It’s your life in their hands, but what kind of life is that? No wonder a wearied, confused public has mobilised into tribes – or just tuned out

On the basis that you’re never too cooked to get a new catchphrase, Keir Starmer has repeatedly warned this week that we are in a “battle for the soul of our nation”. I wish he’d stop saying it. The thought of your very soul being fought over by Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer, Zack Polanski, Kemi Badenoch and the others is like something out of a sealed section in Dante’s Inferno. If it was on an underworld menu, I think I’d choose the Satanic Flaying instead. Anyway: enter Andy Burnham.

Plus, we now have coordinates. The battle for the soul of the nation will take place not in the tenth circle of hell, but in Makerfield. Local MP and appalling little footnote Josh Simons has stood down so that the King in the North has a route to King’s Landing, where – I think? – he has to kill his auntie after accidentally shagging her. Labour party procedures are very arcane.

How did Lordi sing in a giant condom? How many sex lives has Epic Sax Guy helped? And what will push Graham Norton to retire? As Eurovision hits 70, legends of the song contest spill the beans

Not many 70-year-olds spend their nights with pop singers in sparkly catsuits. Or nightmarish monsters barking out heavy metal. Or 160,000 giddy Europeans staring at them as they get progressively more drunk. There’s only one, in fact – the Eurovision song contest. To celebrate its uniqueness, we’ve spoken to some of the most interesting people ever involved with the contest to tell their tales. Happy seven decades of Eurovision!

History shows there have been more short-lived Labour governments than long-lasting ones. The party must secure a clear, progressive legacy

In democratic countries at least, government is often about getting things done in time. Sooner or later, voters always turn on national leaders and governments fall. Even the most promising policy ideas are left unfulfilled.

With one important exception, this life cycle is usually briefer for Labour governments, since they face more opposition from the media and powerful economic interests, and more suspicion from voters as a result. Despite the party winning three times as many big electoral majorities as the Conservatives over the past 30 years, Labour governments are still seen as unnatural by many people, both outside and inside the party. And without an assumed right to rule, governments age fast.

Athletes have always been targets for criminals hoping to profit from their wealth. But a new wave of dangers has cropped up in recent years

With exorbitant ticket, travel and hotel prices making fans desperate to find an affordable way of attending this summer’s World Cup, it’s no surprise that security firms and law enforcement agencies are warning that fans are at significant risk of becoming fraud victims.

While major tournaments are moments of heightened vulnerability for supporters, players themselves are increasingly attractive year-round targets for cybercriminals who can use AI to mount ever more sophisticated attacks.

The performance artist was a brilliantly subversive pioneer whose work exposed the predicament of women living in a world that was not made for us
• Renowned feminist artist and film-maker Valie Export dies aged 85

Punk, intellectual, feminist, theorist, brave as hell, vulnerable, funny, Valie Export was a hero to many women. Since the 1960s, she was driven by a fierce conviction that art and media would play an essential role in women’s liberation: that women must picture their own reality in the name of social progress. In Women’s Art: A Manifesto (1972), she wrote that women must “use art as a means of expression, so as to influence the consciousness of all of us”. What she demanded was revolution.

I keep returning to her work. Can’t stay away. I have written about her in relation to violence in women’s art. Her work was heavy with explicit threat and pain, and she made evident the violence of forcing women’s bodies to inhabit structures that were not designed for them. For the 1973 performance Hyperbuliashe crept naked through a corridor of electrified wires, exposing herself voluntarily to shocks.

From Nike Mind, with its pre-game benefits, to recovery shoes from Hoka, bulbous sporty footwear is moving into fashionable circles. Will we see it beyond the jogging track this summer?

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When the much-hyped Nike Mind shoes were released in January, I bought a pair. I was grabbed by the idea that the orange nodules on the sole could, supposedly, focus the mind. The futuristic look of the shoe also appeals. If walking on knobbly things took a bit of getting used to, it was worth it – if only for that irresistible fashion smugness of having something rare. In the last week, I have been stopped in the street and asked where I got the shoes. It turns out they are now out of stock and have sold for over £300 on resale site Goat.

The Mind is part of a wider trend in “exercise slides”, a pre-game shoe designed to ground you ahead of your chosen activity. Nike claim that the 22 nodules on the sole stimulate the mechanoreceptors on your feet, engaging the sensory area of your brain, meaning focus is heightened. Meanwhile, recovery slides made by brands such as Hoka and Oofos use cushioned soles and a shape that cradles the foot to helpfight foot fatigue after a lot of exercise. The Mind are worn by footballers including Erling Haaland and Reece James, runner Keely Hodgkinson and basketball players Victor Wembanyama and A’ja Wilson, while ballerina Francesca Hayward namechecks Hoka’s slides as part of her daily routine.

The Greater Manchester mayor is hoping to return to parliament after a Labour MP stepped down, triggering a byelection

Labour’s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has backed Andy Burnham’s efforts to return to parliament, saying there will be no attempt to stop the Greater Manchester mayor from fighting an upcoming byelection in Makerfield.

Speaking at a Fire Brigades Union conference in Coventry, she said

We could have further to fall as a party and we absolutely need to come back together as one team, because we’ve got to take the fight to [Nigel] Farage. We are at real risk of Nigel Farage walking up Downing Street in a few years time, and we can’t let that happen.

But we’ve got to do our politics differently. We’ve got to end the factionalism. We’ve got to embrace all the different traditions of the Labour party, all the different voices, and bring one team back together.

US president hails ‘fantastic’ deals, but details remain scarce after pageantry and little progress at much-hyped summit with Xi

• Trump in China – latest updates

Donald Trump left China on Friday after a much-hyped summit of the world’s two major powers that was rich in pageantry and promises of stability, but offered little by way of tangible progress.

The US president had gone into the two-day talks with China’s Xi Jinping weakened by his prolonged war in Iran, and did little to change the perception that he and his nation are diminished on the global stage.

Keir Starmer accuses Robinson of ‘peddling hatred and division’ and archbishop of Canterbury urges people to ‘choose hope’

Eleven foreign far-right activists have been blocked from the UK ahead of a rally by Tommy Robinson supporters as Keir Starmer accused him of “peddling hatred and division”.

The archbishop of Canterbury also urged people to “choose hope”, and faith leaders spoke out before the rally on Saturday, the second of its kind after more than 100,000 attended one last year.

Students from Reading Blue Coat school, and Highdown secondary school and sixth form centre receiving treatment

Two schools attended by pupils receiving treatment for meningitis have been named amid an outbreak of the infection in Berkshire which has caused the death of a student.

The patients attend Reading Blue Coat school and Highdown secondary school and sixth form centre, according to the UK Health Security Agency. Their close contacts have been offered antibiotics as a precaution.

Adam Kent suspended after Tory councillors joined forces with Greens and Lib Dems to end Reform’s minority control

The Conservatives have suspended the party’s leader at Worcestershire county council after he made a deal with the Greens and Liberal Democrats to oust Reform.

Reform UK gained control of the council a year ago but its tenure has been marked by a series of controversies and political infighting. This included a bitter leadership battle in which the now former Reform councillor Jo Monk was replaced as leader of the council in April.

State oil company fast-tracks previously undisclosed project, which is expected to double export capacity

• Business live – latest updates

The United Arab Emirates has announced it will complete a new oil pipeline bypassing the strait of Hormuz by next year to secure its future crude exports against the threat of disruption.

The current blockade of the vital waterway, through which 20% of oil and seaborne gas flowed before the Iran war, is approaching the 11-week mark, sending energy prices soaring around the world and throttling Gulf economies.

Ken Murphy’s pay could rise even higher following scrapping of food waste target and weakness of rivals

• Business live – latest updates

The boss of Tesco made £10.8m last year, about £1m more than the year before, as the UK’s biggest supermarket hit its highest share of the market in a decade.

Ken Murphy could make even more this year after being handed a 3% rise in basic pay to £1.54m and cutting food waste was scrapped as a target for his long-term bonus, according to Tesco’s annual report.

Media regulator announces commitments by Elon Musk’s platform to crack down on terrorist and hate content

Elon Musk’s X platform has promised to block UK access to accounts linked to banned terrorist groups under an agreement with the communications regulator to crack down on terrorist and hate content.

X will also review suspected illegal terrorist and hate content within 48 hours and seek expert advice on how to handle user reports of such content.

Butterfly Conservation poll is open until 7 June with choice of 60 species from small tortoiseshells to purple emperors

Will it be the rapidly disappearing former garden favourite, the small tortoiseshell? Or the poet John Masefield’s “oakwood haunting thing”, the charismatic purple emperor? Or perhaps the brimstone, the ultimate harbinger of spring?

The question of which is Britain’s favourite butterfly is being put to a popular vote for the first time. The charity Butterfly Conservation is running the poll, which runs until 7 June, giving people the chance to choose their favourite from the 60 species that fly around Britain every summer.

All victims of US strikes in eastern Pacific and the Caribbean identified so far came from extremely poor communities

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A five-month investigation has named 13 previously unidentified victims of US attacks on boats allegedly carrying narcotics in a campaign that has killed nearly 200 people in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific.

It is unclear if the US has ever identified any of its 194 victims before attacking them, and the names of just three had previously emerged, after their families launched legal cases against the White House.

Their role in a title decider for the ages shows how far Hearts have come since fans rescued them from ruin but Celtic remain favourites

This Hearts story did not begin with Stuart Findlay’s late winner at Tannadice in August, a stoppage-time intervention from Alexandros Kyziridis against Livingston later that month or the September victory at Ibrox that materially fuelled belief among Derek McInnes’s squad. Brian Cormack, Alex Mackie, Jamie Bryant, Donald Ford and Garry Halliday will not feature in the Hearts team seeking to create history at Celtic Park but that quintet set this club on a path that after 16 years has almost – though only almost – reached the ultimate glory point.

Cormack and Mackie joked back then, when among a group establishing the Foundation of Hearts, that one day they would watch the team they love compete in the Champions League from a new main stand at Tynecastle Park. With the stand complete, Hearts will enter the Champions League’s qualifying phase this summer. Humour proved prescient. In the west of Edinburgh, as Hearts pursue the point they need in Glasgow on Saturday to win the title for the first time since 1960, original FoH directors will gather to watch together. Their role in Hearts’ rise should never be forgotten.

Political statement agreed by all 46 Council of Europe states could give them more leeway to carry out deportations

A political declaration aimed at clarifying key aspects of the European convention on human rights was published on Friday, agreed by all 46 member states of the Council of Europe.

Critics fear it will weaken human rights protections for migrants. The ECHR system has become a political battleground, with both the Conservatives and Reform UK pledging to leave the convention if they are elected to government.

A countdown of the greatest literature ever published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide, 40-21. How many have you read? On Saturday we reveal the full list. What’s number 1? Come back at 6am UK time to find out

Whether it’s sandals comfy enough for walking, linen trousers or timeless sunnies, the secret to great summer style is all about keeping things simple

Don’t overthink it. That’s the key to summer style. The best looks are the ones you reach for when you aren’t thinking about clothes, but about the sunny weather, the long evenings, the good times.

You’ll already have your summer anchors, the pieces you come back to every year. The sundress that always works. Denim shorts that only get better with age. A breezy linen shirt you can wear open over swimwear or tucked into just about anything. These are your personal treasures, the pieces that never let you down. But it wouldn’t be summer without a bit of personality thrown in. Suddenly there’s room for pieces that might have felt a bit “extra” a few months ago. Stripes, florals, a pop of red – they all work when the sun’s out.

Can’t stand your friend’s other half? You could be walking into a minefield, warn experts. Here they share advice, from owning jealous feelings to blowing off steam (with the right person)

Years ago, my best friend fell in love with a man I disliked. He had a habit of looking over my shoulder when I tried to talk to him, and I thought he was too possessive. He spoke to her using a special high-pitched baby voice, and the worst thing was that my friend absolutely loved it, and would baby-talk right back. Thinking that our friendship was bound to outlive her infatuation, I made it obvious that I disliked him. I very pointedly made plans without him, and when I was forced to spend time in his presence I made so many private jokes I was essentially talking to my friend in a horrible baby language all of my own.

To no one’s surprise but mine, this behaviour didn’t have the desired effect. My friend started avoiding me. Her boyfriend won and eight years later he’s still winning. They are getting married next year, and I am not invited.

Cannes film festival: The great Russian director of Leviathan, Loveless and The Return has overcome extraordinary obstacles to present his first film in nine years

His films have been hailed as damning allegories of the Russian population’s apathy in the face of state oppression. Yet when director Andrey Zvyagintsev learned of his country’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he too was paralysed, and literally so.

A severe infection with Covid-19 had left the film-maker stranded at a clinic in Hanover, Germany, struggling to breathe with 90% lung damage and unable to move or feel his limbs for several months. “It was in this state that I learned of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine,” he said in a rare recent interview. “It was a shock; I felt immense pain and deep despair.” In all, he spent 11 months in assorted hospitals.

Actor who played Ken Barlow’s younger brother in Coronation Street and appeared in Brookside, Heartbeat and Emmerdale

The actor Alan Rothwell, who has died aged 89, found fame playing Ken Barlow’s younger brother, David, in Coronation Street. He was seen in the TV soap’s first episode, on 9 December 1960, as the cheerful, likable engineering firm apprentice, mending his bicycle in the Barlows’ living room, just as Ken’s new girlfriend arrived.

While his university educated brother would fail to fulfil his highbrow ambitions, David quickly achieved his. He became an amateur footballer with the fictional Weatherfield County, scoring on his debut, then moved to the bright lights of London when a League team signed him in mid-1961.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Britain’s embattled PM is beset by enemies. One reason is that Westminster has ceased to be a club and turned into a shambles

The Tories took years of Westminster turmoil to reach their Liz Truss moment. It has taken Labour only two. Britain has a weakened prime minister, a fatally divided government and a shambolic House of Commons. No one beyond Keir Starmer’s looming rivals can seriously believe the cure lies in his immediate toppling.

There is no leader in waiting obviously superior to Starmer, certainly not his former health secretary, Wes Streeting. Out of naked ambition, he has ditched a critical job in an extraordinary display of cabinet nastiness. As the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, suggests, the effect of a leadership change on the economy could be severe. Yet Westminster’s corridors are bubbling and seething, close to explosion. Something is very wrong with British politics.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

A battered economy, huge numbers of casualties and very little territorial gain – it’s no wonder even stalwart Putin supporters are showing signs of disquiet

• Rajan Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at Powell School, City University of New York

On 9 May, Russia held its iconic annual Victory Day parade to honour the sacrifices of its soldiers and civilians during its four-year war against Nazi Germany. When the president, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, he didn’t anticipate a fight that would last longer than the Red Army’s epic struggle against the Wehrmacht. But his war drags on. Worse, it’s failing and threatening his grip on power.

Despite Putin’s boasts about Russian troops advancing on every front, even pro-war military bloggers are criticising military mismanagement. Some say the momentum favours Ukraine and at least one warns that Russia could lose. With the frontline stalled, an estimated 1.3 million Russian troops dead or wounded, and ordinary Russians under increasing economic pressure, the war Putin believed would produce his crowning achievement may prove to be his undoing.

Rajan Menon is professor emeritus of international relations at Powell School, City University of New York, and senior research fellow at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

The party needs a leader who understands the difficulties facing ordinary people. I am yet to see anyone obviously equal to that challenge

If this were a poker game, Thursday lunchtime was the point when players were finally forced to show their cards. Was Wes Streeting holding all the aces, as his people relentlessly claimed, or a pair of fours and a lot of empty bluster? Did Andy Burnham even have any cards, if he couldn’t name an MP willing to surrender their seat for him? (At the 11th hour, Makerfield MP Josh Simons did the honours). Would Angela Rayner – late to the table, after scraping together £40,000 in accidentally underpaid stamp duty in order to play – scoop the jackpot by default? Or does the house, in the shape of a prime minister stubbornly refusing to budge, ultimately always win?

But in the end Streeting simply kicked the table over, scattering poker chips in all directions. His resignation from cabinet, in a blistering statement that noticeably failed to confirm he had the numbers to trigger a formal contest, was a frustrated last attempt to break the stalemate by taking what he called “personalities” – including possibly his own – and “petty factionalism” out of a revolt against Keir Starmer in which both are surgically embedded. Since the outcome is unclear at the time of writing, for now let’s leave aside the issue of whether Starmer even has the authority to do a reshuffle and focus on one question: why does Britain need a Labour party in 2026?

Gaby Hinsliff 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.

No one has more at stake than Kamala Harris – who has ‘signaled’ support for its release without saying so publicly

After several months of heated arguments over whether the Democratic National Committee (DNC) should release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the dispute has neared a boiling point. With one recent media appearance after another, the DNC chair, Ken Martin, has set off fierce criticism and even derision, while offering notably illogical explanations for keeping the autopsy secret.

As the controversy simmers, no one has more at stake than the party’s latest standard-bearer. Kamala Harris, apparently preparing for another run, leads in polls for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination. One of the last things she needs is a widely publicized narrative from the DNC about failures of her 2024 campaign. A maxim from George Orwell applies: “who controls the past controls the future” and “who controls the present controls the past”.

While Tories are quite ruthless about removing a leader, Labour MPs can’t decide whether their regicide is a tragedy or comedy

No one can say they weren’t warned. Last week’s elections had always been marked out as a time of maximum danger for Keir Starmer if the results were as bad as feared. And so it proved. Only no one had anticipated quite the level of drama that would go with it. While the Tories have always been quite ruthless about getting rid of a leader they deem surplus to requirements, Labour MPs seem unable to decide whether their regicide is a tragedy or a comedy. Or a mixture of both.

Site provides little in the way of actual support for pregnant women – but does direct them to deceptive pregnancy centers

On the website’s landing page, a photo of a heavily pregnant white woman is cropped below the head, so that she is faceless, anonymous, cradling her massive belly underneath the skirt of her yellow dress. She appears to be standing in a field of tall grass, the kind you can get ticks in. The photo is flanked on either side by chubby infant footprints – one pair in pink, another in blue – a clear nod to the anti-abortion movement’s preferred symbol of what they call “precious feet”. A banner at the top declares that the site, “Moms.gov”, which was launched by the White House on Mother’s Day, offers “Resources, Information, and Help for New and Expecting Mothers”, and advertises that it is “addressing the needs of mothers and fathers who face difficult or unexpected pregnancies” – that is, those who would often seek abortions. In fact, the site does little besides link to Option Line, a referral network of Christian anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers run by the anti-abortion group Heartbeat International.

The launch of Moms.gov was accompanied by an uncomfortable Oval Office press conference on Monday, in which members of the Trump administration and some of the more aggressively anti-choice Republican members of Congress gathered to tout the new website and cheer on the Trump administration’s pronatalist stance. Dr Mehmet Oz, the wellness influencer and one-time television personality who now holds a position in the Trump health department as the administrator for Medicare and Medicaid, lamented that Americans are, in his creepy personal parlance, “under-babied”. “One in three Americans are under-babied,” Oz asserted. “That means that you either don’t have any children or you have less children than you would normally want to have.” Oz asserted that the fertility rate has fallen below 1.5 (a Johns Hopkins study indicates that it is in fact a bit higher, and that the US population is not shrinking) and predicted a coming wave of “Trump babies”.

The prospect of a contest exposes a deeper truth: the party’s problems go far beyond Keir Starmer

In politics, opportunities for supreme power are rare and fleeting. Yet rather than making challengers to Sir Keir Starmer more ruthless, this truth seems to have made them more cautious. The health secretary, Wes Streeting, resigned from the cabinet but did not launch a leadership bid. Rather than provoke a contest, Mr Streeting’s message to Sir Keir was that since his authority was gone, his duty was to depart and enable an orderly transition rather than cling to office.

If the Labour leadership were truly up for grabs, winning it would require opportunism, a feel for elite collapse and a willingness to defy both the party establishment and orthodoxy. Those who successfully seize the crown – Lloyd George, Harold Macmillan, Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson – recognise their moment and act decisively. These leaders were also not subject to the Labour party rulebook.

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 new government in Budapest has already made an impact in Brussels. At home, the new prime minister is so far doing and saying the right things

The transformative impact of Péter Magyar’s historic election victory over Viktor Orbán is already being felt in Brussels. On Monday, two days after Mr Magyar was sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister, his new pro-EU government lifted the veto which for over a year has prevented the EU imposing sanctions on violent Israeli settlers. This followed a similar breakthrough on a long-delayed £78bn loan to Ukraine, which Mr Orbán had also blocked. At a critical geopolitical moment, the end of an era in Budapest is freeing the EU to act in defence of its interests and values.

Mr Magyar, who inherits a struggling economy stifled by years of cronyism and corruption, will hope and expect that the benefits of rapprochement cut both ways. In total, around £17bn of EU development funds to Hungary remain off-limits, following Mr Orbán’s refusal to address multiple transgressions of EU law. Agreement on the disbursement of around £10bn needs to be reached by the end of August.

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.

Former Europe minister Denis MacShane says Sir Keir Starmer could be more effective as foreign secretary than prime minister. Plus letters from Bernie Evans, Keith Flett, Alec Hamilton and Douglas Currie

There is general agreement that, whatever his problems with domestic politics, Sir Keir Starmer has handled his international diplomatic duties as prime minister with aplomb. He joined with all other European leaders in rejecting the Donald Trump-Benjamin Netanyahu war on Iran. He stood with Canada against Trump’s Anschluss politics of saying it should be joined with the US, and with Denmark against Trump’s attempted grab of Greenland.

After years of Tory governments’ neglect of defence, Britain is sending a clear message to Vladimir Putin that his 1930s-style invasion and takeover of Ukraine will be resisted. Starmer has good relations with social democratic and socialist leaders in Europe, and Labour is again playing a role in the Party of European Socialists and the Socialist International following years of neglect after Labour left office in 2010.

By deleting photos from our phones, we can ease demand for data storage and the huge amount of electricity it uses, writes Gill Davidson, while Robert Harrison suggests the waste heat from datacentres could be repurposed

Increasing energy usage by datacentres is a concerning issue, as is the associated environmental cost (Datacentres using 6% of electricity supply in UK and US, research says, 13 May).

Datacentres use up huge and rapidly increasing amounts of electricity, and data storage is responsible for more carbon emissions than the commercial airline industry. This is to say nothing of the contribution to land and water use, e-waste, supply chain issues, refrigerant gas leaks etc.

Dr Gareth James of the Association of Surgeons in Primary Care says the commonly quoted decline in vasectomy numbers needs careful interpretation

Tim Burrows is absolutely right to highlight the importance of vasectomy, the anxiety many men feel about it, and the continuing imbalance in contraceptive responsibility between men and women (My first thought after having a vasectomy: why aren’t more British men having them?, 11 May). However, the commonly quoted decline in vasectomy numbers needs careful interpretation.

NHS Digital figures do not capture the full picture, because they largely exclude NHS vasectomies performed in community and primary care settings, where a substantial proportion of procedures now take place.

Academic freedom would be compromised by a planned deal between Cambridge University and Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry, warns Jemimah Steinfeld

Your report (Cambridge University seeks deal with Saudi defence ministry despite rights concerns, 11 May) should be a lightning rod for anyone who cares about academic freedom in this country. According to it, Cambridge’s leadership has approved a proposal by the university’s Judge business school to form a “memorandum of understanding” with Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry.

While this has yet to be formalised, the idea itself is repugnant. The Saudi government is among the most repressive in the world. Last year – a bumper year for executions there – a journalist was among those killed simply for reporting. Scores more remain behind bars all for speaking out about abuses. It is hard to see how any deal with the petrol state would not come at a cost to us. Even if an agreement is fleshed out to state academic freedom would be protected, self-censorship has a terrible habit of creeping in when money is on the line.

⚽ All the latest heading into a busy weekend
⚽ Ten things to look out for | Mail John

Bournemouth have announced that defender Marcos Senesi is to depart the club when his contract expires in the summer.

The centre-back has spent four seasons with the Cherries since arriving from Feyenoord and there will likely be a scramble for his signature on a free transfer, with Liverpool and Tottenham linked with a move.

Bruno Fernandes

Gabriel

Morgan Gibbs-White

Erling Haaland

David Raya

Declan Rice

Antoine Semenyo

Igor Thiago

Rayan Cherki

Matheus Fernandes

Lewis Hall

Michael Kayode

Eli Junior Kroupi

Kobbie Mainoo

Nico O’Reilly

Alex Scott

Keith Andrews

Mikel Arteta

Michael Carrick

Pep Guardiola

Andoni Iraola

Régis Le Bris

️ Latest news from second round at Aronimink Golf Club
️ Official live leaderboard | Follow on Bluesky | Mail Scott

Scottie Scheffler’s third at 10, from 44 yards, is no good. It’s 20 feet shy of the flag. He can’t make the par saver, and that’s an immediate backwards step for the world number one and tournament favourite. Matt Fitzpatrick bogeys too, and it’s a double for Justin Rose. They’re -2, +1 and +2 respectively. Meanwhile on Sky, Laura Davies asks Wayne Riley what he thinks the leader will be on at the end of the day. Five under, he answers, without a beat of hesitation. In other words, good luck trying to go low, gentlemen. It’s going to be another hugely entertaining day!

Rose gathers himself and sends a decent wedge into 10, from 77 yards to 16 feet. He’ll have a look at a damage-limiting bogey. Meanwhile Scottie’s lie in the rough on the left isn’t great, and he’s forced to take his medicine, punching back out onto the fairway. Even the strongest hitters in the business aren’t of a mind to take liberties with this rough. To think everyone was talking about bringing Aronimink to its knees with some bomb and gouge at the start of the week! A textbook study in hubris, and that’s before we get around to the subjects of Rory and Bryson.

• Carrick has secured Champions League football

• Two-year deal and option of further 12 months

Michael Carrick is close to being appointed Manchester United’s head coach on a permanent basis after being offered a two-year contract. The former midfielder has overseen 10 wins in 15 Premier League matches in interim charge and secured a return to the Champions League.

The deal, which includes the option of a further 12 months, could be concluded before United face Nottingham Forest on Sunday lunchtime, providing the clarity the club desire going into a busy summer. United were sixth when Ruben Amorim was sacked but performances and results improved under Carrick and they sit third, six points above Liverpool with two games remaining.

• Jack Gorbert travelling from Australia for Wembley game

• EFL has raised doubts over fixture with Southampton

A Hull City supporter who has spent about £2,000 to attend the Championship playoff final from his home in Australia says the English Football League has “no regard for fans” after “Spygate” plunged the game into uncertainty.

Jack Gorbert is a former Hull season-ticket holder who relocated to Melbourne. The 27-year-old rushed to secure a flight home to see his side at Wembley on 23 May after their win over Millwall in the Championship playoff semi-final this month. With a cost of almost £1,300 for the return journey, plus an additional £700 in other hotel and travels costs, the uncertainty has left Gorbert with a major expense and no guarantees that the fixture against Southampton will go ahead as planned.

• TNT will show live action having outbid BBC for rights

• Corporation indifference sparked by poor viewing figures

Channel 5 has agreed a deal to show a daily highlights programme from the Commonwealth Games this summer, with the BBC opting not to broadcast any coverage of the event in Glasgow.

TNT Sports secured live rights for the Games last year by outbidding the BBC, which declined the opportunity to take a highlights package after holding talks with TNT.

Quins’ resident New Zealander has some fascinating and forthright views, not least regarding England’s World Cup prospects

After 18 years, it is almost time to say farewell to Harlequins’ resident Kiwi. Not every overseas recruit becomes part of the fabric of a team thousands of miles from home, but that has long been the case with Nick Evans, a Prem winner with Quins as a player and a coach in 2012 and 2021 respectively. As the former All Blacks fly-half conceded this week: “It’s going to be really hard to let go of this club.”

And vice versa. During his playing days, the skilful, popular Evans personified everything good about the way Quins approached the game. As a coach, he has been similarly positive, endlessly seeking fresh ways to crack opposition defences. Quins may have endured a disappointing season, but that should not tarnish the sizeable contribution that Evans, now 45, has made during his residency at the Stoop.

• Andrew Richardson helped her win slam as an 18-year-old

• Partnership to start at Strasbourg in French Open buildup

Emma Raducanu has rehired Andrew Richardson, the coach who helped guide her to her sensational US Open triumph in 2021, on a formal basis as she prepares to return to competition next week in Strasbourg in the buildup to the French Open.

Richardson will accompany ­Raducanu at the WTA 500 event as she competes for the first time in two months after struggling with a post-viral illness. During the early days of her return to the courts, Raducanu travelled to Richardson’s base at the Ferrer Academy in La Nucía, Spain, near Benidorm, for a clay-court training block that doubled as a trial period for a potential formal partnership.

Transfer window could include merry-go-round of forwards as division’s top three clubs bid farewell to icons

Saturday’s finale to the Women’s Super League season marks the end of an era, and not only because it is the final time the division will operate with 12 teams before the expansion to 14. A multitude of players synonymous with their clubs in recent years are all making end-of-contract departures and the forward lines, in particular, of many of the top sides will not look the same again.

Thursday’s confirmation of Sam Kerr’s exit from Chelsea, added to Monday’s announcement that Beth Mead will leave Arsenal and last week’s news that Khadija “Bunny” Shaw has decided to leave Manchester City, means the division’s top three clubs are saying farewell to forwards who have been modern icons of their clubs and the striker market will enter a fascinating summer. That trio have scored a combined 316 goals for their clubs and will leave with at least one WSL title under their belts; Kerr has five.

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While the rest of the known world is humming along to videos of former Bilbo near-hitmaker Colin Chisholm belting out the Hearts song, down south there’s an FA Cup final to be played. The romance of the Cup? About that: private equity Chelsea underdogs versus nation-state owned Manchester City? Be still our beating heart. Sure, there’s narrative to be found. Calum McFarlane getting measured for his Wembley suit when less than 12 months ago he was on Southampton’s coaching staff is one. Though, considering recent ongoing events at Saints, any romance there has probably been squeezed dry. That Chelsea’s players put in such a fine performance in the semi-final against Leeds mere days after not running a leg for Liam Rosenior at Brighton casts long shadows over a squad not exactly beloved by fans.

Spare a thought for us long-suffering Hull City fans (you know, the team you predicted would lose the second leg of the playoff semi-final against Millwall 1-0). Feeling safe in the knowledge we were back at Wembley hoping to make it three playoff final victories out of three, many of us have invested several hundred pounds in non-refundable train and hotel bookings. We’re now told, thanks to Southampton’s Austin Powers escapades, that the game may go ahead, but maybe it won’t. I figured the furtive finger-crossing of the semi-finals was over but with tickets going on sale on Friday (maybe) it’s a case of caveat emptor. And the 4.30pm kick-off only just announced makes it a challenge for folk to get home on the same night. It’s grim up north” – David Burnby.

I understand plans are afoot to have some sort of extravagant Super Bowl-style entertainment at half-time during the Geopolitics World Cup final. Given the time now being taken over VAR adjudication, it’s surely only a matter of time before some entertainment pops up here to keep people engaged. I was wondering if any clubs are already on the case, perhaps some are indulging in a round or two of ‘I spy, with my little eye’?” – Michael Lloyd.

Jonathan Liew ponders why VAR is getting more frequent if the much-reviled technology only generates a constant stream of outrage, debate and engagement. Isn’t that the point?” – Z Snook.

Xabi Alonso will bring essential recent experience to Chelsea – particularly his familiarity with being ushered through the door marked Do One only months into a long-term contract …” – Phil Taverner.

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The death toll included three children, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said

Meanwhile, the Latvian president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, has begun political consultations aimed at finding a parliamentary majority capable of forming a new government after the collapse of prime minister Evika Siliņa’s administration.

Rinkēvičs’s office posted a short video from the meeting on its social media.

Tube stoppages due on two 24-hour periods next week but sources say RMT seeking talks

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Hopes have been raised that next week’s strikes by London Underground drivers could yet be averted, after sources said the RMT union had put out feelers for talks.

The RMT members, almost half of London’s tube drivers, are due to strike for two 24-hour periods from midday on Tuesday and Thursday, closing some lines entirely and bringing widespread travel disruption to the capital until the weekend.

UK government borrowing costs jump amid political uncertainty and oil price rise that fuelled inflation worries

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The pound was heading for its worst week in 18 months on Friday as City traders anticipated that the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, could face a challenge from the Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, later this year.

After days of uncertainty over Starmer’s future, sterling dropped by almost three cents, or 2%, during the week to $1.336 on Friday, a five-week low. That would be the largest weekly drop against the US dollar since Donald Trump’s election win in early November 2024.

Under aviation regulator proposals rival companies would bid to design and build parts of airport expansion

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Heathrow could be forced to allow other companies to design and build its third runway and new terminal after the UK aviation regulator argued that rival bids could keep construction costs down.

A long-awaited review by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) proposes changes to the regulatory model that governs how Heathrow runs and covers its costs.

Concerns raised that cases were caused by a new strain of the virus as African health officials race to coordinate and contain the infection

An outbreak of Ebola has killed 65 people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, according to African health officials.

There have been 246 suspected cases of the deadly haemorrhagic fever reported so far in Ituri province, which shares borders with Uganda and South Sudan.

Record heat in North and Central America coincides with egg-sized hailstones in eastern China

Extreme weather across several parts of the world this week has brought record-breaking temperatures to Honduras, North America and Indonesia.

Honduras smashed its all-time May maximum temperature record earlier this month – only for it to be broken again on 13 May in Choluteca, known as the furnace of Central America. Temperatures climbed to 42.2C (107.9F), surpassing the previous record of 42.1C. With intense heat forecast to persist over the coming weeks, more records are expected to fall.

Glenn Murcutt pioneered architecture that was sensitive to its environment, and accomodating to changing temperatures and wildlife

The house teaches you things, Lynne Eastaway says. Today, a choir of cicadas fill the scrub with a rhythm that rises and falls. On other days, there may be visits from birds, goannas, echidnas, wombats, wallabies and kangaroos.

“The bush ends, and the house begins,” she says. “You’re not the centre; you’re just part of it. That’s the thing you learn.

In this week’s newsletter: The public stranding of a young humpback exposes tensions between animal rights activism and other choices around biodiversity

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Timmy the whale is lost at sea, presumed dead.

In normal circumstances, the loss of a young humpback whale would be a sad yet unremarkable part of the circle of life. Dead whales help sustain thousands of marine species – and are part of the global carbon cycle.

Smuggled in syringes: how Nairobi became a nexus for the black market in giant harvester ants

Don’t reach for the bug spray: scientists find insects may feel pain after crickets nurse sore antennae

Labour must fulfil promise to introduce clean air act, charities urge

Murlough Nature Reserve, Dundrum, County Down: Its arrival signals the start of summer, and another cycle of its extraordinary breeding method

Sheltered from the Irish Sea by the towering white foredunes of Murlough beach, I follow a trail through the heather and scrub. In the distance, the Mourne mountains slip in and out of view, already charred by this year’s wildfires. My attention turns to the season’s happier signs: sand martins chittering overhead; the scratchy cries of a whitethroat deep in the gorse; a meadow pipit stuttering into song flight. And now, the chant that clinches summer’s arrival.

I follow the cuckoo’s call and find him perched in a stunted sycamore. Through binoculars, I meet his orange eye. As he leans into his song, his jaunty tail and drooping wings make a fin for the long torpedo of his body – the ideal form for a life lived on the move.

Redress to customers for force-fitting devices in homes includes £20m penalty and £70m of debt write-offs

Thousands of British Gas customers who had prepayment meters force-fitted in their homes will between them receive compensation and energy bill debt write-offs worth up to £112m in the biggest energy supplier settlement on record.

Great Britain’s energy regulator found that British Gas forced PPMs on homes that were not keeping up with their bills at the height of the Russian gas crisis, in one of the most complex investigations in Ofgem’s history.

Crypto billionaire goes straight into top 10 on Sunday Times list, with Noel and Liam Gallagher among other first-timers

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Christopher Harborne, the crypto billionaire who controversially gifted Nigel Farage £5m, has been named in the list of the UK’s wealthiest people for the first time.

Other first-timers include Noel and Liam Gallagher and Emily Eavis, the daughter of the Glastonbury festival founder, Michael Eavis, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List published on Friday.

Sanjay and Dheeraj Hinduja and family: £38bn

David and Simon Reuben and family: £27.971bn

Leonard Blavatnik: £26.852bn

Idan Ofer: £24.481bn

Guy, George, Alannah and Galen Weston and family: £18.939bn

Christopher Harborne: £18.177bn

Nik Storonsky: £16.411bn

Alex Gerko: £16.006bn

Jim Ratcliffe: £15.194bn

Igor and Dmitry Bukhman: £14.26bn

Exclusive: Contract changes mean Post Office outlets inside TG Jones stores would be easier to close, with up to 60 possibly affected

The owner of WH Smith’s former high street business is aiming to change contracts with the Post Office to make it easier to close outlets within its stores, increasing fears that communities will become “postal deserts”.

TG Jones operates 180 post offices and it is understood that as many as 60 could be closed under a restructuring plan by Modella, the private equity group that renamed the WH Smith high street chain as TG Jones after buying it last year.

Charity says calls to its Childline service about online sexual abuse and exploitation have risen 36% in a year

Children reported a rise in online blackmail attempts involving sexual images in the UK last year, according to a leading charity.

The NSPCC said contacts with its Childline service relating to online sexual abuse and exploitation rose by 36% last year, driven by an increase in cases related to online blackmail.

‘We know that Mark Carney wants to sort of embrace Europe,’ says competition director Martin Green

Canada is welcome to join Eurovision if it wishes, its director has said, months after the country revealed it wanted to “explore” joining the song contest in its federal budget.

Eurovision director Martin Green told the BBC on Wednesday that Canada hadn’t yet applied, but would be welcome to.

Exclusive: DHS made social media posts out of a protester’s arrest at gunpoint. Christian Cerna speaks out about the lengthy prosecution that derailed his life

Christian Cerna, 28, was driving with his partner and their two young children through Los Angeles, when two vehicles rammed his car and a group of men jumped out and trained their guns on them.

It was 11 June 2025, and as Cerna exited his vehicle with his hands raised, he realized the masked men weren’t street criminals as he initially feared. They were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Philip Morris claimed it wanted to end cigarette sales, but experts and campaigners say new promotions seem designed to attract younger consumers

Anti-tobacco campaigners have condemned a global advertising campaign for Marlboro by Philip Morris International (PMI), saying the company is being duplicitous in claiming it wants to end cigarette sales.

The “I AM Marlboro” campaign – which experts on the tobacco industry said appeared designed to attract young people – includes billboards, TV ads and online content.

Far-right Jewish marchers call for Palestinian villages to ‘burn’ as they storm through Muslim quarter of Old City

Israeli nationalists chanted “death to the Arabs”, “may your villages burn” and “Gaza is a graveyard” in a state-sponsored march through Jerusalem to mark the anniversary of the city’s capture and annexation.

The annual assertion of Jewish control over Palestinian East Jerusalem has grown more extreme in recent years, and Thursday’s event culminated with the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, unfurling an Israeli flag in front of the al-Aqsa mosque, the holiest Islamic site in the city.

Tech workers say AI-driven restructurings are eroding mentorship, support and paths to promotion across Silicon Valley

As tech companies pour billions into artificial intelligence bets and slash their workforces, middle managers are squarely in the crosshairs.

A trend is emerging: when tech CEOs announce that AI is making it possible to do more with fewer workers, they promise to flatten their structures by cutting away what they call unnecessary management layers and bureaucracy. Just last week, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase laid off 14% of its workforce while gesturing to the thrill of AI-fueled, minimal-management efficiency. In doing so, it joined companies including Amazon, Block and Meta that in the last year have laid off tens of thousands of employees with a specific focus on removing management layers.

News will come as a shock to staff, especially at Cranfield, but the institutions’ bosses say intention is growth

The announcement that King’s College London is to absorb Cranfield University came as a surprise but not a shock to England’s higher education leaders, who have been braced for sudden announcements about job cuts and course closures.

But for staff and students at both institutions the news will have come as a shock, particularly at Cranfield, the smaller, highly focused postgraduate technology and management college that has its own airport.

Many European motoring manufacturers are in retreat with plants to off–load – while China’s industry is on the march

The Chinese carmaker Xpeng is on the hunt for a factory in Europe. Volkswagen is aiming to reduce the number of its factories. It seems like it should have been the perfect set-up for a deal.

Yet there was one problem with the plant on offer, according to Elvis Cheng, Xpeng’s managing director for north-eastern Europe: “It’s a little bit, I would say, old.”

The president’s ultimate goal is to push the Fed – among other independent US institutions – to bend to his will

Jerome Powell, who stepped down this week as chair of the Federal Reserve, had his hits and misses. The Fed was late to react as prices started rising when the Covid pandemic abated, but they eventually acted forcefully and achieved the most rare of feats: a “soft landing”, curbing inflation without sparking a recession or damaging employment.

Strangely, given the chaotic era of pandemic and tariffs that coincided with Powell’s time as chair, monetary policy may not define his legacy. Powell’s most lasting accomplishment will most likely be his outspoken efforts to defend the independence of the Fed from an assault by the imperial presidency of Donald Trump.

The fact a queer, working-class person of colour has won the Deutsche Börse prize is cheering, but what is on display at the Photographers’ Gallery resembles a student’s Tumblr feed

• Peterborough artist Rene Matić wins Deutsche Börse photography prize

At 29, Rene Matić is the youngest ever person to win the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation prize. They were nominated for their solo exhibition As Opposed to the Truth at CCA Berlin – there is currently a much smaller reconfiguration representing part of the show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London. Matić was also the youngest artist ever to be nominated for the Turner prize last year.

There are things I like about Matić. I like the way they challenge what counts in life and art, and what counts as British. Their 2022 work, Upon This Rock (shown in Berlin though not in the current display in London) – a photographic installation and a film exploring the artist’s father, Paul, and his involvement with the skinhead movement – felt like it was breaking new ground, conceptually and materially. Matić’s yearning to understand masculinity and fatherhood as forces shaping national identity, and the way they incorporate new stories into the folds of Britain’s historical fabric, felt original and exciting.

Eight decades after liberation from the Nazis, silence, shame and a struggling legal system keep Jewish property in Dutch family homes

Several months ago, the Dutch art detective Arthur Brand was surprised to be contacted by a man who had recently made an uncomfortable discovery about his family’s wartime past: he had learned that he descended from Hendrik Seyffardt, a Waffen-SS general and one of the Netherlands’ most senior Nazi collaborators.

But there was more: the man had also discovered that a painting by the Dutch artist Toon Kelder, looted by the Nazis from the renowned collection of the Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, remained in the possession of the Seyffardt family.

It was just a creepy picture on the internet. Now it’s the year’s freakiest film. Its 20-year-old auteur Kane Parsons and stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve take us through the terrifying labyrinth

Chiwetel Ejiofor has been on a lot of movie sets, but Backrooms was something different: a 30,000 sq ft labyrinth of apparently random corridors and chambers, all carpeted, fluorescent lit and decorated in the same sickly yellow wallpaper. It was so big that people were getting lost in it, says Ejiofor: “Especially on those first days. As you try to navigate your way around and you’re like: ‘I’m sure it’s this door, I’m sure that’s the way.’” He’s laughing at the recollection. “And you find yourself just back in the wrong corner of the whole studio and you’re like: ‘Get me some help!’”

This is kind of the point of Backrooms – the movie and the online phenomenon that spawned it. It’s a concept that takes some unpacking, but as the premise for a buzzy A24 horror freakout, you could summarise it as something like “The Blair Witch Project meets Severance” or “The Shining set in an infinite Travelodge”or maybe “the exact opposite of a Wes Anderson movie”. Comparisons fall short, partly because the Backrooms concept feels as if it’s come from another world – a parallel dimension, even. Ejiofor concurs: “There was stuff that we were doing by the end of the film that I was just like: ‘This is among the most bizarre things I have ever been involved in.’”

It’s been 12 years since Claire time-travelled through a magic stone into the arms of hot Scot Jamie and left fans light-headed. As Outlander comes to a close, we look back at TV’s steamiest journey – scandalous resurrections and all

It all started with a vase. “I’d never lived anywhere long enough to justify having such a simple thing,” said the second world war nurse Claire Randall in the narration, as she eyed one through a shop window on her honeymoon in Inverness. “At that moment, I wanted nothing so much in all the world as to have a vase of my very own.” Did she buy it and live happily ever after with lovely professor husband, Frank? Did she heck! Instead, Claire found a magic stone circle, fell through time to the 18th century, fell in love with flaming hot Scot Jamie Fraser and embarked on TV’s wildest journey.

Twelve years have passed since the adaptation of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books gave us the time-travel bonkbuster we didn’t know we needed. You can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief for its stars, Caitríona Balfe and Sam Heughan, whose chemistry has sizzled admirably across eight long seasons (it took 17 months to film the first one after Covid). As it limps towards its finale this week, the end is long overdue – but it is a bittersweet farewell to a wonderfully ludicrous show.

Amanda Seyfried is astonishing in a fascinating musical about the Shaker sect, plus Maggie Gyllenhaal’s Frankenstein remix turns the stupendous Jessie Buckley into a girl power punk

Mona Fastvold’s astonishing drama about the founder of the Shakers Christian sect in the 18th century defies simple classification – which may be why it was unjustly shunned during awards season. At heart it’s a historical biopic: Manchester cotton worker Ann Lee (a performance of great intensity from Amanda Seyfried) joins the Quakers, then forms her own group founded on celibacy, and ends up migrating to America to seek religious freedom. It’s also a highly choreographed folk musical, centred on the Shakers’ ecstatic singing and dancing. And it’s a fascinating tale of female empowerment in an age when the obstacles to self-determination were vast.
Out now, Disney+

After 40 years of stardom, the cult of Kylie comes to our screens in a Beckham-style Netflix show, while the Duffer brothers bring us Stranger Things set in a spooky care home. Plus: new Bluey!

The earworm wizard blends sample-heavy electronic beats with sugary vocal highs and bassy lows, giving authentic voice to England’s fringes

From London via Brighton
Recommended if you like Jawnino, Fakemink, Jai Paul
Up next Engine Heartbreak EP released 20 May

Not many can say that Björk has played their track while DJing at the Venice Biennale, but, as of last weekend, Rian Brazil is one of them. The Brighton-born producer, also praised by pop star Lola Young, is a master of earworms, which he weaves from the sample-heavy sounds of the UK underground (see his longtime collaborator, Fakemink producer Clearo) and the saccharine highs and bassy lows of his vocals. On first listen, you might mistake the huge range of his melodies for Auto-Tune, but this, impressively, is Brazil’s raw voice, modulated vocally to achieve deeply vulnerable performances that set his sound apart from his rap-focused peers.

(Ghostly International)
While the first track is a scorching mix of poetry, rap, falsetto vocals and acoustic guitar, elsewhere the Sudanese-American’s second album feels a little underbaked

Spoken-word poetry about Prometheus, screamo rap, sun-dappled acoustic guitar, airy falsetto … and that’s just the first track on Dua Saleh’s Of Earth and Wires, their second album rooted in real-world crises and fictional lore. The Sudanese-American musician (best known for collaborating with Travis Scott and playing Cal in Netflix’s Sex Education) draws on fears of climate collapse and AI dominance, as well as the catastrophic civil war in Sudan, for a post-apocalyptic sequel to the fictional queer romance at the heart of their debut record.

This is a lot of terrain to navigate, but that opening track, 5 Days, tackles it with real guts, twisting from tremulous vocals reminiscent of Perfume Genius into a hot flash of screamed frustration. It promises an exhilarating, bumpy ride – but Of Earth and Wires turns out to be more cautious than its urgent ideas would suggest.

(Thrill Jockey)
The US guitarist excavates the outer reaches of the famed collector’s work, pointedly – and beautifully – reinterpreting songs from nations touched by major US conflicts

Behind this gorgeous collection of folk tunes from Southeast Asia, Soviet Russia and the Islamic and Arabic worlds lies the legacy of two Americans: the peyote-dropping 78rpm collector Harry Smith (whose 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music presented folk, blues and country recordings from the 1920s and 1930s) and the exploratory guitarist Marisa Anderson, whose back catalogue is steeped in tradition and improvisation. In 2023, she begged for time in Smith’s shuttered archives, discovering hours of non-American music, before learning to perform and share it.

Here, Anderson interprets nine of these tunes, pointedly taken from regions shaped by major US conflicts since her birth in 1970. While her fascinating liner notes track what is lost and found when trying to translate these compositions, their universal musicality still cuts through. Opener Quodlibet is beautiful: an intricate, minor-key medley of Uzbek tunes originally performed on the dambura (a fretless lute), on which Anderson adds bluegrass techniques to counter her inability to play quarter-tones on her guitar. Her take on a qawwali vocal tune, Hamd, is also a highlight, her stacked guitar layers ringing with warmth and emotion.

Ensemble Modern/Gruber/Giunta/Amarcord
(Ensemble Modern Media)
From Hindemith’s jazz-age energy to Schoenberg’s existential angst, and Kurt Weill’s biting satire to Korngold’s neo-Romanticism, this lively recording is a perfect example of the kind of music the Nazis couldn’t abide.

If this live recording from Ensemble Modern and HK Gruber represents an eclectic snapshot of musical Germany between 1920 and 1933, it’s also a perfect example of the kind of thing the Nazis couldn’t abide. “Too modern, too jazzy, too Jewish,” they cried. No surprise then that all four composers ultimately wound up in the United States.

Premiered in 1922, Hindemith’s Kammermusik No 1 was condemned by one critic as having “a lewdness and frivolity only possible for a very special kind of composer”. Gruber embraces its neo-classical spikiness and jazz-age energy in a performance of almost cartoonish glee. Korngold, as epitomised by his 1920 music for Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, is Hindemith’s polar opposite. In a lively reading, Gruber leavens the composer’s Viennese neo-Romanticism with a pinch of acerbic wit.

The inspiring life of the Black American activist and legal scholar who changed the way the world things about race

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s memoir describes a life shadowed by Jim Crow segregation and racism, but lit up by hope. That the social conditions of her early life did not destroy her family, as they had so many others, must be credited to their extraordinary grit and determination. The journey that led Crenshaw to create the influential legal theory of “intersectionality” begins with the “well of thoughtless devaluation faced by little Black girls”. And for all who think those days have long gone, Backtalker is a must read.

“Backtalking” is how Crenshaw responds to anything that does not make sense. Whether as a five-year-old kindergarten student who was allowed to portray a witch but not a princess in a school play, or decades later, lobbying Harvard’s dean of law to hire Black faculty and being asked whether she wouldn’t prefer “an excellent white professor over a mediocre Black one”, Crenshaw talked back. For her, backtalking is about resilience in the midst of struggle, which sometimes painfully includes talking back to the ones we love.

Honey by Imani Thompson; Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre; The Final Chapter by CB Everett; The Hollow Boys by Tariq Ashkanani; Shrink Solves Murder by Philippa Perry

Honey by Imani Thompson (Borough, £16.99)
Thompson’s smart and incisive debut centres on Yrsa, a young Black woman studying for a sociology PhD and teaching undergraduates at Cambridge. Irritated by her solipsistic, over-privileged students and tired of situationships, she’s fed up with life, and men in particular. Her first killing – that of a much older supervisor who reneges on his promise to leave his wife for a colleague, and steals her research in the process – is an accident, but Yrsa, who has catastrophically poor impulse control, enjoys the sensation and, more importantly, gets away with it. “It’s theory in action”: as victims pile up, her academic research provides a spurious rationale for justifiable anger, as with Hugh, who used her for bragging rights (“Black girl magic, 20 points”). But somebody is on to her, and things are starting to spin out of control … The best kind of campus novel, satirical and razor-sharp, crossed with a crime story: Thompson is an exciting new voice.

Quite Ugly One Evening by Chris Brookmyre (Abacus, £22)
Thirty years after Brookmyre’s debut, his latest novel to feature journalist Jack Parlabane makes a tonal return to his earlier, more irreverent style. Now 60, Jack feels increasingly like a “Boomer Ambassador” to the younger colleagues who are snapping at his heels. With his job on the line, he agrees to investigate a cold case: the death, 40 years earlier, of an MI5 operative. It’s thought to be connected to the Maskyn family, creators of much-loved but now contentious Thunderbirds-style TV series The Imaginators, and Parlabane finds himself on the transatlantic cruise liner hosting the 60th anniversary convention as “several hundred emotionally stunted fanboy incels alongside an over-remunerated family of nepo babies, trust fund pukes and outright fascists” duke it out over The Imaginators’ legacy. Masterfully plotted and scalpel-sharp, this is a riotously good read that uses a Golden Age set-up to take aim at the culture wars, while also providing a thoroughly satisfying mystery.

This fascinating novel about 18th-century privateer Alexander Selkirk, abandoned on a tiny island in the South Pacific, becomes a revelatory meditation on humanity

It’s hard to think of many superficial affinities between Frank O’Hara, the queer poet and art critic whose urbane voice is synonymous with 60s Manhattan, and Alexander Selkirk, the 18th-century Scottish privateer whose marooning on a tiny island in the South Pacific would eventually inspire Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Yet, curiously, it is a line from O’Hara’s poem Mayakovsky that Francesca de Tores refits for Selkirk’s mouth at the opening of her new novel, Cast Away.

Selkirk insists that he is cast upon the island “only by the catastrophe of my personality” – “which is a sobering thing, even for a man used to being sober”. And while the O’Hara of Mayakovsky is famously content to wait “for the catastrophe of my personality / to seem beautiful again, / and interesting, and modern”, Selkirk – newly and utterly alone on “a stony blemish in the ocean”, 400 miles off the coast of Chile – spends his first three days and nights on the island blind drunk on the cask of flip left behind with him as a courtesy from his erstwhile crewmates, raging at his fate. This act of unexpected transhistorical ventriloquism is a suitably strange beginning to a surprisingly uncanny novel.

It was the birthplace of the liberal tradition, but also the incubator for Nazism – what can this historic city tell us about democracy?

‘Weimar is Germany in a nutshell,” 1990s president Roman Herzog once quipped: “a town in which not only culture and thought were at home but also philistinism and barbarism.” The small city (population 65,000) sits at the heart of the nation and acts as a shrine to its sons Goethe, Schiller and Nietzsche. In 1919 the country’s first democratic constitution was promulgated in its national theatre. It was chosen as the site of Germany’s rebirth precisely because its aura of refined culture contrasted so sharply with the “Prussian militarism” of Berlin. From 1919-1925 it hosted the Bauhaus School, led by Walter Gropius, placing it at the forefront of art and design.

Yet, starting in the mid-1920s, Weimar, which was also then the state capital of Thuringia, became pivotal in the rise of the Nazi party and its first, regional, experiments in government. After 1933 it competed with Bayreuth for recognition as the “spiritual home of Nazism”.

The open world driving sim has roared through locations from Colorado to Australia, its authentic feel resting on exhaustive research. But, as the team explain, this was the toughest challenge yet

Since the arrival of the original Forza Horizon in 2012, a game that revolutionised open world driving sims by setting players loose in a virtual Colorado, British developer Playground Games has promised authenticity with its settings. For each instalment, design teams are sent out on location to take thousands of photos, hours of video, even detailed captures of the sky, before construction of a virtual copy begins. It’s a huge undertaking. But it seems that for much of the past decade, one country remained slightly out of reach – an intimidating prospect. “Japan has been on our shortlist for several games now,” says design director, Torben Ellert. “But we just didn’t feel like we were ready to take on the challenge of building it.”

It’s not just about the sheer variety of the country’s landscape. There’s something else going on. Most video game players hold an image of what it is like to explore Japan. It may be inspired by the fictitious rural town of Inaba in Persona 4, or the busy docks of Yokosuka in Shenmue, or perhaps the neon-drenched Kabukichō district of Tokyo, which forms a regular backdrop in the Yakuza series. For decades, gamers around the world have been bombarded with images of the country that are often highly stylised and fragmented, but nonetheless potent and persuasive. As art director Don Arceta puts it, “with Japan there’s such an expectation [of] what gamers want - it’s a certain version of Japan that they picture.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

PS5, Xbox, PC, Switch 2; Annapurna Interactive
The nostalgic antics of a trio of tenacious teens make for silly yet undeniably enjoyable gameplay, framed by a playlist of bona fide bangers

The older we get, the more we tend to romanticise our teenage years. As bills pile up, we yearn for the simple days of drinking cider in parks. We often tend to forget the bad parts: the frustrating lack of autonomy, the unrequited crushes and the doofuses you’re forced to tolerate in the playground. But after four hours spent hanging out with the pretentious teens in Mixtape, I felt pretty relieved to be in my 30s.

Set in a nondescript town in northern California, Mixtape follows the exploits of tenacious trio Rockford, Slater and Cassandra as they head to a legendary party on their last day of high school. With Rockford about to leave her friends to move to the big city, she wants to immortalise the gang’s time together in musical form. Every song on a carefully curated mixtape triggers a totally tubular flashback to one of their shared memories.

Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff
Soloist Veronika Eberle brought sweet, pure tone tone to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Jorg Widmann’s new cadenzas complementing the work perfectly. Music by George Benjamin and Strauss further revealed orchestra and conductor in their element

On the face of it, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, the opening work of this BBC National Orchestra of Wales concert, might have seemed unexceptional. Soloist Veronika Eberle immediately proved it otherwise. Sweet, pure tone, clarity of line and an almost reverential approach with not a trace of bombast distinguished her playing from the outset. The rapport with conductor Alexandre Bloch was implicit and, in the deeply reflective central Larghetto, the music was imbued with an air of serenity.

Yet what made for a wholly different experience here was Eberle’s use of new cadenzas in all three movements, boldly commissioned from her fellow German, Jörg Widmann. Widmann realised a balance between the expected virtuosity and a highly imaginative, improvisatory feel, references to key Beethoven motifs tightly embedded. Moreover, bringing first the timpanist then the principal double bass to collaborate with the soloist threw further elements into the dynamic mix, with Tom Aldren – leading the orchestra in this work – also duetting with Eberle. This verging on the subversive – interventions that extended an already long concerto – could have have been bothersome but, overall, the sheer bravado and vibrancy spelled riveting listening.

Northern Stage, Newcastle
This revival of the carnivorous plant caper showcases strong voices, incorporates playful designs and splits Audrey II in two

Sure, it would be possible to deliver a hi-tech take on Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s 1982 musical about a bloodthirsty plant – one that looks and feels more “2026”. But the B-movie aesthetic (carried over from Roger Corman’s 1960 film) is a core part of its charm, so why lose it?

Directed by Sarah Brigham for Northern Stage and Derby theatre, this is a solid production but not a sparkling one. For the most part, it revels in the low-budget, kooky absurdity of a story in which a mysterious shrub turns around the fortunes of Seymour, a flailing florist in love with his co-worker, Audrey. This version is a tad lighter on humour, and the plot’s more sensitive elements, such as Audrey’s domestic abuse, are also scaled back.

Hockney and more explore gender in Liverpool, Delcy Morelos makes mud spectacular and Whistler’s Mother goes on tour – all in your weekly dispatch

James McNeill Whistler
The brilliant American who took Victorian Britain by storm and brought avant garde ideas from Paris and Japan gets a stonking big show, Mother included.
• Tate Britain, London, from 21 May until 27 September

Lyric Hammersmith, London
The dissolute aristocrats from 1895 remain sharply funny, and bitingly relevant, in this flamboyant new spin

Oscar Wilde’s comedy was billed as a “play of modern life” when it premiered at the Haymarket theatre in London in 1895. It is just as modern now in its central, chiming theme: the clandestine corruptions of outwardly squeaky-clean members of parliament.

Sir Robert Chiltern (Chiké Okonkwo) is the apparently upstanding minister and “ideal husband” to Lady Chiltern (Tamara Lawrance) but his past bears the illicit selling of a cabinet secret to a baron. This threatens to ruin him if he does not appease the blackmailing Mrs Cheveley (Aurora Perrineau).

Bond Place and Desmond Crescent have been named in honour of the 007 franchise after some scenes were shot nearby in the 90s – why stop there?

James Bond fans have endured a rough few years. Ever since No Time to Die walloped off Daniel Craig, we’ve been stuck in a weird kind of limbo. There will eventually be a new James Bond film, directed by Denis Villeneuve, the most exciting director in the franchise’s history. But we don’t know when it will come out, or who will play Bond, or if 007 under Amazon will even be recognisable.

In summary, we need something tangible to ground our anxieties. What we need is to pack up our things and head to north Swindon, to the site of the former Motorola manufacturing facility, where a new housing estate has just named a bunch of roads after James Bond.

The annual New York-based display of photography contains moving pictures from behind bars and a revealing look at trans lives back in the 1990s

For the 15th installment of the annual Photoville festival, which sees more than 90 exhibits of photographic portfolios from all around the world, festival co-founder Sam Barzilay is thinking about apples – specifically the bizarre and at times cosmic-looking ones in the exhibit Old Apples.

“I was so delighted it got selected,” he enthusiastically told me. “It’s the most whimsical thing we have, it’s about apples and how there are no two apples in nature that are the same.”

From late-night calls with Stevie Wonder to tours with Frank Sinatra, the US singer seemed primed for pop success – so what caused her to hide from the public for decades? Finally back in the spotlight, she tells her remarkable story

‘I can’t believe this is actually happening!” Suzette Charles says on a video call. At 63, she is about to release her self-titled debut album 33 years later than she had hoped, and her disbelief is understandable. Crowned the first biracial Miss America in 1984, aged 20, in controversial circumstances, Charles went on to suffer a lifetime of adversity. She faced a distressing tour with Bill Cosby and mistreatment by record labels, and her debut album was shelved when her songwriters Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) – who had made huge hits for Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley and more – split up. Then came a decades-long marriage that seemed to end her artistic career altogether. “You can’t make this stuff up,” she says.

But Charles has reunited with Mike Stock to finally finish the most emotional of projects, her appropriately self-titled debut. “I love the way the album’s turned out,” Stock says. “I’ve worked with Paul McCartney, Donna Summer, Cliff Richard – as a singer, I’d put Suzette in that bracket.”

Best known as Nurse Phyllis in the TV hit, the actor is a peerless interpreter of Caryl Churchill and is starring in Alexander Zeldin’s ‘Shakespearean’ play about dementia. She looks back on a career of unconventional choices

‘Every part is an education,” says Linda Bassett. “That’s the glory of being an actor. You learn about human feelings and frailty and rottenness. The writer puts their soul on the page, and you inhabit that. I’ve always felt I was a writer’s actor.”

She’s not wrong. Never showy, Bassett’s understated magic has enhanced plays by Timberlake Wertenbaker, Wallace Shawn, Ayub Khan Din and, notably, Caryl Churchill, of whom she is a peerless interpreter.

Joan Collins, Catherine Deneuve, Isabella Rossellini and Jane Fonda among those representing wider age diversity on red carpet

The Cannes red carpet is, without question, a home of glamour. But in 2026 that glamour has a different spin. The women gaining the most headlines for style are, for once, over 70.

Joan Collins, 92, walked the red carpet this week in a white sculptural strapless gown by Stéphane Rolland. Jane Fonda, 88, wore a floor-length sequined Gucci dress. Isabella Rossellini, 73, has been seen wearing a striking patterned two-piece, while Catherine Deneuve, 82, was chic in forest-green satin and hoop earrings.

In antiquity, women were considered the more sexual sex – hornier, more libidinous and lust-fuelled than men. Why did that perception change?

All across the world, you will probably have read, people are having less sex. In Britain and the US, in France and Australia, frequency of sex has been on the decline (although Denmark appears to be bucking the trend). In 2018, the US magazine the Atlantic declared a “sex recession”, while last December the Telegraph ran a piece headlined “Sex is dying out. This is why it matters”.

As an ancient historian with a particular interest in the history of sex, this drought is fascinating to me – not least because some of the articles I have read seem keen to hark back to the historical period I spend most of my time researching. “Sex should be more wild and plentiful than it has been since ancient Greece,” reported the Telegraph. But antiquity was no bastion of sexual freedom – especially for women.

There’s a perfect perch for every camper. Here are our favourites, from ultralight models to inflatable pods

• The best tents for camping: 10 expert picks for every outdoor adventure

Ready to carry on camping this summer? I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that a good collapsible camping chair can change your life. If you’ve never used one before, you’ll be astonished at how comfy a folding chair is, letting you sit off the cold ground when you’re cooking, eating or just chilling out around the fire, and making every evening at camp a social occasion.

There’s a folding camping chair out there to suit everyone, including wild campers who only carry the essentials, glampers and campervan fans who like a bit of luxury. I’ve tested 15 of the best folding camping chairs, from tiny portable stools that collapse to the size of a baguette to cushioned monster chairs that wouldn’t look out of place in your sitting room, at prices to suit all budgets and starting from just £15.

Best camping chair overall:
Montbell Base Camp chair

Best budget camping chair:
Mountain Warehouse folding chair

Our reviewer braved Peak District downpours to see which brollies – from budget to mini to windproof – stayed standing

• 10 stylish and practical ways to look good in wet weather

We Britons have loved brollies since about the turn of the 19th century. Previously an aristocratic luxury, today they’re a broad tent covering tight budgets and expensive tastes alike. You’ll see them sprout like mushrooms whenever rain hits the high street.

Most decent umbrellas will keep you dry(ish), but peek closer and you’ll find that not all are the same. Some have a stronger, smoother mechanisms; others are lighter and more comfortable to hold. The best stand out for thoughtful details: from polished wooden handles to gleaming tips, a brolly’s aesthetic finish can often be a clue to how long it will last.

Best umbrella overall:
London Undercover Classic

Best budget umbrella:
Doppler Zero 99

Agonising over what to buy the three-year-old in your life? Our writer enlisted a panel of mini testers to round up the best of the best

• The best gifts for two-year-olds

Three-year-olds are a unique breed. Growing in confidence and independence daily, they’re no longer toddlers, but they’re still a way off starting school. With both of my children, I’ve found three a funny yet challenging age. My youngest is three and is now determined to do everything by herself, despite not quite being able to, resulting in frequent tantrums. She’s forming new friendships and is full of curiosity and wonder at the world (we get extremely detailed and lengthy descriptions of the tadpoles living in her classroom).

Three-year-olds are into just about everything, with the confidence of someone much older – especially anything you put out of reach (my three-year-old just successfully opened several wrapped presents that weren’t for her) – but too much choice can be overwhelming for them.

Camping season has arrived, but which mattress is worth packing? Our expert rigorously tested 27 to find the best for durability and comfort

• The best camping chairs

Whether you love sleeping under the stars or only do so under duress, a decent camping mattress will at least help ensure you are well-rested and better equipped to handle the wider thrills and spills of outdoor living.

The days when your only choice was between a foam roll mat or a leaky airbed and foot pump are long gone. From self-inflating mattresses to lightweight sleeping pads and insulated airbeds, the comfort and portability of sleeping mats have dramatically improved. But with so many types of camping mattresses available, costing from tens to hundreds of pounds, it can be difficult to know where to start.

Best camping mattress overall:
Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft

Best budget camping mattress:
Decathlon Simond MT500 XL inflatable trekking mattress

Viral recipes and fibre awareness boost demand for sweet fruit amid shift towards healthier alternatives

Instead of a customary biscuit or a chocolate bar to combat the 4pm slump, people are reaching for a more natural sweet alternative: dates.

The sweet fruit has been thrust into the snacking spotlight by a combination of viral recipes on social media, growing awareness about fibre intake and increasing demand for alternatives to ultra-processed foods.

A daiquiri endowed with citrussy lemongrass syrup and a welcome waft of herbal shiso

A daiquiri is a cocktail that shows just how far you can get with only three ingredients: rum, sugar and lime. Our version includes fresh shiso leaves for herbal notes you don’t expect, but absolutely want with rum (and if you use red shiso, the vibrant pink colour it imparts just makes everything cooler). If you have time – even just half an hour – it’s worth chucking a few shiso leaves into the rum ahead of time, then giving it a good shake and leaving it to steep. The syrup can be made with white sugar, but soft light brown sugar will remind the rum of home, and add a warmer, richer finish that works well with the lemongrass.

Abie Lamin, general manager, Cafe Kowloon, London E8

Bring a taste of Thailand into your home with sweet, creamy, sticky coconut rice served with fragrant mango

Known as khao niao mamuang, this sweet, creamy coconut rice with ripe mango is one of Thailand’s most beloved desserts. The rice used is sweet glutinous rice, which is sometimes labelled sticky rice – a short-grain variety that turns tender, glossy and slightly chewy when steamed. Folded through warm coconut milk and served with slices of fragrant mango, it’s a simple but beautiful pudding. Don’t forget the salt, though; it is essential to balance the richness. Serve warm or at room temperature.

From James Bond’s breakfasts to the kimchi fried rice in Crying in H Mart, a book’s food can often linger longer in our memories than its characters or storylines

• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, Feast

When I first had the idea for my debut novel, The Underdog, which came out last week, I knew it had to include food. After all, the received wisdom is to write about what you know and, after almost two decades’ worth of recipes, features and restaurant reviews, it’s surely my specialist subject. Though a grumpy terrier threatens to steal the limelight, the book’s (ostensible) main character, Katy, is a newly qualified pastry chef who goes from turning out heritage duck egg and black garlic mayo sourdough sandwiches in a painfully pretentious London cafe, to making cheese scones with foraged sea buckthorn jam on the west coast of Scotland. Her journey also involves a Michelin-starred restaurant and a bespoke baking business (as well as a couple of disastrous run-ins with bitchy critics, including on a television gameshow involving Sue Perkins and a chocolate souffle challenge).

I had an absolute blast writing the book, and the food sections were definitely the most fun – thinking about what a starred restaurant might serve with a salted chocolate tart, say (Fergus Henderson’s recipe is here, but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t pair it with a beetroot sorbet and walnut crumb), or what a critic might order for lunch at Margot Henderson’s Rochelle Canteen (bitter greens, like our own Rachel Roddy’s, for a start). In fact, from the glistening, bronzed hunk of pork with salsa verde and pressed potatoes set in front of the UK’s most feared culinary taste-maker, to the merguez and chip baguette Katy eats on the pavement after kidnapping a dog she doesn’t even like, the food is the real star.

There are so many causes here that aren’t up to him, writes advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith. Rather than trying to change him, change the goal

• Read more Leading questions

I am in a relationship with a lovely man who I first dated when we were 19 and 20 years old respectively. Now in our mid-50s, we have been together for three years. We laugh a lot and enjoy doing lots of things together – his enthusiasm for travel matches mine.

The issue is he sleeps a lot – at least 10 hours a night but could be 12 hours. He could easily stay in bed until 1pm on any day off. This means when we are on one of our frequent trips away, we rarely get to do things together in the morning – a time I love. I’ve addressed it with him and he sometimes makes the effort, but then reverts back. We don’t live together and only see each other one day a week, so time is precious and I often end up waiting around for him to get up.

Mark is frustrated that Lucinda’s open-door policy allows mosquitoes into their flat. You decide who needs to get a handle on this issue

• Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Closing them doesn’t take a huge amount of work; it takes seconds and stops heat and insects getting in

Keeping them open feels more relaxed and homey – plus, it’s better for the cat

Female home owners report feeling stuck between men’s contradictory expectations – they are told to be independent, but not assume the breadwinner role

When Tiffany Tate put the wheels in motion to buy her first home, it felt like a win – until a date’s response stopped her cold.

“If you buy that house, what’s a guy going to do for you?” he said. It was just after their first date, and just before what would be their last.

A tiny bird with a giant ego, Crispin was a remarkable singer – especially if you told him how talented, intelligent and gracious he was

I was around four years old when my parents bought me Crispin, my first pet. A handsome yellow canary, Crispin was bad-tempered and behaved like an alpha male. He would spend hours preening. I thought he was enchanting.

A gentle female canary, Mariflor, arrived soon after. She became Crispin’s other half and the mother of their chicks, Maribel and Quintin. Having a canary family compensated for my lack of siblings and extended family. It gave me a sense of responsibility and filled my life with joy.

We had booked a cruise for him and his carers, but we had a string of problems when we tried to change names

In November 2024, I booked a cruise for my wife, myself and our severely disabled son for this July. I’d booked well in advance to ensure an accessible cabin for my son. At home, he needs round-the-clock care from a rota of eight carers, so we made extra bookings for three to accompany him.

Because the care team has other commitments, I couldn’t confirm their names at the time of booking and was told to do so by this April, when the balance had to be paid.

If you are looking for a new account, there are some good rates around, but also pitfalls to watch out for

Earning as much as 7% on your savings sounds great – but what’s the catch? The top-paying accounts often come with strings attached, which could mean your money is not working as hard as you thought.

That’s important because there is a lot of cash sitting in fixed-rate savings accounts that are about to reach the end of their term. The total amount in accounts maturing between April and June is £90bn, according to the savings app Spring – and that money will need to find a new home.

Haringey council’s penalty seems extortionate – especially when other authorities charge lower amounts

I read your story about a man fined £500 for dropping a cigarette butt on the pavement.

I have been issued with a £500 fixed-penalty notice (FPN) by Haringey council for putting a butt in a refuse sack awaiting collection on the street.

Criminals exploit confusion or anxiety over new IHT rules by offering a ‘safe haven’ for savings pots

The caller pitches a great deal. Shift the moneysaved in your pension and reinvest it in a scheme overseas where you can avoid it being caught under next year’s changes to the UK’s inheritance tax (IHT) system.

From April next year, any money left in a defined contribution pension after your death, which is most workplace and all private pensions, will be pulled into the IHT net.

Researchers say risk comes from ‘other factors, including genetic predisposition to mental health conditions’

Taking antidepressants during pregnancy does not increase the risk of children going on to develop autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to an analysis of more than half a million pregnancies.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Hong Kong and published in the Lancet Psychiatry, analysed data from 37 existing studies that included 600,000 pregnant women who had taken antidepressants, and 25 million women who had no antidepressant use during their pregnancies.

Pioneering and controversial geneticist who was one of the first to sequence the human genome, in part by using his own DNA

At the international BioVision conference in Lyon in February 2001, the geneticist Craig Venter performed a remarkable piece of scientific barnstorming. Human beings possess far fewer genes than science had ever realised, he announced. We have about 30,000, far lower than previous estimates of 100,000.

Such lack of heritable material showed people are not prisoners of their genes but are shaped primarily by environmental influences, he added. “We simply do not have enough genes for this idea of biological determinism to be right,” said Venter, who has died aged 79. “The wonderful diversity of the human species is not hard-wired in our genetic code. Our environments are critical.”

Rather than bribery, or hiding carrots under ketchup, the key may be to expose foetuses to healthy flavours

It is an age-old battle with small children that most parents will recognise: please, please, eat your vegetables.

Some will read them books with titles such as The Boy Who Loved Broccoli. Others have been known to smother veg in tomato ketchup, or mix avocado and fruit with Greek yoghurt and call it icecream. Or resort to plain bribery.

Social media is awash with clips of people paying to be ‘bathed’ in sound. But what’s the science behind the practice?

• Read more in the Antiviral series

I, for one, am partial to a bath: what’s not to love about a dim room, candles and nary an electronic device in sight?

But a wellness trend that has emerged in recent years makes soaking in tepid water seem quaint: increasingly, people are paying to be “bathed” in sound.

Designer suggests decision to stage show in Los Angeles is part of strategy to deepen label’s cinema presence

Like Christian Dior, the founder of the house he now leads, fashion designer Jonathan Anderson’s ambition is to be not just a Parisian couturier but a Hollywood power player. “We think of Dior as this romantic character, but he was also a very savvy businessman,” said Anderson before a blockbuster catwalk show in Los Angeles. Stage Fright, the Hitchcock caper-noir for which Dior dressed Marlene Dietrich, was the show’s origin story. “There is all this amazing correspondence between Dior, Dietrich and Hitchcock, which shows how he navigated the money that it cost to make that film. I think we underestimate how much negotiation Dior did with studio executives. He was very smart in that way.”

Anderson, 41, who was born in Northern Ireland but since being appointed to Dior splits his time between London and Paris, has his own Hollywood side hustle as the costume designer for Luca Guadagnino’s films, and is set on reinvigorating Dior’s relationship with the film industry.

Zeal for ‘the Hamptons of England’ has rubbed off on sales, with luxury British fashion brand back to a full-year profit

• Business live – latest updates

The luxury fashion brand Burberry has said a new £2,000 handbag named after the Cotswolds has bolstered sales, as the English region becomes increasingly popular with wealthy Americans.

Joshua Schulman, the company’s chief executive, said its tote bags – which mix leather and the signature Burberry check – had helped drive its best performance in bag sales since 2023.

In an unexpected turn of events, brooches have escaped from Granny’s jewellery box, climbed out the window and gone clubbing

I have arrived in my brooch era about two decades ahead of schedule. I had brooches earmarked for a later life stage, accessories that would chime with The Archers, gardening, possibly solving the odd crime in the village, that sort of thing.

But in an unexpected turn of events, I am already the correct age to wear a brooch. Not because I’m old, but because brooches have changed. They have cast off their church fete vibe and become cool. Zendaya wore a diamond serpent brooch pinned to the back of her white jacket to last year’s Met Gala. At a press conference before the recent Mexico City premiere of The Devil Wears Prada 2, Meryl Streep added no fewer than six brooches to the lapel of her pillarbox red Dolce & Gabbana suit. Pedro Pascal wore a silk Chanel camellia the size of a sunflower to the Oscars. The brooch has escaped from Granny’s jewellery box, climbed out the window and gone clubbing.

From Hadrian’s Wall to the locations of Happy Valley and Hot Fuzz, readers share their top discoveries

• Tell us about your favourite UK coast walk – the best tip wins a £200 holiday voucher

“So this is where Officer Nick Angel [Simon Pegg] chased that swan.” As a fan of Hot Fuzz, I was excited to explore the cathedral city of Wells in Somerset, where much of the film was shot. This charming, compact and walkable city is awash with medieval architecture and magnificent buildings, such as the gothic cathedral, with one of the oldest working clocks in the UK (late 14th century) and the Bishop’s Palace and Gardens. Within easy reach of the Mendip Hills, Cheddar Gorge and the Wookey Hole Caves, Wells makes for a low-key alternative to tourist-soaked Bath.
Alison

There are few places where history can be felt more powerfully than these pathways, walked by explorer, author and TV presenter Nicholas Crane

How often do you look down and wonder who created the path your feet are following? Or ask the cause of its curves and dips? Formed over thousands of years, paths form an “internet of feet” – a web of bridleways and hollow ways, drove roads and ridgeways, coffin tracks, pilgrimage trails and city pavements. Whether you’re hiking a National Trail or pottering along a National Trust footpath, there’s a good chance you’re following ancestral steps.

It’s thoughts like these that led me on a journey to track the evolution of British paths for my book, The Path More Travelled. Eleven thousand years ago ice age hunter-gatherers arrived from Europe’s heartlands, moving through the wilderness along broad “routeways”, that later widened to tracks when horses and then wheels were adopted in the bronze age. For more than 2,000 years, traffic moved no faster than the speed of a horse, until the internal combustion engine drove pedestrians off the road just over a century ago.

Improve your mountain skills by day and party by night at the Arc’teryx Alpine Academy in Chamonix

After a day spent hiking across the Col d’Entrèves glacier, a sugar hit is required. I descend on the cable car and join the queue at the ice-cream counter. Above me, surrounded by jagged peaks, looms the huge white figure of Mont Blanc, serene and pure against a brilliant blue sky. Although it’s late afternoon, people are still heading up the mountain, and there are two clear groups. On one side are the tourists, who are about to be lifted into unfamiliar frozen realms at 3,375 metres (11,072ft), hoping to grab a picture and return. Mixed among them are the weathered faces of mountain experts: hikers confidently heading for a high-altitude hut, or climbers with coils of rope.

How many of those tourists, I wonder, are wishing they could be mountaineers, secretly regretting the twists of fate that kept them away from that path? But all is not lost. The aspiring adventurer, no matter what age or background, can begin the journey to competence in the mountains. The annual mountain festival I am attending aims to facilitate that by offering the chance to gain hands-on experience with experts.

The island of Samsø offers tranquil walks, biking, birding, distillery and pottery tours, and locally sourced fare – including citrusy ants

‘We have lammerullepøllse – lamb rolled sausage – today,” says Daniel Hesseldal-Haines, chef at Det Lille Sommerhotel on the Danish island of Samsø. “It tastes better than the translation sounds. And,” he gestures towards a woman sitting by the window, “the lamb is from Camilla’s farm.”

Camilla gives us a friendly wave, and my eyes fix upon her sweater, featuring row upon row of colourful motifs. Think Fair Isle but less orderly: each stripe holds a different design. “Oh, I made this,” she says. “It’s hønsestrik – chicken knitting. You can use it to tell your story – so this one is about hiking,” she adds, pointing to each section: “These are my footprints, this is my tent, my coffee flask …”

We were locked in a box in a lorry for 12 hours. I’ve never been so terrified

I escaped from my home, Soran, in the Erbil area of northern Iraq, in 2011 when I was 19 years old. My life was in danger – powerful people had made threats to kill me. I had been told that the UK was a secure place for refugees. I decided to try to get there and hoped the government would grant me protection.

I travelled by lorry across Europe and arrived in October of that year. I claimed asylum and felt lucky to be in a peaceful country. When I arrived, David Cameron was prime minister. Since then, there have been five others. I didn’t really distinguish between them, though – they all caused me a lot of stress.

With unpredictable weather patterns and summertime garden hose bans now normal, it might be time to let your plants adjust to drier conditions

Last week someone from Thames Water turned up to say we were using more than the average amount of water. I tried to explain that we have small children; I spend my life doing laundry and baths are one of my few vices. And no, we don’t have a car to wash or use a hose in the garden.

The visitor then presented us with a small hourglass with a suction pad attached. Now, each morning, my husband and I emerge from the shower, crowing that we managed to brush our teeth and wash and condition our hair in under four minutes.

From a converted art deco hotel in Glasgow to a brutalist apartment in London’s Barbican

You may think you know when someone’s trying to deceive you, but there’s a clever trick very few people are aware of – one that has eluded AI and Traitors contestants alike

Can you tell if someone is lying?

Close your eyes. You’re already twice as good as you were before.

In this age of crisis, technology is pulling us apart. At its best, journalism can bring us together again, writes Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner

I have a confession to make. It has taken me years to write this article.

For a long time, I have felt that something was missing in the public conversation about human connection and community and how they are being eroded. And yet I haven’t been able to articulate it. Thinking and writing have become harder. It’s as if the neurons in my brain don’t connect with each other in quite the same way. I go to check a fact and get instantly diverted by a hundred other distractions on my phone. I find myself unable to devote time to thinking and writing like I used to.

Filmgoers born after 1997 are reviving cinemas’ hopes of survival. They tell us about the social experience where ‘there’s absolutely no commitment to chat’

People born between 1997 and 2012 are now more frequent cinemagoers than some older age groups, according to a US-based survey by Fandango, with 87% having seen at least one film in a cinema in the last 12 months compared with 58% of baby boomers.

With this in mind we asked young people about why they love the cinema.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah continues and is deepening divisions across Lebanon. Supporters of Hezbollah call the group “the resistance” and see the conflict as existential. Despite agreeing to a ceasefire, Israel still occupies parts of southern Lebanon and insists Hezbollah must disarm for there to be peace—a view shared by many Lebanese. With communities split over Hezbollah’s future, The Guardian travels across Lebanon to find out how the conflict is widening divisions and affecting life across the country.

Tim Allen, Joan Cusack and Greta Lee join Hanks to answer your enquiries about the forthcoming animation and its previous instalments

Is there a more eagerly anticipated movie this year than Toy Story 5? For many people (with and without children), you can keep your Odysseys and Minotaurs and Place in Hells, because the return of Woody, Buzz and friends is what cinema is really all about. The series so far has made $3.3bn, and last year’s teaser trailer had 142m views in 24 hours – of which only 140m were my son pressing refresh.

The new film, which is released worldwide on 19 June, sees Jessie the Cowgirl (voiced by Joan Cusack) leading the gang in eight-year-old Bonnie’s room, with Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) her second-in-command, after the departure of Woody (Tom Hanks) at the end of Toy Story 4 to help abandoned toys find their owners.

As more childminders are quitting the profession amid concerns over costs, we’d like to hear why and from parents who’ve been affected

The number of childminders in England has roughly halved over the past decade, with many citing rising costs, low pay and increasing paperwork as reasons for leaving the profession. Childcare organisations have also warned that upcoming tax changes could push more childminders out of the sector.

Campaigners say the decline is making it harder for families to find flexible and affordable childcare, particularly in areas already struggling with shortages.

We’d like to hear how you’re adapting your expenditure as the cost of living rises amid the conflict in the Middle East

Rising prices and economic uncertainty linked to the conflict in the Middle East are putting pressure on household budgets across the world.

The International Monetary Fund has warned the conflict is pushing up the cost of energy and food, increasing borrowing costs and weighing on economic growth. Surveys suggest millions of households are already making changes to cope – cutting back, dipping into savings or taking on debt.

Whether it’s on the beach, along the prom or over dramatic cliffs, tell us about your favourite seaside walk – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

The King Charles III England Coast Path, which launches officially this year, is opening up miles of previously inaccessible coastal terrain to walkers in England. We’d love to hear about your favourite coastal walks all around the UK, from the White Cliffs of Dover to the Western Isles of Scotland.

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

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