To test the safety and security of AI, hackers have to trick large language models into breaking their own rules. It requires ingenuity and manipulation – and can come at a deep emotional cost

A few months ago, Valen Tagliabue sat in his hotel room watching his chatbot, and felt euphoric. He had just manipulated it so skilfully, so subtly, that it began ignoring its own safety rules. It told him how to sequence new, potentially lethal pathogens and how to make them resistant to known drugs.

Tagliabue had spent much of the previous two years testing and prodding large language models such as Claude and ChatGPT, always with the aim of making them say things they shouldn’t. But this was one of his most advanced “hacks” yet: a sophisticated plan of manipulation, which involved him being cruel, vindictive, sycophantic, even abusive. “I fell into this dark flow where I knew exactly what to say, and what the model would say back, and I watched it pour out everything,” he says. Thanks to him, the creators of the chatbot could now fix the flaw he had found, hopefully making it a little safer for everyone.

The then Newcastle manager’s on-air blast at Sir Alex Ferguson remains a classic Premier League moment

Premier League history is littered with red letter days and Monday 29 April 1996 will for ever rank among the most memorable. Thirty years on, recollections of the aftermath of Newcastle’s 1-0 victory at Leeds remain vivid. Keith Gillespie’s goal saw Kevin Keegan’s team move three points behind the leaders, Manchester United, with two fixtures remaining.

Before Newcastle’s visit to Elland Road, Sir Alex Ferguson craftily suggested that Leeds and Nottingham Forest – the team Keegan’s players would visit three days later – would not try as hard as they had against his own side. Ferguson also pointedly reminded everyone Newcastle had agreed to provide the opposition for Stuart Pearce’s testimonial by the Trent later in the year. This backdrop dictated that Keegan used a live post-match television interview with Richard Keys and Andy Gray of Sky Sports to claim the moral high ground while also walking straight into Ferguson’s psychological trap.

This ‘nonfiction thriller’ takes us through exactly what would happen if Nigel Farage won his dreamed-of majority

For some years now, mainstream British politics has revolved increasingly obsessively around the question of how to stop Nigel Farage. What started a decade ago with Brexit may yet end in a general election that boils down to one question: do you or don’t you want to risk putting this man in Downing Street? That said, we still know surprisingly little about what a Reform government might mean in practice.

Of course, it might never happen. But if it did, what exactly would Farage do with a majority that enabled him to fulfil his wildest dreams? And how well would an unwritten British constitution, still heavily reliant on good chaps voluntarily being good chaps, cope with full-fat populism?

Whether you are starting from scratch, or have a well-honed routine, moving can help us feel happier and healthier. Experts share their one essential exercise and how to get the most out of it

Many of us, regardless of our age or fitness levels, know that we should be doing more exercise but are unsure where to start. So what is the ultimate exercise for improving health, longevity and general wellbeing? Here, personal trainers share the best moves, whatever your individual needs or abilities.

Trump is volatile, capricious and unreasonable – but he belongs to the old world of analogue power. What comes next will be harder to manage

Donald Trump is not impressed by soft power. He respects hard men with military muscle. But he can be moved by pageantry, which is the purpose of King Charles’s visit to Washington this week. Trump is flattered to rub shoulders with majesty. The good vibes are then supposed to radiate warmth through a political relationship that has been chilled by the war in Iran.

It might work, but not for long. Trump’s irritation with Keir Starmer and other European leaders for what he calls cowardice in the Middle East is aggravated daily by evidence that the war is a strategic calamity.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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

The bizarre vertical flight pattern has long puzzled experts but new research reveals why it may play a crucial role in the insect’s survival

On a spring evening along the banks of the River Thames, thousands of mayflies can be seen engaging in what may be one of the world’s oldest dances. In the fading light, the males make a steep vertical climb, flip over and float back to Earth – wings and tail outstretched in a skydiving posture so as to drop slowly through the sky.

Mayflies are among the world’s oldest winged insects, emerging roughly 300m years ago – long before dinosaurs walked the Earth. Even the Mesopotamian poem the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest pieces of literature, makes reference to the short-lived mayfly. Over the epochs, the insect’s basic design has changed very little compared with the fossils of their ancestors.

Reform leader changed his mind about standing as MP after gift from Thai-based crypto tycoon Christopher Harborne

Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, the Guardian can reveal.

Farage had stated he did not intend to stand as a prospective MP but U-turned in June 2024, within weeks of receiving the personal gift from the Thai-based businessman.

US president said UK monarch agreed Tehran should not be allowed nuclear weapons

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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked King Charles for his speech in Washington yesterday.

He said:

I thank His Majesty King Charles III, royal family, the United Kingdom, and all valiant American hearts for this clarion call for unity in support of Ukraine across the Atlantic.

This is exactly what is needed to bring dignified and lasting peace to Ukraine and all of Europe. The people of Ukraine deeply appreciate all the support provided by the United Kingdom and the United States. Thank-you.

Iran can’t get their act together. They don’t know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon! President DJT

About 500 officers deployed as part of operation at headquarters of Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light

Police have raided the headquarters of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light following an investigation into allegations of serious sexual offences, modern slavery and forced marriage.

About 500 officers drawn from across the north-west of England were on the ground on Wednesday morning and made a number of arrests. The officers had warrants to enter the group’s headquarters, which is based out of a former orphanage, as well as other properties in Crewe, Cheshire.

PMQs comes after Starmer saw off a major Labour rebellion over a bid to force investigation into his appointment of Peter Mandelson

Here is the running order for PMQs.

Nigel Farage was given £5m by the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election, Anna Isaac reports.

Colombia president Gustavo Petro tells 57-country talks on a green energy transition that fossil fuel interests could destroy humanity

The world is threatened by a “suicidal” model of capitalism that is leading to war, fascism and the potential extinction of humanity, Colombia’s president has said, as he convened 57 governments to address the climate crisis.

Gustavo Petro blamed fossil fuel interests for taking ever more desperate measures to prevent a transition to green energy. “There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy – fossil fuels – that lead to death. Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life,” he said. “The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.”

Ruling is blow to Office for Students after it issued fine for handling of protests over professor’s trans rights views

Sussex University has overturned a £585,000 fine by England’s higher education watchdog after the high court rejected claims the university had breached free speech regulations involving its former professor Kathleen Stock.

The ruling is a damaging blow to the credibility and management of the Office for Students, after the court rejected the regulator’s lengthy investigation into Sussex’s handling of the protests aimed at Stock over her views on transgender rights and her subsequent resignation in 2021.

Niesr says even under best-case scenario, economy would grow at slower pace in 2026 and 2027 because of conflict

Britain is facing a £35bn economic hit and the risk of a recession this year as the fallout from the Iran war adds to the pressure on Keir Starmer’s government, a leading thinktank has warned.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said that even under a best-case scenario the UK economy would grow at a much slower pace this year and next because of the Middle East conflict.

• Bright won eight Women’s Super League titles at Chelsea

• Defender retired from England duty in 2025 with 88 caps

Millie Bright has announced her immediate retirement, ending a trophy-laden career during which she won eight Women’s Super League titles and six Women’s FA Cups with Chelsea.

The defender, who retired from international football in 2025, also helped England win the 2022 European Championship on home soil, and in 2023 – in the absence of the injured captain Leah Williamson – led the side to the World Cup final. She won 88 caps.

Dan Reed says the film recasts abuse allegations as lies and sidesteps Jackson’s relationships with children

Michael, the recently released biopic of Michael Jackson, has been severely criticised by the director of Leaving Neverland, the 2019 documentary that chronicled claims against Jackson of child sexual abuse by Wade Robson and James Safechuck.

In an interview with Variety, Dan Reed, who was subject to death threats after Leaving Neverland was released, said: “What the movie does is creates a version of events that essentially portrays Wade, James and others who’ve accused Jackson of child sexual abuse as liars without actually articulating it.”

Everything was in place for Andrea’s dream celebration in Barbados. Then her close friend was denied the right to walk across a British airport to board a connecting flight

Weddings can be complicated to organise, especially when the venue is more than 4,000 miles from home. But Andrea, a Londoner, was confident she and her partner, Josh, had thought of everything when they planned their dream wedding in Barbados for the beginning of May.

The British couple – Andrea of Nigerian and Josh of Bajan heritage – booked a stunning venue, with tropical gardens and spectacular views.

Pace of sea-level rise has turned Outer Banks coastal area into a ‘canary in the coalmine’ for other east coast communities

Moving house has a more literal meaning on Hatteras Island, the slender hook of land that juts off the coast of North Carolina. After a slew of houses toppled spectacularly into the Atlantic Ocean recently, entire buildings are now being lifted on to wheels to flee the rapidly eroding coastline.

Since September, 19 homes have been lost to waves that tore them from their pilings, sending them crashing into other structures like bumper cars before breaking up in the ocean. Spooked homeowners have turned to the unusual services of Barry Crum, a lifelong Hatteras resident who has become the island’s main house mover.

Companies such as Chaotic Good are confecting social media buzz to promote Geese, Oklou and other indie darlings. Industry insiders reveal how widespread the practice is – even if no-one is sure it actually works

Did you get more fomo than usual from last year’s Glastonbury? Did you see a video of Overmono or Lorde or Self Esteem that made you seethe with jealousy? That may have been because more of your friends genuinely did attend the festival last year – or it could be because those acts, and 25 others including Fatboy Slim, Charli xcx and Doechii, paid a digital marketing agency that sent influencers and content creators to watch their sets and upload organic-looking clips to social media.

Take a quick look at Your Culture’s Instagram page and you’ll find that the boutique UK agency had a hand in disseminating some of 2025’s most viral live music moments: the Last Dinner Party’s raucous “medieval sleaze” album launch party; Chappell Roan’s headline set at Reading festival. If you saw video from Calum Scott’s surprise set at St Pancras International last year, or Alex Warren’s outside Warren Street, it’s likely because of Your Culture. An Instagram post from January boasts that the brand “worked with 55% of the nominees” of the most recent Brit awards.

Most suitcases look hardwearing, but which ones actually are? We dropped bestselling brands’ luggage from a ladder to find out …

• The best carry-on luggage

A suitcase is like the portrait in the traveller’s attic, accumulating more than its fair share of knocks and scrapes while we refresh ourselves on the road. We trundle them over cobbles, see them tumble from luggage racks on the train – and if we choose to fly, there’s a fair chance they’ll be mishandled before we reunite at the carousel.

For our testing, we pushed eight suitcases to the limit by dropping them on to a hard surface, as if they’d been fumbled by a baggage handler. Air travel is especially tough on suitcases, so you might get away with choosing a less-resilient case if you make the climate-conscious choice to travel by rail or sea.

Best suitcase overall:
Away the Large

Best budget suitcase:
Tripp Holiday 8 Large

Caroline Muirhead’s whirlwind romance with a Scottish farmer soon took a turn when she discovered his dark secret. This Netflix docuseries is a tale of her bravery, and the shocking stupidity and neglect it was rewarded with

There are some truly amazing women in the world. The fact that this thought most often crosses my mind when I am watching a true crime documentary and hearing about the female victims of men’s crimes and learning how much suffering they endured while raising children, holding down jobs, keeping friends and parents happy and safe from knowledge that would upset or endanger them is so bleak that I’m going to put it away lest rage overwhelm me for good.

Let us focus instead on another name to add to the list of extraordinary women, again brought to public attention by the terrible act of a man she knew. The three-part Netflix series Should I Marry a Murderer? tells the story of pathologist Caroline Muirhead who, at the age of 29, meets and falls in love with a Scottish farmer she meets on Tinder. His name is Sandy McKellar.

National Gallery, London
The 17th-century Spanish master painted with a supernatural intensity that will hit you just as hard as it did his original viewers

The word “visionary” is done to death but the 17th-century Spanish painter Francisco de Zurbarán demands it: he paints supernatural things naturally and natural things supernaturally. Space becomes different in his world, melting distance and erasing the barrier between you and the picture. The very first painting in this dreamlike ecstasy of a show dissolves logic. A monk robed in white kneels before a living man hanging upside down, his hands and feet nailed to an inverted cross: it’s a vision as real and close to us as it is to the awestruck monk, held in a penumbra of bronze fire, a stream of smoky light from heaven.

The Apparition of Saint Peter to Saint Peter Nolasco from 1629 has been lent by the Prado and depicts Nolasco receiving a vision of the original St Peter who asked to be crucified upside down so he would not imitate Christ. Nolasco couldn’t make the pilgrimage to Saint Peter’s shrine in Rome, so the church founder mystically appeared to him at home in Spain. You might think this is sentimental folk art, the stuff of prayer cards. But one thing’s for sure: Zurbarán believed it and paints it with such incandescent conviction it becomes sublimely real. You can see why Salvador Dalí loved this artist and imitated his still lifes and crucifixions: for Zurbarán is a primitive surrealist. Several newly attributed paintings in this show include a wall-filling mask of a giant, possibly painted for a stage set: it makes a mockery of proportion yet is beautifully detailed, full of character, weirdly alive.

As an ex-pro snowboarder, I know the temptations of fresh snowfall. And as an avalanche researcher, I know how easily people can get into trouble

Many avalanche accidents occur just after a storm, when blue-sky conditions return and people head to the backcountry to enjoy fresh powder. These kinds of accidents happen every year, despite warnings to those heading out into the snow. It is easy to dismiss some behaviour as reckless, and sometimes it is – but it is also human behaviour, and it is nothing new.

I have been there too; I have made mistakes and got lucky. When I was about 18, while freeriding with my brother, we suddenly changed direction towards a beautiful and untracked powder field. It felt magical, until we realised we were heading straight for a 100-metre cliff. We turned back just in time, and moments later, a huge avalanche released exactly where we had been, and went over the edge.

Johan Gaume is an ex-pro snowboarder and a professor of alpine mass movements at ETH Zürich and SLF Davos

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

The world will be watching to see how the ban for anyone born after 2009 works out. So far it’s been a win with smokers and non-smokers alike

Last week saw the passage of the tobacco and vapes bill, which has a very ambitous aim: to create a “smoke-free generation” and eventually end smoking for ever in the UK. Quite simply, anyone born on or after 1 January 2009 will never be legally able to buy tobacco products. From 2027, the minimum legal age for the sale of tobacco will increase by one year (from the current age of 18) every year. There will be a permanent generational line: everyone above it will still be allowed to buy cigarettes and vapes; everyone below it won’t. But over time the proportion of people allowed to smoke will become smaller and smaller as older citizens die – until one day no one in the UK will be able to legally buy cigarettes.

It’s quite a clever piece of legislation: rather than an outright ban that will result in conflict over rights with smokers now, it gradually reduces the number of those able to purchase tobacco products legally year by year, hopefully leading to further declines in smoking that happens invisibly. Public health researchers will be studying the impact of this legislation (a policy experiment and one of the first of its kind), and whether it could be a model to introduce in other countries and areas.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

Sam Levinson’s HBO show has always aimed to ruffle feathers. But its new season’s provocations ring hollow

• ‘A husband expects a yes’: how wife schools are shaping submissive Christian women

“You’re not a man!” screams Cassie Howard in the latest episode of Euphoria, HBO’s hedonistic, no-longer-high-school drama. “Men provide.” Cassie, who is brilliantly played by the human discourse magnet Sydney Sweeney, is furious with her new husband, Nate Jacobs (Jacob Elordi). She’s just found out that Nate, the all-grown-up high school jock, has been borrowing huge sums of money to fund their luxury lifestyle. In the middle of their wedding reception – a soiree she now realises has been paid for using illicit means – she is loudly berating him as their guests awkwardly pretend not to hear.

The wedding of Cassie and Nate was, somewhat unconventionally, revealed months ahead of Euphoria’s third season by Sam Levinson, the show’s equally unconventional writer and creator. As expected, it was a cinematic and expensive-looking spectacle that descended into disaster. Yet for much of Euphoria’s first three episodes, I’ve been wondering what the show – now picking up five years after the last season, with the cast navigating their early 20s – is trying to say. Episode three, like its predecessors, continued a portrayal of women that feels both old-fashioned and eerily prescient, projecting a shallow, manosphere-inflected fantasy of their motives. In a confusing jumble of plots, the only constant is an overarching disdain for the young women who made the show great.

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

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

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

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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

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

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

Community gardens are flourishing as people seek a positive, productive space beyond the political noise. Just don’t express any strong opinions about gravel

What do you do when it feels as if the world has lost the plot? There are various answers to that question, but one of the more wholesome (and legal) is this: secure your own little plot of earth and cultivate your garden. But that’s sometimes easier said than done. In the UK, more than 170,000 people are reportedly sitting on council allotment waiting lists. A controversial scheme nicknamed “WeWork for allotments” has even sprouted up to rent out green space and fill the gaps.

I know nobody wants to come to the US at present, but, based on a sample size of one, the allotment situation seems rather better over here, where I live. It took me only a year or so to get a plot in a community garden (what Americans call allotments) near me in Philadelphia, which felt miraculous.

It’s all a bit too antichristy for my liking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Youngest son of Diego Simeone has had to earn his chance but is now making the most of it at the Metropolitano

At the beginning of the final training session before their biggest game in a decade, Atlético Madrid’s players lined up by the centre circle at the Metropolitano and waited for their coach to come. Diego Simeone arrived and ran through the middle of them, from Juan Musso and Jan Oblak at one end to Antoine Griezmann and Ademola Lookman at the other. As he passed, head down, they cheered and hit him – if not quite as hard as they do when it’s a player’s turn. Gauntlet run, applause echoed round the empty stadium. Happy birthday, mister.

Simeone turned 56 on Tuesday. He has spent almost 20 of those here: first as the captain who won the double, then the coach who lifted Atlético’s next league title, 18 years on, and now leads them into his fourth and their seventh European Cup semi-final, nine years since the last. What do you get the man who has it all? “Buah! You can’t imagine how good it is to be in the four best teams in Europe,” he said after the quarter-final; “I have no birthday wish,” he said before this semi-final, “just pure gratitude to be able to be with my three sons on my birthday, with my two daughters, my mum, my wife, my lifelong friends.”

• A record nine goals in semi-final first leg

• ‘We fought and we’re back in the tie,’ says Harry Kane

Luis Enrique called it “the best match I have ever coached”. Vincent Kompany called it “unbelievable”. Marquinhos said it was “crazy”. Harry Kane took a different tack, choosing instead to praise the defending on show after Paris Saint-Germain’s 5-4 defeat of Bayern Munich, the most goal-laden Champions League semi-final first leg ever staged, and perhaps also the most relentlessly exciting.

“It was amazing,” Luis Enrique said. “It had amazing rhythm, trying to play offensive football, trying to show their quality. I think everybody had fun watching the match. I’m happy because we won.”

• Teams should now be exempt from US federal taxes

• Many will still have to pay US state and city tax

Fifa is poised to secure a last-minute tax exemption for all 48 World Cup qualifiers after intensive negotiations with the US treasury.

After months of lobbying Fifa has secured a significant breakthrough that should result in the national associations being exempt from federal taxes, although many will still have to pay state and city tax on their World Cup earnings.

New tournament aims to counter-balance the elitist fixture at Lord’s between Eton and Harrow

As a state school-educated international cricketer, the former England bowler Sajid Mahmood has always been in the minority. A report from the Sutton Trust charity last year found 59% of professional male cricketers in England went to independent schools, ranking the sport behind only the armed forces (63%) and senior judges (62%) as the country’s most privately educated profession. Yet Mahmood has become even more of an outlier since his playing retirement.

While it is common for former professional cricketers to take up positions as private school coaches once they hang up their playing boots, Mahmood has spent the past eight years teaching the sport to state school students in west London. It is a path so uncommon that he is yet to encounter another England cricketer in the state system.

Classic Football Shirts have been in business for 20 years, selling over one million shirts (so far) and keeping the most iconic match-worn pieces in their temperature-controlled vault. Michael Butler travelled to Manchester to meet the CFS founders

• Retired from international arena in 2024 with 121 caps

• ‘I lived out my childhood dream for many seasons’

Wales great George North has announced he will retire from rugby at the end of the season.

The 34-year-old began his career with Scarlets and joined Northampton Saints in 2013, where he won the Premiership. The wing or centre made the move to Ospreys in 2018, spending five years there before joining French side Provence.

• St Pauli captain says decision undermines the sport as force for good

• Socceroos veteran is on track for third World Cup appearance

World Cup-bound Socceroos midfielder Jackson Irvine has taken aim at Fifa and the US over the governing body’s awarding of a peace prize to President Donald Trump, heightening tensions ahead of a tournament already weighed down by geopolitical pressures and controversial pricing.

Irvine has previously captained Australia and is on track to appear at his third World Cup after recovering from a foot injury. As a member of the global players’ union Fifpro, Irvine holds a senior advocacy role.

Plus: dramatic late drops into the relegation zone, the Italia 90 XI and teams wearing away kits in finals

• Mail us with your all of your questions and answers

“York City won the National League, and achieved promotion to the EFL, thanks to a goal from Josh Stones in the 103rd minute of their final game,” writes Eddie Giles. “Which players have scored the latest title-winning goals?”

In case you’ve been at a digital detox retreat for the past few days, York’s Josh Stones scored a 103rd-minute equaliser at Rochdale on Saturday to win the title and secure promotion to League Two. Had Stones not scored, Emmanuel Dieseruvwe’s 95th-minute strike would have won the title for Rochdale.

• Fifa will not require squad to get approval of Taliban

• Afghan Women United was formed after 2021 takeover

Fifa has given permission for Afghan Women United, a squad composed of refugees scattered around the world in Australia, the Middle East and Europe, to represent Afghanistan in official competitions without requiring the approval of the Taliban.

In a significant regulation change to be approved by the Fifa Council today, Afghan Women will be permitted to compete as the official Afghanistan national team for the first time, against the wishes of the country’s government.

Annual event at Red Square will feature no armoured vehicles or missile systems for first time in two decades

• Europe live – latest updates

Russia will hold a scaled-back Victory Day parade in Moscow on 9 May, without military hardware for the first time in almost two decades due to fears of a long-range attack by Ukrainian drones.

The defence ministry said no armoured vehicles or missile systems would roll across Red Square during the parade, which marks the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, citing “the current operational situation”.

Programme of events announced on anniversary of Bristol bus boycott aimed at inspiring new social manifesto for city

Bristol has long been a city of activists prepared to work for change, from followers of John Wesley in the 18th century to the 21st-century citizens who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston.

On Wednesday, a new campaign was launched – on the anniversary of the start of the groundbreaking 1963 Bristol bus boycott – aimed at making the city the UK’s capital of civil rights.

Iran Freedom Congress, which has met in London, aims to be a ‘pluralist movement’ supporting those inside country

“It’s an exercise that is necessary and frankly has been missing for the past 47 years,” said Mehrdad Marty Youssefiani, a founding member of a new group seeking to act as an umbrella for Iran’s disparate exiled opposition.

The Iran Freedom Congress – which includes republicans and monarchists, Marxists, right and centre – met for the first time last month in London, aiming to create an ethnically diverse “platform for coordination, dialogue, and cooperation between Iranian pro-democracy and pluralist individuals, parties, institutions, and organisations”. Since the conference, the body has been given a legal entity, and elections for a chief executive are under way.

SNP leader John Swinney suggests Malcolm Offord and other leaders should publish tax returns before 7 May

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The leader of Reform UK in Scotland, Malcolm Offord, has been dismissed as “tone deaf” and “entitled” after he boasted in a televised election debate about the number of cars, houses and boats he owned.

Responding to the row on Wednesday morning, the SNP leader, John Swinney, proposed that all party leaders should publish their tax returns before the election on 7 May.

Ursula von der Leyen later due to meet new Hungarian leader who is seeking to unlock EU funds in return for reforms

AFP is reporting that so far, officials in Brussels are hopeful that Péter Magyar – who once served under Viktor Orbán, before turning on his former boss – will genuinely launch a new chapter in ties.

But wary of celebrating too soon, they insist they need to see concrete moves and not just kind words.

“A huge mandate, a strong mandate, a great responsibility!

We know our task: we will bring home the EU funds that Hungarians are entitled to. More soon.”

Exclusive: 839,000 homes in urban areas face threat of surface-water flooding, with social housing tenants most vulnerable to costs

Eight in 10 of the homes that are at high risk of flooding in England are now in towns and cities, according to analysis by the National Housing Federation (NHF), which said social housing tenants are disproportionately vulnerable to the financial cost.

Research found that 839,000 homes in urban areas are now classed as being at high risk of surface water flooding, a threefold increase since 2018.

Politicians, children and Māori groups gathered in the Wellington banquet hall to see in the flesh the success of efforts to protect country’s national bird

When five kiwi were presented to a crowd of 300 people gathered inside the banquet hall of New Zealand’s parliament, there was an awe-struck intake of breath.

As handlers moved through the group, cradling the whiskery birds, people looked on, spellbound. Some grew teary, and one boy, who noticed a soft brown feather drift to the floor, scooped it up, as his mother urged him to keep it safe.

US representatives Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin earlier this month called agreements outrageous and unlawful

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The Trump administration blocked two permitted US wind energy projects from development this week, with an agreement to pay millions of dollars in refunds to the companies behind them if those funds are reinvested in oil and gas.

US Department of the Interior officials framed the canceled agreements as a way to “promote US energy security and affordability” by funneling funds “away from intermittent, higher-cost energy sources toward proven conventional solutions”, in an announcement issued on Monday.

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

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

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

Badge holders and carers report being harassed, filmed and threatened by strangers who think they are faking disability

Disabled people who use blue badges to go about their daily lives have said they are being harassed, questioned and even assaulted, as anti-benefits rhetoric becomes more mainstream in the UK.

About 3 million people in the UK now have a blue badge, including 1 in 15 adults in England. The number of people who qualify for the scheme – which allows drivers to park in more accessible spaces – has caused some to warn of misuse and fraud.

Campaigners saying public spaces protection orders also being used to criminalise wide range of everyday activities

One in five local councils have banned swearing under new “busybody” orders, up from one in 20 councils in 2022.

A new report by the Campaign for Freedom in Everyday Life has found that public spaces protection orders (PSPOs) – originally intended to tackle serious anti-social behaviour – are being used by councils in England and Wales to criminalise a wide range of everyday activities, including standing in groups, shouting and picking up stones.

Charity says starting specialised care after first miscarriage instead of third reduces risk of future losses

Giving women access to specialised care after their first miscarriage could prevent about 10,000 pregnancy losses a year across the UK, according to a study.

Currently, women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are eligible for specialist care on the NHS for early baby losses after they have had a minimum of three miscarriages.

Exclusive: Cambridge research finds socioenvironmental stressors may influence body’s ability to function healthily in pregnancy

Stress from racism and deprivation could explain why black women are more likely to die during childbirth, a study has found.

Researchers reviewed 44 existing studies that examined three physiological pathways associated with worse pregnancy outcomes: oxidative stress, inflammation, and uteroplacental vascular resistance, and found black women had higher levels of the three metrics.

Case centers on a photo prosecutors allege was a threat to Donald Trump, while Comey says he is ‘still innocent’

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The justice department filed new criminal charges against James Comey, the former FBI director, on Tuesday.

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

Legislators say move would be crucial step towards addressing patchwork of laws in place across bloc

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

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

Dublin scholars find 1,200-year-old manuscript of Caedmon’s Hymn composed by Northumbrian cattle herder

A lost copy of a poem composed in the seventh century by a Northumbrian cattle herder – the earliest surviving poem in the English language – has been discovered in Rome.

Scholars from Trinity College Dublin (TCD) uncovered the manuscript that contains Caedmon’s Hymn at the National Central Library of Rome.

Commission says tech company does not have effective measures to keep under-13s off Facebook and Instagram

The tech company Meta has been found to be in breach of EU law for failing to prevent children under 13 from using its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Issuing the preliminary findings of a nearly two-year investigation, the European Commission said on Wednesday that Meta did not have effective measures in place to stop under-13s accessing its services.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as oil market digests implications of UAExit

• How the UAE’s decision to leave Opec could recast the Middle East

• UK urged to deploy EU-style ‘trade bazooka’ against Trump’s tariffs

The oil price has hit its highest level in a month, following reports that President Trump has instructed aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran.

Brent crude has risen by 1.8% this morning to above $113 a barrel, the highest since 31 March, a week before the US-Iran ceasefire was agreed.

He assessed that his other options—resume bombing or walk away from the conflict—carried more risk than maintaining the blockade, officials said.

Yet continuing the blockade also prolongs a conflict that has driven up gas prices, hurt Trump’s poll numbers and further darkened Republicans’ prospects in the midterm elections. It has also caused the lowest number of transits through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began.

Bank expects its base case for GDP growth to be 0.5% this year, lower than IMF’s 0.8% prediction for Britain

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Lloyds has said that the economic fallout from the Middle East conflict could cost it £151m amid rising unemployment and inflation and a slowdown in the housing market.

The FTSE 100 group, whose brands include Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, issued a downbeat economic forecast that it said reflected the stagflationary consequences – the double hit of rising inflation at the same time as slower economic growth – for the UK and global economies.

Defection is damaging to Saudi Arabia’s prestige – and could strengthen the US hand in the region

The United Arab Emirates’ decision to walk out of Opec is a political as much as business decision, and will reignite the simmering rows between the UAE and Saudi Arabia – which had been covered up by their shared anger with Iran over its attacks on the Gulf states since the start of the US-Israel war on Tehran.

In the short term, leaving the oil producing cartel it joined in 1967 gives the UAE the freedom to respond quickly to a long-term prospect of constrained supplies, and to maximise profit. But it is a decision the UAE has considered before, as UAE and Saudi tensions over production quotas have been longstanding.

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

The trial pitting Elon Musk against Sam Altman and OpenAI began in dramatic fashion on Tuesday with opening arguments and the richest man in the world taking the stand to testify. Attorneys for the two tech moguls presented a California jury with two wildly different versions of the AI company’s history, while Musk accused his billionaire rival of endangering humanity through corporate deception.

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

What began as a tiny space above the founder’s stables became the beating heart of the city’s performing arts. Its leader Jimmy Fay reflects on recent hits and reveals what audiences can expect from the theatre’s anniversary year

‘The Lyric gives voice to everyone in Northern Ireland,” says the theatre’s boss, Jimmy Fay. “It’s a beacon.” Fay views the 2026 programme, celebrating 75 years of the Lyric, as an opportunity to showcase current creative talent, as well as honouring the theatre’s past.

One of the plays from the repertoire that Fay was keen to revive is Christina Reid’s Tea in a China Cup, from 1983. With a cast including Marie Jones, the new production – which runs in May – is directed by Dan Gordon, who performed in the original. Reid’s play traces the daily lives of Protestant working-class women in Belfast across three decades, from the second world war to the Troubles, with humour and poignancy.

Avant-garde theater legend Robert Wilson’s final work was a bold reimagining of Melville’s classic. His collaborators explain bringing it to the Brooklyn stage

Not far into Herman Melville’s 1851 epic novel Moby-Dick, a shipowner describes the man who will take their whaler on a tragic quest. Captain Ahab, he says, is “a queer man … a grand, ungodly, godlike man”.

The same might be said of Robert Wilson. By the time he died last July at the age of 83, Wilson had transformed himself from a stuttering, gay son of conservative southern Baptist parents in Waco, Texas, into New York City’s titan of experimental theatre, opera and dance. His shows could be hours long, or even a full week. They could demand an audience to watch a performer walk with astonishing slowness across a stage, or dazzle them with rows of figures striking flamboyant poses before bright screens. Wilson collaborated with his own adopted children, with corps of performers he wrangled himself, with luminaries including Philip Glass and Tom Waits. Early on, he developed an instantly recognizable visual vocabulary, and insisted on using it until the very end.

Mare of Easttown meets Schitt’s Creek in this rich, wonderful and laugh-out-loud series, in which a put-upon mayor tries to turn a cursed New England island into a tourist hotspot

What do you do if you want your charming little island off the coast of New England to become the next Martha’s Vineyard, but it’s full of legends about local cannibalism, sea hags, clown killers, poison fog and boogeymen who slaughter teenage girls in their beds? And what if it is full of sea hags, poisoned fog and clown killers, which doesn’t bode well for the mythical status of the cannibalism and boogeyman tales?

Such is the dilemma posed by Widow’s Bay for its mayor, Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys), in a 10-part series that in the very best way defies categorisation. Horror may be its most obvious element, but it is so much more than that. Still, for fans of that genre, the writer-creator Katie Dippold and Hiro Murai, the director of the first five episodes, which set the tone, deliver the goods, lovingly covering most of the tropes.

Footage from John Lennon’s only full-length performances after the Beatles – at Madison Square Garden, for charity, with the Plastic Ono Band – has been edited and restored

Last year we saw Kevin Macdonald’s One to One, an archive compilation documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s heady existence in New York in the early 1970s; it took its name from the two charity concerts that they mounted at Madison Square Garden to raise money for children who had been abused at New York’s notorious Willowbrook State School – a scandal to which Lennon had been alerted by watching Geraldo Rivera’s TV exposé. (We have to hope that the box office receipts fully made a difference, but the concert certainly helped change the law to underscore the civil rights of people in children’s homes.)

Now here is the live footage: an immersive split-screen film whose edit was overseen by Sean Ono Lennon. And although no amount of revisionist gallantry can conceal how terrible Yoko Ono’s vocals are, this has a historical fascination as they were Lennon’s only full-length concert performances after the Beatles’ split. And Ono’s performance of the bizarre Open Your Box is certainly arresting: “Open your box, open your box, open your trousers …” There is a heartfelt version of Imagine; a truly apocalyptic rendering of Cold Turkey; and among the old faves are Come Together (after which Lennon says he forgot some of the lyrics: “I’ll have to stop writing these daft words, man, I’m getting old”) and a raunchy Hound Dog (“Elvis I love ya!” he shouts – and perhaps Elvis was aware of this tribute, perhaps not).

Film-maker Yael Melamede presents a fascinating, if inevitably slightly indulgent, account of the revered Israeli designer’s life and work

Architect turned film-maker Yael Melamede presents us with this insightful, though perhaps faintly indulgent, portrait of her mother, Israeli architect Ada Karmi-Melamede. With her brother Ram Karmi, Karmi-Melamede designed the supreme court of Israel building in Jerusalem in the early 90s, and then had a brilliant solo practice, creating Ben Gurion Airport.

Karmi-Melamede’s ethos is to establish buildings that take root in their allotted space, an “architecture of the ground and of the sky” – rather than replicate the endless glass towers of first-world cities which could be put down anywhere. Another witty maxim of hers is: “The cheapest building material is the light.” She aimed to do away with her brother’s fashionable brutalism and concrete, a conflict which appears to have resulted in a fascinating dialogue (or possibly conflict) within the supreme court building itself.

In some ways, this expansive Spanish language series improves on the Chilean family saga about a psychic girl and a military coup. But it mainly just feels old-fashioned and naive

Clara del Valle is a delightful little girl, all smiles and plaits and cheeky interruptions during boring sermons at Mass. Her large family, enjoying life in their sprawling house in 1920s Chile, dote on her. But her psychic powers can be a buzzkill: when she gets a premonition that death is coming, come it will. Half a century later, her granddaughter Alba discovers Clara’s diaries, and realises that the horrors she’s seen were always going to happen.

Along with Alba’s mother Blanca, these women are the three generations at the heart of Chilean novelist Isabel Allende’s 1982 debut The House of the Spirits, previously the basis of a weirdly whitened movie starring Meryl Streep. Amazon’s expansive eight-parter, filmed in Spanish and indeed in Chile and executive produced by Eva Longoria, is a more faithful version of a book that begins as a sprawling family saga before pitching the reader into a stream of violence that concludes with a fictionalised account of the coup that removed the socialist Chilean leader Salvador Allende – a cousin of the author – and replaced him with one of the 20th century’s most vicious dictatorships.

The House of the Spirits is on Prime Video.

He was the burned-out bigwig who moved to a very big house. Now back with his first music for decades, he talks about signing the Proclaimers, being punched by Julian Cope – and his Scott Walker-inspired trio

David Balfe has had quite a life. In the Teardrop Explodes, he took amyl nitrate on The Old Grey Whistle Test and acid on Top of the Pops. As a music publisher he’s been involved with a multitude of bands from the KLF to the Proclaimers, and his record label signed Blur when they were called Seymour. However, he’ll probably be most remembered as the man immortalised in their 1995 smash Country House. “Balfey” actually lived “in a house, a very big house in the country.”

“That’s going to be the first thing mentioned in my Guardian obituary,” he chuckles. “I’m aware that the song isn’t exactly a paean to my greatness, but I’m genuinely proud about it. It’s the one thing you can casually drop into a dinner party and everybody goes, ‘What the fuck?!’”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Northern Irish writer explores music and family, memory and duty in this stunning collection of sharply observed tales

The stories in Northern Irish writer Lucy Caldwell’s fourth collection are often devoted to family life, or a professional life in the arts: or both. They’re almost always about memory and how to manage it. They offer a certain continuity with her earlier collections, Multitudes, Intimacies and Openings, though it’s subtle and organic rather than directly narrative.

In All Grown Up, Luke returns to his childhood home, only to be steadily reabsorbed by it. He applies himself to clearing the house, putting it on the market; he thinks about all the possibilities he’ll have once he’s sold up. But the longer he stays the less impulse there is to leave, and the more he remembers, not just about his life here, but his life generally. Meanwhile he’s a 40-year-old divorcee with a bad back, incipient alcoholism and a child at boarding school, attempting to come to terms with divorce, the death of his mother and his sense of entrapment. A one-night stand with his ex-wife’s sister doesn’t help. As you read, that title cycles between bleak irony and an equally bleak optimism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tron theatre, Glasgow
Frances Poet’s music-driven drama reconstructs the Greenock dispute that saw 240 workers square up to bosses

It was the early days of the Thatcher project. At the start of 1981, the free-market chill was about to lay waste to the Linwood car plant, Bobby Sands was beginning his fatal hunger strike and formerly militant unions were feeling cowed by the implications of the 1980 Employment Act. This was the era of Ghost Town by the Specials: economic desolation at No 1.

The outlook was bleak, but in a garment factory in Greenock, something remarkable happened. Furious at their American owners for proposing to move production to Northern Ireland where lucrative subsidies awaited, 240 workers occupied the Lee Jeans plant. Refusing to leave, the predominantly female workforce drew support from miners and dockers, Jimmy Reid and Michael Foot. Seven months later, the 140 still occupying reclaimed their jobs.

At Tron theatre, Glasgow, until 9 May. Then touring until 10 June

Installed in deserts and along riverbanks, the late artist’s grand constructions underscored a fascination in the systems underpinning the Earth and the cosmos. Now she is receiving a first UK retrospective

The two most prominent features of the 1960s and 70s art movement that became known as land art are the use of dramatic locations in the natural environment and monumental scale. Nancy Holt (1938-2014), one of the few women associated with the medium, and the subject of a new exhibition at the Goodwood Art Foundation in Sussex, is probably best known for Sun Tunnels, her 1976 work installed in the Utah desert in which four concrete cylinders are aligned with the movements of the cosmos.

But perhaps the key piece in the Goodwood exhibition is not outside in the 70-acre site, but instead a small sheet of paper, only 30cm x 45cm, on the wall of the gallery. In the centre sits a circle which is surrounded by the collaged words of a concrete poem “MOONSUNSTAR EARTHSKYWATER”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

At Hampstead theatre, London, until 23 May

Wicked star’s one-woman West End show was stopped in response to an increasingly common problem for theatres

A performance of Dracula in the West End on Monday night was halted after its star, Cynthia Erivo, spotted that an audience member appeared to be filming the show.

A representative for the production, in which Erivo plays all 23 roles, confirmed that there had been a short stop caused by the incident. A commenter on the forum Theatreboard, who said they had been at the show, wrote that Erivo – roughly an hour into the performance – “looked out into the audience and said: ‘Are you filming? Is someone filming?’ and stopped the show”. Another commenter said that they had attended Dracula – which is at the Noël Coward theatre – the following night and that there were extra reminders to the audience about taking photos and filming.

Tracey Emin among creators on show at Making Her Mark, a project by Penzance, Worcester and Kirkcaldy galleries

Like many regional galleries, the collection at Penlee House in Cornwall tends to be dominated by male artists, a legacy of the inequality faced by female creators over centuries.

But from Thursday, thanks to a collaboration between galleries, visitors to the site in Penzance will be able to view work by some of the Britain’s great female artists.

Aria Shahrokhshahi went to teenage discos and hospital wards rattled by rockets in order to capture how it feels when your country is dragged into a war

Delegates at event in Cape Verde highlight opportunities from tech while stressing AI is no replacement for talent

Last July, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Fave found herself caught up in a viral moment: an unauthorised version of a track featuring an AI choir had been released, quickly becoming an internet sensation. To get ahead of the situation, she recorded her own remix that integrated the AI-assisted song and added it to her discography.

“In my view, [that] was smart and very business aware,” Oyinkansola Fawehinmi, a Lagos-based entertainment lawyer, observed a few months later. “She essentially reclaimed the ‘AI version’ and released it as her own official expression.”

When I saw a woman with a facial difference like mine at a party, I crossed the room to speak to her. It led to one of the most joyous, exciting and transformative discussions, in which I connected with feelings I’d always ignored

At a fundraising event, I looked across the crowded room and saw a woman with a cleft – a gap in the lip (and sometimes the palate) where a baby’s face doesn’t fuse properly during pregnancy. She was standing on her own, and I beckoned her over to join the small group I was with. She politely declined and before I quite realised what I was doing, I was crossing the room to speak to her.

I too had been born with a cleft. I’d talked to doctors, my parents, my wife and other friends about it to varying degrees over the years, but as I walked towards her, I knew this was going to be the first time – in more than 60 years – that I was going to have a conversation about living with a cleft with someone who also has one. I was terrified I might offend her, but I said something like: “Isn’t it scary walking into a crowded room? Because it feels as if everyone is looking at us.”

Body lotions containing exfoliating acids are infinitely more effective and less messy than granular scrubs

The onset of sunshine has caught my limbs by surprise. I went out in short sleeves last week and my neglected, greyish arms looked as if they were recently freed from a plaster cast. If you are to be a bride this spring, you may already be thinking about how best to restore what lies beneath the winter layers. The answer for us all is an exfoliating body lotion – an all-over moisturiser to even out upper arm bumps, slough off dead skin, smooth roughness and moisturise dry patches, ready for lighter clothing. There are several new ones that improve on predecessors.

I typically recommend Ameliorate to brides who’ve likely ringfenced some budget for pre-wedding skincare. Punchier than those on supermarket shelves, its clinically proven Transforming Body Lotion uses effective levels of lactic acid and urea to exfoliate without stinging or drying, plus glycerin and sweet almond oil to moisturise the newly uncovered skin beneath. Now Ameliorate makes a pearlised, lightly tinted version to provide additional cosmetic effects. The new Illuminating Glow (£24 for 300ml) adds a subtle, streak-free veil of golden tan to all areas and skin types that washes off easily with soap and water. It’s a fast and easy way to look immediately healthier while it simultaneously does the grunt work.

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

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

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

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

• 33 easy plastic-free kitchen swaps

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• The best running shoes for every runner

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

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

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

• The best IPL and laser hair removal devices tested

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

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

Best fake tan overall:
Bare by Vogue Williams clear tan water

Best budget fake tan:
Boots Glow tanning milk

In the second instalment of Annalisa’a new adventures in chocolate, we explore a range of irresistibly chewy treats

I first cemented the allure of the “chew” aged 14, working illegally as a chambermaid (I lied about my age) and finding a guest’s Gummy Bears laid open – a breach I heavily exploited. Recently this chew need has been sated by dates and their use in chocolate as a healthy caramel. Dates do have nutritional benefits over mere sugar: fibre, minerals, antioxidants and make a great pre-workout boost.

My favourite, and how it all started, was with Solkiki’s excellent date bonbons: almond ganache in a date, surrounded by 66% Bolivian chocolate. When I’m eating chocolate dates for personal pleasure, the cocoa content needs to be high to counterbalance the tooth-jarring sweetness of dates, so these really did it for me. Another great contender was Sam Joseph’s 70% covered peanut butter medjool dates.

Artichokes and peas seasoned with garlic, ground ginger and turmeric make a sensational and surprising sauce for pasta, and a showstopping Moroccan-spiced lamb shoulder with a fruity salsa

I was lucky enough to grow up in a home where we had lots of family and friends around, which meant lots of people to feed. On those occasions, if my mum wanted to make something special that required minimal effort, she served a roast lamb shoulder. After all, roasts actually follow a concept similar to traybakes: the main ingredients are combined in a roasting tin and the oven does most of the work. In Morocco, méchoui can refer to either grilled or roast dishes, but for a lamb shoulder it typically means that it’s roasted. But, first, my take on a traditional artichoke and pea tagine, a popular dish typically enjoyed in spring. In Moroccan homes, tagines are served simply with bread, without sides, but I have found that some make excellent sauces for pasta.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hi Ugly,

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

Why is this column called ‘Ask Ugly’?

How should I be styling my pubic hair?

How do I deal with imperfection?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The chancellor’s changes will come into force in April 2027, affecting everyone from savers to landlords and sole traders. Experts say to act now

Millions of people will be affected by a range of savings, investment and tax changes that take effect in just under a year’s time.

“April 2027 may feel some way off, but when it comes to financial planning, a year is not a long time,” says Jason Hollands at the wealth management firm Evelyn Partners.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

While the research identifies obesity as a major cause, scientists say it does not account for the extent to which cancer rates are increasing

Obesity is a key factor for the rising rates of cancer among younger people in England, according to a study.

There are 11 types of cancer, including bowel and ovarian cancer, that are increasing among people aged 20 to 49 between 2001 and 2019, according to analysis by researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Order Rebecca’s book from the Guardian Bookshop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Gentle cycling is the perfect pace to enjoy the region’s sunflower fields and medieval towns – with gourmet food and fine wine along the way

As I cycle in golden light through the Loire’s vineyards, I have the sudden wish to wear a flowing floral dress, tuck a sunflower behind my ear and answer only to the name Delphine. Opulent chateaux, honeyed stone villages, blazing fields of sunflowers … the Loire is so ridiculously and relentlessly beautiful it’s no wonder artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Émile Vernon made it their home.

A short zip across to Paris on the Eurostar and then an hour south on the TGV to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps and it feels as if we’ve stepped into a live JMW Turner landscape (he toured the region in 1826).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Name: Doomjobbing.

Age: Old, but increasing in frequency.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As David Attenbourugh turns 100 years old, we would like to hear your memories over the years – including any encounters you’ve had with him in the wild

As David Attenborough turns 100 years old on 8 May, we would like to hear your memories of the great naturalist and broadcaster over the years – including any encounters you’ve had with him in the wild.

What is your standout memory of Attenborough? Have you ever met him? You can share your stories – and pictures – below.

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

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

The International Monetary Fund has warned the conflict is pushing up the cost of energy and food, increasing borrowing costs and weighing on economic growth. Surveys suggest millions of households are already making changes to cope – cutting back, dipping into savings or taking on debt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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