Spokesperson for Reform UK leader says paid-for Cameo videos 'should not be treated as political statements or campaign activity' after Guardian unearths clips containing offensive remarks and far-right slogans

• Newly unearthed Nigel Farage videos reveal support for rioter, neo-Nazi event and far-right slogans

After two deaths, it’s right to be concerned and to discuss investment in public health. But our system is good and it’s working

• Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

With the tragedy of two young people dying, and a further 13 confirmed cases, meningitis is back in the headlines in the UK, prompting public concern and worry about the risk. What’s happening and why?

Meningitis has been an ongoing public health concern for decades. Back in the 1990s, around 2,500 lab-confirmed cases of meningococcal disease were recorded annually, largely caused by meningococcal group C bacteria – the disease is caused by a range of bacterial strains, each of which require a different targeted vaccine to prepare the immune system. With the adoption of the MenC vaccine in 1999, cases of group C disease fell by around 96% to roughly 30-40 cases per year. Soon after, vaccination programmes were expanded to cover groups ACWY, which caused steep declines in all of those groups, because the vaccines reduce the transmission of infections.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh

In this poignant documentary a director shares the footage he took of his son from birth until he was 20, and reflects on losing him

The Norwegian director Gunnar Hall Jensen had been a wild youth, damaged by his mentally troubled mother and indifferent, absent father. So when his own son Jonathan was born in 2002, he felt the mix of trepidation and hope for redemption experienced by many rookie dads. “This new person was my responsibility,” Hall Jensen says at the start of Portrait of a Confused Father, a documentary drawing on the countless hours of footage he took of his child over the next two decades. “We would be connected until the day I die.” We are told from the outset, however, that their relationship ended tragically early. “Now the connection is gone,” Hall Jensen’s narration continues. “He is no longer here. Jonathan, my beautiful boy, is dead.”

Jonathan passed away in 2023, and Hall Jensen chooses to conceal how this happened until the very end of the film. We are led to guess that it was misadventure on the young man’s part, something a better father might have been able to prevent: as Jensen embarks on a chronological, critical analysis of how he reacted to Jonathan’s developing character, every scene bears a bleak portent. Jensen reaches back into the past, to be with his son again and try to discover where they went wrong.

Falling costs and government incentives make solar an attractive option for many, reducing need for gas

After prices of liquefied natural gas surged to record highs after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, millions of people in Pakistan were repeatedly left without electricity. An intense heatwave and gas shortages amid record-breaking prices resulted in power cuts across the country.

But people soon started to realise there was an alternative. The falling costs of solar panels and generous government incentives to feed excess power back to the grid made rooftop solar an attractive option.

What is it like to be Michael B Jordan’s twin, Andie MacDowell’s hands or Rachel Weisz’s hair? Some of Hollywood’s best stand-ins reveal all

Most of us are familiar with the idea of stunt doubles in film and television. But there are plenty of other doubles working in the industry, too – for when an actor doesn’t want to do an intimate scene, for example, or doesn’t have the skills required to show their character playing an instrument or driving a car. Here, six body doubles talk about their secret lives on screen.

As stories of men leaving their dates in ‘sketchy situations’ go viral, experts say these incidents could stem from big egos and poor communication

MJ calls what happened to her in Zion national park “small ‘T’ trauma”. She knows women have experienced worse from their partners. But she still feels the anger of being left behind on a hike by her now ex. “It brings up stuff in my body that maybe I have not cleared out yet,” she said.

Five years ago, MJ and a new partner – he was not exactly her boyfriend, and the pair were not exclusive – traveled from Los Angeles to Utah for an adventure getaway. MJ, who is 38 and works in PR, was looking forward to exploring Zion’s striking scenery; its vast sandstone canyon and pristine wading trails were on the list. But on the morning of their big hike, MJ was not feeling well. She could not shake the feeling that something was “off”; indeed, MJ would learn on this trip that her partner was seeing other women.

Israel announced earlier that he was killed in overnight strike on Tehran

• Full report: Iran’s security chief, Ali Larijani, killed in airstrike, Israel says

• How have you been affected by the latest Middle East events?

• Are fuel price increases making you cut back?

The head of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has said that naval escorts through the strait of Hormuz will not “100% guarantee” the safety of ships attempting to transit the waterway, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

Military assistance was “not a long-term or sustainable solution” to opening up the strait, Arsenio Dominguez told the newspaper.

We are collateral damage of a conflict when the root causes have nothing to do with shipping.

Remaining in the area of the specified buildings exposes you to danger

Tory leader says US president’s words ‘completely wrong’ as she tries to distance herself from his war on Iran

Kemi Badenoch has called Donald Trump’s repeated criticisms of Keir Starmer “childish”, as the Conservative leader continued her recent moves to distance herself from the US president and his military action against Iran.

Speaking shortly before Trump yet again singled out Starmer, saying the prime minister had not been sufficiently supportive of the US war, Badenoch used a social media video to describe Trump’s actions as counterproductive.

Larijani was killed by an Israeli airstrike and is the most senior Iranian fatality since Ali Khamenei on first day of war

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran’s supreme national security council has confirmed the death of its chief, Ali Larijani, after Israel said it had killed him in an airstrike.

“The pure souls of the martyrs embraced the purified soul of God’s righteous servant, Martyr Dr Ali Larijani,” the council said on Tuesday evening, adding that his son and his bodyguards had died with him.

MSPs reject bill after concerted campaign to block it and despite amendments intended to placate critics

The Scottish parliament has voted against legalising assisted dying after critics and religious groups led a concerted campaign to block the measures.

MSPs voted 69 to 57 to reject the proposals in a late night vote on Tuesday – a larger margin than expected, despite a series of last-minute amendments designed to placate critics of the private member’s bill.

Supplies becoming sparse amid rise in demand since Kent outbreak, which has killed two and left 13 seriously ill

Worried parents are contacting pharmacies in an “increasingly desperate” effort to get their children vaccinated against meningitis after the outbreak in Kent that has killed two young people and left 13 seriously ill.

The surge in demand has led to stocks of the vaccine running so low that many pharmacies cannot get hold of supplies from wholesalers.

Former deputy prime minister says Labour’s immigration changes are ‘un-British’ and Starmer must respond to fall in party’s popularity

Angela Rayner has said the very survival of the Labour party is at stake and warned Keir Starmer that he “cannot go through the motions” in the face of declining support.

In a speech at campaign group Mainstream’s spring reception, the former deputy prime minister said she believed the government was “running out of time” to show it can deliver the change that the public needs.

Exclusive: England and Wales Greens leader outlines economic policy including help to meet rising energy costs and water re-nationalisation

Successive governments have turned the UK from a manufacturing economy to one where the basics of life have been privatised and are rented back to people at a crushing cost, Zack Polanski will say.

In a speech billed as the Green leader’s biggest policy intervention since he took over as leader six months ago, Polanski will argue that decades of gradual economic rebalancing in favour of a minority who own assets has left much of the country vulnerable to economic shocks such as the current rise in fuel prices.

Exclusive: Analysis of more than 4,000 of Reform UK leader’s paid-for Cameo videos also shows they contain misogynistic remarks and antisemitic conspiracies

Watch: Nigel Farage Cameo videos show support for neo-Nazi event and far-right slogans

Nigel Farage has sold videos in which he endorsed a neo-Nazi event, repeated extremist slogans and supported a man convicted over his involvement in a far-right riot. The videos are among several highly questionable clips identified by the Guardian in an investigation into the Reform UK leader’s use of the personalised video platform Cameo.

They include videos in which he repeats a motto associated with the UK far right, references antisemitic conspiracy theories and makes misogynistic remarks about leftwing politicians – including a comment about the US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s breasts.

Premature birth, pneumonia and malaria among leading causes of death in under-fives worldwide, as UN experts warn aid cuts are slowing progress on survival rates

Most of the 4.9 million children who died in 2024 could have been saved, according to a new UN report that warns aid cuts could thwart the global goal of ending preventable child deaths.

Progress towards ending the preventable deaths of children under five by 2030 has slowed 60% since 2015, the report found, leading to UN experts to call for sustained investment in health systems to reach the target.

Greater Manchester mayor hopes yet-to-be-built £250m course could provide ‘lasting legacy’ for north of England

From the fairways of Rome to the greens of Versailles, could the world’s most prestigious golf tournament be heading to Bolton?

Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, has announced a bid to bring the Ryder Cup to the north of England for the first time in nearly 60 years.

Study highlights the movements in people’s gait that give away most about their emotional state

A long face is not the only sign that someone is down in the dumps. How people walk is revealing too, particularly the swing of the arms and legs, researchers say.

Scientists asked volunteers to guess people’s emotions from video clips of them walking and found that bigger swings portrayed more aggression while smaller swings implied fear and sadness.

• Morocco declared 3-0 winners after appeal is upheld

• Senegal’s players walked off pitch over penalty call

Morocco have been awarded a 3-0 win in this year’s Africa Cup of Nations final after Senegal were sensationally stripped of the title in an unprecedented ruling.

The Confederation of African Football announced on Tuesday evening that its appeal board had decided that Senegal are “declared to have forfeited the final” that was held in Rabat in January after the head coach, Pape Thiaw, and some of his players left the pitch for 15 minutes in protest at Morocco being awarded a penalty. They eventually returned after being implored to by the captain, Sadio Mané, with Brahim Díaz’s subsequent spot‑kick being saved to send the final into extra time, when Pape Gueye scored the winning goal.

Israel claims it has killed the influential Iranian national security chief Ali Larijani in overnight strikes. If confirmed, Larijani’s death would represent a devastating blow to the regime, and the most senior official to die since Ali Khamenei’s death. Lucy Hough speaks to deputy head of international news, Devika Bhat.

Many have left for the Easter holiday early after in-person university assessments were cut and exams moved online

At The Cricketers pub in the centre of Canterbury, staff had been geared up for lively St Patrick’s Day celebrations. The pub’s “Paddy shots” were on offer: two for £7. Irish music played in the background. But, on Tuesday lunchtime, there were few revellers.

“Normally, as soon as the doors open on St Patrick’s Day, we’re full,” said the manager, Ash Bolonghe, casting his arm around the near-empty pub, with only a handful of matinee theatre-goers sitting by the window for a pre-performance snack. “But not today.”

National power outage is making life extremely difficult and may force Havana into biggest economic changes in 67 years

Just a few hours after a nationwide electricity blackout struck Cuba, Donald Trump hinted at an even darker future for the island’s rulers.

The country’s entire electricity system had collapsed on Monday afternoon, leaving about 10 million people without power. Emergency teams were still struggling to restore it when the US leader made his latest threat.

The silicon figures are a touching version of what the Hindi language calls ‘smaran’, or remembrance

In the north of Kolkata, near Dum Dum Junction, Subimal Das and his staff of 80 work from an old factory-warehouse. Using clay, fibreglass and silicon, they construct extraordinary lifesize replicas of religious icons, cultural figures, cricketers and Bollywood stars.

But the workshop also has a popular new line: custom-made 30kg replicas of the dead, commissioned by family and loved ones.

Indictment and arrest of Prince Group founder Chen Zhi has sparked questions about scam industry’s alleged ties to political elite, and integrity of government crackdown

A giant golden clam shell, illuminated by lurid neon lights and filled with playing cards and red dice, once glowed nightly on the facade of Sihanoukville’s Jin Bei casino. Today, the casino’s gaudy signage is covered by sheets, and its doorway blocked by a Chinese sign that reads “under renovation”.

The casino in the Cambodian resort city was once emblazoned with the name Jin Bei, a company US prosecutors have accused of running scam compounds on behalf Prince Group, which an October indictment alleged was one of Asia’s largest transnational criminal organisations.

With a lazy-Susan-style rotating rail that you can dump your clothes over, this invention functions as chair and wardrobe. But is it really any better than ... any other chair?

Name: The laundry chair.

Age: Less than a week old.

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
From poppy seeds and opium pipes to the astonishing truth about tulips, science and obsession collide in this aromatic history of plants and pioneers

Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort, died in 1715 having spent her life changing the floral world. She procured plants from Africa, India, China, Japan and South America that had never been seen in Britain before. These were for her vast formal garden – a print featured in this delightful exhibition shows its regular avenues and plantations, all covering a considerable part of Gloucestershire. But if Somerset’s disciplined parkland is pure Age of Reason, a painting she commissioned of one of her sunflowers is a yellow ecstasy: a blazing cosmic eye staring wildly at you.

Science and obsession, this show reveals, have never been far apart in the history of humans and plants. In the 1600s and 1700s, European botany made huge intellectual advances, filling European gardens with new colours and aromas. All this depended on growing commercial, naval and military might that brought the world’s seeds and bulbs to Britain and its neighbours. Yet even as pioneers collected and classified global flora, the sheer beauty and sensuality of flowers threatened to turn analysis into beauty-addled reverie.

Alexander Armstrong, Lucy Beaumont, Bradley Walsh … when will commissioners stop sending standups to other nations? It’s not like they have any insight or connection to these places – it has to end

‘You know what we need to inject some life into our dying medium?” says the TV commissioner. Her colleagues all wait for the moment of inspiration, the sparkle of insight that justifies the gargantuan salary. “We need a show where a comedian travels to a location!”

Hmm, they all think, does she mean a location said comedian has a particularly personal connection to?

Britons learn about the country’s involvement ‘almost as a self-congratulatory narrative’, says historian Joseph Mulhern

In 1845 British citizens and companies were already legally prohibited from owning or buying enslaved people overseas, yet that year 385 captives were “transferred” to a British mining company in Brazil named St John d’El Rey.

Despite a global campaign waged by the UK against slavery and the transatlantic slave trade, the move was not technically illegal because the enslaved people were not sold but “rented” – a practice permitted overseas under the 1843 Slave Trade Act.

Steeped in gaming and rightwing culture wars, Musk and his team of teenage coders set out to defeat the enemy of the United States: its people

In 2025, when Elon Musk joined the government as the de facto head of something called the “department of government efficiency”, he declared that governments were poorly configured “big dumb machines”. To the senator Ted Cruz, he explained that “the only way to reconcile the databases and get rid of waste and fraud is to actually look at the computers”.

Muskism came to Washington soaked in memes, adolescent boasts and sadistic victory dances over mass firings. Leading a team of teenage coders and mid-level managers drawn from his suite of companies, Musk aimed to enter the codebase and rewrite regulations and budget lines from within. He would drag the paper-pushing bureaucracy kicking and screaming into the digital 21st century, scanning the contents of cavernous rooms of filing cabinets and feeding the data into a single interoperable system. The undertaking combined features of private equity-led restructuring with startup management, shot through with the sensibility of gaming and rightwing culture war. To succeed, he would need “God mode”, an overview of the whole.

But their latest stunt suggests Reform may be hitting the law of diminishing returns with a press conference too far

Nige and Honest Bob. Honest Bob and Nige. Reform’s answer to the Chuckle Brothers. Robert Jenrick is just about the only other member of Reform UK that Nige will be seen dead with now. Apart from Richard Tice, everyone’s favourite fake-tanned beta male.

Almost everyone else in Reform is dead to Nigel Farage. Zia Yusuf barely gets a look in now. Nadhim Zahawi and Suella Braverman? Buyer’s remorse. Andrea Jenkyns and Sarah Pochin? Who?

The philosopher, who has died aged 96, was often caricatured as a consensus-seeking liberal. But his belief in the need for shared understanding had a radical underpinning

Despite its canonical name, the Frankfurt School is not a school. It is, at least according to my former teacher, the critical theorist Rahel Jaeggi, a constellation. For a century, this scholarly constellation has pursued the intellectual endeavour of critique. Critique here is not the “thumbs down” or “blocking” exercised on social media. It is the wild aspiration to describe reality in a way that transforms it.

Jürgen Habermas, who died on 14 March 2026 at the age of 96, was a fixed star in this constellation. He set the compass for several generations of mostly German and North American thinkers. Habermas was incredibly prolific, with more than 40 books to his name, and very charismatic. There was an intensity, a concentration to Habermas’s thought and dialogue that his writings convey only poorly. The thundering polemics he brought to public debates also seem a far cry from the consensus-oriented discourse ethics he is known for.

Eva von Redecker is a German philosopher and nonfiction writer

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

Due to an ongoing judicial review, Home Office data currently leaves out the thousands of people apprehended at Palestine Action protests. But whichever way you cut it, the number of arrests is outrageous

On the surface, the Home Office’s latest data on terrorism arrests looks relatively stable. There were 255 terrorism-related arrests in 2025, which is only a 2% increase on the previous year’s figure of 250.

Funny thing is, I know three people who were arrested on terrorism-related charges last year. I could even pinpoint the date, because two of their middle-aged children had to leave my middle-aged birthday party to pick them up from a police station. I know, I know, it’s not all about me, even if it was my birthday – but if those numbers are solid, that means more than 50% of the mini-surge came from more or less the same group of people, two of them from the same postcode.

With civilians across the Middle East living under attack, it’s vital to resist the forces of hate and insist on dignity and compassion for all

• David Davidi-Brown is chief executive of the New Israel Fund

First, if you are lucky, there is a loud warning alert on your phone. Then the sirens scream from all around you. Within seconds, people move quickly but calmly: to a safe room, to a shelter, sometimes simply to the nearest underground car park. Some families sleep in public shelters, unsure whether they can reach safety from home in time, young children in tow.

In my case, the past few weeks have meant hours in a shared reinforced room with neighbours, time alongside strangers – and their calming dogs – in public shelters, and, fortunately, many nights sleeping in a safe room between sirens.

David Davidi-Brown is chief executive of the New Israel Fund

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

While the health secretary posts shirtless workouts and AI videos, he should be focusing on soaring cases of measles

Vladimir Putin loves bombing Ukraine and taking his shirt off – not necessarily in that order. The Russian leader is well known for his macho photoshoots, including that infamous shot of him horse-riding bare-chested in Siberia. While various politicians have mocked Putin for his posing, others have been taking notes. And by others I mean Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has spent a large portion of his time in politics spamming social media with increasingly weird footage of him working out.

In 2023, when Kennedy ran for president, he posted a video of himself doing shirtless push-ups in an empty car park as preparation for his debate with Joe Biden – bizarrely, he was wearing blue jeans for the stunt. Now that Kennedy is the US health secretary, the videos are coming at a faster clip.

Starmer’s popular stance on Iran feels like a possible turning point – and could pave the way for a renewed unity within the Labour party

• John McTernan was Tony Blair’s political secretary at No 10

Dear prime minister, a word in your ear. It’s Groundhog Day. Again. Let’s start with the first tranche of Mandelson papers released last week. You should know this will go on and on: the beginning of a relentless media process of picking over the same mistake. And it needn’t have been so. It would, perhaps, have been better to have held all the papers back and to release them in one massive dump. A lot of stories would have been generated in one day – but they would have fought against each other and in some cases cancelled each other out. Still, we have the process we have – in that archetypal bureaucratic phrase “we are where we are”. So what is to be done?

The art of politics, like magic, is misdirection. Normally, media types work hard to fill the airwaves while you work hard on the medium- and long-term challenges. But right now, it’s not like that. At the moment, we have the gift of news events absorbing political discourse wherever you turn. Whether it’s Peter Mandelson, or the May elections, or the new forever war in Iran, we are surrounded by “news sponges” – topics that are discussed and rediscussed, generating all heat and no light. That opens up a space. Let’s use this time productively.

John McTernan is a political strategist. He was Tony Blair’s political secretary at 10 Downing Street

Following May’s elections, first ministers committed to independence could be in place in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast

The general election of July 2024 did not just call time on a decade and a half of Conservative rule. It also delivered the most pro-Union parliament since the early 2010s, when the meteoric rise in support for the Scottish National party (SNP) began. In Scotland, a 16-point swing away from the SNP allowed Labour to win the most votes and most seats; in Wales, Plaid Cymru made modest gains but won only four places in the House of Commons, compared to 27 for Sir Keir Starmer’s party.

Since then, the many missteps of Sir Keir’s government have contributed to a swift and remarkable reversal of fortunes. In May’s Senedd elections, Plaid is on course to replace Labour as the largest party in Wales for the first time since devolution. Also profiting from the government’s woes, a revived SNP has weathered its own scandals to lead comfortably in polling for the Scottish parliament. At the party’s spring conference on Saturday, its leader, John Swinney, pointed to the “absolutely seismic” possibility that come 8 May, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (which does not vote again until next year) could all have first ministers in place committed to taking their countries out of the United Kingdom.

Lack of confidence in the voluntary sector seems linked to a more general fraying of social bonds

BBC Radio 1’s Greg James reached the halfway point of his 1,000km bike ride for Comic Relief just outside Doncaster, in South Yorkshire, on Tuesday lunchtime. The Radio 1 stunt is a popular fixture of the annual charity fundraiser – played out all day long with regular updates on the station, and enthusiastic reminders to “text 10, 20 or 30”. On Red Nose Day, which falls on 20 March, Mr James and his tandem – on which assorted celebrities have joined him – can expect to be greeted by cheering crowds in Edinburgh.

There is nothing not to like about this warm-hearted caper. The takings from these feats of endurance by presenters reached a record £2.2m last year – when Jamie Laing ran five ultra marathons in five days. But away from the buzzy spotlight of national radio, and seasonal appeals such as the Guardian’s, which raised more than £1m between December and January, charities are facing tough times. Concerning details of the current downward trend are set out in the latest report from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), which recorded the first overall drop in donations since 2021.

At least in Iraq the Americans had the ‘Pottery Barn rule’: you break it, you own it, writes Prof James Pattison. Plus, letters by Ivette Félix Padilla, Chris Lake and Diana Francis

In justifying the joint United States-Israel airstrikes on Iran, US politicians have adopted humanitarian rhetoric, claiming that their actions will enable the liberation of the Iranian population from repression (Even taking Trump’s confused reasons for the Iran war at face value, it’s still a total disaster, 13 March). The arguments echo the justifications offered before the 2003 war in Iraq. But the strikes on Iran have even weaker grounds to be considered humanitarian than the war in Iraq.

During the buildup to the Iraq war, there was at least a clear military objective: removing Saddam Hussein’s regime. By contrast, there is little evidence of a coherent plan for achieving regime change in Iran. Bombing alone is unlikely to produce it, yet no alternative strategy has been articulated. Humanitarian action would normally prioritise the minimisation of civilian harm. Yet early reports already suggest otherwise. An elementary school has been struck, killing 168 people, most of them young girls.

Religious leaders, faith groups and charities urge Labour to ensure the proposals are fair and strengthen integration

We write with grave concern about the government’s proposed changes to settlement and citizenship rules (Report, 5 March). We urge ministers to slow down and rethink their proposals, which contain serious flaws. Massive changes to rules that could shape the lives of more than a million people in the UK for the next 20 years or more should not be made in haste.

There is already significant disquiet among communities, employers, faith groups and civil society that these measures would be damaging to integration. Stability, belonging and a clear pathway to citizenship are essential to building cohesive communities. Policies that make status more precarious and pathways more distant risk undermining that.

Readers respond to an editorial about rescuing the economist from being invoked by rightwing free-marketeers

Your editorial (11 March) is correct in insisting that the economist and philosopher Adam Smith used “invisible hand” only once in The Wealth of Nations: to discuss investing at home or abroad, not as a general description of economic structure.

If the capital is invested at home, the decision to do that being purely a selfish and personal one, then, as if led by an invisible hand, this benefits the domestic economy.

Eyewitness photo | A forpit of potatoes | Milli-Helens | UK nuclear weapons | Say it’s not Serco

Flicking through the paper, I remarked that it was all bad news and upsetting items. Then I came across the centrefold photograph taken in Erzurum, Turkey and found myself close to tears. Young and old chess players together in a coffee house. What a great picture.
Carol Taylor
Darley Dale, Derbyshire

• Regarding unusual measurements (Letters, 15 March) my Scottish mother used to send me to the local Co-op to purchase a forpit of potatoes: a fourth part of a stone, ie three and a half pounds. The cost in 1950 was thruppence, compared to £1.60 for the same weight of spuds today.
Dr Allan Dodds
Bramcote, Nottinghamshire

Is there anyone who can stop Arsenal in this kind of form? The Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper, Janis Blaswich, tried his best in a spectacular first-half performance that kept the Premier League leaders at bay until Eberechi Eze smashed in his first Champions League goal and Declan Rice completed a comfortable victory after the break to seal a third successive quarter‑final appearance.

After yet another clinical performance in Europe yielded a ninth victory in 10 games this season, Mikel Arteta will certainly fancy Arsenal’s chances of getting past Sporting in the last eight despite the Portuguese side’s remarkable comeback against Bodø/Glimt that spared them a trip to the Arctic Circle.

“In football anything is possible,” was Pep Guardiola’s rallying cry and while Manchester City failed to pull off a Lazarus act for the ages, this was a definite one-off wonder of a contest that thrilled all witnesses.

Particularly, the first 45 minutes of mayhem headlined by Vinícius Júnior apparently being ruled offside by the referee, Clément Turpin, then onside, which meant Bernardo Silva was then penalised for handball, sent off, and the Brazilian then scored from the spot. Further entertainment also derived from a Guardiola yellow card, Erling Haaland’s equaliser, and a slew of goalmouth incident that mostly continued after the break – including late finishes from Rayan Aït-Nouri and Fede Valverde that were ruled offside, and one from Vinícius that counted.

Chelsea huddled once and, as if in an act of resistance, huddled again. They gathered on either side of the centre-circle before kick-off, apparently impervious to the kerfuffle that had followed their weekend antics, and it was the biggest fight they put up on a night that laid bare their distance from Europe’s elite.

The resounding Club World Cup win against Paris Saint-Germain was nothing more than a stateside summer fever dream: here, on the stage that really matters, they were humbled by opponents who belonged on a different pitch from the start.

• Director says stronger penalties needed for withdrawals

• Jack Draper continues comeback at Miami Open

Aryna Sabalenka says she may never return to compete at the Dubai Tennis Championships after she and Iga Swiatek were harshly criticised by the tournament director for their withdrawals from the tournament last month.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Sabalenka said during her pre-tournament press conference at the Miami Open. “I don’t think he showed himself in the best way possible. For me it’s actually so sad to see that the tournament directors and the tournaments are not protecting us as a player. They just care about their sellings, about their tournament and that’s it. His comment was ridiculous. I’m not sure if I ever want to go there after his comment. For me it’s too much.”

• ‘Never nice’ to hear boos after reaction to Spurs draw

• Liverpool face Galatasaray looking to overturn deficit

Arne Slot has said that he must have “done a lot of things wrong” for Liverpool fans to boo their team, but he does not feel the Anfield crowd has turned against him before a crucial Champions League tie against Galatasaray.

Slot believes the glum mood around the Premier League champions can be transformed by overturning a 1-0 deficit in the last 16 and reaching the quarter-finals at the Turkish club’s expense.

• USA host Venezuela in WBC championship game

• Political tensions underlie final at LoanDepot Park

• Drop David a line on Bluesky or by email

VEN 0-0 USA, top 1st

Maikel Garcia is up: he hits a hard ground ball to third base. Alex Bregman has it and fires to second for the first out, then Turang throws to first to complete the double play! So that erases the lead off hitter!

• Sanderson suggests player should miss summer tour

• Back-rower sustained calf injury during Six Nations

Alex Sanderson has warned that Tom Curry’s physical playing style will shorten his career and has suggested England should give him the summer off with the World Cup next year in mind.

The back-rower sustained a calf injury in the warmup for England’s Six Nations defeat by Italy in Rome. Sanderson, the Sale director of rugby, said on Tuesday that Curry has a grade-three calf tear and “he’ll be back this season” – but when remains unclear. “With Tom being superhuman the usual layoff times tend to be diminished because of his character and physique,” Sanderson said.

• Batter denies the team ‘weren’t fussed’ in Australia

• 28-year-old believes his ‘best batting years are to come’

Ollie Pope has challenged the perception England “weren’t fussed” during their troubled Ashes tour but accepts why it formed.

Ben Stokes’ tourists crashed to a 4-1 series defeat by Australia that is being reviewed by the England and Wales Cricket Board, with tour planning, preparation, individual performances and behaviour all under scrutiny.

Independent team now called Les Marseillaises want to become an iconic club and have the history-making Corinne Diacre at the helm

“Here in Marseille your blood is not red, it’s blue,” says Les Marseillaises’ manager, Corinne Diacre. “Even today it can be hard for some parents to see their girls wanting to play football, but here they don’t play football: they play for Marseille. It’s seen as completely different.”

Diacre is happy and relaxed. The rebranded and independent Marseille women’s team, still owned by the American businessman Frank McCourt, through the investment arm McCourt Global, after his purchase of the wider Marseille club in 2016, are being given an injection of resource and energy while maintaining strategic ties.

Pakistani strike on Afghan capital kills 400 people, who burned in their beds or were crushed by collapsing walls

Witnesses and survivors have described the horrific scenes of a Pakistani air raid that hit a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul, killing more than 400 people, who burned in their beds or were crushed by the collapsing building.

Afghan rescue crews were still digging bodies out of the rubble on Tuesday after the strike, the deadliest single attack so far in a three-week war between the two countries.

Ukraine’s president says mass attacks on civilians are no longer the preserve of a ‘madman like Putin’

European nations should prepare for attacks by non-state actors including criminal networks, terror groups and lone attackers as drone technology advances, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned.

The Ukrainian president said it was no longer just “a wealthy madman like Putin” who could afford mass attacks as he demonstrated the latest technology to British MPs and peers.

Minister says the change is needed to protect the corporation from repeated ‘culture war’ attacks

The government is to put the BBC’s charter on a permanent footing for the first time, after the corporation said the change was needed to protect it from political interference.

In a significant change to the governance of the BBC, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, said she wanted to grant the corporation’s demand for a permanent charter. She said she wanted to protect it from repeated “culture war” attacks.

Russian billionaire accused of missing ‘last chance’ to release money to help victims of Ukraine war

UK officials are preparing for a possible court case against Roman Abramovich after he missed a deadline to release £2.4bn he raised from selling Chelsea FC.

The Russian billionaire failed to hand over the money by the deadline of 17 March, amid a dispute over how it will eventually be used.

In letter to justice secretary, groups say judge-led decisions more likely to be influenced by bias than those made by 12 random people

Thirty organisations representing victims of violence against women and girls (VAWG) have written to the justice secretary, David Lammy, urging him to drop plans to significantly reduce the number of jury trials.

The groups said that the proposals, which will affect court cases in England and Wales, will deepen mistrust in the justice system among victims and distract from measures designed to reduce offending.

Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analysts

The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.

The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station.

Fearing that extreme weather threatened its epic breaks, Oriente Salvaje is piloting the first surf insurance policy to protect livelihoods and ecosystems

In the late 1990s in El Salvador, Rodrigo Barraza went in search of every surfer’s dream: a pristine wave, far from the crowds. Down a rough dirt track hours from any city, he found it: a little-known surf spot on the country’s eastern shores, where long lines of waves form a crisp right-hand break, surrounded by thousands of hectares of tropical forest.

“I fell in love with the place,” says Barraza. In 2004, he opened a small hotel there, and along with some surfing friends, founded a tourism association. They developed sustainable tourism standards and committed to protect the surrounding biodiverse ecosystem of rare dry tropical forest, rivers and mangroves. They called it Oriente Salvaje – the “wild east”.

Oriente Salvaje is known by surfers for its world-class breaks, Las Flores and Punto Mango

Berkeley is adopting the ‘Zone 0’ regulation, which mandates first 5ft around the home in high-risk areas should be clear of combustible material

Michel Thouati went through the five stages of grief before he ripped his beloved fig tree from the earth. There was a persimmon and an elderberry too, nestled close to his hillside home in Berkeley, California, and they all had to go.

The plants thriving on his small property had become overshadowed by the dangers growing with them: an emerging body of research had found landscaping can help fuel the disastrous fires sweeping out of the wildland and into neighborhoods like his. Tucked into the ridges overlooking California’s San Francisco Bay and against an expansive nature area, the house Thouati and his wife have owned for 30-some years sits in one of the highest wildfire-threat areas in the state.

This year, Guardian Live events will host the Guardian Climate Forum 2026, a live gathering focused on discussing solutions, accountability and the shared task of building a greener, fairer future. And we want to shape this landmark event with your help

The climate crisis is one of the defining challenges of our age. But it is also a story of ingenuity, resilience and collective action. Across the world, communities are rethinking energy, food, transport and finance. Campaigners are holding power to account. Scientists are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Change is happening and the conversation about what comes next belongs to all of us.

We’d like to hear from you:

Which climate issues feel the most pressing where you are, and which give you hope?

What solutions, ideas or grassroots initiatives deserve deeper exploration?

Who would you most like to hear from, and whose perspectives are we missing?

What stories about climate progress, innovation or accountability are underreported?

What would make an event on climate feel constructive, inspiring and genuinely useful?

Party’s former leader, who is being sued for symbolic damages, says opponents have repeatedly tried to conflate Sinn Féin and IRA

Gerry Adams has told the high court that opponents of Sinn Féin have repeatedly sought to conflate the political party he led with the IRA, as he denied ever being a member of the Irish Republican Army.

Giving evidence in London watched by victims of IRA bombings, the 77-year-old, credited with helping to bring about the peace process that ended the Troubles, also rejected accusations that he had ever led the paramilitary organisation or sat on its army council.

Law Commission proposal forms part of plan to modernise and simplify burial and cremation law

Graves more than 100 years old could be reused across England and Wales under Law Commission proposals that also include the reopening of some burial grounds closed under Victorian-era legislation.

The changes would create a national framework for the first time, aiming to reduce pressure on burial space and modernise a system largely unchanged for more than 170 years.

Woman known only as Beth says abuser claimed status made him untouchable, which terrorised her into silence

MI5 has apologised and paid compensation to a woman who alleged the Security Service was to blame for her being attacked with a machete and abused by one of its agents.

The woman, known only as Beth, was in a relationship with a man she says used his status as an MI5 agent to perpetrate abuse and terrorise her into silence.

Court finds Unite repeatedly breached injunction by blockading and ‘slow walking’ next to waste trucks

The union representing striking bin workers in Birmingham has been fined £265,000 for breaching an injunction which prohibited the blocking of waste lorries at depots.

Mrs Justice Jefford found that Unite had repeatedly breached the injunction issued in July by blockading and “slow walking” next to vehicles.

Lawmakers on both sides of aisle have criticized justice department’s improper redaction of information

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Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, has been formally subpoenaed to appear before a House panel to answer questions about the justice department’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and its release of the Epstein files.

The move came amid growing criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle over the justice department’s compliance with a law passed last year requiring the full release of Epstein-related files.

Relations deteriorate as Gustavo Petro claims government of Trump ally Daniel Noboa bombing targets in Colombia

President Gustavo Petro has accused Ecuador of bombing targets inside Colombian territory, saying later that the burned remains of nearly 30 people had been found near the border, in a sharp deterioration in relations between the two neighbouring countries.

The Colombian leader said on Tuesday that an attack which had left “27 charred bodies” did not appear to have been carried out by Colombia’s own forces or any illegal armed groups which he said do not have armed planes.

Family of then PM, Patrice Lumumba, welcome decision to charge Étienne Davignon as ‘beginning of a reckoning’

A former Belgian diplomat, 93, should stand trial over alleged complicity in the 1961 murder of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of what was then the newly independent Congolese state, a Brussels court has ruled.

Étienne Davignon, the only person still alive among 10 Belgians the Lumumba family accuses of involvement in the killing, is charged with participation in war crimes.

The illegal transfer of Lumumba and his associates from Léopoldville (now Kinshasa) to Katanga.

The “humiliating and degrading treatment” of the men.

Depriving them of a fair trial.

Prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre says files show sex offender’s connection to those in ‘trusted and central positions’

The Norwegian parliament has voted unanimously to appoint an independent investigative commission to look into connections between its foreign office and the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Speaking before the vote on Tuesday, the prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, paid tribute to Epstein’s victims and said that the files released by the US Department of Justice had clearly shown “it is possible to buy and abuse influence if you are rich enough”.

Nearly 700 deals pulled in two weeks and only a few fixed-rate products below 4% are available, says Moneyfacts

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Britons taking out a new home loan face paying almost £800 a year more on average than before the Iran war as “Trumpflation” pushes up UK mortgage rates, according to Moneyfacts.

Nearly 700 mortgage deals have been pulled by lenders as the economic fallout from the war results in the biggest upheaval since the aftermath of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget in 2022.

Progressive and green groups join call for tax on major fossil-fuel companies to help offset rising living costs

With big oil companies poised to reap billions of dollars in profits from the war in Iran, Democratic lawmakers and progressive groups are calling for a windfall tax on major fossil fuel companies.

The US-Israeli strikes on Iran have triggered the largest ever disruption to fuel supply, according to the International Energy Agency, sending crude costs surging over $100 per barrel in recent days. Those high prices have hit US pocketbooks, with average domestic gas prices topping $3.70 a gallon, and Americans spending more than an additional $2bn to fill their tanks in the past fortnight according to one estimate.

Weekly news magazine’s parent company makes third significant ownership shake-up in its 183-year history

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The Canadian billionaire Stephen Smith has bought a stake in the parent company of the Economist, held by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, in only the third significant ownership structure shake-up in its 183-year history.

Smith and his family holding company, Smith Financial Corp, which owns financial businesses, including a co-ownership of the influential proxy advisory group Glass Lewis, has acquired a 26.9% stake in the Economist Group (TEG) for an undisclosed sum.

Carmaker reduces office-based roles and will not fill vacancies ‘to ensure long-term competitiveness of business’

Bentley is to cut 275 jobs in the UK as the carmaker faces a “challenging global market environment”.

The luxury brand, owned by Germany’s Volkswagen, is preparing to launch its first all-electric model but acknowledged it had some work to do to persuade consumers to switch away from internal combustion engine vehicles.

Born in Russia and raised in Israel, Ocher rejected the IDF draft for a life in Germany. As she releases an album inspired by the Weimar period, she discusses nationalism, AI and the future of humanity

‘When I moved to Berlin 19 years ago, it felt like some kind of revival of the Weimar period,” says Mary Ocher, referring to the cultural glory days of pre-Nazi Germany. But then she saw “the tail end of this beautiful period. Now in Germany, they try to deport EU citizens who participated in pro-Palestine protests. From where I am, it’s pretty scary.” To Ocher, it was the right time to call her new album Weimar, to draw parallels between the rise of fascism in the 1930s and our own era, tied to her experiences as an immigrant artist in Berlin.

Ocher has never seen making political work as a choice. Born in Moscow to Jewish-Ukrainian parents, she is an Israeli citizen who grew up in Tel Aviv, where she was exposed to intense nationalism that appalled her. “I hated everything around me,” the 39-year-old says of her teenage years in Israel. “There was no accountability, no possibility to change anything. I could see that people who migrated to Israel wanted to integrate and to become part of that society, which means not criticising it, and actively joining the mainstream that is preaching hate.”

British writer brought wit, realism and class consciousness to cold war espionage fiction, reshaping the genre in the 1960s

• Len Deighton obituary

Len Deighton, the British author whose subversive spy novels helped redefine the genre in the 1960s, has died aged 97.

Best known for his debut, The Ipcress File, Deighton went on to write more than 30 books over a career spanning four decades, establishing himself as one of the most distinctive voices in postwar fiction. His work, often compared to that of John le Carré, combined meticulous research with wit and sharp observations about class and bureaucracy.

The final instalment in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy brings back Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Florence Pugh and introduces a nasty new villain

Timothée Chalamet may have finally escaped Oscar season, but not movie promotion – the first look at Dune: Part Three is here.

The first trailer released for the final installment in Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi trilogy sees further war and political upheaval in the galaxy beyond Arrakis – plus a possible future child for Chalamet’s Paul Atreides and Chani, the Fremen warrior played by Zendaya. “If we have a girl, what should be name her?” Chani asks, suggesting the two have reconciled since the end of Part Two.

Cancelled after two seasons, this 2003 curio following a travelling troupe in the American dust bowl recalls everything from Stephen King to Twin Peaks

Carnivàle premiered on HBO in 2003 and was cancelled after only two seasons. In the immediate aftermath, this decision was protested by the small but dedicated cult following the show had amassed (to the tune of 50,000 emails).

But in the years since, as the television canon has expanded and the taste for mystery-box TV has waned, Carnivàle now seems little more than a minor curio in HBO’s ever-expanding back catalogue. So what is this curio about?

Undemanding retelling of Jesus’s choice miracles, breaking bread at dinner and the subsequent crucifixion and resurrection ticks basic boxes but offers no depth

Another contribution from the fast-growing faith-based film-making industry, this dramatisation of Jesus’s final meal and the events leading up to it is as basic as it gets. That said, it’s perfectly serviceable for what it was no doubt intended to be: something religious families can slap on TV for the teens while the grownups get the holiday banquet ready. As dehydrated theology goes, it contains all the basic New Testament theological nutrients – including the miracle of the loaves and fishes, Jesus’s dispute with Jerusalem’s rabbinate, his invention of the Eucharistic sacrament at the titular supper, the betrayals by Judas and Peter – and then bing-bang-bong, the crucifixion and resurrection are briskly run through by the time the bread rolls are out of the oven.

Naturally, there’s no question here that our man Jesus (played by Jamie Ward) is anything other than the son of God and therefore the Messiah. But viewers living in more secular families or even ones with other faiths might find this not only a useful primer on Christianity but also a respectful reminder of how Jesus was first and foremost a Jew, and that the Last Supper was a celebration of Passover with its own rituals and sacred meanings.

From a pocket of Zen in the Dream House installation, the rapper/producer talks about channelling the city’s perpetual din, whether solo or with Billy Woods as Armand Hammer

Seated opposite me in the Dream House, New York rapper and producer Elucid leans against the wall, crosses his ankles and shuts his eyes. Perfumed by incense, the long-running installation in a Manhattan loft, from composer La Monte Young and artist Marian Zazeela, is an otherworldly experience: a fridge-sized speaker cabinet occupies each corner, and pink and purple stage lights illuminate curly mobiles hanging from the ceiling. Violet-tinted film covers the three west-facing windows, making it hard to tell what time it is, or if time is passing at all. Each speaker plays distinct parts of a long drone composition; the emphasis shifts as you tilt your head or move through the space. Eventually, Elucid gets up and slowly walks around, finding a spot to lie down and let it all wash over him.

An hour later, as we sip cocktails in a nearby bar, he tells me that he drifted off a bit. This was his first visit to the Dream House in at least a decade, but his years of frequenting floatation tanks – at least once a season, always after coming home from tour – had him primed for the installation’s meditative properties. “It takes a minute to get into another space, but I definitely got there,” he says. As he settled into the cascading tone, his eyes closed, words like “engine room” and “turbine” came to mind, unconsciously mirroring his songwriting process. “Rappers always be like, ‘The beat tells me what to do,’” he says, and he is no different. “Sound has colour, emotion and force, and everyone who hears the same sound interprets it differently. I’ve developed a sound vocabulary, and oftentimes words pop in. Sometimes it’s a whole sentence.”

The stars of the smash hit Birmingham-set series tell all to Edith Bowman. Plus, the shocking 1969 Israeli plan to secretly transfer 60,000 Palestinians to Paraguay

Ahead of the release of the Peaky Blinders film, Edith Bowman and Packy Lee (who played Johnny Dogs) present an in-depth look at the series. Astonishingly, given it’s made by – and viewable on – Netflix, it works well in both audio and video form. From erudite chats with creator Steven Knight about 19th-century masculinity to Cillian Murphy going deep on the research he did to play Tommy Shelby, it’s a nice companion piece for fans. Alexi Duggins
Widely available, episodes weekly

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Joan Tower’s concerto for alto saxophone was brilliantly delivered by Steven Banks, part of a lively concert

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is marking the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence in a series of concerts, and the UK premiere of Love Returns, by the 87-year-old American composer Joan Tower, was at the centre of this programme with Finnish conductor Tomas Djupsjöbacka.

Tower is best known for her Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman and, in this work, a concerto for alto saxophone, she has realised an uncommonly appealing piece. Its title relates to Tower’s use of a melody from her piano piece, Love Letter, written in memory of her late husband, as the basis for a theme and variations structure, as different from conventional concerto form as can be, evolving and gradually accelerating in tempo over its whole span of six sections. The only departure from this is in the fifth of the six: a solo saxophone cadenza, brilliantly delivered by soloist Steven Banks. His sometimes edgy, sometimes honeyed tone was wonderfully expressive throughout, whirling virtuoso passagework countered by aching lyricism, with Djupsjöbacka ensuring that Tower’s orchestral textures offered the optimal balance to the solo lines.

The singer and actor, formerly of Savages, was shaken up by Le Tigre and gets emotional when hearing Fontaines DC, but which rapper can she no longer bear to listen to?

The first song I fell in love with
I had an incredible piano teacher, who would play me a lot of jazz records that I would learn and sing along to. Chet Baker was charismatic, good looking and stylish. Even though I had a really soft, small voice, I’d give My Funny Valentine my best shot.

The song I inexplicably know every lyric to
Dollar Days by David Bowie, because I had to perform it recently at the British Library for the 10-year anniversary of his final album, Blackstar.

A witty metaphysical satire about what happens when the processes that help souls pass on begin to fail

Jenni Fagan’s satirical fifth novel, The Delusions, opens with an epigraph from the Kurt Vonnegut-inspired science fiction curiosity Venus on the Half-Shell by Philip José Farmer. “The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.” The afterthought leaks back into the original statement, underpinning and undermining everything.

Infinity and eternity are both unavoidably present in The Delusions, which takes place in a vast anteroom to the afterlife, “the largest soul terminus in existence”. It’s the metaphysical equivalent of a big-box store, where they help you sort your false perceptions of yourself from what you actually were, before you’re Processed and sent on to whatever comes next (or, should you fail the Questionnaire, Dissolved on the spot). Though to be honest, no one in Processing is certain what that next thing is.

The former archbishop delves deep into a word that is easy to use on social media, but hard to follow through on

You don’t need to scroll far down a social media feed to find someone expressing “solidarity” for the victims of cruelty or injustice. A show of solidarity feels more emphatic than expressing support or sympathy. As Rowan Williams argues, it can act as “a moral intensifier”, positioning us squarely alongside the victim. It can also be a declaration of innocence, a way of distancing ourselves definitively from the perpetrators and their guilt.

Williams wants to move us beyond this idea of solidarity as unequivocal identification. He has some sharp things to say about “empathy” as a modern solve-all, when it too often serves the needs of “a clamorous self” that “cannot bear the idea of a real stranger”. True solidarity, he argues, is less a virtue to be cultivated than a human condition to be acknowledged. It requires us to accept two stubborn truths: first, that we can never identify completely with someone else, because we are inescapably separate from them in mind and body; and second, that we are innately social beings, linked to each other by invisible threads of obligation and reciprocity.

As Emerald Fennell’s film sparks debate, we celebrate the pioneering brilliance of the siblings’ work

This was the first novel that Charlotte Brontë completed. It was rejected by publishers nine times. Written in the voice of a male narrator, William Crimsworth, it offers a downbeat story of everyday middle-class striving as the protagonist travels to Brussels to establish his career as a teacher. But the last publisher to see it thought it showed promise, despite being too short and insufficiently “striking and exciting”. Had the author anything else to offer? Luckily, Jane Eyre – which amply supplied the earlier book’s deficiencies – was already in train and was soon accepted with alacrity. Although The Professor remained unpublished in Charlotte’s lifetime, she continued to believe that it was “as good as I can write”; its subtly ironised male voice reveals her underlying literary sophistication.

The actor led the starry book deals, while publishers assessed whether US-style bans are spreading to the UK

The annual London book fair wrapped on Thursday, marking the end of three days that saw 33,000 people connected to the book industry – agents, publishers, authors, among others – gather at Olympia to make deals and discuss the state of the publishing world, and its future. Here’s our roundup of the biggest deals, trends and takeaways from the fair.

The starriest book deal of the week was a new thriller series co-authored by Idris Elba, featuring an MI6 field operative who gets deployed to Mauritius to investigate an attempted murder. Elsewhere, rights were scooped for Alex Ferguson’s first autobiography in 13 years, broadcaster Mishal Husain’s debut children’s book, and the story of designer Paul Smith’s life.

Team Artichoke; PC/Mac
Ancient Greek gods, adorable raccoons and hypnotic puzzling from Olympus to the mortal realm and back

There’s been a trend for a while where familiar puzzle game genres are imbued with novel stories to give them depth and meaning beyond simply clearing a screen for points. Occult object sorter Strange Horticulture and historical romance card game Regency Solitaire are lovely examples, and now here’s Mythmatch, a match-three game in the style of Candy Crush or Bejeweled that’s also a warming tale of friendship and community set in a small town in ancient Greece. Interspersed with cerebral challenges are dialogue scenes with villagers and with gods which accentuate each other and give little clues that are picked up later, making this both puzzle game and communal oral drama.

You play as Artemis, the immortal daughter of Zeus, who is tired of getting overlooked for plum jobs in favour of her oafish brother Apollo (brilliantly portrayed as an insufferable proto-tech bro). When the role of God of the Hunt comes up, she applies, but finds she must first earn favour with a council of her elders on Mount Olympus, and they all have puzzle-based jobs for her. Hephaestus wants her to help make arrows and hammers in his foundry, while Apollo needs her to protect his collection of chimp soft toys (a not-so-subtle dig at NFTs). These mini-tasks take the form of match-three puzzles, though cleverly they also bring in elements of other puzzle games such as Plants vs Zombies and Overcooked.

Scientists in the US have uploaded a fruit fly to a computer simulation, while an Australian lab has taught neurons on a glass chip to play a 90s video game. How long before we are all living in a sci-fi movie?

It sounds like the opening of a sci-fi film, but US scientists recently uploaded a copy of the brain of a living fly into a simulation. In San Francisco, biotechnology company Eon Systems created a virtual insect that knew how to walk, fly, groom and feed in its virtual environment. Researchers in Australia, meanwhile, have taught a petri dish containing 200,000 human brain cells to play the iconic 90s shooter Doom. One experiment has pushed a brain into a computer; the other has plugged a computer into brain cells.

Both stories have been hailed as scientific breakthroughs, but have also sparked inevitable fears about the prospects of lab-grown humans and digital clones. Should we be concerned?

From war zones and socially virtuous farming to ever-changing boards and role-playing with 167 dice, here’s our pick of the most absorbing table-based entertainment

Video games have long been heavily inspired by physical games, from chess and Scrabble to Dungeons & Dragons. The deck-building collectible card game, for example, has become immensely popular in digital form, thanks to hits such as Slay the Spire, Marvel Snap and Balatro. Now, an increasing number of games are going in the opposite direction, trading pixels for pieces and screens for spinners. Here are six of our favourites.

Company of Heroes 2nd Edition (Bad Crow Games, £119.70)

Josh Wardle hopes his digital take on the cryptic crossword can be a gradual on-ramp crossing the cultural divide between Britain and the US

In 2021, Josh Wardle became a household name almost overnight. His digital game, Wordle, turned a simple guessing game into a global morning ritual: six guesses, one word, and a grid of coloured squares shared across social media feeds.

It became a cultural phenomenon; bought within months by the New York Times for a seven-figure sum.

Hampstead theatre, London
US businessman-turned-playwright Aaron Loeb combines medical tech concepts with knotty dilemmas and Mamet-esque dialogue

An earnest research scientist turns up at a sleek venture capitalist firm to pitch her idea with a set of old-school index cards. Willa (Letty Thomas) is initially dismissed by young gun May (Millicent Wong) until she realises Willa has found a way to predict cancer in the human body. It’s a sort of medicalised version of the “precrime” technology of Philip K Dick’s Minority Report – except this is not a futuristic landscape but modern-day San Francisco.

May, the ambitious protege of company boss Paul (Lloyd Owen), sees that she has a rare, high-value startup (known as a “unicorn”) in her hands. But the marriage between Willa’s cutting-edge medical technology and Paul’s profit-driven business brings big dilemmas.

At Hampstead theatre, London until 11 April.

The spectacular stage version of Studio Ghibli’s much-loved film has spent a year at the Gillian Lynne theatre in London. To celebrate, photographer Tristram Kenton was granted backstage access

Palais Garnier, Paris
Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple’s Arena spills off the stage while Morau’s equally audacious Étude has balletic body snatchers

What a joy to find Jessica Wright and Morgann Runacre-Temple given full run of the grandiose Palais Garnier. The sparky duo from London, known as Jess and Morgs, bring their audacious blend of choreography and live camerawork to a gripping new creation, Arena, with video design by Jakub Lech. It peaks with a bravura sequence in which Loup Marcault-Derouard leaves the stage and is seen on a huge screen, racing around the opera house’s imposing halls and staircase. Arena gives the sense of choreographers in a candy store, seizing the real estate newly available to them after their hit, tech-centric reboot of Coppélia for Scottish Ballet in 2022.

The piece opens with understated, percussive coolness and shades of A Chorus Line – an athletic squad limber up with individual and collective confidence. “Next please!” barks the voiceover and a camera operator glides down the queue, capturing beady eyes, beating chests, glistening sweat. In the age of Instagram, dancers are ever-ready for their closeups and here the port de bras frequently results in tightly framed faces – but Arena exposes the perils of chronically online culture and the urge to compete, compare and conform. There is a gladiatorial element to Annemarie Woods’ costumes yet this is a dystopian contest that also feels rooted in the present day.

Whitworth, Manchester
Hokusai’s breathtaking woodblock print may be ubiquitous today but, as this startling show reminds us, it’s also an apocalyptic vision of a world about to change

The printed images made in Japan between the 17th and 20th centuries, known collectively as “pictures of the floating world”, could be bought from a local bookshop for about the price of a bowl of noodles. Collected casually, like posters or magazines, these mass-produced media started out as sexy, charming and dazzling snapshots of Tokyo high-life for the vicarious enjoyment of those who could not afford it. Manufactured by workshops of artists and artisans, they made professional works of art available to ordinary people for the first time. They’re breathtakingly beautiful, and they changed the history of art.

The first and most enduringly popular subjects for these collectible prints were famous actors from the kabuki theatreand beautiful women, typically courtesans from the brothel district of Yoshiwara. By introducing us to the denizens of the floating world, the first half of this dazzling exhibition sheds light on the dreams and desires that drive popular culture. Kunichika’s portrait of an actor in the role of a “heavenly being” is as heart-throbbing and as gender-bending as Rudolph Valentino in a bolero vest. A “fashionable beauty” caught by Eizan in the process of applying her lipstick, a delicately turned ankle visible through the gap in her marvellously rendered gown, is erotic in a way that is unavoidably (and by design) voyeuristic. You could imagine stumbling upon this half-dressed model, glimpsed through an open door, in the pages of Vogue Italia.

The writer, actor and singer won an award for her role in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812. Then everything went silent. As the rising star returns in her very own musical, she hits out at ‘massive’ celebrity casting

This time last year, Maimuna Memon was surfing an almighty career high. The Lancashire-born composer, writer and actor had just won an Olivier award for her performance in the musical Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812, based on a section of War and Peace. But then it all went silent. “I didn’t expect to skyrocket but I did think, ‘OK, what’s next?’” she says. “And it was a rather quiet year, which was tough.”

It turned out to be useful, in terms of “stripping the ego away”. She went to Galway to be with her mother, a nurse and fiddle-player. “I watched her play and saw these incredible musicians playing for the love of it – not for how they will be reviewed, or to win any awards, or any of that.”

The response follows social media footage of the One Battle After Another actor remonstrating with a member of security during the ceremony

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has responded to the complaint by Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor over the behaviour of a security guard who manhandled her in the closing moments of the ceremony.

In footage that circulated on social media after the telecast on Sunday, Taylor can be heard telling someone off-camera that they are “a man putting your hands on a female. You’re very rude. Very rude.”

Fonda, who was in four films with Redford, playfully asked why the singer was chosen to give the in memoriam speech for the late actor

Jane Fonda has said she wishes she could have fronted the tribute to Robert Redford at Sunday night’s Academy Awards, rather than Barbra Streisand.

Speaking on the red carpet at an Oscars afterparty, Fonda told a red carpet reporter: “I want to know how come Streisand was up there doing that for Redford?” The actor then playfully added that while Streisand “only made one movie with him, I made four … I have more to say.”

Warner Bros might have swept the Oscars with Sinners and One Battle After Another, but the impending merger has those in the industry worried about the future

On Sunday, Warner Bros snared 11 Oscars for One Battle After Another, Sinners and Weapons, equalling the record for most wins for a single film studio. Paramount, by contrast, did not earn a single nomination.

Yet in an apparent case of a minnow swallowing a whale, Paramount is poised to gobble up Warner Bros in a deal worth $111bn. If approved by regulators, the two studios would be consolidated into one, redrawing the Hollywood map and sowing uncertainty for actors, directors and writers as well as millions of viewers.

They are essentially nachos that don’t require cooking, but is this trend worth your time? There was only one way to find out ...

Ready salted, prawn cocktail, pickled onion and smoky bacon – crisps are undoubtedly the nation’s favourite snack food, subject to a variety of staple and sometimes suspicious flavour varieties. According to one recent report, they were the UK’s snack of choice on 94% of “all consumption occasions”, often enjoyed with a complementary dip, or served in a packet ripped open on a pub table. But now, the humble bag of crisps is having a revamp.

Enter: the loaded crisp bag. It’s a lot like loaded fries or nachos, in that it can be a vehicle for a whole gamut of flavours – as served, for example, at Pablos, a fast food outlet in Nottingham where anything from ground beef to molten cheese is dolloped into an opened bag of crisps.

As a mental health chaplain in New York, I help people leave homelessness. But mental illness, bureaucracy and a fragile system often pull them back

Whether you want buildable or barely there, our beauty writer put 19 formulas through their paces – plus, makeup artists on how to apply it

• The best concealers for camouflaging blemishes and dark circles

As a makeup-loving teenager, I spent countless hours of my precious youth practising how to apply makeup, and spent more money than I dare to count buying products.

My cosmetics drawers quickly filled with fun mascaras, bronzers and eyeshadow palettes, but my choice of foundation was ruining the look of anything I applied on top. Whether it was oxidising and turning my skin orange, or mismatched formulation types causing the whole look to separate on the skin, getting a lasting natural finish seemed impossible. Had I spent a little more time picking out the best foundation for my skin type, I wouldn’t be haunted by so many embarrassing photos from my adolescence.

Best foundation overall:
Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Foundation

Best budget foundation:
L’Oréal True Match foundation

Our writer picks her favourite, tried-and-tested products for better sleep – from a bargain eye mask to a sustainable duvet

• The best mattresses – tested
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Just as spring emerges from its long, soggy lie-in, we’re going back to bed.

It may not seem the most obvious time of year for World Sleep Day (which was 13 March), but light evenings, early sunrises and the last cries of the fox mating season mean some of us need all the sleep help we can get.

Which supermarket Spanish omelette seems as if it’s served plump from the pan, and which is a soggy flop?

• The best supermarket free-range eggs

My second ever chef job was at Glastonbury in 1997, which is now famous as the “Year of the Mud”. We sliced hundreds of kilos of potatoes, peeled onions until we cried, and cracked and whisked untold dozens of eggs. Back then, you couldn’t buy tortilla in a shop, only from a tapas restaurant, but these days there’s an incredible selection in many supermarkets. I normally eat shop-bought tortilla straight from the packet, but during this taste test, I discovered just how nice it is when reheated in a pan. I tried all these tortillas hot and cold, and even the lower-scoring ones were quite enjoyable when eaten warm.

I judged them on taste and texture, which varied from a dense, firmly set egg to the soft and squidgy centre I love. All were relatively minimally processed, but all lacked transparency regarding the origin of their ingredients – though, thankfully, many were made with free-range eggs, which scored them an extra star. Some were made in the UK and others in Spain, but that didn’t always equate to a better product. While supermarket tortilla can’t quite replicate the fresh-from-the-pan experience, the best come surprisingly close.

The sport is booming, but which racket will boost your game? Our expert enlisted the help of a padel coach to round up the aces

• The best fitness tech and gadgets

There are ludicrously fast-growing sports – and then there’s padel. According to the Lawn Tennis Association, only 15,000 British players picked up a padel racket in 2019 … but by the end of 2024, that figure was more than 400,000. Of those, about 399,000 are probably mispronouncing it: think pah-dell rather than paddle. But get used to strange looks if you insist on saying it like that.

People love padel because it’s so easy to play. If you can hit a ball with a racket, you can play – and there’s something joyous about whacking any ball over any net. You don’t need to be incredibly fit either: while better players will be constantly on the move, casual players can get away with something akin to walking pace.

Best padel racket overall:
Babolat Counter Origin

It’s not simply a case of dividing the ingredients list by the number of servings, our experts agree, but it is more often than not about common sense

Any tips for downsizing recipes to serve one? Dividing by the number of servings doesn’t always work.
Melanie, by email
“It’s often just common sense,” says Kitty Coles, author of Make More With Less, plus a little maths – though, as Melanie so wisely points out, you can’t always simply divide the ingredients and be done with it.

First, you need to consider your cookware: “It’s really worth investing in smaller pans and a smaller skillet,” says Alexina Anatole, who is behind the Small Wins Substack. A tiny amount of liquid in a large pan, say, will get too much exposure to heat, so it’s very likely you’ll under- or overcook its contents. As Shelina Permalloo, author of What to Cook When Everyone’s Hungry, says, “The absorption method for rice is a nightmare if you’re using a wrong-sized pan.”

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

A comforting, rustic roast chicken and saffron casserole with a knockout hazelnut mojo verde

Chicken and beans are two of the foods I grew up with, and were often cooked in one pot and designed to be shared. It’s the kind of cooking we do at my restaurant Lolo: generous, relaxed and made to be eaten together. March sits between the seasons, when we still need comfort, but also start to look for freshness, too, and this stew feels just right for the moment. As the days get longer and spring starts to show itself, it is warming without being heavy, while the mojo verde lifts everything and gives the dish energy.

This classic dish needs no deviation from its time-honoured traditions – but mastering it does require some skill

The first time I dared to write a recipe for Irish stew, I was invited on to the national broadcaster, RTÉ, to discuss my choices live on air. And, to my considerable relief, it was eventually decided that I had not dishonoured the memory of my ancestors. It’s tempting for modern cooks to meddle with such resolutely plain classics. Do not! It’s delicious just as it is.

Prep 20 min
Cook 2 hr
Serves 6

The trouble with open kitchens is that the chaos is fully visible to everyone

DakaDaka, a rowdy paean to Georgian cuisine, has arrived on Heddon Street in the West End of London. Heddon Street has always been synonymous with rowdiness, regardless of the fact that the mature, semi-elegant likes of Sabor, Piccolino and Heddon Street Kitchen are quite the opposite. But anyone who ever found themselves staggering out of Strawberry Moons in the 1990s having lost a shoe and with a love bite or from the basement club at Momo will know that this little nook tucked away behind Regent Street is where a good time is meant to be had.

And now there’s DakaDaka, which certainly does not market itself as a nightclub, because, well, virtually nowhere does any more. What DakaDaka does do, though, is play Georgian dance music very loudly and with endless enthusiasm right through your badrijani (grilled aubergines), imeruli (cheese-filled flatbread) and kababi (lamb skewers). Helpfully, the brick walls have been painted pitch-black to give these dark, candle-lit, metal-clad premises a real sense that you’ve somehow stumbled into a 2am lock-in on a back street in Tbilisi, complete with pottery, folklore and blackboards on the walls, though this place also happens to serve grape salads and nakhvatsa (corn crisps). Some potential customers will no doubt read that and think: “Yippee! I love a restaurant where talking to my friends is no longer part of the arduous invisible labour of leaving the house.” Well, those people will adore DakaDaka, and should take up one of the tables in the heart of the melee. Otherwise, there’s also a sit-up counter behind which the open kitchen is in full swing, and where you can sit shoulder to shoulder with a total stranger. If you do, however, please dress in removable layers, because you will be directly next to the open fire used for “live fire cooking”, that hospitality phrase du jour that has caused me so much merriment in recent years because it proves that if you put enough male chefs in one room for long enough, they will literally believe they invented fire.

In a world teeming with social media and smart devices, there are many ways to upset people, whether you’re checking your watch notifications or sending a voice note without a text to explain the subject. Here’s how to navigate it all

In an age of smartphones, social media and instant communication, it has never been easier to connect … or to offend everyone around us. Many of today’s most common etiquette breaches stem not from malice but from convenience: a badly written message, a thoughtless post, a device that demands our attention. Yet good manners still hinge on the same old principle: consideration for others. From eschewing headphones on public transport to ghosting invitations and sharing thoughtlessly online, here are some of the most common modern etiquette mistakes, why they grate, and how they can be avoided.

Two Oxfordshire inhabitants disagreed over the role of the royals, but would they see eye to eye over benefits and immigration?

Matilda, 19, Oxfordshire

Occupation Starts a history degree in September

When they lived in different countries, sex was spontaneous for Rupert and Eva, but now they cohabit they experiment more

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

We’ve been trying the ‘sex first’ rule when you go out on a date, because you don’t really feel like sex after dinner and a glass of wine

Even if he was on a night shift, I’d sneak into his workplace and we’d have sex there

It’s OK to be angry at your husband – the shame isn’t yours to carry

I have been married for 30 years. Until recently, we were the best of friends. Then he began being distant, though he remained kind. I thought this was a passing phase, a midlife crisis of some sort. But one day I found out by chance that he had been engaged in a year-long affair with another woman. Life as I knew it collapsed.

It was not so much that my world was turned upside down, as it lost its cohesion. I was instantly reduced to pieces. No matter how much I try to make sense of it all, I cannot. I am (was?) a super-active person with many interests, and this betrayal has splintered me and narrowed everything down to this single event.

I was suddenly presented with a nearly £2,000 bill backdated to 2020 when it had mistakenly stopped collecting my direct debits

Thames Water has blindsided me with a bill for nearly £2,000, backdated to 2020. It turns out that it mistakenly stopped collecting my direct debits back then and has not sent any bills since.

It admitted its error and promised to write off charges older than 12 months, but now it is trying to recover almost the full amount.

Criminals exploiting Middle East crisis by targeting customers seeking help or refunds from affected carriers

Your flight has been delayed as a result of the Middle East crisis and you want to find out what’s happening, so you go online for an answer. You find a social media account run by the airline you are booked with and post a question, and get a reply offering help.

You’re asked to send a direct message with details, which seems reasonable. A conversation starts and you are told to give your phone number as you may be due compensation. This is where it all starts going wrong: instead of being given money, you have it taken. Although it looked official, the account that replied was a scam.

We were stranded as flights were cancelled, but the travel company didn’t seem aware of our rights

We are holidaymakers stranded in Mauritius by the conflict in the Gulf. Our return flight, booked as part of a Virgin Holidays package, was routed via Dubai and was cancelled.

We were advised by Virgin’s local representative that we should arrange and pay for accommodation ourselves until flights resumed, and reclaim it on our travel insurance. Only after we challenged this position did Virgin agree to cover hotel costs.

Woodall services near Sheffield is now one of the UK’s most expensive pit stops, with petrol at 172.9p a litre

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Opened in 1968, Woodall services on the M1 near Sheffield is Yorkshire’s oldest roadside service station. This weekend, it was also one of the country’s most expensive pit stops, with diesel priced at 185.9p a litre and petrol at 172.9p.

“Do you really want to know what I think? You probably couldn’t print it,” said biker Alan Harrison, who had stopped for a coffee break in the sunshine while heading from Leeds to Bournemouth.

A growing body of evidence suggests the vaccine may also lower risk of stroke and heart attack

One in three people in the US get shingles. Despite this, US vaccination rates remain low – about 35% of adults over 60, consistent with overall vaccination trends.

“We have a vaccine that works really well,” says Dr Andrew Wallach, ambulatory care chief medical officer at NYC Health + Hospitals. “But there is a lot of what I call vaccine fatigue right now.”

While it’s not effective as an antibiotic, some evidence suggests honey can help with wound healing – but good-quality research is lacking

• Read more in the Antiviral series

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Humans have been consuming honey for thousands of years. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks used it as a sweetener, but also a treatment for burns. Hippocrates, often referred to as the “father of medicine”, championed the sticky stuff – mistakenly – for purposes as varied as contraception and baldness.

Today, honey is often described as a superfood with a laundry list of promised benefits: a treatment for coughs, an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory, a potential solution to combat drug-resistant superbugs. Antiviral has previously debunked claims about hay fever and honey, finding there is little evidence that raw honey can reduce symptoms of allergic rhinitis.

Donna Lu is an assistant editor, climate, environment and science at Guardian Australia

Antiviral is a fortnightly column that interrogates the evidence behind the health headlines and factchecks popular wellness claims

Grey-market injectable peptides – a category of substances with obscure, alphanumeric names such as BPC-157, GHK-Cu, or TB-500 – have developed a devoted following among biohackers and health optimisers. To understand how these unregulated substances have become mainstream and what they could be doing in our bodies, Madeleine Finlay hears from journalist Adrienne Matei and from Dr Anna Barnard, an associate professor at Imperial College London who researches peptides

‘People are turning themselves into lab rats’: the injectable peptides craze sweeping the US

My therapist told me that anxiety is a bully and, like all bullies, it needs to be put in its place. To my relief, she knew exactly how to do it

The second half of 2011 was not a good time for me. Work was very stressful, and what had been gearing up to be the Great Summer Romance had slowly and painfully fizzled out. My mother was unwell, and I was going through a phase of really missing my father, who had died a few years before. It was the perfect, uninvited storm.

Before, when I’d gone through bad patches, I’d been able to dig myself out fairly quickly. Not this time. Suddenly, I was living in a state of high anxiety. I was still getting on with my life – going to work, going out – but anxiety was running the show. Having to make even the smallest decision would send me into a panic.

The first proper show since Valentino’s death is about the late designer, about beauty – and about Michele’s mother

Valentino Garavani wanted to make beautiful clothes for the women who could afford them. The perpetually tanned designer, whose vision of jet set glamour was matched only by his own yacht-and-pug lifestyle, died in January. So there was an obvious logic in taking the first proper catwalk show since his death off the fashion week schedule and back to Rome, where he lived, worked, and died. Milan and Paris may be the capitals of European style, but Rome looks better.

Garavani left his own brand almost 20 years ago. But his singular approach to beauty has not been without its obstacles for his most recent successor, Alessandro Michele, who took over the fashion house in 2024. “It’s a complicated DNA because beauty is always changing,” he said after the show, which took place in the 17th-century Palazzo Barberini. “This collection is about Valentino. It’s about beauty. But it’s [also] about the tension between me and the brand, a beauty I’m trying to translate.”

Online fashion commentator Lyas’s catwalk watch parties have gone from hastily assembled get-togethers to large-scale spectacles. But how easy is it to walk the line between outsider and insider?

It was the latest Paris fashion week, moments before the Tom Ford show was due to start, when fashion commentator Lyas slipped through the backstage entrance of the Théâtre du Châtelet and went upstairs to get mic’d up.

Having failed to get a ticket to the actual show, 27-year-old Lyas – whose real name is Elias Medini and who has almost 500,000 followers on Instagram – was preparing to livestream it on a big screen to 2,000 of his fellow rejects currently sitting in the auditorium. The night before he had shown Saint Laurent. In a few days he would do the same for Chanel. His aim, he says, is to democratise a famously closed-off industry, and open up the spectacle of fashion week to people who have no chance of ever going themselves.

Is the secret to a decent night’s kip a good sleep kit? Silky pyjamas, cosy socks and a dressing gown you won’t mind being seen in when putting the bins out will certainly help

Experts share tips on dressing as the most authentic version of yourself and avoiding the draw of the latest microtrends

How would you define your personal style? Is it cottagecore? Tomato girl? Whimsigoth? Quiet luxury? Maybe you don’t know what these terms mean (congratulations) and maybe you do (my condolences).

Like unwelcome nose hairs, new microtrends seem to sprout from the depths of social media every other week. In some ways, their pervasiveness has made style seem more accessible than ever. They reduce aesthetics to mathematical equations that you can solve by buying up a bunch of fast fashion. By the time these cheap, mass-produced items dissolve into microplastics – which they will, quickly – other aesthetic trends will have replaced them.

Feted for its warm winters and famous lemons, the seaside border town has attracted artists and writers from around the world

‘It’s not France, it’s not Italy, it’s Menton.” The seaside town on the French-Italian border has changed identities many times in its history. It was the only town in France completely annexed by the Italians during the second world war, but has also belonged to the Grimaldis of Monaco, was part of the kingdom of Sardinia, and only became French after a public vote in 1860. Today, ignoring the colours of Il Tricolore and Le Tricolore, almost everything is painted in various shades of yellow, a celebration of the town’s reliance on its beloved lemon.

Mauro Colagreco, the chef at the spectacular Mirazur restaurant, a few steps from the border, takes me up into the hills to visit one of his lemon and citrus fruit suppliers. “You can eat the peel of a Menton lemon; it has a thick, sweet rind. You can eat the whole thing; it’s totally organic and very juicy.” Menton’s microclimate, its warm winters, terraced hills and sandy soil make it perfect for growing citrus fruit. “What’s particular to the Menton lemon is that it has a smile, a small curvy fold at one end,” says Colagreco, who uses them in his restaurant alongside exploring the possibilities of Star Ruby grapefruits, yuzu confit and kumquats.

From the Venetian lagoon to the sparkling Med, these island getaways offer a welcome change of pace just a short hop from the mainland

Connected to the German mainland by a single rail causeway, Sylt is just over three hours from Hamburg by direct train. The largest of the North Frisian islands, it slices through the North Sea and the Wadden Sea, with salt marshes and mudflats to the east and 25 miles of white sands sweeping along the western coast, grassy dunes buffering the bracing winds.

Book an overnight stay in the cosy smuggler’s cottage on Looe Island and you get to enjoy this marine nature reserve after the day trippers have gone home

It is just after dawn and from a viewpoint on Looe Island, Cornwall, I watch two seals on the beach below. The pair entwine in the surf, her freckled, creamy belly against his, flippers wrapped around each other, eyes closed in blissful bonding. I feel like a peeping Tom, watching from behind a bush. It feels too intimate a moment to be spying upon, but the emerald-eyed cormorants guarding the beach seem unbothered.

I had arrived on Looe Island, also known as St George’s Island, off the south coast of Cornwall, the previous morning via the romantically named Night Riviera sleeper train from London, changing early in the morning in Liskeard, then 15 minutes across the waves in a small fishing boat. The island is managed by the Cornwall Wildlife Trust and can only be accessed on organised visits, and while most people come on day trips, I’m staying for a little longer. I have come loaded down with all the food and bedding I will need for my three-night visit, but also with the mental baggage of workaday life. Now, that weight lifts as I watch the male seal court his lady in the shallows.

In addition to near-20% of the beachside suburb’s population claiming Irish ancestry, it also boasts an astounding array of Irish entities, from themed bars to two fully fledged rugby teams

“I remember having my mind blown seeing boys walking down the beach in Irish football jerseys,” says Luke McCaul, a Dublin-born hairdresser and drag queen who moved to the beachside Sydney suburb of Coogee to work 15 years ago.

“Like, ‘what the fuck are they doing?’ Gaelic football jerseys – in Australia!”

Moss poles can end up looking tatty, but a sculptural stake is like a piece of art

The problem
Somewhere along the way, moss poles became mandatory for any climbing plant. In reality, most are plastic tubes wrapped in fibres that shed, go bald and drop bits all over the soil. The “living totem” promise is rarely fulfilled, especially if you aren’t misting it daily.

The hack
Swap the fake tree trunk for a proper plant stake. A simple metal or recycled plastic stake gives your climber something solid to lean on without pretending to be bark. The new sculptural stakes, such as the wavy pieces from Secateur Me Baby (pictured), transform a floppy vine into a line of living green wrapped around a piece of design.

The answers to today’s problems

Earlier today I posed four puzzles from the Hyde Park Math Zine, a maths fanzine from Austin, Texas. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Ring it

They roam the workplace, promoting themselves loudly and incessantly – while undermining everyone else

Name: Office hookworms.

Age: A recent term for a very old complaint.

Why would anyone kick a bird? Penny was delightful company from the moment I rescued her from some bullies in a pub

A few years ago I was sitting in a pub beer garden when a scruffy little pigeon landed on the bench. After a while, the pigeon edged a bit closer to me, and before I knew it she’d hopped on to my lap.

One of the waitresses came over and explained that this pigeon had wandered inside, but sadly some customers kicked her around to get rid of her. She looked quite young. I thought maybe she was a baby. For the next three hours, this pigeon didn’t leave my side. Then I drove home with her on my shoulder.

Numerous faked images and a string of startlingly inaccurate responses from Gemini and Grok are part of a tidal wave of AI slop engulfing coverage of the Iran war

The graves, freshly dug, lie in neat rows of 20 across. More than 60 have already been carved out of the earth, with a few clusters of people standing gathered around them. Dozens more are marked out on the ground in front: small chalk rectangles, with diggers poised to complete their task.

The cemetery of Minab, photographed as it prepares to bury more than 100 of the town’s young girls, is one of the defining images of the US-Israeli war on Iran, bluntly capturing the devastating civilian toll.

It is the first African country to deposit data in the Arctic World Archive, a storage facility designed to preserve records of everything from cultural practices to historical events

A decommissioned coalmine near the north pole is the last place you’d expect to find Indigenous stories from rural Nigeria, but deep below the Arctic permafrost of Svalbard a storage unit contains a cache of cultural and literary records from the West African country.

The Arctic World Archive (AWA) is a data storage unit where organisations and individuals can deposit records kept on specialist digitised film called Piql that lasts up to 2,000 years. On 27 February, Nigeria became the first African country to place archives at the facility 300 metres beneath a mountain where the cold, dark, dry conditions are perfect for preservation.

As big tech continues to dominate the film industry, Video StoreAge is a uniquely crafted company that works with film-makers to sell independent films on USB drives

The streaming-skeptical cinephile faces a dilemma in 2026, especially when it comes to watching movies at home. Increasingly, movies are available via rentals that funnel money to mega-corporations including Amazon or Apple; digital “purchases” from those same companies that can actually be revoked at any moment; or, most enticingly but still somewhat inconveniently, well-curated physical media special editions that treat films with the respect they deserve (sometimes even respect they don’t, depending on the title) while taking up a lot of shelf space and hitting your wallet hard. Plus, as vinyl aficionados know, bespoke physical media can also be severely limited in terms of where you can actually play it. Basically, almost everyone in the home-video space is trying to either be Amazon or the Criterion Collection.

Ash Cook, the former Sundance programmer who founded the new distributor Video StoreAge (pronounced like “storage”), is trying to figure out a third way. He described Video StoreAge’s products – indie movies sold on USB drives – as “like a DVD in the present tense. It’s a way to have a physical copy of a movie, but in this case you can play it on your computer. It has digital utility.” Like almost anything else these days, Video StoreAge is available as a subscription, with quarterly collections of five features and five shorts. The first drop includes Vera Drew’s buzzed-about The People’s Joker, a homemade superhero comedy that reappropriates many elements of the Batman mythos into a trans coming-out story. (Honestly, it’s more fun than those Joaquin Phoenix movies and might understand the Joker character better, too.) But they also sell single films, including Drew’s, or any combinations of available films as a sort of digital indie-movie mix tape on those format-flexible USB drives. (The quarter’s shorts package is included with every movie regardless, an automatic special feature.)

Health officials, schools and a university in Kent are working to contain an outbreak. We want to hear from those living in the area

A meningitis outbreak in Kent has been linked to a strain that most young people are not routinely vaccinated against, with two people confirmed to have died and 11 more in hospital. Health officials have offered antibiotics to those at risk, as authorities work to contain the spread.

We want to hear from people living in Canterbury and the surrounding area whether the outbreak is being well managed by the authorities.

Perhaps you are limiting car journeys or reducing the amount of cooking you do. Tell us

The conflict in the Middle East has disrupted global shipping routes and caused a surge in global oil market prices.

The strait of Hormuz, one of the most important waterways in the world, through which about a fifth of international oil supplies usually travel, has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.

We’d like to hear from people in the UK who have seen the cost of goods or services increase or experienced delays, cancellations or other disruptions

The conflict in the Middle East, disruption to global shipping routes and rising oil prices are beginning to have knock-on effects on supply chains and energy markets around the world.

Petrol prices have begun to rise, while turbulence in financial markets has pushed up mortgage rates. Higher transport and supply costs can also feed through into the price of goods and services.

Tell us about your favourite break in France, whether it was in the town or countryside – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

France is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations but there are still plenty of hidden corners where you can go to escape the crowds. We’d love to hear about your favourite under-the-radar places in France, whether it’s an underrated city break destination, a little-known museum, gallery or cultural attraction, a beautiful village, national park or stretch of coastline.

The best tip of the week, chosen by Tom Hall of Lonely Planet wins a £200 voucher to stay at a Coolstays property – the company has more than 3,000 worldwide. The best tips will appear in the Guardian Travel section and website.

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