Donald Trump’s ‘little excursion’ is likely to have long-term effects, from oil prices to inflation to growth, say experts

In the days after the US and Israel first bombed Iran, financial markets bet the economic fallout from Donald Trump’s “little excursion” in the Middle East would be short-lived.

“There are risks from higher oil prices longer term. But this is a tail risk,” one US-based fund manger said after the airstrike killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “History has shown time and time again that geopolitical flare-ups like this tend to be short-lived. This one should prove to be no exception.’’

Impressions of Keir Starmer, sketches about dodgy skincare products, and some ‘god-awful performances’ aside, the inaugural episode’s ambition was refreshing to see

In the end, it’s a feeling, isn’t it? You can tally up the laughs, work out the ratio of good lines to bad, sketches that fly, sketches that plummet straight into the mire – but in the end, a comedy show leaves you with a feeling that tells you whether it worked or not.

The general feeling, I think, will be that the inaugural episode of Saturday Night Live UK – Sky’s version of the famous 51-year-old American original founded and still overseen by the infamous Lorne Michaels – did work.

For some, creating a smash hit puzzle would have been enough to kick back for life. But for the Josh Wardles and Timothée Chalamets of the world, not even the moon is enough

He is one letter away from being a household name. Now Josh Wardle, the inventor of Wordle, has launched a new online game, and in doing so, provided an interesting insight into ambition.

For some, creating a global smash hit puzzle so zeitgeisty and popular it becomes part of millions of strangers’ daily routines and is bought by the New York Times for seven figures would have been sufficient for a lifetime. Rather than face inevitable comparison and potential disappointment by attempting That Difficult Second Album, they would have just kicked back on their yacht and called it a day.

The cooking is precise, proud and purposeful

Osteria Vibrato appeared last month on Greek Street, Soho, feeling to any passerby just like any other neutral-fronted Italian restaurant in this pasta-swamped part of the capital. Not much to see here. Pushing your face against the window wouldn’t achieve much, either, apart from an unsightly smear.

Meanwhile, all the in-the-know people – that bunch of infuriating, generously paunched “foodies” who keep London restaurant gossip alive – understood that this particular osteria is the latest opening by Charlie Mellor, former proprietor of the Laughing Heart in Hackney, which opened in 2016 and very quickly became favoured by chefs and industry media types alike, because it took food very seriously, stayed open late and danced a dainty line between debauched and old-school cosseting. It sold pumpkin cappelletti with sage, and chicken liver paté with crisp chicken skin and jellied walnut liqueur. The room was furnished with quirky tables complete with cutlery drawers, and there seemed to be a never-ending party going on in the ground-floor bar. Mellor, the star of the show, led the charge: warm, serious yet with a great capacity for silliness, though weirdly omniscient as to who needed what and when.

Leader of Arsenal’s defence ‘gives everything for the badge’ and hopes to shut out Manchester City at Wembley

There have been countless examples but if one action epitomised Gabriel Magalhães’s commitment to the cause it came against Bayer Leverkusen in the first leg of Arsenal’s Champions League tie in Germany last week.

Jarell Quansah’s shot was heading like a rocket towards David Raya’s goal until the Brazil defender intervened with a combination of neck, chin and face. It has become customary for Gabriel to celebrate his blocks and last-ditch tackles by beating his chest in delight but even he needed a moment to come to his senses.

Tens of thousands gathered in Seoul to show that, after a four-year hiatus, they had still kept a place for the band in a very changed world

The Zubillaga family had come from Veracruz, Mexico. Julio and Miryam had brought their daughters, Renata, 15, and Fernanda, 11, as a gift, across 15 hours of flights to a city none of them had visited before.

They had tried for world tour tickets to see BTS in Mexico but they had been snapped up already, so they came to Seoul instead, joining the tens of thousands outside the gates, waiting for the music to reach them. “It’s beautiful,” Renata says of the new album, Arirang. Her favourite member, like her mother and father, is Jung Kook.

The Zubillaga family, (L-R) Julio (44), Renata (15), Miryam (43) and Fernanda (11), flew to South Korea from Mexico as a birthday gift for Renata.

US president threatens to take out Iranian energy facilities – ‘starting with the biggest one first’ – if Tehran does not reopen the strait

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Donald Trump has given Iran 48 hours to reopen the strait of Hormuz to shipping or face the destruction of its energy infrastructure, as Tehran launched its most destructive attack yet on Israel.

The ultimatum, made just a day after the US president said he was considering “winding down” military operations after three weeks of war, came as the key oil passage remained effectively closed and thousands more US Marines headed to the Middle East.

Israeli air defence systems fail to intercept at least two projectiles during attacks on cities of Arad and Dimona

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Iranian ballistic missile barrages wounded about 100 people in southern Israel on Saturday, striking the cities of Arad and Dimona after air defence systems failed to intercept at least two projectiles.

Among the injured were a 12-year-old boy and a five-year-old girl, both reported to be in serious condition.

Cyber experts say influence operations in ‘asymmetric’ campaign to intensify moral pressure on US and Israel

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Iran has radically overhauled its social media strategy in an all-out information war launched by the country’s Islamic rulers in response to US and Israeli military attacks.

Cyber experts say Iranian foreign influence operations have gone into overdrive as part of an “asymmetric” campaign designed to complement its military retaliation and intensify moral pressure on the US and Israel into curtailing their war efforts.

‘Problem-solving’, child-focused courts to replace adversarial hearings, with earlier intervention to cut delays

Family courts are “not good enough” and have treated women and children unfairly for decades, a government minister has said.

Announcing a major overhaul of the family justice system in England and Wales that will play a central role in “rebalancing” the family courts, Alison Levitt said often brutal legal showdowns will be replaced with a “problem-solving”, child-focused model.

People who suffered life-changing injuries in 2016 attacks are now fighting deductions in state compensation

A decade after he suffered life-changing injuries in the terrorist attacks that hit Brussels airport and a metro station, Walter Benjamin has been having sleepless nights. Not only because of the hellish time he lived through on 22 March 2016. Last year, he says, his monthly pension was drastically cut to recoup “overpaid” survivors’ compensation.

Benjamin, now 56, was standing three metres away from the second attacker at Zaventem airport when the bomb detonated. Three suicide bombers killed 32 people that day and left more than 320 people with the kinds of injuries doctors usually find in war zones.

Unpaid carers say they remain ‘in limbo’ as DWP continues to pursue discredited repayment bills

MPs have threatened to launch a fresh inquiry into the handling of the carers allowance scandal after unpaid carers spoke of being “stuck in limbo” by the government’s response.

The warning came amid concerns over delays in Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans to offer redress to tens of thousands of carers who were unfairly issued with overpayment bills based on discredited official guidance.

Outrage mounts after president posted on Truth Social he was ‘glad’ former FBI director and special counsel had died

Donald Trump has been condemned as a “vile, disgusting man” and a “sick human being” after gloating over the death of Robert Mueller, a former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Mueller, a decorated Vietnam war veteran who led a politically explosive investigation into Trump, died on Friday aged 81, triggering a callous reaction from the US president.

Videos of Labour’s Al Carns include him talking about his time as a marine and challenging a firefighter to pull-up contest

Labour minister Al Carns has claimed thousands of pounds on parliamentary expenses for promotional videos including one showing him doing pull-ups at a fire station in competition with a firefighter.

The veterans minister and former Royal Marine, who is tipped by some MPs as a leadership hopeful, claimed about £3,000, approved by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), for the production of 17 videos that show him interacting with local businesses.

Venezuelan-born dancer posts emotional video saying she plans to take on new projects in other areas

Strictly Come Dancing’s longest-serving female professional dancer, Karen Hauer, has quit the show after 14 years.

In a video posted on Instagram, Hauer said it was “the right time to close this chapter and take on new projects in other areas I’m passionate about”.

Victims of army drone attack on East Darfur health facility included children and medical personnel

A strike on a healthcare facility in Sudan has killed 64 people and wounded 89 more, the World Health Organization reported on Saturday.

The UN’s humanitarian office in Sudan had earlier said it was “appalled by the attack on a hospital in East Darfur yesterday, reportedly killing dozens, including children, and injuring more”.

Police issue alerts and security tips to households reliant on heating oil to deter a crime that can leave victims with bills of thousands

There is no subtle way to receive heating oil deliveries in rural Northern Ireland: clearly marked tankers trundle through roads and lanes and park outside homes while they replenish storage tanks.

The trucks’ comings and goings are visible to the entire community, indicating which households have stocked up on oil, and that is a problem because criminals monitor deliveries to identify targets.

Footage shows US musician struggling with field sobriety tests he calls ‘really hard’ before his 2024 arrest in New York

Justin Timberlake struggled to perform field sobriety tests requiring him to walk a straight line and stand on one leg after the pop star was pulled over in New York’s Hamptons in 2024 by police officers who suspected him of driving drunk, according to video footage released on Friday.

Timberlake tells officers at one point: “These are, like, really hard tests.”

National referendum is being seen as a de facto confidence vote on the government – and the polls are neck and neck

In the run-up to a referendum in Italy on a government quest to overhaul the judiciary, a campaign flyer circulated online quoting Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, taking aim at judges and feminists. “Judges block the deportations of rapists. Where are the feminists? Vote yes – there will not be another opportunity,” it read.

The flyer, posted on the Facebook page of Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, a party with neofascist roots, was subsequently removed. But its tone has defined a campaign dominated by inflammatory rhetoric rather than meaningful debate.

Fraudsters exploit isolation and search for human contact to often devastating effect. These are steps you can take to avoid them

As you have got older, retirement has left you with more time on your hands. Loneliness has set in. Luckily, you have found a friend through one of the online motoring groups you are in, and a close bond has blossomed over your common interest in cars.

But your new friend has found themselves short when it comes to paying for their university textbooks, and has asked you for £50. It’s not much, and you get on so well that you agree to pay via bank transfer.

Our writer first hiked in the Lake District, Eryri and Dartmoor in the 1970s. Their beauty remains unrivalled, but they are more popular than ever. So, here’s how to avoid the crowds

Before we enter the clouds on snow-capped Helvellyn, I glance back down at Ullswater. The early morning sun is bursting around the dark corners of High Dodd and Sleet Fell, sending a flush of light across the golden bracken and on to the hammered silver of the lake.

Further away to the south, ragged patches of snow cling to the high gullies. The nearest village, Glenridding, can barely be seen behind the leafless trees and all I can hear is the gurgle of the stream. It is the quintessential Lakeland scene: the steep slopes above the water, the soft colours and hard rock, all combining into something inimitable. And judging by the photographic and artistic record, it is one that has hardly changed since the Cumbrian wind first ruffled a Romantic poet’s curls.

At the very moment Trump’s rambling speeches and meme–fied inanity threaten to overwhelm us, fashion, music and film are moving in the opposite direction

Put down your negroni, hang up your Prada handbag and pick up a paperback. Next time someone whips out their phone to take your picture, grab your reading specs, not your lipstick. Smart is the new hot.

Pop stars are launching book clubs – the 1970s had Studio 54, this decade has Dua Lipa’s online literary salon Service95 – or joining Substack, where Charli xcx recently published a 1,800-word essay interrogating why it is that as a pop star “you cannot avoid the fact that some people are simply determined to prove that you are stupid”. The supermodel Kaia Gerber (who is fashion royalty – her mum is Cindy Crawford) passes the time backstage at fashion week reading Didion, Duras and Camus, not Vogue.

Some people are better at organising, and it sounds as if you all have fun when you do get together, so try not to take it personally

My friends seem genuinely happy to see me when we’re together and usually accept when I suggest meeting up. But if I don’t initiate, I rarely hear from them. Not even a “Hi, how’s the new job?” or a “How are you?” Months can go by.

This makes me wonder if these people are real friends and question whether I’m doing something wrong. When we do get together, we share things about our lives, laugh a lot and do activities we all like, so time together makes me feel connected. But once we say goodbye, I don’t hear from them. It’s all very confusing and discouraging.

When Tracy Crisp was at her ‘messiest and darkest’, Adrian didn’t diminish her pain, but he did help her look beyond it

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I met Adrian when I was 18 and we married when I was 23.

I fell in love with Adrian because he made me laugh, he was smart and he looked good in footy shorts.

Hospitality can be anything but hospitable to workers. But in regional Victoria, I found a community – and rediscovered something I’d lost

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

I was a keen-bean 15-year-old when I got my first job in a commercial kitchen in Canberra, raised on a diet of Jamie and Nigella and bursting with a passion for food. I dived headfirst into an apprenticeship and eagerly put my training into practice on my days off, cooking elaborate meals for friends and creating plenty of dirty dishes.

But as the years went on, my love for the kitchen was dulled by a series of toxic workplaces, bullying bosses and long hours. Eventually, cooking for myself became a chore. I was more likely to eat cereal on my kitchen floor than do anything creative that would result in dirty dishes.

Could an Arsenal win in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final begin the passing of the torch from Pep Guardiola to Mikel Arteta?

The Anglo-Scottish Cup, which had a brief and never particularly beloved life between 1975-76 and 1980-81, always struggled to find a place in the calendar. In its second season, the two legs of the final had to be squeezed into 48 hours, Nottingham Forest drawing 1-1 away at Leyton Orient before a 4-0 win at home. Only 12,717 bothered to turn up at the City Ground to see it. It was all very anticlimactic. Yet that game holds a place in football’s history.

“Our lot tasted champagne,” said Brian Clough, “and found that they liked it.” Forest would win promotion to the First Division that season and, within three years, had added a league title, two European Cups and two League Cups. It had been a similar story for Clough at Derby who, two seasons before lifting the league title, won the Watney Cup, a pre-season tournament for the two highest scorers in each of the four divisions who had not been promoted or qualified for Europe. In both cases, Clough was adamant that the experience of winning even a minor competition was a vital part of the greater glories that followed.

It was left to Everton to impose the only serious sporting sanction of the week on Chelsea. Treated with extreme leniency by the Premier League for cheating over a seven-year period, the Stamford Bridge club were left battered and bruised, and Liam Rosenior in a whole world of trouble, as Hill Dickinson Stadium witnessed the finest act of its eight-month existence.

David Moyes’s team were relentless, creative and clinical – everything their opponents were not – as two goals from Beto and a brilliant finish from Iliman Ndiaye delivered Everton’s biggest win against Chelsea since 1987. The 100th clean sheet of Jordan Pickford’s Everton career was secured with two outstanding saves from Enzo Fernández but, in truth, the threat from the visitors was minimal.

• Manager defends club’s spending record in dig at critics

• ‘We need to make sure we qualify for Champions League’

Arne Slot has defended Liverpool’s spending record but admitted the pressure was now on to qualify for the Champions League.

Their chances of making the top five – likely enough to qualify – took a significant hit after they lost 2-1 at Brighton in what has been a disastrous season in the context of a £450m outlay on players in the summer shortly after they had lifted the Premier League trophy.

• Osaka admits to ‘dilemma’ after loss to Talia Gibson

• Norrie, Boulter and Jones all out to end British hopes

Naomi Osaka has said she does not intend to continue competing if she frequently loses in first round matches after suffering a disappointing 7-5, 6-4 defeat to Australia’s Talia Gibson in her opening match of the Miami Open.

Osaka, who received a first-round bye as the 16th seed in Miami, moved sluggishly in an error-strewn performance and was outplayed by the talented 21-year-old Gibson, who will play Iva Jovic in the next round.

• Scot wins 3,000m in 7min 35.56sec to regain title

• Kerr goads Cole Hocker with reprisal of celebration

Brilliance and controversy are never far apart when it comes to Josh Kerr. It is what makes him such a compelling athlete. And after storming to a thrilling world indoor 3,000m title here in Torun, the Briton was quick to apply a sharp twist of the knife.

As he crossed the line, Kerr made NBA star Steph Curry’s famous ‘night night’ celebration, putting both hands against his cheek to signify that he had put his opponent – in this case the Olympic 1500m champion Cole Hocker – to sleep.

• Northampton 28-27 Newcastle

• Bottom side secure losing and try bonus points

On the face of it, not a lot to see here. The league leaders return to the top of the table with a bonus-point win against the team placed bottom. But don’t you believe it. Newcastle may have shipped 60 the last time they played a Prem game here, but they pushed the Saints all the way.

Northampton, it must be said, were about as far from full strength as can be. George Furbank was given his latest run-out at full-back, but otherwise none of their myriad England internationals were present. They will consider this a smart collection of the full five points without them. And they may have to get used to some of the absences, Alex Coles and Alex Mitchell both rated by Phil Dowson as likely to be out for “a decent amount of time”, which he clarified meant more than a month.

• Bundesliga leaders reach 97 goals with Kane scoring 31

• PSG return to Ligue 1 summit, Juve held by Sassuolo

Bayern Munich scored three times in seven minutes to cruise past Union Berlin 4-0 in the Bundesliga on Saturday to stay clear at the top while edging closer to an all-time club scoring record.

The Bavarian club, chasing three trophies and fresh from their midweek Champions League quarter-final qualification with a 10-2 aggregate win over Atalanta, are nine points clear at the top.

• Car disqualified for using more than six sets of tyres

• Verstappen intends to race in 24 Hours of Nürburgring

Max Verstappen took a break from a frustrating Formula One season by driving in a four-hour race at the Nürburgring in Germany on Saturday where he won only to be disqualified.

The Dutch four-time Formula One champion has said he plans to race in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring in May.

• Italian tumbles over guardrail down Cipressa climb

• Tadej Pogacar pips Tom Pidcock in men’s race despite fall

The Italian Debora Silvestri was taken to a hospital after a horrific-looking crash during the women’s Milano-Sanremo one-day classic, while Tadej Pogacar was bloodied and bruised by his own fall before getting back on his bike and winning the men’s race.

Several cyclists were caught up in the incident in the women’s race, with Silvestri tumbling over a guardrail as riders tried to avoid the pileup. Silvestri’s team, Laboral Kutxa, said the 27-year-old was in a stable condition. The incident happened on the descent of the famous Cipressa climb, less than 20km (12 miles) from the end of the 156km route.

With major developments collapsing, pressure is growing on councils to concede on affordable housing and public amenities

Donald Trump has done his best to crush the green shoots of the global, post-pandemic economic recovery – nowhere more so than in the UK.

The US president’s vandalism can be seen across the economic landscape, especially in the property sector, which has become more sensitive to international events since the spread of Covid-19 disrupted long-established supply chains and sent the cost of raw materials soaring.

In Georgia, a woman was charged with murder after allegedly taking pills to induce a termination. Yet America happily drops bombs on children abroad

How many children has the US helped kill this week in the Middle East? It’s hard to keep track, but Unicef reports that more than 1,800 children in the region have been killed or injured since the US and Israel started a war with Iran on 28 February.

In Lebanon, a US-backed Israel is killing or wounding a classroom’s worth of children every day, Unicef’s deputy executive director told Reuters. That’s just after killing more than 20,000 children in Gaza in two years, all with the help of US taxpayer dollars.

The assault on freedom with Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi
On Monday 8 June, join Mehdi Hasan and Arwa Mahdawi to discuss the current seismic changes in geopolitics, the alarming rise of populism and nationalism, and its global implications. Live in London and livestreamed worldwide. Book tickets here or at guardian.live

For me, better timing, fewer platitudes, less certainty and more listening and empathy are helpful ways of connecting with people in the loneliest of times

Some things are easy to talk about; infertility is not one of them. I speak from experience – of miscarriage and unsuccessful rounds of IVF – and I’ve heard some clangers along the way. I forgive you all. Well, most of you.

But I also come at it as the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Three decades into live talk radio, I listen for a living. I’m adept at noticing micro-expressions, the pauses, the shifts in tone, the feelings that sit between the words on and off air. And I keep wondering: why are we so bad at talking about infertility? This is even something that, until now, I haven’t spoken publicly about.

Nuala McGovern presents Woman’s Hour Monday, the Woman’s Hour Guide to Life, and SEND in the Spotlight podcasts on BBC Sounds. On Sunday 22 March’s episode of The Woman’s Hour Guide to Life, Nuala and her guests discuss navigating conversations around infertility.

I bow out of my role for the organisation at a perilous time for the international law. There are consequences not just for Palestinians, but the wider Middle East

This month I will conclude my tenure as the commissioner-general of Unrwa – the United Nations agency that has provided essential, public-like services to Palestinian refugees across the Middle East for more than 75 years. As the world struggles to emerge from the quagmire of Gaza and the US-Israeli war against Iran threatens to engulf the entire region, I am profoundly concerned about the future of Palestinian refugees and the multilateral system at large.

Having endured more than two years of relentless physical, political and legal attacks, most fiercely in Palestine, Unrwa has reached breaking point. The risks to Palestinians’ rights and the stability of the region are immense.

Philippe Lazzarini is commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa)

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.

If the UK wants to regain serious respect in the world, it needs its European leg as well as its transatlantic one

“A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.” Thus spoke Hugh Grant, playing the British prime minister confronting the US president in a famous scene in the romcom Love Actually. Real-life British prime minister Keir Starmer has attempted to stand up ever so slightly to the current bully in the White House over the latest US war in the Middle East. Despite the British government’s right-royal efforts to flatter Donald Trump ever since he was elected US president, his response to Starmer’s little attempt has been a torrent of contempt. So the reality is not Love Actually. It’s Contempt Actually.

Asked about the British government’s subtle distinction between defensive strikes in the Gulf, which it now supports, and offensive ones, which it doesn’t, Maga ideologue Steve Bannon tells the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward: “That’s diplomatic bullshit. Fuck you. You’re either an ally or you’re not. Fuck you. The special relationship is over.” Ah, the “special relationship”! It must be 40 years since I first heard former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt say: “The special relationship is so special only one side knows it exists.”

The Reform UK leader has belatedly clocked that most British people really don’t like the US president on whose coat-tails he has spent the past decade riding

At last, the culture has thrown up a split more nauseatingly up itself than Gwyneth Paltrow’s from Chris Martin. It is Nigel Farage’s attempt to consciously uncouple from Donald Trump, a man up whose backside he’s spent the past decade most firmly lodged. Nigel’s made such a massive, self-satisfied show of his real estate in the presidential large intestine for 10 years now that I actually don’t think non-surgical extraction is possible at this stage. He doesn’t just get to walk away whistling. The only way out is a full Faragectomy. I’ll give the president a piece of drone fuselage to bite down on.

Anyway: conscious uncoupling. Back in the day, you’ll remember, Gwyneth and the Coldplay singer deployed this particular phrase when announcing their marital split. Did the public love it? They did not. The general vibe – as with so much of Her Vajesty’s output – was that she would do even marriage failure more smugly and unachievably than mere plebs could ever. The pivot from gushing about her perfect marriage to gushing about her perfect divorce felt like mere days.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

What a Time to be Alive! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Too many want to cast acts of violence and antisemitism as blows against Israel’s government. But the fear and terror land on real people, thousands of miles away

Let us begin with a brief exchange on GB News, confirmed this week as the TV arm of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Following an attack on a synagogue last week in Michigan, in which a gunman drove a car packed with explosives through the entrance to the building before opening fire, a pundit on the channel sought to clarify what the attacker actually meant by his actions. “This was an Israeli temple,” she explained. “It was aligned with Israel.”

By way of evidence, she cited the name of the synagogue – Temple Israel – apparently unaware that Jews have referred to themselves as “the people of Israel” for millennia, long before there was a state of that name, and that there are, for that reason, countless synagogues in the US called Temple Israel. No, for her, the Michigan house of worship, with its on-site school where more than a hundred children were in lessons that day, was a de facto embassy of the Israeli state and therefore an understandable, if not legitimate, target. Hold that episode in your mind.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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.

This frightening outbreak is not yet over, and serves as a reminder of why plans to manage infectious diseases exist

The public health measures taken in response to this month’s meningitis outbreak in Kent so far appear to be working. Two young people have tragically died – one a sixth-former in Faversham, the other a student at the University of Kent. In the Canterbury area, where cases have been identified at four schools and two universities, thousands of lives have been disrupted and many people are understandably afraid. With 18 confirmed cases, and 11 others being investigated, this is the largest cluster of UK cases in a generation.

The genes of the meningitis B (MenB) strain of bacteria behind this outbreak are being examined in laboratories. In Kent, they appear to have caused septicaemia, or blood poisoning, as well as infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Scientists do not fully understand what causes meningococcal bacteria – which are present in one in 10 people’s bodies without causing illness – to become invasive. Meningitis remains a mysterious as well as a frightening illness, due to its sudden onset and the risk of death.

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.

Our fascination with the ‘real’ identities of artists and writers is revealing about attitudes to fame and authorship

This week, contemporary art’s worst-kept secret was exposed when street artist Banksy was revealed to be 52-year-old Robin Gunningham, thanks to an 8,000-word investigation by Reuters. This would have been big news had the Mail on Sunday not got there first nearly two decades ago. Still, it made headlines.

The previous week, thousands of book lovers expressed their grief at the announcement on X of the death of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, supposedly by her translator Ann Goldstein. In fact, it was the work of infamous Italian hoaxer Tommaso Debenedetti, who had set up an account in Goldstein’s name, and who pulled the same trick in 2022.

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.

Guardian readers respond to Dan Fox’s long read about the fun and frustrations of trying to speak his mother’s language

Thank you for the wonderful article (Where Duolingo falls down: how I learned to speak Welsh with my mother, 12 March). Dan Fox’s Welsh language learning journey is beautifully described, with excellent context of the struggles to keep the language alive over the last two centuries.

In fact, Dan’s experience is exactly what we, the Duolingo Welsh course writers, aimed for. We created a resource on the largest language learning platform in the world that is available at the click of a mouse, and which gives people using it the confidence that it is indeed possible to learn Welsh. We never intended it to be a standalone course, but to support people using the methods described in the article in addition to formal lessons.

Readers respond to Rebecca Humphries’s article about the actor’s much criticised comments on opera and ballet

Every generation seems to produce someone ready to declare opera and ballet irrelevant. And yet, century after century, these art forms continue to endure – evolving, expanding and moving audiences in ways few artistic traditions ever have.

In a recent interview, Timothée Chalamet mocked at why we should “keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this any more” (Don’t denounce Timothée Chalamet for what he said about opera and ballet – prove him wrong, 14 March). It is the kind of reductive take one hears when popularity is mistaken for cultural value.

Henry Sherman and Phil Coughlin celebrate the wit and skill of Len Deighton

Your fascinating article (Len Deighton, spy novelist and author of The Ipcress File, dies aged 97, 17 March) and obituary (17 March) on Len Deighton refers to the wisecracking dialogue in his famous early thrillers. His descriptions were also often very funny. In Funeral in Berlin, for example, he wrote of Charlotte Street that it “runs north from Oxford Street and there are few who will blame it”.

The 1966 paperback edition of the novel begins with a spoof autobiography, in which this working-class author is described as the eldest son of a governor-general of the Windward Islands who has an “uneventful education at Eton and Worcester College, Oxford”. His “likes” are listed as “being under the bonnet of a vintage motorcar, public bars, ballroom dancing and cricket”. It was electrifying to encounter this as a teenage reader in the 1960s.
Henry Sherman
Teddington, London

In-service training is best for the workforce and industry, writes Alan Ackroyd

The government is taking the wrong approach by teaching vocational qualifications in the classroom (Editorial, 15 March). Vocational training should take place primarily in the workplace and employers should be forced to include relevant training and qualification packages for all staff.

I have had two different experiences of this. When I first left school I entered an apprenticeship in my local printing firm. They made me competent in what they did but refused to allow me to take a day-release course (that I had arranged for myself) for fear that it would lead to my leaving the company. I left the industry for tertiary education.

Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the last seven days

Scientist Ryan Gosling is alone in deep space – or is he? – and America’s famed topical satire is given a British angle

Project Hail Mary
Out now
Novelist Andy Weir’s brand of comic, semi-plausible sci-fi led to Ridley Scott’s The Martian – now Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be hoping to repeat something of the same success. Ryan Gosling is the lead of a caper in which a science teacher wakes up on a spaceship on a desperate mission in deep space.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

Comedians strive for straight faces as Prime’s comic blockbuster returns, while Gus Van Sant directs a thrilling take on a real-life hostage drama. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Network breakdowns compounded by daily blackouts of up to 12 hours caused by fuel shortages

Cuba’s power grid collapsed on Saturday leaving the country without electricity for a third time in March as the communist government battles with a decaying infrastructure and a US-imposed oil blockade.

The Cuban Electric Union, which reports to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, announced a total blackout across the island without initially giving a cause for the outage.

Electoral alliances expected to play vital role in number of contests including Paris and Marseille

Voting is under way in France in the second round of local elections – seenas a bellwether for next year’s presidential race – with cities including Paris and Marseille in the balance and both the radical left and far right hoping for gains.

Most of France’s 35,000-odd communes elected their councils in the first round last Sunday, but in municipalities where the contest is tighter, including most large urban areas, the second round will be decisive, with electoral alliances playing a key role.

White House says talks ‘constructive’ but Russian negotiators not present; more civilians killed in country’s south-east by Moscow attacks. What we know on day 1,488

Ukrainian and US negotiators trying to secure a peace settlement of Russia’s invasion opened their latest round of talks in Florida on Saturday, with more discussions planned through the weekend. Russian representatives did not attend the meeting. “We continued discussing key issues and the next steps within the negotiation track,” the chief Ukrainian negotiator, Rustem Umerov, posted on X. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators met at two sets of US-brokered talks in the United Arab Emirates this year and a round in Geneva last month. Moscow and Kyiv agreed on prisoner exchanges, but no breakthroughs were achieved.

The White House described the latest meeting as “constructive”, with discussions “focused on narrowing and resolving remaining items to move closer to a comprehensive peace agreement”.

Russian attacks killed four people in south-eastern Ukraine and left much of the northern region of Chernihiv without power on Saturday, officials said. Zaporizhzhia governor, Ivan Fedorov, said the morning attack on the city killed a man and a woman, and injured six others, including two children. In the adjacent Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said two people died in an area south-east of the main regional centre, Dnipro. Five people were injured in attacks at multiple places. In his nightly video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said power had been cut to parts of Chernihiv region, where efforts were under way to fix damage after a drone strike on an energy facility. Power and water supplies have also been cut to parts of Kyiv.

Ukrainian forces shelled a public building in Russia’s border region of Belgorod on Saturday, killing four people, the regional governor said. Vyacheslav Gladkov, writing on Telegram, said the attack hit a “social site” in the village of Smorodino, without giving further details. The bodies of two women were pulled from under rubble, he said. Belgorod has come under frequent Ukrainian attack during the four-year war.

Authorities in nearly a dozen Russian regions in recent weeks cited various excuses to prevent demonstrations against internet censorship and the blocking of the popular messaging app Telegram. In most cases, they succeeded. Mindful of a crackdown on dissent since the invasion of Ukraine, activists decided not to risk holding unauthorised rallies, even if they weren’t about the war. Some went to court to challenge government refusals to authorise pickets, while others scaled them back to smaller indoor gatherings.

Tens of thousands of Czechs filled a large plain in Prague to rally against the government of the billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babi, on Saturday, slamming it for “arrogance of power”. The Million Moments for Democracy movement organising the protest has criticised the government for “playing down” threats from Russia invading Ukraine. Protesters, some carrying Ukrainian flags, criticised its refusal to provide military aid to Ukraine. Babis leads a three-party nationalist cabinet comprising his catch-all ANO party, the far-right SPD and the rightwing Eurosceptic Motorists. “[The government] is doing everything to drag us towards Russia and, together with Hungary and Slovakia, to dent the EU,” Marek Perutka, a conservationist carrying a Ukrainian flag told Agence France-Presse.

People in hard-hit areas of Oahu and Maui told to evacuate with still more rain expected over the weekend

As Hawaii endures its worst flooding in more than 20 years, officials urged people in hard-hit areas to “LEAVE NOW”. That warning early on Saturday came after heavy rains fell on soil already saturated by downpours from a winter storm a week ago, and still more was expected over the weekend.

Muddy floodwaters smothered vast stretches of Oahu’s North Shore, a community renowned for its big-wave surfing. Raging waters lifted homes and cars and prompted evacuation orders for 5,500 people north of Honolulu. Authorities cautioned that a 120-year-old dam could fail.

President attacks ‘Radical Left Democrats’ after homeland security funding bill again sinks in Senate

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to deploy federal immigration agents to US airports on Monday if Democrats do not agree to measures aimed at strengthening security and immigration enforcement.

“If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.

In one corner, clean energy champion Ed Miliband. In the other, residents – and Reform politicians – outraged at plans for more large-scale solar farms in Lincolnshire than anywhere else in the UK

As night descends on the grand offices of Lincolnshire county council, everything appears orderly and calm. Paintings of long-forgotten councillors and dignitaries stare out into an empty drawing room. The council chamber is silent and dark. Bored receptionists glance at their phones while a handful of admin staff hunch over glowing screens. But a rebellion is brewing in the office of the council leader, Sean Matthews, who took charge last May, when Reform replaced the Conservative old guard. The affable former royal protection officer is plotting an apparently radical campaign of civil disobedience against a series of giant solar farms planned for Lincolnshire.

Despite a quarter of a century in the Metropolitan police, Matthews is willing to break the law to stop solar developers. He is planning to lie down in front of the bulldozers. “They can arrest me – I’ve arrested plenty of people,” he says, leaning forward on a sofa. “It’s much bigger than me and my criminal record. For goodness sake, it’s the future of the county, it’s the future of our land. I am passionate about that and I will do what I can.”

Exclusive: War in the Middle East is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined

The US-Israel war on Iran is a disaster for the climate, according to an analysis that finds it is draining the global carbon budget faster than 84 countries combined.

As warplanes, drones and missiles kill thousands of people, level infrastructure and turn the Middle East into a gigantic environmental sacrifice zone, the first analysis of the climate cost has found the conflict led to 5m tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in its first 14 days.

Animals will feature on £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England says, but which creatures should make the cut?

Native British wildlife will feature on the next set of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England has announced, but it has yet to be decided which creatures will make the cut.

While politicians from Nigel Farage to Ed Davey have sought to confect outrage about ditching Winston Churchill and Jane Austen for badgers or blackbirds, public consultations by the Bank show that people favour the switch to wildlife. Regularly changing images on the notes is a measure to foil counterfeiters.

Chris Packham is a naturalist, broadcaster, campaigner and author

Naturalist Lucy Lapwing is the author of Love is a Toad: Exploring Our Relationship With Nature

In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue among voters, especially in rural areas

In one telling of the story, the golden fields of a proud farming nation are under attack. Besieged by an industrial sprawl of solar panels, they are being smothered at the behest of an urban elite.

That narrative has failed to thrive in conservative heartlands such as Texas and Hungary, which have embraced solar power while lambasting green rules. But it is taking root in Denmark, the most climate-ambitious nation on Earth. “We say yes to fields of wheat,” said Inger Støjberg, the leader of the rightwing populist Denmark Democrats in a speech in 2024. “And we say no to fields of iron!”

Exclusive: Tariq Ahmad says he has raised concerns with party leadership after shadow justice secretary’s remarks

The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.

British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.

Tax authority incorrectly used Home Office travel records to deduce that parents who went on holiday were fraudsters

A controversial government anti-fraud scheme that incorrectly stripped thousands of parents of their child benefit is to resume, despite ongoing concerns about inaccurate Home Office travel data on which the crackdown is based.

HMRC used flawed Home Office travel records to deduce that thousands of parents who went on holiday or work trips abroad were fraudsters, with 23,800 families having child benefit payments stopped late last year.

FoI request reveals no evidence of testing despite ministers hailing agreement as key to delivering AI-led public service reform

When the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, the partnership was hailed as one that could harness artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.

But eight months on from the fanfare of that announcement, the government has yet to hold any trials involving the firm’s tech.

Harold may have sailed, not marched, in 1066, reshaping explanations for his defeat in England’s historic battle

It is a story that has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.

In September 1066, as a Norman duke called William prepared to sail from France to claim the English throne, King Harold of England discovered the Viking leader Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with an army of his own.

Energy minister says war on Iran creating ‘uncertain environment’ but insists government doing ‘all the preparatory work’

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Six oil ships bound for Australia have been cancelled in recent days but the federal government is not yet considering any drastic measures, the energy minister, Chris Bowen, says.

Bowen said on Sunday that six ships from Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea, that had been expected to arrive next month, were cancelled or deferred. The federal government was working to replace the ships, with some already substituted, the minister told ABC TV.

Donald Trump threatened to deploy ICE agents to US airports on Monday if congressional Democrats do not immediately agree to fund airport safety – key US politics stories from 21 March at a glance

Donald Trump threatened to deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to US airports on Monday if congressional Democrats do not immediately agree to fund airport safety.

Transportation Security Administration personnel are set to miss a second full paycheck on 27 March amid a partial government shutdown in its 36th day as lawmakers clash over funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency for TSA and ICE.

Autopsy reveals James ‘Jimmy’ Gracey’s injuries consistent with repeatedly hitting breakwater’s rocks, Spanish media report

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

A University of Alabama student who was found dead in Barcelona after going missing while vacationing evidently fell into the sea by accident in view of surveillance cameras – and an autopsy revealed injuries on his body that were consistent with having repeatedly struck a breakwater’s rocks.

Such details about James “Jimmy” Gracey surfaced in the Spanish media as a spokesperson for police in Barcelona told the Associated Press that “all signs point” to the 20-year-old’s death as having been inadvertent.

Almost 60 injured in blaze in Daejeon with footage seemingly showing people jumping from burning building to escape

A fire at a car parts factory in South Korea has killed 14 people and injured almost 60 others.

Firefighters said all of the missing are now accounted for after a search operation of the wreckage of the three-storey building.

Iran war should be wake-up call about costs of not going full throttle towards EVs as Chinese have done, experts say

By the 1980s, Detroit’s once titanic carmakers were being upended by rivals from Japan. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had grown rich selling gas guzzlers, but when oil prices rose and suddenly cheap, fuel-efficient Japanese models looked attractive, they were unprepared. The collapse in sales led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the automotive heartland of the US.

Now western car manufacturers are making what one former boss calls a similar “profound strategic mistake” as they pull back from electric vehicles (EVs) and refocus on the combustion engine just as oil prices are soaring once again. Experts say the industry’s future – and that of tens of millions of jobs – could be on the line. This time, however, the threat is from China.

Michael Smith, 52, charged after flooding platforms with thousands of AI songs and boosting them with bots

• Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox

A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms and his fellow musicians out of millions in royalties by flooding the services with thousands of AI-generated songs – and using automated “bots” to artificially boost the number of listens into the billions.

As part of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York’s southern district, 52-year-old Michael Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

From restaurant closures in the Philippines and petrol rationing in Sri Lanka, to Asian food production crises due to fertiliser shortages, the effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran reverberate around the world

• Middle East crisis – live updates

From the Philippines cutting down to a four-day week to save electricity, to restaurants in India taking gas-intensive dishes off the menu, and rents being frozen in Spain, the economic fallout of the US-Israeli war on Iran has reverberated around the world.

Facing an existential threat, Tehran has retaliated by closing the vital Hormuz shipping lane and bombing its oil and gas-rich neighbours, compounding a deepening crisis abroad for businesses and families.

From layoffs to export troubles, California’s wine industry is in flux – but small producers are innovating to survive

After more than a quarter century tracking the seemingly endless growth of the wine industry, Rob McMillan was finally vindicated last year as California’s vigneron of doom.

McMillan is the author of Silicon Valley Bank’s annual state of the US wine industry report, and the 2025 edition was a doozy. Since 2018, the bank has warned the industry that a correction in demand would shake the wine world. That reality is now here, with 2025 revenue down, the volume of wine produced dropping and a “bumpy bottom” in demand forecast in 2027 and 2028.

The Brooklyn author on immigration and the inspiration behind his latest collection of stories

I often write the first paragraph of a story in a notebook, add to it every so often or leave it there to see if something might emerge from it. In 2008, in San Francisco, I went with three friends on a hike near Muir Woods overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the summit, there was a kind of lodge where you could get a bed for the night and use the kitchen to make your own dinner. The view was spectacular.

As we climbed, I began to imagine a character, an Irish guy who had made up his mind to go home. This was his last big outing in the landscape. He had been working as a plumber. Dotted in the Bay Area were houses where he had repaired pipes and installed new sinks and toilets and washing machines. This was his legacy in America. He was someone who could be depended on in an emergency. But he was illegal and he was going home.

His multi-hyphenate career has made him one of Britain’s most versatile recognisable stars – but hasn’t stopped him facing some seriously awkward moments…

Riz Ahmed was multitasking. It was February in London, and the actor was doing an interview with a men’s magazine en route to collect his kid from school. So far, so starry. “Here’s the reality,” says Ahmed today, palms slamming down hard on the table. “I’m late for the school run. I’m stuck in traffic. I’m meant to be at my laptop, but I’m having to do it on my phone, in my car. I’m double parked on a double yellow line, doing the interview, looking over my shoulder. The traffic warden’s coming, it’s rush hour. He tries to move me along. I try to get out of there while I’m talking on the phone to this guy.”

Distracted, Ahmed hit another car. The driver jumped out of his vehicle, incensed. “He’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’” says Ahmed, who had been attempting to continue the interview. “I’m now going off video, like, ‘Oh, my signal’s a bit bad!’ while going on and off mute negotiating car insurance details. On the phone, I’m going, ‘Absolutely, it was just such an honour getting to tell my story with these amazing collaborators,’” he says, his voice lowering an octave and turning smooth.

Ten strangers take on an intense game of hide and seek. Plus: an essential documentary about a chemical scandal. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

The creators of Stranger Things’s new dread-suffused drama sees a happy couple head off for an idyllic wedding – a poorly-lit cabin in the woods. The results are chilling

When I heard the Duffer brothers, creators of Stranger Things, had a new series on Netflix, I knew I had to watch – but I was not eager. I believe identical twins who make moving pictures are inherently creepy, even when those productions aren’t called Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. My nervous system won’t let me enjoy horror, and I don’t understand people who do. Is life not scary enough?

The first episode (out Thursday 26 March) – is that a working title or what? It’s like calling Mrs Doubtfire “Heartwarming Drag Act”, or Free Willy “Pelagic Marine Predators Do Not Belong in Captivity” – places us four days before the wedding of Nicky (Adam DiMarco) and Rachel (Camila Morrone), the central event of the story.

As the UK version of the US comedy institution launches, the big question is whether it can balance British humour with the spirit of the original

• Don’t get The Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

This weekend, after the longest hyping up period for a British comedy in ages, Saturday Night Live UK finally launches on Sky. It arrives with a degree of divisiveness that most shows don’t usually attain until at least a few episodes in, with some people willing it on, others are convinced that it will fail. Already there’s been a note of pre-emptive schadenfreude online, with every last piece of promotional material – even a fairly innocuous advert with the letters S N and L spelt out in baked beans – pounced on as evidence that the show will be a complete bin fire.

And maybe it will. I’m hopeful that SNL UK will prove better than many expect: there are some good young comics attached; some shrewd people behind the scenes (it’s heartening to see a couple of members of the great sketch group Sheeps on the writing staff); and the steely presence of original SNL creator Lorne Michaels, keeping an eye on things as exec producer. But equally, this is a hell of a high-wire act. Putting on a live comedy show every week is a daunting enough prospect; but add to that the reputational weight of the original SNL – arguably the US’s most famous comedy export – and it becomes something else altogether.

A powerful new fact-based drama depicts Huw Edwards’s fall from being the BBC’s top news anchor to a conviction for making indecent images of children. The Doc Martin star talks about secrecy, off-the-record research – and why his ears needed to be stuck down

Huw Edwards has not sat at a newsreader’s desk since July 2023, when he was suspended by the BBC following a report in the Sun that he had paid a teenager £35,000 for intimate images and conversations. A year later – when new BBC News at Ten anchor Clive Myrie announced that his predecessor had been convicted of possessing indecent images of children – the Welsh broadcaster’s career effectively ended.

But on Tuesday the night of 24 March Edwards is back on screen, reading the news in the late-night slot he occupied for decades. He is played by the actor Martin Clunes and his BBC desk has been recreated in the London canalside news studio at Channel 5 by the producers of Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards.

From electroclash pioneers to dancefloor-fillers via viral TikTok fame thanks to their hit Seventeen, the Liverpool band are back with a new album and another metamorphosis

It was October 2001 in New York City, and Mira Aroyo and bandmate Reuben Wu were invited to DJ a new party. The gritty, 200 capacity Luxx on Brooklyn’s Grand Street specialised in forgotten queer electro sounds from the 1980s. The party’s name? Electroclash.

“It was us, Peaches, people from Berlin,” remembers Aroyo. Larry Tee, the Atlanta DJ and RuPaul collaborator, had booked them for their love of overlooked gems by Gina X or Bobby O. “It was hedonistic, nonbinary, flamboyant.”

(Big Hit Music)
Ending a hiatus that began in 2022, the septet recapture a distinctiveness that had been threatening to ebb away

The general consensus seems to be that as BTS’s commercial stock has gone stratospheric – more than 500m units sold worldwide, including over 104bn streams, making them the bestselling Asian act of all time – the actual music has become more and more irrelevant. Before taking their hiatus in 2022 to fulfil their mandatory military service in South Korea, their saccharine, English-language bops such as Dynamite and Butter – while gargantuan global hits – had smothered the K-pop-specific idiosyncrasies that peppered their earlier material. By 2020’s double whammy of Map of the Soul: 7 and Be, the band’s early years as a hip-hop-focused collective were a distant memory, and thanks to a more westernised sound and studio cast list, so was their identity as a Korean act.

On the eagerly anticipated Arirang – pointedly named after a Korean folk song dating back to 1896, and presented with the tagline “born in Korea, playing for the world” – the septet do their best to right those wrongs. Crucially, it manages to capture the K-pop spirit of experimentation while welding it to a litany of memorable hooks. And when western collaborators are brought in, they’re interestingly off-kilter, including outsider rapper-producer Jpegmafia, and producer El Guincho, known for his work with Björk and Rosalía.

The radical work of the musician and composer was dismissed by sexist critics and overshadowed by the legacy of her late husband John. But today, musical stars from Doja Cat to David Byrne all champion her experimental sound

It is 19 years since Alice Coltrane’s death and more than half a century since her best known albums, yet only now is her first biography, Andy Beta’s Cosmic Music, being published. The first major exhibition dedicated to her took place last year in LA, too, and she’s championed by musicians from mainstream to left field, to the point there’s now even an abundance of cosmic jazz harpists on festival lineups. “For so long it seemed like her contributions were overlooked,” says her grandnephew Steven Ellison, AKA the psychedelic electronic and hip-hop musician Flying Lotus, who’s worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Thom Yorke and Herbie Hancock alongside his own acclaimed solo material. “As I was growing up, it seemed like everyone just wanted to ask her about John Coltrane.”

Of course John Coltrane was a musical titan. But, as Cosmic Music spells out, Alice was integral to the radicalism of her husband’s late, gamechanging period from the masterpiece A Love Supreme onwards. Not only did they create a sense of stability from 1963 in raising a family and marrying, post his quitting heroin, but they were partners in spiritual and musical exploration. She was a formidable musician before she met him, too. As pianist Alice McLeod, she was “known as a badass on the scene”, says Carlos Niño, longtime California “beat scene” colleague of Flying Lotus and, lately, producer of André 3000’s avowedly Alice-inspired New Blue Sun album; her skills honed in Detroit’s gospel churches and playing Stravinsky and Rachmaninov for pleasure by her mid-teens.

Following in the footsteps of Heavenly and Tiger Trap the duo’s high-tempo electroclash-indie-pop deftly explores young womanhood in 2020s London

From London
Recommended if you like Heavenly, CSS, the Teenagers
Up next I Have to Get Hotter out now

The Femcels’ music is euphoric and depressive, sometimes ironic but mostly sincere, often high-tempo, and all delivered with wired, unvarnished vocals. In that sense, it is 80s and 90s twee reincarnate; move past their band’s shitposty name and you’ll find that Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton have a lot to offer when it comes to exploring the chills and thrills of young womanhood in 2020s London.

The publisher has cancelled the US release of Shy Girl by Mia Ballard and withdrawn the UK edition after weeks of online speculation about the novel’s origins

Hachette Book Group has withdrawn a horror novel after allegations circulated online that its author relied heavily on artificial intelligence. The book is to be discontinued in the UK after being published in November 2025, and its US launch date has been cancelled.

The book, Shy Girl by Mia Ballard, had been scheduled for release in the US this spring under Hachette’s Orbit imprint. However, the publisher confirmed it had halted publication after an internal review. The title has also been removed from online retailers including Amazon, and will no longer be distributed in the UK.

Raynor Winn’s lawyers have confirmed she published a previous book in 2012, years before the memoir that won a £10,000 prize for debut writers

Author Raynor Winn published a book under a pseudonym six years before her 2018 memoir The Salt Path, despite repeatedly describing the later work as her debut, it has emerged.

Winn received widespread acclaim for The Salt Path, including a £10,000 prize for debut writers.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden; Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan; Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson; The Dangerous Stranger by Simon Mason; Astronaut! by Oana Aristide

Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson (Phoenix, £20)
In her second psychological thriller, Watson, a former nurse, perfectly captures the frenetic atmosphere and mordant humour of an under-resourced A&E department in a city hospital. The plot revolves around three strongly drawn characters: senior nurse Aoife, whose extramarital trysts with clinical lead Michael help keep her sane, and whose new intake includes the naive, sanctimonious Eden and the more experienced but alarmingly cynical Sophie. After their arrival, the death rate spikes: long wait times may play a part, but Eden makes mistakes and Sophie has an attitude problem … The conclusion is surprising yet authentic in a story that is ultimately less about individual culpability than the policy failures of successive governments.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Tinder, £20)
Native Hawaiian writer Madden’s powerful debut novel explores both the aftermath of child sexual abuse and the commodification of trauma. It’s summer 2013, and former reality TV star Linzie King is publicising her ghostwritten memoir of abuse at the hands of Calvin Boyer, the adult son of the school bus driver. It contains information about Boyer’s other victims, among them Birdie Chang who, unhappy with the appropriation of her story and trying to escape media scrutiny, has fled Brooklyn for Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. Linzie is grappling with the narrative produced by the ghostwriter – the truth is considerably more complicated – and Boyer’s mother, who has always defended him, blaming his “sickness”, is struggling to process her feelings after he is deliberately run over and killed. A satisfying mystery, although whodunnit takes second place to Madden’s unflinching, unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned into compliance, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred “victim narrative”.

This careful analysis of so-called ‘great replacement theory’ offers a lens through which to view our broken politics

Informationsüberflutung? Weltschmerz? I’ve been searching and I don’t think even the Germans have a word that fully captures just how overwhelming the news cycle is right now. The zone has been well and truly flooded; just as you start trying to process one shocking event, something new hits the headlines.

Chain of Ideas, a new book by professor Ibram X Kendi, doesn’t provide a one-world encapsulation of our modern woes. But, in a meticulously researched 500 pages, it lays out an essential framework for parsing current events.

From owing a debt to obscure Japanese horror Sweet Home to the influence of Aliens and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the franchise continues to petrify players three decades on

To many of us playing and writing about video games in the 1990s, Resident Evil seemed to come out of nowhere. The emerging PlayStation and Saturn consoles were all about slick, bright arcade conversions – the shiny thrills of Daytona and Tekken – and Japanese publisher Capcom was in a rut of coin-op conversions and endless sequels to Street Fighter and Mega Man. Scary games were rare at the time and mostly confined to the PC. So when the news of a horror title named Biohazard (the Japanese name for the series) started to emerge in 1995, it caught the attention of games journalists as it seemed radically out of step with prevailing trends. Games were about power, but as early demos quickly revealed, Resident Evil was about vulnerability.

Thirty years later, it’s still here. The series has sold more than 180m copies worldwide, with 11 core titles and dozens of spinoffs and remakes, as well as film, television and anime tie-ins. Its characters and monsters are icons, its tropes now embedded in game design practice. What has allowed it to not only survive but flourish in such a rapidly changing industry? Why do we still let it scare us?

The fates of two ostensibly similar online games released this year, Marathon and Highguard, prove that success is becoming close to unattainable

What does success look like for developers of online video games? In 2026, the answer could not be clearer: no one has a clue.

Consider Highguard, 2026’s first big flop. Signs were promising on its launch on 26 January, with a peak of 100,000 concurrent players on Steam – plus those enjoying the game on PlayStation and Xbox, which do not make player counts public. As a free-to-play game, the barrier to entry for Highguard was low. And thanks to a prime advertising placement at the end of December’s The Game Awards – a buzzy spot usually reserved for known hitmakers, not free-to-play upstarts – curiosity was high.

In this week’s newsletter: the creators of All Will Rise on standing up to the tech giant – and joining the No Games for Genocide movement

• Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

Video games are in a funding crisis. Investor money flowed freely during the pandemic gaming boom, but now the well has run dry. It is increasingly difficult, for indie developers especially, to get the capital to make games. It is extremely unusual, then, to hear of a developer returning an investor’s money. Yet that is what Speculative Agency, developers of All Will Rise, have just done.

Last year, All Will Rise, a deck-building game about a team of activists fighting for the future of their oligarch-run city, received money from Microsoft as part of a developer acceleration programme. In late-2025, however, the team became aware of No Games for Genocide, a collective of developers, journalists, union organisers and others that came together as a result of Israeli assault on Gaza to protest against “material and commercial ties between the games industry and enabling genocide, war crimes, and the military industrial complex”.

Team Artichoke; PC/Mac
Ancient Greek gods, adorable raccoons and hypnotic puzzling from Olympus to the mortal realm and back

There’s been a trend for a while where familiar puzzle game genres are imbued with novel stories to give them depth and meaning beyond simply clearing a screen for points. Occult object sorter Strange Horticulture and historical romance card game Regency Solitaire are lovely examples, and now here’s Mythmatch, a match-three game in the style of Candy Crush or Bejeweled that’s also a warming tale of friendship and community set in a small town in ancient Greece. Interspersed with cerebral challenges are dialogue scenes with villagers and with gods which accentuate each other and give little clues that are picked up later, making this both puzzle game and communal oral drama.

You play as Artemis, the immortal daughter of Zeus, who is tired of getting overlooked for plum jobs in favour of her oafish brother Apollo (brilliantly portrayed as an insufferable proto-tech bro). When the role of God of the Hunt comes up, she applies, but finds she must first earn favour with a council of her elders on Mount Olympus, and they all have puzzle-based jobs for her. Hephaestus wants her to help make arrows and hammers in his foundry, while Apollo needs her to protect his collection of chimp soft toys (a not-so-subtle dig at NFTs). These mini-tasks take the form of match-three puzzles, though cleverly they also bring in elements of other puzzle games such as Plants vs Zombies and Overcooked.

Theatr Clwyd, Mold
Director Kate Wasserberg emphasises the fantasy and supernatural elements of the poet’s ‘play for voices’ in an entertaining and inclusive production

As with Molière at the Comédie-Française or Brecht in Berlin, there is a satisfying smack of regional reality in watching Dylan Thomas’s classic invocation of an early spring day in Wales staged as the real Flintshire thing glitters tantalisingly through the panoramic lobby windows of Theatr Clwyd.

Watching being the key word. Premiered on radio in 1954, Under Milk Wood stands with Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons as a rare sound play to have grown into a theatrical classic. Whereas Thomas left it to the ears to envisage the musical obsessive Organ Morgan, the much-loved Polly Garter and other residents of his fabulous valleys village, directors and designers have a free hand to visualise.

Sadler’s Wells, London
Kameron N Saunders’s ambitious sci-fi-coded fable is paired with a showcase of Crystal Pite’s mastery in contrasting order with human messiness

The headline news here is Taylor Swift’s star backing dancer getting a major commission for English National Ballet. If it looks nothing like a pop concert, that’s because Kameron N Saunders is a choreographer who has worked with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet among others. He is also an early career artist, who in his piece Proper Conduct has thrown a huge amount of ideas into a high concept dance that leaves a few question marks.

The first section is breezy ballet, Justin Peck style, saturated colours and sunshine. But don’t get comfortable, because Saunders is about to pull the rug. A sci-fi-voiced narrator tells us of the rot in society and it segues into nude-costumed conjoined dancers, in striking formations and fleshy connections (the dancers are excellent throughout). But then in comes an army of AI robots in Daft Punk-style visors. It’s visually impactful, with genre-fluid movement, but flails a bit in terms of conveying meaning. Is the message to beware of people who tell you how to live as they’ll steal your soul? That big tech promises to solve your problems, but will actually erase your humanity? Not sure. But Saunders’ ambition is admirable, and we will see more from this creative mind.

Grand Palais, Paris
An epic collection of the artist’s final 13 years of work explodes with the stunning colours and spiky cutouts that redefined art

Forget the joy and energy of youth – your best days might yet be ahead. Henri Matisse’s were, even when he barely made it out of surgery alive in his early 70s as war was breaking out across France. Sitting in his wheelchair, his hand wobblier and weaker than ever, his body scarcely able to muster the strength to stand and paint, he reinvented himself and reshaped modern art in the process.

Centre Pompidou and the Grand Palais’ huge exploration of the last years of Matisse’s life – from his surgery in 1941 to his death in 1954 – is a dizzying, joyous celebration of colour, form, line, light and then a whole bunch more colour. It’s so good, so beautiful, so totally overwhelming. It was always bound to be – it’s Matisse, with all the resources of France’s vast collection of Matisse works. It’s a show full of hits.

Leeds Playhouse
Featuring stellar performances across the cast, Matthew Xia’s production breathes new life into Andrea Levy’s sprawling family saga

A novel from more than two decades ago, telling a story that begins over a century ago: what can an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island tell us in 2026? Plenty, it transpires, as Helen Edmundson’s adaptation is brought to the stage with gravitas and speaks to our current era with startling clarity.

Rufus Norris was in the chair for the original National Theatre production of the play in 2019. With its regional premiere, director Matthew Xia has breathed life into the piece by simply allowing it to exist in its period – he has not tinkered with either the sense of time or place. The costumes and the apparently simple set first place us between the two world wars that devastated Britain, then take us up to 1948, when the HMT Empire Windrush docked near London, before charting the freezing cold “welcome” those arriving from the Caribbean received from this small island.

Nearly 300 of the actor’s items, from designer gowns to everyday basics, to be sold in Los Angeles, with some lots under $100

A customised sunhat. A slogan sweatshirt. A “mom” necklace. An old copy of Cosmopolitan. If these sound like items found in many homes today, they’re actually the castoffs of a household name: Gwyneth Paltrow.

Next week, nearly 300 pieces owned by Paltrow will be on sale as part of an auction at Julien’s, the Los Angeles auction house that has sold big-ticket items such as Marilyn Monroe’s so-called “naked” dress and the leather jacket worn by Olivia Newton-John in Grease. But, while those items went for six-figure prices, Paltrow’s sale is a little more affordable, with estimates starting at about $50 (£37) to $75 (£56) for some of Paltrow’s personalised stationery.

A combination of autism and ADHD caused outbursts, confusion and stress that my son couldn’t understand – until he saw David Tennant behaving the same way

The film Elf is a no-go in our house. My son interprets it as the psychological horror story of a man who is telling the truth but is constantly disbelieved. He loves The Traitors and rewatches entire series of it – knowing who the traitors are gives him an autonomy and comfort watching the game. Any other kind of conflict on screen and he’ll leave the room or wind it forward. I tried to explain that there are no stories without conflict. It made no difference.

My son is autistic and has ADHD – what’s sometimes referred to as AuDHD. We’ve always called him “fizzy”. He’s often the noisiest person in a room but hates too much noise. He’s incredibly sociable and wants so desperately to be part of the fun but finds the fun stressful. I had never seen anyone like him represented on screen.

Mors Imperator caused a scandal in 1887 amid fears it mocked the German kaiser – more than 100 years later it is being displayed in a state museum

Wrapped in a cloak with ermine fur and wearing a jagged iron crown, a hulking skeleton rests one foot on a globe and knocks over a royal throne with a dramatic flick of its ivory wrist.

Entitled Mors Imperator (“Death is the Ruler”), the German artist Hermione von Preuschen’s 1887 symbolical painting was meant to express the transience of fame and power. But authorities feared the picture could be seen as mocking the ageing German Emperor Wilhelm I, who then had recently turned 90, and refused to accept its submission to the Berlin Academy of the Arts’ annual exhibition that year.

After a two year closure, the museum doubles its gallery space with a 700-plus object show examining how humans and technology shape each other

Right now on the Bowery, a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, two supersized lovers embrace several stories up into the blue spring sky. Strapped against the New Museum’s industrial mesh exterior, the pair are frozen in a state of plasticized affection. Their grinning, almost smooching heads are pressed close and glossy torsos entwined. A massive hand, safe as a catcher’s mitt, encases them both, splaying wide across their waists as though to stop them crashing to the sidewalk.

The site-specific sculpture is titled Art Lovers, a work by Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self, and marks the architectural “kiss point” between the New Museum’s original building and a new expansion. Today, 21 March, the New Museum publicly debuts its enlarged architectural anatomy after two years of being closed to the public. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the OMA founder, and partner Shohei Shigematsu, the $82m project affixes a jagged, glassy jewel to the original building, effectively doubling the footprint to 119,700 sq ft. At a media preview this week, Shigematsu likened the alignment of the two distinct buildings – one he called more “vertical and introverted”, the other “more horizontal and extroverted” – to the search for a romantic partner. “You know how difficult it is to find a perfect pair,” he said. “Very difficult.”

The former Countdown host on nasty rightwingers, the plane she bought to fly solo around the world, and her love of snogging

Born in Bedfordshire, Carol Vorderman, 65, studied engineering at Cambridge University. Her mathematical skill secured her a role on the Channel 4 gameshow Countdown, which she co-hosted from 1982 to 2008. Since 1999, she has presented the annual Pride of Britain awards, and in 2000 she received the MBE for services to broadcasting. She has published educational workbooks, self-help guides and her latest paperback is Now What? A People’s Manifesto for a Better Britain. She is a team captain on Channel 5’s show Celebrity Puzzling. She is twice divorced, has two children and lives in Bristol.

When were you happiest?
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.

Those planning for uni in England and Wales this autumn can apply for student loans from Monday. Here are the options for families worried about debt

Our child is heading to university soon – should we try to pay their tuition fees upfront so they are not saddled with a debt for decades?

Our child is a recent graduate and their student loan debt is ballooning – should we help pay off some or all of it?

Our expert taste-tester gives peas a chance – but which received a frosty reception?

• The best supermarket oven chips, tasted and rated

The sweetness of a pea is more than just a desirable taste; it’s an indication of a pea picked at the perfect moment. As the sugars convert into starch, peas lose their sweetness rapidly after picking, leading to a less sweet, more fibrous and lower-quality product.

That’s why high-quality peas are picked, blanched and frozen as quickly as possible, usually all within two and a half hours. That said, other factors such as soil, seed quality, transportation and a stable freezer temperature all affect a frozen pea’s quality.

From budget to Japanese-style models, here are chef Ben Lippett’s sharpest picks for comfort, cut and cost after weeks of chopping. Plus, what to know before you buy

• The kitchen gadgets top chefs can’t live without

A great chef’s knife is less a tool and more an extension of the person holding it. In the kitchen, your knife effectively becomes your right (or left) hand. Balance equals control; good steel spells confidence and longevity; a sharp edge means ease.

I’ve put a handful of knives through the only trials that matter: shallots diced to translucence, tomatoes sliced gossamer thin, herbs chiffonaded to perfume. I’m looking past marketing into geometry, materials, grind and ultimately how each knife feels – at minute one and hour 10. Does it bite eagerly, or wedge and bruise? How does it feel in your hand – is it perfectly balanced or too blade-heavy? Does it sing on the board, or thud? Will this knife need lots of TLC, or will it look after itself?

Best chef’s knife overall:
Wüsthof classic chef knife, 20cm

Best budget knife:
Victorinox Fibrox chef’s knife, 20cm

Travelling over Easter? Whether it’s mini magnets or collapsible buckets, here’s the parent-tested kit that’s actually worth bringing (and what’s just a waste of money)

• How to get kids outdoors

Holidays are a different experience after having kids. A concept that once evoked the promise of rest and relaxation becomes a feat of logistics and endurance, where one forgotten item can mean a week of no sleep (been there, done that, got the T-shirt).

Despite fears that we’d never be able to holiday again after having children, my partner and I have taken numerous trips with our two offspring – both under four – and some of the breaks have actually been enjoyable. The most memorable was when we took our eldest around Thailand for our honeymoon when he was seven months old. But we’ve really earned our travelling-with-kids stripes thanks to the family commitment that requires frequent trips to New York.

Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest – and muckiest – outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking

• The best lawnmowers to keep your grass in check

The trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your garden tools might do a good job of keeping your plot in check, but keeping your patio, decking and outdoor furniture spick and span can take hours, especially if you rely on a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.

That’s where the pressure washer comes in. These handy tools connect to your hose pipe and squirt water at any cleaning problem. Stubborn and unpleasant stains, from bird dirt to years of neglect, can be lifted from your garden’s hard-wearing surfaces in seconds. With the right attachments, you can also use your pressure washer to hose down cars, bikes and boats.

Best pressure washer overall:
Ava Go P40

Best budget pressure washer:
Kärcher K 2 Classic

Michael B Jordan headed there straight from the Oscars. No wonder. Their Double-Double is ‘the near perfect expression of burger-ness’

They say you never forget your first time, but for most of us, this doesn’t apply to cheeseburgers. We can’t really remember our first cheeseburger, because we start eating them at such an early age, before the memory centres of our brains are fully formed. In fact, in Wisconsin (“America’s dairyland”) babies are traditionally weaned on a fortifying diet of cheeseburgers, bratwurst and fondue, along with little sips of lager, just to make sure we acquire the taste.

But while I may not be able to recall the particular details of my very first cheeseburger, the sense-memories of them are embedded deep within my subconscious. The perfect flavour-chord of ketchup, mustard and pickles on molten cheese and juicy beef occupies the same psychological space as the peppery cinnamon-and-clove aroma of my father’s Old Spice and the warmth of my mother’s hug. More than mere memories, these are encoded messages: comfort comes in the form of hugs, spicy aftershave, and cheeseburgers.

A moreish way to enjoy a popular Greek lamb recipe, accompanied by a pretty rhubarb pudding

Easter for me immediately brings to mind two things: cracking dyed red eggs together in the style of conkers (a Serbian Easter game that we play every year) and lamb. We always eat lamb at Easter lunch, and I suppose that simply harks back to religious tradition. Today’s lamb shank dish is a wonderfully straightforward and moreish take on a popular Greek recipe. I’ve gone for rhubarb for pudding, because it’s just so representative of this time of year – it’s also very pretty on the eye and a treat to eat, too.

Anna Tobias is chef/co-owner of Cafe Deco in London WC1

The historic port is a cosmopolitan gateway to global flavours and traditions. And it’s barely on the tourist trail. Take a tour …

Many years ago, I swapped languages with a young woman from Trieste. It was during one of our half-English, half-Italian practice hours that she introduced the idea of Trieste, on a map, as possessing the shape of a stomach. She described her city (which is also a province) as being suspended: pressed by the sea on one side, enveloped by Slovenia and the Karst hills on the other, with a short oesophagus attaching it to the body of Italy. She also suggested I read la Conscienza di Zeno – Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo’s devilishly funny hymn to procrastination, self-delusion and walking around in search of a suitable cafe, and warned me about the ruffian wind.

It would be almost two decades before I finally visited Trieste, bringing with me enough anticipation to tempt disappointment (unfounded) and the itinerary of a food writer. I carried the image of a stomach too, fitting in so many ways for this remarkable food city, not least for making its geography vivid, which in turn explains so much about its history. Once a coastal fishing village, colonised by the Romans, raided by the Venetians, entrusted to the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna (for four centuries, which included a prolonged heyday), appended to the newly united Kingdom of Italy, fought over, briefly independent, handed back to Italy in 1954, from which point it developed into what is today one of the most outward looking and dynamic cities in Italy. Trieste, it seems, has digested and assimilated, meaning its complex history is reflected in the architecture, dialect, music, literature, sports, civic nature and multifaceted food culture: surely one of the most intriguing and rewarding in Italy.

Bringing food back to life is a great kitchen skill. No, you can’t just microwave it

There is nothing lovelier than seeing a cook do their thing. By “doing their thing”, I do not mean just going about kitchen work – that is often excruciating to watch (why are they cutting onions like that?) I mean doing their thing: their culinary equivalent of a Mastermind subject, that one dish or process that they do so well, and with such evident pride, that the most crotchety backseat cook is forced to shut up.

Take my partner’s method for making fish-finger sandwiches, which involves frying the fish fingers in butter, then creating an in-pan sweatbox to melt artisanal cheese on to them and custom blending condiments. It creates, on average, as much washing up as a full cooked dinner. Others have a special pancake hack or carrot cake recipe, and people tend not to let these things go unnoticed – it’s always my salad dressing, possessive, but we forgive their hubris, because each of us has “A Thing” of our own.

Brian, 53, a property management director, meets Jeanette, 46, who works in investor relations and occasionally models

What were you hoping for?
At worst, a free meal and an enjoyable conversation. At best, the start of a journey …

It’s hard under the best of circumstances. For those with difficult family relationships or estrangement, it’s even more complicated

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The phone call came in mid-2016. “I’ve got cancer,” the old woman announced. Kathy*, a small business consultant, lived in Sydney. Her widowed mother, then in her 80s, lived in a large regional town four hours’ drive away.

For the next five years, Kathy became her mother’s drive-in, drive-out carer, clocking up thousands of kilometres on her odometer.

One in three UK postcodes now has more dogs than children. Meet the Dinkwads (dual income, no kids, with a dog). Plus Tim Dowling’s guide to the best breeds for Dinkwads

Bryan Bell was at home when his one-year-old Patti collapsed, shaking like a leaf in a gale-force tornado. She was having a fit. Bell’s husband, John, was out of the house and he didn’t know what to do. “It was quite a traumatic experience because I didn’t know what was happening,” the 40-year-old PR recalls. Eventually, Patti’s fit subsided and the couple soon found a diagnosis from her doctor: their miniature dachshund had epilepsy. “She’s all medicated now, so it’s under control. But when it happens, you feel like: ‘Is this going to be the fit that’s too much for her little head?’”

Medical scares, behaviour issues and a tendency to eat you out of house and home – many dog owners will tell you that getting a four-legged friend bears more than a few similarities to having a young child. But as birthrates plummet across the world, a curious inverse trend has emerged: couples are getting dogs. Lots and lots of couples, in fact. They’re called Dinkwads (dual income, no kids, with a dog) and their numbers are growing. With one in three postcodes in England home to more dogs than children, you are now more likely to hear the howl of a basset hound than the sound of kids playing. If you counted up all the estimated 13 million dogs in the UK, from pint-sized chihuahuas to lolloping great danes, you’d only be two million short of the total number of children. And unlike the human birthrate – which in Britain hit a record low in 2024 – the number of dogs only looks set to increase.

Chantelle would like Hugo to show more affection when they are out. You decide who is being touchy
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Friends and family have noticed that we don’t hold hands and it’s become a running joke

I find holding hands annoying. Besides, I’m quite caring and I tell her I love her on a daily basis

Bypassing animal health certificate system by using cheaper pet passport issued abroad could backfire, experts say

British pet owners who want to take their furry friends elsewhere in Europe have been warned not to try to dodge expensive health certificates by using a pet passport issued abroad.

Before Brexit, taking a cat, dog or ferret to the EU was relatively simple: the Pet Travel Scheme meant an animal needed a microchip, vaccination against rabies, a pet passport and, for dogs, there were also requirements concerning tapeworm treatment.

From a real get-away-from-it-all isolated ‘off-grid’ cottage by the sea to a 42nd-floor three-bedroom flat in a London tower block

Consultancy forecasts typical £1,972 annual dual-fuel bill as conflict pushes UK’s gas market past three-year highs

Household energy bills in Great Britain could increase by more than £330 a year to almost £2,000 from this summer after the Iran war pushed the UK’s gas market past three-year highs.

A typical combined household gas and electricity bill is now forecast to reach £1,972 a year from July under the UK government’s quarterly price cap, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight,.

To understand this you need to know about swap rates and the impact of the war in Iran

On 16 January, the average rate on a new two-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.78%, according to the financial data company Moneyfacts. Two months later, it was 5.20%. Between those two dates, the Bank of England voted to keep the base rate at 3.75%. More significantly, though, the US and Israel carried out airstrikes on Iran and a conflict broke out.

The US air attacks on Iran have caused economic shocks across the world. Stock markets have tumbled, petrol and heating oil prices have gone up and there have been warnings of higher bills to come, for everything from food to holidays. All of this feeds into interest rate expectations, and from there into mortgage rates.

DHSC corrects statements after regulator intervenes as experts say smoking causes far more cancer cases

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has had to retract a misleading claim that sunbeds are as dangerous a cancer risk as smoking.

In January, health officials announced stricter rules for sunbeds, incorrectly claiming they were “as dangerous as smoking”. The comparison was repeated in social media posts shared by the health secretary and NHS England and was reported by a number of media outlets.

Wellness enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram claim the combination bestows glowing skin and better digestion

A shot of lemon juice and olive oil might be delicious on a salad – but would you drink it straight up?

That’s what wellness enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram are doing, claiming it bestows glowing skin and better digestion, and supports the dubious process of “detoxing”.

Evidence suggests saunas can boost heart health, but their real power may lie in bringing people together in an increasingly digital world

From fields to floating pontoons, in horseboxes, barrels and beach huts, saunas are springing up across Britain. The British Sauna Society now lists about 640 saunas – up from 540 at the start of the year – while a recent report predicted that the UK could become the world’s largest sauna market by 2033, outpacing even Finland and Germany.

“The continuing growth suggests that the peak has still yet to come – if there is one,” said Gabrielle Reason, the society’s director. But are saunas a tonic for the nation’s health – or a wellness fad with hidden risks?

A happiness researcher called prolonged eye contact ‘the best thing ever’, claiming it can bring couples closer. Does it really work?

In January, business professor and happiness researcher Arthur C Brooks appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast to offer advice on optimizing morning and evening routines. His tips seemed reasonable – think exercising early and no alcohol before bed. Then, for couples, he made a kookier suggestion: every night before going to sleep, spend five minutes holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.

“This is the best thing ever,” he enthuses, explaining that it can help with mood management and to strengthen your relationship.

A neat cuff can elevate an outfit in seconds – but it takes more than a quick fold to get it right

Trousers – they’re not rocket science. But there are plenty of ways to mess them up, or to elevate them above their primary role of covering legs. A classic styling trick has emerged recently: the turn-up. Harry Styles had them for his pinstripe trews at the Brits, actor Chase Infiniti turned her trousers up at Paris fashion week and hefty turn-ups feature on baggy blue and ecru jeans and olive-green track trousers in JW Anderson’s latest collection for Uniqlo.

Turn-ups are the bread and butter of preppy labels such as J Crew-adjacent brand Alex Mill. Head to the website of this New York label and turned-up jeans paired with purple loafers and pink socks, or with letterbox-red ballet flats and yolk-yellow socks, will wash over you like salt spray. At John Lewis, meanwhile, turn-ups run the gamut from pencil-thin to the depth of an Oxford English Dictionary.

The spring equinox is here, which means days in the park, ice-cream selfies and an extra layer for the evening

All the talk on red carpet night was of leading guys such as Adrien Brody and Leonardo DiCaprio flashing the bling

While the eyes might be the window to the soul, lapels are certainly doing some talking. On the Oscars red carpet last Sunday night, Hollywood’s leading men flashed a lot of bling on their suits.

From Adrien Brody who wore an astronomically large brooch titled Ulysses, arguably as big as the James Joyce tome is thick, to a clean-shaven Pedro Pascal, who distracted from his newly bare chin with a silk and feather Chanel Camélia brooch, lapels were vying for the spotlight.

Bold shades are all over the catwalks, but they can be tricky to wear. These tricks will make them work in the real world

You would think primary shades would be the easiest colours to wear. Red, yellow, blue: we can name these before we can tie our shoelaces. They are not sophisticated colours, such as Armani greige or Pantone favourite Mocha Mousse. They are not challenging-to-wear colours, like chartreuse or mustard. They are Mr Men colours. So wearing them must be child’s play, surely.

And yet they are weirdly tricky to wear. They can feel shouty and basic: the getting dressed equivalent of speaking loudly without saying anything particularly interesting, which is – to paint it in primary colours – not what any of us are aiming for.

The wild moors and gentle dales of the UK’s oldest national park are just as inviting today as they were when it was created in 1951

Look at a satellite photograph of Britain taken on a clear night and the only things visible are the glowing street lights of towns and cities. If you cast your eyes to the centre of northern England, the distinctive, cupped-hand-shaped boundary of the Peak District national park is clearly outlined as an island of darkness washed by an ocean of light from the industrial conurbations of the north and Midlands.

It was established in April 1951 as the first national park in Britain. And that view from space gives the clearest indication possible of why this site was chosen – it put a national park where it was most needed in the country. It has been estimated that about a third of the population of England and Wales lives less than an hour away from the Peak District.

From a deconsecrated London cemetery to a Cumbrian seal colony, our readers select wonderful ‘havens for both human and non-human visitors’
• Tell us about your trips to France – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

I always take friends on an afternoon walk when they visit Bristol, to experience the swift changes in scenery: starting at the tobacco warehouses of Cumberland Basin before ascending from the muddy banks of the River Avon up into Leigh Woods, a national nature reserve. As well as possible animal sightings like peregrine falcons and roe deer, the woods are an important site for whitebeam trees, with several species only growing here. It’s easy to spend a full afternoon crisscrossing the trails before walking over Brunel’s famous suspension bridge for a well-deserved coffee at the Primrose Café in Clifton village.
Tor Hands

I loved Tanzania – we flew over hungry lions in a national park

I can still remember my first flight, in 2002. It was magical. I was working as a tour guide in Myanmar. I met a British balloon pilot called Phil, who had a spare place on a flight. He offered to take me, too.

I don’t particularly enjoy flying in planes, but this was different. We floated gently with the wind, out in the open air. There was no turbulence. It was so serene and picturesque as we flew over temples. I immediately fell in love with ballooning.

Ski accommodation can be prohibitively expensive, but a cosy youth hostel puts the Montafon resort and its glorious runs within reach for those on a budget

‘Want to come skiing in Austria at half-term?” I asked my 13-year-old son. “It’ll be just like one of those luxury chalet holidays, only we’ll make our own beds, cook our own dinners and carry our gear back to our accommodation ourselves.” Osian didn’t hear the caveats. “Sounds amazing,” he said, his eyes glazing to a cinematic sweep of white powder and the chance to perfect his 360.

For many families, the dream of a catered chalet – and its ready-lit fires, homemade strudels and chauffeured lift shuttles – remains just that. Apartments offer access to the slopes at less vertigo-inducing prices, but they tend to come with a minimum seven-night stay. If you only have a few days to spare, or a budget that won’t stretch to a full week’s lift pass, hotels fill the gap, but then you’re back navigating the moguls of cost.

My wife is horrified by the price of tickets, and I get triggered if I sit too near the stage due to an unfortunate incident at the circus

At the start of the year, my wife launched a campaign for us to go to the theatre more. It bears many of the hallmarks of my 2018 campaign for us to go to the theatre more, which failed miserably after my wife pronounced it stupid. She claims not to remember this.

My wife’s campaign is hampered by her refusal to accept the kind of outlay that modern theatre-going requires. She comes into the kitchen and places her open laptop in front of me.

From the Azure Window to nocturnal lights and radar-visual, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 What is Ikea’s all-time bestselling item of furniture?
2 Which country had a mosque on its national flag until 2021?
3 101-year-old Bill Greason is the last survivor from which era of baseball?
4 Which sisters shared one eye and one tooth between them?
5 Which nuts are the most radioactive common food?
6 Who became German minister for women and youth in 1991?
7 Which Australian bird has killed humans in the wild?
8 Which fortified wine is an ingredient of tiramisu?
What links:
9 ares; august; job; mobile; polish?
10 Berry; Chowns; Denyer; Ramsay; Spencer?
11 Eildon Hills; Glastonbury Abbey; Mount Etna; Richmond Castle?
12 Jennifer Beals; Jessie Buckley; Helena Bonham Carter; Elsa Lanchester?
13 Azure Window, Malta; Darwin’s Arch, Galápagos; Lovers’ Arch, Italy; Toilet Bowl, Utah?
14 Nocturnal lights; daylight discs; radar-visual; CE1; CE2; CE3?
15 Pilot (1); Taylor Swift (8); Earth, Wind & Fire (9); Guns N’ Roses (10); Kate Bush (12)?

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

• ​Submit a question

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

Sightings in Varginha in 1996 have been dismissed as hoax, but saga continues to draw people from around world

The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil’s greatest mysteries was born.

“It really was something unique,” recalls Marco Antônio Reis, a zoo director, who was at his ranch outside Varginha one stormy day in January 1996 when, he says, an otherworldly creature came to town.

Gig AI trainers worldwide are selling moments of their lives, including calls and texts, to AI companies for quick cash

One morning last year, Jacobus Louw set out on his daily neighborhood walk to feed the seagulls he finds along the way. Except this time, he recorded several videos of his feet and the view as he walked on the pavement. The video earned him $14, about 10 times the country’s minimum wage, or for Louw, a 27-year-old based in Cape Town, South Africa, half a week’s worth of groceries.

The video was for an “Urban Navigation” task Louw found on Kled AI, an app that pays contributors for uploading their data, such as videos and photos, to train artificial intelligence models. In a couple of weeks, Louw made $50 by uploading pictures and videos of his everyday life.

The Guardian’s picture editors select photographs from around the world

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing

Across the UK, many small charities face increasing financial pressures, forcing some to shut their doors. When this happens, it can leave the people who relied on those services without support - and volunteers and communities trying to step in and keep things going.

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing. Have you or others tried to continue the work informally and what were the challenges of doing that? Did you try to keep it going - and what difficulties did you face? What happened to the people who depended on the service?

Health officials, schools and a university in Kent are working to contain an outbreak. We want to hear from those living in the area

A meningitis outbreak in Kent has been linked to a strain that most young people are not routinely vaccinated against, with two people confirmed to have died and 11 more in hospital. Health officials have offered antibiotics to those at risk, as authorities work to contain the spread.

We want to hear from people living in Canterbury and the surrounding area whether the outbreak is being well managed by the authorities.

We would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated

Was someone there for you when you were feeling lonely? As part of the Guardian’s Well Actually series, we would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated. You can tell us your story below.

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

We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job

Lollipop people in Suffolk have become the latest neon-clad, road patrollers to don body cams amid a rise in abuse. We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job.

The council has launched a six-week awareness campaign called “Lollipops Aren’t Just For Children” to remind drivers to slow down, be patient, and show respect at patrol points. The cameras have been used by school crossing patrols in Greater Manchester, Clacton and Basildon for similar reasons.

Wake up to the top stories and what they mean – free to your inbox every weekday morning at 7am

Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

Get smart, sustainable shopping advice from the Filter team straight to your inbox, every Sunday

The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.

A weekly email from our star chefs featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from our star chefs, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent.

Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.

Upgrade your space today, with eight emails packed with tips to brighten up your home - whatever your budget

Embrace your space: the Guardian’s House to Home newsletter is bursting with tips and tricks to help you boost your bedroom and give your living room some love.

Sign up any time, and get eight emails direct to your inbox every Sunday morning.

Many Iranians were determined to mark the Persian new year despite the bombing entering its fourth week

Heavy strikes echoed across Tehran during one of the country’s biggest holidays as Tel Aviv said it had “acted alone” in striking Iran’s South Pars gasfield, a move that further escalated the conflict.

Donald Trump said on Friday he was considering “winding down” military operations. He wrote on social media: “We are getting very close to meeting our objectives.”

People in Tehran shop for Nowruz at Tajrish Bazaar.