PM’s former chief of staff looked far from happy when forced into the open to face Commons committee

He walks! He talks! He breathes! For most people, Morgan McSweeney is a quasi-mythical creature. A being that exists almost entirely in the shadows. If at all. Away from the public gaze. The legendary slayer of the Labour left, rumoured to have been shaped in the dark arts by Peter Mandelson, who went on to become the eyes and ears of the prime minister. Possibly even his brain. It was often said the only ideas Keir ever had were ones he had been force-fed by Morgan the Mighty.

But on Tuesday morning, Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff was forced out into the open, summoned to Westminster to give evidence to the foreign affairs select committee about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador. McSweeney looked far from happy at the exposure. Head down, no eye contact with the public as he sped down the corridor. Maybe he was worried about being out and about in daylight. The darkness has been kind to his skincare regime. He looks far younger than his 49 years.

UK artist Linett Kamala was astonished to see a maypole in a Jamaican hamlet – a colonial relic, but one bringing joy. So she reinvented the tradition by ditching English folk tunes and adding bass bins, LED lights and pounding beats

In a community centre in London, a ping pong table, a treadmill and a row of computers hug the edges of the room. It all feels familiar, apart from the towering green structure with dangling multicoloured ribbons: a maypole, and we’re here to dance around it. Our group of six circle it and get ready, but instead of traditional English folk music (“And on that tree there was a limb, And on that limb there was a branch …”), it’s dancehall, cranked up loud.

This is a session courtesy of British-Jamaican DJ, artist and educator, Linett Kamala. She made her name as one of the first female DJs at Notting Hill carnival in 1985 at just 15 years old, and is now on the event’s board; as Lin Kam Art, Kamala has dedicated much of her life to music, education, community work and art.

A cottage industry of women are selling courses aligned with a conservative movement that claims feminism is the source of women’s discontent

A thirtysomething woman with the easy smile of your favorite neighbor sits in her earth-tone living room, natural light washing over a gray couch so long it could easily fit four children. The woman speaks of a friend, a married mother, who was frustrated that she had to constantly remind her germophile husband to wash his hands. Hearing this, the woman cautioned her friend: “I think it would be better for your entire family to get the black plague and die … than for you to continue treating your husband like a toddler by reminding him to wash his hands.”

Welcome to Wife School, a video masterclass led by Tilly Dillehay, a 38-year-old Baptist writer, podcaster and pastor’s wife who teaches women how to “become the kind of woman who inspires a godly leader”. That means molding them into the wives she says that husbands want: smiling, attentive and submissive, women who know not to nag – even if it means risking the bubonic plague.

US president has all but declared war on nature but that will not stop Charles quietly pressing his case during state visit

Of the many clashes in worldview between King Charles III and Donald Trump, the greatest is on an issue the White House has sought to silence: the future of the planet.

For more than 50 years, as the Prince of Wales, the environmentally minded Charles spoke out often, addressing UN summits and closed gatherings alike, to urge better guardianship of nature and strong action on the climate.

Two world records were broken in the Adidas super shoes last weekend and the public can soon get their hands on a limited release. Our writer took a pair for a spin

• Bread and honey for breakfast and 150 miles a week training: secrets of Sawe’s world record
  

They’ve been billed as “humanity’s fastest shoe”, the cutting edge of trainer technology, lighter and bouncier than anything that’s gone before. Sabastian Sawe was wearing them when he became the first person to run an official marathon in less than two hours in London on Sunday, as was Tigst Assefa when she beat the women-only marathon record on the same day.

But could the Adidas Adizero Adios Pro Evo 3 help me – a lapsed runner of questionable skill – get my running mojo back? I was sceptical. My trusty New Balance trainers have seen me through a number of long-distance runs, and of the many reasons why I increasingly found running a slog, footwear didn’t feature highly on the list.

Though solar was initially incorrectly blamed for crisis, renewables have helped insulate Spain from gas price rises caused by war in Middle East

One year ago today, all of Spain, and much of Portugal, suffered through a blackout of unprecedented scale and duration. In mere seconds, a cascading sequence of events burst through the grid and created Europe’s first “system black” event in recent memory.

Traffic signals failed, mobile networks stopped working entirely, petrol stations could not pump fuel and supermarkets could not process payments. Madrid’s metro came to a halt and people had to be pulled out of carriages. “People were stunned because this had never happened in Spain,” Carlos Condori, a 19-year-old construction sector worker, told AFP at the time. “There’s no [phone] coverage, I can’t call my family, my parents, nothing: I can’t even go to work.”

King’s speech to Congress underlines that ‘time and again our two countries have always found ways to come together’

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Donald Trump has reportedly signaled to his top advisers that he is dissatisfied with and unlikely to accept Iran’s latest proposal to end the war, which would reopen the strait of Hormuz and leave discussion of Iran’s nuclear program for a later date.

Two people familiar with the matter told CNN that Trump conveyed his views during yesterday’s meeting with top national security aides where the Iranian proposal was discussed. One of the people said Trump was not likely to accept the plan, which was sent to the US in the last few days.

What I will reiterate is that the president’s red lines with respect to Iran have been made very, very clear, not just to the American public, but also to them as well.

I wouldn’t say they’re considering it. I would just say that there was a discussion this morning that I don’t want to get ahead of, and you’ll hear directly from the president, I’m sure, on this topic.

No 10 deploys full weight to block parliamentary inquiry bid as MPs warn PM running out of political capital

Keir Starmer has seen off a major Labour rebellion over a bid to force a parliamentary investigation into his appointment of Peter Mandelson, but many of his own MPs warned he was running out of political capital.

After Downing Street deployed its full weight to force Labour MPs to block a referral to the privileges committee over the scandal, some angrily accused Starmer of leaving them facing accusations of a “cover-up”.

US president has accused organisation of ‘ripping off the rest of the world’ by inflating oil prices

The United Arab Emirates has quit the Opec oil cartel after 60 years of membership, in a heavy blow to the group and its de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, as global energy markets contend with the biggest supply crisis in history.

The shock loss of the UAE, Opec’s third-largest oil producer, is expected to weaken the group, which for decades has worked together to use its collective oil production to influence global oil market prices.

Protester says he migrated from Malaysia as a child and describes home secretary’s immigration policies as cruel

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A protester who heckled Shabana Mahmood said he came to the UK as a child from Malaysia, describing the home secretary’s claim that he was a “white liberal” as “laughable”.

Joe, 32, who did not wish to give his last name, migrated from Malaysia at the age of four with his family. He said the home secretary’s proposed immigration rule changes would have left him, and thousands of children like him, in limbo.

Ceasefire frays further as Israel also carries out airstrikes and issues new displacement orders for south Lebanon

Hezbollah launched several drones at Israeli soldiers in south Lebanon on Tuesday, while Israel issued new displacement orders for south Lebanon and carried out airstrikes, as the fraying ceasefire failed to stop fighting between the two sides.

Hezbollah claimed Tuesday’s attack injured several Israeli soldiers, but no confirmation was given from the Israeli military, apart from a statement saying interceptor missiles had been fired at incoming Hezbollah drones.

Downing Street says focus will remain on cutting bills, backing renters and lowering energy prices

Downing Street has dismissed the idea of a freeze on private sector rents even as Rachel Reeves left the door open to such a move, after the Guardian revealed the chancellor has been considering it as an option to cut the cost of living.

A No 10 spokesperson said on Tuesday that freezing private sector rents was “not the approach we will be taking” after sources told the Guardian it was Reeves’s preferred solution for dealing with a spike in housing costs in the wake of the Iran war.

⚽️ Champions League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off
⚽️ Live scoreboard | Read today’s Football Daily | Mail Scott

3 min: Olise tries to advance down the left but Zaïre-Emery is all over him in a flash. It’s a high-octane start, and Bayern are seeing more of the ball.

2 min: Stanišić sends a long throw down the right for Musiala, who gathers by the PSG box before returning the ball to the Bayern right-back. Stanišić crosses. Pacho heads clear. A positive start by the visitors.

Home secretary is challenging high court decision that PA’s proscription interfered with freedom of speech

The ban on Palestine Action has created a “culture of fear” among those campaigning for Palestinian rights and judges were right to deem it unlawful, the court of appeal has heard.

Shabana Mahmood is challenging the high court’s decision in February that Palestine Action’s proscription, the first of a direct action protest group, represented a “very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. It also found that the ban, which remains in place pending the appeal, was a breach of the home secretary’s own policy on proscription.

Rescuers hope to move young male humpback from Baltic to North Sea after being stranded for a month near Lübeck

Rescuers trying to save a stranded humpback whale off Germany’s Baltic coast have coaxed the mammal on to a barge in the hope the vessel can take it to safety in deeper waters.

Amid intense media attention, the high-stakes rescue mission, funded by two multi-millionaires, is being watched by hundreds of onlookers, many of whom are camped nearby to monitor the spectacle.

Keir Starmer has faced another bruising day as the saga surrounding Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador continues. The prime minister faced harsh criticism from his own MPs over efforts to stave off a standards investigation, while his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney admitted pressuring the foreign office to expedite Mandelson’s posting in highly anticipated evidence to a parliamentary committee. Lucy Hough speaks to policy editor and host of Politics Weekly, Kiran Stacey

These negative comments about bodies and faces permeate society and could lead to some tough talks with friends

Hi Ugly,

How do I respond to my friends when they criticize their bodies, faces, skin?

Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’?

How should I be styling my pubic hair?

How do I deal with imperfection?

My father had plastic surgery. Now he wants me and my mother to get work done

The track prodigy made it to world championships at 17 and joined Nike’s Oregon Project. At 29, Cain is detailing the hellish years under coach Alberto Salazar in her new memoir

“As someone who has lost touch with reality, I like to hold a firm grasp on it now,” Mary Cain says while we walk through a palm-tree spotted campus in California.

She’s telling me why she insisted she write her own memoir, This Is Not About Running, without ceding the narrative to a ghostwriter, as happens with many athletes. “My story is so complicated … there are so many bad actors that I think it forces the reader to embrace nuance, and I don’t think you see that very often.”

Created by three dads from Seattle, the resolutely un-mobile handset doesn’t have internet access, apps or even a screen. No wonder anxious parents are snapping it up

Name: Tin Can.

Age: Launched last April.

A dying glamour puss falls for her parasitic houseguest in Joseph Losey’s 1968 fever dream that earns its exclamation mark

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“My very first memory is of pain.” More than a touch dramatic, the words could easily be lifted from the script of Boom! Instead, they are a real-life confession by its leading lady, Elizabeth Taylor.

When it comes to pain, Taylor is the poster child-star. In her long life, the actor underwent more than 30 surgeries and was supposedly hospitalised on more than 100 occasions. After a bout of pneumonia almost took her out in 1961, it was the pain of nearly losing her that led to her best actress sympathy win at the Oscars. And she would win again in 1967 – this time on her own merits, as the banshee wife in the vociferous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

While their London peers thrived, Knats faced dwindling funding. But after a Proms appearance and as they release a new album produced by Black Midi’s Geordie Greep, their confidence is high

“It’s kind of a silly story,” says King David-Ike Elechi, grinning as he explains the origins of his jazz band Knats. At school, in year seven, he became friends with classmate Stan Woodward after a silent game of passing a giant pink novelty rubber back and forth to one another. Elechi suggested that Woodward should join a local School of Rock-style music club with him. “Then we had a Whiplash moment, where the teacher is really mean,” says a now 22-year-old Elechi, huddled in a booth in the cafe of Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle.

The breaking point was being told they weren’t good enough to cover Arctic Monkeys’ R U Mine? Woodward, also 22, is stuck on a train during our interview, but later confirms the story over a video call. “We were like: fuck this guy, let’s leave this club and do it ourselves.”

I spent a month testing anti-consumption strategies, from cash stuffing to ditching Amazon Prime, to find the ones that genuinely cut my spending

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I’m pretty careful with money, I say as I trip over piles of Amazon Prime boxes. I’ve never really been the shopping type, I insist as I stare at drawers groaning with unworn Asos clothes. Look how much I care about the environment, I tell myself as I click “buy now” on yet another battery charger I bought to replace the one, two or five I’ve lost around the house somewhere.

You don’t have to be a shopaholic to be drowning in stuff. All it takes is an averagely mindless approach to impulse buying, until one day your home is heaving with a personal landfill of tat.

A certain image of the tiger mom – strict, cold and demanding – is ubiquitous in popular culture. Why?

In January 2011, the English-speaking world was introduced to a new kind of villain. She arrived in the form of a viral Wall Street Journal article with the headline “Why Chinese mothers are superior”. The author, a relatively unknown Yale law professor named Amy Chua, outlined her strict rules for her two daughters: no sleepovers, playdates or school plays – and no complaining about not being in the school play, either. They were expected to be the top students in all subjects at school (except gym and drama). When her seven-year-old refused to play a song on the piano, Chua threatened her with no lunch, no dinner and no birthday parties for four years until she complied. Another time, after the same daughter misbehaved, Chua branded her “garbage”.

The backlash was swift and vicious. Chua was called an abuser, a stereotype peddler, a shock jock. The article was an extract from her memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and Chua did her best to explain that, in the book, she reckons with the limits of her parenting. But it was too late: the controversy had taken on a life of its own. Many Asian American writers responded by sharing their ambivalence or anger about having been raised in this way. “I grew up with a tiger parent and all I got was this lousy psychological trauma” declared one such blog post. Suddenly a ubiquitous but private dynamic was being held up for public debate. There were endless letters, op-eds, blogs, tweets, Facebook posts. My grandparents in China, who are as removed from the American commentariat as one could possibly be, asked me about the American lady boasting about getting her kids into Harvard and giving Chinese people a bad name.

Bereft of any big ideas, or indeed policies, the PM is in his happy place: a never-ending parliamentary procedural process

Have his enemies done it? Have the rebels managed to find a thermal exhaust port in the Death Starmer that would enable them finally to destroy it? No, would seem to be the answer after yet another morning of increasingly unwatchable procedural drama for the prime minister.

You know what, it’s such a shame procedural rows aren’t a path to growth. The UK would be a global economy unicorn by now. Still, here we go again for another trip down committee corridor, as the displacement activists of the British political system mine further nitty-gritty on how a sex offender’s best pal was accidentally-on-purpose appointed ambassador to the US. If we keep digging, we’re totally going to strike gold and be able to pay for all the infrastructure upgrades and housing and incentives to capital investment that are the only way out of our decline spiral, to say nothing of the defence boosting urgently required. And I’m barely kidding. There’s probably genuinely more chance of those happening via an orgy of recriminatory committee hearings than via the policies of Keir Starmer and his chancellor. If we stuck the prime minister on the psychoanalyst’s couch, I think they’d find he subconsciously provokes these endlessly consuming process crises. It’s certainly more his happy place than big ideas.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

The talkshow host has found himself targeted by the president once again but his jokes fail to have the influence or tastelessness that the right like to claim

In an episode of the classic sitcom Arrested Development, dutiful son Michael Bluth (Jason Bateman) corrects his wily but not always culture-savvy mother Lucille (Jessica Walter) that she has not actually been confronted and embarrassed by Michael Moore: “That was a Michael Moore impersonator for a bit on Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Lucille, as always, is undeterred: “I don’t know who that is and I don’t care to find out.” It’s a hilariously haughty response, withering in its blithe lack of interest. It also accidentally attains a kind of dignity through ignorance that Donald Trump – who is, like Lucille Bluth, wealthy, elderly and frequently cruel – could only dream of stumbling into.

Or maybe that’s actually our dream. Just imagine a world where Trump and his family (both blood and Maga) don’t know or care what’s going on with Jimmy Kimmel. Alas, we live in a world where Kimmel is directly and repeatedly lambasted by the White House for making a joke that seemed in poorer taste after an assassination attempt on Trump. This is despite the joke itself being written and delivered well before the event in question – the talkshow monologue version of pre-crime, if you can conceive of something that embarrassing.

Hallucinogens have come a long way from the 60s counterculture to Trump’s White House – propelled by veterans’ lobbying and Silicon Valley capital

• Kojo Koram’s new book, The Next Fix: Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, is out on 4 June

On 13 May 1966, a US Senate subcommittee questioned a former Harvard clinical psychologist, considered by many to be “the most dangerous man in America”, on the risks of psychedelics. Leading the inquisition of Dr Timothy Leary was Senator Ted Kennedy, of America’s unofficial first family. Amid a series of questions that reflected the moral panic about psychedelics then gripping the US establishment, Kennedy asked: “This is a dangerous drug – is that right?” To which Leary replied: “No, sir. LSD is not a dangerous drug.” Kennedy remained unconvinced. To the committee of politicians listening to Leary, psychedelics were behind the hippy movement, anti-war protests and the general breakdown of society.

Earlier this month, almost exactly 60 years after this tense inquiry, Ted Kennedy’s nephew Robert F Kennedy Jr stood behind Donald Trump as he signed a new presidential executive order to accelerate mainstream access to medical treatment based on psychedelic drugs. A particular focus is ibogaine, a psychoactive compound derived from a West African shrub, which scientists suggest can be effective for treating chronic mental-health problems. Kennedy Jr has been the champion of psychedelics within the Maga coalition, alongside figures such as the podcaster Joe Rogan, who stood beside him in the Oval Office on 18 April. Rogan described to the press how he had encouraged the president to sign the executive order over text message.

Kojo Koram is a professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University. His new book, The Next Fix: Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs, is out on 4 June

The bank should not sound the all-clear but twin embarrassments do not mean the current credit cycle will end in tears

• Barclays cuts back risky lending after £228m hit from UK mortgage firm MFS

The Barclays boss CS Venkatakrishnan, having seen the bank hit in the space of six months by two high-profile blow-ups in the world of shadow banking, is pledging to take more care. “We are constraining lending to certain structured finance counterparties who operate more vulnerable business models and cannot convince us of the quality and independence of their financial controls,” he said.

There’s an obvious response to that vow of greater vigilance: what were you doing previously? Wouldn’t it have been a good idea in the first place not to lend to high-risk outfits with unconvincing financial controls – for example, those with large mortgage exposures but small audit firms? There was, in other words, a sense in the chief executive’s comments of stable doors being shut rather too late.

Each generation has a different view on when old age gets under way, but if my kids’ generation is correct, time is about to catch up with me ...

For boomers, old age begins at 75, according to a new survey, while gen X considers the start date of decrepitude to be 70, and millennials are a little stricter, at 63. These are all reasonable positions, and then you get to gen Z, who know nothing about anything: they say it’s 53.

By coincidence, I’d been thinking about this anyway at the weekend, after dancing so exuberantly I ripped my own clothes. I didn’t think that was ideal: it did raise concerns about what I must have looked like in the moment. But I figured as long as I stopped doing it before I got old, it was probably fine – and thought (being gen X) that gave me about 17 years. It turns out that as far as the youngsters are concerned, I have just over three months.

He has said he is ‘tormented’ by his previous support for Donald Trump – and some suggest the former Fox News host is positioning himself for the GOP nomination

A few years ago, Tucker Carlson was sleeping peacefully alongside his wife and four dogs when, all of a sudden, he was “physically mauled” by a demon. This supernatural attack left bloody claw marks on his side, the former Fox News star claimed in a documentary about spirituality. Shaken by this unusual ordeal, Carlson called an evangelical friend who told him: “Yeah, that happens – people are attacked in their bed by demons.” The whole thing, he said, was a “transformative experience”.

Fast forward to the present day and poor old Carlson seems to be plagued by demons again, although this time they’re more metaphorical than metaphysical. The far-right personality, who started his own media company after parting ways with Fox in 2023, has said that he is “tormented” by his previous support for Donald Trump. In a recent episode of his podcast, Carlson spoke to his brother, Buckley, a former Trump speechwriter, about their shared disappointment with the president and said he was “sorry for misleading people”. This was a moment, Carlson said, “to wrestle with our own consciences”.

I’ve been speaking to Muslims across the country, many of whom are deserting Labour. They are as angry about potholes, traffic and litter as anyone else

• Taj Ali’s Guardian documentary, The Muslim Vote: Democratic threat or Islamophobic myth? | On the Ground, is out on Thursday 30 April

‘An establishment whitewash … a blooming disgrace. And I promise you that our democracy is not in a healthy state.” Nigel Farage was furious. Not just because the Reform UK candidate, Matthew Goodwin, had lost to the Green party’s Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton byelection, but because a month on, after an official investigation, Greater Manchester police concluded there was no evidence of “family voting”.

The term family voting – a form of electoral fraud that refers to family members conferring, colluding or directing each other in the voting booth – seemed to come out of nowhere the day after that byelection result, circulating rapidly through the British political conversation before disappearing again. It became a talking point because the election observer group Democracy Volunteers raised concerns, saying it saw it happening in 15 of the 22 polling stations it observed. In the end, the police said they found “no evidence of any intent to influence or refrain any person from voting”.

Taj Ali is a journalist and historian. His book, Come What May, We’re Here to Stay: The Story of South Asian Resistance in Britain, is published in September. His Guardian documentary, The Muslim Vote: Democratic threat or Islamophobic myth? | On the Ground, is out on Thursday 30 April

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 prime minister’s account is not false, but it seems partial. The omissions raise serious questions about his judgment and parliamentary accountability

Whether a prime minister misled parliament is a serious matter. The pattern of statements made by Sir Keir Starmer about appointing Lord Mandelson as US ambassador may justify a parliamentary sleaze inquiry. Opposition parties claim that the prime minister misled MPs over the process that led to the peer taking the Washington job. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? More troubling is that in Tuesday’s Commons debate some Labour MPs either abstained or defied the whip and voted to refer the matter to parliament’s privileges committee ahead of next week’s elections. Such rebellion speaks to disillusionment with Sir Keir’s leadership.

The prime minister has confessed to making a “mistake” in appointing Lord Mandelson despite knowing that he maintained a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein after the financier’s conviction for child sexual abuse offences. But it was Morgan McSweeney, who backed Lord Mandelson for the job, and Sir Olly Robbins, the head of the Foreign Office, who did not draw vetting concerns to Sir Keir’s attention, who both lost their jobs. Voters plainly think it wrong that others have paid for Sir Keir’s blunder.

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.

Social democratic parties are suffering an almost total wipeout, as rightwing nationalism flourishes on the EU’s eastern flank

Péter Magyar’s historic defeat of Viktor Orbán in Hungary’s recent election was rightly celebrated in progressive circles and beyond. For the global far right, which has been steadily gaining power and influence for over a decade, this was a significant reverse. But it was no victory for the left. A former member of Mr Orbán’s Fidesz party, Mr Magyar will lead a centre‑right conservative government in a parliament where the only opposition will come from Fidesz and a small party with neo-Nazi roots.

Across the rest of central Europe, it is much the same story. Bulgaria last week elected a nationalist, Moscow‑friendly prime minister, Rumen Radev, who will take a draconian line on migration and is a fierce critic of the European Union’s green deal. The country’s Socialist party, a presence in parliament since 1989, failed to win a single seat.

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.

David Holmes says the home secretary’s language may be coarse, but her immigration controls respond to a genuine public concern

Zoe Williams criticises Shabana Mahmood’s recent language as showing “contempt for the values of her own party”, but I disagree (Shabana Mahmood’s expletive was shocking. But not for the reason you think, 23 April). In today’s polarised climate, too many on the progressive side treat any divergence on issues like immigration as indistinguishable from Reform UK. That simply isn’t true.

Mahmood’s language may have been coarse, but her frustration is understandable. People should be able to disagree on migration and migrant rights without being dismissed with lazy labels like “out-Reforming Reform” or having bigotry implied. That’s playing the man, not the ball.

Erik Millstone and Tim Lang look at the evidence. Plus a letter from a woman who had campylobacter while pregnant

You were right to report (23 April) that government officials have actively considered how to respond to US pressure to accept imports of “chemical-washed chicken” and other processed products.

This matters to the public, for whom chlorinated chicken has become a test case for whether UK standards are lowered for commercial and political reasons.

Readers respond to an article by Daniel Lavelle about his alien chasing expedition in the US

Daniel Lavelle went “alien-chasing” in the US and wrote a book about it. The late Nick Pope called it a “hugely entertaining, gonzo-style examination of UFOs, ufology and ufologists”. In his Guardian article (The Pentagon released its UFO videos – so I went to the US to chase aliens. This is what I found, 22 April), Lavelle concludes: “Of course, there isn’t a shred of evidence that aliens have visited our planet – and it’s highly unlikely that there ever will be”.

After that, he trots out the old story about interstellar distances and propulsion technology – as if the extraterrestrial hypothesis were the only play in town.

Readers respond to an editorial on the need for more provision of toilets in our towns and cities

In response to your editorial (Public spaces need public conveniences, 24 April), our research has found that one of the biggest barriers preventing the restoration of existing provision or building new provision of public toilets is our wider cultural taboo of bodily functions.

Time and again we have found that regeneration documents refer to public toilets as “amenities”, “necessities”, or “facilities”. Our research has also found that while large percentages of the UK population want more public toilets, nearly the same percentage would not use a public toilet, because of the taboo reputation such provision also carries.

• Captain confident team can handle pressure and learn

• Havertz unavailable but Eze part of Arsenal’s squad

Martin Ødegaard has accepted that Arsenal will remain open to criticism until they shed their nearly-men reputation and is confident the club are primed to do precisely that this season.

The captain cut a convincing figure on the eve of Wednesday night’s ­Champions League semi-final first leg at ­Atlético Madrid, insisting he and his ­teammates were ready to respond to the lessons of the past and deliver silverware.

• City face crucial games on 13 May, 16 May and 19 May

• Alternative date for Palace game has been chief problem

Manchester City have been left angered by what they deem to be an end-of-season fixture pile-up that could have been avoided had the Premier League acted quicker to rearrange matches.

City face the prospect of playing three games in seven days as part of their pursuit of the Premier League title and the FA Cup. Their home league game with Crystal Palace, which was originally scheduled to take place on the weekend of March’s Carabao Cup final, will now take place on Wednesday 13 May, followed by the FA Cup final against Chelsea at Wembley on Saturday 16 May. Pep Guardiola’s men then travel to Bournemouth, again in the league, on Tuesday 19 May.

• Five frames in a row give Murphy 5-3 first session lead

• Robertson leads Higgins; Vafaei level against Wu

Shaun Murphy fought back against the defending champion, Zhao ­Xintong, to lead 5-3 after the opening session of their World Snooker Championship quarter-final at the Crucible.

Zhao had started with a break of 122 and soon moved 3-0 ahead. Former champion Murphy – who won his second-round match against Xiao Guodong with a session to spare – took the fourth frame after a composed break of 69 before the mid-session interval. Murphy then capitalised on Zhao’s break finishing at 56 to clinch the next after clearing the final five colours to further reduce the deficit.

Foundation set up by F1 great is beginning to address the lack of representation of black people and those from disadvantaged backgrounds in motorsport

Sports people can be more than the sum of their athletic achievements. Lewis Hamilton stands unquestionably as one of the greatest drivers in the history of Formula One having delivered records and outstanding performances that will be hard to surpass. Yet it is indicative of his character that the seven-time world champion rates them all as sitting only alongside what might ultimately be his most significant and long-lasting legacy. His Mission 44 foundation is making an indelible impact on the makeup of motorsport.

“Talent is everywhere, opportunity isn’t and that’s what we’re here to change. Setting up Mission 44 is one of the things I’m most proud of,” Hamilton says, reflecting on the foundation he created five years ago. “I’ve been working in F1 for 20 years and I know first-hand how important it is to have representation in our sport, and how difficult it is for young people to get an opportunity.”

• 10,000-capacity venue will sit next to Amex Stadium

• ‘This is the kind of progress we have dreamed about’

Brighton’s plans to build Europe’s first purpose-built women’s ­stadium is the “kind of progress we have dreamed about for years”, the Brighton and former England forward Fran Kirby has said.

The Women’s Super League club have released the first images of the 10,000-capacity venue, which they hope to open in time for the 2030-31 season. Subject to receiving planning permission, the stadium would be directly adjacent to the Amex ­Stadium and would include an underground car park. Everything from the changing rooms to the concourse will be designed for female athletes and a WSL audience. The club say the design will be specifically “welcoming for families and first-time attendees” with social spaces.

• Brasher hopeful talks in June will provide breakthrough

• Hammers would need to give up stadium for two weeks

The head of the London Marathon has urged West Ham to show more “heart and soul” amid fears they could scupper Britain’s chances of hosting the 2029 World Athletics Championships.

While London’s bid is seen as the favourite, it has hit a major stumbling block with West Ham refusing to give up their stadium for around two weeks in September 2029 because the football season will be under way.

Our cartoonist on BlueCo’s ‘self-reflection’ as another normal week ended with a place in the FA Cup final

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• World No 1’s winning streak up to 20 after 6-2, 7-5 win

• Rafael Jodar’s latest win finished at 1am on Monday

Jannik Sinner suggested the Madrid Open organisers should reconsider their tournament scheduling to avoid late-night finishes like the one Rafael Jodar experienced in the third round on Sunday.

In a rare 11am local start on Tuesday, Sinner moved past British 19th seed Cameron Norrie 6-2, 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals. He explained he was put on first on Manolo Santana Stadium so that Jodar, his potential next opponent, would be scheduled in the afternoon to give the Spaniard time to recover from his three-set win over João Fonseca that ended at 1am on Monday morning.

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Having “given it Carrick ‘til the end of the season” and with the conclusion of the campaign heaving into view, the Manchester United hierarchy will soon be forced to make a Big Decision. Whether it has involved laying off staff, spending the thick end of £40m hiring and firing head coaches and suits in the middle of an economy drive or airing his opinions on immigrants, many of the decisions Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made have been bad. There’s no guarantee he’ll pick the right head coach to lead the club into next season. On the face of it, Michael Carrick has done a decent job. helping mastermind victory in nine of his 13 matches in charge, while his narrowed eyes, bestubbled jaw and the upturned collar of his black wool-blend overcoat lend him the air of an unflappable Berlin-based intelligence officer in a gritty cold war spy thriller. Softly spoken, liked by United fans and players, he seems the easy (possibly even obvious) option now Bigger Cup football has been all but secured for next season.

It’s Bigger Cup semi-final time. Bayern Munich, PSG, Atlético and Arsenal all going at it to prove who’s the best in Europe. There’s really only one thing missing: the booming tones of Rio Ferdinand and his otherworldly non-sequiturs. Who can forget him shouting ‘Ballon d’Or’ repeatedly or even ‘This is a win for football’ echoing around Europe? My own personal favourite? ‘Space kills!’ Rio Ferdinand, part-pundit, part-philosopher. We miss you” – Myles Flynn.

Always love when you make a wry Wire reference (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition). In response to your Jimmy McNulty comment, perhaps the street corner whisperings of ‘Rochdale coming’ will put a bit of fear into rivals’ hearts” – Mike Wilner.

Mention of Halley’s Comet (yesterday’s Football Daily) reminded me of how old I am, having seen it last time. Back in those days of course clubs never used their financial clout to gain an advantage. Apart from Liverpool (which worked) and Manchester United (which, erm, didn’t – see Mike Phelan, Neil Webb and Danny Wallace)” – Andy Taylor.

As a fan of the Football Daily’s last line, not only do I understand yesterday’s text, but I have an answer to ‘DID THEY RUN 27.2 MILES?’ Yes, they bloody well did. I ran it back in 1992 and I still wake up screaming some nights in memory. Fun runners, my @rse!” – Shaun Clark.

Now that you’ve awarded a (well merited) prize again, no doubt you will be inundated by letters from all the Old Faithfuls around these parts, clawing at any trivial issue to compete for a similar award. Step up Messrs Oh, Francis et al. What’s that? My trivial issue? Oh, let’s see, how about your use of ‘best legal team’ when it should have been ‘better legal team’, considering you explicitly stated ‘two footballing behemoths’? Will that do? No, thought as much” – Ken Muir (and no other Old Faithfuls).

Eight EU members continue to include force or violence in their definitions in national criminal codes

The European parliament has called on the EU to draw up a standardised consent-based definition of rape, in what legislators described as a crucial step towards addressing the patchwork of laws, some of them insufficient, that now exist across the bloc.

On Tuesday, 447 of the parliament’s 720 MEPs voted to approve a report calling for a common definition of rape, centred on “only yes means yes”, prompting a loud round of applause in the chamber in Strasbourg.

Multiple people injured when gunman opened fire inside a social security office and later an appeals court

An 89-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of shooting and wounding several people in attacks on government buildings in Athens.

Hours after the double shooting in the Greek capital, authorities announced a suspect had been detained in the western port city of Patras, reportedly attempting to flee to Italy. His arrest followed a countrywide manhunt.

Kremlin-controlled paramilitaries also alleged it inflicted ‘irreplaceable losses’ on insurgents avoiding civilian casualties

Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its Africa Corps – the successor to the former Wagner mercenary group – prevented a coup in Mali over the weekend, avoiding mass civilian casualties and inflicting “irreplaceable losses” on rebel insurgents.

It said in a statement that its troops in the desert town of Kidal near the Algerian border had fought for more than 24 hours while completely surrounded and vastly outnumbered. It also alleged, without providing evidence, that the militants had been trained by European mercenary instructors, including Ukrainians. The casualty toll was not specified.

Sakharov prize winner was given eight-year sentence after process widely condemned as politically motivated

The Polish-Belarusian journalist Andrzej Poczobut, the 2025 Sakharov prize winner, has been freed after five years in a Belarusian penal colony as part of a US-brokered multi-country swap deal.

His release has been confirmed by Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who posted a picture of him on social media, saying: “Andrzej Poczobut is free! Welcome to your Polish home, my friend.”

Subject of charges remains unclear, after earlier case over congressional testimony was dismissed

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The justice department filed new criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Comey was charged in federal court in the eastern district of North Carolina over a picture he posted on Instagram while on vacation last year in which sea shells were arranged to say “86 47”.. The post was taken as a threat to Donald Trump. The number 86 can be used as shorthand for getting rid of something, and Trump is the 47th president. Comey subsequently deleted the post and apologized, saying he didn’t realize the numbers were associated with violence. “It never occurred to me, but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” he wrote on Instagram.

US generated more power from renewables including solar and wind than gas last month in a first

Donald Trump has wielded the full might of his administration to crush the progress of clean energy, which he has called a “scam” and “stupid”. But there are signs this assault is not going to plan.

In March, the US generated more of its electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind than it did via gas, the first time clean energy has surpassed the planet-heating fossil fuel for a full month nationally, according to data from the Ember thinktank.

Joby Aviation says its futuristic aircraft reaches Manhattan from JFK in 10 minutes at a ‘premium car service’ price

It’s neither a bird nor a plane, and it is vehemently not a helicopter, but instead this week some New Yorkers witnessed an “electric vertical takeoff and landing” aircraft buzzing around the city, which developers say could revolutionize travel in New York.

Joby Aviation’s fully electric aircraft conducted multiple flights from JFK airport in Queens to Manhattan in recent days, which would have turned heads to anyone looking up. It’s a futuristic-looking design, somewhere between helicopter and drone, and is capable of speeds up to 200mph.

A new two-acre garden in memory of Queen Elizabeth II has opened to the public, providing a refuge for the city’s flora and fauna in Regent’s Park. From a wildflower meadow to swift boxes in a water tower, the space has been designed as an oasis of biodiversity

Claim by environment minister opens new report into profound ecological damage allegedly done by IDF forces

Lebanon’s minister for the environment has accused Israel’s military of committing “an act of ecocide” in the foreword to a report detailing the harm done to the country’s natural resources during the invasion of 2023 to 2024.

Israeli military aggression “reshaped both the physical and ecological landscape” of southern Lebanon, according to the report, which does not consider the impacts of Israel’s latest barrage of attacks this spring.

Damaged 5,000 hectares (12,350 acres) of forest cover, including broadleaf, pine and stone pine stands, destroying habitats, disregulating local climates and causing soil erosion.

Destroyed $118m (£87m) of physical agriculture assets, including crops, livestock facilities, forestry resources, fisheries and aquaculture infrastructure.

Caused further losses of $586m (£433m) in lost agricultural production as a result of disrupted harvests and reduced yields.

Destroyed 2,154 hectares (5,320 acres) of orchards, including 814 hectares of olive groves and 637 hectares of citrus plantations, and caused extensive damage to banana plantations.

Contaminated soils with phosphorus concentrations up to 1,858 parts a million, with particular contamination hotspots in south Lebanon and Bekaa valley in the east.

Caused widespread air pollution episodes extending well beyond immediate strike zones and releasing particulates; sulphur and nitrogen oxides; and toxic compounds such as dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Scotland Yard says incident in Golders Green at tribute to protesters killed in Iran is not being treated as terrorism

Police are investigating a suspected arson attack at a memorial wall in north London.

Scotland Yard said the investigation was being led by counter-terrorism policing, but it was not being treated as a terrorist incident. No arrests have yet been made and the memorial wall was not damaged.

New HarperCollins study finds that daily reading for pleasure among five- to 17-year-olds fell from 39% in 2012 to 25% in 2025

The “relentless” focus on measuring literacy progress in schools has “pushed reading for pleasure to the margins”, according to a new report.

“Parents and schools both recognise that reading for pleasure matters, but their understandable focus on literacy skills is actively undermining it,” found the study, which analysed survey data on reading trends among UK children, drawing on data from HarperCollins, NielsenIQ and The Reading Agency.

Government appeal against high court ruling could have implications for right to protest and lead to other groups being proscribed

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, will have her appeal against the high court ruling that the ban on Palestine Action was unlawful heard in the court of appeal this week, beginning on Tuesday. The Guardian explains the history of the case and what is at stake.

Ittai Gradel died of renal cancer days after museum awarded him medal for ‘very significant contribution’

The academic turned antiquities dealer who exposed the theft of hundreds of artefacts from the British Museum has died aged 61.

Dr Ittai Gradel, from Denmark, alerted the British Museum and the police after he was able to buy dozens of museum artefacts on eBay over the course of several years.

Neither political party is immune to conspiracy theories in a time of intense distrust in government and media, experts say

After an armed man attempted to breach the ballroom where Donald Trump was set to speak to White House journalists on Saturday, conspiracy theories immediately spread about whether the event was staged.

The rhetoric has become a common refrain from both sides of the aisle in an era of deeply fractured politics and intense distrust in political institutions and media, and in the president himself.

Pirates appear to be taking advantage of international naval strength being diverted to Middle East

Three vessels have been hijacked off the coast of Somalia in the past week, raising fears of a resurgence in piracy around the Horn of Africa, and adding to the woes of the global shipping industry.

The merchant vessel Sward was taken over on 26 April, a day after a dhow was seized. These followed the 21 April hijacking of Honour 25, a motor tanker carrying 18,000 barrels of oil, according to the Maritime Security Centre Indian Ocean (MSCIO), the tracking service of the EU’s naval force.

Defendant, 21, in court with second man over alleged scheme to kill music fans outside Vienna stadium

A 21-year-old man has pleaded guilty in an Austrian court over a jihadist plot to attack a Taylor Swift concert in Vienna nearly two years ago, which led to shows by the US megastar in the country being scrapped.

The plan to kill onlookers massing outside the venue was thwarted at the 11th hour but Austrian authorities still cancelled Swift’s three scheduled performances in August 2024.

Customs officials say group allegedly hid 5kg of ‘kush’ in false walls of bags on return from Bangkok holiday

Twenty-two Buddhist monks are in Sri Lankan police custody after customs officials found 110kg of high-grade cannabis concealed in their luggage, the largest ever drug bust at Colombo’s main international airport.

The group, mostly junior monks in training from temples across Sri Lanka, were alleged to have “carried about five kilos of the narcotic concealed within false walls in their luggage”, according to a Sri Lanka customs spokesperson.

Trial is culmination of a years-long feud between Musk and Altman that has become increasingly vicious

The trial pitting Elon Musk against Sam Altman and OpenAI began in earnest on Tuesday with opening arguments, as lawyers for the two tech moguls seek to convince a California jury of their client’s version of the AI company’s history. The trial is set to feature testimony from both billionaires, as well as some of the most powerful executives in the tech industry.

Musk’s attorney argued that Altman, OpenAI and its president, Greg Brockman, broke a foundational agreement to better humanity when the non-profit pivoted towards a for-profit structure. Musk, who left OpenAI in 2018 after co-founding it with Altman and Brockman three years earlier, also alleged that his co-founders unjustly enriched themselves as the company raised billions of dollars and grew into the AI behemoth it is today.

Technology secretary speaks amid concerns country is struggling to make its own way in AI

Britain must seize the initiative on artificial intelligence or be left at the “mercy and whim” of a future shaped by the technology, Liz Kendall has said.

The technology secretary said the country must have greater control over the industry as she highlighted big tech’s grip on its development, with 70% of the world’s AI computing power provided by US companies.

Tech company is latest Silicon Valley firm to sign agreement with US military despite widespread employee opposition

Google has reportedly signed a deal with the US Pentagon to use its artificial intelligence models for classified work. The tech company joins a growing list of Silicon Valley firms inking agreements with the US military.

The agreement allows the Pentagon to use Google’s AI for “any lawful government purpose”, the report from the Information added, putting it alongside OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI, which also have deals to supply AI models for classified use. Similar agreements, both at Google and other AI firms, have sparked significant disagreements with the Pentagon and major employee pushback.

FTSE 250 firms Paragon and OSB Group, owner of Kent Reliance and Precise Mortgages, slide on London Stock Exchange

• Rachel Reeves considering rent freeze to limit Iran war fallout

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Shares in some of the UK’s biggest buy-to-let lenders such as Paragon and One Savings Bank have fallen after it emerged that the chancellor may make private landlords commit to a one-year rent freeze.

In an effort to protect households from rising living costs as a result of the Iran war, Rachel Reeves is considering whether to ban landlords in England from increasing rents for a limited period of time, the Guardian revealed on Monday night.

Singer, songwriter, guitarist and co-founder of the British rock group Traffic who clashed with the frontman Steve Winwood

The singer, songwriter and guitarist Dave Mason, who has died aged 79, was the superstar who never was. He first found fame as a founder member of Traffic, and wrote some of the most popular songs from their early repertoire, but could never quite see eye-to-eye with the band’s precocious genius Steve Winwood.

Mason’s self-evident talents, which included copious skills on acoustic and electric guitars and a grainy, soulful singing voice, then allowed him to form creative relationships with some of the biggest names of late-1960s and 70s rock, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones, Delaney & Bonnie, George Harrison, Cass Elliot and Crosby Stills and Nash – though never on a long-lasting basis.

Plucked from relative obscurity to score Hugh Jackman film The Death of Robin Hood, the skilled singer-songwriter explains how he conquered his impostor syndrome

Last year, Jim Ghedi was having a chicken dinner at his mother’s house in Sheffield when he checked his phone. “This director started following me on Instagram,” he recalls. “And there’s pictures of him with Nicolas Cage. As a joke, I said to my mam: ‘I might message him and say, let me do your next film score.’ As I said it, he messaged me, saying: ‘I want you to do my next film score.’”

The director was Michael Sarnoski and the film is the forthcoming A24 production The Death of Robin Hood, starring Hugh Jackman and Jodie Comer. Sarnoski had heard Ghedi’s excellent 2025 album, Wasteland, a stirring and brooding album of apocalyptic folk that was a reflection of societal rot and collapse in England. Released on the small Calder Valley label Basin Rock, the album was critically acclaimed – and his most successful and ambitious to date – but it had not turned Ghedi into a household name. He thought that the film opportunity “would all blow away and they’d find out who I am”, he says. “Some top producer would put up the red flag.”

The female-created YouTube sketch series Smatouha Minni – You Heard It From Me – uses satire to confront misogynistic attitudes

In Beirut’s Gemmayzeh neighbourhood a rented flat has been transformed into a film set: bright studio lights in a cosy living room. At its centre is Maria Elayan – though she is barely recognisable. Filming for the third season of Smatouha Minni (You Heard It From Me), a feminist series in Arabic, the actor is in a padded muscle suit, wearing a slicked-back black wig and beard.

“If your wife asks you to change the diapers, you should change her,” the Palestinian-Jordanian barks, mimicking an aggrieved self-help podcaster. An hour later, she is slouched in a hoodie, shisha pipe in one hand and a gaming console in the other, shouting: “Mama, I’m hungry. Can you make me a sandwich?”

Addison Heimann’s stylised alien horror is as zippily amusing as it is sensual, with more than a bit of Rocky Horror in the mix

Addison Heimann’s second feature wears its heart – and other appendages – on its sleeve; it is the queer, disaffected millennial live-action hentai psychosexual horror-drama-comedy that a fairly specific slice of the viewing public has been waiting for. It’s mostly about the friendship between Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris), which from the start is clearly affectionate and a little bit problematic. He pays the rent, she doesn’t; meaning he gets away with shenanigans like asking Joey to stay in her room with the lights out when his Grindr date comes over, because he’s told the guy he lives alone.

Into this dynamic struts Joey’s former lover, Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), who is more than a little bit problematic himself. He has plenty of charm, choreographed dance routines for days, and is an (almost literal) demon in the sack. In fact, he’s a sometimes-tentacled alien – and he’s also a narcissist. As a character, Brian feels a little modelled on Frank-N-Furter from Rocky Horror, with a hedonistic outlook, pansexual orientation and ear for a toe-tapping tune – though his aesthetic is less fishnets, more Jesus in a hip-hop tracksuit.

Valéry Carnoy’s striking film brims with unsynchronised ideas and images, but the physicality and performances of the young cast are undeniable

Valéry Carnoy’s fiercely acted but dramatically unfocused film is about a sudden, mysterious crisis of confidence that undermines everything a young man thinks he knows about himself. It’s a brick dislodged from a wall that brings everything crashing down.

The setting is a sports boarding school in France; evidently INSEP, the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance, in the Bois de Vincennes just outside Paris. Camille (Samuel Kirchner) is a tough, troubled kid from a broken home – and a brilliant boxer on the verge of national greatness. His best mate is fellow boxer Matteo (Fayçal Anaflous), who has broken the rules so often he is on the verge of being kicked out.

A new documentary travels around the world to identify the roots of ultra-mania – the fan movement that’s part progressive and sometimes criminal

‘Ultras” – hardcore football fans renowned for their stunning stadium displays and gang-like loyalty – were once a subculture confined to Italian stadiums. But since the late 1960s the movement has spread through global football terraces and become a more elevated cultural obsession.

Books on the subject include my own Ultra and James Montague’s 1312 (the numbers stand for ACAB, an abbreviation of “all cops are bastards”). Netflix has not only commissioned one film, Ultras, about a Neapolitan gang, but also three longer series: Puerta 7 (based in Argentina), Furioza and The Hooligan (both set in Poland).

The Dutch ex-punk and Jim Jarmusch bandmate talks about his passion to free up a hidebound repertoire and make its strings ‘a real pop instrument’

Nobody can accuse Jozef Van Wissem of doing things by halves. The musician, very likely the world’s most notorious contemporary lutenist, owns a sonic arsenal of eight of the string instruments: some bespoke, and all boasting remarkable features. With them he has created a huge body of work, nearly 50 titles to date. Another album, This Is My Blood is released this May.

Each Easter, Van Wissem settles down to compose a new record. He finds the peace of Warsaw, where everyone has “gone away for the holidays”, more amenable for work than “noisy” Rotterdam, where he also has a flat.

Even though she was unwell, the last surviving Ronette was full of poignant memories and saucy asides when I met her last year. And she had a rich life after pop success

• Nedra Talley Ross dies aged 80 – news

Nedra Talley Ross wasn’t a household name any longer, but she had been once upon a time. When she turned 18 in January 1964, George Harrison was among the guests who helped her celebrate. She and her cousins were feted, surrounded, adored. For she and her cousins were the Ronettes, the girl group above all others, the sound of teenage emotional extremity set to soaring, symphonic pop. Nedra was the last surviving Ronette and now she is gone.

Nedra’s cousins were Veronica and Estelle Bennett, and the three of them had sung and danced and played as long as they could remember. She was only a Ronette between 1963 and 1967, but in a few short years she was part of some of the greatest pop ever recorded: Be My Baby, Walking in the Rain, Sleigh Ride and the rest. Not that she was taken with Phil Spector, who produced them. “I wasn’t impressed by him, and he didn’t stir me with what he was saying, didn’t scare me with what he was doing,” Nedra told me when I interviewed her just before Christmas last year. “He was quite arrogant, and who wants to deal with an arrogant person?”

The half-human, half-horse star has bounced back from the brink with a grass-themed album that’s ‘a love letter to Mother Earth’. Is it true she was discovered by Whitney Horseton?

‘I’m trilingual because I speak English and German – but also neigh. We could have done the interview in horsey.” Welcome to the world of DJ and pop provocateur horsegiirL, AKA Stella Stallion, the Berlin-based half-human, half-horse, whose potent mix of Eurodance, 90s techno, happy hardcore and gabba has polarised the dance music community. On one side of the paddock are her loyal fans, or “farmies”, who fully accept the horsegiirL lore – that she was born and raised in the idyllic Sunshine farms, surrounded by animal friends, and later discovered by local legend Whitney Horseton. Lurking on the other side, near the manure, are the dance bros who derided Stallion’s meteoric rise in 2022 – aided by viral sets at HÖR Berlin and Boiler Room – as a cheap gimmick that highlighted how far dance music had strayed from its roots.

“I don’t remember his name,” laughs Stallion, 26, “but some legendary DJ from, like, 1902, said, ‘This is the face of commercialisation.’” She’s speaking from Brazil, where she is currently shooting a video for That’s My Beach, a sunkissed pop gem taken from her forthcoming climate crisis-focused debut album, Nature Is Healing. “I had to laugh because at that point I was mainly playing small underground queer and trans raves. It just showed what they were actually protecting, which was a very different space to where I see myself.”

The broadcaster’s thoughtful new interview series is an impressive feat. Plus, former tennis champ Maria Sharapova fronts a new female-orientated chatshow

After the birth of her son during lockdown, the Welsh actor was flooded by disturbing thoughts she couldn’t shake, a plunge into darkness and isolation. She discusses how it changed her and what helped her recover

Kimberley Nixon’s memoir, She Seems Fine to Me, is out on 7 May, and she’s quite terrified. This isn’t an author worried by sales figures or reviews. Nixon’s book is an up-close-and-personal account of perinatal OCD. It tells of the dark, disturbing thoughts that taunted and haunted her after the birth of her son: her racing mind, relentless rumination, the Technicolor horror stories that played inside her head, always centred on harms to her baby. The book holds nothing back.

“Is it really brave or is it really stupid?” says Nixon. “In my head, I’ve written a book about what a horrible person I was and put it out in the world – and I have to keep reminding myself that’s not it. I’ve written a book about a mental health condition and trying to fight it.”

In The Secret War Against Hate, Pulitzer-prize finalist Steven J Ross looks back at those who infiltrated and prevented hate groups in the US

Steven J Ross’s new book, The Secret War Against Hate, is a sequel of sorts to Hitler in Los Angeles, his bestselling Pulitzer-prize finalist from 2018. That book told the story of Leon Lewis, a Jewish attorney, and others in the 1930s who foiled Nazi attempts to cause havoc in the City of Dreams. Now Ross looks south and east, to Atlanta and New York after the second world war, where activists and agents worked to infiltrate and defeat new Nazi groups.

The distinguished professor of history at the University of Southern California said: “With Hitler in LA, Leon Lewis hid the spy codes but once I figured it out, I realized, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got a historian’s dream here,’ which is an unknown story that’s really important. All I had to do was not get in the way, not be overly author-ly, just be the guide taking you through the story. I knew the beats. I knew how spy stuff and detective stuff goes. I changed my writing style.”

An ex-offender searches for meaning and beauty in the second novel from the spoken-word performer

Kae Tempest’s new novel is dedicated to “you”, the reader. It also comes with a plea: “Be gentle though.” But to whom or what should we be gentle? The book or the writer? Having Spent Life Seeking is Tempest’s second novel, arriving a decade after his first and following a period of considerable personal change, including gender transition. Perhaps inevitably, it is a book full of struggle and soul-searching. It is also painfully earnest: an enervating read with an exhausting intensity that neither relents nor resolves.

The publisher hasn’t helped here, bombastically announcing it as a “heart-breaking, soul-building new novel”. That’s a great deal to live up to, even for someone who established a reputation first as a blazingly fervent spoken-word poetry performer, winning the Ted Hughes award in 2013, and making Mercury prize-nominated albums in 2014 and 2017. But the grandeur of the publisher’s claims also suggests something of the melodramatic register of the book, which is all grand passion, big trauma and heroic self-discovery. What it lacks is any convincing sense of interiority or reflection.

Tactile details and a no-nonsense approach make this biography a refreshing change from more lurid fare

Both Emily Brontë and her only novel Wuthering Heights have been called “deranged”, “crazed” or (especially online, in the wake of the recent film) “unhinged”. So it’s a relief to read a biography where she comes across, instead, as more grounded, steady, sane. Deborah Lutz, whose 2015 book The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects made such an impression, anchors her narrative in solid things: the too-short bed Emily squeezed herself into; the pockets she stuffed with paper, pencils and moorland treasures; the laundry she looked after, including stockings with “AB5” sewn into them to indicate they were her sister Anne’s fifth pair. Lutz’s Emily is an eminently practical woman who wrote “while baking, in front of a peat fire perched on a little stool, or while walking” and who “used the tactile keeping of order as a prop and prompt to lose herself in the sublimity of art-making and moor-haunting”.

For Lutz, Emily’s writing is also “tactile”. She counts the sampler Emily made at 10 as one of her “earliest extant writings”, and while other scholars have dismissed it as a collection of copied platitudes, Lutz notices that one line Emily stitched, from Proverbs – “Who hath gathered the wind in his fists?” – suggests that maybe she was already thinking about wuthering. She lovingly describes the little books the Brontë children made as “delightful, tiny objects to match their toys and still-small selves, texts holding secretive and insular qualities”. She calls the one-page diaries Emily made with Anne “a new writing practice, one that feels distinctly modern, even avant garde”, as they crammed in descriptions of their cooking, their chatter, their animals, their made-up heroines; stream of consciousness nearly a century before Virginia Woolf.

Genki Kawamura’s eerie new film expands on a haunting video game that leaves players lost in endless subway tunnels. He explains how this makes viewers and players face their worst fears

Genki Kawamura is something of a polymath. A bestselling author, film-maker, script writer and producer – he is also a lifelong gamer who grew up playing and being inspired by the games of legendary Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto. His latest project Exit 8, now in cinemas, is a fascinating adaptation of the Japanese horror game, developed by a lone coder based in Kyoto, operating under the name Kotake Create. “I was captivated by its game design and the beauty of its visuals,” says Kawamura. “At the same time, I watched many streamers play it. As I did, I realised that although the game is incredibly simple, each player creates their own story, and each streamer brings their own unique reactions. It felt like a device that could reveal something fundamental about human nature.”

The concept behind Exit 8 the game is simple. The player finds themselves trapped in an endlessly looping section of a Tokyo subway station. Viewing the narrow, brightly lit corridors in first-person, you pass the same posters, the same silent commuter, the same locked doors over and over again. The only way to escape is to spot anomalies each time you pass through – maybe the eyes on a poster start following you, maybe the commuter stops and smiles – at which point you have to double back the way you came. Complete eight runs without missing an anomaly and you get to leave through the eponymous way out. There’s no story, no reason for it at all. The mystery is part of the appeal.

PlayStation 5; Housemarque/Sony
As a fast-firing spaceman, one minute you’re invincible, the next you’re dead – with every battle like watching a firework show through a kaleidoscope

On the planet Carcosa, mangled, blackened trees and crimson flowers take root next to the ruins of some ancient alien civilisation, flanked by statues contorted in pain, tearing at their marble skin. There are metallic tunnels deep underground, chasms of impossible size snaked with cables, so you feel as though you’re exploring the intestines of some giant machine. There’s a House of Leaves quality to these spaces, which shift and change and clearly weren’t built for humans.

You are Arjun Devraj (played by Rahul Kohli), a space security guy who’s on a mission to find missing colonists on an alien world before it all goes a bit Event Horizon and you become the next lost expedition. Classic. There’s some unethical space capitalism happening out here, and Devraj himself is a bit of a traumanaut who brought way too much mental carry-on luggage for this extremely long-haul flight. But it’s nothing that shooting some aliens won’t fix, right?

From mega hit Clair Obscur to the genius Blue Prince, the winners at this year’s event help me refocus on why games really matter

The 22nd Bafta game awards were on Friday, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 took the biggest game prize. This makes it only the second game ever (after Baldur’s Gate 3) to win top prize at all five of the main awards shows: the Dice awards in Vegas; the Game awards in LA; the public-voted Golden Joysticks in the UK; the Game Developers Choice awards in San Francisco; and now London’s Baftas, the final event to celebrate the gaming output of 2025.

I’ll be honest: I was hoping for a different winner. Blue Prince, an eight-year project by the visual artist and former film-maker Tonda Ros, is the most extraordinary thing I played last year. It’s the game where you inherit a sprawling mansion that changes shape every day, and you must navigate its ever-shifting blueprint to find its secret room. I went so deep on this game that I was still playing it and thinking about it weeks after solving its initial mystery, piecing together bits of opaque lore from Reddit threads. I think it deserved at least one best game award (apart from ours).

The iconic game that came to define 8-bit programming still conjures flutters of nostalgia 40 years on – all thanks to a 15-year-old tea boy who worked a Saturday shift in a computer shop in Greater Manchester

If you were playing games on a home computer in the early 1980s, you knew about Chuckie Egg. No question. This simple-looking platform game had you wandering around a chicken shed, collecting eggs and avoiding the patrolling hens. But when you reached level eight, a large duck was suddenly let loose and would stalk the player like a feathery missile, completely changing the pace and tactics of the game. It was a boss battle before boss battles existed.

Everyone knew about Chuckie Egg because everyone could play it. Originally released on the ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro and Dragon 32 in the autumn of 1983, it immediately topped the charts, encouraging its publisher, A&F Software, to begin porting it to as many machines as possible. Around 11 conversions followed, including the Commodore 64, Amstrad and Acorn Electron. I first played it on the BBC computer in my school library, but I also had it on my C64 and a friend played on his Speccy. Like Manic Miner, Bruce Lee and Skool Daze, it was woven into the tapestry of British 8-bit gaming culture.

Lismore Castle Arts, County Waterford, Ireland
There are paintings of beatniks, jazz players, an African emperor and much else besides – and all of them come with a chair. So pull one up and treat yourself to a deeply satisfying viewing experience

The gallery appears to have been set for a party. Mismatched chairs are scattered through the space – ornate gothic throne, wing-backed recliner, stackable school chair. Each points towards a white window painted on to the wall, into which one of 43 equally miscellaneous paintings has been inserted. These paintings are the other party guests, and you must decide who to sit with.

It is a ragtag bunch, and so I decide to start with the people I recognise. But on my way to meet a portrait by Denzil Forrester of the young Haile Selassie, its surface resembling scuffed and polished stone, I am distracted by the glitter of light from a small work by Andrew Cranston. It comes from a young woman who seems to have been transplanted from Dumbarton into a glamorous late Vuillard, her coat shimmering like the scales of a fish caught by late summer sun. So I take the leather-backed chair in front of it, and become engrossed in its story of a beatnik couple living a tarnished late-summer dream, the woman looking straight out at me, over her seated partner, through a veil of shadow.

Hampstead theatre, London
A bond slowly builds between wildlife photographer Tim and his apprentice Marcus in David Pearson’s tender yet underdeveloped drama

A young aspiring wildlife photographer is trying out for an apprenticeship with one of the best in the business. Marcus (Charlie Beck) has just arrived at a bird hide, in the middle of nowhere. “No one can hear you scream around here,” says the older man, Tim (Gerard Horan), whose barking grumpiness carries its own threat.

Marcus, under his tutelage, gives as good as he gets and they rub along awkwardly until, slowly, they find affinities: they both hail from the same downtrodden housing estate and there are shadows lurking around their family life. You wonder where this meeting will go, with ambivalence around both men’s behaviour. Does Tim have an ulterior motive in getting Marcus to this remote spot? Is Marcus really who he says he is?

At Hampstead theatre, London, until 23 May

Show curated by Edward Enninful will highlight era’s ‘do it yourself’ attitude and shift focus away from Cool Britannia

Steve McQueen’s first major film, a Chris Ofili painting in tribute to Doreen and Stephen Lawrence and images of clubbers at the Haçienda will be exhibited at Tate Britain as part of its 90s exhibition.

The show will explore art and fashion during a decade that reshaped Britain’s cultural identity and “established conditions that are still with us”, said Edward Enninful, the former editor of British Vogue who is curating the exhibition.

Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities, Oxford
The Sohmen Concert Hall’s acoustics made Scottish Ensemble’s Shostakovich pinprick clear, while the Great Hall showcased Devlin and Muhly’s ‘choral installation’

In 1676 London musician Thomas Mace proposed a bold idea. Instead of enduring the “inconveniences of talking, crowding, sweating and blustering”, audiences should be able to enjoy music in a dedicated space: a “musick room … convenient and fit to perform in”. For the first time concert-going was open to anyone for the price of a ticket, though this hungry new audience had to wait until 1748 and the construction of Oxford’s Holywell Music Room – Europe’s oldest custom-built public concert hall – for the fulfilment of Mace’s vision and a room of their own.

Since then, concert halls have become a mirror to changing fashions, priorities and politics. Compare the gorgeous fantasy of the 19th-century’s Royal Albert Hall to the sleek postwar functionality of the Royal Festival Hall. In Oxford the Holywell has since been joined by several others, though none without their issues – until now.

Gámez-Cuéllar brothers were arrested alongside parents in February and later released after bipartisan backlash

Three teenage mariachi musicians who were temporarily detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in February have been tapped to open for country singer Kacey Musgraves at several upcoming shows in Texas.

On Monday, Musgraves announced that the Gámez-Cuéllar brothers Antonio, 18; Caleb, 14; and Joshua, 12, would join her for performances at Gruene Hall from 3 to 5 May as part of her Middle of Nowhere tour.

The artist started with graffiti at 13 in São Paulo. Now, he samples motifs from mythology and his vast, fantastical paintings have taken over the walls of the South London Gallery

Paulo Nimer Pjota was 15 when he sold his first painting and already a three-year veteran. “I don’t really know what life is like without painting,” the 37-year-old Brazilian artist tells me. “It is in everything I do, the movies that I watch, the books that I read. They might not have anything to do with art, but I can find something in them that I might be able to use.”

Pjota’s studio, which once served as his bedsit before he got married and had a son, is in a quiet neighbourhood of São Paulo: there are shelves lined with gourds, skulls, postcards and other trinkets, a pair of skateboards hang on the wall and a desk overflows with tubes of paint. A pile of sketches he made when he was a teenager, discovered at his parents’ house, sit among this productive clutter.

Michael Jackson biopic debuted with £11.6m at the UK box office – almost double achieved by next-best Bohemian Rhapsody

Michael, Antoine Fuqua’s authorised biopic of Michael Jackson’s life until 1988, before allegations of child sexual assault began to emerge against the singer, has performed marginally less impressively in the UK than the US.

In the US, Michael outperformed the opening for Bohemian Rhapsody – the highest grossing music biopic of all time, with which Michael shares a producer in Graham King – by 90%, taking $97m (£72m) to its $51m (£38m).

Star tells awards ceremony: ‘I disagree with everything that this administration stands for, but there’s no place for the kind of violence we saw two nights ago’

In the wake of the shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner, George Clooney used an awards-show speech to make a plea against “hatred and corruption and cruelty and violence”.

Clooney was speaking at an event at the Lincoln Center in New York, where he was given Film at Lincoln Center’s annual Chaplin award, which “recognises an individual’s significant contribution to cinema”.

Artists and writers argue scrappy nature of self-published booklets is incompatible with artificial intelligence

The self-published zine has long been central to cultural revolutions, from queer activism to Black feminism and the riot grrrl punk movement, producing titles such as Sniffin’ Glue and Sweet-Thang along the way. But now the traditionally analogue art form faces a new shift: artificial intelligence.

AI may seem incompatible with the these cult DIY booklets, but some creatives, designers and artists have begun to experiment with the technology, causing alarm in parts of the underground publishing world. It has been their Dylan-goes-electric moment.

Apple laptop sets new performance bar with more storage, new chips and plenty of options, but now has two-tier specs depending on processor

Apple’s Macs have been on a roll this year with the brand new budget MacBook Neo and a faster MacBook Air M5, but now it’s time for its workhorse MacBook Pro to be upgraded with the fastest, most powerful M-series chips.

The latest MacBook Pro comes in two screen sizes and a large range of chip and configuration options. The 14in version starts with the M5 chip costing £1,699 (€1,899/$1,699/A$2,699) and then jumps to the more powerful M5 Pro from £2,199 (€2,499/$2,199/A$3,499) before climbing further for the 16in version or the top M5 Max chip. A pricey machine for professional workloads.

A fun, shareable Tunisian chickpea soup for a party, a one-pan moussaka, and a fragrant, layered, chocolate viennetta

Traditionally, this would be a Tunisian breakfast, and it’s not a million miles from one of my favourites, Egyptian ful medames. But here I’m proposing it as an evening offering: make a big pot of delicious flavourful chickpeas, then lay out a spread of accompaniments (pickles, olives, capers, boiled eggs). Second, a good traditional moussaka is a wholesome but time-consuming process, but that’s not the case with this simplified version, which you can easily make on a weeknight. Finally, you might not be surprised to learn that this basil viennetta was one of the most popular recipes when we were testing dishes for my new book, MEDesque. First, of course, because it tastes unreal. Second, because everyone got a huge tug of nostalgia, and third, because everyone became giddy with excitement, trying to figure out what the flavour was.

You told us your favourite subscriptions for cutting costs and reducing household waste. Plus, Anya Hindmarch’s shopping secrets and marathon essentials

• 33 easy plastic-free kitchen swaps

Whether they’re full of harmful chemicals or packaged in plastic, it’s no secret that many household cleaning products aren’t great for the planet. But “taking a more sustainable approach to washing and cleaning doesn’t have to be inconvenient”, said Hannah Rochell in her recent roundup of the best sustainable subscriptions. From vegan washing detergent in a natty recyclable tin to compostable scourers, her guide is full of delivery services that make greener living less effortful.

Her list wasn’t exhaustive, though, so we asked you for the subscription services you swear by for cutting costs, reducing household waste and making your life easier. (And no one has any commercial links to these companies – we always check.)

‘A cherry-cola colour and funky, acidic aroma’: the best supermarket balsamic vinegars, tasted and rated

The best fake tan for a sunkissed, streak-free glow – tested

Ditch power tools, build a hedgehog highway: how to create a nature-friendly garden

How I Shop with Anya Hindmarch: ‘I would label everything if I could’

The best hair straighteners for foolproof styling, tried and tested by our expert

Inspired to run your first 26.2 miles? Seasoned runners share their go-to kit, from race-day shoes to free apps (plus five UK marathons you can still enter)

• The best running shoes for every runner

When you first start running, the marathon – all 26.2 miles of it – seems like an impossible distance. Whether you’ve taken the plunge at your local parkrun or got round your first 10k, the thought of anything longer probably feels like it’s beyond you.

But this running milestone is more achievable than you think. My first marathon was Brighton in 2018, and on crossing the line, I knew I’d been bitten by the bug. Three more marathons and three ultra-distance events later, I’m gearing up for number five in Berlin this September.

Our resident product tester sips and puckers his way through a range of high-street balsamic vinegars

• The best supermarket gherkins

The old adage that you get what you pay for definitely applies to balsamic vinegar, no matter whether it’s an independent brand or a supermarket’s own-label. The best are made in Modena, Italy, and carry at least IGP (protected geographical indication) status. Though that’s not the strictest certification, it’s still a mark of quality, assuring the product has been made following certain guidelines.

None of the vinegars I tested had PDO (protected designation of origin) status, which is a more coveted certification with strict guidelines and a 12-year ageing process, and which explains why it can cost upwards of £1,200 a litre.

Literally a mix of white (blanc) and red (rouge) grapes, the light, fresh tipple is popping up in bars around the world. Move over rosé and orange wine ...

Twenty years ago, a winery could do well selling one white and two reds, says Konrad Pixner, a northern Italian winemaker who set up his vineyard, Domaine de L’Accent, in Languedoc, France, in 2019. But today, importers and bars always ask: “Do you have something new?” So up in the hills, surrounded by deep gorges and limestone plateaus, Pixner is constantly experimenting.

After a good harvest in 2023, Pixner walked into the shed he shares with other winemakers at 4am to find that his biggest vat of white wine, pressed from carignan blanc grapes, had overflowed during fermentation. He had run out of space, so he quickly “pumped the white juice into the tank where whole bunches of carignan noir were,” he says, and left them to ferment for 10 days together. In contrast to rosé, made from red grapes left for a short time with their skins on before being pressed, he created “blouge” – a light, fresh wine blended from white and red grapes that’s best served chilled. It has now caught on among creative vintners around the world.

A pasta bake combining tender chicken and hearty chickpeas, and a Middle Eastern spring salad layered with spices, refreshing herbs and sweet peas

My ideal way of entertaining is completely fuss-free, with everything prepared ahead of time so I can enjoy being with my guests rather than worrying about cooking. I like to put big, generous dishes in the middle of the table, such as this one-tray chicken, pasta and chickpea bake, alongside a fresh salad, so everyone can serve themselves and share a simple, delicious meal.

Impala is like no restaurant I’ve ever been to, yet it somehow has echoes of almost all of them

Late last month, Impala drove into Soho already flaming hot in the hype stakes: this was a sizzling booking to brag about even before executive chef and co-founder Meedu Saad had turned on the stoves. Impala, after all, is a Super 8 restaurant, the group that has, among others, Tomos Parry’s Brat in Shoreditch, which has been constantly, unfalteringly brilliant since 2018. It also runs Parry’s second baby, Mountain, which is likewise wonderful; sometimes weird, yes, but always wonderful. Long before that, back in 2016, they opened Kiln, the famed live-fire Thai counter hangout that cheffy boys in beanies have tried and failed to emulate all over Britain, while Super 8’s beginnings were with the boundary-pushing and much-loved Smoking Goat. That is nothing less than a litany of solid-gold bangers, and now they’ve unleashed Impala by Saad, the former head chef at Kiln.

In any normal restaurant review, it would have been common to have by now established what type of food Impala actually cooks – north African? Middle Eastern? Mediterranean? British?, etc – but in this odd, dreamy and defiantly dark nook in Soho (every single one of us in the room, even those with perfect vision, had our iPhone torches on just to read the menu), narrowing down its origin story is not quite that simple. “Bird’s tongue pasta braised with spiced oxtail?” someone asked over the loud jazz. “Molokhia, braised jute leaf and shoulder of cull yaw sheep?” queried someone else. It went on: aish baladi? Ftira? “Bird’s tongue pasta is the Egyptian name for orzo,” I ventured, adding that I thought molokhia might be a bit like spinach, but never have I been more ready for a server to turn up and ask: “Guys, may I explain the menu?”

We choose a beef tartare with a smoky, sweet Tunisian harissa and crunchy chunks of deep-fried bread as brittle as pork crackling. We scoop honey bread through an insanely good mush of pounded white beans topped with chunks of pungent bottarga. There are rustic pillows of that aish baladi, an Egyptian wholegrain bread that here comes with a fresh, rich harissa paste, and langoustine kibbeh and sun-dried wheat all wrapped in a neat perilla leaf cone.

From avocado to hemp, extra virgin olive and rapeseed, the shops are packed with various oils. But what is worth spending money on? And are any of them actually better for you?

The world of cooking oils is confusing. I keep spotting new ones on supermarket shelves, trumpeting their health claims. Cold-pressed avocado oil, extra virgin macadamia oil, organic coconut oil, premium hemp seed oil … Even familiar oils are mired in controversy. Is it OK to cook with olive oil? Should you avoid seed oils? Meanwhile, prices keep rising – earlier this month, Walter Zanre, the CEO of Filippo Berio UK, said supermarkets were “taking the mickey” out of customers over olive oil pricing. I asked the experts which oils are really worth splashing out on.

I had presumed I would love her instantly – but a traumatic birth led to devastating numbness

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was waiting for an overwhelming rush of love, but when I looked at my newborn baby what I felt was utter despair. No matter how much I smiled at her, crooned at her, fed, patted, caressed and changed her, I was absolutely numb.

I had yearned for her. Growing up in Italy, I was surrounded by images of perfect motherhood. Every rural crossroad has its tiny shrine to the Madonna and Child. I was certain by the end of my teens that I wanted to have at least one baby.

The actor and producer on being a teenage model, making My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and the secret to long-lasting love

Born in Hollywood in 1956, Rita Wilson’s first role was in The Brady Bunch at the age of 15. She went on to appear in Frasier and The Good Wife, as well as romcom classics such as Sleepless in Seattle and Runaway Bride. She produced the highest‑grossing romcom of all time, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as well as Mamma Mia! and A Man Called Otto, which starred her husband, Tom Hanks, and son Truman. Alongside her career on screen, she has released music since 2012. Her sixth studio album, Sound of a Woman, is out on 1 May.

My mum took this photo of me in Hollywood. I’d just started high school and was joyful, open and optimistic.

It feels as if your work and your identity are fused. You’ll get through this, but you may have to use this time to consider other careers

I’ve been a teacher for more than 20 years and loved it. I had promotions every couple of years and was happily making my way up the ladder. This year, however, I was made redundant because of restructuring and this has thrown me into a feeling of complete confusion. I have tried to find roles at the level I was working at, but have not been successful. It has left me feeling lost and unclear.

The last five years within education have felt fraught. I left the previous school I’d worked at because I felt the headteacher was unable to support me following the death of my mum. The school before that I left after whistleblowing on a senior leader for bullying. I am worried the repeat issues and feelings of being unhappy all come from me, and somehow I am seeking out conflict or issues.

Gillian Kennedy met Wade Freeman while working in a remote desert community. She was impressed by his playlists, and his generous spirit

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

In 2007 I’d been single for a few years and had just returned from a year volunteering in a village in Bangladesh. Six months after arriving home in Sydney I decided to take up a teaching job in Mulan Aboriginal community in the Kimberley, halfway between Broome and Alice Springs, population 120.

The first term was difficult. I got along well with my housemate, Kylie, and we’d met friendly nurses and people from the surrounding communities. But we didn’t have access to a vehicle so spent our weekends working. I felt quite lonely and isolated.

It cheerily addressed letters to my late spouse, and threatened penalties if he terminated his contract

After my husband died suddenly, I discovered he had been paying £171 a month for our EE broadband and TV contract. EE initially offered me a monthly deal at £44.99 on the phone.

There followed two letters, one day apart, cheerily addressed to my late husband. The first stated that he would have to pay £1,007 to terminate his contract; the second giving a termination fee of £520. The letters told him he could take the contract with him when he moved house.

The airline refused a refund or credit for our group of 14 after a brain tumour diagnosis for my two-year-old child

We were organising our wedding for this June when the happiest period of our lives became a nightmare.

Our two-year-old daughter was diagnosed with an aggressive grade 4 brain tumour requiring immediate life-saving surgeries. The prognosis is devastating.

Secondhand car buyers urged to carefully inspect vehicles, while owners told to beware tests that are suspiciously quick

• Rise of the ‘ghost owner’: 18,000 UK vehicles in use without proper records

You have just bought a secondhand car. It was older than you wanted, but were reassured because it had recently passed its MOT.

Within a few days, you notice a problem with the steering and take it into a garage to be checked. As well as that issue, they find the tread depth of the tyres is so low it should not have passed the test.

Some people are put off by myriad investment options. Here is a guide to the key decisions to help you choose

• ‘Savvy Squirrel’ ad campaign looks to push Britons towards investing

The UK government is keen to encourage people to invest. If you are thinking of dipping your toe into the stock market, an Isa is often the best way, as it lets you protect any gains from tax. Here’s how to get started.

Social media is awash with content about food intolerances and the symptoms to look out for. But figuring out whether you actually have one, and what’s triggering it, is surprisingly difficult. One avenue people are gravitating towards is at-home testing. Madeleine Finlay sits down with health and lifestyle journalist Rebecca Seal to unpick the science behind these tests. Rebecca explains how they purport to work, how accurate they actually are, and how we can all investigate what we might be intolerant to, without breaking the bank. Rebecca’s book Irritated: The Allergy Epidemic and What We Can Do About It, is out now.

‘They’re all junk, and should be banned’: the trouble with at-home food intolerance tests

Order Rebecca’s book from the Guardian Bookshop

Men tend to have a higher ratio of muscle to fat, but women respond just as well to resistance training

This is a common misconception, says Prof Leigh Breen, a muscle physiology specialist at the University of Leicester, though it’s easy to see where it comes from. Men typically have a higher ratio of muscle to fat than women, largely because of differences established during puberty, when testosterone levels rise significantly in males. Women, by contrast, tend to have a higher proportion of body fat – linked, in part, to oestrogen.

“Although there is a relationship between testosterone and the amount of muscle mass we have, this doesn’t determine how effectively we can build muscle with resistance training,” says Breen. “Women have much lower testosterone levels – around 15 to 20 times lower than men. There is a perception that men gain muscle more easily because of higher testosterone and more androgen receptors in muscle, but that’s not quite right. If you look at relative change – the percentage increase – men and women respond very similarly to training.”

Exclusive: Health Foundation says Britain is ‘going backwards’ compared with most other rich countries

• Findings on healthy life expectancy in UK shed light on its deteriorating health

People in the UK are spending fewer years in good health than a decade ago, prompting concern that the population’s health is “going backwards”.

The sharp decline in Britain’s healthy life expectancy, the amount of time someone spends free of illness or disability, is in sharp contrast to its recent rise in most other rich countries globally.

NHS struggling to cope with record numbers, which Cancer Research UK says puts progress on survival rates at risk

The number of people in the UK being diagnosed with cancer has reached a record high, with one person diagnosed every 80 seconds, a report reveals.

Cancer Research UK found that more than 403,000 people were being diagnosed with the disease each year. The rise is largely due to a growing and ageing population, as people are more likely to develop cancer as they get older.

Show features pink denim and suit printed with headlines from Gabrielle Chanel’s time in resort town

Chanel’s honeymoon period with the new designer Matthieu Blazy is showing no signs of cooling. Blazy’s fifth catwalk show – on the Biarritz beachfront where the young milliner Gabrielle Chanel opened a couture house in 1915 – was an irresistibly seductive love letter to the enduring allure of the double-C logo.

The day before the show, sales assistants at the Biarritz boutique were holding up Chanel beach towels on the shop floor to create extra changing room space for shoppers impatient to buy jeans at €3,100 (£2,690) a pair. Blazy’s jeans are becoming a totem of the new Chanel, which, in aesthetic, although certainly not in price, marries high taste with an inclusive, democratic point of view.

To celebrate the release of the film Mother Mary, starring Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel, in which a fashion designer creates a comeback dress for a pop star, we weigh up the best performative looks

“Dressed like a fabulously turned-out carrion crow,” is how our reviewer described the gothic, avian-like get-up PJ Harvey wore to perform her journalistic and theatrical ninth album, The Hope Six Demolition Project, in Brixton, south London, in 2016. The dress was the work of Harvey’s longtime friend, the Belgian designer Ann Demeulemeester, and epitomises the more dramatic stage looks – melodramatic but pared-back – that Harvey turned to for her later, darker albums. As she said of the clothes: “For me, it’s about the ability to meet the world. And it is a second skin, isn’t it? It’s protection, as well. It’s a very big part of clothing, the feeling of protection, particularly in Ann’s clothes.” Who would have thought that someone who earlier in their career took to the stage in Spice Girls co-ords and hot-pink catsuits would wind up in such serious Belgian high-fashion? Ellie Violet Bramley

Film sequel reveals how luxury brands have turned the tables on once-dominant magazine editors

The National Gallery was the grand setting for the party that followed The Devil Wears Prada 2’s London premiere this week. Donatella Versace held court in a roped-off area beneath Paul Delaroche’s The Execution of Lady Jane Grey.

Meryl Streep, reprising her role as Miranda Priestly – Anna Wintour’s fictional alter ego – wore a red satin Prada coat as a nod to the film’s title and black sunglasses as a wink to Wintour. Glossy magazine editors from Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, flown in for the night, nibbled on fried chicken served with caviar and dishes of mac and cheese presented theatrically under silver cloches.

Wiltshire town councillor Andrew Edwards, who has large collection of neckwear, is a regular at committee hearings

It was blockbuster viewing for politicos across the country: the livestreamed grilling of Olly Robbins. While the sacked Foreign Office civil servant was billed as the star of the show, for many he was upstaged by a well-dressed man wearing a cravat.

“I’ve got a big collection,” said Andrew Edwards, the scene stealer in question.

From the Cambrian Mountains to Cardigan Bay, the 83-mile Teifi Valley Trail is a grassroots initiative designed to revive a once-thriving area

Up here, the river was a mere gurgle; a babbling babe finding its way into the world. A few sheep roamed, a kite wheeled and a spring-clean wind ruffled the tussocks on the barren hills and rippled the pools. It was a stark yet striking beginning. As we followed a brand new fingerpost, skirted Llyn Teifi – the river’s official source – and picked up the fledgling flow, there was a sense great things lay ahead, for us both.

The Teifi rises in Ceredigion’s Cambrian Mountains – the untramped “green desert of Wales” – and pours into Cardigan Bay 75 miles (120km) south-west. It’s one of the longest rivers wholly within Wales and, historically, one of its most significant: the beating heart of the country’s fishing and wool-weaving industries, 12th-century abbeys at either end, Wales’s oldest university en route.

Beyond the Tuscan capital, there are exquisite towns with Medici fortresses, stunning frescoes, Roman amphitheatres – and not a selfie stick in sight

First, it was Barcelona, Venice and Dubrovnik. Now, Florence has joined the most overtouristed destinations in the world: its 365,000 inhabitants shared their city last year with 4.6 million visitors. The director of the city’s Accademia gallery – home to Michelangelo’s David – talked in 2024 about “hit and run” tourism, describing visitors “on a quick in-and-out mission to take selfies … trampling the city without contributing anything”. Local author Margherita Calderoni describes Via Camillo Cavour, a street leading to the Duomo, as a “rancid soup” of chain restaurants and “shops selling plastic trinkets from who knows where”.

Although steps are being taken – the city council has introduced a ban on new short-term lets and is promoting sights in lesser-known neighbourhoods – tackling overtourism is a challenge. And other Tuscan cities, such as Siena and San Gimignano, are suffering too. But beyond these honeypots, Italy’s fifth-largest region is full of glories, with not a takeaway chain or selfie stick in sight. Here are six of my favourites.

Clear waterfalls, mountain meadows and high-altitude refuges are just some of the highlights of this less-visited part of the stunning range, shared in a new guide to the region

The “forgotten” Dolomites lie to the east, far from the crowds of the Tre Cime di Lavaredo and Val Gardena. Belluno is the main gateway, two hours north of Venice by train or a drive up the A27. From here, the upper Piave valley leads into the quieter Friulian mountains. The land rises gently, opening into pasture, then stone lifting into spires above the meadows.

Traditional local councils, the Regole di Comunità, still manage the land and forests collectively here, sustaining artisans and alpine farmers in scattered hamlets shaped by shared work and resilience. Pastìn (a minced, seasoned blend of pork and beef), malga cheeses and polenta, once staples for long days in the mountains, are still shared over grappa at the end of the day. Beyond the hamlets, paths lead towards Monte Pelmo or drift into the beech woods of Cansiglio, where deer call at dusk. It’s a fine place to experience mountain culture, and these are some of my favourite places.

From cycling in the Cinque Terre to sipping espresso at a secret spot overlooking the Colosseum, here are some of your Italian highlights

• Tell us about great beach bars and restaurants in Europe – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

When we visited Venice, we stayed in Padua. It’s half an hour to Venezia Mestre (Venice’s mainland suburb), trains are frequent and cheap, as long as you avoid expresses, and easy to book if you have the Trenitalia app. You’ll find accommodation and restaurants significantly cheaper if you are based in Padua and day trip into Venice, and Padua is worth exploring in its own right. There are also trains to Vicenza, Verona, Bologna and Bassano del Grappa – we found it the perfect base for a public transport trip in north-east Italy.
Fergal O’Shea

What makes the best birthday cake? Well, it all depends on the recipient

What’s the best birthday cake?
Katie, by email
“My mum once made a cake with mini rolls made to look like cats with googly eyes and strawberry lace tails,” says Nicola Lamb, author of Sift and the Kitchen Projects newsletter. And that’s the whole point of a birthday cake, right? It should align with the recipient’s favourite thing: “That could even be a lasagne,” Lamb says. “I’m not at all prescriptive about what you stick a candle into.”

Of course, some cakes are a safer choice than others. Take the Victoria sponge: “I don’t think anyone is going to have a problem with a plush vanilla sponge, jam and cream job,” Lamb says. “If you want to lower the effort and feed a lot of people, bake the sponge in a brownie tray for a single-layer, low and wide cake, spread whipped cream stabilised with mascarpone over the top, dollop on some jam and you’re good to go.” That said, you could go for a vanilla or chocolate buttercream instead, which, Lamb adds, comes with the bonus of welcoming sprinkles.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

It promises to filter toxins, absorb odours, prevent mould and keep roots healthy, but does it deliver?

The problem
Once you have graduated from novice plant parent, how can you take your level of care to the next level, helping your houseplant not only survive but thrive? Is activated charcoal the answer? You will find it listed in terrarium recipes and soil amendments. It promises to filter toxins, absorb odours, prevent mould and keep roots healthy. The bag looks purposeful, and the price suggests it is doing something important. The question is whether any of that holds up in an ordinary pot on an ordinary windowsill.

The hack
Activated charcoal works by adsorption, trapping impurities on its porous surface. In a closed terrarium or bottle garden, where water recycles and there is no drainage, a charcoal layer can slow the buildup of gases and bacteria. But does that translate to standard houseplant pots?

There is no wrong way to journal, say experts, and putting pen to paper can help with mental health and clarify thoughts and feelings

• How to start … anything: expert tips for trying something new

Humans have been jotting down their feelings and experiences for millennia. The earliest example of a diary is over 4,500 years old, written on papyrus by a mid-level official who helped in constructing the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Since then, other noteworthy diarists have included Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Albert Einstein, Audre Lorde and also me. (One guess as to which of those intellectual powerhouses recently journaled about getting a tummy ache after eating too many Swedish Fish.)

The search for work has become crushing for many, scrolling through limitless unsuitable job ads. Is there a way out of this cycle?

Name: Doomjobbing.

Age: Old, but increasing in frequency.

Severing ties with the US can take more than a year and cost thousands of dollars. But Paul, Ella, Margot and thousands of others feel they have no choice

When Margot went to renounce her US citizenship earlier this year, she wasn’t able to do it in the UK, her home of 30 years. The waiting list to renounce US citizenship at the London consulate is more than 14 months. It’s a similar story in Sydney and most major Canadian cities. Many European cities currently have six-month waiting lists.

So Margot found herself in the lobby of the consulate in Ghent, Belgium. One wall was covered by a picture of Boston Harbour, where she was born. The other had three portraits: Donald Trump, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, their faces glistening – to her mind, with sadistic triumph (the lighting may have been a factor). Momentarily, she felt caught in a vice: everything she loved about her nation; everything she hated. Then she went in, swore under oath that she knew what she was doing, wasn’t being coerced, and wasn’t renouncing her citizenship for the purposes of tax avoidance. The official’s tone was neutral, slightly bored.

Valentina was seven when Ivonne first went to jail in Ecuador for selling drugs. Nine years later, as Ivonne faces another prison sentence, they discuss the trauma of living apart – and their lasting bond

Six months ago, 16-year-old Valentina was watching TV with her cousin and younger brother at her home in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, when she received a call from her mother, Ivonne. She had been arrested again, and was in prison. She wouldn’t be coming home for a while.

The pair had been living together since Ivonne’s last prison sentence ended in 2023, and the thought of being separated again was devastating.

Valentina, aged seven, with her mother, Ivonne, at home in Quito, Ecuador in 2016. After Ivonne was jailed for marijuana possession she was unable to be with her daughter for three years

With his stand against Trump, the pope has shown the far right doesn’t have a monopoly on Christianity. If people of good faith push hard, the future could be redefined

In the same way that America’s shambolic war on Iran has turned Donald Trump into the most effective EV salesman the world has ever seen, so his attempts to defend said war have produced another unlikely outcome: the rise of a genuine and global theological debate. Led by Pope Leo but extending across Christian denominations, it’s producing the sudden recognition that a kind of progressive Christianity long given over for dead seems to be stirring. Christ is risen, as it were – and if people of good faith push hard, the future could be redefined in powerful ways.

This story has developed so rapidly, with so many steps, that it’s hard to remember them all. When America launched its cruel attack, there was widespread reporting that some officers were exhorting to treat it as a prelude to the second coming. That provoked no pushback from the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, a representative of a tattooed Christianity (not that it matters, but have these people not read Leviticus?); indeed, with each press conference Hegseth edged closer to a revival meeting, invoking God’s blessing on his bombing and pillaging. “We are hitting them while they’re down, which is the way it should be,” he said.

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

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

The Bank of England has warned that more than a million additional households could face higher mortgage payments in the coming years, as borrowing costs rise and lenders pull or reprice deals. Surveys suggest millions of households are already making changes to cope – cutting back, dipping into savings or taking on debt.

We would like to hear from younger people about how often they go to the cinema

People born after 1997 are now the most frequent cinemagoers, According to a US-based survey by Fandango, with 87% saying they have seen at least one film in a cinema in the past 12 months.

With this in mind, we would like to hear from people aged 18-29 about how often they go to the cinema. Do you prefer it to home viewing, and why? What is the best film you’ve seen at the cinema recently?

We want to hear from you about the rise of child skincare trends

Children as young as two are appearing in TikTok videos demonstrating their skincare routines, a Guardian investigation has found, raising concerns about the beauty industry’s reach. Dermatologists say children do not need multi-step skincare and warn the trend may be fuelling anxiety about appearance from an early age.

We want to hear from parents of children of primary school children or younger. Have your children asked for skincare products or felt pressure to follow routines they’ve seen online or heard about from friends? Have you noticed changes in how they think about their appearance? Do you have concerns?

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

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

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

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