Starmer acknowledges ‘disappointing’ results as Badenoch says it was ‘always going to be a very difficult set of elections’

• Local elections: full mayoral and council results
• Starmer under fire from Labour MPs after Runcorn loss
• Is Farage’s quest to rid Reform of ‘amateurism’ paying off?

Reform UK has won three of the first five wards declared at Northumberland County Council, with Labour and the Conservatives picking up one each, PA reports.

There are 67 seats on the council, with the Conservatives defending 33, Labour 18, the Liberal Democrats four and Greens two, while there were 10 independent councillors.

Many voted for party as protest against government, with another trend of people detaching completely from politics

The boss, as aides call him, was on his way. It was 2.30am and Nigel Farage had arrived at a Cheshire leisure centre, ready to declare victory in the closely-fought Runcorn and Helsby byelection.

But as camera crews gathered, Reform UK officials who were ready to welcome their leader frantically scrambled back to the ballot boxes. The result, it seemed, was too close to call.

As Nigel Farage's party sweeps to victory in Lincolnshire, John Harris and John Domokos take a road trip through anger, sadness and fear – and, despite Reform's triumph, discover people working on a new politics of hope and common humanity

The local elections results tell us one clear thing: the ‘two main parties’ offer a change that actually changes nothing – and voters know it

It’s been a funny old decade. Just over 10 years ago, the comedian Russell Brand was lionised in some quarters for appearing on a Question Time panel with Nigel Farage, and producing what was widely, if bafflingly, interpreted as a brilliant zinger about the then Ukip leader. “He is a pound-shop Enoch Powell,� honked Brand, “and we gotta watch him.� Well now. Perhaps it takes someone who needs to be watched to know someone who needs to be watched. Mr Brand returned to the UK this week from the Florida base of his conspiracist Christian media outlet, appearing in court today on rape and sexual assault charges. He denies them.

Anyway: the local elections, where the big thing that people said could never happen seems to be happening. Farage now leads Reform UK, which even last year used to be bundled in the “other� category by political pollsters – now its standalone poll results frequently top the charts, with the eponymous two parties of The Two-Party System doing not a whole lot better than simply wailing that it isn’t supposed to be this way. In terms of last night’s byelection, Reform has taken Runcorn and Helsby, one of Labour’s safest seats in the general election you might dimly recall it won by a massive landslide 10 months ago.

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Freedom Flotilla Coalition claims Israel to blame for attack on unarmed civilian vessel in international waters

A ship carrying humanitarian aid and activists to Gaza has been bombed by drones and disabled while in international waters off Malta as it headed towards the Palestinian territory, its organisers have said.

“At 00:23 Maltese time, the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship came under direct attack in international waters,� the group said in a statement.

Duke of Sussex’s team had argued he was ‘singled out’ for ‘inferior treatment’ when security was downgraded in 2020

The Duke of Sussex has lost a legal challenge over the level of taxpayer-funded security he is entitled to while in the UK, allowing the government to proceed with a “bespoke�, and cheaper, level of protection for his family.

Three senior judges at the court of appeal rejected Prince Harry’s claim that he had been “singled out� for “inferior treatment� and that his safety and life were “at stake� after a change in security arrangements that occurred when he stepped down as a working royal and moved abroad.

Prison Officers’ Association claims officer was stabbed in head and two others punched in face at HMP Swinfen Hall

Governors have been accused of losing control of a Staffordshire jail after a union claimed that a male officer was stabbed in the head and two female colleagues were punched in the face during serious disturbances on Tuesday.

The Prison Officers’ Association is demanding a clearout of hidden makeshift weapons from HMP Swinfen Hall near Lichfield after a third outbreak of violence over recent weeks.

Presenter released on bail by Westminster magistrates court and told he faces Old Bailey trial on five charges

Russell Brand has appeared in court on charges of rape and sexual assault.

During a brief hearing at Westminster magistrates court on Friday, he was told he faced a trial at the Old Bailey in London on the five sexual offence charges.

Liberal PM will also meet with US president on Tuesday amid tensions over threatened annexation and tariffs

King Charles has accepted an invitation to open Canada’s parliament on 27 May, in “an historic honour that matches the weight of our times�, the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, said on Friday.

In his first news conference since an election dominated by Donald Trump’s threats to Canada’s sovereignty, the prime minister also confirmed he would meet the US president at the White House on Tuesday.

Analysis finds government stats for Black and Asian adults in England are in error due to outdated guidance

A million minority ethnic adults are wrongly classified as weighing below the thresholds for being overweight or obese due to official figures not using up-to-date guidance, a leading charity has warned.

Analysis by Nesta has found that, while official statistics class 64% of adults in England as being overweight or living with obesity, the correct figure should be 67%.

Appeal court backs ruling against home secretary’s redefinition of when police could put limits on protesters

Civil rights campaigners have hailed a “huge victory for democracy� after the court of appeal upheld the quashing of a key anti-protest regulation they said was introduced unlawfully.

The government had appealed against a high court ruling that the previous Tory home secretary, Suella Braverman, did not have the power to redefine “serious disruption� as “more than minor� in the law concerning when police could impose limits on protests.

Upgrade from ‘suspected’ threat will mean greater surveillance of party that came second in last election

Germany’s domestic intelligence service has designated the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the biggest opposition party, as a “confirmed rightwing extremist� force, meaning authorities can step up their surveillance as critics call for it to be legally banned.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) previously considered the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin party a “suspected� threat to Germany’s democratic order, with three of its regional chapters in eastern statesand its youth wing classed as confirmed extremist.

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.

Mike Waltz, ousted national security adviser at heart of earlier chat group fiasco, pictured using third-party clone

Photographs taken at Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting this week have revealed that top White House officials are now communicating using an even less secure version of the Signal messaging app than was at the center of a huge national security scandal last month.

The images, taken by Reuters on Wednesday, show the phone screen of Mike Waltz, the since-ousted national security adviser who last month accidentally included a journalist in a group chat in which top US officials discussed operational plans to bomb Yemen, attacks that were then carried out as described.

Jury hears of a collapsed marriage, cancer claim and mushroom foraging in week one of the trial of Erin Patterson

• Who are Erin Patterson and the other key figures in Australia’s mushroom murders trial?

On the afternoon of 29 July 2023, five people sat down to lunch in the dining room of a house in Leongatha, a small town in the South Gippsland region of Australia’s south-east.

Erin Patterson owned the house, and the guests were her parents-in-law, Don and Gail Patterson; Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson; and Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband.

UK gender decision ignites debate among professionals working in the domestic abuse and rape crisis spheres

“I have a list as long as my arm that I worry about daily,� says Katie Russell, the chief executive and co-founder of the service Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL). “The funding landscape, a broken criminal justice system, the global threat of violent misogyny.�

She lives a few streets away from where two women were seriously injured last weekend in a crossbow attack perpetrated by a man who espoused misogynist hate online.

Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children are just one of the families living on brink of starvation with no sign of an end to blockade

Every day, Ibtisam Ghalia and her four children count their remaining stocks of food. These are meagre: a kilo or so of beans, a bag of lentils, a little salt, some herbs, spices, and enough flour for half a dozen flatbreads cooked on a griddle over a fire of wood splinters, waste plastic and cardboard.

In the two months since Israel imposed a total blockade on Gaza, stopping food, medicine, fuel and anything else from entering the devastated territory, Ghalia’s “cupboard� has slowly diminished.

The artist spent time at a penal colony for her work – and has channelled the trauma into a stark new show. Despite being on Russia’s ‘wanted’ list, she remains hopeful for the future

Ten minutes into our interview, Nadya Tolokonnikova ducks to fetch a piece of paper from the floor and I find myself looking at something unexpected behind her. Next to a double bed, two crucifixes hang on the wall. Given the Siberia-born artist is best known for a performance piece that so offended the head of the Russian Orthodox church that he called it blasphemy, the discovery of such devotional regalia comes as a surprise. It certainly doesn’t suggest “religious hatred�, which is what a Moscow court said in 2012 motivated Tolokonnikova’s group Pussy Riot to perform a “punk prayer� in the city’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, before sentencing her to two years’ imprisonment. Nor does it smack of someone bent on hurting the “religious feelings of believers� – the charge under which Tolokonnikova was sentenced again two years ago, this time in absentia, and put on Russia’s wanted list.

Famous for performing in garishly coloured balaclavas, Pussy Riot appeared unmasked in court in 2012 – which turned the photogenic Tolokonnikova into the most globally recognisable face of a wave of protests against the then Russian PM Vladimir Putin. But looking at those bedside crosses, and at her new exhibition in Berlin, you wonder if everyone got the wrong end of the stick. Part of the German capital’s gallery weekend, her solo show Wanted at Galerie Nagel Draxler feature not only a replica of her former prison cell and a screening of the Putin’s Ashes performance that led to her wanted status, but also Tolokonnikova’s own paintings of religious icons. She uses tasteful old Slavic calligraphy techniques – while putting the icons in Pussy Riot ski masks.

She was in a girl group and starred in a Harry Potter film, but it was her genius turn as Oregon in Fresh Meat that made Ritchie a TV favourite. Now, she’s wrapping up her hit Netflix serial killer series and entering her detective era

In the beginning, Penn Badgley assumed his new co-star in the smash-hit Netflix thriller You was a lot like her character. This, jokes said co-star Charlotte Ritchie, was “somewhat rude. Because it shows he did no research about me.� If he had, Badgley would quickly have deduced that the Londoner was nothing like Kate Galvin, a ruthless British heiress, who – for some godforsaken reason – decides to marry his serial killer protagonist Joe Goldberg. Instead, the 35-year-old has cemented her place in the British comedy firmament with her perky, subtly goofy screen presence and impeccable comic timing, as showcased in beloved comedies from university life opus Fresh Meat to the BBC’s ingeniously silly supernatural sitcom Ghosts.

At first, Ritchie was nervous about joining You. The drama, then three seasons in, was already a colossal hit, adored for its knowingly ludicrous premise, bizarre twists and Badgley’s virtuoso portrayal of an apparently empathetic femicidal maniac. On set, Ritchie was impressed by Badgley’s ability to segue from “smart self-awareness� to serial killer mode. “His eyes go kind of wide and his face goes totally blank and inside I was like: Oh my God, that’s so horrifying!� she says.

Toby Jones, Frances McDormand and Mike Myers are some of those who have appeared alongside Tim Crouch in An Oak Tree, despite never having seen the script before. As the play celebrates its 20th anniversary, past performers explain its strange appeal

The standard routine in theatre goes something like this: an actor is cast in a play; they read, learn and rehearse it; and then, at last, they perform it to an audience, who will hopefully soak up their hard work. But for Tim Crouch, one of the industry’s chief experimenters, this exercise began to feel reductive. “A lot of actor training is about holding focus within the stage and putting the audience into a receiving role,� says Crouch. “I used to go to pubs and bitch about it.�

An Oak Tree – his 2005 play that is now seen as a landmark work – was born directly from these frustrations. The script, which is written to be performed by Crouch and a new actor each night, celebrates its changeability. “It is a finished piece, but it contains an unfinished element,� Crouch says. An Oak Tree’s story concerns a meeting between two men: a father who has lost his 12-year-old daughter in a car crash (played by the actor), and the person behind the wheel (played by Crouch). The one basic requirement is that the actor arrives at the theatre oblivious. They must have never seen the play, nor read the script, and be willing to stand on stage with no idea what will happen over the course of the evening. Frances McDormand, Peter Dinklage, Mike Myers and David Harewood are some of the many names to have played Crouch’s unwitting castmate over the years.

Heavy metal’s godfathers are preparing a star-studded farewell – but will Ozzy Osbourne, after ‘horrendous’ surgery, be well enough to perform? In their first interview for two decades, the original lineup talk about their hopes and fears for rock’s ultimate gig

On a video call from his home in Los Angeles, Ozzy Osbourne is struggling to recall the exact details of recent years, ones he calls “the worst of my life�. “How many surgeries have I had?� he wonders aloud. “I’ve got more fucking metal in me than a scrap merchants.�

The trouble began in earnest in early 2019, when he was midway through what his wife and manager Sharon had firmly told him was his farewell tour. For one thing, both of them had been working constantly since their teens; for another, Ozzy had been diagnosed with a form of Parkinson’s disease, after years of insisting an intermittent numbness in one of his legs was the result of a drinking binge (or rather its aftermath, during which he says he didn’t move for two days). The tour was going well, but then he caught pneumonia, twice. “And then I had an infection. I’m still on antibiotics to be honest with you, I had a thing put in the vein in my arm to feed in IV shots of them.� Six years later, “I’ve still got it on – it comes out this week, with a bit of luck. Antibiotics knock the hell out of you.�

There may not be obvious successors to the likes of Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie among today’s hotshot young writers. But is a new publisher dedicated to ‘overlooked’ male voices necessary?

‘Where have all the literary blokes gone?� is a question that has popped up in bookish discussions and op-eds from time to time in recent years. Who are this generation’s hotshot young male novelists, the modern incarnations of the Amis/McEwan/Rushdie crew of the 80s?

The question flared again this week as writer Jude Cook launched a new press, Conduit Books, which plans to focus, at least initially, on publishing male authors.

Cost of living and flexible working contribute to growing trend for 5pm table bookings

Previously sitting down for dinner at 5pm usually meant one of three things. You were going to the theatre. You had a toddler. You were of an age where you had a free bus pass. But now we are becoming a nation of early birds; 5pm is the new 8pm and restaurants are adapting accordingly. Special early-evening menus are on the rise.

At Skye Gyngell’s Spring restaurant in Covent Garden, a £30 “scratch� menu – featuring dishes made using waste produce such as a moreish bread-and-butter pudding made from yesterday’s loaves – is served between 5.30pm and 6.15pm.

Sunny spring weather cools quickly at night. Stay protected from the chill (and the odd downpour) with our fashion expert’s pick of the best lightweight jackets

• Women’s spring wardrobe essentials: 27 easy-to-wear pieces to see you through the season

I love a jacket. Almost more than any other garment, it can transform an outfit. A denim jacket instantly makes a get-up more casual; a blazer, more smart. It can add a practical layer to an otherwise quixotic look or a hint of frivolity to a serious ensemble.

The other thing I love about jackets is that – unless it’s a tailored one you want to fit just-so on the shoulder – you can often be a touch more footloose and fancy-free with fit than you can with other garments. This makes shopping for them a more fun affair than, say, hunting for trousers. It also makes them easier to source secondhand or online.

One of the most photographed men in the world, he has gone from captain of the England football team to elder statesman. We look back at the red cards, redemption, scandals, fashion and family life

• Tim Dowling on David Beckham at 50

It’s swings and roundabouts being a titchy kid in football. David Beckham first played for Chingford-based youth team the Ridgeway Rovers, where he was coached by his dad, Ted. Back then, he didn’t make the England schoolboys squad because he wasn’t burly enough – his father subsequently employing the somewhat nauseating tactic of feeding his son Guinness with raw eggs to gain weight. On the other hand, it did mean he could be a match mascot at Manchester United, his dad’s passion, at the age of 11, because he was still so cute and shrimpy.

Americans are beginning to worry about their future amid a shrinking economy, warnings of empty shelves – and the president’s failed promises

He says it’s the “best 100-day start of any president in history�, but you can file that along with his boast about crowd sizes and his claim to have won the 2020 election. In truth, the first three months of Donald Trump’s second presidency have been calamitous on almost every measure. The single biggest achievement of those 100 days has been to serve as a warning of the perils of nationalist populism, which is effective in winning votes but disastrous when translated into reality. That warning applies across the democratic world – and is especially timely in Britain.

Start with the numbers that matter most to Trump himself. A slew of polls appeared this week, but they all told the same story: that Trump’s approval ratings have collapsed, falling to the lowest level for a newly installed president in the postwar era. He has now edged ahead of his only rival for that title: himself. The previous low watermark for a president three months in was set by one Donald Trump in 2017.

Can Farage’s party now claim to be the official opposition? And what lessons should Labour and the Tories learn after a chastening night?

The appeal court verdict makes clear these anti-protest laws should never have existed. Labour must now reflect on what sort of democracy it wants us to be

• Akiko Hart is the director of the human rights organisation Liberty

When we beat the Conservative government over its anti-democratic protest laws in court last year, we thought that would be the end of the story. Judges in the high court had made it very clear that laws that gave the police almost unlimited powers to crack down on any protest that caused “more than minor� disruption were unlawful. It ordered that the laws should be scrapped. We celebrated. Given that the incoming Labour government had voted down these very same laws a year earlier, we believed that protest would be taken out of the culture wars arena and put back into the sacred space of fundamental rights.

Yet Labour dragged us back to court, in a misguided attempt to be seen to look tough on public order. And now today, on a day of much Labour soul-searching, we’ve won again. A unanimous court of appeal victory that, alongside chastening election results, must now trigger a total Labour rethink on how we treat protesters in this country.

Akiko Hart is the director of the human rights organisation Liberty

A poll on unnecessarily crude terms, good news on a male contraceptive – and the restorative nature of a solo trip to Ikea

YouGov, which you might have thought would be otherwise occupied as byelection season comes upon us, has released the results of a poll revealing which swearwords people in the UK find most-to-least offensive. I shall not go into details here in a family newspaper. Suffice it to say, the one you’d expect is in first position, and “arse� is – ahem – bringing up the rear.

The country has exported a myth of progressivism. It’s time to confront who we really are

Canada has been canonized – safely, predictably.

It’s the great, grave story we’ve exported – retold in economic rankings, stitched into tourism ads, held up in classrooms and cable news panels. We’re the cooler, mellower cousin nextdoor. The country that has it figured out. Where healthcare is universal, democracy is calm and diversity is politely managed.

Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland …

I’ve learned that at 40, you can set a course. If you’re not there by 50, there’s still time. By 60 the die is cast, and you know it

• David Beckham at 50: his gorgeous, outrageous life in 50 pictures

Happy birthday, David Beckham. Earlier this year, Beckham, still impressively bronzed, toned and sculpted, was modelling his own line of underwear. Today, he turns 50. It would be fair to say he looks good for it.

But how does it feel to be 50? If memory serves – and it doesn’t, really; it was a while ago now – 50 is not so much a landmark age as a whistle stop between 40 and 60. At least, that’s how it seems with hindsight. At 40, there are still big questions to answer – “When do I actually become an adult?� being chief among them. By 50, you begin to understand that adulthood is no longer a desirable goal – you’ve already passed through the era when it would have counted for something.

Tim Dowling writes a regular column for the Guardian

Walking through the US’s deindustrialized zones is a bit like walking through Dresden after 1945. We can rebuild better than before

A poll from the conservative Cato Institute recently went viral. It found that 80% of Americans think the country would be better off if more people worked in manufacturing. At the same time, only 25% of respondents said they themselves would be better off working in a factory. What should we make of the results?

First, there’s nothing contradictory between these figures. It’s easy to see how it would be good for the country to reshore manufacturing jobs, even if it’s not good for you, personally, to work in a factory. Imagine a local pharmacist in an industrial town. He can see how his business would benefit from the expansion of a nearby plant. Yet he could also see that he would personally lose out on a lot of income if he gave up his trade and marched into the factory himself. The same can be said for any number of other workers. The reason so many people find appeals to reindustrialization attractive is because life was undoubtedly better when the old factories in their town were buzzing with activity than it is today, where they sit idle.

The White House calls it ‘historic’. A more realistic estimate is that while Ukraine is glad to sign, this is not a shift in the big picture

The Trump administration, with its customary rhetorical inflation, has hailed its mineral deal with Ukraine as “historic�. What the world’s most powerful nation says and does matters. But how much? And for how long? This is a government of caprice and chaos. Attempting to connect the data points can be like trying to join up the bug splats on a windscreen. The real issue is that the vehicle is still following the signs for Moscow.

This moment looks like a high because US-Ukraine ties hit such a low, particularly with the Oval Office bullying of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and reports that Washington is willing to recognise annexed Crimea as Russian. Key details of this deal have yet to be finalised in a technical agreement. The idea originated with Kyiv, which saw that economic incentives might be the only way to interest the money-minded US president in its defence. The Trump administration decided the answer was, in essence, to take all the resources without granting the security guarantee that Ukraine had sought. It looked a bit like a protection racket, without ongoing protection.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The next challenge for Julia Donaldson’s monster is to get its claws into parents and persuade more of them to read aloud

It is 21 years since Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler published The Gruffalo’s Child, the sequel to their bestselling Gruffalo picture book of five years earlier. While the pair have collaborated on numerous other stories, none is as iconic as the tale of the little brown mouse who outwits a succession of predators. There is no shortage of Gruffalo merchandise. But in an age of franchises and prequels, this author-illustrator partnership clearly decided that less was more.

It is reportedly thanks to her wish to support the National Literacy Trust that Ms Donaldson decided to bring the Gruffalo back after all. The new book will be published next year, and used in an international campaign to promote children’s reading. The depressing findings of a survey released this week, showing a steep decline in the proportion of UK parents who read aloud to their children, make this announcement particularly welcome. Another report, from the National Literacy Trust, found that the proportion of eight- to 18-year-olds who read for pleasure fell last year to a record low of 35%.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Readers respond to an article on consumer frustrations with recycling used clothing

Re your article (‘You sold it – now recycle it’: the protesters mailing worn-out clothes to the shops they bought them from, 29 April), a significant percentage of the used-clothing waste stream consists of plastic zips and buttons, nylon ribbons and mile upon mile of polyester sewing thread, which will still be plastic even when it breaks up into microfibre. This is all devastating to wildlife, on land or sea.

Incineration plants are used to dispose of much of this modern clothing trash, but they come with a bad track record. Furthermore, the petrochemical industry saw disinvestment from fossil fuel on the horizon decades ago, so its promoters headed towards every other business that could use it, resulting in a huge move towards plastic packaging and manmade textiles, even though it would lead to industrial-scale pollution.

Readers respond to Emma Beddington’s article that asked why people find the name of the interim pope, Kevin Farrell, funny

In Germany, the name Kevin has become something of a joke (The interim pope is a guy called Kevin. Why do people find that funny?, 28 April). It became very popular in the early 90s, especially among east Germans (particularly in Saxony) and less sophisticated westerners who wanted a supposedly cool name for their sons. Daughters were often named Carmen or Chantal.

So many teachers developed a bias, assuming that these students had an Ossi background and/or working-class parents, and would probably not be academically promising. Nowadays there is the saying “Kevin isn’t a name, it’s a diagnosis�, and “My name is Kevin – so what?� Men change their name in order to get a good job. A pity, really.
Marion Clay
Berlin

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A bit more from Eddie Howe, on Alexander Isak: “He’s not for sale from my perspective …�

Dejan Kulusevski has been talking about how the Europa League has brought out Tottenham’s best amid a wretched domestic season, PA Media reports

“When you do performances like [the win at Eintracht Frankfurt], you want to repeat them,� Kulusevski said. “I think in Europe, we play a little bit different. We play with less risk and we put the ball up more in the space like we did today and we got to keep doing that in Europe.

“This season has been really disappointing but at least, let’s finish it in the best possible way. We have got to do everything possible every day to make it happen. It is different football (on an artificial pitch), it is a different pitch, but in life, you have to do what you have to do to find a way to win and we have got to do that.�

• Chinese player goes 8-0 in second session of semi-final
• Trump and Williams to resume in other last-four match

Ronnie O’Sullivan’s mid-match change of tip backfired spectacularly as he was whitewashed by Zhao Xintong in the second session of their World Snooker Championship semi-final.

O’Sullivan had the tip and ferrule on his cue changed overnight, having labelled it as “awful� before the last-four clash with Zhao at the Crucible. The seven-time champion had still emerged from the first session level at 4-4, but incredibly lost all eight frames on Friday morning as Zhao ruthlessly punished every missed pot and poor safety to move 12-4 ahead.

Those of a Liverpool persuasion, do look away now. That’s if you’ve sobered up from last Sunday, but even if you’ve had your fun this may annoy: there’s a thought this has been an unsatisfying Premier League season. Brentford’s beating of Nottingham Forest on Thursday night further dulled the romance. It looks as if the Tricky Trees will not now be in Bigger Cup, much to the chagrin of edit producers who had already started working on that Cloughie montage. With zero relegation battle there’s only Manchester City’s fall from grace to, er, fourth to gawp at. Thank goodness for the continent, then, where the Premier League’s brave boys can remind those Eurocrats that ours is the best bloody league in the world. It’s going well, actually, though there is something of a bullies turning up at junior school vibe to such success. That’s to set aside Arsenal, hanging on in Bigger Cup’s semis, a goal down despite the fear North London Forever must have put into PSG at the Emirates.

We’ve had some difficult results, we are bottom of the league and we were never going to become solid and be dominant in the game. If we did that when I came in with seven games to go, I’d probably be able to bring world peace as well� – interim manager Simon Rusk on how he would have been worthy of a Nobel prize if he’d managed to coach a bit of backbone into his rock-bottom Southampton side.

The potential Tottenham Hotspur or Spurs v Manchester United Bigger Vase final is going to be that paradox of a clash between one that can’t win and one that doesn’t want to win� – Krishna Moorthy.

As noticed by me and 1,056 others, your Memory Lane (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition) photo of Tony Hateley and Emlyn Hughes reminds me of the great Ted Lowe commentary: ‘For those of you watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green’� – Louis Beasley-Suffolk.

Sorry, I disagree with with you, Tom Dowler (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). Riqui Puig was unfortunately injured, and seems to spend most of his time being largely nice, if a bit puppyish and over enthusiastic. John Terry got himself banned from the final by being a divot in the semi. Can we please keep Terry as the epitome of the full-kit celebration? It is the very least he deserves. Plus, I don’t care who wins Bigger Cup now, but I do want someone to slip on their ar$e, c0ck up a penalty and start crying so we can bring that up again too� – Jon Millard.

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After three successive promotions McElhenney and Reynolds will see their club take on their biggest challenge yet in ‘one of the most competitive leagues in world football’

A social media soundbite from Rob McElhenney was typically revealing. “If I’m being honest I don’t even know what the word consolidation means,� the Wrexham co-chair said. Days earlier, in between wheeling around the Racecourse Ground celebrating promotion from League One, he told Ryan Reynolds things were about to get “a little pricier from here on�.

Wrexham: welcome to the Championship. After three successive promotions to earn a slice of English football history, the Welsh club and their owners are steadying themselves for one of the most chaotic and competitive leagues on the planet.

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An interesting read on Cameron Bancroft, the third of the sandpaper gate Australian trio, whose fledgling career never quite recovered in the same way as those of David Warner and Steve Smith.

One to keep an eye on as play starts round the grounds. Craig Overton returns after his back spasm.

A year ago he was with the fans: now he’s an England player before Saints’ Champions Cup semi against Leinster

Henry Pollock is bouncing around the south stand at Franklin’s Gardens. He is in demand at Northampton’s media session and between interviews he seems most preoccupied with reminding his teammate Tommy Freeman who won their latest battle on the golf course. As has been clear since his emergence, Pollock has no problem with the spotlight.

His restless energy is not confined to the pitch but soon he sits down for a chat, ostensibly to preview Northampton’s Champions Cup semi-final against Leinster on Saturday, but essentially to discuss Pollock-mania. How and why it has taken hold and whether at any stage in the 20-year-old’s fledgling career he has experienced a shred of self-doubt.

Red-carpet launch has to be backed up with a car on the grid next season, with Briton Graeme Lowdon leading the push

As inescapable as it is inexorable, everyone at Cadillac is aware the clock is ticking as they edge closer towards a moment of truth more than three years in the making. The expectation and anticipation for when the team, backed by General Motors, hits the grid as Formula One’s 11th entry for the first race of 2026 is ratcheting up with every passing second.

Appropriately for this all‑American marque, the team are launching their F1 entry on Saturday night with a red-carpet event at Miami Beach after the sprint race and qualifying have concluded at the Hard Rock Stadium circuit.

Have you been following the big news in football, boxing, snooker, motor sport, rugby union and cricket?

Warm weather means strawberries, aubergines and tomatoes have come weeks earlier than expected

A glut of early strawberries, aubergines and tomatoes has hit Britain with the dry, warm weather eliminating the usual “hungry gap�, growers say.

It has been a sunny, very dry spring, with the warmest start to May on record and temperatures predicted to reach up to 30C at the earliest point on record, forecasters have said.

Environmentalists worry that the post-Brexit legislation will allow the destruction of rare and fragile ecosystems

Walk along the gin-clear River Itchen in Hampshire and you might see otters, salmon, kingfishers and clouds of mayflies, all supported by the unique ecosystem of the chalk stream.

The UK has no tropical rainforests or tigers; its wildlife is arguably more modest in appearance. But its chalk streams are some of the rarest habitats in the world – there are only 200, and England boasts 85% of them. If you look properly, they are as biodiverse and beautiful as any rainforest.

Nature organisations say legislation would remove safeguards for nature and put protected sites at risk

Keir Starmer’s planning bill has been criticised by the environment watchdog, which has warned that the draft of the legislation would remove safeguards for nature and put protected sites at risk.

Currently, laws that protect habitats and nature are derived from EU legislation. Since the UK left the bloc, it has been able to weaken these laws that protect specific species and habitats.

Tariff chaos hampers Trump’s pledge to ‘drill, baby, drill’, but analysis still shows surge in planet-heating emissions

• ‘A ruthless agenda’: charting 100 days of Trump’s onslaught on the environment

Donald Trump’s ambitions for the US to “drill, baby, drill� for more fossil fuels have ironically been hampered by the economic chaos unleashed by his own tariffs, but the US is still on track to increase oil and gas extraction, causing a surge in planet-heating emissions, a new analysis shows.

The US was already the world’s leading oil and gas power, producing more of the fossil fuels than any country in history during Joe Biden’s administration. But Trump has sought to escalate this further, declaring an “energy emergency� to open up more land and ocean for drilling and launching an unprecedented assault on environmental regulations in his first 100 days back in the White House.

Nine out of 10 school leaders tell survey they are finding it harder to meet special needs of pupils than a year ago

The crisis in special needs education appears to be worsening, with nine out of 10 school leaders finding it harder to meet pupils’ needs than they did a year ago, according to a survey.

Almost all (98%) of the respondents to a National Association of Head Teachers’ (NAHT) poll covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland said they did not have the resources to meet the needs of all their pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (Send).

British Medical Association says move comes after union was unable to reach agreement with Wes Streeting

Thousands of resident doctors in England will be balloted for strike action over pay, raising the threat of a summer of stoppages, the British Medical Association has announced.

The move comes seven months after they accepted a 22.3% pay rise over two years, for 2023-24 and 2024-25, bringing to an end one of the longest and bitterest disputes in recent NHS history.

Live, rolling coverage of business, economics and financial markets as the FTSE nets its longest-ever winning run, Amazon’s Bezos to sell stock worth up to $4.75bn; US employment figures higher than expected

Eurozone unemployment was steady 6.2% in March – unchanged relative to a revised February reading.

The youth unemployment rate was 14.2%, down from 14.3% in the previous month.

Charities say the judgment creates ‘a legal framework that simply cannot uphold the dignity’ of trans people

Fourteen national LGBTQ+ charities have written to Keir Starmer seeking an urgent meeting to discuss what they describe as “a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK� after the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

The UK supreme court ruled last month that the terms “woman� and “sex� in the Equality Act 2010 referred only to “a biological woman� and to “biological sex�, with subsequent advice from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.

Government says measures are too legally complex to deliver before the next Holyrood election

The Scottish government has dropped plans to outlaw misogyny and conversion practices before the next Holyrood election, arguing they are too legally complex to deliver in time.

Ministers had long promised a bill to criminalise misogyny after Nicola Sturgeon, the then first minister, accepted recommendations from a working group led by the lawyer and human rights expert Helena Kennedy in 2022.

Retailer ‘working day and night’ to tackle incident that has hit its online operations

The boss of Marks & Spencer has urged customers to come into its stores to shop in person this bank holiday weekend as the retailer works “day and night� to tackle the cyber-attack that has crippled its online operation.

The retailer’s IT systems were hit by a ransomware attack almost two weeks ago. It is still not taking online orders, and the availability of some products in its stores has been affected after it took some of its systems offline in response.

Creatures make up the bulk of seabirds’ diet but are fished for commercial pig food

• Europe live – latest updates

A ban on fishing for sand eels in UK waters will remain in place despite a legal challenge from the EU.

The small, silvery eels make up the bulk of the diet of seabirds, but they are fished for commercial pig food. A lack of sand eels means seabirds such as puffins can starve to death.

Anfield celebrations of Alexis Mac Allister strike caused tremor with peak magnitude of 1.74 on Richter scale

Labelling a win as “seismic� has become a lazy and overused term. But not in the case of Liverpool FC’s title-clinching win over Tottenham Hotspur when scientists recorded genuine Earth-shaking seismic activity triggered by celebrations at Anfield.

Researchers from the University of Liverpool’s department of Earth, ocean and environmental sciences were on site on Sunday to measure ground movement from the crowd throughout the match when the home team won 5–1 and claimed the Premier League title for the 2024-25 season.

‘Pilot gigs’ were crucial for islanders for centuries and 90 important sites housing the boats have been identified

Swift, streamlined boats for centuries helped save lives and move people and goods around the treacherous waters of the Isles of Scilly.

An archaeological project has highlighted just how crucial the agile, tough “pilot gigs� were for islanders by mapping 90 sites of sheds that housed the boats, the earliest believed to date back to the 17th century.

The 1m increase on last year compounded by part-closure of west coast mainline on Sunday and Monday

A warm and sunny May bank holiday weekend is expected to bring a million more drivers out on the roads than last year, with the part-closure of Great Britain’s main rail line on Sunday and Monday likely to aggravate the situation.

Congestion is set to peak with the temperatures on Friday afternoon, when getaway drives and commuter traffic coincide.

Proposed budget would raise defense spending by 13% and homeland security spending by nearly 65% compared to 2025 levels

The seeds were sown for the ousting of Mike Waltz as national security adviser long before “Signalgate�, notes Politco.

The outlet reports that his approach to the job was unpopular and Waltz was seen as too cocky. One person close to the White House said:

He’s a staff, but he was acting like a principal.

Waltz has been on thin ice for a while. [Signalgate] made the ice thinner but at the same time … may actually save him for now because they don’t want to give [Jeffrey] Goldberg a scalp.

Company’s founder plans to offload up to 25m shares through a trading plan

• Business live – latest updates

Jeff Bezos is preparing to sell up to $4.75bn (£3.6bn) worth of Amazon stock over the next year, according to a regulatory filing made on Friday.

The technology company’s executive chair and former chief executive plans to offload up to 25m shares through a trading plan that ends on 29 May 2026.

Heidy Sánchez says she was told her 17-month-old, who has health problems and is breastfeeding, couldn’t go with her

A mother deported to Cuba reportedly had to hand over her 17-month-old daughter to a lawyer while her husband, a US citizen, stood outside unable to say goodbye.

Heidy Sánchez was told she was being detained for deportation to Cuba when she turned up at her scheduled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) check-in appointment in Tampa, Florida, last week.

Blood from man bitten hundreds of times by deadly species is used to create most broadly protective antivenom yet

He has self-administered more than 850 doses of venom from cobras, mambas, rattlesnakes and other deadly species in pursuit of a singular quest: to develop immunity to snake bites in the hope of helping scientists create a universal antivenom.

Now the extreme 18-year experiment by Tim Friede, a former truck mechanic from Wisconsin, appears to have paid off. Scientists have used antibodies from his blood to create the most broadly protective antivenom to date, which could revolutionise the treatment of snake bites.

Comments come a week after Trump claimed talks were already taking place

Beijing is “evaluating� an offer from the US to engage in trade negotiations, the Chinese government has said, a week after Donald Trump claimed talks were already under way.

China’s commerce ministry said on Friday: “The US has recently taken the initiative on many occasions to convey information to China through relevant parties, saying it hopes to talk with China.�

Patience Nabukalu, who has experienced climate-related flooding, joins protestors from around the world to deliver a letter to CEO Georges Elhedery criticising the financing of oil, gas and coal projects

At nine years old, Patience Nabukalu was devastated when her friend, Kevin, died in severe flooding that hit their Kampala suburb, Nateete, a former wetland. Witnessing deaths and the destruction of homes and livelihoods in floods made worse by extreme rainfall has had a profound impact on her.

She decided to try to bring about change – to do what she could to amplify the voices of those in the Ugandan communities worst affected by the climate crisis.

Benjamin Netanyahu says strike intended to deter Syria’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze

Israel’s air force has launched airstrikes against unidentified targets near Syria’s presidential palace, in what Israeli officials said was a warning to the Syrian government after days of bloody clashes near Damascus between pro-government militia and fighters from the Druze minority sect.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and the defence minister, Israel Katz, said in a joint statement that the attack early on Friday, the second this week in Syria, was intended to deter the country’s new leadership from any hostile move against the Druze.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission found video app breached GDPR and had submitted ‘erroneous information’ to inquiry

TikTok has been fined €530m (£452m) by an Irish watchdog over a failure to guarantee that European user data sent to China would not be accessed by the Chinese government.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) regulates TikTok across the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes all 27 EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Sotheby’s sale of Piprahwa gems, excavated after burial with Buddha’s remains, denounced as perpetuating colonial violence

Buddhist academics and monastic leaders have condemned an auction of ancient Indian gem relics which they said were widely considered to be imbued with the presence of the Buddha.

The auction of the Piprahwa gems will take place in Hong Kong next week. Sotheby’s listing describes them as being “of unparalleled religious, archaeological and historical importance� and many Buddhists considered them to be corporeal remains, which had been desecrated by a British colonial landowner.

State department certifies licence for ‘$50m or more’ in defence hardware and services after minerals deal signed

The Trump administration will approve its first sale of military equipment to Ukraine since Donald Trump took office, in an indication that the minerals deal signed by the two countries this week may open a path to renewed weapons shipments.

The state department has certified a proposed licence to export “$50m or more� (£37.6m) of defence hardware and services to Ukraine, according to a communication sent to the US committee on foreign relations. It would mark the first permission of its kind since Trump paused all Ukraine-related military aid shortly after taking office.

A remark about Rule, Britannia! led to uproar but the star musician is concentrating on the joy and power of classical music. As his first book is published, he talks to Charlotte Higgins

• Read an exclusive extract from Kanneh-Mason’s new book

I saw Sheku Kanneh-Mason’s cello case before I saw him – strapped to his back, making him taller. While we talked, the instrument sat beside us, like a temporarily silent twin. A few weeks before, though, I’d heard it sing in the Barbican, London, as he swept through Shostakovich’s first cello concerto with the Czech Philharmonic, the piece with which he won BBC Young Musician nine years ago.

It is hard to believe Kanneh-Mason is still only 26: he is touring with some of the best orchestras and conductors in the world, has an MBE, is a visiting professor at the Royal Academy of Music, and, for the two billion people who watched, is the young cellist who played at the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s wedding.

Their tech may have been primitive, but for 80s schoolchildren of a certain kind they had a glamour to equal any modern iPhone

Over the last couple of weeks I have been tidying our attic, and while the general aim has been to prevent its contents from collapsing through the ceiling, I have a side-mission. My most valued possession when I was twelve was a Casio GD-8 Car Race watch – a digital timepiece that included a built-in racing game on its tiny monochrome LCD display. Two big buttons on the front let you steer left and right to avoid incoming vehicles and your aim was to stay alive as long as possible. I lost count of the number of times it was confiscated by teachers at my school. I used to lend it to the hardest boys in the year, thereby guaranteeing me protection against bullies. As a socially inept nerd, this was invaluable to my survival. I’m pretty sure I still have the watch somewhere, and my determination to find it has been augmented by a recent discovery: these things are valuable now.

Casio started making digital watches in the mid-1970s, using technology it had developed in the calculator market to compete on price, but as the decade drew to a close, the market became saturated and the company started to explore new ways to entice buyers. Speaking to Polygon in 2015, Yuichi Masuda, senior executive managing officer and Casio board member, explained, “Casio went back to its original thinking when it first entered the watch market; that is, ‘a watch is not a mere tool to tell the time.’ We started talking about a multifunction [approach], time display plus other things, such as telephone number memory and music alarms.�

Jane Austen meets JMW Turner, Huma Bhabha takes on Giacometti and the Secret Lowry’s work is taken seriously at last – all in your weekly dispatch

Encounters: Giacometti – Huma Bhabha
A season of sculptural “encounters� with Giacometti’s primal, existentialist figures kicks off with this Pakistani-American artist taking him on.
• Barbican, London, from 8 May to 10 August

The actor has the prestigious job of reading the British jury’s verdicts on the night, after starring in a special Who episode with Rylan and Graham Norton

Doctor Who actor Ncuti Gatwa has been confirmed as the UK’s spokesperson for the Eurovision song contest 2025.

Gatwa will announce the British jury’s points for each participating country’s song. Previous spokespeople include Joanna Lumley, Fearne Cotton, Nigella Lawson and fellow Whoniverse star Catherine Tate.

The author of Late in the Day pays tribute to the exuberantly inventive Yorkshire-born novelist who has died aged 96

Jane Gardam, who has died aged 96, was such an exuberant, inventive writer. It’s the sheer energy of the voice you notice first, picking up one of her books from the shelf; she had the easy authority of a natural storyteller. Her first book, A Long Way from Verona, was written for children and published in 1971, when she was in her early 40s. “I ought to tell you at the beginning,� announces Jessica Vye in the first sentence, “that I am not quite normal, having had a violent experience at the age of nine.� In the book, clever bookish girls, at a private school in wartime, are hungry for adventures and also for tea with cress sandwiches and chocolate eclairs; they belong to that class beloved of British fiction in the old days, educated people fallen on hard times. Jessica’s father has left his job as a schoolmaster to follow his vocation as a poor curate. The Summer After the Funeral, published in 1973, begins with the death of Athene Price’s elderly vicar father, when his young wife and children have to move out of the vicarage with no money. Athene believes she’s a reincarnation of Emily Brontë; Jessica has mentioned Henry James, Chopin and Shakespeare by the end of her second chapter. These books belong to the tail-end of that rich period of English middle-class children’s writing, which depended upon an audience of sophisticated and informed young readers; it was partly through the books that their readers grew sophisticated and informed.

These books are set in the north of England; Gardam grew up mostly in North Yorkshire. The difference between the rugged north and the posh home counties, which are the other half of her subject, cuts across her fiction. In her adult novel Faith Fox she describes two tribes, “South and north, above and below the line from the Wash to the Severn, the language-line that is still not quite broken to this day.�

Chichester Festival theatre
The standup brings his easy stage command to the role of a penniless nincompoop who tricks his way into authority in Gregory Doran’s production

A satire by a Ukrainian-born writer in which Russians trust a chancer who cruelly tricks them has obvious topicalities. The programme for Gregory Doran’s revival of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector (1836) includes a letter from a Ukrainian academic bemoaning Putin’s attempts to claim Gogol as Russian, although the Kremlin dictator could not sit with any comfort through a play about the stupidity of rulers.

Nor, though, could Donald Trump or most leaders. In a show premiered, deliberately or not, on local election day in England (May Day in Russia), Doran strongly brings out how power can be a confidence trick in which both sides consent. The citizens of a provincial Russian town submit to the authority of a penniless nincompoop because guilt at their corruption has led them to think they deserve him. But Khlestakov, who they falsely believe to be their governmental nemesis, finds, as unsuitable overlords often do, that he enjoys control. In our context, the play can also be seen quietly to question whether the reflex sending of inspectors – into schools, hospitals, prisons – is distraction rather than action.

From luxury Simba and Otty mattresses to brilliant budget buys, here’s what we recommend – and how to know if you’ve found a good deal

• How to choose a mattress: the features worth paying for – and the ones that aren’t

A good mattress improves your sleep, say mattress makers – and they would, wouldn’t they? But they’re right. The older I get, the more I know it. When I was 20, I could sleep anywhere: a friend’s floor, a filthy sofa – even a phone box one night. These days, I won’t get a single one of 40 winks if I’m not lying on a decent mattress. Comfy but firm, cosy but breathable, and with loads of cool spots for my feet.

Today’s best mattresses promise all this and more. Gone are the days when your biggest decision was between a sprung double or a sprung king size. Pocket springs are still around, but they face stiff – well, medium firm – competition from hybrid mattresses that combine springs and memory foam to provide that all-important balance of comfort and support.

Best overall mattress:
Otty Original Hybrid
_{From £499.99 (single) to £874.99 (emperor) at Otty}

Best mattress for couples:
Simba Hybrid Pro
_{From £799 (single) to £1,399 (super king) at Simba}

Best budget mattress:
Ikea Valevåg
_{From £149 (single) to £359 (super king) at Ikea}

Small swaps can make a big difference to a baby’s carbon footprint, but where to begin? We asked parents for the planet-friendly products they swear by

• ‘It gave us both freedom’: parents on the baby gear they wouldn’t go without

In the first 100 days of my daughter’s life, the app my wife and I use to track every feed, pee and poo revealed that we had changed almost 800 nappies: 769, to be precise. Each of these required a baby wipe (or three or four), a cotton wool pad to pat dry and a nappy bag for disposal. With all of this destined for landfill, my baby’s carbon footprint was racking up months before she was even ready to take her first step.

Statistics from the recycling charity Wrap estimate that 3bn disposable nappies are thrown away in the UK each year and that a baby could get through more than 4,500 before they’re potty trained.

May’s the best month of the year – and our fashion expert’s serving up her must-haves to match the mood

• The best women’s underwear for every occasion

May is my favourite month. It looks great, for a start, with the best of the blossom and everyone wreathed in bank holiday smiles. If you’re in the market for a little treat to celebrate, look no further. I’ve got the just-loose-enough new-season jeans and the snap-up-now holiday shoes.

I’ve also got an absolute steal of a wedding-guest dress and a great dupe for my favourite White Lotus sunglasses. Plus, a couple of bits that I’ve snuck in just because I love them and I think you will, too. Happy best month of the year, my friends.

From a gluten-free mead to an award-winning white wine, these are the best premixed drinks to crack open

• The best low- and no-alcohol beers, wines and spirits

There is so much to love about a drink in a tin. Cans can be quickly and easily chilled, with their contents staying fresh; they’re widely recyclable, compact, lightweight and portable; there’s no fear of cans smashing into smithereens; you don’t require any gadgets to open them – and they vastly improve any journey or gathering.

If you’re heading to the park for alfresco socialising, no longer are your beverage options limited to just a four-pack of lager or a can of Diet Coke. From craft beers and wine to G&Ts, cocktails and an array of soft drinks, choice isn’t an issue.

It was torture. It took six people to carry me to an ambulance

In the spring of 1995 I was studying for my A-levels in Cambridge, along with my best friend, Kate. For her final art exam, Kate wanted to create a male torso in the style of a classical sculpture, which she would present along with her written assignment on the male nude. She asked if I’d be the model and I, of course, agreed – what teenager wouldn’t be flattered at the prospect of being immortalised as a Greek god?

We decided to make the cast in the garden of Kate’s family home. Wearing just my Y-fronts and a pair of Mickey Mouse socks borrowed from Kate’s dad, along with a layer of baby oil, I lay down as Kate finished mixing the fine casting plaster, which she then poured from my neck to my ankles.

From a hidden gem in Nice to a rustic revelation in Beaujolais and a bargain bistro in Brittany

Far away from the tourist traps of the old town, tiny seafood restaurant Coquillages Bouchet on Rue Rusca is a relative newcomer in Nice. Tucked away on a sidestreet near the port, the menu is short and the atmosphere relaxed. The young owners, Nicolas and Hugo, are best friends and their passion for fresh seafood, especially sea urchins and oysters, simply radiates. If you’re after fancy, go to one of the exclusive beach clubs dotted along the coastline. If you want fresh, vibrant and delicious platters of seafood served with charm and glasses of ice-cold white wine, come here.
Melanie Clarkson

This year’s purple sprouting broccoli season is over, but if you sow seeds now you will have a new crop next spring

Although the purple sprouting broccoli (PSB) season has come to an end, now is not the time to stop thinking about this vibrant spring crop. If you have the room to grow it, purple sprouting broccoli started from seed now will grow through the summer, stand in the ground overwinter and be poised for picking by early next spring.

It’s a busy time in the veg patch, but it’s well worth finding an hour or so between all the planting and weeding to sow some purple sprouting broccoli seeds so that you’ve got crops to harvest in the leaner months.

Maybe you are having your first barbecue of the year, or going for a long, lazy lunch. Whatever your bank holiday plans, light layers and accessories with personality are always a good idea

A sprightly, grapefruity number in the manner of a gin sour, and with a dash of Campari to give it an extra grown-up edge

I’m a huge fan of Campari, so am always keen to come up with new cocktails in which it can take centre stage, and this zingy little number is now a firm favourite. We also love working with local Cornish producers, and Caspyn’s dry gin is made in West Penwith, on the southern tip of the county.

William Speed, co-owner, Beach House Falmouth, Cornwall

If you or your family have memories, pictures and letters from VE Day, we would like to hear from you

On 8 May 1945 the second world war in Europe came to an end. , Though it was a day for celebration, for many who lost family and friends during the war, rejoicing was muted. It’s estimated that nearly 70 million people died as a direct consequence of the fighting, about two thirds of them were civilians.

If you or your friends and family have memories of the end of the second world war in Europe, we would like to hear from you. Do you have stories or photographs of the celebrations? Were you or a family member a child at the time, or still in active service on VE Day, and if so where? Perhaps you have letters or mementos from that period.

We would like to hear about how the costs of festivals might have affected your plans

Festival season is upon us, and ticket prices are as high as ever. The most basic Glastonbury tickets are £378, with coach tickets on top anywhere between £60 and £160. Meanwhile Latitude starts at £308, and even day festivals such as Field Day can exceed £80.

With this in mind, we would like to hear about how the costs of festivals might have affected your plans. Do you save up for festival season, or take out a loan? Do you go as a volunteer? Or has the cost of festivals got so high you can’t go any more?

Is there anything you would like to ask the former Everton, Rangers, Dundee United, Newcastle and Scotland striker?

It’s often said that football does not produce many characters these days. No one said that during Duncan Ferguson’s career. Big Dunc has been entertaining and enraging football fans for 35 years.

He found stardom early, joining Rangers in 1993 for a British transfer record fee, but playing for the club he had supported as a boy did not work out for Ferguson. Instead, he made his home south of the border at Everton, where he became a man mountain of a striker, a club legend and, briefly, a manager.

Share your recent photos and tell us where you were and why that scene resonated with you

The Guardian Weekly is our international news magazine, featuring the best of the Guardian, the Observer and our digital journalism in one beautifully designed and illustrated package.

We’re now on the lookout for our readers’ best photographs of the world around us. For a chance to feature in the magazine, send us a picture you took recently, telling us where it is in the world, when you took it and why the scene resonated with you at that particular moment.

Try to upload the highest resolution possible. The limit for photo uploads is 5MB.

Landscape images are preferable due to the page design

Tell us as much as you can about when and where the photo was taken as well as what was happening

When we publish an image we want to credit you so please ensure that we have contact information and your full name

The soft, undecided and swinging voters are at an all-time high in Australia, while support for the centre-left Labor and conservative-leaning Coalition is low

• See all our Australia 2025 election coverage

More than 18 million Australians will head to the polls this Saturday to choose between the incumbent centre-left Labor party and its conservative-leaning Liberal/National Coalition challenger.

But about one in three voters will brush off the major contenders – led by the current prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the opposition leader, Peter Dutton – in favour of someone else altogether, in an election marked by a cost of living crisis and the spectre of Donald Trump.

About half of people looking after someone with dementia are doing it alone. Many of them are ageing and starting to need care themselves. It is an act of love and duty – but it can be precarious

Don Campbell and his wife, Marjorie, energetically travelled the world together. “We’ve had wonderful times� he says. They had season tickets to the symphony and opera – until illness intervened. “We’ve always done lots of theatre and music.� But the “lots and lots of memories� are fading now for Marjorie.

She has rheumatoid arthritis and was diagnosed with dementia two-and-a-half years ago. Now she will ask him up to five times a day “what have we got to do today?� It requires, he says, “a huge amount of patience�. Her mobility is failing, she is losing her balance, she has frightening falls, soon she will be in a wheelchair. But no matter what happens from here Don is adamant: “She is not going into care, she is going to be looked after at home by me.�

From the turtle-nesting beaches of Italy to Greek island bird havens, across the Mediterranean campaigners are fighting to protect habitats from tourists seeking a picture-perfect holiday

In the summer months in Puglia, southern Italy, the battle for the beaches begins before dawn. Armed with tractors, beach owners flatten every imperfection from the sand, dragging it to sift out anything large enough to be considered waste. As the sun rises, tourists flood the coastline, often unaware of what lies hidden beneath their feet.

Two feet below the surface, delicate eggs laid by loggerhead sea turtles (Caretta caretta) are waiting to hatch. For the turtles, the beach is not a beauty spot but a habitat.

After Europe’s biggest blackout in over 20 years, experts warn that while such incidents are rare, no grid is infallible

Europe’s biggest blackout in over 20 years on the Iberian peninsula unleashed hours of chaos for people in Spain, Portugal and parts of France earlier this week. But in the aftermath it has raised a common question for governments across the continent: could the same happen here?

Europe’s political leaders and energy system operators have given assurances that such blackouts are extraordinarily rare, and that European power grids are some of the most stable in the world.

After the US health secretary called for autistic people to be tracked, readers rebuked the idea that ASD is a tragedy

When Robert F Kennedy Jr announced a major project to track the health of people with autism, autistic people and their friends and families reacted with shock and anger.

They also expressed dismay and concern over the US health secretary’s incorrect and “weird� approach to autism spectrum disorder.

Donald Trump tried to distance himself from the radical rightwing blueprint for government during the campaign but its prescriptions are all over the administration’s agenda

• Trump’s whirlwind start to his second presidency

When Donald Trump chose a Project 2025 author to lead a key federal agency that would carry out the underpinnings of the conservative manifesto’s aims, he solidified the project’s role in his second term.

Shortly after he won re-election, the US president nominated Russ Vought to lead the office of management and budget. Vought wrote a chapter for Project 2025 about consolidating power in the executive branch and advances a theory that allows the president to withhold funds from agencies, even if Congress has allocated them. Consolidating power, in part through firing a supposed “deep state� and hiring loyalists, is a major plank of the project – and of Trump’s first 100 days.

An update was reversed that made the chatbot too ‘sycophantic’: always remember that it’s designed not to answer your question, but to give you the answer you wanted

Nobody likes a suck-up. Too much deference and praise puts off all of us (with one notable presidential exception). We quickly learn as children that hard, honest truths can build respect among our peers. It’s a cornerstone of human interaction and of our emotional intelligence, something we swiftly understand and put into action.

ChatGPT, though, hasn’t been so sure lately. The updated model that underpins the AI chatbot and helps inform its answers was rolled out this week – and has quickly been rolled back after users questioned why the interactions were so obsequious. The chatbot was cheering on and validating people even as they suggested they expressed hatred for others. “Seriously, good for you for standing up for yourself and taking control of your own life,� it reportedly said, in response to one user who claimed they had stopped taking their medication and had left their family, who they said were responsible for radio signals coming through the walls.

Chris Stokel-Walker is the author of TikTok Boom: The Inside Story of the World’s Favourite App

When the gallery opened in 2000, it transformed the artistic life of Britain – and the world. We look back at spiders, splinters, sexual dependency and sunsets

Frances Morris, then head of displays

Selecting a new pope has always been an arduous process, but some conclaves seemed to suffer more than others

Modern-day conclaves are steeped in mystery: cardinal electors swear an oath of secrecy – and so do the cooks, drivers, medics and others who support their deliberations. Before the conclave begins next week, the Sistine Chapel will be swept for electronic bugs, jamming devices will be installed, and special coatings will be placed on windows to stop laser scanners picking up anything audible.

It wasn’t always this way: in the past, letters, diaries and other writings by cardinals and their attendants gave revealing accounts of what happened in the meetings convened in order to choose a pope.

Get on a plane on either side of the Atlantic and you’re vastly more likely to find a man at the controls. Is it because of prejudice, the problems the job poses for family life – or something else?

Sometimes passengers congratulate Maria Pernia-Digings, 61, on her parking. When she tells me this, she tries to laugh it off as a tiny slight, barely worth commenting on. Others don’t bother to hide their shock, and greet her as they leave the plane with blunt amazement: “Oh, you’re a woman!�

“It’s lovely. People are very supportive,� she says, before conceding she finds some of the feedback extremely trying. Remembering the last male passenger to compliment her on her parking, she says: “It is a bit sad, isn’t it, if he thinks that because I’m a woman, I can’t park?�