybe gas” the United Nations headquarters. This week, as Donald Trump (a man) presides over a disastrous, immoral, and unpopular war, Watters has been busy informing the world that women just aren’t cut out to be president.

What prompted this latest rant? The usual pathological desire to be noticed, I presume. And also a recent MS NOW interview with Nancy Pelosi, in which the former speaker of the House, 86, said a female US president is inevitable, but likely won’t happen in her lifetime.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

The assault on freedom with Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi
On Monday 8 June, join Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi to discuss the current seismic changes in geopolitics, the alarming rise of populism and nationalism, and its global implications. Live in London and livestreamed worldwide. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

The delight of ‘meeting’ a person from a different country and time zone is one of the wonders of the internet. Perhaps one day we will host a party in his honour

One of the many people my husband’s clan and I invite to family celebrations isn’t related to us by blood or marriage. He isn’t dating one of us, he hasn’t met any of us, and none of us – were he to attend – would know his face. But from time to time he gets an invite to a birthday of someone he has never met and is asked to bring a plate.

He has never come, but he always responds with excitement and warmth. He’s not technically “one of us”, but he shares a surname with some of us and over years earned himself the ultimate sign of group acceptance: a nickname.

Greens, Reform UK, Your Party, Conservatives and even Lib Dems are making extravagant spending pledges

As local and regional elections across the UK loom into view, it is clear the spectre of Trussonomics lives on. The Greens, Reform UK, Your Party, Restore Britain, the Conservatives and even the Liberal Democrats cannot help making extravagant spending promises, often paid for by cutting something or borrowing more that, they argue, will have no negative economic consequences.

Or if they do, the costs will be borne by people and businesses they do not care about.

The president’s son-in-law is acting as an envoy even as he looks to secure billions for his company from foreign governments

After Donald Trump returned to the White House, his son-in-law and former senior adviser Jared Kushner declined to take a job in the new administration and instead planned to focus on running his Miami-based private equity firm. Kushner said he would also forgo raising more money for his company while Trump was in office, to avoid any appearance of a conflict.

But since last summer, Kushner has re-emerged as a high-level peace envoy for Trump, helping broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza; steering negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine; and, most recently, playing a central role in the aborted negotiations between Iran and the US over Tehran’s nuclear program. Kushner still doesn’t hold an official government position – he’s a private citizen who has been negotiating some of the most important foreign policy agreements on behalf of the Trump administration, with a direct line to the president.

Relations with Britain have improved again since Brexit, but battles over Irish history remain visible in Stormont’s endless feuding

• Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and author of A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and Birth of the IRA

More than a century after he was marched to the gallows, there is still something radioactive about Roger Casement, a name that continues to emit a faint crackle in British-Irish relations.

He was knighted in 1911 by King George V for distinguished imperial service, but then embraced radical Irish nationalism and sought German help for the 1916 Easter Rising.

Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent and author of A Rebel and a Traitor: A Fugitive, the Manhunt and the Birth of the IRA

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.

It’s a world of bottom quarks and arsole compounds – so why is science still so serious? Levity can make it all a lot easier to understand

Science is an infamously dry endeavour. The noble practice seeks to answer humanity’s most inscrutable questions. How did life begin? What is consciousness? Why does naming cows increase their milk yield? Within this austere framework, there is little room for levity. I think most scientists would agree there is nothing funny about bottom quarks, nor the five-membered organoarsenic compound known as arsole.

So I wasn’t surprised by the findings of a recent peer-reviewed paper, published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, that surveyed the use of humour across 531 scientific talks at 14 academic conferences. Stefano Mammola, from the Italian National Research Council, and colleagues found that on average scientists delivered only 1.6 jokes per presentation, of which 66% generated “only polite chuckles”. Science and comedy, it seems, don’t mix.

Helen Pilcher is a science writer and the author of This Book May Cause Side Effects

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

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days

R-Patz and Zandaya star in a romcom with bite, and the lovably dysfunctional family is back in a revival of the turn-of-the-millennium comedy hit

The Drama
Out now
It is hard to imagine a more zeitgeist-flavoured proposition than Zendaya and Robert Pattinson starring in a dark romantic comedy from A24 – and frankly we are here for it. The pair play a couple whose relationship is tested by the revelation of brand new information during their engagement. Directed by Kristoffer Borgli (Dream Scenario).

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

Stefan Golaszewski’s compassionate series focuses on life after baby loss, while Kristoffer Borgli’s controversial psychological movie hits another raw nerve. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

The US president seems to have turned his attention to Cuba in recent weeks, saying that it was 'next'. Officials from both countries have reportedly been in negotiations since February however the content of the discussions remains unclear. The Guardian spoke with professor emeritus of international relations Dr Philip Brenner about what the US might really want with the Island

Roberto Mazzarella, head of a notorious Camorra clan, had been on the run for more than a year

An Italian mafia boss, who was one of Italy’s most dangerous fugitives, has been arrested on murder charges after more than a year on the run, Italian police said on Saturday.

Roberto Mazzarella was the head of the notorious Mazzarella clan of the Camorra – the Naples-based organised crime gang.

Senior figures express concerns over medical union’s refusal of pay rise that is higher than offer to other NHS staff

Trade unions have privately expressed qualms about the forthcoming doctors’ strikes, expressing frustration at the conduct of the talks and the demands of the British Medical Association.

The BMA is pushing for a pay rise higher than the 3.5% offered to doctors by the government, with strikes planned for next week.

Fears of Easter chaos over scaling up of new EU border system are eased, with no facial IDs for Eurotunnel and Eurostar passengers

Passengers crossing the Channel from the UK to France will not face new biometric checks in the coming weeks, despite an imminent deadline for the complete implementation of the EU’s entry-exit system (EES), ports say.

Airlines and airports across Europe have feared chaos over the Easter holidays.

Lack of regulation for specialist classes leaves UK fitness enthusiasts at risk, say professional bodies

The boom in reformer pilates has created a “wild west” of studios where poor regulation has resulted in inexperienced teachers and a rise in injuries, professional standards bodies have warned.

Pilates is not formally or legally regulated, and as its popularity has surged, industry experts say, so too has the growth of packed reformer-based classes often led by instructors with limited training.

Exclusive: research finds Jackdaw field would provide only about 2% of current demand, and Rosebank only 1%

Opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, research has shown.

The Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK’s current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources.

Researchers warn the high-pressure conditions could disrupt marine life and ecosystems if it continues

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For more than a century, shoreline stations operated by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have measured water temperatures along the California coast. This year, they are flashing a warning sign.

Over the last three months, several stations have repeatedly posted record-breaking daily high temperatures – with the La Jolla station registering temperatures a full 10F above historical average at one point last month.

Citizen science data reveals early flowering, nesting and insect activity as global heating accelerate seasonal change

Bluebells are flowering, swallows are returning and orange-tip butterflies are flying in what could become Britain’s earliest recorded spring.

Records for early spring occurrences are being smashed as 2026 looks to be the earliest this century for frogspawn laying, blackbirds nesting, brimstone butterflies emerging and hazel flowering, according to Nature’s Calendar, which has logged citizen science records of seasonal change since 2000.

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.”

Reports on English policies seen in Wales as relating to whole of UK contribute to widespread confusion, researchers say

UK media is failing to report properly on devolved issues in Wales, leaving voters ill-informed about May’s Senedd elections, a report has found.

A Cardiff University study of more than 3,000 news items found repeated patterns in coverage across different broadcasters and platforms, including not signposting whether an issue was relevant to England or England and Wales only, widespread references to “the government” rather than “the UK government”, and the use of “you” and “your” in contexts that apply only to people living in England.

Met police investigate incident, removing five officers from frontline duties after member of the public discovers items

Armed police officers protecting the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, allegedly left a bag containing guns and a Taser on the street which was discovered by a member of the public.

The Metropolitan police said on Friday it was investigating the incident and five officers had been removed from frontline duties while inquiries were being carried out.

Two people in police custody after a fatal incident in Cudworth area on Friday evening

Two people have been arrested on suspicion of murder after a man died after a collision in the Cudworth area of Barnsley.

Emergency services responded to reports of a collision between a Volkswagen Touareg and a pedestrian on Rose Tree Avenue about 4.55pm on Friday, South Yorkshire police said in a statement.

Misogynistic abuse of female staff is increasing, leaving teachers feeling ‘traumatised’ and ‘humiliated’

Teachers’ leaders have said a “masculinity crisis” is fermenting in schools across the UK, with misogynistic abuse of female staff on the increase, leaving victims “traumatised”, “demeaned” and “humiliated”.

Almost a quarter of female teachers who took part in a union survey said they have been the target of misogyny from a pupil over the past 12 months – the highest proportion in the last four years of surveys.

Use of unmanned ground vehicles has grown exponentially since 2024 turning the war into a technological contest

Victor Pavlov showed off Ukraine’s newest and most versatile weapon: a battery-powered land robot.

The unmanned ground vehicles come in various shapes and sizes. One runs on caterpillar tracks and resembles a roofless milk float. Another has wheels and antennas. A third carries anti-tank mines. Since spring 2024 their use has grown exponentially.

Springs fire, which had spread quickly by windy conditions, at least 45% contained on Saturday, say fire officials

California fire protection crews on Saturday were getting a handle on the wildfire that broke out the previous evening in Riverside county, fanned by high winds that quickly spread the flames to more than 4,100 acres.

The Springs fire, about 64 miles (103km) east of Los Angeles, was at least 45% contained on Saturday, a fire department spokesperson said. It was 25% contained late on Friday evening.

President has affixed his name to institutions and edifices, and his visage now glowers from several federal buildings

The US has a history of naming things after its presidents.

Washington DC has the Ronald Reagan airport, while John F Kennedy international airport is New York’s main air transport thoroughfare. The Hoover Dam straddles Nevada and Arizona; Theodore Roosevelt is one of several former presidents to have a Washington DC building named after them; Franklin Delano Roosevelt has an island; Abraham Lincoln has the Lincoln Memorial; and George Washington has the nation’s capital and an entire state.

Matthew Rodriguez, 18, was apprehended in Pennsylvania in connection to shooting that killed Kaori Patterson-Moore

A second suspect in the stray-bullet killing of a seven-month-old baby on a Brooklyn street was arrested on Friday, investigators said, two days after a shooting the New York police department (NYPD) commissioner called “a tragedy that truly shocks the conscience”.

Matthew Rodriguez, 18, was apprehended in Pennsylvania by NYPD detectives working with US marshals, according to authorities.

Amid closures and soaring costs, food halls are booming as a cheaper, lower-risk alternative to traditional restaurants

Beeps chirp through the cavernous Cambridge Street Collective on a busy weekday, as buzzers alert the lunch crowd to collect their sushi tacos, rendang curries or Palestinian chicken musakhan.

The Sheffield food hall is Europe’s largest purpose-built venue of its kind, at 20,000 sq ft, and arrived in 2024 as part of a major redevelopment of the city, which has brought in businesses including HSBC.

Ripple effects of oil and fertiliser shortage felt by farmers in India and Sri Lanka despite governments saying there is enough stock to go round

Gurvinder Singh never thought the war in Iran would touch his quiet corner of Punjab.

Yet looking out over his smallholding, where he alternates between wheat and rice crops in the state known as India’s breadbasket, the 52-year-old farmer can barely think of anything else. His anxiety over a conflict playing out thousands of miles away is crippling as he fears what will come of this season’s rice crop.

Ray Blanchette admits he may be a ‘little crazy’ as he outlines chain’s hopes of building 1,000 outlets globally

“I am a little crazy maybe,” admits Ray Blanchette, a former TGI Fridays kitchen manager who has taken on the revival of the bar-restaurant chain’s UK business in the face of blasting industry headwinds.

Blanchette’s family investment firm, Sugarloaf, rescued the Dallas-based parent business from administration in 2025. He then went on to pick up its UK arm in January after the local franchisee got into difficulties, retaining 33 UK restaurants but closing 16, with the loss of 456 jobs.

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”.

From sad-fishing on Facebook to sensational Substack revelations – today’s readers don’t have to look far for confessional writing. Is this the end of autobiography?

Every day I meet strangers who share intimate details with me. It’s called reading. In a newspaper piece a former sex addict recalls her need for BDSM (“when a sexual partner hurt me, I felt seen”) and how she conquered her dependency. On Substack an actor describes her grief on losing a baby (“After the miscarriage, I became convinced my daughter was backstage. I would push back the costumes on the rack and almost expect to find her”). And then there are the published memoirs, first-person stories of trauma, displacement and heartbreak. It’s not just women who unburden themselves, of course. As Martin Amis says in his memoir, Experience: “We are all writing it or at any rate talking it: the memoir, the apologia, the CV, the cri de coeur.”

Recent memoirs have upped the ante, though. What was once a geriatric, self-satisfied genre (politicians, generals and film stars looking back fondly on long careers) is now open to anyone with a story to tell – “nobody memoirs”, the American journalist Lorraine Adams has called them. Candour is the key, no matter how fraught the consequences. “Most writers I know,” Maggie Nelson writes in The Argonauts, “nurse persistent fantasies about the horrible things – or the horrible thing – that will happen to them if and when they express themselves as they desire”. But she takes that risk, addressing the book to “you”, her fluidly gendered husband Harry (who’s angry when she shows him a draft), while exploring identity, pregnancy, motherhood and sexuality.

It was the anal bead theory that caused a global sensation. Now, a new Netflix film tells the tale of two grandmasters, one scandal – and a whole lot of bad blood

Chess Mates (Netflix, Tuesday) has an unsettling early gambit: the face of Piers Morgan, looming via archive footage. “Have you ever used anal beads while playing chess?” Morgan asks down camera, as if prepping an ill-advised phone-in. “Your curiosity is concerning. Maybe you’re personally interested?” shoots back his interviewee, Hans Niemann (above). The minds of chess masters, as glimpsed in this fantastic documentary, are almost as compelling as any back-passage shenanigans on the table.

It’s worth looking up the whole clip, from when Niemann found himself at the centre of a cheating scandal. The 19-year-old had come from nowhere; in a match at the 2022 Sinquefield Cup, he did the impossible and beat the Goat. That’s Norwegian Magnus Carlsen: an undisputed titan who sees lines of play like Neo sees the Matrix, and has held the world No 1 spot, unbroken, since 2011. Suspecting foul play, Carlsen withdrew from the competition. Ever since, suspicion has swirled round his American rival. Which is where the beads enter. So to speak.

The comedian hits the stage with ponderings aplenty – and a virtuosic laser harp performance. Plus: Riz Ahmed hosts Saturday Night Live UK. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Channel 4

My upbringing denied me access to the arts and led to me bottling up my feelings about what was happening to me. Then I saw Eminem taking control of his destiny, and decided I needed to do the same

At 15, I had never been to the cinema, or even watched a movie. I grew up in a strictly Orthodox Charedi Jewish household, the daughter of a rabbi, in Glasgow, where we had next to no exposure to cultural influences beyond our religious world. The bookshelves were stacked with biblical texts and teachings, we sang in Yiddish and I only saw TV at my less religious grandparents’ house, where we could watch the end of the tennis if it was finishing as we arrived.

By my mid-teens, my parents had moved to Jerusalem and sent me to live in Manchester, with a scholar who would later abuse me. The abuse went on for six months while his family slept or when they were out. I had no one to turn to or tell; even if I had, no one had taught me the words for what was happening to me. It was a complicated, lonely time without adults to rely on.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Actor who made her name in The World According to Garp and was nominated for a Bafta for Woody Allen’s Interiors

The thoughtful, understated actor Mary Beth Hurt, who has died aged 79, enjoyed the good fortune of seeing her early career intersect with an unusually intellectual moment in American cinema. She earned a Bafta nomination as one of the three sisters in Woody Allen’s Chekhov-via-Bergman experiment Interiors (1978) before causing onscreen havoc as Robin Williams’s frisky college professor wife in the John Irving adaptation The World According to Garp (1982).

In Interiors, Hurt – making her movie debut – was cast as the directionless Joey, who belatedly achieves a kind of purpose in attempting to save her overbearing mother (Geraldine Page) from drowning. By far Allen’s gloomiest vision, the film nevertheless made $10m off a $3m budget, while Hurt did more than tread water in illustrious company. Though she lost out in Bafta’s most promising newcomer category to Christopher Reeve as Superman, the film’s minor-key success prefigured Hurt’s four-decade big-screen career.

The architect on a special moment he captured one hot afternoon in Spain

José Luis Morales Martín took this photo from his living room window on a hot September afternoon. Martín, who lives in Las Rozas de Madrid, a short drive from the Spanish capital, had just finished his lunch when he heard noises from outside. In the communal courtyard below, two teenagers were playing basketball.

“I was amazed by the light and immediately went to get my phone to capture the scene,” he says. “The geometry of the pavement pattern, the shadows of the building and the figures playing with a basketball … I just waited for the magic to appear – and then it did.”

In this week’s newsletter: A new memoir by Fred Brathwaite offers an insight into the city’s emerging underground scene in the 70s and 80s – and shows us the power of subcultures in difficult times

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Hello everyone, I’m Coco Khan, covering for Gwilym Mumford, and this week, as the sun started to peep out from behind the clouds, I counted five Jean-Michel Basquiat T-shirts on passersby during a park walk.

Sure, I may live in a trendy London borough – but it’s still hardly surprising, given that the name and works of the New York artist whose roots were in graffiti have been licensed to fashion brands from Next, Primark and Uniqlo to Supreme and Saint Laurent. It’s hard to imagine that the artist – who died at 27 of a drug overdose, and whose signature slogan SAMO© (Same Old Crap – a criticism of consumerism, and the commodification of art, with a playful copyright mark) – would approve of the Basquiat name being on keyrings, tote bags and clothing. But hey, what do I know – I’m just another purist bore still upset that Ramones T-shirts are worn by millions who couldn’t name a song, when the Ramones themselves did not care.

Find out how bad your mental mush is

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

None 3pts

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Frequently 1pts

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Watch TV 1pts

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6+ hours 3pts

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Next to me, obviously 0pts

Somewhere else 3pts

Never 3pts

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Pretty much every time 0pts

Group exercise had been associated with older people, but the playlist of K-pop and US hip-hop is a hit with gen Z

It’s evening rush hour in central Bangkok, the roads are clogged with traffic and the air is heavy from the heat. But in a corner of the capital’s biggest park, the crowds are already gathering to dance.

As the music starts, an aerobics leader glides across a small stage. A sea of arms move from side to side, then touch the sky. Knees pop up and down. Ankles tap.

The sessions have become so popular that projector screens and extra speakers have been added

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.

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.

It’s wild garlic time again! Try this pesto with an aromatic chicken, fennel and potato stew, then dive into a fudgy banana cake with a tantalisingly crunchy top

I love Mexican chillies for the subtle flavour they give to cooking. Take the ancho, with its sweet, earthy notes of chocolate and plum. That adds immense depth to dishes traditional and avant garde alike, and is now readily available online and in shops. In today’s one-pot, which is a near-perfect way to cook a whole chicken, the ancho adds character to a classic sofrito, while in the pudding the savoury notes and touch of heat complement the dark caramel, helping to create a banana cake that is anything but bland. If you can’t find ancho, try any other medium-heat chilli flake in its place (nora, aleppo), or simply leave it out. The results will be delicious either way.

A cheerful rice bowl fragrant with ginger, garlic and spring onion, and laced with a sprightly chilli bean sauce

With spring in the air, I want a dish that’s the equivalent of turning the key in the ignition, firing up the engine and riding off into the sun. In short: something with a bit of va-va-voom. That dish, for me, is these Sichuan aubergines, a take on the classic “fish fragrant aubergines” (so called because the same aromatics are often used to cook fish). Creamy to begin with, they’re layered with flavour by way of ginger, garlic, spring onion and, finally, laced with delight and good times owing to the bright chilli bean sauce and vinegar.

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.

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.

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?

The key takeaways for who is eligible and how to seek redress from the new FCA motor finance scheme

Complain now to be at the front of the queue. That is the message from the City regulator and the consumer champion Martin Lewis as a scheme gets under way to pay out about £7.5bn in total to millions of motorists mis-sold car loans.

More information emerged this week about how much money the different categories of people might get and how it will all work after Monday’s announcement that an industry-wide compensation scheme for victims of the UK’s car finance scandal is definitely going ahead.

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.

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.

The practice touted by Nicole Daedone combined spirituality, mindfulness and sexuality. Then came the controversy – and prison sentence

In 2009, the New York Times ran a story about Nicole Daedone and her wellness company, OneTaste, which promoted women’s empowerment through a practice known as “orgasmic meditation” (OM).

“I don’t think women will really experience freedom until they own their sexuality,” Daedone said at the time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Regular swappers say they not only make big savings but create connections. Here is how it works

About six miles from Reims, beside a golf course, is a house with a heated pool and space to sleep 10 people that would probably be perfect for many of those planning to book a family holiday in France.

An hour’s drive from Disneyland Paris, the four-bedroom property is quiet, located near a village with a bakery, has an electric gate that provides security, and is on almost half an hectare (one acre) of land.

For years this region was regarded as little more than a gateway from the North Island to the South. But spend several days there and you’ll ache to tear yourself away

The visitor to New Zealand’s South Island knows what they have to see. There’s a well-trodden circuit. Lake Tekapo and Mount Cook, to gaze at the stars. Queenstown, for a spot of daredevil adventure. The glaciers, Fox and Franz Josef. And then down to Milford Sound, for the fjord, cliffs and waterfalls. Each stop stunning, each one worthy of its place in a tourist trail so long-established they call it the southern loop.

But for those searching for something new, bent less on ticking off the New Zealand icons than on experiencing a region as brimming with natural beauty as it’s been relatively, and mysteriously, overlooked, there is another destination. Head to the place they’re calling Nelson Tasman.

The RN7 road to the Côte d’Azur is enjoying a renaissance among lovers of slow travel in search of offbeat France

‘We were five people in my parents’ 2CV; we would set out at 3am and by 10am, around about Lyon, my father would need a break. My mother would set up a deckchair for him under a tree by the side of the road and he would sleep before driving the rest of the way to Toulon.”

On a recent road trip through France, I met up with Thierry Doillon, a vintage car fanatic who helped restore a 1950s petrol station on the Route Nationale 7. I wanted to talk about the heyday of this iconic road (so famous that singer-songwriter Charles Trenet released a song about it in 1955) and why it’s enjoying a renaissance with holidaymakers.

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

Researchers are weaving Native practices with western methods to revive ecosystems and reclaim food sovereignty

“I’m a glorified clam counter.”

So said Marco Hatch, a marine ecologist at Western Washington University and an enrolled member of the Samish Indian Nation. Hatch has been conducting surveys of mollusks growing in and around clam gardens in the Pacific north-west, as he collaborates with seven Indigenous communities to build or rebuild these rock-walled, terraced beaches once created and tended by their ancestors.

I’m on the sofa with a beer, watching a show where people always end up not buying property in Mediterranean resorts

I’m sitting in my office shed looking through the open door into the garden. It’s warm and sunny – the first spring-like day of spring.

Across the lawn I see my wife open the kitchen door and place the tortoise on the back step. Later it will be cold and he will have to come in, and I will not be able to find him. I make a mental note to start the search before dark. On my way to the kitchen an hour later, I notice he’s already disappeared.

From the Arconia and a nine-dart finish to madder, weld and woad, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 What unique structure carries the Bridgewater canal over the Manchester ship canal?
2 Melanistic leopards are more commonly known as what?
3 Which European national flag features seven castles?
4 The Arconia is the apartment block in the title of what TV series?
5 Station Island in Donegal is claimed to be an entrance to where?
6 Which woman hit a nine-dart finish in a PDC event in February?
7 The experimental boats Ra and Ra II were chiefly made from what?
8 Who did Henry VIII describe as a “rose without a thorn”?
What links:
9 King’s Cross station; McDonald’s, Kings Norton; Parliament Hill; Stonehenge; Uffington?
10 Choice; HD; Knowledge; Select; 2W?
11 Book of Job beast; Tom Hanks age swap film; John Lithgow as Roald Dahl; PT Barnum elephant?
12 Glock firearms; Red Bull energy drink; Swarovski crystals?
13 Merle Oberon; Juliette Binoche; Kaya Scodelario; Margot Robbie?
14 Madder; weld; woad?
15 Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra; Punjab; Guangdong and Shandong?

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

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.

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.

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.

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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Crisis in the Middle East, a Russian drone attack in Kharkiv, a Saharan dust storm in Crete and the launch of Artemis II – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Warning: this gallery contains images some readers may find distressing