The ‘Council of Andrews’ started as a bit of fun – but has led to friendships, financial help and even fiances…

It’s a rough time to be called Andrew. In recent years, notorious figures such as Andrew Tate and the former prince have dominated the headlines, giving us a bad name. Even the CEO caught up in that Coldplay scandal was an Andy. It’s been a bad run. As an Andrew myself, I wanted to unearth some better representatives, so I recently set out on a mission: to find some fellow Andrews doing good in the world.

That’s how I stumbled upon thousands of Andrews at once.

As government reorganisation ties part of the forest to Southampton, local people are angry

Della Keable could not hold back the tears as she explained how her family had lived in the forest for centuries, making a living among the trees, loving the tight-knit feel of the place. “I’m sorry,” she said as the emotion got too much. “But the forest is part of our souls.”

Keable is among thousands of people protesting against the UK government’s decision to split up the administration of the New Forest as part of local government reorganisation.

The king has the chance to offer some tough love. Perhaps he could start with a speech to Congress about the Trump administration’s reckless trajectory

It will be a definitive moment for King Charles III and the British monarchy. And for better or worse, it could help salvage UK-US relations after Donald Trump insulted Keir Starmer. In the public high point of his state visit, the king will mount the rostrum in the US House of Representatives on 28 April to address a joint session of Congress. Of all the British monarchs in the 250 years since US independence, only his late mother, Elizabeth II, was afforded this rare honour – and her accomplished 1991 performance brought the house down. This time could be more tricky.

Times have changed, as has the land of the free, and the biggest change is Trump. He will not be present on Capitol Hill when the king speaks, but his dark shadow lurks everywhere. Trump will undoubtedly portray Charles’s attendance at a separate White House state banquet as a royal endorsement of his person and policies. And it is precisely this galling prospect of a presidential propaganda coup that has led most people in Britain to oppose the visit. Starmer, in contrast, hopes it will set the badly soiled “special relationship” back on track.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

It’s a high-wire act and the risk of an embarrassing failure can weigh heavily – but that’s no reason to avoid writing about sex, argues Black Bag author Luke Kennard

Are straight male writers scared of writing about sex? If you read modern fiction it’s hard to conclude otherwise. Maybe we’re worried that the very presence of a sex scene in our book would feel somehow exploitative or gratuitous. Or maybe we feel our gender has simply said enough on the subject so we should shut up.

Women writing about straight relationships don’t seem as nervous. In fact, sex is often a central element of narrative, and of nuanced portrayals of masculinity; from the slow-burn tenderness and awkwardness of intimacy in Sally Rooney’s work, to the surreal celebrations of and lamentations for the erotic in Diane Williams’s extraordinary short stories.

The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment

The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.

Across the branches of government, the services that are supposed to protect us – nuclear stockpile monitoring, cybersecurity, counter-terrorism – are being undermined, understaffed or trashed. A different kind of protection that consists of public health, vaccination programs, food safety, clean air and water, social services, civil rights and the rule of law is also under attack. The federal government that serves us is being starved while the federal government that serves the Trump agenda and the oligarchy is glutting itself on taxpayer money, including the grotesque sums dumped on the Department of Homeland Security and the US military now being warped into Pete Hegseth’s twisted vision of a ruthless mercenary force. Hegseth has reportedly stood in the way of promotions for more than a dozen Black and female officers.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. Her newest book is The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change

New technologies of reproduction are plundering the art world – and getting away with it

In 2026, its easy to see why generative AI is bad. The internet has nicknamed its excretions “slop”. The CEOs of AI companies prance about on stage like supervillains, bragging that their products will eliminate vast swathes of work. Generative AI requires sacrificing the world’s water to feed its hideous data centres. Around the globe, chatbots induce schizophrenic delusions and urge teens to kill themselves – all while turning users brains to mush.

Who could have predicted this? Artists, that’s who.

President makes claim in lengthy Truth Social post after talks in Pakistan failed to secure a deal

• JD Vance and US delegation leave Pakistan after failing to reach deal with Iran

• Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

A post about an hour ago on the Israel Defense Forces Telegram channel claimed that overnight, the IDF “identified a rocket launcher positioned and ready to launch toward the State of Israel in the area of Jouaiyya in southern Lebanon”.

Shortly after the identification, the launcher was struck and dismantled in a rapid closure cycle, thwarting the launch before it could be carried out.

The two sides turned up to test one another’s resolve. It was probably unrealistic to expect a dispute that has taken up years of discussion to be settled in one marathon session

• Middle East crisis – live updates

It was as if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran.

Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.

Demand at online marketplaces could settle at a new, higher normal, with the crisis leaving consumers ‘scarred’

Car buyers’ interest in electric cars has surged across Europe since the start of the war in Iran, as the rising cost of petrol highlights the cheaper power available from a plug.

Online marketplaces in the UK, Germany, France and Spain reported huge increases in inquiries about electric vehicles since the start of the conflict in February.

Exclusive: Ministers planning new legislation for alignment without full parliamentary scrutiny if in national interest

Ministers are planning to fundamentally reshape Britain’s relationship with the European Union, with new legislation that could result in the UK signing up to EU single market rules without a normal parliamentary vote.

In a major development in the prime minister’s push for closer ties with the continent after the Iran war, the Guardian understands ministers are bracing to face down opposition to “dynamic alignment” with the EU from those who “scream treason” over the powers in a new EU-UK reset bill.

Exclusive: Health secretary warns of dangers of protest vote as he pitches NHS as key elections battleground

Voters in May’s local and devolved elections risk putting the NHS in jeopardy if they vote for populist parties, Wes Streeting has said, as he sought to make the health service a key battleground.

“The founding principles of the NHS are at greater threat than at any time since the NHS was founded in 1948,” the health secretary said.

Mauritian foreign minister pledges to ‘spare no effort’ to regain control of islands, as US fails to give approval of deal

A senior official in Mauritius’ government has vowed that the Chagos Islands will be “decolonised” after Keir Starmer was forced to shelve legislation to hand the islands back to Mauritius.

On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks, after a lack of support from Donald Trump.

Prime minister has been trailing in the polls to Péter Magyar in race that could have repercussions for Europe, the US and Russia

Europe correspondent

Not a regular observer of Hungarian politics? We’ve got you.

Victim in her 20s was attacked after leaving Labyrinth Epsom nightclub between 2am and 4am on Saturday

A woman was raped by several men outside a church after leaving a nightclub in Surrey, police said.

The woman in her 20s reported she was attacked after being followed leaving Labyrinth Epsom between 2am and 4am on Saturday.

Astronauts make first remarks at jubilant welcome home event in Houston after their record-breaking mission

Still marveling over their moon mission, the Artemis II astronauts received a thunderous welcome home on Saturday from the hundreds of colleagues who took part in setting a record for deep space travel during the US space agency Nasa’s lunar comeback.

The crew of four arrived at Ellington Field near Nasa’s Johnson Space Center and Mission Control in Houston, flying in from San Diego, where they had splashed down just offshore the evening before.

️ Updates from the final round at Augusta National
️ Ewan Murray’s day-three report | Leaderboard | Mail Scott
️ García warned after breaking club in meltdown

Marco Penge was making a good fist of his Masters debut. Especially as the 27-year-old from Crawley, the reigning Spanish Open champion, took a triple-bogey eight at the 2nd on Thursday. Not the most auspicious start to his Augusta National career, but he limited the first-round damage to 76, then shot 69 and 71. Sadly his final round isn’t going so well, and he’s just dumped two balls in the water at the iconic par-three 12th, the first spinning back off the bank, the second from the dropzone not even getting over to dry land before dunking into the drink. A quadruple-bogey seven. He isn’t the first, he won’t be the last, and things could have gotten a whole lot worse, just ask the Towering Inferno …

Bogey at the last for Jon Rahm. A diminuendo end to a fine round of 68. You have to wonder how much buyer’s remorse Rahmbo has for joining the LIV tour: the 2021 US Open champion and 2023 Masters winner has never been the same player since. Still, his recovery this week from an opening round of 78 will give him a little succour. He ends his week at +1, one shy of the current clubhouse leader Gary Woodland.

Police arrest man, 37, on suspicion of being in charge of dog dangerously out of control and causing injury resulting in death

A 19-year-old woman who died after a dog attack in Essex has been named by police as Jamie-Lea Biscoe.

Police said the victim was found with serious injuries after emergency services were called to a property in Leaden Roding at 10.45pm on Friday. Biscoe was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 37-year-old man from Dunmow, who was arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control and causing injury resulting in death, has been bailed until July while inquiries continue, Essex police said on Sunday.

The canine, which was a family pet and believed to be a lurcher crossbreed, was seized and tests are under way to formally establish the dog’s breed, the force added.

Assistant chief constable Stuart Hooper said: “Our thoughts remain with all those who knew and loved Jamie-Lea. Her young life has been so tragically cut short.

“Our detectives are continuing to work around the clock to establish exactly what happened and specialist officers are continuing to support Jamie-Lea’s family.

“This is unimaginable for her loved ones and friends and, as such, I would ask people to respect their grief and privacy at this extremely difficult time.

“Our officers remain at the scene and anyone with concerns or information can speak with them there or contact us in the usual way.”

A post-mortem examination is due to take place on Sunday, police said.

Anyone with information that could assist the investigation has been asked to contact Essex police through their website or anonymously through Crimestoppers.

On Thursday, a three-month-old baby died in a suspected dog attack at a property in Redcar, North Yorkshire.

The baby girl is believed to have died as a result of a dog bite in the Dormanstown area and a woman, aged 31, was treated in hospital for an injury to her arm from a bite, police said.

Armed officers destroyed one dog that had gone on to the street and a second recovered by police has since been destroyed.

A man, aged 45, was arrested on suspicion of being in charge of a dog dangerously out of control causing injury resulting in death and was released on conditional bail.

Use of interns by Plum Sykes, an ex-assistant of Anna Wintour whose family owns a Yorkshire estate, reignites debate about creative industries

She is said to have been the inspiration for a character in The Devil Wears Prada and was a personal assistant of Anna Wintour, so Plum Sykes knows a thing or two about the arduous and often unglamorous life of being a fashion industry intern.

But that recognition does not, it appears, extend to paying her own interns a fair wage. Or, indeed, any wage at all.

Industry experts say booking of controversial US rapper was calculated risk that has implications for all festivals

The fallout over Wireless announcing Ye (formerly known as Kanye West) as its 2026 headliner was both swift and considerable.

Last Sunday, major sponsors of the three-day festival, including Pepsi and Diageo, began to withdraw their involvement in the face of a significant backlash to Ye’s shocking pronouncements on the Jewish community and the Holocaust. UK Jewish groups threatened to protest if the shows went ahead. Keir Starmer called the decision to book the rapper who wrote a song titled Heil Hitler “deeply concerning”.

War with Iran has brought 15 American sites across the UK countryside firmly into the spotlight

They are dotted across the UK countryside, often obscured from public view behind highly secured perimeter fences. Technically, they are on British soil, and misleadingly most have “Royal Air Force” in their name.

But in many respects, these military outposts are under the control of the US president and commander-in-chief.

A young Albanian woman’s escape from al-Hawl offers rare hope – but as the camp empties many are left stranded, prompting urgent calls for repatriation

For weeks he hovered near Turkey’s border with Syria hoping for good news. In early February, Xhetan Ndregjoni got word of what he was waiting for – his niece Eva was on her way after escaping the squalid desert camp in Syria where she had been held without charge since she was a child.

“I don’t have the words to describe that moment,” Ndregjoni said of their reunion.

What’s it like to have a diary that talks back to you, offering comments and advice on your hopes, fears and lunch plans? I spent two months finding out

Ever since I was a teenager, I have kept some form of diary. These days I favour a paper one for creative brainstorming, and the Journal app on my iPad where I do a speedily typed brain dump every morning. I have always found it a great way to impose some sort of order on my random thoughts, a form of meditation.

But I had never even heard of AI journalling until a Google search led me down a rabbit hole where I encountered people enthusing about two apps, Rosebud and Mindsera. It sounded as if Mindsera’s minimalist design was the best for writers. Out of curiosity, never intending to stick with it, I downloaded a free trial.

I’m clearly Australian – I had my Adelaide cricket cap on – but that Pommy bloke still lent a hand to someone from the opposition

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

We’re great enemies in cricket, England and Australia. So when the Ashes returned this past summer, my son and I travelled from Ballarat to Adelaide to see the showdown in the third Test. It’s a long drive but we made it a boys’ trip, stopping in at pubs and all that nonsense on the way.

It was a great start to the essential cricket pilgrimage. The problem was when we got to the Adelaide Oval, the temperature was a gruelling 40C. Worse still, by the middle of the day, the sun was beaming directly on to our seats. There was no shade and no reprieve.

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
For a reportedly record-breaking amount of money, the increasingly reclusive star proves his voice is still golden in a headliner performance light on enthusiasm

Throughout the Strokes’ main stage set on Saturday evening, you could see them: fans, many of them women, unaffected by the New York indie rockers as they pushed forward through the crowd to stake out spots hours in advance for the night’s closer, Justin Bieber. “I know why you’re here … JUSTIN BIEBER!” the Strokes’ Julian Casablancas joked, sort of, between songs. “We’re happy to lube you up for him.”

Perhaps Casablancas picked up on an anxious energy from the crowd: the chance to see Bieber in a Coachella primetime slot seemed at once inevitable and improbable. Save a stripped-down Grammys performance and two very selective LA warm-up shows, the 32-year-old pop star had not performed publicly in over four years, since cancelling his 2022 Justice World Tour amid a host of health issues. Maybe it’s because vulnerability is an established element of a performer who, for years, appeared dead behind the eyes in public, or the fact that Bieber recently ditched the managerial framework that guided his rocky career, or the lingering sting of Frank Ocean’s disastrous headliner set in 2023, when a generationally beloved artist with little recent performance experience cracked under the pressure: few Coachella headliner sets have generated this much buzz – Saturday broke Coachella’s single-day ticket record – and perhaps this much parasocial concern.

Cate Blanchett, Rachel Zegler, Bryan Cranston and a host of stars arrive for the Olivier awards, marking their 50th anniversary, at the Royal Albert Hall in London

The TV star and writer on soundtracked car journeys with her dad, why she took a break from acting, and her husband Tom Hardy’s ‘cracking’ cup of tea

Born in Grindon, County Durham, in 1981, Charlotte Riley is an actor and writer. She studied English at Durham University before training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda). Riley first came to prominence with her portrayal of Cathy in Wuthering Heights in 2009, and has since appeared in series such as Peaky Blinders and Press, as well as on stage. In 2017, she founded The WonderWorks, a network of childcare support options for people involved in the TV and film industry. She has two children and a stepson with her husband, the actor Tom Hardy. Riley stars in the BBC’s new series Babies, Trying on Apple TV+ and the forthcoming Tomb Raider Amazon series.

I was always described as cheeky and smiley as a kid, and this photo of me in my dad’s office in Teesside proves exactly that. It was my first time going to work with him, so I wanted to wear a jumper that was just like the one he usually wore. I have vivid memories of the room smelling of drip coffee, and I know that I was happy, even though it was a super boring place to be.

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

David Attenborough celebrates the natural magic occurring close to home, and Keanu Reeves stars in Jonah Hill’s meta comedy-drama. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

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

Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page star in a slinky new romcom, while the dissolute teens of the US drama are back in their 20s

You, Me & Tuscany
Out now
Where would the romcom be if everyone told the truth? When impulsive cook Anna (Halle Bailey) tells a porky pie about being engaged in order to justify her presence in an abandoned Tuscan villa, a train of events leading to true love is – naturally – set in motion. Regé-Jean Page and Nia Vardalos co-star.

After a season dominated by long throws, set-piece wrestling and rigid, overly controlled football, all of a sudden the overwhelming artistry and firepower at Manchester City’s disposal is threatening to take over when it matters most.

This game was taken away from Chelsea during a blistering spell of attacking at the start of the second half and, by the end, it was impossible not to feel the same applied to the title race. Strike up the Jaws music – Pep Guardiola’s sharks are circling. There was blood in the water after Arsenal’s defeat by Bournemouth and, after meandering through a tepid first half, City eventually found their bite at Stamford Bridge.

Thirty minutes before kick-off Roberto De Zerbi wandered on to the pitch with his gilet zipped high to the neck in the face of a chill Wearside wind. By the final whistle that stiff breeze had dropped a little but so, too, had the morale of Tottenham and their new manager.

In cementing the visitors’ position in the bottom three Nordi Mukiele’s second-half deflected winner ensured Régis Le Bris’s Sunderland rose to 10th and De Zerbi’s uncharacteristically subdued body language suggested he was shivering inside.

On a typically nervy afternoon on the Trent, one of the biggest cheers of the afternoon arrived in the seconds after the final whistle, news over the speakers that Tottenham were still trailing at Sunderland. For Nottingham Forest, a creditable draw against Aston Villa takes them another precious point towards Premier League safety, Neco Williams’s low strike cancelling out Murillo’s own goal; confirmation that Forest are now three clear of the relegation zone was greeted as warmly as one would expect.

These teams could meet again at the end of the month in a Europa League semi-final but, for now, there are more pressing priorities. For the fourth successive season Villa left the City Ground without the full bounty and they wasted a series of chances to earn victory, Morgan Rogers skying a routine rebound from close range while Ollie Watkins also sent a shot sailing over the bar.

Last April Newcastle brought the thrills against Crystal Palace, putting five past Oliver Glasner’s side at St James’ Park, the victory closed by an Alexander Isak special. How things have changed. At Selhurst Park this time round, the visitors succumbed to a third successive defeat, Jean-Philippe Mateta’s penalty in injury time adding to the misery for Eddie Howe and his team.

William Osula’s close-range finish before half-time, against the run of play, had put Newcastle in front if not in control. They looked short of rhythm even with the lead, still on the mend from sapping defeats last month by Barcelona and, crucially, Sunderland.

‘It’s either him or I’m out,’ Fury said of his British heavyweight rival after outclassing Arslanbek Makhmudov

Just before midnight on Saturday, an hour after the first victory of his latest comeback, Tyson Fury paused in the midst of a familiar monologue about a predictable subject. He had just outclassed Arslanbek Makhmudov, the tough but limited Russian heavyweight, over 12 one‑sided rounds. But Fury wanted to talk only about Anthony Joshua and whether or not he and his old British rival would ever fight each other.

In the lavish depths of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Fury sounded perplexed: “Ten years in the making and still, after all this time, there’s uncertainty if this fight’s gonna happen next. I’ve no idea. I hope so but you can’t force someone to do something.”

• Italian wins 7-6 (5), 6-3 against Spanish rival

• Sinner adds to his victories after Indian Wells and Miami

Jannik Sinner beat Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets to win the Monte Carlo Masters for the first time on Sunday and reclaim the world No 1 ranking from his Spanish rival.

Sinner downed Alcaraz 7-6 (5), 6-3 to capture his third ATP 1000 title of the year after completing the “Sunshine Double” last month with victories in Indian Wells and Miami.

• Belgian ends decade-old run of bad luck in event

• ‘It’s everything to me … I stopped believing a lot of times’

Wout van Aert shattered a decade-old jinx to win Paris-Roubaix on Sunday, outduelling the world champion, Tadej Pogacar, in a brutal classic race across the cobbles.

The 31-year-old sustained a puncture as did Pogacar and their great rival Mathieu van der Poel, who had two mechanical problems and could not contest the final sprint, which went in Van Aert’s favour for his second title in one of the five Monument classics after his Milan-Sanremo victory in 2020.

Updates from 11am BST start across the grounds
Sign up for the Spin | Mail Tanya or comment BTL

Not too much to report from OT this morning, apart from an increasingly ominous sky. Jimmy Anderson winds up for his first over of the day from the JA End. Derbys 248-3 trail by 103.

Something of a tall order, but an opportunity for Asa Tribe to do a Ben McKinney.

• Quarter-final: Wakefield 22-26 Wigan

• Warriors to meet St Helens in Challenge Cup last four

The winds of change that swept through Super League last year as Hull KR became the dominant force in the game have at stages already in 2026 threatened to become more akin to a hurricane – and no afternoon felt more seismic in defining that mood than this.

Super League has been in desperate need of a new challenger for some time, which made Hull KR’s domestic treble last year all the more interesting. But this year, a new force has threatened to rise alongside the Robins, St Helens, Leeds and Wigan: that of Wakefield Trinity.

A new study finds that having children leaves your emotional wellbeing unchanged – but the truth is so much more complicated than that

Does having children make you happier? Apparently not, according to a new study published in Evolutionary Psychology which, despite involving more than 5,000 participants in 10 countries, including Britain, could find no strong evidence that parenthood led to a measurable increase in positive emotions. The researchers, led by Menelaos Apostolou of the University of Nicosia, looked at both hedonic wellbeing (day-to-day emotional states such as joy, sadness and loneliness) and eudaimonic wellbeing (a feeling of purpose and meaning). With the exception of mothers in Greece, who felt a greater sense of the latter, there was no statistically significant difference between parents and non-parents, suggesting that becoming a parent leaves your emotional wellbeing largely unchanged.

This was seen as surprising, but is it, truly? I love my son and being his mother has given my life great joy and meaning, but that is not to say that my life has more joy and meaning than that of someone without children. To an extent, comparing my life as a mother with the life of a stranger without children is meaningless: children are not appendages whose presence or absence reveal a static emotional state. The only way you could truly get the data would be by having access to the two timelines. In one, you had children, in the other, you didn’t. The parallel selves would each complete a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) questionnaire which could then be compared.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist

I’ve just watched another of my neighbours rip up everything green and growing around their home. It’s enough to make David Attenborough weep

It’s noisy outside. I forget over winter how loud the garden gets when the imperatives of shagging, fighting for territory, then raising babies become urgent – the sparrows are kicking off, the tits are fighting a turf war and competing wood pigeons are cooing to seduce Susan, the escaped wedding dove who lives on our roof. When I sat in the sun yesterday, the industrious buzz of bees tackling the dregs of cherry blossom was lawnmower-loud, accompanied by “back off” peeps from blackbirds nesting in the ivy.

There was another noise too, though: the rumble of a mini-digger ripping up a nearby garden. They started with the hedge – I thought, actually, that was all they were going to do, because it happens around here a lot. It would have been the third case I’ve spotted in a matter of weeks. The first was proudly pointed out to me by the owner; the second I only saw in the aftermath – a bare row of jagged stumps where there used to be dense leaves. But this time, I realised they had bigger plans: when the hedge was out, they kept digging, clearing away bushes, plants, trees, every inch of anything that ever lived there. By evening, all that remained was a scraped-back trench of bare earth and a skip full of uprooted branches, skeins of ivy, clumps of grass. In the space of one beautiful warm April day, what used to be a garden is not any more.

I have seen up close the fallout of the disastrous policing decisions May made as home secretary. We urgently need to restore the force to what it once was

• Dal Babu is a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan police

No, the world isn’t going to hell in a handcart. But yes, a good many items are being stolen – in plain view, with apparent impunity – from the shelves at Tesco, M&S and all the major high-street stores.

It’s a huge loss for the shops, and as political types discuss whether Britain is broken, a hot potato: a coming-to-a-store-near-you symbol of a nation in which so many feel that law and order is just a US cop show on Channel 5.

Dal Babu is a former chief superintendent in the Metropolitan police

A mass movement defending immigrants has slowed the Trump administration’s abuses

Resistance, in physics, is the force that hinders the flow of charged electrons as they zigzag from point to point. Resistance doesn’t stop the flow of electricity. Instead, it causes heat.

Popular resistance works the same way. It obstructs and slows the government’s business, creating political heat and slowing it further.

As World Bank and IMF chiefs gather in Washington, the Iran war is driving up energy prices, fuelling inflation and testing voters’ patience

The world’s finance ministers and central bank governors gather in Washington this week for the half-yearly meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, with the global economy in a perilous spot.

Not since the foundation of the Bretton Woods institutions late in the second world war have global conflicts triggered this much economic turbulence. The volatile 1970s come close. But the US-Israeli war on Iran, coming so soon after the Covid pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, take the prize.

Confined quarters, rising tensions and no escape: the astronauts were trained for it. I had a desk, a drawer and a long-running feud over a window that pushed me to my limits

Four people have joined the tiny percentage of humans who can say they have come back to Earth with a bump, literally. Welcome home, Artemis II crew: you have much to be proud of after following in the illustrious footsteps of Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos’s missus. Most importantly, you survived. Not in space – although obviously that too – but, far more impressively, you made it through an extended period trapped in extremely confined quarters with colleagues. As anyone who has worked in an office can verify, this is the greatest test of endurance known to humankind.

Commander Reid Wiseman, mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen as well as pilot Victor Glover have just spent 10 days in a capsule described as “not much bigger than a family tent”. Normally, if tempers fray and the atmosphere (no pun intended) becomes tense between workmates, being able to leave for the evening provides the opportunity to relax, reflect and regroup. Getting along with no time off for good behaviour would be seriously hard, even for a rocket scientist. Imagine how all their quirks and habits must have got on each other’s nerves, even though it’s presumably impossible to chew with your mouth open in zero gravity.

An American blockade in the strait of Hormuz raises energy-market dangers after failed negotiations – pushing a fragile ceasefire closer to collapse

As the US vice-president, JD Vance, took to a podium in Pakistan after 21 hours of diplomacy and said no deal had been reached to end the war with Iran, his boss Donald Trump was in Miami watching a mixed martial arts fight. The contrast was stark. Just when the outcome of a war and the stability of global markets hung in the balance, the president chose spectacle over engagement. Mr Trump may intend to project strength. But the impression he creates – in Tehran and among America’s allies – is of a president less interested in the substance of diplomacy than in the politics surrounding it.

The talks in Islamabad didn’t fail accidentally; the US and Iran were talking past each other. Washington’s position is that Iran must abandon its capacity to develop a nuclear weapon, while Tehran insists it is not seeking one and has the right to a civilian nuclear programme. The US vice-president’s “final and best offer” would have required Iran to give up that capacity altogether – terms that looked less like the basis of a negotiation than an attempt to impose the conditions of victory.

In both Republican and Democratic states, scepticism and hostility towards an unregulated construction boom is growing

When blue-collar Trump voters and Maga-friendly midwest states join the same cause as Bernie Sanders and liberal California teachers, something novel is afoot. Last month it was the turn of the Republican party in Texas to express forthright opposition to the construction of datacentres for artificial intelligence, pending adequate environmental safeguards for local communities. Across the United States, similar campaigns are being waged, as voters from across the political spectrum rail against the outsize influence and power of big tech.

For the White House, which has made the rapid rollout of datacentres a priority in its AI action plan, the scale of the protests is an unwelcome surprise. One of Donald Trump’s first acts on returning to office was to authorise the deregulated “build, baby, build” approach demanded by the Silicon Valley backers who helped to fund his campaign. Industry giants such Amazon and Microsoft are driving an estimated $710bn worth of investment in datacentres this year, as they stake their future on staying ahead in the AI race.

Readers respond to Reform UK’s threat to deny visas to citizens of countries seeking compensation for slavery

It is not necessary to agree with the slavery reparations movement in order to see through the crude and threadbare logic of Zia Yusuf’s tirade against it (Reform UK would stop visas for people from countries seeking slavery reparations, 7 April). Britain’s prominent role in ending the slave trade and subsequently slavery neither absolves its involvement in those enterprises nor erases their effects. Endless reiteration of it does, however, encourage a sentimental attachment to a single, insular version of history.

Similarly, to claim that advocates for reparations are using history “as a weapon to drain our treasury” is a wilful misrepresentation, designed to jolt the indignant reflexes of Reform UK supporters too lazy to engage with extensive argument.

James Kyle responds to an article by Keir Starmer on supporting the less well off in society

For the most part in his recent article (Workers, pensioners and children: all better off. Ignore the critics – we really are standing up for working people, 5 April), Keir Starmer rightly flags up the introduction of policies supporting the less well off in this society. However, I believe it was an ill-considered move to include the statement about increasing the state pension. As a pensioner I am not seeing a straightforward improvement and instead seeing a policy that is reducing the benefit of those increases.

The triple lock, established by a Conservative–Liberal Democrat government in 2010, was designed to ensure that pensioners who had made tax and national insurance contributions throughout their working lives did not see their pension watered down. However, under the current approach this is actually being undermined. The outcome of freezing the personal allowance means that a significant and increasing proportion of pensioners, based on pension-related income alone, will have to pay tax, thus offsetting the intended benefit of the triple lock. This is made worse for any pensioner with even a small amount of additional income, and will become more burdensome as the personal allowance freeze continues into subsequent years.

As Stella Creasy’s experience shows, these encounters follow a pattern typically comprising seven elements, writes Dr Susan Watson

Reading Stella Creasy’s piece about the online abuse she received after sharing an image of herself enjoying a silent disco in her constituency filled me with a mix of anger and weary understanding (When I get abused just for dancing, it shows how far hatred of politicians has gone, 7 April).

My own research in this area, which now spans almost a decade, has consistently shown that women working across the public sphere are targeted with misogynistic online abuse, and that what happens in digital spaces echoes other forms of gender‑based violence.

Jess Bassett was frustrated to find chips with everything on a recent holiday, but Brittany Ferries’ offering on the return trip was a delightful surprise

Ellie Violet Bramley’s efforts to find the perfect kids menu resonated deeply with me as a mum just back from a trip to France, where every child’s option was nuggets, burger or fish with chips (‘Before I can stop her, my daughter is licking crumbs from the table’: my search for the perfect kids’ menu, 7 April).

Perhaps naively, I’d imagined a better offering from our French counterparts, but staying in a popular ski resort at Easter, I concluded that maybe they knew who they were catering for.

Oliuwadamilola Ogunyankinnu due to appear in court on Monday over fatal stabbing in north London

A man has been charged with murder after the death of 21-year-old Finbar Sullivan, who was stabbed to death in Primrose Hill.

The Metropolitan police said Oliuwadamilola Ogunyankinnu, 27, of Southbury Road in Enfield, had been charged with murder on Sunday and was due to appear at Stratford magistrates court on Monday.

Exclusive: closures are part of pledge by Labour to end all use of hotels for asylum seekers by end of this parliament

The Home Office is to announce the closure of 11 asylum hotels this week as part of its pledge to close all such facilities by the end of this parliament.

The use of hotels to house asylum seekers has been controversial since it became widespread at the start of the Covid pandemic. Anti-migrant protesters have staged demonstrations outside hotels, claiming asylum seekers are living a life of luxury there.

Mo-Rez reduced or eliminated tumours in over 60% of patients and is expected to be a blockbuster drug

GSK has revealed positive results for a treatment for gynaecological cancers as its chief executive, Luke Miels, seeks to speed up drug development at the group.

The company said that in an early-stage trial Mocertatug Rezetecan, known as Mo-Rez, shrank or eliminated tumours in 62% of patients with ovarian cancer where chemotherapy had failed, and in 67% of those with endometrial cancer.

Officials confirm misfire as Amnesty gives death toll after speaking to survivors of strike on market in Yobe state

A Nigerian air force strike targeting jihadist rebels hit a market in north-east Nigeria, killing more than 100 people and injuring many others, Amnesty International and local media have said.

Officials confirmed a misfire had occurred but did not provide details.

Hundreds of officers deployed to regain control of O’Connell Street on sixth day of protests by farmers and hauliers

Police have cleared a blockade of central Dublin by farmers and hauliers who were protesting about fuel prices, signalling a possible end to six days of protests that have rocked Ireland.

Mounted units and hundreds of officers regained control of O’Connell Street in a peaceful operation that emptied the thoroughfare of trucks and tractors on Sunday morning.

Study identified eight areas that can sustain a population and government has given £1m for recovery programme

“The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.” So wrote Shakespeare in Richard III, in a line of social commentary that feels ever more relevant with age.

A note of good news then, in a world of so much bad, that the eagles the Bard was probably referring to could finally be reintroduced to England after more than 150 years.

Cyclone crossed coast near Maketu peninsula, packing destructive winds exceeding 130km/h (80 mph), heavy rain and large swells

Cyclone Vaianu made landfall in New Zealand’s North Island on Sunday, triggering floods, power outages and forcing hundreds to evacuate.

The cyclone crossed the coast near the Maketu peninsula, packing destructive winds exceeding 130km/h (80 mph), heavy rain and large swells, national weather provider MetService said, describing Vaianu as a “life-threatening” system.

Iran war drives demand for solar panels, heat pumps and EVs, with energy bills expected to rise 18% from July

British households are turning to green home energy upgrades in record numbers to try to keep bills down as the Iran crisis sends global oil and gas prices soaring, data from leading energy suppliers suggests.

Figures show demand for solar panels, electric vehicles and heat pumps in Great Britain has leapt since the war began on 28 February, as households brace for a sharp increase in monthly payments when the next energy price cap takes effect in the summer.

On Monday, a public inquiry will reopen, nine years after the plan was proposed and a toxic local battle began

When Fidelma O’Kane retired more than a decade ago from her career as a social worker and lecturer, she thought she would be “travelling and having a glass of wine and eating chocolate and reading books” while based in the quiet, hilly corner of rural County Tyrone where she has lived almost all her life.

It didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, an idle remark from a neighbour would set O’Kane on a path that would become an all-consuming mission. A mining company, the neighbour told her, was planning to drill for long-rumoured reserves of gold in the Sperrins, the low peatland mountain range in Northern Ireland where O’Kane’s family has lived for generations.

Last year’s drop may reflect rising unemployment and improved right to request flexible working, experts say

The number of workers in Great Britain taking their bosses to employment tribunals over remote working fell last year for the first time since Covid hit, with a tightening labour market making some more reluctant to leave roles despite return-to-office mandates.

There were 54 employment tribunals decided in England, Scotland and Wales in 2025 that cited remote working, according to an analysis of records by the HR consultants Hamilton Nash: down 13% compared with 2024.

Formerly unloved vegetable casts off lowly roots to feature in Great Pavilion after online craze among young gardeners

They are an unloved root vegetable traditionally grown for cattle feed, and when pulled from the ground they look like an ingredient destined for a witch’s cauldron.

But the humble mangelwurzel will be in pride of place in the Great Pavilion at this year’s Chelsea flower show (19-23 May), after becoming the subject of an online craze among young gardeners.

Described as the ‘must-have’ home accessory of 2026, sales of ‘posh’ matchboxes are up 121% at Selfridges

Goodbye Swan Vesta, hello Cartier. Matchboxes are the latest home accessory to get a luxury makeover – and some of the price tags are striking.

At the upmarket department store chain Selfridges, sales of posh matchboxes are up 121% year-on-year and it said they were “the must-have home accessory for 2026”. The store has more than doubled its range to meet demand, selling over 100 styles at prices ranging from £5 to more than £230.

Crime and corruption top voter concerns in highly unpredictable election with 35 candidates for president

Peruvians go to the polls on Sunday hoping to break a cycle of instability that has produced nine presidents in a decade as well as surging violent crime, corruption scandals and overwhelming distrust in institutions and politicians.

About 27 million people who are eligible to vote must choose between a record 35 presidential candidates as well as contenders for the bicameral congress – all from a ballot sheet measuring nearly half a metre, the longest in the country’s history.

From Vance’s interest to Trump’s commitment to disclosure, administration’s fascination with UFOs has experts feeling close to evidence of aliens

Like most politicians, Donald Trump did not campaign on the issue of space aliens. But 15 months into his second term, UFO enthusiasts have been buoyed by the Trump administration’s apparent fascination with extraterrestrials, with one expert claiming the human race has “never been closer” to being presented with hard evidence of aliens.

After a largely alien-free first 12 months, the president has committed himself to UFO disclosure in 2026. In February, Trump directed various departments to release “government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life”, and the White House took the unusual step of registering domain “aliens.gov” in March, setting pulses racing among believers online.

Just as the industry is set to capitalize on country’s political and economic instability, president accused in $5m scheme

The Argentinian president, Javier Milei, is facing his lowest approval ratings since taking office in 2023 as newly published evidence allegedly reveals a $5m financial agreement connected to his public endorsement last year of a controversial crypto project.

The scandal has tarnished crypto’s reputation across Argentina and set back the ambitions of industry insiders who saw the country as fertile soil for the growth of digital money.

As president Patrice Talon steps down after a decade, the west African country’s finance minister is favourite to win

This Sunday, just four months after a failed coup, Benin heads to the polls for a presidential election that feels more like a coronation than a contest.

Patrice Talon, the businessman turned politician who has been president since 2016, is ineligible to run again after serving two five-year terms.

Exclusive: US state is targeting corporate heavyweights in the UK with subsidies and incentives

• Y’all Street: Bullish Dallas aims to steal New York’s crown

The US state of Texas is putting UK businesses in its crosshairs with the launch this month of a dedicated London office to lure jobs and investment to the low-tax Lone Star State.

Texas recently secured approval for the new site, adding to a growing list of international offices from which it can try to draw corporate heavyweights across its borders.

The firm says it withheld an AI model on cybersecurity grounds but sceptics say this was hype to lure investment

This week, the AI company Anthropic said it had created an AI model so powerful that, out of a sense of overwhelming responsibility, it was not going to release it to the public.

The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, summoned the heads of major banks for a chat about the model, Mythos. The Reform UK MP Danny Kruger wrote a letter to the government urging it to “engage with AI firm Anthropic whose new frontier model Claude Mythos could present catastrophic cybersecurity risks to the UK”. X went wild.

Estate agents say rising mortgage costs have created a mood of fear, with Canterbury among the cities being hit

• Have you lost a mortgage deal or seen your rate rise?

On a warm, spring morning in Canterbury, the cobbled streets are buzzing with activity and the white Tudor houses gleam in the sun.

It is a scene that seems far removed from events in the Middle East, but the conflict is undermining business and consumer confidence – rattling the city’s housing market just as the spring selling season began.

A Guardian investigation reveals how the prediction market can shape news – and how it rules on ‘the truth’

“Horekunden” was rapidly losing patience.

His frustration was with the Institute for the Study of War, a US thinktank which produces a daily map of the frontline in Ukraine.

On productions ranging from Les Liaisons Dangereuses to John Proctor Is the Villain, an army of technical wizards help ensure London’s stage productions are believable and spectacular

What does it take to create a giant chandelier on stage, decked out with more than 100 perfectly balanced, flickering candles? What about a disco floor that dazzles the audience in a play’s final moments but is hidden from view until then? On the eve of the 50th Olivier awards, we meet the artists, apprentices, engineers and designers behind some of London’s most memorable theatrical moments this year.

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Aidan Turner, Lucia Chocarro and Monica Barbaro in Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the National Theatre, London

An emotional singing contest starts in rainy Liverpool. Plus: will Paddington win big at the Oliviers? Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, Channel 4

Fanning is a young single mother who makes adult content in this hilarious series. It is smart, sexy and bold – and Pfeiffer is unmissable as her ex-Hooters-waitress mother

I promise, it’s the title that drew me in. Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a new Apple TV show (out Wednesday), starring Elle Fanning as a single mum who becomes an OnlyFans model. It joins a niche canon of similarly blunt titles about generic obstacles. To wit: Fleishman Is in Trouble; Big Trouble in Little China. Margo’s Got Money Troubles is better, though. Check out the assonance, the rhythm. It has great mouthfeel, to borrow a word from food reviewing, one I instantly regret.

Our hero, Margo Millet, is a first-year college student who falls pregnant by her professor. The married academic tells her to get an abortion; her friends agree with him. She has the baby. She drops out of college, falls into money troubles. She attempts to fall out of them by joining the notorious content creation platform. She does nude video shoots, in the character of a sexy alien. If none of this inflames you, can I interest you in Nick Offerman as Margo’s pro-wrestler, drug-addicted father? Or Michelle Pfeiffer as her blue collar, ex-Hooters-waitress mother? No? Are you dead?

In this week’s newsletter: From forgotten gems to cult curios, these shows quietly shaped our viewing habits, and some of TV’s most charming oddballs deserve your attention

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The quizshow will never die. Nuclear war could rid the earth of all living creatures bar the cockroaches and still, a shiny floored half-hourer hosted by Stephen Mulhern will somehow be airing on the emergency broadcast system. Quizshows have been airing on British screens since 1938, when a televised spelling bee was broadcast on the BBC, and they have remained remarkably resilient. Today they seem a good accompaniment to an era where everyone seems to be tapping away at puzzles on their phone.

Scroll down the channel guide of your TV and it won’t be long until you find a quizshow (and that one will almost certainly be The Chase). The format remains completely irresistible to commissioners. Relatively cheap and endlessly replicable, it serves as perfect filler for teatime TV. If one fiendishly high-concept quiz doesn’t catch fire it can be quietly cancelled without too much bother, knowing another will be conjured up in short order. If it really catches fire, in the manner of Pointless, Tipping Point or The 1% Club, primetime and the hallowed celebrity special awaits. And if it really catches fire, then well, you have something that can trundle on for decades (The Chase is now almost old enough to vote) before being regurgitated endlessly in repeat form on Challenge.

What happened to his disappearing Höfner bass? Plus: Jack Whitehall helms Saturday Night Live UK before it takes a break. Here’s what to watch this evening

8.45pm, BBC Two

Royal Festival Hall, London
Young performers brought tremendous quality and personal touches to a concert of works from Wagner to pop star Jacob Collier, under the focused guidance of new principal conductor Alpesh Chauhan

There’s always more at an NYO concert. More players: 160 this time, crammed on to a platform that seems full with half that number. More of the energy that comes with the fact that, for every player, this is a very special occasion. And, in recent seasons, more stuff to remind us that these are teenagers, not hard-bitten professionals.

This time there was a semi-choreographed walk-on to a mashup of Raye and Chaka Khan, with the percussion taking the lead and the assembled orchestra eventually joining in. There was a short speech from one of the players before each work – somewhere between pointing out a personal connection with the music and giving superfluous justification for its inclusion. And as an encore – sung, not played – there was Jacob Collier’s Something Heavy, with a bit more choreography.

Pushing his winsome songwriting into rootsier territory with a little help from co-producer MJ Lenderman, the New Yorker’s debut album is primed to soundtrack your summer

From New York City, New York
Recommended if you like The Clean, This is Lorelei, The Feelies
Up next Debut album Hercules out 10 July

Tracey Nelson’s self-titled 2025 debut EP was one of the year’s best lesser-heard gems: Five tracks of sparkling, winsome indie-rock that recalled classic antipodean jangle bands the Clean, Twerps and Dick Diver. Tracks such as New Years Flowers and Just Shoot Me Now suggested that Austin Noll – the NYC-based singer-songwriter behind the project – was a classicist with a keen sense for bright melodies and self-deprecating one-liners.

(New Year)
Londoner Alex Peringer breaks from his intriguing and outlandish dance music with this debut album of charming bedroom-pop ballads

A decade ago, Londoner Alex Peringer intrigued underground club circles with his outlandish take on dance music. Structured around dizzying time signatures and wry tales of unfulfilling lovers and pills gone wrong, his tracks referenced everything from UK funky to new wave and sea shanties. Then came several years of near silence – now broken by this self-released debut album, How Long Has It Been? The record acknowledges this break not just in the title, but also in its sound. On first listen, it couldn’t seem more different to Peringer’s early work, with those discordant constructions now replaced by the warm tinkering of the Rhodes electric piano and ostensibly earnest sentiment. But traces of that eccentricity still linger in this collection of atmospheric bedroom-pop ballads.

The record takes winter as its theme, though it feels fitting for this transitional time of year, with its stories of introspection and dodgy weather set against soft, simple arrangements. A handful of subtly wonky elements stop it from sounding overly polished or guileless: Before and After slips in a reference to a “fateful bong”; on the dreamy duet Two Lovers, glitches cut through the twinkling keys and mumblecore guest vocals. Elsewhere, the chords waver on Black Keys, one of several gorgeous and forlorn instrumentals.

(Polydor)
The British singer-songwriter replaces introspection with euphoric choruses, 80s synths and even happy hardcore on her vivid second LP

As a profession, pop stardom has been in existential crisis for some time. It used to be simple – a hit single was the only real qualification – but in a post-monocultural world, the job title is often bestowed as a result of more piecemeal success: a Brit rising star award and Taylor Swift support slot here, 4m monthly Spotify listeners and a Top 5 album there.

This, specifically, is the CV of Lincolnshire’s Holly Humberstone, who has established herself in the pop sphere without ever troubling the singles chart. While an undeniable banger has eluded the 26-year-old, her sound is faultlessly chart-friendly. Like Swift, Humberstone delivers earnestly wordy lyrics in intimate, near-ASMR tones atop 80s synth-pop decorated with a deluge of hooks. For this second album, she has dropped the hint of gothic melancholy that accompanied her debut, Paint My Bedroom Black. Cruel World is peppy bordering on euphoric: inordinately sunny break-up song To Love Somebody is powered by a stadium-ready pre-chorus, while the brilliantly catchy White Noise plugs into nostalgically naff disco to channel imperial-phase Kylie.

The South African author on discovering Colette, being inspired by JG Ballard, and the subversive joys of Asako Yuzuki

My earliest reading memory
The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss, particularly the little red fan the cat holds in the tip of its tail. At the age of five, I was reading The Famous Five, getting to grips with Enid Blyton’s most complex characters, Aunt Fanny and Uncle Quentin. I was born in apartheid South Africa. The children in the Famous Five series had no human rights problems and it is set in Dorset, a landscape that was totally unknown to me. My bedroom window in Johannesburg looked out on a garden of bone-white grass and a peach tree.

My favourite book growing up
I was delighted to move on to the imaginative sophistication of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. CS Lewis’s lucky strike was to come up with the idea that a wardrobe was the portal to another world. Although she terrified me, I wanted to meet the White Witch, who rode on a sleigh pulled by white reindeer.

A Stoic philosopher navigates midlife in this madcap comedy from the author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette

What would Marcus Aurelius have made of the Kardashians? Would Seneca have been amused by mindfulness apps? These were questions I had never consciously pondered before reading Maria Semple’s new novel. Neither, in my irrational and unvirtuous state, had I spent much time considering the application of Stoic philosophy to any other key aspects of modern life.

Semple, best known for her exuberant, ingenious bestseller Where’d You Go, Bernadette?, here presents us with Adora Hazzard, Stoic philosopher and divorcee. Adora lives a contented life on New York City’s Upper West Side, spending her days tutoring the twin sons of an old-money family in philosophy and seeking to live according to Stoic virtues, without recourse to destabilising “externals”. But her settled life is soon disrupted by that most classic of externals, the handsome stranger. “Curse these alluring men who throw us off our game!” (Marcus Aurelius, paraphrased.)

Loss Protocol by Paul McAuley; Night Babies by Lucie McKnight Hardy; Honeysuckle by Bar Fridman-Tell; Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

Loss Protocol by Paul McAuley (Gollancz, £22)
In a Britain racked by the effects of climate change, about 50 years from now, Marc Winters’ quiet life as a ranger on a nature reserve in Essex is about to be disturbed. Counter-terrorism officers arrive to question him about events from eight years before, when a cult his sister Izzy was part of had self-immolated. He’d hardly been aware of this group of “deep dreamers”, who thought they could change the world through a sort of mental time travel enabled by psychotropic mushrooms. But now both government agents and deep dreamers alike think Izzy must have passed some vital information to her brother, whether he knows it or not. With no idea of the existential danger he faces, Marc sets out to investigate. Beautifully written, blending close attention to the natural world with hallucinogenic dreams and a mind-boggling premise, this is an eco-thriller like no other from one of Britain’s best SF writers.

Night Babies by Lucie McKnight Hardy (John Murray, £18.99)
When their house is flooded, Astrid and her husband take the refuge offered by her friend Flora in the Brecon Beacons. Astrid was particularly affected by the flood, which damaged paintings intended for her first solo exhibition at a prestigious London gallery. The old chapel her friend is renovating becomes her new studio. But instead of working to salvage her portraits, she becomes obsessed with painting the landscape of lake and sky. She tries to shrug off her bad dreams, strange physical sensations, missing items and the dirty, child-sized handprints on the walls, but disturbing facts about the chapel’s history emerge, and she’s not the only one affected by what appears to be a malevolent haunting. She’s haunted, too, by memories of a student art trip to Florence, a significant turning point in her friendship with Flora. Astrid is her own worst enemy, but her issues – ambition, envy, ambivalence about motherhood – will resonate with many readers. A sophisticated, chilling tale that works both as supernatural and psychological horror.

From an extraordinary debut inspired by a real-life breakdown to a creepy masterpiece, here’s a guide to the Scottish novelist’s works

Next week marks 20 years since the death of the Scottish novelist, short story writer, poet and essayist Muriel Spark. She was best known for her 22 novels – uncanny, astute and witty – beginning with her 1957 debut The Comforters. Here, James Bailey, the author of a new biography, Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark, guides us through her oeuvre.

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As The Super Mario Galaxy Movie storms the box office, we look back at the best forgotten games inspired by Tetris, Lemmings and … vitamins?

It should be no surprise that the latest Super Mario movie is smashing box office records – despite the, let’s say mixed, reviews. Nintendo’s iconic plumber has been a pop culture staple for 45 years, starring in some of the bestselling video games ever made, from the original Donkey Kong through to the joyous Super Mario Bros Wonder and the chaotic Mario Kart World.

But as with any storied showbiz career, there have been some lesser works. Who can forget – or actually remember – Hotel Mario, a door-shutting puzzle game for the doomed Philips CD-i console? Or what about Mario Teaches Typing, a 1992 educational game for the PC in which players navigate the Mushroom Kingdom by … correctly inputting words. Yet there have also been genuine treasures lost along the way. Here, then, are seven of our favourite much-overlooked Mario odysseys.

As real astronauts vanish behind the moon, games have long tried to evoke the fragile quiet of drifting through space

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Last week’s launch of the Artemis II space mission was a stunning spectacle, the 17-storey-high rockets erupting into cacophonous life before wrenching the craft through the Earth’s atmosphere. But the images that have come since hold just as much impact: the tiny Orion craft and its four-person crew drifting silently through space, further and further from home.

In his autobiography, the Apollo astronaut Michael Collins described this feeling perfectly. Left in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface, he wrote: “I am alone now, truly alone, and absolutely isolated from any known life. I am it. If a count were taken, the score would be three billion plus two over on the other side of the moon, and one plus God knows what on this side.”

PlayStation 5 (version tested), Xbox, Nintendo Switch 2, PC; Deck Nine/Square Enix
Max and Chloe, the two teen protagonists of the 2015 game, reunite as adults – giving players the chance to finally finish their journey

In 2015, Life Is Strange stood out for two reasons: its female protagonists, a depressingly rare feature at the time, and its unique brand of millennial cringe. The thirtysomething Frenchmen who created this series may not have had the best grasp of the 2010s teen lexicon, but they did have a good gauge on what’s important about any coming-of-age story, and that’s the relationships between the characters. Max Caulfield, the shy, time-travelling wannabe photographer, and Chloe Price, the traumatised, punk-rock tearaway, had a memorably intense friendship. It was the heart and soul of that game, and now, 11 years later, they are reunited as adults in this final chapter of their story.

For a lot of players, Max and Chloe felt like more than best friends. The game’s original developers were not brave enough to make this explicit in 2015, but newer custodians Deck Nine retconned a romantic relationship between Max and Chloe into 2024’s Life Is Strange: Double Exposure. You can still play Reunion as if the two really were just friends, resulting in some awkward ambiguity in some scenes. Whichever way you slice it, though, this is a game about first love, and how it always stays with you, even when its object does not. And damned if it didn’t make me feel something.

We are paying more for a PlayStation so that idiots can use ChatGPT to mislead people on dating apps – something is rotten in the state of gaming

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When the PlayStation 5 launched almost five and a half years ago, it was listed at £449 in the UK. If you were to buy one at the recommended retail price today, it would be £569.99, or £789.99 for the updated Pro model. Sony has just raised the price of its console by another £90, the latest in a series of hikes. This is unprecedented: consoles have always decreased in price over time (until they become retro collectibles – the other day, I saw someone asking £200 for a SNES on Vinted). So, what’s going on?

Unfortunately, this is another case of artificial intelligence ruining things for everyone. AI data centres need lots and lots and lots of computing power to be able to present you with lies whenever you Google anything, and this has pushed up demand and pricing for RAM and storage. This isn’t the only reason prices are rising – the wars in Ukraine and Iran have caused global economic disruption, and rampant inflation has eaten into many companies’ bottom line. But AI is the cause that’s easiest to get angry about, because it doesn’t need to be this way.

The Place, London
This double bill from choreographers James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight features fluent steps, tension and expression, but their expressed human connection to an AI-driven world was hard to discern

There’s a particular look you see on dancers sometimes, as if taking a slow, deep inhalation of something expensive, unfixed gaze, slightly furrowed brow. It’s hard to describe – you know it when you see it – but what it signals is emotional gravitas. It’s often coupled with portentous or overtly emotive music. Both of these things appear in PCK Dance’s double bill Into the Light, along with other signifiers: dark and ominous atmosphere, even an overwritten blurb in the programme.

The thing is, choreographic duo James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight don’t need this heavy-handed help, which can drown out the subtleties of the dance, because they are actually really good crafters of movement. The pair are former members of Company Wayne McGregor who’ve been picking up steam as choreographers, and you can see that pedigree in their strong, slick, finessed dancing (and the way their legs whip into the air at extreme angles). They have a talent for stringing together steps in fast but clear sequences packed with movement, like the chatter of a motoring brain. It’s made with fluency and attention to form.

Soho theatre, London
In his show You Wait. Time Passes, the comedian energetically distils his approach to pursuing futile creative choices with philosophy and silly jokes thrown in

How do you know that you’re an artist? Have you made the right choices in life? Pertinent questions, these, especially if you’ve spent decades on the fringes of (in Joz Norris’s case) leftfield comedy, far from the trappings of fame and glory. Norris, with a sweatband marked “Artist” wrapped around his brow, addresses these concerns and more in his latest maverick confection You Wait. Time Passes, albeit with as little self-seriousness as it’s possible to muster. It’s a show exploring the choice to make extravagantly silly art that is itself extravagantly silly.

I admired it immensely, without enjoying every single moment. To begin with, and again latterly, its zaniness felt a bit strenuous, as Norris presents himself to us in sort-of character as an unhinged, self-absorbed guru figure, imparting life lessons in the buildup to his Big Reveal, “the grand unveiling of my life’s work” – in a box, on a pillar, upstage. There is a seat reserved for his estranged wife: this’ll show her! We hear about their breakup, and piece together a picture of our host’s glaring inadequacies as a family man. We see snippets of the career (comedian, actor, magician…) this alt-Norris has enjoyed until now, and a section on his bid to become Google’s number one Joz. A later dialogue with his erratic AI girlfriend includes lots of funny back-and-forth in the controlling/collapsing manner of a latter-day Rik Mayall.

Brixton House, London
Five writers contribute fizzing ideas aplenty to this play exploring questions of Latinx identity in Britain, while also attempting to deliver an undercover drama

There’s no shortage of creative ambition in Valentina Andrade, Elizabeth Alvarado, Lucy Wray, Tommy Ross-Williams and Joana Nastari’s play exploring the experiences of Latinx women in modern London. In the style of a pop concert, four shadowy figures pose to the pulse of techno beats mixed with options from the UK census. “White, Black, Asian, Mixed,” it says – Latinx is notably absent.

Then comes a clash of identities inside what looks like a giant hairband. Notting Hill carnival or Rio carnival? Brazilian bikini or swimming costume? The actors stretch the elastic in different directions in an image that depicts the constant push and pull of feeling like you belong to two places at once. Later, the audience is asked to answer questions from the British citizen test; of course, barely anyone knows the answers.

Arcola theatre, London
Writer Ken Ludwig’s heartfelt and funny romcom draws the audience into every step of Jack and Louise’s developing affection, their longing deepened by physical separation

This epistolary story of two people looking for love is the ultimate antithesis to the modern-day dating app. Set in a time when a message was less a flighty ping away, more as slow as the postal service, it is a delightful romcom through letters. It features Jack (Preston Nyman) and Louise (Eva Feiler), who begin writing to each other because family members think they might make a match. It is 1942, Jack is a military doctor tending to burns and amputations while Louise is a dancer trying to break into Broadway musicals.

It goes from stiff opening courtship to a chalk-and-cheese meeting of minds and then develops into a genuine relationship, all without either having met, the first date forever being deferred because Jack can’t get leave, or Louise is in a touring show.

Acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader who was one of the most significant figures in the history of British jazz

As Ronnie Scott’s Old Place – the original basement club on Gerrard Street in London’s Chinatown – prepared to close its doors for the final time on 25 May 1968, the last musicians to take the stand were the 10 young members of Mike Westbrook’s Concert Band.

Recruited from a variety of backgrounds, they formed the vehicle with which their leader had begun to demonstrate his gift for slotting together elements of jazz from various periods and styles, filtering them all through his own sensibility to produce something thoroughly stirring, definitely contemporary and highly original. A capacity audience had queued all the way from the club’s entrance to Shaftesbury Avenue, and stayed on at the end to applaud the work of a musician on his way to becoming one of the most significant and productive figures in the history of British jazz.

The Circulation(s) photo festival has returned to Paris for its 16th edition. On show are works by 26 young European photographers. The projects capture the pulse of young European photography, its intuitions, challenges and commitments

Circulation(s) will take place at the Centquatre-Paris from 21 March to 17 May 2026

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
The English indie rock band’s first festival set in eight years hypnotized with their atmospheric dance sound

When Jamie Smith, Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft took the Coachella main stage on Friday evening, you could be forgiven for forgetting the momentousness of the occasion. The trio known as the xx has not performed together in eight years, save for a couple of warm-up shows in Mexico City before the California festival, though they’ve hardly been absent from the music scene. Smith, the renowned electronic producer known as Jamie xx, is now a festival mainstay, while Madley Croft and Sim have each built on the indie rock band’s signature haunted sound with their solo material, 2023’s clubby Mid Air and 2022’s horror-tinged Hideous Bastard, respectively.

The three childhood friends still collaborate – Jamie produced Sim’s Hideous Bastard – and their long-awaited Coachella reunion, the first outing of a planned festival run and “new chapter”, felt more like peeking into an ongoing mind-meld than one of the buzziest sets of the festival. The group appeared in their signature all-black and launched into their 2009 debut single Crystalised as if no time had passed.

Fraudulent music streams have long been a scourge for the industry, but experts say generative AI has supercharged it

Jason Moran, a renowned jazz composer and pianist, got a strange call from a friend last month. The friend, bassist Burniss Earl Travis, was curious about Moran’s new record that he saw on the music streaming service Spotify.

“It has your name on it,” Travis told him. “But I don’t think it’s you.”

A multimillion-pound industry has sprung up promising it can detect sensitivities to certain ingredients with a simple remote finger prick test. But the results can be misleading – and even dangerous

My kitchen table is littered with tiny test tubes, envelopes and plastic lancets. At one end of the table, I have a parcel containing everything I need to take a food intolerance blood test, sold by one of the best-known companies in this market, as well as one of their food and environmental allergy tests, a package deal that cost me just over £200.

At the other end, I’ve arranged everything I need to do a top-of-the-range ALEX2 allergy blood test, which I got from the allergy clinic run by Dr Helen Evans-Howells, a GP and allergy specialist who runs clinics in Hampshire, Belfast and online. This costs £295 and comprises two lancets, which I will soon be using to puncture tiny holes in several of my fingertips; a blood tube; disinfecting wipes; and a return envelope. In the middle of the table, I have a large bowl of hot water, in which my left hand is soaking. I’ve also cut off a lock of my hair, which is now in a sandwich bag ready to be sent to a lab tomorrow for bioresonance testing. My plan is to compare the three sets of results, all from samples taken on the very same day. Given that I don’t have any food or environmental allergies or intolerances, all three tests should show exactly the same thing: nothing.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: what would the world look like if people didn’t make mistakes?

I always say please and thank you to my Alexa. Why is this? I am sure it doesn’t care. Is it worth being polite to artificial assistants? Alison Williams, Toronto

Send new questions to nq@theguardian.com.

Whether you want budget, organic or vegan, these are the best meal delivery services from our writer’s test of nine

• The best chef’s knives – tested

Recipe box services are the best thing to happen to time-poor foodies since, well, sliced bread. They’re cheaper than a takeaway, often less processed than a ready meal, and much more culinarily adventurous than beans on toast.

You have to do the actual cooking, but not the shopping. Recipe boxes contain every ingredient you need (well, most do), often in the exact measurements required. “Meal kits” cut hassle even further by including preprepared stocks, sauces and other flavour bombs, plus ready-chopped veg. All you have to do is put them together following the steps in the recipe, which can take less time than queueing at a supermarket checkout.

They’re pricier than the competition, but have key features: the music doesn’t skitter when you step out of Bluetooth range and they can handle water and dust

• How do Apple’s AirPods Pro 3 compare against hearing aids? I put them to the test

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Over the past eight years, I’ve reviewed dozens of portable speakers from every top brand. And I can confidently say that Sonos makes three of the best portable speakers of them all.

There’s Sonos Play, the brand’s newest portable and the Goldilocks of its lineup in size, sound and features. The Roam 2, a Toblerone-shaped speaker that’s small enough to go anywhere. And the Move 2, a powerhouse that doesn’t sacrifice bass performance.

The little one:
Sonos Roam 2

Floss without the faff with our expert-tested water flossers, from travel-size models to countertop jets

• The best electric toothbrushes, tested

There isn’t much I miss from my pre-Invisalign “gappy teeth” days, but it was far more difficult for food and plaque to get stuck in the gaps – something I took for granted at the time. Using floss between my pre-braces teeth was easy, but ultimately pointless, like using a pipe cleaner to buff the Dartford Tunnel.

With all the gaps closed, that’s no longer the case, and my water flosser has become a welcome part of my dental routine. A water flosser fires an intense jet of water between the teeth to dislodge debris and leave your mouth feeling fresher.

Best water flosser overall:
Waterpik Ultra Professional

Best budget water flosser:
Operan Cordless Oral Irrigator

Our seasoned traveller braved obstacles and mud to put the best cabin bags to the test – from hard-shell to budget, wheeled to lightweight

• The best travel pillows, tested

Let’s start by saying that if you can avoid taking a flight, that would be best. Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global carbon emissions – and the levels released by aircraft could double or triple by 2050.

Regrettably, you can’t always reach your destination by rail, sea or hot-air balloon. If flying is unavoidable, one way to reduce your carbon footprint is to take a cabin bag, rather than hold luggage. This encourages you to pack less, so your baggage is lighter, and less fuel is required to spirit it through the stratosphere. If that doesn’t move you, consider that you’ll also pay lower fees to the airline.

Best cabin bag overall:
July Carry On luggage

Best budget cabin bag:
Tripp Holiday 8 cabin suitcase

Your guilty-pleasure, late-night snack, minus the guilt, in nine easy steps.

Let’s be honest, fried chicken is one of those things that’s almost always good, but making it yourself has the benefit of allowing you to be sure of the provenance of the meat. Where fast-food restaurants tend to rely on pressure fryers for a juicy result, at home I brine the meat first using buttermilk – its slight acidity will also have a tenderising effect. Double win.

Prep 5 min
Marinate 4 hr+
Cook 40 min
Serves 2-3

The British may not have the most sophisticated palates, but we are adorable in our culinary urges

As we sit awaiting the beef rib trolley in the Grand Divan dining room at the whoppingly sized Simpson’s-in-the-Strand, we fizz with ideas of how to describe its wildly unfettered quaintness. “It’s all a bit Hogwarts, isn’t it?” I say to my friend Hugh.

He’s been four times already, but then, Simpson’s is that kind of place: a handy-as-heck, posh canteen a short stroll from Covent Garden. There’s a twinkly, ye olde cocktail bar upstairs as well as Romano’s with its more European-style menu. But, for now, let’s concentrate on the Grand Divan. “It’s all very Samuel Pepys’ London,” Hugh says.

A vegetarian noodle stir-fry full of vigour and flavour

I love going to my local Chinese supermarket; it’s like being at the top of the Magic Faraway Tree, where the world (and ergo my mealtimes) are full of wild possibilities and new travels for my tastebuds. A new favourite ingredient is rose red beancurd, so called because it’s red and fermented in a combination of red yeast and rose petals. The overall effect in this noodle recipe, a take on the Thai street food dish, suki hang, is that it imparts a delicious char siu flavour when cooked, which is a lot of magic for a single ingredient.

An upmarket, smoky ‘tegroni’ that is simplicity itself to make

All you need to make this is a glass and a spoon. We’ve switched out the tequila from the original noughties twist on the negroni and instead brought forward our favourite spirit, mezcal, to bring a lightly smoky profile to proceedings. The perfect pairing for this drink is a campfire, so it’s an especially good one to premix in a flask and chuck in your backpack for a spring camping trip.

Daniel Craig Martin, co-founder, Bar Shrimp, Manchester

A university researcher and a property manager may have found (some) common ground on leaving the EU – but what about affordable homes?

• Want to meet someone from across the divide? Click here to find out how

Graham, 76, Pangbourne

Occupation Property manager

Studying on different continents is a challenge for Veronika and Fabio … Can their young love go the distance?

• How do you do it? Share the story of your sex life, anonymously

There have been days when we’ve been on the phone for 10 hours at a stretch

When I’ve flown back to see her, we’ve tried to make up for lost time

Turn your attention to your internal landscape rather than the next building project. Make your next project yourself

My wife and I are in our late 60s. The past 20 years have felt like treading water, as all my funds are tied up in a property that, for complex reasons, I am unable to sell. We are both creative. Over the past year or so I’ve made some improvements to our house, things that make people say wow. I enjoy seeing their pleasure, but their praise isn’t hugely important to me. In fact, I am somewhat reclusive. I do not enjoy being part of a wider community and I’m content with a handful of close friends.

Last year my father died, and after a period of despair, during which I found myself contemplating suicide (I did not share this with my wife), I turned first to Samaritans, then a therapist.

Alda feels Rachel should follow jewellery ‘rules’, but Rachel likes to mix things up. You decide whose argument rings true
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

I know she’s expressing herself, but when you mix everything up, it looks thrown together and cheap

They’re not Alda’s hands to worry about – I like my mismatched mess. Why does it matter to her?

Fraudsters send emails claiming storage is full or nearly full, then trick people into clicking on links that can expose bank and personal details

For a while you’ve been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full”. They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take aren’t being uploaded.

You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of 99p a month for more storage. But it seems that you can’t keep putting off the inevitable: you have received an email which says your iCloud account has been blockedand your photos and videos will be deleted very soon. To keep them you need to upgrade immediately, it says.

All children born in the UK between September 2002 and January 2011 have a CTF – but £1bn has not been claimed

At some point in the midst of 2009 I made a decision that would change my son’s life: I started paying £10 a month into his child trust fund account.

It didn’t seem like much but, almost 18 years later, thanks to the performance of the stock market and the original government payment, he’s about to get about £10,000. At first he had no idea what to do next, financially, and he’s not alone.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The interiors guru talks museum shops, sake and loft insulation with the Filter

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Michelle Ogundehin, former editor-in-chief of Elle Decoration magazine, is the head judge on the BBC’s Interior Design Masters and co-host of Grand Designs: House of the Year. She trained as an architect and also works as a commentator and consultant, as well as being a trustee of the Design Museum.

Her bestselling first book, Happy Inside, explores how home shapes health and happiness; her forthcoming book (spring 2027), Your Powerful Home: 4 Steps to a Home that Heals, looks at your home as a partner in your wellbeing, an ethos she shares through her Happy Insiders Club, which offers guided monthly coaching.

From a modernist townhouse in London to a historic farmhouse overlooking Bridgewater canal

TikTok users increasingly say the app has steered them toward diagnosing medical problems not yet identified

Malina Lee, a 31-year-old wedding baker based in San Antonio, Texas, joined TikTok during the Covid pandemic lockdowns in 2020. Like many people at the time, she was bored and began using the platform to pass the time and advertise her business. She didn’t expect a cancer diagnosis.

Four years after Lee joined the app, a commenter with the username “PickleFart” told her that her neck looked asymmetrical in a way that could suggest she had a goiter – an enlarged thyroid gland – and that she should get it checked out. The anonymous amateur clinician turned out to be right – Lee had thyroid cancer, received treatment quickly, and, less than a year later, was cancer free.

Data on almost 28,000 patients suggests understanding gene variations could improve treatments for obesity

Scientists have discovered how genetics may help explain why weight-loss jabs work better for some people than others.

Variations in two genes involved in gut hormone pathways, which regulate appetite and digestion, may help account for different weight-loss results or side-effects when taking glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1) medicines.

It sends us to sleep and wakes us in the night, excites us and depresses us, gives us confidence one moment, anxiety the next. How does this messy drug wield so much power?

Whatever you think of alcohol, you have to admit that it’s versatile. Ever since the first humans started smashing up fruit and leaving it in pots to chug a few days later, we’ve been relying on it to celebrate and commiserate, to deal with anxiety and to make us more creative. We use it to build confidence and kill boredom, to get us in the mood for going out and to put us to (nonoptimal) sleep. Where most mind-altering substances have one or two specific use-cases, alcohol does the lot. That’s probably why it’s been so ubiquitous throughout human history – and why it can be so hard to give up entirely.

“We often call alcohol pharmacologically promiscuous,” says Dr Rayyan Zafar, a neuropsychopharmacologist from Imperial College London. “It doesn’t just calm you: it can stimulate reward pathways, dampen threat signals, release endogenous opioids that can relieve pain or stress, alter decision-making and shift mood, all at the same time.”

Oxford team’s technology picked up danger signs with 86% accuracy in study of 72,000 patients in England

Oxford scientists have developed a simple AI tool that can predict the risk of heart failure five years before it develops.

More than 60 million people worldwide have the condition in which the heart cannot pump blood around the body as well as it should. Spotting cases before they develop into heart failure would be a big step forward, experts say. Doctors could prepare better for and manage the condition at an earlier stage or even prevent it entirely.

Designer who left fashion house in January said to be considering options for his 40% stake ahead of talks with lenders

Stefano Gabbana left his post as the chair of Dolce & Gabbana at the start of this year, the fashion house he co-founded with his then partner, Domenico Dolce, has said.

The Italian luxury brand said Gabbana had tendered his resignation, effective as of 1 January, “as part of a natural evolution of its organisational structure and governance”.

Don’t save them for holidays – with the right styling white trousers will be the linchpin of your spring wardrobe

Her rare cover appearance with Meryl Streep may be to promote The Devil Wears Prada sequel, but it also marks a shift from elusive editor to carefully curated personal brand

In the world of magazines, when someone announces they’re leaving a job, their colleagues will traditionally present them with their own personalised mock-up of the magazine’s front cover. Perhaps their face is superimposed on the body of a previous celebrity cover star. There are probably some witty cover lines referencing memorable office moments or their favourite snacks. It’s a rite of passage – and this week, Anna Wintour was bestowed with her very own cover. But instead of a jokey imitation bidding her adieu, it was the real, glossy deal, coming to a newsstand near you on 28 April.

In a somewhat surprising effort to promote the forthcoming The Devil Wears Prada 2, Vogue’s May issue sees Wintour share the cover with Meryl Streep, whose steely Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of the fictional title Runway, is said to have been inspired by Wintour. “Seeing Double. When Miranda met Anna” reads the cover line. While Wintour has fronted various industry titles, including Interview in 1993 and Ad Week in 2017, it’s the first time an editor has placed themselves as the subject. In another fun twist, both Wintour and Streep are wearing Prada.

After decades of focusing on faces, manufacturers, beauticians and surgeons are offering us younger-looking hands. Is this more about money or scientific progress?

I lay my hands on the table, palms down, for inspection. I’m in the consulting room of the president of the British College of Aesthetic Medicine (BCAM) in London. Like most people, I use my hands a lot. I type for hours a day. I go bouldering, which means I have a lot of calluses. I cook, clean, cup my chin while staring out the window. What I’ve never done is to look at my hands as objects of interest in their own right. They’re an afterthought. The means to an end. But now that Dr Sophie Shotter has picked them up in hers and is weighing my flesh and pushing at the skin with her thumbs to see how it moves, I can see faint ripples of diamonds, the texture of crepe paper.

“Your facial skin is very clear, very smooth. When we look at your hands, you’ve got a bit more of that laxity going on,” Shotter says. “You don’t have pigmentation. You’re not covered in sunspots. But the veins and tendons testify to a loss of volume. The extreme end of that is one day we get what people describe as ‘old lady hands’ – significant volume loss with skin fragility overlying it.”

On the north coast of Spain you can see some of the world’s oldest art, explore a stunning medieval village, then watch surfers ride Atlantic swells

Exploring the area west of Santander feels like being in a time machine. Within a half-hour drive of the Cantabrian capital on Spain’s green northern coast, you can stumble upon prehistoric cave art, a perfectly preserved medieval town and a laid-back beach resort.

When I began my weekend trip, it was raining, so my journey started in the Upper Paleolithic period, at the Cave of Altamira, a Unesco world heritage site, staring up at some of the oldest art on Earth. Well, almost. The original cave was largely closed to the public decades ago to protect the fragile paintings, so we were inside the Neocueva, a painstakingly reconstructed replica built beside it that costs just €3 to enter.

While Málaga battles overtourism down the coast, this ‘forgotten’ working port city revels in its outsider status

Perched high on the battlements of Almería’s 10th-century Alcazaba, looking over the mosaic of flat roofs tumbling down to the sea, I’m reminded of author Gerald Brenan’s travel classic South from Granada, and his impression upon arriving in Almería in 1920: “Certainly, it seemed that the sea was doubly Mediterranean here, and the city … contained within it echoes of distant civilisations.”

A British adventurer, Hispanist and fringe member of the Bloomsbury group, Brenan had walked to Almería from where he was living near Granada, apparently to buy extra furniture in preparation for a visit from Virginia Woolf and friends. A century later, my journey here in a 30-year-old van from London is somewhat less notable, but as I marvel at the almost surreal incandescence of the Med, and the maze of ancient streets below me, I too am aware of a sensation of time travel.

Your top off-the-beaten track discoveries, from gorges in Galicia to vineyards in La Rioja
• Tell us about a trip to Italy – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

Recently travelling from Madrid to San Sebastián, we spent three days in picturesque Briñas in La Rioja, staying at the beautiful Finca Torre de Briñas (doubles from €189 B&B). The neighbouring town, Haro, reached via a 40-minute walk by the Ebro River, hosts several of the largest wine producers in the region (CVNE and Muga are recommended). You can stop in and sample them, before heading into the town centre, which has several tapas spots to fuel the walk back to the hotel. Bliss.
Tom Dickson

In the sparsely populated Queen Charlotte Sound, tourists can accompany the skipper-come-postman as parcels are dropped off via the scenic route. No heart rate check required

For a travel destination famous for offering the adrenaline rush of extreme sports, from bungee jumping to the parachute drop, it’s an unlikely tourist activity – but an irresistible one. If you’re travelling in New Zealand, don’t miss out on the chance to deliver the mail. By boat.

It happens in the Queen Charlotte Sound, part of the Marlborough Sounds in the stretch of water that separates New Zealand’s North and South Islands. For over 160 years, New Zealand Post has ensured the handful of families who live on the bays and inlets of the sound receive the same mail service as every other resident of the country, no matter that they live in isolated homes accessible only by boat. Six days a week, the mailboat leaves from Picton, the skipper doubling as postman for the three- or four-hour voyage – and these days passengers can come along for the ride.

Researchers say ‘magic mushrooms’ can help with traumatic symptoms, but urge caution as states expand access

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After three combat deployments in Afghanistan, during which he suffered traumatic brain injuries from concussive blasts, army ranger Jesse Gould developed post-traumatic stress disorder and said he “drank almost every night to cope”.

In times of hardship, veterans sometimes turn to “medication and talk therapy, but it tends to be more of a maintenance program than actually overcoming it”, Gould said, but added that at age 38, “I was still very young. I didn’t want to be on medication the rest of my life.”

The physicist, BBC presenter and author on snowflakes, art v science and the time Paul McCartney quizzed him about one of Saturn’s moons

What is the inspiration behind your latest live show, Emergence?

It came from a book that I’ve loved for years: The Six-Cornered Snowflake by Johannes Kepler. Kepler is most famous for his laws of planetary motion in and around 1610, but he wrote this little book about New Year’s Eve in 1609, when he was walking across the Charles Bridge in Prague in a snowstorm. He was going to his benefactor’s house and he hadn’t bought him a present. So he writes this beautiful little book about looking at the snowflakes landing on his arm and thinking about the symmetry of them and asking, why are they six-sided?

I am settling in for my usual haircut when, before I know it, my wife and the hairdresser are signing me up for a ‘treatment’

In the beginning I used not to be able to tell Kelly and Hayley – the identical twin hairdressers who came to the house appointments – apart. Eventually my wife furnished me with a handy mnemonic: Kelly cuts, Hayley highlights. From then on, I knew them by their tools.

I don’t need that crutch any more: since my wife decided to go grey, we only have Kelly. She arrived at 11, and I am already in the chair, hair wet, a towel over my shoulders. Kelly is on her phone. My wife is sitting across the table from me.

Abel Ortiz was brought from Mexico to LA when he was just two months old and has been​ living undocumented​ ever since. Now 38, he has a full life​ cutting hair, building a community, loving​ a city that has never fully loved him back.​ ​In a time of escalating ICE raids and the ache of uncertainty, Abel has made a radical decision: he’s leaving – not because he has to, but to escape perpetual limbo and be free to see the world

Her death led to landmark ruling that sustained domestic violence can make an abuser criminally responsible for their victim’s suicide

On the night of 27 July 2023, Kimberly Milne jumped to her death from a road bridge.

Her suicide came after months of mental health crises, compounded by a campaign of domestic abuse at the hands of her former partner. In this regard, to the officers who attended the scene, Kimberly’s was a depressingly familiar story.

Stardom came fast and hard for the wunderkind who created the hit HBO series Girls aged just 23. Now she’s written a tell-all memoir about why she was forced to retreat from the spotlight

• Lena Dunham on going to rehab: read an exclusive extract from Famesick

If there is something to be learned from the words people pick for their passwords and proxies, then Lena Dunham’s choice of aliases – pseudonyms that, as a public person, she has used over the years to conceal her identity when checking into rehab or ordering room service – give us a tiny glimpse into the writer and director’s self-image. Among her staples, “Lauri Reynolds” (after her mum, Laurie, with whom she is strikingly close); “Rose O’Neill” (after the American millionaire illustrator, who lost her fortune to burnout and hangers-on); and my favourite, “Renata Halpern”, an alias Dunham shares with readers of her delicious new memoir, Famesick, without explaining the name’s origin.

“Has anyone else clocked the Renata Halpern reference?” I ask Dunham, who is in her apartment in New York, talking fast via video call while waiting for an egg-and-cheese bagel to be run up from the deli. On the brink of 40, she is in her dark-haired era – very Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – which, this morning, is set against a bright orange shirt and the pale, glowy skin she describes as the single happy side-effect of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition of the connective tissue with which Dunham was diagnosed in 2019. Later this month, she’ll return to London, where she has lived for the last five years with her husband, Luis Felber, and where she enjoys greater anonymity than in her native New York – although, she says, not enough to dispense with the aliases. (“Just when you think no one cares, someone does something creepy, so you have to watch out.”)

As a young mother, Tareena Shakil fled with her toddler from the UK to Syria and joined Islamic State. Now she’s giving dating advice on TikTok. How did she get here?

If you met Tareena Shakil today, you would have no idea that the person in front of you had served time in prison for terrorism offences and holds the dubious distinction of being the first British woman convicted of joining Islamic State. Now 36, Shakil is glamorous, heavily made-up with long, tousled hair. When we meet at a plush hotel in Birmingham, she wears a sharply tailored dress, waist cinched in with a wide leather belt, and carries a Louis Vuitton handbag. She is bubbly and warm, with a disarmingly open demeanour. In short, this isn’t what springs to mind when you hear the words “terrorism conviction”.

What Shakil actually looks like is an influencer – which is fitting, because that’s what she is trying to be. She has gained most traction on TikTok, where her profile has about 50,000 followers. She gives relationship advice, usually sitting in her car and talking straight to camera. Her content is a mix of humour (“Muslim men who go to the gym while fasting – brother, the world needs more people like you”) and advice about the dating game (“Men are natural born hunters … they love the chase” in one video; “When they block you, it’s a punishment because they know it’s going to hurt you” in another). In among this are videos that hint at something darker (“If your partner hits you, you must leave, it doesn’t matter how much they cry or say they’ll never do it again”). She never directly references her own complicated past but, she tells me: “There’s an element of my own experience in most of the videos I make.”

Have you been affected by the recent rise in mortgage rates? What will this mean for you?

The crisis in the Middle East is also being felt far beyond the region, with the conflict undermining broader business and consumer confidence.

One aspect of this has been the impact on the UK mortgage market.

We’d like to hear about the local election leaflets you’ve received from political parties in your area

Have you received local election leaflets through your door? We’d like to see them. In an era of political turmoil, we’re particularly interested to see who each political party sees as their rival in their local area.

You can tell us about the leaflets you’ve received – and share pictures of them – below.

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

With Iran and the US agreeing to a two-week conditional ceasefire, we would like to hear how people living, working or travelling in the Middle East have been affected by the conflict.

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

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

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

The US and Iran have agreed to a provisional two-week ceasefire, which includes a temporary reopening of the strait. But maritime traffic through the narrow channel linking the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman remains affected, with vessels still facing delays, diversions and heightened security risks as the situation evolves.

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