The actors and creator Steven Knight discuss the Shelbys’ big-screen swan song, how fans propelled the show to success, and that undercut

In June 2023, Barry Keoghan texted Cillian Murphy to wish him a happy Father’s Day. The pair had shared the screen six years before, in the film Dunkirk. “Cillian and Colin [Farrell] are people I admire greatly, and always keep in touch with,” says Keoghan. A reply from Murphy pinged back soon after: “Thank you. Would you like to play my son in Peaky Blinders the movie?”

Murphy remembers it a bit differently: that he was the one initiating contact (which is how Tim Roth and Rebecca Ferguson came on board). But he’s happy to let Keoghan’s version be recorded as fact.

The war on Iran has put fossil-fuel prices centre stage, but don’t believe those who tout ‘maximising the North Sea’ as our salvation

These are burning, smoking lies. As oil and gas prices soar, thanks to the US and Israel’s attack on Iran, the UK’s opponents of climate policy become even shriller. Rightwing politicians, Tufton Street junktanks and the billionaire press tell us our energy security will be enhanced and our bills will fall if we abandon net zero policies, ditch renewables and reinvest in North Sea gas. These claims are not just a little bit wrong. They are the exact opposite of the truth.

Two things have indeed happened in recent years. The price of electricity has soared, contributing greatly to the cost of living, and the proportion of the electricity we receive from renewables has simultaneously boomed: from 3% in 2000 to 47% today. So, they claim, one has caused the other: more renewables means higher prices.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

I was sick and tired of the world treating me like a victim, so I decided to flip the narrative. At 25, I tried out for my local volunteer fire academy

When I was six years old, my entire body went up in flames. It was 1992, in my home town of Hawthorne, Nevada. My older brothers were out playing and I went to call them for dinner. I followed their voices, just a few houses down from ours, to find them playing with a bowl of kerosene they’d found and a lighter. When they flicked the lighter, the bowl caught fire. My brother freaked out and kicked it over in a bid to contain the flames. They weren’t aware I was just inches away.

Soon I was submerged in flames. The pain was excruciating. I was tackled to the ground by a neighbour I’d never met, who covered me in a sleeping bag, extinguishing the flames. It haunts me to this day to think of what he would have seen: a six-year-old boy on fire outside his house.

A project in London is helping hundreds of people, providing a genuine alternative to traditional treatments

“What you’ve got there from the sun on your face is a massive boost of serotonin!” says Alison Greenwood, founder of Dose of Nature, the charity successfully prescribing time outside as a treatment for mental health.

Greenwood is striding round Pensford Field, a tiny patch of wildness tucked behind houses in south-west London. The bright day is illuminating the early blackthorn blossom, gleaming off the pond where a heron watches tiny froglets and shadows of birch trees on a wood-chip path. “All these trees and plants are giving off phytoncides, and they’re good for your immune system too,” the former NHS psychologist says.

In China, one social media trend hangs on the idea that a life in the US is always one step from disaster, while another in the US has gen Z revelling in Chinese lifestyle hacks

Across two online worlds that are normally splintered, over the last few months there has been a mirroring of sorts. On TikTok and Instagram, young people are diving into the joys of Chinese culture – from drinking hot water to playing mahjong – all under the banner of “Chinamaxxing”. On the Chinese internet, however, the US is losing its decades-long grip on soft power, and is instead being replaced by a darker trend: the kill line.

The kill line is a dangerous place to be. In gaming, the term refers to the point at which a player’s strength is so depleted that one more blow could lead to total wipeout. In China, the term refers to the risks that come with daily life in the US.

Josh Wardle hopes his digital take on the cryptic crossword can be a gradual on-ramp crossing the cultural divide between Britain and the US

In 2021, Josh Wardle became a household name almost overnight. His digital game, Wordle, turned a simple guessing game into a global morning ritual: six guesses, one word, and a grid of coloured squares shared across social media feeds.

It became a cultural phenomenon; bought within months by the New York Times for a seven-figure sum.

US say rescue efforts are continuing following loss of refuelling plane; Large explosions heard across Iranian capital as the US and Israel threatened to intensify airstrikes

• Middle East war creating ‘largest supply disruption in history of oil markets’

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry is saying that two drones have been intercepted and destroyed in the eastern region.

More now after reports of explosions in Dubai on Friday morning: thick black smoke rose over the financial hub’s skyline after what authorities described as a fire in an industrial area of the city-state.

Trump administration announces 30-day waiver on Russian oil stranded at sea as concerns over US-Israel war on Iran unsettles markets

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The United States has temporarily waived sanctions on Russian oil stranded at sea as Trump administration officials attempt to reverse a surge in prices that is causing mounting apprehension about global supplies.

Scott Bessent, the US Treasury secretary, announced a “temporary authorization” late on Thursday, allowing countries to buy the stranded Russian oil for 30 days. Trump is “working to keep prices low”, he said, after average US fuel prices rose by 65 cents per gallon in a month.

Elahi, a former political prisoner writing under a pseudonym, details a sleepless night in the Iranian capital

It’s 5am on Thursday 12 March. I was finally falling asleep after a day full of fear when the phone rang. Terror rushes through me. It’s not the right time for a call. Someone must need help – or maybe they are alone and frightened.

I answer the phone, exhausted. It’s my younger sister. She is crying and cannot speak. My heart breaks into a thousand pieces. I haven’t seen her for many days. When I was released from prison, she had gone to another city to take care of our mother.

Residents near the border with Lebanon hope Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah and Iran will finally end years of conflict

On the main street of Metula on Thursday morning there was one thing everybody agreed on: the night had been “difficult”.

The sirens had fallen silent only a few hours earlier when military authorities were sure there would be no further waves of attacks with rockets and drones on targets across northern Israel launched by Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based militant Islamist movement, and its sponsor, Iran.

Defence secretary connects Middle East conflict to plight of Ukraine, sympathy for which remains relatively high

• Middle East crisis: live updates

After a week or so of wearing media coverage about the deterioration of the Anglo-American relationship and the belated decision to deploy Royal Navy destroyer HMS Dragon to Cyprus, it was time to move the conversation on.

On a visit to the UK’s permanent military headquarters in Northwood, north-west London, the defence secretary, John Healey, asked two senior British military officers if there was “any sign of a link between Russia and Iran” in the sprawling conflict that has suddenly engulfed the Middle East.

PM has apologised for his handling of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, but next tranche of files could contain further damaging details

Keir Starmer could suffer further resignations when ministerial WhatsApp messages are published in the next tranche of the Peter Mandelson files, senior government sources have told the Guardian.

With officials bracing for the subsequent releases – expected to include informal communications alongside formal messages like those in the first batch – Starmer apologised again on Thursday over his handling of Mandelson’s appointment, saying: “It was me that made a mistake, and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of [Jeffrey] Epstein, and I do that.”

Surprise lack of growth in January as service sector stagnated, with falls in recruitment activity

The lack of growth in January suggests that Rachel Reeves’s autumn budget has not given the economy a brisk pick-me-up.

There had also been hopes for a ‘stability dividend’ after the chancellor’s news-lite spring forecast thi smonth, this seems unlikely too – with the Iran war now threatening the economy.

“GDP growth strengthened moderately in the three months to January when compared to the previous three months, led by improving services output, released from the uncertainty that accompanied the 2025 Autumn Budget. However, the outlook has darkened with the hoped for “stability dividend” from a low-key Spring Statement unlikely to materialise. Furthermore, the economy is vulnerable to a growth downgrade for this year because of the war in the Middle East and the resulting spike in energy costs.

“We had previously assumed that economic conditions would improve in the second half of this year but the prospect of higher energy bills, a renewed rise in inflation and a pause in monetary policy easing are likely to hit business and consumer activity. A key risk is that households, fearful of a prolonged spike in energy costs, raise their precautionary saving.

“Zero growth in January highlights just how little momentum the economy had coming into the energy crisis. That makes it more likely that growth will dip sharply below 1% this year, even if there is a swift resolution to the crisis.

“Stagnation in January would make us worried about growth this year, even without the energy price shock that will start to show up in the March data. Indeed, the big improvement in survey data at the start of the year doesn’t seem to have carried over into stronger activity. Improved retail sales were offset by a sharp drop in hospitality activity, suggesting consumers are still cautious.

The chancellor is set to meet with energy bosses over concerns that companies are profiteering from oil and gas prices

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has asked the competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), to “crack down” on “rip off” fuel prices as she prepares to meet energy bosses amid concerns companies are profiteering off the US and Israel’s war with Iran.

The Conservative party continue to accuse the government of a “cover-up” after it released documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s 2024 appointment as ambassador to the US. Shadow housing secretary James Cleverly said the government published the “wrong versions of the documents”, while shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart suggested there was “missing” correspondence in the published material. Downing Street has rejected the accusations.

The UK economy entered the Middle East crisis after a weak start to the year, according to official figures showing flatlining January output before the US-Israel war on Iran hit global energy prices. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed 0% growth in gross domestic product (GDP), down from an increase of 0.1% in December, as the economy failed to recover from uncertainty surrounding Reeves’s autumn budget.

Prime minister Keir Starmer could suffer further resignations when ministerial WhatsApp messages are published in the next tranche of the Mandelson files, senior government sources have told the Guardian. Starmer apologised again yesterday over his handling of Mandelson’s appointment, saying: “It was me that made a mistake, and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of [Jeffrey] Epstein, and I do that.”

Committee says thousands of victims still waiting for compensation and ‘face unacceptable delays and inadequate offers’

The redress schemes for victims of the Post Office Horizon scandal have “serious structural failings”, a parliamentary committee has found.

Thousands of post office operators are still waiting for the compensation they are owed and face “unacceptable delays, inadequate offers, and administrative processes that ‘retraumatise’ those who have already been wronged”, a report by the business and trade committee said.

University of Cambridge study finds AI-powered toys can misread emotions and respond inappropriately to children

It was all going well. Charlotte, five, was chatting with an AI soft toy called Gabbo at a London play centre about her family, her drawing of a heart to represent them and what makes her happy. She even offered a couple of kisses to the £80 toy with a face like a computer screen.

It was when she declared: “Gabbo, I love you”, that the fluent conversation came to an abrupt halt.

TfL are also poised to increase 20mph zones and cut speed limits on the capital’s fastest roads later this year

Owners of SUVs could face charges to drive in London, after the mayor and transport authorities said they were reviewing the increased danger posed by larger, heavier cars.

Proposals to clamp down on the biggest vehicles could come later this year, with Transport for London (TfL) also poised to increase 20mph zones and cut the speed limits on its fastest roads from 50mph to 40mph to tackle road deaths.

More than 20% of weekend availability lost in England since 2022, forcing some to turn to A&E, says national association

People who need to obtain medication at the weekend are having to undertake long trips because more pharmacies are cutting their opening hours on Saturdays and Sundays.

One in six pharmacies in England have reduced their hours at weekends since 2022, with some shutting altogether, as a result of “unsustainable” pressures on their budgets.

Rudeness, social media posts and AI-generated complaints among issues harming staff wellbeing, union survey finds

Teachers are used to outbreaks of rudeness and defiance from their pupils, but are now saying parents are some of the worst offenders and affecting staff mental health, according to a headteachers’ union.

More than 90% of headteachers and other senior leaders said they had been on the receiving end of “challenging behaviour” from parents including rude or disrespectful responses, while 60% have had verbal abuse and threats within the past 12 months, according to the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL).

Exclusive: Campaigners call for government to introduce right-to-roam bill that allows people to walk around their local woodlands

Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show.

The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible.

While tailings dams are meant to last for ever, extreme weather events are making many unstable – with devastating consequences for nature and humans

As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway.

Thousands of lifeless fish rose to the surface as a plume of acid floated downriver, leaving dead crocodiles and other wildlife in its wake.

As energy prices tripled in the 1970s due to Middle Eastern wars, Scandinavia, France and the Netherlands sped up green transition

When Middle Eastern wars sparked an oil crisis in the 1970s, tripling energy prices and throwing economies into chaos, some countries looked beyond short-term solutions. The French made nuclear the pillar of their power system. Scandinavians insulated buildings and funnelled waste heat into homes. The Dutch built bike lanes where others wanted motorways. The Danes developed wind turbines.

Such steps cleaned filthy air and cut imports from autocrats but took a back seat when Russia invaded Ukraine half a century later. Europe raced to buy gas from the US and Middle East. Policies to roll out renewables by cutting red tape helped reduce dependence, but calls to use less energy and reduce waste were muted. Industry lobbying and populist backlash have since sabotaged efforts to phase out petrol cars and fossil boilers.

When I was growing up, she rarely dispensed advice. Instead, I watched her closely, holding on to her quiet wisdom

I often picture my mother that wild, hot summer we moved to the house of my childhood. She is 5ft 3in in the long grass, wearing a vest and a pair of small cut-off shorts. She is digging borders and battling the sticky bobs. She is telling me about the patch of tiger lilies and the cooking-apple tree; about the light speckling through the unkempt branches. “Glory be to God for dappled things,” she says.

My mother has always been a rare combination of poetry and practicality – I know few others given to quoting Gerard Manley Hopkins while simultaneously hacking down nettles, or tiling walls while listening to John Betjeman records. She has a remarkable gift for transforming the ordinary: a bedroom skirting board would be decorated with a mouse and a mouse hole; a packed lunch’s sandwiches cut at unexpected angles; the most mundane shopping trip often accommodated a detour to the art shop to admire the bottles of Winsor & Newton inks.

A Tokyo high-flyer tries to befriend her favourite blogger in a novel that wears its aura of black comedy lightly, and its political statements more heavily

Asako Yuzuki’s international bestseller Butter was a taste sensation based on the true story of a Japanese female serial killer and gourmet chef who scammed and poisoned male victims with her culinary offerings. Attempting to get a scoop, a journalist bonds with the convicted prisoner by asking her for recipe tips, and gradually reassesses her own life and values as a result of this peculiar relationship. One review described the book as “the Martha Stewart Show meets The Silence of the Lambs”, but as well as the crime thriller/foodie mashup, a critique of capitalist society and deep-seated misogyny also emerged from the narrative. Yuzuki’s prose style, a mix of the banal and the profound, proved to be catnip for sales.

Hooked is the follow-up for English-language readers, though it was written earlier, in 2015, and like the previous novel is translated with crackling verve by Polly Barton. While a more introspective work, its high-wire plot and uneven trajectory make for a relentlessly dizzying experience. Fans of Butter might even view it as a trial run.

Unfamiliar’s fictitious portrayal of hapless, rules-bound BND comes amid real-world calls to roll back postwar restraint

In the new Netflix series Unfamiliar, two spies working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency are trying to gauge the intentions of a Russian agent who has recently arrived in Berlin. They come up with a creative solution: hacking into his taxi’s dashcam and seizing footage of the spook as he shakes hands with a well-known hitman.

The six-part show revels in such flagrant disregard for red tape – the kind of brazen derring-do that Germany’s notoriously rule-bound Federal Intelligence Service (BND) can only dream of in real life.

From violent collision contests to celebrity-backed offshoots, spin-off sports are finding captive audiences. Their spectacle masks something more sinister

A few weeks ago a clip went viral of a strange new contact sport emerging from the antipodes. Two burly men, one of them holding a football, sprint at each other on a kind of catwalk, waiting for the bloop-bloop-bloop of an electronic countdown before they launch into their runs. Neither wears any kind of padding or protective gear. Surrounded by baying spectators, the men collide in the middle of the track, making impact through shoulders, knees, hips, stomachs: in most instances, one of the runners is knocked flat on his back or face from the force of the collision, and the other stands tall in triumph. “We are literally getting dumber as a civilization,” noted one of the many comments on the clip on X.

Run Nation Championship, as this new sport is known, launched in Australia last year, and is now holding combines ahead of RNC03, its third instalment. Many of the competing athletes seem, from the early video evidence, as wide as they are tall; the risk of injury – to their limbs, to their heads, to their brains – is obvious. But this is all part of the pitch. Like all new mixed martial arts and contact sports, RNC owes an obvious debt to UFC in the way it’s named, structured, and promoted; like UFC and UFC boss Dana White’s newer sport, Power Slap, in which two opponents face each other across a table and slap the side of each other’s faces as hard as they can until one collapses, Run Nation is not so much a sport as an exploration of the frontier of sporting violence, a macabre social experiment to see how far athletes will push their bodies in the pursuit of victory and money.

Despite being set in the 50s, the film masterfully reflects modern-day anxieties, disconnection and obsession with nostalgia, all while reigniting interest in an unsung sport

First things first: the best picture Oscar should go to Marty Supreme for the incredible job it has done in bringing new eyes to ping pong. A declining sport that has to be propped up by subsidy, this movie has single-handedly kept wiff waff alive even though no one cares about it any more. Kudos.

Next, a confession. I watched this film the day it came out and haven’t seen it since*. That day also happened to be my birthday, a big birthday, and I wasn’t entirely steady when I entered the cinema that evening. I have sketchy recollections of the middle section – the bit between the bath collapsing and the plane to Japan. I also didn’t really like it much; I found it inconsequential and a bit amoral and I instantly resolved to forget the words to 4 Raws Remix (sample lyric: “my life is an opera”) as a result.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

A pilot scheme offering some artists €300-plus a week for three years is being made permanent. But should something so fundamental be run like a lottery?

I won the lottery. Out of around 8,000 artists, my name was randomly chosen to be one of the 2,000 who the Irish government would pay a basic income. This pilot scheme was a test of whether a policy of supporting artists would pay off in terms of creative work, wellbeing and, calculated down to the cent, the money that society would make back.

For three years, we were paid €325 a week with no strings attached, other than filling out a survey. We could continue earning and applying for artist grants. I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live, constantly worrying I will never be able to afford a home myself or to start a family. As such, the basic income was life-changing.

Caelainn Hogan is the author of Republic of Shame

Two-thirds of voters want an elected second chamber. The government needs a radical legacy: it should use its rare majority for this

Goodbye (almost) to the hereditary peers, voted out on Tuesday night. But they didn’t go without a vicious tooth-and-nail fight. Labour should be making much more noise about how the Tories blackmailed and threatened to the very last to hold on to the hereditary peerage (almost all Tories), despite 66% of voters wanting a democratically elected second chamber.

Tories in the Lords, fully backed by Kemi Badenoch, did that despite the abolition pledged in Labour’s manifesto. They trashed the Salisbury convention, which expects the Lords to nod through anything in a government’s manifesto that has been approved in an election. But never mind conventions: the good chaps who are supposed to keep the unwritten constitution on its feet are no more. Instead of upholding convention, they vandalised it.

Warnings were ignored and processes rushed because No 10 had already made up its mind to let Peter Mandelson sail through

The arrogance takes your breath away, even to the end. Sacked in disgrace for bringing shame upon those who trusted him, Peter Mandelson’s response, we now know, was to unsuccessfully demand half a million pounds of public money to go quietly, all while haughtily insisting upon his dignity as a servant of the crown. In other words, this week’s disclosures suggest Mandelson behaves in a tight corner pretty much exactly as bitter experience suggests he might. What they still don’t explain satisfactorily is why Downing Street, seemingly alone, failed to anticipate that.

To understand what went wrong, imagine the three-step process by which he became ambassador to Washington as a sandwich: two bland slices of officialdom, representing the Cabinet Office’s initial efforts at due diligence and a deeper vetting process at the end, glued together with political filling. Take away the middle, which is the political operation around the prime minister himself, and what’s left is dry bread falling apart in your hands.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columinst

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

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.

Nick Thomas-Symonds unravelled under barrage of questions – as PM instead bored some mothers and babies in Belfast

You could smell the fear among senior ministers on Wednesday night. No one wanted to be “that person”. The mug who would be sent out on the Thursday morning media round to answer the inevitable barrage of questions about Peter Mandelson. The equivalent to a two-hour-long walk of shame, and one entirely of the prime minister’s making.

The Cabinet Office minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, thought he had all bases covered. He had skipped off early down to his south Wales constituency of Torfaen. Surely that should put him out of harm’s way. No such luck. Just after 10pm, Nick got the summons from No 10. “I’m afraid you’re it.” Nick tried to bluster. There was no way he could get to London to do the interviews, and the wifi was really terrible at home. No dice. Downing Street would send over a technician to set him up with a makeshift studio. All systems go.

Remedy for partnership’s post-Covid woes was the old-fashioned one of basic shopkeeping and cutting costs

It turns out, the remedy for the John Lewis partnership’s post-Covid woes of a few years ago did not lie in seeking outside capital or building 10,000 buy-to-rent flats. Rather, the solution was the old-fashioned one of cutting costs and concentrating on basic shopkeeping.

As it happens, the wild idea of seeking external investors was virtually dead the moment it was loosely aired, such was the uproar among customers and staff about the threat to the 100%-employee owned model. But the home-building adventure did get going until it was ditched by the newish chair, Jason Tarry, a couple of weeks ago. He accepted, in effect, a point that should have been obvious at the outset: if the building assumptions relied on interest rates remaining at near-zero for years, the project would not survive contact with events.

When movie stars are no longer people we aspire to look like, does it spell the end of Hollywood’s cultural power?

Once upon a time in Hollywood, if you were an actor preparing to walk the red carpet at the Academy Awards, you might have been fasting to fit into your outfit. You definitely had access to the best hair and makeup artists, and designers and jewellers lent you thousands of dollars worth of incredible products. Maybe you even had a subtle bit of plastic surgery. You looked great!

For a long time Hollywood operated a fairly coherent beauty ideal that, however unattainable, was at least legible.

Mathias Döpfner beat the Mail to seize a British institution. But whether he will be a sobering or malign influence is not yet clear

After fighting off one foreign takeover, staff at the paper that broke the news of the second world war might have been expected to react badly when meeting their potential new German owners on Monday. Instead, journalists at the Telegraph felt “optimistic”, “enthusiastic” and even “cautiously pleased” – one called a takeover by media conglomerate Axel Springer the “best possible outcome”.

The reason for this Panglossian response is partly hope that Axel Springer and its boss, Mathias Döpfner, might genuinely be keen on journalism, and partly exhaustion at the end of a wildly convoluted three-year takeover battle. The fight says a lot about the state of the print news business – upended by technological and economic headwinds yet still seen as an attractive bauble for rich power players and important as a home for journalism. For how much longer this persists could well depend on what Axel Springer and its part-owner and boss Döpfner do with it.

The economic fallout of the US-Israeli assault and Tehran’s retaliation is spreading fast, and pushing the most vulnerable towards disaster

Soaring prices at the pump, the scrapping of mortgage deals, and the prospect of higher prices for everything from food to smartphones. The US-Israeli attack on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliation, has rocked the global economy. Consumers are already feeling the pain of the biggest energy supply shock in history, and Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed on Thursday that the strait of Hormuz will remain closed, according to a statement attributed to him by state media. The corridor is the biggest chokepoint for the global energy system. The relief to oil prices brought by the International Energy Agency’s largest ever release of reserves had already proved shortlived: as the US and Israel intensified attacks on Iran, it escalated attacks on transport infrastructure across the Gulf.

But the impact is not evenly felt. In Asia, heavily reliant on the Middle East for crude oil and liquefied natural gas, Bangladesh closed all its universities and Pakistan some of its schools due to fuel shortages. While US coverage is dominated by the impact at home, others are paying a higher price. And it is the world’s poorest and most vulnerable who will be worst hit.

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

The German chancellor and his Social Democrat coalition partners need to learn the right lessons, after an election reverse in Germany’s third-largest state

For most of the postwar period, the state of Baden-Württemberg was both a bastion of German conservatism and – as the home of Mercedes-Benz and Porsche – an economic powerhouse. But in volatile times, even regions that embodied political stability and industrial prowess now deliver the unexpected. A come-from-behind victory for the Greens last Sunday, in the first of a series of important regional elections this year, suggests that Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democrat-led national government is alienating voters in the same way as other centrist administrations in Europe. If Sir Keir Starmer has Gorton and Denton to anguish over, Mr Merz and his Social Democrat coalition partners now have Baden-Württemberg.

Caveats apply. The Greens already had an impressive power base in Germany’s third-largest state, where they have been the senior partner in coalition administrations for 15 years. In Cem Özdemir, their victorious candidate, they also fielded a charismatic and popular campaigner. Mr Özdemir’s personal achievement is in itself a cause for celebration. The son of immigrants who arrived in the country in the 1960s, he becomes Germany’s first state premier with Turkish roots.

Hugh Sheppard, Michael Thorn and William Ward respond to an article by Polly Toynbee on the future of the broadcaster

Polly Toynbee says “the BBC’s funding system remains better than anything else anyone has come up with” (In a world of lies, we need the BBC more than ever. This week could be our last chance to save it, 6 March). Sadly, that isn’t true. Today, with hundreds of channels available from a wide range of broadcast and streaming services, for the BBC to collect TV licence fee is outmoded and unjust. With the number of households not holding a licence having risen to 12.5% in 2024-25, and a 30% loss of BBC funding, these trends are bringing the BBC to its knees.

The BBC’s public consultation document stressed that it is “a national institution that belongs to all of us”, and mentioned reforming the licence fee, qualified by “We are not considering replacing it through general taxation”. The closing words of the last question asked if people could “suggest a different funding model”. Was this an open door, or is the mindset already closed? Retention, with fee collection outsourced by the BBC to Capita, is plain wrong. A different approach is essential so that those watching GB News don’t have to pay the BBC for the privilege.

Frédéric Godemel and Ruth Brooker respond to the new European Code Against Cancer and its focus on air pollution

The European Code Against Cancer is right to place air pollution firmly on the policy agenda, as your report highlights (Tackling air pollution should be part of government work to cut cancer rates, scientists say, 6 March). But buying air filters and limiting wood burning at home aren’t solving the issue at its root. If governments are serious about mitigating climate-related health issues, they need to tackle the problem at its source: energy.

Energy accounts for more than three-quarters of total greenhouse gas emissions globally. That matters not only for the climate, but for the air we breathe. The fossil fuels that power much of today’s energy system release harmful pollutants such as fine particulate matter and nitrogen oxides when they are burned. The way we produce and use energy is a major driver of both climate change and harmful air pollution. Addressing both requires fundamentally rethinking energy systems.

Grace Hampson on ways to address the worryingly thin pipeline of new effective drugs

Recent coverage of the pipeline of new antibiotics (Pipeline of new drugs to fight superbugs is ‘worryingly thin’, experts warn, 11 March) is a timely reminder that antimicrobial resistance is one our most urgent health crises. The reason the pipeline is so thin is a fundamental market failure.

One of the most logical ways to protect antibiotics is to limit their use to the most essential cases, but this means fewer antibiotics sold. If revenues are limited, companies have less incentive to invest in developing and manufacturing new antibiotics. This is where policy intervention is crucial.

Clothes-buying tip | Laundry lesson | EV charging | Paper pals | Pushing the envelope

One thing my mother taught me (My mother’s best advice: learn to raise one eyebrow at the world, 11 March) is that barley wine is much stronger than you think. The other thing she taught never leaves me: I will not buy clothes without crunching up the fabric to see if it creases. Should you browse a rack and wonder why a garment has a small crumpled area, you will know that I have been there before you.
Anne Cowper
Swansea

• My mum told me “Don’t cut your toenails on a Friday”, “don’t wash your hair when you’re having your period” and “you don’t need as much washing powder as it says on the box”. I’d recommend that last one to all readers.
Ruth Guthrie
Cockermouth, Cumbria

The Winter Paralympics return to Italy for the second time in 20 years. From the fashion capital of Milan to the dramatic peaks of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Milan Cortina will take place across northern Italy, marking the 50th anniversary of the first Paralympic Winter Games.

The Paralympics open on Friday 6 March in the Arena di Verona and the Games will will showcase around 665 athletes competing in 79 medal events across six sports – para alpine skiing, para biathlon, para cross-country skiing, para ice hockey, para snowboard and wheelchair curling. The results of these events will be searchable on this page.

• Ice melt causes dangerous conditions for para athletes

• IPC says changing winter calendar ‘easier said than done’

In Cortina d’Ampezzo, the thaw is on. With daytime temperatures reaching double figures in celsius, snow is disappearing from the hillsides and the “torrenti” of ice melt have started to flow once again.

Traditionally a time of year when snowfall can be at its heaviest, there has been none since the Winter Paralympics began. The Games have not been insulated from the consequences.

We take a look at the best images from the Games, including alpine skiing, slalom and ice hockey

After silver medal success with his guide Robert Poth, the British duo aim for more glory in the slalom events

Neil Simpson and his guide Robert Poth won silver at the Winter Paralympics on Tuesday, the first medal for Great Britain at these Games. But to watch the athletes in visually impaired alpine skiing descend the slopes of the Dolomites at speeds of up to 100km/h is to be strongly reminded that everyone needs at least another medal, just for being brave enough to do it in the first place.

Talk to the 23-year-old Simpson, however, and the concept of taking one’s life into one’s hands doesn’t come into the equation. Born with the condition nystagmus, which causes involuntary eye movements, he has been skiing since he was four, first on the dry slopes in Aberdeen, then at the Glenshee resort, before competing in national competition aged 16. “I think it’s something that’s never really fazed me”, he says. “It’s just a really fun sport to participate in.”

⚽ All the latest football news and buildup
⚽ Ten things to look out for | Read Football Daily | Mail Taha

Time for a Europa League and Conference recap. For Villa, yay. For Palace, meh. For Forest, nay.

Slot adds on Alisson that it’s a “minor” muscle problem and he’s hoping the goalkeeper is ready to play on Sunday. “If not, I’m expecting him – if things go as planned – definitely against Galatasaray.”

Masochistically rewatching the horror show against Atlético confirms that in a season of disasters this is perhaps the biggest

The Guardian published a story on its website late on Wednesday with the headline: Igor Tudor to carry on at Spurs but future in doubt beyond Liverpool match. Given the past four games, and especially Tuesday night, most Tottenham fans may find it surprising that the (seemingly-disastrously-poor-at-making-decisions) decision makers are giving the emotionless Croat one more roll of the dice.

But beneath the headline, in slightly smaller font: “Harry Redknapp rules himself out of return.” A real human person wrote the words that a 79-year-old has had to rule himself out of managing Tottenham again. In March 2026.

• British No 1’s title defence ends with 6-1, 7-5 loss

• Carlos Alcaraz beats Cameron Norrie to reach semis

Jack Draper was controversially ruled to have caused a hindrance to Daniil Medvedev as his Indian Wells title defence ended in the quarter-finals. The 24-year-old Briton, looking understandably weary from his exploits in beating Novak Djokovic less than 24 hours earlier, went down 6-1, 7-5 to the former world No 1.

The decisive moment came at 5-5 and 0-15 in the second set when the French umpire, Aurélie Tourte, decided to award Medvedev a point following a video review after Draper had raised his arms at a disputed line call and was deemed to have distracted his opponent, with Medvedev going on to seal a crucial break.

• Scotland take on Ireland in mix for championship

• ‘It would be great to finish with a win and on a high’

Gregor Townsend refused to indulge in talk of a first Six Nations title for Scotland as he outlined the scale of the task still facing his side in their quest to make history.

The Scots go into Super Saturday as one of three teams in the mix for the championship, alongside table-topping France and opponents Ireland. In short, Scotland must collect more match points in Dublin in the first game of the day than Les Bleus manage against England in the late kick-off in Paris. If both lose, Ireland could also win the title.

Victory for former Spurs manager’s horse in Cheltenham’s top race would be one of the best sporting stories of the year

Harry Redknapp was in a reflective mood after watching Taurus Bay, his first runner at this year’s meeting, finish among the also-rans in Wednesday’s Turners Novices’ Hurdle. It was a decent performance – Taurus Bay was a 33-1 shot, after all – but it was the disappointing run by the favourite, No Drama This End, that was on Redknapp’s mind as he looked forward to his second runner on Friday: The Jukebox Man, one of the favourites for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

“It’s scary, isn’t it?” Redknapp said. “Max McNeill [the owner of No Drama this End], he’s the most lovely man, he had the favourite there and I know how he’s been. I saw him before the race, all the expectations, and he ends up tailed off. It’s unreal.”

• Updates as Matildas and Korea DPR meet at HBF Park

• Kick-off time in Perth is 6pm local/9pm AEDT

• Any thoughts? Get in touch with an email

The Geordies clearly don’t have time for the official DPR Korea naming convention that most of the official accounts are rolling with for this tournament.

16 years ago, back before the Matildas experienced their explosion in popularity, they defeated North Korea in the final of the 2010 Asian Cup – the one and only time the side has lifted the trophy.

Sweden winger was a serial winner at Barcelona and hopes her experience can help Manchester United claim their first Women’s League Cup trophy on Sunday against Chelsea

When a club is preparing for its fourth major cup final, it helps to have somebody in the squad whose tally of Champions League final appearances alone surpasses that. Enter the serial winner Fridolina Rolfö, who has helped Manchester United reach a final at the first attempt in her first season in England. What else did we expect? It is just what she does.

The Sweden winger, who arrived from Barcelona last summer, is speaking to the Guardian about Sunday’s Women’s League Cup final against Chelsea, the holders, and her winning mentality quickly reveals itself when she says of reaching the final: “Yes, we should be proud, but of course we’re not happy – we want to win the final as well.

The world No 3 is backed to become the challenger but lost twice this week, to Wesley So and Levon Aronian

Fabiano Caruana, the world No 3, reigning US champion and 5-2 favourite to win the world title Candidates at the Cap St Georges Resort, Pegeia, Cyprus, from 29 March to 16 April, planned to warm up with two events at his home town St Louis, but events have not followed the script.

Caruana was second to the former Russian, Mikhail Antipov, in the Saint Louis Masters, though he was unbeaten with 7/9, so this was still a good result. But then, in the American Cup, a double elimination format knockout, he lost to both Wesley So and Levon Aronian in similar fashion, winning the first classical game with White, losing the second with Black, then losing the speed tie-break 1.5-2.5.

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Health service’s 2025 staff survey found that one in seven had experienced violence from patients or the public

Hundreds of thousands of NHS staff have been attacked, harassed, bullied, or subject to racism, latest NHS figures show.

The health service’s 2025 staff survey found that one in seven had experienced violence from patients or the public, while more than a quarter reported harassment, bullying and abuse, the highest levels in three years.

Estimates reveal one in five girls aged 16-19 in England and Wales have experienced domestic abuse

Not enough is being done to tackle misogyny among young boys and toxic online influences, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for domestic abuse, as she reacted to data showing 18% of 16- to 19-year-oldgirls are estimated to be victims of abuse.

Louisa Rolfe said: “That’s a huge proportion of young people. And we work very hard in this space to look at where we apply justice outcomes, but we don’t want to criminalise a whole cohort of young people. We absolutely must identify the most harmful behaviour, but also our preference would be to prevent it.”

US space agency says it is working towards new date after February launch delayed by technical difficulties

Nasa has said the long-delayed launch of Artemis II, the first crewed flyby mission to the moon in more than 50 years, could happen as soon as 1 April.

“We are on track for a launch as early as April 1, and we are working toward that date,” Lori Glaze, a senior Nasa official, told a press conference on Thursday. Technical difficulties delayed a launch originally expected in February.

People from across the world queue for hours to get a video taken on the famous ‘Gateway to Heaven’ rooftop in the heart of Brazil’s most iconic city

It was day three of the British family’s holiday in Brazil and, as the sun rose over Rio’s undulating mountains, they set off for the city’s most talked about tourist haunt.

“It’s our first time in Brazil. We’re really looking forward to it,” said Paul Boswell, a 58-year-old builder from Basildon, Essex, before clambering on to the motorbike that would carry him there.

Cross-party committee says service is ‘jewel in crown of UK’s soft power’ but is diminished by poor governance

Ministers risk “opening the door to propaganda from hostile states” and diminishing international trust in the BBC World Service by allowing its funding to be frozen at a crucial time, parliament’s spending watchdog has said.

The cross-party public accounts committee (PAC) said it was deeply troubled by the fact the service was still unclear about its funding just weeks before its current deal runs out.It also reiterated the BBC’s warnings about the rising influence of Russian and Chinese state-backed media.

In this week’s newsletter: In the wake of the DHS secretary’s firing, staff from the Federal Emergency Management Agency share how her tenure has left the US less able to the respond to the climate crisis

Donald Trump made his first cabinet-level firing last week when he expelled Kristi Noem. In her one year leading the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Noem sparked widespread criticism for overseeing inhumane immigration policies and avoiding questions about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers’ shooting of protesters in Minneapolis. She even earned the nickname Ice Barbie.

“Good riddance,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey wrote on social media about her ousting.

Bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure to have major environmental fallout, experts warn

‘A sobering preview’: extreme heat now affects one in three people globally, study finds

Reaching net zero by 2050 ‘cheaper for UK than one fossil fuel crisis’

Good riddance to Kristi Noem. Her replacement won’t be an improvement | Moira Donegan

How Trump’s EPA rollbacks give US states new tools in climate suits

‘The perfect storm’: Trump has left the US less prepared for natural disasters, experts say

Records could be smashed in southern California as experts warn weather set to be ‘exceptional – and not in a good way’

States across the US west are bracing for a brutal early-season heatwave threatening to cook several cities through the weekend and into next week. Forecasters warned temperatures will spike 20-30F above normal for several days.

Daily records could be shattered in southern California this week, the National Weather Service said, with a possibility that all-time records for March will be broken as well. Following the warmest winter on record across most of the region, the intense conditions are expected to eat into low snowpack levels, deepening drought concerns.

Cycle lanes, electric cars and other interventions have helped 19 global cities slash levels of pollutants by more than 20%

London, San Francisco and Beijing are among 19 global cities that have achieved “remarkable reductions” in air pollution, analysis has found, having slashed levels of two airway-aggravating pollutants by more than 20% since 2010.

The analysis found interventions such as cycle lanes, uptake of electric cars and restrictions on polluting vehicles had helped to drive the improvements.

Fears are growing that the new far-right president will slash environmental protections in favour of foreign investment

In Chile’s most northerly region, Arica y Parinacota, Andrea Chellew, 62, relies on tourists for her cafe. They usually travel from the coastal city of Arica to the unique biosphere of the Andean highlands, which rise well above 5,000 metres and host nature reserves and wetlands.

At 3,000 metres (9,800ft) above sea level, along Highway 11, she lives by the trade route that brings raw materials and goods between Bolivia and Chile. Yet the cafe remains empty as fewer tourists come, amid more reports of increased mining activity near environmentally protected areas, such as the Lauca national park.

Amanda Wixon, 56, sentenced to 13 years for keeping victim imprisoned at home in Gloucestershire since 1990s

• ‘She didn’t want me to hug her’: carer of enslaved woman describes her recovery

A woman imprisoned and forced to work for a mother of 10 for more than a quarter of a century in “Dickensian” conditions has said nothing can give her back her lost years as her abuser was sentenced to 13 years.

The woman, who was held by Amanda Wixon in Tewkesbury, said: “For 25 years I lived in fear, control and abuse. I was treated as though my life, my freedom and my voice did not matter. The trauma and the nightmares are something I still carry with me every day.”

Jeff Blair, 55, who was attacked while on duty in Shildon, died in hospital after sustaining serious injuries

A man has been charged with the murder of a court bailiff who was attacked while he was at work.

Jeff Blair, 55, died in hospital after he sustained serious injuries while on duty in Shildon, County Durham on Tuesday.

After latest concert cancellation, singer also describes Valencia hotel as ‘indescribable hell’ that will require ‘one year to recover’ from

British singer Morrissey has cancelled a concert in Valencia after being left sleep-deprived during the city’s notoriously noisy Las Fallas festival.

A statement on his website said: “Having travelled for two days by road, Morrissey reached the hotel in Valencia late on Wednesday. Any form of sleep or rest throughout the night was impossible due to festival noise/loud techno singing/megaphone announcements.”

Two former members of Royal Ulster Constabulary testify at civil trial that Adams led proscribed organisation

Gerry Adams was the leader of the Irish Republican Army, two former police officers have told the high court.

The former Sinn Féin leader is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who allege he was culpable for three separate IRA bombings in which they were injured.

Meta and YouTube accused of creating harmful products in trial seen as a bellwether for attitudes towards social media

The first-ever jury trial over the potential harms of social media wrapped up on Thursday. Lawyers for Meta and YouTube have argued their platforms are safe for the vast majority of young people, while lawyers for a young woman at the center of the case say the tech companies have designed their products to be addictive, leading to mental health issues in children and teens.

“How did they become such behemoths?” Mark Lanier, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said during closing arguments in Los Angeles superior court on Thursday, according to NBC. “It’s the attention economy. They’re making money off capturing your attention.”

FBI treating incident as targeted act against Jewish community as temple says all students and staff safe

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A man who rammed his vehicle into a Michigan synagogue and drove through a hallway on Thursday died during the incident, officials said.

There were no other serious casualties at the Temple Israel in West Bloomfield township, a suburb in Oakland county, and the FBI said it was treating the matter as a “targeted act of violence against the Jewish community”. It was not immediately clear how the driver died, but officials said security staff engaged the suspect and at least one fired shots.

Robert Habeck says world has moved on from weaponising energy to using tariffs, technology and more to inflict harm

The weaponisation of energy when Russia invaded Ukraine has given way to “weaponising everything” since Donald Trump returned to the White House, Germany’s former economy minister has said.

Robert Habeck, the Green politician responsible for keeping the lights on during the last energy crisis, said the belief gas “would never be a political weapon” led successive German governments blindly into Putin’s trap by building the Nord Stream pipelines and selling strategic reserves to Gazprom, which Russia emptied before the invasion.

Five soldiers were indicted over alleged violent abuse and rape of Palestinian man at detention centre in 2024

Israel’s top military lawyer has dropped all charges against five soldiers accused of the violent abuse and rape of a Palestinian detainee from Gaza.

The military advocate general, Itay Offir, said prosecutors lacked key evidence after the victim was sent back to Gaza, and that the conduct of senior officials had affected the chance of holding a fair trial.

Competition and Markets Authority will closely monitor pump prices to stop profits being ramped up amid crisis

The UK competition watchdog has warned fuel retailers it is stepping up its monitoring of pump prices amid concern over profiteering as the US war with Iran drives up wholesale costs.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said firms responsible for thousands of filling stations across the country had been “put on notice” amid a wider government crackdown to stop bosses ramping up profits at the expense of consumers.

Cosmetics firm takes legal action against London-born perfumer who sold brand and rights to her name in 1999

Estée Lauder is taking legal action against the British perfumer Jo Malone after she used her name on a fragrance for the fashion chain Zara.

Malone sold her perfume brand to Estée Lauder Companies in 1999 in a deal under which she was blocked from using her name for particular commercial reasons including the marketing of fragrance.

Ofgem licence means firm can replicate Texas setup of powering homes, businesses and EVs

Elon Musk’s Tesla has won approval to supply electricity to households and businesses across Great Britain, as the tech billionaire expands his energy ambitions.

The energy regulator, Ofgem, has formally granted Tesla an electricity supply licence, enabling it to provide electricity to domestic and business premises in England, Scotland and Wales.

Proposed package comes after regulator finds ‘serious and unacceptable breaches’ in how company operates

Welsh Water is to pay a proposed £44.7m after the industry regulator found “serious and unacceptable” breaches in the supplier’s sewage and network services.

The water authority for England and Wales, Ofwat, said the non-profit Dŵr Cymru, or Welsh Water, failed to properly operate, maintain and upgrade its wastewater network to ensure it could cope with levels of sewage.

İlker Çatak’s Yellow Letters and Emin Alper’s Salvation both won headline honours at the Berlin film festival and show dissenting cinema is thriving in the face of Erdoğan’s repression

‘I want calm in our building,” says the landlord of a couple who have been purged from their jobs in the film Yellow Letters, before asking them to leave the premises. “We’re all responsible for keeping the calm here”. Turkish cinema, however, has never been less inclined to keep the peace. İlker Çatak’s Yellow Letters and Emin Alper’s Salvation, two politically outspoken films that examine Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s autocratic regime, shared the top prizes at this year’s Berlinale: the Golden Bear for Çatak and Silver for Alper.

These striking works share a lot more. Both titles are co-produced by Liman, an indie film company from Turkey. Nadir Öperli, Salvation’s producer, co-produced Yellow Letters alongside Enis Köstepen who produced and co-wrote Çatak’s film. Both in their mid-40s, they are key figures in the new wave of Turkish cinema that has risen from the ashes of Yeşilçam, the national film industry body that collapsed in the late 1980s. Aesthetically bold yet accessible, and steeped in Turkey’s rich tradition of dissent, their projects expose Turkey at a precarious moment of political repression and economic hardship.

Tinariwen went from Saharan weddings to Grammy-winning acclaim – but violence has forced the desert blues masters into exile. Now, a new generation is stepping in to help

Since their formation in 1979, Tuareg guitar band Tinariwen have been constantly moving. Based variously in Mali, Libya and Algeria, the Grammy-winning group have used their desert blues music as a lament for a wandering refugee status that continues to this day.

Co-founder Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni says the group are currently in Algeria, after band members had to flee their homes in Mali in October 2024. “The Malian military and the Russian mercenary group Wagner have been burning villages, slaughtering animals and raping women,” he says. “No one is talking about what is happening – no politicians or journalists – so we have to let the world know through our music.”

The Traitors host has repeatedly joked that she’ll be ‘awful’ at presenting her new chatshow. But its launch is the highest profile thing she’s ever done – and it’s about to happen

‘They’ve given me a talkshow,” says Claudia Winkleman in the trailer. “Agreed, an error. It might be excruciating.” Such wry self-deprecation continued in the official announcement. “I’m obviously going to be awful,” she said. “That goes without saying but I’m over the moon the BBC are letting me try.”

On Friday the 13th – lucky for viewers? – the 54-year-old hosts the inaugural edition of her eponymous chatshow. The Claudia Winkleman Show’s title might not be the most exciting, but it’s a quietly revolutionary TV moment. It also makes this arguably the biggest week of the presenters’s career. No pressure.

In director Amy Wang’s debut movie Slanted, a mysterious procedure allows people of colour to become white, speaking to her own difficult feelings as a teen

In March 2021, six Asian women were killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta. Amy Wang, an Asian Australian writer and director, who emigrated to America in 2015, remembers that tragedy well. “It was the first time I felt genuinely unsafe here,” she says. Alongside a growing fear, childhood memories resurfaced – the internal and external racism and the exhaustion of never quite fitting in. “I moved to Australia when I was seven and didn’t speak English – it was a tough time for me,” she admits. And then there was one particular recurring thought. “There were many times when I’d wake up as a teenager and think to myself: ‘Wouldn’t life be easier if I were white?’” So, she turned that past feeling into art.

The art is Slanted, Wang’s audacious feature debut – a film whose premise is, by design, completely unhinged. An insecure Asian American high schooler undergoes a procedure at a mysterious cosmetics clinic called Ethnos (tagline: if you can’t beat them … be them) that renders people of colour visibly white, permanently. It’s taking ‘I don’t see colour’ to the ultra-extreme: equality achieved only when we all look the same, and that means whiteness. The surgery works. And then things get complicated.

The smash-hit period drama gets the Hollywood treatment as Cillian Murphy’s Tommy Shelby strides into 1940’s wartime Birmingham, while Hugh Jackman and Zen McGrath try to repair their fractured relationship

Whether the Birmingham-set period crime drama needed another outing after six series is a moot point, but Tommy Shelby is back to brood magnificently one final time. Creator Steven Knight and director Tom Harper keep things reassuringly familiar (glowering vistas, anachronistic songs, random acts of violence) but we’re now in 1940, and the Nazis are coming. While Tommy (Cillian Murphy) is holed up in a decaying mansion haunted by the ghosts of his past, his impetuous son and heir Duke (Barry Keoghan) forms an alliance with British fascist John Beckett (a cool Tim Roth) to flood the country with counterfeit currency. And only Tommy can stop them …
Friday 20 March, Netflix

This Netflix’s documentary about Rupert’s warring children blurs the lines with HBO drama Succession. But, ultimately, it’s a depressing catalogue of nepotism that it’s hard to be enthused about

‘To explain the Murdochs, you have to understand the television show Succession.” So quips New York Times writer Jim Rutenberg a few minutes into this four-part documentary about Rupert Murdoch’s empire – and, specifically, his children’s battle for control of it when he dies.

It’s a canny opener. Jesse Armstrong’s series about media mogul Logan Roy and his warring children, thought to be based on the Murdochs, was a gripping smash hit, and this documentary is soon excitedly matching the eldest Murdoch siblings – independent Prudence from Rupert’s first marriage, dutiful favourite Lachlan, “problem child” James and brilliant but overlooked (pesky X chromosomes!) Elisabeth – to their Succession counterparts. (Rupert’s two younger daughters from his third marriage aren’t in the running.) But don’t be fooled: despite the suspenseful strings and off-key piano motifs, this is no Emmy-award-winning drama. Rather, it is an exhausting if exhaustive rundown of all things Murdoch, with the siblings’ manoeuvrings often the least interesting part. In the documentary, as in life, they are overshadowed by their dad.

Dynasty: The Murdochs is on Netflix now

(Good Boy)
Amid the stylistic shifts of Blake’s seventh record come samples of Dusty Springfield and Dizzee Rascal: gripping distractions from some preachy sentiments

Of all the things you might expect from a James Blake album – exquisite minimalism, plaintive vocal distortion, appearances from hip-hop’s great and good – chin-stroking socio0political commentary probably isn’t one of them. But as the title suggests, our current predicament is precisely what the 37-year-old aims to address on his seventh solo record. Unfortunately, preachy, banal sentiments (“Everyone’s getting different information / So how can we get on the same side?”) sit awkwardly amid the ethereal melancholia he long ago perfected as the poster boy for London’s 2010s indie-electronica scene.

Subsequently, however, Blake became better known for collaborating with huge US rappers, including Kanye West: the pair recorded a succession of still-unreleased tracks in 2022. Through the High Wire – seemingly a repurposing of one of those songs – scans as a bold defence of his disgraced former colleague. “People love a story,” croons Blake, explaining that “whispers change” until “we all fall from glory”.

(Signum)
From operatic frenzy in one moment to pianissimo whisper the next, Nolan does exhilarating justice to an extraordinary but little known repertoire

Charles-Valentin Alkan was undoubtedly one of the great composers of his day. Chopin, his friend and one-time nextdoor neighbour, was an enthusiastic admirer, while Liszt cited Alkan as the only person in whose presence he felt nervous performing. Many of his keyboard works are notoriously difficult to play, yet all are immaculately crafted. Nevertheless, his music has stubbornly refused to enter the mainstream.

Joseph Nolan, who has recorded Alkan’s complete organ works, is convinced of his genius, comparing the music to “Widor on steroids”. Listening to this first volume, performed on the breathtaking organ of Église Saint Martin in Dudelange, Luxembourg, that seems an apt description. Not only does Nolan’s playing exhibit a death-defying virtuosity, Signum’s richly spacious recording is guaranteed to put the swankiest of speaker systems through its paces.

Sixty years after the release of her debut album, Boots, we celebrate her finest tracks – from Bond themes to LSD anthems

Before she sang a Bond theme, Nancy Sinatra had recorded a parody of one: twanging guitar, John-Barry-mocking brass and all. The great lyrics – “He’s never caught a spy I’m told / He’s never even caught a cold” – mean preposterous mid-60s novelty records come no better.

(Warner Classics)
Radulović/Philharmonia/Rouvali/Favre-Kahn/Dalene
Radulović brings irresistible swagger to selections from Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella, while a more restrained duet fosters a fine sense of dialogue

There’s a daredevil freshness about Nemanja Radulović’s playing that makes this generously filled disc of Prokofiev particularly rewarding. Over 86 minutes, he tackles the Second Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia under Santtu-Matias Rouvali, a pair of underperformed sonatas and a clutch of original works and transcriptions with pianist Laure Favre-Kahn.

The concerto receives a subtle, supportive reading from Rouvali, who is happy to play second fiddle to the star turn. Radulović plunges in, his audacious attack and intonational high-wire act almost upsetting the applecart in the oompah-pah finale. The same fearless commitment pays dividends elsewhere: in the jaunty Heifetz arrangement of the Gavotte from the Classical Symphony, for example, or in the spiky march from The Love for Three Oranges.

This prose work from the Nobel literature winner opens up her novels and offers beautiful imagery

When Korean novelist Han Kang won the Nobel prize in literature in 2024, the committee praised her “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”. In other words, Han’s work looks both out at the world – towards the 1980 Gwangju massacre fictionalised in her novel Human Acts –  and inward to the human experience, as with The Vegetarian’s portrait of one woman’s claustrophobic struggle.

Much of the appeal of Han’s work is in its mystery, the gaps she leaves for the reader to close. So it is tantalising to have this collection of prose, “a book of reflections” that might illuminate the darker corners of her work.

Offering a monthly Top 20 rundown, the ranking will combine retail sales data with social media engagement on TikTok

An official “BookTok” chart is set to launch later this year in the UK, offering a monthly rundown of the the most popular titles on social media platform TikTok.

The ranking will combine verified retail sales data with social media engagement to track which books are resonating most strongly with readers online.

Four fatherless girls in a band set out to escape their deprived Australian coastal town, in a dark, raw tale of friendship and abuse

Liz Allan’s powerful debut novel smells unmistakably like teen spirit. Plunging the reader into the cauldron of suburban malaise that is an Australian seaside resort in 1994, it is narrated collectively by the Bastards, a band of 14-year-old riot grrrls bringing Kurt Cobain’s gospel to their dead-end backwater – in their own eyes, at least. To their schoolmates, they are three fatherless losers, tainted by poverty.

But the Bastards don’t care; they’ve got a ticket out of Vincent, “capital of teen pregnancies and absent fathers”. For nine months, their beloved music teacher, Mr P, has been rehearsing them for the Battle of the Bands, a long drive away in the city of Geelong. Admittedly, they suffered a body blow when their lead singer, Lily Lucid, quit a year ago. But Mr P still believes in them.

A former New Labour minister tackles the question of our times with rigour and verve – but blindspots remain

At first glance, the former New Labour minister Liam Byrne is not the ideal person to explain the rise of rightwing populism in Britain and beyond, and how it might be stopped. At the end of Gordon Brown’s government in 2010, Byrne infamously wrote a one-line letter to whoever would succeed him as chief secretary to the Treasury: “I’m afraid there is no money.” Both friendly advice and an inside joke, these words were used for years by the Tories and Lib Dems to justify their austerity policies – and were arguably one of the causes of the modern disillusionment with conventional politicians. This loss of faith, and the damage to society and public services from austerity, have fuelled populism ever since.

Byrne’s short but ambitious book is, in a sense, his attempt to make amends. Yet some of the arguments and evidence he presents, in quick, confident sentences which fit his past reputation as a clever but impatient minister, are unlikely to persuade many people that he is thinking afresh. He often cites and echoes centrist authorities such as the Tony Blair Institute and Keir Starmer’s former advisers Claire Ainsley and Deborah Mattinson, who have all long said that the way to defeat populism is to respect its supporters, however rightwing. Given that Reform UK has surged ahead in the polls, while Labour is regarded by most populist voters with contempt, this deference seems a dead end.

Last year’s celebrated French hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is nominated in 12 categories this year, with Ghost of Yōtei, Dispatch, Death Stranding 2 and Indiana Jones also making strong showings

The 22nd Bafta games awards are coming up in April, and the 2026 nominations list is dominated by the impeccably stylish French breakout hit Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 which has 12 nominations, and has already won game of the year prizes at the UK’s Golden Joysticks last November, December’s Game awards in the US and February’s Dice awards in Las Vegas.

Dispatch, a game about a benched superhero roped into running a team of superpowered misfits at a call centre, has nine nominations. Among them is a best performer in a leading role nod for its star Aaron Paul, and one for Jeffrey Wright in a supporting role. Sony’s samurai epic Ghost of Yōtei came out with eight nominations, including best game and best performer in a leading role for Erika Ishii, who plays Atsu.

A lot is riding on the success of the latest multiplayer online shooter from Halo creator Bungie, a DayGlo spectacular that whisks players to a far-off planet mired in an endless battle for resources

In rare quiet moments playing Marathon, you may find yourself overcome by the iridiscently pretty planet Tau Ceti IV. This fictional world seems to radiate a chemical glow: powdery pink skies and lurid green vegetation fill the screen alongside supermassive architecture emblazoned with ultra-stylish, neon graphic design. Yet enjoy the scenery for a split second too long and you might catch a bullet, causing your character to bleed an icky blue substance. In such moments, the camera locks – meaning you must stare down at their unceremonious expiry. Marathon’s considerable beauty is matched only by its clinical brutality.

The road to Marathon’s release has been long and contentious. This extraction shooter – so-called because you must do as much shooting and looting as you can in a given level before making an escape – was first shown off in 2022 with a ravishing trailer (below). Among many startling images, it showed tiny robotic bugs, a little like silkworms, weaving a synthetic body into existence. The game, made by Halo and Destiny creator Bungie, looked weird in a way that blockbuster shooters rarely do, causing excitable stirrings among both shooter stalwarts and art-game aficionados.

The revival of this 90s favourite is a retro-futuristic fever dream that is first incomprehensible, then thrillingly evocative. Plus, Donald Glover’s Yoshi debut

Back in the mid-1990s, when I was a staff writer for Edge magazine, Marathon was our multiplayer shooter of choice. We all worked on Apple Macs, not PCs, so Bungie’s sci-fi opus was one of the only networked shooters we could all play together. At the end of every day, staff from magazines around the company loaded it up and played for hours (usually with Chemical Brothers or Orbital blasting from the stereo). This was the era in which video games discovered club culture – Sony employed the legendary Sheffield studio the Designers Republic to create its box art and licensed the latest dance tunes for its marketing and game soundtracks. Western developers swooned over cyberpunk anime, newly available thanks to video distributors such as Viz Media and Manga Entertainment, and the internet was emerging as a weird, wild global meeting place. It felt, for a while, as if we were living in a William Gibson novel.

I’m reminded of these things while playing the new version of Marathon, released this week by Bungie and heavily inspired by 1990s futurism. It’s now an online sci-fi extraction shooter in which players beam down to the planet Tau Ceti IV to scavenge for loot, carry out missions and potentially blast each other in the process. Its closest rival is Arc Raiders, which makes a similar use of stylised retro-futurism. In a recent Twitter exchange, Bungie’s global franchise director, Philip Asher, namechecked Sony’s Wipeout game, its Mental Wealth ads for PlayStation and its translucent Dual Shock controllers as inspirations.

(Knekelhuis)
Music boxes, miaows and strange melodies pepper the whimsical and charmingly lo-fi post-punk of Laurène Exposito and Théo Delaunay

The lyrics for Diagonale des Yeux’s debut album were written in the style of an exquisite corpse game, with members Laurène Exposito and Théo Delaunay taking it in turns to patch together ephemeral thoughts and themes in a mix of French, German, English and Spanish. The bizarre, multilingual stories that emerged match the French duo’s ramshackle, home-recorded sound, which features everything from toybox percussion to farmyard sound effects.

Their whimsical approach is anchored in the outsider pop and post-punk of 1980s Europe, which embraced discordant instrumentation and disaffected vocals. These 12 tracks are charmingly lo-fi, built around rudimentary synth and guitar melodies that often careen into strange directions. Acolytes jumps from frenetic punk jam into swooning breakdown and back again within just 90 seconds; Le Rayon Orchidée stumbles groggily to a halt like a malfunctioning music box. Both sing, adding to the theatrics: playing around with effects, they range from pitch-shifted, kitten-like miaows to macho groans.

Sadler’s Wells East, London
Russell Maliphant Dance Company’s arresting evening of three solos includes a spiritual offering performed by the choreographer himself

Watching Daniel Proietto dance Afterlight must be one of the best ways you could spend 15 minutes. This beautifully arresting piece of dance is the antidote to stimulation overload: one single smooth thread of movement finely spun across the spare piano chords of Erik Satie’s Gnossiennes. As Proietto circles into deep backbends bathed in a pool of light, it’s like a 21st-century Dying Swan.

This evening of work by choreographer Russell Maliphant comprises only three solos. With Maliphant, nothing is in excess, everything is deliberate: every motion, every pause, every flicker of light; never more than is needed. Maliphant is a Royal Ballet-trained dancer who also studied martial arts and creates meditative, mesmeric works of dance and light in synthesis (lighting designers Michael Hulls and Panagiotis Tomaras are key parts of the creative process).

For fans, this programme comes with a wave of nostalgia. Afterlight was made for a Diaghilev-inspired evening at Sadler’s Wells in 2009. Another solo dates further back, Two, created in 1997 originally for Maliphant’s wife, Dana Fouras, here performed by Alina Cojocaru.

King’s Head theatre, London
Masculinity is not in a good way in this trio of short plays – the first of 10 presented in two venues – which deal in violence, misanthropy and murder

Neil LaBute does not appear to have much hope for humanity. It is not just that the US playwright’s characters in this trio of short plays are cruel and uncaring, but that their total lack of remorse flattens the interest of their stories. LaBute is pinned as a provocateur, but his trilogy doesn’t feel risky so much as misanthropically sour.

Best known for In the Company of Men and The Shape of Things, LaBute has 10 plays presented in three chapters in America the Beautiful, a split-venue UK premiere staged between the King’s Head and Greenwich theatre.

Displayed in a redesigned space, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert’s expansive collection of decorative items is not only gorgeous, at last it boldly tackles the question of where these valuables came from

We periodically hear when a masterpiece is “saved for the nation”, usually when a museum is obliged to raise eye-watering sums to prevent the export or sale of an artwork deemed of national significance. Museums also occasionally purchase at auction for the same purpose. They are, however, swimming in a pool among the superwealthy, with many news-making record sales subsequently disappearing into someone’s private yacht or bathroom.

It is this marketplace that makes it a momentous occasion when an entire private collection is bequeathed to the nation, usually upon the benefactors’ death. From the Wallace Collection in the 19th century to the 2025 acquisition of the Schroder treasure by the Holburne museum in Bath, museums are willing custodians of collections of such quality as can only be acquired through capital vastly exceeding their own. How they choose to present that gift is a curatorial issue in itself.

Lapotaire’s portrayal of the French singer transcended impersonation and she revealed her instinctive intelligence in Shakespeare, Chekhov, Ibsen and much more

Jane Lapotaire, who has died aged 81, will always be identified with the title role in Pam Gems’s play Piaf. Opening at Stratford’s the Other Place in 1978, it moved to the West End and Broadway, winning Lapotaire an Olivier award and a Tony. With her Gallic ancestry – she was born to a French mother and raised by an English foster parent in Ipswich – Lapotaire seemed born to play Edith Piaf, but her performance transcended impersonation. What she showed us was a woman whose art was dependent on her ferocious loyalty to her working-class origins: one who self-deprecatingly dubbed herself “just a bit of slum rubbish”. Above all, with her wide-open smile, she captured Piaf’s ramshackle life, emotional generosity and invincible good nature.

It was a gift of a role and one that Lapotaire rightly relished. But its success obscured the fact that Lapotaire was that relatively rare creature: a genuinely classical actor most at home in Shakespeare, Sophocles, Ibsen or Chekhov. She did her fair share of television – indeed she came to prominence in a TV series about Marie Curie – but it was on the stage that she revealed her instinctive intelligence and vocal precision.

Stage and screen actor hailed for her work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and for her TV role as Marie Curie

There was a streak of European exoticism in the voice and acting of Jane Lapotaire, who has died aged 81. Her poise and the lustrous sheen of her acting led her to the top of the Royal Shakespeare Company tree, where she was an honorary associate artist, and to leading roles at the National Theatre under Laurence Olivier.

On television she seemed perfect casting as, say, the Dowager Empress Dagmar of Russia in the Edward the Seventh (1975) miniseries starring Timothy West, or as an irresistible Cleopatra opposite Colin Blakely’s Antony in 1981, directed by Jonathan Miller, though, surprisingly, she never played that role on stage and was terrified of snakes (discovered when playing Charmian in the 1972 film version with Charlton Heston).

The Academy CEO on his decidedly non-Hollywood beginnings, bonding with Robert Redford – and a formative watch of All That Jazz

It’s a boiling day in downtown Los Angeles; crowds are milling about outside the Dolby theatre where Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony is to be held, selfie-ing the giant Oscar statuettes.

And this is where the man with whom the buck stops is looking at the set, going through the top-secret opening number and busy with a thousand admin details. Academy CEO, Bill Kramer, increasingly renowned as one of the most important people in Hollywood, meets me for a pre-ceremony chat in a suite in the next-door Hollywood Loews Hotel. “It’s so nice that we’re not on camera!” he says. “Yeah, so happy. Let myself relax!”

He is approachable and diplomatic, revered for his fundraising wizardry at the Academy museum, where he was managing director of external development in 2012 before ascending to his current job at the Academy 10 years later. Kramer has a business degree and came to Columbia after his first substantial job working for the Metropolitan Transit Authority in New York.

It was at a party in the 90s that this policy and financial strategist met the man who changed his life: Robert Redford. “He couldn’t believe how much I knew about movies!” says Kramer. “And he said he wanted to decrease reliance on corporate sponsorships and bring someone on board at Sundance to help generate philanthropic gifts from individuals. Would I be interested in doing that? I said: ‘Sign me up!’”

This can-do attitude is still evident in Kramer today. A few days out from showtime, he is, he says, “so incredibly excited. I’m an early riser, as my team will tell you, up at 4am. It’s a good moment to get my head together, to review our script. It’s a quiet moment where I can go through emails that have come in overnight.”

The presenter of hit series Talk Easy has pioneered a style of candid chat that has seen the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow and Salman Rushdie squirming in their seats – so far only one guest has stormed out

Most episodes of Sam Fragoso’s interview podcast Talk Easy begin with a disarmingly simple question: “How are you doing today?” It primes his high-profile guests – Patti Smith, Gwyneth Paltrow, Salman Rushdie – to be met where they’re at, and sets the stage for what has, over the decade since it began, become a masterclass in interviewing, a singular property in a market so waterlogged that people commonly joke that microphones should be taxed.

Fragoso, 31, eschews the gimmicks and pally celebrity chat of many podcasts. With its crackly jazz theme and commitment to depth, Talk Easy oozes class; in 2020, Fragoso pressed a vinyl record of his interview with US writer Fran Lebowitz. Describing himself as where underground journalist Nardwuar (disarmingly well researched) meets NPR legend Terry Gross (sensitive, direct) meets late talkshow host Dick Cavett (intellectual, sophisticated), he is a freakishly intuitive listener. “The way you construct the narrative of my life is so true that it’s just a little startling,” actor Michelle Williams told him in 2023. In December, the Obamas signed Talk Easy to their production company.

From the rugged north of Scotland to the glittering Aegean, our tipsters recommend islands for slowing down, lazing around and taking in nature
• Tell us about a spring activity or day out – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

A short ferry ride from Vigo (daily and overnight visitor numbers are capped) took us to the tiny archipelago of the Cíes Islands, a protected cluster of islands where seabirds rule and tiny beaches remain unspoilt. There are no cars on the island and only a few small restaurants dotted about. There is one campsite, with little else but the waves of the Atlantic to lull you to sleep. I felt as if I had won the lottery when we visited and knew this would be an experience not easily matched.
Helen E

From a grand country house built by a merchant seaman to a rustic railway worker’s cottage within historic city walls

The sport is booming, but which racket will boost your game? Our expert enlisted the help of a padel coach to round up the aces

• The best fitness tech and gadgets

There are ludicrously fast-growing sports – and then there’s padel. According to the Lawn Tennis Association, only 15,000 British players picked up a padel racket in 2019 … but by the end of 2024, that figure was more than 400,000. Of those, about 399,000 are probably mispronouncing it: think pah-dell rather than paddle. But get used to strange looks if you insist on saying it like that.

People love padel because it’s so easy to play. If you can hit a ball with a racket, you can play – and there’s something joyous about whacking any ball over any net. You don’t need to be incredibly fit either: while better players will be constantly on the move, casual players can get away with something akin to walking pace.

Best padel racket overall:
Babolat Counter Origin

Planning a spring clean? From furniture to toothbrushes, books to old phones, here are the best ways to sell, donate and upcycle your unwanted things

• How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout

Forget blossom and bluebells, for many of us, the changing season means one thing: time for a spring clean. While you may have tackled the clothes you no longer want without sending them to landfill (if not, have a read of our guide to clearing out your clothes sustainably), other items in our homes are not always as straightforward.

According to the circular living organisation Wrap, 22m items of furniture are thrown away each year in the UK, and worldwide, we discard 2.6m tonnes of e-waste (electronic waste) annually. Many of these items could be resold, upcycled or recycled. The British Heart Foundation reports that 62% of us throw away homeware items that are in good enough condition to be donated to charity. Here are some of the best ways to reuse, recycle and upcycle your unwanted stuff.

Warmer days are coming, but it’s not bare-leg weather yet. Our fashion writer put 25 pairs through their paces so you can wear your spring dresses now – and stop wasting money on bad tights

• 50 women’s spring wardrobe updates for under £100

Tights are a staple in most women’s wardrobes, yet they’re also one of the most frequently discarded. It’s not unusual to leave the house wearing a new pair, only to realise by lunchtime that they’re laddered and ready for the bin.

Tights’ tendency to rip so easily comes down to the delicate nature of the fabric. Once damaged, it usually can’t be repaired, meaning most tights end up in landfill, where the nylon and elastane can take up to 200 years to decompose. An estimated 8bn pairs of tights are bought and discarded each year, according to the brand Swedish Stockings. To make matters worse, producing traditional nylon tights releases nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.

Best black tights overall:
Snag 50 denier

Best shapewear tights:
Calzedonia Strong Sculpt tights

Whether you’re looking for memory foam, wool, cooling or firm, we reveal the toppers we rate – and whether they can really rescue a bad mattress

• The best mattresses: sleep better with our seven rigorously tested picks

A mattress topper is like a slice of cheese in a burger: not strictly necessary, but potentially transformative, especially if your bed has all the cosiness of stale bread. Strap a comfy topper on to a hard mattress, and it could transform the quality of your sleep at significantly less cost than a new mattress.

That’s the promise, anyway. In my neverending quest for a decent night’s kip, I slept on nine bestselling toppers – not all at once, Princess and the Pea style, but for a few nights, each on top of a firm mattress. I was surprised to find so many topper types available, from thick slabs of memory foam to airy cloudbanks of hollowfibre, with one even containing springs.

Best mattress topper overall:
Simba Hybrid Topper (double)

Best budget mattress topper:
Silentnight Airmax 1000 (double)

Blonds really do have more fun – a special-occasion sweet treat that’s perfect for Mother’s Day

It’s often my own impatience that forces me to make no-bake cheesecakes over baked ones. They’re not at all as faffy, though it’s pretty hard to beat the lighter, silkier texture you get with a baked version plus the extra effort is worth it on a special occasion such as Mother’s Day. I’ve sweetened the filling for this one with caramelised white chocolate – it brings a beautiful, creamy, dulce de leche-type caramel flavour that even the biggest white chocolate haters should enjoy. If making your own caramelised white chocolate feels a step too far, however, just buy bars of blond chocolate instead. Top with gently poached rhubarb for a pop of colour and to cut through the richness.

René Redzepi also steps down from non-profit board after accusations of physical and psychological abuse

René Redzepi, the head chef and co-founder of Noma, has announced his resignation from his internationally acclaimed Copenhagen restaurant following allegations he physically abused his staff.

Redzepi had been facing protests in Los Angeles before a four-month pop-up that launched this week. His resignation on Wednesday comes after the New York Times detailed allegations of physical and psychological abuse, including claims that he “punched employees in the face, jabbed them with kitchen implements and slammed them against walls”.

In spring, a wine-drinker’s fancy may well turn to youthful reds from the Loire, made from pinot noir, cabernet franc and even hillside gamays

Can wine ever be good for you? The question has surely occurred to most of us after a night on the chȃteau de migraine, especially if we’ve read the increasingly dire warnings on alcohol consumption. Still, as with chocolate, a lot depends on what type of alcohol you drink. After all, a 90% cocoa solids situation is probably going to do less harm than, say, a family tub of Celebrations, and, while all alcohol is, I hate to break it to you, alcohol, there are definitely better choices you can make.

Red wine, for example, contains more heart-protecting polyphenols than white wine does, as well as a richer variety of minerals. But it needs to be young, not too tannic and not too sweet, either. It should also be low-alcohol (about 12.5% ABV, say) and ideally drunk with food. You should also seek out unusual grape varieties, too, not least to increase your variety of gut microflora. This, at least, is the counsel of Dr Tim Spector, who swears by two glasses a day.

Make use of every inch of parmesan or other grana-type cheeses with this most simple and lovely of risottos

Parmigiano reggiano, grana padano, lodigiano, trentingrana and the other members of the grana-type cheese family (there are many, and all are worth seeking out) are far from cheap. Which is why it is important to use every last bit, including the rind with the last few millimetres of cheese still attached. That functions as a sort of highly flavoured and fatty stock cube that can be added to soups and stews. The best place to keep your precious rinds is in a plastic bag or airtight container in the freezer, which also preserves flavour and stops them drying out, until they’re pulled out and added directly to whatever needs a boost, or to make one of the nicest, most delicately flavoured and cheesy broths, which in turn makes a lovely risotto.

I have written about risotto many times here, with each version a new favourite, and providing lessons in a dish that, regardless of how much I learn and practise, I am always chasing: the right proportions of rice to broth, as well as a pleasing consistency and texture. I know I am not alone in this, and was reassured by a friend from Bergamo, in Lombardy, who told me that, despite having made thousands of risotti, he feels much the same, that every pan is an adventure and personal challenge, and that he wouldn’t have it any other way. This is his recipe, which he describes as the simplest of risotti and a layered celebration of grana cheese.

Don’t treat it as a lofty quest, experts say. You can make each day feel more meaningful with humbler methods

What makes your life meaningful?

If you don’t really know, you’re far from alone. “We’re in the middle of a meaning crisis,” says Bill Burnett, executive director of the Life Design Lab at Stanford University.

Ayrin and SJ met on a subreddit Ayrin created for people ‘dating’ AI companions. Over time, they started talking to AI less … and falling for each other

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

People are reporting “dating” artificially intelligent companions – but not every relationship lasts. What’s it like to fall in – and then out – of love with AI?

As part of our newsletter AI for the people, we spoke to Ayrin and SJ, who live thousands of miles apart and made the same decision: to leave their AI partners – for each other. Their names have been changed.

In her wisdom, Mum taught me to roll with the punches, and reassured me that she’d always be there – even when I staggered in much the worse for wear

What my mum taught me best is her expression: “Let’s play it by ear.” That might sound like an excuse for disorganisation and procrastination, but what she’s really saying at the end of every phone call is: “Life happens, plans change, and we’re always here for you – whatever time you decide to roll up.”

That’s her to a T – putting everyone else first. Even now, at 50, if I go out for a drink or to a gig with my brother and crash at my parents’ place, Mum will still stay up to be sure I’ve made it home safe.

Brent thinks Amy’s habit is unhygienic, but she says his argument doesn’t hold water. Trouble’s brewing – and you decide who’s in the right

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

Amy says that boiling water kills germs so it’s hygienic, but one time I found a hair in my mug

Pouring the water away is a waste, and I can use up my recycled water before Brent returns from work

Criminals using artificial intelligence tools to take over mobile, bank and online shopping accounts, says Cifas

Criminals are increasingly exploiting AI technology to take over people’s mobile, banking and online shopping accounts, the UK’s leading anti-fraud body has warned.

Last year, a record number of scams were reported to the national fraud database, fuelled by AI, which allows for large-scale deception on “industrialised” levels, according to Cifas, the fraud prevention organisation.

From railcards to route tweaks, here’s how to stop your daily train or car journey breaking the bank

• Revealed: new affordable commuter hotspots in Great Britain

• Homes for sale in new commuter hotspots in England – in pictures

For regular rail travellers, season tickets remain one of the biggest cost savers. A weekly, monthly or annual season ticket will work out much cheaper than paying daily fares, especially if you commute most days.

Faster laptop-level power, rapid wifi and 5G, plus much-improved multitasking make the middle iPad highly capable beyond just watching TV

The latest iPad Air is faster in almost all facets, packing not just a processor upgrade but improvements to most of the internal bits that make the tablet work, providing laptop-grade power in a skinny, adaptable touchscreen device.

The new iPad Air M4 costs from the same £599 (€649/$599/A$999) as the outgoing M3 model from last year and again comes in two sizes. One with an 11in screen, which is the best size for most people and a more expensive 13in screen version, which is ideal if you want a second TV or a laptop replacement.

Screen: 11in or 13in Liquid Retina display (264ppi)

Processor: Apple M4 (8-core CPU/9-core GPU)

RAM: 12GB

Storage: 128, 256, 512GB or 1TB

Operating system: iPadOS 26.3

Camera: 12MP rear, 12MP centre stage

Connectivity: Wifi 7, 5G (eSim-only), Bluetooth 6, USB-C (USB3), Touch ID, Smart Connecter

Dimensions: 247.6 x 178.5 x 6.1mm or 280.6 x 214.9 x 6.1mm

Weight: 464g or 616g

Airline has refused refund after our flight was diverted because of bad weather and we were left on the plane for six hours

I was on a Ryanair flight from Bristol to Dublin that took off during Storm Amy in October last year. It was unable to land at Dublin after two abortive attempts and was diverted to Manchester, where we sat on the plane for six hours, with no complimentary refreshments, before being unceremoniously ejected at nearly midnight.

We were told Ryanair staff would organise taxis and hotels, but no crew disembarked with us, and the terminal was deserted.

That first cigarette can lead to a lifetime of dependency, as well as cancer, strokes, heart attacks … Here’s why smokers crave their nicotine hit – and how they can fight back

Smoking is bad for you and you shouldn’t do it. You know both of these things, of course: you’ve been told them in school, on TV and the radio, by doctors, and via the Cronenbergian body-horror of cigarette packets themselves. It’s worth reiterating, though, for two reasons: first, because the effects of having a quick puff outside the pub aren’t just a long-term gamble on your health but an immediate way of making your life worse; and second, because cigarettes remain wildly, impossibly addictive. Some research suggests that as many as two-thirds of people who try one cigarette become, at least temporarily, daily smokers, while a recent survey found that less than a fifth of UK smokers trying to quit actually managed it. Estimates for the average number of times people try to quit before actually managing it range from half a dozen to well over a hundred. So what confluence of factors actually makes cigarettes so difficult to give up – and what does that mean for a wannabe quitter?

“The first thing that happens when you smoke a cigarette is that you inhale a noxious mix of nicotine, various irritants and carcinogens into your lungs, ‘stunning’ your cilia – the tiny, hair-like projections that line your airways – and making them do their job less effectively,” says Lion Shahab, professor of health psychology at University College London. “The other thing that happens very, very quickly is that nicotine gets absorbed through the lungs into the alveoli, into the bloodstream, and then gets transferred into the brain. This is when you start to feel good, and also a key thing that keeps you addicted.”

After operating on victims of the Westminster attack in 2017 and visiting Ukraine and Gaza, Hettiaratchy has seen more horror than most can imagine – but he still believes in humanity, optimism and selflessness

On 22 March 2017, trauma surgeon Shehan Hettiaratchy was running end-of-term exams for his medical students when his phone buzzed. There had been a terror attack near the Houses of Parliament. A man had driven into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, then started stabbing people on the street. Within minutes, Hettiaratchy was in a car with a colleague and heading to St Mary’s hospital near Paddington, west London, where he is the lead surgeon. Victims injured in the attack were due to arrive.

Though Hettiaratchy and his team were used to treating patients with life-threatening injuries – on paper, he says, what they were facing was no different from “a busy Saturday night” – this felt different. There was “a collective fear that we’re under attack – there are people on the streets of London trying to kill our fellow Londoners”.

Since the US has no federal mandate for hearing aid coverage, I found myself in a quandary – I couldn’t communicate with the hearing or the deaf

At the end of my second American Sign Language (ASL) class, during which I had fingerspelled my name Deborah as “F-E-B-O-R-A-H”, I thought it prudent to type a question into my Notes app rather than trying to fingerspell it. “How do I sign, ‘I’m hearing impaired?’” I wrote, showing the typed sentence to my teacher, Courtney Rodriguez. Then I pointed to one of my hearing aids.

Sixty per cent of ASL, Courtney had just taught us, consists of non-manual markers, meaning most of the communication in ASL comes from facial expressions. Puffed cheeks, for example, indicates something big. Pursed lips means small. From the puffed cheeks and pained look on my deaf teacher’s face, I could sense I had hit a big nerve.

Researchers working to unpick whether daily multivitamin results in people staying healthier as they age

Taking a multivitamin every day for two years appears to slow some markers of biological ageing – albeit to a small degree, research suggests.

While chronological age is based on how long a person has lived, biological age reflects the state of the body. Estimates of the latter are often based on changes in patterns of DNA methylation – modifications to DNA that accumulate with age and affect how genes function.

Online fashion commentator Lyas’s catwalk watch parties have gone from hastily assembled get-togethers to large-scale spectacles. But how easy is it to walk the line between outsider and insider?

It was the latest Paris fashion week, moments before the Tom Ford show was due to start, when fashion commentator Lyas slipped through the backstage entrance of the Théâtre du Châtelet and went upstairs to get mic’d up.

Having failed to get a ticket to the actual show, 27-year-old Lyas – whose real name is Elias Medini and who has almost 500,000 followers on Instagram – was preparing to livestream it on a big screen to 2,000 of his fellow rejects currently sitting in the auditorium. The night before he had shown Saint Laurent. In a few days he would do the same for Chanel. His aim, he says, is to democratise a famously closed-off industry, and open up the spectacle of fashion week to people who have no chance of ever going themselves.

Is the secret to a decent night’s kip a good sleep kit? Silky pyjamas, cosy socks and a dressing gown you won’t mind being seen in when putting the bins out will certainly help

Experts share tips on dressing as the most authentic version of yourself and avoiding the draw of the latest microtrends

How would you define your personal style? Is it cottagecore? Tomato girl? Whimsigoth? Quiet luxury? Maybe you don’t know what these terms mean (congratulations) and maybe you do (my condolences).

Like unwelcome nose hairs, new microtrends seem to sprout from the depths of social media every other week. In some ways, their pervasiveness has made style seem more accessible than ever. They reduce aesthetics to mathematical equations that you can solve by buying up a bunch of fast fashion. By the time these cheap, mass-produced items dissolve into microplastics – which they will, quickly – other aesthetic trends will have replaced them.

No longer under the tyranny of compression fit leggings, today’s athleisure is something looser, with a wink of nostalgia

Athleisure is not to be confused with serious fitness wear. No one is running a marathon or playing a game of football in the shoes pictured above. Notice how, in a made-up noun that is a compound of athletics and leisure, the first has been shrunk to three letters. The only personal best that concerns you here is having an optimal Saturday morning.

Athleisure is fashion, not kit, so it moves with the times just as much as it moves with you. And it looks very different now than a few years ago, when every outfit was anchored by snazzy leggings. Tight legging sets with dazzling graphics were the parade uniform of the imperial age of Lycra. Under the cheerful tyranny of compression fit, starburst-pattern leggings with matching sports bras ruled the roost. These were outfits designed to be watched in a mirror with a rousing soundtrack: perky and sculpting, lingerie-like in their obsession with matching two-piece sets and with bottoms.

Over the past 21 years, Village Ways has been leading low-impact tours of remote communities in the foothills of the Himalayas, supporting traditional ways of life and offering a rare glimpse of pristine landscapes and wildlife

Kathdhara village is a riot of colour as the early evening light turns the clouds the rosy hue of Himalayan salt. Bright red chillies lie drying in front of cornflower blue doorways. The pink of a sari and the orange of marigolds pop against a backdrop of verdant terraced fields, where cabbages grow in perfect rows like a picture from a Peter Rabbit book.

Just 22 families live in this remote hamlet in Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary, in the Kumaon region of Uttarakhand, north-east India. As we stroll with our guide, Deepak, taking in views of the layered hills and soaring, snow-capped Panchachuli peaks beyond, we are welcomed by villagers tending homes and gardens, strings of Diwali fairy lights adding extra sparkle to the scene.

I’m here to explore the foothills of the Himalayas and sample village life on a walking holiday with Village Ways, a pioneer of responsible, community-based tourism in India, which is celebrating its 21st anniversary this year. Dreamed up by Manisha and Himanshu Pande, the couple who run the Khali Estate, a small hotel in the reserve, the goal is to help address urban migration and support traditional rural life through low-impact tourism. Village Ways launched in 2005 with just five villages in the reserve, which guests hike between, and now more than 30 villages are involved in different parts of the country, from Madhya Pradesh to Kerala.

From jazz in Rotterdam and hip-hop in Paris to brass bands on the beach in Blackpool, the Guardian’s music editor chooses the best European festivals that can be reached by rail

Paris has some great festivals, such as Cercle (22-24 May), with dance music stars against the backdrop of planes and rockets in an outdoor aerospace museum, but the most accessible and democratic is Fête de la musique, which began in Paris in 1982 but is now popular across the country. It is a loose event encompassing dozens of free, semi-impromptu outdoor performances all over each host city, including plenty in Lille, which is even cheaper and quicker to get to than Paris on the Eurostar from London.

From packrafting in Luxembourg to cycling in Slovenia and eclipse-spotting in Spain, here are some great ways to get the kids into the wild

Several companies offer affordable multi-activity trips for families in Greece, but if you’re looking for something less frenetic, and a bit more challenging for teenagers, how about Greek island-hopping by sea kayak? Running on regular dates through the summer months, Trekking Hellas’s three-day, two‑night odysseys in the Ionian Sea start in Nidri, on Lefkada, and paddle on past Skorpios to Meganisi, camping out at Lakka before continuing the next day to Mikros Gialos for a second night under the stars before turning for home. There are stops for swimming, resting and barbecues along the way, and some thrilling cave detours, but with about six hours of paddling a day, the minimum age is 14.
From €352pp including kayaking and camping equipment, guiding and meals (trekking.gr)

On a tight budget, we stayed in a bothy, climbed a mountain, looked for Nessie and – best of all – made memories that money can’t buy

‘There! There – I can see it!” The cries of my four-year-old echoed around the ruins of 13th-century Urquhart Castle, causing a group of US tourists to come running over to the corbelled bartizans (overhanging turrets) where we stood. “It’s Nessie, I saw her,” he insisted, pointing at the ripples spinning out from the back of a sightseeing vessel on Loch Ness.

This was day four of a budget, week-long Scotland adventure for the two of us, and we were spending the day in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the country’s most famous body of water, looking for the fabled monster.

Langstone, Hampshire: A glistening raft of jelly is a promising sign of a frog resurgence after newts dominated for a decade

I register the arrival of spring through small, dependable signs in my garden: queen buff-tailed bumblebees wobbling through purple crocuses in search of nectar; the pungent scent of wild garlic; bluetits prospecting the nest box below my bedroom window; and the wren’s cascading song heralding the start of the breeding season.

Frogspawn used to be one of these markers, but not for many years. Then, 10 days ago, glancing more from habit than expectation, I saw it – a glistening raft moored against the water forget-me-nots. After such a long absence, it felt quietly momentous.

Rotate your trainers, oil your leather footwear and use toe protectors – and whatever you do, don’t chuck your shoes in the washing machine

Now that trainers have supplanted smart shoes for so many occasions, and people replace them as often as fashion and budget allow, shoe maintenance is becoming a lost art. But if you love your shoes, it’s well worth pursuing. How can you keep your favourite pairs going for as long as possible? We asked cobblers for their dos and don’ts.

In week two of Rhik Samadder’s diary, our resident AI skeptic put his reputation on the line

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

Every writer I know is in despair at the prospect being replaced by AI. Many of them say they never use it on principle; I know all of them do.

So this week, as part of my AI diary, I’m conducting the forbidden experiment in plain sight. I’m going toe to toe with ChatGPT as a creative writer. Can it truly match me, and might it replace me? Let’s settle this.

Sara lay on the comforter, visualising the fluttering in her chest. Was this panic? It was frustrating that her mind kept returning to work. Like an itch – when she was on the sales floor, the day always took on a prickly heat.

Quinn seemed to see straight through Sara. “When a guy comes in that you like, you stand different,” she had offered today, when Sara had only come over to re-fold cardigans. Then, as if playing a hand of cards, she’d turned. Unfurled her neck exaggeratedly, rose-tattooed shoulders open. She wore an expression somehow stupid yet alert, goose-like. Sara had to suppress the impulse to laugh. Her mortification mixed with an unfamiliar sensation, which she didn’t like. Not the feeling; the mystery of it.

At the heart of town there’s a florist whose roses look like sirens: all red mouth, all warning. I buy one because my chest feels unfurnished, an Airbnb between tenants. Outside, a bus screeches; a pigeon argues with a chip. A cellist saws at the air as if carving a door where no door exists, and for a second I believe in emergency exits.

“Take heart,” my therapist says, which sounds like a shoplifting tip for feelings. I picture slipping courage under my coat and walking briskly past security. Instead I take the long way home, past kebab glitter and the nail bar named after an emotion. The rose keeps pricking my palm through the paper, a tiny curriculum in pain: focus sharpens you, but you’ll leak a little.

She has lots of different ways to remind me to breathe. These still my thoughts, and remind me that I’m loved in a way that weighs as much as whatever heartbreak, stress or exhaustion I’m experiencing

My favourite photograph of my mother, Linda, and I was taken at my wedding. I’m not sure we realised we were being photographed. Two artist friends were walking around with film cameras, shooting the kind of things they knew that Hiraki, my husband, and I would like. My mother and I are standing shoulder to shoulder, under a young tree. I love how the shapes of our necklines are like a sartorial call and response, how our smiles are so peaceful, how we are both looking outwards.

It’s not that this picture captures a specific moment. Rather, it taps into a certain quality of my mother’s love that is timeless, unbound by circumstance or context. She has always loved my sister and I exactly like this: gently, spaciously and alongside.

Once violently defended from extinction, Welsh is still a part of daily life. By learning my family’s language, I hoped to join their conversation

My maternal grandmother died 20 years ago. The funeral was held in a small Methodist chapel in the lush Conwy valley of north Wales. Her entire life – she had almost reached 100 – was spent in these hills. The drizzle that morning had slicked the trees and turned the slate of the chapel black. Our family, gathered under umbrellas, entered in order of seniority: Mum, now the family elder, with Dad on her arm, then my six aunts and uncles with their spouses, and finally the cousins, led by my brother Mark and me.

The room was austere. White walls, sturdy wooden furniture, a plain cross on the wall. Our family squeezed into box pews in the centre of the chapel. A couple of older men among the crowd reminded me of my grandfather, who had died decades earlier: similar thatches of black hair; dark, weathered complexions; history-book faces.

Exclusive: Lab tests discover ‘new form of insider risk’ with artificial intelligence agents engaging in autonomous, even ‘aggressive’ behaviours

Robert Booth UK technology editor

Rogue artificial intelligence agents have worked together to smuggle sensitive information out of supposedly secure systems, in the latest sign cyber-defences may be overwhelmed by unforeseen scheming by AIs.

With companies increasingly asking AI agents to carry out complex tasks in internal systems, the behaviour has sparked concerns that supposedly helpful technology could pose a serious inside threat.

Viral video of girl being shoved by fellow pedestrian has reignited debate over butsukari – with experts blaming stress and gender dynamics

It starts out as a heartwarming clip. A young girl, clearly delighted to be in Tokyo, beams as she makes a peace sign to the camera. Seconds later, she is shoved to the ground from behind by a woman wearing a surgical mask. The assailant doesn’t skip a beat, striding out of shot of the clip filmed by the girl’s mother.

This was no accidental clash of shoulders in a crowded place, but one of the most visible examples of a spate of butsukari otoko – “bumping man” – shoving incidents in Japan that experts attribute to a combination of gender dynamics and the stresses of modern life.

With shipping routes disrupted and tensions rising across the region we want to hear from maritime workers, sailors and port workers and others working at sea who are affected

The conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping across the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.

Maritime traffic through the strait, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, has effectively been closed since strikes on Iran began. Some vessels have been diverted or delayed and ports and shipping companies are dealing with heightened security concerns and uncertainty.

If you’re living or working in the region and have been impacted by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, we would like to hear from you

As the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate, we would like to hear how people living, working or travelling in the region have been affected.

Whether you are in the region or impacted in other ways, please get in touch.

We would like to hear your story of serving a nightmare patron

A diner in a Sydney restaurant has been caught on CCTV sprinkling armpit hair into their food “in attempt to get a free meal”. After confronting the head chef, the man allegedly then left without paying, having ordered the most expensive items on the menu.

With this delightful story in mind, do you have a story of dealing with a rude or generally bad customer while working in hospitality?

We would like to hear your experiences as a practitioner or someone who has tried this procedure

At the end of February, a report by the Women and Equalities Committee recommend that “high harm” procedures such as the liquid Brazilian butt lift (BBL) should be banned.

The government is “not moving quickly enough”, MPs said, stressing the need for a licensing system for non-surgical cosmetic procedures, noting that a “lack of timely action is fostering complacency in self-regulation” within the industry.

The report warned of a wild west in which procedures have reportedly taken place in Airbnbs, hotel rooms, garden sheds and public toilets. Individuals without any formal training can carry out potentially harmful interventions, placing the public at risk, MPs concluded.

Share your experiences as a practitioner or someone who has tried this procedure.

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