What’s Carol Vorderman moaning about? All I said was how fit she was … must be going through the menopause or something

Another sweltering sub-Saharan summer’s day in late spring. If this is global warming, I say: “Bring it on.” I go outside to the van, turn on the engine and leave it running. This is the kind of day you want to burn as many fossil fuels as possible. Back indoors, I turn on the radio where Tony Blair is talking. There’s a politician who talks sense.

Bollocks to net zero. That’s what I say. It stands to reason. I mean, think back to the ice age. Let’s face it, there weren’t that many international flights a day while the Neanderthals were alive – five or six at most – and the world still got a whole lot hotter. So it’s all just woke nonsense. Make a note in my diary to ask if Tony is free to come up to Makerfield to do some door-knocking.

Special report: Allegations of sexism, racism and expenses fiddling are flying in US courts, drawing in leading figures in motor racing and some famous names in music. But the precise role of Peter de Putron, a Jersey-based billionaire, is one of the most intriguing subjects

On the track, the Williams Formula One team are attempting to revive former glories through their talented driving team of Alex Albon and Carlos Sainz and the team principal, James Vowles.

Away from the track, the team and their parent company, Dorilton, are embroiled in a messy dispute with a former executive, Claudia Schwarz, who was dismissed in 2022. In court filings she alleges she was fired after raising concerns about sexism towards her and racism, with claims drawing in Lewis Hamilton’s foundation and the artists Wyclef Jean and Shaggy. The ultimate ownership of the Williams team is also questioned by the former executive, who makes a hotly contested claim that the team are controlled by Peter de Putron, a billionaire based in Jersey with close links to the Conservative party.

Ahead of the release of Backrooms, we invite you to lose yourself in our list of the most terrifying – and most inviting – hallway scenes in cinema

John Cusack plays a hitman attending his high school reunion, where a kickboxing assassin attacks him in the corridor. The film is dark comedy, but the fight is deadly serious. Fun fact: Cusack’s trainer/opponent is the legendary Benny “The Jet” Urquidez, who memorably took on Jackie Chan at the climax of Wheels on Meals (1984).

Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption

You can read the Tottenham striker Richarlison launching a defiant broadside at the newly crowned champions. “Next season, we will compete for the title,” he says. “Arsenal won’t be winning it again for the next 22 years.” You can read the outgoing Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, throwing shade at his Arsenal counterpart, Mikel Arteta. You can see the Liverpool full-back Andy Robertson warning his coach, Arne Slot, that “things have got to change if he wants to stay”. You can see the television pundit and former Manchester United player Gary Neville deriding the club’s playmaker Bruno Fernandes as a “stat-padding talisman” who pales in comparison with the City legend Kevin De Bruyne.

Incendiary stuff, and huge if true. Also, as it turns out, huge if not true. On a regular Monday morning on the world’s 15th-most-popular social media platform, these were just a few of the football-related tweets doing big numbers, getting shared and discussed and punted up the X algorithm to be discussed even more. That none of them were actually real quotes was the most minor of inconveniences. After all, when the whole point of the site is simply to argue over things, to relitigate existing beefs and reinforce existing prejudices, does it even matter if they were real or not?

Jonathan Liew is a Guardian columnist

Case involving seven-year-old boy is latest flashpoint in debate over race relations in Latin America

‘Argentina needs to end its fantasy of being a European country’: Lucrecia Martel on the story of a killing

A woman celebrating her 32nd birthday on a train journey in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais was horrified when a fellow passenger alerted her that an unknown man had been secretly filming her seven-year-old son.

When confronted, the man – an Argentinian tourist – initially refused to show his phone. But after being pressed by other travellers, the man admitted he had sent the images to a WhatsApp contact.

(Mexican Summer)
The quintet add shoegaze, country and 50s rock’n’roll to their core indie-punk sound, resulting in songs that offset lyrical bleakness with gleeful, uplifting music

Iceage have always seemed like a band in a state of constant development. You might say that’s understandable, given the Danish musicians were in their teens when their debut album New Brigade was released in 2011: if you don’t change between the age of 18 and your early 30s, you’re probably in trouble. But rock music isn’t real life, and a less adventurous band might have been minded to stick with a good thing, given the reception New Brigade was afforded. Twenty-four minutes of hardcore blended with noisy Birthday Party-esque post-punk and a sizeable pinch of gothic gloom, it was praised so vociferously that the praise itself provoked heated debate, as claims any one band are the “saviours” of an entire genre are wont to do, particularly when said genre is punk.

Iceage seemed entirely unbothered about any ensuing weight of expectation. If they didn’t exactly sound like a completely different band on 2014’s Plowing Into the Field of Love, they were still doing things you would never have imagined the authors of New Brigade doing: piano ballads, country-rock and, on Abundant Living, attempting to join the dots between Howlin’ Wolf’s Smokestack Lightning and the ramshackle sound of frontman Elias Rønnenfelt’s favourites the Pogues. In 2018, Beyondless offered Dexys-style horns, New Orleans jazz and a track that sounded like mid-80s U2 equipped with a string section. By 2021’s Seek Shelter, they had a gospel choir on board and mixed anthemic songs – imagine Oasis mired in angst, gloom and distortion – with tracks that interpolated the Carter Family’s Can the Circle Be Unbroken? or bore the influence of French chanson.

Alan Milburn warns of ‘lost generation’ after number of young people not in work or education rises to more than 1m

• ‘A record of failure’: what’s in first part of Milburn report?

• Tell us: we would like to hear from young people in the UK about their job hunting experience

Britain risks a financial hit worth £125bn a year from a worsening crisis in youth worklessness after a rise in the number of young people not in employment or education to more than 1 million.

In a landmark government-backed report, Alan Milburn warned that Britain’s economy and the public finances were losing billions of pounds a year amid the growing risk of a “lost generation” of young people.

US president’s move comes as both sides try to prevent fresh ceasefire breaches scuppering a potential deal

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has circulated a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran among allies including Israel as both sides try to prevent fresh breaches of the ceasefire escalating out of control and scuppering any deal.

In an attempt to speed up the negotiations, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington on Friday to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.

Labour’s Makerfield byelection candidate understood to have changed stance on no recourse to public funds policy

• UK politics live – latest updates

Andy Burnham has rolled back from his previous calls for ministers to scrap a restriction on immigrants claiming benefits as the Makerfield byelection places greater scrutiny on his policy positions.

As Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham has called several times for an end to the rule known as no recourse to public funds (NRPF), which since 1999 has prevented people moving to the UK getting access to benefits or public housing before they are granted settled status.

Decision draws criticism from some commentators and free speech advocates as well as Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch

The British Museum has postponed a lecture for Jewish culture month over concerns that the event would be disrupted by protesters.

The museum announced that the talk on ancient Israel and Judah, which was scheduled to take place on Thursday, would be held at a later date yet to be decided.

Energy specialists say abandoning net zero and increasing oil and gas drilling would cause more instability for Britons

• UK politics live – latest updates

Abandoning net zero and drilling for more oil and gas in the North Sea would be a massive setback for the UK and would not help the economy, leading experts have said in response to claims by the former prime minister Tony Blair.

“This is a bizarre intervention to make during the worst May heatwave on record and when the Iran crisis is providing yet more evidence of the enormous costs of oil and gas,” said Ed Matthew, the UK programme director at the E3G thinktank. “Clean energy is cheaper energy – it protects our bills from prices skyrocketing, its running costs are virtually zero, and it doesn’t cause climate change which threatens economic collapse ... The government should ignore Blair’s ideological nonsense and focus on what works.”

Staff members claim hit Channel 4 show’s culture was ‘toxic from the top down’ amid allegations of rape by female cast members

Married at First Sight UK had an “unhealthy” focus on whether cast members were having sex, former and current workers on the show have said.

One former crew member said the culture on the hit Channel 4 show was “toxic from the top down”. The claims from crew members were reported by the BBC, which previously broadcast allegations from two female cast members that they were raped by their on-screen partners.

First details of agreement published, heralding end to EU-UK checks on dairy products, eggs, fish and fresh red meat

• Business live – latest updates

The EU and UK have signalled an end to Brexit “sausage wars” with the first details of a new food exports agreement being published by the British government.

The deal will mean no more paperwork or physical checks on dairy, fish, cheese, eggs and fresh red meat from the summer of 2027 for both British exporters to the EU and EU exporters to the UK.

Datacentres used 22% of country’s electricity last year, pushing up household bills, study suggests

Energy demand by datacentres in Ireland has added hundreds of euros to household electricity bills in a pattern that could be replicated across Europe, according to a report.

Ireland’s growing number of datacentres last year used 22% of the country’s electricity, more than all urban homes combined, according to the Central Statistics Office. The equivalent figure in the US and UK is 6%.

Wicked co-star said reactions to the incident, which included suggestions she was Grande’s ‘bodyguard’, reflect an insidious view of Black women

Wicked star Cynthia Erivo has said that reactions to the incident at the Singapore premiere of Wicked: For Good, in which she stepped in to fend off a red-carpet invader who grabbed co-star Ariana Grande, revealed “the insidious nature of how we view Black women” and put her off campaigning for Oscars.

In an interview with Variety, Erivo said that she and Grande were “terrified” when Johnson Wen jumped a barrier at Universal Studios Singapore and rushed towards them. “Nobody moved. Nobody moved. So I moved because my brain went, ‘Get him away! Get him out of here!’ … And what people couldn’t see is that he wouldn’t let go [of Grande]. He wouldn’t let go. So I just kept pushing at him to get him off.”

Medics battling the incurable disease in Democratic Republic of the Congo working in ‘agonising’ conditions

When Dr Vladimir Maduali died of Ebola in the early hours of Sunday morning, he was the fourth member of staff at his hospital to be killed by the disease in as many days. Two days later, his colleague Dr Tibenderana Katho Blaise also died of the disease at the Bunia Evangelical medical centre, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Maduali graduated from the University of Bunia just three years ago and had been working in the Rwampara region, one of the areas of eastern DRC’s Ituri province worst hit by Ebola. The 30-year-old died at Rwampara’s isolation centre, where he had spent two days on oxygen therapy, according to his family.

One of disco’s biggest stars answers your questions, recalling tours with Rick James, inspiration for Destiny’s Child and what she wished she asked Michael Jackson

You have been an active contributor to an astounding canon of music. What was the essential ingredient that made it all happen? eamonmcc
The first word that comes to mind is passion – for the music, for what I do. If you get to be the voice of a song like We Are Family, which is here for generations to come – to me, it’s more than a song, it’s a statement – it just blows my mind. We were the group that brought the world together as a family through a song.

I reckon if you put a rocker, a pop fan, a metalhead, a hip-hop nut, a techno obsessive and a classical devotee into a room and put on Lost in Music, everybody would get down. What’s your own relationship with the song? DeJongandtherestless
The song we’re known for is We Are Family, but we’re really Lost in Music. That should be the theme song for Sister Sledge. I’ve been doing this since I was 11 years old, but in order to survive the industry there has to be a balance. There were times, especially in the early days, where we toured so much that we couldn’t come up for air, and that, if anything, makes me relate to those lyrics.

As part of a growing anti-tech movement, startup dumb.co is pushing flip phones as a way for young people to find ‘social and spiritual freedom’

“They aren’t as dumb as they look,” our facilitator said, referring to the dark gray flip phone in his hand. He just as easily could have been talking about us, the 28 New York residents before him who had signed up to use the device for the entire month of March. He explained that the relic was loaded with WhatsApp, iMessage, Google Maps, Uber, Microsoft 2FA – nothing like my seventh-grade flip phone.

We each had paid $75 to participate in Month Offline, or MO, a program that challenged us to swear off our smartphones entirely. Another $25 went to dumb.co, the company behind MO, for the so-called dumbphones we would use as we navigated daily life.

Four days before what would have been her 100th birthday, Hollywood legends look back on their friendships with a woman who, underneath the studio sheen, was warm, supportive and empathetic

You can judge a woman by the people she surrounds herself with. For the last few months I’ve been talking to the people Marilyn Monroe surrounded herself with, during her eventful 36 years on earth. Ostensibly and primarily, I was doing this to make a radio documentary, which begins on what would have been her 100th birthday. But I also had a secret secondary motive: I wanted to find out if – maybe in another life – Marilyn and I might have been friends.

The first thing to say about Monroe’s friends is that she had a lot of them. The fact that more than six decades have passed since her death, and it’s still possible to find enough living people to interview, tells you something. This is all the more surprising because MM (as she’s sometimes referred to in fan circles) seems far too much the archetypal, immortal screen goddess to do anything as ordinary as have mates. And while it’s possible to imagine her trailed by a harem of pathetically adoring men – like Tom Ewell’s character in The Seven Year Itch – her sex-symbol image means people find it harder to envisage her having real friendships with women.

Knowing time is finite is not easy, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith, but you’re not alone in this feeling

• Read more Leading questions

I think I’ve finally hit my midlife crisis. People always talk about it as something dramatic that you should somehow prepare for, but for me it arrived quietly. And now that it’s finally staring me in the face, it feels like the end of my days.

I had a career in social care that I eventually abandoned after being completely burnt out by the pandemic. I moved into a different sector hoping I’d feel inspired again, or at least freer, but I don’t. Now I’m burnt out all over again, unemployed, and completely unsure what I’m supposed to do with my life.

She made millions as a tween and teenager by posting clips of herself and her friends on YouTube. Then the business collapsed amid acrimony. What does her success in the adult industry, at 18, say about surveillance, social media and sexualisation?

‘Honestly, the answer is kind of gross,” says Piper Rockelle, in a recent TikTok video, reflecting on why she is so popular on OnlyFans. In the clip, she fidgets her fingers and swings in her swivel chair. “It’s because I look so young. I mean, I am really young. I’m literally like fresh turned 18 … and people kind of like that, unfortunately.”

This is an accurate and honest assessment. At the end of last year, not long after turning 18, the former child star and teen influencer began an online countdown, telling her millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram that she would be launching herself on OnlyFans on 1 January. Every day or so since, she has posted pictures of herself on the platform, sometimes posing in a typical teenager’s bedroom – a pink cuddly stuffed pig on the bed behind her, fairy lights on the wall – wearing teddy-bear-themed pants and bras, or fluffy underwear decorated with bunny-rabbit faces and floppy ears.

Amy is worried about microplastics. Melanie says she can’t bin everything. Whose argument is toxic? You decide
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I want to live a healthier life too, but removing all plastics is unrealistic and unaffordable

No one’s name appears in the Epstein files more than that of Lesley Groff, his assistant. Reading through the thousands of emails, a troubling question arises: what did she know?

Jonathan Whitcomb, attorney for Lesley Groff, 5 June 2020

“She did not know.”

FBI interview with Lesley Groff, 24 September 2021

Groff met with a headhunter, and he told her that “there was a job to organize one man’s life. This man was EPSTEIN, a Manhattan socialite. GROFF had never heard of EPSTEIN before this.”

Interview with Lesley Groff in the New York Times, 5 February 2005

“It comes down to the bond. I know what he is thinking and I know when I need to be fast. It’s a nice roll we are on.”

The decision to charge Raúl Castro is grimly reminiscent of the run-up to Trump’s military operation in Venezuela. Meanwhile, the Cuban people are suffering needlessly

The US war machine has turned its sights on Cuba. Marco Rubio, the Cuban-American secretary of state who has long craved the fall of the island’s communist government, made that clear again last week. While professing a preference for a “negotiated settlement”, he said the chances of a deal were “not high”. A couple of months ago, I saw up close the economic devastation already inflicted by decades of US siege – and, since January, by a crippling oil blockade introduced by Donald Trump.

The US has now charged the country’s former president Raúl Castro with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft over the downing of two planes in 1996. The evidence points increasingly in one direction: it is all grimly reminiscent of the indictment of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, used to justify his kidnapping by US forces.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Only the Greens can actually counter Reform UK – Labour is out of touch and partly responsible for the hard right’s rise

The Green party of England and Wales has announced Sarah Wakefield as its candidate for the upcoming Makerfield byelection. The constituency is split between Greater Manchester and Wigan, and the latter’s council saw a surge in support for Reform in the latest local elections, with the party taking 24 of the 25 seats up for grabs.

The showdown between Labour’s Andy Burnham, the Greens, Conservatives and Reform UK will be seen as a test case for how Labour would fare under Burnham as leader against the national threat of Reform UK in the next election. It is within this context that there has been internal discussion in the Green party about it stepping aside in the seat so that it does not split the progressive vote and, in so doing, allow Reform to win the seat. “A vote for the Greens in Makerfield is a vote for Reform” is a common slogan being shared by Labour party members.

In a world determined to isolate us, it is such a pleasure to connect two people I know and love and watch their friendship take off

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Last week I went to a beloved friend’s 40th birthday, and I got to witness something I deeply believe about friendship distilled in one room.

Sitting around a table full of mutual friends, screaming and laughing in a way that would usually be annoying, the subject of how everyone had become friends with the birthday boy came up. I’ll call him Ben.

“In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out. By myself I am not large enough to call the whole man into activity; I want other lights than my own to show all his facets.”

Rebecca Shaw is a writer based in Sydney

Before having a child, I had endless days to think about writing. Now, half an hour can suddenly become a window of creativity

Becoming a parent is hard. Eight to 12 hours a day are spent breastfeeding or preparing formula milk and washing bottles. In addition, there is carrying, singing, soothing, putting to sleep, trying to sleep yourself and waking up to repeat this several times a night. So many new activities that before were unknown, filling up every day.

This is time that was once completely at your own discretion, and the new constriction is a shock.

Tania Roettger is a journalist based in Berlin

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.

Monitors estimate 17,500 people have been sent to countries they may never have visited – and where they could face further danger

José Yugar-Cruz spent 17 months in a county jail in Muscatine, Iowa, despite never having committed a crime.

Originally from Bolivia, he entered the United States legally at the Arizona border in July 2024, affirmatively approached authorities, and requested asylum. Six months later, a US immigration judge found he had been tortured in Bolivia, would probably face torture again if returned, and barred his removal to his home country. The government did not appeal. Yugar-Cruz was not released for almost a year. Instead, ICE spent months searching unsuccessfully for somewhere else to send him. He finally won his release in December 2025.

Be more strident and ambitious, take on economic inequality, and progressive voters will reward you as they have the UK’s Greens

• Tarik Abou-Chadi is a professor of European politics at the University of Oxford

European Green parties have been through a phase of stagnation and crisis in recent years. Long gone seem the days of the “green wave” across Europe. Back in 2019, Green parties secured their best-ever result in the European parliament elections, with 74 seats. In the same year, Green parties also scored record results in Switzerland, Belgium and Austria. Shortly after, they were part of governing coalitions in Finland, Germany, Ireland and Austria.

But more recently, there has been much discussion of a “greenlash”: a backlash against climate policies and other green projects throughout Europe. Across the continent, Green parties dropped out of nearly all government coalitions, and these parties’ recent election results have often failed to meet expectations. With apparently declining enthusiasm for the climate movement, and the decreasing salience of climate breakdown at the ballot box, Green parties are debating how to turn their fortunes around.

Tarik Abou-Chadi is a professor of European politics at the University of Oxford

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.

Civilians including children are among the thousands to have died in this war, yet the world is paying remarkably little attention

Lebanon was an afterthought when Israel and the US were bombing Iran, and remained one when they stopped. It still appears to be one even as Washington and Tehran speak of peace. The US has suggested that a deal is within reach, and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday that a return to war was unlikely, though profound differences remain evident. Tehran says that Lebanon must be part of any agreement.

Yet this week, Lebanon’s supposed ceasefire looks more threadbare than ever, with Israel intensifying its offensive as Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hezbollah. Israeli strikes killed 31 people on Tuesday alone, and on Wednesday the military ordered the evacuation of the entire city of Tyre. Its troops have pushed out of the buffer zone that it established in the south, which far-right ministers want to annex. Israel may be intensifying attacks before the US reins it in, or in the hope of destabilising the talks. War allows Mr Netanyahu to dodge accountability at home. Domestic demands for continued attacks on Hezbollah are also growing, given the mounting threat from its drones to soldiers in Lebanon and residents of Israel’s north.

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.

A scathing essay by the former prime minister rehashes assumptions that underpinned his own rise to power. But the challenges are quite different now

A paradox lies at the heart of Sir Tony Blair’s latest sermon to a Labour party that he seems actively to dislike these days. The 5,700-word intervention, published on the website of his Institute for Global Change, emphasises the sheer novelty of challenges such as the AI revolution and the rise of insurgent populism in western democracies. Yet the advice he offers is based on assumptions unchanged since he was bashing “old Labour” in the 1990s.

In his essay, Sir Tony suggests that Labour’s “infinite capacity for self-delusion” is set to lose it the next election, irrespective of who is leading the party and the country by then. Only if it embodies a “radical centre”, he argues, can the government deliver the rises in growth and productivity that Britain desperately needs. This, it turns out, means rejecting more or less any policy that smacks of progressive ambition and intent.

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.

Readers respond to warnings from the Climate Change Committee and the fact that heatwaves are becoming the norm

The latest warnings from the Climate Change Committee (CCC) may come as a shock to some readers (UK ‘built for climate that no longer exists’ and needs urgent changes to survive global heating, report warns, 20 May). For those of us who study these systems, it’s no surprise. Britain has kicked the can down the road for too long, leaving the UK dangerously exposed to the impacts of climate change.

When we picture national security, we think of fighter jets, ships and soldiers, but if we can’t grow our own food or keep our homes safe from flooding, the most immediate threat is to ordinary life. This is not alarmism. As the CCC report shows, our high-grade farmland in England and Wales could collapse from 40% to just over 10% by 2050, striking at our ability to feed ourselves. Without restoring our ecosystems, building resilience and making climate adaptation a priority across all of government, we are playing with the future of our communities.

Readers respond to the Green MP Carla Denyer’s decision to take time out from her work

Gaby Hinsliff’s excellent article about the Green MP Carla Denyer (The curse of burnout Britain affects politicians as much as everyone else: give Carla Denyer a break, 26 May) powerfully articulates a reality faced by far too many. As a volunteer taking calls for Headrest, a helpline supporting school leaders, I regularly hear evidence of the pressures she describes.

Many school leaders experience the “moral injury” Hinsliff identifies, particularly around the provision of special educational needs and disabilities, where rising demand too often has to be met from inadequate funding.

Readers respond to Simon Jenkins’ article in which he called for the project to be scrapped

Simon Jenkins’ argument is shortsighted and ignores the fundamental reason that HS2 was designed in the first place – the west coast mainline is full and the UK is rattling towards its worst transport bottleneck (HS2 is the wildest white elephant in British history. Please put it out of its misery, 21 May). Cost and schedule overruns invite legitimate scrutiny and reflect failures that must be addressed. But they do not invalidate the need for additional rail capacity that will deliver transformational benefits to the north, including vital freight capacity and improved regional connectivity.

With unemployment on the rise, major infrastructure programmes aren’t just about capacity and connectivity. They are critical to creating high-quality careers and supporting the UK supply chain. HS2 is already doing both. From tunnel facilities in Hartlepool to working with local West Midlands firms, HS2 is supporting more than 30,000 jobs, sustaining highly skilled workers and apprenticeships, and strengthening small and medium-sized enterprises across every region. The bridges, viaducts and tunnels delivered so far are a testament to this country’s continued engineering excellence.

Richard Hawkes of Oxfam GB responds to an article by Halima Begum calling for the ‘dinosaurs’ of international aid to adapt

We welcome Halima Begum’s article and the important challenge it sets out for the international development sector (The dinosaurs of international aid must adapt or die – their expensive era is over, 22 May). There is much that we at Oxfam agree upon.

The need for change goes far beyond large international NGOs. The whole system must evolve, including international NGOs, governments, donors, funders and multilateral institutions, if we are serious about shifting power and resources closer to communities.

Updates from the fifth day’s play at Roland Garros
Top seed Sinner crashes out in second round | Mail Daniel

Back with Kouame, he’s up advantage, takes control of the next rally, and a deep backhand incites Vallejo to net on the forehand! The 17-year-old takes the first set 6-3, with two breaks, and Lenglen is jumping!

Kouame holds for 5-3, then makes 30-40 and set point; Vallejo saves it well, serving out wide then putting away a shoulder-high volley. But he’s soon down advantage, Kouame missing his backhand down the line to restore deuce, but Vallejo shanks his forehand so back round we go. Meantime, Jovic outlasts Navarro in a protracted game on 14, taking her sixth break point to leads 6-0 2-0. She’s taking an experienced top-10 talent to the absolute cleaners.

• The 23-time grand slam champion set for London return

• American last appeared on court in New York in 2022

Serena Williams is considering a return to elite tennis on the grass courts of Queen’s Club in London in 10 days’ time.

The 23-time grand slam singles champion has been back in the drug testing pool for six months so has a green light to make her comeback aged 44.

With Oliver Glasner departing and key players coveted by big clubs, Conference League winners’ future is unclear

After everything Steve Parish has been through over the past 12 months, he was just about able to compose himself. The man who fell in love with Crystal Palace as an 11-year-old schoolboy when they reached the FA Cup semi-final for the first time in 1976 from the old Third Division and stepped in to save his club from administration in 2010 reflected with pride on the journey that has taken them to three trophies under the shrewd management of Oliver Glasner.

“It’s incredible,” said Parish after Jean-Philippe Mateta’s goal against Rayo Vallecano in Leipzig sealed their triumph in the Conference League. “An amazing achievement. All the ups and downs … To get to the Europa League, where we deserve to be. It just shows you: sometimes the good guys win. When I bought the club I wasn’t sure we’d ever play in Europe, let alone win a trophy. It’s a dream come true.”

• Manager’s deal announced shortly before World Cup

• Clarke will have served for 11 years if he sees out contract

Scotland’s manager, Steve Clarke, has signed a four-year contract extension, meaning he will remain in place until the end of the country’s 2030 World Cup campaign. The fresh, improved terms are no surprise but the length of deal will raise eyebrows given Clarke has been in position since 2019. Should he complete the term, he will become Scotland men’s longest-serving manager.

Clarke had initially been publicly confident he would step away after this summer’s World Cup. The 62-year-old has taken Scotland to three tournaments from a possible four, with this World Cup a first since 1998. More recently, Clarke spoke of remaining in post.

Jurriën Timber’s likely unavailability means a reshuffle that will affect selections in all areas of the side

It would be easy to look at Saturday’s Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Arsenal and see it as a battle of attack versus defence, of beauty against pragmatism, of French elan against English doughtiness, as some sort of tussle for the soul of football. But it would not entirely be true. And where, after all, was the honour at Agincourt? In the vainglorious charges of the dashing French cavalry or the stoic defiance of the British archers arrayed, naked from the waist down, behind their defensive stakes?

On the one hand, the stats look stark. In the Champions League this season, Paris Saint-Germain have averaged 63.4% possession, higher than anybody apart from Barcelona; Arsenal’s figure is 52.6%, the 11th-highest of the 36 sides who made the league stage. PSG’s pass completion has been 89.3% to Arsenal’s 85.7% (third-highest to 14th-highest). PSG have scored 44 goals to Arsenal’s 29. But on the flip side, Arsenal have conceded six goals to PSG’s 22 and won 13.4 aerial duels per game to PSG’s 9.4 (sixth-highest to 29th-highest).

Inter bounced back under Cristian Chivu, Como made a splash, and Scott McTominay kept Napoli ticking

This has not been a happy year for Italian football. The men’s national team failed to qualify for a third consecutive World Cup, while Serie A clubs endured one humiliation after another in Uefa competition.

Inter went from Champions League finalists to elimination in the playoff round by Bodø/Glimt, while Juventus conceded seven goals to Galatasaray. They both did better than last year’s Scudetto winners, Napoli, who failed to even get through the group stage. At least Atalanta rescued Italy from having no representatives in the last 16 for the first time in almost 40 years when they overturned a two-goal deficit against Borussia Dortmund. And then they got walloped 10-2 on aggregate by Bayern Munich.

Portuguese club come from a city of 19,000 people and their stadium holds 2,400 – next season they’ll be up against the best in Europe, and they can’t wait

For the first time ever, the blue-and-garnet colours of SCU Torreense will be worn in a continental tournament. Based in the city of Torres Vedras, about 30 miles north of Lisbon, they qualified for the Women’s Champions League after finishing third in Portugal’s BPI League. Qualification is just the latest success for the club, which had already won the Taça da Liga and Supertaça this season, after their Taça de Portugal title last year. Over the past few seasons, Torreense have fought to establish themselves as a force in Portuguese women’s football alongside traditional powerhouses Benfica, Sporting and Braga, all of whom have featured in the WCL in recent seasons.

“These have been incredible times, we made history with Torreense,” team captain Carolina Correia tells us. The 24-year-old Portuguese international defender started 15 of 18 league games in a season where the team began inconsistently, but grew stronger and secured important results in the final stretch, including a 2-0 win over Sporting in March. “Looking back to my first days at the club,” Correia continues, “I would never have believed I’d have three trophies and a spot in the Champions League. I’m filled with pride … we are a very ambitious team, and as time goes by, we consolidate our style and achieve our goals. These achievements will for ever be in our memories and, of course, in our history.”

Former England defender on why he walked out on Arsenal, their chances in the Champions League final and Tuchel wielding the axe

“They’ve got a wonderful group of players and a great manager in Mikel Arteta but having come so close three times on the bounce I felt these guys needed it,” Sol Campbell says of Arsenal winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years since, in 2004, he was the cornerstone of their defence for the Invincibles. His team remained unbeaten throughout that historic league season, but the pressure on his successors has been immense.

“The wait has been so heavy and it was all pent up, building year after year, always coming so close but never getting over the line,” he says. “That’s why you saw such an outpouring of joy and togetherness. It’s been incredible because we’ve been waiting such a long time.”

• Head coach ‘confident our best cricket is in front of us’

• Issues with alcohol among tourists due to ‘distractions’

Brendon McCullum has promised to use “a firm grip” to eradicate issues with alcohol and attitude among the England squad, admitting that “there were some mistakes made” by his players during last winter’s tours of New Zealand and Australia.

In his first interview since returning to England for the start of the international summer, with the first Test against New Zealand starting at Lord’s next Thursday, McCullum conceded that his team had proved unable to handle the pressure of an away Ashes series.

EU chief diplomat says: ‘Russia is on the back foot, militarily, economically, but also diplomatically’

Meanwhile, Hungary’s Magyar hits a bit more upbeat tone in his latest post on Facebook, saying that while there are still some issues that need to be resolved, the two sides managed to agree a deal on “many important questions.”

In a Facebook video, he takes viewers into a meeting room in Brussels from which he is working on ironing out the final details.

“I will obviously not anticipate or prejudge what will be the outcome of that meeting, but a series of meetings has been taking place, as you know, between the teams on both sides to make as much progress as possible. …

Let’s see what comes out of it. It’s not much more time to wait. We give it another day, and we should know more in terms of how far have we managed to get on both sides.”

The vote to repeal ‘Code Noir’, which saw slaves beaten, raped and killed in France’s colonies, comes almost 180 years after its abolition of slavery

For almost 180 years after France abolished slavery, the “Code Noir” (Black Code) allowing enslaved humans to be treated as property and worked, beaten, sold, raped or killed, remained in place.

On Thursday, the country’s bitterly divided national assembly voted unanimously to repeal it, in a rare show of political unity.

White House made lengthy post about gorilla shot dead at Cincinnati zoo after a toddler entered his enclosure in 2016

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The White House has posted on social media a tribute to mark Thursday’s 10th anniversary of the death of a figure it called “a true patriot”.

The hero was not a human, however; it concerned the infamous case of the 400lb western lowland gorilla that had been named Harambe, which was shot dead at the Cincinnati zoo after a toddler entered his enclosure and interacted with the animal.

Vetting of former UK ambassador to Washington warned of ties to senior figures in China, Russia and Israel

A former head of MI6 has said it would have been “totally impossible” for the Foreign Office to put in place mitigations to manage Peter Mandelson’s associations with senior figures in China, Russia and Israel when he was the UK’s ambassador to the US.

On Wednesday, the Guardian revealed some of the concerns that contributed to security officials recommending that Mandelson be denied developed vetting clearance in early 2025.

Kanishka Narayan says Australia’s pioneering law has contributed to national conversation under way in Britain

The UK’s online safety minister says he has spent a week in Australia learning the “practical lessons” of the country’s under-16s social media ban amid concern that many teenagers are bypassing the law.

The British government is expected to announce a social media crackdown within weeks after a public consultation that could see the UK follow in Australia’s footsteps and restrict access to social media for teens – including age limits or changes to allegedly addictive design features – by the end of this year.

With early tests suggesting the presence of crude oil, the Caribbean island has begun to debate whether it could justify becoming a producer

Jamaica is closer than ever to drilling for oil. Tests on samples from the seabed off the Caribbean island’s south coast earlier this year identified hydrocarbons, which suggest the presence of crude oil below ground.

Jamaica imports all its fuel, which costs about $1.5-2bn (£1.1bn-1.5bn) annually, depending on global oil prices. It is a persistent drag on an economy that generated $4.3bn from tourism, its biggest earner, in 2024.

Investigators are still searching for what caused the recent deaths of a mother and her calf, but conservationists say the animal’s shrinking habitat may be the first place to look

The two elephants were found dead in the Indonesian province of Bengkulu, in an area of “production forest” in southern Sumatra. The mother and her calf were lying side by side with their tusks still intact.

Unlikely to be poachers, the cause of their deaths – and that of a tiger nearby – at the end of April is still being investigated but conservationists say this is not an isolated case. It is estimated that seven wild elephants have died in Bengkulu since 2018.

Caistor St Edmund, Norfolk: Adult swallows travel across the world to breed in Britain’s supposedly temperate climate. Instead, this week’s temperatures have been deadly

Mouth gaping, the swallow chick leans perilously over the edge of the nest cup. It is young, just a scrap of body, and at least a week away from being ready to fledge. But under the tin roof the heat is rising, becoming unbearable.

The chick perches on the edge of the nest, opening and closing its mouth, trying to stay cool in the absence of sweat glands. Then, it’s hard to tell if it overbalances, seeking cooler air, or makes a decision. Either way, it plunges down, dropping with no hope of flight. Somehow it misses the hard breezeblock ledge, and fortunately lands on the horse bedding.

The WasteBar food truck hopes the eye-catching deal will change people’s attitude to waste in the Netherlands

Using cigarette butts to buy buttery Dutch pancakes? That is the deal one food truck is offering at festivals in the Netherlands as a way to get people thinking about litter.

Cigarette butts are the most common form of plastic waste in the world, with more than 4.5tn butts produced every year. In the Netherlands the estimated figure is in the hundreds of millions.

Government will consider committee’s guidance, which says mass screening ‘likely to cause more harm than good’

Most men in the UK will not be offered prostate cancer screening if the government accepts the final recommendation of an expert committee.

The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) said attempting to detect the disease using the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test was “likely to cause more harm than good”.

Pathologist found Andrew Frederick’s death was a homicide but UK authorities refused specialist help

The grieving family of a British man found dead in his home on the Caribbean island of Grenada have accused UK authorities of failing to support their fight for justice.

The family of Andrew Frederick, 47, whose body was discovered on 4 January, are calling for an urgent review of the policies governing UK assistance to the loved ones of Britons killed abroad.

As the UK experiences some of its hottest ever May weather, five people share their concerns – and tips for keeping cool

The UK is experiencing some of the hottest May weather ever recorded, with temperatures surpassing 35C in parts of England on Tuesday.

Campaigners have warned that Britain’s public buildings are dangerously unprepared for rising temperatures, calling for better cooling systems in hospitals, care homes and other spaces used by vulnerable people.

Changes are part of sweeping shake-up by Victoria Easton Riley, BBC Scotland’s new head of audio and events

There is a “deep sense of unease” among staff at BBC Radio Scotland after a succession of respected arts presenters, more than half of them women, were dropped from schedules.

The changes have prompted questions about diversity of coverage amid an apparent shift to a “more commercial sensibility” for the public broadcaster.

Beran A, 21, apologises as court adjourns to consider verdict after alleged plan to attack fans outside stadium in 2024

A man who admitted plotting to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago told an Austrian court before the verdict in his trial that he was sorry.

The plot was thwarted but Austrian authorities still cancelled Swift’s three performances in August 2024.

The lawsuit is one of several that the president has brought in his personal capacity against news organizations

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In one of the opinions shared by the Supreme Court Thursday morning, the Court has ruled in favor of a Black man who claims that there was racial bias in the make up of the jury that convicted him.

In Pitchford v Cain, five of the Court’s justices sided with Terry Pitchford, a man sentenced to death for his part in killing a grocery story owner in Mississippi, over 20 years ago, reported AP.

Trump v Cook: Donald Trump’s case for firing Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, as he continues to exert greater control over the US central bank.

Trump v Slaughter: A case which examines the legality of Trump’s firing of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) member, Rebecca Slaughter.

Trump v Barbara: In which the court will decide if the administration’s attempts to restrict birthright citizenship are unconstitutional.

It’s a thumbs up from the country’s 3 million students, who can now buy cheap meals up to twice a day

Where in France can you get a nutritious and balanced three-course meal for €1?

If you are one of the country’s estimated 3 million students in higher education, the answer is: the university restaurant or cafe.

European Commission finds shoppers on Chinese website very likely to find unsafe items and imposes €200m penalty

EU regulators have fined the Chinese shopping website Temu €200m (£173m) for failing to stop the sale of illegal and dangerous products.

The European Commission imposed the penalty after a 19-month investigation that found consumers were very likely to encounter illegal or unsafe products including baby toys and electronics on the firm’s website.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as number of UK ‘Neets’ hits 12-year high

• UK risks £125bn hit a year from youth unemployment, landmark report says

• We would like to hear from young people in the UK about their job hunting experience

Elsewhere this morning, Labour has adopted regulations intended to prevent local councils from going bust after they make risky investments that jeopardise their finances.

Ministers will be handed powers to intervene that have been dormant since 2003, the ministry of housing, communities and local government (MHCLG) said.

“In Woking, Thurrock, and other councils we’ve seen poor investment decisions leaving taxpayers footing a big bill.

“We can’t afford to wait until a council is on the brink of collapse to act. That’s why we want to bring in new powers so we can identify the risks and act before its too late.”

“Many of Alan Milburn’s findings reflect the evidence received in our own inquiry on Youth Employment, Education and Training. We await Mr Milburn’s conclusions and recommendations, but when giving evidence to the Select Committee, he referred to the causes of the current youth employment crisis being as broad as they are deep. It’s clear that whatever his recommendations, it will require systemic change, needing a whole government approach to fix this.

“We agree that this is not the so-called ‘snowflake’ generation that too many have referred to. But the urgency must be recognised. We cannot see the lives of so many young people be blighted in this way.

Barratt Redrow boss says rising interest rates, higher student debt and squeeze on wages hitting property dream

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The boss of Britain’s largest housebuilder has said it is the most challenging time to be a first-time buyer since the financial crisis, as the dream of home ownership moves increasingly out of reach for many young people.

A combination of rising interest rates, higher levels of student debt and the squeeze on wages is making it “challenging, very, very difficult” for young people to get on the housing ladder, according to David Thomas, the departing chief executive of Barratt Redrow.

Joshua Schulman – hired to help revive brand – was paid £4m in year to March, including bonus and relocation support

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The boss of Burberry could earn up to £12.2m after the luxury British brand introduced a new bonus scheme.

Joshua Schulman, a former chief executive of the US fashion brand Coach who was hired in July 2024 to help revive Burberry, was paid £4m in the year to March, up from £2.5m for his first nine months in the job.

Finnish-US startup has sold 5.5m rings worldwide since it was founded in 2013 and is valued at $11bn

Stylish Finnish-American smart ring company Oura may be the darling of wearables, adorning the fingers of celebrities and sportspeople, but it is not resting on its laurels as it heads towards an IPO later this year. This week it launched the world’s smallest smart ring, the Ring 5, its latest evolution of the device that defined a whole category.

The Ring 5 is 40% smaller and with longer battery life than the highly popular Ring 4. It also promises to squeeze the health-tracking features of a smartwatch into a less techy piece of jewellery just 2.28mm thick, focused on sleep, stress, readiness and heart health.

Joel de Mowbray’s salvage scheme began as a small milk float converted into a logging vehicle – now he’s part of Tipping Point East, a massive site designed to divert valuable waste materials to builders that need it

Joel de Mowbray reached breaking point with UK construction in south London in 2020. He was working on a lovely building project, part of Lambeth council’s scheme to make streets more pedestrian-friendly. De Mowbray was installing a public wooden seating area in an underused stretch of street.

“The council were doing treeworks the entire time we were building, felling trees right next to us,” he says. “But we had to go to Ashdown Forest for our supplies. That felt bonkers to me: they were creating the exact material we needed next to our site.”

Poignant, hilarious, loaded with a super-sharp script … the second outing for this midlife comedy is even more fantastic than the first

Middle age is a brutal time of life. As those of us mired in it know, it’s perfectly suited to being mined for laughs (the unhinged type of laughs that are bound up with tears, crisis, and, inevitably, death.) But still too few comedy series take this pressured segment of time and squeeze it for all its acidic worth. Enter middle-aged joke machine Tina Fey, who with The Four Seasons – her zippy 2020s update of the 1980s film of the same name, co-created and written with Tracey Wigfield and Lang Fisher – has triumphed once again. The second season of her midlife comedy drama is even more perspicacious, poignant and hilarious than the first.

Again there are four fancy holidays split across the seasons, each one given two gag-packed episodes – a rigid but neat structural device that allows the big moments to happen off-screen. Meanwhile we get the aftermath soundtracked by an avalanche of Vivaldi and bracing jokes about sad lonely donkeys, secret vapes mistaken for thumb drives, and the tragicomedy of being an angry, unravelling fiftysomething man in a T-shirt printed with “Keep Calm and Fuhgeddaboutit”.

Fairyland is a bittersweet film about a girl brought up by her gay father in a blizzard of glitter and feather boas in 1970s San Francisco. Its makers discuss its resonance, its tragedies – and their own boho childhoods

When Sofia Coppola logs on to our video call, her friend and fellow film-maker Andrew Durham – whose directorial debut, Fairyland, she has produced – is telling me about being nine or 10 years old, and accidentally outing his father as gay.

“Have you heard this story, Sofia?” he asks breezily from Los Angeles. “About Pietro? The Italian guy that my dad was maybe having an affair with when we lived in England?” At home in New York, Coppola furrows her brow. “Uh, yeah. A long time ago, I think. I forgot …”

Sam Campbell’s show-within-a-show is like Changing Rooms but for would-be film directors. Plus, the transformation of Vladimir Putin. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Channel 4
Created and written by Last One Laughing’s breakout star Sam Campbell, and directed by Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared’s Joe Pelling, this new comedy about a director who turns ordinary people’s movie ideas into reality is inevitably absurdist fun. First up is Mick, who pitches a man and a woman who can turn into snakes. Cue real snake auditions, a creepy intimacy coordinator called Sebastian and a great pan pipe theme tune. Hollie Richardson

Irish writer-director John Carney brilliantly brings together Rudd’s washed up wedding-singer and Jonas’s insecure ex-boyband superstar

Once again, Irish writer-director John Carney delivers an aspartame rush of enjoyment with this terrific comedy of bromance and betrayal in the world of music, starring Nick Jonas (from the Jonas Brothers) as Danny Wilson, a preeningly insecure ex-boyband superstar trying to go solo and searching for a hit single, and Paul Rudd as Rick Power, a washed up wedding-singer who rashly plays Danny a catchy song he’s been working on.

Power Ballad is about making it and dreaming big, about every busker never giving up on hopes of one day being mega. But as so often with Carney, it’s about something else, usually left unacknowledged in movies about music or any sort of showbusiness: the terrible binary of success and failure. For every star there is an invisible army of losers, the sad cases who used to be the star’s home town friends or early collaborators and have a lifelong task ahead of them coming to terms with not making it. In the bitter words of Les McQueen, rhythm guitarist for failed 70s group Crème Brulee on TV’s The League of Gentlemen: “It’s a shit business …”

This tale of a horny bear on a quest of sexual exploration after his partner leaves him during hibernation is certainly shocking. But can it match the sweetness of its predecessor?

In the first minute of Netflix’s animated comedy Mating Season, a bear wakes up, urinates uncontrollably across his cave, stumbles outside, sees two horny raccoons banging away, then spirals into a deep well of shame about it. At this stage, it is barely worth pointing out that Mating Season is the spiritual successor to the outrageous, witty comedy Big Mouth, so completely does it inhabit that show’s DNA.

And at this point, you will already know if the show is for you or not. Because Big Mouth, as popular as it was, polarised audiences like little else. That show was about the horrors of puberty and sexual awakening, and it was tailored with absolute precision to its target audience of hormone-battered adolescent boys. You could argue that it did this a little too precisely, because its juvenilia was so relentlessly nuclear-powered that plenty of people found themselves turned off by all the sex and farts and swearing.

This compendium of 49 of Britain’s threatened species features lyrical prose poems evoking each bird’s unique qualities and beautiful recordings of their distinctive calls

The Book of Birds delivers a stark warning in its introduction about the “great thinning of the skies … Dawns and springs are quieter; the air emptier. An ancient avian orchestra is falling silent.”

There are now 3 billion fewer birds in North America than there were 50 years ago, and 5 million fewer in Europe. Across the world, almost 50% of bird species are in decline. These figures are the galvanising force behind writer and illustrator Jackie Morris and nature writer Robert Macfarlane’s compendium of 49 bird species under threat in Britain. Each entry is a prose poem aimed at evoking the spirit and the unique qualities of each bird, among them the kingfisher, nightingale, nightjar, song thrush, tern, tawny owl and puffin.

Nash Ensemble/Booth/Farnsworth/Cottis
(Onyx)
Soprano Claire Booth and baritone Marcus Farnsworth celebrate the influential British composer’s kaleidoscopic soundworld with this collection of four song cycles

It’s hard to think of a single figure who has been so influential on contemporary UK classical music for so long as Colin Matthews, who turned 80 earlierthis year. This release from the Nash Ensemble, conducted by Jessica Cottis, showcases his works for voice and chamber group.

What’s striking throughout these four song cycles is the kaleidoscopic sound world he creates with such forensic precision, whether he has seven players to work with or 17. The songs teem with detail; some would almost work without the singer. And yet the vocal line remains the focus.

The German duo are returning with the results of their whirlwind session with the late dub legend, best heard in a ‘spatial audio’ installation. They explain why such an unexpected move is par for their artistic course

Interviewing Mouse on Mars is no easy feat. Not because the duo are hard to find, even though their current studio is hidden in a courtyard deep in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. Nor because they continue to be notoriously busy, particularly since one half of the band, Jan St Werner (born Jan Stephan Werner), is now a professor in pop music, at the Folkwang University of the Arts in the western German city of Essen. No, a conversation with Mouse on Mars is an exercise in perseverance and endurance.

Which does not mean it is unpleasurable to chat with Andi Toma and St Werner, as well as their unofficial member and longtime collaborator, the percussionist Dodo NKishi. But any answer to a question may end up somewhere entirely different than originally intended, spanning from the quality of the fruit juice NKishi brought to the studio, to esoteric, tech-optimist digressions on the possibility of forensic resynthesising of the past through archival audio.

The presenter meets remarkable public figures, starting with a lovely talk with writer-actor Meera Syal. Plus, a vital deep dive into US supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch

From Frederick Douglass to Obama, Ben Rhodes shares the speeches that explain America in his new book, All We Say

Donald Trump “has proven Jeremiah Wright correct about a lot of things”, said Ben Rhodes, a former speechwriter and deputy national security adviser to Barack Obama and still a close aide to the ex-president.

“If you look at the things that Jeremiah Wright was kind of canceled for, it was saying America was a nation founded on racism. Well, it’s a fairly common view these days. 9/11 was the chickens coming home to roost? I make versions of that argument every time I write for the New York Times: that American foreign policy has blowback.”

Shortlisted for the Women’s prize, this story of a writer’s infatuation with an older woman begins with bracing verve

Rozie Kelly’s frank and feisty debut novel, which has been shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction, begins with a case of lust at first sight. Our unnamed narrator is a “beautiful” 35-year-old writer in a complicated but loving relationship with the equally beautiful but somewhat boring Michael. The object of his attentions is a famous poet, 17 years his senior, running a popular course at the same university that he, in a minor way, is also attached to. He hardly knows her, but he knows that he wants “to be inside her”. It’s all a bit of a shock. “A woman! What was the world coming to?”

So what’s so special about this one? Well, she’s smart, good-looking, well-dressed, not to mention rich and famous. It is this last fact that seems to exert, at least to begin with, the greatest hold over the infatuated narrator. “I wanted to be her, to be like her, to have her success and to know the people she knew.” But also, as he admits to himself as they sit quietly on a park bench watching the ducks, he would like to subjugate her, “to push her down, to render her imperious intelligence stupid with the weight of my body, with my younger, harder form”.

A personal exploration of the sounds that defined a community, from Soul II Soul to Dizzee Rascal

The year 1989 was a landmark in Black British music: Soul II Soul were on their way to conquering America and Sade had already become a global sensation, while A Guy Called Gerald and Nightmares on Wax had the entire Hacienda dancing to their tunes. It’s a fitting moment for Jesse Bernard (who was born in that year) to start his excellent memoir-cum-cultural history, Escaping Babylon. Structured like a mixtape, it skips between skits and short interludes of fiction and poetry, via the loose narrative of Bernard’s own life as he matures from naughty schoolboy (he was expelled for sticking rotten fish in the school’s radiators) to musical explorer, DJ and journalist.

Bernard’s musical education started in his parents’ car, with Mica Paris, Soul II Soul and Carol Wheeler a constant accompaniment. It continued with Craig David performing 7 Days on Top of the Pops in 2000, one of the first times Bernard saw a “distinctly British R&B” singer. Personal memories like this are described alongside interactions with the artists he’s met over the course of his journalistic career to build an argument about the origins and direction of Black British music. Former Saxon sound system emcee Tippa Irie’s observation that reggae is a tree and that all UK sounds are branches that spring from it informs his approach. Through Bernard we meet and engage with many of that tree’s descendants – from UK funky to grime, jungle and drill.

The author of When I Hit You returns with a pithy, savagely funny tale of online shaming and the Indian manosphere

We can all agree that the internet today, especially two particular platforms owned by the world’s greatest megalomaniacs, is a hellscape. But if you think X and Facebook are purgatories of friendless trolls endlessly posting hate and bullying women, each other and minorities under the guise of free speech, wait till you experience the Indian version of that netherworld, as captured by novelist and poet Meena Kandasamy. Take the worst algorithms in the world, add a billion-and-a-half people, mix in a far-right government with advanced internet skills and bring on the “burning ghats of Indian politics” that include caste and misogyny as well as roiling ethnic and religious antagonisms, and the western version of X begins to look like a children’s playground.

This is the world that Amy Chaturvedi, a posh student activist-communist living in London, wakes up to one day when the internet is set ablaze by a deepfake sex tape. It’s her face, but it’s not her. Don’t get her wrong, Amy is sexually unapologetic and proudly experimental; she has done plenty of transgressive things, she just didn’t do that one video. But try telling that to the Indian manosphere or, in fact, Amy’s mother. “The main aggressors are a disparate bunch of Nazi-loving, Islamophobic vegetarian dicks with profile pictures that are either the Joker or V for Vendetta,” Kandasamy writes. “If these trolls are to be believed, I am a leading member of the tukde-tukde gang of academics who want to balkanise India. I am on Pakistani payroll. I am funded by George Soros.” She nails the weaselly character of the Indian internet troll, exposing all their shameful secrets – their failures with women, their desire to be followed by Prime Minister Modi (it’s a real thing, look it up), their fear of Muslims, and their rage. Kandasamy’s sharp humour provides much-needed relief from the anger of the internet and I found myself laughing many times at her wicked, tart observations.

A gentle daily puzzle is quietly becoming the most joyful part of my morning routine​ and reminds me that not every win needs to be epic

There’s been some pretty big news in the last couple of weeks in video game world: the long-running space shooter Destiny 2 is winding up after almost nine years, PlayStation appears to have decided to stop releasing its flagship single-player games on PC, and Microsoft wants us to look like we’re shouting every time we type XBOX. But the biggest news for me is that I have found my new favourite word game. I am going to be so bold as to call it the new Wordle.

Ribbit is one of the varied suite of daily games on Puzzmo, an online puzzle platform. It launched at the beginning of January, but I only recently discovered it because I have been unwell, bored, and spending too much time on my phone. Puzzmo’s daily hits include a satisfying shape-arranging game, variations on chess that make me feel extremely stupid, and pleasing word games, which are my favourites. Circuits has you making connections between the beginnings and ends of phrases (eg “stone cold > cold medicine > medicine cabinet”) as fast as you can. Bongo gives you a bunch of letter tiles and asks you to arrange them for a maximum score.

PC, Xbox, PlayStation 5; IO Interactive
The stealth masters behind Hitman go loud for this game about Bond’s brilliant beginnings

Given that we’ve not had a great James Bond video game in decades – or any Bond film at all in five years – there’s a lot of pressure on 007 First Light to reinvigorate a British cinematic hero. But developer IO Interactive has been auditioning for this role for some time. It’s there in the globetrotting nature of its Hitman assassination games, starring a besuited hero who knows how to turn a soiree to his deadly purpose; then there’s the developer’s evident eye for corporate opulence and brutalist architecture. Even their in-house game engine, Glacier, sounds like a secret codename cooked up in a Bond villain’s lair. All it would take is a slight shift in Hitman’s moral compass – more old boys club, fewer old boys clubbed – to turn IO’s familiar series into a Bond game with minimal fuss.

007 First Light refuses that easy route. We join young Bond in his pre-00 days, as a petulant, belligerent rule-breaking trainee. Actor Patrick Gibson begins as a cookie-cutter insubordinate, but warms to the role once he’s bouncing off M (herself a green leader looking to make her mark), and an enjoyably urbane Q who drops the frustrated quartermaster routine and introduces Bond to the wonders of vinyl. A scene where he teaches our agent to tie a bow tie is a perfect bit of prequelcraft: arriving at an iconic look through a lovely character touch.

Driving sims were overtaken by open world fantasy adventures, but new upgrades show how much joy there is in the genre

I have spent the last week careening around Japan in a Porsche 911, seeing the sights, racing other cars and occasionally veering off the road to plummet through an ancient bamboo forest. You all know what’s coming next … this wasn’t in real life, folks – it was in Forza Horizon 6, the latest instalment in Microsoft’s series of open world driving games set in authentic-looking, real-world locations.

Reviewing this game (which is out now on Xbox and PC, and coming to PS5 later in the year) has reminded me of the sheer fun and exhilaration that driving games can provide. It’s easy to forget, but this was the biggest genre in town from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Consoles were sold on how good their racing games were: the original PlayStation had Ridge Racer, the Sega Saturn had Daytona USA. Later came the dirt-track thrills of Colin McRae Rally, the chaotic destruction of Burnout, the sophisticated realism of Gran Turismo. They were the bestsellers of the era, showcasing the future of real-time 3D visuals.

Why are Nintendo releasing a straight-up remake of the space-flight shooter – with many of its original limitations – rather than a fresh new take?

The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the background noise to a huge chunk of my youth. But back in the 1990s (in the UK at least), it felt as if nobody had an N64. When everybody had a PlayStation instead, I felt I was the only kid in my whole city who cared more about Banjo-Kazooie than Crash Bandicoot.

If even Zelda seemed comparatively niche in Europe in the 90s, Lylat Wars (known elsewhere as Star Fox 64) was a real deep cut. It’s a 1997 space-flight shooter starring Fox McCloud and his squad of animal pilots laser-blasting across different planets in nimble crafts called Arwings. I played this game to absolute death in 1998, when I got it for my birthday alongside the fabled Rumble Pak, which made your controller vibrate and shudder whenever something cool was happening on screen (fun fact: Lylat Wars was the first console game to feature controller rumble). But I really hadn’t thought about it much since. Then, last week, Nintendo announced a Switch 2 remake.

Orange Tree theatre, Richmond
A stealing sculptor struggles to keep his visitors in the dark, while they lope and grope with the lights out, in Shaffer’s escalating slapstick show

A regular complaint against reviewers and awards ceremonies is lack of recognition for the lighting team. But, in Peter Shaffer’s 1965 play, the “sparks” are the stars.

Inspired by a lamp gag the writer saw in Chinese theatre, a power cut in a south London flat is staged with blazing brightness representing total darkness and vice versa. When a match is struck, the lights dim; a light switch flicked on triggers instant blackout. This conceit requires the cast alternately to find their way unsighted around one of the UK’s tiniest stages and then lope and grope around as if they can’t see each other while we can.

At Orange Tree theatre, Richmond, London, until 11 July

Hit Iranian horror Under the Shadow conjured scares from the aftermath of the 1979 revolution. With Tehran once again under siege, a new theatrical version makes that story feel more relevant than ever

Nadia Latif’s grandmother warned her about djinn. “If angels are good and devils are evil,” the theatre and film director remembers learning, “then the djinn is something in between.” As a child, she asked her grandmother what that really meant. “It means,” she was told, “that bad things happen to good people.” For rehearsals of Carmen Nasr’s stage adaptation of Babak Anvari’s 2016 Iranian horror movie, the djinn-haunted Under the Shadow, Latif has placed a protective evil eye to keep watch over the room. “Just in case,” she says.

The Bafta-winning Farsi horror film – performed on stage in English – is set in Tehran in 1988 as Iraq hurls missiles across the border, with the shadow of the 1979 Iranian revolution still hanging heavy over the country. Shideh, played in the film by Narges Rashidi, hides in her apartment with her doll-hugging, terrified daughter as the story unravels into a deeply political horror. Nightmare and reality collide as the supernatural being becomes an increasingly tangible presence in their home: rumours become real, apparitions stalk the night and opportunities for escape are steadily slashed. “It’s the beginning of most Persian conversations,” says the British-Iranian Leila Farzad, who follows her role as a knowledge-hungry academic in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia by playing Shideh on stage. “Before the revolution or after the revolution. Even 47 years later, it’s the thing that is most talked about. Enqelab, the word for revolution, is one of the first words you hear as an Iranian kid.”

Opera Holland Park, London
Martin Lloyd-Evans’s credible production roots the action in time and place. Amanda Echalaz is a richly drawn and touching Minnie and conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren adds colour and drama

Opera Holland Park opens its 30th season by successfully wrangling one of the art-form’s more problematic children. Ever since its 1910 New York premiere, Puccini’s wild west extravaganza has struggled to attain the kind of foothold in the standard repertoire afforded to Bohème, Butterfly or Tosca. Perhaps it’s the story; a tale of brutal hardship and racial tensions set amid the California gold rush, yet at the same time a dyed-in-the-wool Victorian melodrama. Or maybe it’s a score that leans into 20th-century modernism while gingering up the composer’s trademark lyricism with cakewalks and American dancehall music. Either way, it’s a tricky act to pull off.

Martin Lloyd-Evans’s dramatically insightful production takes its cue from documentary footage of a Yukon mining town, which brings a gritty reality rarely seen in this opera. Anna Reid’s versatile period set and costumes, with a special shout out to hair and makeup, exude authenticity, all atmospherically lit by Jamie Platt. But it’s the 49ers themselves, the opera’s rough and ready bunch of misfits and ne’er-do-wells, that make this staging so memorable. Lloyd-Evans and the tireless Opera Holland Park Chorus manage to differentiate each character, while savvy blocking ensures we follow the sometimes frenetic action with ease. By creating a credible sense of community, the principal players emerge as firmly rooted in time and place.

Southwark Playhouse Borough, London
Writer-performer Jordan Luke Gage delivers a charming, funny and devastating story of two gay men in 18th-century Bristol

Queer history is made up of bad news. The official documents record the raids, the arrests, the executions. The rest – all the raging love and snatches of joy – is largely left for us to imagine. In Jordan Luke Gage’s impressive Redcliffe, the writer-performer fills in the gaps of the lives of William Critchard and Richard Arnold, two men who collided in mid-18th-century Bristol. Inspired by true events romanticised into a musical, this open-hearted production gives them the kind of grand love story that history rarely wrote down.

Gage plays William, a shy local boy whose chemistry crackles with arrogant sailor Richard (Daniel Krikler), docked and staying in the area of Redcliffe for a few days. While there’s a little too much 21st-century mentality to their meet-cute, it’s hard not to fall for their charm and dogged optimism as the pair attempt to carve out a tiny patch of freedom in a world that shuns them for their desires.

At Southwark Playhouse Borough, London, until 4 July

I draw the old way – with my hand. Doing it with AI would not make me more creative, it would drain the colour out of my existence

Last week I went to a gig by myself for the first time. I sat myself down in my single seat, possibly the youngest person in the room and one of thousands excited to see Split Enz. I loved it – I felt joy and heartache as the lyrics spoke of human experiences, really lived. I happily realised that I did not have to wonder whether Split Enz had used AI in their work (as I so often do nowadays) as these bangers were created long before it was even dreamed of.

As a visual artist and writer myself, when I see AI generated images, music or words presented as “art”, I see red. It’s boring, it’s theft, it’s soulless, sterile and it’s killing the planet through energy and water-guzzling datacentres. Someone suggested AI “visual art” should be called “Computer Rendered Artificial Pictures” (CRAP).

Some are bright and cosy, others are starkly depressing – these images of rooms used to pump breast milk expose the sometimes grim reality of being a new mum in the US

Outdoor clothing company is suing US environmentalist drag performer for $1 plus legal fees, claiming ‘we wish we didn’t have to do this’

Patagonia has launched a trademark lawsuit against an environmentalist drag queen named Pattie Gonia, who has accused the outdoor clothing company of “trying to erase an activist”.

Wyn Wiley, who performs as Pattie Gonia, has accumulated millions of followers online for their environmental activism, raising almost $4m for non-profits so far. Last year they raised $1m while hiking 100 miles in full drag from Point Reyes national seashore to San Francisco.

Four decades of Janette Beckman’s images will be on view until 18 April 2027 at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). The exhibit Rebels + Icons: The Photography of Janette Beckman will feature 700-plus archival and newly taken images. Among many iconic photographs, Beckman is known for photographing musical legends like Salt-N-Pepa and Run-DMC, and her striking approach to street photography

In the last century, industrialized farming has killed off delicious food – but a brigade of chefs, breeders and farmers are fighting to bring it back

Bill Tracy is clearly not one to brag, but after a while, it seems he just can’t help himself. “I did come up with something absolutely amazing actually,” he says softly. “Really quite amazing.”

Tracy has spent the last 40 years in the fields of Wisconsin as one of the US’s leading sweetcorn breeders, tasting up to 300 ears a day in search of the perfect corn that might one day sizzle on barbecues across the country.

A guided walk in the primeval wildwood of Perućica, where wolves, chamois and the elusive brown bear roam

‘I know this bear. He knows me. We’ve met several times.” Our guide for the day points to a damaged sign in Sutjeska national park, at the beginning of the trail that descends to the forest of Perućica in south-east Bosnia. The wooden post is covered in scratches from large claws. “Bears are the sharks of the land, because they have the keenest sense of smell on the mountain. They are highly intelligent. I’m deeply persuaded that they know who is a friend and who is a foe. I come often to the forest, so this guy knows my smell. But there was one incident, a hunter who came here to kill, and a bear peeled off his face like an orange.”

With that image, Dejan Elez commands our full attention. A Bosnian Serb law graduate turned ranger and now mountain guide, he is a born storyteller and raconteur. My travel companion, Chris, and I are rapt as he describes the famous battle that was fought near here, when Yugoslav partisans broke through a German encirclement in 1943, taking the Wehrmacht by surprise under cover of a violent storm – “the wind was rising and the lightning was like a strobe” – but after that, Dejan’s narrative leads much further back in time, into the depths of one of Europe’s most ancient forests.

Crisp 27in 5K Mac monitor is packed with features and some of the best HDR performance you can get for work or play

Apple’s new 27in Studio Display XDR is its best monitor yet, with an exceptionally bright and gorgeous 5K screen that wants to be the pro display for Mac-wielding content creators everywhere, with a price tag to match.

Built to be paired with the latest or high-end Macs, the Studio Display XDR costs from £2,599 (€3,099/$2,899/A$4,799), although it is a cool £3,000 if you want it with a stand. It sits above the standard £1,499 Studio Display and is £2,000 cheaper than the 2019 Apple Pro Display XDR it replaces.

Whether it’s giving florals a twist or wearing a rented number, here are our top tips for decoding the dress code

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The invitation thumps on to your doormat – or, as likely, into your inbox – and rather than feel excitement for the ensuing nuptials, you feel dread. What on earth to wear?

Weddings are full of sartorial pitfalls. If there’s no dress code, the limitless options can feel daunting; if there is, it can feel a different kind of daunting, but with a useful guide to prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

As temperatures soar across the UK, chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling aircon – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless

• The best portable neck and handheld fans

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.

Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.

Best quiet fan for the bedroom and best overall:
AirCraft Lume

Best fan for cooling:
Dreo TurboCool misting fan 765S

Secateurs, pizza ovens and sparkling rose in a tin … whatever your plans for the long weekend, here’s how to make the most of it

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Reasons to be cheerful #271: a warm, sunny bank holiday weekend. Here at the Filter, we need no excuse to kick off our shoes, grab a cold drink (and some SPF) and head outside.

To help you make the most of the long weekend, we’ve rounded up some of our favourite things. Whether it’s tools to spruce up your outdoor space, tipples to sip in the garden, a fake tan to jump-start your summer skin or fashion for warmer weather, summer starts here.

From bread and ricotta to vegetables and fish, there’s no single recipe for these beloved ‘meatballs’ – just your own way of making them

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While the Italian word polpette is generally translated as “meatballs”, it actually has a much broader definition than that. In fact, the literal translation is “little balls of polpa”, or pulp. And, yes, the word polpa is strongly associated with minced meat, so, for many people, the word polpette conjures up round or torpedo-shaped morsels of minced and seasoned meat fried or simmered in sauce. But polpa can also refer to an infinite range of pulps and mixtures of pulps made from vegetables, pulses, fruit, bread, cheese or fish, all of which can be shaped into balls, wonderful balls.

Whatever the pulp base, one thing is generally agreed on: once formed, let those balls rest for at least 30 minutes (and up to a few hours), so they firm up and are therefore easier to poach, simmer, fry, air-fry and so on. Beyond resting, however, freedom reigns: the type of pulp, the inclusion of bread, or eggs, or herbs, or seasonings …

Let’s pop the cork on a some naturally low-alcohol ‘session-style’ sparklers

I don’t know if it’s my cobbled liver or having young children, but these days I wish that “session wine” was more of a thing. By this I mean wine that, like session beer, is easily quaffable over several hours and doesn’t plunge me into inebriation – in other words, wine with a relatively low ABV (less than 11%), a light body and bracing acidity. Why are they so hard to find, especially in the mainstream? The false premise, perhaps, that wine is sipped rather than chugged, or that it is enjoyed only with food? (You need only set foot in a Wetherspoons to learn otherwise.)

So, yes, I’m after a delicious, low-ABV wine, specifically one I can drink at a party without ending up looking like a Heat! magazine cover star in circa 2003. My favourite party drink is something fizzy, so I’m essentially looking for a session sparkling wine.

These crunchy ‘cupboard biscuits’ from central Italy are just made to be dunked, be that in a cuppa or in wine

Considering that the word tozzetto means an irregular and rounded piece, and is the diminutive of tozzo, which refers to something with excessive thickness and width in relation to its height, my tozzetti are not faithful. In fact, the proportions I gave them mean they are more Janet McTeer than Danny DeVito. Fortunately, their length doesn’t compromise their texture and Terry’s Chocolate Orange flavour, or their status as biscotti da credenza (cupboard biscuits).

Today’s recipe is adapted from one by the Neapolitan food writer Simona Mirto, who, since 2011, has built an exceptional website of recipes called TavolArteGusto. Her pie, savoury tart, cake and biscuit recipes and notes are particularly effective. It is from Simona that I learned tozzetti are found in central Italy, particularly in Lazio, with its epicentre in the Tuscia Viterbo area, as well as in Umbria and Abruzzo; and that they originated between the 18th and 19th centuries as cupboard biscuits, designed to use simple, easily available ingredients: flour, eggs, sugar (or honey, which gives a chewier texture) and dried fruit. I have adjusted her tozzetti quantities slightly, to take into account the addition of orange juice as well as the orange zest she suggests. The dough, while slightly sticky, should be firm enough to shape into loaves (the form is rather like small ciabatta), so you may need to add a little more flour (cautiously) or simply work with flour-dusted hands on a well-floured work surface.

In 2008, only 70,000 cases of this classic French aromatised wine were sold. In 2024, that boomed to 1.3m. What accounts for its sudden enormous resurgence?

I’m a sucker for a spritz. So when I saw a sign in the French House pub in London, advertising its spring special, “Lillet spritz, £6.50”, I immediately ordered one. I wasn’t exactly transported from rainy Soho to sunny Saint-Tropez in just one sip, but the honey-scented, golden-hued bubbles did put me in a summery mood.

Since then, I’ve started seeing Lillet more often. In the UK, it is on the spritz menu at Greene King and Young’s pubs for a second summer. It is a staple in French-style restaurants such as Côte Brasserie and Café Rouge, and in Gallic bars such as Boulebar and Baranis, where punters can play petanque while they drink. Venues around the world have started to serve it too, from Wolf food market in Brussels to Bar Bridge in Sydney. Global sales are reported to have grown from 70,000 cases in 2008 to 1.3m in 2024.

When you’re separating from a partner you’ve lived with, dividing up your shared belongings isn’t always a priority. There are ways to navigate this emotional and financial minefield, though

When wandering around Ikea arm-in-arm, most newly cohabiting couples are too excited about their new sofa, or Billy bookcase, or the enormous house plant they are about to wrestle into an Uber, to think too deeply about what might happen to those items were their relationship to sour. But at a time when many young couples can’t afford to buy property or have children, furniture can end up being the only thing to fight over at the end of a relationship. And, as the cost of living rises, having to replace furniture after a breakup can have a huge impact on people’s finances.

“It took me a couple of years to recover financially,” says Becca of her 2022 breakup. The 35-year-old, who is based in Leeds, had been in a relationship for about a year when her then-girlfriend invited her to move in to her house. At the time, Becca was renting her own flat, which was “amazing: big garden, really bright and lovely”, she says. But being what she describes as “young, stupid and in love”, she left that behind to move in with her partner. Becca reluctantly agreed to get rid of all the furniture she had bought for her flat, since her girlfriend didn’t want any of it in her place.

The practice is not entirely serious – but it raises awareness of the many sexist tropes built into everyday life

When Tori Dunlap writes a letter or email to a heterosexual couple, she puts the woman’s name first in the greeting. When her good friend got married, Dunlap waited until the name-change documents were officially signed to update her surname in her phone contact. These tiny rebellions are not activism. They are “microfeminisms”, or what Dunlap, 31, describes as “little actions for women’s equality, as opposed to going to a protest or donating to a cause you believe in”.

Dunlap, a Seattle-based author and podcast host who focuses on promoting women’s financial literacy, posted on TikTok last year asking her 2.4 million followers: “Tell me your most unhinged way that you practice microfeminism.” The comments section filled with niche – and not entirely serious – answers, such as starting every work presentation by saying “hello ladies and sons of ladies” and “immediately assuming men are talking about women’s sports instead of men’s”.

Mindfully curated possessions evoke the most potent memories of those who have gone. Two specific objects bring me particular comfort – though I never stop too much to ponder why

Sometimes it seems like my world is inhabited by ghosts, such are the remnants and reminders of past lives all around me.

The dead dogs are everywhere. On a coatrack on the hallway wall just near the front door outside my study hang their sun-bleached and harbour-rusted collars and leads, memorial stalactites to much-loved animals who’ve never really left us. Their tags are clipped on the fridge and one is screwed into the tree in the back yard under which its wearer is buried.

This fluffy menace was harder work than either of our babies. But she did show us how to nurture a creature you can’t reason with

Tilly wasn’t our first choice: my wife and I had fallen for a grey lop-eared charmer in a local shop who was unexpectedly pulled from sale. But we were now determined to acquire a rabbit, so we traipsed from store to store around south-west London, until we saw this tiny ball of brown and white fluff. Suddenly we could imagine no other bunny.

Tilly was many things. When our landlord was around, she was at a friend’s. To the kale producers of Britain, she was a lifeline. To us, she was affectionate, but with a strong sense of personal space – you could tell when she wanted to be touched and when she did not.

In this competitive market, gen Z has started to turn to untraditional ways to land a job – including dating apps

Sibusisiwe Khupe, 26, entered the job market once again in September after a wave of unexpected layoffs at London marketing agency Wieden+Kennedy.

She knew landing her next full-time role was not going to be easy. Young workers have been hit hard by the weakening UK job market as vacancies fall and unemployment climbs to a five-year high.

Finance podcaster Jannese Torres says even finding an extra $50 to $100 a month can put kids on a path to future financial stability

• A finance coach unpacks how she retired at 40 – and the money advice she finds ‘irresponsible’

Growing up, Jannese Torres only saw the men in her family making financial decisions.

“The women managed the day-to-day budget and made sure all the bills got paid, but the men were the ones who had the ‘grown-up’ conversations,” she said. Financial products were something to be feared – her parents had gone into credit card debt in their 20s, forcing them to file for bankruptcy.

The tax office is quick to demand money owed and threatens fines, but is slow when giving refunds

When my mother died, there was a four-year delay in achieving probate owing to financial complexities. During this time my father paid inheritance tax (IHT) on the advice of his solicitor, to prevent interest accruing.

It turned out that the solicitor’s estimate of the amount was wildly out.

Errors and delays in tracing accounts at the trusted savings institution have compounded the stress of relatives losing loved ones

“It has been more than a year of hell,” says Kate Constable about the time it took to claim £46,000 in premium bonds belonging to her late mother.

The process was drawn out because National Savings and Investments (NS&I) rules mean anyone claiming a savings pot of more than £5,000 must obtain probate first.

A lack of confidence can prevent us from trying new things or going after what we want – but it’s never too late to change our beliefs

When I was in middle school, my father told me 80% of how people see you is how you see yourself. This was terrible news at the time, because I was deep in the depths of puberty, self-loathing and figuring out how to part my hair.

Though he pulled that number out of thin air, in the intervening years I’ve found he was on to something – projecting confidence can sometimes be the key to success, professionally and personally. But how does one actually cultivate confidence? And what if our understanding of what confidence is skewed?

I started kickboxing 20 years ago in a bid to be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but thought I could never manage all the punching and jumping. It turns out I could handle much more than I thought

At 14, I decided to learn a martial art. I told my parents it was to defend myself on the mean streets of Congleton – a market town in Cheshire largely devoid of danger – when, in truth, it was because I wanted to be like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I joined a kickboxing club, and what could have been a passing phase became a thrice-weekly commitment spanning four years. I was a model student, picking up a different coloured belt every few months to mark my progression through the grades. I grew strong and flexible, swapping puppy fat for muscle. I routinely fought men without fear and found a confidence in my body I have never experienced before or since.

Without strong evidence, or at least one decent trial, we cannot know whether shining red lights on to your skin does anything

• Read more in the Antiviral series

The world of wellness is constantly expanding. There are new fads coming out almost every week, from the weird new mushroom powders that are suddenly essential for everyone’s health to the newest diet that is supposed to shave kilograms off your figure. It’s a quagmire of unproven, disproven and almost certainly ineffective things that grows every day.

But one mainstay is red light therapy. While red lights are seeing a massive renewed surge in popularity – it’s hard to go on TikTok or Instagram without being assaulted by at least one very confusing video of a person wearing what appears to be a horror mask shining red light on their face – they’ve been around for quite some time. You can find people discussing red light and its possible benefits all the way back to the 1990s.

The supplement is a proven sports performance enhancer, but research is ongoing and for most people it’s an optional extra, not an essential

Once the preserve of bodybuilders and sprinters, creatine is now being touted as everything from a brain booster to a healthy-ageing essential. But should we all be taking it? Not quite.

“There’s really substantial evidence of creatine being effective,” says Bethan Crouse, a sports nutritionist at Loughborough University. “From a sport perspective, it’s probably one of the more well-researched supplements in terms of actually having a performance impact.”

This polished, proper shoe is about more style than sexiness. But work it right and you can have a lot of fun – without the risk of falling over

It seems wild to me now that I used to wear heels – and I mean high heels – every day. To work, and then out afterwards, 12, 15 hours straight. But at the time it felt entirely normal. The discomfort was one of those daily traumas you become desensitised to, the same way that rush-hour commuters don’t think twice about spending a train ride nose-deep in a stranger’s armpit. Blisters, heel tips bitten off by gratings, the odd sprained ankle, and constant taxi rides I could ill afford were all part of everyday life.

The stiletto’s long reign of terror began losing its hold in the streetwear-obsessed 2010s, and then along came lockdown and the comfort-first revolution. This has been the decade of the loafer and the party flat. My collection of needle-thin, 4-inch-plus Manolos, Louboutins and Choos now live in a display cabinet, the gorgeous but obsolete relics of an ancien régime.

Shu Uemura’s legendary Ultime8 face cleanser has made a return. Plus four more excellent options

I was recently in Japan with industry colleagues, many of whom were desperate to get to the shops to pick up Shu Uemura’s Ultime8, arguably the most beloved face cleanser in history among experts. I was delighted to break the news that they needn’t stockpile: Ultime8 is back in the UK this month, having been withdrawn along with the rest of Shu Uemura’s skincare and makeup lines back in 2017.

What can be so great about a 60-year-old cleanser? And why, when innovation is seen as key to a beauty brand’s success in the west, is it still the bestselling cleanser in all of Asia?

As La Croisette closes for another year, here are the most memorable looks from its final week

Growing numbers of people are seeking improbable cosmetic surgery based on chatbots’ recommendations

Plastic surgeons are increasingly concerned about the rise of “AI face”, as more and more clients arrive in their offices with unrealistic AI-generated visions of what they want to look like.

Dr Nora Nugent, a cosmetic surgeon from Tunbridge Wells, has seen this first hand. Clients have started coming to her office with photos of themselves beautified by AI and a false expectation that those results are achievable with surgery. She is also the president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, and says many colleagues are having similar experiences.

A new cap on bus fares in the Highlands and islands makes exploring this stunning archipelago in Scotland a breeze

The views are remarkable. From one window, gorse-gold hills roll west towards mountains patched with snow. On the other side, fields of new spring lambs slope down to a silver sea. Elsewhere, the bus crosses wide estuaries and cascading burns. There are thatched crofts, rocky bays and birch woods starred with anemones. One of the most remarkable things about this scenic 111-mile, 3½-hour trip on bus X99 is that it costs just £2.

Until March 2026, a single from Inverness to Scrabster on Scotland’s north coast was £28. Now, thanks to a new bus fare cap in Orkney, Highland and Moray, no journey in the area costs more than £2. The bus is timed to coincide with the Northlink Ferry to Stromness, Orkney’s second biggest town, and I’m heading there to explore by bus.

Forget queuing at the Louvre or the Uffizi. You’ll find a fresh perspective on everything from medieval to modern art in places like Lille, Verona and Zurich

Zurich may be known as a financial centre, but it has a creative side, too. The Kunsthaus Zürich became the biggest art gallery in the country when its David Chipperfield-designed extension opened in 2021. Its collection spans 800 years of art, and includes old masters, Swiss artists such as Giacometti, works by Monet, Cézanne, Picasso, Van Gogh and Warhol, and contemporary artists.

Travellers warned to beware of debit card cons after one was charged £1,500 for a kebab and another £3,000 for corn on the cob

When Lisa Selby* used her debit card to pay for two slices of barbecued cheese from a beach vendor in Rio de Janeiro, she expected to pay 40 reais (£5.90) for the snack.

But shortly after the payment had gone through, she realised that she had been charged 4,000 reais (£590) after the vendor added two extra zeros to the card reader.

Woman argued water was a universal human right but court ruled no law obliged hoteliers to serve it from taps

A tourist’s simple request for a glass of tap water at a hotel restaurant in the Italian Dolomites has culminated in Italy’s top court ruling that being served water from the tap is not a consumer right, after a lengthy and costly legal saga.

The case dates back to 2019 when the woman spent a week at the five-star hotel in the ski resort of Corvara, in Badia, over Christmas and new year. She was on a half-board deal with the evening meal included, except for drinks.

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

Amid a heatwave here in the UK, the scorpion of knowledge, drawn by Anaïs Mims, once again scuttles out to challenge you to the Thursday news quiz. Fifteen questions on topical news, popular culture and general knowledge, with the excitement that “Derren Brown” and “Simone Biles” are joining us today for new regular rounds. There are no prizes, of course, but there may yet be a sting in the tail. Have fun! Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 249

For some it’s ‘the music of May’. For others, it’s an antisocial irritation. But wherever you stand, be careful – or you could fall foul of the law

Name: Lawnmower hum.

Age: Getting steadily louder since 1830.

Biebrza marshes, Poland: It’s not just the abundance of elks, orchids and eagles that sets the mind racing, it’s the wild interactions between the ‘exotic’ and the familiar

Have I made a mistake in visiting Biebrza national park? Not that I mind encountering more bird species in a day than I do in a year at home. Nor do I regret meeting a young elk, all gangle and improbable proportions; or kneeling before a clump of lady’s slipper orchid in jaw-droppingly ostentatious bloom among Solomon’s seal and a carpet of lily of the valley. I definitely appreciate the homely clatter of the neighbourhood white storks, and the constant soundtrack of cuckoos and golden orioles. I certainly have no objection to watching the sunset from a wood-fired hot tub, listening to corncrakes as bats emerge and a beaver cruises past.

But something shifts in me when, in the space of a few minutes in an observation tower, we watch three species of marsh tern hanging like precision-engineered angels to tweezer insects from the water’s surface, and a white-tailed eagle hunting greylag geese then settling with its mate in a dead tree to watch a train of common cranes in the field below meeting a lone fox, all leaping as if in mock surprise, before going unconcernedly on their way.

From South Carolina to Dorset, Australia to the Costa del Sol, beachgoers are complaining that oversized canopies, parasols and gazebos are spoiling their day out. And they’re not going to take it lying down

Name: Shade wars.

Age: In this instance, quite new.

Volunteers head to Dorset countryside to restore the figure, but increasing heat means techniques have had to be adapted

For centuries, the custodians of the Cerne Giant have clambered up the dizzyingly steep hill every decade or so to rechalk the outline, making sure the hulking figure can be seen far and wide across the rolling Dorset countryside.

But the painstaking job, which involves hacking out the grubby old chalk by hand and packing in fresh, felt all the more urgent this week because effects put down to the climate emergency are making the giant a little duller and perhaps a touch more fragile.

After the initial euphoria of victory, Zoë Garbett prepares to begin running one of England’s most diverse and deprived boroughs

For the first time in decades the person sitting behind the desk in the wood-panelled office of Hackney’s imposing art deco town hall is not a Labour politician.

Zoë Garbett was elected as the east London borough’s first Green party mayor in this month’s local elections, surfing a wave of support which resulted in the party winning more than 500 seats, taking control of five councils and winning two mayoralties.

After two decades, long-suffering Gunners fans from across the diaspora have been rewarded with a Premier League win. So why has this sometimes beleaguered team earned such adulation?

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Hello and welcome to The Long Wave. As the resident Arsenal fan, I’m stepping in for Nesrine the week after my club lifted the Premier League trophy for the first time since 2004, prompting celebrations on a scale we rarely see, at home and across the globe.

Arsenal have a storied history with Black players, and its fanbase reflects that. A cursory look at the joy on Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze’s faces at Selhurst Park and the ensuing melee of supporters on the streets of London right through to Kampala is strong proof of that. I look at why a north London club has the love and dedication of so many in the Black diaspora – a flame that has remained lit through the good, the bad and indifferent.

How has the search for work been for you? How many job applications have you made?

The number of young people not in work or education in Britain could rise to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action, a landmark report has warned.

Alan Milburn, the leader of the review into why so many young people are economically inactive, said the UK risked opening up a “generational fault line” between young and old without urgent steps to overhaul schools, the health service, the welfare system and the jobs market.

We would like to hear from people who are facing water supply disruptions due to warm weather in the south east of England

Thousands of properties in the south east have been affected by water supply issues caused by the warm weather, according to South East Water (SEW).

After water outages for hundreds of homes across Kent and Sussex over the last three days during record temperatures, the firm has asked customers to only use water for essential purposes like drinking, washing and cooking.

If you’re a millennial aged between 31 and 45, how do you feel about growing old in the UK?

If you’re a millennial aged between 31 and 45, how do you feel about growing old in the UK? We would like to hear about your experiences of the UK healthcare system, housing and income, and your thoughts on the future.

Healthcare: In your experience, has healthcare been reliable and efficient? Have you ever experienced significant delays in A&E for procedures, operations, or referrals?

We would like to hear about what you love about the great outdoors

As summer comes and our gardens, parks and woodlands burst into life, many of us are heading outdoors.

Scientific evidence shows how vitally important greenery and the natural world are for our mental and physical wellbeing.

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