In one corner, clean energy champion Ed Miliband. In the other, residents – and Reform politicians – outraged at plans for more large-scale solar farms in Lincolnshire than anywhere else in the UK

As night descends on the grand offices of Lincolnshire county council, everything appears orderly and calm. Paintings of long-forgotten councillors and dignitaries stare out into an empty drawing room. The council chamber is silent and dark. Bored receptionists glance at their phones while a handful of admin staff hunch over glowing screens. But a rebellion is brewing in the office of the council leader, Sean Matthews, who took charge last May, when Reform replaced the Conservative old guard. The affable former royal protection officer is plotting an apparently radical campaign of civil disobedience against a series of giant solar farms planned for Lincolnshire.

Despite a quarter of a century in the Metropolitan police, Matthews is willing to break the law to stop solar developers. He is planning to lie down in front of the bulldozers. “They can arrest me – I’ve arrested plenty of people,” he says, leaning forward on a sofa. “It’s much bigger than me and my criminal record. For goodness sake, it’s the future of the county, it’s the future of our land. I am passionate about that and I will do what I can.”

Woman’s Hour host, who has died aged 75, could talk about hydrangeas, campaign against domestic abuse, then tear a strip off a politician – all within a few minutes

Before she took over Woman’s Hour in 1987, Jenni Murray was a presenter on the Today programme. She had joined the BBC in Bristol in 1973, and became a TV reporter and presenter for South Today, so arrived with solid news credentials. But Today in the 1980s was inveterately sexist – the guys took the politics, the women mopped up the rest – that the format was just too small for her.

Woman’s Hour, on the other hand, was absolutely reshaped in her image: there was no preconception of tone, and nothing was too serious or too light for it. Murray, who has died at the age of 75, could tear a strip off a politician, talk about hydrangeas, then campaign against domestic abuse, all within a few minutes. She was instinctively open and generous about her personal experience, but never solipsistic – an incredibly fine balance.

Sightings in Varginha in 1996 have been dismissed as hoax, but saga continues to draw people from around world

The skies over this far-flung coffee-growing hub went charcoal black, the heavens opened and one of Brazil’s greatest mysteries was born.

“It really was something unique,” recalls Marco Antônio Reis, a zoo director, who was at his ranch outside Varginha one stormy day in January 1996 when, he says, an otherworldly creature came to town.

The former Countdown host on nasty rightwingers, the plane she bought to fly solo around the world, and her love of snogging

Born in Bedfordshire, Carol Vorderman, 65, studied engineering at Cambridge University. Her mathematical skill secured her a role on the Channel 4 gameshow Countdown, which she co-hosted from 1982 to 2008. Since 1999, she has presented the annual Pride of Britain awards, and in 2000 she received the MBE for services to broadcasting. She has published educational workbooks, self-help guides and her latest paperback is Now What? A People’s Manifesto for a Better Britain. She is a team captain on Channel 5’s show Celebrity Puzzling. She is twice divorced, has two children and lives in Bristol.

When were you happiest?
I was happiest in every aspect of my life in the 1990s, when I was married to Paddy [King, a management consultant] and we had the two children and my mum lived with us, and Countdown was the biggest show on Channel 4.

It’s hard under the best of circumstances. For those with difficult family relationships or estrangement, it’s even more complicated

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The phone call came in mid-2016. “I’ve got cancer,” the old woman announced. Kathy*, a small business consultant, lived in Sydney. Her widowed mother, then in her 80s, lived in a large regional town four hours’ drive away.

For the next five years, Kathy became her mother’s drive-in, drive-out carer, clocking up thousands of kilometres on her odometer.

As the UK version of the US comedy institution launches, the big question is whether it can balance British humour with the spirit of the original

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This weekend, after the longest hyping up period for a British comedy in ages, Saturday Night Live UK finally launches on Sky. It arrives with a degree of divisiveness that most shows don’t usually attain until at least a few episodes in, with some people willing it on, others are convinced that it will fail. Already there’s been a note of pre-emptive schadenfreude online, with every last piece of promotional material – even a fairly innocuous advert with the letters S N and L spelt out in baked beans – pounced on as evidence that the show will be a complete bin fire.

And maybe it will. I’m hopeful that SNL UK will prove better than many expect: there are some good young comics attached; some shrewd people behind the scenes (it’s heartening to see a couple of members of the great sketch group Sheeps on the writing staff); and the steely presence of original SNL creator Lorne Michaels, keeping an eye on things as exec producer. But equally, this is a hell of a high-wire act. Putting on a live comedy show every week is a daunting enough prospect; but add to that the reputational weight of the original SNL – arguably the US’s most famous comedy export – and it becomes something else altogether.

President says US ‘getting very close to meeting our objectives’; missiles fired at joint US-UK military base in Indian Ocean but neither hit

Circling back now to Diego Garcia, Iran fired two intermediate-range ballistic missiles at the joint US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean – but neither of them hit, according to news reports citing US officials.

The Wall Street Journal said one of the missiles failed in flight, and that a US warship fired an SM-3 interceptor at the other, citing two US officials. It could not be determined if an interception was made, one said.

Police say two people tried to enter Faslane base in Scotland, home to core of UK’s submarine fleet and Trident nuclear weapons

Two people have been charged, one of them Iranian, after they allegedly tried to enter HM Naval Base Clyde in Scotland, which houses the UK’s nuclear Trident submarines.

A 34-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman were charged after the incident at the base, which is known as Faslane. Police Scotland said inquiries were continuing and that the pair were due to appear at Dumbarton sheriff court on Monday.

Anger grows within cabinet over impact of war begun by Donald Trump, who branded Nato allies ‘cowards’

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has branded the UK and other Nato allies “cowards” but anger is growing among cabinet ministers that his war in Iran could jeopardise Britain’s fragile finances.

Senior members of the government are in despair about the potential effects on the economy, with experts warning of higher energy prices and increased mortgage and borrowing costs.

Regime will do whatever it takes to cling on to power – including sacrificing economies of other Gulf states

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Brinkmanship, the ability to take a country to the edge of war without plunging it into the abyss, was the cornerstone of cold war diplomacy. But in our different, more unstable times – in which the line between state and non-state actors has blurred, and weapons of war have diffused – the world this week finally tipped over the edge, and suddenly it is in freefall.

The first six days of the Iran war cost the US $12.7bn (£9.5bn), but now the Pentagon is seeking as much as $200bn in military funding. Oil at $125 a barrel is no longer an Iranian, or Russian, fantasy. The crown jewel of Qatar, Ras Laffan – the world’s largest liquefied natural gas plant – may not reopen fully for five years, at a cost of $20bn a year. Other combustible oil depots in the Gulf, from Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, are exposed to Iran’s low-cost drones. Then add the human cost of 18,000 civilians injured and more than 3,000 killed in Iran alone.

Conflict has not only hit sporting calendar but laid bare weakness in plans for diversifying economies through sport

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The sight of Nasser al-Khelaifi grounded in Doha when Paris Saint Germain hosted Chelsea in the last-16 of the Champions League last week provided a symbolic illustration of the fragility of the Gulf’s sports project amid the conflict in the Middle East.

Al-Khelaifi is the president of PSG, the chair of Qatar Sports Investments and, most crucially, the European Football Clubs, a lobby group that, along with Uefa, runs the Champions League. He is seen as the second-most powerful individual in world football, after the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino. Yet, with Qatari airspace closed, the 52-year-old was forced to miss his first PSG match for years.

Tax authority incorrectly used Home Office travel records to deduce that parents who went on holiday were fraudsters

A controversial government anti-fraud scheme that incorrectly stripped thousands of parents of their child benefit is to resume, despite ongoing concerns about inaccurate Home Office travel data on which the crackdown is based.

HMRC used flawed Home Office travel records to deduce that thousands of parents who went on holiday or work trips abroad were fraudsters, with 23,800 families having child benefit payments stopped late last year.

FoI request reveals no evidence of testing despite ministers hailing agreement as key to delivering AI-led public service reform

When the UK government signed a memorandum of understanding with OpenAI, the tech firm behind ChatGPT, the partnership was hailed as one that could harness artificial intelligence to “address society’s greatest challenges”.

But eight months on from the fanfare of that announcement, the government has yet to hold any trials involving the firm’s tech.

Exclusive: Tariq Ahmad says he has raised concerns with party leadership after shadow justice secretary’s remarks

The shadow justice secretary, Nick Timothy, has been accused by a Conservative peer and former counter-extremism minister of “instilling fear” among Muslims with his comments about public prayer.

British Muslims were openly talking about leaving the Conservative party, added Tariq Ahmad, who said he had raised his concerns with the party leadership and expected action to be taken.

⚽ Updates from the 12.30pm GMT Premier League kick-off
⚽ Ten things to look out for | Table | Mail Scott

Florian Wirtz has been chatting to Steve McManaman on TNT Sports. Happily for you, for me, for all of us, David Tindall scribbled down a few choice words from the interview and published them in this morning’s Matchday Live blog, in an MBM-friendly cut-and-paste-able format. So here they are.

Wirtz said: “Everyone in the world knows that the Premier League is the most intense and physically it was maybe a bit more than I was thinking but there’s always difficult things on the pitch where you have to adapt. Maybe you have also a bit more responsibility for more people who are supporting you and wanting you to do good.

Cases emerge after other people tell of change in Home Office policy on passports that has left people scrambling

Two more British teenagers have found themselves unable to return to the UK because of new Home Office border rules on British dual nationals.

Their cases emerged just hours after reports a 16-year-old British schoolgirl was blocked from boarding a flight in Denmark home to the UK because she was a dual national and did not have a British passport. She has missed two weeks of school so far.

Harold may have sailed, not marched, in 1066, reshaping explanations for his defeat in England’s historic battle

It is a story that has been taught to generations of British schoolchildren about one of the most famous and pivotal events in the country’s history.

In September 1066, as a Norman duke called William prepared to sail from France to claim the English throne, King Harold of England discovered the Viking leader Harald Hardrada had landed in Yorkshire with an army of his own.

At least 400 killed in Pakistan’s strike on drug rehab centre, Taliban say, with families searching unmarked mass graves

Sohrab Faqiri spent Eid, the Muslim festival to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, looking for the grave of his brother, killed in a massive Pakistan airstrike on Kabul this week.

Pakistan’s bombardment campaign, on what it says is terrorist and military infrastructure in neighbouring Afghanistan, appeared to have gone catastrophically wrong. A rehabilitation centre for drug addicts was hit on Monday night, according to the United Nations and the Afghan authorities. The UN’s preliminary death toll is 143 people, while the Taliban administration puts the figure at more than 400 dead.

Bypassing animal health certificate system by using cheaper pet passport issued abroad could backfire, experts say

British pet owners who want to take their furry friends elsewhere in Europe have been warned not to try to dodge expensive health certificates by using a pet passport issued abroad.

Before Brexit, taking a cat, dog or ferret to the EU was relatively simple: the Pet Travel Scheme meant an animal needed a microchip, vaccination against rabies, a pet passport and, for dogs, there were also requirements concerning tapeworm treatment.

Nearly 300 of the actor’s items, from designer gowns to everyday basics, to be sold in Los Angeles, with some lots under $100

A customised sunhat. A slogan sweatshirt. A “mom” necklace. An old copy of Cosmopolitan. If these sound like items found in many homes today, they’re actually the castoffs of a household name: Gwyneth Paltrow.

Next week, nearly 300 pieces owned by Paltrow will be on sale as part of an auction at Julien’s, the Los Angeles auction house that has sold big-ticket items such as Marilyn Monroe’s so-called “naked” dress and the leather jacket worn by Olivia Newton-John in Grease. But, while those items went for six-figure prices, Paltrow’s sale is a little more affordable, with estimates starting at about $50 (£37) to $75 (£56) for some of Paltrow’s personalised stationery.

How infections linked to a nightclub escalated into a public health incident requiring a national response is a puzzle experts are still grappling with

Tyra Skinner had already been violently sick three times when doctors at Kent’s William Harvey hospital realised something was badly wrong. The 20-year-old was rushed into critical care, racked with a pounding headache, a stiff neck and excruciating pain – the hallmark symptoms of meningitis, the disease that had already claimed two young lives in Kent.

“She could hardly move, she was in a foetal position. She was so cramped up and sore,” her father, Dale Skinner, 42, told the Guardian. “It was horrendous, to be honest, to see her so helpless and in so much pain.”

President revealing congressman’s terminal diagnosis follows caginess about his own health, such as recent rash

When Donald Trump revealed that Republican congressman Neal Dunn would have been “dead by June” if not for White House doctors who treated the representative’s reportedly terminal condition, many were shocked by his disclosure.

The president’s comments last week, which unfolded during a meandering presser with Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and Kennedy Center leaders, came after Trump prodded the top politician for details on Dunn’s health.

Iran war should be wake-up call about costs of not going full throttle towards EVs as Chinese have done, experts say

By the 1980s, Detroit’s once titanic carmakers were being upended by rivals from Japan. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had grown rich selling gas guzzlers, but when oil prices rose and suddenly cheap, fuel-efficient Japanese models looked attractive, they were unprepared. The collapse in sales led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the automotive heartland of the US.

Now western car manufacturers are making what one former boss calls a similar “profound strategic mistake” as they pull back from electric vehicles (EVs) and refocus on the combustion engine just as oil prices are soaring once again. Experts say the industry’s future – and that of tens of millions of jobs – could be on the line. This time, however, the threat is from China.

Those planning for uni in England and Wales this autumn can apply for student loans from Monday. Here are the options for families worried about debt

Our child is heading to university soon – should we try to pay their tuition fees upfront so they are not saddled with a debt for decades?

Our child is a recent graduate and their student loan debt is ballooning – should we help pay off some or all of it?

His multi-hyphenate career has made him one of Britain’s most versatile recognisable stars – but hasn’t stopped him facing some seriously awkward moments…

Riz Ahmed was multitasking. It was February in London, and the actor was doing an interview with a men’s magazine en route to collect his kid from school. So far, so starry. “Here’s the reality,” says Ahmed today, palms slamming down hard on the table. “I’m late for the school run. I’m stuck in traffic. I’m meant to be at my laptop, but I’m having to do it on my phone, in my car. I’m double parked on a double yellow line, doing the interview, looking over my shoulder. The traffic warden’s coming, it’s rush hour. He tries to move me along. I try to get out of there while I’m talking on the phone to this guy.”

Distracted, Ahmed hit another car. The driver jumped out of his vehicle, incensed. “He’s like, ‘What the fuck are you doing?!’” says Ahmed, who had been attempting to continue the interview. “I’m now going off video, like, ‘Oh, my signal’s a bit bad!’ while going on and off mute negotiating car insurance details. On the phone, I’m going, ‘Absolutely, it was just such an honour getting to tell my story with these amazing collaborators,’” he says, his voice lowering an octave and turning smooth.

Brian, 53, a property management director, meets Jeanette, 46, who works in investor relations and occasionally models

What were you hoping for?
At worst, a free meal and an enjoyable conversation. At best, the start of a journey …

The Brooklyn author on immigration and the inspiration behind his latest collection of stories

I often write the first paragraph of a story in a notebook, add to it every so often or leave it there to see if something might emerge from it. In 2008, in San Francisco, I went with three friends on a hike near Muir Woods overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the summit, there was a kind of lodge where you could get a bed for the night and use the kitchen to make your own dinner. The view was spectacular.

As we climbed, I began to imagine a character, an Irish guy who had made up his mind to go home. This was his last big outing in the landscape. He had been working as a plumber. Dotted in the Bay Area were houses where he had repaired pipes and installed new sinks and toilets and washing machines. This was his legacy in America. He was someone who could be depended on in an emergency. But he was illegal and he was going home.

The creators of Stranger Things’s new dread-suffused drama sees a happy couple head off for an idyllic wedding – a poorly-lit cabin in the woods. The results are chilling

When I heard the Duffer brothers, creators of Stranger Things, had a new series on Netflix, I knew I had to watch – but I was not eager. I believe identical twins who make moving pictures are inherently creepy, even when those productions aren’t called Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen. My nervous system won’t let me enjoy horror, and I don’t understand people who do. Is life not scary enough?

The first episode (out Thursday 26 March) – is that a working title or what? It’s like calling Mrs Doubtfire “Heartwarming Drag Act”, or Free Willy “Pelagic Marine Predators Do Not Belong in Captivity” – places us four days before the wedding of Nicky (Adam DiMarco) and Rachel (Camila Morrone), the central event of the story.

⚽ Updates from the 12pm GMT WSL kick-offs
⚽ Women’s Football Weekly | WSL table | Mail Emillia

Here we go!

The teams are out across the grounds and we’re about to get under way!

• Reviews allowed for double bounces and double hits

• Players not able to challenge electronic line calls

Wimbledon will introduce video review technology this year that will allow players to challenge judgment calls made by the chair umpire, the tournament’s organisers have announced.

Players will not be able to challenge the decisions of the electronic line calling (ELC) system that was introduced at Wimbledon last year, but video reviews will be available to check other scenarios, like whether a ball has bounced twice or touched a player’s racket or body.

• Chinese Taipei boxer can compete in female category

• Lin won gold at last international event in Paris 2024

The Olympic boxing champion Lin Yu-ting has been cleared to compete in the female category at World Boxing events, the Chinese Taipei Boxing Association (CTBA) has announced, hailing the news as a “tremendous relief”. Lin and the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif were embroiled in a gender row at the 2024 Paris Games, where they won Olympic titles in separate weight classes.

World Boxing, a body recognised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), confirmed the decision to allow Lin back into the ring after its medical experts ruled that the 30-year-old athlete was female. The decision means Lin can compete in the Asian Boxing Championships in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, starting next Saturday, her first international event since Paris.

• Striker will not play in March World Cup warmup games

• Backlash after player based in UAE met Dubai’s ruler

Sardar Azmoun has been omitted from the Iran squad announced for two World Cup warm-ups after Iranian media reports that the striker had been expelled from the national team for a perceived act of disloyalty to the government.

Azmoun, who has scored 57 goals in 91 internationals, was the most notable absentee from a 35-man squad named by the head coach, Amir Ghalenoei, on Friday for friendlies against Nigeria and Costa Rica in the Turkish city of Antalya.

The players’ bizarre huddle and Rosenior’s odd responses should not distract attention from a light punishment that diminishes the Premier League

You might feel enough has already been said about the Chelsea huddle. You would be wrong, of course. It is impossible to say enough about the Chelsea huddle. A week on, that moment when the Chelsea players formed a scrum on the centre circle around what appeared at first glance to be a depressed hatstand, but turned out to be the immovable figure of referee Paul Tierney, is still the most moreishly haunting image of the season.

What did it mean? Even the basic geometry is fascinating, with its fractal-like symmetries. Here we have the Chelsea players making a circle inside a circle around a sphere on top of a smaller circle, above which a single bald head protrudes like an orbital moon.

Paul Robinson, who at 20 was picked by Ruud Gullit ahead of the England captain for a critical 1999 derby, looks back

It was the final shot in a brutal civil war that left Newcastle reeling for a year. For Paul Robinson, though, Ruud Gullit’s decision to start him over Alan Shearer in the Tyne-Wear derby felt like a natural progression.

Tensions between Gullit and Shearer had been brewing since the Dutchman replaced Kenny Dalglish on 27 August 1998. Two days short of the first anniversary, everything came to a head when Newcastle’s talisman was not selected to start against Sunderland for the biggest game in the club’s calendar.

Arsenal and Manchester City meet at Wembley on Sunday. How much do you remember about previous finals?

• World No 1 beats Brazilian 6-4, 6-4 at the Hard Rock Stadium

• Spaniard says teenager ‘reminds me a lot [of me] when I was his age’

As Carlos Alcaraz worked through his service motion midway through his opening match at the Miami Open, a scream pierced the night-time air. One of the 16,000 spectators breathlessly cheering Alcaraz’s demise had attempted to distract the Spaniard just before he struck the ball.

In a spectacular atmosphere unlike many other Masters 1000 second round matches in recent memory, Alcaraz maturely navigated both a passionate, adversarial crowd and a prodigious teenage opponent in Joao Fonseca to reach the third round of the Miami Open with a 6-4, 6-4 win.

• ‘Servebot’ fires down 25 aces to beat British player

• Katie Boulter into third round after win over Tauson

Jack Draper suffered a tough defeat in his opening match at the Miami Open as he could do little to ­neutralise a dominant serving performance from Reilly Opelka, who fired down 25 aces in two sets en route to a 7-6(3), 7-6(0) win.

The defeat is a difficult setback for Draper, the 25th seed, as he ­continues to navigate the early stages of his return to competition from a bone bruise injury that forced him off the tour for seven months. Miami is just the third ATP tournament of his comeback.

For me, better timing, fewer platitudes, less certainty and more listening and empathy are helpful ways of connecting with people in the loneliest of times

Some things are easy to talk about; infertility is not one of them. I speak from experience – of miscarriage and unsuccessful rounds of IVF – and I’ve heard some clangers along the way. I forgive you all. Well, most of you.

But I also come at it as the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour. Three decades into live talk radio, I listen for a living. I’m adept at noticing micro-expressions, the pauses, the shifts in tone, the feelings that sit between the words on and off air. And I keep wondering: why are we so bad at talking about infertility? This is even something that, until now, I haven’t spoken publicly about.

Nuala McGovern presents Woman’s Hour Monday, the Woman’s Hour Guide to Life, and SEND in the Spotlight podcasts on BBC Sounds. On Sunday 22 March’s episode of The Woman’s Hour Guide to Life, Nuala and her guests discuss navigating conversations around infertility.

If the UK wants to regain serious respect in the world, it needs its European leg as well as its transatlantic one

“A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.” Thus spoke Hugh Grant, playing the British prime minister confronting the US president in a famous scene in the romcom Love Actually. Real-life British prime minister Keir Starmer has attempted to stand up ever so slightly to the current bully in the White House over the latest US war in the Middle East. Despite the British government’s right-royal efforts to flatter Donald Trump ever since he was elected US president, his response to Starmer’s little attempt has been a torrent of contempt. So the reality is not Love Actually. It’s Contempt Actually.

Asked about the British government’s subtle distinction between defensive strikes in the Gulf, which it now supports, and offensive ones, which it doesn’t, Maga ideologue Steve Bannon tells the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward: “That’s diplomatic bullshit. Fuck you. You’re either an ally or you’re not. Fuck you. The special relationship is over.” Ah, the “special relationship”! It must be 40 years since I first heard former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt say: “The special relationship is so special only one side knows it exists.”

I bow out of my role for the organisation at a perilous time for the international law. There are consequences not just for Palestinians, but the wider Middle East

This month I will conclude my tenure as the commissioner-general of Unrwa – the United Nations agency that has provided essential, public-like services to Palestinian refugees across the Middle East for more than 75 years. As the world struggles to emerge from the quagmire of Gaza and the US-Israeli war against Iran threatens to engulf the entire region, I am profoundly concerned about the future of Palestinian refugees and the multilateral system at large.

Having endured more than two years of relentless physical, political and legal attacks, most fiercely in Palestine, Unrwa has reached breaking point. The risks to Palestinians’ rights and the stability of the region are immense.

Philippe Lazzarini is commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Unrwa)

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

The Reform UK leader has belatedly clocked that most British people really don’t like the US president on whose coat-tails he has spent the past decade riding

At last, the culture has thrown up a split more nauseatingly up itself than Gwyneth Paltrow’s from Chris Martin. It is Nigel Farage’s attempt to consciously uncouple from Donald Trump, a man up whose backside he’s spent the past decade most firmly lodged. Nigel’s made such a massive, self-satisfied show of his real estate in the presidential large intestine for 10 years now that I actually don’t think non-surgical extraction is possible at this stage. He doesn’t just get to walk away whistling. The only way out is a full Faragectomy. I’ll give the president a piece of drone fuselage to bite down on.

Anyway: conscious uncoupling. Back in the day, you’ll remember, Gwyneth and the Coldplay singer deployed this particular phrase when announcing their marital split. Did the public love it? They did not. The general vibe – as with so much of Her Vajesty’s output – was that she would do even marriage failure more smugly and unachievably than mere plebs could ever. The pivot from gushing about her perfect marriage to gushing about her perfect divorce felt like mere days.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

What a Time to be Alive! by Marina Hyde (Guardian Faber, £20). To support the Guardian, order your signed copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Too many want to cast acts of violence and antisemitism as blows against Israel’s government. But the fear and terror land on real people, thousands of miles away

Let us begin with a brief exchange on GB News, confirmed this week as the TV arm of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Following an attack on a synagogue last week in Michigan, in which a gunman drove a car packed with explosives through the entrance to the building before opening fire, a pundit on the channel sought to clarify what the attacker actually meant by his actions. “This was an Israeli temple,” she explained. “It was aligned with Israel.”

By way of evidence, she cited the name of the synagogue – Temple Israel – apparently unaware that Jews have referred to themselves as “the people of Israel” for millennia, long before there was a state of that name, and that there are, for that reason, countless synagogues in the US called Temple Israel. No, for her, the Michigan house of worship, with its on-site school where more than a hundred children were in lessons that day, was a de facto embassy of the Israeli state and therefore an understandable, if not legitimate, target. Hold that episode in your mind.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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.

Cheerleader-in-chief demands more enthusiasm for US-Israeli assault that is helping Russia pay for its war on Ukraine

When even your mother calls you out as a cheat and a liar, then it’s probably fair to assume you’re a wrong ‘un. Not that this stopped Donald Trump from appointing Pete Hegseth as his defence secretary. Or as Trump prefers, his war secretary. After all, there’s no point in having all this shiny military hardware if you’re not going to use it. For most of the past two weeks, Hegseth has been the president’s cheerleader-in-chief for the war on Iran, and at the weekend he decided to have a pop at the media for not being enthusiastic enough. It seems we’ve been concentrating on trivial matters like asking what the overall plan for the war is. We heard the president talk about regime change and then change his mind when it was clear that, though he had killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime was still in place. We heard the president say he wanted to neutralise Iranian nuclear facilities when he had already claimed to have done so last year. We heard Trump say that the war was already won though he fancied winning a little bit more, while the Iranians were insisting they were not beaten.

The show’s last-minute cancellation over star Taylor Frankie Paul’s domestic violence footage is the sadly predictable result of a network overlooking red flags

This week was not a good one to be a Disney executive. Days ago, reports began circulating that Taylor Frankie Paul, the star of the Hulu series Secret Lives of Mormon Wives and ABC’s upcoming The Bachelorette, was involved in a domestic violence investigation stemming from a February incident with her ex-partner, Dakota Mortensen. (Disney is the parent company of Hulu and ABC.) By Tuesday, multiple outlets reported that production on the fifth season of Mormon Wives was down, as cast members refused to interact with Paul. The 31-year-old TikTok turned reality star, meanwhile, soldiered on with a gauntlet of Bachelorette promotional duties, speaking vaguely about “heavy times”. But on Thursday, video leaked online of a domestic violence incident from 2023; footage showed an intoxicated Paul throwing metal barstools at Mortensen and accidentally hitting her five-year-old daughter. By day’s end, the network cancelled the whole season of The Bachelorette, heavily advertised and filmed in its entirety last year, three days before its premiere.

You could say that this mess, which has drawn the attention of people previously unaware of MomTok or the Bachelorette, is sad, troubling or too complex for entertainment. (It is all of the above.) What you cannot say is that this is a surprise. To anyone with even a cursory understanding of the Mormon Wives franchise or time to Google, this debacle is sadly predictable – the likely result of banking on a famously divisive reality star to rejuvenate a flagging franchise, and the latest example of legacy media overlooking red flags for influencer clout. To be clear: Paul’s actions are her own, but this debacle – which will reportedly cost ABC tens of millions of dollars – is on the company.

Though the president wields great power, the conflict in the Middle East is spiralling in unforeseen ways that he may not be able to control

What a pity Benjamin Netanyahu remains at large after an international arrest warrant for alleged war crimes committed in Gaza was issued in 2024. Had he been detained, as he certainly should have been, the peoples of Iran, Lebanon, the Gulf – and Israel itself – might have been spared much present-day pain and suffering.

The Israeli prime minister’s lifelong, passionate obsession with eradicating the real and imagined threats posed by Iran was reportedly a key factor in prompting Donald Trump’s abrupt, unprovoked plunge into all-out war. Netanyahu should be in jail, not committing more crimes while the powerful but ego-driven US president negligently looks on.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

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This frightening outbreak is not yet over, and serves as a reminder of why plans to manage infectious diseases exist

The public health measures taken in response to this month’s meningitis outbreak in Kent so far appear to be working. Two young people have tragically died – one a sixth-former in Faversham, the other a student at the University of Kent. In the Canterbury area, where cases have been identified at four schools and two universities, thousands of lives have been disrupted and many people are understandably afraid. With 18 confirmed cases, and 11 others being investigated, this is the largest cluster of UK cases in a generation.

The genes of the meningitis B (MenB) strain of bacteria behind this outbreak are being examined in laboratories. In Kent, they appear to have caused septicaemia, or blood poisoning, as well as infection of the membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord. Scientists do not fully understand what causes meningococcal bacteria – which are present in one in 10 people’s bodies without causing illness – to become invasive. Meningitis remains a mysterious as well as a frightening illness, due to its sudden onset and the risk of death.

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.

Our fascination with the ‘real’ identities of artists and writers is revealing about attitudes to fame and authorship

This week, contemporary art’s worst-kept secret was exposed when street artist Banksy was revealed to be 52-year-old Robin Gunningham, thanks to an 8,000-word investigation by Reuters. This would have been big news had the Mail on Sunday not got there first nearly two decades ago. Still, it made headlines.

The previous week, thousands of book lovers expressed their grief at the announcement on X of the death of Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, supposedly by her translator Ann Goldstein. In fact, it was the work of infamous Italian hoaxer Tommaso Debenedetti, who had set up an account in Goldstein’s name, and who pulled the same trick in 2022.

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.

Guardian readers respond to Dan Fox’s long read about the fun and frustrations of trying to speak his mother’s language

Thank you for the wonderful article (Where Duolingo falls down: how I learned to speak Welsh with my mother, 12 March). Dan Fox’s Welsh language learning journey is beautifully described, with excellent context of the struggles to keep the language alive over the last two centuries.

In fact, Dan’s experience is exactly what we, the Duolingo Welsh course writers, aimed for. We created a resource on the largest language learning platform in the world that is available at the click of a mouse, and which gives people using it the confidence that it is indeed possible to learn Welsh. We never intended it to be a standalone course, but to support people using the methods described in the article in addition to formal lessons.

Readers respond to Rebecca Humphries’s article about the actor’s much criticised comments on opera and ballet

Every generation seems to produce someone ready to declare opera and ballet irrelevant. And yet, century after century, these art forms continue to endure – evolving, expanding and moving audiences in ways few artistic traditions ever have.

In a recent interview, Timothée Chalamet mocked at why we should “keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this any more” (Don’t denounce Timothée Chalamet for what he said about opera and ballet – prove him wrong, 14 March). It is the kind of reductive take one hears when popularity is mistaken for cultural value.

Henry Sherman and Phil Coughlin celebrate the wit and skill of Len Deighton

Your fascinating article (Len Deighton, spy novelist and author of The Ipcress File, dies aged 97, 17 March) and obituary (17 March) on Len Deighton refers to the wisecracking dialogue in his famous early thrillers. His descriptions were also often very funny. In Funeral in Berlin, for example, he wrote of Charlotte Street that it “runs north from Oxford Street and there are few who will blame it”.

The 1966 paperback edition of the novel begins with a spoof autobiography, in which this working-class author is described as the eldest son of a governor-general of the Windward Islands who has an “uneventful education at Eton and Worcester College, Oxford”. His “likes” are listed as “being under the bonnet of a vintage motorcar, public bars, ballroom dancing and cricket”. It was electrifying to encounter this as a teenage reader in the 1960s.
Henry Sherman
Teddington, London

In-service training is best for the workforce and industry, writes Alan Ackroyd

The government is taking the wrong approach by teaching vocational qualifications in the classroom (Editorial, 15 March). Vocational training should take place primarily in the workplace and employers should be forced to include relevant training and qualification packages for all staff.

I have had two different experiences of this. When I first left school I entered an apprenticeship in my local printing firm. They made me competent in what they did but refused to allow me to take a day-release course (that I had arranged for myself) for fear that it would lead to my leaving the company. I left the industry for tertiary education.

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

Scientist Ryan Gosling is alone in deep space – or is he? – and America’s famed topical satire is given a British angle

Project Hail Mary
Out now
Novelist Andy Weir’s brand of comic, semi-plausible sci-fi led to Ridley Scott’s The Martian – now Phil Lord and Christopher Miller will be hoping to repeat something of the same success. Ryan Gosling is the lead of a caper in which a science teacher wakes up on a spaceship on a desperate mission in deep space.

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

Comedians strive for straight faces as Prime’s comic blockbuster returns, while Gus Van Sant directs a thrilling take on a real-life hostage drama. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

Almost 60 injured in blaze in Daejeon with footage seemingly showing people jumping from burning building to escape

A fire at a car parts factory in South Korea has killed 14 people and injured almost 60 others.

Firefighters said all of the missing are now accounted for after a search operation of the wreckage of the three-storey building.

Family says actor, who played Xander in hit TV series, died on Friday ‘in his sleep of natural causes’

Nicholas Brendon, the actor best known for playing Xander in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, has died. He was 54.

Brendon’s family issued a statement saying that he died on Friday “in his sleep of natural causes”.

DHSC corrects statements after regulator intervenes as experts say smoking causes far more cancer cases

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has had to retract a misleading claim that sunbeds are as dangerous a cancer risk as smoking.

In January, health officials announced stricter rules for sunbeds, incorrectly claiming they were “as dangerous as smoking”. The comparison was repeated in social media posts shared by the health secretary and NHS England and was reported by a number of media outlets.

Mors Imperator caused a scandal in 1887 amid fears it mocked the German kaiser – more than 100 years later it is being displayed in a state museum

Wrapped in a cloak with ermine fur and wearing a jagged iron crown, a hulking skeleton rests one foot on a globe and knocks over a royal throne with a dramatic flick of its ivory wrist.

Entitled Mors Imperator (“Death is the Ruler”), the German artist Hermione von Preuschen’s 1887 symbolical painting was meant to express the transience of fame and power. But authorities feared the picture could be seen as mocking the ageing German Emperor Wilhelm I, who then had recently turned 90, and refused to accept its submission to the Berlin Academy of the Arts’ annual exhibition that year.

The densely dog-populated city will soon elect a new mayor and candidates want pet-owners on their side

In a race that is expected to come down to a few thousand votes, every last one counts – including, for the candidates seeking to become the next mayor of Paris, those of the French capital’s disgruntled dog owners.

Both favourites in Sunday’s second-round vote, the leftwing frontrunner Emmanuel Grégoire and the former conservative culture minister, Rachida Dati, have promised an array of canine-friendly measures if they win – and for good reason.

Animals will feature on £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England says, but which creatures should make the cut?

Native British wildlife will feature on the next set of £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, the Bank of England has announced, but it has yet to be decided which creatures will make the cut.

While politicians from Nigel Farage to Ed Davey have sought to confect outrage about ditching Winston Churchill and Jane Austen for badgers or blackbirds, public consultations by the Bank show that people favour the switch to wildlife. Regularly changing images on the notes is a measure to foil counterfeiters.

Chris Packham is a naturalist, broadcaster, campaigner and author

Naturalist Lucy Lapwing is the author of Love is a Toad: Exploring Our Relationship With Nature

In Denmark, the spread of solar panels has become a divisive issue among voters, especially in rural areas

In one telling of the story, the golden fields of a proud farming nation are under attack. Besieged by an industrial sprawl of solar panels, they are being smothered at the behest of an urban elite.

That narrative has failed to thrive in conservative heartlands such as Texas and Hungary, which have embraced solar power while lambasting green rules. But it is taking root in Denmark, the most climate-ambitious nation on Earth. “We say yes to fields of wheat,” said Inger Støjberg, the leader of the rightwing populist Denmark Democrats in a speech in 2024. “And we say no to fields of iron!”

Heavy rains have pummeled the Hawaiian island of Oahu and triggered the worst flooding the island has in 20 years

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Towering flash floods and an imminent dam failure in the northern part of Oahu triggered mass rescues and evacuation warnings in Hawaii on Friday, as the state continued contending with a powerful storm this week.

The waters came on quickly in the middle of the night, and videos on social media captured inundated streets and cars being swallowed by the muddy flood waters.

Cranbrook, Kent: Fat hen, chickweed and stinging nettles often end up in the compost heap, but they deserve a try in the kitchen

By March, traditional gardeners have worked hard to eradicate weeds in their vegetable plots in preparation for spring sowing. A quick glance across my unkept patch reveals a different approach, highlighted by its mosaic of vibrant greens obscuring the dark soil. But I have an excuse.

Many weeds are edible and, with a little shift in perspective, can be transformed from a nuisance into a bonus crop. For the forager, this conveniently spans the “hungry gap”: that period between winter vegetables finishing and spring crops being ready for harvest. Be careful with identification of course, and if in doubt, leave it alone.

Veteran broadcaster interviewed prominent female leaders including Margaret Thatcher and Hillary Clinton

Jenni Murray, the broadcaster who hosted BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour for more than 30 years, has died at the age of 75.

Murray joined the programme in 1987 and presented it until she departed as its longest-serving presenter in 2020. She was awarded a damehood in 2011 in recognition of her contribution to broadcasting.

Former boxing world champion’s cause of death was hanging but his intention was unclear, inquest concludes

A coroner has said she “cannot be satisfied” that British former boxing world champion Ricky Hatton intended to take his own life.

Hatton, 46, was found dead in his home on 14 September, with the inquest concluding that the official cause of his death was hanging.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

International Energy Agency recommends emergency measures, including working from home, as Iran war hits fuel supply

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Lowering speed limits to minimise fuel consumption is among potential contingency plans being drawn up by the UK government as the crisis in the Middle East threatens global oil supplies.

Sources stressed that there is no shortage of fuel in the UK, but said that officials in the Department for Transport were working with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on an analysis of what measures could be taken to curb oil demand.

Gwyn Samuels, who committed crimes as James Bubb, befriended both victims online

A Metropolitan police special constable who raped a girl and a woman after “systematically” grooming them both online has been jailed for 24 years.

James Bubb, who now identifies as a woman named Gwyn Samuels, first sexually assaulted the girl when she was just 12 years old after befriending her online in 2018, the trial at Aylesbury crown court was told last year.

‘Teleporting is no fun,’ Gregg Phillips, picked to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery, has said on a podcast

A far-right conspiracy theorist turned high-ranking official at the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) claims to have once teleported to a Waffle House.

Gregg Phillips, who in December was appointed to lead Fema’s office of response and recovery, has spoken on “multiple podcasts” about being teleported against his will, CNN reported on Friday.

In Appalachia, a deeply red region hit by poverty and cuts, some ask why billions are going to war instead of home

When it comes to politics in Appalachian Kentucky, one of the first things anyone will tell you is that people defy easy categorization.

There are fervent church goers who say that Jesus’ message of helping others is basically socialism, and that’s a good thing. There are gun owners who pine for universal healthcare.

Tania Warner and Ayla, her seven-year-old with autism, sent to notorious Texas detention center and told to ‘self-deport’

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A Canadian woman and her seven-year-old daughter with autism who have been held by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for nearly a week have been transferred to a notorious detention center and asked to “self-deport”, according to her husband, who said the pair had been “traumatized” by the experience.

Tania Warner and her daughter Ayla Luca, originally from British Columbia, moved to the US five years ago, when Warner married Edward Warner, a US citizen.

Compulsory evacuation of children begins in Sloviansk. Kyiv still expects first tranche of 90bn euro loan despite Hungary veto. What we know on day 1,487

From restaurant closures in the Philippines and petrol rationing in Sri Lanka, to Asian food production crises due to fertiliser shortages, the effects of the US-Israeli war on Iran reverberate around the world

• Middle East crisis – live updates

From the Philippines cutting down to a four-day week to save electricity, to restaurants in India taking gas-intensive dishes off the menu, and rents being frozen in Spain, the economic fallout of the US-Israeli war on Iran has reverberated around the world.

Facing an existential threat, Tehran has retaliated by closing the vital Hormuz shipping lane and bombing its oil and gas-rich neighbours, compounding a deepening crisis abroad for businesses and families.

California jurors hand win to investors who sued billionaire saying he publicly disparaged social media platform in 2022

A California jury has ruled that Elon Musk is responsible for Twitter investors’ stock plummeting when he sought to buy the social media platform for $44bn in 2022. Jurors handed the win to a group of investors who sued the billionaire saying he publicly disparaged the company with the aim of bringing down Twitter’s stock price to get a better bargain.

The trial, which began earlier this month in federal court in San Francisco, focused on whether Musk intended to move the market with his comments. During a six-month period in 2022, after his offer to buy Twitter, he posted constantly to his millions of followers that the social network was rife with bots that produced spam and created fake accounts.

Online searches for electric and hybrid cars increase as war-linked fuel prices hit highest levels in nearly three years

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US car buyers are showing a surge in interest in electric vehicles after Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran helped cause a major jump in gasoline prices.

The cost to refuel a vehicle in the US is at its highest level in nearly three years, with the average national price of gas standing at $3.90 a gallon on Friday.

Britons are likely to have little loyalty to the car park operator as it goes into administration with a £305m debt burden

Nearly a century old and once host to London fashion week, the NCP car park in Brewer Street in London’s Soho is facing an uncertain future. Its former glories – which at one time included separate rooms for chauffeurs and changing rooms for theatregoers – have long given way to complaints about a lack of security and high parking charges, but this week things got worse.

National Car Parks, one of the UK’s biggest car park operators, which dates back to 1931, filed for administration at the high court in London after struggling to pay its rents and buckling under a £305m mountain of debt. This means the future of 340 car parks across the UK, in town and city centres, at hospitals and airports, is uncertain along with the fate of 682 people who work for the Japanese-owned business.

A combination of autism and ADHD caused outbursts, confusion and stress that my son couldn’t understand – until he saw David Tennant behaving the same way

The film Elf is a no-go in our house. My son interprets it as the psychological horror story of a man who is telling the truth but is constantly disbelieved. He loves The Traitors and rewatches entire series of it – knowing who the traitors are gives him an autonomy and comfort watching the game. Any other kind of conflict on screen and he’ll leave the room or wind it forward. I tried to explain that there are no stories without conflict. It made no difference.

My son is autistic and has ADHD – what’s sometimes referred to as AuDHD. We’ve always called him “fizzy”. He’s often the noisiest person in a room but hates too much noise. He’s incredibly sociable and wants so desperately to be part of the fun but finds the fun stressful. I had never seen anyone like him represented on screen.

It’s time to find out whether the US comedy staple raises laughs in the UK. Plus: remember Alan Partridge’s Kate Bush medley? Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Sky One

A powerful new fact-based drama depicts Huw Edwards’s fall from being the BBC’s top news anchor to a conviction for making indecent images of children. The Doc Martin star talks about secrecy, off-the-record research – and why his ears needed to be stuck down

Huw Edwards has not sat at a newsreader’s desk since July 2023, when he was suspended by the BBC following a report in the Sun that he had paid a teenager £35,000 for intimate images and conversations. A year later – when new BBC News at Ten anchor Clive Myrie announced that his predecessor had been convicted of possessing indecent images of children – the Welsh broadcaster’s career effectively ended.

But on Tuesday the night of 24 March Edwards is back on screen, reading the news in the late-night slot he occupied for decades. He is played by the actor Martin Clunes and his BBC desk has been recreated in the London canalside news studio at Channel 5 by the producers of Power: The Downfall of Huw Edwards.

Late-night hosts panned Trump’s joke about the 1941 attack, addressed new unredacted Epstein emails and talked popular puppy names

With The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on hiatus until at least 27 March, late-night hosts on Thursday discussed Donald Trump’s snafu while meeting Japan’s prime minister, his caginess over Iran, and new findings in the Epstein investigations.

A dumpster-diving TikToker struck gold the morning after the Academy Awards. But why are they binning carpets after one brief use? And where can we find the uneaten chocolate Oscars?

The Oscars are over, and the world has moved on. No longer are we debating the merits of any particular film, or the validity of any given win. Now there are only two sets of people who care about the Oscars; the agents of the winners, who are all busy renegotiating their clients’ contracts, and amateur Los Angeles-based carpet fitter Paige Thalia.

Thalia found a small amount of viral fame this week, after she discovered the Oscars red carpet languishing in a skip the morning after the ceremony, and decided to kit out her home with it.

From electroclash pioneers to dancefloor-fillers via viral TikTok fame thanks to their hit Seventeen, the Liverpool band are back with a new album and another metamorphosis

It was October 2001 in New York City, and Mira Aroyo and bandmate Reuben Wu were invited to DJ a new party. The gritty, 200 capacity Luxx on Brooklyn’s Grand Street specialised in forgotten queer electro sounds from the 1980s. The party’s name? Electroclash.

“It was us, Peaches, people from Berlin,” remembers Aroyo. Larry Tee, the Atlanta DJ and RuPaul collaborator, had booked them for their love of overlooked gems by Gina X or Bobby O. “It was hedonistic, nonbinary, flamboyant.”

(Big Hit Music)
Ending a hiatus that began in 2022, the septet recapture a distinctiveness that had been threatening to ebb away

The general consensus seems to be that as BTS’s commercial stock has gone stratospheric – more than 500m units sold worldwide, including over 104bn streams, making them the bestselling Asian act of all time – the actual music has become more and more irrelevant. Before taking their hiatus in 2022 to fulfil their mandatory military service in South Korea, their saccharine, English-language bops such as Dynamite and Butter – while gargantuan global hits – had smothered the K-pop-specific idiosyncrasies that peppered their earlier material. By 2020’s double whammy of Map of the Soul: 7 and Be, the band’s early years as a hip-hop-focused collective were a distant memory, and thanks to a more westernised sound and studio cast list, so was their identity as a Korean act.

On the eagerly anticipated Arirang – pointedly named after a Korean folk song dating back to 1896, and presented with the tagline “born in Korea, playing for the world” – the septet do their best to right those wrongs. Crucially, it manages to capture the K-pop spirit of experimentation while welding it to a litany of memorable hooks. And when western collaborators are brought in, they’re interestingly off-kilter, including outsider rapper-producer Jpegmafia, and producer El Guincho, known for his work with Björk and Rosalía.

The radical work of the musician and composer was dismissed by sexist critics and overshadowed by the legacy of her late husband John. But today, musical stars from Doja Cat to David Byrne all champion her experimental sound

It is 19 years since Alice Coltrane’s death and more than half a century since her best known albums, yet only now is her first biography, Andy Beta’s Cosmic Music, being published. The first major exhibition dedicated to her took place last year in LA, too, and she’s championed by musicians from mainstream to left field, to the point there’s now even an abundance of cosmic jazz harpists on festival lineups. “For so long it seemed like her contributions were overlooked,” says her grandnephew Steven Ellison, AKA the psychedelic electronic and hip-hop musician Flying Lotus, who’s worked with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Thom Yorke and Herbie Hancock alongside his own acclaimed solo material. “As I was growing up, it seemed like everyone just wanted to ask her about John Coltrane.”

Of course John Coltrane was a musical titan. But, as Cosmic Music spells out, Alice was integral to the radicalism of her husband’s late, gamechanging period from the masterpiece A Love Supreme onwards. Not only did they create a sense of stability from 1963 in raising a family and marrying, post his quitting heroin, but they were partners in spiritual and musical exploration. She was a formidable musician before she met him, too. As pianist Alice McLeod, she was “known as a badass on the scene”, says Carlos Niño, longtime California “beat scene” colleague of Flying Lotus and, lately, producer of André 3000’s avowedly Alice-inspired New Blue Sun album; her skills honed in Detroit’s gospel churches and playing Stravinsky and Rachmaninov for pleasure by her mid-teens.

Following in the footsteps of Heavenly and Tiger Trap the duo’s high-tempo electroclash-indie-pop deftly explores young womanhood in 2020s London

From London
Recommended if you like Heavenly, CSS, the Teenagers
Up next I Have to Get Hotter out now

The Femcels’ music is euphoric and depressive, sometimes ironic but mostly sincere, often high-tempo, and all delivered with wired, unvarnished vocals. In that sense, it is 80s and 90s twee reincarnate; move past their band’s shitposty name and you’ll find that Rowan Miles and Gabriella Turton have a lot to offer when it comes to exploring the chills and thrills of young womanhood in 2020s London.

The publisher has cancelled the US release of Shy Girl by Mia Ballard and withdrawn the UK edition after weeks of online speculation about the novel’s origins

Hachette Book Group has withdrawn a horror novel after allegations circulated online that its author relied heavily on artificial intelligence. The book is to be discontinued in the UK after being published in November 2025, and its US launch date has been cancelled.

The book, Shy Girl by Mia Ballard, had been scheduled for release in the US this spring under Hachette’s Orbit imprint. However, the publisher confirmed it had halted publication after an internal review. The title has also been removed from online retailers including Amazon, and will no longer be distributed in the UK.

Raynor Winn’s lawyers have confirmed she published a previous book in 2012, years before the memoir that won a £10,000 prize for debut writers

Author Raynor Winn published a book under a pseudonym six years before her 2018 memoir The Salt Path, despite repeatedly describing the later work as her debut, it has emerged.

Winn received widespread acclaim for The Salt Path, including a £10,000 prize for debut writers.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden; Based on a True Story by Sarah Vaughan; Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson; The Dangerous Stranger by Simon Mason; Astronaut! by Oana Aristide

Killing Me Softly by Christie Watson (Phoenix, £20)
In her second psychological thriller, Watson, a former nurse, perfectly captures the frenetic atmosphere and mordant humour of an under-resourced A&E department in a city hospital. The plot revolves around three strongly drawn characters: senior nurse Aoife, whose extramarital trysts with clinical lead Michael help keep her sane, and whose new intake includes the naive, sanctimonious Eden and the more experienced but alarmingly cynical Sophie. After their arrival, the death rate spikes: long wait times may play a part, but Eden makes mistakes and Sophie has an attitude problem … The conclusion is surprising yet authentic in a story that is ultimately less about individual culpability than the policy failures of successive governments.

Whidbey by T Kira Madden (Tinder, £20)
Native Hawaiian writer Madden’s powerful debut novel explores both the aftermath of child sexual abuse and the commodification of trauma. It’s summer 2013, and former reality TV star Linzie King is publicising her ghostwritten memoir of abuse at the hands of Calvin Boyer, the adult son of the school bus driver. It contains information about Boyer’s other victims, among them Birdie Chang who, unhappy with the appropriation of her story and trying to escape media scrutiny, has fled Brooklyn for Whidbey Island in Washington’s Puget Sound. Linzie is grappling with the narrative produced by the ghostwriter – the truth is considerably more complicated – and Boyer’s mother, who has always defended him, blaming his “sickness”, is struggling to process her feelings after he is deliberately run over and killed. A satisfying mystery, although whodunnit takes second place to Madden’s unflinching, unsettling examination of how girls are conditioned into compliance, and the discrepancy between lived experience and society’s preferred “victim narrative”.

This careful analysis of so-called ‘great replacement theory’ offers a lens through which to view our broken politics

Informationsüberflutung? Weltschmerz? I’ve been searching and I don’t think even the Germans have a word that fully captures just how overwhelming the news cycle is right now. The zone has been well and truly flooded; just as you start trying to process one shocking event, something new hits the headlines.

Chain of Ideas, a new book by professor Ibram X Kendi, doesn’t provide a one-world encapsulation of our modern woes. But, in a meticulously researched 500 pages, it lays out an essential framework for parsing current events.

From owing a debt to obscure Japanese horror Sweet Home to the influence of Aliens and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the franchise continues to petrify players three decades on

To many of us playing and writing about video games in the 1990s, Resident Evil seemed to come out of nowhere. The emerging PlayStation and Saturn consoles were all about slick, bright arcade conversions – the shiny thrills of Daytona and Tekken – and Japanese publisher Capcom was in a rut of coin-op conversions and endless sequels to Street Fighter and Mega Man. Scary games were rare at the time and mostly confined to the PC. So when the news of a horror title named Biohazard (the Japanese name for the series) started to emerge in 1995, it caught the attention of games journalists as it seemed radically out of step with prevailing trends. Games were about power, but as early demos quickly revealed, Resident Evil was about vulnerability.

Thirty years later, it’s still here. The series has sold more than 180m copies worldwide, with 11 core titles and dozens of spinoffs and remakes, as well as film, television and anime tie-ins. Its characters and monsters are icons, its tropes now embedded in game design practice. What has allowed it to not only survive but flourish in such a rapidly changing industry? Why do we still let it scare us?

The fates of two ostensibly similar online games released this year, Marathon and Highguard, prove that success is becoming close to unattainable

What does success look like for developers of online video games? In 2026, the answer could not be clearer: no one has a clue.

Consider Highguard, 2026’s first big flop. Signs were promising on its launch on 26 January, with a peak of 100,000 concurrent players on Steam – plus those enjoying the game on PlayStation and Xbox, which do not make player counts public. As a free-to-play game, the barrier to entry for Highguard was low. And thanks to a prime advertising placement at the end of December’s The Game Awards – a buzzy spot usually reserved for known hitmakers, not free-to-play upstarts – curiosity was high.

In this week’s newsletter: the creators of All Will Rise on standing up to the tech giant – and joining the No Games for Genocide movement

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Video games are in a funding crisis. Investor money flowed freely during the pandemic gaming boom, but now the well has run dry. It is increasingly difficult, for indie developers especially, to get the capital to make games. It is extremely unusual, then, to hear of a developer returning an investor’s money. Yet that is what Speculative Agency, developers of All Will Rise, have just done.

Last year, All Will Rise, a deck-building game about a team of activists fighting for the future of their oligarch-run city, received money from Microsoft as part of a developer acceleration programme. In late-2025, however, the team became aware of No Games for Genocide, a collective of developers, journalists, union organisers and others that came together as a result of Israeli assault on Gaza to protest against “material and commercial ties between the games industry and enabling genocide, war crimes, and the military industrial complex”.

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.

Theatr Clwyd, Mold
Director Kate Wasserberg emphasises the fantasy and supernatural elements of the poet’s ‘play for voices’ in an entertaining and inclusive production

As with Molière at the Comédie-Française or Brecht in Berlin, there is a satisfying smack of regional reality in watching Dylan Thomas’s classic invocation of an early spring day in Wales staged as the real Flintshire thing glitters tantalisingly through the panoramic lobby windows of Theatr Clwyd.

Watching being the key word. Premiered on radio in 1954, Under Milk Wood stands with Robert Bolt’s A Man for All Seasons as a rare sound play to have grown into a theatrical classic. Whereas Thomas left it to the ears to envisage the musical obsessive Organ Morgan, the much-loved Polly Garter and other residents of his fabulous valleys village, directors and designers have a free hand to visualise.

Sadler’s Wells, London
Kameron N Saunders’s ambitious sci-fi-coded fable is paired with a showcase of Crystal Pite’s mastery in contrasting order with human messiness

The headline news here is Taylor Swift’s star backing dancer getting a major commission for English National Ballet. If it looks nothing like a pop concert, that’s because Kameron N Saunders is a choreographer who has worked with Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet among others. He is also an early career artist, who in his piece Proper Conduct has thrown a huge amount of ideas into a high concept dance that leaves a few question marks.

The first section is breezy ballet, Justin Peck style, saturated colours and sunshine. But don’t get comfortable, because Saunders is about to pull the rug. A sci-fi-voiced narrator tells us of the rot in society and it segues into nude-costumed conjoined dancers, in striking formations and fleshy connections (the dancers are excellent throughout). But then in comes an army of AI robots in Daft Punk-style visors. It’s visually impactful, with genre-fluid movement, but flails a bit in terms of conveying meaning. Is the message to beware of people who tell you how to live as they’ll steal your soul? That big tech promises to solve your problems, but will actually erase your humanity? Not sure. But Saunders’ ambition is admirable, and we will see more from this creative mind.

Grand Palais, Paris
An epic collection of the artist’s final 13 years of work explodes with the stunning colours and spiky cutouts that redefined art

Forget the joy and energy of youth – your best days might yet be ahead. Henri Matisse’s were, even when he barely made it out of surgery alive in his early 70s as war was breaking out across France. Sitting in his wheelchair, his hand wobblier and weaker than ever, his body scarcely able to muster the strength to stand and paint, he reinvented himself and reshaped modern art in the process.

Centre Pompidou and the Grand Palais’ huge exploration of the last years of Matisse’s life – from his surgery in 1941 to his death in 1954 – is a dizzying, joyous celebration of colour, form, line, light and then a whole bunch more colour. It’s so good, so beautiful, so totally overwhelming. It was always bound to be – it’s Matisse, with all the resources of France’s vast collection of Matisse works. It’s a show full of hits.

Leeds Playhouse
Featuring stellar performances across the cast, Matthew Xia’s production breathes new life into Andrea Levy’s sprawling family saga

A novel from more than two decades ago, telling a story that begins over a century ago: what can an adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Small Island tell us in 2026? Plenty, it transpires, as Helen Edmundson’s adaptation is brought to the stage with gravitas and speaks to our current era with startling clarity.

Rufus Norris was in the chair for the original National Theatre production of the play in 2019. With its regional premiere, director Matthew Xia has breathed life into the piece by simply allowing it to exist in its period – he has not tinkered with either the sense of time or place. The costumes and the apparently simple set first place us between the two world wars that devastated Britain, then take us up to 1948, when the HMT Empire Windrush docked near London, before charting the freezing cold “welcome” those arriving from the Caribbean received from this small island.

After a two year closure, the museum doubles its gallery space with a 700-plus object show examining how humans and technology shape each other

Right now on the Bowery, a busy Manhattan thoroughfare, two supersized lovers embrace several stories up into the blue spring sky. Strapped against the New Museum’s industrial mesh exterior, the pair are frozen in a state of plasticized affection. Their grinning, almost smooching, heads pressed close and glossy torsos entwined. A massive hand, safe as a catcher’s mitt, encases them both, splaying wide across their waists as though to stop them crashing to the sidewalk.

The site-specific sculpture is titled Art Lovers, a work by Harlem-born artist Tschabalala Self, and marks the architectural “kiss point” between the New Museum’s original building and a new expansion. Today, 21 March, the New Museum publicly debuts its enlarged architectural anatomy after two years of being closed to the public. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, the OMA founder, and partner Shohei Shigematsu, the $82m project affixes a jagged, glassy jewel to the original building, effectively doubling the footprint to 119,700 sq ft. At a media preview this week, Shigematsu likened the alignment of the two distinct buildings – one he called more “vertical and introverted”, the other “more horizontal and extroverted” – to the search for a romantic partner. “You know how difficult it is to find a perfect pair,” he said. “Very difficult.”

The actor’s martial arts skills saw him rise to fame in the 70s, but he found his groove – and legions of fans – destroying furniture, revving muscle cars and firing heavy artillery in the 80s

• Chuck Norris, prolific action star and martial arts champion, dies aged 86
• Chuck Norris – a life in pictures

When Chuck Norris fought Bruce Lee in The Way of the Dragon in 1972, it looked like the clash of two mythic archetypes. For all his power, Lee appeared boyish and almost slight, his body as smooth as marble and clenched with defined muscle like an anatomical illustration – the ascetic young master of Asian fighting philosophies. Norris was bigger, bulkier, shaggier and hairier, and basically more American; he was just as fast as Bruce (or almost), a master of taekwondo and jiujitsu and his own discipline of Chun Kuk Do, but with a body that looked as if an ounce or two of old-fashioned fat – the byproduct of the odd porterhouse steak – would be neither here nor there (although in later years Norris dialled down the red meat).

Norris was a rip-roaring action hero in the stacked form also popularised by Sly, Arnie and later Jason Statham; he was basically in the tradition of occidental action, a western-style fighting man who had also absorbed the eastern arcana of unarmed combat into a persona that was also confident with heavy weaponry. The combination made him a lead like Clint Eastwood’s man with no name (and in fact his 1985 actioner Code of Silence, about a cop on the edge, was originally developed as a Dirty Harry vehicle). But Norris had something rangier and less enigmatic: you could call him the master of his own kind of whitesploitation ass-kicking spectacular.

As the weather turned, the photographer caught two traditional Filipino spearfishers in motion

Laiya beach is a three-hour drive from where Easelyn Pineda lives, in Quezon City, the Philippines. Last September, she was visiting the area with friends. “It makes for the perfect getaway,” she says. “We ate fresh seafood, went snorkelling and beachcombing, sifting through the tide pools to collect the most beautiful seashells we could find.”

On the day Pineda took this photo, she and her friends were exploring the beach when the weather turned. “Late afternoon, the ocean breeze picked up and brought a light rain shower, then it became progressively gloomier. This scene unfolded in front of me,” she says. “Two young men from the local community were spearfishing right off the shore. It seemed like they were braving the weather to see if they could add some food to the table for the day. It was a very humbling thing to witness and capture.”

Airbrush artist who created iconic posters for A Clockwork Orange and Full Metal Jacket, as well as artwork for Pulp and the Rolling Stones

One of the best-known British film posters of the 20th century began life in the Borehamwood house of Stanley Kubrick, in a sketch drawn by the airbrush artist Philip Castle, who has died aged 83. Then a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art, who had advertised his services in the Daily Express, Castle was invited to meet the director at his home, where Kubrick played him a rough cut of his new film, A Clockwork Orange, without sound, and asked him to create a poster for it. “It was just incredible,” Castle told the Times in 2000. “My favourite film was Dr Strangelove, followed by 2001 [A Space Odyssey]. I was just the biggest fan.”

In the director’s home theatre, he drafted images in his notebook of Malcolm McDowell, who played the gang leader Alex DeLarge in Kubrick’s 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’s novel. McDowell stares menacingly out of the page, holding a knife, with a floating eyeball nearby. This notebook – shown at two recent exhibitions in London, Daydreaming With Stanley Kubrick at Somerset House (2016) and Stanley Kubrick: The Exhibition at the Design Museum (2019) – holds most of the elements of the finished film poster, before Castle filled the final image with paint from an airbrush. This was the tool that allowed him to develop his distinctive style.

Michael B Jordan headed there straight from the Oscars. No wonder. Their Double-Double is ‘the near perfect expression of burger-ness’

They say you never forget your first time, but for most of us, this doesn’t apply to cheeseburgers. We can’t really remember our first cheeseburger, because we start eating them at such an early age, before the memory centres of our brains are fully formed. In fact, in Wisconsin (“America’s dairyland”) babies are traditionally weaned on a fortifying diet of cheeseburgers, bratwurst and fondue, along with little sips of lager, just to make sure we acquire the taste.

But while I may not be able to recall the particular details of my very first cheeseburger, the sense-memories of them are embedded deep within my subconscious. The perfect flavour-chord of ketchup, mustard and pickles on molten cheese and juicy beef occupies the same psychological space as the peppery cinnamon-and-clove aroma of my father’s Old Spice and the warmth of my mother’s hug. More than mere memories, these are encoded messages: comfort comes in the form of hugs, spicy aftershave, and cheeseburgers.

My wife is horrified by the price of tickets, and I get triggered if I sit too near the stage due to an unfortunate incident at the circus

At the start of the year, my wife launched a campaign for us to go to the theatre more. It bears many of the hallmarks of my 2018 campaign for us to go to the theatre more, which failed miserably after my wife pronounced it stupid. She claims not to remember this.

My wife’s campaign is hampered by her refusal to accept the kind of outlay that modern theatre-going requires. She comes into the kitchen and places her open laptop in front of me.

From budget to Japanese-style models, here are chef Ben Lippett’s sharpest picks for comfort, cut and cost after weeks of chopping. Plus, what to know before you buy

• The kitchen gadgets top chefs can’t live without

A great chef’s knife is less a tool and more an extension of the person holding it. In the kitchen, your knife effectively becomes your right (or left) hand. Balance equals control; good steel spells confidence and longevity; a sharp edge means ease.

I’ve put a handful of knives through the only trials that matter: shallots diced to translucence, tomatoes sliced gossamer thin, herbs chiffonaded to perfume. I’m looking past marketing into geometry, materials, grind and ultimately how each knife feels – at minute one and hour 10. Does it bite eagerly, or wedge and bruise? How does it feel in your hand – is it perfectly balanced or too blade-heavy? Does it sing on the board, or thud? Will this knife need lots of TLC, or will it look after itself?

Best chef’s knife overall:
Wüsthof classic chef knife, 20cm

Best budget knife:
Victorinox Fibrox chef’s knife, 20cm

Travelling over Easter? Whether it’s mini magnets or collapsible buckets, here’s the parent-tested kit that’s actually worth bringing (and what’s just a waste of money)

• How to get kids outdoors

Holidays are a different experience after having kids. A concept that once evoked the promise of rest and relaxation becomes a feat of logistics and endurance, where one forgotten item can mean a week of no sleep (been there, done that, got the T-shirt).

Despite fears that we’d never be able to holiday again after having children, my partner and I have taken numerous trips with our two offspring – both under four – and some of the breaks have actually been enjoyable. The most memorable was when we took our eldest around Thailand for our honeymoon when he was seven months old. But we’ve really earned our travelling-with-kids stripes thanks to the family commitment that requires frequent trips to New York.

Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest – and muckiest – outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking

• The best lawnmowers to keep your grass in check

The trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your garden tools might do a good job of keeping your plot in check, but keeping your patio, decking and outdoor furniture spick and span can take hours, especially if you rely on a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.

That’s where the pressure washer comes in. These handy tools connect to your hose pipe and squirt water at any cleaning problem. Stubborn and unpleasant stains, from bird dirt to years of neglect, can be lifted from your garden’s hard-wearing surfaces in seconds. With the right attachments, you can also use your pressure washer to hose down cars, bikes and boats.

Best pressure washer overall:
Ava Go P40

Best budget pressure washer:
Kärcher K 2 Classic

They’re one of the most-hyped kitchen appliances of the last decade, but are these low-fat cookers worth the cost and counter space?

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I owned an air fryer long before they attained peak ubiquity, and I use it on a daily basis, so I’m surprised when people express zero interest in them. For my lifestyle, air fryers are brilliant: I’m usually multitasking, so being able to pop chicken, veggies or sausages in a drawer and walk away frees me up.

But if you’re thinking of buying one, it’s worth exploring whether it will work for how you live – and the food you cook – to avoid cluttering your kitchen counter with another underused gadget, and needlessly spending money.

A moreish way to enjoy a popular Greek lamb recipe, accompanied by a pretty rhubarb pudding

Easter for me immediately brings to mind two things: cracking dyed red eggs together in the style of conkers (a Serbian Easter game that we play every year) and lamb. We always eat lamb at Easter lunch, and I suppose that simply harks back to religious tradition. Today’s lamb shank dish is a wonderfully straightforward and moreish take on a popular Greek recipe. I’ve gone for rhubarb for pudding, because it’s just so representative of this time of year – it’s also very pretty on the eye and a treat to eat, too.

Anna Tobias is chef/co-owner of Cafe Deco in London WC1

The historic port is a cosmopolitan gateway to global flavours and traditions. And it’s barely on the tourist trail. Take a tour …

Many years ago, I swapped languages with a young woman from Trieste. It was during one of our half-English, half-Italian practice hours that she introduced the idea of Trieste, on a map, as possessing the shape of a stomach. She described her city (which is also a province) as being suspended: pressed by the sea on one side, enveloped by Slovenia and the Karst hills on the other, with a short oesophagus attaching it to the body of Italy. She also suggested I read la Conscienza di Zeno – Zeno’s Conscience – Italo Svevo’s devilishly funny hymn to procrastination, self-delusion and walking around in search of a suitable cafe, and warned me about the ruffian wind.

It would be almost two decades before I finally visited Trieste, bringing with me enough anticipation to tempt disappointment (unfounded) and the itinerary of a food writer. I carried the image of a stomach too, fitting in so many ways for this remarkable food city, not least for making its geography vivid, which in turn explains so much about its history. Once a coastal fishing village, colonised by the Romans, raided by the Venetians, entrusted to the Habsburg monarchy in Vienna (for four centuries, which included a prolonged heyday), appended to the newly united Kingdom of Italy, fought over, briefly independent, handed back to Italy in 1954, from which point it developed into what is today one of the most outward looking and dynamic cities in Italy. Trieste, it seems, has digested and assimilated, meaning its complex history is reflected in the architecture, dialect, music, literature, sports, civic nature and multifaceted food culture: surely one of the most intriguing and rewarding in Italy.

A blast of flavour and crunch makes this an ideal light evening meal

In my cookbook East, I wrote a recipe for silken tofu, a fragile, creamy block, topped with a quick blast of pine nuts, pickled chillies, soy sauce and herbs. It was based closely on a dish at My Neighbours the Dumplings in east London, which I loved deeply. It was fast, delicious and filling, and I ate it over and over again for weeks on end with rice. Since then, I’ve always wanted a variation on the formula, and now, seven years later, here it is. It’s spunky thanks to the citrus and ginger, crunchy thanks to the carrot and sesame seeds, and very worthy of consideration as a midweek meal.

Bringing food back to life is a great kitchen skill. No, you can’t just microwave it

There is nothing lovelier than seeing a cook do their thing. By “doing their thing”, I do not mean just going about kitchen work – that is often excruciating to watch (why are they cutting onions like that?) I mean doing their thing: their culinary equivalent of a Mastermind subject, that one dish or process that they do so well, and with such evident pride, that the most crotchety backseat cook is forced to shut up.

Take my partner’s method for making fish-finger sandwiches, which involves frying the fish fingers in butter, then creating an in-pan sweatbox to melt artisanal cheese on to them and custom blending condiments. It creates, on average, as much washing up as a full cooked dinner. Others have a special pancake hack or carrot cake recipe, and people tend not to let these things go unnoticed – it’s always my salad dressing, possessive, but we forgive their hubris, because each of us has “A Thing” of our own.

One in three UK postcodes now has more dogs than children. Meet the Dinkwads (dual income, no kids, with a dog). Plus Tim Dowling’s guide to the best breeds for Dinkwads

Bryan Bell was at home when his one-year-old Patti collapsed, shaking like a leaf in a gale-force tornado. She was having a fit. Bell’s husband, John, was out of the house and he didn’t know what to do. “It was quite a traumatic experience because I didn’t know what was happening,” the 40-year-old PR recalls. Eventually, Patti’s fit subsided and the couple soon found a diagnosis from her doctor: their miniature dachshund had epilepsy. “She’s all medicated now, so it’s under control. But when it happens, you feel like: ‘Is this going to be the fit that’s too much for her little head?’”

Medical scares, behaviour issues and a tendency to eat you out of house and home – many dog owners will tell you that getting a four-legged friend bears more than a few similarities to having a young child. But as birthrates plummet across the world, a curious inverse trend has emerged: couples are getting dogs. Lots and lots of couples, in fact. They’re called Dinkwads (dual income, no kids, with a dog) and their numbers are growing. With one in three postcodes in England home to more dogs than children, you are now more likely to hear the howl of a basset hound than the sound of kids playing. If you counted up all the estimated 13 million dogs in the UK, from pint-sized chihuahuas to lolloping great danes, you’d only be two million short of the total number of children. And unlike the human birthrate – which in Britain hit a record low in 2024 – the number of dogs only looks set to increase.

Chantelle would like Hugo to show more affection when they are out. You decide who is being touchy
• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Friends and family have noticed that we don’t hold hands and it’s become a running joke

I find holding hands annoying. Besides, I’m quite caring and I tell her I love her on a daily basis

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.

Consultancy forecasts typical £1,972 annual dual-fuel bill as conflict pushes UK’s gas market past three-year highs

Household energy bills in Great Britain could increase by more than £330 a year to almost £2,000 from this summer after the Iran war pushed the UK’s gas market past three-year highs.

A typical combined household gas and electricity bill is now forecast to reach £1,972 a year from July under the UK government’s quarterly price cap, according to analysis by the energy consultancy Cornwall Insight,.

To understand this you need to know about swap rates and the impact of the war in Iran

On 16 January, the average rate on a new two-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.78%, according to the financial data company Moneyfacts. Two months later, it was 5.20%. Between those two dates, the Bank of England voted to keep the base rate at 3.75%. More significantly, though, the US and Israel carried out airstrikes on Iran and a conflict broke out.

The US air attacks on Iran have caused economic shocks across the world. Stock markets have tumbled, petrol and heating oil prices have gone up and there have been warnings of higher bills to come, for everything from food to holidays. All of this feeds into interest rate expectations, and from there into mortgage rates.

Whether it’s buying and selling clothes online or some freelance work on the side, plan ahead for potential tax issues

Since the start of 2024, online platforms such as Vinted, eBay and Airbnb have been required to share data with HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for any users who sell more than 30 items a year or earn more than about £1,700 (the threshold is set at €2,000) a year. However, this does not necessarily mean that those users owe any additional income tax.

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.

From a real get-away-from-it-all isolated ‘off-grid’ cottage by the sea to a 42nd-floor three-bedroom flat in a London tower block

Wellness enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram claim the combination bestows glowing skin and better digestion

A shot of lemon juice and olive oil might be delicious on a salad – but would you drink it straight up?

That’s what wellness enthusiasts on TikTok and Instagram are doing, claiming it bestows glowing skin and better digestion, and supports the dubious process of “detoxing”.

Evidence suggests saunas can boost heart health, but their real power may lie in bringing people together in an increasingly digital world

From fields to floating pontoons, in horseboxes, barrels and beach huts, saunas are springing up across Britain. The British Sauna Society now lists about 640 saunas – up from 540 at the start of the year – while a recent report predicted that the UK could become the world’s largest sauna market by 2033, outpacing even Finland and Germany.

“The continuing growth suggests that the peak has still yet to come – if there is one,” said Gabrielle Reason, the society’s director. But are saunas a tonic for the nation’s health – or a wellness fad with hidden risks?

A happiness researcher called prolonged eye contact ‘the best thing ever’, claiming it can bring couples closer. Does it really work?

In January, business professor and happiness researcher Arthur C Brooks appeared on the Modern Wisdom podcast to offer advice on optimizing morning and evening routines. His tips seemed reasonable – think exercising early and no alcohol before bed. Then, for couples, he made a kookier suggestion: every night before going to sleep, spend five minutes holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.

“This is the best thing ever,” he enthuses, explaining that it can help with mood management and to strengthen your relationship.

A neat cuff can elevate an outfit in seconds – but it takes more than a quick fold to get it right

Trousers – they’re not rocket science. But there are plenty of ways to mess them up, or to elevate them above their primary role of covering legs. A classic styling trick has emerged recently: the turn-up. Harry Styles had them for his pinstripe trews at the Brits, actor Chase Infiniti turned her trousers up at Paris fashion week and hefty turn-ups feature on baggy blue and ecru jeans and olive-green track trousers in JW Anderson’s latest collection for Uniqlo.

Turn-ups are the bread and butter of preppy labels such as J Crew-adjacent brand Alex Mill. Head to the website of this New York label and turned-up jeans paired with purple loafers and pink socks, or with letterbox-red ballet flats and yolk-yellow socks, will wash over you like salt spray. At John Lewis, meanwhile, turn-ups run the gamut from pencil-thin to the depth of an Oxford English Dictionary.

The spring equinox is here, which means days in the park, ice-cream selfies and an extra layer for the evening

All the talk on red carpet night was of leading guys such as Adrien Brody and Leonardo DiCaprio flashing the bling

While the eyes might be the window to the soul, lapels are certainly doing some talking. On the Oscars red carpet last Sunday night, Hollywood’s leading men flashed a lot of bling on their suits.

From Adrien Brody who wore an astronomically large brooch titled Ulysses, arguably as big as the James Joyce tome is thick, to a clean-shaven Pedro Pascal, who distracted from his newly bare chin with a silk and feather Chanel Camélia brooch, lapels were vying for the spotlight.

Bold shades are all over the catwalks, but they can be tricky to wear. These tricks will make them work in the real world

You would think primary shades would be the easiest colours to wear. Red, yellow, blue: we can name these before we can tie our shoelaces. They are not sophisticated colours, such as Armani greige or Pantone favourite Mocha Mousse. They are not challenging-to-wear colours, like chartreuse or mustard. They are Mr Men colours. So wearing them must be child’s play, surely.

And yet they are weirdly tricky to wear. They can feel shouty and basic: the getting dressed equivalent of speaking loudly without saying anything particularly interesting, which is – to paint it in primary colours – not what any of us are aiming for.

The wild moors and gentle dales of the UK’s oldest national park are just as inviting today as they were when it was created in 1951

Look at a satellite photograph of Britain taken on a clear night and the only things visible are the glowing street lights of towns and cities. If you cast your eyes to the centre of northern England, the distinctive, cupped-hand-shaped boundary of the Peak District national park is clearly outlined as an island of darkness washed by an ocean of light from the industrial conurbations of the north and Midlands.

It was established in April 1951 as the first national park in Britain. And that view from space gives the clearest indication possible of why this site was chosen – it put a national park where it was most needed in the country. It has been estimated that about a third of the population of England and Wales lives less than an hour away from the Peak District.

From a deconsecrated London cemetery to a Cumbrian seal colony, our readers select wonderful ‘havens for both human and non-human visitors’
• Tell us about your trips to France – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

I always take friends on an afternoon walk when they visit Bristol, to experience the swift changes in scenery: starting at the tobacco warehouses of Cumberland Basin before ascending from the muddy banks of the River Avon up into Leigh Woods, a national nature reserve. As well as possible animal sightings like peregrine falcons and roe deer, the woods are an important site for whitebeam trees, with several species only growing here. It’s easy to spend a full afternoon crisscrossing the trails before walking over Brunel’s famous suspension bridge for a well-deserved coffee at the Primrose Café in Clifton village.
Tor Hands

I loved Tanzania – we flew over hungry lions in a national park

I can still remember my first flight, in 2002. It was magical. I was working as a tour guide in Myanmar. I met a British balloon pilot called Phil, who had a spare place on a flight. He offered to take me, too.

I don’t particularly enjoy flying in planes, but this was different. We floated gently with the wind, out in the open air. There was no turbulence. It was so serene and picturesque as we flew over temples. I immediately fell in love with ballooning.

Ski accommodation can be prohibitively expensive, but a cosy youth hostel puts the Montafon resort and its glorious runs within reach for those on a budget

‘Want to come skiing in Austria at half-term?” I asked my 13-year-old son. “It’ll be just like one of those luxury chalet holidays, only we’ll make our own beds, cook our own dinners and carry our gear back to our accommodation ourselves.” Osian didn’t hear the caveats. “Sounds amazing,” he said, his eyes glazing to a cinematic sweep of white powder and the chance to perfect his 360.

For many families, the dream of a catered chalet – and its ready-lit fires, homemade strudels and chauffeured lift shuttles – remains just that. Apartments offer access to the slopes at less vertigo-inducing prices, but they tend to come with a minimum seven-night stay. If you only have a few days to spare, or a budget that won’t stretch to a full week’s lift pass, hotels fill the gap, but then you’re back navigating the moguls of cost.

From the Azure Window to nocturnal lights and radar-visual, test your knowledge with the Saturday quiz

1 What is Ikea’s all-time bestselling item of furniture?
2 Which country had a mosque on its national flag until 2021?
3 101-year-old Bill Greason is the last survivor from which era of baseball?
4 Which sisters shared one eye and one tooth between them?
5 Which nuts are the most radioactive common food?
6 Who became German minister for women and youth in 1991?
7 Which Australian bird has killed humans in the wild?
8 Which fortified wine is an ingredient of tiramisu?
What links:
9 ares; august; job; mobile; polish?
10 Berry; Chowns; Denyer; Ramsay; Spencer?
11 Eildon Hills; Glastonbury Abbey; Mount Etna; Richmond Castle?
12 Jennifer Beals; Jessie Buckley; Helena Bonham Carter; Elsa Lanchester?
13 Azure Window, Malta; Darwin’s Arch, Galápagos; Lovers’ Arch, Italy; Toilet Bowl, Utah?
14 Nocturnal lights; daylight discs; radar-visual; CE1; CE2; CE3?
15 Pilot (1); Taylor Swift (8); Earth, Wind & Fire (9); Guns N’ Roses (10); Kate Bush (12)?

Five multiple-choice questions – set by children – to test your knowledge, and a chance to submit your own junior brainteasers for future quizzes

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Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a podcast answering children’s questions. Do check out her books, Everything Under the Sun and Everything Under the Sun: Quiz Book, as well as her new title, Everything Under the Sun: All Around the World.

You can pep up your cooking by growing wild garlic, crow garlic and three-cornered leek

Unlike most gardeners, I’m not especially captivated by spring bulbs. I do love that they symbolise the return of fairer weather, but I only have the tulips and narcissi that I adopted when we moved here and, every autumn, I fail to consider planting more to replenish their dwindling numbers. Lucky for me, I also adopted the kind of spring bulb that I’m more inclined towards – because they’re edible. Wild alliums are what I’m really looking for to herald the arrival of spring.

Too many edible wild plants are only edible in theory, in my opinion. I’m mostly of the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” school of foraging. But that’s not the case when it comes to the most well-known member of this wild allium group. The strongly flavoured leaves of wild garlic (Allium ursinum) cover the woodland floor wherever they are resident, producing clusters of white, star-shaped flowers that are edible too – but leave most of them for the pollinators please! I’m a big fan of this delectable plant and am fortunate enough that it has made a home in my front garden. As with all foraging endeavours, make sure you’re 100% certain you have identified the plant correctly, pick where you are allowed, and always leave plenty behind. Fortunately, when it comes to this group of plants, it’s fairly easy to know if you have gone wrong as all the leaves should smell strongly of and taste like garlic or onions.

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

The actor has played many classic roles and his love of film is clear in his garden, from the Saltburn proscenium arch to the pergola where Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd have partied the night away

Step into Richard E Grant’s garden in Richmond, London, and you’ll be met with a rather unconventional sight. Instead of the daffodils and tulips you’d usually find in an English garden at this time of year, Grant’s space is full of props and decorations from the films he’s starred in – from Saltburn to Carrie Cracknell’s 2022 adaptation of Persuasion.

After any job, he says, “I go to the production department and try and buy or bribe my way” to get pieces to put in his garden. The space has, until now, been a private spot for Grant to entertain his actor friends. But now he has shared it with the world as part of the Royal Horticultural Society’s new podcast, Roots. I took a look around it – here are some of the weird and wonderful things that can be found there.

Palestinians say the move is part of a wider Israeli strategy to leverage security tensions to tighten restrictions

For the first time since 1967, al-Aqsa mosque – Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site – was closed at the end of Ramadan on Friday, with tensions rising among Palestinians as Israeli authorities keep the complex shut, forcing worshippers to hold Eid prayers as close as they could to the sealed site.

On Friday morning, hundreds of worshippers were forced to pray outside the Old City, as Israeli police barricaded the entrances to the site.

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing

Across the UK, many small charities face increasing financial pressures, forcing some to shut their doors. When this happens, it can leave the people who relied on those services without support - and volunteers and communities trying to step in and keep things going.

We’d like to hear from volunteers who have experienced a charity closing. Have you or others tried to continue the work informally and what were the challenges of doing that? Did you try to keep it going - and what difficulties did you face? What happened to the people who depended on the service?

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.

We would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated

Was someone there for you when you were feeling lonely? As part of the Guardian’s Well Actually series, we would like to hear about the ways people have helped each other feel less isolated. You can tell us your story below.

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

We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job

Lollipop people in Suffolk have become the latest neon-clad, road patrollers to don body cams amid a rise in abuse. We are looking to speak to lollipop people about their experiences on the job.

The council has launched a six-week awareness campaign called “Lollipops Aren’t Just For Children” to remind drivers to slow down, be patient, and show respect at patrol points. The cameras have been used by school crossing patrols in Greater Manchester, Clacton and Basildon for similar reasons.

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Crisis in the Middle East, a sandstorm in Gaza, a blackout in Havana and the Oscars – the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists