The latest character dressing trend may be a little silly but there’s an off-kilter pleasure in its mellow, vintage vibe

Welcome to the season of the Posh Grandpa, fashion’s newest main character. We’ve had Brat, we did Coastal Grandma, we loved Tomato Girl Summer. The world is pretty heavy right now, as you’ll have noticed, so any opportunity to lighten up is precious. The nonsense is the point.

Character dressing is style that makes you smile, but it’s not just that. There is infinitely more joy in these looks, however silly they are, than there is in aspiring to look rich and pretty, which is where the aesthetic centre of gravity of our culture swings back to again and again. The esoteric sides of fashion’s personality capture something important about style, which is that it needs a bit of friction to make it interesting. The pebble in the boot, the surprise to snag the eye. This is where the magic happens.

Why would Tory leader bother to look into national or global politics? That time would be better spent picking fights

Being assertive and sounding confident is always a good start. No leader of the opposition is going to get far without those qualities. And Kemi Badenoch certainly manages that. But winning at prime minister’s questions requires something more basic than that. Something fundamental. A very basic understanding of the facts.

Not just reading a headline in the papers and a few posts on social media. Not just listening to a junior minister sound a bit confused on the Today programme. You need to put in the hard yards. Or at least do some very elementary research. Otherwise you risk coming badly unstuck.

Cannes film festival: Sachs’ film about an HIV-positive actor in the homophobic Reagan-era 80s is well-intended, but Malek’s mannered performance is hard to love

This film from writer-director Ira Sachs gives us premium-strength, undiluted Rami Malek – but I have to say that his overripe performance and self-conscious mannerisms here are perhaps even more oppressively insistent for being conveyed relatively quietly in spoken dialogue. And not quietly at all in the singing scenes. Malek is a performer whose style is as distinctive as those of John Malkovich or Jeff Goldblum. But it works best with a light touch in the direction and material. Things never really come together here.

The Man I Love is a film about gay culture in 1980s New York, at the height of the reactionary homophobia of Reagan’s America, with HIV-positive men coming to terms with their condition and with the callous bigotry of the political zeitgeist. In one hospital scene, we see the authorities’ icily unsympathetic attitude. Malek plays Jimmy George, a much admired and charismatic actor and performance artist in New York who has just emerged from a three-week stay in hospital after a life-threatening HIV-related crisis. Now he is starring in a new stage piece based on André Brassard’s 1974 film Once Upon a Time in the East, playing the stormy and defiant Hélène, who sings with a band.

Whether it’s the traditional boiled diet, a dental epidemic or white-winged extremism, Patrick Gathara explains why political turmoil is engulfing the UK

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The UK has been in a state of political crisis for months, but recent local elections have resulted in the most serious challenge yet to the country’s prime minister and ruling elites, with experts predicting the UK could be facing its sixth regime change in 10 years amid “tribal disputes and separatist movements.”

To make sense of it all, I spoke to the Nairobi-based British affairs satirist Patrick Gathara about the future of the “island Kingdom of Britain”.

From synthpop to drum’n’bass, the company had a roster of edgy stars – and let them do what they wanted. As a new podcast is launched, artists and staff remember the extreme work environment

‘My eyes have started to fucking flicker because you just mentioned London Records,” says Goldie, having an involuntary physical reaction at the mere thought of his old label. “If a nightclub could be a record company, it would have been London Records. It was the equivalent of Studio 54. It looked like a normal record company from the outside – shiny, lots of nice cars on the driveway – but it was the craziest, most hedonistic madness.”

A new six-part podcast, Hit That Perfect Beat – The London Records Story, is delving into its colourful history. The label was originally part of Decca Records, once home to the likes of the Rolling Stones, but when Decca was acquired by Polygram in 1980, London began a new chapter as an independent label operating with major label distribution. “We were put in there to develop it into a pop label,” recalls ex-managing director Colin Bell, who was a pivotal figure alongside Roger Ames and Tracy Bennet. “We were obsessed with being cool. We wanted to be easily identifiable for a generation of young people. We wanted pop that had an edge.”

Plants whose beauty is flawed carry a message in Children’s Society garden, a gold medal winner at Chelsea flower show

Gardens do not have to be perfect to be beautiful – and neither do teenagers. That is the central message behind the Children’s Society garden, which has won a gold medal at this year’s RHS Chelsea flower show. And prickly poppies, a bird’s nest fern planted in a drain and verbascum arcturus, a delicate-looking yellow flower with hairy stems, are among the plants chosen to convey it – plants whose beauty is flawed.

“The overlaying narrative of the garden is ‘beauty in imperfection’,” said the designer, Patrick Clarke. “Perfection is the most debilitating thing for young people because it’s something that is unattainable, and when they’re bombarded with images of perfection on social media … that is very, I think, threatening to people’s mental health.”

Exclusive: Greater Manchester mayor understood to support home secretary’s push to limit legal and illegal migration

Andy Burnham is backing Shabana Mahmood’s controversial changes to the immigration system, his allies have said, in a blow to those in Labour who hope to soften them.

The Greater Manchester mayor is understood to be keen to reframe the changes but supportive of the home secretary’s attempts to limit legal and illegal migration, which have been criticised by some senior Labour MPs as un-British and mimicking Trump.

Far-right figure Itamar Ben-Gvir shares footage of himself taunting bound international detainees

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid.

There was a rapid and furious response from countries whose citizens were onboard the boats, including the UK, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, in many cases delivered in person from the top of government.

Father describes Jane Adetoro, Christina Walters and Rebecca Walters as ‘the beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love’

Three women whose bodies were recovered from the sea off Brighton beach were sisters described by their father as the “beautiful light that filled our family with happiness and love”.

Emergency services were called after concerns were raised for a person’s welfare at about 5.45am on 13 May, before three bodies were pulled from the water near Madeira Drive.

Chancellor launches ‘Great British summer savings scheme’ after Keir Starmer postpones fuel duty increase

• Planned fuel duty rise to be scrapped, says Keir Starmer

Rachel Reeves is to promise free summer bus rides for children and cut tariffs on some food imports, as part of a package of measures aimed at easing the costs of the Iran conflict.

The chancellor will give a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, outlining her latest plans for cushioning the blow to consumers from an expected rise in inflation later this year.

Clashes between demonstrators and police in La Paz have entered second week, shaking centre-right president

Protests blocking roads across Bolivia and turning the centre of the capital, La Paz, into a battleground between demonstrators and police have entered a second week.

It is the most turbulent moment of the centre-right president Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s mere six months in office since he ended nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

Exclusive: Ashley Dalton says rejected amendments could have made bill stronger but it became a ‘pretty dangerous set of affairs’

A former public health minister facing terminal cancer has urged MPs not to bring back the assisted dying bill in England and Wales.

The Labour MP Ashley Dalton revealed she would be on lifelong treatment for metastatic breast cancer, which has spread throughout her body – but said her parliamentary colleagues should not revive the bill, which would legalise an assisted death to those with a terminal illness.

Police say 64-year-old was attacked after confrontation near Battersea Bridge

A murder investigation has been launched after a bus driver died after an assault on Battersea Bridge in London, police said.

Sergei Krajev, 64, died in hospital on Tuesday after the incident in the early hours of Monday morning.

Announcement made due to computer error at Radio Caroline’s main studio in Essex

A radio station has apologised for “any distress caused” after accidentally announcing that King Charles had died.

The erroneous announcement was made on Tuesday afternoon due to a computer error at Radio Caroline’s main studio in Essex.

Where would you like your statue, Mr Emery? Even before this emphatic Europa League triumph, Aston Villa supporters could hardly have held their manager in greater esteem. But now Emery, in winning the competition for a record fifth time, has delivered the thing he always wanted, a trophy to show for his transformative body of work.

Those who were not around for Rotterdam in 1982 will always cherish Istanbul in 2026. Thomas Tuchel had it right a few years ago when he suggested Uefa might as well rename the Europa League the Unai Emery trophy.

Xi Jinping welcomed Vladimir Putin to Beijing with pomp and pageantry, just days after hosting Donald Trump. But as Russia’s war in Ukraine makes Moscow increasingly dependent on China, and western leaders thaw relations with Beijing, what does the power imbalance mean for Xi and Putin’s relationship? Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s deputy head of international news, Devika Bhat

A decade after the referendum, EU leaders would welcome closer ties – once the UK has understood the ‘European deal’

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Brexit’s back. Well, sort of. If it ever really went away. At any rate, an awful lot of ink has been spilled – in Britain, at least – over last weekend’s remarks by a would-be PM that Brexit was “a catastrophic mistake” and the UK’s future lay “back in the EU”.

That reflects, first, just how deep the wounds of Brexit still run. A decade after the referendum unleashed an identity politics so powerful it still dominates UK debate, Britain’s voters remain divided into the two warring tribes of remain versus leave.

Organised crime groups are targeting some of the only people looking for victims of the country’s cartel wars – their relatives

Beneath the cooling towers of Mazatlán’s power plant, in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, a dozen women pick through the marshland, looking for the upturned soil – and the scent – that betrays the location of a buried body.

They are part of Hearts United for One Cause, one of hundreds of collectives scattered across Mexico looking for the members’ missing relatives. But these searchers have been marked out by another layer of tragedy: one of them was murdered in February, and another disappeared in October.

It smells like sunshine, blue skies and love and laughter, apparently. And it’s all in aid of her and Harry’s eight years together

Name: Anniversary candle.

Appearance: A “modern and elegant” candle, “housed in a beautiful ceramic vessel”.

Whether it’s jigsaws, mud kitchens or electronic pets, four is a fun age to buy for. Here are 22 road-tested favourites

• The best toys and gifts for three-year-olds

Four is a magical age. Children are on their way out of the “threenager” stage, growing in confidence and independence but still needing help and support from parents and friends.

Four was the age at which many seasoned parents told me that “things get a little easier”, and I’ve found this is slightly true now that my daughters are almost four and seven.

The latest batch of ‘minisodes’ are filler until the release of the upcoming film. Do they bode poorly for a show that was once one of television’s most ambitious?

If you are a Bluey fan, you will know all too well that we are in the midst of a confusing limbo. The last proper Bluey episode aired in spring 2024. There is a Bluey movie coming out in summer 2027. Between them is a long, dry gap of three years, three months and 16 days.

But Bluey is a machine that needs to be fed. There are Bluey books to be sold, Bluey records to be bought, Bluey toys and games and Lego sets and magazines and shoes and drinkware and gnomes and bedding and bandages and pyjama sets and 550-watt Bluey Mini Waffle Makers that need to be shifted. It’s hard to sell all this product when Bluey has no centre of gravity, and so, with a measured amount of excitement, here comes a new set of minisodes.

What would Trump think of Gilgamesh? And why are 19th-century classics so popular among young people? Writers on why we need the novel more than ever

Despite shortening attention spans, people are “still reading novels”, said the writer Elif Shafak at a panel event on the Guardian’s list of the 100 best novels ever published in English, which was unveiled last week.

“The faster this world spins, the deeper our need to slow down,” she continued. “We are so tired of this rush, of this bombardment of information.”

Photographer Jill Mead went to Goodwoof – a show for dogs at the Goodwood estate in West Sussex – and turned her camera on canines and their humans

Retailers such as M&S need not worry – the UK is not in a state of emergency and competition is clearly working

• Call for food price caps ‘preposterous’, says M&S boss

“Completely preposterous,” said Stuart Machin, the chief executive of Marks & Spencer, about the Treasury’s proposal for voluntary price caps on food staples. He was outdone in the outrage stakes by City analyst Clive Black at Shore Capital, who thought the government “appears to be losing its mind in an orgy of neo-Soviet policy ideas”.

Both men can probably calm down. First, it’s not the first time a panicky administration, feeling the heat from cost-of-living pressures caused by rising energy costs, has flirted with the notion of limited and voluntary price caps in supermarkets. The last time was 2023 under the Tory premiership of Rishi Sunak, who is few people’s idea of a neo-Soviet apparatchik. Second, as with Sunak’s dalliance, it’s not going to happen. Treasury ministers on Wednesday barely bothered to defend their proposal and ruled out a mandatory scheme.

Trolling and other forms of online violence against female journalists have also triggered offline attacks, harassment and abuse. Some reporters have paid with their lives

• Support independent journalism today

This month, to mark World Press Freedom Day, the Guardian has been highlighting the growing threats to journalists around the world, particularly those working in conflict zones and under authoritarian regimes.

Today, I’d like to share some thoughts on the specific dangers faced by female reporters. We can’t talk about press freedom without talking about misogyny.

You’d expect the public face of Brexit to be punished by voters. But history shows that leaders often profit from the chaos they sow

The biggest Brexit donor was the stockbroker Peter Hargreaves. He gave £3.2m to the leave campaign. He justified his enthusiasm as follows: “We will get out there and we will become incredibly successful because we will be insecure again. And insecurity is fantastic.” If you are wondering, “Fantastic for whom?”, the current television ad for the company he co-founded, Hargreaves Lansdown, could supply an answer. It presents itself as a safe haven in times of disruptive change. Among the examples it provides? Brexit.

Perhaps our most poignant political folk tale is the notion of accountability. Those who hurt and undermine us will be punished, while those who help us will be rewarded. In reality, little in either business or politics could be further from the truth. A more reliable rule is that those who generate insecurity profit from it.

George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist

If any teenagers out there are considering their future careers, I’d suggest chiropody. It’s AI proof and you’d never be out of work

They really bloody hurt, I tell you. Corns, that is. Or rather, in my case, corn singular. One is enough, trust me. One is enough to have me wincing, limping, yelping, swearing. One is agony. One is plenty.

My one is on the lateral side of my left fifth metatarsophalangeal joint, which, in English, is the left side of my left foot just below the little toe. It hurts when I’m walking, or standing, sometimes when I’m sitting, and occasionally even when I’m sleeping. Every few months I get it sorted. Thereafter, it’s fine for anything up to 15 minutes before it starts complaining again. While the general pain gradually grows and grows, the complicating factor is that it also comes and goes. I believe that this is the corn entertaining itself by making me forget about it before issuing a terrible reminder that it’s still in business.

The first-time director admitted he wore a beret to channel ‘old school’ auteurs at Cannes – though mimicry can only take you so far

It happened, as most of the best fashion moments do these days, at Cannes. I’m not talking about Demi Moore wearing a pink bow the size of a dog, or Jane Fonda sparkling in Gucci to the point of blindness, but John Travolta, of all people, who appeared at the festival this week to debut a new film and a new look, the centrepiece of which was a beret.

He actually had three in rotation, in black, brown and cream. On the seafront boulevard La Croisette, he paired them with wire-frame spectacles and a beard that appeared to have been applied with a felt-tip pen. A beret, beard and specs you say? Hardly a radical glow up for a 72-year-old celebrity. But that didn’t stop images of Travolta from going viral, sparking some lively online conversations comparing him to – in no order – a barista, a Bond villain and a character from Guess Who?.

After the glut of brand-building shows from other celebrities, the Kylie documentary is radical for simply allowing the star to come across as human

Kylie, the new three-part documentary that launched on Netflix on Wednesday and has been making me verklempt ever since, is great in every way it’s possible for TV to be. But on the basis of the first two and a half episodes, a couple of things jump out: Kylie’s almost superhuman ability to stay cheerful in the face of intense provocation, and the extraordinary rudeness she had to tolerate from interviewers back in the day.

Here’s Michael Parkinson in 2004, grinning like an alligator and asking her a question considered totally fine at the time: “What about children? You’re 35 now, leaving it a bit late aren’t you?” And a few years later, Cat Deeley, asking roughly the same question, albeit slightly more diplomatically, right after Kylie had emerged from chemotherapy for breast cancer. Nice work, guys!

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Some Christian conservatives are only eating foods mentioned in the Bible. At least Jesus wasn’t devouring ultra-processed sausage rolls ...

It looks like all the raw milk Conservatives have been chugging may have curdled some of their brains. Some very odd wellness ideas, many of them Maga-adjacent, have been popping up in the US lately. Vaccines are evil! Testicle tanning will boost testosterone! According to health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, seed oils are unknowingly poisoning Americans! Beef tallow will make your skin glow!

The latest unorthodox theory to gain a cult-like following? Biblical eating. This is a somewhat fuzzy concept that tends to focus on eating foods mentioned in the Bible. While the idea isn’t new, it has been resurrected. A recent New York Times piece notes that it has had a “resurgence in recent months”.

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

The world has changed dramatically since the Brexit referendum and politics needs to catch up

The spectacle of a prime minister clinging to power while his party grows increasingly desperate for a replacement is painfully familiar from the end of the last Tory government. British politics feels trapped in a loop. This condition is not wholly a result of Brexit, but the failure of that project is a significant part of it. None of the benefits promised in the referendum by the leave campaign have materialised. It is all downside, but political discussion of any significant rewriting of the terms of departure is taboo. Sir Keir Starmer’s “reset” of European relations is mostly tinkering at the margins.

Meanwhile, the strategic calculus has changed entirely since 2016. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine exposed European complacency about continental defence and energy security. Donald Trump’s aggressive contempt for old allies makes it clear that they cannot depend on the US for protection.

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

Conflict and aid cuts are hampering the fight against an outbreak of the deadly virus centred in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo has faced the deadly threat of Ebola 16 times since the virus was discovered there in 1976, with a 2018-20 outbreak killing almost 2,300 people. On Sunday, the World Health Organization declared the 17th outbreak to be a public health emergency of international concern. So far, 139 suspected deaths and almost 600 suspected cases of the haemorrhagic fever virus have been identified, nearly all in the DRC’s north-eastern provinces of Ituri and North Kivu, with two cases in Uganda of people who had travelled from the DRC.

There is also anxiety about neighbouring South Sudan. The WHO fears the disease has been spreading for a couple of months and, given the highly mobile population, warns that it could take months more to bring it under control. While it judges the risk of global spread to be low, it thinks the regional risk is high.

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

Readers respond to an article by Dave Schilling in which he said he couldn’t think why anyone would choose to go on a cruise

I’d say to Dave Schilling that misfortune is part and parcel of life (The hantavirus debacle raises a key question: why would anyone go on a cruise?, 16 May). Is driving too much of a risk for him? Eating out? Boarding a plane? I fractured my left wrist in 2019, four days before embarkation on a cruise to Iceland. This entailed a 12-hour night shift of indescribable purgatory, along with hordes of other stricken souls at A&E. I joined endless queues, was shunted from pillar to post and eventually emerged the next morning, traumatised and with my wrist plastered. I cancelled the Icelandic cruise.

Fast-forward to 2025, and I board a ship to set sail to Iceland at last, Covid preventing it in the meantime. And guess what – I fall and break my left wrist, this time while admiring a geyser. I am ushered to the ship’s medical centre post-haste, and immediately examined by two charming doctors in naval uniforms, far more impressive than the NHS’s boring scrubs. X-rays confirm that my wrist is fractured, and I come to the conclusion that Iceland doesn’t want me there!

We should pay heed to the Nottingham killer’s mother, says a reader who struggled to get her son the treatment he needed

I write as the mother of a son who suffered with psychosis, and who had to battle with mental health services to have him receive the treatment he needed. I am impressed and astounded by Celeste Calocane (Mental health system is broken, says mother of Nottingham triple killer, 14 May). She insisted the system was broken, and her evidence clearly illustrated that.

On top of everything else she has gone through trying to navigate the system, fearing for the life of the son she loved when he was so unwell, and the terrible outcome that followed, she then had to experience the ordeal of being examined about her role in not preventing the outcome. It was horrible to watch, and she handled it so well and so strongly. She is an impressive and outstanding woman.

Richard Eltringham and Barbara Riddell point to the decline in general practice as the reason why people are turning to AI for health advice. Plus a letter from Dr Katie Baker

Your report (One in seven in UK prefer consulting AI chatbots to seeing doctor, study finds, 13 May) will no doubt be greeted with the usual hand‑wringing about the decline of human connection in healthcare. But the more honest explanation is far simpler: many of us no longer see our registered doctor in any meaningful sense.

Continuity of care has quietly evaporated. General practice has become a rotating cast of locums, telephone triage and “someone will call you back at some point between 8am and the heat death of the universe”. The idea of a named GP – someone who knows your history, your face – has become NHS folklore, spoken of wistfully but rarely encountered in the wild.

Zoe Anderson says the health service’s rigid working conditions forced her to leave. Plus Jill Whitehead on how a lack of nursing care contributed to her son’s death

The latest figures from the Royal College of Nursing paint a worrying if unsurprising picture (Two-thirds of NHS nurses believe lack of staff is putting patients at risk, survey finds, 18 May). But to achieve safer staffing levels, we must look beyond recruitment and listen to what those leaving the workforce are telling us needs to change.

For me, it was the complete incompatibility of a career in nursing with any semblance of normal family life. The rigid system of inflexible, inconsistent shift patterns, coupled with a complete lack of control over my schedule, made it feel impossible to balance my career with the realities of life outside work. Despite having spent three years training to achieve my registration, I left after just 12 months on the job.

Manager’s early seasons were far from plain sailing but insiders credit club’s owners for staying the course

It didn’t start well for Mikel Arteta and Arsenal. On a crisp December night in 2019 at about 1am in a Manchester suburb, Vinai Venkatesham stepped out of Arteta’s home. The Arsenal managing director looked around, satisfied with his meeting. Arteta had just outlined a “hugely impressive” five-year plan to rebuild a club reeling from Arsène Wenger’s departure and Unai Emery’s failed succession. Venkatesham stepped into his car and was driven away with his colleague Huss Fahmy.

The club were about to take a huge gamble, but one with which they were increasingly comfortable. For many Arsenal executives, Arteta had won the interview round in 2018 when Wenger left. Yet it seemed too much to ask a 36-year-old rookie to manage a seismic transition and Emery had pedigree and experience; Arteta had charisma and a strong playing record.

• Saints believe penalty is ‘manifestly disproportionate’

• Hull and Middlesbrough will meet in final on Saturday

Southampton’s appeal against their expulsion from the Championship playoff final for spying on opponents’ training sessions has been dismissed by an English Football League arbitration panel, leaving Middlesbrough to contest Saturday’s Wembley showpiece with Hull. The panel also confirmed the original decision of an independent disciplinary commission to deduct four Championship points from Southampton next season.

It is a verdict that leaves the position of Tonda Eckert, the south coast club’s manager, seemingly untenable. While the 33-year-old German faces the sack, Southampton directors are facing the wrath of players furious at missing out on potential promotion bonuses and wage hikes.

• 1st T20i: England, 140-3, bt New Zealand, 136-7, by 7wkts

• Capsey finishes unbeaten on 74 with 16 balls remaining

England got off to a winning start in their T20 series against New Zealand at Derby, after Alice Capsey struck an unbeaten 74 from 51 balls – her highest score for England and her first T20i half-century since July 2024.

Capsey has generally batted at No 3 for England but was promoted to open in place of Danni Wyatt-Hodge, who is missing this series because of the imminent birth of her first child. Capsey made full use of the extra time, smoking three sixes and seven fours as England chased down their 137-run target with seven wickets and 16 balls to spare.

• Walkouts to take place at Friday’s press conferences

• Dispute with grand slams has lasted more than a year

The world’s top tennis players are planning to protest over prize money by reducing their media appearances at the French Open as their public battle with the grand slams intensifies.

Players selected to take part in Friday’s opening press conference at Roland Garros will walk out after 15 minutes, symbolising the fact that the slams allocate an average of 15% of their revenues to prize money. The rest of the draw will refuse to conduct additional interviews with the tournament’s main media rights partners, TNT Sports and Eurosport.

While there is no denying the magnitude of his achievements, his legacy is also tied up in politics, propaganda and hard power

Well, that’s that then. Put out more flags. Mount the iconic Jedi‑style woollen cardigan in the club museum. He really does seem to be done this time.

In the absence of formal denials, it now seems highly likely the scheduled final year of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City contract will be spent trawling the high-concept food ateliers of the Iberian peninsula, debating spatial architecture with a Slovenian Cluedo grandmaster over hummingbird martinis, and generally recharging after a decade of unceasing devotion to victory.

Unai Emery has reconfirmed his status as master of the competition, but will now want to set his sights higher

There are two ways to win a final. You can win it by the odd goal, amid a frenzy of anxiety so the final whistle comes as a relief. Or you can win it as a procession, flexing your superiority, so the final whistle is almost resented for spoiling the fun. For Aston Villa, this was very much the latter. If their fans had dreamed the previous night of how they might win the game, they could barely have come up with something so satisfying and emphatic.

It’s true that Villa have a budget around 2.8 times that of Freiburg, and that they have been strong favourites in almost every game in the Europa League this season. But then in the Premier League they’re often fighting against sides with far greater resources. The poles of European and domestic football may have flipped, but that is not their fault nor, at least for now, their concern. They have not been a successful enough club – at least in the past 100 years – to decline to fully celebrate any trophy that comes their way. A second European success, 44 years after the first, is history.

• Changes apply to World Cup and Euro qualifiers

• Starts in 2028-29 season with elements of Swiss system

Europe’s larger nations will no longer face mismatches against minnows such as San Marino or Andorra in men’s World Cup and European Championship qualifying after Uefa agreed a new format designed to produce more competitive fixtures.

As reported by the Guardian in April the structure, which will take effect after Euro 2028, will be based on the most recent set of Nations League rankings. It will also include elements of the Swiss system implemented across Uefa’s club competitions over the past two seasons, meaning in effect that teams compete in larger groups.

• Ecuadorean collects stage victory No 3 of this edition

• Favourite Vingegaard stays 27 seconds behind leader

Ecuador’s Jhonatan Narváez edged out the Spaniard Enric Mas at the end of Wednesday’s stage 11 to win his third stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia as Afonso Eulálio retained the leader’s pink jersey.

Narváez (UAE Team Emirates XRG) and Mas (Movistar) were left to battle for the win after leaving the breakaway group on the final climb and Mas made the first move, only for the Ecuadorian to overtake him before the line. The Italian Diego Ulissi (XDS Astana) won the race for third place at the end of the entertaining 195km ride from Porcari to Chiavari.

• Friendlies against Denmark and Chile still going ahead

• Team staff who are based in DRC ‘leaving in next hours’

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have cancelled their three-day World Cup preparation training camp and a planned farewell to fans in the capital, Kinshasa, because of an outbreak of Ebola in the east of the country.

Preparations will take place elsewhere after an outbreak of a rare type of Ebola known as Bundibugyo, which is thought to have killed more than 130 people and caused nearly 600 suspected cases. The World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency of international concern.

Airstrike at the start of the war was aimed at freeing populist ex-president from house arrest, US newspaper claims

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Fresh questions have been raised over the US and Israeli effort to depose the Iranian regime after it was claimed that Israel wanted to put the populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power.

Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency, from 2005 to 2013, was marked by incendiary attacks on Israel but he recast himself as a critic of the regime and champion of the poor after falling out with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Demonstration, held at historic location where the ‘Mississippi Plan’ was enacted, comes as southern states race to dilute Black voting power

Thousands of Mississippians, along with allies from other southern states, gathered at the state’s War Memorial Building auditorium on Wednesday in support of voting rights. It was the latest in a series of actions protesting the supreme court’s recent decision gutting the provision of the Voting Rights Act preventing racial discrimination, and held on a site integral to the state’s history of Black disenfranchisement.

Section 2 “stopped states, counties, cities, from passing redistricting maps that discriminate against Black voters and it led to the biggest growth of Black political power since Reconstruction”, said Amir Badat, the southern states director at the voting rights group Fair Fight Action.

Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite operations company, with extensive contracts with US, to go public next month

SpaceX unveiled its plans to list publicly on the US stock market Wednesday, disclosing its investor prospectus and revealing details about its financials for the first time. Elon Musk’s rocket and satellite operations company will go public next month at a valuation of around $1.75tn.

The company, which is the world’s most prominent rocket maker and which has extensive contracts with the US government, confidentially filed for an IPO last month. The filing allowed for a period of regulatory review before the details became public.

Diplomats mount salvage operation after ‘clumsy’ announcement upsets Kyiv

The UK was last night desperately trying to reassure Kyiv its new sanctions policy on Russia did not weaken restrictions, after Ukrainian officials warned the change could help Moscow fund its war efforts.

While Downing Street insisted the decision to allow the temporary import of Russian oil and jet fuel was only one element of a tougher overall sanctions package, a British minister conceded that the matter had been handled “clumsily”.

Charges filed in Miami against 94-year-old for allegedly shooting down exiles’ planes in 1996

The United States issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, and five others on Wednesday in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decades-old communist regime.

The 94-year-old political figurehead was charged in Miami, Florida, with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft.

Environmental activists lock themselves to pesticide barrels in protest outside Syngenta headquarters

More than 40 people, including Greenpeace UK’s programme director, Amy Cameron, have been arrested after a protest outside pesticide company Syngenta’s Yorkshire headquarters.

A number of the activists locked themselves on to 15 blue pesticide barrels outside the headquarters, blocking the gates and leading to the temporary closure of the local A62. Activists had transformed a roundabout outside the front entrance into a giant hazard symbol carrying the message “Syngenta poisons nature” with an arrow pointing directly at the building. The action took place on World Bee day.

Global study finds wrappers, bottles and lids on shorelines of 93% of countries analysed as UN talks to tackle issue in turmoil

Plastic food wrappers, bottles, lids and caps are by far the most common items of litter found on the world’s shorelines, a study has found.

Researchers looked at data from more than 5,300 surveys of coastal litter to produce the first global analysis of its kind. They found the data in 355 existing studies on the subject.

For 150 years, the Mease had been altered by human hands, which destroyed habitats. But in 2013, a restoration project began – and now its wetlands are abuzz with wildlife

‘A noisy river is a healthy river,” says Ruth Needham of the Trent Rivers Trust (TRT). The Mease in the Midlands must be in fine fettle, then, as it gurgles merrily along. Sunlight glints off riffles in the water and shoals of fry dart past. Needham whips out her phone to video the tiny fish: “My colleagues will be jumping for joy to see them!”

Needham has good reason to be buoyant. Last month, the Mease won the UK River prize 2026 – which was established by the River Restoration Centre in 2014 to acknowledge innovative projects – in recognition of the trust’s 13-year restoration campaign. “The prize has been a massive boost,” says Needham. “If we can get the Mease into better condition, we can improve other rivers, too.”

‘We wanted to get people to work together’ … Ruth Needham of the Trent Rivers Trust

Chancellor’s planning shake-up in England and Wales would ‘reduce exposure from judicial review on all but human rights grounds’

Rachel Reeves is poised to fast-track clean energy projects in England and Wales with planning reforms to curb the use of judicial reviews against new infrastructure, the ​Treasury has said.

Under the chancellor’s proposals, parliament will be able to designate and approve the most important clean energy projects as of “critical national importance”, as part of a wider package seeking to boost the UK’s energy security and soften the economic fallout from the Iran war.

Keir Starmer describes the agreement, worth double original estimates, as a ‘huge win’ for British businesses

Keir Starmer has struck a trade deal with six Gulf states in what he described as a huge win for British business, ending four years of talks led by four different prime ministers.

The deal will offer £3.7bn worth of opportunities for exporters – double the original estimates – particularly in the food and luxury car sectors but also defence, aerospace, hospitality and other services, the government said.

Births of the mammals extremely rare in captivity, say keepers, with ‘Womble’ only the second calf born at Chester

Inside a heated incubator at Chester zoo, a wrinkled newborn aardvark nicknamed “Womble” spent its first weeks being bottle-fed milk through the night by keepers determined to keep the rare calf healthy.

Named after the creatures in Elisabeth Beresford’s children’s books and the subsequent animated TV series, the nocturnal animal is only the second aardvark born at the zoo in its 94-year history. Keepers say births of the species are extremely rare in captivity, with the last aardvark calf born in the zoo in 2022.

PM’s former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, among aides briefed on investigation into reporters writing about Labour Together

Keir Starmer’s most senior advisers were briefed about an “indefensible” investigation into journalists writing critical pieces about the Labour Together thinktank, according to a newly released document.

Among the aides who received updates on the probe, commissioned by the thinktank’s director, Josh Simons, were Morgan McSweeney, the former chief of staff to the prime minister.

Exclusive: Electoral Commission calls for new controls as Demos finds tools made up fake scandals, invented candidates or gave wrong date

• UK politics live – latest updates

The Electoral Commission has called for new legal controls over misinformation from AI chatbots, after a thinktank found they had made serious mistakes during the recent Scottish election.

The thinktank Demos said its investigation had found that AI services gave voters misinformation to 34% of the questions it posed, which it said raised worrying questions about the lack of regulation of AI platforms in the UK.

UK scientists find tocilizumab, used for rheumatoid arthritis, may help antidepressant-resistant patients

Immunotherapy could be used to treat depression among patients who have not responded to conventional antidepressants, according to the results of an early clinical trial.

Researchers at the University of Bristol investigated whether tocilizumab, an anti-inflammatory drug commonly used for immune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, could improve symptoms of difficult-to-treat depression.

International student Rodiyat Alabede, 22, died due to a ‘perfect storm’ of lax safety protocols, advocates say

Patient advocates in Canada have called for a new investigation into the death of a young woman who was donating blood plasma, describing a “perfect storm” of lax safety protocols and poorly trained staff and warning of “systemic issues” at plasma donation sites across the country.

Rodiyat Alabede, an international student at the University of Winnipeg, died of cardiac arrest shortly after a plasma donation in October 2025 at a facility operated by the Spanish healthcare company Grifols. An initial investigation by Health Canada found no links between the plasma donation and her death.

Soft power institution faces funding crisis linked to Covid-era government loan due to be repaid by September

Staff at the British Council in Italy will go on strike over deep cuts that would slash about 80% of its workforce due to a funding crisis facing the organisation.

Out of 130 of its teaching staff across Rome, Milan and Naples, 108 are being targeted as teaching activities in Italy face the axe. The move would end 80 years of British Council English language teaching in Italy as part of the organisation’s global mission to promote British culture and education across the world, sources said.

Climate change is pushing starving grey whales to San Francisco Bay, where ship strikes led to 40% of 21 deaths

Ferries, cargo ships and tankers cut through choppy waters in the San Francisco Bay on Tuesday as a whale surfaced nearby, its spout barely visible against the white caps. Until now, whales could easily go unnoticed by mariners, but an AI-powered detection network launched this week is designed to track them day and night.

The system, called WhaleSpotter, scans the bay around the clock for whale blows and heat signatures up to 2 nautical miles away, alerting mariners to slow down or reroute when whales are nearby.

Deal is the biggest acquisition for Murdoch since family resolved dispute over future control of media holdings

James Murdoch, second son of publishing giant Rupert Murdoch, has agreed to acquire some of Vox Media’s assets, including New York Magazine, in a deal believed to be worth about $300m.

The 53-year-old publishing scion is acquiring the assets through his company, Lupa Systems, which has built up holdings in Art Basel, the traveling art fair business, and Tribeca Enterprises, the media and entertainment company co-founded by Robert De Niro, and Bodhi Tree Systems, a strategic investment platform that is a major stakeholder of India’s largest media and entertainment company, JioStar.

Exclusive: Google DeepMind agrees to Acas talks after workers sign petitions about governments’ use of AI for defence and intelligence

Google DeepMind has agreed to enter formal talks with UK tech workers that could lead to trade union representation amid growing staff concerns about the use of its AI by the US and Israeli governments’ defence and intelligence.

In a groundbreaking move, the artificial intelligence arm of the multi-trillion dollar Google empire, led by the Nobel prize winner Demis Hassabis, has agreed to meet the Communications Workers Union and Unite at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) after workers based at its London headquarters this month voted to make a bid to unionise.

Lower than expected April annual rate a lift for Rachel Reeves as impact of Iran war yet to fully hit households

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UK inflation slowed to 2.8% in April, the lowest rate in more than a year, as a reduction in the household energy price cap helped soften the sharp rise in fuel costs since the start of the Iran war.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the consumer prices index measure of inflation eased from March’s reading of 3.3%, suggesting the impact of the Iran war has not yet hit UK households as much as feared, despite prices at the pumps rising at the fastest rate in nearly four years.

Billionaire philanthropist’s Open Society Foundations has worked to advance justice and human rights around world

For decades, the Open Society Foundations have worked to advance justice and human rights in Africa, the Middle East and trouble spots around the world. But the OSF’s latest major investment is aimed at a crisis closer to home.

On Tuesday, the organisation, founded by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros and headquartered in New York, announced a $300m spend aimed at boosting economic security and defending civil liberties in the US.

‘The couple had been told the church was likely to be under water on their wedding day. But they were from an area of the Philippines prone to flooding – and stuck to their plan’

I’ve been working as a photographer for the Associated Press bureau in Metro Manila for nearly 30 years, and in that time floods in the Philippines have become increasingly common. One day last July, I returned to the office after a morning spent in my waders, photographing the after-effects of a monsoon that had flooded much of Manila and the surrounding areas.

While I was having lunch and drying out, I got a message from a photographer friend on assignment in Bulacan, the next province. She’d been shooting at Barásoain Church, a historic building that was flooded, and as she’d made to leave, someone had said: “Don’t you want to wait for the wedding?” It was hard to believe people were getting married in those conditions, but she told me the ceremony was due to start at three, which gave me an hour to get there. Even in ideal conditions it would have taken at least 40 minutes, but I jumped in a car with the AP driver and we made it to within a kilometre or two of the church, by which point the water was too deep to continue.

Tatiana Maslany and Murray Bartlett are brilliant in this twisty drama about a woman being blackmailed by a camboy. It’s moreish, inventive – and there’s not a single weak link in the cast

Beware the beautiful camboy. And never trust Murray Bartlett. These seem to be the main life lessons to take from Apple TV’s new 10-part series Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and, the deeper we go into the tense and twisty mass of plot shot through with black comedy, the greater the wisdom becomes.

The beautiful camboy is called Trevor (Brandon Flynn), which I guess explains why he is trying to make it on looks alone. He is the therapist-with-benefits, used by newly divorced mother-of-one Paula (Tatiana Maslany) when she is alone in her apartment because her husband has main custody of their daughter, Hazel (Nola Wallace). There are suggestions of previous instability and erratic behaviour. These are not about to serve Paula well.

Proper Ladies is being compared to Derry Girls for its portrayal of a wild but relatable girl gang. Its creator opens up about trying to reshape the way Black and Muslim characters are used in TV

It’s not every comedy that dares to feature a character trying to strangle herself with her own hijab. Yet the BBC’s Proper Ladies has caused a storm on social media thanks to its chaotic energy and sharply observed teenage dynamics, drawing comparisons to shows such as Derry Girls and Some Girls. “We saw our first fan edit and it had 100,000 likes,” says writer Sabrina Ali. “It feels like we made it.”

Set in a faith school, Proper Ladies is a 10-minute short that follows four schoolgirls in detention, where friendships, rivalries and acts of rebellion unfold. Absurd, quick-witted and fast, it leans into the heightened logic of teenage life – where the smallest things escalate quickly and everything feels urgent. In one scene, a student delivers a dramatic monologue about setting off the fire alarm to conceal the fact that she used the staff toilets to defecate.

Ama Qamata plays a teenage survivor of sexual violence in the DRC with compelling power, and searingly drawn footage of street life in Goma gives authentic edge

Here is an underdog boxing movie from the Democratic Republic of the Congo that has a powerful, heart-wrenching true story behind it – as well as featuring a compelling performance by young South African actor Ama Qamata. She plays a teenage victim of the widespread sexual violence against women and girls in the DRC, who is discovered by a boxing coach while living homeless on the streets. It’s directed with a steady hand by American film-maker Matthew Leutwyler who puts together an earnest heartfelt drama that doesn’t look away from the horror, but chooses to focus on the strength and resilience of women and girls.

Qamata plays Safi, a teenager working in slave-like conditions in a mineral mine. One day she escapes, reaching the city of Goma barefoot, where she finds a scrap of kerb to sleep on, surrounded by thugs and spaced out kids sniffing glue. It looks so real that it has to have been filmed on the actual streets; no amount of street casting and set design could recreate how raw and edgy this feels. Flashbacks show Safi’s life as a child living happily with her family and explain how she came by her ferocious right hook.

Cat and mouse are transported to a quasi-medieval China in this luridly bright animation that has none of the inventiveness of the Hanna-Barbera originals

This expensively rendered, eye-searingly bright animated feature from China rests on a truly weird premise. Tom and Jerry, the cartoon foes of yore, are chasing each other around a museum in present-day New York City when they are supernaturally transported, thanks to a magic compass doodah, to a quasi-medieval China where humans mix freely with gods and cryptozoological animals including phoenixes, gargoyles and talking rats. Which, admittedly, isn’t a massive conceptual leap from Tom and Jerry’s usual imaginary world, where a cat and a mouse can be endlessly regenerated after being flattened, sliced, diced or blown up according to comedy needs. Nevertheless, there’s some serious cognitive dissonance going on here; this is a mix-and-match mashup of mythologies that fans of the original T&J shorts, written and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera in the 1940s and 50s, may find disturbing. Welcome to the future, where IP can be infinitely remixed provided you have enough lawyers or material whose copyright has expired.

So Tom and Jerry fall out of the sky in this brave new world, and the local residents of Golden City assume at first they must be gods, and Tom at least isn’t in any rush to disabuse them of this notion. Partly it’s because his newfound fame has helped catch the attention of Jade (voiced in the English dub by Janice Kawaye), a white-furred, blue-eyed opera cat in a red cheongsam dress. For some reason, Jade can both sing and talk, while Tom is mute in the traditional manner – apart from the tiny devil and angel that appear on his shoulders occasionally, just to add a little Judeo-Christian iconography to the mix. Otherwise, the vast amount of talking is done by two opposed characters, the Phoenix Master (Matthew Yang King), a supernatural humanoid trickster who’s been looking for the compass thingy for 300 years, and his arch-enemy Mega-Rat (AJ Beckles), an embittered creature who attempts to trick fellow rodent Jerry into joining forces with him. There are a bunch of other wisecracking, often bickering, pastel-coloured creatures but they’re eminently forgettable unless you are the sort of person who collects plastic figurines from McDonald’s Happy Meals.

The comedian Munya Chawawa on satire in the age of social media and what Donald Trump has in common with wrestlers

Even if you don’t know Munya Chawawa’s name, you will almost certainly have seen one of his skits. He’s the guy on your feeds who’ll take a nostalgic chart-banger and turn it into a political parody. He first blew up in the Covid pandemic, when he mocked the health secretary for his affair, the prime minister for rule-breaking, and the sheer absurdity of living through lockdown.

Since then he’s racked up more than a billion views, appeared on Celebrity Bake Off and Taskmaster and made documentaries on Kim Jong-un and Robert Mugabe, all the while putting a modern twist on the hoary tradition of political satire.

But as the news moves faster and grows darker, he tells Nosheen Iqbal how he finds jokes in the growing political chaos.

A new exhibition at Tate Britain includes canvases titled after symphonies and nocturnes, but the inspiration flows in both directions. Plus, how Felicity Lott led me to an epiphany

Comparisons between music, painting and sculpture have never quite rung true for me because you’re talking about fundamentally opposed ideas of what the experience of art is all about. A painting can be experienced in a second’s contemplation or an hour’s, but a piece of music, be it symphony or sonata, has to be journeyed through for just as long as the performance lasts.

And yet, the week the James McNeill Whistler exhibition opens at the Tate in London (here’s Jonathan Jones’s five-star review), I’m having to reconsider. Whistler was profoundly influenced by music, a connection that goes so deep that the results aren’t only aesthetic but visceral, in the fabric of the form and expression of his pictures and his philosophy of painting.

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
This fascinating and bold concert featured the works of the ‘word man’ and the ‘note man’, and their absurdist radio play Words and Music

A few months before he died, Morton Feldman told a radio interviewer that he considered Samuel Beckett to be “a word man, a fantastic word man” and that he, Feldman, always thought of himself as a note man. The two worked together twice, first on an opera and then, in 1987, on Words and Music, an absurdist radio play that Beckett repurposed with Feldman’s music. Their mutual sympathy was apparent in Sheffield Chamber Music festival’s affectionate staging of the latter, which occupied this concert’s second half.

Before that, however, the juxtaposition of a minimalist Beckett monologue with one of Feldman’s classic uncoordinated scores laid bare their deep artistic synergy. Rockaby, a desolate exploration of ageing and isolation, was the opener. Directed in the round by Vicky Featherstone, the rigid protagonist – a magnetic Siobhán McSweeney – revolved in her rocking chair, listening and occasionally responding to her own recorded voice. It was hard not to sense the heavy hand of dementia behind the singsong fragments and the fading woman’s desperate final quest for human connection.

Italy’s south has long been either romanticised or patronised. A Palermo collective has dived into historic archives to recover surreal rhymes and surprising songs that defy the island’s picture-postcard image

‘What do I do now that I no longer have my mother?” Lero Lero sing on Com’haiu a Fari, the opening track of their self-titled debut album. “If I still had my mother, I would not love you.” What may sound like the kind of honest self-reckoning a modern songwriter has dragged out of therapy sessions is actually a traditional Sicilian folk text once sung by a washerwoman, reimagined here through three voices modelled on Sicilian Settimana Santa polyphonies. For this Palermo collective, maternal loss is also metaphor: symbolic of Sicily’s ruptured cultural inheritance, which they recover through archival labour songs, carters’ cries and lullabies, then reshape through electronics and microtonal instrumentation.

In the Italian imagination, Sicily has long been more than the island at the country’s southern edge. It has functioned as a symbolic South, carrying fantasies of archaic beauty and rural authenticity alongside associations with poverty, criminality and backwardness. Its culture is often romanticised and patronised at once.

A biography of the creative force behind Mrs Merton and The Royle Family focuses on the stories behind her work

From the 1990s until her tragically early death in 2016, Caroline Aherne was a fixture of British primetime television. This new study of her work reminds us of the punk spirit behind it all. Aherne was the deceptively vicious chatshow host Mrs Merton. She was the voice of Gogglebox, an expression of love for the medium she adored. She was the creator and star of The Royle Family, one of the most profound, realistic and beautiful sitcoms ever written for the British screen. She was one of the greats.

David Scott’s first book, Mancunians, offered a portrait of his city through its notable people, one of whom was Aherne. In it, Scott argued that her home city had not done nearly enough to celebrate her, and this, his second book, is an attempt to redress the balance. She is, Scott writes, his biggest influence (he is a poet and presenter) and his favourite Mancunian of all time. When the idea of writing a proper biography was put to him, he declined, repelled by the idea of “raking over someone’s private life”. This rakes over the work instead, representing a comprehensive record of her output from the perspective of a true devotee.

A professor of psychobiology argues that art – from painting to theatre – has a measurable impact on our health

After Daisy Fancourt’s daughter Daphne was born prematurely, she was confined to an incubator, fighting for her life against a series of infections. Unable to touch her baby or even properly enter the room, Fancourt kept vigil just inside the door, dressed head to toe in PPE, singing lullabies over the whir of instruments and alarms. The songs calmed her, and may have been crucial for Daphne too. Studies show that singing to babies in intensive care reduces their heart rate, improves their breathing, and encourages them to feed.

It was a moment when Fancourt’s professional and personal lives collided. A professor of psychobiology and epidemiology at University College London, she researches how social connections and behaviours affect our health. In Art Cure, her first book for a popular audience, she aims to make a scientific case that the arts – from playing music to theatre-going to painting – aren’t a merely aesthetic aspect of life. Instead, they are deeply entwined with our mental and physical wellbeing at every level – from the workings of our cells and molecules to cognition, memory and mood. In an era of shrinking arts funding and overstretched healthcare systems, her message is urgent. But how to compile rigorous evidence for something as holistic, indefinable – and, perhaps, resolutely unscientific – as art?

What makes this love story fresh is the precise attention to the contemporary environment: the way characters live both in and out of the physical world

The opening section of I Want You to Be Happy is an excellently droll and surefooted description of a man and a woman meeting in a bar, trying to make conversation over the music and flirting vaguely. They establish that she is 23 and that he is 35. All the specifics – the name or location of the bar, the music, even the names of the couple – are for now redacted: “After a while, the twenty-three-year-old woman raised her voice and, referring to the thirty-five-year-old man, asked her short-haired friend: ‘How old do you think he is?’ The short-haired friend surveyed the thirty-five-year-old man’s face; thought for a moment. ‘Forty?’ The twenty-three-year-old woman snort-laughed. ‘He’s thirty-five.’”

Jem Calder, like his protagonists, is bang on trend. His 2022 short story collection, Reward System, was widely admired; this debut novel employs a factual and affectless prose of the sort you’d find in Sally Rooney or Vincenzo Latronico, with a fastidious attention to the surfaces of the world that suggests Nicholson Baker or Bret Easton Ellis or even early Don DeLillo humming in the background. As that opening suggests, these figures are, or could be, representative.

Walking home, she put in her earphones and streamed a new album by her favourite singer-songwriter: the album’s release having been brought to her attention via push notification earlier that day. This new album wasn’t as good as the singer-songwriter’s older ones – or else Joey wasn’t in the right mood for it – so she navigated to the singer-songwriter’s artist page and played the songs she already liked. Listening to these familiar songs, she sang along under her breath, alternately joining in with the lead or backup vocal lines wherever they required least effort.

Is Hamlet still Hamlet when every word has changed? A superbly diverting book about language and creativity

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who translated William Faulkner, André Gide, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf into Spanish, drew the line at Shakespeare. Speaking of the moment when Hamlet asks the ghost why it returns to haunt “the glimpses of the moon”, Borges commented: “I don’t think it can be translated. Perhaps the words can be translated. Certainly Shakespeare cannot be translated. ‘The glimpses of the moon’ means exactly ‘the glimpses of the moon’.”

All, however, is not lost. “It has been said that Shakespeare cannot be translated into any other language,” Borges added. “But Shakespeare cannot be translated into English, either, since he wrote what [Robert Louis] Stevenson called ‘that amazing dialect, the Shakespeare-ese’.” This might not be entirely true, as the translator Daniel Hahn points out in this superbly diverting book. Recalling a hip-hop production of Romeo and Juliet he once saw, he persuades us instantly that “the phrase ‘Do you kiss your teeth at me, fam?’ proved to be a perfect translation of ‘Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?’”

And if into English, then why not into Portuguese, or French, or Māori? Hahn’s project is to argue that “Shakespeare with every word changed can still be great, and can remain Shakespeare”, and to that end he reproduces chunks of Dutch, Russian, Welsh, Thai, Arabic, Japanese, and a dozen other languages, betting that by simply counting syllables or observing alliteration in a language one doesn’t understand (as he cheerfully admits, he doesn’t understand Danish), one can learn something about the quality of a translation. I wasn’t convinced that wager worked much of the time, but the typesetters, as you can imagine, were certainly getting a decent workout, and the gambit does finally pay off when a long passage from Twelfth Night is annotated by boxes mentioning dozens of different translators’ choices.

Driving sims were overtaken by open world fantasy adventures, but new upgrades show how much joy there is in the genre

I have spent the last week careening around Japan in a Porsche 911, seeing the sights, racing other cars and occasionally veering off the road to plummet through an ancient bamboo forest. You all know what’s coming next … this wasn’t in real life, folks – it was in Forza Horizon 6, the latest instalment in Microsoft’s series of open world driving games set in authentic-looking, real-world locations.

Reviewing this game (which is out now on Xbox and PC, and coming to PS5 later in the year) has reminded me of the sheer fun and exhilaration that driving games can provide. It’s easy to forget, but this was the biggest genre in town from the 1990s to the early 2000s. Consoles were sold on how good their racing games were: the original PlayStation had Ridge Racer, the Sega Saturn had Daytona USA. Later came the dirt-track thrills of Colin McRae Rally, the chaotic destruction of Burnout, the sophisticated realism of Gran Turismo. They were the bestsellers of the era, showcasing the future of real-time 3D visuals.

Why are Nintendo releasing a straight-up remake of the space-flight shooter – with many of its original limitations – rather than a fresh new take?

The Nintendo 64 was not my first video game console, but it was my formative one. Getting to grips with 3D movement in Super Mario 64 with that weird three-pronged controller is one of my most visceral childhood memories; the long, long wait for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was the background noise to a huge chunk of my youth. But back in the 1990s (in the UK at least), it felt as if nobody had an N64. When everybody had a PlayStation instead, I felt I was the only kid in my whole city who cared more about Banjo-Kazooie than Crash Bandicoot.

If even Zelda seemed comparatively niche in Europe in the 90s, Lylat Wars (known elsewhere as Star Fox 64) was a real deep cut. It’s a 1997 space-flight shooter starring Fox McCloud and his squad of animal pilots laser-blasting across different planets in nimble crafts called Arwings. I played this game to absolute death in 1998, when I got it for my birthday alongside the fabled Rumble Pak, which made your controller vibrate and shudder whenever something cool was happening on screen (fun fact: Lylat Wars was the first console game to feature controller rumble). But I really hadn’t thought about it much since. Then, last week, Nintendo announced a Switch 2 remake.

Microsoft; PC, Xbox Series X/S (PS5 due later)
Dreamy vistas of the country’s natural beauties are stunningly delivered – but won’t distract from thrilling high-end driving adventures

The Forza Horizon games have always been about drama. Not just the tension and excitement of racing, but also the sensory impact of the natural environment – the sun rising over a dense city, rain clouds hovering above a valley floor. There are moments in this game – perhaps after emerging from a dense forest, or coming up from an underpass – where Mount Fuji briefly appears in the distance, hazy yet majestic, the Platonic ideal of a volcano – and it almost takes your breath away. Fans of this series have been waiting years for Japan and now here it is, the whole country, reduced, remixed and repackaged as a driving paradise.

In many ways, Forza Horizon 6 is a continuation of what this series has always been about. You enter a festival-style driving competition then drive around a vast map splattered with various races and challenges, earning reputation by competing well and buying new vehicles for your extensive garage. There are slight changes this time – you start as a rookie not an established legend, so you have to qualify to enter the festival, and Playground has re-introduced the need to unlock successive levels of competition bringing back the sense of progression from the earliest titles in the series. You start out clattering about in slower C-class vehicles on easier circuits and have to work hard to start lining up against super cars such as the Ferrari J50 or Lamborghini Huracán.

Previously prohibited use of websites such as Omoggle that connect a streamer to a stranger’s video feed now allowed

Last week, at 4am, 19-year-old Sammy Amz was scrolling through X when something caught his eye: a popular Twitch streamer was competing in a 1v1 “mog-off” with a stranger, and losing.

The next day he opened the Omoggle gaming website and began to play. Quickly he matched with another user – green dots appeared on their faces onscreen, as the website began to compare their measurements: canthal tilt, palpebral fissure ratio, nose-to-face width ratio and so on.

The Mount Without, Bristol
Fame’s Antonia Franceschi delivers a double portrait of Krasner, with music by Claire van Kampen, plus there’s a superb solo from Edward Watson

Two notable women are the cornerstones of this evening of dance. First is its choreographer, Antonia Franceschi, still recognisable as the ballet dancer from the film Fame back when she was 19. Franceschi danced with George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet – this evening’s short opener, Excerpts from Kinderszenen, is a snapshot of neo-Balanchine – and has since choreographed in the UK and US (she’s artistic director at New York Theatre Ballet).

The second is the subject of the night’s meatiest, most intriguing work, Lee Krasner, the artist whose reputation is sometimes overshadowed by her also being the wife of Jackson Pollock. The piece Prophecy (still a work in progress) is a dance-theatre sketch of her life and her relationship with Pollock, made with writer and director Sara Joyce, with Krasner and Pollock’s words read in voiceover.

At the Mount Without, Bristol, until 22 May

Live theatre, Newcastle
In Shelagh Stephenson’s spiky comedy, Virginia Woolf and Mary Astell become celestial companions, discussing religion, science and independence

Mary Astell is not known for her knitting. If she is remembered at all, it is for being England’s first feminist. In 1694, she published A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, a treatise arguing for women’s education. Yet here she is with knitting needles and a handsome strip of pink wool. She is as surprised as anyone.

In Shelagh Stephenson’s spiky comedy, that only makes her more anxious. She is in some kind of afterlife: it cannot be purgatory because that would be too Catholic for this high Anglican, but it does not seem like heaven either. Rather, it appears to be a repository for women on the verge of being forgotten. The panelled walls of Amy Watts’s set taper ominously into oblivion. What difference whether she could knit or not if she is to be written out of history anyway?

At Live theatre, Newcastle, until 6 June

Leaves from Dolly Parton’s front garden, a Yellow Submarine cookie jar full of ashes, a branch from the tree Marc Bolan’s car hit … our writer explores Holy Pop, the exhibition where superfans are sacred

Alice Hawkins has a unique way of dealing with the unwanted attentions of Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking out converts door to door. “They come around here every Thursday,” says the photographer. “So I get my Dolly Parton book out and explain to them that Dolly is where I find my belonging, Dolly is where I find my belief.”

One presumes that does the trick, but it’s worth noting that Hawkins isn’t joking. Parton was always her favourite singer, but her obsession flowered in the wake of a friend’s suicide, which left Hawkins “a mess”. In an attempt to cheer her up, her husband suggested visiting Dollywood, the singer’s 150-acre theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. “I just felt like I’d found some kind of spiritual home, like my mecca,” says the photographer. “I found some solace. When we drove home, I said to my husband, ‘I’m going to go back there and start making work. I’m going to do a project.’ It just made me feel really alive.”

King’s Head theatre, London
An office toilet once used by the wartime PM sparks a culture war in this frenzied show about politics and patriarchy

When Rachel Reeves became chancellor in 2024, she said it felt like “smashing one of the last glass ceilings in politics”. But the presence in her office toilet at the Treasury of a urinal, thought to have been used by Winston Churchill, proved that there are some obstacles that can’t be overturned. Reeves would just have to tolerate this symbol that puts the “pee” in patriarchy.

For Churchill’s Urinal, writer and actor Rosie Holt takes a frenzied approach to the problem. Her sustained mania, familiar from her viral pandemic videos as a Tory backbencher, suggests a one-person Thick of It, though there are occasional interjections from Michael Lambourne as the taunting Churchillian voice – and face – of the urinal: WC played by the WC. Talk about toilet humour.

When drum’n’bass grew stale in the 90s, it got a samba-splicing Brazilian twist. As that style returns, the scene’s legends and newcomers celebrate a cross-cultural triumph

Wagner Ribeiro de Souza wasn’t carrying much in his backpack. A local compilation of techno, house and jungle hits, a couple of news clippings and a VHS tape with footage from the club where he played weekly: small fragments of a music scene that he, under the moniker DJ Patife, and some friends were building in São Paulo, Brazil.

It was 1998. He had travelled to London to talk his way into the office of Movement, one of Britain’s most important drum’n’bass nights, with a single goal: pitching an edition of the party in Brazil. “I played that tape recorded at the club,” Patife remembers. “And when Bryan Gee saw like 2,000 people singing, he said: ‘Let’s go to Brazil right now!’”

The Late Show, and its much-loved host, will bid farewell this week after a controversial cancellation leaving behind a challenging TV landscape

Hugh Jackman sang a parody of Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline. Bette Midler performed a satirical rewrite of Wind Beneath My Wings. John Lithgow wrote and recited a poem entitled The Mighty Colbert. Jake Tapper hand-delivered a painting of Colbert as Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. And Jimmy Fallon offered a pointed take on Frank Sinatra’s My Way: “And now the end is near / And so you face the final curtain / But Trump, he made it clear / He wants you gone / Of that we’re certain.”

A roll call of celebrities have made pilgrimage to the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York in recent months to join a long goodbye to CBS’s The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, honouring a voice that will be sorely missed from the national conversation when the lights go dark on 21 May.

Before music, these women had worked as nurses, foster carers and ice-cream van drivers. Now, they’re booked solid at clubs and festivals. How did they become the real-life Riot Women?

When Sally Wainwright’s series Riot Women burst on to screens last autumn, the overwhelming critical acclaim was punctured by a few questions about authenticity. “There is a fascinating TV series to be made about a menopausal rock band – Riot Women isn’t it,” opined Tiff Bakker in the Guardian, denigrating the fictional group as a “bunch of middle-aged punk rockers who, until now, seem to have heard of only Abba”.

If Wainwright needs inspiration for the second series, she could do worse than head to south Wales to meet the real life version of the Riot Women. The NaNaz are a six-piece punk band formed last year by a group of women in their 50s and 60s. Their repertoire of songs tackles everything from unaffordable care home fees, to male attitudes towards older women, to the frustrations of recycling. And they are possibly the only band to have ever been featured on both the homepage of guitar.com and a poster campaign for Age Cymru.

Singer-songwriter has ‘not authorised or supported’ Billy & Me, which will be based on the story of his first manager Irwin Mazur

Billy Joel has condemned an upcoming biopic titled Billy & Me, told through the eyes of his first manager, as “legally and professionally misguided”.

Billy & Me, which was announced on Tuesday, is set to tell the story of Joel’s first manager Irwin Mazur, who discovered the singer in 1966, signed him in 1970 and oversaw his career up until Joel signed with Columbia Records in 1972. His career took off with his album Piano Man one year later.

From furniture with ‘skinny legs’ to making sure spaces work for multiple purposes, three experts who live in tiny homes share their best lessons

In 2010 Colin Chee picked up the keys to his 37 square metre off-the-plan apartment in Melbourne’s city centre. “It was only then that I realised how shit it was.”

With no design experience and a limited budget, his quest to find inspiration eventually led to the birth of Never Too Small, a YouTube channel showcasing clever designs for small spaces from around the world. Launched in 2017, it now has more than 3 million subscribers.

Almost 50 years after he first got his hands on a computer, the Oxford professor still believes in the power of technology. Can his beloved game theory explain why Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs consistently misuse it?

Michael Wooldridge is like the teacher you wish you’d had: approachable, able to explain difficult things in simple terms, neither dauntingly highbrow nor off-puttingly cool, and genuinely enthusiastic about what he does. “I love it when you see the light go on in somebody, when they understand something that they didn’t understand before,” he says. “I find that incredibly gratifying.”

He comes across a regular sort of guy, which, as an Oxford professor with more than 500 scientific articles and 10 books to his name, he clearly isn’t. Typically, his favourite work is his contribution to Ladybird’s Expert Books – an update of the classic children’s series – on artificial intelligence. “I’m very proud of this,” he says, as he hands me a copy from his bookshelf. We’re in his study in the University of Oxford’s somewhat municipal computing department on a sunny spring day. Maybe it’s the campus setting, but our discussion almost takes the form of a seminar.

Whether you want to improve your home’s security or simply know who’s at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease

• The best robot vacuums, tested

Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function.

If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see and whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested eight popular video doorbells to find the best.

Best video doorbell overall:
Google Nest Doorbell (battery)

Best budget video doorbell:
Blink smart video doorbell with Sync Module 2

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The interior designer talks cheesemongers, chore jackets and lost engagement rings with the Filter

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Australian-born interior designer Banjo Beale lives on the Isle of Ulva in the Scottish Hebrides with his husband, Ro. He won BBC’s Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr in 2022, and went on to front his own Bafta Scotland award-winning BBC TV series, Designing the Hebrides.

He has written two bestselling books, Wild Isle Style and A Place in Scotland, and is now renovating an abandoned mansion for his BBC series Banjo and Ro’s Grand Island Hotel, available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

You told us your camping must-haves, from portable pumps and blackout tents to a flask that keeps beer cold. Plus, women’s summer wardrobe updates and celeb booze, tested

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One thing we’ve discovered here on the Filter is that our readers are an outdoorsy bunch. Few topics have driven as many enthusiastic write-ins as when we asked for your best camping tips.

From a strap that turns your mattress into a chair to a super-smart peg-free washing line, here are your top tips and tricks. (And no, none of you has any commercial links to these companies or products – we always check.)

Fame, fantasy … and fish? Celebrity drinks put to the test

‘Don’t be fooled by fancy packaging’: the best (and worst) supermarket shortbread, tasted and rated

Ditch fabric softener and give jumpers a good steam: how to make your clothes last longer

Wobble boards, Duplo and screen-free stories: the top toys and gifts for three-year-olds

The best umbrellas for staying dry in the wind and rain – tested on a 517m hilltop

Fed up with frizzy and dehydrated locks? Dyson’s latest travel model allows effortless styling on the go – but at a cost

• The best hair dryers – tested

With the summer holidays fast approaching, the usual anxieties might be taking hold: pickpockets and touts, lost passport, severe sunburn, holiday tummy, and – perhaps most pressingly – the horrors of the hotel hair dryer. That last one is not to be underestimated: an outdated dryer with one scorching heat setting is a fast track to frizzy, dehydrated, unfabulous hair – not something you want immortalised in your holiday photos.

Worry not, though: Dyson promises to fix that particular woe. The British engineering brand has shrunk its Supersonic into a smaller, lighter, travel-friendly dryer offering the same powerful airflow and heat-control technology as its full-size sibling. So does this admittedly very stylish compact dryer really justify its premium price?

Leftover new potatoes – if there are any – are a gift of the season. Try them in these samosas

As with asparagus, I get completely seduced by the arrival of new potato season and cook and eat them with wild abandon. Any leftover cooked potatoes, meanwhile, are a kitchen gift with infinite possibilities, from a simple crushed potato salad to these spicy, Punjabi-inspired samosas.

Chicken kebabs and Turkish rice: a perfect weeknight supper.

For these succulent kebabs, tavuk (chicken), marinated in yoghurt, olive oil and spices, is threaded on to şiş (skewers). Often served with pilav and roast vegetables, they are popular throughout Turkey. My father, Orhan, was a lawyer with the Turkish government’s transport department, which has an employees’ lokanta (restaurant) in Ortaköy, İstanbul, with mesmerising views of the Bosphorus. I have very fond memories of enjoying tavuk şiş with my family there.

It’s seeds off, skin on in this autumnal pumpkin dish – and don’t be afraid to let it turn extra golden in the oven

A delicious way to enjoy butternut pumpkin. No need to remove the skin, and try not to overcrowd the tray; give everything space so it roasts rather than steaming. And don’t be shy with colour – those dark edges on the pumpkin are where all the flavour is. I serve this with sliced chilli on the side to keep it family friendly.

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Darren Robertson, co-founder of Three Blue Ducks, and Doug Innes-Will, Bundanon executive chef, are hosting a Twilight Feast as part of the Make Good festival on 30 May at Bundanon, NSW

Spain’s favourite staple snack gets a delicate and indulgent seafood makeover

Croquetas have always been part of my life, and my favourites have always been my mum Isabel’s hake croquetas. That’s really where it all started for me: simple but full of flavour, the kind of thing you grow up eating without really thinking about it and then never forget. What I especially love about croquetas, however, is that they can be made from almost anything. Many people say that they rely on good leftovers, and that’s true, but they can also be made with rather more indulgent ingredients, like crab. It just goes to show quite how versatile croquetas are – and how they always go with a good glass of white rioja!

She might look like a wolf, but Nya’s temperament is so sweet that she now helps people who have a fear of trains and travel

I got Nya, a German shepherd, when she was a puppy. She has such a good temperament – she’s really calm around people.

When she was five years old, I decided to register her with Pets As Therapy, an organisation that brings therapy pets into hospitals, care homes, schools and other places to befriend people, and help reduce stress and anxiety.

When Sousan Samadani saw a video about soil degradation, she suddenly knew she would commit everything she had to the cause. Soon she was travelling thousands of miles to raise awareness, skydiving, hitchhiking and cycling

Sousan Samadani was watching videos on YouTube one day when she came across a post about how the world’s soil was degrading so rapidly that it was in danger of extinction.

The video – posted by the Save Soil movement – “was like a shock for me”, Samadani says. “I thought: ‘How is it possible that the soil that gives us food is dying?’”

I walked faster, sure that someone was lurking somewhere. Then a taxi pulled up next to me with an older businessman in the back seat

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

The Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst was not a safe place in the 1980s. There was this jittery vibe when the next heroin batch was coming in and people were overdosing like mad. But the area was also home to a scene of people who were into making little films or art and just going to the clubs in great clothes and dancing our butts off. I was one of them – 23, quite pretty and a hip underground darling.

One night I was walking home from Oxford Street after clubbing. I was always wary of my surroundings, because you grew up very quickly living in that area. But it was a nice night for a walk so I went for it. I remember how dark it was; a slender moon offering little in the way of light.

For Evan Lewis and Dat Tien Lewis, a cycling odyssey was a test of their relationship. A quiet whisky session revealed how far they’d come

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I met Dat in San Francisco in 2015. I had left a tourism consulting role in China and moved to the US to start my own Mongolian vodka product. Dat was a specialised nurse. He loved being a nurse.

They say opposites attract and I think that rings true for us. He had this way of calming a room. Dat would arrive at a party and somehow the volume in the room would come down a little bit. He did the same with me. It was a very busy time trying to build my business but he was always there – very supportive and curious about what I was doing. We moved quite quickly into the relationship and spent a lot of time together.

Parents can can claim up to £2,000 a year for each child – but many are put off by the clunkiness of the scheme

Any parent who has ever used the UK government’s tax-free childcare system knows what a painful experience it is. Each month when I log into my account, I feel a sense of dread and frustration. Why is something that is such a lifeline for so many parents so difficult to use?

The scheme gives working parents an extra £2 for every £8 they spend on childcare. You can claim up to £2,000 a year for each child (or up to £4,000 a year for a disabled child).

Special anniversary edition of award-winning headphones are some of the best sounding you can buy, but cost far more than top Sony noise cancellers

Sony’s latest noise-cancelling headphones are a special anniversary set made to celebrate a decade of its prized 1000X series, designed to be plusher, slimmer, more comfortable and the best sounding yet.

The original 1000X launched in 2016, igniting a fierce rivalry with the dominant Bose and its QuietComfort line, which would push noise-cancelling technology dramatically forward as each tried to outdo the other with subsequent releases.

The bank’s interim chief executive says ‘this issue should never have happened’, but warns it may take time to process claims

National Savings and Investments bank will start to contact thousands of families affected by a missing savings scandal next week, as it confirmed how much they are owed.

In March, the chief executive of the state-backed bank was forced out after it emerged there had been long-running problems with the tracing of accounts belonging to customers who had died.

Experts warn that although prediction markets are not regulated as gambling platforms, they are just as addictive

When Kevin first heard about the prediction market Kalshi, he knew deep down it would be wise to stay away. Kalshi reminded him of a weakness of his: sports betting.

Kevin, who is 36 and works in law enforcement in Texas, has been a gambling addict for 18 years. It’s a problem that cost him his first marriage and forced him to file for bankruptcy.

To HIV researchers, I am an ‘elite controller’ – someone whose immune system has enabled them to live for decades without symptoms or medication. I hope that one day science will understand this tiny but lucky minority

On 21 February 1986, I was diagnosed HIV positive. I was 22. It was the day of my sister’s 21st birthday. That solemn Friday afternoon, my life changed for ever. We had planned a surprise party later that night. My sister was already seven months pregnant with my eldest niece, and I had gone to central London to find a card featuring a Black mother and child. Failing to find anything culturally appropriate, I decided to pop into the STD clinic in Chelsea to pick up my test results. I knew nothing about HIV or Aids; I’d never even heard of the acronyms until a week or so earlier.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t end up partying with my sister that night. Celebrating the promise of new life while contemplating my imminent death proved too much. I spent the next several days hiding away in a darkened room, crying uncontrollably.

From beans, lentils and tofu to chicken, pork, beef and fish, experts weigh the health benefits and potential drawbacks

Do you think you’re not getting enough protein? Debbie Fetter, an associate professor in nutrition at the University of California, Davis, likes to ask her students this same question. In a lecture hall of more than 500 people, “almost every hand shoots up”, she says.

Protein is top of mind for consumers. A 2024 survey of 3,000 Americans suggests most are trying to eat more of it, and research shows that foods labeled “more protein” are especially appealing to consumers.

Exposure to high temperatures won’t have a noticable effect – unless your sperm count is already low

Could your post-gym spa habit affect your ability to have a baby? It’s a belief that gets repeated regularly online. But Prof Colin Duncan, a fertility expert at the University of Edinburgh, says things aren’t as clearcut as people make out. Cisgender men produce sperm in the testicles. It’s from here that these male reproductive cells are released to inseminate the eggs women produce.

Duncan says that repeated exposure to higher temperatures, such as those found in saunas, do inevitably have some effect on how much sperm is made by them. “Testicles are located outside the body because they work better when they’re cooler. If you’re incubating them in a sauna then they don’t work quite as well.”

Lindsay C Gibson’s book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents was an enormous unexpected hit in the pandemic. Now the psychologist is back with her advice for raising happy, healthy children

Around the time of the pandemic, a self-help book with a somewhat unglamorous but functional title – Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – took off on social media. It had been published five years earlier, but in 2020, when more people had time to reflect on life, it was rediscovered, its success fuelled by readers who recognised their own childhood in its pages and their experience with parents who had uncontrolled emotional outbursts, or were self-absorbed, unavailable or lacking empathy. In the view of its author, Lindsay C Gibson, these were parents whose own emotional developmental stage was closer to that of, say, a four- or five-year-old. Their own children had overtaken them, and were now recognising it.

Gibson’s latest book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child, is a guide for those of us who don’t want our children to experience the same kind of childhood we did. Perhaps you’ve realised – the self-awareness is key – that you’re lacking enough maturity of your own, and feel clueless about what you should be doing. “If you have an emotionally immature parent, it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed,” says Gibson, via video call from her home in coastal Virginia. “However, you’ve probably learned emotionally immature attitudes and behaviours that may pop out at times. The difference is that if you have adequate emotional maturity, you’re going to notice it and it’s going to bother you.”

The influence of South Korea’s wildly popular milky toners – which focus on hydration and skin barrier protection – can be seen in a new crop of exfoliants

The words “acid exfoliant” scare the bejesus out of those with more sensitive skin, but they can be a godsend in making texture more even and makeup smoother and more long-lasting.

In fact, a liquid containing the right blend of dead-skin-sloughing alpha or beta hydroxy acids will be infinitely more gentle, effective and even than those gritty physical scrub exfoliants many still reach for.

Sustainability promised to change the industry. With Shein reportedly acquiring Everlane, and Allbirds pivotting from eco sneakers to AI, it seems that promise was mostly marketing

It was always about the money, wasn’t it? For a while there, it seemed like the execs opining sustainability is not a trend, it’s the future actually meant it. But when yet another global brand drops its net zero goals or stops talking about DEI, you do wonder. Recent headlines include Stella McCartney adulterating her eco gloss with a sustainable capsule collection for H&M – don’t worry, she’s just “infiltrating from within” – and Lululemon being investigated for Pfas. The letdowns keep coming.

Now the internet is reeling from a report that Shein plans to acquire Everlane, the San Francisco-based sustainable basics brand built on “radical transparency”. Shein is the Chinese ultra-fast fashion giant epitomising murky supply chains and crazy-cheap landfill fashion. They release up to 10,000 styles a day, and have been making headlines of their own over secrecy and alleged links to forced Uyghur labour.

Ralph Lauren the brand turns 60 next year, with the designer himself now in his ninth decade. A new book, Ralph Lauren: Catwalk, written by veteran fashion journalist Bridget Foley, explores the history of the all-American label’s influential catwalk shows from 1972 to now

The style on the Croisette is off to a strong start

The Yorkshire Dales Explorer is a little-known alternative to the Settle to Carlisle rail route, and takes you deep into wonderful walking country

Limestone stretches on all sides like an inland ocean – appropriately enough, since the shimmering white rock has its ancient origins in coral, shells and the skeletons of sea creatures. We advance carefully, stepping on clints (blocks of rock) and avoiding grykes (the deep fissures between them). It’s a warm, dry day and, even if it were not, limestone drains better than most types of terrain. For a long while, it’s broad, flat and hallucinatory and then, suddenly, the rocky sea collapses like a waterfall and we’re at the edge of a huge fault. The words Yorkshire Dales might evoke pretty villages and walled-in sheep fields, but this landscape is raw and wild, the kind of natural realm WH Auden celebrated in his poem In Praise of Limestone, and the kind that prompts geological speculation and inward ruminations. To cap it all, there are just three of us and nothing much and no one else all the way to the far horizons.

It’s my first decent yomp of the spring. I’ve come here with two walking pals on the egregiously under-promoted direct train that connects Rochdale and Manchester with the national park and Yorkshire’s Three Peaks. While the Leeds-Settle-Carlisle service – which recently celebrated its 150th birthday – is deservedly famous, the Yorkshire Dales Explorer, which started in June 2024, is much less celebrated. It’s also far less frequent. Trains travel between Leeds and Settle, continuing to Carlisle or Morecambe, 20 times a day Monday to Saturday, 11 times on Sundays. Trains between Manchester Victoria and Settle run on Saturdays only and just once in the morning each way and once in the late afternoon.

Wonderful walks, wholesome adventures and friendly farmyard animals await at this collection of cabins and cottages in Perthshire

On a January morning in 1938, Pitmiddle’s last resident, James Gillies, closed the door to his cottage for the final time and walked away through the snow. High on the south-facing slopes of the Sidlaw Hills in Perthshire, the village is now little more than a jumble of half-ruined walls gradually being reclaimed by the land.

My children pick around the overgrown stones like explorers discovering a lost civilisation, before scampering back through the gate and over the grass to our cabin in a neighbouring field. Called the Pitmiddle Hut, it’s the latest addition to Guardswell Farm, which spans 81 hectares (200 acres) of countryside halfway between Perth and Dundee (an hour and a half from Glasgow or Edinburgh). “People gradually moved away from Pitmiddle’s way of life,” says Anna Lamotte, who runs Guardswell with her husband, Digby Legge, often aided by their four-year-old daughter and a smiley 10-month-old in a vintage pram. “Villagers each had a pendicle, the small area they could farm, a system of outfields, infields and ‘kailyards’ – a Scots word for a kitchen garden.” Anna and Digby grew up on farms and small-holdings nearby, and today they rear cattle, sheep, goats and chickens and tend to the vegetable gardens, alongside welcoming guests to stay.

With state-of-the-art fitness and spa facilities onsite and everything from hiking to kayaking the beautiful Bay of Kotor, it’s a perfect base for an active break

I was lying on a bed with no trousers on. A young man helped me into some crotch-high boots and zipped them up. He turned the lights down low, put on some music, pressed a button and left the room. Argh! The boots started to slowly inflate from the toes up, like a giant blood-pressure cuff. As they clenched around my upper thighs, I started to panic. What if they just got tighter and tighter until my legs exploded? As I was about to shout for help, the pressure suddenly released, leaving my legs feeling deliciously light. I took a deep breath and submitted to another 19 minutes of this sweet torture.

I was at Siro Boka Place in Montenegro, having compression boot therapy, which is supposed to boost circulation and reduce swelling. “It’s especially effective on women over 35,” my youthful assistant had told me, helpfully. The hotel, which opened last year, is proud of its “state-of-the-art wellness facilities”. In most hotels that means a poky gym. At Siro the facilities are so good the Montenegrin Olympic team is training here ahead of Los Angeles 2028.

From a stylish retreat in Norfolk to a remote hideaway on a Scottish island, these boltholes will make for a truly memorable stay

Tourism experts are predicting a bumper year for “staycations” with more of us choosing to holiday in the UK due to continuing uncertainty around jet fuel prices and possible flight cancellations. Holidaymakers are spoilt for choice with more than 350,000 UK self-catering listings on booking platforms, from rustic barn conversions to seaside villas with all mod cons for large family gatherings.

We’ve done some of the leg work and whittled down a selection of cottages which all offer something special, whether it’s a stunning location, a breathtaking view or a level of comfort and style that wouldn’t be out of place in a boutique hotel.

Thought to have been introduced by Anglo-Indian officers in the Royal Navy in the 1800s, the dish has since spiralled into a national obsession

The sailors aboard the navy vessel Hashidate know what’s for lunch long before the telltale aromas escape from the galley.

Yosuke Oyama, the ship’s chef, has been up since dawn, softening onions and occasionally stirring a pot of chicken stock that has been simmering for several hours.

It's getting harder and harder to guess whether a face is AI. The University of New South Wales recently launched an AI faces test, which challenges users ability to distinguish between real and fake faces. Guardian Australia's Carly Earl and Matilda Boseley take the test to see if it's a science or just vibes

They’re in restaurants, offices and supermarkets – there’s even a petition to let them on flights to the UK. But not everyone is happy about the growing number of dogs in public places

Out for dinner in London with her husband and two-month-old son, Gizzelle Cade noticed another woman coming into the restaurant with a pram. “It had all these little trinkets and toys,” says Cade. “I was like, wow, she put some cute little decor there.” The woman reached into the pram to get, Cade assumed, her baby – instead she pulled out a dog. Then she put an absorbent pad, the kind you use for puppy training, on the floor and placed the dachshund on it.

“I was completely taken aback,” says Cade. “To see pretty much an open bathroom where I was dining with my newborn – it was insulting.”

Garden representing overlooked countryside on urban fringes makes Eberle one of only three women to win best in show as solo designer

• Interview: ‘A weed is only a plant in the wrong place’

Featuring a giant, sleeping woman carved out of a fallen tree, Sarah Eberle’s hauntingly beautiful garden has won the top prize at the Chelsea flower show.

Eberle, now the Royal Horticultural Society’s most decorated gardener, is a rarity; she is one of only three women to have won best in show at Chelsea as solo designers in its 100-year history.

Diplomats, businessmen and US marines mingle at the JW Marriott hotel in Caracas as deals are done and the country’s resources divvied up

Over breakfast in one of the swankiest hotels in Caracas, you can hear them mulling Venezuela’s past, present and future in sporadically hushed tones. As diners tuck in to plates of fried eggs, black beans and arepas, snatched fragments of conversation speak of election roadmaps, political fragmentation and oil-fuelled economic growth.

But the murmured discussions are not being conducted in Caribbean Spanish by Venezuelan officials pondering their country’s direction after the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro. The accents are North American and belong to the US officials, diplomats and spies now calling many of the shots here after Donald Trump’s controversial military intervention on 3 January. Neighbouring tables are occupied by huddles of musclebound US marines, tattoos covering their bulging calves, baseball caps covering their heads, and walkie-talkies strapped to their hips.

The US, EU and Britain have increased their ties with Daniel Noboa’s militarised crackdown, despite reports of widespread rights abuses

The raid began at 4am. As the children slept, soldiers charged into the family home, rifles raised. “They said they were entering under the emergency powers,” says Rosa*, the family’s matriarch, whose name has been changed for fear of retaliation. “They pointed their guns at us. I thought they were going to kill us all.”

The soldiers quickly singled out her son, 16-year-old Jairo Damián Tapia Álvarez, and her nephew, 17-year-old Jostin Elian Álvarez Chávez, she says, separating the boys from the family.

The charity is in the headlines yet again, this time for asking people filming paid-for content on its sites to pay a fee. Is it all just a storm in a tea room?

Name: The National Trust.

Age: 131. The National Trust was founded in 1895.

The Pensions Commission said 15 million people were currently not saving adequately for their retirement

Fifteen million people are currently not saving enough for their retirement, according to the Pensions Commission, who have warned this could rise to as many as 19 million without action.

The independent group of experts warned as many as 45% of working-age adults were not saving into a pension at all, despite nearly half of them being in work.

As the UK approaches the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum, we’d like to hear how people feel about the decision now and whether your views have changed over the past decade

It’s been nearly ten years since the fateful Brexit referendum on 23 June 2016 when the UK voted to leave the EU.

We’d like to hear from people across the UK about how they voted at the time, how they feel about Brexit now and whether their views have changed over the past decade. Do you still feel the same way you did in 2016? Have your experiences since then changed your perspective in any way?

Are you or you partner a secret spender? Take part in our experiment

We’re looking for couples, who don’t often open up about their finances with each other, to take part in an experiment for the Saturday magazine. Maybe you have a ridiculous Pret habit you don’t mention to your boyfriend or you’re hooked on online shopping and have never revealed the extent of your spending to your wife. Or maybe the two of you have simply never sat down and discussed what you scrimp on and where you splash out.

If this sounds like you – and you’d be willing to record and share money diaries with each other in the presence of a Guardian journalist – get in touch and we can share more information. We would run these interviews anonymously.

We would like to hear from people who have emigrated - or are considering doing so – due to rising anti-migration sentiment or policies

The Unite the Kingdom march attracted tens of thousands of people to the capital on Saturday. While some insist it was a display of national pride, others see the Tommy Robinson rally as a hostile display of anti-migrant sentiment. US vice president JD Vance appeared to align himself with those who attended the march at a White House press briefing on Tuesday.

We would like to hear from people who have emigrated - or are considering doing so - because of anti-migration sentiment or government policy. Since the UK is just one country where anti-migration sentiment has flared, we’re keen to hear from people globally who have made life decisions because of the current climate.

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