Dr Hannah Gould on eco-funerals, being ‘the death person’ and the one thing everyone should know before they die

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Around 2040, Australia will reach peak death. A silver tsunami of boomers are predicted to propel the annual death rate to double that of today, putting immense strain on the healthcare and deathcare systems.

Dr Hannah Gould – a death scholar and author of the book How to Die in the 21st Century – calls it “boomergeddon”, and says it brings with it a certain range of ideas about what a good death looks like.

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How the desperate search for two missing girls in 2002 and their now-dead killer claimed its place in the country’s museum of appalling crimes

• Soham murderer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack

The death of Ian Huntley is, perhaps, a moment to pause and remember, and not to dwell on the manner and circumstances of his killing.

August 2002 is the time to return to, and the place is Soham: a pretty Cambridgeshire village that few outside the county, and possibly many within it too, knew much about before that summer. Before it happened.

The humiliation in Rome means it is now three defeats in a row for England, each more soul-destroying than the last

The haunted look writ large across the face of Maro Itoje said it all. England had burst into the Italy half, deep into the 80th minute, and Ollie Chessum was on the gallop, desperately trying to salvage something from the wreckage. Closer and closer they got before the shrill of the referee’s whistle confirmed England’s worst nightmare. Italy were about to put the seal on a first ever win in the fixture in 33 attempts and it was dawning on Itoje that he was powerless to stop it.

The final whistle blew and England players were, to a man, stunned. Shellshocked. Marcus Smith was on his haunches, Chandler Cunningham-South staring into the abyss. The camera panned to Tom Curry, ruled out after an injury in the warm-up, as he slumped on the bench wearing a look of despair. England in ruins. The empire that Steve Borthwick had built reduced to rubble. When responses to defeat are promised and repeatedly fail to materialise, the logical next step is regime change.

The mad venture – which my mother nicknamed ‘your father’s ego’ – would swallow my childhood. Years later I went on a quest to understand what really happened to his glittering folly

BBC Television Centre, 2 May 1990. “Who would spend £7m on an egg?” The question echoes around the TV studio. At home, six million people watch as chatshow host Terry Wogan smiles knowingly, his brown eyes twinkling. “Seven million pounds,” he repeats in his Irish brogue.

“And you can’t even eat it.”

Is there something different about people born between 1997 and 2012 or is it all just marketing nonsense and hysteria?

In just a few days, research has shown that gen Z like binge drinking, hold more traditional gender views, have started Chinamaxxing, prefer solo dining and believe environmental values are as important as physical attraction.

A search for the term on Google brings up millions of articles meticulously documenting every aspect of gen Z behaviour – from their finances and mental health, to their food habits and hobbies.

As the US waives its ban on India buying Putin’s oil for 30 days, Europe must bolster its own measures, such as stopping the flow of luxury cars

Donald Trump handed Vladimir Putin a financial lifeline last week when he waived a ban on India buying Russian oil for 30 days.

Trump found himself in a furious row last year with Narendra Modi over his country’s oil deals with Moscow, only for fences to be partly mended when India’s biggest importer later capitulated.

Masoud Pezeshkian says no more attacks against neighbouring countries unless they are the source of an attack on Iran

• Full report: Iran rejects Trump’s demand for unconditional surrender as a ‘dream’

• From ‘peace president’ to Operation Epic Fury: Trump’s road to war

The Saudi defence minister, Prince Khalid bin Salman, urged Iran on Saturday to “avoid miscalculation” after missile and drone launches at the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said earlier in the day it had blocked repeated missile launches at an airbase housing US military personnel and drone attacks at a major oilfield.

We stressed that such actions undermine regional security and stability and expressed hope that the Iranian side will exercise wisdom and avoid miscalculation.

US president delivers stinging criticism of UK prime minister over delayed support for Iran war

Donald Trump has renewed his stinging criticism of UK prime minister Keir Starmer over the lack of immediate UK support for the US-Israeli strikes on Iran.

“The United Kingdom, our once Great Ally, maybe the Greatest of them all, is finally giving serious thought to sending two aircraft carriers to the Middle East,” Trump wrote on his social media platform, adding: “That’s OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don’t need them any longer – But we will remember. We don’t need people that join Wars after we’ve already won!”

As Masoud Pezeshkian tries to de-escalate conflict, hardliners urge installation of new supreme leader to marginalise the president

The surprise offer by the president of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, to not attack countries in the neighbourhood so long as their airspace and US bases within their territories are not used to attack Iran has provoked a storm inside the country as the military appeared to contradict him, if not outright overrule him.

There were also calls for a new supreme leader to be installed as quickly as possible, as a means of marginalising the president. Attacks on facilities in Bahrain and elsewhere have continued, and there were unconfirmed reports that Bahrain had become the first Gulf country to fire back at Iran.

Report indicates that US intelligence officials question effectiveness of strikes to produce regime change in Iran

US government reviews of the war in Iran show that the Trump administration may be ill-equipped for a regime-change war, according to reports.

The Washington Post reported on Saturday morning that a classified intelligence review found that the war in Iran is unlikely to oust the Iranian establishment, despite the Trump administration’s desire to continue its attacks.

Commandos started digging up grave thought to be of famous IDF pilot, leading to gunfight followed by airstrikes

• Middle East crisis – live updates

An Israeli operation in eastern Lebanon to locate the remains of a famous IDF pilot ended in failure overnight, when the commandos were caught in a gunfight with Hezbollah and local residents, leading Israeli jets to pummel the area with airstrikes that killed dozens of people.

The fighting left three Lebanese soldiers and 41 residents of the Bekaa valley dead, according to the Lebanese army and ministry of health. No injuries were reported among the Israeli soldiers.

Exclusive: Guardian study finds UK museums hold more than 260,000 items of remains, often in sacrilegious ways

• Which human remains are held in UK museums – and where?

The vast number of overseas human remains held by UK museums is a shameful legacy of colonialism, with many items kept in ways that are sacrilegious, according to MPs and archaeologists.

An investigation by the Guardian found that UK museums hold more than 263,000 items of human remains from around the world, including whole skeletons, preserved bodies, such as Egyptian mummies, skulls, bones, skin, teeth, nails, scalps and hair.

School caretaker who killed 10-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002 was reportedly assaulted with metal bar

• August 2002: the summer we watched a senseless tragedy unfold in Soham

The child killer Ian Huntley has died in hospital, just over a week after being attacked at a maximum security prison.

The former school caretaker killed Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, both aged 10, in Soham, Cambridgeshire on 4 August 2002. The girls had left a family barbecue to buy sweets.

Pep Guardiola had Omar Marmoush in the tightest of bear hugs and seemed strangely unwilling to release the smiling Egyptian.

It was the 73rd minute and two goals from the newly withdrawn Marmoush, the second a real show stopper, and another from Savinho had enabled Manchester City to come from behind and potentially shatter Newcastle’s entire season.

Defence minister urges ‘serious politics’ after Tory leader criticises prime minister’s stance at spring conference

• Middle East crisis live: latest news updates

Labour has accused Kemi Badenoch of scoring “cheap political points” after the Conservative party leader said Keir Starmer was “too scared” to join strikes on Iran.

Al Carns, the defence minister, said “serious politics” was required in response to Badenoch’s speech at the party’s spring conference where she criticised the prime minister’s stance on the US-Israel strikes on Iran a week ago.

Explosion happened in pre-dawn hours at Dalí nightclub in the province of Trujillo along Peru’s northern coast

A bombing at a nightclub in Peru has injured 33 people, including minors, authorities said Saturday.

The explosion happened in the pre-dawn hours at the Dalí nightclub in the province of Trujillo along Peru’s northern coast, according to a statement from the local emergency operations center.

Call for urgent meeting comes after woman was assaulted by man who had been given her key card by hotel staff

More than 20 MPs have demanded an urgent meeting with the CEO of Travelodge after a woman was sexually assaulted by a man who had been given her room number and a key card by hotel staff.

The MPs said the case of Kyran Smith, 29, who was jailed for seven-and-a-half years last month, raised “deeply concerning” questions. He attacked the woman after a party in December 2022.

• Italy 23-18 England

• Azzurri stun visitors for first win in 33 meetings

Even by the Six Nations’ usual standards this has been a remarkable tournament. And to the list of stunning outcomes can now be added the biggest result in the history of Italian rugby. For the first time in 33 attempts they have beaten England at rugby union and no one could possibly claim the boys in blue did not deserve their long-awaited special day.

Entering the final half hour it had seemed as though England might just leave Rome with their dignity intact. Instead, not for the first time in this championship, they were the architects of their own downfall with the momentum of the game swinging decisively after two visiting forwards, including captain Maro Itoje, were sent to the sin-bin within eight minutes of each other.

Hampshire business seems to have benefited from ‘phoenixism’, which costs the taxpayer about £800m a year

A UK recruitment business has been acquired out of administration for a third time in four years as part of a succession of deals that left some of the former management team in place and millions of pounds owed to the public purse.

The chain of insolvencies appears to contain more examples of phoenixism – a process when companies are liquidated and directors are able to rise from the ashes with a new entity, free of debts.

Oscar favourite insists she is a ‘lover of cats’ after telling podcast about ultimatum she once gave to now-husband

If Jessie Buckley fails to win the Oscar for best actress next week it will be a sign that cat lovers have got their claws out.

The Irish actor is the runaway favourite for her performance in Hamnet, but in recent days has stumbled into a controversy over a stated antipathy to cats.

A hundred days from their first game, Iran’s prospects of playing in the US are fast fading as turbulent times once more affect the tournament

Saturday marks 100 days from what should be the start of Iran’s World Cup, a Group G fixture against New Zealand in Inglewood, near Los Angeles. As the United States bombs Iran – and Iran bombs a range of countries, including three that have also qualified – it seems all but impossible that they can take part in the tournament.

Were Iran to pull out or be expelled, they would become the first qualified nation since India and France in 1950 not to take up their place. Neither withdrawal in 1950 was political (in truth, saying there were two withdrawals is a technicality; those were chaotic years for qualification). India pulled out not, as has often been claimed, because they were banned from playing barefoot, but because they couldn’t afford the trip.

Iran’s targeting of commercial datacentres in the UAE and Bahrain signals a new frontier in asymmetric warfare

It is believed to be a first: the deliberate targeting of a commercial datacentre by the armed forces of a country at war.

At 4.30am on Sunday morning, an Iranian Shahed 136 drone struck an Amazon Web Services datacentre in the United Arab Emirates, setting off a devastating fire and forcing a shutdown of the power supply. Further damage was inflicted as attempts were made to suppress the flames with water.

Amera last saw Ali in 2014, the day IS arrived at their village in northern Iraq. Now living in Australia, she’s published years of unsent letters

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When Islamic State militants arrived at their family’s home in northern Iraq, Amera and her brother were sitting under their grandmother’s fig tree.

The 11-year-old girl had been watching a ripening fig for days but needed her older brother Ali’s height to reach it. Now, with IS beginning an assault on their town’s Yazidi people, she thought this may be her only chance.

Paul Heath knew the rice-cooking David McLean was his sort of guy. Then one humid morning, he reached for the camera to capture a post-shower moment

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We met in 1998, at a health and relationship course run back then by the Gay Men’s Health Centre in Melbourne. I saw David across the crowded room at a drinks session afterwards and slowly made my way around to talking with him. We were both in our mid-30s, and I’ve always gone for those tall skinny guys. We chatted easily and before he left I scribbled down my number.

He rang a few weeks later on a Saturday night, apparently figuring I wouldn’t be home and that he’d just leave a message. When I picked up, I think he was a little thrown. He said something like: “Hi, um, hang on a sec, oh fuck, I’ve gotta turn the rice down!” And I thought, this is my sort of guy – Saturday night at home cooking rice, what’s not to love.

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Takeshi Ebisawa, sentenced to 20 years in prison last week, believed he was selling weapons-grade plutonium to Iran

A plot to supply Iran’s nuclear weapons program, heroin from the Golden Triangle, Burmese ethnic insurgents and rocket launchers were the subject in courtroom 24A in New York’s federal courthouse last week when a man described as a leader in Japan’s Yakuza organized crime syndicate was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The transnational plot, which the US Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating since 2019, involved Japanese organised crime leader Takeshi Ebisawa, who along with three Thai men, had been arrested in New York in 2022.

He’s television’s most daring documentary-maker, known for asking questions others wouldn’t. But Theroux doesn’t seem to like it when the tables are turned

On the pavement outside the Netflix office, I stand in the rain, confused. Was that interview a little off? Louis Theroux seemed not to like my questions, which were typical interview questions, related to him and his big glossy Netflix debut, Inside the Manosphere. He seemed, I don’t know, prickly? A bit testy? I’m prone to rumination, so perhaps I am overthinking. Because Louis Theroux is a good guy, right? He skewers the bad guys. And yet here I am, baffled. The only thing to do is sit in a cafe and replay the tape.

Theroux is solicitous, lightly ironic in tone. “Louis,” he says. “How do you do?” I am fine. Looking forward to our chat, as you may imagine. Theroux, 55, might be north London dad in appearance – specs, grey T-shirt, black jeans, sneakers – but he’s the grandmaster of both the immersive documentary and interview form. The son of American writer Paul Theroux (a nepo baby before they existed), he has built a 30‑year career in television, much of it at the BBC, making a virtue of being a socially awkward verbivore, hyper‑curious, super-funny.

Harry, 24, an ecologist, meets Freya, 24, a theatre-maker and cook

What were you hoping for?
Some tasty food, and a nice evening with good company to block out the Sunday scaries.

A story that started in the British Virgin Islands led to a sensational arrest 4,000 miles away – but was it ever more than a shaggy dog story?

Is it really plausible that Peter Mandelson could have hatched a daring plot to escape to the British Virgin Islands? In the capital of Road Town for the last week or so, the question has been on many minds. And even if the UK’s Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, came away with that possibility in mind from a recent visit, very few of them are convinced.

“It seemed strange to me,” said one bemused local official who had met Hoyle at a function a few days earlier, “that if you were going to flee, it would be to a British territory. From a logical point of view, you’re still more or less in the UK. It’s like fleeing to Southampton.”

• Medals are Russia’s first at winter paras in 12 years

• Taras Rad leads Ukraine’s table-topping first-day haul

Russian athletes have seized the chance afforded them by these Winter Paralympic Games, claiming two medals on their return from suspension. But as the action came to a close on the opening day, it was Ukraine who led the medal table.

The return of Russia to international competition under their own colours has dominated headlines at Milano-Cortina. Bronze medals for two world champion Alpine skiers – Varvara Voronchikhina and Aleksei Bugaev – in events that are not their strongest will only increase the scrutiny. However, a dominant day in the Nordic events, including a clean sweep in the men’s biathlon sprint, means Ukraine’s pledge to “be strong” at these Games has begun in convincing fashion.

• Masters wins 10th Paralympic gold in biathlon sprint

• Gretsch silver completes US one-two in sitting race

• Victory marks Masters’ 20th Paralympic medal

Oksana Masters led a United States one-two finish in the women’s 7.5km sitting sprint on Saturday, winning gold to deliver the United States’ first medals of the Milano Cortina Winter Paralympics. Masters crossed the line in 21:21.3 at Val di Fiemme, coming in 16 seconds ahead of teammate Kendall Gretsch, who took silver.

Both Americans shot a perfect 10-for-10 on the range, leaving the race to be decided on the snow. Masters proved fastest over the course, pulling away from Gretsch on the final lap to secure the 10th Paralympic gold medal of her career. Germany’s Anja Wicker claimed bronze.

As the Winter Paralympics begins with a spectacular opening ceremony in Verona, we take a look at the best images

The Winter Paralympics return to Italy for the second time in 20 years. From the fashion capital of Milan to the dramatic peaks of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Milan Cortina will take place across northern Italy, marking the 50th anniversary of the first Paralympic Winter Games.

The medal table prioritises the number of gold medals won. If countries have the same number of gold medals, the order is then dictated by which has the most silvers, and finally bronze if the numbers are still identical.

The video assistant referee was never likely to be the hero of the piece, having already intervened to dismiss George Dobson late in normal time. When Lewis Brunt nudged in a 114th-minute header, the Cae Ras was delirious, considering a penalty shootout and the potential for another classic upset in north Wales. The red line of destiny was drawn and the glory evaporated. In many ways it was a fittingly dramatic moment on a night of pure entertainment as Chelsea played the FA Cup villain against the plucky underdog.

It was everything a cup tie should be. Goals from Sam Smith and Callum Doyle twice gave Wrexham the lead, and hope of replicating the giantkilling of Arsenal in 1992, only for an Arthur Okonkwo own goal and Josh Acheampong strike to take the game into extra time. Alejandro Garnacho, who had earlier been the victim of the red-card challenge from Dobson, volleyed home the third and, after Brunt’s goal was disallowed, João Pedro netted a jeopardy-ending fourth, after Wrexham’s heart had already been broken.

• Townsend: ‘This is very significant but it’s round four’

• Kyle Steyn expected to be fit for final match in Dublin

Gregor Townsend remained ice cool after Scotland’s exhilarating seven-try victory against France, which keeps them in the hunt for the title with one round to play, a position Scotland have never known in the Six Nations. The win was no big deal, he seemed to be saying.

“There have been other games where it’s probably meant a lot to the group,” he said, “whether it was a response or to break a record – away from home in Paris or Wales, or beating England for the first time in a number of years. So they maybe are the ones that have more significance. This [win] is very significant, but just now it’s round four. And it gives us a chance to win in round five.”

• England 2-0 Iceland

• Wiegman happy to keep clean sheet in routine win

Goals from Lucy Bronze and Georgia Stanway made it two wins from two in England’s bid to qualify for the 2027 World Cup, with attention now turning to a hugely important game against Spain at Wembley in April.

England’s aim of avoiding the playoffs by securing top spot in their World Cup qualifying group was never going to be derailed by Ukraine and Iceland. Ukraine was a straightforward affair, once they had found their rhythm in the second half to earn a 6-1 win, and at the City Ground in Nottingham, while Iceland are higher ranked than Ukraine, the Lionesses were still overwhelmingly comfortable.

• Briton is one of three champions scathing of new regulations

• Overhaul had made the cars go from ‘best to worst’ in a season

Three world champions – Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris – have delivered a damning verdict on Formula One’s regulations overhaul after qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Norris, McLaren’s defending champion, was scathing of the changes, saying that driving the car “sucks” and they were probably the “worst” ever made, while Hamilton criticised the new engine and chassis rules as “completely against” F1’s principles.

Old scars haunt the hosts at the Narendra Modi Stadium, while New Zealand have their own chokers tag to ditch

The Narendra Modi Stadium is a spectacular, enormous dome, the largest cricket ground in the world. On Sunday night it will contain 130,000 people, the vast majority clad in India’s blue, and one ghost that terrifies them all.

This was supposed to be the site of India’s coronation as 50-over world champions in November 2023. But on an awkward surface, later rated average by the International Cricket Council, their batters struggled and Australia beat them comfortably.

• Northern Irishman pulls out before third round

• ‘I felt a twinge in my back, it became muscle spasms’

Rory McIlroy is confident of defending his Players Championship title from Thursday despite withdrawing from the Arnold Palmer Invitational 35 minutes before his third round. McIlroy suffered back spasms and was unwilling to potentially put appearances at the Players and next month’s Masters at risk by taking to the course at Bay Hill. McIlroy will also be defending the crown at Augusta National.

“While warming up in the gym this morning, I felt a small twinge in my back,” McIlroy said. “As I started hitting balls on the range before the round, it worsened and developed into muscle spasms in my lower back. Unfortunately, I’m not able to continue and have to withdraw. I was excited to compete this weekend. I wish the Arnold Palmer Invitational a great finish and look forward to being back next year.”

• New Zealander says England can ‘achieve something special’

• Head coach hails captain Harry Brook’s ‘amazing job’

Brendon McCullum has defended his record as head coach after England’s elimination from the T20 World Cup, insisting the white-ball side will “achieve some special stuff”, but only if their talent is “harnessed the right way”.

The Guardian revealed on Friday that McCullum is to remain in his post despite the disappointment of a 4-1 Ashes series defeat, England’s semi-finals exit and widespread criticism of the New Zealander’s methods.

• Sakamoto and Wright give leaders victory at Bristol City

• Lions close to within a point of Boro with 3-1 away win

First-half goals from Tatsuhiro Sakamoto and Haji Wright strengthened Coventry’s position at the top of the Championship as they won 2-0 at Bristol City in a match that ended with both teams reduced to 10 men.

The visitors took a 37th minute lead when the former Robins player Jay Dasilva crossed from the left and Sakamoto outjumped his marker to net with a downward header. Coventry’s task was made more difficult when Joel Latibeaudiere was sent off in the 43rd minute for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity, pulling back Emil Riis. But in first-half added time the Sky Blues doubled their advantage when Wright eluded a weak challenge before beating Radek Vitek with a low right-footed drive.

In a park overlooking the city, I ran into a group of young people chatting and joking. As the bombs fall, fragments of life remain

I was at work last Saturday when I heard the blast. Since that moment, the world has been turned on its head. The school called asking me to come and pick up my child. I rushed to the metro and headed north in a carriage filled with anxious people calling their loved ones to ensure their safety, melancholy etched on their faces, uncertainty metastasising from one to another as they checked the latest news on their mobiles.

This is the second time within a year that Israel has decided to go for a war of choice with Iran, but I suppose that is the new normal. Israel has long enjoyed a unique position of near-total impunity when it comes to harassing Palestinians, and now the green light to aggression seems to extend to its unending wars and spreading of terror across the region. And it feels different this time. The pretence that there is some level of precision in the strikes is gone. Instead, the attacks appear indiscriminate, with targets ranging from schools to hospitals, from police stations to urban amenities – all hit with a level of might that seems aimed at demolition, total destruction, the flattening of the city.

Since the Gorton and Denton victory, I have travelled the UK and seen the energy that result unleashed. More will follow

This week, I sat in the gallery of the House of Commons and watched a historic moment unfold: Hannah Spencer was sworn in as the MP for Gorton and Denton, making her the first female plumber to sit in parliament, and the first ever Green MP in the north of England.

It marked the start of a new era: for Gorton and Denton, for the Green party and for British politics across the board. It’s not hyperbole to say that our win – in a seat that was 127th on our target list – has changed everything.

Zack Polanski is leader of the Green party

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The attorney general faces a subpoena over the Epstein files. She won’t say much – but Democrats are calling for her ouster

After spending $220m of taxpayer money on an advertising campaign in which she demanded migrants self-deport, Kristi Noem is now being forced to make a hasty exit of her own. On Thursday, Donald Trump announced that his luxury-jet-loving homeland security secretary was being shipped off to become special envoy for “the Shield of the Americas”, a new “security” summit that Trump has dreamed up. Markwayne Mullin, a former mixed-martial artist and Republican senator, will replace her.

Noem’s ouster was a long time coming. But it’s worth stressing that she doesn’t seem to have lost her job because of the many controversies that have plagued her tenure, including the killing of two US citizens by immigration agents. Rather, she committed the cardinal sin of making Trump look stupid. Which, to be fair, isn’t hard.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

Extortionate costs, queueing in the cold and potentially life-altering injuries? No thanks. And don’t get me started on the EDM après-ski hell

There comes a time in every middle-class or upwardly mobile person’s life when they will hear the following six words: “Would you like to come skiing?” My answer: absolutely not.

Skiing, I have come to believe, is the emperor’s new clothes of leisure pursuits: a collectively sustained fantasy. People insist it’s magical in the same way they insist that cold-water swimming is “transformative” or small plates are “better for sharing”. At some point we forgot to ask whether any of this is actually true.

Emma Loffhagen is a freelance commissioning editor and writer covering culture and lifestyle

The Spanish PM’s defiant foreign policy line may seem outspoken. The truth is that he is a sound strategist at home and abroad

Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, called his 2019 political memoir A Manual for Resistance: a fitting title for a centre-left leader known for his survival skills and willingness to hold the line under pressure. So it was hardly surprising that he stood firm on Wednesday when Donald Trump threatened Spain with a trade embargo over his opposition to the US-Israeli bombing of Iran.

“We are not going to be accomplices to something that is bad for the world – and contrary to our values and interests – simply out of fear of reprisals,” Sánchez insisted. Having already stated that the strikes were “a violation of international law”, he summarised his government’s position simply as “no to war”.

Eoghan Gilmartin is a freelance journalist who has covered Spanish politics for Jacobin Magazine, Tribune, Novara Media and Open Democracy

The administration has been accused of failing to comply with hundreds of orders. The courts must not be paper tigers

Late last month, a Minnesota federal court judge, Patrick Schiltz, issued an opinion detailing hundreds of instances in which the Trump administration has failed to comply with court orders. He threatened to find it in contempt and to impose penalties.

Schiltz and other federal judges have made such threats before, but they have not followed through. It is time they did, lest they turn their courts into paper tigers.

Didn’t you know? True British patriots are the ones who want to join an obviously disastrous war on behalf of Israel and Donald Trump

Have you heard enough pant-wetting about Britain’s “reputation” this week? Honestly, I don’t think any of us can bear the social embarrassment of not getting immediately involved in an obviously disastrous war in the Middle East. The awks of it. How will good old Britannia hold her head up high if she isn’t an instant ride-or-die for a US administration described by a former senior Nato commander as “gung-ho nutters” with “no clear understanding of how this thing is going to end”? You should be simply unable to stand it. You should have Middle East-catastrophe Fomo.

Opposition party leaders and politicians seem genuinely excruciated by the fact that Earth’s pettiest man, Donald Trump, sniffed earlier this week of Keir Starmer: “This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with.” Boo-hoo for you, pal. We’re having to deal with the Cheeto FDR, so everyone’s making sacrifices.

The intensified use of artificial intelligence, and rows over its control, demonstrate the need for democratic oversight and multilateral controls

“Never in the future will we move as slow as we are moving now,” the UN secretary-general, António Guterres, warned this week, addressing the urgent need to shape the use of artificial intelligence. The speed of technological development – as well as geopolitical turbulence – is collapsing the distinction between theoretical arguments and real world events. A political row over the US military’s AI capabilities coincides with its unprecedented use in the Iran crisis.

The AI company Anthropic insisted that it could not remove safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its technology for domestic mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons. The Pentagon said it had no interest in such uses – but that such decisions should not be made by companies. Outrageously, the administration has not just fired Anthropic but blacklisted it as a supply-chain risk. OpenAI stepped in, while insisting that it had maintained the red lines declared by Anthropic. Yet in an internal response to the user and employee backlash, its CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that it does not control the Pentagon’s use of its products and that the deal’s handling made OpenAI look “opportunistic and sloppy”.

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Publishing has failed to deliver on its promises after Black Lives Matter. True diversity requires a lasting shift

A World Book Day question: which children’s author is name-checked in Stormzy’s song Superheroes (and appears in the video for Mel Made Me Do It) and Tinie Tempah’s Written in the Stars? The answer, as a generation of readers will know, is former children’s laureate Malorie Blackman. Her groundbreaking novel, Noughts & Crosses, turns 25 this year.

Set in a dystopian Britain (Albion), in which racial hierarchies are reversed, this story of star-crossed lovers was one of the first young adult novels to tackle racism and class directly in the UK. It was written in response to the death of Stephen Lawrence; 20 years later, Endgame, the last in the series, was finished as the world witnessed the murder of George Floyd. Noughts & Crosses was voted one of the UK’s all-time favourite books, and has been adapted for the stage by the Royal Shakespeare Company and for TV by the BBC, with a cameo from Stormzy.

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Readers respond to the dilemmas facing Europe and Keir Starmer with the Iran conflict

International law has evolved a lot since the 17th century, when sovereign nation states became the agreed structure of Europe. The United Nations charter, agreed after the second world war, aimed to “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”.

While some European leaders still mention it in their social media posts and it gets a tick‑box mention in many official statements, clearly international law is today in critical condition.

Readers respond to Charlotte Higgins’s article on the National Year of Reading

Charlotte Higgins makes a powerful point (The National Year of Reading celebrates the ‘joy’ of books. But let’s not forget they can also be deeply troubling, too, 28 February). As she argues, reading can do much more than bring pleasure. It can help us share sorrow, endure pain, satisfy (at least temporarily) curiosity, prompt inventiveness, escape fear, enlarge our worlds, understand ourselves and others, and share in others’ pain and pleasure. It can also help us control ourselves. It can make us less self-centred. And it can certainly enlarge our vocabulary.

But first, there must be delight. Pleasure is nearly always the way in: tales that entrance you, through the same words on each rereading. Phrases that echo in your mind, such as: “Rolled their terrible eyes” (Maurice Sendak); “We’re going on a bear hunt” (Michael Rosen); and “Green eggs and ham” (Dr Seuss). Many of these crucial lessons come from early experiences of being read aloud to as a child. This instils the idea that reading opens up a box of delights.

Readers respond to Gaby Hinsliff’s defence of first past the post, and Polly Toynbee’s call for electoral reform

Gaby Hinsliff (Nobody wants to defend Britain’s voting system any more – but here’s why I will, 26 February) writes that proportional representation (PR) “doesn’t guarantee that we could all just vote for what we want instead of endlessly against what we fear (ask the French)”. Yet France does not use PR, which is precisely why tactical blocking occurs there. Indeed, there is overwhelming cross-party support in France for moving towards PR.

Under first past the post (FPTP), whoever wins the most votes takes the seat, even without a majority. That means a majority of voters in a constituency can end up unrepresented, as in Gorton and Denton, where six in 10 votes were not represented. The debate becomes not who can best represent you, but who can most likely beat someone else. Much of the byelection became precisely this: Labour and Green supporters second-guessing the “anti-Reform” candidate rather than voting for what they actually wanted.

Thank you for giving us a weekend tradition that brought us together, writes Sabrina Olson

My grandad, Laurie Stott, passed away earlier this week aged 95. He was a Yorkshireman and a lifelong reader of the Guardian. For as long as I can remember, the Saturday Quiz was a fixed point in his week.

Every Sunday since I was a child (I am now 30) we would sit down over lunch and work through it together. He took it seriously, and would spend hours researching, always determined to “have a proper go”. It became our ritual as a family.

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

Rachel Weisz obsesses over Leo Woodall in an addictive new drama, while Pixar’s latest riffs on everything from Avatar to Dr Dolittle. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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

Maggie Gyllenhaal gives us a new take on The Bride of Frankenstein, and the stadium-conquering pop prince is back with a new album

The Bride!
Out now
Maggie Gyllenhaal directs this Chicago-set gothic romance starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. Per James Whale’s 1935 classic Bride of Frankenstein, on which it is loosely based, a lonely monster wants a mate and taps up a scientist, Dr Euphronious (Annette Bening), to create her.

In Miami, president calls for regional cooperation to counter Chinese economic and political interests

Donald Trump changed the channel from Iran to the western hemisphere on Saturday, convening a gathering of Latin American leaders at his Miami-area golf club to discuss regional interests and establishing what he called a “counter-cartel coalition”.

“Just as we formed a coalition to eradicate Isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels,” he told 12 regional leaders gathered at what the White House called the “Shield of the Americas” summit.

Billy Bragg, Caroline Lucas and Kojo Koram among those encouraging people to share cultural artefacts

For some people it’s a Morris Minor, for others, a beach windbreak, chicken tikka masala or Magna Carta.

A new campaign is aiming to collect 50 objects that sum up Englishness in an effort to move the conversation away from reductive arguments over whether to hang a St George’s flag or not.

Charities warn estates of victims who died before the scheme began are losing hundreds of thousands in financial loss payments

Families of victims of the infected blood scandal have criticised the government for imposing a “penalty for dying” in its compensation scheme, which has seen them lose out on hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The scheme awards payouts to living victims and the families of those who have died after being infected with HIV or hepatitis as a result of being given contaminated blood products by the NHS.

Omission of presidents of Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, however, exposes failure of US president’s ‘theatrical’ doctrine, say experts

Donald Trump will welcome the leaders of at least 10 Latin American countries to a palm-dotted golf resort in Miami on Saturday as the president continues his quest to transform the US’s standing in the region and outmuscle China.

Since returning to power last year, Trump has launched a dramatic – and at times deadly – crusade to, as the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, put it, “reclaim our back yard”.

Aidan Romain, 18, says he endured sexual, physical and racist abuse at famed California private school

An 18-year-old Black water polo player filed a lawsuit against one of Los Angeles’s most elite private schools last week, alleging he was sexually assaulted and racially harassed by teammates for years while school staff failed to intervene.

Aidan Romain is accusing Harvard-Westlake school in Studio City; its president, Richard Commons; the head of the boys’ water polo program, Jack Grover; and former teammate Lucca van der Woude of allowing a “culture of harassment” within the elite program. The lawsuit was filed on 27 February in Los Angeles superior court.

Prof Tim Lang says country produces far less food than it needs to feed population and is particularly vulnerable

The British government should be stockpiling food, according to a leading expert on food policy, as it is not prepared for climate shocks or wars that could cause the population to starve.

Prof Tim Lang of City St George’s, University of London said the UK produced far less food than it needed to feed itself, and as a small island that relied on a few large companies to feed its giant population, it was particularly vulnerable to shocks.

Researchers identify sharp rise to about 0.35C every decade, after excluding natural fluctuations such as El Niño

Humanity is heating the planet faster than ever before, a study has found.

Climate breakdown is occurring more rapidly with the heating rate almost doubling, according to research that excludes the effect of natural factors behind the latest scorching temperatures.

The 55 pilot whales, which had to be euthanised, had been following a female having a difficult birth, scientists believe

The mass stranding and death of 55 whales on the Isle of Lewis in 2023 was caused by the mammals’ loyalty to their pod, a report has concluded.

It had been thought that the unusually large incident on Tràigh Mhòr beach, Tolsta, could have been caused by trauma, disease or acoustic disturbance from military or industrially generated noise.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Katie Powell, 17, and Jack Williams, 18, were found dead days after being arrested and child entering foster care in 2022

A teenage couple killed themselves after they were arrested and their infant child taken into foster care, a jury has concluded.

Katie Powell, 17, and Jack Williams, 18, were found dead at a nature reserve in Dorset, a four-week inquest in Bournemouth heard. After deliberating over three days, the jury concluded that Katie, from Warwickshire, and Jack, from Dorset, had taken their own lives.

In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 and the domestic abuse helpline is 0808 2000 247. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the suicide prevention lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 and the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Other international helplines can be found via www.befrienders.org

Gillian Morand, 36, died in Bexley, south-east London in 2020 after which allegations against her husband emerged

A man has been charged with manslaughter over the death of a woman in 2020, in a rare prosecution of alleged domestic abuse linked to suicide, police have said.

Gillian Morand, 36, died in Bexley, south-east London, and an inquest concluded she had taken her own life.

White House wages online propaganda campaign with aggressive and tasteless videos seemingly designed for young rightwing American men

Rap and EDM. Clips from action movies. Heads-up displays from video games.

As the war with Iran approaches its second week, the White House has leaned into an online propaganda campaign that seems less about intimidating Iran or projecting US strength abroad than it is about reaching a rather niche domestic audience: young rightwing American men who spend a lot of time online.

James Robinson, husband of Gloria De Piero, says police visited their home with a warrant but he has not been detained or questioned

The husband of former Labour MP Gloria De Piero has confirmed his home was searched on Wednesday as part of a police investigation into an alleged Chinese spying ring.

James Robinson, a former aide to the ex-Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, issued a statement confirming the raid on the home he shares with his wife, but said he had not been detained or questioned by police.

California state superintendent says mother and sons arrested during ICE check-in and deported to Colombia

California’s superintendent is calling for the return of a hearing-impaired six-year-old after he, his mother and his five-year-old sibling were detained on Tuesday while reporting for their check-in at an ICE office in San Francisco and deported to Colombia.

Lesly Rodriguez Gutierrez and her sons were arrested during their visit to ICE’s Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (Isap), said Alameda County Immigration Legal and Education Partnership (ACILEP). A relative who was waiting outside for Gutierrez and her sons was unable to hand off the assistive devices necessary for the six-year-old, who is deaf and has a cochlear implant.

For many veterans of post-9/11 wars, the strikes on Iran bring troubling echoes of the 2003 invasion of Iraq

Nearly two decades after his second tour, Nathan Wendland is still troubled by his experiences in Iraq.

Like 700,000 other Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, the 46-year-old former US army staff sergeant receives compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder. Last January, Wendland checked himself into a psychiatric emergency room because he was worried he would kill himself. He was on the mend, but then Donald Trump ordered a sustained campaign of airstrikes on Iran. All those memories came flooding back.

Exclusive: MoD-contracted workers assisting Ukrainians in a way ‘no other nation has been willing to do’, says minister

In an unmarked and undisclosed location in western Ukraine, British and Ukrainian engineers work side by side to fix damaged military hardware, crawling under the chassis of artillery systems and pulling apart the insides of British-donated howitzers.

Until now, the existence of this facility, along with three other similar sites inside Ukraine, has been kept quiet, buried in neutral language to avoid drawing too much attention to the sites, given the sensitivities of all military-linked work inside Ukraine.

Mickey says his stint as a handyman transformed into a lucrative sex business due to the region’s ‘self-denial’

A western Texas fracker starring in a podcast about how his attempted moonlighting as a handyman turned into lucrative sex work largely solicited by distracted oil industry professionals’ housewives says he believes his region’s repressive sexual attitudes gave his side gig an opening to flourish.

“There’s an inherent kind of self-denial,” the subject of The Handyman of West Texas, identified only as Mickey, said in a recent interview. “We all have these thoughts. But we lie to ourselves and try to conform to … how you’re supposed to be repressing your own pleasure.”

Restart of operations will be a relief to those stranded but may not dispel doubts raised by past week about key transit hub

After nearly a week of uncertainty, airspace closures and very limited flights, news that hundreds of thousands of passengers around the world were hanging on for emerged: the Gulf-based carrier Emirates was restarting operations in earnest despite the US-Israel war on Iran.

Those relieved by the restart will include the UK’s Foreign Office, after its travails in organising delayed rescue flights out of neighbouring Oman.

The European media giant Axel Springer has scuppered the Daily Mail owner. But why did it not bid sooner? And what will Brexit-backing readers think?

After three years, a series of failed bids stretching from the US to Abu Dhabi, internal rebellions and even changes in the law, it should be no surprise that the tortured sale of the Telegraph has delivered another spectacular twist with a blockbuster offer from the media giant Axel Springer.

It has torpedoed the long-held dreams of the Daily Mail proprietor, Lord Rothermere, to secure the Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph and begin the next chapter of his family’s love affair with the British press.

Washington says new measures not aimed at easing restrictions on Moscow and only affect supplies already in transit

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said on Friday that his government was considering lifting sanctions on more Russian oil, a day after it temporarily authorised India to buy from Moscow as global oil prices surged.

The US-Israel war on Iran and Tehran’s retaliatory attacks across the Gulf region have upended the world’s energy and transport sectors, virtually halting activity in the strait of Hormuz.

Company attacked for ‘forcing people to dig deeper into their pockets’ as second-class stamps increase to 91p

Royal Mail has been criticised for announcing another hike in the cost of first- and second-class stamps while providing what Citizens Advice described as a “failing service”.

From 7 April, the price of a first-class stamp will increase by 10p, or 6%, to £1.80. The cost of the second-class service is going up by 4p, or 5%, to 91p. Royal Mail blamed the need for price increases on the “continued rise in the cost of delivery for every letter”.

Her YA classic was inspired by racism in 1990s Britain. A quarter of a century later, she talks about success, death threats and getting shoutouts from Tinie Tempah and Stormzy

‘I’m useless at this bit,” Malorie Blackman laughs, shifting awkwardly in a plum-coloured jacket and smart black trousers. It is a gloomy February evening in the back room of a theatre in west London, and she is having her photograph taken, the rain pummelling the brick outside.

Blackman is, by any reasonable metric, one of the most significant writers Britain has produced in the past quarter of a century – the closest thing my generation, who were raised on her books, has to a literary rockstar. And yet, she seems faintly baffled by the notion that the spotlight should rest on her for long. “I hate being in front of the camera!”

In this week’s newsletter: Our annual recap of the must-see series spread across Apple TV, Netflix, Disney+ and more

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Streaming services: there’s a lot of them (with yet another, HBO Max, on the way later this month) and everyone seems to be signed up to different ones, making recommendations a challenge. Step forward the Guide’s fourth edition of A Show for Every Streamer (previous versions can be seen here, here and here), which does exactly as it describes. As is tradition, we’ve tried to avoid series that everyone has been nattering about (unlucky, Heated Rivalry), and instead spotlight less heralded, more surprising picks, starting with …

Apple TV | Drops of God
… a Japanese-American-French drama about warring wine experts, of course. A curious one, though it does fit in with Apple’s penchant for high-end subject matter. After a first series that saw the daughter of a deceased French wine expert face off against his Japanese mentee for ownership of his multimillion-dollar wine collection, season two – which arrived in January – sees the two team up to investigate the mysterious origins of a bottle of red from dad’s collection.

This sophisticated, character-driven sitcom from the creators of Scrubs and Ted Lasso is very funny. And it’s proof that all that drama hasn’t blunted Carrell’s comic edge

Here’s a funny thing. When comically gifted actors go “straight”, taking on dramatic roles with zero laughs, the world falls over its feet to give them flowers. You might not realise it from looking at every single acting award ever handed out but comedy is much harder than drama. Both share techniques and aim at truth. But with comedy, rhythm and originality are crucial, and the spotlight is merciless. (Fart noise.)

From Robin Williams to Jim Carrey, Hugh Laurie to Daniel Kaluuya, when an actor gets more admiration keeping the hahas in, they often don’t go back. Which brings me to Rooster, a show that, along with last year’s Four Seasons, marks Steve Carell’s return to TV comedy. Since leaving The Office, Carell has spent 13 years fictionally fathering drug addicts, being an abusive wrestler-philanthropist, and getting fired from his job as a news anchor for sexual misconduct. (That was on The Morning Show, not Anchorman.) Incredible projects, obviously. But don’t they sometimes have the hint of homework?

Co-op Live, Manchester
Recorded for the streaming giant, this performance wrestles songs from the star’s new album into more interesting shapes

As 2026’s first big pop moment, everything around Harry Styles’ new album Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally feels suitably blockbuster. At last weekend’s Brit awards, Styles premiered the record’s lead single, Aperture, alongside a troupe of dancers and an expensive-sounding choir, while Friday’s “one night only” de facto album launch party takes place in a 20,000 capacity arena.

This is “intimate” for Styles, who switches to stadiums this summer – and the show is being recorded for posterity by Netflix. The streaming Goliath’s presence means all phones are to be placed in a recyclable bag that prevents the use of recording equipment; it’s a nice way to stay inside the moment, sure, but chiefly a fail-safe against spoiling the forthcoming TV special.

Dancing dogs and golden oldies are awarded at the annual canine bonanza. Plus: heartbreaking moments in The Walsh Sisters. Here’s what to watch this evening

2.30pm, Channel 4

The brilliant film about Tourette syndrome that got lost in the recent Baftas fallout, and Dakota Johnson gets caught up in a love triangle between Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal

One thing that has been lost in the furore surrounding John Davidson’s outbursts at the Baftas is the film itself. As a plea for tolerance and understanding, Kirk Jones’s award-winning biopic of Davidson – who has Tourette syndrome – is moving and persuasive. And in Robert Aramayo it has a lead who throws himself wholeheartedly into a life that oscillates between desperation and hope, tragedy and comedy. Scott Ellis Watson is his equal playing the young John, who starts to develop tics as a teenager and finds his life falling apart. Maxine Peake and Peter Mullan, as the two mentors who help him see his potential, add lustre to a spirited and essential watch.
Tuesday 10 March, Netflix

My sexuality had to be hidden from my friends, my parents, not to mention the authorities. Then I found freedom at house parties and one song that sums up me finally being able to be myself

I was raised in Tehran, under the Ayatollah’s sharia law and daily watch of Basij – the “morality police”. My parents fell in love with the Islamic Revolution when I was a baby and welcomed life under its strict religious rules. The Ayatollah’s face stared down from the walls at home, a daily reminder of what was expected and what was forbidden. This included being gay, but by my teenage years I knew I was different from my peers, and began hiding my sexuality from my parents and the world outside.

The other side of life under the regime was that there was little room for celebration: happy events, even religious ones, came with inherent guilt while frivolous outside influences, including western music, were considered dangerous. And so I was in my mid-20s before I went to my first real party: an underground gathering that would become my gateway to a hidden, gay Tehran.

From dipping biscuits in mugs filled with baked beans to singing about eating custard, Look Mum No Computer’s Eins, Zwei, Drei is trying to win through novelty value. Will it backfire?

What is to be done about Britain’s lowly standing in the Eurovision song contest? It’s a question to which the obvious answer is: who cares? We’re led to believe millions across the UK are rendered livid on an annual basis by our poor showing – we’ve made the top 10 in the final once in the last 16 years – but you somehow never actually meet anyone who gives a monkey’s, despite the BBC’s Stakhanovite efforts to convince us that Eurovision is the musical event of the year. In 2023, Radio 2’s coverage involved broadcasting not merely the final itself, but a documentary, a Eurovision after-party show, both semi-finals, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing non-stop Eurovision winners, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing tunes from Eurovision celebrities, a show involving Sophie Ellis-Bextor playing Eurovision runners-up and an all-request Eurovision party: it is unrecorded if the latter was deluged with requests to make it stop.

It’s tempting to suggest that ranks of people who don’t care much about Eurovision either way includes those responsible for deciding Britain’s entry. Our solitary success in recent years was Sam Ryder coming second in 2022, a feat pulled off via the cunning new approach of equipping our entrant with a relatively memorable song, a well-written Elton/Bowie pastiche called Spaceman. You might have thought there was a lesson in there, but no. Normal service was resumed the following year. Try humming the chorus of Mae Muller’s vaguely Dua Lipa-ish Wrote A Song (2023), or Olly Alexander’s Dizzy (2024), or Remember Monday’s country-hued What The Hell Just Happened (2025), the latter pair scoring zero in the public vote. You can’t, can you?

St Martin-in-the-Fields, London
Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine fails to find its focus despite soprano Emma Tring’s incandescent, fearless performance of Celtic deity Brigid

Shiva Feshareki’s Divine Feminine is many things, but this latest work from the multi-award-winning British-Iranian composer and turntablist is not, as billed, an opera. Premiered at St Martin-in-the-Fields, transforming the nave, gallery and sanctuary of the central London church into an intricately amplified “360° soundscape”, Divine Feminine might be an installation, a piece of music-theatre, even a therapy session. What it’s not is a story urgently and solely committed to being told through song.

This isn’t stylistic gatekeeping. Terminology matters – if only because it creates a useful frame of reference and expectation. Art loses energy if it has no solid architecture to bounce off, no walls to scale or dismantle. As it was, this meditative celebration of the divine feminine – a concept never explicitly defined here, but doing sun salutations at the nexus of fecundity and sisterhood, rebirth and goddess-energy – chanted and shouted and stamped and danced, but never found its focus.

She co-wrote Gracie Abrams’ hit album then struck out solo, winning a fervent cult for her funny, wordy songs. As her tour hits the UK, she explains why imperfection is so important in pop

Backstage at the Berlin venue Huxleys Neue Welt, Audrey Hobert is showing me around her dressing room. On the 27-year-old pop star’s second time outside the US, the novelty of having local snacks on the rider hasn’t dimmed, although her enthusiasm for chocolate thins can’t distract from what’s going on across the room. A comically overlong beige trenchcoat hangs on a rail, the excess length puddling on the floor. Two sets of joke-shop Groucho Marx glasses sit on the dressing table, the original black brows and moustache replaced with orange fluff to blend with Hobert’s vivid strawberry blond. “Those glasses are not flattering,” says Hobert. Having matching hair under the giant plastic nose, she says, “makes it more flattering”.

In a few hours, Hobert will start her set standing on a ladder that is concealed by the coat, wearing the glasses, miming on a prop banjo and singing a peppy song about charming strangers called I Like to Touch People. After it ends, the lights dim, Hobert climbs down and swaps to a regular-sized trenchcoat. Despite the changeover being entirely visible, the lights come back up as if to say “Hey presto!” – the trompe l’oeil of high-budget pop stagecraft remade as slapstick.

How are we to account for things that lie outside ordinary language? A woman’s emotions are precisely observed in a novel that brilliantly captures what it means to be human

In each of her previous novels and story collections, the Irish author Mary Costello has revealed the inner vastness hidden within even the quietest lives. Her latest book, A Beautiful Loan, goes further, with a faithful, poetic exploration of the multitudes we contain and what it means to be human.

From the outset, in the novel’s prologue, Anna tells us she is determined to account for herself and her life. But we are to expect no ordinary narrative, concerned only with “actual events”, “evidence-based” or relying on “historical data”. No, Anna is interested in the “climate of the psyche” and “the vibrations of the soul”. Can it be that the very things we cannot quantify or rationalise are what make life meaningful?

AI ‘twins’, Mar-a-Lago lookalikes, Melania impersonator conspiracies … doubles proliferate in today’s culture – and nowhere more so than in a series of unsettling new novels that draw on a rich gothic tradition to tap into our paranoid times

‘He was after me. Always had been. Why else would he target me months ago? Infiltrate my flat, my supposed safe space? Question was, what did he want from me. Who, for that matter, did I mean by me?” Isabel Waidner’s fifth novel, As If, opens with the meeting of two bedraggled strangers, Aubrey and Lindsey. Lindsey has materialised on Aubrey’s doorstep and Aubrey has asked him in, noting with pained curiosity how alike they look. “He had dark brown hair not unlike mine,” Aubrey tells us. “My unremarkable eyes they were looking back at me.” With this unsettling opener, the tone is set for a disquieting read, one that I found all the more uncanny as it overlaps so unnervingly with my own new book, Lean Cat, Savage Cat.

Both books draw their protagonists from the lower rungs of showbiz, both utilise the language of fashion in deliberately off-putting ways, both bring the sybaritic myths of artistic life into direct conflict with the realities of housing insecurity and wage instability. Both novels look at how unprocessed grief can fracture the psyche, and – crucially – they both centre on a mysterious pair of doubles. They were also published on the same day. All of which prompts me to ask: does my book have its own doppelganger?

A decaying gothic mansion tells the story of the family who once lived there, in this pitch-perfect debut of disappearances, betrayal and despair

Angela Tomaski’s debut novel is a delicious comfort read about loyalty and despair, and a gentle questioning of the nature of progress. Crumbling stately home Thornwalk is on the verge of becoming a luxury hotel. The ancestral owners are all dead – with the exception of a pair of rapacious cousins, naturally – and the only person left to mourn is the loyal valet (and maybe more?) of the old master.

Maximus, last guardian of the house, guides the reader on a final tour through Thornwalk, and the lost lives, loves and brass buttons of the titular Gilberts: Lydia, the eldest girl, desperate to fall in love; Hugo, the stubborn eldest son; “poor little Annabel”, dreaming of writing; quiet runaway Jeremy; and unstable actor Rosalind. He takes us, room by room, trinket by trinket, stain by stain (blackcurrant to blood) through 100 years of family life before it is all lost for ever.

The Send Nudes author on rereading Lorrie Moore, finding Dodie Smith at the right time, and the enduring brilliance of Muriel Spark

My earliest reading memory
I remember reading Jacqueline Wilson aloud to my mum in the car. I think it was The Illustrated Mum. My mum couldn’t believe it was a children’s book, and I felt so proud. I always found most children’s books overly virtuous and safe, but Wilson’s never were. I love her for that.

My favourite book growing up
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark. I read it again recently, having mostly forgotten it, and loved it just as much. It’s totally alive.

Nintendo Switch 2; Game Freak/Omega Force/Nintendo
Work together with a bunch of lovable Pokémon to restore a long-abandoned town in this novel, absorbing game that’s quite unlike others in the series

Bear with me here: Pokémon has always had an environmentalist subtext. As you wander its verdant, creature-filled worlds, collecting species like an acquisitive David Attenborough, you are constantly shown that people and Pokémon should live in harmony. The bad guys in these stories, from Team Rocket to Bill Nighy in the Detective Pikachu film, are always the ones who want to abuse these creatures for personal gain. Otherwise you are shown that people must have respect for Pokémon; both the critters you catch and the ones that exist in the wild. There is a delicate independency between humans and the natural world.

In this new spin-off from the series, we see what happens when there are no humans around. You, a shapeshifting blob of jelly called Ditto, awaken in a half-demolished wasteland that was once, presumably, a lively town. There are some other Pokémon around, confused and lonely, and together you work to restore the place and make it beautiful again. Taking the uncanny humanoid form of your half-remembered former trainer, you learn useful talents from the Pokémon around you: how to water parched grass, dig up weeds and grow flowers, punch rocks until they crumble to clear all the old paths.

Pokémon Pokopia is out 5 March; £59.99

From the ghostly Shutter Story to road trip adventure Outbound and strategy puzzler Titanium Court, here are the titles we enjoyed the most from this year’s Steam Next Fest showcase

These days, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that every new indie game is either a co-op extraction shooter or a roguelike deck-builder – fortunately that’s not quite the case. Each February, the week-long Steam Next Fest is a vast and varied showcase of forthcoming titles, all with downloadable demos, and only a minority of them adhere to those dominant genres. It’s a lovely chance to dig into the sometimes bewildering Steam store and pick out interesting treats – and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. Here are five of my favourites.

With the wait for the new Winds and Waves games set to stretch into 2027, Pokemon’s 30th anniversary celebrations have plugged the gap with a deluge of nostalgia bait. Is the franchise in danger of losing its heart?

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It has been almost impossible to escape Pokémon for the past few weeks. To mark the 30th anniversary of the original games, the Pokémon Company has been on an unprecedented promotional nostalgia trip for the entire month: there was a campaign where celebrities gushed about their favourite Pokémon, gifting us the memorable sight of Lady Gaga singing with a Jigglypuff, and Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen (great Game Boy Advance remakes of the original 1996 games) were rereleased on the Nintendo Switch. The Natural History Museum in London has opened a special Pokémon pop-up shop, and a limited-edition greyscale Pikachu plush toy sold out in about three seconds (they will be making more, to the disappointment of scalpers everywhere).

And all that is just the start. We’ve seen the opening of a Pokémon theme park in Tokyo, the announcement of a tiny Game Boy-shaped music player that plays the games’ soundtrack, a collaboration with high-fashion brand JimmyPaul that had its own runway show … it’s been endless. Regular readers will know that I am exactly the target audience for this festival of Pokémon nostalgia: the first generation of Pokémon kids and now hurtling towards 40. And yet I have been unmoved by most of this, even slightly annoyed by it.

Since 2016, the cosy, inclusive, non-heteronormative escapism of the beloved farming sim has inspired a community of devoted fans, and helped it shift 50m units

When farming sim Stardew Valley first came out back in 2016, most of us saw it as a modest indie hit, offering charm, wit and a beautiful little world. Ten years later, this tiny indie has sold nearly 50m copies. If you haven’t played it yourself, you’ve probably seen someone playing it on the train (or, in the case of one of my musical theatre castmates, in the dressing room between scenes). As we discussed on the Tech Weekly podcast shortly after its launch, this calming game about tending crops and animals and relationships with neighbours rejuvenated the entire farming/life sim genre. To this day, I still get press releases promising that some upcoming cosy game or another is the next Stardew Valley.

While developer Eric “ConcernedApe” Barone now has a small team to help with periodic updates, the original game – his first – was all his own work, from the distinctive pixel art and animations to the soundtrack that has since toured the world in concert. Unable to get a job after university, he’d started his own project inspired by the Harvest Moon series (now called Story of Seasons). One notable addition was the inclusion of queer romance options. The ability to pursue a romantic relationship with other townsfolk is a key part of the game’s popularity – as demonstrated by the thousands who tuned in to a video from Barone revealing the identities of two new marriage candidates – and the fact that all potential spouses are available to the player character regardless of gender has helped the game garner a dedicated queer fanbase.

Crucible theatre, Sheffield
A dynamic team of actors capture the spirit of female footballers during the first world war – though the storytelling is sometimes fumbled

The rise of interest in women’s football continues off the pitch in this play by Stefano Massini, adapted for Sheffield Theatres by Tim Firth. Like Amanda Whittington’s The Invincibles and Offside by Sabrina Mahfouz and Hollie McNish, The Ladies Football Club recounts the striking story of the game’s development during the first world war. While the men were away fighting, women took up their places in the factory and on the football field – before being rudely booted out of both after peace returned.

This fictionalisation of that history is set on local turf, following the football-playing female munitions workers of Sheffield. The storytelling in Elizabeth Newman’s production has the pacy, frenetic rhythm of a match, passing rapidly back and forth between the dynamic 11-strong ensemble. It’s matched by Scott Graham’s movement direction, which strings together sequences of exaggerated lunges, kicks and headers, evoking the game without ever attempting to realistically replicate it on stage. This all makes for a relentless forward momentum, as the team move swiftly from lunchtime kickabouts to their first match to playing in front of tens of thousands in London.

Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London
Adam Linder delivers a zingy riff on Balanchine’s Jewels while Marco da Silva Ferreira masses a raucous party crowd

In 2008 Adam Linder won the Place prize, the biggest choreography award in the UK at the time, and then seemingly disappeared. Actually he went to Berlin, but suffice to say, it’s a long time since his work has been seen on a London stage. Now he is back with a piece made for Ballet de Lorraine’s double bill.

Acid Gems is inspired by George Balanchine’s 1967 abstract ballet Jewels. Instead of the rich hues of emeralds or rubies, as in the original, here we get sharp-sour neon, a backdrop drenched in Wham Bar pink, cut with a palette of other E numbers (lit by artist Shahryar Nashat). Linder trained at the Royal Ballet School before rejecting ballet, but he’s clearly still in conversation with his roots. Although at the outset, this piece seems to owe more to Sharon Eyal than the likes of Balanchine – the unnerving tone, aloof stares, slow undulations and jutting hips, the clan of dancers moving in a group as tight as their Lycra. But it expands into something more interesting that treads the line between forms: entrechat jumps and spiky angles and then a version of the Running Man. Linder makes use of simplistic geometry with zinging clarity.

A spectacular record of a year in Normandy, the photogenic buildings of Sir John Vanbrugh and extraordinary paintings of horses – all in your weekly dispatch

Stubbs: Portrait of a Horse
George Stubbs’s emotional, sublime equine portrait Whistlejacket is rightly one of the best loved paintings in the National Gallery. This exhibition takes a closer look at what makes his paintings of horses unforgettable.
• National Gallery, London, from 12 March to 31 May

Clapham Grand, London
In his touring show, Acaster introduces a new alter ego, adding even more layers to his material, along with some trenchant political gags

‘I’m the UK’s No 1 James Acaster tribute act!” says Craig Simons, bounding on stage in sparkly jacket and tuxedo T-shirt. But Simons is at a crossroads, fed up with Acaster’s indulgent mental health material and yet doomed merely to parrot it – at least until, finally, he launches a standup career of his own. Such is the conceit of this new touring show by the performer we assume to be the real James Acaster – although, in the manner of his 2014 show (and later Netflix hit) Recognise, in which he posed as an undercover cop posing as James Acaster, this case of tangled identity gets so twisty by the end, who can be sure?!

Picking the bones out of this conceit by the 41-year-old, the show appears to stem from similar anxieties to those that prompted its predecessor, Hecklers Welcome – which is to say, Acaster’s ambivalent feelings about his standing as a celebrated standup comic. According to Simons, Acaster has “painted himself into an artistic corner”, harping on about his own anxieties, ungrateful for his extraordinary success. The Simons alter ego allows Acaster to get back to (relatively) uncomplicated gags, and venture some trenchant political comedy, while giving him plausible deniability if that seems too first-base for an act noted by every single critic, apparently, for his cleverness.

In documentary The Pink Pill, the fight to provide access to the so-called ‘female Viagra’ exposes an industry that still discounts the needs of women

Barbara Gattuso had been happily married for decades when she signed up, in the late 2000s, for a clinical trial involving a potentially revolutionary new drug. She and her husband had once had a fulfilling sex life, both pre- and post-children. But at some point during her perimenopausal years, her desire disappeared. It wasn’t stress, fatigue or relationship issues, though her lack of libido certainly contributed to those. It was more like a mysterious evaporation – like “somebody pulled the plug”, as she recalls in a new documentary on flibanserin, the experimental drug that proffered potential relief.

Originally developed as an anti-depressant by the German company Boehringer Ingelheim, flibanserin had instead shown promise as a treatment for low female libido, working on neurotransmitters in the so-called “sex center” of the brain. In a video from that trial filmed by Dr Irwin Goldstein, the “godfather of sexual medicine” and a key consultant on Viagra – that revolutionary blue pill for men with erectile dysfunction – Gattuso appears nearly giddy. She was chasing her husband around again, she said. She felt “phenomenal”, like a “new woman on this drug”. She was plugged in.

Adelaide festival
This won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but Huppert delivers an exacting performance in Robert Wilson’s hypnotic, incantatory play

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Mary, Queen of Scots is one of those perennial figures trotted out as a universal signifier, often for femininity itself, an image of rectitude and self-sacrifice in the face of unimaginable deprivation. The problem is that the historical record doesn’t quite support this narrative: Mary possibly conspired to murder her second husband in order to marry her third, and despite protestations to the contrary, remained a serious threat to the reign of Elizabeth I until the moment she was executed. She was a political player who lost, not an ingenue caught in the crossfire of history.

Famed French stage and screen actor Isabelle Huppert has worked with equally famed (and now sadly late) American theatre maker Robert Wilson twice before this collaboration, and it’s easy to see why she would come back a third time, like Mary to the matrimonial bed. Wilson’s artistic rigour was legendary, and his uncompromising aesthetic – so absolute it seems almost brutalist – frames Huppert’s singular talent superbly. She shimmers on stage, a regal pride emanating from her body and the precision of her movements. This is undeniably Huppert’s show.

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Olly Alexander and Glyn Fussell’s starry, Live Aid-inspired shindig – featuring Christine and the Queens, Kae Tempest and Munroe Bergdorf – is a show of unity in a dark time for trans people

‘We wanted to put on something as big as possible,” says the musician and actor Olly Alexander. He’s talking about Trans Mission, a night of solidarity with the transgender community that he’s put together with Mighty Hoopla director Glyn Fussell in aid of the Good Law Project and the charity Not a Phase. The jam-packed Wembley Arena bill includes Christine and the Queens, Sugababes, Romy and Wolf Alice.

For Alexander, Trans Mission is about “celebration, joy, unity”. For Christine and the Queens, it will be “a place of collective empathy”. For Not a Phase founder Dani St James, “it’s basically a super sped-up Royal Variety Performance, but with me and Olly double-kissing them and not Charles shaking their hands”.

Disco brought together music, fashion and nightlife in a cultural phenomenon that conquered the world. In A Night at the Disco by Alice Harris and Christian John Wikane, published by ACC Art Books, the stars of the scene are documented in photos spanning the 1970s

There was strictly no mention of estranged son Brooklyn, missing from front row

The Beckham empire is a tangled web of family and fortune. After her Paris fashion week show on Friday evening, Victoria Beckham talked backstage about Tamara de Lempicka, the Polish art deco portrait painter from whose palette she took the glowing colours and sinuous lines of this season’s coral and jade party dresses. Strictly no mention of the other story of the night – the absence of her estranged eldest son, Brooklyn, from a front row packed with the rest of the Beckham clan.

The designer’s husband, David Beckham, brought her a fortifying glass of red wine as she spoke to reporters. “I relate to Tamara de Lempicka as a strong woman, and to how she conducted herself. She stuck to what she believed in.”

Whether it’s merino socks, martini glasses or sustainable wool blankets, we’ve handpicked 82 thoughtful gift ideas to make the mother figure in your life feel truly special

• The best flower delivery for every budget

Not everyone is lucky enough to have their mum around, or have a good relationship with them, but Mother’s Day can be for any mother figure in your life – from grannies to aunts to mentors to family friends.

But how can you show your appreciation? For Mother’s Day (15 March), a handmade card and a hug are probably top of most people’s lists. If they don’t like physical gifts, a day out together, like a long walk, spa trip or afternoon tea, could be a winner – and we’ve suggested a few options below.

Sleeveless knits, breton stripes and shoe charms … our fashion writers share their secrets to a budget-friendly, new-season refresh

• How to have a guilt-free wardrobe clearout

Think of your spring wardrobe as a dry run for summer. There are the occasional warm days – when you regret leaving the house with a coat – and, of course, no end of showers. There are even the odd times when you can almost get away without wearing tights, which opens you up to all manner of skirts and shoes.

Spring is blouson jacket season, and a good time to wear denim beyond jeans (how about a dress?). Now’s also the time to try a short(ish) skirt with socks and loafers, which is strangely wearable for something with its roots in Prada. How about a corset top that isn’t a corset, or wearing a Lanvin-style headscarf if you’re having a difficult hair day? And why not add a bag charm while you’re there? Think 2026 colours – difficult green, pops of cornflower instead of red, universally wearable lilac. Most of all, it’s about adding to what you already own, or styling it in a new way. Welcome to spring.

They claim to fix fine lines, blemishes and redness – but which stand up to scrutiny? We asked dermatologists and put them to the test to find out

• The best anti-ageing creams, serums and treatments

LED face masks are booming in popularity – despite being one of the most expensive at-home beauty products to hit the market. Many masks are available, each claiming to either reduce the appearance of fine lines, stop spots or calm redness. Some even combine different types of light to enhance the benefits.

However, it’s wise to be sceptical about new treatments that are costly and non-invasive, and to do your research before you buy. With this in mind, I interviewed doctors and dermatologists to find out whether these light therapy devices work.

Best LED face mask overall:
CurrentBody Series 2

Best budget LED face mask:
Silk’n LED face mask 100

The perfect pillow is out there, whatever your sleep style. We put 10 to the test, including a budget buy that costs less than a posh pint

• The best mattresses, tested

Pillows, like mattresses, are personal things. What represents one person’s idea of heaven can signal a horrible night’s sleep for someone else. This makes reviewing them challenging, but also strangely rewarding – with no objective benchmarking software to fall back on, the reviewer must use their brain power alone to establish who might get on well with a pillow – and who won’t.

That’s exactly what I’ve aimed to do, testing different pillows of different heights, firmnesses and materials, so that you don’t have to. The good news is you don’t need to break the bank to get your hands on one of the best options because one of our top picks will set you back just £14 for a pair.

Best pillow overall and best memory foam:
Otty Deluxe Pure pillow

Best budget pillow:
Fogarty soft cotton back-sleeper pillows

These squishy, bouncy potatoey pillows are suppertime favourites, but which will float your boat and which will leave you with that synthetic, sinking feeling?

• The best supermarket pesto

Gnocchi are a godsend – my children love them – but I was shocked by the quality on offer here. Of the products I tested, 80% were made from reconstituted dried potato flakes, emulsifiers (mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids), stabilisers (diphosphates) and preservatives (sodium metabisulphate). Most came in non-recyclable packaging, too – that’s simply not real food, and unnecessary when you consider that similar long-life products are made with real potato and few preservatives. I’m going to be very cautious about buying gnocchi from now on.

Gnocchi are generally slathered in sauce, so I’d never tried them plain before, but doing so revealed their true nature, as did studying the ingredients labels. Also, I was taught to cook gnocchi until they floated, which usually takes only a minute when you make them from scratch, but most manufacturers advise boiling them for two or three minutes, not until they floated, which left me wondering whether they were even cooked at all.

A classic fried tofu stir-fry that’s bang-full of flavour

My funny, curious, panda-loving daughter, Arya, is turning nine this week. So I wanted to write a recipe to celebrate her and some of her favourite things to eat. Arya adores the chewiness of udon, the bounciness of tofu, the sweet, sour saltiness of sweet soy and tamarind, the crunch of cabbage and she’d put chilli (in any form) over her breakfast cereal if she could (although it’s optional in this recipe). Happy birthday, Arya.

If you long for freshly picked produce but don’t know where to start, try these sure-fire winners

At this time of the year, gardeners are susceptible to the lure of colourful, quirky veg catalogues. But hold fire! A little restraint is our friend. By focusing on reliability, yield and flavour over exotic looks, we are likely to have an easier and more successful year on the plot.

The following fruit and veg should produce hassle-free harvests. They may not look like the most exciting crops, but they will result in more food on your plate, having been tried and taste-tested for a high chance of success and good flavour. Their reliability and resistance to problems makes them easier to grow, and they’re also simple to harvest and prepare, so you’ll be left with more time to enjoy eating them.

Forget sombrero lids and student nights, the agave-derived Mexican spirit has become the sophisticated drink choice. Here’s why – plus five of the best tequila cocktails

Cracking open the tequila at the end of a long night rarely leads to good decisions. But for Tom Bishop, reaching for a bottle that had been gathering dust on his shelf proved life-changing. Having run out of beers while drinking with friends in 2017, Bishop dug out a bottle of premium Añejo tequila that his brother had given him after a business trip to Mexico. His expectations were low, informed by the throat-burning experiences of his youth. “But it completely blew me away,” Bishop remembers. “I just hadn’t associated tequila with that level of quality or flavour.”

Having stumbled upon the spirit as it was meant to be enjoyed “by accident”, Bishop saw an opportunity. Two years later, he and Jack Vereker, a friend with whom he had been drinking in south-east London that night, sold their first bottle of their brand El Rayo, now stocked across the UK and part of tequila’s new wave.

Jenny wants to spread her wings and see the world, but Teddy is happy at home. Where do they go from here? You decide

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

I worry about my carbon footprint, but you can’t go everywhere by train and I want to see the world

It’s not an environmental issue. I’ve just had my fill of flying and don’t really enjoy being a tourist

She said kissing me was like licking an ashtray, and I knew I had to quit smoking. But with a 40-a-day habit, it was no easy task ...

In 1970, as an 18-year-old college freshman in Boston, living away from home for the first time, I started to smoke cigarettes. A pack a day grew in short order to two packs a day, or a cigarette about every 30 minutes.

I choreographed my life around my smokes, puffing away after every meal, taking a drag with a drink and blowing smoke rings as I wrote, usually late into the night. I needed no pretext for smoking, but found plenty; every occasion fit the bill.

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is interested in hearing from couples, partners and former lovers to talk about their sex lives

How often do you have sex? The Guardian is looking for couples to talk honestly – and completely anonymously – about what they get up to in the bedroom for the Saturday magazine’s much-loved This is How We Do It column.

The idea behind the column is to provide a counterpoint to the airbrushed, exaggerated stories about sex we see on TV and in the media. We want to publish un-sensationalised interviews with real couples, so we are particularly keen to hear from you if you have hit a roadblock in your sexual life. How do you navigate intimacy when your partner wants sex more than you do? Or after an affair? Or when you are not feeling spectacular about your body?

We’re looking for couples of all ages and sexualities. We would not publish your names or where you live.

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

A new survey shows 80% of gen Zs believe strong environmental values are as important as physical attraction when it comes to finding a partner (so you might want to start reusing your coffee cups)

Name: Green flags.

Age: This is a thing for younger people, so listen up, boomers.

Bank criticised for tone of spending summaries, with one user complaining to ombudsman over ‘humiliating’ use of data

When does lighthearted banter become inappropriate and humiliating?

The digital bank Monzo has been accused of overstepping the mark by using the data it holds to tell one customer with a past eating disorder that she eats a lot of fast food, spends “more than most” on Just Eat takeaways, and had banished her life goals thanks to her spending choices.

This week’s events in the Middle East have sent stock markets plummeting and energy prices soaring. Money expert Hilary Osborne answered your questions about the cost of living

In a week where Rachel Reeves had hoped to confirm a period of economic stability in Tuesday’s spring statement, global events once more overtaken the government’s best laid plans. The US and Israel’s war on Iran has shaken global markets and caused huge fears about energy prices and the impact they will have on inflation and the cost of living.

Hilary Osborne, Guardian’s money and consumer editor and has been busy answering your questions about the wider economic fallout – and many others below.

If you managed to grab a fixed rate below the current price cap then well done – even if it isn’t as a keen a deal as you might have got last week, you will probably still be happy with your choice if energy prices go in the direction that experts are expecting.

In April, the price cap set by the regulator, Ofgem, is set to fall to £1,641 a year for a typical household buying gas and electricity from the same supplier and paying by direct debit.

This is a tricky one – council tax bills are set to rise again in April, and in many areas they will be going up by the maximum 4.99% that can be applied [in England] without a referendum. As an individual there is not much you can do about this, beyond checking if you are entitled to any discount. If you live on your own you should be entitled to 25% off your annual bill, and there are certain people who are exempt from being charged, including students. To check if you qualify to pay less, you can put your postcode into the government website and it will direct you to the right page on your council’s site. If you’re really struggling, do tell your council as they often have discretionary help available. Don’t wait to get into arrears as councils can escalate debts quickly and ask you to pay your entire annual bill after just one missed payment. This is something debt charities are currently lobbying the government to change.

The surge in energy prices could fuel higher inflation and raise interest rates, threatening a new UK cost of living crisis

• War in Middle East ‘could wipe out growth in UK living standards’

The war in the Middle East is thousands of miles away, but gyrations in financial markets and surging energy prices threaten a new cost of living crisis in the UK.

Here is how it could affect your finances.

It’s easy to let your credit card balance mount up – and hard to admit you have a problem. But help is at hand. We talk to four people who worked their way back into the black

Abbie Marton Bell, a National Debtline adviser, is often the first person her clients will speak to about their debt, after years of carrying the weight of their financial worries alone. Most of the time, they haven’t even told their partner or family, she says, and “you can literally hear the relief in their voice”.

Debt carries a lot of shame, but it’s more common than people might think. In the UK, 84% of adults had some form of credit or loan in the year leading up to May 2024. The average household holds about £2,700 in credit card debt, and it’s only getting worse. Borrowing has been rising at its fastest rate for almost two years, with those hit hardest by the cost of living crisis increasingly using credit to pay for essentials.

Doctors share healthful habits for managing urination and debunk misconceptions about trips to the bathroom

Urination is a vital human function and often occurs without much fanfare or thought – but age, sex, medications and a host of other factors can influence how you use the bathroom. Because there can be so much variation, patients must not ignore what seems out of the norm for their bodies, says Dr Vannita Simma-Chiang, a board-certified urologist and associate professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

“If something seems strange to you, one of the best things you can do is just go in and chat with a medical professional about it,” says Simma-Chiang.

Our current approach to mental health labelling and diagnosis has brought benefits. But as a practising doctor, I am concerned that it may be doing more harm than good

By Gavin Francis. Read by Noof Ousellam

Exhibition at the V&A Dundee celebrates Maggie’s Centres created by Zaha Hadid, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster and others

Maggie Keswick Jencks received her weekly breast cancer treatment in a windowless neon-lit room in Edinburgh’s Western general hospital. Her husband, the renowned landscape designer Charles, later described it as a kind of “architectural aversion therapy”.

It was then, in the early 1990s, that the Scottish artist and garden designer imagined her own blueprint that would allow cancer patients “a space of their own” within the alienating, clinical confines of the hospital estate, one where they might “not lose the joy of living in the fear of dying”.

As Americans embrace ‘alternative’ remedies, people online joke that they’re ‘Chinamaxxing’ their wellness routines

Did you drink ice water today? If you did, that was “not very Chinese of you”, according to Sherry Zhu, a 23-year-old Chinese American creator based in New Jersey. If you were really serious about “becoming Chinese”, you would be sipping hot water every day, she warned in a TikTok video with millions of views. “I really do feel like, digestion-wise, a lot better when I’m drinking hot water,” she later explained to GQ.

Zhu’s guidance is taken from traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), a health system that dates back 5,000 years and offers a holistic approach to treating symptoms – physically, emotionally and spiritually. Other creators of Chinese descent have their own TCM hacks: keep your feet warm and your periods will be more bearable. Drink tea made with goji berries, jujubes and ginger as a cure-all. Move your body every day to promote the flow of qi, or internal energy. “Do my Chinese baddie routine with me,” they caption their videos in half-authoritative, half-joking tones. “Advice from your Chinese big sister.”

Transparent specs often associated with hygienist appointments have conquered catwalks and high streets

Despite some people in the UK experiencing 40 consecutive days of rain this year, sales of sunglasses have not been dampened.

Instead, the dark skies have ushered in a new era of eyewear: the non-sun sunglasses.

Exhibition at Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates Italian designer’s moment-making approach to fashion

When Kylie Jenner stood on the marble steps of the Petit Palais in 2023, a fake lion head attached to her off-shoulder dress, even by the standards of the youngest member of the Kardashian clan, the outfit looked a bit much.

Hand-painted for lifelike realism, the Schiaparelli head and dress were designed by the Texan Daniel Roseberry. Although already four years in the role of artistic director, the look was transformative – earning Jenner front row seats at the biggest shows and propelling the nearly century-old Paris fashion house, long overshadowed by Chanel, Balenciaga, and Dior, into viral ubiquity.

There’s a reason this 70s staple is never out of style. Take your cue from Margot Robbie and team flares with a structured jacket and smart accessories

A spot of ‘equine therapy’ marks Chinese year of the horse as designer turns fashion week show into a moment

Speaking after her show at Paris fashion week, the British designer Stella McCartney marked 25 years in the industry by letting slip that she was to receive the most prestigious French accolade, the Légion d’honneur, on Thursday – and making a jumper using yeast.

Never mind that she has not turned a profit since 2017. The fashion designer knows how to turn a show into a moment, opening with “some equine therapy” in the form of a dozen dancing horses to mark the Chinese year of the horse, and closing it with a vest that said “My dad’s a rock star” in front of a grinning Paul McCartney who sat front row next to Oprah Winfrey.

Mountain hikes, river swims and centuries-old traditions appeal to the whole family on a trip to the Balkans

‘Uno, Uno, Uno No Mercy!” the six-year-old son of our hosts for the day bellows while leading my boys, 10 and 12, into his dimly lit corrugated iron home. I let out a little sigh of relief. The popular card game is a much-needed icebreaker as ominous clouds close in on the remote stan (the Albanian word for a shepherd dwelling). Despite the language barrier, much laughter and consternation soon spill out of the darkness, just as hail hammers down on the tin roof. Dogs bark, chickens cluck and sheep bleat as the thunder grows louder, and we all – our eight hosts, seven guests and one guide – shelter in the tiny kitchen, the living room-cum-bedroom (now Uno parlour), or on the veranda.

It’s day two of a seven-day trip with Undiscovered Balkans, crisscrossing between Albania and Montenegro on foot and by car. Having always wanted to hike the Peaks of the Balkans trail, a 119-mile (192km) hike linking Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania, I jumped at the chance to sample this new guided itinerary. Combining some of the region’s most famous hikes with gentler excursions for kids, such as a day experiencing life as a shepherd, or visits to remote swimming spots, it seemed a novel alternative to our usual “get a map and hope for the best” approach to hiking holidays.

Alpine playgrounds, unforgettable train rides and white-water rafting feature in our readers’ family trips from Norway to the Netherlands

• Tell us about a trip to a UK national park or national nature reserve – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Travelling by rail in Europe gives you plenty of opportunity for ad-hoc adventure. We were returning from a ski trip in Italy and took the Bernina Express part of the way. We’d heard that if you disembark at Bergün, leave your luggage at the station and take the train back one stop to Preda village it’s possible to sledge between the two stations. So there we found ourselves renting traditional wooden sledges from Preda and walking the short distance to the start of the tobogganing run. What we thought might be a gentle run into town turned into a fast and fun-filled couple of hours as we hurtled down the tree-lined course. At times it felt like we were in the game Mario Kart and at one point a children’s birthday party overtook us, the birthday girl’s sledge trailing balloons. About 5 miles later we arrived back in Bergün, before continuing our train journey onwards.
Layla Astley

As the Peaky Blinders film is released this week, we follow in the footsteps of the Shelbys, make a heavy metal pilgrimage and find the city’s best places to eat, drink and dance

The runaway success of the TV crime drama Peaky Blinders has been credited with boosting tourism to Birmingham and the West Midlands since it first aired in 2013, even though much of the series was actually shot farther north, in Merseyside, Yorkshire and Manchester. The release this week of the Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man (much of which was filmed in and around Birmingham this time) will undoubtedly generate a new wave of interest, particularly in the Black Country Living Museum in nearby Dudley, whose authentic recreations of streets, houses and industrial workshops appear in key scenes in the TV show and the film – most notably as the location for Charlie Strong’s yard (pictured below).

A guided walk through North Yorkshire woodland throws up some thrilling surprises by honing in on sound over sight

At the outset, Richard Baines says: “You don’t need binoculars.” This is not what I expect to hear on a walk where the main focus is birds. The sun has yet to rise, but we can see our way across muddy ground crunchy with ice. That is the next surprise in a day that will be full of them: we are still in February but Richard points out that ornithological spring is well under way. “Birds are starting to sing,” he says. “Some, like the crossbill, might already have laid eggs.”

We follow a path up to an open ridge, but bird sounds are conspicuously absent. Richard turns back and heads down into a sheltered wooded valley. We have driven up from Pickering to the North York Moors, an area he has been exploring for more than 40 years, his experiences charted in recent memoir The Rarity Garden. As a 14-year-old budding ornithologist he decided to learn bird songs and calls. “I had spent too many woodland walks being disappointed by not seeing any birds, but I could hear a great deal,” he says. “When I started to prioritise sound above sight, the trees came alive and I have never had a bad woodland walk since.” Our walk today aims to land that message for me.

The lowdown on journey times, season ticket costs and average house prices in places you should know about

• In pictures: homes for sale in new commuter hotspots in England

The commuter belt is being redrawn. During Covid, in the hope that remote working would stick, buyers broke free from conventions and transformed the housing map. A race for space – and to the coast and rural areas – were the stories of the pandemic.

As the call back to the office intensified, this trend unwound and homebuyers began targeting the more traditional commuter zones once again. Unfortunately, the homebuying landscape is very different to five years ago and some of those locations are unaffordable.

The presenter and writer on trying to become an air steward aged seven, daytime baths, and an on-air howler

Born in London, Fearne Cotton, 44, began presenting The Disney Club at 15. She went on to become a Radio 1 DJ, hosting her own show from 2009 to 2015; she currently presents Radio 2’s Sounds of the 90s. In 2017, she started the Happy Place community and now has an award-winning podcast, an annual festival and a publishing imprint. The author of bestselling personal development books, her latest, Likeable, is out next week. She lives in London and has two children with her former husband, Jesse Wood.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Impatience. I’m not very good at waiting around or dealing with things that aren’t moving at a pace that I want them to.

I have to show him all the jobs that I have either left undone or tried to do and made worse

My wife is out when Mark the builder is scheduled to come by to see what needs doing, so I have to show him myself. This, I know, will amount to a humiliating private tour of all the home repairs I have either left undone, or tried to do and made worse. It’s been two years since I last did this, so the tour will be extensive. Just before 11am the bell rings. It is a cold morning, but Mark, as usual, is wearing shorts. We start in the back garden.

“Here is where I tried to cut back the ivy and install two trellis sections,” I say, “but instead I pulled half the garden wall down.”

Seeing people walking their pets in a snowstorm melted the heart of this New York-based photographer

Had Adela Ramirez’s puggle Teddy still been alive, she would have been out walking him in the snow. Instead, she was at home, in the art studio of her New York City apartment, watching from a window. “My view consists of the Empire State Building, which is art deco, the B Altman Building, which is Italian renaissance revival, and the beautiful Church of the Incarnation, which is neo-gothic. I’m originally from Texas, but have lived in New York for 40 years,” Ramirez says. “I always feel privileged when the universe seems to say, ‘Today I am going to present you with a fabulous snowstorm – enjoy the performance!’”

As Ramirez watched, she noticed that there were no cars or pedestrians; only dog walkers were braving the storm. “People were playing chase, carrying them across icy parts, giving them their necessary daily walk. That’s what we do,” she says. “It made me miss Teddy. He was half beagle, half pug, with an underbite and a princess attitude. He loved the snow, and had a winter coat and boots, but made it clear that he couldn’t be expected to walk in it. He would lift his paws and look me straight in the eye, as if to say, ‘Mom, please carry me.’ We had to say goodbye to him last spring. He’d been my loyal boy for 10 years.

Many of the Bulgarian seer’s predictions were never recorded, yet her name bolsters conspiracy theories and geopolitical narratives

In some corners of the internet, the Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga has taken on mythical proportions. Social media and tabloids across the globe credit her with predicting the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

Last week, some headlines went further, asking: “Did she foresee the Israel-Iran war, US interference, missiles and airspace shutdowns?” An earlier article mused on her “predictions for 2026”, which purportedly included the start of world war three and humanity’s first contact with aliens.

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

Photographer Murdo MacLeod patrols the snow with members of the Scottish Avalanche Information Service, which has for several decades published a vital daily avalanche forecast for mountain areas

Scottish avalanches are back. More than 200 have been recorded this winter, against the previous year’s record low of 42. The worst season for fatalities was 2012-13 when eight people died, four of whom were buried in deep snow when an avalanche struck without warning while they descended Glen Coe’s Bidean nam Bian.

Fortunately, so far – despite one person being carried a distance down Ben Nevis and two people falling through cornices and triggering slips – there have not been any confirmed avalanche deaths, though one person is still missing on Ben Nevis. The search goes on in and around the sites of recent avalanches.

A mountain rescue team looks for a missing climber in Observatory Gully on the north face of Ben Nevis, an area where there has been a succession of avalanches

If you’re living or working in the region and have been impacted by the US-Israel conflict with Iran, we would like to hear from you

As the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate, we would like to hear how people living, working or travelling in the region have been affected.

Whether you are in the region or impacted in other ways, please get in touch.

With shipping routes disrupted and tensions rising across the region we want to hear from maritime workers, sailors and port workers and others working at sea who are affected

The conflict in the Middle East is disrupting shipping across the region, including in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s busiest maritime routes.

Maritime traffic through the strait, the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman, has effectively been closed since strikes on Iran began. Some vessels have been diverted or delayed and ports and shipping companies are dealing with heightened security concerns and uncertainty.

We would like to hear your experiences as a practitioner or someone who has tried this procedure

At the end of February, a report by the Women and Equalities Committee recommend that “high harm” procedures such as the liquid Brazilian butt lift (BBL) should be banned.

The government is “not moving quickly enough”, MPs said, stressing the need for a licensing system for non-surgical cosmetic procedures, noting that a “lack of timely action is fostering complacency in self-regulation” within the industry.

The report warned of a wild west in which procedures have reportedly taken place in Airbnbs, hotel rooms, garden sheds and public toilets. Individuals without any formal training can carry out potentially harmful interventions, placing the public at risk, MPs concluded.

Share your experiences as a practitioner or someone who has tried this procedure.

As he turns 80 this year, we’re inviting fans of the author to ask him the questions they’ve always wanted to ask

Michael Rosen’s work has been a stalwart of children’s bookshelves, bedtime stories and classroom read-alongs for decades, with children and adults alike able to quote chunks of his work. The much-loved poet, performer and broadcaster has a knack for writing sing-song rhymes that stick in your mind for years to come, whether it’s his classic picture book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt or his hilarious poem Chocolate Cake.

His first poetry collection, Mind Your Own Business, was published in 1974, and since then Rosen has written more than 140 books of poetry and prose, served as children’s laureate, and even become a TikTok meme for his pronunciation of the word “nice.”

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Crisis in the Middle East, Ramadan in Gaza, a blackout in Havana and Stella McCartney at Paris fashion week – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists