Rumeysa Ozturk has been held for over six weeks after she co-wrote an opinion piece criticizing her school’s response to Israel’s war in Gaza

• Judge orders release on bail of Tufts student battling deportation order

Large institutional investors have massively increased their holdings of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in recent months according to SEC filings, with many enlarging their positions by hundreds of millions of dollars.

The revelations raise further questions about big business’s desire to curry favor with Donald Trump and his administration via the enterprises he has maintained or commenced. TMTG runs the Truth Social social media platform – on which the US president himself posts almost daily – as well as financial services and a film and TV streaming service.

Donald Trump’s refusal to divest from his publicly traded company has predictably prompted huge investments from wealthy special interests that could use a favor from the president.

Institutional Wall Street investors and even a foreign company with business before the administration have effectively offered a form of tribute by bulk purchasing shares in DJT on the open market, which helps juice the value of Trump’s own shares.

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• Championship playoff updates from the 8pm BST kick-off
• Bristol City 0-3 Sheff Utd | Read Football Daily | Email Yara

Coventry XI (4-2-3-1): Wilson; Van Ewijk, Thomas, Kitching, Dasilva; Sheaf, Grimes; Sakamoto, Rudoni, Wright; Thomas-Asante

Subs: Collins, Latibeaudiere, Binks, Paterson, Allen, Mason-Clark, Simms, Eccles, Bidwell

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Exclusive: PM says UK has ambitious plans for partnership and urges Britons to embrace new era in relationship

The UK has “ambitious” plans to secure a closer trading partnership with the EU, Keir Starmer has said, as he argued the British public had moved on from Brexit.

Before a UK-EU summit, the prime minister urged people to “look forward, not back” as the country embarked on a new era of its relationship with the bloc.

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Two addresses in north-west London searched after three other Iranians detained in same investigation last Saturday

A 31-year-old Iranian man has been arrested in north-west London under the National Security Act 2023 as part of a counter-terrorism policing investigation in which three other Iranian men were detained, the Metropolitan police have said.

The man was detained on Friday morning and searches were carried out at two addresses in the area.

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• US set to host in 2031, the UK in 2035
• Fifa approves strategy for Afghan women’s football

The Women’s World Cup will expand to 48 teams from the 2031 tournament onwards after the proposal was approved by Fifa Council on Friday, the Guardian understands.

The UK is set to host the event in 2035 and that tournament will now involve 12 groups of four teams and more than 100 matches, with the format mirroring the newly expanded men’s World Cup. It is understood Fifa took this decision after consulting the continental confederations and believe expansion of its most important tournament befits the rapid growth of the women’s game.

The World Cup increased in size from 24 to 32 teams for the 2023 event in Australia and New Zealand. It will again have 32 teams for the 2027 edition in Brazil. The eight venues for 2027’s event – including the Maracana in Rio de Janeiro – were confirmed earlier this week.

The United States is set to stage the 2031 tournament after there were no competing bids to stage either that or the 2035 event. The US and UK are yet to be formally ratified as the hosts but that is expected to be a formality.

The expansion of the Women’s World Cup could mean an increased number of host cities and stadiums will be required in the UK’s 2035 tournament plans. Alongside Wembley, Hampden Park and Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, it is thought as-yet unbuilt venues such as Manchester United’s new stadium and Birmingham City’s proposed new 62,000-seater home could both be in contention to host matches if built in time.

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Simon Clarke says ‘pipeline of future voters is dead’ as party figures warn Kemi Badenoch her job as leader is in danger

The Conservative party is fighting to justify its existence amid concerns that its pipeline of future voters is “completely dead”, a former cabinet minister and leading thinktank director has said.

Simon Clarke, an ally of Boris Johnson who backed Kemi Badenoch for the leadership last year, was among a string of former Tory ministers and serving MPs to tell the Guardian she faced removal by her party if she did not turn its fortunes around by next year’s local elections.

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Prog rockers score seventh No 1 album with recording of Italian gig, extending their chart run following final studio album The Endless River in 2014

A recording of Pink Floyd’s eerie and evocative 1972 gig in the ruins of Pompeii, entitled Pink Floyd at Pompeii – MCMLXXII, has become the band’s seventh UK chart-topping album.

The album captures the gig that was documented by director Adrian Maben for one of rock’s most arresting concert films, which has been restored to 4K quality and rereleased in cinemas, including in Imax format. A recording of the gig was previously included as part of a larger Pink Floyd box set, but this is the first standalone version, featuring a new sound mix helmed by prog rock musician Steven Wilson.

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Move to speed up appeals of people in government-funded hotels could be challenged on discrimination grounds, officials warn

A plan to fast-track the appeals of asylum seekers living in government-funded hotels could face multiple legal challenges on the grounds of discrimination, the government has said.

A 24-week legal deadline on appeal decisions for those staying in hotel rooms is being introduced in an attempt to fulfil a Labour manifesto promise to end a practice that costs the taxpayer billions of pounds a year.

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Vince Vaughn plays a grieving son who decides to open an Italian eaterie with grandmothers in the kitchen in a simple but charming crowd-pleaser

There’s a great deal of warmth both in and out of the kitchen in Netflix’s remarkably charming new food comedy Nonnas, a simple yet satisfying fact-based crowd-pleaser landing just in time for Mother’s Day across many countries in the world. It’ll make for an easy post-lunch choice for families gathering this weekend, providing the sort of mechanically proficient pleasures that used to be far more common back in the 80s or 90s. The platform has tried, and mostly failed, to resurrect the kind of endlessly played, easily rewatchable cable movie favourite and while this still might not be quite as fondly remembered in the decades to come, it’s a better simulation than most.

To those with less of an Italian component to their family, a nonna is a grandmother, the stereotype of which spends a great deal of time in the kitchen, preparing food with equal parts garlic and love. For Joe (Vince Vaughn, in reliable been-around-the-block mode), the death of both his nonna and then his mother has left him feeling unmoored, questioning what to do with himself and his life going forward. We’ve seen a great deal of stories based around sons and their fathers but it’s uncommon to explore what a mother means to a man in the same serious way, a strangely untapped relationship on screen. For Joe, the loss has led to a pervading chill and his unlikely solution is to use the money from her life insurance to open a restaurant in Staten Island.

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President Claudia Sheinbaum says lawsuit has been filed after US lawmakers voted on name change

Mexico has sued Google for changing the Gulf of Mexico’s name to “Gulf of America” for Google Maps users in the United States, Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s president, said on Friday.

“The lawsuit has already been filed,” Sheinbaum said at her morning news conference, without saying where and when it was submitted.

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• ECB has reached out to BCCI after IPL halted
• PSL also suspended with UAE unwilling to step in as host

The England and Wales Cricket Board is open to hosting the remainder of the Indian Premier League in September after escalating cross-border tension between India and Pakistan prompted the suspension of the world’s most lucrative Twenty20 tournament on Friday.

In a chaotic 24 hours matches in both the IPL and the Pakistan Super League were cancelled or abandoned, schedules torn up and foreign players told to start packing and book flights home. The Pakistan Cricket Board announced that the last eight fixtures of its tournament were being relocated to the United Arab Emirates, only for the Emirates Cricket Board apparently to reconsider its decision to host because it was “wary of being perceived as an ally of the PCB”, leading to that tournament also being suspended.

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Prince Albert Jacob feels disappointed in continued ignorance of role many non-whites played in war effort

“Most black people went overboard and tried hard to make sure that they did their best for Britain,” says Prince Albert Jacob, a 99-year-old veteran from Trinidad who joined the RAF in 1943.

In a London hotel lobby, after a busy week of VE Day celebrations, Jacob describes feeling disappointed at findings from a recent survey that showed British people remained largely unaware of the black and Asian contribution to the second world war.

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This week’s trade deal is a boost for Keir Starmer. But a lasting win will only come by joining forces with other nations to resist the US president’s entire destructive agenda

Donald Trump wanted Thursday, like every day, to be all about him. He thought the news cycle would be dominated by his sealing of the first US trade deal since he blew a hole in the world economy with the dynamite of tariffs. He gathered his vice-president and several cabinet members in the Oval Office to announce the new agreement – with the UK, as it happens – only for the gaze of the world to be diverted. All eyes were on Rome, where Trump was upstaged by one of the few global players who can outdo him when it comes to putting on a show.

Don’t think Trump is not simultaneously wondering how he can use that whole white-smoke thing – perhaps to signal his winning of a constitutionally prohibited third term in 2028 – and worrying that Leo XIV is a serious rival for the commodity he craves more than any other: attention. There now lives an American with more global followers than he has, and it happened in an instant.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

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• Danish rider holds off Van Aert in bunch sprint to line
• Mikel Landa abandons race after crash late in stage

Denmark’s former world champion Mads Pedersen edged out Wout van Aert in a bunch sprint to win the opening stage of the Giro d’Italia in Tirana, but Mikel Landa was forced to abandon the race after a crash five kilometres from the finish.

Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) was positioned perfectly by his teammates for the climax in the Albanian capital and held off Belgium’s Van Aert to become the first rider this year – and the first Dane – to wear the overall leader’s pink jersey. Venezuela’s Orluis Aular (Movistar) was third across the line.

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Kaja Sokola said disgraced movie mogul forced her to touch his genitals in his Manhattan apartment when she was 16

A former model has told a New York court that disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her when she was 16 years old, calling it the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced.”

Kaja Sokola told jurors at Weinstein’s retrial that he put his hand inside her underwear and made her touch his genitals at his Manhattan apartment in 2002 when she was 16.

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Lander probe of Kosmos 482, launched in 1972, is expected to re-enter the atmosphere some time between 9 and 10 May

Part of a Soviet spacecraft is expected to crash back down to Earth this weekend, with experts still unsure of where it will land.

Kosmos 482 was launched in March 1972 on a Soyuz rocket a few days after the Venera 8 atmospheric probe, and was thought to have a similar purpose. Intended to reach Venus, it failed to escape low Earth orbit and instead broke into four pieces.

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The first pontiff from the United States can be a powerful countervailing voice in the Trump era, and help protect Francis’s legacy

Twelve years ago, in the words of the late Pope Francis, the Catholic church went “to the ends of the Earth” in its search for a new pontiff. On Thursday, after surprisingly brisk discussions, the most geographically diverse conclave in history went to the heart of a superpower to find his successor.

The election of the first American pope is a remarkable moment. In part the cardinals’ choice of the Chicago-born Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, can be seen as a robust progressive response to the signs of the times. While senior Catholic figures around Donald Trump prosecute an insular Maga agenda, the new pope is as at home in Latin America, having spent two decades working in one of the poorest regions of Peru. Previous posts on a social media account under his name suggest he shared Francis’s withering views on the Trump administration’s draconian immigration policies.

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.

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The US president’s proposed levies will badly hit the UK industry just as it is recovering from a series of blows

Barbieland, the Emerald City and a galaxy far, far away were all built – at least in part – at film studios just outside London. Now the UK film industry has come crashing down to earth with Donald Trump’s threat to impose 100% tariffs on all movies “produced in foreign lands”. “Hollywood is being destroyed,” Mr Trump announced, like an action hero on a mission. “Other nations have stolen our movie industry.” In the UK the news was met with warnings that the British film sector would be “wiped out” by such a “knock-out blow”. Brian Cox, the Succession star, called the proposed tariffs “an absolute disaster”. Roll the opening credits.

Mr Trump has a point. New instalments of Marvel’s Avengers and Spider-Man are filming around London this summer. No wonder the president wants “MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!” The UK’s generous tax incentives, skills base and state-of-the-art facilities have helped make it “the Hollywood of Europe”. Now it is under threat. Without these blockbusters, Britain would be left with more than a superhero deficit.

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.

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Jim Mackey says state of public finances means country can no longer afford big spending rises

Ministers have “maxed out” the amount of money they can give the NHS and it must learn to live with smaller annual budget rises, the health service’s new boss in England has said.

The parlous state of the country’s finances means the government can no longer afford to hand the service big uplifts every year, despite the huge pressures it is under, Jim Mackey added.

Promised to tackle “completely unacceptable” variation in the quality of care patients receive, depending on which part of the NHS treats them.

Voiced alarm that situations that previously would not have been tolerated, such as “old ladies being on corridors next to an emergency department for hours on end”, have become “normalised”.

Said ministers had come to see the existence and independence of NHS England as “a complication”, because of “tension” and “frustration” over not being able to order it to do what they wanted, before they decided to abolish it.

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Norman Miller wonders whether the music industry would like to hear a call to ‘kill your local bands now’. Plus, letters by Robert Bennett, Denis Jackson and Duncan Macgregor

Kneecap are, of course, free to urge gig-goers to kill Tories – but freedom of speech also involves being prepared to deal with consequences ( Listen closely to the Kneecap furore. You’ll hear hypocrisy from all sides, 1 May). While it’s hardly surprising that music biz folk have leapt in to “defend” Kneecap, would they be so eager if it was a group of activists saying: “The only good musician is a dead musician. Kill your local bands now”?
Norman Miller
Brighton

• Kneecap’s comments about killing Tory MPs should be condemned. However, conflating these comments, which the band have apologised for, with their condemnation, at Coachella, of Israel’s attack on Gaza seeks to close down the argument regarding Israel’s actions, which many people around the world are appalled by. This is about being able to express moral outrage.
Robert Bennett
Oxford

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There is a way for both parents to ‘have it all’ in terms of paid leave – but it’s a challenge, writes Leila Froud, while Alison Smith says mothers should be better reimbursed. Plus, Jol Miskin on the ‘dad strike’

I’m so pleased that paternity leave is getting some air time and there is a campaign to increase it ( The Guardian view on paternity leave: campaigners are right to demand more, 5 May). Probably in part because I follow the Pregnant Then Screwed campaigns, my husband and I have discussed this in depth. He is now due to be taking a full six months of shared parental leave from his workplace this year.

With our first baby, he was at home but working self-employed, so had no benefits. I suffered with postnatal depression, and struggled with breastfeeding and the anxiety of trying to do it all right.

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The world need to act now, writes Stephen McCloskey; Bernie Evans calls on Labour to force an emergency debate

Re your editorial ( The Guardian view on Israel’s aid blockade of Gaza: hunger as a weapon of war, 4 May), what we are witnessing in Gaza is the collective punishment of a civilian population, mostly refugees, who were already living in highly vulnerable conditions following 18 months of what the international court of justice found to be a plausible risk of genocide and 18 years of an Israeli blockade.

That blockade has been tightened further for the past two months, during which hunger has been weaponised, with the apparent aim of ethnically cleansing Gaza. The author Omar El Akkad describes the term “genocide” as a “mechanic of forewarning”, not some “after-the-fact resolution”. The world should consider itself warned that the genocide in Gaza has entered a new phase of mass starvation with hunger, thirst and disease stalking 2 million people.

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It will just about cover the NIC increase – but it’s a case of government giving with one hand and taking with the other, writes one GP

As a GP, while I warmly welcome any injection of funding into primary care for all the reasons Wes Streeting has mentioned (quality of healthcare delivery, patient experience, earlier intervention reducing pressure on strained and more expensive hospital services), I question whether his recent investments will actually achieve this ( Wes Streeting: I will defend the tax rises funding 8.3m GP appointments, 6 May).

There is more money going into core general practice this year. But GPs are also employers, and the vast majority of their expenses are on staff. They are not exempt from national insurance contribution rises, and in fact the recent increase in funding will just about cover the NIC increase – this is unfortunately a case of the government giving with one hand and taking with the other.

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• ‘Exorbitant’ Europa League final travel costs hitting home
• Fans ‘exploited by airlines, hotels and Airbnb owners’

Supporters hoping to travel to the all-English Europa League final in Bilbao could end up paying thousands of pounds for the privilege. There are ways to drive that cost down, however, especially for those willing to spend two days on a ferry.

After Tottenham and ­Manchester United confirmed their places at the San Mames on 21 May via their respective semi-final second leg ­ victories over Bodo/Glimt and Athletic ­Bilbao on Thursday, eyes immediately turned to the prospect of attending a game both Ange Postecoglou and Ruben Amorim described as ­“massive”. Uefa has allocated 15,000 tickets to each club, with a further 11,000 tickets on general sale, out of a total capacity of 49,000. Tickets reserved for official allocations start at €40 (GBP34), the same price as last year, but general admission has risen in price, with the most ­expensive ­Category 1 ticket costing €240 (GBP203), up from €150 last year.

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• Briton wins 6-2, 6-2 to reach third round of Italian Open
• 21st seed Alexandrova withdrew hours before match

It was during her days of ­preparation for the Italian Open that Emma Raducanu decided her approach to clay-court tennis needed to change. Instead of making ­significant ­adjustments to her game to try and suit the surface, she would make the clay adhere to her own vision. She resolved to take the ­initiative and dominate her opponents from the front foot.

To her credit, she has effectively backed up those intentions in the heat of battle. Raducanu continued to build confidence and ­momentum in Rome as she produced one of her cleanest performances of the ­season to reach the third round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over the Swiss lucky loser Jil Teichmann.

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• American looking to increase stake beyond 80%
• NY Jets owner Woody Johnson also in frame to buy club

John Textor is attempting an audacious takeover of Crystal Palace but faces competition from the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson as the battle for control at Selhurst Park heats up before the club’s appearance in the FA Cup final next Saturday.

It is understood that Textor, who failed in his bid to buy Everton last year, has held talks with his fellow American shareholders David Blitzer and Josh Harris about buying their shares in Palace, which constitute about 36% of the club. That would take Textor’s stake to more than 80% and mean he would be able to complete a full takeover, a situation that could threaten the future of the long-serving chairman, Steve Parish.

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The Labour veteran looked an awkward choice for the court of Trump, but now the president is holding his hand and complimenting his beautiful accent

Peter Mandelson, with his elegant suits, smooth patter and high-end lifestyle, has always had a dark secret: an interest in the minutiae of trade deals, left over from his period as EU trade commissioner, a period when he could bore for Europe on the virtues of the Mercosur trade deal. Alongside his networking skills, and political antennae, it was his knowledge of trade that possibly persuaded Keir Starmer to take the political risk of appointing him ambassador to Washington.

A pro-European social democrat with a full record of insulting remarks about Donald Trump’s racism, Lord Mandelson might not have been the obvious man to open previously closed doors in the US administration.

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Eleanor the Great, The Chronology of Water and Urchin are all in the festival’s prestigious Un Certain Regard sidebar. A first step to being the next Clint Eastwood?

First-time directors with films premiering at Cannes next week would be forgiven for feeling nervous. But three of the directors who are unveiling their debut features in France are less likely than their peers to be quaking as they approach the red carpet.

Actors Scarlett Johansson, Kristen Stewart and Harris Dickinson are all among the film-makers with movies screening in Cannes’ prestigious sidebar Un Certain Regard over the next 10 days.

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Maro Itoje has listened to Martin Johnson and Sam Warburton as he prepares his ‘tough men’ for Australia

Do you know what really stuck out as Maro Itoje sat chatting in the O₂ Arena after the British & Irish Lions squad announcement? His biceps. This year’s Lions jersey is tight enough on the shoulders and sufficiently short on the arms to make their already well-muscled captain look like Popeye on steroids. Say what you like about the Lions squad but they have chosen a strong leader.

It has worked for them in the past. Who can forget the pipe-smoking Willie John McBride and his classic response – “Do you think there will be many of them?” – when an angry hotel manager in South Africa threatened to call the police to arrest a number of 1974 Lions who had been enthusiastically “rearranging” the furniture. Legend also has it that Ian McGeechan picked the hulking Martin Johnson as his skipper in 1997 partly because of the intimidating effect he might have on the Springboks – and the referee – when he entered their changing room.

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

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Martyna Ogonowska was sentenced in 2018 to 17 years in prison for stabbing Filip Jaskiewicz to death in a car park

A woman who stabbed a man to death as he sexually assaulted her has lost an appeal against her 17-year jail term.

Martyna Ogonowska was handed a life sentence aged 18 after being convicted of the 2018 murder of Filip Jaskiewicz, 23, in a Peterborough car park, using a knife she said she carried for self protection.

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Robert Fico and Aleksandar Vucic accept Vladimir Putin’s invitation to attend Victory Day celebrations

Despite warnings from European Union officials, Slovakia’s Moscow-friendly prime minister, Robert Fico, shook hands with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin before becoming the only EU leader to attend Russia’s 9 May parade of military forces waging war on Ukraine.

The Serbian president, Aleksandar Vucic, whose country aspires to join the 27-nation union, also accepted the Russian president’s invitation to attend the annual Victory Day celebrations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war.

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Dylan Tippetts of Plymouth resigns from party ‘that does not support my fundamental rights’

One of Labour’s only transgender councillors has resigned from the party, accusing it of “throwing trans people under the bus”.

In a post on X on Friday morning, Dylan Tippetts, who has represented Compton ward on Plymouth city council since 2022, wrote: “I cannot continue to represent a party that does not support my fundamental rights. I cannot as a trans person continue to support the Labour party.”

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Explosions heard in Indian Kashmir as witnesses say attacks are heavier than those reported on Thursday

Pakistan has been accused of launching a fresh wave of drone strikes against India on Friday night, with projectiles reported over the states of Indian-administered Kashmir and Punjab.

Explosions were heard in areas of Indian Kashmir and the bright flash of intercepted drones were seen over the Punjab city of Amritsar. Witnesses said the drone strikes were heavier than those that took place on Thursday night.

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Belgrade theatre, Coventry
The writer’s gift for gags is on full display in this adaptation starring two men offering up laddish chat along with questions of life and death in an Irish pub

While less dedicated or prolific writers were off boozing with their mates down the local, Roddy Doyle has spent almost a decade writing about it. From 2012-2019, he published three novels – Two Pints, Two More Pints, Two for the Road – in which two sixtysomething Irish men chatted over Guinness, their alcohol units far beyond those specified in the titles.

Comprising only dialogue without even character names, the books seemed to call for dramatic form and, in 2017, Doyle premiered a play titled Two Pints in a Dublin pub, the speakers now distinguished as One and Two, tended by Raymond, an almost-silent barman. During lockdown, Doyle added six online duologues, The Zoom Pints, in which the men spoke while drinking alone at home. The collected craic packs a 432-page paperback – The Complete Two Pints.

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Judge accepted request from Combs’s attorneys due to concerns that jurors might drop out over the weekend

The final phase of jury selection for the racketeering and sex-trafficking trial of the hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs has been postponed to Monday.

In a ruling on Friday morning, Judge Arun Subramanian, who is presiding over the case in New York, decided that jury selection will now wrap up on Monday morning due to concerns that jurors might drop out over the weekend if the panel was finalized on Friday as originally planned.

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Exclusive: Act found to be failing as hostile immigration policies deter trafficking victims from seeking help

Modern slavery victims are choosing to stay with their exploiters rather than access government support designed to protect them for fear of immigration enforcement, research has found.

The independent anti-slavery commissioner, Eleanor Lyons, said the system was “deeply broken”.

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Jury hears from sole surviving guest as well as medical staff and Erin Patterson’s children in second week of mushroom murders trial

Ian Wilkinson sat in the witness box, a crucifix within an ichthys pinned over his heart, and told the supreme court about four people he shared lunch with on 29 July 2023.

Three of those people are dead, and the other is accused of killing them.

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Research found chimpanzees drum with non-random rhythms that suggest building blocks of music may predate humans by millions of years

They might not produce Gershwin hits, but chimpanzees have got rhythm, researchers have found in a study they say sheds light on the evolutionary origins of music.

Scientists have previously found chimpanzees drum on the buttress roots of trees to send information to each other, with each individual having their own signature style.

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Our tech expert is back with an updated guide to the top-tier Android phones, from budget buys to the best for battery life

Need an Android phone, but not sure which to go for, or whether to buy new or refurbished? With lots to consider, view me as your guide as you trek through the process of picking the best handset for you.

The latest flagship Android phones come in various sizes, at different prices, and with varying hardware and software features, all powered by the fastest chips. Whether your priority is battery life, camera, screen size, software support or value for money, there is more to choose from than ever. But if you’re thinking of buying Apple instead, we have a guide for iPhones, too.

Best Android for most people:
Google Pixel 9
_{GBP621.96 at Amazon}

Best Android for camera:
Google Pixel 9 Pro
_{From GBP999 at Carphone Warehouse}

Best Android for battery life and big screen:
Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra
_{From GBP1,099 at Samsung}

Best small Android:
Samsung Galaxy S25
_{From GBP699 at Samsung}

Best value Android:
Google Pixel 9a
_{GBP499 at John Lewis}

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Prop-maker at Shepperton Studios fears for future after post by US president throws sector into uncertainty

It is a sunny May afternoon in leafy Surrey, and Richard St Clair is carefully preparing a bomb. It is not real, but it will look like it is when shown on a Netflix TV show. Across the workshop a colleague is cheerfully sandpapering a pile of hip bones for the 28 Years Later zombie film – trailers suggest a lot of skeletons will be involved.

They are working at db Props, a small company based at Shepperton Studios that has made everything from Thor’s hammer to Alan Turing’s computer in The Imitation Game.

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Katrin Ivanova’s barrister says her sentence should reflect her admin duties and not equate her with ‘classic spy cases’

A woman said to be “chief minion” in a ring of Bulgarians convicted of spying for Russia in Britain should not be treated like George Blake, the double agent sentenced to four decades in jail in the 1960s, the Old Bailey has heard.

Katrin Ivanova was said by her barrister, Rupert Bowers KC, to have been manipulated by her partner, Biser Dzhambazov, and to then have endured the discovery of his affair with a fellow member of the spy ring while in prison.

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As part of a Bafta TV special, the nominated actor on a whirlwind few years, why intimacy coordinators matter, and watching her not-so-guilty pleasure Real Housewives

When Marisa Abela landed the role of Yasmin, Industry’s traumatised heiress, she was still at drama school. Now, she’s a breakout star of the hit BBC/HBO series about the cut-throat world of finance. While the past couple of years have been stratospheric for the 28-year-old – she played Amy Winehouse in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s 2024 biopic Back to Black scoring a Bafta rising star nomination, and was hand-picked by Steven Soderbergh for his recent star-studded thriller Black Bag – she’s excited to be back for the next instalment of the show that made her name. In fact, when we speak she’s sitting in a Pret, all smiles and warmth despite waiting for a severely delayed train from London to Cardiff, where she is filming the fourth series.

What was your reaction when you found out you’d been nominated for a TV Bafta?

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The biggest night in telly is back. So will Richard Gadd’s stalker drama come up trumps? Will Katherine Parkinson triumph for her turn in Rivals? And will Ruth Jones finally get a gong for Gavin & Stacey?

Rarely has a Bafta TV awards ceremony taken place against such a background of industry anxiety: plummeting terrestrial ratings, aggressive streamer competition, a precipitous drop in UK production. Even sponsors P&O Cruises will rarely have seen such troublesome seas.

Bafta voters (I am one, but don’t know any final results) will also have brought other external concerns. Jurors may worry that Mr Bates vs the Post Office (premiered January 2024) now feels too old, which could count against Monica Dolan and Toby Jones in the acting categories. (Because of calendar year qualification, Adolescence may have the same problem in 2026.) Also, older voters can be reluctant to see pushy rich streamers thriving: they’ve just about come to terms with Netflix but Disney+ and Apple TV+, who have a strong shortlist presence, may, for some, be the future too far. Here are my preferences and predictions.

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From your children to those who have hurt us – these are the discussions we should be having, but aren’t

In polarising times, when technology has too often made us even more isolated, opportunities for meaningful conversation can go unnoticed. But what are we really missing? What do we forgo when we don’t take the chance to talk? And which conversations matter most? Here, experts highlight six conversations we should be having with one other, but aren’t.

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PC, PS5, Xbox; id Software/Bathesda Softworks
This prequel takes a blunt force trauma approach to problem-solving and demon-killing, with a slower pace but more spectacular weaponry

Billed as a prequel to id Software’s 2016 revival of Doom, The Dark Ages is about as different as it could be from its predecessors while remaining recognisably part of the series. Where 2020’s Doom Eternal was about speed and evasion, The Dark Ages emphasises standing your ground. Where Eternal involved picking off enemies one by one, The Dark Ages empowers you to obliterate dozens of demons simultaneously. Where Eternal saw you juggling rapid-fire weapons in a finger-cramping frenzy, The Dark Ages lets you solve most problems by hitting things ferociously hard. Ripping and tearing are out. Blunt force trauma is in.

The kernel of The Dark Ages’ combat stretches back to the 1993 original, inspired by the slow-moving projectiles fired by enemies such as imps, cacodemons, and hell knights. The Dark Ages empowers most of its enemies to shoot such projectiles, making its interdimensional battlefields glow with drifting fireballs, scudding orbs and floating energy barriers.

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The revamped National Gallery offers a new take on its glorious wonders, a psychoanalytical painter tackles masculinity, and abstract watercolours rise from the deep – all in your weekly dispatch

The Wonder of Art
New ways of seeing European art from Jan van Eyck to Cezanne and Picasso in a sumptuous rehang of one of the world’s richest and deepest art museums. And all for free. Read the five-star review.
• National Gallery, London, from 10 May

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Finally, a British prime minister has landed a trade agreement with the US. It’s just a shame it’s not a very good one

A huge day in import-export yesterday, as even Rome’s billion-per-cent tariff on American popes was lifted. The much bigger news, though, concerned the partial easing of recently imposed import taxes on British goods in the form of a starter UK-US trade deal, leaving the biggest little country in the world basking in the glow of an achievement our own prime minister seemed to hint had something of VE Day to it. In Britain, we have an old saying about dejection – “you look like you’ve lost a pound and found a sixpence” – but this was an entirely new spin on that scenario, given we were mostly celebrating being back to paying 10% more tariffs than we were subject to a few weeks ago. Yessss! A sixpence! Good times.

Before we get to the specifics of the deal, the theatre. I do find myself increasingly mesmerised by Trump’s Oval Office tableaux, which typically feature him surrounded by a cluster of sniggering mooks (eg the vice-president). Trump is like the boss in a cartoon about a crew of gangster dogs. Like Fat Sam from Bugsy Malone – but a bloodhound-chinese crested cross. Call him The Dogfather. So yes: the big dog was seated at his desk, while the henchdogs stood awkwardly round ready to laugh obsequiously on cue. And, bless them, they hit every single one. On this occasion, the boss dog was basking in their oleaginously indulgent chuckles, but you get the feeling that on a bad day it could go quite the opposite way. “Shaddup, Vance, you idiot. Did I say you could snigger?” “No, boss. Sorry, boss.”

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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Packaged bread, once a household staple, is in ‘inexorable decline’ because of rising costs and competition from other options

Toast and jam, bacon sandwiches and boiled egg with soldiers may be at the heart of traditional British food culture but bread is making up an ever thinner slice of our diet – putting pressure on some famous brands.

While still one of the most ubiquitous items in shopping baskets, the popularity of the packaged sliced loaf has been sliding downhill since the Hovis lad puffed up a cobbled street with his bicycle to the strains of a brass band in the 1973 TV ad.

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We know some medications work differently in men and women. Why is it taking so long for studies to reflect this?

The first step, they say, is admitting you have a problem, and on that front the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has made some much-needed progress. The agency, which is responsible for approving all clinical trials in the UK, has identified a “ notable imbalance” in trials conducted between 2019 and 2023: there were nearly twice as many all-male trials as all-female trials.

This imbalance is hardly surprising: as I documented in Invisible Women, my book on the female data gap, the failure to adequately represent women in clinical trials is a longstanding and global problem. The MHRA’s figures are also in line with a recent US analysis that found male-prevalent diseases receive nearly twice as much funding as female-prevalent diseases, both absolutely and relative to disease burden. So far, so disappointingly standard.

Caroline Criado Perez is the author of Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men

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.

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

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With a magnificent scouse accent and entertainingly debauched lyrics, EsDeeKid is blowing up fast – plus check out new music from Fiona Apple and more

From Liverpool
Recommended if you like Playboi Carti, 2hollis, YT
Up next New music soon

Second in the league table of unfairly maligned British accents behind Brummie, nothing sounds like scouse, consonants rolling around at the back of the mouth while vowels wheedle their way to the front. Delivering the accent at its most potent is rapper EsDeeKid, part of a vibrant UK rap underground going any which way after the drill years.

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Meeting aimed at de-escalating trade war after Chinese exports beat expectations despite slump in trade

Donald Trump has floated cutting tariffs on China from 145% to 80% before a weekend meeting as he looks to de-escalate the trade war.

Top US officials are expected to meet a high-level Chinese delegation this weekend in Switzerland in the first significant talks between the two nations since Trump provoked a trade war with stiff tariffs on imports.

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Ukho Ensemble Kyiv/Gaggero
(Kyiv Dispatch)
Gerard Grisey’s extraordinary expressive work, performed here by Ukraine’s leading new-music group, is one of the finest compositions of the late 20th century

Ukho Ensemble Kyiv is Ukraine’s leading new-music group, founded in 2015 by the Italian conductor Luigi Gaggero. Since the Russian invasion of the country in 2022, its members have inevitably been dispersed and its activities curtailed, but it has continued to perform a wide range of 20th and 21st-century repertories outside Ukraine. This performance of what is one of Gerard Grisey’s most important achievements, and one of the finest scores of the final decades of the last century, is taken from concerts the group gave in Stuttgart in December 2022.

Grisey completed Vortex Temporum, for two winds, three strings and piano, in 1996, two years before his shockingly sudden death. If the work that followed it, the extraordinary Quatre Chants pour Franchir le Seuil, suggested that Grisey’s music was about to enter a new phase that he did not live to explore, then Vortex Temporum is perhaps a stylistic end point, a masterly demonstration of the techniques and utterly lucid structural thinking that he had elaborated over the previous decade. What develops from a motif borrowed from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloe into a study in how musical time unfolds at different rates generates ideas of extraordinary expressive power along the way, whether it’s the piano solo in which the opening section climaxes, the unwinding chorale of the second part or the steadily accumulating third.

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Exclusive: Poet laureate says new book, inspired by wildlife at Cornish garden, is a plea for humans to slow down and reflect

His new poems celebrate the extraordinary homes of the creatures tucked away, usually out of sight, within the verdant nooks and crannies of the Lost Gardens of Heligan.

But during a stroll with the Guardian around the sub-tropical garden on the south coast of Cornwall, the poet laureate, Simon Armitage, explained how the pieces could also be taken as a plea for humans to slow down, think about the damage we are causing to the natural world and, hopefully, do something about it.

Armitage will appear at the inaugural Heligan Homecoming festival, from 13 to 22 June.

Dwell by Simon Armitage (Faber & Faber, GBP10). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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Twelve virgins, one island and a team of sex therapists who encourage participants to pleasure them … Channel 4’s new show is eye-popping TV. The stars talk fruity games, panic attacks and intimacy

Sex seems to be everywhere – in TV and films, the quagmire of porn online – but young people are increasingly not getting it in real life. The Next Steps longitudinal study following more than 16,000 people, by University College London, found that one in eight 26-year-olds still hadn’t had sex.

Hence Channel 4’s new show, Virgin Island, which depicts a two-week “radical retreat” led by sexologists Danielle Harel and Celeste Hirschman and a team of experts. The 12 participants are all virgins, and their varied issues around physical intimacy are explored via therapies that include sex coaches stripping naked and encouraging participants to pleasure them. The hope being that sex might be something they get to experience in the next fortnight.

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Mix season’s best rhubarb with peppercorns and hibiscus to make a sharp cordial that’s perfect for shaking up with gin and ice

Like our food menu, our drinks list seeks to minimise wastage while at the same time highlighting the best produce of the season. And this drink is no different, pairing leftover open white or sparkling wine with at-its-peak rhubarb.

Grace Oatway, beverage manager, Pip, Treehouse Manchester

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Kneejerk policy changes won’t win over Reform voters, or stop boats crossing the Channel. Here’s what the government should do instead

Deep disillusionment is now driving the public mood in Britain. People are desperate for competent government to handle issues like the cost of living, welfare and immigration. And they want people to be treated fairly and with dignity, whether they are asylum seekers, disabled people or pensioners. Yet on immigration, it is clear that No 10 has missed the memo.

It remains convinced that the only way to get a hearing with Reform voters on asylum is to sound as tough as possible. Indeed, Labour has recently resorted to sharing footage of people being deported in handcuffs, and headline grabbing initiatives to ship asylum seekers whose claims fail to so-called return hubs in countries such as Albania.

Enver Solomon is chief executive of the Refugee Council

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When Nudrat Afza learned that her friend’s synagogue was closing she began a multi-year project to document the city’s declining Jewish population. ‘In Bradford people from different communities respect each other,’ she says

In April 2013, Nudrat Afza, a Muslim woman from Bradford, gave her 90-year-old Jewish friend Lorle Michaelis a lift to the local Orthodox synagogue. “As Lorle got out of the car, she told me it would be the last service,” Afza recalls. “There were no longer enough people to run them. I was shocked. I knew the building would be sold or demolished.”

Afza got out of the car and took a few quick photos of the synagogue’s exterior. Months later, she happened to be passing when the caretakers were coming out. “I put my foot in the doorway and took some pictures inside, to quickly record what was there,” she says. The Orthodox synagogue was sold and redeveloped in 2015. Afza didn’t know it at the time but the photos were the start of a multi-year project to document Bradford’s declining Jewish population. “I grew up looking at pictures of the 1960s civil rights movement in the US, the Vietnam war and other political struggles in Britain and south Asia,” Afza explains. “I saw the importance of documenting something before it disappears.”

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Casting A-listers such as Florence Pugh strongly suggests these misfit superhero also-rans will not be limited to just one adventure

Warning: contains spoilers

This article contains major spoilers, so do not read if you have not watched Thunderbolts*. There was always something deeply suspicious about that asterisk, and now the word is out. If you’ve been to see it during the past week, you’ll know that the motley crew of antiheroes and sometime superheroes led by Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova and David Harbour’s Red Guardian may well be the New Avengers.

The problem is that even with the cat out of the proverbial bag, there’s something off here. First of all, the Avengers are supposed to be Earth’s mightiest heroes, a crew of idealists and icons who are never happier than when punching the likes of Thanos in the face and delivering heartfelt monologues about sacrifice and teamwork. The Thunderbolts*? They’re the last people you’d call if you were being invaded by Chitauri, Ultron, or even a moderately aggressive Roomba. This bunch of emotionally unstable grudge-holders are less “Earth’s mightiest” than “Earth’s most accessible”.

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Far right accused of misinformation over turbines at Reinhardswald, which has left local people divided

Deep in the woods that inspired the Brothers Grimm, past the tower from which Rapunzel threw down her hair and the castle in which Sleeping Beauty slumbered, lies a construction site that the far right has declared a crime against national soil and identity.

In this quiet corner of Germany’s “fairytale forest”, workers are clearing land and building access roads to erect 18 wind turbines.

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Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, found to have criminally damaged tree and Hadrian’s Wall

• ‘Stealing joy’: the sadness and symbolism of the crime at Sycamore Gap

Two friends who embarked on a “moronic mission” to fell the Sycamore Gap tree with a chainsaw have been found guilty of “mindless” criminal damage.

Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, cut down the cherished tree, next to Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, as Storm Agnes raged in the early hours of 28 September 2023.

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New leader says he wants a Catholic church that ‘illuminates the dark nights of this world’

• Five things to know about Pope Leo XIV

Pope Leo XIV said he hoped to lead a Roman Catholic church “that illuminates the dark nights of this world” as he held his first mass as pontiff under Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.

The surprise election of Robert Francis Prevost, the first US pope, came after a conclave that lasted less than 26 hours, one of the shortest in modern Catholic history.

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Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich’s vow that Gaza be ‘entirely destroyed’ should surprise no one – he formulated this chilling idea way before 7 October

• Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset for Hadash

Israel’s announcement of a new offensive to “conquer” Gaza, along with claims by Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli minister of finance, that the strip will be “ entirely destroyed”, have flustered the international community. Observers may be distressed, disturbed or upset by these plans. But they should come as no surprise. This kind of genocidal ideology has been evident, in Smotrich’s case, since long before 7 October. And opposition voices – including mine – have been warning of the government’s intentions in Gaza since October 2023.

These latest actions by the fanatic nationalists in Israel’s government are causing misery to Palestinians, but also to Israelis. The decision of the Israeli cabinet to expand its invasion has terrified the families of Israeli hostages. They have accused Smotrich of promoting his messianic vision on the graves of their loved ones, and Benjamin Netanyahu of hiding information and lying to them about the number of living hostages. Einav Zangauker, the mother of Matan, who was kidnapped from his home in Kibbutz Nir Oz on 7 October, went to the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) this week with a chilling warning: the expansion of military efforts in Gaza will lead to the death of hostages, she said. When she called on army reservists to refuse drafting orders, she was silenced and removed from the platform.

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.

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Coronet theatre, London
A sinister, clinical chill permeates this beguiling production of a new work by Norwegian dramatist Jon Fosse, aided by clever lighting and a ghostly piano score

The dynamic between audience and performer is vital to theatre, so what happens when it is imperilled? Einkvan (Everyman), written by the Nobel-winning novelist and playwright Jon Fosse and directed by Kjersti Horn, puts that idea to the test, hiding the entire stage behind fogged plastic curtains suggestive of a sinister clinic. The six-person cast register only as vaguely shifting shapes, though their faces are filmed in tight closeup by two cameras; the images are then relayed to the auditorium on a pair of screens above the stage and accompanied by the cryptic Norwegian dialogue in surtitles. The effect is contradictory. We are so intimate with these actors that we can count every pore on their faces and even see the ring-lights reflected in their eyes, but we are also simultaneously held at arm’s length.

That discord mirrors the play’s themes of estrangement and solitude, the need for human contact locked in a violent struggle with the thirst for autonomy. The opening closeups form a diptych of the same face shot from different angles as a man lies in the bath fretting over the possibility that someone is watching or following him. Someone other than the camera operator, presumably.

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Plan and plant now if you want your garden to look it’s best right through August and September

I’ve always had the gift and the curse of an overactive sense of foresight. It means I’m good at planning things, but maybe quite anxiety-inducing to be around. This week’s column is very much the product of both, but I’ve been encouraged to write it by having near-identical requests from friends arrive at the same time of year, two years running: each was planning an important celebration in their garden (a wedding and a naming ceremony) in late summer, and wanted them to be in full bloom for the occasion.

As a royal parks gardener once said to me: “If it could be May for ever, I’d be happy.” It’s a glorious month: everything is soft, fresh and dewy. There’s enough anticipation in the ground and the air to inspire a daily inspection of what’s arrived overnight. The days are long, but nothing feels overbearing yet. The thud and the inevitable horticultural failures of midsummer, the dry ground and drying lawns, are on the distant horizon. Lovely May.

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Many saw the beloved tree that Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham cut down as a part of north-east England’s DNA

“It was just a tree,” said a mystified Adam Carruthers, one of the two men who illegally cut down the tree at Sycamore Gap in the early hours of a stormy night nearly two years ago. “It was almost as if someone had been murdered.”

Carruthers was right about the reaction to the felling. Many likened its loss to that of a good friend or relative. Its destruction prompted feelings of sadness, grief and then blind fury. Some people wept.

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The two-time Oscar nominee has teamed with indie rocker Jason Narducy to reconstruct REM albums in full. But can Shannon compete with Michael Stipe, who he calls rock’s most ‘efficient and direct’ frontman?

M ichael Shannon was a teenager when he first heard REM. “I was out at my cousin’s trailer; he lived in the country. He put Document on his little cassette recorder, and I sat in his room with him and listened to it. Any art I find compelling is usually because it seems singular, like the people who are making it are the only people that could be making it.”

Shannon is used to making singular art himself, as a distinctive presence in notable films for many years: Nocturnal Animals, Knives Out, The Bikeriders, The Shape of Water, Bullet Train and more. But he can also sing – in George and Tammy he played the country legend George Jones opposite Jessica Chastain as Tammy Wynette, doing all his own performances.

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Scientists fear early emerging insects may fall out of sync with pathogens, predators or availability of food

Midsummer butterflies are on the wing in early May after a sunny spring prompted one of the most advanced seasons for Britain’s Lepidoptera on record.

The Lulworth skipper – usually found in June and July – is flying at Lulworth Cove in Dorset, the chequered skipper emerged in April rather than mid-May in Scotland and the first swallowtail, which is most common in mid-June, was spotted in Norfolk on 1 May.

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History proves byelections to be futile polls on leaders. If I were Farage, I would apply for the Tory whip and capture the party from within

The Runcorn and Helsby byelection belongs in the rubbish bin of politics. British byelections are charades, mock polls, playtime for pundits. They reduce normally sensible analysts to hysterics. That most pragmatic of prime ministers, Harold Wilson, refused point blank to comment on them.

Yes, Reform’s Nigel Farage had a field day. He is the latest jester to be cast as “Britain’s next prime minister”. For the past week, his party has celebrated winning Runcorn by six votes, with 39% of roughly half of the eligible electors who bothered to vote. He also won two of the six new regional mayoralties, and may control some 10 local councils. The media went berserk. The BBC gave Reform a total of 31% vote share in the local elections, making it the largest party. Tories were at “a new low” and Labour a mere ghost of a party.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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Pope Francis spoke for the most vulnerable, from Palestinians in Gaza to immigrants in the US. Let’s hope that Leo will follow in his footsteps

America is back, baby. Not only has the Gulf of Mexico been successfully Americanized, the Vatican is now officially US territory. OK, fine, not officially, but, on Thursday, the Chicago-born Robert Francis Prevost was announced as pope. The 69-year-old, who has taken the papal name Leo XIV, is the first clergyman from the United States to lead the Roman Catholic church.

While Prevost was a frontrunner for the papacy, his victory seems to have taken many experts by surprise. There has long been resistance to an American pope for a number of reasons, including the fact that it might make it appear as if the Vatican is aligned with the world’s strongest economic and military power.

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The author of Slags on Patricia Highsmith, Judy Blume and her lifelong reaction to Yeats

My earliest reading memory
Probably a Garfield book when I was five or six. I loved Garfield. Mostly because he was funny, but also because he was an iconic ginger. He introduced me to lasagne, which I pronounced “la-sign”. It was the 1980s. I got told off all the time for reading at the dinner table.

My favourite book growing up
After my nanna’s Mills & Boons, stolen from her bedside table, I’d have to say Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Another iconic ginge. Also Anne and Gilbert were the greatest “will they/won’t they?” until Mulder and Scully in The X Files.

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In a deeply personal show called Idols Lovers Mothers Friends, we see the artist’s inner circle – but there are delightful tangents, too, including figurines by the patron saint of mixed-race people

Rene Matic’s nomination for the 2025 Turner prize was announced the week this exhibition opened. Only one photographer has ever been awarded the prize – Wolfgang Tillmans. Matic is not a technically masterly photographer, but a quiet observer of things, like Tillmans. Matic riffs on a documentary, diaristic style of photography, with snapshots of everyday moments and poetic juxtapositions, which are then used to create installations, grouping images to surreptitiously bring out buried tensions and paradoxes. Where those tensions have often been urgent and angry in Matic’s previous exhibitions, this new show highlights another facet of their work. It is perhaps Matic’s most personal exploration yet.

Although these installations are evocative slices of life, it’s the whiteness of the gallery’s walls and ceiling that you notice first. Their sharp, stark white engulfs the contrasting small-scale obsidian pictures, scattered across the wall like dark gems on a pristine beach. The whiteness is overbearing and cold, but it also emphasises the lustrous quality of the black-and-white pictures. This plays symbolically into Matic’s concern with the rubric of whiteness in British society, and how blackness lives within, alongside or outside it. Their images describe what many of us mixed-race people in the UK experience as being in-between, something Matic has termed “rude(ness)”. The simple choice, to make the pictures small and place them sparsely on the white wall, makes you experience this “rude(ness)” concept visually.

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The Devils by Joe Abercrombie; The Incandescent by Emily Tesh; Land of Hope by Cate Baum; A Line You Have Traced by Roisin Dunnett

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie (Gollancz, GBP25)
Bookish Brother Diaz is stunned to be made vicar of the Chapel of Holy Expediency, whose congregation – a necromancer, a vampire, a werewolf, and an elf – are tasked with escorting a claimant to the imperial throne to her coronation. This is Suicide Squad in a sideways medieval Europe, where instead of the son of god we have a daughter, instead of a cross, a wheel, and instead of Byzantium, Troy. The worldbuilding is one of the novel’s chief pleasures, combining the familiar – crusades, religious schisms and territorial disputes – with strange and alien elements, such as the lost empire of Carthage, which built most of the world’s major cities before succumbing to its own dark magic. Against this backdrop, the sardonic crew of the Chapel make their way through a series of elaborate, violent set-pieces, barely escaping with their lives while causing mass death and property damage, and quipping relentlessly. This is enjoyable, particularly as we get to know characters such as Vigga, a happy-go-lucky Viking werewolf, and Sunny, a supposedly soulless elf who is the novel’s most ethical character. Eventually, however, it becomes repetitive, and the book’s sequel-bait ending is not entirely enticing.

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh (Orbit, GBP20)
Turning the magical school story genre on its head, Tesh’s follow-up to the Hugo-winning Some Desperate Glory focuses not on precocious teenagers but on their teacher. Saffy Walden is director of magic at the prestigious Chetswood boarding school. When her A-level invocation class accidentally call up a demon much more dangerous than they can handle, Saffy must rise to the school’s defence, while also juggling budget meetings, difficult colleagues and a board who want to blame the whole mess on a talented scholarship student. Tesh is doing a lot of things with this novel. It is first and foremost a love letter to teachers, repeatedly making the point that their work is not only hard, but multifaceted and creative; but it is also a meditation on the pleasures of growing up – past the age where, most school stories tell us, all of life’s adventures happen, but which the novel insists is where the joyful work of becoming yourself can actually begin. And it’s a sharp indictment of the fact that a truly top-notch education remains accessible only to a privileged few. The result is a clever twist on a familiar fantasy story, starring a winning, flawed, undeniably grown-up heroine.

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Experts found 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils had been degraded, with about 40% similarly damaged in the UK

More than 60% of the EU’s agricultural soils are degraded due to intensive agriculture, with similar damage to about 40% of British soils, a report has found.

Experts from the Save Soil initiative said nourishing and restoring agricultural soils could reduce the impact of the climate crisis and provide protection against the worsening extremes of weather, as well as the food shortages and price rises likely to accompany them.

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Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory finds common ground between Ella Fitzgerald and Charli xcx – and its free-thinking alumni are thriving. We go on a tour to see what’s in the water there (aside from shipwrecks)

Before she was getting DMs from Dua Lipa and minting K-pop hits, and long before yesterday’s surprise release of her sumptuous fourth album, Erika de Casier was a nervous student in her 20s debating what to wear on her first day.

It was 2019, her debut album Essentials had come out that year and received critical acclaim. But at Copenhagen’s Rhythmic Music Conservatory (RMC), that was by the by. “In Denmark, it’s incorporated in our way of being: everybody is so humble,” says the Portuguese musician. “It wasn’t like I went to school and people were like …” She makes an exaggerated starstruck face. “That would be crazy. It was just, ‘Oh, congrats. I heard the new album. Sounds great.’”

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As Kemi Badenoch makes a bad situation worse, and an alliance with Reform looms, I’ve been speaking to centrists desperate to stop the rot

The thanksgiving service for the Tory grandee Michael Ancram last week resembled the funeral of his party. Amid an array of traditional Conservatives such as John Major and a multitude of that old ilk, one observer tells me there was no sign of the current shadow cabinet: they belong to a different party altogether. After their lowest vote ever last week, is it all over?

A sign of life stirs among the embers. All is not quite lost, if the silenced cohort of moderates listen to the likes of a new party member. David Gauke has rejoined the Conservative party, where he was justice secretary before being ejected for rebelling against Boris Johnson’s threatened “no deal” Brexit. He wasn’t sure the party would take him back, he was ready to write about his second rejection, but the computer said yes. He’s back to fight and fight again to save his party from its rightward march into Faragism.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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(Anti-)
Inspired by the music of Lubos Fiser and Catholic requiem mass, the instrumentals are deft and surprising, but Pimienta’s captivating, flawless vocals steal the show

Five years since her Grammy-nominated breakthrough record Miss Colombia, singer and producer Lido Pimienta has taken a radical shift in direction. On Miss Colombia, Pimienta combined sprightly electro pop with cumbia rhythms and soaring vocals to critique racism and misogyny – now, her fourth album La Belleza (The Beauty) is a nine-track orchestral suite touching on everything from Gregorian chant to strings-laden love songs and dembow rhythms.

Inspired by Catholic requiem mass music and the luscious harpsichord folk of Czech composer Lubos Fiser’s score to 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, Pimienta and producer Owen Pallett began writing and arranging for the 60-piece Medellin Philharmonic Orchestra during the Covid lockdowns. The result is a moving work of remarkable depth.

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Our tipsters bask in the sunshine at town beaches and ‘secret’ bays from Sweden to the Greek islands
• Send us a tip on a UK garden – the best wins a GBP200 holiday voucher

While staying on the northern Pelion peninsula in Greece we made our way by foot along the coast path to Paralia Fakistra beach, which is only accessible via a walk in from local villages along the coast. The white pebble beach is backed by a freezing cold waterfall, which cools you down after the dusty, challenging coast path route. The crystal-blue water is home to lots of sea life and snorkelling was joyous. One of the attractions that keeps visitor numbers down is that there are no cafes or bars or even shade, so I recommend taking a light parasol and some cool drinks, but keep your load light as the walk can get hot, especially along the coast path from nearby Damouchari, another great beach spot on the Pelion.
Layla Astley

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From white stucco on the Dorset coast to a five-bed Highlands cabin, five properties with vistas to take your breath away

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The Send Nudes author’s follow-up conveys a profound message about the insufficiency of the nuclear family

To be selected for Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists list two years before your debut novel comes out must bring a certain amount of pressure. Saba Sams had already been named a rising star for her short-story collection, Send Nudes; one of the stories, Blue 4eva, won the 2022 BBC National short story award. Now comes Gunk, titled for the grotty student nightclub managed by the thirtysomething protagonist, Jules. The fried egg on the cover hints at a sleazy edge: expect hangover breakfasts with a dawn chorus soundtrack. It’s also a playful nod to more tender themes of fertility panic, unplanned pregnancy and young motherhood.

At the heart of Gunk is a not-quite-love-not-quite-triangle between Jules, her feckless ex-husband Leon, nightclub owner and irredeemable waster, and the young, mysterious nim – that lower case “n” is all part of her vibe. Nim arrives one night at the club and captivates both Jules and Leon with her shaved head, her alluring mouth (“big and wet and laughing”), and the sense that she’s on the run from her old life. Much of the novel is told through flashback. Before we encounter nim at the club, we know that she has had a baby, left him with Jules, and vanished. Jules is alone trying to comfort a newborn that “knew by smell, by taste, that I was not his mother”. The main narrative consists of Jules telling us how this state of affairs came to pass.

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As part of a Bafta TV special, the nominated actor and Walking Dead regular on bringing Bernardine Evaristo’s hit novel Mr Loverman to the small screen, and splitting his time between London and LA

He is almost 40 years into his career, but Lennie James is still keeping things fresh. The 59-year-old south Londoner has run the gauntlet of high-octane TV dramas, playing Morgan Jones for more than 10 years in the wildly successful apocalypse drama The Walking Dead and its spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead; bent copper DCI Tony Gates in Line of Duty; and the down-and-out philanderer Nelly Rowe in Sky’s Save Me. In person, though, James is the polar opposite of the characters he is best known for – considered, introspective and disarmingly earnest.

Last year, he took on a radically different role, as Barrington (below) in the BBC adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s novel Mr Loverman, a closeted Windrush-generation Caribbean man in a secret relationship with his best friend. Quietly moving, it is a drastic shift in tone for James, and has earned him his first solo Bafta TV nomination.

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Thanks to milk, cool coconut and a luxuriant glaze, these little green tea-laced cakes are a bit moister than your average madeleine

Delicate, shell-shaped madeleines are always irresistible, but their charm fades quickly, because these little cakes tend to dry out within hours. To counter that, I’ve taken an untraditional turn by incorporating a little oil and milk to keep them soft and spongy for a couple of days. Matcha, the finely ground green tea powder, comes in a range of grades; use the best you can afford, but don’t be tempted to add more for the appealing colour – the sweet, grassy notes can tip into bitterness in an instant.

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We are entering art fair season. This weekend, London plays host to the Affordable one, and in Bristol it’s the final weekend of the People’s Art Fair. Dress to haggle …

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The US president’s plan for Hollywood is full of plot holes. But when it comes to the hidden propaganda baked into movies, he may have a point

As always with pronouncements by President Trump, once you had peeled away the xenophobia, removed the stew of resentment, ignored the sheer idiocy and asterisked the possible illegality, there was a small kernel of truth to his posting on Truth Social last Sunday. “The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, pointing to the nefarious tax breaks other countries gave film-makers as “a National Security threat” and proposing an 100% tariff on films made oversees. “It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA AGAIN!”

How would a 100% tariff on films made oversees work? Just movies shot overseas? What about movies set overseas? And who would pay? How do you impose tariffs on goods without a port of entry? “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official. In fact, movies are listed as an exception to presidential authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which gives the president authority to address national security threats, so it is likely the lawyers would end up figuring it out, if Trump’s plan went ahead. But, many executives in Hollywood are quietly nodding agreement. It is true that Los Angeles has seen feature movie shoot days plummet from 3,901 in 2017 to just 2,403 in 2024, a 38% drop. Many major franchises such as Avatar and Mission: Impossible are shot mostly overseas, where the lure of lucrative tax breaks offset such minor inconveniences as the incursion of some sheep into one of Tom Cruise’s paragliding set-pieces, as happened in the Lake District in 2022.

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From rocks being thrown at cars to spectators being given the red cards, readers share their experiences of the most shocking scenes at children’s soccer games

The first manager my son had, when he was seven, got the parents together and told us how shouting could affect our sons’ development and behaviour, not only as players but as human beings. Usually, I don’t behave so badly. The worst I’ve done is to complain to the referee and I’ve sworn once or twice. But mostly I’ve been civil. There was one time, though, when a game was interrupted because the other team had fielded ineligible nine-year-old players. There was a lot of swearing and shouting from managers and dads. My wife decided enough was enough and took our son from the field to go home. He was the team’s only keeper so without him there was no game and several of the other team’s dads taunted us, shouting: “Are you running?”, “Are you scared?”. My wife ignored them and headed for the exit but one of the dads pushed her. Another guy punched me from behind and I completely lost it and punched back. Both teams were expelled from the tournament.
Andre Pereira Leme Lopes, 53, Brazil

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The actor’s new travelogue with Charley Boorman is far from action-packed – and could do with fewer episodes. But watching them ride eventually becomes entrancing

They’ve gone Round, Down and Up, and now, for their fourth season, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are attempting to ride the Long Way Home. In 2020, the long-running blokes-on-bikes travel series was revived by Apple after a 15-year gap, and it set its stars the task of travelling from the southernmost tip of South America to Los Angeles on electric motorbikes. Not all fans of the previous seasons were enamoured with it, not least because it lacked the everyman appeal of their earlier runs. Having a big team at Harley-Davidson design and custom-build vehicles for the job, and getting a company to install charging points along the route for them, wasn’t quite the same as two old mates jumping on their bikes and camping wherever the mood dictated.

It makes sense, then, for Long Way Home to take it back to basics. It certainly seems as if a concerted effort has been made for McGregor and Boorman to be more relatable. We see more of them with their families and children, and it appears to be a more intimate operation. Instead of the fancy central London office and massive logistics team, there’s a big map pinned to the wall of McGregor’s garage, a small gathering of the original crew, and that should do it. Or at least, it’s made to look that way.

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After a relationship breakup, rambling 700 miles from the Highlands to Dorset with Martin helped restore my faith in people

I’ve always had a keen sense of adventure. During the summer holidays, my parents would push me and my sister out of the front door and tell us only to come home to eat. I went from roaming the streets of Hackney in east London as a child, to trekking, wild camping and hitchhiking the length of the Americas in my late 20s.

After returning to my home in Liverpool, I worked as a photographer and got into a relationship. When we broke up years later, I was distraught – but it led me back to the life of exploration that I’d put on the back-burner. In the summer of 2016, I embarked on a solo 1,000-mile (1,600km) route through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Not wanting to feel sealed off from the wondrous environments around me, I did the majority of it on foot.

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Surge of departures – mostly fleeing a weak economy – fuels concern over the longer-term impact on the country as some small towns scramble for survival

She considers herself a diehard South Island girl, but Harriet Baker, 33, won’t be raising her children in the city where she’s spent most of her life.

“When we bought our house I said, ‘You’ll be taking me out of here in a casket,” she says, of the Dunedin home she and husband Cameron Baker, 33, sold last month.

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There’s a gap between what you want to do and what you do, advice columnist Eleanor Gordon-Smith writes. Thinking about how it affects others might help

I recognise myself to be very contrarian, to the point of reacting in this fashion in every situation, regardless of what it is. How can I change this?

Eleanor says: It sounds as though there’s a gap between what you want to do and what you do. You can see you’re being contrarian, you want to change that, but that’s not enough to mean things actually change.

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Our crime-solving heroine is utterly charming, it’s stuffed with A-list stars and some episodes are just great. If only the cases were a bit more clever

This tribute to case-of-the week crime dramas is so nearly a brilliant TV show. Starring Natasha Lyonne ( Orange Is the New Black, Russian Doll) as Charlie Cale, a woman with a foolproof ability to tell truth from falsehood, the series follows in the footsteps of classic story-of-the-week crime dramas; each episode features a tranche of excellent guest stars and a freshly covered-up misdeed for our thoroughly charming citizen-detective to uncover. With her gravelly-chipmunk New York tones – or “voice like a rusty clarinet”, as one character has it – Lyonne ensures Cale is an idiosyncratically charismatic protagonist you can really get behind. She’s cool: her catchphrase is “bullshit” and her aesthetic is 1970s-hued indie sleaze; shades, spray-on jeans, biker boots, shrunken T-shirts, wild, matted hair. She’s chaotically good, too: mischievous enough to bend the rules but essentially golden-hearted, in possession of an old-timey garrulousness and an inability to let things lie. What’s not to love?

The mysteries themselves, mainly. Most episodes of Poker Face – which was created by Knives Out director Rian Johnson, although he is not a credited writer on this second season – involve a 10ish-minute Cale-free opening, during which the viewer bears witness to a crime, usually a murder. Afterwards, we discover how our hero came to be acquainted with both the perpetrators and victims. Since the end of the very first episode, Cale has been on the run: first from a shady casino boss who wanted her dead (she was involved in the destruction of his business and the suicide of his son); then, as of the start of this new season, another shady casino boss who wants to exploit her lie-detection skills. To evade capture, she zigzags across the States at random – and into the path of a host of inadvertent murderers.

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US agency will no longer update major weather database in latest showing of Trump’s influence on climate resources

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer track the cost of climate crisis-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heatwaves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

Noaa falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

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We’d like to hear your thoughts about the first clergyman from the US to lead the Roman Catholic church

Robert Francis Prevost, from Chicago, has become the first American pope to lead the Roman Catholic church.

The 69-year-old has taken the papal name Pope Leo XIV, a senior cardinal announced from the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on Thursday evening. The announcement, which followed white smoke billowing from the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, prompted raucous celebration among the 50,000 pilgrims and tourists in St Peter’s Square.

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It can happen when doing ‘just about anything’ – experts share how to get ‘in the zone’, and what can pull you out

What is the secret to happiness? In a 2004 Ted Talk, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi boldly claimed to have the answer: flow.

Flow is the experience of being completely absorbed in a particular task. Sometimes we call it being “in the zone”. Csikszentmihalyi described it in his Ted Talk as an “effortless, spontaneous feeling” and an “ecstatic state”.

An intense focus that “leads to a sense of ecstasy”

Knowing exactly what you want from one moment to the next

Getting immediate feedback on what you are doing

Knowing your goal is achievable, even if it is difficult

Losing track of time

Forgetting yourself – you are so focused on your task that any self-consciousness disappears

Feeling part of something bigger than yourself

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Are the Crawford-Gerbers the new Kardashians – or a family selling a modern take on the American dream?

First came the Kardashians. Then the Beckham clan. Now the Crawford-Gerbers are positioning themselves as the next family superpower in fashion.

Last week, Cindy Crawford, her husband, Rande Gerber, and their two children, Kaia and Presley, announced a “first-of-its-kind partnership” with the Californian sportswear and lifestyle brand Vuori. Kicking things off with a campaign, it sees the menage frolicking in front of a Malibu beach house, all long limbs, glowing skin and gleaming Hollywood smiles.

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Actor January LaVoy narrates the visceral story of a girl on the run in a winter wilderness, in early 17th-century Virginia

At the start of The Vaster Wilds, we meet a servant girl, “bony and childish small”, on the run from a disease-ridden English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia. The reason for her flight is not immediately disclosed, though her fingernails are tellingly bloody. Armed with a knife, a thick cloak stolen from her mistress and leather boots taken from a dead child, she heads out into the winter wilderness. There, in the face of ice storms, potentially hostile Powhatan villages and a soldier charged with task of capturing her “living or dead”, she must be fearless and resourceful to stay alive.

Lauren Groff’s vivid and visceral story of survival – think Man vs Wild meets The Revenant – is set in the early 17th century when smallpox and starvation pose the greatest threat to life. Our protagonist, formerly the child of a prostitute living in a London poorhouse, was given the name Lamentation as an infant but has spent most of her life known as “girl” – “Think not of it, girl,” she murmurs while contemplating the bleakness of her situation. We follow her as she builds fires, skins squirrels, forages for grubs and berries and sprints across frozen rivers, her plight set against the deprivation and patriarchal violence of the so-called new world.

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Whether you want to bolster your home’s security or simply make sure you know when someone is at the door, the latest generation of smart doorbells will help put your mind at ease

• The best robot vacuums to keep your home clean and dust free

Doorbells have evolved. Today, they watch us as we approach, let the people inside the home know we’re coming sooner than our finger can hit the button, and give them a good look at our faces before they open the door. They’re essentially security cameras with a chime function.

If you haven’t already installed one of these handy tools, there’s a huge array available. Choosing the best video doorbell can be a bewildering task, with various factors to consider, including how much of your doorstep you want to see or whether you’re prepared to pay for a subscription. To help make the decision a little bit easier, I tested eight popular video doorbells to find the best.

Best overall video doorbell:
Google Nest Doorbell (battery)
_{GBP139 at Amazon}

Best budget video doorbell:
Blink smart video doorbell with Sync Module 2
_{GBP60 at AO}

Best subscription-free video doorbell:
Eufy video doorbell E340
_{GBP124 at John Lewis}

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Much modern cider is mass-produced with the bare minimum fruit content of questionable provenance, but the UK used to be the world leader in fine ciders. Luckily, a new generation of terroir-focussed makers is finally emerging …

“When I started out 10 years ago, only three of the makers here were even in business,” says Felix Nash, gesturing to the reams of golden bottles that line the shelves of his shop. I’m at the Fine Cider Company in London Fields, east London, with its founder, having arrived with the hope of lapping up all that fine cider has to offer inside a neat hour. (Spoiler alert: I leave thirsty and inspired.)

Although much of recent cider-making history is defined by mergers and mass-market production, there’s also an exciting re-emergence of terroir-focused production, though that is something Nash claims has always been a part of the UK’s agricultural DNA: “One of the first things the Royal Society ever published was on perry and cider, when John Beale, an early fellow, recognised that an apple variety called redstreak grew particularly well in certain parts of Herefordshire, a concept we now understand as terroir.”

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As psycho-thriller The Surfer is released, the actor answers your questions about eating rats, loving pickled eggs and scaring Terry Wogan

What do you remember of that appearance on Wogan? What was Terry like in real life? Have you still got that leather jacket, and the snakeskin jacket from Wild at Heart? johnnysmooth, EddieChorepost and BigAl65
I remember Terry Wogan was a very nice man and I enjoyed the interview with him, although I thought I was both obnoxious and somewhat wild. I guess it’s no secret that I was promoting a movie called Wild at Heart, so I was sort of play acting to that. I remember, as a child, I was in a car, a guy was walking down the street, and he had a leather jacket on and no shirt on underneath. I thought: “Well, that’s an interesting look.” I don’t know why that came back to me when I went on Terry’s show, but I thought: “I’m going to create that look again.” It was incredibly absurd and irreverent. I don’t have that leather jacket any more.

I found the snakeskin jacket in a secondhand store on Melrose in Los Angeles called Aaardvark’s – it reminded me of the jacket Brando wears in The Fugitive Kind – and I knew at some point I was gonna put it in a movie. I ended up giving it to Laura Dern because she was such a terrific actor, I enjoyed our time together on that movie with David Lynch, so I wanted her to have it.

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(Warner)
Denigrated by some as the epitome of attention-deficit youth, the English pop musician became huge nonetheless – and her latest has an inspiringly free-associative feel

There’s something telling about the fact that PinkPantheress launched the first single from her second mixtape with a video boasting that it was 2:57 long. “Ion [I don’t] wanna see no more song length jokes,” ran the caption accompanying a brief video of her dancing to Tonight, a track that throws together a mass of musical reference points: a sample from US emo-rockers Panic! at the Disco stitched to a speedy four-to-the-floor house beat, a candy-sweet pop melody, a hefty bassline that suggests the influence of UK garage or drum’n’bass and a lyric that alludes to both Avril Lavigne’s Complicated and Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire.

Since the English singer-songwriter-producer first came to public attention in 2021, by posting snippets of the tracks she had made on a laptop in her halls of residence to TikTok, brevity has been her calling card: most of the songs that caused her commercial breakthrough lasted barely 90 seconds; one, Attracted to You, was over and done in 67. They garnered hundreds of millions of streams. Moreover, they were the first steps on an impressive commercial ascent that’s involved a major label deal, a succession of gold and platinum awards, a place on the Barbie soundtrack and invitations from Olivia Rodrigo and Coldplay to support them on tour. Perhaps inevitably, they also attracted criticism from people who viewed her less as a success story than a symptom: wilfully insubstantial, attention-deficit music befitting an era in which pop has lost its place as the basic substance of youth culture, an age when its primary function is just to burble briefly in the background of videos offering makeup tutorials and wellness tips.

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The Bank of England has voted to cut the cost of borrowing, reducing the base rate to 4.25%. Here’s what it means for you

• UK interest rates fall to 4.25%
• Analysis: mood-boosting rate cut is a fillip for Reeves but leaves future uncertain
• Business live – latest updates

The Bank of England has cut interest rates from 4.5% to 4.25%. It follows two interest rate cuts in the second half of last year, and another one in February this year.

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The newest trailer indicates Grand Theft Auto VI may have a soft centre, with its focus on outlaw lovers Lucia and Jason

Something new is coming to the Grand Theft Auto universe next year. I don’t mean super-high-definition visuals, or previously unexplored areas of Rockstar’s take on the US. This time it’s something much more profound. If you’ve seen the newly released second trailer from GTA6 – somewhat cruelly released just days after we discovered the game won’t be out until next May – then you might know what I mean. The brand new thing is romance.

It’s now clear that the key protagonists of the latest gangland adventure are Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, two twentysomething lovers from the wrong side of the tracks. He’s ex-army, now working for drug runners; she’s fresh out of jail, looking to make a better life for herself and her beloved mom. They fall for each other, hatch a plan to get out of Vice City, and then when their simple heist goes wrong, they find themselves at the sharp end of a state-wide conspiracy. You always knew that if Rockstar were going to tell a love story, it would involve a formidable cast of underworld kingpins, gang members, conspiracy nuts and corrupt politicians, and you were right.

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Martha says Dad doesn’t need to know her every move. Neil says following her on an app helps him feel connected. Who’s lost the plot? You decide

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

I like to keep Dad updated, but only for important things – and on my terms. I am 27!

Martha isn’t great at keeping in touch, so it’s nice to know she’s alive. It’s not stalking, it’s love

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This week, the Channel Islands celebrate 80 years since liberation from Nazi occupation, but the fascinating bunkers, tunnels and towers that remain have found a new lease of life

I’m woken by a tractor uprooting jersey royals in the potato field next door. In my simple hexagonal room, dawn illuminates five high slit windows marked with military coordinates and a compass etched into the ceiling. But heading downstairs, I timeslip into a 19th-century lounge where gothic-style windows frame sea views in three directions.

During the second world war, Jersey’s occupying forces requisitioned Nicolle Tower, a whimsical two-storey folly, and added an extra level. In what is now the bedroom, German soldiers kept lookout for an allied invasion that never came.

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They are mocked by gen Z for everything from their trainer socks to their mom jeans and selfie technique. A maligned millennial asks: how did we get here?

Her right to a naked ankle is, in the end, the hill Natalie Ormond is willing to die on. Ormond, a millennial, simply cannot – will not – get her head around gen Z’s fondness for a crew sock, pulled up over gym leggings or skimming bare legs, brazenly extending over the ankle towards the lower calf. “I stand by trainer socks and I won’t budge,” says the 43-year-old. “The more invisible the sock, the better.”

A proclivity for socks hidden within low-top trainers is just one reason why millennials – anyone born between 1981-1996 – are now considered achingly uncool by the generation that came next: gen Z, AKA the zoomers, or zillennials. According to countless TikTok videos, other sources of derision for the generation that first popularised social media, millennial pink, and pumpkin-spice lattes are their choice of jeans (skinny and mom jeans are out; baggy hipsters are in); an obsession with avocado on toast (gen Z’s green grub of choice is matcha); their excessive use of the crying laughing face emoji (for a zoomer, the skull emoji indicates humour, representing phrases such as “I’m dying with laughter”); and the “millennial pause”, a brief moment of silence at the start of a millennial’s video or voice note, thought to be because – and this really does make them sound ancient – they like to check the device they’re using is actually recording. Millennials, typically self-deprecating, tend to join in, poking fun at themselves under the hashtags like #millennialsoftiktok.

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Groceries, fitness classes and therapy all go under the wide umbrella of health expenses – and it all costs money

What does it take to be well? The answer varies from person to person. For some, it may require prescription medication and yoga classes; for others, it could be a vegetarian diet and regular doctor visits. One thing is certain: it costs money.

Americans spend more than $6,000 (GBP4,500) per person a year on wellness, according to the Global Wellness Institute. This makes the US “the largest wellness economy by far”. In the UK, per capita average wellness spending is $3,342 (GBP2,505).

$280 for employer-sponsored healthcare

$80 on psychotherapy

$10 on a prescription medication

$360 on personal training

$20 on my gym membership (discounted with the personal training), and $45 on a protein-powder subscription

I’m also part of a run club and rec sports league, which have an upfront cost for multiple months, but combined are about $75 per month. It’s funny, I don’t consider myself very athletic, but it sure doesn’t look that way from my spending.

$35 on a prescription skincare subscription for a two-month supply (but I’m planning to cancel)

$15 average on moisturizer/cleanser that will last multiple months

GBP500 for groceries

GBP400 for a ready-meal delivery subscription

GBP40 for protein shakes

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They like ice-cream – but only homemade. Carrots – but only served whole. And don’t even think of cooking with any herb or spice livelier than parsley ...

Name: The Aristocrat Diet.

Age: As old as the aristocracy.

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As industry giants trade beloved brands like commodities and AI offers easy content, independent games outlets are ?rising up. Here’s why they’re sorely needed

Last week was a bad one for video games journalism. Two key contributors to the veteran site Giant Bomb, Jeff Grubb and Mike Minotti, have announced their departure after a recent podcast was taken down. The 888th episode of the Giant Bombcast reportedly featured a section lampooning new brand guidelines issued to staff and is no longer available online. Later this week, it was announced that major US site Polygon was being sold to Valnet, owner of the ScreenRant and GameRant brands, resulting in a swathe of job losses. This follows ReedPop’s sale, in 2024, of four high-profile UK-based sites – Eurogamer, GamesIndustry.biz, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247 – to IGN Entertainment, owned by Ziff Davis, which also resulted in redundancies.

It’s sad how these long-standing sites, each with vast audiences and sturdy reputations, have been traded and chopped up like commodities. On selling Polygon, Vox CEO Jim Bankoff said in a statement: “This transaction will enable us to focus our energies and investment resources in other priority areas of growth across our portfolio.” It felt gross, to be honest, to see this decade-old bastion of progressive video games writing being reduced to an asset ripe for off-loading. Of its purchase Valnet said: “Polygon is poised to reach new editorial heights through focused investment and innovation.” Quite how it will do that with a significantly reduced staff is anyone’s guess.

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Our fashion expert rounds up her pick of the best phone straps, from beaded wristlets and cross-body straps to lanyards with recycled cases

• Jess Cartner-Morley’s May style essentials: life-changing jeans and the ultimate holiday shoes

You’re probably familiar with the concept of adding a finishing touch to your outfit: a belt that smartens up trousers, a great pair of sunglasses, statement jewellery that livens up a plain T-shirt. Well, now, there’s a new accessory in town: the phone strap.

For many of us, it’s a must-have. On a practical level, it means you don’t have to root around in your bag every time you need to check Google Maps for directions. With phone theft also an issue, it could keep your mobile safer.

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Forget modern edicts and prepare for the return of power dressing, big hair, short skirts and movie-star-in-a-convertible sunglasses

Boom boom is this year’s new vibe. It’s a vibe, not just a trend, meaning it takes tectonic rumblings in culture and gives them expression in what we wear and say and drink and watch on TV.

Boom boom is a new weather system that is sweeping away pretty much everything we thought we knew about modern fashion (gender fluidity, quiet luxury, elevated basics, ethical brands) and replacing it with ambitious power dressing for day, and traditional tropes of feminine and masculine sexual allure for evening. It is fur (real or fake), gold watches, big hair, wearing ties, sexy dancing. It is a silhouette that has inflection points at the shoulders (big), the breasts (important) and the waist (tiny) instead of worshipping a peachy bum or flat abs.

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Do you work in the UK in any sector where there have been efforts to increase representation and have they been sustained?

Reform UK has said it will roll back diversity and inclusion initiatives in councils it controls. Nigel Farage said during a speech on Friday that he would advise staff working on diversity or climate change initiatives to seek “alternative careers very, very quickly” after the party took control of Durham county council.

What has your experience of these policies been in the workplace? Do you work in any sector where there have been efforts to increase representation and have they been sustained?

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There is surprising nostalgia and humour in Gerad Argeros’s story of healing after child abuse by a Catholic priest. He was an altar boy at St Cecilia Catholic church in north-east Philadelphia when, at age 11, he became one of the victims of paedophile James Brzyski. Decades later, the actor and father developed the one-man stage show Fox Chase Boy. Performing it to his close-knit parish he speaks directly about a crime cloaked in silence, and brings welcome insight into their collective trauma

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Bills continued to arrive despite calls, emails and legal firm handling probate sending copy of death certificate

My sister passed away nearly two years ago but I am struggling to get British Gas to accept she is dead.

Since her death in July 2023 I have emailed, called and even got the legal firm handling probate to contact it. They sent a certified copy of her death certificate but all that happened was the address on the account was changed to the solicitor’s.

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Grass lawns get a bad rap, but there are ways to make them greener. Our gardens expert shares his top tips, from cutting down on fertiliser to mowing less frequently

• The best gardening tools: essential kit, chosen by experts

In an age of climate crisis, decreasing biodiversity and heightened awareness of water consumption, an immaculate, weed-free lawn is becoming as taboo as an outdoor heater. However, provided we take a more sustainable approach to their upkeep, embracing beneficial “weeds” and long grass, the lawn still has a place in our gardens.

I’ve got one; if I didn’t, the kids would take their shenanigans into the borders, which would be game over for beloved brittle-stemmed flowers such as lilies and irises. I’ve reduced its size, though, to probably the minimum necessary for maintaining this crucial equilibrium (if ever they demand a trampoline I’m screwed). At about 25 sq metres, the lawn occupies about a quarter of our little garden – enough to kick a ball down or race a scooter around.

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We would like to hear from people who have worked in 24 hour slot machine venues and those who visit them

“Adult gaming centres” (AGCs) are a network of slot machine arcades that are expanding rapidly on Britain’s high streets, as more traditional bookmakers retreat.

Many have been granted licences to open 24 hours a day, despite opposition from local people and councillors.

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Saved from tourist development by a ‘favourite daughter of Andalucia’, Cabo de Gata is a spectacular national park perfect for an adventure on foot

If you study a map of Spain, in the south-east corner you’ll see a strip of empty space along the edge of the Mediterranean. It contains no major towns and barely any roads. Its coastline is equally barren – no ports or resorts; just a few tiny villages tucked away in intriguingly named coves – “raven”, “coal”, “bitter water”. This patch of emptiness is the Cabo de Gata-Nijar national park, a protected haven of desert wilderness on the edge of Europe.

Having been forced to cancel an expedition to the Algerian Sahara earlier in the year, this park appears to be the answer to my yearning for the arid warmth and stark beauty of desert travel. Zooming in on the satellite view, a network of paths appears, suggesting a walking route of around 40 miles (64km) – from the Cabo itself, up the coast, along the cliffs, to the beach town of Agua Amarga. My husband, a keen Iberophile and relentless explorer of Espana vacia (literally, empty Spain) is always up for a wilderness adventure, so we get in the van and head south.

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Direct to consumer tests that claim to tell us our biological – as opposed to chronological – age are getting a lot of attention, but what can they really tell us about our health? Science editor Ian Sample talks to Dr Brian H Chen, an epidemiologist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, who has conducted research into a variety of these tests called epigenetic clocks. He explains what exactly they are measuring and whether, once we have the results, there are any evidence-based strategies we can adopt to lower our biological age

Real age versus biological age: the startups revealing how old we really are

Support the Guardian: theguardian.com/sciencepod

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Dressing to this year’s theme of ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, Anna Wintour and her co-hosts Colman Domingo, Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky and Pharrell Williams button up and pull out the umbrellas for the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art exhibition

• Met Gala 2025 live updates: all the stars and red carpet looks from fashion’s biggest night

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Ten years ago, the late land artist Charles Jencks created Crawick Multiverse out of an ugly open-cast mine in southern Scotland. Today, it is an inspiring exploration of the universe

The sun warms my face as I pause between the Andromeda and Milky Way galaxies to gaze at the rolling hills of Dumfries and Galloway beyond. I am not, surprisingly enough, in outer space. I’m at the Crawick Multiverse, a cosmos-themed land art installation in the south of Scotland that was built on the site of an old open-cast coal mine and is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.

The galaxies here are huge, spiralling mounds of earth, their perimeters reaching out towards one another but never quite touching.

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My father’s death from cancer showed me you need to look after your lungs. But apart from not smoking, what should you be doing? I headed to a laboratory, strapped on a mask and heart monitor and started pedalling …

Lungs are amazing. There they sit, inflating and deflating from dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn, sucking in air, stripping out oxygen and exchanging it for carbon dioxide. They do this 20,000 times a day, 7.5m times a year, 600m times in the average lifetime, keeping our trillions of cells ticking over and saving them from choking on their own exhaust fumes. And we ignore them until something goes wrong and we’re gasping, wheezing, panicking – or worse.

When I think about lungs, it’s often in the same breath as cancer, which killed my dad 39 years ago. He only realised his lungs were knackered after a heart attack, which was probably also down to smoking. Sixty Senior Service a day, cigarette number two often lit as soon as number one was stubbed out. He stopped overnight, but it was too late.

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How to beat the scam, from setting up new passwords and telling your bank exactly what you are doing

“Hi mum,” the first message starts, “I’ve lost my phone.” It carries on with a tale of woe: for some reason the sender has also been locked out of his or her bank account.

Luckily a friend is often on hand to help – it’s their phone that the message comes from, apparently – and if you could just transfer some money to their account that would be great. Alternatively, you might be asked to pay the rent, direct to a landlord, or foot some other urgent bill that has arrived at this time of crisis.

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Focus on yourself and your own self-worth, and you never know what may follow.
• Every week Annalisa Barbieri addresses a relationship problem sent in by a reader

I’m a 40-year-old man who has used dating apps for eight years and met about 100 different women, not counting the ones with whom I just chatted. That’s a lot of first dates, quite a few second dates and a few short relationships. Nothing stuck.

No one seems to want a relationship. Everyone is broken, including me. Some women turn me down, allegedly, because I ask to split the bill on the second date, having paid on the first. Some turn me down because I want kids and they don’t. Some tell me I’m a nice man, after which I don’t hear from them again. I’ve never ghosted anyone, but I’ve turned down some good people too. I was trying to do the right thing by my head and my heart. It appears everyone is looking for chemistry and not finding it.

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Our in-house ferment fanatic Tom Hunt assesses a range of widely available versions of the increasingly popular Korean condiment

Spicy, salty, sweet and sour all at the same time, kimchi is perhaps the perfect condiment. This Korean staple is traditionally made by salting cabbage to preserve it and add crunch, then fermenting it in a pungent paste often made from glutinous rice porridge, gochugaru (Korean chilli flakes), onion and enough garlic to keep a vampire at bay. Fish sauce is another common addition, as is, sometimes, even raw seafood such as crab or squid, but most kimchi sold in the UK is plant-based, and so appeals to a much wider audience.

The magic behind kimchi lies in the lactic acid bacteria naturally present on vegetables. These beneficial microbes are encouraged to thrive during fermentation, creating the complex, tangy flavours and deep umami that make kimchi so distinctive. All kimchi brings bold flavour, but only raw, unpasteurised ones deliver the probiotic benefits that come from live fermentation, so look for the words “raw” and “unpasteurised” on the label. Gochugaru, meanwhile, is what gives kimchi its signature vermilion hue. The brightness of its red-orange colour is a good visual cue as to how much chilli has been used and, as a result, how spicy the kimchi is.

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France does many foods exceptionally well, but certain areas offer unique and exceptional culinary experiences. We select 10 delicacies and the best regions in which to try them

Of course you can enjoy exquisitely crafted patisseries all over France, but Paris is home to many of the country’s best patissiers, and many of the individual gateaux have a connection to the city. As you delve into the layers of almond sponge, ganache and buttercream that form the opera cake, you may see how it was inspired by the ornate balconies of the Palais Garnier opera house; while the Paris-Brest, a wheel-shaped choux, was first made in 1910 to commemorate the famously brutal cycle race. Seek out a rum baba – a brioche-like treat soaked in rum-infused syrup – and you might be told the story of how it was created by Nicolas Stohrer, the chef of the exiled Polish king Stanislas. The patisserie that bears his name has been at 51 rue Montorgueil since 1730 and is officially classed as a historic monument.

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Denise, 62, meets Federico, 64. Both are actors

What were you hoping for?
Someone drop-dead gorgeous – Matthew McConaughey.

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The ‘worst allergy season ever’ in the US. A ‘pollen bomb’ in the UK. I asked experts how to tell if a runny nose is the result of allergies or a virus

Ah, spring. A time of thawing and rebirth, of blooms bursting forth from frost. Days become longer, warmer and – oh no, what’s this? A tickle in your throat. Pressure building in your sinuses. A runny nose. A sneeze. Another sneeze. Was there ever a time before sneezing?

But is it allergies or a cold? Beautiful as springtime may be, the emerging greenery can also expel waves of allergens. So how can you tell if your runny nose is the result of unruly pollen or a virus? Are you infectious or is your immune system overreacting to an outside stimulus?

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Much anticipated title was due in autumn but fans will now have to wait another year after the announcement by Rockstar Games

Rockstar Games has delayed the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI until 26 May, 2026. The game had been scheduled for release this autumn, but the lack of a definite date was beginning to raise concerns within the industry.

Announcing the decision via a brief post on its website, the company said: “We are very sorry that this is later than you expected. The interest and excitement surrounding a new Grand Theft Auto has been truly humbling for our entire team. We want to thank you for your support and your patience as we work to finish the game.

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When it comes to workouts, how much pain – specifically, how much post-workout soreness – is actually a good thing? The answer: it depends

Humans have long glamorized suffering, hailing it as an essential ingredient of growth. In the ancient Greek tragedy Elektra, Sophocles wrote: “Nothing truly succeeds without pain.” In the 1980s, the actor and aerobics instructor Jane Fonda told people: “No pain, no gain.”

But when it comes to workouts, how much pain – specifically, how much post-workout soreness – is actually a good thing? The answer: it depends.

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We would like to hear the story behind a cooking utensil passed down through generations of your family

As Bee Wilson writes in her Guardian long read, people can invest objects in their kitchens with strong meanings or emotions:

Many people told me that they could still feel the presence of a lost parent or partner in their china cupboard. I met someone who said that the one object belonging to his mother that he and his siblings all wanted when they cleared her house was a glass salad-dressing maker. His mother never rinsed out the garlic at the bottom, just adding fresh garlic before pouring in the oil and vinegar, meaning that this vessel carried the garlicky essence of decades of shared meals.

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Kick off your afternoon with the Guardian’s take on the world of football

Every weekday, we’ll deliver a roundup the football news and gossip in our own belligerent, sometimes intelligent and – very occasionally – funny way. Still not convinced? Find out what you’re missing here.

Try our other sports emails: there’s weekly catch-ups for cricket in The Spin and rugby union in The Breakdown, and our seven-day round-up of the best of our sports journalism in The Recap.

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The best new music, film, TV, podcasts and more direct to your inbox, plus hidden gems and reader recommendations

From Billie Eilish to Billie Piper, Succession to Spiderman and everything in between, subscribe and get exclusive arts journalism direct to your inbox. Gwilym Mumford provide san irreverent look at the goings on in pop culture every Friday, pointing you in the direction of the hot new releases and the best journalism from around the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

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Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you through the top stories and what they mean

Scroll less, understand more: sign up to receive our news email each weekday for clarity on the top stories in the UK and across the world.

Explore all our newsletters: whether you love film, football, fashion or food, we’ve got something for you

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A weekly email from Yotam Ottolenghi, Meera Sodha, Felicity Cloake and Rachel Roddy, featuring the latest recipes and seasonal eating ideas

Each week we’ll send you an exclusive newsletter from our star food writers. We’ll also send you the latest recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi, Nigel Slater, Meera Sodha and all our star cooks, stand-out food features and seasonal eating inspiration, plus restaurant reviews from Grace Dent and Jay Rayner.

Sign up below to start receiving the best of our culinary journalism in one mouth-watering weekly email.

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