There used to be hundreds of pie and mash shops in London. Now there are barely more than 30. Can social media attention and a push for protected status ensure their survival?

Outside it’s raining so hard that the sandwich board sign for BJ’s pie and mash (“All pies are made on the premises”) is folded up inside. The pavement along Barking Road in Plaistow is a blur through the front windows and deserted, and there are only two customers in the shop. Another sign – this one on the counter – says “CASH ONLY”.

Card machine companies often tell proprietor Nathan Jacobi that he’s missing out by not catering to customers who favour cashless transactions. “They’re the ones missing out,” he says. “Cos they ain’t getting pie and mash.”

Annual review highlights growing capabilities of AI models, while examining issues from cyber-attacks to job disruption

The International AI Safety report is an annual survey of technological progress and the risks it is creating across multiple areas, from deepfakes to the jobs market.

Commissioned at the 2023 global AI safety summit, it is chaired by the Canadian computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, who describes the “daunting challenges” posed by rapid developments in the field. The report is also guided by senior advisers, including Nobel laureates Geoffrey Hinton and Daron Acemoglu.

MoneySavingExpert founder has said changes that will lead to some graduates in England and Wales paying more are ‘not moral’

• Graduates in England and Wales: share your views on student loan repayments

A fairly technical-sounding change to student loans tucked away in last November’s budget has become the catalyst for an increasingly bad-tempered row pitting the UK consumer champion Martin Lewis against the chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

In one interview, Lewis – the founder of MoneySavingExpert.com, who boasts a vast following – said he did not think the planned change to repayment terms “was a moral thing”.

A burgeoning set of Muslim creatives and intellectuals are thriving amid the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s rise. We ask 18 of them about this historic moment in New York City life

Against the backdrop of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral rise is a dynamic scene of Muslim creatives and intellectuals who are helping usher in a new era for New York City. Their prominence represents a rebuke of the ugly Islamophobia that defined the period following 9/11, and is in many ways an outcrop of the mass movement for Palestinian rights forged over the last two years. We ask 18 Muslim New Yorkers to discuss their work and what this moment means.
How Muslim New Yorkers are changing the city’s cultural landscape

At first, Mike made Tamsin feel good about herself – and his love-bombing led her to leave her family and resign from her job. Soon she had lost her car, phone and all her money

Tamsin met Mike in the summer of 2022. He was a mechanic in a garage that she walked past twice each day between home and work. After a while, he’d call out “good morning” or “good evening” and she’d wave and smile back. Then the exchanges got a little longer. (“Hard day?” “Looking forward to dinner?”) Six months later, Mike and Tamsin exchanged numbers.

Within two years, her life was wrecked. She had left her marriage, lost her home, quit her job, and sold her car and her phone, spent all her savings and racked up tens of thousands in debt. (Under her current repayment plan, it will take another eight and a half years to pay back her creditors.) Tamsin’s story seems scarcely credible and she is mortified to have to tell it. She stumbles through, piles of notes on her lap and a support worker from Victim Support at her side. Every few minutes, she breaks off to say, “It sounds so stupid”, “I sound like an absolute nutter” or “Where was my head?” In truth, she spent two years in the company of a psychopath, a master manipulator. He is in prison now, serving a 22-year sentence, but not for romance fraud, or anything involving Tamsin. Her experience, police have told her, “would not stand up in court”.

Euphoric scenes are a snub to theocracy’s culture of piety, say analysts, and carry message of rebellion

Iranians killed in recent protests that rocked the country have been laid to rest in boisterous funerals featuring loud pop music and dancing, apparently intended to convey defiance to the ruling Islamic regime.

Instead of holding sombre traditional mourning ceremonies presided over by a Shia cleric, bereaved relatives are turning the burials into exultant celebrations of the lives of their loved ones in what analysts say is an intentional snub to the culture of piety demanded by Iran’s theocracy.

PM’s spokesperson says information should not have been available ‘to anyone who could potentially benefit from it financially’

The Department for Work and Pensions has named 12 disability experts with “lived experience of disability or long-term health conditions” who will sit on the steering group of the review looking at the future of the personal independence payment (Pip), a disability benefit. Stephen Timms, the minister leading the review, says:

Disabled people deserve a system that truly supports them to live with independence and dignity, and that fairly reflects the reality of their lives today.

That’s why we’re putting disabled people at the heart of this review – ensuring their voices shape the changes that will help them achieve better health, greater independence, and access to the right support when they need it.

* Could we see a crunch point as soon as tomorrow over Mandelson?

* Tories have an opposition day debate - could they force a vote on Mandelson vetting disclosure. Shadow cabinet sources tell me they’re thinking about it

Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has opened formal investigations into X and xAI over whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law after the Grok AI tool was used to generate sexual deepfake images without consent.

The ICO said the reports raised “serious concerns” under UK data protection laws, such as whether “appropriate safeguards were built into Grok’s design and deployment”.

Researchers say sediment changes due to waste dumping and coastal erosion intensified by climate breakdown

As much as half of some British beaches’ coarse sediments consist of human-made materials such as brick, concrete, glass and industrial waste, a study has found.

Climate breakdown, which has caused more frequent and destructive coastal storms, has led to an increase in these substances on beaches. Six sites on the Firth of Forth, an estuary on Scotland’s east coast joining the River Forth to the North Sea, were surveyed to better understand the makeup of “urban beaches”.

Carlo Soracchi, who infiltrated anti-fascist group in early 2000s, accused of suggesting crime as he had ‘got nothing’

Three anti-fascist activists have accused an undercover police officer of attempting to incite them to firebomb a shop that was said to be a front for the far right, the spycops inquiry has heard.

The accusation has been levelled against Carlo Soracchi, an officer who spent six years infiltrating anti-fascist and leftwing groups. He has denied the claim.

Ending of New Start treaty will remove mutual limits on the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals

The New Start treaty between the US and Russia will expire on Thursday, removing the last remaining mutual limits on the world’s two biggest nuclear arsenals.

The milestone will be a death knell for more than five decades of arms control at a time of surging global instability, contributing to a general collapse of the rules-based international order established after the second world war.

Marius Borg Høiby, 29, pleads not guilty to most serious charges in trial that has embarrassed the royal family

The son of Norway’s crown princess has pleaded not guilty to four counts of rape on the first day of his trial for multiple offences, a legal saga that has embarrassed the royal family and raised questions over domestic abuse in Norway.

Appearing in front of a packed courtroom at Oslo district court on Tuesday morning, Marius Borg Høiby also denied charges including abuse in close relationships and filming women’s genitals without their knowledge.

Ukrainian president says strike shows that attitudes in Moscow have not changed and they do not ‘take diplomacy seriously’

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kajas Kallas, has been speaking as part of a panel on Arctic security. Kallas was asked if the EU was “too cautious” in taking action because of its dependence on the US for security, which has been exposed amid Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Trump administration’s threats on Greenland and erratic behaviour towards its longstanding western allies. Kallas, who has said Nato must “become more European” to maintain its strength, responded:

Of course, we are cautions because there is a lot at stake. There is a full-scale war going on the European continent and there are threats coming from economic coercion, big challenges from China that is influencing our economies.

If it is influencing our economies, it is influencing jobs and people’s salaries and then it is creating polarisation within our societies and more instability, so it is all very much interlinked.

Stocks in Pearson, London Stock Exchange Group and Experian plunge amid fears over impact of AI

European publishing and legal software companies have suffered sharp declines in their share prices after the US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic announced a tool aimed at companies’ in-house lawyers.

The UK publishing group Pearson’s shares fell by 4%, while the information and analytics firm Relx plunged nearly 11% on the London stock exchange, and the Dutch software company Wolters Kluwer dropped almost 9% in Amsterdam.

Valdis Dombrovskis says bloc is ‘ready to engage’ amid meetings with ministers including Rachel Reeves

• Business live – latest updates

The European Commission would be “open-minded” to discussing closer trade ties with the UK, including a customs union, a senior EU official has said.

The EU economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, told the BBC that the European bloc was “ready to engage with an open mind” when asked about a customs union.

The Labour peer faces possible investigation after disclosures show emails sent to disgraced financier containing confidential information

The Met police have said they are considering whether to launch a criminal investigation into Peter Mandelson after fresh disclosures from the Jeffrey Epstein files. Which laws could he potentially be accused of breaking and on what basis?

Organisation formed by journalist Miriam Walker-Khan is taking the next step in making sure South Asian women and girls feel welcome in football at all levels

There was a different kind of energy in an upstairs room at Stamford Bridge after escaping the buzz of the match-going crowd before Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat of Chelsea in the Women’s Super League 10 days ago. There was a celebratory, empowering energy, but also a determined and hopeful vibe.

The room was full of people celebrating the third anniversary of Brown Girl Sport, the award-winning online platform and community that aims to highlight the stories of South Asian women and girls in sport in order, according to its website, “to smash stereotypes that Brown women don’t do, care or know about sport”.

This starry half-hour anniversary special captures the spirit of the original TV show at points, and will delight younger viewers. But Kermit’s voice takes some getting used to …

The Muppet Show celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Or so it is alleged. Obviously this cannot be true, because it would mean that all of us who remember gathering around the television for the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational half hour of the week must also be … Well, anyway. Let us not dwell.

Let us remember instead the magic that ensued as Jim Henson’s creation unfurled before us, as the chaotic troupe of puppets put on their traditional vaudeville show. The permanent cast included the inimitable Miss Piggy (“I don’t care what you think of me. Unless you think I am awesome, in which case you are right”), Gonzo, the Swedish Chef, sombre patriot Sam Eagle (“Freakos one, civilisation zero”), assorted pigs (often in space), scientist Dr Bunsen Honeydew and his heartbreakingly hapless assistant Beaker (the latter granting some of us our first stirrings of true empathy), and many, many chickens. There was also a guest appearance each episode by a famous human comedian, actor or musician. It could be anyone from Julie Andrews to Dudley Moore, as long as they could be trusted to play it straight and believe in their co-stars. It was all held together, if only just, by earnest, frazzled host and stage manager Kermit the Frog and his assistant, Scooter, despite constant heckling from the exquisitely cantankerous Statler and Waldorf looking down on the show, in every sense, from their box seats.

He crossed paths with William Burroughs, Terry Gilliam and Spitting Image while whipping up almighty grooves with his band Blurt. Now 82, he’s back on tour – and bracing for a warts-and-all documentary made by his many children

The big bloke in the khaki suit speaks quietly these days. We are nestled in the corner of Ted Milton’s studio above a rehearsal space in Deptford, London, cocooned by record boxes, poetry books, plus a single big, bright suitcase, and I have to nudge the recorder closer to pick up his voice. Milton – a saxophonist, poet, countercultural survivor and one-time avant garde puppeteer – is 82, and uses a couple of sticks to get around, yet he is once again going on the road across Europe with his long-running band Blurt, as well as releasing a new album with his duo the Odes.

Today, he is making record covers destined for the tour merch table with the help of his old woodblock setup. “That orange suitcase?” he points across the desk. “I just bought it.” He booms out a massive laugh, as if to prove he still has the lung power to command a room. “I’m a fetishist about luggage. I know how to survive touring. Haha!”

Polish fighters contemplate their future in Wajda’s 1958 film in which the war’s end, far from being a cause for celebration, marks a crisis of identity for their country

The title of Andrzej Wajda’s 1958 film is taken from lines by the Polish Romantic poet Cyprian Norwid: “Will there remain among the ashes a star-like diamond, the dawn of eternal victory?” They are words imbued with bleak irony and disillusion; a pair of lovers in this movie discover them written in a ravaged church and have difficulty deciphering them, and also cannot decide where their loyalties and future lie as the second world war comes to its chaotic end. Are the diamonds of future law-abiding peacetime prosperity under communist rule – that is, effective rule by those who started the war invading Poland in league with the Nazis – preferable to the ashes of wartime suffering which at least offered certainty and purpose?

The scene is a provincial Polish town on VE Day, 8 May 1945. Across the continent, there are complex and unresolved feelings under all the celebration, nowhere more so than in Poland, the historic centre of the European war. Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) and Drewnowski (Bogumił Kobiela) are three fighters in the home army resistance movement, patriotically opposed to communists as much as Nazis. They consider their mission in no way halted by the end of the war, but they have just grotesquely bungled their latest task of assassinating Communist party apparatchik Szczuka (Wacław Zastrzeżyński); lounging around and sunbathing before the hit, they accidentally kill two innocent young people.

Our cartoonist on the Swindon Town manager’s fiery response after his captain was suspended at short notice

• Buy a cartoon | David’s favourite work of 2025

• And his latest book, Chaos in the Box: get it now

Tax authority has associated a stranger’s national insurance number to my own, and is charging me as if I have two jobs

In November, HM Revenue and Customs randomly associated someone else’s job to my national insurance (NI) number. I can see where they work, when they started, their payroll number and how much they are earning.

HMRC is now taxing me as if I have two jobs, earning twice as much as I do, and adding on a tax adjustment for the tax it thinks I didn’t pay last year. It’s costing me about £450 a month in extra tax and NI contributions.

In spring 2003, exuberance at the fall of Saddam was swiftly followed by a descent into deadly chaos. Whether moving independently or embedded with troops, Guardian reporters witnessed the violence on the ground

The allied attack on Iraq began on 20 March 2003. The Guardian’s 4am edition on Friday 21 March carried the headline: “Land, sea and air assault.” The report was by Julian Borger in Washington and Rory McCarthy in Camp As Sayliyah, on the outskirts of Doha, the capital of Qatar. It opened: “The ground war began in Iraq last night as British and American marines stormed beaches on the Gulf coast in an assault on the south-eastern city of Basra, while explosions lit up Baghdad under a heavy bombardment by cruise missiles.”

The first British fatalities came shortly afterwards when a US helicopter crashed in Kuwait, killing all on board. Suzanne Goldenberg’s front-page report from Baghdad revealed that only two hours after the decapitation effort, Saddam Hussein himself had made a defiant appearance on television. A Guardian leader stated that the plain fact was this first “surgical strike” had missed its mark. Even had it reached its target, it would have been difficult to applaud. “State-ordered assassination sets an abominable precedent that encourages unwelcome emulation … The US must tread carefully – for the legal and moral grounds for this war are already very shaky.”

Iran’s leaders now face unprecedented peril. The regime has lost its footing, and the global mechanisms to avoid conflict no longer work

• Dr Sanam Vakil is the director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme

Forty-seven years on from the Iranian revolution, Iran is confronting a strategic reality it has never faced before – a simultaneous crisis of domestic legitimacy and a credible threat of external attack so severe that regime survival can no longer be taken for granted. Until now, Tehran has survived wars, sanctions, assassinations, mass protests and international isolation through a strategy of projecting strength abroad, repressing dissent at home and generating a permanent crisis to justify poor leadership and political failure.

Today, Donald Trump has mobilised an “armada” to the Middle East that includes the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, guided-missile destroyers, an expanded air presence and missile defence systems. This force projection suggests the US is no longer focused on containing Iran but rather compelling a final resolution of a long-running conflict. The choice at hand is either the acceptance of a US-imposed settlement or the destruction of the Islamic republic as it exists today.

Having rubbished the health ministry’s figures, they are now saying what matters is the civilian-to-militant ratio. See that for what it is

Israel’s official and unofficial spokespeople are in damage control mode after a senior military official admitted last week that Israel accepts the death toll published by Gaza’s health ministry, which currently stands at more than 70,000. This comes after two years in which Israel and its supporters took every opportunity to disparage and dismiss the health ministry’s figures, arguing that they were overblown or fabricated by Hamas.

That prestigious list of repudiators, to name just a few, includes spokespeople for Israel’s government and military, then-US president Joe Biden, US Congress, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) chief Jonathan Greenblatt, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and any number of talking heads at influential thinktanks and policy centres. Adding credibility to their denials were prominent media outlets around the world that often described Gaza’s health ministry as “Hamas-run”, thereby encouraging readers and viewers to treat the death toll with suspicion.

Ben Reiff is deputy editor at +972 magazine

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 ‘mum noir’ film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You brought back the difficulties of those challenging early days of parenthood, and the conversation that freed me up emotionally

Critics say Rose Byrne gives “the performance of a lifetime” in “mum noir” film If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. She’s been nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe, best leading performance at the Berlin film festival and best actress at the New York Film Critics Circle awards. But these plaudits, and across-the-board rave reviews, are the least of what she’s achieved with this movie, hailed as a “tour de force of matriarchal fury”. Both on screen and in the promotional interviews, Byrne pulls no punches. And it’s about time. Not being honest about what motherhood is really like is the greatest disservice we do other women.

“Having a baby is like going to the moon, and nobody ever tells you that,” the actor told the Times. “But it’s hard for women to talk about. There’s a lot of shame. You don’t want to feel like you don’t love your child, but there is a grief around becoming a mother, because you lose part of yourself that you will never, ever, ever, ever, ever get back. And that’s OK. It’s OK to grieve that – in fact, we should. Because it’s a before and an after.”

It featured the queen, Rupert Everett and horses paying their respects, amid a combination of romance, absurdity and delight at Southwark Cathedral last week

Jilly Cooper’s memorial last week started with the dean of Southwark Cathedral telling a story from her funeral last year: as the congregation made their way to her final resting place, five horses ambled majestically across a field, and came to stand in formation, looking at the grave. They would not be budged and their intention was crystal clear: they were paying their horse-respect (this is not verbatim by the way) to an author who did as much for equine-kind as she did for humans. The story was pitch perfect; you could imagine Cooper laughing at it, at the same time as believing it, at the same time as thinking no funeral was complete without five horses.

The combination of romance, magnitude, absurdity, delight and animals could have come straight off the pages of a Jilly Cooper novel, but how would a dean know that? Did they also, back in the day, pass a bashed-up copy of Riders around dean school? (My friend who is a librarian expressed some professional irritation that, at her school, they couldn’t get it together to buy more than one copy of a book in such demand. She said by the time they’d all finished it, it looked like Magna Carta.)

The Greens are buoyant as Labour struggles. After shredding any semblance of a progressive agenda, fear of Reform is all the PM’s party has left

Labour’s soul is being laid bare in the Gorton and Denton byelection campaign. Insofar as the party’s masters have had a coherent political strategy, it is this: define Labour against the left, and compete with the right for votes. If the left is squealing or the Daily Mail is cheering, goes the thinking, Labour must be on the right track.

Being forced to compete with the left was never part of the plan. Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, “doesn’t have room for compromise with the hard left”, as a former associate put it, believing “they need to be eradicated from the party because they are so dangerous.” It’s as though the Starmerites assumed that once the left was vanquished inside Labour, it would simply vanish from politics altogether.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

The far right is using pork consumption as a means to exclude, just as it was in the Inquisition. It should be a source of joy and community

Spain makes the best ham in the world, and a multitude of incredible pork-based dishes. You have your crunchy, salty torreznos de Soria, fried cubes of pork belly, which make for a fantastic bar snack. Or cochinillo asado, a suckling pig that’s traditionally roasted in a wood oven, and so tender that it’s cut with a plate instead of a knife when serving. For the more adventurous, I recommend exploring the world of regional morcillas or blood sausages. Morcilla de Burgos, made with rice and on the harder side, keeps its structure very well and makes an excellent pintxo when sliced and fried. Or there is the moist and spreadable morcilla de León, which my local butcher sells in jars. Another to look out for is the Basque morcilla de Beasain – made with leeks, it combines fantastically with black beans, cabbage and pickled green chillies to make one of the tastiest stews you’ll ever have.

At the pinnacle, you have the gastronomic and cultural phenomenon that is jamón ibérico. It is distinct from lesser forms of jamón as it comes from the famed Iberian pigs, the best varieties of which are fed on acorns. You’ll see whole legs of it hanging in bars and restaurants across the country, and they’re a staple of the Spanish Christmas hamper, often raffled off by bars to their regular customers. Its standing in Spanish culture transcends the food world: Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz met while filming Jamón Jamón, in which the former beats his love rival to death with a leg of ham. Meanwhile, lower-league football side CD Guijelo’s away kit sees them dressed as a plate of the stuff. It finds its way into Spain’s public festivities, such as the Lance al Jamón in the walled city of Morella, where participants have to climb its walls and grab a leg of ham hanging from the ceiling. The contestant able to hang on the longest gets to keep it.

Abbas Asaria is a food writer and chef based in Madrid

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.

State resolutions are under-utilized right now and could be a significant mobilizing factor for the Democratic party

The Democrats hold in their hands constitutional means yet unused to check the Trump regime’s ruthless attempt to impose a police state. That the Democrats thus far have failed to create this oppositional political center of gravity may be because the method has been lost to history, not wielded effectively for 113 years. Focused on the ICE outrages, however, this political instrument can be revived in the 16 states where the Democrats control the governorships and both chambers of the state legislatures, as well as introduced in states with mixed power.

Before the enactment of the 17th amendment in 1913, state legislators and not the voters selected US senators and regarded them frequently as their agents. It was a common practice for legislatures to send what were called “orders of instruction” urging senators and sometimes members of the House of Representatives to take a particular stand on important issues. The orders were not binding, but had significant force given the power of legislatures and political parties to decide who would hold Senate seats. These resolutions were variously called instructions, petitions and memorials.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to the Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist

The high-risk nature of the sport creates enjoyment for the competitors regardless of the hunt for medals and this positive feeling helps attract spectators

As the Winter Olympics approaches, we get to watch sports many of us have never tried. How can we connect to these sports? What should we look out for? What can we enjoy and learn? Research by three-times Olympian Lesley McKenna into what makes snowboarding meaningful offers us some great ideas.

As a British athlete, coach and team manager, McKenna experienced first-hand the pressures of managing athlete performance, wellbeing and the pursuit of medals. She saw the push and pull between the inherent creativity in pipe and park snowsport events and the drive for standardisation to make it easier to compare athletes.

Leaking crisis policy to financiers demands investigation, not evasion. Gordon Brown understands this. Credibility can’t be pursued at the expense of trust

Finally, a Labour prime minister has taken a necessary step. Ordering the cabinet secretary to investigate Peter Mandelson’s contacts with Jeffrey Epstein recognises an elementary truth: if a cabinet minister discusses private government business with financial interests during a crisis, the state must act. Gordon Brown understood this instinctively. Sir Keir Starmer has moved later, and under pressure, but movement alone is not enough. Sir Keir said that Lord Mandelson should be stripped of his peerage while stopping short of legislating to make that happen. That is a choice. And it’s the wrong one to make.

The Epstein files make it hard to dismiss the question of misconduct in public office as frivolous. In 2003/04 it appears that as a Labour MP he received $75,000 from Jeffrey Epstein. Lord Mandelson says he has no recollection of these payments. Six years later, Lord Mandelson leaked sensitive government information during the banking crunch in 2009 to Epstein, a convicted sex offender, while serving in the cabinet. Emails suggest he advised US bank JP Morgan to “threaten” the UK chancellor, which by all accounts it did, over a proposed tax on bankers’ bonuses. The peer’s lobbying firm Global Counsel later had JP Morgan as a client.

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 capital’s hospitality industry and cultural sector is vital but ensuring democratic consent is necessary for its expansion – and survival

Sir Sadiq Khan’s musical tastes tend toward soft rock and pop. But throughout his tenure as mayor of London he has positioned himself as a friend to its ravers, rockers and late-night revellers with his oft-relaunched vision of a culturally and economically vibrant “24‑hour city”. Those ambitions have fallen short of their promise, as London, like the rest of the country, has seen a steady erosion of pubs, bars and clubs.

There is reason to believe that the latest attempt – centred on a new nightlife commission announced last week by the mayor, and based on recommendations from a report endorsed by his office – will be different. The report’s authors include representatives of successful grassroots projects, rather than just industry figures associated with festivals and superclubs. It is unusually alive to local concerns. The debate is not really economic or cultural but political: who controls shared local space? Without councils and residents on side, the plan goes nowhere.

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

Readers on regenerating town centres and making high streets attractive community spaces again

High streets have been changing throughout my lifetime (I’m 82 and had a high-street business for more than 20 years) and they have somehow survived with precious little government help (Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves Britain’s high streets, study finds, 28 February). In my postwar rural Essex village, we had three butchers, two newsagents, two bakers, two ironmongers, three general stores (one a dairy) plus a potpourri of haberdashery, hair stylists, two sweet shops and an electrical shop that had every plug and wire known to man.

There was consternation when the dairy went self-service, but soon everyone was shopping with a basket. Then came the grocery chains – the butchers and bakers disappeared, and the main haberdasher closed. But the village adjusted and other enterprises appeared. The next watershed was out-of-town shopping (driven by local government poverty and the temptation of a new village hall in exchange for planning permission for a superstore) that pulled that rug away.

Perinatal mental illness is eminently treatable, and women and their partners should not suffer in silence, says Dr Livia Martucci

Every day, many new mothers continue to suffer in silence, as highlighted in your article (Seven out of 10 UK mothers feel overloaded, research reveals, 28 January). The Royal College of Psychiatrists revealed postnatal depression harmed up to 85,000 new mums in England last year.

Maternal suicide is one of the leading causes of death among women between six weeks and a year after birth. Perinatal mental illness accounts for 34% of all deaths in this group during this period. Untreated prenatal and antenatal mental illness also affects unborn infants, potentially putting them at risk of premature birth and low birth weight. Parents may find it difficult to bond with their baby once they are born, which can contribute to attachment issues.

Readers respond to letters and Amy-Jane Beer’s Country Diary on the death of loved ones and wildlife visitations

Regarding the letters (30 January) in response to Amy-Jane Beer’s Country Diary (27 January), after our mother died I visited my parents’ grave to check on the gravestone to which her name had been added after our father’s. It was midwinter with deep snow, and I arrived to find a robin perched on the stone. It didn’t fly away, but jumped down to the ground and then hopped on to my shoe. I was even able to touch his head. After a while he flew off. My father’s name was Robin Eden.
Tom Eden
Midhurst, West Sussex

• I was also moved by Amy-Jane Beer’s Country Diary about her sister’s death and the comforting visitations by two birds. At the funeral service of an old friend a few years ago, we filed out of the crematorium to the strains of The Lark Ascending, one of his favourite pieces of music. Guess what was the first thing we saw and heard as we entered the crematorium garden?
Lesley Atkinson
Newbury, Berkshire

Duckingham Palace | Child-friendly train travel | Australian Open | Apostrophe confusion | Washing duvet covers

Following the revelation that King Charles’s hens live in Cluckingham Palace (‘I wasn’t going to be diverted,’ says King Charles about campaign on the environment, 28 January), we are proud to reveal that our flock of egg‑laying ducks lives at Duckingham Palace. It has cutout wooden duck silhouettes on the gables, wooden wine boxes for nesting and straw bedding.
Val Bott
Chiswick, London

• Rather than the French train operator SNCF keeping some carriages child-free (Sure, kids can be annoying – but making public spaces ‘child-free’ is wrong, 1 February), it could follow Deutsche Bahn and provide family coaches instead. These bookable spaces offer parents a comfortable journey with their children, among fellow travellers and their families.
Annabel Gibb
York

Updates from the final T20 in Kandy, 1.30pm GMT start
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3rd over: England 14-2 (Buttler 10, Banton 0) Chameera’s reward for grabbing an early wicket was to be taken off, but it worked. On came Matheesha Pathirana, Sri Lanka’s slingshot, bearing yorkers. He nearly bowled Buttler and could have broken his toe, before switching to a good length and a wide line to dismiss Bethell. Buttler, deciding that attack is the best form of defence, gets aa streaky four from a Harrow drive. SL well on top.

Another one! Pathirana dishes up temptation, well oustide off, and Bethell takes the bait.

Will Arsenal regret Nwaneri move? Have Sunderland traded brilliantly again? We run the rule over every team’s business

The foot injury sustained by Mikel Merino made the last few days of the window a bit more interesting for Arsenal supporters, although in the end there was no big signing. Deadline-day links to Sandro Tonali of Newcastle and Leon Goretzka came to nothing, and Arsenal missed out to their north London rivals Tottenham on the 18-year-old Scotland striker James Wilson. They did sign the England Under-19 defender Jaden Dixon from Stoke but will Mikel Arteta regret allowing Ethan Nwaneri to join Marseille on loan with Merino poised to be out for at least two months? Ed Aarons

• Palace did not sign Everton winger after he had medical

• McNeil’s partner criticises ‘cruel’ football world

Dwight McNeil’s partner has claimed Crystal Palace provided no explanation for pulling out of a move to sign him from Everton on transfer deadline day and accused them of toying with the winger’s mental health.

McNeil stayed at Everton after Palace decided not to proceed with a £20m deal at the last minute on Monday, despite the 26-year-old having completed his medical and agreed terms on a four-and-a-half-year contract. It is understood the collapse of Jean-Philippe Mateta’s £30m move to Milan, after the France striker failed a medical, prompted Palace to change their offer to an initial loan with an obligation to buy at the end of the season.

• Borthwick says Lawrence comeback ‘tight’ for Edinburgh

• Smith, Roebuck and Furbank will be in selection mix

England are hoping to welcome back the cavalry for next week’s Calcutta Cup with Steve Borthwick revealing Ollie Lawrence could make his comeback against Scotland at Murrayfield. The head coach said Fin Smith will be available while Tom Roebuck is also in contention to return then after the Sale winger was deemed not quite ready to face Wales on Saturday.

Lawrence’s return from a knee injury bolsters England’s options at centre. Tommy Freeman has been deployed there against Wales, just as he was in Cardiff last year and against Australia in the autumn, but Lawrence shone alongside Fraser Dingwall in England’s statement victory over the All Blacks.

Team GB’s world champion will face off against China’s Eileen Gu for gold in Milano Cortina having conquered her fear of flying high above a 22-foot wall of ice

As part of Zoe Atkin’s degree at Stanford University she is learning how the brain conquers fear. The Team GB freestyle skier is about to put theory into practice in one of the most dangerous – and dazzling – sports at the Winter Olympics. “What we do is pretty risky,” she says. “When a regular person watches, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, these guys are crazy. What are they doing?’”

No wonder, given her sport involves skiing down a 22-foot wall of ice before twisting and spinning her body high into the sky and landing back on the wall. Then repeating the daredevilry five more times in quick succession.

• ITV Sport opts for studio in Brooklyn

• BBC will stay in UK until at least quarter-finals

ITV has gained an early advantage over the BBC before their ratings battle at this summer’s World Cup by securing a studio in Brooklyn with views of the Manhattan skyline and Brooklyn Bridge. ITV Sport will be basing all of its World Cup coverage, to be presented by Mark Pougatch and Laura Woods, from its New York studio, whereas the BBC team of Mark Chapman, Gabby Logan and Kelly Cates will be in Salford until at least the quarter-finals.

The BBC’s decision to stay in the United Kingdom was based on a combination of financial and environmental factors, with the corporation committed to limiting air travel in an attempt to reduce its carbon footprint.

• FA plans sent to clubs are subject to consultation

• FA determined to grow Cup’s ‘commercial potential’

The Football Association has proposed radical changes to the Women’s FA Cup, including seeding four teams and dispensing with a draw after the last 32. The plans would introduce a “road-to-Wembley bracket” from the last 32, which would map out those teams’ route to the final, in the style of a World Cup.

The changes could come in next season, although final plans have not been agreed, according to communication sent to the clubs by the FA in an email on Monday, which repeatedly emphasised a need to increase the competition’s revenue.

Today’s rumours are retreating to the dark

Karim Benzema’s move to Al-Hilal has cast fresh doubt on the future of Cristiano Ronaldo at Al-Nassr. The 40-year-old was missing from Monday’s 1-0 Saudi Pro League win at Al-Riyadh, the day Benzema’s move from Al-Ittihad to Al-Hilal was confirmed. Ronaldo is reportedly dissatisfied with how Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which also has a stake in Newcastle, is controlling the affairs of both Al-Hilal and Al-Nassr, unhappy that a rival club have signed his former Real Madrid teammate. Sounds plausible?

Dwight McNeil was all set to sign for Crystal Palace from Everton before Jean-Philippe Mateta’s switch to Milan fell through. The Eagles lodged a very late £20m bid for the former Burnley schemer, but reportedly moved the goalposts after failing to offload Mateta, preferring a loan deal with an option to buy instead.

The last time the Seahawks and Patriots met in a Super Bowl, a dramatic interception by an undrafted rookie changed the history of both franchises

When the New England Patriots faced off against the Denver Broncos in this season’s AFC championship, Malcolm Butler was at home in Houston. He had considered attending the game in Denver or watching on TV in a No 21 Patriots jersey, which he wore in Foxboro for four seasons through the mid-to-late 2010s, but feared he might jinx the outcome. In the end, it was just him and his nerves for company.

Just as Butler was feeling somewhat at peace with that setup, and the Patriots’ prospects, a bad omen intruded: His wifi glitched, delaying the broadcast as the Patriots clung on to a three-point lead in the fourth-quarter. “I was lagging bad,” Butler tells the Guardian. “But I did get the wifi back working. And as soon as I did my phone was ringing like crazy, so I knew something was going right. It’s crazy that we’re back.”

Latest communications undermine Chomsky’s earlier claims that he primarily had financial dealings with Epstein

The close friendship that Noam Chomsky maintained with Jeffrey Epstein continued being detailed extensively among millions of investigative records pertaining to the late convicted sex offender recently released by the US justice department, including Chomsky “fantasizing about the Caribbean island”.

In Friday’s tranche of the so-called Epstein files, which built upon earlier disclosures of their close social ties, there is no indication that the famed academic and linguist was referring to his friend’s private Caribbean island where children were sexually abused. But the personal familiarity between the two men in that exchange is palpable, as it is in numerous other emails between Chomsky and Epstein aimed at planning more mundane social gatherings.

UPFs are made to encourage addiction and consumption and should be regulated like tobacco, say researchers

Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) have more in common with cigarettes than with fruit or vegetables, and require far tighter regulation, according to a new report.

UPFs and cigarettes are engineered to encourage addiction and consumption, researchers from three US universities said, pointing to the parallels in widespread health harms that link both.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news

• Elon Musk merges SpaceX with artificial intelligence company xAI

UK grocery inflation has dropped to a nine-month low, in welcome news for UK households, and the Bank of England.

Worldpanel by Numerator has reported that like-for-like grocery price inflation eased back to 4.0% in January, the lowest level since April last year.

For most shoppers, January is all about resetting household budgets, and this year was no exception. While grocery sales continue to grow and inflation eased to its lowest level in months, value remained front of mind for many – with own label hitting a record high, accounting for more than half of all grocery spend.

Gold prices have stopped falling overnight. If the froth is removed from the market, gold may again start to offer some signals as to market perceptions of political risk (concerns over the perceived shift in US international standing and risk-averse investors’ questions around the rule of law having motivated some of the initial rise in price).

Chagossian people would be allowed to fish in area that has teemed with life since ban was introduced in 2010

One of the most precious marine reserves in the world, home to sharks, turtles and rare tropical fish, will be opened to some fishing for the first time in 16 years under the UK government’s deal to hand back the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

Allowing non-commercial fishing in the marine protected area (MPA) is seen as an essential part of the Chagossian people’s return to the islands, as the community previously relied on fishing as their main livelihood. But some conservationists have raised the alarm, as nature has thrived in the waters of the Indian Ocean since it was protected from fishing.

The actor says her historic 2002 best actress Oscar did not open doors in Hollywood, as studios remained wary of stories led by black performers

Halle Berry, the only black woman to have won the best actress Oscar, says her 2002 victory “didn’t necessarily change the course of my career”.

Speaking to The Cut’s Monica Corcoran Harel to promote new drama Crime 101, Berry said that she anticipated the victory, for Lee Daniels’ Monster’s Ball, would mean “there was going to be a script truck showing up outside my front door”.

With government action stalled and living in ‘inhumane’ conditions, families in San José are making plans to relocate

In Emilio Peña Delgado’s home, several photos hang on the wall. One shows him standing in front of a statue with his wife and oldest son in the centre of San José and smiling. In another, his two sons sit in front of caricatures from the film Cars. For him, the photos capture moments of joy that feel distant when he returns home to La Carpio, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Costa Rica’s capital.

Delgado migrated with his family from Nicaragua to Costa Rica when he was 10, as his parents sought greater stability. When he started a family of his own, his greatest hope was to give his children the security he had lacked. But now, that hope is often interrupted by the threat of extreme weather events.

Ministers’ proposals to tackle ‘forever chemicals’ fail to match tougher stance taken in Europe, say experts

Environmental campaigners have criticised a “crushingly disappointing” UK government plan to tackle “forever chemicals”, which they warn risks locking in decades of avoidable harm to people and the environment.

The government said its Pfas action plan set out a “clear framework” of “coordinated action … to understand where these chemicals are coming from, how they spread and how to reduce public and environmental exposure”.

Priestcliffe, Derbyshire: The limestone walls in this parish are festooned with luminous mosses, in a variety that’s often beyond our comprehension

The word bryophyte refers to a group of plants that may have colonised terrestrial Earth almost half a billion years ago. They need water to reproduce sexually and they love rain. So it’s hardly surprising that Britain is an important archipelago for them, with the two main groups, liverwort and mosses, represented by nearly 300 and 770 species respectively. This is a 20th of all the world’s bryophytes.

Perhaps the best summary of the British public’s sense of the group was offered by a friend recently, who said that he hadn’t been aware that there was more than one bryophyte. Moss doesn’t occupy our conscious minds. It lives at the periphery, trembling on the edge of our sense of things. Especially when it rains, because moss is then even more luminous.

Volunteer workers say increasing case numbers and dozens of dead birds raise fears spread is wider than recorded

Members of the public and charity volunteers are working to contain a suspected outbreak of bird flu among swans in the Thames Valley, amid signs that confirmed cases are continuing to rise.

Since October, 324 cases of bird flu in swans have been recorded by the Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha), which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Of these, 39 were recorded in the first four weeks of 2026 alone.

Minister announces Microsoft, Cisco and Adobe to help apply AI to local schools, hospitals, GPs and businesses

In 2002 Barnsley toyed with a redesign as a Tuscan hill village as it sought out a brighter post-industrial future. In 2021 it adopted the airily vague slogan “the place of possibilities”. Now it is trying a different image: Britain’s first “tech town”.

The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, has anointed the South Yorkshire community as a trailblazer for “how AI can improve everyday life” in the UK.

Caroline Willgoose, whose 15-year-old son was killed by another pupil, says murder was ‘senseless and avoidable’

The family of a 15-year-old boy who was stabbed to death at school by another pupil has said her son’s murder was “senseless and avoidable” and that a report ordered by the school showed too many “red flags” were missed.

Harvey Willgoose died one year ago to the day, and his killer, Mohammed Umar Khan, is serving a minimum term of 16 years’ detention. A report commissioned by the trust that runs Harvey’s school, All Saints Catholic high school in Sheffield, has highlighted a number of missed opportunities in the run-up to the murder. The review was undertaken by a former school headteacher and inspector of schools at Learn Sheffield.

Support from more than 20 countries propels National Trust to its target to protect chalk figure and local wildlife

It feels like a very British monument: a huge chalk figure carved into a steep Dorset hillside that for centuries has intrigued lovers of English folklore and legend. But an appeal to raise money to help protect the Cerne giant – and the wildlife that shares the landscape it towers over – has shown that its allure stretches far beyond the UK.

Donations have flooded in from more than 20 countries including Australia, Japan and Iceland, and on Tuesday, the National Trust confirmed it had reached its fundraising target to buy land around the giant.

Britons cut back in January after record grocery spending in December, turning to own-label products

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Britons started 2026 by buying more healthy food such as fruit and yoghurt as they attempted to hit new year health goals, while grocery price inflation eased to the lowest level since April, research has shown.

Annual grocery inflation fell back to 4% in the four weeks to 25 January from 4.7% in December, offering some relief for shoppers, according to a monthly snapshot of the grocery sector from the research company Worldpanel by Numerator.

US president, who is also due to meet Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro weeks after threatening military action in the country, makes comment on elections

• Trump-Petro meeting could end in detente or discord with Colombia leader

Donald Trump has continued to sow doubt in the election system. While appearing on former deputy FBI director Dan Bongino’s podcast on Monday, the present called on Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” in at least “15 places”, although he did not clarify which ones.

“The Republicans should say, ‘we want to take over’,” Trump said in the interview.

‘There’s no way for me to go back right now. It’s too dangerous for me,’ student says, having protested against the regime

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When bullets fired by Iran’s paramilitary force were sprayed at her home during a 2022 protest, Atefeh* realised her country was in a “hostage situation”.

“I couldn’t breathe any more. I was losing my mind and I was traumatised,” the activist says.

Artemis II mission was due to begin as early as next week and astronauts have spent almost two weeks in quarantine

Nasa has postponed its historic mission to send astronauts around the moon and back again, after issues arose during a critical test of its most powerful rocket yet.

The US space agency had planned to launch the Artemis II mission from Kennedy Space Center in Florida as early as next week, but announced overnight that it would be delayed until March, without specifying a date.

US president makes further claims of antisemitism against Ivy League school amid wider dispute with higher eduction institutions

Donald Trump has announced that his administration is seeking $1bn in damages from Harvard University, the latest step in a long-running battle with the university over allegations of antisemitism.

In a Truth Social post late on Monday, Trump accused the Ivy League school of being “strongly antisemitic”, adding that Harvard president Alan Garber “has done a terrible job of rectifying a very bad situation for his institution and, more importantly, America itself”.

D’Amaro will take over next month from Bob Iger, who returned to lead the media company after a bungled succession

Disney has unveiled Josh D’Amaro as its next CEO, drawing a line under a bungled succession at the top of the global entertainment conglomerate.

Bob Iger, who led the media giant for 15 years, stepped down in 2020 – only to abruptly return in 2022 when his handpicked successor, Bob Chapek, was fired as the company came under pressure.

CEO Alex Karp hails ‘iconic’ financial results despite criticism over contracts with ICE and homeland security

Palantir celebrated its latest financial results on Monday, as the tech company blew past Wall Street expectations and continues to prop up the Trump administration’s push to deport immigrants.

Palantir has secured millions of dollars in federal contracts amid Trump’s crackdown on immigrants. The multibillion-dollar Denver-based firm creates tech focused on surveillance and analytics, to be used by the government agencies and private companies.

Trump’s pick of ‘respected central banker’ Kevin Warsh as Fed chair prompts investors to sell safe haven assets

Gold and silver prices seesawed on Monday, after a “meltdown” in the metals market deepened and rattled investors around the world.

Gold prices tumbled by as much as 8% to $4,465 an ounce on Monday, ending a run of record highs that took it to nearly $5,600 last week. It later recovered some ground, but was still down by 3.5% at $4,700 in afternoon trading.

Greater optimism in PMI survey, adding to signs Bank of England will keep interest rates on hold this week

British manufacturers enjoyed one of their best months since Labour came to power in January, according to a closely watched survey, adding to signs that the Bank of England will decide to keep interest rates on hold this week.

The purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which measures activity in the private manufacturing sector, rose to 51.8 in January from 50.6 in December, the best reading since August 2024. Any reading above 50 represents growth.

A whistle-stop tour of the greatest hits of progressive policy fails to take account of a central conundrum

If you’ve written a successful book based around one big idea, what do you make the next one about? Back in 2009, Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level (co-authored with Richard Wilkinson) argued that inequality was the ultimate cause of almost all our social problems, from obesity and teenage pregnancy to violent crime; more equal societies, they claimed, had better outcomes across the board. While criticised – as most “big idea” books are – for overstating the case and cherrypicking evidence, they struck a chord, and some aspects of their thesis are now mainstream.

However, when it comes to the UK, there is an awkward problem, both for Pickett and for economists like me who, while not entirely convinced by The Spirit Level, would still like to see a more equal society. In the first chapter of Pickett’s new book, inequality is once again the root of all (social) evils: “if you know a country’s level of inequality, you can do a pretty good job of predicting its infant mortality rate, or prevalence of mental illness, or levels of homicide or imprisonment”. By contrast, she argues that GDP or GDP growth are very poor measures of overall welfare. Pickett then goes on to list the ways in which the UK has become a worse place to live since 2010 – higher child poverty, flattening life expectancy and child mortality, more people in prison.

In wonderfully bewildering shows, New York’s venerable avant garde theatre company mash together everything from baroque opera to sci-fi B-movies. Their next trick? A seance-style tribute to an old friend

Spalding Gray used to perform a show called Interviewing the Audience. The celebrated monologist would invite a stranger he had met in the lobby to join him on stage. Through a sequence of innocuous questions, he would get them to open up about their lives. At one performance, a guest broke the audience’s hearts by talking about her daughter’s murder. At benefit nights, people living with HIV shared their tales. Other times, the anecdotes would be eccentric or amusing. Gray said they showed us “what it is to live in the world”.

Watching Gray conjure up this material made a big impression on a young actor called Scott Shepherd. It was the show he saw on his first visit to the Performing Garage, the New York home of the Wooster Group. The pioneering avant garde company had been established a few years earlier by Gray and director Elizabeth LeCompte with their colleagues Kate Valk, Ron Vawter, Jim Clayburgh, Willem Dafoe and Peyton Smith.

Cobra’s politics are definitely on the iffy side and it takes itself very seriously indeed – but there’s absolutely no reason for you or I to

“Crime is the disease. Meet the cure.” With one of the funniest taglines in cinema history, how can you possibly resist revisiting Sylvester Stallone’s violent, ultra-earnest cult action movie Cobra, which turns 40 this year?

Marion “Cobra” Cobretti (Stallone) is a tough LA cop who plays by his own rules. Sporting aviator shades, a matchstick in the corner of his mouth and a gun emblazoned with a cobra, he takes on criminals with a steely dedication to violence and wisecracks, and an aversion to due process that would make Charles Bronson blush.

Farmers oppose the reintroduction of brown bears in Max Keegan’s immersive and beautiful documentary that resists snap judgments

There are two endangered species native to the Pyrenees featured in this immersive and rather beautiful documentary shot in Ariège, southwestern France, by British film-maker Max Keegan. The first is the brown bear, which was hunted out of existence in the region by the early 2000s. Now the bears are back, around 70 of them, thanks to efforts by conservationists backed by the European Union. The film opens with footage of a 200kg delivery by helicopter, lowering a crate on to the mountainside out of which a bear comes thundering out.

The airmail delivery is necessary because of local opposition – farmers are barricading the roads, painting “no to bears” on the tarmac, saying that bears kill their livestock. Shepherd Yves, 63 – flat cap, cigarette dangling from his mouth – is against the reintroduction of the bears. He is training Lisa, a shepherd in her 20s, but their way of life is the other endangered species, with few young people joining the industry.

A cast of handsome dudes, some beautiful scenery and violence reminiscent of 2015’s Bone Tomahawk make this a watchable, if plodding, ride

Based on the novel Desert Stake-Out by Harry Whittington, this slow-burn western set in 1872’s Arizona gets plenty right, but has a tendency to plod where it could have giddy-ed up. Our hero is one Merrick Beckford, played by Myles Clohessy (son of character actor Robert Clohessy), who has been entrusted by William H Macy (in a single-scene cameo) with a wagonload of medical supplies in need of a courier.

Along the way, Merrick encounters a father-son duo, Mule (Thomas Jane) and Billy (Ryan Masson), a wrong ’un called Edmund (Armie Hammer, appearing on screen for the first time since 2022’s Death on the Nile), and a wounded husband (Eli Brown) and defenceless wife (Mary Stickley). As obvious weak link Billy, Masson is particularly good; poor decision-making feels written into his physicality and way of being in the world, and you’re just waiting to see how this weird little guy is going to mess up.

Based on a real-life case of a teacher charged with abusing a child, Japan’s master of the extreme doesn’t sit on the fence in this two-sided retelling

Takashi Miike, Japan’s maestro of the extreme, now takes on a relatively sedate and mainstream genre: the courtroom drama. But he can’t help bringing to it his signature shocks and unsubtle tropes. Sham is based on a real-life case from 2003 that convulsed Japanese media and public opinion. In the city of Fukuoka in south-west Japan, primary school teacher Seiichi Yabushita was accused of racially abusing and beating a pupil and driving him close to suicide on the grounds of the child supposedly having an American grandfather, his pure Japanese blood tainted by foreigners. But was the child lying on the instructions of his mother, the real abuser? The film is based on Fabrication: The Truth About the “Murder Teacher” in Fukuoka, investigative journalist Masumi Fukuda’s 2007 book about the case.

Mirroring the prosecution and defence cases in court, Miike gives us both sides of the story in quasi-Rashomon style: first, that of the boy’s mother Mrs Himuro (Kô Shibasaki) and in this version, the behaviour of the teacher (Gô Ayano) is truly sinister. Afterwards – the “prosecution” version having taken up very little of the film – we get the teacher’s own account, and it soon dawns on us that this is in fact the objective reality. He is a gentle, reasonable man, loved by his pupils; he wouldn’t hurt a fly and his remarks on the boy’s family background are entirely innocent. The trouble stemmed from having been persuaded by the school’s terrified headteacher to apologise to the parents in a doomed attempt to make the case go away and to confess to corporal punishment on the grounds of one misjudged chastisement after a bullying incident, intended to show him how awful violence is.

Barbican Hall, London
Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio’s chant-filled music-theatre piece – performed by Theatre of Kiribati and Britten Sinfonia – pushes Mahler into uncharted waters

Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde already represents a culture clash, with a German text inspired by Chinese poetry set to music of early 20th-century Viennese headiness. Sea Beneath the Skin takes that a whole ocean further. The brainchild of the Samoan director, artist and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, it’s an unclassifiable music-theatre piece that’s less a collision of worlds than a collusion between them.

It begins with a woman walking on to the dark, glossy-floored stage, on which two white pillars stretch up to the roof to represent the trunks of giant kauri trees. Her song, rich-toned and short-phrased, is eventually answered by another woman high in the auditorium, and their duet grows in urgency and intensity. Later there will be four black-clad men dancing a neat cyclical routine involving lots of body percussion, then a third woman facing us down with terrifyingly aggressive shouted chants, and then a young man in Kiribati ceremonial dress, pouring white sand on to the stage from a black plastic bucket. What do these mean? It’s not clear, but they all frame and link the six movements of Mahler’s song cycle, in which the two singers are on stage as characters in some kind of undefined narrative.

Croydon school’s principal says success of Olivia Dean and Lola Young is a ‘brilliant celebration’ of free arts education

As the Grammy winners took to the stage in Los Angeles on Sunday night, one common thread emerged: many had once walked the halls of a comprehensive school in Croydon, south London.

British performers Olivia Dean, who won the prestigious gong for best new artist; Lola Young, who took home best pop solo performance for Messy; and FKA twigs, who won best dance/electronic album for Eusexua, all attended the Brit school in Selhurst. As did Raye, who earlier in the week received the Harry Belafonte best song for social change award for Ice Cream Man.

From Lord of Winterfell to lover of ornithology, the actor reveals his lifelong love of birding as host of a hugely listenable RSPB podcast. Plus, a gripping investigation into the police

On the face of it, the RSPB picking Ned Stark as the host of the new series of their podcast seems odd. But it turns out he’s been a birder since childhood, who crams in birdwatching between acting gigs. He’s warm and honest in his first podcast, chatting to fellow ornithology lover Elbow’s Guy Garvey about spotting different species while working abroad, recognising bird song and the meditative joy of watching the feathered creatures. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes fortnightly

As the film’s megahit song Golden looks likely to sweep everything in awards season, its singer Ejae explains why she’s ready to step out from behind her animated alter ego

‘The directors were crying, the producer was crying, and I thought: Oh my gosh, this is an incredible musical world.” It was February 2025, and Ian Eisendrath was conducting an orchestra through the final flourishes for the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. He knew that the team had built something special – “but I never thought it would be like this,” he laughs, marvelling at what came next.

Mere weeks after its release in June, the animated film – about Korean girl band Huntr/x who battle soul-hungry demons through song – became Netflix’s most-watched title ever. The film’s soundtrack, a fleet of emotionally charged, devilishly catchy hits crafted by real K-pop heavyweights, became a platinum-rated phenomenon all its own.

The author of The North Water vividly captures bleak beauty and brutish appetites on an 18th-century expedition into the frozen wilds of Canada

It was Ian McGuire’s second novel, The North Water, longlisted for the Booker prize in 2016 and later adapted for television, that established his reputation for savage historical noir. A professor of American literature at the University of Manchester, McGuire specialises in the late 19th-century realist tradition; at its best his work blends the unsparing violence of Cormac McCarthy with a bleak lyricism reminiscent of Welsh poet RS Thomas.

Both The North Water, set onboard a whaling ship dispatched from Hull to Baffin Bay in 1859, and The Abstainer, inspired by the hanging of three Irish rebels in Manchester a decade later, probed the grisly underbelly of Victorian imperialism, harsh worlds where a “man’s life on its own is nothing much to talk about”. In White River Crossing, McGuire travels across the Atlantic and back another 100 years to the Prince of Wales Fort, a remote trading post of the Hudson’s Bay Company in what is now northern Manitoba. Founded by royal charter in 1670 and granted sole right of trade and commerce across some 1.5m sq km of territory, the British venture was established to exploit the indigenous fur trade, but investors also hoped for other profitable discoveries, particularly silver and gold.

This funny and subversive novel reckons with life under martial law in late-70s Pakistan

Mohammed Hanif’s novels address the more troubling aspects of Pakistani history and politics with unhinged, near-treasonous irreverence. His 2008 Booker-longlisted debut, A Case of Exploding Mangoes, was a scabrously comic portrait of General Zia-ul-Haq in the days leading up to his death in a suspicious plane crash in 1988. Masquerading as a whodunnit, it was a satire of religiosity and military authoritarianism. Dark, irony-soaked comedy that marries farce to unsparing truth-telling was also the chosen mode for other vexed subjects, from violence against women and religious minorities in Our Lady of Alice Bhatti to the war machine in Red Birds.

Hanif’s prickly new novel confirms his standing as one of south Asia’s most unnervingly funny and subversive voices. The story kicks off right after ousted socialist PM Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is put to death by army chief turned autocrat Zia. Following the execution, disgraced intelligence officer Gul has been posted to OK Town, a sleepy backwater where he “would need to create his own entertainment and come up with a mission to shine on this punishment posting”.

Writing towards the end of the first world war, the poet, novelist, journalist and suffragist Benson here dreams of a secure peace

The Secret Day

My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired,
And now tomorrow comes and beats upon the door;
So I have built To-day, the day that I desired,
Lest joy come not again, lest peace return no more,
Lest comfort come no more.

As the 20th book in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series is published, the author shows no signs of slowing down – scripting films, opening a bookshop and making plans to rebuild his hometown

Watching Jeff Kinney sign books is akin to watching an elaborate piece of performance art. Backstage at a theatre in Chester, where the author is continuing his UK tour, three folding tables heave under the weight of thousands of copies. Kinney wheels round the table on a swivel chair, signing as he goes. He is a picture of total focus.

Today Kinney is signing copies of Partypooper, the 20th book in his blockbuster Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Every copy bears the phrase “Over 300 million books sold”. To put that into perspective, Kinney has sold more books than Led Zeppelin have sold albums. If you’ve had – or been – a child of reading age at any point over the last couple of decades, Kinney is a rock star. And nowhere is that clearer than at his sold-out event later that evening, as he is custard-pied while a crowd of 800 children and parents scream with excitement.

At a family gathering over Christmas, I took on my 76-year-old mother once again at virtual bowling. Could I finally best her?

My mother bore me. My mother nurtured me. My mother educated me. She has a resilience unmatched, a love all-forgiving. She is the glue that holds our family together. But right now, I am kicking her ass at video game bowling, and it feels good!

In the 00s, my mum was the best Wii Bowling player in the world. She was unbeatable. Strike after strike after strike. The Dudette in our family’s Big Lebowski. So when she said she was coming to visit us in Canada, I thought the time was right to buy the updated Nintendo Switch Sports version of her favourite game. She’s 76 now, and I might finally have a chance of beating her, I thought, especially if I allowed myself a cheeky tune-up on the game before she arrived.

​In the fiercely competitive market ​of the online multiplayer game, Highguard​’s rocky start means it now has a lot to prove

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In the fast-paced, almost psychotically unforgiving video game business, you really do have to stick the landing. Launching a new game is an artform in itself – do you go for months of slowly building hype or a sudden shock reveal, simultaneously announcing and releasing a new project in one fell swoop? The latter worked incredibly well for online shooter Apex Legends, which remains one of the genre’s stalwarts six years after its surprise launch on 4 February 2019. What you don’t do with a new release, is something that falls awkwardly between those two approaches. Enter Highguard.

This new online multiplayer title from newcomer Wildlight Entertainment has an excellent pedigree. The studio was formed by ex-Respawn Entertainment staff, most of whom previously worked on Titanfall, Call of Duty and the aforementioned Apex Legends. They know what they’re doing. But the launch has been … troubled.

From rhino-sized Rhyhorns to worm-like Diglett, visitors to PokéPark Kanto will roam a forest populated by lifelike Pokémon statues when the attraction opens next week

In Japan, February is normally a period of quiet reflection, a month defined by winter festivals in Sapporo’s snowy mountains and staving off the cold in steaming hot springs. Traditionally, international tourists start to arrive with the blossoms in spring – but thanks to the opening of Pokémon’s first ever amusement park on 5 February, this year, they are likely to come earlier.

Unlike the rollercoaster-filled thrills of Tokyo Disney Sea or Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, PokéPark Kanto is essentially a forest populated by models of the creatures from the perennially popular games. Nestled in the quiet Tokyo suburb of Inagi, half an hour from the city centre, the park is a walkable forest with more than 600 Pokémonin it. Where the Mario-themed Super Nintendo World slots neatly into the massive Universal Studios Japan, PokéPark Kanto is hidden in the back of the less glitzy, funfair-esque Japanese theme park Yomiuri Land.

I’ve been a games journalist since 2007, but still there isn’t much video games coverage that feels like it’s specifically for people like me. So I’m creating a home for it: Mothership

Whether you’re reading about the impending AI bubble bursting or about the video game industry’s mass layoffs and cancelled projects, 2026 does not feel like a hopeful time for gaming. What’s more, games journalists – as well as all other kinds of journalists – have been losing their jobs at alarming rates, making it difficult to adequately cover these crises. Donald Trump’s White House, meanwhile, is using video game memes as ICE recruitment tools, and game studios are backing away from diversity and inclusion initiatives in response to the wider world’s slide to the right.

The manosphere is back, and we’ve lost mainstream feminist websites such as Teen Vogue; bigots everywhere are celebrating what they see as the death of “woke”. Put it all together and we have a dismal stew of doom for someone like me, a queer woman and a feminist who’s been a games journalist and critic since 2007.

Park theatre, London
Bill Rosenfield reimagines the playwright’s early work about the souring relationship between newlywed artists

Hell is other people – especially if you’re married to them. Noël Coward’s characters often struggle to fit their romantic and creative ambitions into conventional shapes. This rarely seen, jaundiced marital comedy suggests that the interest started early – Coward was just 18 when he completed it at the end of the first world war, though it was first staged in 1926.

A century on, playwright Bill Rosenfield and the enterprising Troupe theatre company “reimagine” the play – streamlining the plot and florid dialogue. Two young writers, novelist Sheila and budding playwright Keld, embark on marriage, pursuing domestic bliss and artistic success. Something has to give – and, although she’s the brains of the pair, it is Sheila who relinquishes ambition to allow Keld to flourish.

At Park theatre, London, until 14 March

Bristol Beacon
If the comic’s political fervour is dialled down, there is much to enjoy in a show delivered with flair and 10-ton sarcasm

Inner peace and contentment are not always gifts to the comedian, and – who knows? – maybe that’s why Bridget Christie’s latest show is a teensy bit less thrilling than its predecessors. For Christie has found her happy place: serenely single, professionally triumphant (on the telly too, after years not finding a niche there), and absolved by menopause of the need to give a toss about almost anything. There’s comedy in that freedom from care, and Christie mines it plentifully in an entertaining 90 minutes majoring – like her Channel 4 show The Change – in what life looks like for women (or at least, this woman) when oestrogen gets out of the way.

But Jacket Potato Pizza feels like a placeholder of a show, lacking the fervour or clownish fury of her best work. Its short first half begins by contrasting quotations from Presidents Obama and Trump – but that gives a misleading impression of what’s in store. More indicative is the routine that follows, in which Christie re-enacts a story as told by her menopausal pal, a banal tale of a night out turned into a symphony of digressions, malapropisms (mixing the Benjamins Zephaniah and Netanyahu, most memorably) and vocabulary tantalisingly out of reach. It’s as much sketch as standup, and our host brings it to life with characteristic pop-eyed dismay.

Almeida theatre, London
In a bloody, brilliant, full circle Rupert Goold bows out as artistic director of the Almeida with a timely revival of the musical he first staged here in 2013

The term “yuppie” conjures visions of shoulder pads, Filofaxes and liquid lunches. This is the world Patrick Bateman inhabits and Bret Easton Ellis’s narcissistic banker is every inch the embodiment of it – a creature of Wall Street’s hedonistic heyday, blinging in designer-wear as he swings his axe at high-end escorts and the homeless.

So Rupert Goold’s decision to resurrect this musical adaptation of Ellis’s ghastly 1991 masterpiece is not without risk. Don’t these singing yuppies seem ridiculously passé now in their boxy suits and Ralph Lauren underwear? The satire is amped to 10, licking its lips, it seems, as it sends up the 1980s. But it never spirals into kitsch and our contemporary world of toxic masculinity, Trumpian capitalism and Insta-fuelled solipsism slowly, chillingly, creeps out of it.

Playhouse, Sheffield
Two siblings growing up in a high-rise search for escape and liberation in this idiosyncratic and infectious drama with a beautiful script by Debris Stevenson

Debris Stevenson is not only a playwright but a grime poet. That is apparent in this lyrical two-hander, full of imagination and whimsy, about twins whose close sibling ties bring intimacy, ambition and fantasies of taking flight. But it also sets their place in the world: he is the genius of the family and she, by comparison, is defined as the “idiot.”

Both Daisy (Jess Senanayake) and Luke (Tyrese Walters) are neurodivergent, growing up in a high-rise block, aged 11 when we first meet them. She is navigating dyslexia and ADHD, trying to live authentically within herself while Luke is in denial of his autism, and it takes some time to see him as anything but a clever and supportive brother.

Pia Paulina Guilmoth and Jesse Bull Saffire spent seven years sniffing around discarded boxes and junk shops in order to paint this peculiar portrait of their home

Work by almost 70 artists – including Marina Abramović – has made an art fair in Kochi one of the hottest tickets in south Asia. This sixth instalment uses farmers’ fields and patched-up buildings to take visitors ‘back to nature’

Say someone brings you a bouquet of flowers. You get a vase and one by one intuitively place each stem inside, allowing an arrangement to unfold on its own. It was on this level, as lead curator Nikhil Chopra suggests, that the Kochi-Muziris Biennale was not curated so much as created.

On a stroll through the largest contemporary art biennale in south Asia, creation takes centre stage. Against the backdrop of the coastal city’s lush strip of backwaters and the historic Fort Kochi, works by 66 artists animate Kerala’s grand colonial warehouses and bungalows where art feels less installed than encountered.

The musician is championing the annual Quick Reads initiative, which will release six short, digestible titles for ‘nonreaders and lapsed readers’ in April for £1 each

Stormzy called reading a “superpower” as he backed an initiative aimed at encouraging people who don’t see themselves as readers to pick up a book.

The musician’s publishing imprint #Merky Books, which is part of Penguin, is publishing one of this year’s six Quick Reads – short, accessible books created “specifically for nonreaders, lapsed readers, people with short attention spans, and neurodivergent readers”, according to The Reading Agency, which has run the Quick Reads initiative for 20 years.

Airports, road signs, animal warnings … Margaret Calvert revolutionised how Britain looked and her brilliantly clear designs are still used today. We meet the typeface legend and Porsche lover

Stuffed with a barrage of road signs, artful modernist chairs and all the tools of her trade, Margaret Calvert’s studio occupies the ground floor of her trim terrace house in Islington, London. She still draws by hand, using coloured pencils, ink pens and gouaches, echoes of a simpler time when there were neither computers nor gazillions of Pantone colour options. “There was also no such thing as graphic design back then,” she says. “It was just called commercial art.”

Only a handful of graphic designers have had a typeface named after them. One of the earliest was the 18th-century Italian Giambattista Bodoni, whose letterings have conferred on him a kind of immortality. But his efforts were not to everyone’s taste: William Morris was said to have loathed Bodoni’s letters, grumpily raging at their “sweltering hideousness”.

Layers of eastern spice and flavour run through these mini bulgur wheat balls in a spicy sauce of pepper and pomegranate molasses, and there’s a sprightly fennel and herb salad on the side

I have always dreamed of a return to the golden age of Arab trade, when spices, fruits and ideas voyaged across deserts and seas, creating extraordinary food cultures through exchange and curiosity. I’ve imagined bringing new flavours home, letting them transform the kitchen – but with all the madness in today’s world, that dream must stay a dream, for now. So, these recipes become my journey, a way to reconnect with that spirit and taste the magic of the Arab golden age today.

Our experts unpack the power of miso paste, and the unique flavour profiles you need for your home cooking

What’s the difference between white and red miso, and which should I use for what? Why do some recipes not specify which miso to use?
Ben, by email
“I think what recipe writers assume – and I’m sure I’ve written recipes like this – is that either way, you’re not going to get a miso that’s very extreme,” says Tim Anderson, whose latest book, JapanEasy Kitchen: Simple Recipes Using Japanese Pantry Ingredients, is out in April. As Ben points out, the two broadest categories are red and white, and in a lot of situations “you can use one or other to your taste without it having a massive effect on the outcome of the dish”.

Salty, savoury miso is (usually) made by steaming soya beans, mashing them with salt and koji, then leaving to ferment. “And the age is what changes the colour,” says Anderson. “White miso is not aged for very long – three to six months – and so it retains that beany, beige/yellow colour and tastes fresher, while red miso is aged for six months or longer, resulting in a darker colour and more funk.” The parallel Anderson often draws is that of a mild cheese and an aged or mature cheese. “Gouda is a good example,” he says. “It can be quite mellow and salty, but as it ages it develops a buttery, caramelised flavour.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Your January favourites – whether that’s hand cream or a bodysuit – say it all: you’re hibernating for winter

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Earlier this month, we asked you to pick a team: hibernating on the sofa, or getting off it and getting fit. Well, the votes are now in – and the sofa was the clear winner.

We don’t blame you – January’s Arctic blasts and grey skies haven’t exactly been tempting us back outdoors. So it makes perfect sense that you’ve been looking for duvets, slippers and pyjamas to up the cosiness factor. Even when you’ve had to travel, you’ve wanted to snuggle down for a nap in a scarf-like neck pillow. Here are the things you loved the most this month.

In need of a February pep talk? Our fashion expert’s must-haves are here to lift your mood

• How to dress in cold weather

Let’s get real. Few of us look or feel at our most fabulous in February. It’s been cold and dark for, what, 18 months? Feels like it. Getting dressed feels less stylish self-expression than huddling for warmth.

But there are reasons to be cheerful – or, more to the point, things that can bring you cheer. There is Valentine’s Day. (I will never understand why people like to sneer about Valentine’s Day. A daft festival of joy in the bleakest moment of the calendar. Take the win!) I’ve also found a shirt that will be your new favourite layering piece. And a very fun jumper for £54. Read on for the lowdown.

Dyson’s latest hard-floor vacuum is an expensive indulgence you probably don’t need – but might still want

• The best cordless vacuum cleaners, tested

With the best vacuum cleaners perfectly capable of cleaning both carpet and hard floors, investing in a second device that specialises in one or the other might seem like an unnecessary luxury. While Dyson’s £429.99 PencilVac Fluffycones looks positively affordable next to its £749.99 V16 Piston Animal, it’s a hard-floor specialist that can’t tackle carpets or particularly big cleans, and it won’t replace your existing vacuum. However, indulge me for a moment, because if you have any hard floor that needs regular sweeping for dust, hair and crumbs, it’s an accessible, flexible and friendly little cleaner.

The PencilVac is small for a Dyson and comes with a free-standing charging dock rather than the usual wall mount. It’s clearly designed to sit in the corner of a kitchen or dining area and be brought out for a quick sweep-up whenever needed. It’s also handy for a quick nip around a pet’s favourite hangouts, or for a sweep of your bathroom floor.

Skip the predictable and the perishable this year: from a double-cup flask to a table tennis set, we’ve handpicked gifts they’ll love long after the big day

• The best flower delivery for every budget

Valentine’s Day: love it or love to hate it, there’s no denying it can feel manufactured to make you spend your hard-earned cash on cheap stuffed toys, out-of-season red roses and unimaginative chocolates. But with the right gift, it can be a great opportunity to show your partner how much you care, and how well you truly know them.

To help you avoid tat that won’t last – or will get shoved to the back of a cupboard – we’ve rounded up 38 thoughtful ideas to last well beyond 14 February. From a massage candle and toys to spice up your sex life to a bakery guide and a two-person flask for your next adventure, our cliche-free guide will help you find a gift that’s original, personal and will definitely get you in their good books.

A rather luxuriant cheat’s way to fill that savoury pie/tart hole in your life

No time to make shortcrust? Bought puff pastry makes an instant (and decadent) alternative. Yes, I know you can buy ready-rolled shortcrust, but I wouldn’t: it’s trash. If this column didn’t have a 30-minute time constraint, I’d blitz 200g plain flour and 100g cold cubed salted butter to sand, then add one egg yolk and a tablespoon of cold water, then blitz for a few seconds, and no longer, until it just comes together. I’m unorthodox, so I then tip the pastry straight into a pie dish, quickly pat it into place and freeze for 15 minutes. Blind bake for 10 minutes at 180C(160C fan)/350F/gas 4, before removing the paper and baking beans and tipping in the filling – it’s really not very much work. But it does add 20 minutes to proceedings, which disqualifies the recipe from this column. So it’s bought, pre-rolled puff pastry instead.

Enrol in the school of wok and get sizzling with a simple stir-fry and a classic hotch-potch noodle dish. Follow the ‘wok clock’ and both are ready in about half an hour

Stir-frying, as its name suggests, is the technique of frying while continuously stirring or circulating heat, and it is the heat that’s all-important. Stir-frying is all about wok hei, or ‘wok’s air’ in English, which you can think of as the ‘height of fire’, or the level of heat. It’s said that Chinese cooks have good wok hei if they have a true understanding of the heat of their wok and how to handle it in all situations, and a stir-fry’s success is based on the quality of the cook’s wok hei.

A multi-multi-million-pound paean to ‘the black stuff’ turns out to be rather underwhelming

The new Guinness Open Gate Brewery, with its tours, gift shop and dining options, has appeared in Covent Garden, slap-bang in the centre of London’s most nosebleedingly expensive real estate.

This multi-multi-million-pound paean to “the black stuff”, where Guinness disciples can make pilgrimage, has been on the capital’s horizon for what seems like an era. The project has been tantalisingly dangled as an opening for some years, then delayed umpteen times, because, quite understandably, erecting a purpose-built, gargantuan, multi-floor Willy Wonka’s Booze Factory in the West End of London for a corporate behemoth is no easy feat. Imagine the layers of global, bureaucratic, cross-platform multi-media team Zooms that had to happen to hone the ultimate Guinness experience. So many Is to dot and Ts to cross, particularly, because food is a central part of the venture, with two restaurants on site – The Porter’s Table and Gilroy’s Loft – where exec chef Pip Lacey is serving non-challenging yet hearty menus, as well as a courtyard pie stall by Calum Franklin.

Sometimes, all that’s required for supper is simply stewed Mediterranean vegetables and potatoes with a dollop of yoghurt on top …

The world over, you’ll find home cooks trying to turn bags of potatoes into dinner, myself included. Sometimes, my answer is a Sri Lankan potato curry, or a Gujarati one. Perhaps a slow-cooked Spanish omelette if it’s a date night with Hugh at the kitchen island (like this Friday) but today, the solution is Greek. Yahni is the Greek word for a style of cooking: vegetables braised in plenty of olive oil and tomatoes, until tender. It’s a way of being, a vote for the simple and the slow and the good (but it is also dinner, if you wish).

There are lots of guidebooks for parents of young children – but what happens when your offspring hit adulthood? A psychotherapist shares her guiding principles for raising grownups

When one of my daughters turned 18, our relationship hit a crisis so painful it lasted longer than I knew how to bear. I was a psychotherapist, trained in child and adult development, yet I was utterly flummoxed. Decades have passed since then, but when I recently spoke to her about that time, a flood of distress washed through me as if it were yesterday.

This is how my daughter, now a mother herself, put it when I asked her to describe that era:

Eric’s libido always outstripped Bea’s, but with the perimenopause she experienced a surge of desire. Is Eric fully onboard with their new ménage à trois?
• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

When I kissed him in front of Eric during a meet-up in a bar, the chemistry was pretty electric

Our youthful enthusiasm was starting to falter when a child came out of a cottage with a basket, sent by his mum

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

It was 1974 and my school friends and I decided to backpack around Tasmania in the middle of winter – go figure. We were three mates in our late teens, without a clear plan.

After arriving on the ferry, we hopped on a train owned by a mining company and travelled through the wild and unpopulated Tasmanian west coast to Queenstown. It was all forest and mountains, and so utterly freezing we sat in our sleeping bags on the train to try to warm up.

Their views differ on the Green party leader, but did the fellow Irish women agree on how to police demonstrations?

Ruth, 30, London

Occupation Consultancy

We have now lost £22,000 and now can’t afford to book a new date for the ceremony

Two days before my wedding last May, my 23-year-old brother was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and underwent emergency surgery.

I had bought cancellation cover 18 months previously from The Insurance Emporium (TIE) and immediately submitted a claim as we cancelled the wedding.

Some families have lost up to £10,000 after being duped into sending money to fraudsters’ bank accounts

Foreign students attending independent schools in the UK are being targeted by fraudsters seeking to intercept their fee payments, according to new research.

Some families have lost up to £10,000 after being duped into sending money to the bank account of a criminal, after receiving a fake email from the school bursar.

Earn money and other rewards by linking friends and family up to companies you use, from banks to energy firms

How much do you love your energy company – enough to recommend it to a friend? How about if £50 was up for grabs?

Richard from Suffolk is a customer of Octopus Energy, and now eight of his family and friends are, too, after he recommended the provider to them all through its referral scheme. “I really think [referral schemes] are a good idea. It’s an incentive to swap – without it, I think people wouldn’t bother switching and would carry on as they were,” he says.

Try to focus on the long term, be clear about your priorities, and resist withdrawing money early

All employers must automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria: the employee must be a UK resident, aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, £192 a week or £822 a month, in the 2025/26 tax year.

Every second, 11m bits of information enter our brains, which then efficiently prioritise them. We need to learn to work with the process, rather than against it

It’s believed that we have about 50,000 thoughts a day: big, small, urgent, banal – “Did I leave the oven on?”. And those are just the ones that register. Subconsciously, we’re constantly sifting through a barrage of stimuli: background noise, clutter on our desks, the mere presence of our phones.

Every second, 11m bits of information enter our brains. Just 0.0004% is perceived by our conscious minds, showing just how hard our brains are working to parse what’s sufficiently relevant to bring to our attention.

Caffeine can improve the digestive system and lead to better gut health, but try to avoid it after noon or if you have irritable bowels

Is sipping a coffee after a heavy meal actually good for helping you digest it? “For some people, absolutely,” says Dr Emily Leeming, a dietitian at King’s College London. “But it’s not always a good idea.”

Caffeine stimulates the gut, increasing muscle contractions, she says, which for many people helps food move through the digestive system “at a nice pace” before being excreted.

TikTok says it’s the ultimate wake-up call. But does the fitness craze have any downsides – apart from waking up the neighbours?

If you’re an avid viewer of online fitness content (or live below someone who is) you’re probably familiar with TikTok’s 50 jumps challenge. The basic premise is simple: you jump 50 times as soon as you wake up, for 30 days straight. Reach the end of the month and you’re supposedly in for a world of benefits.

The jumps, reassuringly, don’t need to be too extreme. Think gentle bouncing with a soft knee bend, rather than tuck jumps. Some content creators show themselves with arms by their sides, swaying their hips as they go; others have their arms crossed over their chests and maintain a strict up-and-down momentum. Some would find their natural home in a moshpit, others at a dance party. Nobody, yet, seems to have purchased a bedside trampoline.

We are living longer and longer, but many of us are unprepared for the challenges age brings, says the novelist and psychotherapist Frank Tallis

We have never lived so long, so well, nor had more available advice on how to do so: don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t eat ultraprocessed foods; lift weights, get outside, learn a language. Cosmetics – or surgery – have never been so available, so advanced, nor so widely used; we take for granted medical procedures that previous ages would have considered miracles. And something’s clearly working: average global life expectancy is the highest in recorded history. The fastest growing demographic is now the over-80s.

There is much public hand-wringing about the burdens this ageing population will place on health and care systems, and on younger people. But what is far less talked about, argues the clinical psychologist Frank Tallis in his new book, Wise, is how to get older well: not just in physical, but in mental good health.

With a North American licensing deal under its belt, the reinvented high-street giant is growing again under new owners and a global strategy

French Connection is back on the trail of global expansion with the aid of its cheeky initials-based slogan that made it so popular in the late 1990s.

The label once known for clothes bearing FCUK is seeking to reinvent itself again under the ownership of a group of British entrepreneurs based in the north of England who rescued it in 2021.

Ditching the traditional suit and tie for understated all black ‘is as calculated as any Westminster suit, just aimed at a different audience’

With Labour blocking Andy Burnham from returning as an MP, the so-called “king of the north” came out wearing a simple black V-neck jumper with dark denim jeans. The Greater Manchester mayor, appearing at the launch of a Class Ceiling report at the city’s Whitworth gallery on Monday, looked quietly, subtly, the outsider.

It might not sound like much. But that is the point of Burnham’s largely unnoteworthy look, which tends to involve Left Bank intellectual-adjacent black-on-black. In direct contrast to his tie-wearing colleagues in parliament, Burnham’s style feels particularly symbolic.

Leather, lace and an unexpected accessory or two will perfectly complement bold trousers

If you’re wearing tight clothes and flashing your ankles, you may want to make some bold changes

Is your wardrobe cringe? Does it make you look out-of-touch and cause younger and cooler people to look upon you with pity? Do you really want me to answer that? Never mind, I’m going to anyway, so buckle up. Brutal honesty is very January, so I will give it to you straight. But before we get down to dissecting your wardrobe, two quick questions for you. Do you put full stops in text messages? Were you baffled by Labubus? If the answer to those two questions is yes, then I’m afraid the signs are that your wardrobe is almost certainly cringe.

Being cringe is essentially being old-fashioned, but worse. Being old-fashioned is what happens when you grow older with grace and dignity. Cringe is when you lose your touch while convincing yourself you are still down with the kids.

By travelling during the day on scenic routes, travellers can soak up spectacular landscapes before taking in Turin’s cultural heritage

Is there a better sensation for a traveller than when a train speeds out of a tunnel? The sudden flood of light, that howling rush of air. Clearly, it’s not just me who thinks trains are the new (old) planes, with 2025 having seen a 7% rise in UK train travel, and more Europeans than ever looking to hit the rails.

It’s late December, and I’m heading out on a slow-train journey across the historic railways of the Swiss Alps and the Italian lakes. It’s a trip of roughly 1,800 miles (2,900km), crossing five countries, almost entirely by scenic daytime trains.

In a city packed with bakeries, how do you find the best? I risked tooth decay to track down the quintessential blend of crisp pastry, an oozy centre and sugary cinnamon

Open sandwiches (smørrebrød), meatballs (frikadeller), crispy pork belly (stegt flæsk) … There are many must-eat dishes for food lovers visiting Denmark, though perhaps nothing springs to mind as readily as the Danish pastry. But how are you supposed to choose from the countless bakeries on offer? And once you have decided which to visit, which pastry to eat? As a long-term resident of Copenhagen and pastry obsessive, I took on the Guardian’s challenge to find the best Danish pastry in town.

Let’s get started with the shocking fact that Danish pastries are not actually Danish. In Denmark they’re called wienerbrød (Viennese bread) and made using a laminated dough technique that originated in Vienna. There’s also no such thing as a “Danish” in Denmark – there are so many different types of pastry that the word loses meaning. What we know as a Danish is a spandauer – a round pastry with a folded border and a circle of yellowy custard in the middle. Then there’s the tebirkes, a folded pastry often with a baked marzipan-style centre and poppy seeds on the top; a frøsnapper, a twist of pastry dusted with poppy seeds; and a snegl, which translates as “snail” but is known as a cinnamon swirl in English.

From a bioluminescent nightime sea to rare wildlife, natural wonders are on tap in the Gothenburg archipelago

Out on the water, paddling across the straits between two small rocky islands, the dusk fades and the stars appear. Jennie has done her best to coach me in local geography before darkness, showing me the map with its patchwork of islands and bays, and describing the shape of each landmark. All to no avail. I’m more than happy to be lost at sea, leaning back in my kayak to gaze at the constellations, occasionally checking that the red light on the stern of her kayak is still visible ahead. We stop in the sheltered lee of an island and hear a hoot. “Eurasian eagle owl,” says Jennie. “They nest here.” Then she switches off all the lights. “Let’s paddle slowly close to shore. Watch what happens.”

As soon as we move, the sea flickers into life, every paddle stroke triggering thrilling trails of cold, blue sparkles. When we stop, I slap my hand on the surface and the sea is momentarily electrified into a nebulous neural network of light, like some great salty brain figuring out this alien intrusion. Below that, squadrons of jellyfish pulse their own spectral contribution.

From accessible urban strolls to multi-day treks through world heritage-listed sites, walkers are spoiled for choice

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There has never been a better time to be a hiker in Australia. Once solely the province of experienced backcountry bushwalkers, the country’s ever-expanding network of hiking trails now offers something for walkers of all abilities.

According to Ausplay, almost 4 million Australians go bushwalking each year, making it the third-most popular form of physical activity in the country, and in 2025 the AllTrails app saw an almost 300% year-on-year increase in distance walked by Australian users. The largest growth has been in long-distance hikes, and it’s no surprise the boom in trail construction is continuing across the country, with multiple big-ticket walks slated to break ground this year.

Social media suggests that the combination is a superfood for tired plants. The reality is mould, gnats and the sour smell of rot

The problem
Once you tumble down a houseplant rabbit hole online, suddenly everything in your kitchen starts to look like fertiliser. Using oats and Epsom salts sounds wholesome, thrifty; breakfast for you, breakfast for your plants. But does it help?

The hack
The idea is that oats break down and enrich the soil, while Epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) top up magnesium to keep leaves green and glossy. Social media says a spoonful of each will pep up tired plants without the need for proper feed.

Cat-sitting can only be relied upon for pocket money, but it has enriched me in other ways. The most unexpected benefit has been finally meeting my neighbours

I am a crazy cat lady, except for one small obstacle: I do not own a cat. Though my boyfriend and I discuss names for cats, like other couples do for children, renting in London has put a stop to adding one to our family. So I had pushed dreams of filling the cat-sized hole in my life to one side, only allowing myself momentary relapses when friendly cats crossed my path in the street. That was until I stumbled across the best solution to being reluctantly feline free: becoming a cat-sitter.

It started when I decided to quit my job. Faced with the daunting prospect of living without a guaranteed salary, I was lured in by social media videos promising that any number of “simple” side hustles would make me happier, richer and freer.

An offhand comment from my mother meant we suddenly owned a donkey. I loved him – but was embarrassed when I had to ride him to school

I was four when Cocolo accidentally became part of our family, so my memories are a bit patchy and predominantly sensory (I still remember the pleasant feel of his furry ears). But my mum has filled me in on the details.

We’d gone to live in Jerusalem for a year as my dad was doing some work over there. For a Sunday treat we sometimes went to the American Colony hotel for a buffet lunch, and on one such occasion Mum was chatting with the doorman. A man was passing in the street leading a donkey, and Mum casually told the doorman that she’d always wanted a donkey.

The series in which readers answer other readers’ questions explores an ancient, vexed musical conundrum

• Readers reply: to shred or not to shred? Is it OK to throw out sensitive documents?

I know a song that’ll get on your nerves, get on your nerves, get on your nerves. I know a so … you get the gist! Why does a song sometimes get stuck in our heads? (And good luck stopping this one now!) Laura Ashton, Haslemere, Surrey

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Amateur conservationist and social media influencer Theerasak 'Pop' Saksritawee has a rare bond with Thailand’s critically endangered dugongs. With dugong fatalities increasing, Pop works alongside scientists at Phuket Marine Biological Centre to track the mammals with his drone and restore their disappearing seagrass habitat. Translating complex science for thousands online, Pop raises an urgent alarm about climate change, pollution and habitat loss — before Thailand’s dugongs vanish forever

The US lawyer on her fearsome reputation, the criticism she faced for advising Harvey Weinstein, and how 40 years of legal experience did not prepare her for the Epstein files

If Lisa Bloom had been advising Peter Mandelson or the then Prince Andrew before their calamitous attempts at reputation-salvaging television interviews, she would have encouraged them to listen beforehand to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims – or, at the very least, to their lawyers – to understand something of what the women endured.

“Or even just watch some of the powerful documentaries that have been made, centering the victims, telling their stories,” Bloom says, pausing for a moment, closing her eyes and shaking her head to convey silent incredulity. “I’d have wanted them to become really enlightened about it. But you really can’t instil compassion in someone if they don’t have compassion. It’s hard to implant it in there.”

Charge is designed to protect much-loved monument from overtourism, but not all visitors like the idea

Teresa Romero is in Rome to celebrate a milestone birthday and one of the first things she did on Monday was visit the Trevi fountain to participate in the ritual of tossing a coin into the waters of the late baroque masterpiece.

But before the Portuguese tourist could get close to the fountain, she had to hand over €2 (£1.70) – the cost of an access fee that has finally been enacted by Rome council officials after years of discussions.

Demand by US that it take control of Arctic island is for many a reminder of troubling imperial past

On a bitterly cold recent morning in the Canadian Arctic, about 70 people took to the streets. Braving the bone-chilling winds, they marched through the Inuit-governed territory of Nunavut, waving signs that read: “We stand with Greenland” and “Greenland is a partner, not a purchase.”

It was a glimpse of how, for Indigenous peoples across the Arctic, the battle over Greenland has become a wider reckoning, seemingly pitting the long-fought battle to assert their rights against a global push for power.

We’d like to hear from graduates about how they’re faring with paying back student loans. Have you experienced large increases in outstanding debt?

In last year’s budget Rachel Reeves froze the salary threshold for plan 2 loan repayments for three years from April 2027 – which means borrowers will have to pay even more towards their student loans as they benefit from pay rises.

Student finance is made up of a tuition fee loan, which covers course fees and is paid directly to the university, and a maintenance loan, which is designed to help with costs such as rent and food.

Tell us about your favourite early spring discoveries that offer sunshine without flying – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

It’s time to think about shaking off winter and looking forward to spring. Whether it was a coastal Mediterranean town without the crowds or a southern European city that comes to life at this time of year, we’d love to hear about places you’ve discovered on your travels that can be reached by rail. Tell us what you got up to and why early spring is a great time to visit.

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

We would like to hear from people living in a house share where there is a large age gap between housemates

New data from SpareRoom shows that almost four in 10 flatmates now live in multi-generational households, where the age difference between the oldest and youngest adult is 20 years or more.

Do you live in a house share where there is a large age gap between housemates? What impact does that have on your living arrangements? Do you enjoy living with people of different ages? What positives and negatives does it bring?

We’d like to hear from people in Jenrick’s Newark constituency about how they feel about him defecting to Reform UK

After months of denials, Robert Jenrick finally defected to Reform UK last week.

Nigel Farage called it the “latest Christmas present I’ve ever had”, while Conservative MPs called him a “coward” and a “traitor”.

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