You don’t need a yard or balcony to get going. We asked experts for their advice on how to grow your food

Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in cities my whole life, but I can’t think of anything more luxurious than popping out to your garden and eating a fresh tomato straight from the vine. How decadent to enjoy its crisp, bright flavor and the smug satisfaction that you coaxed this food into being with your own hands.

But what does becoming a modern-day Demeter actually entail? What if you don’t have a yard, or even a balcony? And is it worth growing your own food when supermarkets exist?

Farage and sidekick are still sore about how the Tories handled Brexit, although new mates Braverman and Jenrick are forgiven

The Reform UK press conference began a little behind schedule. Time in which Nigel Farage had gathered Zia Yusuf and a few others into a circle for a two-minute silence. A moment to reflect on the sad news from Hungary that Viktor Orbán’s 16 years as prime minister had come to a premature end. Orbán had had so much more to give the world. There would be no one left in the EU to block the €90bn loan to Ukraine. Will there be no one to think of Russia’s brave struggles against the west? It was a tragedy. The end of an era. Nige would now have to go it alone.

There’s a law of diminishing returns to these Reform press conferences. We now get two or three of them a week, each one promising to be of national importance. The reality is that they are no more than a chance for Farage to indulge his narcissism and get himself on camera once more. It’s the only time he feels truly alive. But the audiences are dwindling. They are no longer “must-screen” events for the main news channels. Reform’s idea of importance is the broadcasters’ idea of eminently missable. You can see the desperation in Nige’s eyes. He is in danger of becoming last year’s news.

The latest in our ongoing series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort watches is a journey back to 2004 and the unusually violent village of Sandford

With the endless library of films we all have at our fingertips, in our DVD collections and on whatever the cloud is, finding your top feelgood movie can be a deceptively hard task. Though it seems obvious now, mine was so familiar to me that somehow it managed to hide in plain sight. Eventually, I had to ask my partner what she thought my comfort movie was. She answered decisively: Hot Fuzz. And she’s absolutely right. How could it not be?

Hot Fuzz is Edgar Wright’s second entry in his Cornetto trilogy, preceded by the cult classic Shaun of the Dead and followed by pub crawl alien invasion adventure The World’s End. I’m not convinced Hot Fuzz is Wright’s best film – it’s not even my favourite. But as far as feelgood movies go, it’s unbeatable.

The looming shortage of medicines and fertiliser is only going to get worse with the latest US blockade. Europe and the UK need to step up diplomatically

Not our war, not our problem.

For weeks now, that has been Europe’s increasingly confident position on the conflict in Iran: that it didn’t ask for this ill-judged fight, can hardly be expected to join in when it has no idea what war crimes Donald Trump might be contemplating next, and certainly isn’t obliged to extricate him from his own wilfully deep hole. For Keir Starmer in particular, staying out of the war and letting slip his exasperation has been that rarest of prizes: a chance to do what the Labour party desperately wants to do, but which also happens to be both the right thing and the popular one. However, the trouble with “not our war, not our problem” is that, as of this weekend, only half of it remains true.

Guardian photographer David Levene was at the Royal Albert Hall to photograph the stars and the special performances at London’s biggest night of theatre

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The raspberry danish latte is making its way around the world after its inventors decided to share the recipe

• Give banana coffee a chance. How to make the viral (and delicious) Korean treat

A viral coffee drink created by a little college town coffee shop on the outskirts of Minneapolis is now making its way around the world after its inventors decided to give the recipe away for free.

After Little Joy Coffee’s raspberry danish latte, a spring seasonal drink, went viral in March, the shop’s owners decided to encourage coffee shops to rip off the recipe directly and add it to their menus.

Official report says system ‘completely failed’ because some form of violence by Axel Rudakubana had been ‘unambiguously signposted over many years’

• No joined-up approach, role of autism and parental failings: key points from Southport inquiry

Axel Rudakubana was able to carry out the Southport atrocity because of “catastrophic” failures by multiple agencies and the “irresponsible and harmful” role of his parents, a damning inquiry has found.

Sir Adrian Fulford condemned the “inappropriate merry-go-round” of state bodies passing the buck and their “frankly depressing” refusal to accept responsibility, saying: “This culture has to end.”

Iran warns Americans they face higher pump prices due to prohibition imposed on Monday evening

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf has come into effect, turning the six-week-old conflict between the US-Israeli coalition and Iran into a test of economic endurance.

US Central Command (Centcom) made no formal announcement of the start of the blockade but had said it begin on Monday at 5.30pm Iranian time and would apply to any ships entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, while ships using non-Iranian ports would not be impeded.

George Robertson says Iran war should be wake-up call to address military underfunding in scathing remarks

The British government has shown a “corrosive complacency towards defence” and put the UK “in peril”, according to a government adviser, in fierce criticisms of Keir Starmer’s military policy.

The former Nato secretary general and author of the government’s strategic defence review, George Robertson, believes Starmer was “not willing to make the necessary investment”, the Financial Times has reported.

Chief inspector for England and Wales says prison remains in ‘precarious state’ more than year after urgent notification

The Prison Service has made “very little progress” in enforcing a formal demand to stop drones from delivering drugs into one of its worst performing jails, a watchdog has concluded.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons for England and Wales, said HMP Manchester remained in a “precarious state” after a failure to fix broken windows and install security to stop contraband being delivered to gangs.

The US president’s conservative, Christian supporters decried the Truth Social post, calling it ‘disgusting’

Less than a year after signing legislation that will pull nearly 12 million Americans off health insurance by gutting Medicaid, Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself to Truth Social on Sunday depicting him as a Jesus-like figure, with divine light emanating from his hands as he heals a stricken man in a hospital bed with a demon from hell floating in the background.

The president has since deleted the post, which also followed a lengthy tirade about Pope Leo XIV on the site the same day in which he called him “weak on crime” and blamed the head of the Catholic church for being influenced by Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod. Trump refused to apologize to the pope, saying: “He went public. I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”

Carney’s Liberals will now be able to pass legislation without the support of opposition parties – and govern until 2029

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney has secured a parliamentary majority for his Liberal government, CBC News reported. The victory will help him push through a legislative agenda he says is needed for an increasingly divided geopolitical world.

Three special elections were held on Monday in Ontario and Quebec, with two in districts – known as ridings – that have long voted Liberal.

MASLD affects one in six people now and is projected to rise because of population growth, obesity and high blood sugar

Metabolic liver disease will affect 1.8 billion people worldwide by 2050, driven by rising obesity and blood sugar levels, a study suggests.

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), previously known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), is one of the most prevalent and rapidly growing liver conditions globally, according to the research.

Incentives to absorb surplus wind and solar energy could help balance the grid and lower bills

• The UK needs more North Sea gas, not greater reliance on US imports | Nils Pratley

Households will be called on to boost their consumption of Great Britain’s record renewable energy this summer to help balance the power grid and lower energy bills.

Under the new plans, people could be encouraged to run dishwashers and washing machines or charge up their electric vehicles when there is more wind and solar power than the electricity grid needs.

Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Queen Latifah and Joy Division/New Order will also be inducted, along with the late Luther Vandross

Phil Collins, Iron Maiden, Billy Idol, Queen Latifah, Oasis, Sade and Joy Division/New Order will be inducted into the Rock + Roll Hall of Fame, along with first-time nominees Wu-Tang Clan and the late Luther Vandross.

The list was revealed on Monday night in the US, during an airing of American Idol. To be eligible, artists must have released their first commercial recording at least 25 years prior. Nominees were voted on by more than 1,200 artists, historians and music industry professionals.

After fighting erupted once again between Hezbollah and Israel last month after the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Israel launched a bombing campaign and ground invasion of southern Lebanon, displacing more than 1.2 million people and killing more than 2,000. Israel says it will occupy swathes of southern Lebanon and that homes near its so-called buffer zone will be destroyed ‘in accordance with the Rafah and Beit Hanoun model in Gaza’, prompting fears of long-term displacement. The Israeli military has said it is targeting Hezbollah infrastructure such as tunnels and military facilities, which it claims the armed group has embedded in civilian homes. Ghia Hajo, who was displaced from her home near Tyre on 2 March alongside her family, does not know when she will be able to return home. Will Christou, who reports from Lebanon for the Guardian, asks what the future might look like for the country and people like Ghia

Orbán is out in Hungary and talks have failed to end the war in Iran – ill-fated road trip has been setback for Maga aims

Shortly before JD Vance’s ill-fated week crisscrossing the world, Donald Trump asked him during a private Easter brunch about how the Iran negotiations were shaping up. “If it doesn’t happen, I’m blaming JD Vance,” Trump said to laughs in the room. “If it does happen, I’m taking full credit.”

The joke at Vance’s expense contained an unfortunate nugget of truth: this is not an administration that rewards failure.

Transition to a cleaner future takes time and we need supplies that are the least polluting and have the lowest cost

• UK households to be urged to use more power this summer as renewables soar

Terrific news: despite turmoil in the strait of Hormuz, the UK will have sufficient supplies of gas to meet demand this summer, said National Gas, which operates the gas transmission system, on Monday.

But contain your relief. The summer months of lower usage were never likely to be a moment of stress. Gas via pipelines from the UK and Norwegian fields in the North Sea can handle virtually all UK demand when most of the 24m households with a gas connection have their heating turned off. Little liquefied natural gas, or LNG, the stuff that arrives on ships, is needed during the summer.

The scene at the food bank, recalls the director, where Katie is so hungry, she pours baked beans into her hand from a tin and eats them cold, came from a real story

In 2016, we were – as we continue to be – in a time of mean-spiritedness. If you were vulnerable or needed support, you were met with punishment, and there was a constant vilifying of people who needed help. I, Daniel Blake was based on that. It’s very much a film about the cruelty of the system that says: “Poverty is the fault of the poor. You’re not striving enough. You’re not doing enough job interviews.” Dave Johns’ character, Daniel Blake, shows us this. He needs to work, he wants to work, but the system makes it hard for people not to be tripped up.

In Artemisa, the country’s agricultural heartland, sanctions and fuel shortages have made a tough life almost impossible

Abraham Rodríguez stares at the corn furrows he must plough before the end of the day. It is not even noon in Artemisa, Cuba, but the sun beats down hard and he’s already tired: working the land is a tough job. He has done it for almost half his life, since he was 13 and his mother got a divorce. He is turning 26 this year.

Farming has always been hard, he says, but now it is almost impossible to sustain. “I make 1,200 pesos (£1.80) a day, so I have to work two days to buy a bottle of oil.”

Our tester hauled, hurdled and army-crawled his way to crowning the best carry-on luggage. Plus, Michelle Ogundehin’s shopping secrets and meal kits, tested

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Want to get fit, quick? Try testing the best cabin bags over a muddy assault course in Leeds. Seldom have I showered so gratefully or slept as soundly as I did after this product test.

The first and thorniest challenge was logistical. How would I get a selection of suitcases – the seven top performers in routine testing – from my house to the West Leeds Activity Centre, on the other side of the city?

The best spring jackets for women: 12 favourites for every forecast

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How I Shop with Michelle Ogundehin: ‘We grownups have enough stuff already’

‘A good, strong squeak’: the best supermarket halloumi, tasted and rated

The best water flossers, tested for that dentist-clean feeling

‘Fresher than anything in a shop’: the best recipe boxes and meal kits for time-poor foodies, tested

After 16 years in power in Hungary, Viktor Orbán has been defeated, marking a huge shift in the European Union. Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has defended potential legislation that will align the UK with European rules – without a vote in parliament. Plus the government confirms the UK will not support Donald Trump’s planned blockade of the strait of Hormuz, but what will it offer instead?

Guardian Live: Can Labour come back from the brink?
With a difficult set of May elections approaching, Labour under threat from the Green party and Reform UK, and Keir Starmer’s popularity in freefall, can he survive as leader of the Labour party? The Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff will chair our panel of Guardian columnists including Polly Toynbee, Rafael Behr and Zoe Williams.

Just when parents thought they could decode teenage text speak, a new list comes along that raises more questions than answers

Name: Confusing text abbreviations.

Age: As old as texts themselves.

After her death aged 92, we look back on the vast and varied catalogue of one of India’s greatest vocalists, who brought actorly skill to her Bollywood playback performances

• Indian music legend Asha Bhosle dies aged 92

With more than 12,000 songs to her name, Indian playback singer Asha Bhosle is one of the most recorded and well-known voices in Bollywood cinema. Born into a musical family, with her father Deenanath Mangeshkar working as a singer for regional Marathi theatre and film throughout the 1920s and 30s and her older sister Lata Mangeshkar becoming a Bollywood playback singer in her own right, Bhosle entered the industry at just 10 years old with this debut performance in the Marathi film Maze Baal. Duetting with Lata, Bhosle’s melismatic falsetto in the song gives voice to the playful innocence of the film’s central love-child. Keening and crystal-clear, her vocal immediately cuts through the rollicking instrumental and already displays the yearning emotion that would become her signature as her voice matured.

Hungary’s return to democracy will be hard. But the impact of Péter Magyar’s decisive victory could be profound, inside the country and beyond

As Trump depicts himself as Jesus Christ, and insults everyone from Keir Starmer to the pope, how can the king hope to keep this state visit on track?

The most awkward thing to happen when King Charles visited President Nixon as a young man – it was 1970, the then prince was 21 – was that officials kept wheeling out Nixon’s daughter, Tricia, to stand next to him at events. Since they were both single, on paper anyway (this was the same year Charles met Camilla), the optics were a little primitive. Here, you’re a young man; how about this young woman as a token of our esteem? I wasn’t alive, but if I know my mother, at least somewhere on Earth, someone was saying: “Tricia is a person, she’s not chattel.”

Visiting Ronald Reagan 11 years later, Charles was unaccountably handed a cup of tea with the bag still in it, and didn’t know where to put himself. Or the tea. Reagan was mortified, and still talking about it years later. You could split hairs about who was more at fault here: the tea-bringer or Charles himself, who met the occasion by merely staring at the tea. It would have been more courteous, surely, to fish out the teabag and drink it. Possibly, no one gave him a spoon; maybe they thought he always travelled with one, in his mouth.

I met the mother of my children on Twitter – and made lasting friendships. But now social media isn’t so social

I used to post an awful lot on Twitter. I couldn’t tell you how many times a day exactly – but after discovering the platform in late 2010, I became intoxicated by the feeling that I was able to participate in a sort of global conversation. Here, I felt, was a platform that anyone could join, and on which anyone could be listened to. Twitter seemed to connect people: commentators spoke in enthused terms about the role Twitter played in the Occupy movement; the student fees protests; the Arab spring.

I posted, I made friends, I met people, I talked to people who I would never have been able to connect with otherwise. The relationships I made on Twitter shaped my values, my politics, my life. The “weird Twitter” style of humour gave me a fair few phrases that will never stop rattling around my brain: every time I walk into a pharmacy, I think about buying some ear medication for my sick uncle “who’s a model by the way”. Whenever I read something about Watergate, I imagine Richard Nixon condemning the movie Fantastic Mr Fox on the basis that its lead character wears “a [expletive] corduroy suit”.

Tom Whyman is an academic philosopher and a writer

The military approach has backfired, with Iran’s position only strengthened. But the door is still open to a deal

Donald Trump was quick to declare victory over Iran, but this weekend’s negotiations suggest that Tehran has the upper hand. His war of choice has backfired. His military solution has emboldened rather than weakened Iran. Diplomacy is his only reasonable option.

Trump may have hoped that the marathon 16-hour talks in Pakistan would extract him from his self-created quagmire, but the issues that have long divided Washington and Tehran are complex. When it turned out that Iran wanted to negotiate rather than capitulate, JD Vance, who led the US diplomatic team, packed his bags and went home.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs, and former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

The concept is about much more than acquiring territory, it is also about Netanyahu’s desire for Israel to become a regional superpower

• Daniel Levy served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo II talks and is president of the US/Middle East project

Much remains unclear about the significance and durability of the two-week pause in the US and Israel’s war on Iran. But one aspect of the conflict remains as clear today as it was six weeks ago. Donald Trump doesn’t have a plan. Benjamin Netanyahu does.

Israel’s war aims were to maximally degrade the capacity of the Iranian state, achieving not so much regime change as state implosion. Despite the ceasefire, Netanyahu has emphasised that this is “not the end of the campaign” and that Israel’s “finger is on the trigger” to resume combat. A seasoned strategist, he has spent the second Trump administration seizing the opportunity of geopolitical fluidity to reach for his end goal: a Greater Israel.

Daniel Levy is a political commentator and the president of the US/Middle East Project. He served as an Israeli peace negotiator at the Oslo II talks

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.

We were told we couldn’t take a joke, and that social media isn’t real life. Now the misogyny of early chatrooms and Gamergate has reached the White House

Why has it taken so long for us to treat misogyny as a political problem? The modern manosphere has been metastasising for many years – and for years, mainstream culture has responded with a helpless shrug. There was nothing unusual about men hurting women, even if the technology was new.

In the early aughts, angry and alienated men began indulging in recreational misogyny online, bombarding women and girls in the public eye with threats, insults, harassment, hacking, and hideous “revenge porn”. Strange as it may now sound, though, “the internet” was still seen as separate from “real life”.

Laurie Penny is a journalist, author and screenwriter. They write the substack Force of Culture

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 finding that these murders could have been prevented is devastating for all those involved

The fatal stabbings that turned a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, Merseyside, into a nightmare on 29 July 2024 would never have happened if public bodies had done their jobs properly. Sir Adrian Fulford’s conclusion, at the end of phase one of the inquiry into the murders, was blunt. The deaths of Bebe King, six, Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, and injuries to 10 other people, were the result of grave failures by police and council officers, health professionals and the anti‑terrorism Prevent programme. The multi-agency systems that are meant to link them together turned out to have deadly flaws.

Sir Adrian prefaced his findings by stating that the responsibility of the perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, is “absolute”. He also attached significant blame to Rudakubana’s parents, who knew about the 17-year-old’s stockpile of weapons. They ought to have alerted police, above all in the week leading up to the attack, when his father managed to prevent him from taking a taxi to his former school to carry out a violent attack.

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 defeat of Orbánism is a globally significant political moment. But it is, above all, a triumph for the citizens who mobilised to take their country back

Prior to his landslide election victory in 2010, which was to lead to 16 unbroken years in power, Viktor Orbán would tell supporters: “We have only to win once, but then properly.” Achieving a so-called supermajority by winning two-thirds of parliamentary seats allowed Mr Orbán to change the constitution, and begin turning Hungary into a soft autocracy. From the judiciary to the media and universities, the checks and balances of a democratic society were steadily dismantled and minorities were marginalised, as the country became a beacon for the global far right and a nationalist thorn in the side of Brussels.

On Sunday, stunningly, it was Mr Orbán’s centre-right challenger, Péter Magyar, who “won properly”. After a record turnout, his Tisza party is all but certain to win its own supermajority. Given Mr Orbán’s control of state media and gerrymandering of constituencies to favour his Fidesz party, this was a truly remarkable result.

Terence Kealey and Prof Amanda Broderick on financial pressures and philanthropy

Your editorial on fixing the universities’ problems notes that a handful of elite institutions rake in most of the philanthropic donations (The Guardian view on Cambridge’s £190m gift: billionaires won’t fix universities’ problems, 6 April). You imply a Matthew effect: “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance” (Matthew 25:29).

Yet perhaps we’re actually seeing a governance effect, as there is a small number of universities that are not governed conventionally by councils of lay, external, non-executive trustees. This handful includes Oxford and Cambridge. These institutions are governed unconventionally by their staff and alumni, and they are disproportionately successful at fundraising.

Responding to an article by Adrian Chiles, readers remember their own favourite discontinued products

How lucky for Adrian Chiles that he didn’t live in the German Democratic Republic (Rose’s Lime Marmalade? Gone. Dark chocolate Bounty? No more. But what about their heartbroken fans?, 8 April). After reunification, there were street markets selling the last of products from the old days, and there was an exhibition in a national museum – memorably called “They’ve even taken our tomato ketchup” – lamenting the loss of many food products and other features of former times, such as children’s TV programmes.
Derek Janes
Duns, Scottish Borders

• Can Adrian Chiles tell me where to find Halls’ chocolate sour lemons? Maybe they stopped being made because they turned your tongue black, but they tasted great. And you had a black tongue to stick out at your friends. And, no, chocolate limes aren’t a substitute.
Roy Kettle
Hitchin, Hertfordshire

Peregrine Rand reflects on Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat and the future threat of artificial intelligence

Emma Brockes’ article struck a chord (It’s finally happened: I’m now worried about AI. And consulting ChatGPT did nothing to allay my fears, 8 April). I am reading Marc Bloch’s Strange Defeat, in which the eminent French historian and soon-to-be-executed resistance worker gives a first-hand account of the collapse of the French army in 1940. He attributes the debacle at least in part to a failure of imagination on the part of the French general staff, who were incapable of grasping that technology, and war, had fundamentally changed since 1918.

Brockes’ article suggests that we, and our leaders, are suffering from the same inability to understand that a technology which is currently amusingly alarming will develop in less amusing ways – the future Marshal Ferdinand Foch had, according to Bloch, earlier dismissed aircraft as being a toy for hobbyists and not of any military interest.

Richard Eltringham on the housing crisis not being addressed, and Ryan McKiernan on the need for sustained investment in social housing

Your report on homelessness among over‑55s reflects a crisis already hitting those of us just behind them (‘People are so judgmental’: the growing cohort of over-55s facing homelessness, 8 April). I am approaching 50 and living in my best friend’s spare room – not through mismanagement, but because the housing system has stopped producing homes people can actually afford.

Yet we continue to build four‑bedroom detached houses on car‑dependent estates, far from services and transport. These developments do nothing for those facing rising rents, insecure tenancies and shrinking options.

Chants of “Daniel Farke, Daniel Farke” rang out from the travelling faithful after this seismic Leeds win lifted them six points clear of Tottenham, whose plight darkens further after the visitors pulled off a first league win at Old Trafford since February 1981.

It means Michael Carrick has lost a home game for the first time as Manchester United’s interim manager. His team lacked control throughout, a state not aided by Lisandro Martínez’s silly 56th-minute red card for yanking Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s ponytail, and he is now suspended for three matches, though the club may appeal.

• Northern Irishman praises ‘good blueprint’ from Nicklaus

• Scottie Scheffler ‘surprised’ by conditions on Friday

Rory McIlroy has explained how weeks of preparation at “home course” Augusta National after advice from Jack Nicklaus played a substantial role in his successful ­Masters defence.

Rather than play in PGA Tour events in the lead up to the Masters and despite a back injury causing him competitive disruption, McIlroy spent considerable time at Augusta in the lead-up to the Masters. On one occasion, it is understood he played the front nine in 29 when playing with a single ball.

• Slot: ‘There is a belief we can do special things’

• Luis Enrique tells his players to beware ‘pitfalls’

Arne Slot has said Liverpool do not face an impossible task against Paris Saint-Germain but must produce the perfect performance to overcome the European champions in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

Liverpool require another stirring Anfield comeback in Tuesday’s second leg to salvage their hopes of silverware having lost 2-0 at Parc des Princes last week. PSG were vastly superior in the first leg and should have won more comfortably, although their head coach, Luis Enrique, described such talk as “a trap” and claimed there will be “pitfalls” for his team at Anfield.

Reigning champions have a new coach and some new faces when they face the Lionesses in Women’s World Cup qualifier

Eight-and-a-half months after they locked horns in the final of Euro 2025, England and Spain meet again on Tuesday night in front of more than 70,000 at Wembley. This time it is in qualifiers for the Women’s World Cup, another tournament in which they met in the final last time out.

Despite the relatively brief period since the game in Basel, Spain have a noticeably fresh look with a new head coach and a crop of emerging young players. They have already won a trophy under Sonia Bermúdez, who led them to the Nations League title after replacing Montse Tomé, and, unlike England, are unbeaten since the Euros with five wins and a draw in six matches.

• Restrictions have been in place since 2022 invasion

• Ukrainian athlete says move will spread propaganda

Swimming has agreed to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete without restrictions under their own flag and anthem for the first time since 2022, prompting joy in Russia and outrage in Ukraine.

The decision by World Aquatics, which also oversees diving and water polo, adds further momentum to Russia’s bid to be allowed back for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 following judo’s decision to do the same last year.

• Series defeat in Australia ‘a chance so blithely spurned’

• Indian dominance and Starc’s sacrifice recognised

The latest edition of Wisden is ­unsparing in its criticism of England’s Test team, describing their Ashes defeat in Australia as a “wing-and-a-prayer” campaign that ended up “feckless, reckless and legless”.

Published this Thursday, the sport’s longstanding bible has a strong Indian flavour to its awards. Haseeb Hameed, captain of title-winning Nottinghamshire, is the sole Englishman among the five ­players of the year, with Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, Ravindra Jadeja and ­Mohammed Siraj recognised for their roles in last year’s memorable 2-2 Test series draw in England.

• Noyes ‘deeply concerned over a lack of transparency’

• Unexpected intervention echoes pressure on government

Dr James Noyes, one of the key early advocates of affordability checks for online gamblers, has joined calls for Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, to instruct the Gambling Commission to pause the implementation of checks “until there has been adequate evaluation and scrutiny” of a pilot scheme to assess how checks might work in practice.

Noyes’s intervention in the long-running debate over affordability checks comes in an open letter sent to Nandy on Monday. It echoes similar calls for a halt to the process by many senior figures in the racing industry, which fears a disproportionate effect on racing bettors with the potential to cost the industry tens of millions of pounds in income if punters refuse to supply financial information to gambling operators and switch to the black market instead.

• Defender thought to have medial knee ligament damage

• Argentine may still recover in time for World Cup

Tottenham’s deepening relegation concerns appear to have been heightened by the loss of their captain, Cristian Romero, for the remainder of the season.

Romero was reduced to tears as he left the pitch after 70 minutes of Sunday’s 1-0 loss at Sunderland, following a coming together with the striker Brian Brobbey that led to the Argentinian clattering into his own goalkeeper, Antonin Kinsky. Romero, it is believed, has sustained medial knee ligament damage that will take around eight weeks to heal.

Marie-Louise Eta has been tasked with saving Union Berlin from Bundesliga relegation in a groundbreaking appointment

For Marie-Louise Eta, it may feel like another day at the office. The wider significance will be greater, though, when she oversees Union Berlin in their crunch Bundesliga match against Wolfsburg this weekend. History will be made and another barrier broken: it will be the first time a woman appointed as head coach of a men’s team has taken charge of a fixture in one of Europe’s top five leagues.

Eta was given the reins on an interim basis after Steffen Baumgart, her predecessor, was sacked on Saturday. Union had just lost 3-1 to bottom-placed Heidenheim and, with five games left, could not be sure of a late-season dalliance with the drop zone. They are seven points clear of the relegation playoff spot but a run of two wins from 14 games has equated to freefall. Union needed the best person to arrest it, some form of continuity was key, so the 34-year-old Eta, a richly exciting prospect, was an obvious choice.

Prime minister-elect promises ‘new era’ for country after defeating far-right Viktor Orbán

Hungary’s prime minister-elect, Péter Magyar, has pledged to pursue those who “plundered, looted, betrayed, indebted and ruined” his country, promising “a new era” after a landslide election victory over his far-right predecessor Viktor Orbán.

Magyar, whose centre-right Tisza party won at least 138 of the 199 seats in parliament, said the full election results should be confirmed by 4 May and he hoped his government could be installed the next day.

Incident took place on first day back at school in small village, as settlers blocked pupils’ access

Israeli forces have fired teargas at Palestinian schoolchildren who were staging a sit-in in the occupied West Bank after settlers blocked access to their school.

The Israeli military said it had dispersed an “unusual gathering”, but did not specify whether its troops had fired teargas at the children on the first day of class since the start of the Iran war.

Stephen Doughty says US withdrawal of support means bill cannot complete passage through parliament

A treaty over ceding sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius has become “impossible to agree at political level” and the corresponding bill will not complete its passage through parliament, a Foreign Office minister has said.

Stephen Doughty told the Commons that the agreement with Mauritius was initially negotiated in close coordination with the US, but Donald Trump’s position “appears to have changed”.

Review of original train order is meant to prevent service problems north of Birmingham but it may do the opposite

Plans to change the size of HS2 trains to maximise capacity are likely to inflate costs and mean fewer seats and slower services north of Birmingham, a senior government and rail industry figure has warned.

The £2bn order for 54 high-speed trains, to be built in Britain by a joint venture of Alstom and Hitachi, is under review as HS2 Ltd seeks to cut costs and renegotiate contracts.

Alexandre Ramagem fled country after he was sentenced to 16 years for his role in plotting military coup in Brazil

When Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to nearly 30 years in prison for an attempted coup, six other members of his cabinet were also found guilty and all began serving their sentences – except for one.

Days before the verdict, Alexandre Ramagem, Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, fled by car to Guyana and boarded a flight to the United States, where he has remained ever since.

Dozens of feral pachyderms linked to drug kingpin to be killed because of threat to native species and villagers

Colombian officials have authorized a plan to cull dozens of hippos descended from animals brought to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, after the feral beasts displaced native species and threatened local villagers.

The environment minister, Irene Vélez, said the decision was reached because other methods to control their population had been expensive and unsuccessful, including neutering some of the animals or moving them to zoos. Vélez said that up to 80 hippos would be affected by the measure. She did not say when the hunting would begin.

Developing countries face possible shelving of crucial green action plan at IMF and World Bank spring meetings

Governments desperate for cash to protect their citizens from the growing impacts of the climate crisis are being put in a “beyond absurd” situation this week at global finance talks: they are being urged not to mention the climate, even as they address the current oil crisis.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group (WBG) spring meetings take place this week amid a fragile ceasefire in Iran and upended geopolitics. One of the priorities was to forge a new “climate change action plan” (CCAP) for the world’s biggest provider of funds to developing countries, to replace the current strategy, which expires in June.

Experts say climate pattern could supercharge extreme weather events and push temperatures to record highs

There is a high likelihood that the phenomenon known as “El Niño” will emerge this summer – and it could be exceptionally strong. A so-called “super El Niño” could supercharge extreme weather events and push global temperatures to record heights next year if it develops, according to experts.

Meteorologists are keeping a close eye on the climate patterns developing in the Pacific Ocean that will enable stronger predictions about what’s to come in the year ahead.

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

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

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

Galleries, theatres, museums and libraries to benefit from largest cash injection into the arts for a decade

More than 100 cultural venues, museums, and libraries will share £130m extra funding as part of the largest cash injection into the arts for a decade, ministers have announced.

The investment forms part of the Arts Everywhere Fund, a £1.5bn package to support cultural infrastructure projects over the course of this parliament, which was announced by the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, earlier this year. The fund aims to save more than 1,000 arts venues, museums, libraries and heritage buildings across England.

Exclusive: Analysis of government figures indicates public finances will gain £600m not £10bn if migrants’ access to benefits is reduced

Shabana Mahmood’s migration changes are expected to save just £600m – about 6% of the £10bn the home secretary claimed, according to the government’s own data.

Under the plans, most people would have to wait 10 years to qualify for settled status, rather than the existing five-year period, which the home secretary argued would save costs on public services.

Exclusive: Pre-chemotherapy tests previously did not look for gene variant that put some ethnicities at higher risk of serious side effects

Thousands of cancer patients from minority ethnic backgrounds will have access to “groundbreaking” genetic testing on the NHS that previously discriminated against them.

This routine form of genetic testing, used before chemotherapy treatment, could save the lives of Black and minority ethnic cancer patients who already face poorer health outcomes after diagnosis compared with their white counterparts.

Geoffrey Robertson says proposals to reduce backlog are betrayal of party’s values and a ‘cure worse than the disease’

The founder of Keir Starmer’s barristers’ chambers has condemned the planned restriction of jury trials in England and Wales as “a betrayal of the values for which Labour purports to stand”.

Geoffrey Robertson KC, founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, where the attorney general, Richard Hermer KC, and the justice secretary, David Lammy, also had their professional homes, has written a more than 9,000-word polemic to coincide with the committee stage of the courts and tribunals bill.

Lack of ballot papers and defective computers disrupt election that Keiko Fujimori appears to be leading

Peruvians will have to wait at least until the end of Monday to know the result of the presidential election held on Sunday, after the voting process descended into chaos in some polling stations due to a lack of ballot papers or defective computers.

In an unprecedented move, Peru’s electoral agency ONPE announced on Sunday night that it would extend voting for an extra day to allow tens of thousands of Peruvians in the country and abroad, who had been unable to vote, to cast their ballots.

Decision comes after House ethics committee announced it had opened an investigation into congressman

Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat from California, said on Monday he would resign from Congress following multiple allegations of sexual assault and misconduct that ended his bid for governor.

Swalwell was a facing a growing chorus of bipartisan calls for him to step down or face an expulsion vote, a day after he announced that he would suspend his campaign for governor of California.

Participants reported enjoying the human connection regardless of whether they thought the topic was dull

The human aversion to dull experiences was nailed by the author Paulo Coelho when he declared: “I can stand defeats, pain, anger. But I can’t stand boredom.”

But the natural desire to avoid boring conversations comes at a cost, according to researchers, who found that people enjoyed chatting about tedious topics far more than they expected.

Judge rules complaint fails to outline malice after Trump argued lewd drawing allegedly sent to Epstein at heart of story was fake

A Florida judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed last summer by Donald Trump over a Wall Street Journal report that he had sent a “bawdy” letter to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in 2003, though the judge has given the US president two weeks to refile the case.

Trump, who has had a habit of suing media companies inside and outside the White House, had argued that a lewd drawing at the heart of the story was fake. The lawsuit was especially notable because one of the defendants was Rupert Murdoch, one of Trump’s top media allies, whose News Corporation media empire owns the Journal.

Digital clone being trained on his thoughts, tone and mannerisms to help workers feel connected

If you are one of Meta’s almost 79,000 employees and cannot get hold of the boss, do not worry. The owner of Facebook and Instagram is reportedly working on an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg who can answer all your queries.

The AI clone of Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder and chief executive, is being trained on his mannerisms and tone as well as his public statements and thoughts on company strategy.

US bank has the Claude model and is working closely with the tech firm to improve cyber protection

Goldman Sachs’s chief executive, David Solomon, has said he is “hyper-aware” of the capabilities of Anthropic’s Mythos AI model and is working “closely” with the tech firm after it issued warnings about the cybersecurity risk it poses.

The US bank had been monitoring the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, including large language models (LLMs), as part of wider efforts to protect itself from hackers.

Resolution Foundation backs plan to offset rising costs from Iran war likely to leave households £480 poorer

The former Conservative chancellor Jeremy Hunt has proposed a “social tariff” to help Britons cope with rising energy costs amid the Iran war, as a thinktank calculated that households will be nearly £500 worse off this year.

The Resolution Foundation said households faced rising costs from higher gas and electricity bills and at the petrol pump. The thinktank urged ministers to accelerate work on a social tariff before winter, when energy costs will hit hardest, to offer targeted support to lower-income households. It has estimated the cost at £3.7bn.

Engine-maker CEO hails ‘critical milestone’ for company in race to deliver SMR technology built at Wylfa plant on Anglesey

Rolls-Royce has secured up to £599m from Britain’s national wealth fund as it races to develop the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors.

The fund will help support Rolls-Royce’s design of small modular reactors (SMRs) at Wylfa on the island of Anglesey (called Ynys Môn in Welsh).

For its inaugural show, the V&A’s east London outpost is celebrating 125 years of Black music-making in Britain. We asked top performers to pick their favourite exhibit

Goldie: Kemistry and Storm (The Diptych) by Eddie Otchere (1995)

What a relief that this is the end for Sam Levison’s grim drama. A show which was once blackly funny is now humourless torture porn

To say that season three of Euphoria is long-awaited would be something of an understatement. HBO’s high school drama debuted in 2019, when it garnered a fanfare of attention with its heady mix of grinding trauma, heavenly eyeshadows and cheap/daring (delete as appropriate) feats, including a locker room scene starring 30 penises. In the years since, it cemented itself as a show with much to say about gen Z’s relationship to sex, drugs and mental health, and pushed Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney and former Disney teenybopper Zendaya to the A-list. It has also released a mere 18 episodes in that time, a victim of everything from the Covid pandemic to the Los Angeles fires. Like a new Rihanna album, Euphoria season three has – in time – become shorthand for a pop culture mirage that would maybe, possibly arrive sometime before 2030. At least, we hoped, before most of the cast were in their 30s.

Excitement, too, has waned over time. Rumours of rifts between the cast and creator Sam Levinson have only grown since its return was confirmed last autumn, and the press tour that followed has had a distinct flavour of “contractual obligation” about it (social media posts from the cast were few and far between, while Zendaya, in an interview with Variety, ambiguously described filming as a “whirlwind”). It brings me no pleasure, then, to report that, based on the three episodes released for review, Euphoria’s third (and probably final) run was absolutely not worth the wait. It’s a grubby, humourless work of torture porn that’s obsessed with and repulsed by sex work.

This schmaltzy film about a choir of inmates might make you cry – but in exasperation, frustration and disbelief rather than heartfelt emotion

Everyone involved with this feelgood/feelbad prison musical/weepie, and Taiwan’s biggest local box office hit ever, should be put on immediate cinematic probation and banned from film-making until it’s clear they are no longer a danger to the public. Starting out as merely heavy schmaltz, it resorts to increasingly manipulative tactics to wring out every drop of available emotion from the audience, like some merciless warden during exercise hour. There’s so much theatrical crying in the final stages that the inmates could have floated over the prison walls on the rising tide of their own tears.

In a story adapted from 2010 Korean film Harmony, Hui-Zhen (Ivy Chen) has to raise her infant daughter Yun-shi behind bars after murdering her abusive husband. Either this is movie jail or Taiwanese correction facilities are ridiculously plush, as her cell comes with soft-play fittings and supportive cellmates, including former stage diva Yu-ying (veteran singer Judy Ongg, who appeared in Peter Greenaway’s The Pillow Book). Already under pressure from hardass warden Chief Fang (Miao Ke-li) to give up Yun-shi for adoption, Hui-Zhen’s hand is forced when the youngster develops a vision-threatening cataract she can’t afford to treat.

This darkly comic drama tracks one man’s post-breakup spiral, as memory and desire blur in a stylised, emotionally candid exploration of identity and intimacy

Do you believe in life after love? So goes Cher’s dance anthem, and it’s the eternal quandary also probed by Neil Ely and Lloyd Eyre-Morgan’s funny yet touching drama. As well as writing and co-directing, Eyre-Morgan stars as Benji, a thirtysomething lonely heart yearning for genuine connection, only to be let down by a string of bad boyfriends. After his recent breakup with Jake (David Tag), a hunky personal trainer with a closeted double life, Benji descends into a whirl of drinking, drugs and casual hookups – cheap highs to numb the pain. A weekend getaway to Amsterdam – the city where he and Jake went during their clandestine relationship – further opens old wounds.

Though grappling with heavy issues such as body image, family rejection and toxic masculinity, Departures never veers into maudlin sentimentality, favouring instead dark comedy and a poppy visual style. Through dynamic elliptical editing, Benji’s self-destructive spiral and his memories with Jake blur into a nonlinear narrative that echoes the mind-shattering effects of a broken heart. Eyre-Morgan’s strong chemistry with Tag ballasts the lead role, and much of the film is driven by Benji’s internal monologue, delivered with self-deprecating humour and raw honesty.

How to Fail’s Elizabeth Day and historian Dan Jones dissect the mistakes of Richard VIII and Anne Boleyn. Plus, Kylie Jenner lets her guard down to Kid Cudi

How to Fail’s Elizabeth Day teams up with historian Dan Jones for this new series about screw-ups from times gone by. Fast forward through the university reunion (they were at Cambridge together) and it quickly gets entertaining. Their first episode challenges Shakespeare’s vision of a villainous Richard III, while a future episode will consider the “Ross and Rachel of early modern history”, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Hannah J Davies
Widely available, episodes weekly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A reincarnation mystery drives this exploration of spiritual interconnectedness in a globalised world

What happens when a novelist cares more about their plot, or their message, than their prose? Plot and message have this much in common: they travel smoothest on the lubricating oil of cliche. Thus you might find yourself enjoying, at the level of story or argument, a novel that trundles along via lumps of workhorse novelese like the following: “manicured gardens”, “apple of their father’s eye”, “venerable patriarch”, “Little did I know then”, “keeping a weather eye”, “money was tight”, “Barely had the words left her mouth”, “engulfed by civil strife”, “I was taken aback”, “a piercing cry”, “an ear-splitting cacophony”, “a lick of paint”, “It was a marvel to behold”, “It was as though she were a woman possessed”, “The ceremonies went off without a hitch”, “She and I were polar opposites” …

This is, for much of its length, the experience of reading Amitav Ghosh’s 11th novel, Ghost-Eye. The plot has been quite intricately worked out. It seeds the reader’s curiosity, especially in the first half, with all sorts of intriguing mysteries. The subject – the various collisions of global and local in the post-second world war age – is important. But much of the prose is dead on arrival. I say this with regret. Like many readers, I think of Ghosh with gratitude: not just for the narrative riches of his Ibis trilogy (Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke and Flood of Fire), but for the work of intellectual framing he performed in his 2016 polemic The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. Ghosh is at least partly responsible for the arrival of the climate emergency as an urgent subject in literary fiction over the last decade. He woke us from our slumbers.

After the death of his husband, Antony Sher, the former RSC director embarks on a quest to see every First Folio

This is really two books in one. The first part consists of the diaries written by Antony Sher in the six months before his death from liver cancer in December 2021. The second, longer part is a record by his husband and partner of 35 years, Greg Doran, of an obsessive quest to see as many of the more than 200 extant copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio as possible. Taken together, the two parts amount to a very moving record of one person’s confrontation with death and of his partner’s attempt to cope with survival.

Sher, in his multiple roles as actor, artist and writer, was always a shrewd observer, and what he called The Dying Diaries show a characteristic mix of candour, resilience and wit. He doesn’t minimise the horror and writes at one point that “this cancer thing is like a bomb in our household”, which sits there unobtrusively and goes off at unexpected moments. But he also confronts it with wry humour. When he discovers that the two lesions in his liver are the size of a satsuma and a walnut, he thinks that might make a good title for his diaries. Reflecting on the fact that the last play he did, Kunene and the King by John Kani, was about an old South African Shakespearean actor dying of liver cancer, he adds: “Who says that actors don’t take their roles home with them?” And although his last days are grim, what comes across is his and Doran’s shared delight in many things, from wildlife to tapes of the US comedian Jackie Mason, and their unshakeable love for each other.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soho theatre, London
The unassuming US comedian and musician turns her journey to motherhood into a witty, bittersweet and beautifully judged show

‘I know this show can be uncomfortable,” says Riki Lindhome, sat at her keyboard after a song about pregnancy loss. But if Dead Inside is never cosy viewing, it’s funny, entertaining and emotionally involving to a high degree. Hardened viewers of trauma-comedy, a staple of fringe festivals in recent times, may feel jaded at the prospect of “a one-woman musical comedy about my fertility journey”. Their faith in the form will be wholly refreshed by this American’s beautifully judged hour, chronicling her by turns sad, amusing and gobsmacking efforts to become a mother.

Something about the modesty of the undertaking is key: few autobiographical shows feel less “me, me, me”. Lindhome signs off most of her songs with a demure “that’s it”; the production values (right down to the disembodied hand sticking out of the wings to operate a bubble machine) are unassuming. Our host would, let’s face it, prefer not to be telling this story about frozen embryos, failed IVF, seven surgeries in one year, untimely relationship breakups and being classified as an “undesirable candidate” to adopt a child.

Brecon Cathedral
Created in just a week with a cast of rising stars and amateur singers, Mid Wales Opera’s production – and its heart-wrenching ending – is a remarkable achievement

Mid Wales Opera undertake their OpenStages productions with a positively missionary zeal, nurturing both their local communities and up-and-coming singing talent. So full marks – if not the full five stars – to them for this staging of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, realised remarkably over a single intensive week of work. Given the way the composer tailored his 1689 opera for the ladies of Josias Priest’s boarding school in Chelsea, it was an entirely appropriate choice.

A motley crew of amateurs formed a chorus variously portraying Carthaginian courtiers, followers of a witches’ coven and sailors. Well-schooled in the characteristic physical gestures and movements, with singing similarly ranging from lusty roistering to sadly sober, they gave it their all. The greater vocal polish came from the young cast, some already launched on singing careers, all handled with the utmost care by conductor Jonathan Lyness, notably in his accompaniment to their recitatives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Empire Polo Club, Indio, California
With dazzling choreography and head-spinning set pieces, the Colombian star delivered a victorious statement of Latin pride

Late on the final night of Coachella’s first weekend, after more than a dozen songs, several glorious costume changes and some of the most luscious choreography ever seen in a headliner set, the Colombian superstar Karol G finally introduced herself in English: “I am Carolina Giraldo from Medellín, Colombia, and today, I am the first Latina woman to headline Coachella,” she said to deafening cheers from a crowd dotted with the flags of Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Colombia and other Latin nations. “I’m very happy and very proud,” she added, but “at the same time, it feels late. There has been 27 years of this festival.” Both sincere and pointed, her remarks recalled Beyoncé in 2018, thanking the festival for allowing her to be the first Black woman to headline: “Ain’t that ’bout a bitch?”

Beyoncé is quite the name to invoke – we may never again see a set as virtuosic and culturally significant as Beychella – but on Sunday night, Karol G sure made the case for her inclusion in the festival’s hall of fame. Seeming at once years in the making and effortless, her 90-minute set was, like Bad Bunny’s landmark headliner slot three years earlier, an exuberant statement of Latin pride and pan-American unity as well as the joys of absolutely lethal, ass-shaking music so relentlessly danceable I broke a sweat on the coldest night of the festival. From the minute she first appeared, luminous in a glittering gold bikini and flanked by an army of sinuous background dancers, her hip undulations visible to the naked eye from the back rows – “not even Nascar has these curves,” she boasts in saucy opener Latina Foreva – the fireworks literal and physical barely ceased. If it’s going to take 27 years, well, best throw an undeniable fiesta.

Flamengo footballer previously accused pop star’s security of aggressive behavior to his 11-year-old stepdaughter

• The Chappell Roan security incident raises a bigger question: what do celebrities owe their fans?

The Flamengo footballer Jorginho has clarified his comments on last month’s incident between his 11-year-old stepdaughter and a security guard in Brazil, calling his previous claims against Chappell Roan “a misunderstanding”.

“I made my initial statement in the heat of the moment, after hearing that my child and wife had been approached by an adult male security guard in an intimidating way,” Jorginho wrote on Instagram. “I reacted as any father would. My priority is, and always will be, protecting my family, and that is exactly what I did.”

The group named ShinyHunters have accessed a third party server and have given the company a deadline of 14 April to enter ransom negotiations

Rockstar Games, the studio behind Grand Theft Auto, has been the target of a cyberattack for the second time in three years. A hacker group called ShinyHunters said it would release data stolen from the company if ransom demands were not met.

ShinyHunters initially gave Rockstar a 14 April deadline to enter negotiations, having gained access to company servers operated by a third party.

Merger will ‘prioritise the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good’, letter states

Joaquin Phoenix, Ben Stiller, Mark Ruffalo, Yorgos Lanthimos and Kristen Stewart are among more than 1,000 film and TV industry professionals who have signed an open letter protesting against Paramount’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, the parent group that owns HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS and Food Network, as well as the Warner Bros TV and film studios.

“We are deeply concerned by indications of support for this merger that prioritise the interests of a small group of powerful stakeholders over the broader public good,” states the letter, which was published on Monday on BlocktheMerger.com.

My special skills included driving a small car filled with helium balloons, memorising children’s names – and tolerating parents’ behaviour

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From the age of 16 to 22, I was a children’s entertainer. Most often a fairy, sometimes a witch, ballerina, princess or mermaid – with conspicuous legs underneath her tail. One time, hilariously, a ladybug.

The hourly rate was excellent, the costumes were cute and the tiny customers even cuter.

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At the height of Covid, hundreds of cancer patients had mastectomies without the reconstruction that would normally accompany them. They would eventually get the surgery, they were told – but for many that promise feels more meaningless by the day

Every time she lifts her arms to get dressed or hang out her washing, Julie Ford gets a painful reminder of one of the most terrifying experiences of her life. At 7am one day in April 2021, she had gone into hospital, alone and wearing a mask, to have her right breast and lymph nodes removed in a bid to stop breast cancer from spreading. Later that day, still groggy from the anaesthetic, in pain and with surgical drains hanging from both sides of her chest, she had staggered to the door with the help of two nurses. She was eased into a friend’s car and driven home to fend for herself.

While Julie’s breast had been removed, it was not reconstructed. Usually, both procedures are carried out in the same operation. But as reconstruction using tissue from the patient’s abdomen is a complex, eight-hour procedure requiring a large surgical team, it was considered “non-essential” and paused by most NHS trusts during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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

• The best chef’s knives – tested

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

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

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

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

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

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

The little one:
Sonos Roam 2

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

• The best electric toothbrushes, tested

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

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

Best water flosser overall:
Waterpik Ultra Professional

Best budget water flosser:
Operan Cordless Oral Irrigator

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

• The best travel pillows, tested

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

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

Best cabin bag overall:
July Carry On luggage

Best budget cabin bag:
Tripp Holiday 8 cabin suitcase

A hearty dish that makes a great get-ahead breakfast for busy mornings

My go-to cheat ingredient for a dash of heat is White Mausu’s peanut rāyu – it has a gentler flavour profile than, say, Lao Gan Ma crispy chilli in oil, and works perfectly in this dish of creamy, lemon-spiked beans and eggs. I recommend using jarred white beans for the speediest cook time. For an easy, get-ahead breakfast, make and chill the spinach and beans the night before, then reheat the next morning and crack in the eggs when the beans are piping hot.

The bold, lively and versatile flavours of the Yemeni spice mix bring out the natural earthiness of roast vegetables

Hawaij is a Yemeni spice mix that came into my life during my time at the Palomar in London, and it has not left my spice cupboard ever since. It’s a mix of turmeric, black pepper, cardamom and ground coriander, giving it an earthy, vegetal flavour, and it’s traditionally used in soups and stews; it’s also a key component in zhoug, a spicy coriander and chilli sauce. It’s one of the most enlivening and versatile spice mixes I know, and should be your forever companion, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Graham, 76, Pangbourne

Occupation Property manager

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swedish retailer continued to advertise partnership with Soly and failed to offer me any advice

I am one of many left thousands of pounds out of pocket after signing up for solar panels via Ikea’s website late last year.

Ikea had partnered with the European installer Soly, and the fact the panels were being advertised via such a well-known company gave us confidence.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having diverse microbes in the gut has been promoted as a way to boost immunity, but studies suggest it’s more complicated than that

The trillions of microorganisms that live in and on our bodies – known as the microbiome – have been hailed as the key to better immunity. “Lots of studies correlate the types of bacteria in your microbiome with health and disease across almost every mental and physical condition,” says Prof Daniel M Davis, head of life sciences at Imperial College London and the author of Self Defence: A Myth-busting Guide to Immune Health. “But most of that evidence is correlative, and we still need to understand exactly how the microbiome affects health.”

Scientists often look at one measure: diversity. In other words, how many different species of microbes live in the gut. “The more diverse your microbiome is, the more it seems to correlate with not being ill.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good wine, cheap tapas, ramshackle decor and a sense of history are the key ingredients of these Madrileño institutions. I went on a bar crawl to find my favourite

The first hurdle to overcome when searching for the Spanish capital’s top bodegas is the correct interpretation of the word “bodega”. It is defined as a warehouse, winery, wine cellar and wine shop or bar specialising in wine. In Spanish slang it can also mean a convenience store.

I asked several people working in the Madrid wine trade, and they all struggled to define exactly what a bodega is – and sometimes disagreed with each other. For example, while La Bodega de los Reyes fits the description because it has a wine cellar, a nearby bar owner said it couldn’t be classed as a bodega as it was just a wine shop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The solutions to today’s puzzles

Earlier today I asked you these three puzzles. Here they are again with solutions.

1. Battleships

I found Chilly literally frozen to the spot beneath a Detroit dock, warmed her up and took her home. She’s now part of the family

Earlier this year, I was walking along the marina in the Jefferson Chalmers neighbourhood in Detroit, Michigan. It was a terribly cold winter; the water had frozen over and everything was coated in a thick layer of frost. Suddenly, a sound caught my ear – the loud cries of a tiny animal.

I didn’t know what it was at first, or where exactly it was coming from, but I kept hearing it – so I decided to turn around and walk towards the wailing. Suddenly I spotted a little kitten, trapped between the wooden dock and the plank of metal underneath it. I realised its paws were stuck, frozen to the metal, and it had been crying out to be rescued.

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

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

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

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

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

In times of hardship, veterans sometimes turn to “medication and talk therapy, but it tends to be more of a maintenance program than actually overcoming it”, Gould said, but added that at age 28, “I was still very young. I didn’t want to be on medication the rest of my life.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rights groups fear tactic of ‘domicide’ trialled in Gaza, where entire areas are made uninhabitable, is being used again

The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations.

The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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