After years of procrastination, even the most trivial task felt like climbing a mountain. Then I discovered the pomodoro technique – and how much I could achieve in just 25 minutes

Long before I knew what a 9 to 5 was, I struggled to get things done. When I was a child, I avoided showers for as long as possible and put off brushing my waist-length hair. My mum ended up cutting it into a bob to help me manage it.

During my degree, this tendency to procrastinate meant I was regularly pulling all-nighters in the library, writing 3,000-word essays in single evenings, fuelled by energy drinks and snacks. I told myself that I worked better under pressure – and in a way I did, since it always got done. But the relief of submitting work was always overshadowed by the same question – why had I put myself through that again?

Yolanda Saldana Feliz was stabbed 40 times by Miguel Angel Florentino, after Lauris Saldana’s emails to Met police went unanswered

Lauris Saldana has visible scars on her face, neck, arms, hand – and many, many more hidden beneath her clothing. They are a reminder of the horrific attack in 2022 at the hands of her ex-partner that she narrowly survived, an attack in which her mother, Yolanda Saldana Feliz, was killed.

It was an unlawful killing that would have been preventable, a coroner ruled, had the Metropolitan police taken Lauris’s domestic abuse case seriously. Had they come to her aid when she repeatedly begged them for help with evidence her estranged husband was a violent stalker, her “superhero” mother would probably still be alive today.

Two deadly strikers, two creative forces and an all-but unbeatable goalkeeper make up our picks for the season

The adulation offers a fine indication of how good the Manchester United captain has been this season. At the start, he was dragging Ruben Amorim’s interpretation of a team through matches and spent the past five months leading Michael Carrick’s unified side. Awards and records keep coming his way; winning the Football Writers’ Association player of the season award was swiftly followed by picking up a record Premier League assist tally of 21 at Brighton on the final day of the season. Considering United were very open to selling Fernandes less than a year ago, one wonders what would have happened at Old Trafford without him. “At one point I was going to leave – I won’t say where – but I would have won many trophies that season. I decided to stay not only for family reasons but because I genuinely like the club,” Fernandes told Canal 11. “But from the club’s side, I felt a bit of: ‘If you go, it’s not really that bad for us.’ That hurts me a little. More than hurting, it makes me sad, because I’m a player they have nothing to criticise me for. I’m always available for every match, I always play, whether well or badly. I give my maximum.” Fernandes brings incredible intelligence and work rate on the pitch, supported by stunning technique that has put him above his United teammates, who all feed off him. It is hard to argue that any other Premier League captain is more influential than Fernandes and United have reaped the awards.

Rail minister Peter Hendy says fast rollout shows reforms are working as questions over reliability remain

South Western Railway’s newest train, wrapped in union jack-inspired Great British Railways livery, may divide opinion on aesthetics, but the interior is certainly an upgrade: air-conditioned carriages, more space and greater passenger capacity.

For ministers, the fact that it is the 45th Arterio model brought into service since the SWR network was nationalised is vindication of the GBR approach.

Experts say some social media advice could obscure underlying health problems or create risk of unintended pregnancies

A growing number of women are seeing misleading information about perimenopause on social media – prompting concerns that some could be led to false conclusions that obscure real underlying health difficulties or even create the risk of unintended pregnancies.

Here are some of the key facts behind the problem.

What should be a story of Reform incompetence instead speaks to the broader refusal of Westminster to adapt to multiparty democracy

If you want a window into how a fragmented nation and a splintered party system are reshaping British politics, look no further than the drama at Worcestershire county council. It shows the consequences of Britain governing like a two-party state, when it now votes like a multiparty democracy.

Last week, opposition councillors from the Conservatives, Greens, Liberal Democrats and a group of independents formed a rainbow coalition to remove Reform UK from power. Nigel Farage’s party had gained control of the council in last year’s local elections, winning a plurality of seats but not a majority. What has unfolded since then has been chaos.

Jason Okundaye is an assistant Opinion editor at the Guardian

Scientists say record-breaking heat is a reminder of how climate crisis is affecting lives

The fierce heat sweeping Europe over the bank holiday weekend has beaten the UK’s all-time temperature record for May, with highs of up to 35C still to come on Monday afternoon.

A temperature of 33.5C was recorded at London’s Heathrow on Monday lunchtime, according to provisional data from the Met Offfice, beating the previous May record that was set in Camden Square in 1922 and reached again in Tunbridge Wells and Regent’s Park in 1944.

Former husband of Nicola Sturgeon admits reduced charges in court after deal with prosecutors

Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National party, has pleaded guilty to charges of embezzling more than £400,000 from the party after agreeing a deal with prosecutors.

He appeared in the high court in Edinburgh on Monday after being charged last year with stealing to fund an expensive lifestyle including a Jaguar car, a luxury motorhome, a luxury pen and women’s cosmetics.

Ciaran Martin says Reform UK leader’s allegation over Guardian report on £5m gift ‘entirely unsubstantiated’

Nigel Farage’s claim that a Russian hack was behind a Guardian report on the £5m gift he received from a crypto billionaire has been described as “without any merit” by a former head of the National Cyber Security Centre.

Ciaran Martin, founding chief executive of the agency, which is part of GCHQ, said Farage’s allegation, if true, would have major implications for UK policy towards Russia but that the Reform UK leader had yet to provide “a shred of evidence”.

Tehran says ‘contradictory statements’ from US and Israeli interference hindering negotiations

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Iran has poured cold water on suggestions that a deal with the US is imminent, pointing to the confusion in US positions and Israeli interference as key factors in why a complete agreement is proving difficult to secure.

Speaking at the weekly foreign ministry press briefing, Esmail Baghaei, the spokesperson for Iran’s negotiating team, also said future management of the strait of Hormuz was a matter for Oman and Iran to reach agreement on, and that it was not tolls that were being proposed but “fees for navigational services”.

Two other small British children who stayed at same hotel fell critically ill from same condition months earlier

The travel company Tui is under scrutiny over its safety protocols after a British baby girl died from a gastric illness following a stay at an Egyptian hotel – the same resort where two other children were left critically ill from the same condition months earlier.

Ariella Mann, one, died in January from a kidney condition linked to E coli after falling ill at the five‑star Jaz Makadi Aquaviva hotel in Hurghada on an all‑inclusive two‑week package holiday booked through Tui.

However, former minister tells Hay festival ‘the idea that a woman leads and it makes it better for women is not one I’ve recognised in this country’

The Labour MP Jess Phillips has described her party as “sexist” for having no permanent female leaders in its history.

Asked at the Hay literary festival why Labour has never had a female leader, Phillips responded that “like all institutions, it’s a bit sexist innit”. She added that “every institution that every single person in this room works for is led by the patriarchy”.

Links between Trump Organization and Ivanishvili family for Tbilisi skyscraper raise new conflict of interest concerns

A Trump Tower planned for the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, is to be built on land currently part-owned by the son of the US-sanctioned leader of the country, according to official records.

The proposed skyscraper, a joint venture between a local consortium and the Trump Organization, which is managed by the US president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will be on a plot whose current registered owner is the International Charity Fund Cartu.

Figures raise questions over ministers’ plans to raise qualifying period for settled status from five years to 10

Higher-earning immigrants are less likely to remain in the UK long-term and could be further deterred from staying by the government’s planned crackdown on settlement rights, analysis has revealed.

A report from the Migration Advisory Committee’s , Who Stays, Who Leaves?, follows about 900,000 journeys between 2014 and 2024.

Tom Kopke from Germany out-tumbles local hero Chris Anderson on a meltingly hot day in Gloucestershire

It was billed as the great cheese-off: a helter-skelter, bone-jarring downhill race between the all-time champ and a young upstart.

After the hype and hyperbole, youth won out as the 24-year-old German YouTuber Tom Kopke beat the 38-year-old local hero Chris Anderson at the annual cheese-rolling event in the English West Country.

Supporters of Reza Pahlavi, exiled son of the late shah, are clashing with those who oppose a return of monarchy

Wearing a bucket hat, a blue Adidas hoodie and khaki shorts, Tony Mohraz, also known as 021kid, chest-bumps a friend in front of a memorial wall in Golders Green, in north London.

Photographs can be seen behind him of those who were killed protesting against the Iranian regime. As a large lion and sun flag used in Iran before the Islamic revolution is waved overhead, Mohraz starts to rap.

Playing a piano tuner with super sensitive hearing, Woodall’s relationship with Hoffman is a tender highlight in this unforced crime drama

Leo Woodall’s breakout TV roles in The White Lotus and One Day offered a megawatt charisma, but for his biggest film role to date he dims it to a soft glow with gentle performance opposite Dustin Hoffman as one of a pair of New York piano tuners. And what a pair they are; they are a real pleasure to watch in an easy, unforced drama that mixes romcom moments with a relaxed crime thriller. It’s like the Safdie brothers in chill out mode.

Woodall plays Niki, a tuner with exceptionally sensitive hearing who constantly wears earplugs to block out the deafeningly loud world. Niki works for veteran tuner Harry Horowitz, played with irresistible warmth by Hoffman. It’s highly skilled work but a running joke in the film is that rich clients treat them like odd job men – would you mind just unblocking the loo while you’re here?

‘It’s about loneliness, really. It was the total opposite of that “It’s Friday night, let’s have sex” macho mentality that was in most rock music at the time’

Most of the people who started the Mekons and Gang of Four were on the same fine art course at Leeds University. In December 1976 we went to see the Anarchy tour at the nearby polytechnic. I liked the Sex Pistols but the Clash, in their paint-spattered clothes, sounded particularly great. It was the first time I saw a band and thought: “That could be me up there.”

Dominik Szoboszlai and Alex Iwobi redefined the idea of possibility but Leandro Trossard’s mattered most

With most free-kicks, we’ve a decent idea where the taker can put them, which is why Dominik Szoboszlai’s effort against Arsenal, though it was a brilliant late winner, hasn’t been picked here: the execution, replete with whip and dip, was perfect, but we knew in advance that what turned out to be possible was possible. On the other hand, his goal against Manchester City – which edges Anton Stach’s for Leeds at Villa – was a mind-boggler. It’s fair to wonder why the wall contained only two men, but equally so to counter that he was so far out, the keeper wanted a decent view – and didn’t he get the perfect aspect. Hit with the laces, the ball jiggling, dipping and swerving at improbable angles, Gianluigi Donnarumma anticipated an inswinger then, when it turned out to be an outswinger, didn’t even get to attempt a save because, once it was clear which way the shot was actually going, it was far, far too late, a cursory step in the right direction all he had time for as an incredible, unsaveable effort shrieked past him and in off the post, three-quarters of the way up.

As La Croisette closes for another year, here are the most memorable looks from its final week

Deciding who can come along to your big day is always a sensitive issue. But Tay-Tay may have known what she was doing when she banned a singleton from bringing a friend

Name: Plus-ones.

Age: Bringing a partner along has been going on a while, possibly since Noah invited a pair of every animal on board the ark …

The latest in our ongoing series of writers celebrating their most rewatched comfort films is a pick for 1996’s revealing and relatable romantic thriller

I’m not necessarily inclined towards what might typically be dubbed “feelgood”. No, you won’t find me seduced by a happy ending, nor am I partial to the oeuvre of Disney (in fact, I find all the talking animals and poreless princesses a bit grotesque). The raw edges and friction of feelbad have tended to be much better suited to my tastes: the porno chic slasher Knife+Heart, the sartorial murder of In Fabric and the snuff film-obsessed Thesis. Sex and gore, basically. For a long time, my favourite film was Crimes of the Future: a stomach-churning body horror about sexual-surgical experiments.

However, there is one movie that reveals a slightly soft(er)core side to my viewing habits, which I frequently return to in order to feel the gushy feelings and butterflies of a school crush. That film is Bound. The 1996 directorial debut from the Wachowski sisters, the plot revolves around an opposites-attract scenario which is both familiar and high stakes: plumber Corky, and mafia moll Violet. When their eyes meet across an elevator, the tiny vestibule becomes thick with sexual tension: it is so on.

Whether it’s giving florals a twist or wearing a rented number, here are our top tips for decoding the dress code

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The invitation thumps on to your doormat – or, as likely, into your inbox – and rather than feel excitement for the ensuing nuptials, you feel dread. What on earth to wear?

Weddings are full of sartorial pitfalls. If there’s no dress code, the limitless options can feel daunting; if there is, it can feel a different kind of daunting, but with a useful guide to prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.

Proportional representation can rescue Britain’s warped politics. It could stop Nigel Farage arriving at No 10 with less than 30% of the vote

Here comes the prospect of redemption, a second chance for Labour to start over. A victory for Andy Burnham in the Makerfield byelection not only opens the door to No 10; a leadership contest also allows him and Wes Streeting to finally stretch their wings. Ideas currently firmly chained up in a Downing Street dungeon could be freed. Land value tax? Wealth tax? No more children in temporary accommodation? A national care service? Why not?

Not to be outdone, the government itself has unleashed a burst of activity, with Rachel Reeves’s summer of fun, as well as speeding up a deal with the EU and online protection for children. Expect renewed effort on nearly a million Neets (young people not in education, employment or training) with radical plans from Alan Milburn this week.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

We are spending billions to help families with childcare, but I fear profiteers are denying them the full benefit. I’ll put a stop to that

• Bridget Phillipson orders review of hidden childcare charges hitting parents

Britain is facing a family crisis that politicians do not talk about nearly enough. Birthrates are now the lowest since records began. More and more young people are delaying having children – or deciding they simply cannot afford to have a family at all. When you look at the cost of raising children today, it is easy to see why.

Families are feeling the pinch. Many now spend more than £250,000 raising a child to the age of 18. For many parents, the pressure starts long before school, with childcare costs that have risen far faster than wages for years.

Bridget Phillipson is secretary of state for education, women and equalities

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.

Trump and his allies have so undermined the US government that we need a new vocabulary to describe them

Words matter. When describing a government, they inevitably carry moral weight.

Over the past 16 months, Trump and his appointees have so profoundly undermined the United States government that different words should be used to describe them than have been used to describe all previous administrations.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and in the UK

We saw it when Russia jailed members of Pussy Riot, and again when the US overturned Roe v Wade: misogyny is a powerful political weapon. Let’s focus on fighting it, not ‘understanding’ it

In preparation for interviewing Pussy Riot’s Maria “Masha” Alyokhina at the Charleston festival, I was reading her new memoir, Political Girl. I thought I remembered the group’s origin story pretty well – in 2012, they performed their anthem, Punk Prayer (Virgin Mary Banish Putin), and two band members were imprisoned for two years in a penal colony, then released slightly early in order to sanitise the country’s reputation before the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Upon release, they immediately went on to protest at those Olympics, the courage of which is jaw-dropping.

That was missing a few key details: Alyokhina had never even been detained for an act of protest when she was arrested, strip-searched and jailed for this. We weren’t looking at a thin-skinned but otherwise democratic government, overreacting in the way that young democracies sometimes do. The detention of Pussy Riot signalled a significant shift towards the aggressive authoritarianism that is now self-evident, and, in those early days, was expressed and mobilised through misogynistic, patriarchal values-setting built on Christian nationalist foundations. At their trial, one lawyer argued that “feminism is a mortal sin”. Alyokhina was pilloried for being a bad mother (her son was four when she was imprisoned). If Pussy Riot weren’t on trial for being women per se, certainly their cultural act of defiance was immeasurably worsened by the fact that they weren’t men.

I survived months of bombardment before escaping. The systematic dismantling of our home has harmed every aspect of women’s lives

• Olfat al-Kurd is a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the occupied territories

Since Israel’s assault on Gaza began in October 2023, I have lost my father, my brother, his wife and their daughter. They are still buried under the rubble. My house, where we lived with my husband’s family, was destroyed by Israeli bombing. In 2024, after months of bombardments, flight and displacement, I managed to escape with my family to Egypt. I’ve been living here ever since, but the memories of life in Gaza are always with me. What happened to me reflects the reality that Palestinian women in Gaza continue to face during the genocide.

Since the start of the war, many women in Gaza have become sole providers. Countless numbers have been left with no protection or home, and many have lost children or their entire families. A recent UN report showed that Israel has killed more than 38,000 women and girls in Gaza during this war. A further 11,000 have sustained injuries causing lifelong disabilities.

Olfat al-Kurd is a field researcher for B’Tselem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the occupied territories

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 twists and turns in this saga are bewildering, but Donald Trump appears to have the cards stacked against him

For those following the crisis between the US and Iran, the past few days have been bewildering. On Friday, the six-week-old ceasefire seemed doomed. Donald Trump skipped his son’s wedding to remain in the White House and was reportedly contemplating renewed military strikes on Iran. On Saturday, apprehension was replaced by optimism. Trump announced that an agreement with Iran would be concluded “shortly”. On Sunday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, added to the hope by saying that there would soon be “good news”.

Iran’s leaders soon dampened the optimism. The country’s media dismissed Trump’s social media post as propaganda, and Iranian officials highlighted several remaining points of dispute. As Tehran began revealing – in very general terms – its conception of a deal, the gap between it and Washington became even more evident.

The difference in framing around antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred distorts public understanding, inflames tensions and makes both Jewish and Muslim communities less safe

The horrific terrorist attack on the Islamic Centre of San Diego in California has been reported by many news outlets over the past few days. Yet as the story travelled across screens and news feeds, something more subtle unfolded: the language of reporting. Some outlets spoke of “teen suspects” and “three deceased” rather than murdered worshippers or a terrorist attack on a mosque. Words matter. They shape sympathy, urgency, and influence how violence is understood. Too often, the vocabulary of terror and extremism appears unevenly distributed; sharpened for some perpetrators but softened for others.

There is a growing sense that the world is slipping backwards – not through dramatic rupture, but through the steady normalisation of hate, the coarsening of public discourse and politicians increasingly fuelling division and racism.

The trumpeter, composer and band leader still towers over jazz because he treated reinvention not as a betrayal, but as necessary for its survival

The space reserved for Miles Davis in the pantheon of 20th-century music is not simply because he mastered jazz, but because he refused to let it stand still. As musicians and fans mark the centenary of his birth , Davis’s work still feels limitless. “I always thought that music had no boundaries,” he wrote in his 1989 autobiography, “no limits to where it could grow and go, no restrictions on creativity.” Davis repeatedly dismantled the sound he had helped invent – embracing the electric age in 1968, much as Bob Dylan had in folk.

Davis moved to New York as an 18-year-old after hearing Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. While bebop prized speed, Davis preferred restraint and precision – spearheading cool jazz. By 1988, now the grand old man of jazz, he was playing trumpet with Prince, whom he remarked could be the “new Duke Ellington of our time if he just keeps at it”. Such was his refusal to be pigeonholed, he hated the word “jazz”. Whatever it was, Davis reasoned, had to evolve: absorbing funk, rock, African rhythms and electronica to emerge altered again.

The removal of an opposition party leader and closure of a liberal university show an authoritarian democracy moving closer to one-man rule

Turkey’s next presidential election is scheduled for 2028. Many think it will come sooner. But by the time ballots are actually cast, the outcome may already have been decided – especially after the last few days.

On Thursday, an appeals court removed the head of the opposition Republican People’s party (CHP), Özgür Özel, by annulling its 2023 leadership contest. The 51-year-old was credited with reviving the CHP, which trounced the ruling Justice and Development party in 2024’s local elections. He was also one of the few senior figures not caught in a sweeping crackdown that has led to hundreds of CHP officials and politicians being arrested. Human Rights Watch says that the justice system has been weaponised against the opposition. A mass corruption trial opened in March, with defendants including the Istanbul mayor, Ekrem İmamoğlu, who was arrested last year on the day that he was chosen as the CHP’s presidential candidate. He could face a sentence of more than 1,900 years if convicted on all counts.

Prof Mark R Sanderson says the council is Britain’s most effective instrument of soft power and should be funded properly, not hollowed out

The hollowing out of the British Council across Europe should alarm anyone who cares about the UK’s standing in the world (Soft power sell-off: anger as British Council announces sale of historic Madrid building, 22 May). For decades, it has been one of Britain’s most effective instruments of soft power, teaching English, supporting cultural and scientific exchange, and building long‑term goodwill that no advertising campaign could buy.

The proposed sale or downsizing of long‑established teaching centres with the huge loss of dedicated skilled staff in Madrid, Milan and Naples would be an irreparable loss. These buildings were acquired when city‑centre property was affordable; replacing them would be impossible at anything like the same cost. We have already seen the disappearance of the council’s excellent libraries in Paris, Rome, Athens and Lisbon – collections built up over many decades and once central to Britain’s cultural presence in Europe.

Nick Moss, Derrick Joad and John Wilkinson respond to an article by Sacha Hilhorst on why voters are turning to the party

Sacha Hilhorst is right to highlight the fact that many Reform UK voters are disillusioned with the political status quo because their lives are ever less secure (I’ve interviewed Reform UK voters – and they’re much more progressive than you might think, 18 May). The issue at the heart of rightwing populism is an existential one: taking back control, as daily life feels insecure and out of control. But the essence of what Reform and the rest do is to swerve the causes of, and solutions to, this lack of security. Instead of looking at housing, welfare, rising prices, failing healthcare and, consequentially, failing health, they talk of control over borders.

The Reform project is to offer a racial solution to a class problem. It is not alone in this. Substituting race for class has been part of the agenda of the Labour party and the Tories whenever they have come under pressure. But bussing asylum seekers out of hotels or tightening border controls changes nothing. If we go back to those communities that fought to “empty the hotels” they are no more secure now and still just as poor.

The education system should not just be about passing exams, writes David Selby. Plus a letter from Mara Musso

Two quotes in your article (Schools are ‘pipeline’ to joblessness for many people, says ex-Labour adviser, 21 May) struck a chord with me: “a joyless education system that focused too heavily on passing exams” and “the level of vitriol and hatred these young people used when talking about schools”.

I worked on the government’s Youth Opportunities Programme and Youth Training Scheme several years ago, and latterly on the Youth Offending Scheme as a volunteer for more than 20 years – and the quotes did not surprise me in the least. It was bad enough in secondary modern schools, where the majority of children took no exams at all. In the comprehensives and latterly in the academies, every effort is made to show off the school through its exam results, watched at a distance by those students with little or nothing to show for about 10 years of schooling.

Readers respond Devi Sridhar’s call for the world to act now over the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Devi Sridhar is right that this Ebola outbreak needs urgent attention (Ebola in the DRC needs the world’s attention now – if your neighbour’s house is on fire, you don’t wait and watch, 19 May). Present an engineer with a problem needing a build or fix and you will often hear: “You can have it good, fast or cheap – pick two.” In global outbreak responses, we learn too late every time that we must pick “fast” first.

Having worked on the west African Ebola outbreak in 2014-16 and on smaller Ebola responses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2018-2020, I have seen the same failure pattern repeat. We think too long before going in, despite knowing what is needed, and we overestimate the complexity of what must be accomplished.

Hosts ease to seven-wicket triumph at Hove
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5th over: New Zealand 27-1 (Gaze 15, Kerr 5) Ecclestone is on the money, five dots ties down Amelia Kerr. The batter paddles the final ball away fine for four but its a cheap over for England and a thrifty start from their wily left arm spinner.

4th over: New Zealand 23-1 (Gaze 15, Kerr 1) Magnificent batting from Izzy Gaze. She laps Wong over Amy Jones’s head behind the stumps for four and then follows up with a blistering drive over long on for SIX! Charlie Dean is summoning Sophie Ecclestone.

Updates from the second day’s play at Roland Garros
Raducanu slumps to defeat in first round | Mail Billy

Jones 1-2 Swiatek* (* denotes server): Better from Jones. Six shots of baseline exchanges, and Jones finishes it off with a forehand winner past Swiatek to make 30-15 in her favour. Swiatek’s backhand then goes long after 11 shots between the pair. However Swiatek crawls back and takes it to deuce. The pair exchange advantages for a while but Jones strikes and gets the break back with a forehand winner.

*Jones 0-2 Swiatek (* denotes server): Swiatek breaks Jones at love. Three break points at 0-40, sealed with a crushing forehand winner.

⚽ Notts promoted to Championship after Wembley win
⚽ Bolton 4-1 Stockport | Follow us on Bluesky | Email Will

I did see Notts County beat Harrogate a couple of months back. It was all very easy, so I can’t tell you much except Jatta is a cut above this level as a finisher.

Oh, I’ve interviewed him too.

Slip-ups are brutally punished in English football’s top flight, but enlightened management can still transform a team’s fortunes

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The final day of the season, to a modern audience, can seem almost overwhelming: 10 games going on at once, each with their own rhythm and dynamic and storyline. It can be hard to imagine that at one time, before the advent of regular live television coverage, this is how it was every weekend. But from the mass of narratives, one key theme, one that has lurked in the background all season, emerged: that this is a brutally hard, extremely competitive, league in which any slip-up is punished.

There have been complaints this season about the style of many games, but then there comes a point towards the end of most seasons when a number of fans pronounce themselves bored and declare it a bad season; that tends to correlate quite strongly with how well their team has done.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition

• Gkolomeev’s 50m freestyle ‘record’ brings relief

• Glitzy night lacks excitement forecast by organisers

They promised multiple world records. To redefine what the human body is capable of with performance enhancing drugs. Even to change sport forever. But by the end of the inaugural Enhanced Games in Las Vegas organisers were left with one abiding emotion. Relief.

Only in the final event of the night, after more than five hours of competition, could they lay claim to having gone quicker than an official world record as Greek swimmer Kristian Gkolomeev swam 20.81sec in the men’s 50m freestyle.

• Mohamed Salah leaving after Luis Díaz not replaced

• ‘In general you see more and more focus on wingers’

Arne Slot has highlighted the importance of wingers to Liverpool’s prospects of recovery, and claimed this season’s disappointment can be rectified with the correct squad additions.

Liverpool ended a difficult campaign by qualifying for the Champions League but also their lowest points total and goals scored since 2015-16, a season in which Brendan Rodgers was sacked and replaced by Jürgen Klopp. A sharp decline in goals and assists from wide areas was a factor, with Liverpool failing to replace Luis Díaz, and Mohamed Salah’s impact diminishing in his final season at the club.

• Manager’s deal allows for summer parting of ways

• Scott Parker and Gary O’Neil of interest to West Ham

West Ham are expected to part company with Nuno Espírito Santo after their relegation from the Premier League. The manager has been called in for talks with the board and discussions are likely to end with the Portuguese leaving.

Nuno refused to talk about his future after West Ham’s descent into the Championship was confirmed on Sunday. The former Nottingham Forest manager’s three-year deal contains a clause that allows West Ham to sack him without paying compensation. Nuno is also free to walk away.

In today’s newsletter, how quick starts, keeping the ball and banking on the bench will help the finalists beat the high temperatures and humidity

Graeme Souness is one of the toughest footballers of all time, a midfield titan for Liverpool and Scotland in the 1970s and 1980s. He was occasionally outwitted by subtler players such as the Brazilian genius Zico, but no opponent ever got the better of him physically.

No human opponent, anyway. During the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, Souness lost a stone in weight (6.35kg) against West Germany at Querétaro in stifling heat and at high altitude. “I can remember going down on my haunches and thinking: ‘God, do I not feel good,’” he said. “It was the worst I ever felt on a football pitch. I couldn’t breathe.”

The Bank of Scotland has unveiled a £20 note featuring an image inspired by Scott McTominay’s iconic goal

The Bank of Scotland has unveiled a limited-edition £20 note featuring an image inspired by Scott McTominay’s famous overhead kick. It has been created to celebrate Scotland’s return to the World Cup, and fans will have a chance to win 50 of the 100 notes in the coming weeks.

The design blends traditional banknote elements with imagery inspired by McTominay’s World Cup qualifying goal for Scotland against Denmark. The team sealed their place at a first men’s World Cup since 1998 with a dramatic 4-2 win at Hampden Park in Glasgow last November, when McTominay scored the first goal with an overhead kick.

Group have been stuck in flooded cave in central Laos for five days after heavy rain caused landslides

Divers who helped in the dramatic rescue of a young Thai football team in 2018 have joined efforts to free seven people who have been trapped for five days inside a remote, flooded cave in central Laos.

The group entered the cave in Xaysomboun province on Wednesday to hunt for wildlife and search for gold, reports suggest. Heavy rain led to landslides, which blocked the cave entrance.

Exclusive: Cache of internal documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners show multinational has war-gamed ways to massively delay decarbonisation

• Revealed: the internal BHP memo that slammed the brakes on world’s biggest miner’s climate push

• Read more from the BHP files investigation here

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The world’s biggest miner has halted or delayed projects to cut vast amounts of emissions and has quietly war-gamed options to push major climate investments in its Western Australian iron ore operations into the next two decades, internal documents show.

An exclusive investigation based on documents leaked to the Guardian and the ABC’s Four Corners can reveal that BHP, one of Australia’s biggest historic emitters, has dumped plans for a facility that could have significantly reduced emissions and has put on ice renewable projects designed to power its iron ore operations in the vast, resource-rich Pilbara region.

Dangers include unintended pregnancies, taking unnecessary medication and missed diagnoses, say experts

Misinformation about perimenopause is putting women at risk of unintended pregnancies, unnecessary medication and missed diagnoses, experts have said.

Awareness of menopause and treatments such as hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has been raised by efforts including a prominent documentary by Davina McCall.

Vociferously anti-Turkish party doubles its number of seats although mainstream parties didn’t see vote crumble as predicted

An anti-immigrant far-right party, inspired by Greece’s defunct neo-Nazi Golden Dawn, has made the biggest gains in parliamentary elections in Cyprus.

The group, which has pushed for the closure of checkpoints on the ethnically split island and is vociferously anti-Turkish, doubled its seats in the 56-member legislature after securing 10.9 % of the vote.

Alan Milburn, who is leading review commissioned by government, says current strategy ‘going in wrong direction’

Labour has failed to tackle soaring youth unemployment and must launch a “system reset” involving a fresh attempt to overhaul health and disability benefits, a report commissioned by the government is to warn.

Alan Milburn, who is leading a review into why almost a million young people are not in education or work, said ministers had so far responded with a series of disjointed jobs programmes.

Rain overwhelms sewer system in parts of US city, while temperatures in France break May record

New York City saw flash flooding on Wednesday, as large parts of Brooklyn and Queens received about 2in (50mm) of rainfall in as little as 20 minutes. Officials said the deluge caused water to flow into the sewer system at a rate of up to 6in an hour, quickly overwhelming an aged network that was designed to accommodate just 1.75in an hour.

Residents and commuters found themselves wading knee-deep through flood water that flowed with dangerous speed in places. One video showed a woman alighting from a bus losing her footing and being dragged along by the torrent of water. Several major roads were blocked, including the Long Island Expressway, and subway services were disrupted as water spilled into stations. Large amounts of mud and other debris was left behind; videos showed bags of rubbish being swept down streets along with loose litter.

Definition of green facilities made in 2022, before release of ChatGPT, says Action to Protect Rural Scotland

A Scottish government policy designed to encourage datacentres to build in Scotland could lead to a massive volume of carbon emissions being ignored, according to an analysis by a Scottish charity.

“Green datacentres” are at the heart of Scotland’s ambitions to develop economically. Enshrined in national policy, they are part of a larger, UK-wide effort to attract big AI investment to Scotland.

Technological interventions face huge financial or practical challenges, but there is another way

In 2019, my scientific research was nearly brought to an early end when my team and I published the bombastic statement that natural forest restoration was the “best climate change solution” available in a paper for the peer-reviewed journal Science.

I remember a colleague from the World Wildlife Fund advising me that this message represented career suicide. He argued that people would be furious because reducing greenhouse gas emissions was the most urgent priority. The revival of nature might help with 30% of our carbon drawdown needs, but you cannot stop rising temperatures without cutting emissions.

Charter to be adopted along river’s entire catchment from Cambrian mountains to Chepstow and Bristol Channel

The entire catchment of the River Wye has been formally recognised as a living ecosystem with intrinsic rights in a charter, a UK first that campaigners hope will help save the highly polluted river.

The charter was celebrated at a community event at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival on Sunday. It includes the right to flow, to biodiversity, to be free from pollution, to be supported by a healthy catchment, to regenerate, and the right to be represented, described as a “significant step” towards protecting and restoring one of the UK’s most beloved rivers.

Exclusive: Research shows cost of crime for each affected business was on average £83,000 in past year

Nine in 10 retailers based in rural locations have been victims of crime in the past 12 months, according to research, underlining the widespread impact of the rise in shoplifting and theft even in more remote parts of the UK.

Rural retailers include farm shops as well as stores selling machinery and other equipment. The financial cost of crime for each affected retailer was on average £83,000 during the past year, according to a survey carried out by the commercial insurer NFU Mutual. Meanwhile, one in 20 victims said crime had cost them more than half a million pounds.

Russia suspected of obstructing signal on flight bringing John Healey home from visit to British troops in Estonia

An RAF jet carrying the defence secretary, John Healey, had its signal jammed for the entire three-hour flight after it flew near the Russian border.

Healey had been visiting British soldiers in Estonia and was travelling back to the UK when the electronic attack happened, the Times reported.

Dominic Grieve says people are ‘perfectly entitled’ to ask Richard Hermer for review of teenagers’ sentences

Appeal judges would be unlikely to criticise the attorney general, Richard Hermer, if he asked them to review “unusual” non-custodial sentences handed to three teenage boys convicted of raping two girls, one of his predecessors has suggested.

Dominic Grieve, who also served as home secretary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the goal of rehabilitating offenders – particularly younger ones – needed to be balanced with providing deterrence.

Exclusive: Exhibition to include letters, work permits and dry cleaning tickets that reveal little moments of domesticity in rock icon’s life

When Jimi Hendrix lived in a bohemian London flat in the 1960s, he had little need for its kitchen as he had meals sent up from Mr Love, a groovy restaurant on the ground floor of his building.

While celebrities were downstairs, dining at heart-shaped tables and served by waitresses in hot pants, the American rock musician was upstairs, tucking into steaks and hamburgers.

Paris police looking into more than 100 allegations of mistreatment by ‘monitors’ after parents’ groups said they had fought for years to be taken seriously

France is facing a child abuse scandal as ‘monitors’ at dozens of state nursery and primary schools are investigated for violence, sexual assault and rape.

Paris police are examining more than 100 allegations of mistreatment, physical violence and rape of children as young as three by school monitors during lunch breaks, nap times and after-school activities, prosecutors have confirmed.

Ulf Kristersson aims to expand state-funded IVF as Sweden grapples with lowest fertility rate since records began

Sweden’s prime minister has promised to put IVF at the heart of his re-election campaign as he tries to win over female voters amid the country’s record low birthrate.

Ulf Kristersson’s government recently increased the number of state-funded IVF attempts granted to aspiring first-time parents from three to six.

Pontiff calls for ‘disarming’ of artificial intelligence and apologises for church’s delay in condemning slavery

Pope Leo has denounced the “culture of power” driving the rapid rise of artificial intelligence while warning that the technology must be subject to the “most rigorous” ethical constraints as it infiltrates everything from work to war.

In his encyclical – the first major text on safeguarding humankind of his papacy – he also apologised for the Catholic church’s long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as “a wound in Christian memory”, and spoke of the “new forms of slavery” due to the digital economy.

A road in the shopping district of Ginza was blocked off and people were taken away in stretchers

About 20 people were injured at a luxury shopping complex in central Tokyo on Monday after a man sprayed a substance inside the building, officials in Japan said.

A Tokyo police spokesperson said a man sprayed a substance at an ATM on the ground floor, while a local fire department official said “around 20 people were injured” after a report of a “smell”.

Hitting government’s target of getting 80% of workers into jobs would reduce cost of universal credit by £10bn

Tackling the root causes of joblessness, instead of cutting benefits, is the best way to get the welfare bill down, and polling shows voters support that approach, according to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

In a forthcoming report, JRF economists show that hitting the government’s target of getting 80% of the working age population into jobs would cut the cost of universal credit by £10bn – an eighth of the current bill.

Bonus scheme that could hand CEO a £60m windfall is ‘significantly out of line’ with market, says proxy adviser

Investors in Metro Bank are being urged to vote against the lender’s pay report next month, in protest of a complex bonus scheme that shareholder advisers say is “significantly out of line” with market standards.

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS), which issues voting advice to some of the world’s biggest investors, made the recommendation weeks ahead of the bank’s annual meeting on 2 June.

Under government’s price cap typical gas and electricity bills are forecast to rise by £209 from this summer

Ministers face growing calls to cut utility bills as millions of households in Great Britain face energy cost “anxiety,” with gas and electricity costs forecast to rise to almost £1,900 from this summer.

The typical dual-fuel bill is expected to climb by nearly 13% under the government’s energy price cap, adding £209 a year to household costs, in a blow to families already hit by rising prices for essentials.

Labour MP writes to chair amid concerns building societies are overusing quick votes and failing to add members to boards

Nationwide is under pressure to address “emerging governance issues” across the building society sector, amid concerns bosses are bundling voting options and failing to allocate board seats for members.

The Stockport Labour MP Navendu Mishra has sent a formal letter to the chair of Nationwide, Kevin Parry, outlining growing unease over the way executives, including at Nationwide, have been engaging with members who ultimately own their building societies. A letter raising similar concerns was sent to the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, in recent weeks.

The great showman has spent the last 50 years on stage, followed by his adoring “fanilows” - but he’s not slowing down yet. Here, he talks about cancer, ridicule and roaring success

His name is Barry, he is a showman – as we all know. But late last year, after more than 50 years of constant performing, it began to look like the Manilow show was coming to an end. In December, the 82-year-old singer announced he was about to undergo surgery for lung cancer, and postponed his planned live shows. Thankfully, the cancer had not spread and the treatment was successful. But around the same time he released a new single, ominously titled Once Before I Go. The accompanying video showed him saying goodbye to his palatial quarters at the Las Vegas Westgate resort, where he has had a residency for the past eight years, and wistfully reminiscing over old costumes, intercut with footage of him in his 80s prime. It sure looked as if he was shutting up shop.

But no: “That was just an accident,” says Manilow of the video. Really? “Yeah, we didn’t do that on purpose.” The song was actually written in the early 80s by veteran songwriter Peter Allen, he explains, but he felt he was too young to sing it when he first heard it. “It’s a beautiful song and it’s got nothing to do with me. It’s saying goodbye to a romance, you know. But it just so happened that it sounds like I’m talking about myself.” Far from going anywhere, Manilow’s got a new album out next week, and a string of new tour dates lined up.

From Drag Race to Eurovision to Strictly, La Voix is going stratospheric. And Chris Dennis, the man behind the crimson coiffure, is thrilled. He talks about his cruise ship highs, doing panto with Cilla – and starring in Annie

‘I’ve done more cruises than Jane McDonald,” says Chris Dennis with a hoot. About 130 in all, he reckons, which his agent said surpassed McDonald, the most famous cruise ship singer there is. You won’t find Dennis’s name on any billing, though, and most of the thousands of people who have seen him perform won’t know it either. But they will know his alter ego, La Voix, a “northern powerhouse” of show tunes, sharp quips and bright crimson coiffure. Perhaps you’ve seen her slaying the runway on RuPaul’s Drag Race, dancing a pasodoble to Beethoven’s Fifth on Strictly, or appearing as a “spokesqueen” on the recent Eurovision. And now she’s about to sashay into her first role in a musical – as Miss Hannigan in Annie.

La Voix is an amalgam of the women Dennis knew growing up in Stockton-on-Tees: quick wit, warm heart, belter of a voice, and always in possession of a sparkly top for a night out. After 17 years of Drag Race on TV, we’ve seen the vast range of what drag can be, from high fashion to political to performance art. But La Voix is classic old school light entertainment. Who, I ask Dennis, are your comic influences? “Ken Dodd,” he says without a beat. “The terrible jokes that just make you laugh. Bang, bang, bang, joke, joke, joke.” Barry Humphries’ Dame Edna and Paul O’Grady’s Lily Savage are big influences, too. And when TV’s Loose Women asked La Voix about dancing with Strictly partner Aljaž Škorjanec, her reply – “To be flung round the room by a muscular Slovenian, you’re not going to say no, are you?” – was pure Victoria Wood.

A documentary tries to piece together what happened in the 1995 shootings of three Essex drug dealers. Plus, the return of Springwatch. Here’s what to watch this evening

10pm, Channel 4
“There was a lot of people queueing to waste them.” Former criminals and detectives share what they know about the “Range Rover murders”, when, in 1995, drug dealers Pat Tate, Tony Tucker and Craig Rolfe were shot dead at point-blank range in their 4x4 in Essex. There have been two convictions and plentiful conspiracies about the case – and it inspired the movie franchise Rise of the Footsoldier. But, as this two-part documentary shows, it’s still not clear what exactly happened. Hollie Richardson

This television transfer of the hit play has a great cast and impressive footballing scenes. But the manager feels like a cross between Harold Steptoe and Captain Darling from Blackadder Goes Forth

At the European Championship in 1996, elegant defender Gareth Southgate volunteered to take a kick in the semi-final penalty shootout against Germany, a task many of his teammates shied away from. He missed. England lost.

Dear England, James Graham’s adaptation of his own hit play, picks up the narrative 20 years later. With England further away than ever from international tournament glory after a string of humiliating failures, Southgate (Joseph Fiennes) steps forward again and is surprisingly hired as manager, largely due to a shortage of viable candidates.

A disaster on Valentine’s Day sets off a sprawling tale of hidden lives and social fault lines in director Herman Yau’s ambitious ensemble drama

Prolific Hong Kong film-maker Herman Yau is back with an ambitious, sprawling drama that is, at best, an awkward composite of his past works. We’re Nothing at All kicks off with a moment of rupture: on a seemingly ordinary Valentine’s Day in Hong Kong, a double-decker bus suddenly bursts into flames. The deadly explosion triggers a police inquiry led by Lung (Patrick Tam), a skilled forensics specialist whose investigation reveals a maze of intersecting lives. Much like the volatile opening, the rest of the film luxuriates in paradoxes, where the facade of normalcy is peeled back to reveal poverty, prejudice and despair.

From inspecting the charred bodies of the victims – rendered in lurid closeup – to retracing CCTV footage, Lung’s gathering of clues is crosscut with flashbacks concerning those involved in the explosion. Among the dead are lovers Fai and Ike (played by pop stars Anson Kong and Ansonbean), gay men who have endured economic hardship and family rejection. With its golden hues, the warmth of their intimacy starkly contrasts with Lung’s world of colourless offices and sterile meetings. The juxtaposition is visually fascinating, yet the twin narratives of a police procedural and queer romance are strained, resulting in tonal disorientation.

Underwater beastie shows discerning moral judgment when picking off victims in this fun Norwegian action film

As Greta Thunberg demonstrates, an eco-chastising feels somehow cleansing when it comes out of Scandinavia. Maybe it’s because of the idea that people there live in greater harmony with nature. It is splendidly showcased in the shape of Norway’s Sognefjord, the country’s largest fjord, in this didactic but still-enjoyable action film. Kraken could almost serve as an extended tourist promo – other than the titular beastie that is, slewing off giant crab-like lice, and emerging from the depths to administer a stern 90-minute ticking-off about tampering with nature.

Marine researcher Johanne (Sara Khorami, cementing her Norwegian creature-feature credentials after Troll 2) is summoned to the Sognefjord after reports of mass salmon strandings. Her first port of call is the local fish farm run by Erik (Mikkel Bratt Silset), an old flame with whom she developed sonic delousing pods now used to keep the pens clean. But in a bid to impress Japanese investors, owner Avaldsnes (Øyvind Brandtzæg) has cranked the tech up to the max, harshing the vibe not just for the wild salmon but the fjord’s deep denizen too.

The presenter meets remarkable public figures, starting with a lovely talk with writer-actor Meera Syal. Plus, a vital deep dive into US supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch

(Warp)
The Scottish electronic duo remain hugely influential – but their new album’s interrogation of religion is dubious, and the drum programming is worse still

This is the first album in 13 years from Boards of Canada, and from the opening notes – an analogue synth rising and falling like a sound effect in a forgotten 1960s radio play – you’re thrust back into one of the most instantly recognisable worlds in electronic music.

From 1995 debut EP Twoism onward, across four LPs and four more EPs, the Scottish duo – brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin – used the heavy gait of classic hip-hop beats to trudge through spectral ambient vistas, like spacemen sent through a time portal while still being tethered to the present. By grabbing samples from old public television and other vintage sources, they looked back at the utopian promise of the mid-20th century, while teasing out the latent kitsch and creepiness of these sounds.

In a collapsing world, artists like Slayyyter and Cobrah are chasing extreme highs with hyperactive music and debauched lyrics. Is their trashy vibe emancipating – or a bit contrived?

If any year demanded a soundtrack of self-aggrandising female mayhem, it’s 2026. Amid the terrors of war, AI and the climate crisis, women are expected to be symbolic vessels of order and stability: thin, beautiful and perpetually 25 – a state of perfection newly available for purchase thanks to weight-loss drugs and the deep plane facelift.

Covered unironically in leopard print and rhinestones, a cohort of young female pop stars are defying this familiar con with brash electronic pop, shamelessly hedonistic lyrics, anarchic sexuality and an obsession with what was once dismissed as “white trash”. It’s an aesthetic embraced by performers such as Slayyyter, Kim Petras, Cobrah, Demi Lovato, Snow Strippers’ Tatiana Schwaninger, Tove Lo and returning scene godmother Kesha.

The five-piece combine traditional musical styles with mountains of synths and hurried drums – rejecting computerised production in a pointed anti-AI statement

From João Pessoa, Brazil
Recommended if you like Hermeto Pascoal, Mr Bungle, King Crimson
Up next Celestial album released 7 August, touring the UK and Europe from 15 August

Thanks in part to its famed music department at the local Federal University of Paraíba, João Pessoa – the easternmost city in South America – is a hotbed of artists playing different folk styles from all over the continent. Papangu sound like all of them at the same time. The five-piece blend a long list of genres: bossa nova, the circle-dance song ciranda and forró, with its dry-tuned accordion and pulsing rhythm section, plus the more ubiquitous progressive rock and extreme metal. The band’s virtuoso chops and intensity keep their songs from buckling under the weight of those ideas, from the hurried drums to the mountains of synthesisers and pianos.

A psychologist wades into controversial territory in this counterintuitive study of nature, nurture and gender

According to the evolutionary psychologist Steve Stewart-Williams, almost everyone gets sex wrong. Traditionalists tend to exaggerate the natural differences between men and women. Progressives tend to minimise them, and to assume that nurture and socialisation play a decisive role. He wants to promote a more nuanced, scientifically rigorous public conversation about why and how men and women differ to guide better policymaking.

Some sex differences are relatively pronounced, he claims, such as whether you’re primarily attracted to men or women, upper body strength, height, the likelihood you’ll murder someone and occupational interests. Many, such as ability in maths, or conscientiousness, are much more modest. Such differences are best visualised as two overlapping bell curves. To illustrate this, consider height: the shortest humans are almost all women, the tallest are men, the average man is taller than the average woman, but there is considerable common ground. Knowing that someone is 5ft 8in won’t enable you to guess with any confidence whether they are a man or a woman, for instance.

A woman’s encounter with the stepfather she hasn’t seen for decades leads to a revived bond – but is it all too perfect?

I blame Meryl Streep. Once she’s in your head, it’s hard to kick her out. Streep narrated the audiobook of Tom Lake, Ann Patchett’s last novel, and I’ve played it so many times I listen for the rhythm now, not the story. Or perhaps the rhythm is the story. Nothing much happens in Tom Lake, which is to say that everything happens – life happens – but ever so gently. On a cherry farm in Michigan, a mother tells her restless, world-hungry daughters the tale of a long-ago summer romance, piece by piece, as they work the harvest together. It’s Scheherazade with pie.

Tom Lake is a lovely book, indulgently so. A pandemic novel that imagines the crisis as Edenic: a family thrown together with little to do but talk and remember and cherish one another. Sun-ripe fruit, rescue dogs, the future paused for one last impossible season. Some ingenue glitz; a whiff of tradwifery. A lesson – quite literally – in cherrypicking.

After visiting an island brothel in Bangladesh, the novelist was inspired to write an imagined uprising. She explores the radical fictional worlds where women have the power

In the spring of 2024, I am finally able to visit Banishanta, the island in southern Bangladesh that has been haunting my dreams. When I arrive I find it is little more than a long patch of grey mud, with a string of flimsy huts lining a craggy shore. Thirteen years earlier, I was on a boat on my way to the Sundarban mangrove forest when a guide casually pointed out the island and told me it was a state-licensed brothel that had been there since the time of the British.

When I went home, I didn’t want to think about Banishanta, because if I did, I would have to imagine the terrible things the women there were enduring while I lived a life of casual entitlements many thousands of miles away. Yet the women squatted in my imagination, refusing to leave. I resolved to never write about them, because it would say things about the world I didn’t want to know. It was only when I decided I could write a novel, set on a fictional island, about a rebellion of women, that I allowed them in.

From a darkly comic new novel to a gripping 1950s memoir – Katherine Rundell, Malala Yousafzai, Matt Haig and others appearing at Hay festival pick titles to tempt you

Malala Yousafzai
Activist
I have loved going to the theatre ever since I saw my first musical (Matilda in London, when I was 15 years old) – and I love reading about it, too. In Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad, a British-Palestinian actor travels to the West Bank to see family and finds herself pulled into a local production of Hamlet. I was moved by the rehearsal scenes: arguments over translations, personal relationships, the question of whether a performance is even possible under Israeli occupation. To me, Hammad proved that theatre is capable of carrying weight that other art forms cannot hold.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mercury theatre, Colchester
This musical from the company behind The Play That Goes Wrong unearths the invention of acting in ancient Greece – and finds little has changed

The Mischief theatre company has been making fun of actors’ foibles for years, especially in the deliriously amusing Goes Wrong series. Its first musical asks if all those rampaging egos, heated rivalries, creative differences and hammy activities can be dated back to the world’s very first acting troupe. Did the proto-thespians in ancient Greece contend with one-star reviews and attract superfans? Maybe they even played Zip, Zap, Boing and over-dwelled on their motivations?

Little is known about the real Thespis, father of tragedy in the sixth century BC. Co-writers and lyricists Jonathan Sayer and Ed Zanders introduce him on the drought-plighted island of Ikaria and chart his odyssey to Athens, where he competes in a Eurovision-style prayer competition at the whim of a merciless tyrant and ends up founding the art of acting with his pals. Opa!

Touring until 18 July

Museum of Homelessness, London
This mostly al-fresco exhibition expertly unpicks how homeless and nomadic people have been persecuted over the centuries

A trim caravan sits in an idyllic garden in the grounds of a former gatehouse. Its cosy interior is decked with a cornucopia of crafts: pastel-coloured bunting, felt embroidery, a bright rag rug, plumply immaculate cushions. On the sideboard is a small display of pristine china. It feels like a glamping retreat or a chi-chi refuge from the Chelsea flower show.

But look more closely at the china, and you’ll see that it’s decorated with Sun newspaper headlines venomously fulminating against Gypsy and Traveller encampments. “STAMP ON THE CAMPS” screams one. Another depicts a blazing caravan from the infamous 2011 Dale Farm eviction, which ended a 10-year standoff between Basildon council and Traveller families, who had bought a former scrap yard on green belt land and set up their caravans on it.

Leicester Square theatre, London
The comic delivers gags about her life and neighbourhood with choice descriptions and brutal punchlines

‘What comes out of here,” says Fatiha El-Ghorri, indicating her mouth, “and this” – how she presents to the world – “don’t match.” From that contrast – a kindly-seeming woman in a hijab peddling gobby East End standup – this Taskmaster graduate and rising standup star draws much of her comic power. She’s a British Moroccan Muslim from Hackney, where she grew up getting mugged three times a day and learned how to handle herself. Touring show Cockney Stacking Doll offers us a tour of her world: her divorces and online dating; her family; encounters on the buses and streets of London, all addressed with a blunt lack of sentimentality and a robust sense of her own ridiculousness.

Perhaps the show is over-reliant on the brutal punchline: too many gags conclude with “you fink I’m playin’ wiv you, bruv?” or an even less compromising “they punched him in the fucking face”. El-Ghorri might retort (and does, in what she calls her Ted Talk section at the end of the show) that she’s had to be tough to get where she is, where so few people like her are invited to be. Fair enough. And there’s plenty of wit here – see her choice description of the Broadway Market neighbourhood in which she was raised as now all “kefir, lidos and polyamory”.

Touring until 17 December

O2 Kentish Town Forum, London
After three unlikely Top 10 albums in the 90s, the trio are back – and on the basis of this rapid-fire set, you hope they’ll stick around

Bob Mould has never seemed to have much interest in looking back. The bridges to a Hüsker Dü reunion were burned long before drummer and songwriter Grant Hart died in 2017; the notion that Mould might revive Sugar, the band who scored three unlikely UK Top 10 albums of ferocious alt-rock in the mid-90s, seemed ridiculous. But here we are: after three New York shows, Mould, David Barbe and Malcolm Travis are touring the UK and Ireland.

Some things have changed: the seething sea of moshers at 90s shows is now a placid lake of the nodding middle-aged. Travis, 73, seems to drum with the minimum amount of movement possible, wisely given the searing heat inside the Forum. Others haven’t: JC Auto, which closes the main set, remains brutal and churning, thrillingly intense. Mould still stomps in circles around the stage like a man furiously searching for his lost remote control.

Double-sided page featuring a sketch and text sheds new light on the baroque master and his time living in Rome

More than 400 years ago, the up and coming Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens toured the streets of Rome, notebook in hand, sketching images from Renaissance works adorning the city’s churches and palazzos.

Now a rare sheet, thought to be from his Roman sketchbook, has gone on display in his home city of Antwerp, shedding new light on the baroque master.

(MPL/Capitol)
From nostalgic returns to his Liverpool childhood to a crazed Glastonbury fantasia, these are songs written with real purpose and a master’s finesse

The rock legend in the autumn of their years who chooses to release a new album is well advised to get themselves an angle. If the music that made you legendary was written and recorded long ago – and is highly unlikely to be displaced in the public’s affections by anything you do now – it’s good to have something that suggests a sense of purpose, beyond just adding to an already vast back catalogue for the sake of it.

We’ve recently seen it with Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, rooted in its jawdropping 17-minute survey of American political history, Murder Most Foul; and with Bruce Springsteen’s Only the Strong Survive, with its canny covers of soul and R&B classics. And an angle is clearly something that has occurred to Paul McCartney, too. From its title referencing a road in the suburb of Liverpool where McCartney spent his early childhood, to the circumstances of its launch – the first single Days We Left Behind was premiered not on YouTube or Spotify but BBC Radio Merseyside – his 27th studio album has been presented as a nostalgic look back at what you might call his pre-Fab years.

The best of these reject any ‘don’t touch’ attitude in favour of an open invitation to curiosity that might just see your toddler tell you to sit down and read a book

Play cafes are not for me, but that doesn’t make me a monster. I don’t drag my toddler around museums and galleries demanding that we look at art every day of the week (what fresh hell that would be). Instead there is, I’ve discovered, a middle ground. Museums that are family oriented and fun and capable of sparking curiosity in arts and culture while they’re at it. Museums such as the Story Museum in Oxford.

The place is a gem. I love it from the moment we’re given colourful wristbands that will allow us to come and go throughout the day (no pressure to power through when whining turns to wailing). Tucked away from the tourists in a higgledy-piggledy former post office and telephone exchange building on Pembroke Street, it’s full of imaginative galleries that invite you to step inside the pages of great children’s books from across the ages.

Two new poetry collections tackle themes of trauma, exile, resistance and love amid conflict in Gaza

Poetry may not be the best response to aerial bombardment, but for many Palestinians it has become a line of defence amid the rubble and ongoing killings in Gaza.

“Poetry keeps hope alive. Even in the darkest moments, Palestinian poetry continues to imagine a future,” Nazmi al-Masri, professor of languages at the Islamic University of Gaza, says at an online poetry event held by his students.

The supplement is a proven sports performance enhancer, but research is ongoing and for most people it’s an optional extra, not an essential

Once the preserve of bodybuilders and sprinters, creatine is now being touted as everything from a brain booster to a healthy-ageing essential. But should we all be taking it? Not quite.

“There’s really substantial evidence of creatine being effective,” says Bethan Crouse, a sports nutritionist at Loughborough University. “From a sport perspective, it’s probably one of the more well-researched supplements in terms of actually having a performance impact.”

Dramatic coastal scenery and train rides make a winning combination. Our rail expert picks journeys over and along the sea

Route Inverness to Kyle of Lochalsh
Which side should I sit? The right initially, then switch to left
Distance 83 miles (133km)
Time 2hrs 40mins
Frequency 4 trains a day (2 on Sundays)
Ticket £32 single
Operator ScotRail

Whether you want long, short, Charli xcx-inspired or a classic suit, here are our fashion writer’s favourite looks to say ‘I do’

• The best wedding guest dresses for every budget

I’m getting married next year, so I know all too well that the hunt for a dress (or in my case, two – one for the ceremony, one for the evening) might seem exciting, but is actually quite daunting. There are many decisions to mull. Do you go traditional (veil at al) or for something more modern? Perhaps you dread the idea of wearing white and want to go for an alt-colour.

There’s also the long v short debate. Not to mention the overwhelm from everyone chipping in their thoughts on what suits you best. Just remember: it’s your day and ultimately your dress, so finding something you love is what matters most.

As temperatures soar across the UK, chill your space – and avoid energy-guzzling aircon – with our pick of the best fans, from tower to desk to bladeless

• The best portable neck and handheld fans

Our world is getting hotter. Summer heatwaves are so frequent, they’re stretching the bounds of what we think of as summer. Hot-and-bothered home working and sweaty, sleepless nights are now alarmingly common.

Get a good fan and you can dodge the temptation of air conditioning. Aircon is incredibly effective, but it uses a lot of electricity … and burning fossil fuels is how we got into this mess in the first place. Save money and carbon by opting for a great fan instead.

Best fan overall:
AirCraft Lume

Best budget fan and best desk fan:
Devola desk fan – stock expected at end of May

Our reviewer found Woolroom’s supportive, breathable and sustainable Standen mattress a total dream – but luxury comfort doesn’t come cheap

• The best mattresses, tested

The first time I slept on a wool mattress was a revelation. As is so often the case with bed-based Damascene moments, this one happened on holiday. The wool and pocket-sprung mattress in our Lake District hotel room was cosy but breathable even in the height of summer, and it proved far too comfy to leap out of for early morning walks.

Back home, I soothed the post-holiday blues by seeking out wool mattresses to review. First, I tested the Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000, which is excellent but didn’t quite live up to that hallowed Cumbrian memory. Then came this Woolroom Standen Wool mattress, which did – and even nearly toppled the Otty Original Hybrid as best overall in our best mattresses roundup, where I called it “a masterpiece”.

Secateurs, pizza ovens and sparkling rose in a tin … whatever your plans for the long weekend, here’s how to make the most of it

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Reasons to be cheerful #271: a warm, sunny bank holiday weekend. Here at the Filter, we need no excuse to kick off our shoes, grab a cold drink (and some SPF) and head outside.

To help you make the most of the long weekend, we’ve rounded up some of our favourite things. Whether it’s tools to spruce up your outdoor space, tipples to sip in the garden, a fake tan to jump-start your summer skin or fashion for warmer weather, summer starts here.

Simple and spicy, this dish is adaptable enough to become a firm favourite with all the family – and it will fill lunchboxes the next day, too

This is one of those rare dishes that I can make both for us and for the children – reserving the kimchi topping and chilli peanuts for the adults, of course. I also like to add the kimchi just before serving for freshness (this helps to keep all the good stuff in it from deactivating, too). Leftovers are excellent in lunchboxes the next day, so it’s well worth making the full quantity and popping the excess in the fridge.

Two recipes that transform lunch or dinner from simple pleasures into magic moments

Every day, no matter what it brings with it, gives us at least three opportunities to clock out and have a moment of pure bliss. We’re talking about breakfast, lunch and dinner, of course, and we’re not factoring in snacks and tea time, either, because those are bonus opportunities. It doesn’t need to be complicated, it doesn’t need to be a big ceremony; in fact, most days, it’s the humble little treats, the simple, delicious things, that bring us the most happiness. Honey & Co. Daily is our cafe in Bloomsbury, central London, and now also the name of our latest cookbook, and we want both of them to be a haven, a place where you can go to get a simple, delicious moment.

Can taramasalata, hummus or moussaka ever be fancy? Short answer: yes

Fenix, a new Greek restaurant on Piccadilly in Mayfair, is very much part of what I’m calling the “maximalist” group of modern openings. See also Lilibet’s and Simpson’s-in-the-Strand. Financial downturn? Never heard of her.

While restaurateurs are all over the media turning out their empty pockets and pleading poverty, this new offshoot of a Manchester institution casually throws down another Sims-style pleasure palace. The photographs of the sumptuously ornate, Athenian-influenced interior can’t be real, surely? Well, it turns out they are. As you leave six lanes of moving traffic behind you and enter Fenix, eureka! You’re suddenly in a cross between an Aegean god’s haven and the White Company’s bedding department.

Fish stew in the south of France doesn’t have to mean a complicated bouillabaise: bourride is a simpler and equally perfect match for a summer’s evening

Much as I love bouillabaisse, I’ve never come across rascasse, the spiny Mediterranean rockfish that’s the backbone of Marseille’s signature dish, outside its homeland. Bourride, another southern French fish stew, is a simpler affair that’s much easier to recreate here. Enriched with garlicky aïoli, it’s a lovely thing for a summer’s evening, and can be prepared ahead up to the end of step 7.

Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr 10 min
Serves 2, generously

Mindfully curated possessions evoke the most potent memories of those who have gone. Two specific objects bring me particular comfort – though I never stop too much to ponder why

Sometimes it seems like my world is inhabited by ghosts, such are the remnants and reminders of past lives all around me.

The dead dogs are everywhere. On a coatrack on the hallway wall just near the front door outside my study hang their sun-bleached and harbour-rusted collars and leads, memorial stalactites to much-loved animals who’ve never really left us. Their tags are clipped on the fridge, and one is screwed into the tree in the backyard under which its wearer is buried.

This fluffy menace was harder work than either of our babies. But she did show us how to nurture a creature you can’t reason with

Tilly wasn’t our first choice: my wife and I had fallen for a grey lop-eared charmer in a local shop who was unexpectedly pulled from sale. But we were now determined to acquire a rabbit, so we traipsed from store to store around south-west London, until we saw this tiny ball of brown and white fluff. Suddenly we could imagine no other bunny.

Tilly was many things. When our landlord was around, she was at a friend’s. To the kale producers of Britain, she was a lifeline. To us, she was affectionate, but with a strong sense of personal space – you could tell when she wanted to be touched and when she did not.

When Lucia’s libido dropped, she found imaginative ways to reignite her spark with Edwin

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

I felt guilty because I love him and want to make him happy

From single mothers to fathers of autistic children and fellow adoptees – some relationships come along just when you need them the most

Lucy Crowe and Mikayla Jolley, London

The tax office is quick to demand money owed and threatens fines, but is slow when giving refunds

When my mother died, there was a four-year delay in achieving probate owing to financial complexities. During this time my father paid inheritance tax (IHT) on the advice of his solicitor, to prevent interest accruing.

It turned out that the solicitor’s estimate of the amount was wildly out.

The uncertain interest rate outlook is making tracker deals popular again. We look at the pros and cons of both types of loan

With some experts warning that we may have to brace ourselves for interest rate rises later this year, it might seem odd to suggest considering a tracker mortgage.

But, amid the economic chaos caused by the Iran war, for some people looking for a home loan or to remortgage, a tracker – where the rate you pay moves up or down in line with the Bank of England base rate – could be a good bet.

From a farmhouse with a wildflower meadow to an award-winning London flat with a neat garden for al fresco dining

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

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

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

If I’d been taught this way of thinking as a child, I can’t begin to imagine how much easier things could have been

In 1981 the CD was born and so was I. Both arrivals were surprising and have drifted in and out of fashion ever since. As a baby, my majestic “chonk lord” status was cause for celebration and an indication of prosperity. But from a young age I noticed that my presence seemed to offend other people. When I was seven, I remember asking to have a go at skipping, after having turned the rope for everyone else. One child enlightened me on why I couldn’t: I was too fat to skip.

Children learn hierarchy from adults and then their peers. Who belongs, who doesn’t and why. My classmates learned from adults to see me as something to mock and despise. Even my own well-meaning father once sat me down and told me that nobody would love, trust or employ me due to my body shape. This didn’t shock me; I’d already picked up what everyone was putting down.

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Guardian Australia joins ultrarunner Joanne Walker in an excruciating race through the Blue Mountains, where men outnumber women four to one

Somewhere before the finish line the body starts to break down, Joanne Walker says.

“The pain starts in your feet but before long it moves up to your knees and eventually you feel like you just can’t move your legs any more.”

After 30 hours with no sleep, running alone through the cold darkness of the Megalong Valley, the brain can break as well.

“At one point, I did not even know where I was going; I was swerving all over the shop,” she says.

From infections and allergies to brain diseases and autoimmune disorders, a wave of trials offers hope

Clinical trials of immunotherapies have rocketed in the past decade as researchers have turned their understanding of the body’s defences into powerful new treatments. Leading the pack are cancer therapies, but researchers have other conditions in their sights, from infections and allergies to brain diseases and autoimmune disorders. Here, we explore how these therapies work.

Cancer Research UK figures show number diagnosed with most serious form of skin cancer has risen above 20,000 for first time

The number of cases from the most serious form of skin cancer have reached a record high across the UK, according to analysis by a leading cancer charity.

Melanoma cases in the UK have risen above 20,000 for the first time ever, with 20,980 people being diagnosed with the form of cancer in 2022, according to analysis of the latest figures by Cancer Research UK.

Growing numbers of people are seeking improbable cosmetic surgery based on chatbots’ recommendations

Plastic surgeons are increasingly concerned about the rise of “AI face”, as more and more clients arrive in their offices with unrealistic AI-generated visions of what they want to look like.

Dr Nora Nugent, a cosmetic surgeon from Tunbridge Wells, has seen this first hand. Clients have started coming to her office with photos of themselves beautified by AI and a false expectation that those results are achievable with surgery. She is also the president of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, and says many colleagues are having similar experiences.

Does Puerto Rican star’s debut collection for Zara spell the end of short shorts?

Men can breathe a huge sigh of relief this week, thanks to Bad Bunny, whose debut collection for fast fashion company Zara includes a pair of shockingly normal mid-thigh shorts.

While for the last few years, short-shorts have threatened to make every day a leg day, the sight of the Puerto Rican star wearing shorts that come comfortably to within a few inches of the knee will signal a welcome shift for many.

Take your lead from Harry Styles and go for short shorts, or dig out your favourite knee-length pair

The floaty, feminine aesthetic being worn by young pop stars like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter has been around since the 1960s. So why all the fuss?

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In the music video for her recent single Drop Dead, pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo saunters beguilingly through the ornate rooms of the Palace of Versailles, her eyes fixed on the camera. It is an all round soft-girl production, shot by Petra Collins who captures a hazy teenage aesthetic close to a carbon copy of Sofia Coppola’s 2006 film, Marie Antoinette. But when the video aired last month, it was met with instant backlash online – not for her halting tourists from visiting the world heritage site for the day, but for Rodrigo’s Pinterest-inspired, pastel blue, babydoll ensemble.

The outfit – a floaty off-the-shoulder Chloé pre-fall 2026 babydoll top, styled with silky bloomers peeking out underneath and white pointelle knee socks – did not impress the keyboard warriors (likely, bots), who accused the singer of infantilising herself and invoking a ‘Lolita’ aesthetic. A few weeks later, Rodrigo donned a similar look (pictured top) on stage in Barcelona for Spotify’s Billions Club Live concert: a pink and white floral puff-sleeve babydoll top with matching ruffled bloomers from the small brand Génération78, offset by chunky black knee-high Dr Marten boots, equal parts soft and severe.

The reopened Train de Merveilles route takes passengers from the glamour of Nice to a grandiose alpine landscape

Nine-thirty on a sunny Tuesday morning, and the platforms at Nice-Ville station are buzzing. Office workers nudge their way past backpackers, passengers clamber on to trains heading east to Monaco and Italy, or west to Antibes and Cannes. My husband and I, however, are heading away from the glittering coastline and boarding the Train des Merveilles (Train of Wonders) into the Alpes-Azur mountains.

Back on track last December after a programme of major works closed the line for a year, it’s one of the most spectacular train routes in Europe, a two-hour journey that climbs 1,000 metres in 100km, linking Nice with the medieval town of Tende, surrounded by the soaring peaks of the Mercantour national park.

Travellers warned to beware of debit card cons after one was charged £1,500 for a kebab and another £3,000 for corn on the cob

When Lisa Selby* used her debit card to pay for two slices of barbecued cheese from a beach vendor in Rio de Janeiro, she expected to pay 40 reais (£5.90) for the snack.

But shortly after the payment had gone through, she realised that she had been charged 4,000 reais (£590) after the vendor added two extra zeros to the card reader.

Photographer Lorenzo Grifantini looks at how the Italian capital’s historic centre has gradually reorganised itself around the uninterrupted flow of visitors and the expectations projected on to it

By mid-morning, the area around the Trevi fountain is already difficult to cross. Visitors stop suddenly to take photographs while tour groups gather behind raised umbrellas, and security staff redirect the flow of people through temporary barriers placed around the monument. Nearby, souvenir kiosks sell rosaries, plastic gladiator helmets, bottled water and magnets in the summer heat.

Tourists pose for photographs in front of the Trevi fountain

Experts warn about the risks of cave diving without proper training, planning and specialised equipment after deaths in Vaavu atoll

The diving tragedy in the Maldives – which claimed the lives of five Italian divers inside an underwater cave, followed by the death of a Maldivian navy diver – has renewed warnings from experts about the risks of cave diving without proper training, planning and specialised equipment.

On Thursday, the Divers Alert Network (DAN), which coordinated the complex search and recovery operation at the Dhekunu Kandu dive site in Vaavu atoll, announced all the divers’ dead bodies had been recovered.

I was primed to sweat my way through a high-stakes procedure. But once the patient was sedated, a welcome warmth entered the room

• Read more in this series here

I’ve had quite a few surgical procedures over the years but one always sticks in my mind. The 7am arrival to hospital, the injustice of being deprived a morning coffee in the name of “fasting”, the apprehension as I lay on the operating table waiting for it to begin. It was my second spinal operation in a few months, because the surgical team had operated on the wrong part of my spine the first time around. As you can imagine, my nerves were frayed.

Even under normal circumstances there’s a gravity to surgery for patients. It can be one of the most serious and important things to happen in your lifetime. It’s also the most vulnerable you can get as a patient, trusting a group of strangers to sedate you and alter or remove parts of your body, hoping you’ll end up better off than you were before. I spent the next couple of years healing from that first surgical error through rest, rehabilitation and a lot of engagement with medical and allied health services. In my downtime, I decided to apply for medical school to see what I might contribute as a doctor.

As the series reaches its 5,000th entry, one of its regular writers reveals what it’s like to put together this cribsheet of the modern world – and the bizarre topics he’s never been able to forget

Beginning is often the hardest part: the rigid and long-established format of Pass Notes requires the writer to begin with Age. If the day’s subject is Nigella Lawson or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a number is readily available. If it’s Jar Jar Binks, the answer may be obscure but still obtainable (born in 52 BBY – before the Battle of Yavin). But what if the subject is bees, or office temperatures, or “peak curtains”, or God? Some days you get stuck on the first line.

If the subject was Pass Notes itself, you’d have the same problem: it originated in the short-lived Sunday Correspondent, which ceased operations in 1990. The orphaned idea was then adopted by the Guardian’s newly launched G2 print section in 1992, scrapped after a redesign in 2005, and resurrected in 2009. But if we can’t put down anything for age, we can still supply a number: 5,000 examples, and counting.

Check it out

UPDATE: Read the answers here

Today’s four puzzles are inspired by chess. (If you haven’t yet watched the recent documentaries on Judit Polgár and Hans Niemann, I recommend them.)

1. Oddities

A student and a salesperson disagreed about drug​ policy and HS2, but would they see eye to eye on the Edward Colston statue?

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

Joe, 20, Southampton

Occupation Geography student

Increasingly isolated president is determined to press on with Ukraine war, say well-placed sources, despite ailing economy

Vladimir Putin pulled up to a hotel in central Moscow earlier in May in a Russian-made SUV, dressed casually in jeans and a light jacket. Carrying a bouquet of flowers, he walked unhurriedly into the lobby and embraced his former schoolteacher Vera Gurevich, who kissed him on both cheeks.

He then helped Gurevich into his car and drove her to dinner at the Kremlin.

I’ve worked hard to leave the intimidation I experienced in the past. But when I met the man I wanted to marry, those childhood memories took me by surprise

The bullying began shortly after my fifth birthday. My family had moved from Dorset to a small village in Buckinghamshire. I started a new school in September, just before my third sister was born. It should have been idyllic. I remember everyone being excited about the new baby on the way. My school was small and set in the heart of the countryside, with playing fields bordered by woodland. It was about a mile from our new home. If the weather was good, my mother tried to encourage me to walk with her. Sometimes she would repurpose my lunchbox as a punnet and fill it with blackberries picked from the hedgerow on the way home. But she was heavily pregnant, and at the time the mother of three (soon to be four) children aged five and under. It made practical sense for me to catch the school bus.

Weird things were already happening at school. Initially I put it down to the shock of the new. The games were boisterous – my sisters and I could be rough with each other, but everything seemed to go a little further and cut a little deeper. I’d been startled by a group of girls who had reached under my skirt and tugged my knickers down to my ankles. Maybe they thought they were being funny? I just wasn’t sure whether I was in on the joke, or whether I was the joke. At first, it felt a little like being in a dream or visiting a foreign country. Almost nothing made sense to me, but I knew I was the only one who couldn’t understand, and it was down to me to work it out.

Global Pepfar program has long had Republican leadership and bipartisan support, but initiative is at risk

US midterm voters overwhelmingly support Pepfar, an initiative to end HIV/Aids that also has strengthened health systems against other infectious disease threats but has come under fire from the Trump administration.

About three in four (74%) likely voters in the US midterm elections say they support funding the US President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), with voters more likely to back candidates who support Pepfar, according to a recent poll. Four in five voters said there is a moral argument for supporting lifesaving treatment for people at risk for or living with HIV/Aids, regardless of their personal choices.

We would like to hear about what you love about the great outdoors

As summer comes and our gardens, parks and woodlands burst into life, many of us are heading outdoors.

Scientific evidence shows how vitally important greenery and the natural world are for our mental and physical wellbeing.

Wherever you’re planning to watch the matches – we’d like to hear from you

The men’s World Cup in the US, Mexico and Canada is nearly upon us, kicking off on 11 June.

Amid the excitement around the tournament, there has been controversy over Fifa’s ticketing process, the cost of travel, and security concerns for fans travelling to the US.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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