OVO Hydro, Glasgow
The glam set design, gleaming brass and Motown moves are knowingly retro, but Dean’s performance is immediate, vulnerable and natural – the work of a singular artist

When the stage’s cream curtains pull back, Olivia Dean and band are already in full flow. Hands reaching out to the audience in welcome, she shimmies behind a silver mic stand in a floor-length candyfloss-pink dress, her band side-stepping on curved, softly carpeted risers. The swinging, sighing soul-pop single Nice to Each Other is bright with optimism for an on-off relationship, while soft-focus camera footage makes a collage out of gleaming trumpets, glamorous backing singers and Dean’s beaming face. With the air of old-fashioned music TV, it is knowingly retro and deeply romantic – everything you’d expect from the 27-year-old singer who is breathing fresh air into British soul.

On this opening night of two sold-out arena shows in Glasgow, ahead of six nights at London’s O2, Dean breezes through two more of her biggest songs as if it’s no big deal. Lady Lady, about moving out and growing up, is bassy and rich, while So Easy (To Fall in Love) is free, flirty and radiant: “This is a song to remind you that you’re fab,” she crows, now dancing at the stage’s footlights.

Being on dating apps can feel like looking for a needle in a haystack – so Dr Jennie Young devised a technique to burn it down and find better matches

It was 2023, and Dr Jennie Young was sick of online dating. She was looking for a partner, and instead all she found in the apps were inappropriately sexual come-ons and conversations that went nowhere. It felt like looking for a needle in a big, rancid haystack. So one day, frustrated and totally out of ideas, she Googled “how do you actually find a needle in a haystack?”

The answer: burn it down.

From over-serious spoken word to meaningless steel skeletons and bleak military aesthetics, the 2026 shortlist is more notable for what’s missing. It can’t help but feel insular and elitist

What do you want from the Turner prize in 2026? Are you after wild, shocking, disturbing, era-defining cultural moments? Please, it’s not the 1990s. How about hard-edged, ultra-conceptual, high-minded aesthetic experimentation? Come on, we haven’t had that for decades. Maybe you expect some culture-war-mongering, super-identitarian, polemically explosive political invective? A bit 2022, I reckon.

No, the 2026 Turner prize is something else, something way more appropriate for the age: a bit timid, a bit fearful, a bit safe.

The Cabinet Office permanent secretary’s 100 minutes before the foreign affairs committee will be required viewing

• UK politics live – latest updates

Here we go again. Some of the public may have had enough of the Peter Mandelson scandal by now, and would rather the focus returned to things such as the Iran war and the cost of living crisis. But Westminster has barely started on Mandy. Can’t get enough of him. This one will run and run.

You can almost hear the groans from No 10. By now it has finally dawned on everyone that Mandelson was never going to be a success as the US ambassador even if he hadn’t maintained close links with Jeffrey Epstein and leaked insider information to a bank.

Half of the most important buildings in the UK are churches and, even when congregations fall away, they are vital community hubs. But many, including beloved St Tyfrydog’s in Wales, which closed in 2020, are decaying. Can they be saved?

There is a sign on the gate leading through the circular stone wall that surrounds St Tyfrydog’s church on Anglesey (Ynys Môn). Services, in Welsh and English, are held on the first and third Sunday of the month, at 2.15pm, it says. But this is no longer the case: the last service was held here on 22 November 2020.

There was a decent turnout that day, to say goodbye to this little medieval church, parts of which date from about 1400 (there has been a church on the site since 450). The problem was that, before then, apart from on big occasions such as Christmas and the harvest festival, the congregation was tiny; five or six people, sometimes just three.

The Oscar-nominee on Hollywood burnout, Black resilience and her Broadway debut in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

On a Wednesday evening in midtown New York, generations X through Z spill out of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to cluster around the venue’s side stage door. They’re waiting for Taraji P Henson.

“I feel like I’m Cardi B on tour,” Henson jokes. When we talk over a video call this April, the actor is one week out from the opening night of her Broadway debut in the revival of August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Throughout the show’s preview period, Henson has made an effort to make it out to street level after performances to shake hands, take pictures and sign playbills. “It’s good to see my fans like this, up close and personal,” she says.

In evidence to MPs, Cabinet Office top civil servant disputes that her department suggested vetting might not be needed

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Foreign Office refused to hand over a summary of Peter Mandelson’s security vetting to the civil servant tasked with compiling documents detailing his appointment as ambassador to the US, she has told a Commons committee.

Cat Little, the lead official in the Cabinet Office, had to instead get the document directly from UK Security Vetting (UKSV) after Olly Robbins, the subsequently-sacked Foreign Office head, refused to provide it.

Exclusive: Officials warn department will lose access to database of 26,000 verified cases by cutting funding

The Foreign Office unit tracking potential breaches of international law by Israel in Gaza and more recently Lebanon has been closed because of cuts within the department, the Guardian can reveal.

The decision to shut the international humanitarian law cell follows a review by Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office dismissed last week by the prime minister over the Peter Mandelson scandal.

President says forces can ‘shoot and kill’ any boat laying mines and claims the US has ‘total control’ of the strait

• ‘Impossible’ to reopen strait of Hormuz amid ‘flagrant’ ceasefire breaches, Iran says

The Pentagon abruptly announced that the secretary of the US navy, John Phelan, would be leaving his job yesterday. No reason was given for the unexpected departure of the navy’s top civilian official, who had addressed a large crowd of sailors and industry professionals at the navy’s annual conference in Washington just a day before the announcement.

People familiar with the dynamics at the Pentagon told the Guardian Phelan was fired. Phelan had an increasingly rocky relationship with the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, and other senior staff.

Technology minister tells Commons ‘de-identified’ information from UK Biobank advertised for sale on Alibaba

• UK politics live – latest updates

The confidential health records of half a million British volunteers have been offered for sale on Chinese website Alibaba, the UK government has confirmed.

The data, belonging to participants in the UK Biobank project, was found for sale on three separate listings last week. The records have now been removed and it is not believed any sales were made.

Suspect is one of three ex-senior leaders also arrested last year on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter

A former boss at the hospital where Lucy Letby worked has been arrested on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.

Police arrested the suspect on Wednesday as part of an investigation into allegations of gross negligence manslaughter by former senior leaders at the Countess of Chester hospital.

Exclusive: Brussels seeks to stall awarding of contract to firm fronted by US president’s lawyer in letter seen by Guardian

The EU risks a confrontation with Donald Trump after it sought to stall the awarding of a lucrative Balkans pipeline contract to a company fronted by his personal lawyer, documents seen by the Guardian show.

Brussels has clashed with Trump over trade, Ukraine and military spending, but the intervention in the Southern Interconnection pipeline project appears to mark the first time it has challenged a commercial venture by those close to the president.

Woman raped by two men while a third filmed ordeal after she became separated from friends on night out

Three men have been found guilty of repeatedly raping a woman on Brighton beach in a “cynical, predatory and callous” attack after she became separated from her friends on a night out.

The woman was targeted by the men as she was incapacitated in the early hours of 4 October last year, the trial at Hove crown court was told.

Brand, who will be tried in October over allegations of rape and sexual assault, tells podcast he slept with 16-year-old when he was 30

Russell Brand said he had “exploitative” consensual sex with a 16-year-old girl at the height of his fame.

The comedian, actor and podcaster, 50, will be tried in the autumn over allegations of rape and sexual assault made against him by six women. Brand denies all the charges, which date from 1999 to 2009. Speaking about his past actions in an appearance on the YouTube show of the US journalist Megyn Kelly, Brand described himself “selfish” and an “exploiter of women”.

• Growth of digital platforms reflected in audience fall

• Promise of ‘exciting new project’ with partner YouTube

The BBC will take Football Focus off air this summer, bringing to an end a 52-year stint as the unofficial kick-off to the sporting weekend.

The national broadcaster said it had given “extensive consideration” to the decision to scrap the Saturday lunchtime programme, but the news will hardly come as a surprise as the changing nature of fans’ media consumption has left the venerable televison show quietly forgotten in the age of clips and livestreams.

World’s worst nuclear disaster leaves mixed legacy of nature’s resilience amid serious contamination, as wars increase lobbying for energy supply

Forty years on from the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Chornobyl is still contaminated with almost half the caesium-137 that exploded from the Unit 4 reactor in 1986, as well other hazards such as plutonium, tritium and americium. But according to some experts, the long-term effects on nature may be less than if the area had been left to humans, resulting in unexpected consequences in an environment left to its own devices.

The reminder of the protracted fallout from Chornobyl was made ahead of Sunday’s anniversary, which coincides with renewed lobbying for nuclear power and a rise in fears about atomic brinkmanship due to the oil crisis and wars in the Middle East and Ukraine.

All signs point to a record-low performance for Labour in May in what will be a moment of high jeopardy for Keir Starmer

Labour is on track for its worst local election performance, data analysed by the Guardian shows, in a blow that will pile further pressure on Keir Starmer’s leadership.

Barring a drastic change in fortunes, Labour’s vote-share could fall to historic lows across elections for councils in England and devolved parliaments in Wales and Scotland on 7 May, with big gains for Reform, the Greens and nationalist parties, according to recent polling.

Savitha Prakash, a first-generation immigrant running in local elections in Harrow, says Reform UK aims to ‘put Britain first’

Savitha Prakash, an NHS doctor living in the London borough of Harrow, believes there are similarities between the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. “He’s [Modi] one of those people, like Nigel, he walks the talk. He made [a] difference to the country,” said Prakash, who chairs Reform UK’s branch in Harrow.

In particular, the 47-year-old said Farage and Modi – who have each been accused by their critics of scapegoating marginalised communities – were focused on putting the needs of the majority first.

From An Almost Perfect Affair to Mr Bean’s Holiday, there’s nothing the festival enjoys more than seeing itself on screen. The next season of The White Lotus is tapping into that rich tradition – can it capture the Côte d’Azur’s peculiar magic?

Some years ago, the Guardian decided to boost its Cannes coverage by having a video crew accompany its regular festival reporters. At the meeting prior to the festival, I explained why this bright idea wouldn’t work. Cannes was a fortress and it wasn’t going to let us shoot anywhere. The security was too tight, the bureaucracy too byzantine. It would be a colossal waste of time and money. You couldn’t just run around Cannes pointing a camera at people.

It turned out I was wrong. Cannes didn’t care. It let us shoot everywhere. We shot on the street, on the beach and on the roof of Le Palais des Festivals. We dragged a sand-smeared rubber dinghy into the five-star Carlton hotel and asked famous actors to sit in it for an interview. We filmed on the carousel in the park and in the pavilions by the sea. The only resistance we encountered came from the steward of a billionaire’s yacht. The steward was perfectly happy to allow us free run of the deck, but he wanted his palms greased with a few hundred euros.

Want to recreate the lustre of days spent in the sun with none of the damage? Try these expert-approved formulas

• The best IPL and laser hair removal devices tested

The wise among us would never forgo our safe-sun protocol, but there’s no denying that many of us feel happier and healthier with a tan. The irresistible lure of sunkissed skin has long been a summer staple – and from tanning waters to wipes, instant tans to gradual tanning moisturisers, there are now more ways than ever to get a faux glow.

There’s also been a growing demand for multitasking beauty products, so the newest fake tan formulas often add skincare benefits alongside the bronze. Self-tans infused with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and vitamin C hydrate, nourish and protect much like your usual body cream or facial serum.

Best fake tan overall:
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Bristol University project aims to help directors make better movies and take greater risks – with one already onboard

At first glance, it looks like any high-end cinema: booming surround sound, a razor-sharp 4K projector and rows of reclining seats. But instead of clutching popcorn, a headset records my brain activity and a heart rate monitor wraps around my arm while infra-red cameras capture every blink and fidget.

I’m sitting in a one-of-a-kind cinema at the University of Bristol where researchers are studying how people respond to what they see on screen. By combining viewers’ physical reactions with verbal feedback on the parts of the film they found most compelling, the team hopes to understand which moments truly grip attention – and whether that insight could help film-makers create better movies and take greater creative risks.

The Parks and Recreation actor on working with Martin Scorsese, chatting about cinema with the pope and delivering calzones to stoners

The way your face changes in the Severance elevator is incredible. Are you thinking about anything in particular when you do it? Lott49
We worked on that for a long time, trying to figure out what specifically happens in the elevator. We must have tried 100 times before we landed on it. Eventually, Ben [Stiller, the director] suggested a subtle fluttering of my eyelids as my character goes through the shift between his “innie” and “outie” personas.

How intimidating was it working on The Aviator? PatHobby
I was pretty freaked out at first. But once you’re there, you realise these are just regular people who happen to be actors figuring out a scene. Everyone was extremely kind and generous to me and made me feel comfortable straight away.

Lawrence Bishnoi has been in high-security custody for more than a decade. During that time, he has been linked to multiple high-profile killings, both in India and as far afield as Canada. What explains his seemingly undimmed power?

The border that separates India from Pakistan is lined with 50,000 towering poles that hold 150,000 floodlights, which at night create a glare that is visible from outer space. Passing through the towns on the Indian side of the border, it can be difficult to tell, even in daylight, where one ends and the other begins. Curving along the rolling fields of wheat are nameless dirt roads where men sit on rope benches, whiling away their afternoons, staring as you pass by.

Dutarawali, right by the highway, is slightly different: here, the houses are big, with spacious courtyards. One of the houses – three storeys, painted white with red accents – has a 7ft boundary wall topped with barbed wire and four CCTV cameras overlooking the unpaved street. The symbol of Om is curled on its brown iron door, which has no nameplate. It is the house of Lawrence Bishnoi, who is today, at the age of 33, India’s most notorious gangster.

Scientists say a crucial Atlantic system is more likely to collapse than previously thought. But the billionaire death cult that steers humanity’s destiny doesn’t do existential crises

The poor and middle pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers – and the ultra-rich pay politicians. It’s not an original remark, but it bears repeating until everyone has heard it. The more money billionaires accumulate, the greater their control of the political system – which means they pay less tax, which means they accumulate more, which means their control intensifies.

They reshape the world to suit their demands. One of the symptoms of the pathology known as “billionaire brain” is an inability to see beyond their own short-term gain. They would sack the planet for a few more stones on the pointless mountain of wealth. And we can see it happening. Last week delivered the biggest news of the year so far, perhaps the biggest news of the century. But partly because billionaires own most of the media, most people never heard it. We might find ourselves committed to a civilisation-ending event before we even learn that such a thing is possible.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

If Olly Robbins stood firm the government could have avoided this disastrous episode of bad political judgment that could cost the PM his job

• Richard Dearlove is the former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service

The restricted compartments of the UK’s national security infrastructure are clearly defined and closely controlled. To work across them requires “a developed vetting certificate”. The primary qualification for holding a “DV” is integrity, honesty and transparency in one’s personal and professional life. To lie about or hide potential vulnerabilities is an immediate disqualification. Staff who do not meet the DV requirements for whatever reason are barred from positions that demand DV clearance. There are no grey areas or soft edges.

The role of British ambassador in Washington is one of those posts. It sits across a number of highly classified compartments. It is no ordinary diplomatic job. The extensive security acreage of the special relationship includes, for example, the UK’s nuclear deterrent, the intelligence relationship, the UK-US alliance which ties together the National Security Agency and GCHQ by treaty, and other domains of great sensitivity. The ambassador has access to these even though their need to become involved in them in normal times is limited. The British staff that comes under the ambassador’s authority is extensive and stretches beyond those working in the embassy. The ambassador’s access to the US administration is also usually highly privileged, such is the nature of the special relationship.

Richard Dearlove is the former head of the British Secret Intelligence Service

With her four-letter-word riposte to a heckler, the home secretary played the victim and cynically puts the blame for her immigration plans on liberals

If all you know about Shabana Mahmood’s interview with the comedian Matt Forde, which was recorded live at a West End theatre on Monday, is that she said a heckler should “fuck right off”, then it’s worth listening to the heckle itself. Hell, knock yourself out and listen to the whole podcast. The accompanying blurb calls the home secretary “impassioned, thoughtful and hilarious”, which we’ll come back to, except to say there is nothing hilarious about this exchange.

The heckler accused Mahmood of “out-Reforming Reform” and confecting a “theatre of cruelty” with her new immigration policy ideas, before being removed by security.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

On Thursday 30 April join Gaby Hinsliff, Zoe Williams, Polly Toynbee and Rafael Behr as they discuss the threat Labour faces from the Green party and Reform UK – and whether Keir Starmer can survive as leader. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

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

Spain’s PM, Pedro Sánchez, hosted the inaugural meeting of the Global Progressive Mobilisation. Keir Starmer and other social democrats were notable by their absence

Can progressives push back the rising tide of authoritarianism? Thousands of people gathered in Barcelona this weekend in search of an answer. The occasion was the inaugural Global Progressive Mobilisation – an ambitious initiative backed by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – which drew an impressive cast: Brazil’s Lula, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, alongside many activists and civil society organisations. There was no shortage of targets in the discussion panels and speeches: Donald Trump, fascism, war, corporate power and Israel’s genocide.

What was striking, though, was who wasn’t there. Europe’s leaders were largely absent. That was inevitable, given that Spain stands alone as the only major European country governed by a meaningfully progressive administration. Keir Starmer’s failure to attend – even if his deputy, David Lammy, turned up – was hardly surprising. Indeed, the political distance between Starmer and a leader such as Sánchez is striking. Once little known beyond his own country, the Spanish PM’s outspoken opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and his unequivocal condemnation of the Iran war have won him respect among European publics and governments across the global south alike.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Tehran has shown that its grip over the strait of Hormuz is its most potent deterrent – arguably more consequential than its now defunct nuclear programme

• Fawaz Gerges is professor of international relations at the London School of Economics

Donald Trump’s decision to go to war against Iran will be remembered as a grave strategic miscalculation – one that has reshaped the region in unintended and destabilising ways. With the ceasefire now extended indefinitely, we can see more clearly how the war has undermined the US’s standing in the world and failed to achieve its core objectives: it has neither brought about regime change in Tehran, nor forced Iran to submit to American demands. Far from it.

By inflicting economic pain far beyond the region and slowing the global economy, Iran has demonstrated that its grip over the strait of Hormuz constitutes its most potent deterrent – arguably more consequential than its now defunct nuclear programme. Control of the strait will be Tehran’s most powerful source of leverage in the years ahead.

I don’t need full-colour pictures of cappuccinos and definitely not congratulatory messages with my favourite cup. Give me terse clarity, please

I want to take a sledgehammer to my new coffee machine. It works very well. No complaints there. It’s just that I can’t bear the way it addresses me, or the way it refers to itself.

I had no such bother with my old machine, which was made by the same company. You put the beans in somewhere, selected what you wanted – long, short, strong, weak etc – pressed the button and Bob was your uncle. A tiny screen indicated your selections and how the process was progressing. Every now and then it issued a command such as “empty grounds” or “fill tank”. Clear, if terse. But that’s how I liked it. That’s what I want from machines: terse clarity. This machine never let me down so, when the time came, I chose the new version by the same manufacturer. I’m good like that, loyal.

The pontiff’s criticisms of Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran indicate a welcome resolve to follow in his predecessor’s footseps

One year after the death of Pope Francis, the Vatican this week hosted the premiere of a documentary tribute by Martin Scorsese. For a pontiff whose charisma and crowd-pleasing style helped cut through to a secular audience, marking the anniversary with the help of one of the world’s most famous film directors was a nice touch.

Francis’s successor, Leo XIV, is a far less flamboyant personality. In his inaugural year in St Peter’s chair, the first pope to come from the United States has generally taken a cautious, circumspect approach to his role. But it turns out that an aura of mildness and restraint makes him no less effective when criticising the posturing that passes for Christian piety in Donald Trump’s Washington.

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.

Whitehall has its flaws, but reform can only be successful in a climate of trust, not fear

The announcement of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador ensures that 20 December 2024 will be recorded as a fateful day in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. Less remarked on, but relevant in hindsight, is a speech that the prime minister made earlier that month to launch a “plan for change”. Sir Keir set out ambitions to improve public services and lamented caution in the civil service. Whitehall, he said, was too often comfortable “in the tepid bath of managed decline”.

The prime minister was feeling thwarted by the machinery of government. In that context, it is easy to see how he might have been persuaded that Lord Mandelson would make a better emissary to the US than the long-serving professional diplomat in post at the time. Impatience with a slow-moving apparatus is conveyed also in the account given by Sir Olly Robbins, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, of a department under “constant pressure” to complete Lord Mandelson’s security vetting. The prime minister told the Commons on Wednesday that no such pressure existed.

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.

Responding to an article by Nils Pratley, Simon Oldridge writes that the climate risk would outweigh paltry returns from new licensing, while Alex Chapman says Britain’s projected demand is often overstated

I was surprised to read Nils Pratley’s recent column arguing for more North Sea gas (The UK needs more North Sea gas, not greater reliance on US imports, 14 April).

Nils rightly questions reliance on costly and highly polluting imported US liquefied natural gas, but I think the analysis gives insufficient weight to the scale and immediacy of the climate and nature crisis.

Oliver Goodhall wants to see a national vision to provide culture regardless of income, while Ian Flintoff speaks up for live theatre

A V&A everywhere. It’s not such a silly idea (Editorial, 17 April). Labour’s postwar conviction that good things should be available for everyone led to the founding not only of the Arts Council but also the NHS. Universal basic healthcare: a good idea, right? What about universal basic culture?

I can see a new era of cities thriving with agency to imagine and create the conditions in which more inclusive, diverse, devolved, responsive and self-driving culture emerges – regardless of income. The UK can be a global creative powerhouse. We know the way in which the economic arguments stack up for the creative industries. But we shouldn’t be trapped into setting out an exclusively economic argument.

Readers respond to the former civil servant’s testimony to MPs in the foreign affairs select committee

While watching Olly Robbins give evidence at the Commons foreign affairs committee (Olly Robbins’ account of Mandelson vetting piles pressure on Keir Starmer, 21 April), what I heard was that Robbins – who boasted of his quarter century as a civil servant and who had been appointed to one of the highest positions in government – felt unable to resist the pressure of an unspecified source he called “Downing Street” regarding perhaps the most important and far-reaching foreign post of all.

Robbins showed little will to discover the detail of Peter Mandelson’s failure to gain clearance and, incredibly and most unlike a civil servant, he decided not to keep a record of what he described as a “crucial” meeting. He also appeared to not distinguish between reporting the fact that there had been an issue with Mandelson’s clearance and explaining the details of the issue, which he correctly said should have remained confidential. But he then broke that principle by disclosing a specific element in the vetting, that the reservations about Mandelson did not involve links with Jeffrey Epstein.

Ruth Tanner sets out the wider environmental and economic ramifications of factory-farmed poultry in response to a letter on chicken feed

Prof Julian Wiseman’s letter (14 April) makes important distinctions on the diet of poultry, but misses our point. My claim was never that chickens cannot physically eat other things, but that the factory-farming business model cannot function without cheap imported soya. Modern, fast-growing broilers – the Ross 308 or Cobb 500 being the dominant commercial examples – were selectively bred over decades in an environment of cheap, abundant soya protein, and their genetics and feed system are now coadapted. Their rapid growth relies on the dense protein that soya bean meal provides. Soya underpins modern global poultry production. Reliance on it carries mounting environmental and economic risk, with soya linked to illegal deforestation.

Wiseman is correct that soya is the most complete plant protein. That is precisely the problem. UK soya bean production is negligible: soya doesn’t grow well here. To produce meat at scale, the UK imports more than 3m tonnes of soya annually – 68% comes from South America, with over 1m tonnes used for broiler chickens alone. These birds are also more prone to digestive stress from their unforgiving, rapid rate of growth. Mounting evidence shows slower-growing breeds, raised in less intensive systems, can thrive on a wider range of feeds and offer a more resilient and humane alternative.

• Firm insists it works only with licensed operators

• Sportradar has deals with Fifa, Uefa, MLB and NBA

The betting and data company Sportradar has relationships with hundreds of illegal gambling operators including several that appear to operate in Iran and Russian-occupied Crimea, a new report alleges.

A study compiled by the financial analysts Callisto Research claims to have identified more than 270 unlicensed betting companies offering a variety of services including sports betting, virtual gaming and crypto casinos that purport to be products of Sportradar, whose branding and tools are visible on many of their websites. Callisto Research is an activist research firm that has disclosed short selling Sportradar stock after releasing its report.

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So. Farewell then, Liam Rosenior. After 106 days and a run of five consecutive league defeats without scoring a goal, Chelsea suits reactivated the revolving door marked Do One at Stamford Bridge and bundled him into oblivion. Rosenior lasted for 3.6% of his contract, which runs until 2032, by which time Chelsea’s coaching staff genuinely might be an army of analytical AI models in tracksuits. Rosenior’s reign began, if not with huge promise then at least a certain intrigue. Recruited from within the BlueCo matrix, the 41-year-old was flown to London for talks. An unassuming figure in spectacles and scarf, Rosenior resembled the “tech guy” in a boilerplate heist movie. Then he started talking. “The potential for this club, and for this group is limitless. And I won’t limit it,” Rosenior mused after watching a 2-1 defeat at Fulham, before adding he hoped his appointment would go down as “the best decision this club’s ever made”. Oof, this one actually aged faster than milk.

I started supporting Chelsea in 1970 because everyone else was supporting Leeds United and Leeds was a long way away. I enjoyed the Osgood, Hutchinson and Hudson years, endured the 1980s, got hopeful in the 1990s and smugly bathed in Russian money thereafter. In the meantime, I moved to Leeds, raised two Leeds fans and felt sorry as they grew more reliant to the minor horrors football support can inflict. Today, I nearly hope Leeds destroy Chelsea on Sunday. I am considering a transfer request, which is absurd so late in this narrative arc. Thanks Todd, you are the second worst American on the planet” – Jon Fogden.

So, Marc Cucurella’s barber leaked Chelsea’s lineup for their game against Brighton in a deleted social media disgrace post? Marc Cucurella has a barber?” – Leslie Hand.

I note with interest that in your piece on Leicester’s plummet to the third tier (yesterday’s Football Daily), you suggest they might have a trip to play the not-so-mighty Grecians next season. As any Exeter City supporter will tell you, not to mention having a quick glance at the table, that particular fixture is highly unlikely, given that we are two points adrift in the relegation zone. It seems Football Daily has more faith in us escaping the drop than we do. I’ll have a tin of what you’re drinking” – Jim Hughes (and others).

I have good and bad news for Leicester fans: the good news is you’re only two years from returning to the Promised Land. The bad is you’re only two years from non-league” – JJ Zucal.

In 2023-24, Luton finished 18th in the Premier League and were relegated from the Championship the next season. In 2024-25, Leicester finished 18th in the Premier League and were relegated from the Championship the next season. In 2025-26, remind me who’s 18th in the Premier League?” – Jim Hearson.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

The electric Manchester City forward on his dribbling skills, who is City’s quickest player and the potential for a domestic treble

Pace, aggression and quicksilver trickery: Jérémy Doku is the nightmare for opposition defences who breaks games open for Manchester City. In Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley, Southampton’s task will be to try to contain the Belgium winger who has raised his game this season.

The Liverpool head coach, Arne Slot, believes that Doku can be “unstoppable” and Arsenal’s Cristhian Mosquera discovered precisely this in City’s seismic 2-1 win in the Premier League on Sunday, the right-back booked for persistently fouling him at the Etihad Stadium. Yet the 23-year-old is not content. The ambition is to add goals to the sparkling skill set he believes will elevate him above Vinícius Júnior as the world’s best wide forward.

• Special envoy to Donald Trump suggested the idea

• ‘Firstly not possible … secondly not appropriate’

The Italian sports minister, Andrea Abodi, has described a proposal for his country to replace Iran at the World Cup as “not appropriate”, rejecting any idea that the Azzurri will be granted a last-minute berth at this summer’s tournament.

On Wednesday it emerged that Paolo Zampolli, a special envoy to Donald Trump, had suggested Italy should be fast-tracked to the World Cup despite their shock defeat by Bosnia and Herzegovina in last month’s playoffs. Zampolli proposed the four-time winners Italy replace Iran and said they would “have the pedigree to justify their inclusion”. But Abodi said football’s showpiece tournament should remain meritocratic.

• Georgia players celebrated championship at White House

• President shakes hands of men, not women in video

• Former tennis star Navratilova leads criticism

A White House photo celebrating a champion women’s sports team has drawn backlash due to the positioning of Donald Trump and a group of men, who overshadowed the female athletes by lining up in front of them.

The University of Georgia women’s tennis team was one of several collegiate teams to visit the White House on Tuesday to mark a recent NCAA championship win. In a photo shared by press aide Margo Martin, Donald Trump and five Georgia staffers and coaches took up the front row of a stage setup, with 11 women standing in the background on a riser.

• 30m adults hitting 150 minutes moderate activity a week

• But report shows progress not being felt equally

Levels of physical activity in England have broken new records, with more than 30 million adults now meeting the recommended 150 minutes of moderate activity a week, the latest Active Lives survey has revealed.

The 10th edition of the gold standard report finds a striking rise in activity among older people with 11% growth among the over-75s in the past decade. There is also a consistent improvement among people with disabilities. But other inequalities have proven stubborn, with no change among black and asian communities in 10 years and a decline in activity among the least affluent over that period.

• Iranian’s 10-3 win sets up match against world No 1 Trump

• Former champion Murphy in strong position against Xiao

Hossein Vafaei has claimed the Crucible must be respected and called it snooker’s answer to Wimbledon two years on from his scathing criticism of the world championship venue.

In 2024 the Iranian described the Crucible as “smelly” and compared the practice facilities to “like playing in a garage”. But after last month’s announcement that snooker’s showpiece will remain in Sheffield until at least 2045, Vafaei highlighted the importance of the Crucible to the sport.

• Super League Man of Steel central to World Cup plans

• McDermott: ‘We can win it; absolutely we can win it’

Brian McDermott, the new England head coach, has insisted that Super League’s reigning Man of Steel, Jake Connor, is central to his plans for this year’s World Cup, before appearing to attack the treatment of the Leeds Rhinos half-back by his predecessor Shaun Wane.

McDermott was unveiled on Thursday as England’s coach on a short-term deal for the tournament in Australia this autumn. The former Leeds and London coach is now working in the NRL as an assistant for Gold Coast Titans and saw off competition from Sam Burgess to be named as Wane’s successor.

The places up for grabs in Uefa’s competitions next season are a moveable feast, leaving plenty of intrigue right up to the final day

With the end of the season approaching, it’s time again to try to get your head around the ever more complex rules that determine whether your club may qualify for Europe. But there will definitely be eight English teams playing continental football next season, and maybe more. The bad news is that if you own a multi-club network you’re too late to place your shareholding in a blind trust. Sorry, but I don’t make the rules, just attempt to interpret them.

Removal site in Dunkirk will hold people of 10 nationalities trying to reach UK in small boats under new £660m deal with French

• UK politics live – latest updates

The UK will pay for 200 French officers to detain and deport people seeking asylum from some of the world’s most oppressive and war-ravaged regimes under a new UK-France deal to try to reduce Channel crossings.

In what is being billed as the first time the French government has agreed to target those heading to the UK in small boats, a removal site in Dunkirk will be used to hold people from 10 countries: Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Syria, Vietnam and Yemen. The Home Office said they were the top 10 nationalities who crossed the Channel by small boat last year.

Committee to Protect Journalists says Ahmed Shihab-Eldin was found innocent after 52 days in detention

• Middle East crisis – live updates

A Kuwaiti-American journalist, who had been detained in Kuwait, has been acquitted, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who has previously worked for PBS, HuffPost, the New York Times, the BBC and Al Jazeera, was arrested on 3 March during a brief visit to Kuwait.

Leaders will discuss how to respond to surging energy prices amid the war in the Middle East

• Europe live – latest updates

EU leaders have welcomed the end of diplomatic deadlock over a long-awaited €90bn (£78bn) loan for Ukraine, after the bloc finalised the agreement along with a 20th sanctions package against Russia.

After weeks of delay, the EU signed off on the loan on Thursday, in time for summit talks in Cyprus that are scheduled to begin in the evening and will include talks over a dinner with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Adam Hall, of Tyne and Wear, will serve at least 23 years in prison, with victims describing lasting trauma

A “callous, calculating sexual predator” who raped and deliberately infected young, vulnerable men with HIV has been jailed for life and told he must serve at least 23 years.

Adam Hall, 43, of Washington, Tyne and Wear, is the second man in the UK ever to be found guilty of intentionally setting out to spread the virus.

Figure hits three-year low but Iran war expected to blow hole in Reeves’s fiscal ‘headroom’

• Business live – latest updates

The UK government budget came in below its annual borrowing target by £700m, official figures show – but the Iran war is likely to blow a hole in Rachel Reeves’s carefully calculated fiscal “headroom” over the coming months.

The government borrowed a net total of £132bn for the financial year ending in March, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said. This slightly undershot the £132.7bn that the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) had forecast just last month.

More than 50% of voters at first AGM under new leadership oppose plans to scrap climate reporting

BP’s board has suffered a triple climate rebellion in its first shareholder meeting since appointing new leadership to steer the embattled oil company.

More than 50% of shareholders voting at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) came out against its plans to scrap its existing climate reporting, and its resolution to replace in-person annual shareholder meetings – a lightning rod for climate protest in recent years – with online-only events.

Criminal investigation under way after carcasses found across Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise national park within a week

The carcasses of 18 wolves have been found in an Italian national park within the space of a week in an apparent series of poisonings described by conservationists as the most serious crimes against wildlife in Italy in a decade.

Authorities of the national park of Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise said eight wolves were found dead in recent days in three different areas of the vast park, adding to the 10 carcasses discovered last week. Three dead foxes and a buzzard were also found.

Climate experts and advocates warn House and Senate bills will protect polluters at the cost of the climate

Republican lawmakers are attempting to shield big oil from having to pay for its contributions to the climate crisis, alarming environmental advocates.

New House and Senate bills, led by Harriet Hageman, a Wyoming representative, and Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, respectively, would give oil and gas companies broad legal immunity from policies and lawsuits aimed at holding the industry accountable for damages caused by its emissions.

A series of stunning findings about great apes’ mental capabilities in recent years has transformed how we see our closest relatives

Clear plastic cups and pitchers adorned the wooden table in Des Moines, Iowa. Invisible juice was poured and presented to Kanzi, who enthusiastically chose the fake filled cup, playing along with the man who had come to visit. In many ways, it was the quintessential scene of a children’s imaginary tea party. Only Kanzi, at 44 years old, was a bonobo.

The experiment, carried out at the Ape Initiative facility in 2024, was the first to empirically test and document pretend play in a great ape species, with the results published in the journal Science in February. The study adds to an expansive repertoire of research over the past decade that has uncovered robust similarities between ape and human behaviours, upending long-held beliefs about how we distinguish ourselves from our closest kin.

Cox’s move from teatime slot comes after Mills was sacked over allegations about his personal conduct

Sara Cox will take over as the new host of the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, replacing Scott Mills after his sacking over allegations about his personal conduct.

The announcement comes as the BBC faces pressure to explain who knew what and when in relation to a 2017 police investigation into Mills over allegations of sexual abuse. The corporation has confirmed it was first made aware of the police investigation in 2017. No charges were brought and Mills remained in his job.

Iranian intelligence apparently using intermediaries to sow fear with attacks frequently on Jewish targets

Iranian intelligence services and Revolutionary Guards operatives are recruiting teenagers through criminal intermediaries to launch a wave of low-level “hybrid warfare” attacks in Europe and the UK, according to investigators, security officials, analysts and police documents.

A first wave of attacks was launched in early March, 10 days after the US and Israel began strikes on Iran, and targeted Jewish community sites in Belgium, the Netherlands and US banks. A second wave has focused on the UK, with a series of arson and attempted arson attacks on synagogues, a Jewish charity and the offices of an Iranian opposition TV network in London.

YouGov survey shows cross-party consensus – but that many fear abortion access could be reduced

New polling has found that whatever their party political leanings, an overwhelming majority of people support the right to access an abortion – although young people, in particular, fear reproductive rights may be reduced.

The YouGov polling, commissioned by MSI Reproductive Choices to mark its 50th anniversary, found nine in 10 people support the right to access an abortion.

Family found creature under a bridge and are documenting its recovery in a fish tank on TikTok

An injured axolotl is on the road to recovery after being rescued from a river in Wales. “Dippy” was found under the Dipping Bridge on the River Ogmore near Bridgend, south Wales, by a family who had stopped for a break while travelling on holiday last week.

Evie Hill, 10, lifted up a discarded mat in the shallows of the river, and nestled in the rocks was a 9in (22cm) axolotl, an aquatic salamander native to Mexico. It was pale in colour, with speckles, and had injuries to its tail and stomach believed to have been caused by a predator, the BBC reported.

British foreign secretary told to impose new measures as ruble-pegged cryptocurrency A7A5 is supported in country

More than 20 MPs and peers have called on the foreign secretary to take action against institutions and individuals in Kyrgyzstan allegedly facilitating large-scale Russian sanctions evasion.

They urged the UK to levy personal sanctions against three top Kyrgyz officials for their alleged role in facilitating Russian sanctions evasion more broadly, and more specifically for allowing Kyrgyzstan to host infrastructure supporting the cryptocurrency A7A5.

Marijuana had the same classification as heroin, LSD and others before being reclassified for lower potential for abuse

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The Trump administration has moved to reclassify marijuana, more than four months after Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the attorney general to move it from schedule I to schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act.

The schedule I classification meant marijuana was alongside heroin, LSD, MDMA and synthetic opioids, whereas a schedule III classification put it in the same category as ketamine, anabolic steroids and testosterone.

Fires that spread during drought in Georgia and Florida have blanketed cities hundreds of miles away in smoke

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Wildfires tearing through the south have forced hundreds of Georgia residents to flee in minutes, leaving them distraught about the homes and animals they left behind.

The fires that spread this week during an extreme drought in Georgia and Florida have blanketed cities hundreds of miles away in smoke, leading to more air quality warnings Thursday across the southeast.

At least 18 people hurt after crash involving two local services north of Denmark’s capital

Two trains have collided head-on in Denmark, injuring at least 18 people, five of whom are in a critical condition.

The crash happened on Thursday morning at a level crossing at Isterødvejen, near Hillerød, a town about 19 miles (30km) north-west of Copenhagen. Emergency services received a report of the collision just before 6.30am.

Fuel crisis from Middle East conflict could push carrier into loss as it looks to offset costs with higher fares

• Business live – latest updates

The soaring price of jet fuel will cost American Airlines another $4bn this year, the carrier has said, wiping out forecast profits.

The airline, the world’s largest by passengers flown, said the fuel crisis from the US-Israel war on Iran could push it into losses during 2026, having forecast profits approaching $1.8bn before bombing started.

The merger will still require governmental approval and could be delayed by a lawsuit seeking to block it

Shareholders of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) voted “overwhelmingly” to approve the company’s $110bn merger with Paramount Skydance, the parent company of CBS News, on Thursday.

But shareholders voted against generous proposed compensation packages for WBD executives, including a $550m payout to the outgoing chief executive, David Zaslav.

HMRC is contacting 21-year-olds as part of a new awareness drive around lost child trust funds, with an average balance of £2,200

Rather than demanding money, HMRC is giving it away for once with a new campaign to reunite thousands of young Britons with forgotten savings accounts typically containing £2,200.

HM Revenue and Customs is contacting 21-year-olds as part of a new awareness drive around lost child trust funds (CTF) – the tax-free savings accounts set up for children born between September 2002 and January 2011.

Eurail, which sells passes, says data being ‘offered for sale on dark web’ after December breach affecting 300,000 people

Holidaymakers across Europe are facing the stress and expense of getting new passports after their personal data was posted on the dark web after a hack of the Interrail company Eurail.

Personal data, including passport numbers, names, phone numbers, email and home addresses and dates of birth of more than 300,000 European travellers was accessed in December. But this week Eurail revealed to customers that “data copied during the security incident has been offered for sale on the dark web and a sample dataset has been published on Telegram”.

With their sublime confection of heartbreak and dancefloor power, Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have never sounded like anyone else. Thirty years since Walking Wounded, here’s the duo’s very best

Releasing a version of the Cole Porter standard – previously recorded by Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald – as a debut single should have been an act of hubris. But Everything But the Girl’s (EBTG) version is fantastic, dolefully understated, effectively relocating the song to a grim bedsit in early 80s Britain.

Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac decided to wear earbuds so they could listen to music while acting in Beef – resulting in massive VFX costs. But they’re the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wild onset choices…

Come awards season, you probably wouldn’t think that the second season of Netflix’s Beef would be a contender for many visual-effects gongs. After all, while it is tight, tense and sublimely acted, it is ultimately a small ensemble piece grounded in some form of reality.

But you might be wrong, since it has emerged that VFX artists had to painstakingly paint out earbuds worn by Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan throughout the shoot. On a recent podcast appearance, the show’s creator, Lee Sung Jin, told Isaac and Mulligan that digitally erasing the earwigs, as they are known, “cost a fortune”.

The four-part docuseries Hulk Hogan: Real American shows the almighty rise and bleak fall of a one-time wrestling hero who became closer friends with Donald Trump

It’s an interesting move that Netflix has taken recently, buying the rights to WWE programming while simultaneously commissioning documentaries about how fundamentally flawed its stars are. Nevertheless, after the success of its Vince McMahon series, it was only a matter of time before it made a series about wrestling’s biggest and most complicated star. And now it is here, in the form of Hulk Hogan: Real American.

Few wrestlers have risen quite as high or fallen quite as low as Hogan, born Terry Bollea. For a considerable stretch of time, Hogan was the WWE; a bundle of imminently marketable tricks and quirks that gave him the nod over all the other grunting men in pants who made up the sport.

Boozing, grumpy, brilliant TV private eyes never really went away, but now they’re sleuthing with renewed vigour. Why is the noir detective back with a vengeance – and is it a bad omen?

Lace up your gumshoes! Hard-boiled detectives are back on the scene, fedoras pulled low, cigarettes sparked up. Nicolas Cage is leading the charge in Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, a shadowy spin on Spider-Man that drops in May – available to stream in black-and-white for the diehards. It promises all the hard-edged hallmarks of a good film noir: fast-paced, slangy dialogue, femme fatales, and a heavy-drinking detective at its centre – albeit one with web shooters rather than a snub-nose revolver.

He’s not the only PI in the frame this year. Apple TV is adapting Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir series into a series starring Colin Firth, while a new NBC pilot promises Jake Johnson as a “cynical and heartbroken” sleuth. And Brad Bird’s animated noir, Ray Gunn, is finally hitting Netflix after almost 30 years in development.

Walkie-talkies, teen romance, hideous monsters … this animated series has everything that made the original series so lovable. It might go nowhere, but that’s not such a bad thing

Stranger Things takes us back to simpler times. The original Netflix series plonked us in a fantasy past where kids in small American towns rode bikes, chewed gum, listened to cassettes and played Dungeons and Dragons in their friend’s basement; or, if you weren’t American, it reminded you of movies you’d seen where that was the vibe. Either way, it was access to an era before the internet, 9/11, the banking crash, the pandemic and Trump, when life seemed easier.

The cartoon spin-off Tales from ’85 does something similar for Stranger Things itself. It rewinds to a happy, straightforward time, namely between seasons two and three. In that moment, the world of Hawkins, Indiana had been established, but we were yet to endure the show’s bumpy late period, when it got long and boring, then supersized itself and became breathtakingly spectacular, then lost control of the monster it had created and became both spectacular and boring at the same time.

The country-hopping contestants turn their sights to Tbilisi in Georgia. Plus, a big Robert Lindsay reveal in Big Mood. Here’s what to watch this evening

8pm, BBC One
It’s hotting up in Turkey as the fourth leg begins, and the teams set off for their next checkpoint: Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi. Three teams turn their feet east but one decides to go rogue, heading north to the Black Sea coast via a 14-hour slog of a bus journey. Will it pay off? Lucinda Everett

Royal Festival Hall, London
Suzi Quatro, Mr Lordi and Alison Mosshart joined the Philharmonia in a setlist spanning Wagner and Metallica – with conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali flexing his rock-drummer skills

‘You’re in for a very loud evening,” warned Mark Ball, the Southbank Centre’s artistic director, to whoops of audience approval. True by classical music standards, but I doubt these were decibel levels to write home about for the rock and heavy metal regulars. And yes, this latest programme in Multitudes – the centre’s annual “orchestra-powered” multi-arts extravaganza – attracted a crowd in which band T-shirts, black lipstick and leather mingled with office wear, fleeces and everything in between.

The Philharmonia had swapped white tie and tails for further smatterings of leather jackets and band merch. Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali reappeared after the interval wearing industrial quantities of eyeliner. Among other things, this concert was a reminder of just how spectacular a big orchestra can be. As I heard someone marvel after the first half: “You think, ‘where’s that sound coming from, then?’”

(Mercury)
All but repeating the formula of his breakout album, Kahan seems torn between whether success is sustainable or even repeatable on songs defiantly rooted in small-town life

Last week, Netflix released a feature-length documentary about Noah Kahan called Out of Body. Over its 90 minutes, we learn that the 29-year-old Stick Season singer-songwriter is a worrier – about his weight, his career, his parents – and prefers his home state of Vermont to his new home in Nashville. He is self-deprecating, likable and perhaps not someone you can make a 90-minute documentary about at this stage of their career without recourse to padding.

That someone has tried says a lot about Kahan’s vertiginous rise over the last three years, a firm rebuttal to the idea that the privations of lockdown had changed the face of pop: that listeners were now after glitzy escapism rather than the dressed-down, earnest introspection of the post-Ed Sheeran troubadours this newspaper dubbed “the ordinary boys”. In fact, a new wave of dressed-down introspection was about to become a thing: Myles Smith is playing arenas, Alex Warren’s single Ordinary spent 13 weeks at No 1; Teddy Swims’ I’ve Tried Everything Except Therapy spent more than two years in the UK album chart. And the biggest thing of all is Kahan, who used to introduce himself on stage as “the Jewish Ed Sheeran”, has a thing for the stomp-clap rhythms of Mumford & Sons and stirs a little heartland rock – Springsteen via Sam Fender – into his sound. He was catapulted to success by Stick Season in 2022: a sweet, sad shiver of autumnal wistfulness written from the perspective of someone left behind in their home town when their friends and ex-girlfriend head off to university. It sold 10m copies, the first of eight huge hits from an album of the same name.

Ridout/Ware
(Harmonia Mundi)
Accomplished violist Ridout and pianist Jonathan Ware add bristling imagination and rich emotional layers to music by Franck, Fauré and more

Friends and colleagues working side by side in the musical melting pot of fin-de-siecle Paris form the connective tissue in this attractive and smartly curated programme by violist Timothy Ridout and pianist Jonathan Ware.

They open with Léon Honnoré’s engaging Morceau de concert, premiered in 1904 by viola pupils at the Paris Conservatoire where, remarkably, the instrument had only been admitted to the curriculum 10 years earlier. Criticised at the time for requiring the violist to play harmonics – supposedly the exclusive purview of the violin – itemerges here as a zesty showpiece with a melodic heart and more than a hint of Beethoven. It pairs nicely with Henri Büsser’s moody C-sharp minor Appassionato, dispatched with a stormy flourish by Ridout whose playing throughout bristles with imagination.

The British composer is once again missing from the Proms schedule – that’s our loss. Instead, here’s my pick of the brand new music you can catch at the summer festival

There may currently be no less fashionable music than the hyper-romantic symphonies and orchestral works of Arnold Bax. The British composer’s music featured in pretty well every Proms season throughout the 1930s and 40s and early 50s, yet he has been the rarest of visitors to the Royal Albert Hall since then. When was the last Bax symphony heard at the Proms, you ask? 2011! Far too long for a fan like me (and Ken Russell), and – well, perhaps not long enough for others.

Bax was born in 1883 in London to a family so wealthy that he was able to devote himself to the single-minded pursuit of his passions. He was a brilliant pianist and, as a composer, he could transform his creative and personal obsessions into every bar of his music. That meant the exoticism of Russia in his early years and, later, the romance and fantasy of the Celtic Twilight (Bax even assumed a pseudonym, Dermot O’Byrne, to write Irish-inspired poetry), and the landscapes of north-west Scotland. His romantic infatuations were just as intense and colourful.

Dual timelines reveal the real reason a mother was forced to leave her daughter in the 80s, in this Nero prize-winning novel inspired by real-life events

The debut novel by Claire Lynch, which won the Nero Gold prize for fiction last month, unfolds across two timelines as it tells of family secrets and a bitter divorce. The first is set in 2022, when Heron, an older man, gets a terminal cancer diagnosis. He seems to be coping well until he climbs into a freezer at his local supermarket and has to be coaxed out by staff. Heron likes his routine and prefers to keep to himself. But he is also a practical man and so he enlists his only daughter, Maggie, to help him go through his house and sort out any paperwork.

Maggie is close to her dad who raised her alone after her mother, Dawn, deserted the family – or so Maggie has been told. But while sifting through Heron’s papers, she learns the real reason for her mother’s estrangement. The second timeline unfolds in 1982, when young mum Dawn falls in love with a schoolteacher named Hazel. Family court judges took a dim view of homosexuality in the 1980s, working under the belief that children would be damaged by being raised by same-sex parents. And so a devastated Dawn is separated from three-year-old Maggie as Heron is given full custody after their divorce.

From utilities to care homes, how capital’s most rapacious form yet is taking over the public realm

This is a dark tale. In its opening scene the author is in conversation with a textile artist in her workshop under the arches in Deptford – arguably one of the last neighbourhoods that credibly sustains London’s claim to be a city that supports creativity. Guardian journalist Hettie O’Brien listens to her talk about rising rents as the railway’s lands are sold to new, invisible owners. The arches have become assets to be traded, and as a result the artist will soon be forced to ply her own trade elsewhere. Behind this story, and many others, lies the hand of private equity. The vast profits reaped by investors, and the toll on society, are all described here in lucid and highly readable prose.

Private equity partnerships are groups of individual and institutional investors with deep pockets. O’Brien traces their rise following the era of deregulation inaugurated by Reagan and Thatcher, and details how Blackstone, the Qatar Investment Authority, Macquarie, KKR and others have bought undervalued assets using borrowed money to minimise their exposure to risk. What happens next is that costs, wages and investment in the future are frequently cut to the bone in the cause of exceptionally high returns.

Looking for a new reading recommendation? Here are some great new paperbacks, from Booker-listed novels to reportage from Ukraine

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A tender but unflinching account of Peter Hujar and Paul Thek, forgotten stars of the 1960s scene

Andy Warhol sent Paul a Brillo box. Fran Lebowitz called Peter “a genius about sex”. The ending of Susan Sontag’s second novel was inspired by a bunch of Peter’s photographs. Sontag dedicated two books to Paul, and went to bed with him. The two men’s long list of admirers in the second half of the 20th century included Cy Twombly, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal and Alex Katz. The question, then, as with any once celebrated artist largely ignored by the history books – who were they, and what happened?

In this intimate and vibrant double biography, the author and critic Andrew Durbin reveals how the painter and sculptor Paul Thek and the photographer Peter Hujar slipped from the centre of the New York creative scene to obscurity. It begins in 1954 (a few years before they met as soul-searching twentysomethings) and ends in 1975 (a decade before they died of Aids). It tells the story of friends and lovers who, together, matured as artists and men; exceptionally talented, charming, sometimes cruel. They pushed the possibilities of what a gay relationship looked like – “open, and unapologetic” – and helped to define the New York art scene’s “cool”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I initially dismissed the Wind Waker’s cartoonish visuals as juvenile. But now I try to carry the game’s sense of joy into all aspects of my life

I had a complicated relationship with video games when I was a teenager. I had straightforwardly, wholeheartedly loved the Nintendo games that I’d grown up with, tumbling around primary-coloured dreamscapes in Super Mario 64 and having the time of my life. But as I grew into a pretentious young adult in the early 00s, I started to want more from games, and I wasn’t finding it. So many of them were mindless, or juvenile, or needlessly violent. So few seemed to have anything to say. I started to wonder whether games might really be a waste of time, like the judgy adults in my life kept telling me.

My response to this was to relentlessly intellectualise the games I played, in order to justify the time and attention I was expending on them. I mainlined highbrow gaming magazines and wrote grandiose blogs about serious adult themes in Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid and the ancient Fallout computer games. My childhood love of Nintendo, with its bright hues and unselfconscious approach to play, felt embarrassing. Then I switched on The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, and had a realisation about the nature and importance of play that would shape my life.

Role-playing adventure and superhero comedy among big winners on a varied night in London

With 12 nominations, acclaimed role-playing adventure Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was expected to be the runaway success at the 2026 Bafta games awards, held in London on Friday evening.

And while it couldn’t quite match its nine wins at the Game Awards back in December, it was still the joint biggest winner on the night, taking best game and debut game as well as the performer in a leading role award for Jennifer English.

Jermyn Street theatre, London
Deft production follows six friends as they morph from truth-blurting children into weary midlifers in effortless and capable performances

Read Virginia Woolf’s experimental 1931 novel, The Waves, and the challenges of stage adaptation hit you like thundering surf. There’s its form: a patchwork of six friends’ highly lyrical inner monologues spanning childhood to middle age (no helpful dialogue or action in sight); a linchpin character – seventh friend, Percival – who doesn’t speak at all; and the small matter of replicating Woolf’s near-perfect expression of the human experience. But this deft production rises to meet them all.

Flora Wilson Brown’s adaptation appoints Rhoda (Ria Zmitrowicz) – an anxious introvert who feels forever on the outside of life – as chief narrator, using her lens to focus the group’s disparate voices. Zmitrowicz is more than up to it, bringing sensitive introspection and wry observation amid the chattering rush of parties and babies and loss.

Woolf’s most beautiful and revealing lines are woven into a naturalistic script that is by turns relatable, moving and extremely funny. “How can people bump into me on the tube […] and they don’t seem to know?” asks a grieving Susan. Meanwhile, the boys’ discovery of masturbation makes it “quite impossible to sleep” because “it is brilliant”. Crucially, the script introduces dialogue, letting the group’s decades-long connection grow before our eyes.

Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
With dizzying surround sound and thousands of LED baubles, this was a synaesthetic feast from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment

There was birdsong in the Queen Elizabeth Hall foyer. In the hall itself, hanging from the ceiling, were ropes and ropes displaying many thousands of walnut-sized LEDs, lined in huge blocks above the heads of the players and front half of the audience, promising to light the place up as if it were Harrods in December. This was Echoes of Hill and Horizon, an unlikely and delightful coming together of technology and English pastoral music at this year’s Multitudes festival.

Just over an hour of Vaughan Williams, Warlock and Elgar was played by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – who don’t usually play this stuff, but who drew on their experience in the earlier music that inspired it. Their agile playing, at once lean and sonorous, was filtered through the dozens of speakers that make up the QEH’s hidden surround-sound system, which occasionally blunted the orchestral blend but allowed for intriguing spatial effects or cathedral-like reverb.

Art festivals can fill abandoned buildings with new life – or clear a path for property developers. Coimbra’s Anozero is trying out a more confrontational approach

If you decide to spend a night at Coimbra’s Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Nova in the near future, do bear in mind that the place is almost certainly haunted. Disembodied children’s voices echo around the first floor of the 17th century convent perched atop a hill in the Portuguese university city, overlooking the medieval centre from across the Mondego river.

In the garages, dry foliage has been arranged in geometric shapes, as if in preparation for a wicca ritual. You need the nerves of a ghost-hunter to walk through the pitch-black ground-floor corridor of the dormitory wing, lit only by a neon strip at either end, where tortured wails ambush you from the monkish cells. Sung in Albanian, Chinese, Kurdish, Kyrgyz and Turkish, these laments are part of an installation by US artist Taryn Simon, but they feel like spectral reminders of the nuns who lived in these quarters for two centuries.

While the population of southern Lebanon have sometimes felt abandoned by their own state, a show in London told their stories and celebrated their resistance

In one room of London’s Palestine House, a large screen plays looped news footage from southern Lebanon. Tanks and armoured vehicles plough their way through a rural landscape of hills and villages, amid frequent interruptions of mortar fire. As a person turns away from the screen, she says that “it’s like watching the news now”.

For all its similarities to current events, the archival video actually dates from 2000 – the year of Israel’s withdrawal from the region, following an 18-year-long military occupation. Another corner of the room plays host to broadsheet pages from newspapers of the time, including a front-page report from the Guardian’s then Middle East correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg.

Renowned artist, who won 12 Grammys, died at home after being diagnosed with an aggressive type of brain cancer

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Michael Tilson Thomas, a leading American conductor for a half-century who headed orchestras in Buffalo, Miami, London and San Francisco while also composing, died on Wednesday. He was 81.

Tilson Thomas had surgery for a brain tumor in 2021 and resumed his career, then said in February 2025 that the tumor had returned. He conducted his final concert with the San Francisco Symphony in April 2025 and died at his home in San Francisco, spokesperson Connie Shuman said.

In the remote village of Ottuk, men protect their precious sheep by heading into the mountains. Luke Oppenheimer went to photograph them … and stayed for four years

Ex-Spice Girl Sporty is ready to take your questions on everything from her Wannabe days to DJing, triathlons and her ninth solo album, Sweat

Some former girl- and boyband stars spend a lifetime trying to escape the image that made them famous. Not Melanie C. Since the Spice Girls debuted 30 years ago this summer (What’s that sound? Oh, it’s just the unadulterated violence of mortality) she has never shied away from her past as Sporty Spice. Her ninth album, Sweat, leans firmly into it. Led by its gauntlet-throwing title track, these are work-bitch bangers for the gym, the dancefloor – inspired by her pre-Spice raving youth – and quite possibly the bedroom, sung by a triathlon fiend who forged a reputation as a world-renowned DJ.

You can ask Melanie about her solo career – she’s the only Spice Girl still making music – or anything else when she sits for the Guardian’s reader interview. Perhaps her new love of the intensive competitive workout Hyrox, what the departure of Mo Salah means for her beloved Liverpool FC, why 90s nostalgia has taken over social media, whether tabloid culture is any less cruel than it used to be or how it can possibly be three decades since Wannabe changed the world.

The play about Mozart’s jealous rival – a co-production with the Welsh National Theatre set up by the actor last year – will open in Cardiff before a 16-week run in London’s West End

Michael Sheen will return to the West End to star in a revival of Peter Shaffer’s award-winning Amadeus, opposite Callum Scott Howells as Mozart.

Directed by Jeremy Herrin, the production will open at New Theatre Cardiff in March 2027, before transferring to the Noël Coward Theatre in London for a 16-week run in April. It marks the first major comeback of Shaffer’s play in over a decade.

In her new book, New York Times investigative journalist Jodi Kantor has set her mind to helping young people find their life’s work. What should they, or anyone else who feels lost and overwhelmed right now, do to get started?

Early last year, the investigative journalist Jodi Kantor was asked to give the commencement address to students at Columbia University in New York. The place was in chaos – amid continuing pro-Palestinian protests students were expelled, or arrested and detained by immigration officials, while President Trump had ordered a $400m withdrawal of federal funding (which was later reinstated as part of a settlement with the administration). Kantor was “horrified” to see what had happened at Columbia – her alma mater, where she was sacked from her first journalism job at the student paper– “a place and campus I loved, a place that stands for discussion and ideas and progress. I said: ‘I’ll do it if I can speak to the students first.’”

She spoke to several. They didn’t want to talk about Israel or Gaza, or Trump, or what was happening at the university and its implications for free speech. “They said: ‘Our class, despite all of its political differences, is united in anxiety over one question. When everything feels so broken, how do we start? How do we find our life’s work in this environment?’”

The fitness chain Better has replaced real musicians’ tracks with cover versions, causing dismay among punters and instructors who say the change is killing the energy

“I want you to make me feel like I’m the only girl in the world.” The voice sounds like Rihanna, but it is thinner and less emotive, and the original song’s groove bassline has been replaced by a generic backbeat.

This is a cover song produced by the Power Music app. Some gym-goers will never hear the real Rihanna, or any other well-known artist, again, because GLL – the social enterprise that owns and operates Better and its 250 leisure centres across England, Wales and Northern Ireland – decided to cancel its music licence and instead play royalty-free songs from the Power Music app from 1 March.

Inspired by David Attenborough’s Secret Garden? Try these easy, enjoyable tips to turn your outdoor space into a sanctuary for wildlife

• Gardening pros on the tools they can’t live without

It’s happening: spring’s stretching and greenness, vibrant and achingly alive. But the last thing your garden needs is to be tidied up in a rush, for soil to be cleared of debris, for rotten, grey, dead and dying bits to be whisked away. For it’s these bits that hold all the life.

So many small things – overwinter insects, larvae, pupae and eggs – are still sleeping or waiting for just a few more warmer days. In our attempt to spruce things up, we often whisk away their homes in hollow stems and under layers of autumn leaves, and then wonder where the birds have gone.

Whether you want cordless designs or a budget buy, we’ve tested the top hair straighteners for every hair type

• The best hair dryers, tested

Straighteners are here to stay – but thankfully, heat styling has come a long way since GHD’s first ceramic straighteners ushered in an era of poker-straight hair in 2001. Today’s models feature adjustable heat settings and protective technology for hairstyling with minimal damage.

The looks you can achieve with a straightener have become more versatile as well: one twist of a modern, curved-edge straightener can create styles from ultra-smooth strands to structured ringlets and soft, beachy waves. There’s a wide range of styling possibilities with just one tool.

Best hair straighteners overall:
GHD Chronos Max

Best budget hair straighteners:
Remington Shine Therapy S8500

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food and the basic they scrimp on? The designer talks feminist prints, wine gums and full-fat Coke with the Filter

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Anya Hindmarch founded her eponymous luxury accessories business in London in 1987, and she now has 15 stores worldwide. Her I’m Not A Plastic Bag and I Am A Plastic Bag projects ignited the debate over the use of plastic bags and contributed to the decision to charge for plastic bags in UK supermarkets. In 2021, her brand launched the Universal Bag, a collaboration with supermarkets to rethink the reusable shopping bag, and Return to Nature, a collection of bags that are intended to biodegrade at the end of their useful life.

Hindmarch opened the Village on Pont Street in London’s Chelsea in 2021, a community of neighbouring stores clustered around the Anya Cafe. That same year, Anya published her first book, the Sunday Times bestseller If In Doubt, Wash Your Hair.

Our writer has found a meal kit for every home cook, along with smart ways to make the most of leftovers. Plus, how to clean your mattress and vitamin C serums, tested

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Can I interest you in 23 sachets of soy sauce and half a kilo of golden linseed? If not, they’ll probably live quite happily in the back of my cupboard until a clear-out in 2032. The glut of organic potatoes, tomatoes, beetroot and aubergines I was left holding after my test to find the best recipe boxes and meal kits had a more limited shelf life.

Reduced waste is one of the top benefits of recipe box services, especially those that deliver only the exact measures of ingredients you need for the recipes you choose. But I tested nine of these services at once – including some that attempted to curry favour by sending me multiple boxes containing multiple recipes.

The best wedding guest dresses for every budget and dress code

The best rums: 10 tasty tipples for daiquiris, mai tais and mojitos – tested

‘Perfectly textured – moist, fluffy’: the best supermarket falafel, tasted and rated

Ready, set, ride! Everything you need to cycle with kids

The best secateurs to save you time and effort when pruning your garden, tested

The best hot brushes for a salon finish at home, tried and tested by our expert

The best vitamin C serums for every skin type and budget, tested

The best juicers for blitzing fruit and veg – tested

Nearly every European country has its own fruit brandy. Some are a bit agricultural so here’s a taste of the best

“I’ve had people burst into tears tasting these – it takes them straight back to a moment in their past.” I have come to visit Barney Wilczak, an unusually soulful spirits producer, at Capreolus Distillery near Cirencester. We are surrounded by stainless-steel vats of his eau-de-vie, the clear, fragrant brandy that he distills from apples, gooseberries, cherries, pears, plums, raspberries, grapes, quince and various other fruits grown within a 35-mile radius of this sunny English hilltop.

I say “distillery”, which might make you imagine something vaguely industrial, but we are in fact in his dad’s garage, while the still itself is in the shed. But the liquids? My goodness. Each 60-litre container represents around 4,000kg of fruit, all picked within a day of ripeness, wild-fermented over months into fruit wine, then triple-distilled to exacting specifications that vary fruit by fruit and batch by batch. Obsessive doesn’t cover it. When Wilczak made his first batch of raspberry eau-de-vie, he reckons he hand-graded 2m raspberries, rejecting any with even the slightest imperfection.

This soft, whey‑born staple slips effortlessly from savoury suppers to indulgent celebratory desserts while keeping its cool, milky charm

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My record for making ricotta and lemon ring cake is three minutes and 42 seconds. That doesn’t include heating the oven or baking, or finding a recipe, which is in my head. It does include getting out the utensils (bowl, spatula, grater, scale, ring tin) and the ingredients (ricotta, olive oil, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, lemons), then speed-mixing everything in one bowl, scraping the batter into the tin and getting the tin in the oven via a discus throw. The timer is stopped as the oven door is closed. This is not relaxing cooking, it is entertaining cooking. And it is gratifying, having proved my partner wrong when he said it would take me at least five minutes.

I was disappointed, then, to find myself on terrible form the other day, when a chocolate-chip version of the same ring cake took me five minutes and 19 seconds. In my defence, I had difficulty getting the glass bowl out of an impractical stack, and we had run out of chocolate chips, which meant I had to find a knife and chop up a bar instead. Even so, it was an absymal performance. There was some consolation in the cake itself, which is not only the quickest, but one of the best cakes I know. The ricotta adds creamy depth and the olive oil provides fat, and together they make for a tender, moist, everyday cake that is best eaten warm, when the bits of chocolate are still hot enough to be little pools.

Some desserts never go out of fashion – even medieval ones – and, with its nutty, spiced almond and dried fruit filling, this treacle tart-alike is one of them

It wasn’t that dessert trolleys were banned in Italy during Covid, but guidelines from the Instituto Superiore di Sanità (national institute of health) were so (necessarily) rigorous around these “potential vehicles of the virus” that most places banished them to storerooms. Happily, many restaurants have since retrieved them from their long stay, so they glide or rattle between tables once more, or sit parked in an admirable position. This isn’t my first time mentioning the dessert trolley at La Torricella here in Testaccio, having written about its fabulous puff pastry and cream millefoglie in the past. But another dessert that might catch your eye as you enter the restaurant and look right at the cloth-covered trolley parked under the bar is what owner Augusto refers to as torta medievale, because of its spiced almond and dried fruit filling. It’s an unassuming but extremely good thing.

The torta medievale also reminds me of a favourite among favourites: treacle tart, which is, of course, made with golden syrup, whose story began in 1881 when the Scottish businessman Abram Lyle set up a sugar refinery in London. The process involved extracting juice from sugar cane, then boiling down this juice and moulding it into sugar loaves, which could then be grated as required. One of the byproducts of this process was a bitter, molasses-brown treacle, which was initially sold as animal feed, but later, thanks to the work of the chemist, further refined into a viscous, sweet syrup nicknamed “Goldie”, which was stored in barrels and distributed to staff and friends. Over time, though, seeing its popularity, the partially inverted refined syrup was given the name golden syrup and packaged in tins that remain so familiar: dark green with a dead gold lion swarmed by bees. It’s an image from Samson’s Riddle in the book of Judges, in which Samson, returning to the lion he has killed, finds that bees have created a honeycomb in the carcass, which also gives rise to the words on the tin, “out of the strong came forth sweetness”, and reminds one of Lyle’s strong faith.

A blue cheese rind can be a bit funky even for cheese aficionados, but its intensity works wonders in a clever salad dressing

On a single crumb of cheese rind there are more than 10 billion microbes: that’s more microbial cells than there are people on Earth. Cheese rind is an intensified expression of the cheese, with a powerful flavour and highly concentrated community of good bacteria, yeast and mould. But it is misunderstood and underrated, and often removed and discarded. Though it can be intense, it’s almost always edible, unless it’s grown new mould or contains synthetic plastic, wax or cloth, which should be removed.

Like an apple or slice of bread, the skin, crust or rind add texture, flavour and nutrients to the eating experience. Sometimes, even I can’t stomach a really strong rind though, and another approach is necessary – like my blue cheese rind vinaigrette, where that pungent rind comes into its own, flavouring the dressing beautifully without overpowering it.

You can’t infer people never liked you because they haven’t reached out, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. The question is whether you can tolerate this asymmetry

• Read more Leading questions

I’m a 43–year-old man. Well-educated, with a healthy social skill level. I’ve always been surrounded by friends. Always invited to parties and events, both happy and sad, without effort on my part. Last year I moved from the city to a country farm and I came to the realisation that I had been the one maintaining contact. I was the one initiating every time, and when I stopped, they all went away. We’re not talking just one friend either. I’m talking full-on loss of an entire social circle.

It’s been a rough year, socially and emotionally speaking. My partner has borne the brunt of it, being my only contact and social outlet. I just don’t understand it. If I had been an atrocious person then people wouldn’t have interacted with me like they did, seemingly voluntarily and happily. I was invited to every wedding, engagement, birthday, hiking trip, you name it. I was made to feel welcome and wanted. As long as, it turns out, I was the one sending the first message, making the first call.

Steven uses a mousse to prevent his hair thinning, but Mabel thinks it’s risky for their cat and dog. Whose argument contains a strand of truth?

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

The mousse he uses puts our animals at risk. I would like him to switch treatments

I’m really careful with the cream and always keep it away from our pets. Plus, it works

Experts share why you might sleep better with that special someone and how couples can find healthy sleep dynamics

• Tell us: do you use AI for fitness?

I don’t live with my partner, but when we sleep in the same bed, I doze off almost instantly. When I’m alone in my own bed, I toss and turn throughout the night.

Between talk of “sleep divorces” being key to a healthy relationship and boyfriends being embarrassing, it’s been hard to admit that I sleep much better with my partner.

Globally, the number of single people is on the rise. Rates of marriage and cohabitation are on the decline, and in some countries, even sex itself is down. In this new series we're on a journey around the world to find out why people seem to be coupling up less, and what could be causing this dating crisis. In this episode, we’re in the UK

Kaf Okpattah reveals the language used by scammers, from ‘squares’ to ‘clicking’ and ‘mule herder’

Kaf Okpattah can speak the language of scammers. “Squares is one word which comes up a lot. That’s bank cards,” he says. “Fullz … that’s a person’s full financial information.”

In his new book, Scam Nation, he goes through more. “Clicking”, which means using stolen details to commit online crime; “addy”, which is used for the shipping address for fraudulently bought gear; and “mule herder”, meaning someone who recruits and manages people accepting stolen funds. Many of these are words he learned at school, he says.

Government has shaken up the way electricity is priced as British costs are among the highest in the world

• Electricity generators threatened with higher windfall taxes in bid to ensure stable prices

The second global energy crisis of this decade has reignited questions about Britain’s grid strategy, specifically: why does it continue to have one of the most expensive electricity markets in the world?

Despite the growing role of domestically generated renewable power, electricity wholesale prices in the UK have more than doubled since the war in Iran triggered a global squeeze on seaborne gas shipments from the Gulf.

Fraudsters are using the promise of fake roles to trick job-seekers out of money, personal information or both, and with the help of AI they are more convincing than ever. But there are ways to spot them

There were clues from the start that it was too good to be true. A headhunter emailed me with a job prospect – a journalist role with “a leading US technology and markets editorial team”. The opportunity, she said, was part of a confidential expansion and hadn’t been publicly posted.

My spidey-sense was tingling, but the timing was auspicious. I was on the lookout for new work as my maternity leave was coming to an end. Initially, the email seemed legitimate. When I Googled the sender, I found a headhunter with the same name and profile picture on LinkedIn, and the message was clearly tailored to me: It referenced several roles I’d previously held and identified my specific areas of expertise. “Your focus on the real-world impacts of AI, digital culture and the gig economy aligns perfectly with an internal, high-priority mandate I’m managing,” the headhunter wrote.

I was forced to lose all the £609 I had paid, although Booking.com couldn’t contact our host, either

A friend and I paid Booking.com for an apartment in Paris. The next day we received an email informing us our “request” had not been confirmed and advising us to contact the owner.

Our many attempts failed, and so did Booking.com’s. A call centre manager suggested we travel to Paris, knock on the door and contact Booking.com if nobody answered. Otherwise we would not get our booking refunded.

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

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

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

Knowing the difference between hunger and appetite, and understanding the sensory cues behind them, can help us make better decisions about what we eat

Imagine you’re in a meeting room when someone brings out the biscuits – a packet of Jammie Dodgers, perhaps, or a nice little plate of custard creams. Maybe you want one and maybe you don’t, but the chances are the people around you are all responding differently: someone will grab a couple straight away, someone else will eat one without seeming to notice, another will barely be aware the biscuits exist, and someone will spend the whole meeting wanting one but not taking it. Our appetites and responses to food vary wildly – but what’s going on behind the scenes to govern them? And has modern food somehow hijacked the process? Grab a biscuit (or don’t) and settle in.

“First, it’s important to distinguish between hunger and appetite,” says Giles Yeo, a professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and the author of Why Calories Don’t Count. “Hunger is a feeling – it’s what happens in the run-up to you deciding you need to eat something. Appetite is everything that surrounds why we eat – including hunger, fullness and reward, or how you actually feel when you eat. Those three sensations all use completely different parts of the brain, but they all work together.”

Invoking a night imp might be ludicrous, but the superstitious and the sacred are often the same thing

• Sharing the load is a column about parenting children of all ages

I held my daughter up to better see the passing parade. She was still small enough to lift high with my hands and I watched her reaction from below, her joy, growing in the morning light. The colour and noise moved past. “You’re missing it,” I heard someone say. But I had never seen something as beautiful as that; it seemed perfect, her smile looking down at me.

My daughter appeared above me again the following morning, though something had changed. Her mouth, blood-streaked, opened to reveal a gap. She had lost her first tooth. We celebrated but I felt something else as well; it all changes from here. I wondered if it was grief.

Size does matter – as does diet – but your genes are the main driver of your cholesterol levels

Cholesterol, a fatty substance mostly made by the liver and used by the body to build cells and produce hormones, has become a heart-health bogeyman. There are several types, but high levels of LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Often labelled “bad” cholesterol, LDL builds up over time on artery walls, narrowing them and restricting blood flow.

High LDL cholesterol is not confined to people who are overweight. “Genetics are the main driver of higher LDL cholesterol levels,” says Naveed Sattar, professor of cardiometabolic medicine at the University of Glasgow. “Diets have smaller effects and it’s not necessarily the total calories that count; it’s the amount of saturated fat.” (Found in cakes, biscuits, chocolate and many ultra-processed foods, saturated fat can raise LDL levels.) All of this means someone relatively lean can still have high cholesterol, either because of their genetic profile or dietary pattern.

Light as a feather and bouncy as a marshmallow, cushioned shoes have gone from marathons to daily commutes

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Floaty foam-based footwear has been spotted on celebrities for years, from Aubrey Plaza in Hokas and Harry Styles in New Balance to Zendaya’s ongoing deal with On running shoes.

A desire for “practical functionality” has driven technical sportswear to street pavements, says streetwear reporter Lei Takanashi from the Business of Fashion in New York.

Being hairless on top has never been in style, but r/bald members encourage one another in the face of insecurity

I was sitting in a cafe a few weeks ago when I overheard a rare bit of sunny talk about advances in medicine and technology when a woman said: “Nobody will be bald in the future.” The way she said it made me think of people in the 1950s imagining the 21st century as a world with flying cars, sassy robot maids and no wars; a world where everybody has hair on their heads is possible.

Bald has never exactly been in style, but these days, it feels like going bald is tougher than ever. It can feel lonely watching all those clumps fall out when you’re in the shower. Yes, there have been plenty of advances in hair restoration, and treatments have been proven to help some people avoid getting to the point where they need a doctor to surgically redistribute the follicles from the back to the front of their heads. But it won’t work for everybody, and people will still lose their hair as long as genetics and hormones have a say.

Thanks to Claudia Winkleman, leggings are now a sleek option if paired with a proper shoe and a smart top

Wait, what? Leggings are back? I seem to remember I confidently killed them off about 10 minutes ago. Sorry about that. Turns out that the global fashion industry is no match for the colossus of modern culture that is Claudia Winkleman. Queen Claudia made black leggings – usually paired with a fancy blouse, or a delicious peacoat, or a sharp thigh-grazing blazer – her Traitors uniform, and now everyone wants to wear them again.

To be clear, the comeback of leggings is not about what you wear to the gym. Fitness wear is still steering towards looser fits. Think yoga pants instead of leggings, waisted running shorts instead of cycling ones. Leggings are back, but as a sleek day-to-night option, to be worn with a proper shoe and a smart top.

Ex-Mattel boss behind Barbiemania pivots retailer towards more premium fashion after reopening UK stores

From the 80s through to the early noughties it was the go-to high street store for casual hoodies and jeans, before falling out of favour. Now almost 30 years after its heyday, Gap is hoping to turn things around. Key to its comeback strategy? A pivot to more premium fashion.

On Friday the retailer will unveil a collection with the luxury fashion designer Victoria Beckham. The collaboration is the next step in the luxification of Gap being led by Richard Dickson, who joined Gap Inc as its president and chief executive from Mattel, the US toymaker, in 2023.

In the 1980s ‘the Antwerp Six’ put Flanders on the fashion map. Now a major new exhibition celebrates the designers’ legacy and provides the perfect excuse to visit Belgium’s vibrant second city

You know you’re in a city that takes its fashion seriously when even the Virgin Mary is dressed head to toe in couture. A short walk from Antwerp’s old town, with its ornate medieval guild houses and cobblestone streets, is the baroque church of St Andrews. Like many of the city’s Catholic churches, it has beautiful stained glass windows, an exuberantly carved wooden pulpit and more artworks by Flemish masters than you can shake an incense stick at. But we’re here to pay homage to an art form of a different kind.

In a quiet chapel, an elegant 16th-century wooden statue of the Madonna is clothed not in her usual blue cloak, but a dress of pale gauzy fabric, trimmed with a collar of white pigeon feathers, custom made by renowned Belgian fashion designer Ann Demeulemeester. It’s a bold statement but one that’s entirely in-keeping with a city where a love of fashion seems woven into the fabric of everyday life.

To mark the anniversary there are dozens of events planned around Ashdown Forest (aka the Hundred Acre Wood) – and, of course, playing Pooh Sticks is always a good idea

Deep in a medieval hunting forest, amid 6,500 acres of heathland, a wooden bridge spans a tributary of the River Medway. Every single day, no matter the weather, people flock to stand on its slats and cheer on sticks as they float downstream.

I know this because on a frosty but sunny morning, (“a very long time ago now, about last Friday”, as children’s author AA Milne might have said), I stood with two such adults jumping up and down with delight as my little piece of oak stormed ahead and won the race.

Tucked away in a remote valley, these cosy off-grid cabins come with a wild-swimming pond, loads of wildlife and a farm where kids can run free

Holidaying as a single parent is a tricky balance. You want to ringfence the kind of extended one-on-one time that can be difficult to find during term time; but too much of that and you know you’ll drive each other a little crazy. Kids need other kids, and you could do with some adult company too. You also need a break. It’s a nice idea to pack the car with camping gear and head out into the wilderness, but it can be a lot of work – and you end up in a field, attempting to put up a tent, alone.

Friends of mine have suggested holiday parks, some of them with bars and restaurants and a daily schedule of kids’ activities. That all sounds a bit overstimulating. I’d been dreaming about sinking into a quiet landscape. But would there be enough to do?

The Highlands and Islands are rightly lauded for their superb seafood – but these days it’s not reserved for fine dining and can be found at the simplest waterside shacks and inns

The best oysters of my life arrive on a polystyrene tray, eaten elbow-to-elbow with strangers at a table littered with empty shells and damp paper napkins. We huddle beneath a tarpaulin, sheltering from the fine spray of rain rattling on the roof, the wind whipping around the hulking CalMac ferry moored metres away, and the beady-eyed scavenging gulls.

“Have you tried this? You have to,” says a woman who has driven from Glasgow just to eat here, pressing a rollmop herring into my hand. I take a bite, the thick skin giving way to sweet and salty flesh, juices running down my chin. Elegant dining this is not, but all the better for it. This is Oban Seafood Hut, tucked beside the ferry terminal for boats heading into the Sound of Mull. Diners shuffle around a shared table, listening for order numbers, with plates piled high with langoustines, crab and oysters. It’s cash only. In the back room, a team of women butter thick slices of soft white bread for crab sandwiches, wrapping them in clingfilm without ceremony, to be sold within minutes.

The Marches, Shropshire: Recently I had wondered how long this great lime would stay standing. The next day, I had my answer

How quickly something that defines a landscape for centuries becomes the absence that redefines it – so it is with ancient trees. The trunk snapped like a carrot at the roots and crashed, its bony branches splintered. Now it lies like a shipwreck stranded in an open field, its hulk of twigs an animal pelt stilled.

A day before, looking at its 300-year-old architecture of mostly dead wood yet so vividly alive, admiring its form and persistence through years and trouble, standing alone with spring coursing through the land and its timbers, I wondered how long, in tree time, it had left.

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

It is time for the Thursday news quiz, where you must cling on to knowledge with both hands – even if, thanks to our quirky illustration by Anaïs Mims, they seem to have curled themselves into question marks. Like our primate friend above, you may find yourself swinging wildly between certainty and guesswork. Fifteen questions on the week’s news and culture await. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy hearing how you got on in the comments. Allons-y!

The Thursday news quiz, No 244

Isn’t running 26.2 miles difficult enough? Not for some. Whether it’s dressing up as a helicopter, a lobster or a pair of testicles, wearing a novelty outfit spurs many competitors on

Delusion. That’s the crucial prerequisite for running a marathon in fancy dress, according to the ultramarathon competitor and cancer survivor Jonathan Acott, who is attempting the fastest marathon dressed in a clanking suit of armour.

So that’s what it was when I decided to run this year’s London Marathon dressed as a badger. I’ve run a marathon once before, 19 years ago. I hated the suffering. I injured myself. And now I’m 51. Why was this a good idea?

A survey of US adults reveals many of them think they have extraordinary powers of intuition – especially those in younger age groups

Name: The psychic generation.

Age: You tell me.

Skincare videos are featuring children as young as two, Guardian analysis finds, prompting fears about the industry’s reach and lack of safeguards

• ‘An element of exploitation’: the world of TikTok child skincare influencers

Children as young as two are appearing in TikTok videos demonstrating their skincare routines, a Guardian investigation has found, raising concerns about the beauty industry’s reach and the lack of safeguards for child influencers.

The research found that 400 TikTok videos out of the 7,600 skincare-related posts analysed featured routines or advice presented by children believed to be under 13. At least 90 of these posts featured under-fives, including babies and toddlers.

Unwanted vessels left to decay release fibreglass shards into the water, harming marine life. Steve Green – with his trusty van Cecil – is determined to clean things up

Steve Green, a boat engineer from Cornwall, was pulled over by the police just before Christmas. He was driving a decrepit-looking VW campervan and towing an even more dilapidated yacht up to Truro. He hadn’t broken any laws, but he admits that Cecil the campervan, which runs on donated chip oil from local pubs and has a crane and a winch on the front, “wasn’t quite what VW intended”.

Green (and Cecil) are on a mission to rid the beautiful hidden creeks of Cornwall’s Helford and Fal rivers of 166 abandoned fibreglass yachts, which are leaking plastic and toxins into the predominantly marine waters. Marine biologists have likened the thousands of shards of fibreglass they have found embedded in the flesh of sea-creatures in areas with wrecks such as these to asbestos, a substance known to have a noxious effect on humans.

Green uses a detachable crane system at the front of his van to move around bags of plastic after they have been weighed. Cecil is upholstered in recycled denim

What is behind the surge in ufology? The recent spike can be traced to the top of the US government, which inspired me to start investigating ...

I never gave much thought to aliens beyond Star Wars. I put extraterrestrials and their flying saucers in a box marked “nonsense” long ago, along with political manifestos, loyalty cards, Black Friday, fairies, pixies, elves, ghosts and ghouls.

Then, in 2017, the New York Times published an article with the headline “Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program”. Apparently, the US government had been chasing UFOs for years. These weren’t the ramblings of the kind of straw-chewing rancher you would see in a sci-fi film; the story was told by a military intelligence officer called Luis Elizondo. He claimed he ran a secret Pentagon programme called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP), which had found evidence that UFOs were flying around military bases, behaving in ways that defied the laws of physics.

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

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

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

We would like to hear your experience of job interviews that were conducted partially or wholly by AI

Companies are increasingly using AI in their hiring processes – including conducting job interviews themselves. With this in mind, we would like to hear your experience of job interviews that were conducted partially or wholly by AI.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

If you’ve changed your holiday plans, we’d like to hear from you

Rising fuel prices, aviation fuel prices, and changes to travel rules such as the new EU border system, EES, are causing some holidaymakers to reconsider their travel plans. Holiday companies have predicted an increase in bookings for UK summer breaks after a jump in interest from Britons fearful of flight cancellations linked to the Iran war.

Have you changed your summer holiday plans in light of recent world events? We’d like to hear from you.

We’d like to hear from people who are in a throuple or who used to be in one, and what their relationship was like

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking for throuples to talk honestly about the experience of love and commitment.

We’re particularly interested in talking to throuples living together under one roof, as well as throuples who are raising children as a unit of three parents. Is it easier to manage the chore rota and childcare when there are more adults in the room? Or more difficult?

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