Economists say levies of between 10% and 50% have dramatically added to the risk of a worldwide downturn

Global financial markets have been plunged into turmoil as Donald Trump’s escalating trade war knocked trillions of dollars off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.

As world leaders reacted to the US president’s “liberation day” tariff policies demolishing the international trading order, about $2.5tn (£1.9tn) was wiped off Wall Street and share prices in other financial centres across the globe.

Kristolina Georgieva warns against retaliation to US levies while US president insists ‘markets will boom’ after sweeping tariff announcement

• Full report: Global markets in turmoil as Trump tariffs wipe $2.5tn off Wall Street
• Analysis: Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists

In the Pacific, Fiji is the hardest hit by Trump’s tariffs. It has been levied with a 32% tariff, Vanuatu at 22% and Nauru at 30%.

Fiji prime minister Sitiveni Rabuka said the move was akin to a “trade blockade” that his country could not win.

Today was the worst stock market experience in five years. Usually when you have a terrible stock market experience, it’s because a bank fails, a pandemic, a hurricane or because some other country does something.

We don’t have these kinds of stock market responses in response to policies that the President of the United States is proud of. That is something that is entirely without precedent. It is extremely dangerous.

If any administration of which I was a part had launched an economic policy so totally ungrounded in serious analysis or so dangerous and damaging, I would have resigned in protest.

All three major US index funds close down as Apple and Nvidia, two of US’s largest companies, lose combined $470bn

US stock markets tumbled on Thursday as investors parsed the sweeping change in global trading following Donald Trump’s announcement of a barrage of tariffs on the country’s trading partners.

All three major US stock markets closed down in their worst day since June 2020, during the Covid pandemic. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 6%, while the S&P 500 and the Dow dropped 4.8% and 3.9%, respectively. Apple and Nvidia, two of the US’s largest companies by market value, had lost a combined $470bn in value by midday.

Trade Review Act would require greater checks on tariffs in further sign of congressional disquiet over president’s plans

Senior senators introduced new bipartisan legislation on Thursday seeking to claw back some of Congress’s power over tariffs after Donald Trump unveiled sweeping new import taxes and rattled the global economy with sweeping new import taxes.

The Trade Review Act of 2025, co-sponsored by Senator Chuck Grassley, a top Republican lawmaker from Iowa, a state heavily reliant on farm exports, and Senator Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, whose state shares a border with Canada, would require the president to notify Congress of new tariffs, and provide a justification for the action and an analysis on the potential impact on US businesses and consumers.

Retailer’s ‘gift to America’ could be hit by new taxes as it also adjusts to rules on advertising high fat, sugar and salt foods

Percy Pig’s US invasion could be called to a halt amid fears that Donald Trump’s tariffs could affect sales of Marks & Spencer’s popular confectionery brand which has just launched in Target stores across the Atlantic.

Archie Norman, the chair of M&S, has described Percy as the retailer’s “gift to America” but he told the Retail Technology Show in London that “we might have to change our minds” as Trump imposes additional taxes on imported goods. While M&S is not considering withdrawing the sweets, tariffs could push up prices and make them less popular.

A global trade war could affect everything from prices to pensions, and inflation to interest rates

Donald Trump’s announcement that the US will put tariffs on goods from around the world, including a 10% charge on UK imports, has signalled the start of a global trade war.

Although the UK faces a lower tariff than many other countries, for UK consumers there could still be some fallout. How it all plays out remains unclear.

‘Willing sycophants’ came up with simplistic formula that has thrown global economy into disarray

• US politics live – latest updates

Waving a big chart as a prop in the White House Rose Garden, Donald Trump suggested his new tariff plan was simple: “Reciprocal – that means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get simpler than that.”

Perhaps a bit too simple. The method used to calculate the most important numbers in international trade, politics and economics has left some of the world’s leading experts shocked.

Goods trade deficit: $291.9bn

Total goods imports: $438.9bn

Those figures divided = 0.67, or 67%

And halved = 34%

Reciprocal tariffs are calculated as the tariff rate necessary to balance bilateral trade deficits between the US and each of our trading partners. This calculation assumes that persistent trade deficits are due to a combination of tariff and non-tariff factors that prevent trade from balancing.

Donald Trump has upended decades of US foreign policy by bringing in a vast array of tariffs that threaten to disrupt international trade. Here are some initial key points

• Trump tariff reaction – live updates

Countries across the world are racing to absorb the new way of doing business with the US, after Donald Trump unveiled tailored tariffs that looks set to ignite a global trade war.

Trump has made clear the goals he wants to accomplish through the tariffs: bring manufacturing back to the US; respond to unfair trade policies from other countries; increase tax revenue; and incentivise crackdowns on migration and drug trafficking.

The US president’s announcement has caused market chaos and threatens a trade war and US recession

Donald Trump’s announcement of a long slate of new tariffs on the US’s trading partners has caused chaos in global markets and threatens a global trade war and US recession.

Long trailed on his election campaign, Trump’s plans were even more sweeping than many had predicted: a baseline 10% tariff on all imports and higher tariffs for key trading partners, including China and the EU.

Suspended president removed after impeachment over martial law declaration, with acting leader Han Duck-soo to remain in office until election held

• Yoon Suk Yeol impeachment – live updates

South Korea’s suspended president, Yoon Suk Yeol, has been removed from office after the country’s constitutional court voted to uphold parliament’s decision to impeach over his ill-fated declaration of martial law in December.

After weeks of deliberations and rising concern about the future of South Korean democracy, the court voted to strip Yoon of his presidential powers.

Campaigners denounce ‘cover-up of a cover-up’ as IOPC clears officers of scapegoating Liverpool supporters

A 12-year investigation into the Hillsborough disaster by the police watchdog has concluded that no senior South Yorkshire police officers were guilty of misconduct for falsely blaming misbehaviour by Liverpool supporters.

That police case was wholly rejected in 2016 by the jury at the second inquest, who determined that no behaviour of Liverpool supporters contributed to the disaster, which happened on 15 April 1989 at the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough Stadium.

Munther Abed, 27, was in the first ambulance on the scene of an airstrike near Rafah when Israeli soldiers opened fire

• Gaza paramedic killings: a visual timeline

A survivor from a massacre of Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers in Gaza has said he saw Israeli troops open fire on a succession of Red Crescent ambulances and rescue vehicles and then use a bulldozer to bury the wreckage in a pit.

Munther Abed, a 27-year-old Red Crescent volunteer, was in the back of the first ambulance to arrive on the scene of an airstrike in the Hashashin district of Rafah before dawn on 23 March, when it came under intense Israeli fire. His two Red Crescent colleagues sitting in the front were killed but he survived by throwing himself to the floor of the vehicle.

Sources for sexual misconduct claims say honorary award, if given to actor, could have made his behaviour worse

The Guardian’s sources for sexual misconduct allegations against Noel Clarke feared an honorary award from Bafta would make him “untouchable” and increase the severity of his behaviour, the high court has heard.

Sirin Kale, a co-author of the series of articles about the Doctor Who actor, said she did not believe that the sources collectively decided “they wanted to damage Clarke’s reputation”, as he claims.

Defense chief and others discussed US military operations on messaging app that included journalist

The inspector general of the Department of Defense (DoD) is launching an investigation into Pentagon secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive information about military operations in Yemen.

The investigation, announced on Thursday, follows a bipartisan request from the Senate armed services committee after allegations emerged that highly precise – and most likely classified – intelligence about impending US airstrikes in Yemen, including strike timing and aircraft models, had been shared in a Signal group chat that included a journalist.

LSPH chief executive announces ‘groundbreaking proposal’ intended to grow international rail travel from the UK

Cross-Channel train services serving new destinations will be cheaper to run under a scheme to grow international rail travel from the UK.

London St Pancras Highspeed (LSPH), which owns and operates the railway and stations from the capital to the Channel tunnel, said it would slash charges for operators planning new routes.

Dr Amy Orben says there are no ‘one-size-fits-all answers’ given importance of access to online information

A leading academic tasked by the UK government with reviewing the effects of smartphones on teenagers has suggested blanket bans are “unrealistic and potentially detrimental”.

Amy Orben, from the University of Cambridge, will lead the work on children and smartphone use that has been commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) along with a team of other academics from a number of UK universities.

A man, a woman and five children got out unharmed from blaze that took hold of terraced house in Prescot overnight

A 13-year-old girl has died in a house fire near Liverpool.

The blaze was found in the first-floor rear bedroom of a mid-terraced house in Kingsway, Prescot late on Wednesday evening, Merseyside police said.

Police say man landed on island in attempt to meet the Sentinelese people – a tribe untouched by the industrial world

Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested a US tourist who sneaked on to a highly restricted island carrying a coconut and a can of Diet Coke to a tribe untouched by the industrial world.

Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, 24, set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel – part of India’s Andaman Islands – in an attempt to meet the Sentinelese people, who are believed to number only about 150.

Steve Harris, 40, throws cage over belligerent bird in his garden after it stalked him while he was out jogging

A hawk that has been terrorising male residents of a Hertfordshire village for weeks has been captured by a local man after it stalked him through the village while he was jogging.

Dozens of villagers in Flamstead, near Luton, have reported being attacked from behind by the bird, identified as a Harris’s hawk. Some have been left bleeding and in at least one case requiring hospital treatment.

On 23 March contact was lost with a team of Palestinian rescue workers and medics in southern Gaza. A week later their bodies were recovered from a mass grave

At 4.20am, a Red Crescent ambulance on its way to collect people injured by an airstrike in Rafah comes under Israeli fire in Hashashin. Two paramedics are killed.

Gen Christopher Cavoli says Russia has lost 4,000 tanks, comparable to whole US fleet; Kremlin goes to war against Elton John. What we know on day 1,136

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

The need for women to be accompanied by a man in public is blocking access to healthcare and contributing to soaring mortality rates, say experts

It was the middle of the night when Zarin Gul realised that her daughter Nasrin had to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Her daughter’s husband was away working in Iran and the two women were alone with Nasrin’s seven children when Nasrin, heavily pregnant with her eighth child, began experiencing severe pains.

Gul helped Nasrin into a rickshaw and they set off into the night. Holding her daughter’s hand as the rickshaw jolted over the dirt road, Gul says she prayed they would not encounter a Taliban checkpoint.

Dispatches, presented by Cathy Newman, talks to 16 survivors or witnesses of the ex-Harrods boss’s abuse, as well as tracking down his alleged enabler. The result is a raw, horrifying and invaluable watch

It is disturbingly easy to respond with little more than fatigue to reports of powerful men sexually exploiting women, because there have been so many. The part of us that should emit shock, disgust and righteous outrage becomes dulled through overuse. And so, when Mohamed Al Fayed, the billionaire former owner of Harrods, died in 2023 and was then credibly accused of being one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, the collective reaction felt like a shrug.

The new Dispatches investigation, Delivered to a Predator: Al Fayed’s Fixer, however, ought to sharpen our revulsion and our resolve to fight for change. Building on the 2017 Dispatches documentary Behind Closed Doors and the 2024 BBC programme Predator at Harrods, it outlines the scale of the tycoon’s wrongdoing: last year, the Metropolitan police said it believed Al Fayed may have raped or abused at least 111 women and girls, but here a lawyer working for survivors estimates the number to be more like 300.

The Democrat delivered the longest Senate speech in history. We asked urologists one pressing question about it

On Monday evening, Cory Booker, a Democratic senator for New Jersey, took the floor to denounce the harm he believes Donald Trump and his administration have inflicted on the United States. “Our country is in crisis,” he said, decrying the economic chaos, mass layoffs and tyrannical acts of the administration’s first 71 days. He stopped speaking 25 hours and five minutes later, making it the longest Senate speech in history.

Many praised Booker for the rousing political act. Some were also impressed by a particular physical feat: namely, he seemingly didn’t pee once the whole time. (A rep for Booker confirmed to TMZ that he did not wear a diaper during his speech.)

Underneath the measured words you could almost smell the panic as the government scrambled to come up with a plan to respond to Trump’s tariffs

With characteristic humility and good grace … Hardly.

Shortly after 9pm UK time on Wednesday, the Sun-Bed King made his way to the White House Rose Garden, looking every bit the dishonest bookie as he held up a board with every country’s separate tariff. He might as well have been signposting the odds on a global recession.

The tale of the ex-SNP politician’s career is packed with her fierce, funny Commons performances – and the sad truth about how little chance she was given to thrive in the corridors of power

Mhairi Black’s maiden speech in the House of Commons 10 years ago remains a thing of beauty. We are only treated to a snippet of it in this excellent documentary about the former Scottish National party politician – the youngest MP elected to parliament since 1832 – but I recommend finding the whole thing on YouTube. Black, then just 20 years old, has the Commons in the palm of her hand, simultaneously charming her fellow MPs with her dry wit and laying bare the deprivation in her Paisley and Renfrewshire South constituency (among the horrors: a man who starved himself in order to afford his bus fare to the jobcentre, only to collapse on the way there). The documentary does, however, retain some of her best one-liners from that address. Among them, the fact that her MP status and changes to housing benefit meant that she was “the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK” that would be getting any government help with their housing.

Black – if it wasn’t clear already – is a force of nature, and someone we surely need in politics. And yet, her exit from Westminster is what this one-off film is all about. We zip between archive clips from her younger years as an IndyRef campaigner; the last days of her career as an MP (Black announced her intention to stand down at the next election in 2023, following through on that promise in 2024); and her post-politics life. There’s also footage from last year’s Edinburgh fringe show, Politics Isn’t for Me, which saw her turn her tumultuous time in parliament into something approaching comedy, commanding the stage with what she calls her “Britney mic” jutting out in front of her mouth (the Guardian described it as “comedy therapy”). Being a young, gay woman in the Commons, we learn, took a profound toll on Black’s mental health. She tells us as much – describing it as having had “anxiety all the time” – but we can see it, too, the colour slowly draining from her face as her 20s march on. When we cut back to the present, she is calmer, happier; there is talk of regaining independence and control.

With the release this month of Coastal, her documentary about husband Neil Young’s 2023 solo tour, we look at Hannah’s greatest roles

Looking as though she has strayed from another genre, Hannah plays Mickey Rourke’s girlfriend, a leggy aerobics instructor who keeps getting undressed. At least she’s more fun than Rourke and an insanely posturing Eric Roberts as deadbeat cousins ripping off the mob: roles originally written for Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

Sedentary lifestyles are bad for us, but which under-desk treadmills and walking pads are worth the cost? Our expert stepped up to find out

• The best treadmills for your home

Various guidelines suggest we all try to walk at least 10,000 steps a day to improve our overall health and wellbeing. Public Health England encourages a slightly more manageable target of just 10 minutes of brisk walking daily to introduce more moderate-intensity physical activity and reduce your risk of early death by up to 15%.

But even squeezing in “brisk walks” can be a chore, with busy schedules and increasingly desk-bound jobs forcing more of us to remain sedentary for long periods. That is where walking pads come in, being lighter, smaller and often easier to store than bulky and tricky-to-manoeuvre running treadmills.

Best overall walking pad:
JTX MoveLight
_{£499 at JTX Fitness}

Best budget walking pad:
Rattantree shock-absorbing treadmill
_{£142.49 at Debenhams}

Best foldable walking pad:
BodyMax WP60
_{£549 at Amazon}

Best walking pad for incline:
Mobvoi Home Treadmill Plus
_{£224.99 at Mobvoi}

Karina Longworth, the host of You Must Remember This, on why people patronise Scorsese and Coppola, and her new season of late-career curios by the likes of Minnelli, Wilder and Hitchcock

‘When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” So runs the most famous line from John Ford’s elegiac 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The 44-year-old historian Karina Longworth has other ideas. The former LA Weekly film critic launched her podcast, You Must Remember This, in 2014, setting out to tell “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”, as she puts it in the show’s introduction. Its title is lifted from the jazz standard As Time Goes By (“You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss …”) as featured in Casablanca. Hearing that wistful, timeworn lyric, it is easy to overlook the imperative hiding in plain sight. With each fastidiously researched and gloriously entertaining episode, Longworth seems to be telling us: you must remember this. To not do so, or to allow fact to curdle into legend, would be unconscionable.

“I don’t want to be a schoolmarm scolding people for forgetting,” she says from a sunny upstairs room in the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, Rian Johnson, director of the Knives Out whodunnits and Star Wars: The Last Jedi. “But I think we can only understand where we are at and where we’re going if we look to where we’ve been.”

Can a Lib Dem voting engineer who is ‘dead against’ people arriving in small boats and a Zambian-born author agree to disagree on immigration?

Clive, 56, Manchester

Occupation Consultant engineer

Starmer will try to calm the situation and focus on May’s local elections, but one thing is clear: our ties with Europe are more crucial than ever

Nobody wins a trade war. You can lose it by greater or lesser degrees: you may be one of the luckier casualties. But that’s about as good as it gets. So, while there will have been initial relief in Downing Street on Wednesday night, a feeling even that Keir Starmer’s placating of Donald Trump looks vindicated, what followed was no victory lap.

How could it be, after that grotesquely swaggering show trial the president staged in the White House garden, all the better to jazz up an economic assault on what were once his country’s allies? Come on down, Britain, escaping with just the minimum 10% tariff on its exports to the US and no drive-by insults! Better than Taiwan (32% plus a lecture about how the US used to build all the semiconductors once), Vietnam (“They like me, I like them” but still a brutal 46%), the EU (“very very tough traders” and lucky to get away with 20%) or poor Lesotho, still reeling from the overnight collapse of US aid and now whacked by a 50% tariff. But even lucky Britain still emerged with a 25% duty on cars that the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) estimates could cost 25,000 jobs, plus the grim realisation that this may be just the beginning of a long unravelling. Globalisation is dead, protectionism is back, and all to satisfy one man’s delusions that life was better in the 1800s before income tax was invented.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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I won’t be showing off the results of the novel I wrote in a month, but the nonprofit’s community-backed challenge is worthwhile and should continue

It seems budding writers can make alternative plans for this coming November. Maybe take a holiday, learn to juggle, work on their chess openings … or anything, anything, that doesn’t involve writing an entire novel in a month.

I am, of course, referring to the sad news that the online writing community NaNoWriMo is calling it a day after more than 20 years in existence. The organisation, which has existed officially as a nonprofit since 2006, has been a source of inspiration to many amateur (and professional) writers who’ve needed the requisite kick up the bum to actually get stuff down on the page. Because although NaNoWriMo – short for National Novel Writing Month – existed all year round as a support group for writers, it was known chiefly for its November writing marathon – could you write 50,000 words in that month alone? Or, to put it another way, could you average 1,667 words a day over a 30-day period? Or, to put it another way, were you willing to go stark-raving crackers for a month?

The US president’s tariffs are almost certain to have dire consequences and he is not impervious to market decline or public opinion

So much for the idea that “liberation day” would free financial markets from their fear of the unknown. Publication of precise tariff rates, went a cheerful line of advance thinking, would at least allow investors to assess the probable trade effects on the basis of hard information. True optimists clung to the idea that Donald Trump would not wish to risk a truly severe market reaction.

That narrative was blown apart when the president reached for his pub-style display of wares. This really was a case of going back to the tariffs rates of the 1920s or 1930s. Not even the penguins of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands were spared.

This vital drama has British actors, a British writer, but Netflix funding. Here’s why that’s a huge problem

Everyone is talking about Adolescence, the television drama focused on toxic masculinity that has triggered a continuing social and political debate. But only a handful of people are talking about what the hit drama says about the real-time crisis unfolding in the British television industry – and that needs discussion too.

Adolescence is everything public service broadcasting should be: hard-hitting programming featuring the kind of people often ignored in TV drama – in this case, white working-class families in the north – discussed at the school gate and in parliament. After its British writer, Jack Thorne, met Keir Starmer in Downing Street, it was revealed that Adolescence was to be rolled out for free across all UK secondary schools.

I bought it to be part of a greener future, but that was before Musk proved so awful. I’d sell it now, but prices have dropped

After our children left home, my wife and I decided to treat ourselves and buy a new car for a driving holiday in Europe. We’d been driving a family estate car for years, loading it up with kids and making trips to and from universities, but we wanted something for ourselves.

As a surprise, she booked a test drive for the Tesla Model S for my birthday. It was unlike any car I’d been in before. I thought “Wow, this is amazing.” It felt like the future: a computer on wheels that was constantly updating with new features. I can’t say I feel that way now – and many people seem to share that view. Tesla sales figures declined by 13% in the first few months of this year. Others feel even more uneasy: more than 200 demonstrations happened last weekend outside company facilities around the world to protest against Elon Musk and the wrecking ball he has taken to the federal government.

I rise tonight because silence at this moment of national crisis would be a betrayal of some of the greatest heroes of our nation

Editor’s note: the following is an excerpt from Cory Booker’s 25-hour marathon speech on the US Senate floor

Tonight, I rise with the intention of getting in some good trouble. I rise with the intention of disrupting the normal business of the United States Senate for as long as I am physically able.

Cory Booker is a US senator from New Jersey

While my assaulter can continue to attend games undeterred, Tottenham announce a convicted abuser as a performer. Are the club’s actions matching their words when it comes to supporting female fans?

A few months ago I was assaulted on an overground train by a Brentford fan after a home win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The British Transport Police were rapid in their response, unsuccessfully but immediately halting a Victoria line train to find him, before arresting him the next week on his own way to his team’s home match. Over a few months of back and forth updates with the BTP the case was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service.

This Saturday at a sunny pub with my dad, among chatter about Tottenham’s seasons’ woes while an FA Cup tie played out on the TV screens I got an unexpected call from BTP for a final update. The CPS had decided there was not enough evidence to secure a conviction against the individual.

The US president has expelled his own country from the rules-based global trade system that America itself created

For the world’s already embattled trading system, it is as though an asteroid has crashed into the planet, devastating everyone and everything that previously existed there. But there is this important difference. If an asteroid struck the Earth, the impact would at least have been caused by ungovernable cosmic forces. The assault on world trade, by contrast, is a completely deliberate act of choice, taken by one man and one nation.

Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on every country in the world is a monstrous and momentous act of folly. Unilateral and unjustified, it was expressed on Wednesday in indefensible language in which Mr Trump described US allies as “cheaters” and “scavengers” who “looted”, “raped” and “pillaged” the US. Many of the calculations on which Mr Trump doled out his punishments are perverse, not least the exclusion of Russia from the condemned list. The tariffs mean prices are certain to rise in sector after sector, in the US and elsewhere, fuelling inflation and perhaps recession. Mr Trump will presumably respond as he did when asked about foreign cars becoming more expensive: “I couldn’t care less.”

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

Impunity over Palestinian deaths in Gaza will lead to further cases like this massacre of rescue and healthcare workers

After 18 months of slaughter, it is still possible to be shocked by events in Gaza. More than 50,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health authorities. More are starving because Israel has cut off aid. The offensive is intensifying again – with 100 children killed or maimed each day since Israel resumed heavy strikes last month, the UN reports.

Even so, Israel’s killing of 15 Palestinian paramedics and rescue workers is particularly chilling. Though they died on 23 March, it took days for Israel to grant access to the site, the UN said. Another man was last seen in Israeli custody. Two grounds for seeing this not only as tragic but as a war crime stand out. The first is that the UN says the men were shot “one by one”, and a forensic expert said that preliminary evidence “suggests they were executed, not from a distant range”, given the “specific and intentional” locations of bullet wounds. Two witnesses said some of the bodies had their hands or legs tied. Prisoners are protected by the Geneva conventions. The second is that medics also enjoy specific protections.

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Readers react to Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on goods imported into the US from

Martin Kettle considers it uncertain whether Donald Trump’s tariffs will work, while noting that even Keynes supported their occasional use (Perilous and chaotic, Trump’s ‘liberation day’ endangers the world’s broken economy – and him, 2 April). Such an open-minded view risks overoptimism. Keynes’s support for the idea of tariffs was limited to specific short-term need, as in protection of fledgling industry. But Keynes knew well the harm of tariffs as long-term economic policy.

Far from being uncertain, it is inevitable that Trump’s tariffs will fail. The deep interconnectedness of international supply chains means Americans will see a swift rise in inflation (that key growth-killer Trump campaigned to reduce) as indispensable worldwide component imports push up the price of domestic US goods and the reverse is repeated around the world.

Josephine Grahl advises looking at the labour burden placed on women and how social structures enforce this. Brid Connolly recalls Marge Piercy’s novel Body of Glass

Rachel Connolly has it the wrong way round when she suggests that one problem with heterosexuality is that women unrealistically expect men to fulfil a complete spectrum of emotional needs and desires (Social media is awash with ‘heteropessimism’. Do young women really think so poorly of men?, 31 March). As many surveys have shown – most recently in a study by Humboldt University – straight men are more likely to be dependent on their female partners and cope worse after separation or divorce.

Connolly suggests that online statements of “heteropessimism” are not being acted on, but Office for National Statistics figures from 2023 show a continuing increase in single households of all ages – a phenomenon that has persisted over the last few decades despite increasing social precarity, spiralling housing costs and what the US sociologist Bella DePaulo describes as the “singles tax” – the financial disadvantage incurred by those who live alone or are unmarried.

It was a typically incident-filled meeting between these sworn enemies but, really, there was only one place to start. Ange Postecoglou, the remorselessly under-fire Tottenham manager, had been barracked by his own supporters when he replaced Lucas Bergvall with Pape Sarr in the 64th minute. Like every other Spurs player, Bergvall had struggled to impose himself but the fans do like him.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” they informed Postecoglou. So just imagine how the fiercely proud Australian must have felt shortly afterwards when Sarr won the ball off Moisés Caicedo and unloaded a low shot from distance, which the Chelsea goalkeeper, Robert Sánchez, inexplicably allowed to beat him.

• Forward is in fine form going into Belgium double-header
• ‘To be a No 9 you have to have that confidence about you’

Leah Williamson has praised the form of Alessia Russo before England’s No 9 spearheads the Lionesses’ attack in their Women’s Nations League double-header against Belgium, starting in Bristol on Friday.

Arsenal’s Russo has scored 14 goals in her past 21 games for club and country, including two in last week’s Champions League second-leg comeback win over Real Madrid. Her clubmate, the England captain Williamson, praised Russo’s character, saying at St George’s Park on Thursday: “Everyone will always say how nice a person Alessia is and everyone wants to see her do well for that reason. But to be a No 9 you do have to have that sort of – not arrogance – but confidence about you.

Last year’s winner I Am Maximus heads to Aintree on Saturday bidding to make history. Here is a look through the chances of all 34 contenders

There was a lot going on in the spring of 1974. Abba won Eurovision, Manchester United were relegated and Red Rum became the most recent horse to win the Grand National under what was then the top weight of 12 stone. Just over half a century later, last year’s winner will attempt to emulate the greatest Aintree hero of them all and defy top weight, and though he is higher in the ratings, he won so readily 12 months ago that he would surely have done so with another 8lb on his back. Lacklustre in two runs this campaign but Willie Mullins will have been working backwards from here and he seems highly likely to leave that form behind now he is back at the scene of his greatest triumph.

Verdict: classy acceleration to seal victory last year, big chance to repeat from 8lb higher mark

Verdict: top-class at Haydock and when the mud is flying. Will not have either here

Verdict: loves spring ground and in the mix, but worse off with a couple of rivals on recent form

Verdict: decent form already and best days still ahead of him but not cut much slack by the handicapper

Verdict: the 2023 King George winner will love the ground and the trip but might lack a gear-change when it matters

Verdict: big run last year and can’t get classier than a Gold Cup winner but may have missed best chance

Verdict: outstanding novice over hurdles, yet to show same form over fences or at an extended trip

The 125th edition – the calm before the 2026 storm – begins on Friday with notable names headlining the cast list

The cut of the grass, the shine of a boot, the sigh of a drop, the joy of a catch, the crunch of a four, the hope of the spring. Time stealthily gouging out lines, on faces, over scars, around knees. A first season. A last.

Here, suddenly, is April, unexpectedly sunny and dry. And with it, 135 years after the first County Championship (minus one year for Covid, four for world war one and six for world war two), the 125th.

Curtis Jones is not a long-term fix at right-back for Liverpool, Tyler Dibling is a wanted man and Arsenal are depleted

When Arsenal next visit Merseyside on 11 May their first act may be to form a guard of honour for Liverpool, who could by then be newly crowned Premier League champions. The title appears destined for Anfield – Arsenal have been unable to sustain a consistent challenge for it all season – but Mikel Arteta will feel duty-bound to delay the seemingly inevitable for as long as possible on his return to Everton. Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final against Real Madrid may be the priority for Arsenal but rotating is hardly an option for Arteta at Goodison Park given he has four defenders available. A makeshift unit would benefit from a demanding afternoon together before welcoming Real to the Emirates. Arne Slot claimed it is unfair on Everton to have an early Saturday kick-off after Wednesday’s Merseyside derby. Depleted or not, Arteta’s team should take advantage. Andy Hunter

Everton v Arsenal, Saturday 12.30pm (all times BST)

Crystal Palace v Brighton, Saturday 3pm

Ipswich v Wolves, Saturday 3pm

West Ham v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm

• Bunting beats Price 6-5 in final to break his duck
• Littler beaten by Dobey in opening match

Stephen Bunting turned his Premier League form around in stunning fashion to claim victory in Berlin after Luke Littler crashed out early.

Bunting had failed to win a match in the first eight rounds of the series but he saw off Nathan Aspinall to break his duck then eased to victory over Luke Humphries before defeating Gerwyn Price 6-5 in the final.

• Golf left in limbo just days from opening major of season
• PGA Tour deems PIF’s demands unacceptable

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has failed in an attempt to persuade the PGA Tour to deliver serious concessions in exchange for a $1.5bn (£1.14bn) investment, leaving elite golf no closer to reconciliation just days from the season’s first major.

The PGA Tour’s stance will give credence to the rising sense that the organisation has increasing confidence in its position after a turbulent period caused by the formation of the Saudi-backed LIV Tour.

• Real Madrid’s Bernabéu also offers appeal to federation
• Italy expected to be Spain’s closest rival for tournament

The 2035 Rugby World Cup final could be staged at the revamped Camp Nou in Barcelona with the Spanish rugby federation in discussions with La Liga over using celebrated football stadiums as part of its bid to host the tournament.

Delegates from the Spanish federation met World Rugby executives last weekend to demonstrate their intentions to host the tournament in 2035 and discussions are said to have piqued interest.

Application, submitted by Cranswick, would have created one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe

A megafarm that would have reared almost 900,000 chickens and pigs at any one time has been blocked by councillors in Norfolk over climate change and environmental concerns.

Councillors on King’s Lynn and West Norfolk borough council unanimously rejected an application to build what would have been one of the largest industrial poultry and pig units in Europe.

Maintaining seed diversity and abundance is essential – and requires constant work. It’s time for Congress to return to the seed business

From 1862 until 1923, US senators and members of Congress provided vast numbers of seeds to constituents. At its peak, the congressional seed distribution program delivered over 60m seed packets directly to farmers and market gardeners every year, helping introduce new varieties of everything from wheat and corn to oats, soybeans, flowers and vegetables. A century later, far fewer Americans till the soil for a living, but seeds remain central to our lives.

To understand the importance of seeds, try to imagine a morning without them. It would begin naked on a bare mattress, with no cozy sheets or pajamas, and there would be no fluffy towel to wrap up in after your shower. All of those things come from the seeds of the cotton plant. Stumbling wet into the kitchen, you would find no coffee, and no toast or bagel to go with it. There would be no eggs, no bacon, no cereal, no milk. All of those staples come from seeds or from livestock raised on seed crops. And if you thought you might console yourself with a chocolate bar, you can forget it. Cocoa powder, and the cocoa butter that makes it melt in your mouth, are both derived from seeds.

Energy Transfer, a top backer of US president, has received requests to power even more energy-guzzling data centers

Oil and gas barons who donated millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign are on the cusp of cashing in on the administration’s support for energy-guzzling data centers – and a slew of unprecedented environmental rollbacks.

Energy Transfer, the oil and gas transport company behind the Dakota Access pipeline, has received requests to power 70 new data centers – a 75% rise since Trump took office, according to a new investigation by the advocacy non-profit Oil Change International (OCI) and the Guardian.

Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure

The climate crisis is on track to destroy capitalism, a top insurer has warned, with the vast cost of extreme weather impacts leaving the financial sector unable to operate.

The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies. He said that without insurance, which is already being pulled in some places, many other financial services become unviable, from mortgages to investments.

Duke of Sussex says he hopes Charity Commission will ‘unveil the truth’ about governance of Sentebale

Prince Harry has launched a thinly veiled attack on the chair of the Sentebale charity he founded two decades ago for telling “blatant lies”, as an inquiry was launched into claims about the organisation’s governance.

In a statement issued in response to the Charity Commission’s decision to open a “compliance case”, the prince said he hoped a “robust inquiry” would “unveil the truth”.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander grants consent to London’s fourth-biggest airport to allow potential 32m passengers a year

Luton airport will be allowed to almost double in capacity after the government overruled planning inspectors who recommended blocking the scheme on environmental grounds.

The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, granted a development consent order for the airport’s plans to expand its perimeter and add a new terminal, allowing for a potential 32 million passengers a year.

Multimillion-pound project will also boost capacity by 20% and improve wheelchair accessibility

Different generations of tennis fans may disagree on its name – to traditionalists it will always be Henman Hill, millennials probably plump for Murray Mound and gen Z may know it as Raducanu Rise or even, regrettably, Jack’s Stack – but all ages can agree that bringing a little shelter to Wimbledon’s most famous viewing area can only be a good thing.

Wimbledon’s Hill – which since 1997 has allowed tennis fans with a grounds pass to watch the action on No 1 Court live atop its grassy knoll – is getting a makeover, the All England Lawn and Tennis Club (AELTC) has announced.

Andrew Searle and Dawn Kerr were found dead in their home in Les Pesquiès in Aveyron on 6 February

The deaths of a British couple who were found in their renovated rural home in Aveyron, south-west France, are being treated as a murder followed by a suicide.

The bodies of Andrew Searle, 62, a retired fraud investigator, and Dawn Kerr, 56, a project manager, were discovered on 6 February at their home in the village of Les Pesquiès, south of Villefranche-de-Rouergue.

Child protection charities say watering down Online Safety Act would be an ‘appalling sellout’ by government

Child safety campaigners have warned the government against watering down landmark online laws as part of a UK-US trade deal, describing the prospect of a compromise as an “appalling sellout” that would be rejected by voters.

A draft transatlantic trade agreement contains commitments to review enforcement of the Online Safety Act, according to a report on Thursday, amid White House concerns the legislation poses a threat to free speech.

Police watchdog says video footage shows David Joyce, 38, running towards officers with a knife

A man shot dead by armed officers at Milton Keynes railway station has been named by the police watchdog as 38-year-old David Joyce.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), which has launched an investigation into the incident, said body-worn footage and CCTV showed Joyce run towards officers with a knife in his hand just outside the station entrance at 1.04pm.

Daniel Křetínský clears final regulatory hurdles for £3.6bn takeover of Royal Mail parent company

• Business live – latest updates

The £3.6bn takeover of Royal Mail’s parent company will be completed this month, nearly a year after it was first agreed, as the Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský cleared the final regulatory hurdles standing in the way.

International Distribution Services (IDS), the owner of the 508-year-old Royal Mail, said on Thursday the deal “may become or be declared unconditional” by 30 April, after a delay due to issues in Romania.

Reece Galbraith, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in blast from gas canisters used to make cannabis sweets

A huge house explosion that killed two people including a seven-year-old boy was the result of a dangerous and criminal drug lab making cannabis gummy sweets using 100 gas canisters, a court has heard.

Details of the causes of the blast in the Benwell area of Newcastle can now be reported after Reece Galbraith, 33, pleaded guilty on Thursday to the manslaughter of two people.

Churches fear new tax rules will put major restoration programmes at listed places of worship in jeopardy

A 500-year-old Grade I listed church in Totnes, Devon, is one of thousands facing a financial blow after the government effectively imposed VAT on major repair and restoration programmes.

Until last week, major repair programmes at listed places of worship were exempt from VAT. But from 1 April, the government introduced a cap of £25,000 on the exemption after giving just three months’ notice of the change. It claimed 94% of church building projects will be unaffected, but many churches fear the change puts their repair and restoration programmes in jeopardy.

People urged not to light fires as crews attend outbreaks in Stirling and Dunbartonshire and on Dorset heathland

Wildfires are continuing to burn across the UK, with the emergency services warning of an “extreme” risk caused by the warmer weather.

Crews in Scotland have been dealing with a large grass fire at Gartur Moss in Port of Menteith, Stirling after the alarm was raised on Wednesday.

White House approves Tennessee’s state of emergency request as further fatalities expected to be confirmed

Violent storms and tornadoes have torn across the US south and midwest, killing at least seven people and downing power lines and trees, smashing homes and upturning cars across multiple states.

The outbreak of storms and tornadoes has resulted in at least seven deaths in Tennessee and Missouri, with further fatalities expected to be confirmed. One of the victims has been named: a 68-year-old man named Garry Moore who was a fire chief in Cape Girardeau county, Missouri. At least a dozen injuries have also been reported from the storms.

Vice-president makes remark after reports that president told cabinet members billionaire will be stepping back

JD Vance said on Thursday that Elon Musk would remain a “friend and an adviser” to the vice-president and Donald Trump after he leaves his current role with the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

In recent days, several news outlets, including Politico, reported that Trump had told members of his cabinet that the tech billionaire, who holds the position of “special government employee”, would soon be stepping back from his role in the administration, and would take on a supporting role and return to the private sector.

Son of murdered academic calls on Facebook owner to ‘radically change how it moderates dangerous content’

Meta faces a $2.4bn (£1.8bn) lawsuit accusing the Facebook owner of inflaming violence in Ethiopia after the Kenyan high court said a legal case against the US tech group could go ahead.

The case brought by two Ethiopian nationals calls on Facebook to alter its algorithm to stop promoting hateful material and incitement to violence, as well as hiring more content moderators in Africa. It is also seeking a $2.4bn “restitution fund” for victims of hate and violence incited on Facebook.

Discovery in Altadena months after fires brings deaths in Eaton fire up to 18, while 12 people killed in Palisades fire

Months after wildfires tore through Los Angeles communities, officials announced this week they had discovered another set of human remains, bringing the death toll in the disaster up to 30.

Investigators were dispatched to Altadena on Wednesday to investigate possible human remains in the community, which was hit hard by the Eaton fire in January. The special operations response team confirmed that the remains were human, the Los Angeles county medical examiner’s office said in a statement.

Phrases used to smooth over tense social situations have meanings beyond the sum of their parts, study suggests

Bonobos use a combination of calls to encourage peace with their partner during mating rituals, research suggests.

The discovery is part of a study that suggests our close evolutionary cousins can string together vocalisations to produce phrases with meanings that go beyond the sum of their parts – something often considered unique to human language.

Trump ally presented him with opposition research against a number of officials that she said showed their disloyalty

• Follow US politics live

Donald Trump fired six national security council staffers after a fraught meeting in the Oval Office where the far-right activist Laura Loomer presented opposition research against a number of staffers that she said showed they were disloyal to the US president, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The firings encompassed four staffers who were fired overnight, after the meeting, and two who were removed over the weekend. It created the extraordinary situation where Loomer appeared to have more influence than the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, over the NSC and undercut Waltz in having aides axed under him.

Mette Frederiksen, who met island’s new and outgoing PMs, says she wants to cooperate with Trump on Arctic security

The Danish prime minister has put on a show of unity with Greenlandic leaders in her first visit to the Arctic island since Donald Trump’s renewed threats to acquire the territory, telling the US: “You cannot annex another country.”

Speaking onboard an inspection ship in front of a military helicopter, alongside Greenland’s new prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, and its outgoing prime minister, Múte B Egede, Mette Frederiksen switched from Danish to English to address the diplomatic standoff with the Trump administration.

US president had sued over denied allegations he took part in ‘perverted’ sex acts but UK case was thrown out last year

Donald Trump has been ordered by a judge in England to pay more than £620,000 in legal costs after unsuccessfully suing a company over denied allegations he took part in “perverted” sex acts.

The US president brought a data protection claim against Orbis Business Intelligence, a consultancy founded by a former MI6 officer, Christopher Steele, in 2022.

Designation as ‘undesirable organisation’ exposes nonprofit’s staff and partners to possible criminal prosecution

Russian authorities on Thursday banned the Elton John Aids Foundation (EJAF), which focuses on HIV/Aids prevention, citing its support for LGBTQ+ rights as a reason for the move.

Founded by the British singer and songwriter in 1992, the organisation funds HIV treatment programmes in countries including Russia. It also advocates for LGBTQ+ people, who have faced years of brutal persecution in Russia.

Keukenhof, near Amsterdam, increasingly catering to growing demand for social media content

Nestled among tulip fields not far from Amsterdam, the world-famous Keukenhof garden has opened for the spring, welcoming camera-wielding visitors to its increasingly selfie-friendly grounds.

On a sunny day, the paths, park benches and cafes are crowded with tourists taking photos and selfies with one of the Netherlands’ most iconic products – the tulip.

There are new ways to catch goombas, a Mario Kart battle royale and innovative gameplay ideas abound, but Nintendo will need to work hard to sell its next-gen machine

After Nintendo’s intriguing hour-long live stream on Wednesday, we now know a lot more about its follow-up to the phenomenally successful Switch. But how does the Switch 2 play? After the online presentation, I got to spend about four hours road-testing the new console at a press event in the Grand Palais, Paris, the box-white exhibition hall adorned in Nintendo red and lined with rows of high-end TV screens and Switch 2 consoles. There was also a 90-minute roundtable with three of the masterminds behind the console: Tetsuya Sasaki (hardware design lead), Kouichi Kawamoto (producer) and Takuhiro Dohta (director). Here’s what I learned.

The singer answers your questions about her drum skills, friendship with Joni Mitchell and more – and reveals unheard music with both Prince and Sia

Can you remember the precise moment you realised you had a gift as a vocalist? SalfordRed64
I was doing a talent show at the Burning Spear in Chicago. My group, the Crystallettes, graced many a nightclub stage in competitions, and every time either us or [fellow Chicago girl group] the Emotions would win. But I remember singing some Aretha Franklin songs and people in the audience were throwing money on the stage, and they started calling me “little Aretha”. That’s when I connected the dots: “Oh, I see what this is all about.” I realised I didn’t have to become a teacher or a whatever I wanted to be when I grew up back then – I could be a singer!

You have so much confidence and you just knew you and [the band] Rufus were going to make it big. Where does that confidence come from? stifwhiff
When I was with Rufus, I knew I loved what we were doing, and I could only hope and pray everyone else loved it like I did. That’s all you can ask for. And that’s still how I am about the music I make. I have confidence in everything I do – all the time. And that is a necessary thing to have if you want success – if you’ve created something and you want everyone to love it, you have to love it first. And that’s applicable to everything in life, not just music.

Star says cast took a ‘gamble’ appearing in Peter Jackson’s hit trilogy and did not earn enough to ‘rest easy’ for life

Elijah Wood has said that his salary for The Lord of the Rings movies was “not massive” and that appearing in the films was “a real gamble”.

According to a report in Business Insider, which carried quotes from the star at the Texas film awards in March, Wood said the fact that the actors had to sign up for all three films at the start meant that their fees were not related to the film’s financial success. “Because we weren’t making one movie and then renegotiating a contract for the next, it wasn’t the sort of lucrative scenario that you could sort of rest easy for the rest of your life.”

Oscar-winner set to take on role as godlike lion usually perceived to be male in upcoming adaption of The Magician’s Nephew

Meryl Streep is in talks to play Aslan in Greta Gerwig’s upcoming Narnia film, according to reports. According to Nexus Point News, and confirmed by Deadline Streep, 79, is being lined up to star in Netflix’s film, which will be adapted from The Magician’s Nephew – the sixth of CS Lewis Narnia series of novels, but the first in chronological terms.

In the Narnia books, Aslan is a dignified and quasi-omniscient lion, generally seen to be male and usually interpreted as an allegory for Jesus. The Magician’s Nephew centres on two children, Digory Kirke and Polly Plummer, who discover the magical world through Digory’s uncle Andrew. Daniel Craig is also in talks for the film, with speculation rising that he will play the uncle. Charli XCX is also in line for a role, rumoured to be Jadis, the White Witch.

The bestselling video game ever has a devoted, vocal, following. Can a faceless corporation make a successful film based on such beloved IP without involving its fanbase?

By any estimation, Minecraft is impossibly successful. The bestselling video game ever, as of last December it had 204 million monthly active players. Since it was first released in 2011, it has generated over $3bn (£2.3bn) in revenue. What’s more, its players have always been eager to demonstrate their fandom outside the boundaries of the game itself. In 2021, YouTube calculated that videos related to the game – tutorials, walk-throughs, homages, parodies – had collectively been viewed 1tn times. In short, it is a phenomenon.

Such is the strength of feeling, almost all of it positive, about Minecraft that it was only a matter of time before someone tried to turn it into a film. After all, you have a historically popular product and a highly engaged fanbase: what could possibly go wrong? Turns out, quite a lot. Last September, the first trailer for the film – titled A Minecraft Movie – was released, and the reaction was instant and violent. “Minecraft fans devastated by ‘awful’ live-action trailer” read one headline the following day. Some called it “a crime against humanity”; others “a soulless neon abomination”. In less than 24 hours, the website GamingBible had called it “a curse on my eyes” and “pure nightmare fuel”. Within three days of its release, the trailer had been downvoted more than 1m times.

Neeson steps into the role of the bumbling detective made famous by Leslie Nielsen in the TV show and film series created by the Zucker Abrahams Zucker team

The first footage has been released of Paramount’s upcoming reboot of the much-loved Naked Gun series of spoof police movies. The new film stars Liam Neeson has Frank Drebin Jr – revealed to be the son of Leslie Nielsen’s bumbling detective from the original films.

The trailer introduces him a considerably slicker operator to his late father, disabling a baddie in a schoolgirl disguise with a sharpened lollipop. He is then seen tearfully addressing a photograph of Drebin Snr, as offspring of Captain Ed Hocken (George Kennedy) and, more controversially, Officer Nordberg (OJ Simpson) are seen following suit.

We asked the experts about keeping luggage as light as possible (and still being ready for anything)

• The best travel-size toiletries for your next trip

Packing is a fine art. No one wants to lug heavy bags around transport hubs or arrive at the other end to a chaotically stuffed bag full of creased clothes. But we all have our “essentials” to cram in. For some, that’ll be a full skincare routine or a semblance of a wardrobe; for others, it’ll be sports equipment (though you really should leave the weights at home). So whether you’re flying on an airline offering ever-dwindling luggage limits, trying to cram a car for the whole crew, or rushing between trains with a backpack, it really does pay to travel light.

But what are the secrets to lightening the load without compromising? To find out, we’ve asked world travellers for all their best hacks and buys. Whether it’s the travel writer who’s been solo backpacking for more than 20 years or the hotel designer who has to dress smartly while zipping to locations across Europe, our globe-trotters shared their tips for everything from the ultimate wear-everywhere shoes to the best tech cheats.

This week: your March favourites; gifts for new mums; and how to make your smartphone last longer

Never has the term “fool’s spring” been more fitting. When the sun came out early in the month, many of us began to prepare for the summer that felt just around the corner. Hundreds of you, like me, bought the most genius overnight bag for the weekends away that were surely about to happen, and the perfect nail colour for the new season.

But let’s be real: it’s not summer yet. A fact evidenced by just how many of you were also buying practical raincoats, stay-in-all-day satin pyjamas and – less glamorously – microwave rice cookers. Here are the Filter recommendations you loved the most this month.

Stick vacuums are a convenient alternative to corded designs, but which model wins for overall cleaning prowess? Our expert reveals all

• The best robot vacuums to keep your home clean and dust free

Choosing a cordless vacuum isn’t a decision that should be taken lightly. You’re likely to keep a vacuum cleaner for years, relying heavily on its ability to suck up dust, crumbs, mud, pet hair and any other dry spillages or sheddings that end up on your floor. Choosing the right model can be the difference between an effective cleaner that’s a delight to pull out of the cupboard and a dud that you dread having to unblock, detangle and clean after every use.

In this review, I took 10 of the leading cordless vacuum cleaners from a range of manufacturers and at various prices and inflicted the same cleaning tests on each one. That takes all the guesswork out of picking your next cleaner: I can tell you exactly which ones picked up the most mess.

Best cordless vacuum cleaner overall:
Shark PowerDetect Clean & Empty IP3251
_{£369.91 at John Lewis}

Best budget cordless vacuum cleaner:
Vax HomePro Pet-Design
_{£317 at Amazon}

Best cordless vacuum for deep cleaning:
Dyson Gen5detect
_{£649 at John Lewis}

Best cordless vacuum for clean emptying:
Henry Quick Pro
_{£399 at Amazon}

Best handheld cordless vacuum cleaner
Dyson Car+Boat
_{£199 at AO}

Whose brand tastes like a tropical ambrosia, and whose tastes like soapy gunk? Restaurateur Ravinder Bhogal dives in …

• The best rice cookers for gloriously fluffy grains at home

Coconut milk is always found front and centre in my pantry because it is a cornerstone of so much of my cooking. I buy it in bulk and rely on it to bring a voluptuous, fragrant, dairy-free creaminess to so many of my favourite dishes, from curries and dals to soups and rice dishes. It’s also indispensable for puddings for vegan friends, and for my sweet-toothed, lactose-intolerant husband. It mellows out spices and pulls a dish together, adding a silkiness to sauces and a sweet, nutty richness to cakes, batters and vegan custards.

I appreciate the convenience of the canned stuff because making coconut milk from scratch, as my mother used to do when I was growing up in Kenya, is laborious: a mature brown coconut has to be broken, its flesh grated, then soaked in hot water, before being strained and squeezed several times through a cheesecloth.

Questions on general knowledge and topical trivia, plus a few jokes, every Thursday. How will you fare?

With impeccable timing, last week, when there was a very naughty miniature dachshund making the news, the quiz master decided to take the week off, meaning regular quizzers spent hours poring over every detail of Valerie’s exciting story trying to memorise it all in vain.

At least it meant First Dog on the Moon got a free run to do a cartoon about Valerie without cramping the quiz’s style. Back to the usual format this week, with mostly topical questions and a smattering of general and popular culture knowledge in the mix. There are no prizes, but we always enjoy it when you let us know how you got on in the comments…

You don’t need to feel wretched shame for having negative emotions, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Working through these feelings might be better for him too

• Read more Leading questions

I have a 15-year-old son and he is at that typical dreadful teenager stage filled with attitude, disrespectful behaviour and is just horrid. Despite being his mother, I hate him. I can’t stand to be around him and because of this I’m suffering from depression. Being his mother is the absolute worst experience.

How can I cope with the disgusting feelings I’m having about being a mother?

In Australia, Lifeline offers 24/7 crisis support available on 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

In Australia, the national family violence counselling service is on 1800 737 732. In the US, the domestic violence hotline is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233); in the UK, visit https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/ or call 0808 2000 247 (24 hours), or visit womansaid.co.uk

Inside the French capital’s ring road, the Petite Ceinture, a disused circular rail line, now abounds with nature trails, shared gardens – and even urban farms

A rustle in the undergrowth sends birds wheeling above the trees and into the sky. I’m left alone and in near total silence as I look along the train tracks that disappear in either direction. It feels as if I’m in the heart of the countryside, but actually, the Boulevard Périphérique, the traffic-choked ring road that encircles Paris, is just a stone’s throw away. This disused rail route, the Petite Ceinture, offers wildlife and quiet solitude just moments from the roaring motorway, thanks to a plan that is turning parts of the line into walkable green spaces – the French capital’s less manicured (and less central) alternative to Manhattan’s High Line or north London’s Parkland Walk, a rewilded railway line that’s part of the Capital Ring walk.

Built on the site of the Thiers wall, the last defensive wall of Paris, and its surrounding shantytown, the eight-lane Boulevard Périphérique (known as the Périph) is used by more than a million cars a day. The 20-mile (32km) railway line just inside the ring road was created to supply the Thiers wall, carrying goods and then passengers as the city’s first metropolitan railway service.

The amount of time, brain space and energy it takes to live not as yourself is remarkable – and draining

A few weeks ago while living through hell (moving house), I stumbled upon my late-90s high school diary, the one that I would take to class every day in regional Queensland. It is an artefact of its time, before newfangled technology like laptops and having the internet in other places besides one room of your school. It’s also an artefact of its time in another important way: it is completely covered in images of hot guys of the time.

Looking at it, you would assume that I was a regular horny straight teen girl, cutting out photos of Leonardo DiCaprio and Will Smith and Hanson to plaster all over my diary so the world could see my very-normal-don’t-look-too-closely-ha-ha desire for men. Well, it may shock you to learn that I wasn’t a normal straight teenage girl. I was a deeply closeted and sad teenage lesbian. I knew that something was different about me from about 11, even though at the time I hadn’t met any gay people, there were no gay people in pop culture, and there was no Google to ask “why am I weird”.

Some indoor plants wither the moment you turn your back; others shrug off drought, darkness and even ‘watering’ by cats. Here’s how to choose the most hardy specimens. Plus, readers celebrate the greenery that survived against all the odds

There is a good reason that we treat certain houseplants as the green wallpaper of our homes: the odd splash of water and they seem to rub along fine. These are the species that have proved, over many decades, that they are best adapted to surviving in a vast range of situations. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt, so many of us dismiss snake plants, spider plants, Swiss cheese plants and dragon trees as uninspiring and basic, even though they are the species that are likely to thrive, whatever the conditions.

The key to making “bog standard” houseplants look good is to display them in an atypical way: an oversized trough of snake plants rather than a few leaves in a lonely pot; the silhouette of a mass of plain green spider plants in a huge hanging basket instead of a spindly cream-striped specimen on a shelf; or a forest of dragon trees in a huge barrel planter. If you love flowers, moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) are a great choice as they are incredibly tough, and unfazed by the centrally heated air of our homes. Again, think about innovative ways of presenting them: they can look amazing massed in a single container.

The language used in many job postings appeals to people with ‘a grand view of self’, researchers find

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Looking for an employee who’s ambitious, self-reliant and thinks outside the box? You might be fishing for a narcissist.

A study by behavioral researchers looked at the corporate speak used in job postings and found that certain turns of phrase are catnip for those with, as a researcher puts it, “a grand view of self”.

We’d like to hear from people about the impact Trump’s tariffs might have on them and their businesses

Donald Trump has unveiled his global tariffs on US trading partners including 10% on UK exports to the US, 20% on the EU and 34% on China. However, the US’s closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico, have been exempt from the latest round of tariffs.

Wherever you are in the world, we’d like to hear how you might be affected by the tariffs. What preparations or changes are you making to your business? Do you have any concerns?

After 24 years off air, the children’s BBC programme Record Breakers is to be rebooted. We would like to hear about your memories of the original BBC show

The children’s BBC show Record Breakers is to be rebooted after 24 years off air – with the working title World Record Breakers: The Rivals.

Record Breakers, which ran from 1972 to 2001, featured world record attempts and interviews with record holders. It was originally presented by Roy Castle with Guinness World Records founders Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter.

We’d like to hear from UK renters who have been asked to pay a fee or higher rent because they owned a pet

MP Taiwo Owatemi’s £900 expense claim for a landlord’s surcharge to let her keep her dog in her London flat has prompted ministers to ask the Commons authorities for a review of allowance rules.

The MP, who has a cockapoo called Bella, made her expense claim last August and it was accepted by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa). But security minister Dan Jarvis said on Sunday he would not have made such a claim, and criticised the rules that allowed his Labour colleague to do so.

Since February we’ve gone in search of the invertebrate of the year. Now it’s your chance to choose

• Read about this year’s contenders

Invertebrates – animals without spines – make up the vast majority of life on Earth. The Guardian’s invertebrate of the year contest celebrates the unsung heroes of the planet. Readers have nominated thousands of amazing animals, we’ve chosen a shortlist of 10, and now you can vote for your favourite.

1. The tongue-biting louse burrows in through a fish’s gills, clings to its tongue and eats what the fish eats.

Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos hit with rates over 40% as experts say the real target is China

• Analysis: Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists

Developing nations in south-east Asia, including wartorn and earthquake-hit Myanmar, and several African nations are among the trading partners facing the highest tariffs set by Donald Trump.

Upending decades of US trade policy and threatening to unleash a global trade war, the US president announced a raft of tariffs on Wednesday that he said were designed to stop the US economy from being “cheated”.

Dow, S&P and Nasdaq among markets feeling share price pain while Trump insists ‘markets are going to boom’. The key US politics stories from 3 April

Global financial markets were roiled by Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement – with trillions of dollars knocked off the value of the world’s biggest companies and heightened fears of a US recession.

In the US, the main indices saw their worst one-day falls in five years as the president claimed that “the markets are going to boom” in response to his sweeping tariffs.

Netflix drama Adolescence sharpens debate over toxic masculinity – and in Spain it is mixed with ignorance over dictatorship

Three or four years ago, the Spanish psychologist Jesús Moreno began to notice a difference in the drawings that the young participants in his workshops on masculinity produced when asked to sketch out their idea of what a man looks like.

The figures they drew were no longer merely the muscular and bizarrely well-endowed drug dealers, etched with prison tattoos and surrounded by guns, knives, cars, sex workers and bundles of cash, to which Moreno and his colleagues had long grown accustomed.

Traditional methods benefit hundreds of species but as new agricultural techniques take over, the distinctive haystacks mark a vanishing way of life

Golden haystacks shaped like teardrops have been a symbol of rural life in Romania for hundreds of years. The 3-metre-high (10ft) stacks are the culmination of days of hard work by families, from children up to grandparents, in the height of summer.

Together they cut waist-high grass, leave it to dry in the hot sun and stack it up to be stored over the winter, combing the hay downwards to protect it from harsh winds, heavy rain and snow. Throughout winter, clumps of it are removed from the haystacks and fed to livestock.

Barricades go up in Seoul as court prepares to rule on whether to uphold Yoon’s impeachment or restore his powers

The usually quiet streets outside South Korea’s constitutional court in Seoul are now a political ground zero for a decision that will determine the country’s future.

Months after Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law and triggered South Korea’s worst political crisis in decades, the court will on Friday decide whether to uphold the suspended president’s impeachment or return him to office.

Pacific country this week declared state of emergency over power cuts that have caused huge disruption to businesses and daily life

Samoa is in the grip of an “energy crisis” prime minister Fiame Naomi Mata’afa said this week, as she declared a state of emergency over power outages that have swept the country for weeks, causing huge disruption to businesses and daily life.

The government is scrambling to provide relief to affected businesses and households, with temporary power generation units due to arrive next week.

When a no-nonsense lecturer set up a radical solution to help free the wrongfully convicted in the UK, he was hopeful he could change the justice system. But what started as a revolution ended in acrimony

The press conference began at 2.30pm on 2 September 2004 at the Wills Memorial Building, the grand neo-gothic home to the University of Bristol’s School of Law. Michael Naughton, a charismatic, fast-talking lecturer in sociology and criminal law, addressed the assembled media. If what he was attempting sounded radical, it was only a reflection of an increasingly dire situation, Naughton told a BBC reporter. There was no way of sugarcoating it, he said. The criminal justice system was failing the rising number of people who were claiming they had been wrongfully convicted, and who remained stuck in prison without any hope of exoneration.

Naughton was launching the Bristol University Innocence Project to address this crisis. The premise was clear enough. Idealistic law students, under academic supervision and with pro bono legal support, would investigate potential miscarriages of justice, with the goal of preparing cases for appeal. Though the concept was well established in the US and Australia, nothing so bold had ever been attempted in the UK. But Michael Naughton was no ordinary academic. Born in early 1960s Lancashire to working-class Irish parents, conflict was an essential part of his upbringing. Being a Naughton man came with certain non-negotiables, including: always buy your round, and never back down from a fight.

Amid the site in rural Jamaica that once belonged to a Guardian financier may lie a treasure trove of artefacts that tell the story of Britain’s history of colonisation and enslavement

Standing amid the ruins of Success, a former sugar plantation in Hanover, rural Jamaica, there is a muted silence, interrupted by the occasional rumble of a vehicle passing, overripe cocoa pods falling to the ground and green iguanas scuttling across dying leaves on the estate floor.

Hidden from the lively community just outside its boundaries, the overgrown site today is a stark contrast to what would have existed there more than a century ago. One of more than 800 sugar plantations across the island, Success was once co-owned by Sir George Philips, one of the 11 men who financed the launch of the Manchester Guardian in 1821.

A brick likely to have been used in the construction of a building on the sprawling estate

This new identity gave me confidence and the freedom to discover different relationships. It also helped me understand, more broadly, what I really want from life

• Sign up for Well Actually, a free weekly newsletter about health and wellness

I’ve never been a good liar. I can trace it back to my early school days, where my excuses for unfinished homework were never convincing, or I’d guiltily double back on even the smallest of fibs. With a knowing look, my mother would say: “Georgina …” She instilled a reverence for the truth, which was bound to the idea of doing the right thing. She wasn’t wrong: building trust is crucial in forming strong bonds in any relationship dynamic.

But, like most teenagers, I gently smudged the boundaries of truth, from concealing my bellybutton piercing, to “borrowing” my brother’s car to meet a boy I fancied. Notably, my untruths were told in the knowledge that they would probably later be discovered (although I hadn’t banked on the flat tyre) and, looking back, they were often linked with an early exploration of my sexual identity.

John Harris on how music helped him connect with his autistic son James

When James was a child, he loved playing songs over and over. I Am the Walrus, by the Beatles. Autobahn, by Kraftwerk.

“He hears emotion in music. I know that for a fact,” James’s father the Guardian journalist John Harris tells Helen Pidd.

Donald Trump has introduced eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world. Will they ‘make America wealthy again’? Richard Partington reports

Donald Trump is on a mission to ‘make America wealthy again’. Speaking outside the White House, he said for too long the country had been ‘looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike’. Now that would come to an end, he said, as he slapped eye-watering tariffs on countries around the world.

The Guardian’s senior economics correspondent, Richard Partington, explains why Trump has taken such action and how it could affect the global economy. ‘It could come at huge costs to consumers,’ he says, as markets around the world react with confusion. With prices in the US also likely to rise, will voters soon rue what the president has called ‘liberation day’?

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Dan Bardell as Liverpool move one step closer to the Premier League title with a 1-0 derby win over Everton

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: Liverpool win a slightly nervy Merseyside derby at Anfield to send them 12 points clear of Arsenal in second place. Should the Diogo Jota goal have stood and should James Tarkowski have been on the pitch when it happened? Not the best night for VAR.

Invertebrates don’t get the attention lavished on cute pets or apex predators, but these unsung heroes are some of the most impressive and resilient creatures on the planet. So when the Guardian opened its poll to find the world’s finest invertebrate, readers got in touch in their droves. A dazzling array of nominations have flown in for insects, arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals and many more obscure creatures. Patrick Barkham tells Madeleine Finlay why these tiny creatures deserve more recognition, and three readers, Sandy, Nina and Russell, make the case for their favourites.

Invertebrate of the year 2025: vote for your favourite

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

Myanmar’s military junta has been losing territory for months. Will the earthquake and a new ceasefire help it turn the tide? Rebecca Ratcliffe reports

“It took around four to five minutes for the earthquake to shake and then it stopped and shook again. It is the most severe earthquake I have experienced in my life.”

Esther J is a reporter based in Bangkok, Thailand, more than 600 miles (966km) away from her home country of Myanmar – the epicentre of last week’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake.

What happens when western billionaires try to ‘fix’ hunger in developing countries? Neelam Tailor investigates how philanthropic efforts by the Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the organisation they set up to revolutionise African farming, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Agra), may have made matters worse for the small-scale farmers who produce 70% of the continent's food.

From seed laws that criminalise traditional practices to corporate partnerships with agribusiness giants such as Monsanto and Syngenta, we explore how a well-funded green revolution has led to rising debt, loss of biodiversity and deepening food insecurity across the continent

Leaders around the world have reacted with a mix of a mix of confusion and concern after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs on some of its largest trading partners, upending decades of US trade policy and starting a possible global trade war. The tariffs range from 10% to 49% on all goods imported from abroad

• Trump tariffs see stocks dive and investors scramble to bonds, gold and yen

• ‘Nowhere on earth is safe’: Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands near Antarctica

• War-torn and struggling countries among those facing steepest Trump reciprocal tariffs

Invertebrates may be the unsung heroes of the planet but they have received a lot of love and recognition from Guardian readers. A dazzling array of nominations have flown in for insects, arachnids, snails, crustaceans, corals and many more obscure creatures for our invertebrate of the year competition. Natural history reporter Patrick Barkham reviews this year’s shortlist of 10

• Invertebrate of the year 2025: vote for your favourite

• Vote for the beast that may be as ruthlessly predatory as us – the fen raft spider

Rescue efforts are entering their third day and attempts to find survivors are intensifying after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar and Thailand, killing at least 1,600 people and injuring more than 3,400. At least 139 others are missing. The initial quake struck near Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, collapsing buildings, downing bridges and buckling roads, causing mass destruction in Myanmar's second largest city

• Myanmar earthquake: search for survivors continues as UN warns over medical supply shortage – latest updates

• Aftershocks frighten Myanmar survivors while death toll from Bangkok high-rise collapse rises

Net zero is a target that countries should be striving for to stop the climate crisis. But beyond the buzzword, it is a complex scientific concept – and if we get it wrong, the planet will keep heating.

Biodiversity and environment reporter Patrick Greenfield explains how a loophole in the 2015 Paris climate agreement allows countries to cheat their net zero targets through creative accounting, and how scientists want us to fix it

As droughts become more prevalent, corporate control over our drinking water is threatening the health of water sources and the access people have to them. Josh Toussaint-Strauss explores how foreign multinational companies are extracting billions of litres of water from natural aquifers to sell back to the same communities from which it came – for huge profits

• ‘It’s not drought - it’s looting’: the Spanish villages where people are forced to buy back their own drinking water

• Foreign firms taking billions of litres from UK aquifers to make bottled water

The prison population in England and Wales has doubled in the last 30 years, with overcrowding now endemic across the system. But the government's strategy of easing this pressure by granting early release to thousands of offenders has had a knock-on effect. With many lacking stability on the outside, reoffending rates are high, exacerbating the existing problem. The Guardian visited Wales to see this playing out on the streets of Bridgend; and the Netherlands, to find out why the Dutch have closed more than 20 prisons in the past 10 years, seemingly in complete contrast to the struggles in Britain - and despite increasing levels of more serious crime seen across the country

With thanks to Prison Escape Utrecht and Tap Social Movement

In Sudan, fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, appear to have filmed and posted online videos of themselves glorifying the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners. These videos could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions.

Kaamil Ahmed explains how the international legal system is adapting to social media, finding a way to use the digital material shared online to corroborate accounts of war crimes being committed in countries ranging from Ukraine to Sudan

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

For many Israelis, military service is a rite of passage that lasts two to three years. Being such a formative part of the social contract in Israel, it is unusual for eligible young people to refuse their draft orders. Every year some ask for exemptions, but only a handful openly declare themselves as conscientious objectors, commonly known as refuseniks. However, since 7 October and the war in Gaza, refusenik organisations say the number of people refusing the draft has risen, even though during wartime punishments are harsher. The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Bethan McKernan, spent time with Itamar Greenberg, an 18-year-old who has been in and out of military prison for almost a year as a result of his refusal to serve

Plastics are everywhere, but their smallest fragments – nanoplastics – are making their way into the deepest parts of our bodies, including our brains and breast milk.

Scientists have now captured the first visual evidence of these particles inside human cells, raising urgent questions about their impact on our health. From the food we eat to the air we breathe, how are nanoplastics infiltrating our systems?

Neelam Tailor looks into the invisible invasion happening inside us all

Mazyouna, a 13-year-old girl from Gaza, lost the right side of her jaw in an Israeli attack on her home in Gaza that killed her brother and sister. She was denied access by Israel to life-altering surgery abroad for more than six months. Only after the publication of a Guardian article condemning her treatment were Mazyouna, her mother and her surviving sibling granted permission to leave - her father was not permitted to join them. Their evacuation and specialist surgery at the El Paso children's hospital in Texas was facilitated by FAJR Scientific, an organisation that evacuates children in need of medical treatment from war zones.

Last month, the World Health Organization urged a rapid scaling-up of medical evacuations from Gaza where thousands remain in critical condition

The shape of the Trump 2.0 White House has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders 'stunned' and former intelligence experts 'appalled'. From a vaccine skeptic in charge of running the department of health, to a wrestling mogul in charge of the country's education, and even a ‘deep state conspiracy theorist’ becoming head of the FBI, the Guardian US live news editor Chris Michael takes us through the six most controversial members, and what their appointments could mean for the country

• Tracking Trump cabinet confirmations – so far

• Trump’s first full cabinet meeting celebrates government-shrinking effort led by Musk

On 21 February, 12-year-old Ayman al-Hammouni was killed, shot by Israeli fire, video footage seen by the Guardian suggests. Two cameras recorded the circumstances of Ayman's death. The Guardian has used this footage to tell the story of the child’s last moments

• Gunshots and a surge of panic: footage shows last moments of boy, 12, killed in the West Bank

China has dramatically increased military activities around Taiwan, with more than 3,000 incursions into Taiwan's airspace in 2024 alone. Amy Hawkins examines how Beijing is deploying 'salami-slicing' tactics, a strategy of gradual pressure that stays below the threshold of war while steadily wearing down Taiwan's defences. From daily air incursions to strategic military exercises, we explore the four phases of China's approach and what it means for Taiwan's future

A GP surgery in one of the most deprived areas in the north-east of England is struggling to provide care for its patients as the health system crumbles around them. In the depths of the winter flu season, the Guardian video producers Maeve Shearlaw and Adam Sich went to Bridges medical practice to shadow the lead GP, Paul Evans, as he worked all hours keep his surgery afloat. Juggling technical challenges, long waiting lists and the profound impact austerity has had on the health of the population, Evans says: 'We are seeing the system fail' 

Style, with substance: what’s really trending this week, a roundup of the best fashion journalism and your wardrobe dilemmas solved, direct to your inbox every Thursday

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Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.

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

Inspired by the landscapes of the French masters, Elger Esser captures the brooding seascapes and bucolic country scenes of his beloved countryside – with timeless results

‘Japan is the mecca of cosplay. Monaka runs a cafe in Tokyo called Monster Party, where people go dressed as characters from a subculture known as tanganmen. Her brother is holding a picture of their mum’

My personal projects have often focused on the topic of identity, so the world of cosplay immediately appealed to me. I knew nothing about it until I saw some photographs on Instagram and became interested in these people who spend their free time turning themselves into characters from manga, anime, movies and video games – or even into creations they’ve come up with by themselves.

Italy’s biggest annual cosplay event is held in the region where I live, Tuscany. I started going and taking pictures, just on my phone at first, and that’s where I first approached cosplayers to ask if they’d like to help me with a project I had in mind. In the 1970s, John Olson took some portraits for Life magazine of musicians such as Frank Zappa and Elton John at home with their parents. They contrasted the individual identity of the rock stars and the social identity represented by their parents, and that seemed the right way to photograph cosplayers, too. I thought it was far more interesting to show them in a domestic setting, alongside people in everyday clothes, than in the environment of a fantasy-themed event.

Photographer Sarah Mei Herman was 20 when her half-brother Jonathan was born – she spent the next two decades capturing intimate moments between him and their father

She dressed up as a bullfighter, sat in a window with two magpies and flew colossal flags of warning. We go inside a fascinating new exhibition of photographs by multimedia artist Rose Finn-Kelcey

Worshippers offered Eid al-Fitr prayers across the world, marking the culmination of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan