The allegations of rape and sexual assault in this documentary about the Channel 4 series are hugely troubling and revealing. Surely this is the end for MAFS?

Well. My goodness. Allegations of rape and sexual assault have arisen from a reality show built around the conceit of strangers “marrying” each other at first sight, then cohabiting in the full expectation that “marital” relations will ensue – and if not, they will be quizzed by a panel of “experts” as to why not. All this, and under the pressures of filming and the medium’s insatiable appetite for emotional drama and conflict, plus manufactured situations such as group dinner parties to encourage any grievances to burst into flames on top of that? The only possible true surprise here, surely, is that this hasn’t happened before.

Panorama’s latest exposé, The Dark Side of Married at First Sight, is presented by Noor Nanji, who has previously worked on investigations into the allegations of various forms of sexual and other misconduct behind the scenes at the BBC hits Strictly Come Dancing and MasterChef. This time, the focus is on allegations by three former “wives” who appeared on Channel 4’s wildly popular show (10 series and – at least until now – counting), known by fans as MAFS, or MAFS UK to distinguish it from the international editions that have developed since the original Danish version in 2013.

The Freedom Association’s Brexit Unleashed conference in Westminster was largely untroubled by reality

Those we haven’t loved. It’s been nearly a decade since the Brexit referendum and the main architects seem to have gone quiet. Boris Johnson has retreated into his own world having been rejected by the real one. Still wondering why David Cameron hadn’t left him detailed instructions of what to do if the UK left the EU. Nigel Farage is happy to talk about almost anything but Brexit. And where his money comes from and how it’s spent. The man who can’t be bought but used to do Cameos at £80 a pop for Hugh Janus can’t even admit the Boriswave was a direct result of Brexit.

But there are still a few believers. At least 120 of them. These were the men and women of the Freedom Association who had gathered in Westminster for their Brexit Unleashed conference. The weirdos. The misfits. The losers. The mostly elderly desperados who cling to the certainty they were right all along. Untroubled by all the evidence to the contrary. Unaware that many of their arguments contradict one another. That all that they want to be true cannot all be true. Entwined with one another in a death spiral. This church hall was a place where hope came to die.

Departing manager was the arch-plotter and tactician with his training ground work instrumental in leading the club to a decade of silverware

“What are your dreams, what are your dreams?” To comprehend what drove Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, his interaction with autograph hunters in January 2025 after an 8-0 FA Cup win over Salford City is instructive.

The group comprises all younger people apart from one man who tells him: “I used to be a chef.” Guardiola’s reply cuts to the quick and reads as a mantra heard surely by the 85 players he used in 10 Premier League seasons. “Continue to do it. Prepare better,” he says.

Conflict, mistrust and delayed detection could complicate response to emergency caused by Bundibugyo variant

To be around the centre of an Ebola outbreak is to become used to the smell of chlorine. At hospitals and government buildings, surfaces are sprayed with it and hands washed in a 0.05% solution that can kill the virus in 60 seconds.

Infrared handheld thermometers take temperatures at airports and border crossings. Any indication of a fever prevents passage. Contact-tracing teams crisscross the countryside.

A long and bitter legal battle between tech billionaires Elon Musk and Sam Altman has culminated in victory for the OpenAI boss. Musk has vowed to appeal the verdict. But what did the trial reveal about big tech and the global AI race? Lucy Hough speaks to Guardian US tech and power reporter Nick Robins-Early

Emin’s unsparing examination of her cancer and Kahlo’s intensely imagined response to traumatic injury moved our writer to take self-portraits while recovering from a serious operation

In a photographic self-portrait taken not long after she was diagnosed with squamous cell bladder cancer in 2020, Tracey Emin’s iPhone shrouds her right breast as our line of vision descends from her catheter to her urostomy bag to her disposable knickers. Her body is fragile here in this hospital mirror, yet her gaze is anything but. It looks us dead in the eye as if to say: I matter, this matters – a sureness that challenges the notion of subjugation in times of ill-health.

Even now, six years after her life-saving surgery, Emin refuses to conform to what may, or may not, make us feel comfortable when it comes to her post-operative body. As well as losing her bladder, Emin also lost her uterus, ovaries, lymph nodes, part of her colon, her urethra and part of her vagina. And yet she has found a striking autonomy in documenting the changes in her body. “This is mine, I own it,” she affirmed in an interview not long after her surgery.

PM’s chief secretary Darren Jones defends decision and says next release will not be until next month

• UK politics live – latest updates

Ministers have been accused of a cover-up after admitting they have withheld information relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as Washington ambassador from a parliamentary committee.

MPs from both sides of the Commons criticised Darren Jones, the prime minister’s chief secretary, on Tuesday after he said the government had not disclosed certain information to parliament’s intelligence and security committee (ISC).

Retail sources rebuff government proposal as ‘unjustified’ and likely to push costs up across board

UK supermarkets have been asked by the government to consider freezing the prices of some essential foodstuffs to protect the public from inflation fuelled by the Middle East conflict.

Retailers rejected the plan, criticising its potential cost amid rising taxes, fuel and energy costs and arguing it could push up prices for shoppers overall.

⚽️ 7.30pm BST kick-off; City must win or Arsenal take title
⚽️ Chelsea v Spurs – live | Saints kicked out of playoff final

“What are your dreams, what are your dreams?” To comprehend what drove Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, his interaction with autograph hunters in January 2025 after an 8-0 FA Cup win over Salford City is instructive.

The group comprises all younger people apart from one man who tells him: “I used to be a chef.” Guardiola’s reply cuts to the quick and reads as a mantra heard surely by the 85 players he used in 10 Premier League seasons. “Continue to do it. Prepare better,” he says.

Force says two women have come forward alleging they were victims of attacks detailed in Epstein files

Surrey police have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse after two women came forward to say they were the victims of attacks in Britain detailed in the Epstein files.

The force said the claims dated back to the 1980s and 1990s, with one in Surrey and allegations concerning Berkshire understood to relate to the Windsor estate.

Outcome of contest for seat just outside Wigan could change the course of British politics for years to come

Andy Burnham will face Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon in next month’s crucial Makerfield byelection in a clash that could change the course of British politics for years to come.

Reform are billing Kenyon, a plumber and army reservist who contested the seat just outside Wigan in the 2024 general election, as a local champion taking on a professional politician who is using the seat for his own advantage.

Renewed threat comes after US president said he was ‘an hour away’ from ordering a strike before pulling back

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Donald Trump has again threatened Iran, saying the US may launch new attacks if Tehran continues to refuse the significant concessions he wants before a deal can be struck to end the Middle East war.

The US president said he had called off a fresh wave of strikes, which would have broken the ceasefire in place since early last month. “I was an hour away from making the decision to go today,” Trump said on Tuesday.

As campaigners take to the streets for what could be the most significant byelection for decades, the Reform leader’s absence remains a mystery

It has been six days since Nigel Farage cancelled a scheduled appearance at a Reform UK rally in Sunderland, a key election target in Labour’s heartlands.

The reasons given – chaos in government and what appeared to be an impending Labour leadership race – seemed logical. After all, as a quotation sometimes attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte goes: never interfere with an enemy while he is in the process of destroying himself.

Metropolitan police yet to receive criminal reports relating to claims made in BBC programme

Police have urged potential victims of sexual assault who appeared on Married at First Sight UK to contact them, after female participants made allegations of rape and sexual misconduct.

A BBC Panorama episode that aired on Monday evening documented accusations from contestants about their time on the reality TV show. Two women, who are not named, alleged they were raped by their on-screen husbands, while a third woman who agreed to be identified, Shona Manderson, accused her on-screen husband of taking things too far during sex. All the men deny the claims.

Paul Singer is founder of a leading creditor in the hedge fund consortium locked in talks with the UK government

A billionaire Donald Trump donor could make millions from a deal being struck between the government and Thames Water.

The UK’s largest water company, ministers and creditors are in a impasse as they try to agree a rescue deal to stave off Thames’s collapse. The water company built up a £17.6bn debt pile in the decades after its privatisation.

Roots of idea for ‘ending neoliberalism’ have been growing over many months – with many different influences

Manchesterism is “the end of neoliberalism”. That was the claim made by Andy Burnham in his campaign launch video this week – a film which made an audacious offer not just to his byelection constituents in Makerfield, but how he intended to change national politics and the economy.

But the 2026 doctrine of Manchesterism is very different to its 19th-century namesake, when it was a byword for free trade.

Police operations have transformed Cheetham Hill, once notorious for fake goods and organised crime, but many customers have disappeared too

At any time of day or night, Strangeways, the area in the shadow of the Victorian prison tower of HMP Manchester, used to be a hive of activity. This part of Cheetham Hill just north of Manchester city centre was a focus for counterfeit goods hunters.

Even lockdown couldn’t put a stop to the roaring trade, with shops staying open illegally and customers crawling under the almost-closed shutters to bag a bargain.

Four years after Rooney cited BDS in declining a different Israeli publisher, she speaks with activist Samir Eskanda about the artist’s role in the boycott movement

• Sally Rooney to publish Hebrew translation of novel with BDS-compliant publisher

Intermezzo, the most recent book by Irish novelist Sally Rooney, will be published in Hebrew this month by the Israeli publisher November Books, in collaboration with +972 Magazine and Local Call. The announcement comes more than four years after Rooney, citing the global boycott movement against Israel, turned down a translation offer by a different Israeli publisher for an earlier book.

Below, Rooney talks to Irish Palestinian activist Samir Eskanda about her decision to work with November Books, which has been deemed to be in compliance with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. They discuss what first brought her to the boycott, the movement’s aims and targets and the role of the artist in bringing about radical change.

From superfan Emma Willis to the all-round loveliness of Johannes Radebe, the new presenting trio are rumoured to have great chemistry. Will it be enough to rescue the ailing franchise?

It takes two to tango. But apparently it takes three to host a TV show about tangoing. After months of tabloid speculation, the BBC has revealed the new presenters of Strictly Come Dancing. And there’s not one, not two, but three of them. Let’s hope they don’t tread on each other’s toes.

Rumours have been swirling and now the worst-kept secret in showbiz has been confirmed. Broadcaster Emma Willis, comedian Josh Widdicombe and professional dancer Johannes Radebe have been announced as the all-new lineup. This autumn, they will replace the longstanding pairing of Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, who bowed out together at Christmas. As a new ballroom era begins, can this unlikely trio stabilise the listing Strictly ship? And is three really the magic number?

Cannes film festival: Spaniard’s latest life-v-art auto-metafiction feels slightly muddled as he directs a director directing a director

With its rich, warm, summery colours, nothing could surely be less bitter or less Christmassy than this film. It’s the latest from Cannes competition regular Pedro Almodóvar, partly set during Christmas; the female lead actually complains about the yuletide traffic at one stage. But there’s no tinsel or sleigh bells or shopping for presents. Like Die Hard, it eludes classification. It is another – which is to say, yet another – double-layered creation by Almodóvar, a kind of movie auto-metafiction of the sort that he has virtually invented, a life-v-art dialectical process that he is evidently unable to do without.

Like the recent Pain and Glory, Bitter Christmas is a candidly personal movie, circling around ideas like grief, loss, the vampirism of art and the betrayal involved in basing fictional characters on real people. Perhaps by emphasising this last point, Almodóvar is pre-empting or cauterising a crisis in his own life, showing us a gay male artist’s perspective on the question of whether women are not being given enough credit as the wellspring for inspiration or indeed as artists themselves. The result is a complex, slightly muddled, almost surreally modernist noir-melodrama or open-ended telenovela of the sort he habitually offers. Almodóvar always alchemises the real-unreal duality into something watchable, although perhaps he is going over old ground. Bitter Christmas, incidentally, features what for arthouse movies is becoming mandatory, the haughty anti-Netflix gag, even though the film does feel like streaming TV in some ways.

Always wondered what everyday stuff celebrities buy, where they shop for food, and the basic they scrimp on? The interior designer talks cheesemongers, chore jackets and lost engagement rings with the Filter

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Australian-born interior designer Banjo Beale lives on the Isle of Ulva in the Scottish Hebrides with his husband, Ro. He won BBC’s Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr in 2022, and went on to front his own Bafta Scotland award-winning BBC TV series, Designing the Hebrides.

He has written two bestselling books, Wild Isle Style and A Place in Scotland, and is now renovating an abandoned mansion for his BBC series Banjo and Ro’s Grand Island Hotel, available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

The charity is in the headlines yet again, this time for asking people filming paid-for content on its sites to pay a fee. Is it all just a storm in a tea room?

Name: The National Trust.

Age: 131. The National Trust was founded in 1895.

Peaches, Florentina Holzinger, Joan Jonas and more pay tribute to the fearless feminist performance artist, who died last week

Peaches

Former first lady delivered veiled but sharp remarks on US politics during speaking tour that began in Melbourne

It was a curious question: who was going to pay $895 (US$640, £476) to see Michelle Obama speak at 12.30pm on a Tuesday in Melbourne? While she is an indisputably excellent public speaker, the ticket prices for Obama’s first-ever speaking event in Australia raised a few eyebrows, ranging from the $895 “platinum” package (which promised a priority seat, an “exclusive” brunch, and a “commemorative lanyard and tote bag”) to the cheapest seats at $195 a pop.

A sign that expectations may have been bigger than our wallets in a cost-of-living crisis: two weeks ago, my “cheap” seat at the back was suddenly upgraded to a much better spot due to “a recent change in production requirements” that was left unexplained. Another: the visibly empty patches at the front of the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

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As new settlers clear their forest habitat, the apes are coming into conflict with humans. But simply moving them to another part of the forest may not be the answer

The banana skins were an ominous sign. As was the branch that had been broken off to get to the fruit. Had Edi Ramli walked into the forest, he might have seen scattered balls of bark that had been ripped off trees, chewed like gum, then spat out. It takes a powerful jaw to do that. Closer to Edi’s home, there was an intricate construction of bent and broken branches high in a tree. The nest.

It was October, the fruiting season. The pile of half-eaten bananas was less than a minute’s walk from where Edi and his family slept. He felt nervous. He got on with his day. He picked sweetcorn and sold it at the market. He bought a carton of chocolate milk and biscuits for his grandson. He and his wife, Siti Munawaroh, ran the farm with their three adult children. They prepped the land, sowed seeds, tended crops. Survival depended on what they could grow.

With the Greens now a viable alternative, a Labour leader will not win power again without the progressive vote. But they will need to earn it

Labour’s failures have made a rightwing authoritarian government not just a nightmare, but a plausible next chapter. Having enraged its natural voters – many of whom have flocked to the Greens – Labour MPs have clambered on to a lifeboat named Andy Burnham.

Do the rest of us blindly hop on board? Burnham is, indisputably, Labour’s best bet. He is the party’s most popular politician, and surely the figure best placed to win back voters lost to both the Greens and Reform. He has an easy northern charm, and some genuine progressive achievements to his name, secured with the limited powers he has as Greater Manchester’s mayor. But he has also benefited from not being at the centre of the great national political controversies of our age.

Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist

Sure, he’s not perfect, but on libraries, childcare and potholes, he’s getting the job done. Why can’t more politicians give a damn?

Some people buy a motorbike when they have a midlife crisis. Others take up a hobby like pottery. I, meanwhile, have channelled all my perimenopausal rage and existential angst into regularly calling government officials in Philadelphia and complaining about the city’s trash problem. Sometimes I also offer helpful suggestions as to how they can improve things, but these never seem well received. However, the last time I called the mayor’s office the woman who picked up did say: “You’ve called here before, haven’t you?” Which led me to believe that 1) not many people with English accents are calling the Philadelphia mayor’s office to offer unsolicited advice on urban sanitation; and 2) I should probably seek help with my trash obsession.

Since I seem to be airing all my unresolved psychological issues, I should probably add that I have recently diagnosed myself with a condition called Mamdani Mayoral Envy (MME). Depending on your location, you may suffer from it too. Symptoms include reading about New York and wondering why your city can’t be led by someone who actually seems to give a damn the way Zohran Mamdani does.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

A rare strain, conflict and aid cuts make this outbreak more dangerous than ever. In the interconnected world we live in, the west can’t afford to turn away

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

At the weekend the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) a “public health emergency of international concern”. This designation is the highest alarm level the WHO has to notify its member states about a health crisis that is considered extraordinary, has multi-country risk and requires a coordinated international response. Usually, the director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, would convene a meeting of international health experts to discuss whether an outbreak meets the legal criteria, but for the first time in the agency’s history, he went ahead and declared it after consulting the governments of the DRC and Uganda, and analysing the data presented.

So what is happening now and why are health experts so concerned? We recently learned that there are several hundred suspected cases and 131 suspected deaths from Ebola in the eastern part of the DRC and possibly neighbouring Uganda. Ebola is one of the world’s most deadly infectious diseases, with symptoms progressing from fever and vomiting to internal bleeding and organ failure.

Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)

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Ten years after the referendum, its role as domestic football is still the order of the day – and the ex-health secretary is happy to use it in his leadership bid

• Anand Menon is director of The UK in a Changing Europe

Brexit, it seems, is back. Or at least back within the Labour party. Wes wants to be back in (at some point). Andy once said there’s a case, but seems to have changed his mind. Nigel, meanwhile, warns of betrayal.

On one hand, this is all terribly predictable. Winning any Labour leadership race was never going to be possible without staking out a clear and ambitious position on the EU. Most Labour members are remain backers who regret leaving Europe. Even before the beginning of a formal contest, we were always going to see those vying for the top job try to outbid each other.

New electoral maps are erasing Black representations. The effort takes its cues from American history

Early this month, a single pen stroke effectively ended representative Steve Cohen’s career in Congress. The man who has represented Memphis for 19 years will turn 77 later this month, but he wasn’t planning on retiring. He hadn’t lost any primary. The reason was that his district had been erased around him.

A new electoral map, passed by the Republican-led state legislature and signed by Bill Lee, the governor, divides the ninth district three ways. “Last week Tennessee Republicans silenced the Black vote here in Memphis to make Republican victories likely,” Cohen said in his statement. That’s succinct and accurate.

Jamil Smith is a Guardian US columnist

Karim Khan is wrong to say he has been exonerated of sexual misconduct. The case must proceed swiftly

The international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has been on an exoneration tour, with stops including an interview with Mehdi Hasan and an appearance at the Oxford Union. Accused by a lawyer in his office of repeated sexual misconduct, which he denies, he claims that an internal review of the allegations has vindicated him but the situation is more complex than that.

It has been a year since Khan took a leave of absence while the claims against him were investigated as an internal employment matter. That absence has left the ICC under the control of his deputies, with important decisions to be taken in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and elsewhere. Yet the ICC member states, which have ultimate authority over whether Khan stays or goes, have dawdled, acting as if they had all the time in the world. And the procedure that they relied on to resolve the matter turned out to be a travesty.

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. Before joining Human Rights Watch, he served as a federal prosecutor in New York and Washington

After years living out of not much more than a suitcase between Auckland, Boston, Spain and London, our small family unit of three is now in Sydney

When my sister and her family renovated their home, a kind absent neighbour a hundred metres or so away offered an empty place to stay through the worst of the refit. Left behind, though, was my sister’s noble cat, with a plan in place to return daily, topping up bowls and delivering encouraging pats as they navigated the steady stream of tradies together.

But then a funny thing happened. The cat, having got wind of its family relocation, promptly upped its own four little leg-sticks and wandered down the street, crossing the road, moving into this temporary abode with them.

Auto-enrolment has made retirement more secure for many. But some groups, including women, need more support

Recommendations from the government-backed Pensions Commission are not due until next year. But its interim warning that at least 15 million Britons are not saving enough for retirement already signals the scale of the challenge. The trend towards increasing longevity means that the issue of retirement incomes is unavoidable. At some point during the next decade, a threshold is expected to be reached whereby there are three pensioners for every 10 working-age adults.

The decision to reconvene this expert group was a good one. The automatic enrolment system it proposed has been a success, with around 90% of eligible employees signing up since 2012, along with their employers. But millions of low-paid workers, as well as the vast majority of self-employed people, face an uncertain future unless they too are helped to plan and save. One suggestion, made by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) as part of its own pensions review, was that HM Revenue and Customs could oversee a system whereby self-employed taxpayers would be enabled to make pension contributions at the same time as paying their tax bill.

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.

Tens of millions of women and men worldwide are isolated and enjoy fewer protections than other labourers. Landmark legislation is a sign of hope

Domestic workers are used to hard graft for minimal reward. But in Indonesia, more than two decades of activism has finally paid off. Last month, the country’s parliament passed legislation classifying them as workers, ensuring that they are entitled to health insurance, days off and pensions. It also outlaws hiring under-18s for such jobs. For more than four million people, this is a significant step forward.

The challenges go far beyond Indonesia. There are around 75 million people in the sector worldwide, experiencing “lower wages, fewer benefits and fewer legal or social protections than other workers”, says the International Domestic Workers Federation. Three-quarters of them are women. Because they work in people’s homes they are isolated, and many get little or no time off. That makes them particularly vulnerable to abuse by employers and particularly hard to organise. Accommodation is often grim and food inadequate.

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.

Readers respond to George Monbiot’s article about the uneven treatment of antisemitism in the media, and a report published in the wake of a rally against antisemitism in London on 10 May

George Monbiot is right to challenge hypocrisy in the media’s treatment of antisemitism (No one should get a free pass on antisemitism – so why does the right?, 14 May). If antisemitic imagery or rhetoric appears in rightwing newspapers or political movements, it should be confronted with the same urgency applied elsewhere.

But there is also a danger in allowing legitimate criticism of selective media narratives to slide into minimising antisemitism itself. Antisemitism is real, ugly and historically persistent. Recent attacks on synagogues, Jewish institutions and individuals across Europe cannot simply be dismissed as inventions of the press or the political class.

The way the media refers to the far-right activist amplifies his invented persona – and a change in approach would undermine his cult of personality, says Brian Davison

I am puzzled by the reporting of far-right activism in the Guardian and other media outlets. A single phrase is repeated constantly, and I do not understand why. “Tommy Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon” is the fixed phrase used to describe Britain’s foremost activist, and the remainder of the article invariably goes on to refer to him as “Robinson”.

Surely this is simply amplifying his own invented persona, with its echoes of a first world war working-class hero? The phrase is so ubiquitous and consistent that I feel it must have been selected in an editorial meeting at some point in history because the alternatives were somehow risky. The man is now well-known enough that we no longer need to use his pseudonym. I would very much like to see a pivot to using the phrase “Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson”.

Schools can compromise children’s privacy, exposing them to potential identity fraud, harassment and AI exploitation, says Dr Claire Bessant

It was concerning, but sadly unsurprising, to read a Guardian article reporting that UK schools are being blackmailed with AI-generated child sexual abuse images created from photos shared on school websites and social media pages (UK schools should remove pupils’ online photos as AI blackmail threat grows, say experts, 8 May). Lord Russell, in the 2024 debates on the data (use and access) bill, highlighted the potential for AI to be used to scrape images from school websites and social media. His comments were informed by research undertaken by Defend Digital Me, which found pupil data in publicly available AI training datasets.

Welsh government guidance warns schools to “exercise great caution sharing images or videos of learners publicly on social media platforms due to the potential risk of the content being misused”. It notes that social media platforms are vulnerable to web scraping, and that the large-scale collection of information posted online, and resulting loss of control over images, can expose pupils to privacy risks. The only advice that the Department for Education provides schools on pupil image use appears in its data protection guidance. This states that social media use “often requires extra care”, and that schools should “make pupils and parents or carers aware that social media involves wider sharing and may carry higher privacy risks”.

Tim Rood and Phil Coughlin on Xi Jinping’s reference to the Thucydides trap in a meeting with Donald Trump

In explaining Xi Jinping’s allusion to the Thucydides trap, Kate Lamb refers to Thucydides’ statement that “it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable” (What is the Thucydides Trap and why did Xi Jinping mention it in his meeting with Donald Trump?, 15 May). That is the translation used by the Harvard political scientist Graham Allison, who popularised the phrase “Thucydides trap”, and who attributes the translation to Richard Crawley’s 1874 edition.

It is often said that Thucydides’ Greek is better translated as “the Athenians growing great and creating fear in the Spartans compelled them towards making war”. That is, Thucydides was speaking of a subjective impression of necessity on the Spartans’ part rather than claiming absolute necessity.

⚽️ 8.15pm BST kick-off; Spurs win sends West Ham down
⚽️ Bournemouth v Manchester City – live | Mail Simon

The players are out, hands have been shaken and preambles completed. Spurs are going to kick off, and they’re going to do it soon.

The players are in the tunnel! And over in Bournemouth, Manchester City are in arrears! As things stand, if no further goals are scored tonight, Arsenal will win the league and West Ham will be (all but) relegated.

• ‘I’ll make decisions when time comes,’ says head coach

• Chessum expected to lead side in at least one July Test

England’s head coach, Steve Borthwick, has confirmed he may rest some senior players including his captain, Maro Itoje, for all or part of his squad’s summer Nations Championship games. A final decision will not be taken until next month but, barring an injury crisis, it seems probable England will be under fresh leadership on the field for at least one of their July Tests.

Rather than a traditional tour to a single country, the new tournament will require Borthwick and his squad to play internationals on three different continents on successive weekends, starting against South Africa in Johannesburg on 4 July and finishing in Santiago del Estero in Argentina on 18 July.

John McGinn will lead out team in final against Freiburg seven years after helping them win promotion with club chasing a first major European trophy since 1982

As Aston Villa arrived at Besiktas Park on the banks of the Bosphorus, for one last training session before the real thing, it was impossible not to consider the journey to the Europa League final. John McGinn, who will lead Villa out as captain in Istanbul, was in the side promoted from the Championship via the playoff final seven years ago. Tyrone Mings also started that day at Wembley and across the course of the following 12 months Villa built a spine that will be central to their hopes of winning their first major European trophy since 1982.

It is why McGinn’s mind goes back to a 3-0 league defeat at Wigan and a midweek trip to Rotherham in the season they clinched promotion, averting a likely financial disaster. Tammy Abraham, then on loan from Chelsea, also began the playoff final victory over Derby. “If we lose that match, are Aston Villa here at the minute?” McGinn says. “Probably not. For us, tomorrow night, it will be nice to see the supporters who were there at Rotherham away, Wigan away, nights like that on a Tuesday evening when it’s very easy to stay at home. They deserve it just as much as the players do and hopefully we can give them something to remember.”

• West Ham will need to raise more than £100m if relegated

• Relegation could force England player to reassess future

Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United are interested in Jarrod Bowen as rival clubs prepare to capitalise on West Ham’s financial problems by targeting their best players.

West Ham will need to raise more than £100m if relegated from the Premier League and there is growing interest in Bowen from a host of top sides.

• ‘Unfortunately I’m still not ready to compete’

• Spaniard had already pulled out of the French Open

Carlos Alcaraz has been forced to withdraw from Wimbledon as he continues his recovery from the wrist injury that will force him out of action for at least three months during the most significant part of the tennis season.

Alcaraz has not competed since withdrawing from his second-round match at the Barcelona Open last month after feeling pain in his right wrist in his opening match of the tournament. The 23-year-old had already been forced to withdraw from the rest of the clay-court season, including the French Open, which begins on Sunday.

• Petr Vlachovsky was first convicted in May 2025

• Five-year domestic coaching ban was seen as too lenient

Uefa has handed a lifetime ban from all football-related activity to Petr Vlachovsky, the Czech coach who used a hidden camera to secretly film his female players in their changing rooms.

Vlachovsky was convicted in May 2025, having been found to have filmed 14 players at FC Slovacko over a four-year period. He was convicted without a public hearing and handed a suspended one-year prison sentence and a five-year domestic coaching ban, which prompted calls from the Czech players’ union for his punishment to be broadened.

• Striker close to agreeing Manchester City move

• Toone, Beever-Jones and Godfrey back for qualifiers

Sarina Wiegman has said Beth Mead’s next transfer will be a “very important” factor in the England forward’s chances of going to the 2027 Women’s World Cup, as the outgoing Arsenal forward seeks more regular starts.

The 31-year-old is understood to be close to agreeing a move to Manchester City, after it was confirmed she will leave Arsenal at the end of her contract this summer after nine years.

• Vingegaard cuts gap on overall leader Eulálio to 27sec

• Ganna wins stage 10 in 45min 53sec

Filippo Ganna sailed to an easy victory in stage 10’s individual time trial at the Giro d’Italia on Tuesday,. The pre-race favourite, Jonas Vingegaard, failed in his bid to take the overall lead as Afonso Eulálio battled hard to keep the pink jersey.

No one could come close to Ganna, a time trial specialist who completed the flat, 42km (26-mile) route along the Tuscan coast from Viareggio to Massa in 45min 53sec. Ganna had little to worry about while waiting for confirmation of his eighth Giro stage win – seven of those have come in time trials.

From Tierney and McTominay to Stewart, a player-by-player guide to Scotland’s squad of 26 for the World Cup finals

• Scotland squad: Stewart recalled after four-year absence

WHO chief said he was ‘deeply concerned’ after at least 500 suspected Ebola cases and 130 deaths reported in outbreak of Bundibugyo strain

• ‘It’s heartbreaking’: panic in eastern DRC over return of Ebola

Global health leaders are considering whether vaccines or medicines still in development could be used to fight Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as the World Health Organization’s chief said he was deeply concerned by the outbreak’s speed and scale.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said there had been at least 500 suspected cases of Ebola and 130 suspected deaths in DRC since the new outbreak began – up from about 200 cases and 65 deaths when it was announced on Friday.

Scotland Yard to send files to CPS with ‘strong evidence’ of potential wrongdoing – but any trials could be years away

Scotland Yard has said it hopes to bring criminal charges against 77 companies and individuals for the Grenfell Tower fire, but trials will not start until a decade after the disaster that killed 72 people.

The Guardian understands a king’s counsel, a senior lawyer experienced in prosecutions, has been appointed to lead the crown’s criminal cases, which are expected to be complex and possibly last years.

Officials from Baltic states say Moscow behind latest such incident but also tell Kyiv to be more careful with its routing

A Romanian F-16 Nato jet shot down a drone over Estonia on Tuesday in what appears to be the latest case of Russian electronic jamming diverting long-range Ukrainian drones into the alliance’s territory.

A local resident told the Estonian public broadcaster, ERR, that he had seen two fighter jets – part of a Nato force policing the skies over the Baltic states – flying in the area before a loud bang that brought the drone down. He said the drone had crashed about 30 metres from the nearest residential building.

Garden representing overlooked countryside on urban fringes makes Eberle one of only three women to win best in show as solo designer

Featuring a giant, sleeping woman carved out of a fallen tree, Sarah Eberle’s hauntingly beautiful garden has won the top prize at the Chelsea flower show.

Eberle, now the Royal Horticultural Society’s most decorated gardener, is a rarity; she is one of only three women to have won best in show at Chelsea as solo designers in its 100-year history.

Two off-duty officers allegedly assaulted a sex worker in a taxi in Ciutat Vella, according to police in Catalonia

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The Toronto police force, which is already under intense public scrutiny, is facing fresh questions after it emerged that three off-duty officers on vacation in Barcelona were arrested in connection with a sexual assault last week.

According to police in Barcelona, the alleged assault occurred in the early hours of 13 May, when the trio of police officers were travelling in a taxi with a sex worker in the Ciutat Vella neighbourhood of the Catalan capital.

Rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada collides with laws meant to protect endangered species

Environmental groups in Canada fear endangered orcas could become a casualty of Mark Carney’s push for a new oil pipeline, as the rush to develop fossil fuel infrastructure collides with laws meant to protect threatened species.

The decades-long tragedy of the critically endangered southern resident orcas has become emblematic of an ecosystem in crisis. But fishermen, whale-watching companies and the marine transport industry have long feuded over who bears the most blame.

Study of Channel finds levels of toxic Pfas in Solent at 13 times safe limits in some places, with much coming from treated sewage

Scientists have found high levels of toxic Pfas, or “forever chemicals”, in soil, water and throughout the marine food chain in the UK’s Solent strait, including at protected environmental sites, according to a new study.

In some samples, pollution was 13 times the safe threshold for coastal waters. Others, which were below legal limits for individual chemicals, failed tests for combined toxicity.

De-extinction firm Colossal Biosciences hopes incubation system can be scaled up but other scientists are sceptical

The flightless moa, an extinct bird of New Zealand, stood more than 3 metres tall, weighed over 200kg and had eggs larger than those of any bird now living. Now the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences says it is a step closer to resurrecting the moa after creating an artificial eggshell.

Colossal hopes the artificial incubation system, which it successfully used to hatch chickens, could be scaled up to create a bird as big as the moa in future. “We’ve created a novel shell-less culture system that is fully scalable and biologically accurate,” said Prof Andrew Pask, the chief biology officer at Colossal.

Snitterton, Derbyshire: I’ve had some glorious early mornings admiring the abundance of these much-loved flowers

This spring has specialised in very specific kinds of abundance. In February it was snowdrops in extraordinary numbers, but last month it was dandelions. My most exulted sighting came as I drove out of upper Dovedale when, from the corner of my eye, I caught a blanket of gold running over the slope.

The flowers held the foreground before the eye travelled onwards to Sheen Hill in Staffordshire. We overuse the word “carpet”, but in this instance it was appropriate. Each bloom was about the same height as all its neighbours, and if you eliminated gaps in colour by getting down face to face with the flower heads, then the whole land was turned into a single glorious sunshine hue.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander blames Conservative government for ‘obscene increase in times and costs’

The HS2 high-speed railway will now cost up to £102.7bn and trains will not start running between London and Birmingham until as late as 2039, the government has admitted – £70bn more and 13 years later than originally promised.

The transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, said the truncated railway would not be entirely completed until as late as 2043.

London’s biggest productions could be hit if industrial action over pay and conditions goes ahead, says union

Some of the biggest West End shows could be forced to temporarily close during a “summer of turbulence” in London after union members voted to move towards strike action over a dispute about pay and conditions.

An indicative ballot held by the performing arts union, Equity, was overwhelmingly backed by its membership: 98% voted yes to potential strikes. The result means the union now has the right to have a statutory ballot on taking industrial action.

Frank Cottrell-Boyce tells MPs to focus on early-years reading, with more support for parents and nursery workers

The children’s laureate, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, has urged the government to prioritise pleasure over learning in children’s reading.

Giving evidence to MPs on the education committee, which is investigating the decline in reading for pleasure among children, the screenwriter and novelist said conversations about children’s reading too often revert to attainment in school.

Retired NHS worker Nicholas Stone died after becoming unwell at protest against far-right Bristol Patriots

The police watchdog is investigating the use of force against a retired NHS worker who attended a counter-demonstration against the far right and died shortly after contact with officers there.

Nicholas Stone, 65, who lived in Bristol, died on 10 January after becoming unwell at a protest opposing the rightwing group Bristol Patriots, who were demonstrating in the city centre.

Vlad Țurcan said Moldovan jury’s score of three points for Romania’s entry failed to recognise sensitivities between neighbours

It is one of the unwritten laws of the annual celebration of silliness and tight trousers that is Eurovision: neighbouring countries, and blocs with strong cultural and political ties – think the Nordics, Greece and Cyprus, the former Soviet states – tend to mark each other high.

The song contest’s “neighbourhood voting” has even been the subject of learned studies. But its role has rarely been as explicitly acknowledged as this year, when the head of Moldova’s public broadcaster felt he had to resign because his country’s jury gave only three points to next-door Romania.

Jonathan Andic released on €1m bail after being questioned in connection with death of Isak Andic in 2024

The son of Isak Andic, the founder of the fashion chain Mango, has been released on bail of €1m (£866,000) after being arrested and questioned in connection with his father’s death in Catalonia almost 18 months ago.

Andic died in December 2024 after apparently falling 100 metres down a ravine while hiking in Montserrat, near Barcelona, with his son, Jonathan. His death aged 71 prompted tributes to him from politicians, journalists and the fashion world.

Odai Shanah details being among the children forced to huddle in classroom during attack at Islamic Center

A nine-year-old boy has described witnessing Monday’s deadly shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, saying that he “saw bad stuff” and huddled in a closet during the attack.

Odai Shanah, whose mother emigrated from Gaza and settled in southern California two decades ago, told Reuters that he heard a barrage of gunshots coming from outside the walls of the mosque complex, which also houses an Islamic day school.

Contest seen as latest test of president’s grip on GOP as he endorses hardline ally over veteran senator for Senate race in Texas

• Trump endorses attorney general Ken Paxton in Texas Senate primary

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Trump told reporters he is giving Iran until the weekend or early next week, to make a deal to end the war.

He said that yesterday he was within an hour of deciding to resume bombing Iran but that his negotiators had reported progress in talks.

I never tell anybody when. But they knew that we were very close. I would say we were. I was an hour away from making the decision to go today, and we would probably not be talking about a beautiful ballroom today. We’d be talking about that.

I had made the decision, so they called up. They had heard I made the decision. They said, sir, could you give us a couple of more days because we think they’re being reasonable.

Well, I mean, I’m saying 2 or 3 days, maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday something. Maybe early next week, a limited period of time, because we can’t let them have a new nuclear weapon.

Some employees will be moved to new teams focused on AI agents and cloud infrastructure

As Meta races to recenter itself around artificial intelligence, the tech giant is mandating that more than 7,000 workers must move to new teams, and it’s radically changing some employees’ jobs. The Guardian has also learned that some of these reassigned employees will shift to two new teams: one building AI cloud infrastructure and another that’s building an internal AI agent codenamed Hatch.

Late last week, Meta employees received a notice that engineers had been “selected” for reassignment and would begin reporting to the cloud infrastructure and Hatch teams by the end of this week. Meta made a similar move last month when it reshuffled at least 1,000 engineers on to a new data labeling team called Applied AI, or AAI – at first giving them the option to volunteer, but later telling workers: “Transfers aren’t optional.”

Nearly 48,000 workers are threatening an 18-day walkout amid fears of global memory chip shortages

South Korean memory chip maker Samsung Electronics is facing its worst-ever strike, with nearly 48,000 workers threatening to walk off production lines on Thursday for 18 days over a dispute about bonus payouts.

Here are key things to know:

Just 4% of self-employed workers are putting cash into pensions, with ‘large groups across the UK facing a severe cliff-edge’

Millions of people across Britain are facing a “cliff edge” when they retire due to a chronic shortfall in saving that will require a radical shake-up of the pensions system to fix, a government-backed report has warned.

The Pensions Commission said 15 million people were currently not saving adequately for their retirement, and warned this could rise to as many as 19 million without action.

Pub owner’s sale to Barcelona-based brewer Damm is latest takeover of a British beer by an overseas buyer

Pub chain Greene King has agreed to sell its Old Speckled Hen ale brands to the Spanish owner of Estrella lager, making it the latest in a series of British beers to be snapped up by overseas buyers.

Barcelona-based brewer Damm has agreed to buy all the Old Speckled Hen lines, including its non-alcoholic and golden ale versions.

RSC and National Theatre actor who was a lively and intelligent Watson to Jeremy Brett’s Sherlock Holmes on television

The character actor David Burke, who has died aged 91, turned in his best television performance as Dr Watson, the retired army doctor assisting Arthur Conan Doyle’s Victorian detective, in ITV’s acclaimed series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984-85).

While television critics widely applauded Jeremy Brett for giving the definitive portrayal of Holmes, Burke brought his own refreshing take on the sleuth’s long-suffering sidekick, transforming him from the bumbling “dozy doc” of previous screen versions to a lively, intelligent John Watson.

The badass bounty hunter and his little green friend take on the Empire and Jabba the Hutt’s family in this solid enough addition to the ever-expanding universe

Here is a non-canonical, or semi-canonical tale – maybe the distinction is beginning to blur – from the Star Wars universe, serving up some entertaining but very familiar Star Wars narrative tropes on a spectacular Imax scale. And if you thought it was possible to end a movie like this without a climactic aerial combat scene involving X-wing fighters, think again. It is developed from the Disney+ streaming TV series The Mandalorian and set in the timeframe just after Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, in which holdout warlords from the defeated Empire are plotting a return against the New Republic.

Pedro Pascal plays the Mandalorian, a badass freebooting bounty hunter not unlike Han Solo, only he has on his shoulder Grogu, his “ward”. (That quaint Victorian term is revived here for the first time since the days of Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne.) Grogu is the Yoda-species infant with nascent telekinetic powers. As for the Mandalorian, he has a voice like Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, and in fact he’s the guy with no face; he hardly ever removes his helmet – apart from in one key scene – despite the fact that it must surely restrict his visual field. And he must surely remove it occasionally to eat and drink and trim his moustache. Body-double actors Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne variously play the helmeted Mandalorian striding around, giving director Jon Favreau and Pascal exceptional leeway with the filming and voice-recording schedule. The Mandalorian is a vivid symbol of the importance of genre IP over old-fashioned star presence and the obvious comparison with Dave Prowse body-doubling Darth Vader is disconcerting.

Cannes film festival: Refn’s film eludes definition as it moves through time and space, from doomy reality to strange dream worlds populated by quasi-Lynchian characters

The title’s first word should probably be “His”. Nicolas Winding Refn has returned to Cannes with a bizarre new fantasia moodscape, a midnight movie of fear and dreamy disquiet, meaning … what, exactly? The setting of the film – a twist on the 60s pulp shocker of the same title by Norman J Warren – morphs and shapeshifts from place to place, with the antilogical procedure of a dream, from a supposedly real outer world to the inner space of hallucination and memory. It starts in a giant, empty hotel (whose colossal Stygian corridors are not unlike those in Refn’s Only God Forgives) in the middle of a digitally rendered dystopian city, wreathed in the kind of mist that tends to conceal a serial killer, and people here are frightened of someone called the “Leather Man”.

We move to the fictional action of a movie the hotel’s inhabitants are (possibly) planning to make, or perhaps to the world of their fears and imaginings, their ideas occasioned by this ostensible realist premise. And then we move to a situation from the past in US-occupied postwar Japan, where a haunted GI is looking for his daughter. This is a story populated by quasi-Lynchian characters and gargoyles with strange nicknames – the whole imagined landscape, lit by Refn’s throbbingly neon purples, reds and blues, looks like a nightclub in hell. And yet it is less violent and explicit than his earlier adventures. The pace is doomy, sepulchral and slow; like Refn’s TV series Too Old to Die Young, it moves at the pace of a zombie which has been shot but still keeps on shuffling forward. Or perhaps it is more like that of a sleepwalker who walks and talks slowly, but has a clearer idea of what is happening than those who are, in a more banal sense, awake.

Late-night hosts discussed the president’s trip to China and his latest bizarre social media posting spree

Late-night hosts covered Donald Trump’s recent trip to China and how he headed straight back to a social media posting binge as soon as he returned.

Set against the 2028 Olympics, Charlotte Zhang’s beautifully attentive debut follows two Latino men as they game the system of state-sanctioned racial violence

Brimming with indelible images, Charlotte Zhang’s brilliant debut locates the roots of a dystopian future in the here and now. Set around the 2028 Summer Olympics, the film imagines a Los Angeles gripped by paranoia and conspiracies; and a livestock disease has led to a ban on all meat production, leaving the main source of protein distribution – powdered insects – in the control of a megacorporation called Ootheca Inc. Ironically enough, a cockroach infestation has taken over several local neighbourhoods, making Ootheca’s monopolising greed even more insidious.

All of this might sound pretty out there, yet the heart of Tycoon is a deeply human story of survival. Both hustlers up for any challenge, Lito (Miguel Padilla-Juarez) and Jay (Jon Lawrence Reyes) take advantage of the widespread chaos to embark on a series of petty crimes, including breaking into an Ootheca trailer to steal boxes of the precious protein powder. Their escapades are dynamically rendered on a variety of formats including handheld DV camera and Super 8, as well as Xerox art. But compared to other film-makers who favour this DIY style, Zhang is beautifully attentive to blocking and composition. Scenes of house parties, twilight rides against the setting sun, or high-rev street drifting harmonise into a stunning city symphony, in which a visual rhythm gradually emerges from disorder.

Tadeo Pestaña Caro’s debut feature trails a young man’s compulsive screen time and his panic when faced with real intimacy

In the age of online hookups, signals of attraction – once felt in a significant look or a brush of the hand – are now transmitted by way of screens. Laying bare the gamification of dating, Tadeo Pestaña Caro’s probing debut follows 20-year-old slacker Santiago (Max Suen), lost in a cycle of thwarted desire in Buenos Aires. Whether at his dead-end job at a call centre or lying awake in bed, he is glued to his phone, hungrily swiping through various dating app profiles. A sea of naked torsos and bulging crotches surge across his screen, each promising a passionate encounter and perhaps something more.

Caro’s film captures this obsession with striking psychological precision. There’s a paradox to Santiago’s compulsive behaviour, which is at once all-consuming and distracting. Faced with the illusion of choice, he can’t help swiping even when he’s on a night out with his coworker Karen (Jazmín Carballo), who plays a big-sister role to the restless young man. Santiago’s real-life conversations are punctuated with the constant pings of new messages, offering dopamine rushes that leave him wanting more.

Crucible Playhouse, Sheffield
This fascinating and bold concert featured the works of the ‘word man’ and the ‘note man’, and their absurdist radio play Words and Music

A few months before he died, Morton Feldman told a radio interviewer that he considered Samuel Beckett to be “a word man, a fantastic word man” and that he, Feldman, always thought of himself as a note man. The two worked together twice, first on an opera and then, in 1987, on Words and Music, an absurdist radio play that Beckett repurposed with Feldman’s music. Their mutual sympathy was apparent in Sheffield Chamber Music festival’s affectionate staging of the latter, which occupied this concert’s second half.

Before that, however, the juxtaposition of a minimalist Beckett monologue with one of Feldman’s classic uncoordinated scores laid bare their deep artistic synergy. Rockaby, a desolate exploration of ageing and isolation, was the opener. Directed in the round by Vicky Featherstone, the rigid protagonist – a magnetic Siobhán McSweeney – revolved in her rocking chair, listening and occasionally responding to her own recorded voice. It was hard not to sense the heavy hand of dementia behind the singsong fragments and the fading woman’s desperate final quest for human connection.

Italy’s south has long been either romanticised or patronised. A Palermo collective has dived into historic archives to recover surreal rhymes and surprising songs that defy the island’s picture-postcard image

‘What do I do now that I no longer have my mother?” Lero Lero sing on Com’haiu a Fari, the opening track of their self-titled debut album. “If I still had my mother, I would not love you.” What may sound like the kind of honest self-reckoning a modern songwriter has dragged out of therapy sessions is actually a traditional Sicilian folk text once sung by a washerwoman, reimagined here through three voices modelled on Sicilian Settimana Santa polyphonies. For this Palermo collective, maternal loss is also metaphor: symbolic of Sicily’s ruptured cultural inheritance, which they recover through archival labour songs, carters’ cries and lullabies, then reshape through electronics and microtonal instrumentation.

In the Italian imagination, Sicily has long been more than the island at the country’s southern edge. It has functioned as a symbolic South, carrying fantasies of archaic beauty and rural authenticity alongside associations with poverty, criminality and backwardness. Its culture is often romanticised and patronised at once.

Barbican, London
The BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Teddy Abrams performed the world premiere of Davids’ sombre and powerful new work that tells of the colonisation of North America

Amid the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of US independence, Brent Michael Davids’ Requiem for America brings an abrupt and necessary shift of perspective. Subtitled “Singing for the Invisible People”, it tells of the colonisation of North America and the systematic erasure of its Indigenous people. We don’t hear the text of the Latin mass; instead Davids, a composer of Mohican heritage, has constructed a patchwork of first-hand sources: newspaper articles, military reports, telegrams, rare accounts from the survivors of massacres. It is, as Davids describes it, both a reckoning and a remembrance: it’s meant to be shocking, and it is.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that this premiere should have happened outside the US; nonetheless, a further performance is planned for Boston in November, of an even longer version. Here a lot was packed into 90 minutes by a stageful of musicians: the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, an eight-strong Native American choir, four vocal soloists as if for a traditional setting of the Requiem – and, to the conductor Teddy Abrams’s right, the mezzo-soprano Wallis Giunta, a late stand-in who sang the Narrator with tremendous conviction, and Davids himself, playing the Native American flute.

The broadcasting favourites are up to mischief in their first pod together. Plus, a cool new take on Radio 4’s hit series A History of the World in 100 Objects

Sharp’s deadpan debut reads like a gen Z update on The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, playfully skewering modern literary tropes

The unnamed 28-year-old narrator of Avigayl Sharp’s debut novel teaches literature at a girls’ boarding school in the US, and is not OK. She has lost touch with her friends, is hooked on prescription stimulants and cries too easily. She is also sexually uptight, which she attributes to childhood trauma, and weirdly obsessed with Joseph Stalin (“his brutality, and his paranoia, reminded me very much of my mother”).

The pupils at the school are brittle and entitled. One of them opines: “This guy Kafka kept acting like everything was out of his control … I thought, why don’t you take a little initiative, buddy?” Another “let her head drop back against the window, exhausted from the effort of speech” after uttering three sentences in a class discussion. They’re not terribly keen on reading – “due to the devastating psychic effects of daily technological overstimulation” – so she assigns them Charles Dickens’s 900-page novel, Bleak House.

Is Hamlet still Hamlet when every word has changed? A superbly diverting book about language and creativity

The great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who translated William Faulkner, André Gide, Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolf into Spanish, drew the line at Shakespeare. Speaking of the moment when Hamlet asks the ghost why it returns to haunt “the glimpses of the moon”, Borges commented: “I don’t think it can be translated. Perhaps the words can be translated. Certainly Shakespeare cannot be translated. ‘The glimpses of the moon’ means exactly ‘the glimpses of the moon’.”

All, however, is not lost. “It has been said that Shakespeare cannot be translated into any other language,” Borges added. “But Shakespeare cannot be translated into English, either, since he wrote what [Robert Louis] Stevenson called ‘that amazing dialect, the Shakespeare-ese’.” This might not be entirely true, as the translator Daniel Hahn points out in this superbly diverting book. Recalling a hip-hop production of Romeo and Juliet he once saw, he persuades us instantly that “the phrase ‘Do you kiss your teeth at me, fam?’ proved to be a perfect translation of ‘Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?’”

And if into English, then why not into Portuguese, or French, or Māori? Hahn’s project is to argue that “Shakespeare with every word changed can still be great, and can remain Shakespeare”, and to that end he reproduces chunks of Dutch, Russian, Welsh, Thai, Arabic, Japanese, and a dozen other languages, betting that by simply counting syllables or observing alliteration in a language one doesn’t understand (as he cheerfully admits, he doesn’t understand Danish), one can learn something about the quality of a translation. I wasn’t convinced that wager worked much of the time, but the typesetters, as you can imagine, were certainly getting a decent workout, and the gambit does finally pay off when a long passage from Twelfth Night is annotated by boxes mentioning dozens of different translators’ choices.

In this warm and tender debut, the family of Barbados-born Lucinda must try to document her decades in Britain after the Home Office threatens her with deportation

There is a particular kind of British cruelty that thrives on politeness. The 2018 Windrush scandal exposed this in full: rather than chaos or spectacle, it revealed a machinery of clinical decisions that stripped Black and brown people of their belonging with bureaucratic precision. It is now part of our national story, often spoken of in the abstract or invoked as a cautionary tale. But what can be obscured, in this telling, is the texture of the harm, the way complicated lives were reduced to paperwork.

Smallie, Eden McKenzie-Goddard’s tender debut, insists on restoring the humanity of those Windrush-generation immigrants who were erased by official language. The story begins decades before, in 1961, when 19-year-old Lucinda Brown leaves Barbados for England, in search of Clarence Braithwaite, the jazz musician who fathered her child (who stays in the care of her family) and then disappeared into the promises of Britain. On the boat crossing she meets Raldo, a magnetic Trinidadian – “the type of man women slap each other to point out” – whose easy charm hints at a freer life.

Mordecai Kurz argues tech oligarchs erode democracy through monopolies – and predicts how the trend may end

The billionaires of today are unusually aggressive in their hoarding of cultural and technological influence, according to Mordecai Kurz, a Stanford economist whose research connects monopoly power with political and economic inequality. In his new book, Private Power and Democracy’s Decline, publishing 19 May, he argues the US is living through an extreme version of a pattern that has repeated itself since industrialization: technological power concentrating in the hands of a few, which is eroding democracy.

According to Kurz, technological moguls have long seen themselves as superior beings whose natural role is to shape society – so they have no problem disrupting the institution of democracy. During the first Gilded Age, in the late 19th century, as the US was enjoying its first ascent as an industrial powerhouse, wealthy industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D Rockefeller “invented all kinds of theories about human evolution”, twisting the logic of social Darwinism to convince themselves that their success was a sign they had been selected by nature to influence society, Kurz explained. Now, the Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei, has suggested his technology has a mystical potential to become a transcendent good. He has also openly acknowledged it could lead to mass unemployment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Crescent, York
The comedian addresses a relationship breakup via The Waste Land, Aldi and a dimwit estate agent

How has it come to this? That’s what new show Tilting at Windmills finds John Kearns asking, and – after a fashion – it’s what TS Eliot asked in The Waste Land, the modernist poem Kearns deploys here as an unlikely motif. After the breakup of a 12-year relationship with the mother of his son, we find the 39-year-old angrier than usual, and unmoored: flat-hunting pessimistically while living back home with mum and dad, roaming the streets of south London having fled a disappointing walking tour based on Eliot’s verse.

Sound clips of the poem, read by Alec Guinness, punctuate the show. They infuse it (as Van Gogh’s Starry Night did with its predecessor, The Varnishing Days) equally with awe, at life’s ineffable mysteries, and bathos – at the contrast between high literary culture and the humdrum realities of our host’s life. Here he is shopping in Aldi with his mum; there he is naked and not very wet under a dripping shower. A remark about washing machines by a newspaper columnist induces a bout of class anxiety; an awkward teenage meeting is recalled with then-PM Tony Blair, who came to see Kearns’ school play.

Waterfront Hall, Belfast
Ralf Hutter and his bandmates show how profound their influence has been on huge swathes of popular music – and they give a tender tribute to the late Ryuichi Sakamoto

Forty-five years ago this month, Kraftwerk released Computer World, an album addressed to a world that hadn’t been built yet. Tonight in Belfast, Ralf Hütter and his bandmates open with three songs from it: Numbers, the title track, Computer World 2 – body-popping electro that the next few decades of music tried to live up to.

The opening seconds of Numbers catch oddly: a familiar pause stretching too long, then steadied, then not another slip all night. Fifty-five years since the band formed, the machines still need their man. Hütter, 79 and the last original member since Florian Schneider’s departure in 2008, is more animated than legend has it – a bobbing left leg betraying what the face won’t – feeding melodies into a system he built before most of pop knew what a synthesiser was. Lit from below, Henning Schmitz, Falk Grieffenhagen and Georg Bongartz flank him at lectern-like consoles, as pre-internet polygons and cascading numerals tower behind them.

Menier Chocolate Factory, London
Lindsay Posner’s precise revival flies highest in its most intense moments of beastliness as a psychiatrist sets about ridding a teenage boy of his demons

Desperation seeps out of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 tale of sex, gods and horses. Lindsay Posner revives Equus with precision, as absolute power shifts, homoerotic desire grows and the muscular allure of a stallion becomes irresistible.

Noah Valentine is taut and stringy as Alan Strang, the disturbed 17-year-old who, while working weekends at a stable, blinds six horses. Having refused to explain in court why he did it, Alan winds up in therapy with Toby Stephens’ rumpled psychiatrist Martin Dysart. Alan gets hooked on the attention as their sessions progress, savouring the rush of retelling his story, while Martin begins to lose his power over the boy and his own sense of self.

Bush theatre, London
Married aspiring standups confront on stage what they’re concealing in real life, in Piers Black’s compelling two-hander

Standup is performance in extremis, self-projection in the raw – and has long appealed to dramatists interested in the faces we present to and conceal from one another. That seems to be the territory of I’m Not Being Funny, too, as we meet two young parents prepping in their living room for a forthcoming open mic night. Peter wants to tell corny jokes; Billie wants to tell stories about her – well, their lives. An interrogation looms into the uses and abuses of onstage humour, but that is not, in the end, what we get.

I’m not convinced that Piers Black’s play quite marries how it starts with what it becomes. There is something off about the pair practising comedy together. Are they planning solo slots – the classic “tight five”, as Peter refers to it? (He frets he only has a “loose two”.) Or are they workshopping a double act? That question feels more pertinent when, after a few flashbacks hinting at a dramatic backstory, the play swerves into more traumatic territory.

A new UK scheme is encouraging venues to provide accommodation for touring acts. But what if someone hurls a TV through a window?

Touring has become increasingly financially precarious for grassroots artists, pinched by issues including the cost of living crisis and increasing fuel costs. But a growing number of UK music venues are attempting a simple but potentially transformative fix: giving bands somewhere to sleep.

This month, the Music Venue Trust charity announced a new wave of funding initiatives to rebuild infrastructure for touring musicians, including schemes focused on artist accommodation: unused spaces in venues could be converted into rooms for touring musicians, in an effort to cut costs and make smaller tours more viable. “Accommodation costs are limiting touring options and venues, especially in rural locations where there may not be lots of accommodation choices,” says Mark Davyd, the charity’s chief executive.

Abstract expressionist’s Number 7A, 1948, becomes the fourth most expensive work ever sold at auction

A Jackson Pollock painting has sold for a record $181.2m (£135.3m) at Christie’s in New York.

The sale on Monday made Number 7A, 1948 the fourth most expensive work ever sold at auction, according to ARTnews.

As the razor-sharp lawyer in the 90s hit drama, Nardini’s character epitomised the work-hard, play-hard attitudes of the era. But after going through cancer, divorce and bereavement, the actor decided to retrain

Almost 30 years ago, not long after the final episode of This Life, the BBC series that launched Daniela Nardini’s career, I interviewed her at a swanky hotel in Covent Garden, London. I had expected her to be exactly like her This Life character, Anna Forbes, the provocatively sharp and messy woman now being credited by critics as the prototype for Fleabag. She did not disappoint. My memory of that encounter remains vivid: a giddy hour covering love, ambition, sex and fame. She wore a pink lily in her hair, and wine might have been consumed.

Nardini now lives and works as a therapist in the West End of Glasgow. As I stroll through the tenement-lined streets to interview her, there are other reasons I’m ruminating on the past. In the short walk from the subway, I pass my first home, my nursery and my primary school (now inevitably repurposed as luxury flats). I am getting timewarp vibes at every turn, but the sensation evaporates when Nardini comes to the door. The woman on the threshold has a very different demeanour from the one inhabiting my memory. She remains striking, with the same soft, dark gaze. But what is most compelling is her unsmiling stillness.

From beans, lentils and tofu to chicken, pork, beef and fish, experts weigh the health benefits and potential drawbacks

Do you think you’re not getting enough protein? Debbie Fetter, an associate professor in nutrition at the University of California, Davis, likes to ask her students this same question. In a lecture hall of more than 500 people, “almost every hand shoots up”, she says.

Protein is top of mind for consumers. A 2024 survey of 3,000 Americans suggests most are trying to eat more of it, and research shows that foods labeled “more protein” are especially appealing to consumers.

They’re in restaurants, offices and supermarkets – there’s even a petition to let them on flights to the UK. But not everyone is happy about the growing number of dogs in public places

Out for dinner in London with her husband and two-month-old son, Gizzelle Cade noticed another woman coming into the restaurant with a pram. “It had all these little trinkets and toys,” says Cade. “I was like, wow, she put some cute little decor there.” The woman reached into the pram to get, Cade assumed, her baby – instead she pulled out a dog. Then she put an absorbent pad, the kind you use for puppy training, on the floor and placed the dachshund on it.

“I was completely taken aback,” says Cade. “To see pretty much an open bathroom where I was dining with my newborn – it was insulting.”

You told us your camping must-haves, from portable pumps and blackout tents to a flask that keeps beer cold. Plus, women’s summer wardrobe updates and celeb booze, tested

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One thing we’ve discovered here on the Filter is that our readers are an outdoorsy bunch. Few topics have driven as many enthusiastic write-ins as when we asked for your best camping tips.

From a strap that turns your mattress into a chair to a super-smart peg-free washing line, here are your top tips and tricks. (And no, none of you has any commercial links to these companies or products – we always check.)

Fame, fantasy … and fish? Celebrity drinks put to the test

‘Don’t be fooled by fancy packaging’: the best (and worst) supermarket shortbread, tasted and rated

Ditch fabric softener and give jumpers a good steam: how to make your clothes last longer

Wobble boards, Duplo and screen-free stories: the top toys and gifts for three-year-olds

The best umbrellas for staying dry in the wind and rain – tested on a 517m hilltop

Fed up with frizzy and dehydrated locks? Dyson’s latest travel model allows effortless styling on the go – but at a cost

• The best hair dryers – tested

With the summer holidays fast approaching, the usual anxieties might be taking hold: pickpockets and touts, lost passport, severe sunburn, holiday tummy, and – perhaps most pressingly – the horrors of the hotel hair dryer. That last one is not to be underestimated: an outdated dryer with one scorching heat setting is a fast track to frizzy, dehydrated, unfabulous hair – not something you want immortalised in your holiday photos.

Worry not, though: Dyson promises to fix that particular woe. The British engineering brand has shrunk its Supersonic into a smaller, lighter, travel-friendly dryer offering the same powerful airflow and heat-control technology as its full-size sibling. So does this admittedly very stylish compact dryer really justify its premium price?

Dunk, nibble or wolf them down: this classic biscuit is at its best when it’s just sugar, butter and flour, so be wary of those that stray from the rules

• The best extra-chocolatey biscuits

At its best and simplest, shortbread is made using a classic 1:2:3 ratio – one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour, by weight. Perhaps unsurprisingly, few supermarket shortbreads stick to that golden rule and include other ingredients such as cornflour and raising agents; they’re nothing to worry about – but some cut the butter (and costs) by using rapeseed oil, margarine or worse.

Unlike most manufactured products, however, the price of shortbread doesn’t always reflect the level of processing, and some of the cheapest are also the least processed. Look out for “all-butter” on the label, to make sure the shortbread doesn’t include oil and has that classic, buttery taste. And don’t be fooled by fancy packaging.

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

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

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

It’s seeds off, skin on in this autumnal pumpkin dish – and don’t be afraid to let it turn extra golden in the oven

A delicious way to enjoy butternut pumpkin. No need to remove the skin, and try not to overcrowd the tray; give everything space so it roasts rather than steaming. And don’t be shy with colour – those dark edges on the pumpkin are where all the flavour is. I serve this with sliced chilli on the side to keep it family friendly.

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Darren Robertson, co-founder of Three Blue Ducks, and Doug Innes-Will, Bundanon executive chef, are hosting a Twilight Feast as part of the Make Good festival on 30 May at Bundanon, NSW

Spain’s favourite staple snack gets a delicate and indulgent seafood makeover

Croquetas have always been part of my life, and my favourites have always been my mum Isabel’s hake croquetas. That’s really where it all started for me: simple but full of flavour, the kind of thing you grow up eating without really thinking about it and then never forget. What I especially love about croquetas, however, is that they can be made from almost anything. Many people say that they rely on good leftovers, and that’s true, but they can also be made with rather more indulgent ingredients, like crab. It just goes to show quite how versatile croquetas are – and how they always go with a good glass of white rioja!

Don’t just tip it into boiling water and leave it, says our pasta panel – it needs a bit of attention

When I cook pasta with a hollow (eg, orecchiette), how do I stop it sticking together? The water is always boiling and salted, sometimes with oil, but last week my granddaughter and I spent half an hour going through the damn stuff.
David, Manchester
“Pasta is an engaged activity, so it’s really important that you don’t just drop it [in boiling water] and walk away,” says Dara Klein, of Tiella in east London. “Like a dear friend, pay it some attention.” David mentions orecchiette, which is a particularly vulnerable shape, says the Guardian’s Italian correspondent, Rachel Roddy: “They have a habit of falling into each other,” she sympathises, and in such times it’s best to check your basic principles. “It’s always the same rules,” Roddy says. “The water should be fast boiling, add salt, then stir, so you’ve got that double movement.” She isn’t one for adding olive oil, mind. Neither is Klein: “It’s just not necessary. And even if you’ve added a healthy glug of oil to the water, you’re still going to get clumping if you don’t stir.”

This may seem obvious, but make sure your pasta hasn’t intertwined in the bag before shaking it into the rolling water, and don’t be daft and dump the lot in all at once. “As soon as the pasta is in the water, give it a stir with a wooden spoon,” says Klein, who then stirs every minute to ensure those pasta shapes float free.

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

Punchy, breaded chicken with a miso-dressed green bean and cabbage salad

This is my current speedy weeknight favourite, and hits so many of my wishlist requirements. The flavours are intense – salty, sweet, a little spicy (I love to finish it with a crispy chilli oil), with the freshness of a shredded slaw. It’s punchy, quick and nutritious. And, as much as I love it just as it is, this would also make an excellent butty: pop the sliced panko-coated chicken in a brioche bun and pile the salad on top. Delicious.

She might look like a wolf, but Nya’s temperament is so sweet that she now helps people who have a fear of trains and travel

I got Nya, a German shepherd, when she was a puppy. She has such a good temperament – she’s really calm around people.

When she was five years old, I decided to register her with Pets As Therapy, an organisation that brings therapy pets into hospitals, care homes, schools and other places to befriend people, and help reduce stress and anxiety.

When Sousan Samadani saw a video about soil degradation, she suddenly knew she would commit everything she had to the cause. Soon she was travelling thousands of miles to raise awareness, skydiving, hitchhiking and cycling

Sousan Samadani was watching videos on YouTube one day when she came across a post about how the world’s soil was degrading so rapidly that it was in danger of extinction.

The video – posted by the Save Soil movement – “was like a shock for me”, Samadani says. “I thought: ‘How is it possible that the soil that gives us food is dying?’”

I walked faster, sure that someone was lurking somewhere. Then a taxi pulled up next to me with an older businessman in the back seat

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

The Sydney suburb of Darlinghurst was not a safe place in the 1980s. There was this jittery vibe when the next heroin batch was coming in and people were overdosing like mad. But the area was also home to a scene of people who were into making little films or art and just going to the clubs in great clothes and dancing our butts off. I was one of them – 23, quite pretty and a hip underground darling.

One night I was walking home from Oxford Street after clubbing. I was always wary of my surroundings, because you grew up very quickly living in that area. But it was a nice night for a walk so I went for it. I remember how dark it was; a slender moon offering little in the way of light.

For Evan Lewis and Dat Tien Lewis, a cycling odyssey was a test of their relationship. A quiet whisky session revealed how far they’d come

• Find more stories from the moment I knew series

I met Dat in San Francisco in 2015. I had left a tourism consulting role in China and moved to the US to start my own Mongolian vodka product. Dat was a specialised nurse. He loved being a nurse.

They say opposites attract and I think that rings true for us. He had this way of calming a room. Dat would arrive at a party and somehow the volume in the room would come down a little bit. He did the same with me. It was a very busy time trying to build my business but he was always there – very supportive and curious about what I was doing. We moved quite quickly into the relationship and spent a lot of time together.

The bank’s interim chief executive says ‘this issue should never have happened’, but warns it may take time to process claims

National Savings and Investments bank will start to contact thousands of families affected by a missing savings scandal next week, as it confirmed how much they are owed.

In March, the chief executive of the state-backed bank was forced out after it emerged there had been long-running problems with the tracing of accounts belonging to customers who had died.

Experts warn that although prediction markets are not regulated as gambling platforms, they are just as addictive

When Kevin first heard about the prediction market Kalshi, he knew deep down it would be wise to stay away. Kalshi reminded him of a weakness of his: sports betting.

Kevin, who is 36 and works in law enforcement in Texas, has been a gambling addict for 18 years. It’s a problem that cost him his first marriage and forced him to file for bankruptcy.

Many families struggle to understand how the system works and how it could affect any benefits they claim

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

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

Mid-range Android stands out with huge screen, slick software and dot-matrix display, but falls just short of greatness

Nothing’s latest quirky smartphone is a huge aluminium Android with three cameras and a big LED matrix screen on the back that challenges the notion mid-range phones can’t be just a bit more fun.

The Phone 4a Pro is a bit of a departure from UK-based Nothing’s previous glass-clad transparent designs. It still has a touch of those elements but only in the camera island at the top, with the rest of the body now solid aluminium – a rare sight in the world of Android phones.

Exposure to high temperatures won’t have a noticable effect – unless your sperm count is already low

Could your post-gym spa habit affect your ability to have a baby? It’s a belief that gets repeated regularly online. But Prof Colin Duncan, a fertility expert at the University of Edinburgh, says things aren’t as clearcut as people make out. Cisgender men produce sperm in the testicles. It’s from here that these male reproductive cells are released to inseminate the eggs women produce.

Duncan says that repeated exposure to higher temperatures, such as those found in saunas, do inevitably have some effect on how much sperm is made by them. “Testicles are located outside the body because they work better when they’re cooler. If you’re incubating them in a sauna then they don’t work quite as well.”

Lindsay C Gibson’s book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents was an enormous unexpected hit in the pandemic. Now the psychologist is back with her advice for raising happy, healthy children

Around the time of the pandemic, a self-help book with a somewhat unglamorous but functional title – Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents – took off on social media. It had been published five years earlier, but in 2020, when more people had time to reflect on life, it was rediscovered, its success fuelled by readers who recognised their own childhood in its pages and their experience with parents who had uncontrolled emotional outbursts, or were self-absorbed, unavailable or lacking empathy. In the view of its author, Lindsay C Gibson, these were parents whose own emotional developmental stage was closer to that of, say, a four- or five-year-old. Their own children had overtaken them, and were now recognising it.

Gibson’s latest book, How to Raise an Emotionally Mature Child, is a guide for those of us who don’t want our children to experience the same kind of childhood we did. Perhaps you’ve realised – the self-awareness is key – that you’re lacking enough maturity of your own, and feel clueless about what you should be doing. “If you have an emotionally immature parent, it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed,” says Gibson, via video call from her home in coastal Virginia. “However, you’ve probably learned emotionally immature attitudes and behaviours that may pop out at times. The difference is that if you have adequate emotional maturity, you’re going to notice it and it’s going to bother you.”

From an elevated heart rate to weakened immunity, experts explain the hidden physical costs of chronic stress – and why our bodies aren’t built to stay on high alert

You wake up later than planned, so it’s a rush to get everything sorted out ahead of the school run. While you’re waiting for the toaster, idiotically, you check your phone. Something has happened, and your timeline is a scalding-hot mess of the worst takes imaginable. One of your children has left their shoes somewhere unfathomable, and there’s an envelope on your doormat scolding you for driving in a bus lane.

You’re undeniably stressed, and your body’s likely to respond by ramping up the same biological systems that evolved to deal with inter-tribe disputes and mammoth attacks. But is there a downside to being stressed – and having these systems switched on – all the time? Take a calming breath, and let’s dig into the science.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: You’re supposed to be quiet in the cinema. So why are the snacks so loud?

I was recently beset by a plague of clothes moths. After hours of research, I discovered the miracle that is the parasitic wasp, or Trichogramma evanescens – near-microscopic beasts that you can order online (in sachets of 2,000 wasps!), the life’s calling of which is to destroy clothes moth eggs.

It made me wonder: is there anything else in our daily lives that is so beneficial to us, but which few of us have heard of – or realise is there? John Forward, Brixton

Ralph Lauren the brand turns 60 next year, with the designer himself now in his ninth decade. A new book, Ralph Lauren: Catwalk, written by veteran fashion journalist Bridget Foley, explores the history of the all-American label’s influential catwalk shows from 1972 to now

The style on the Croisette is off to a strong start

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wonderful walks, wholesome adventures and friendly farmyard animals await at this collection of cabins and cottages in Perthshire

On a January morning in 1938, Pitmiddle’s last resident, James Gillies, closed the door to his cottage for the final time and walked away through the snow. High on the south-facing slopes of the Sidlaw Hills in Perthshire, the village is now little more than a jumble of half-ruined walls gradually being reclaimed by the land.

My children pick around the overgrown stones like explorers discovering a lost civilisation, before scampering back through the gate and over the grass to our cabin in a neighbouring field. Called the Pitmiddle Hut, it’s the latest addition to Guardswell Farm, which spans 81 hectares (200 acres) of countryside halfway between Perth and Dundee (an hour and a half from Glasgow or Edinburgh). “People gradually moved away from Pitmiddle’s way of life,” says Anna Lamotte, who runs Guardswell with her husband, Digby Legge, often aided by their four-year-old daughter and a smiley 10-month-old in a vintage pram. “Villagers each had a pendicle, the small area they could farm, a system of outfields, infields and ‘kailyards’ – a Scots word for a kitchen garden.” Anna and Digby grew up on farms and small-holdings nearby, and today they rear cattle, sheep, goats and chickens and tend to the vegetable gardens, alongside welcoming guests to stay.

With state-of-the-art fitness and spa facilities onsite and everything from hiking to kayaking the beautiful Bay of Kotor, it’s a perfect base for an active break

I was lying on a bed with no trousers on. A young man helped me into some crotch-high boots and zipped them up. He turned the lights down low, put on some music, pressed a button and left the room. Argh! The boots started to slowly inflate from the toes up, like a giant blood-pressure cuff. As they clenched around my upper thighs, I started to panic. What if they just got tighter and tighter until my legs exploded? As I was about to shout for help, the pressure suddenly released, leaving my legs feeling deliciously light. I took a deep breath and submitted to another 19 minutes of this sweet torture.

I was at Siro Boka Place in Montenegro, having compression boot therapy, which is supposed to boost circulation and reduce swelling. “It’s especially effective on women over 35,” my youthful assistant had told me, helpfully. The hotel, which opened last year, is proud of its “state-of-the-art wellness facilities”. In most hotels that means a poky gym. At Siro the facilities are so good the Montenegrin Olympic team is training here ahead of Los Angeles 2028.

From a stylish retreat in Norfolk to a remote hideaway on a Scottish island, these boltholes will make for a truly memorable stay

Tourism experts are predicting a bumper year for “staycations” with more of us choosing to holiday in the UK due to continuing uncertainty around jet fuel prices and possible flight cancellations. Holidaymakers are spoilt for choice with more than 350,000 UK self-catering listings on booking platforms, from rustic barn conversions to seaside villas with all mod cons for large family gatherings.

We’ve done some of the leg work and whittled down a selection of cottages which all offer something special, whether it’s a stunning location, a breathtaking view or a level of comfort and style that wouldn’t be out of place in a boutique hotel.

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

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

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

Designers hope Sightsavers sensory exhibit at London flower show will offer something for everyone

Some will want to touch the Stachys byzantina, an evergreen plant with leaves so velvety soft its common name is lamb’s ear. Others will want to smell the star jasmine, taste the plethora of herbs or listen to the “sensory soundscape” inspired by bioelectric signals of the surrounding plants.

When the Sightsavers sensory garden opens at the Chelsea flower show this week, designers Peter Karn, Janice Molyneux and Sarah Fisher are hoping that visitors, with disabilities or without, will find it an accessible, inclusive space that engages all their senses.

It sounds like a handy, natural propagation trick, but tried-and-tested methods are more reliable

The problem
Taking cuttings is one of the most satisfying things you can do as a plant owner, but most people lack confidence. Stems sit in water for weeks doing nothing, or collapse in soil before roots appear. So when a hack promises to speed things up using nothing more than a raw potato, news travels fast.

The hack
The potato is supposed to keep the cutting hydrated and release nutrients as it breaks down, giving the stem everything it needs to form roots before it has to fend for itself. Some videos claim that potatoes contain salicylic acid, which encourages rooting.

Learning to drive as an adult is humiliating because everyone knows how to drive, and frustrating because no one knows how to drive properly

Last year, at the age of 35, I decided it was time to grow up and get my driver’s licence.

I had considered it before but it had never stuck. As a teenager, I thought driving was scary and significantly less cool than sitting on the bus, listening to the same eight songs on my MP3 player. As a news reporter in my 20s, not driving was inconvenient to both me and my editors, but so was spending days off learning how to parallel park.

Journalist Simone Stolzoff in a new book explores why modern life makes not knowing harder – and how to learn to live with it

Simone Stolzoff describes himself as “naturally an uncertain person” inclined to rumination and self-doubt. This tendency benefits him in his work as a journalist, but can otherwise be a double-edged sword.

While working for a magazine in New York, Stolzoff was approached about a job at a design firm in San Francisco. Now, he laughs at how tortured he felt “having to decide between two attractive career paths”.

Deep-rooted problems of food inequality are hidden behind area’s affluence and beauty

• Rural Britain is becoming ‘food desert’ for lower-income families, study finds

What does a “food desert” look like? In the case of the modestly affluent Cotswolds village of Kempsford, very pretty. When I visit the sun is shining from cloudless blue skies on to lovely honey-coloured stone houses, some draped in purple wisteria.

Aside from the loud hum of US air force planes revving up at the nearby Fairford airbase it’s a picture of rural calm. There’s a primary school and a pub. A house on the main street is called “The Old Bakery”. But there is no shop selling food for miles.

Some of the homes have been repossessed, while others are being sold off by debt-laden housing associations. Who buys them – and who will end up living there?

Amid the high-stakes bustle of numbered paddles shooting up and gavels banging down, an unexpected voice calls desperately from the corner of the auction room. “That’s my house,” shouts the woman, watching her home of 20 years up for sale.

“I live there. You can tell the people who are bidding I’m not coming out of my house,” she continues.

José Antonio Donaire is not against tourists but wants to return the city to its residents – and he is starting with its most iconic market

After decades of relentlessly marketing their vibrant Mediterranean city, the Barcelona authorities have appointed a man on a mission to say “no more” – and, he says, to return its most iconic market back to local residents.

Last year, the Barcelona area attracted 26 million visitors, up 2.4% on 2024. The appointment of José Antonio Donaire as the city’s first commissioner for sustainable tourism represents a significant change of heart and a shift away from viewing tourism as an unalloyed good to believing it is alienating citizens and eroding the Catalan capital’s identity.

Share a tip on your most memorable family break in the UK and Europe – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

What makes the perfect family holiday? Whether you travelled with toddlers, teenagers or as part of a multi-generational group, tell us about the choice of destination and fun activities that made your trip successful, or even special. Where did you go in the UK or Europe, what did you do and what made it work?

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

Find out how we compiled our list of the 100 best novels published in English – and nominate your favourites

• See the list here

This week, we reveal our list of the 100 greatest novels published in English, as voted for by authors and critics around the world. We polled 172 authors, critics and academics for their top 10 novels of all time, published in English, and asked them to rank their choices in order of preference. We scored the titles according to how often they were voted for, and then added a weighting based on individual rankings to produce the overall list of 100 greatest books.

What would be at the top of your list? Which authors do you think should be there? What are your favourite novels of all time?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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