Ukraine reports drone and artillery strikes over Easter weekend, while Moscow also claims ceasefire breaches by Kyiv

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed Vladimir Putin’s Easter ceasefire as a fake “PR� exercise and said Russian troops had continued their drone and artillery attacks across many parts of the frontline.

Citing a report from Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, Zelenskyy said Russia was still using heavy weapons and since 10am on Sunday an increase in Russian shelling had been observed, he said.

US vice-president spends few minutes with pontiff whom he has publicly disagreed with over migration

Pope Francis and JD Vance, who have disagreed very publicly over the Trump administration’s attitude to immigration and its migrant deportation plans, met briefly in Rome on Sunday to exchange Easter greetings.

The meeting came a day after the US vice-president, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 2019, sat down with senior Vatican officials and had “an exchange of opinions� over international conflicts and immigration.

Suzanne Cherry died after being struck by a van at Aston Wood golf course on 11 April

A man has described watching “in helpless horror� as his wife was struck by a van at a golf club.

Suzanne Cherry, 62, of Aldridge, died in hospital on 15 April, four days after she was involved in a collision at Aston Wood golf course in Sutton Coldfield near Birmingham at 10.25am 11 April.

• Dominant Gunners delay Liverpool’s title party
• Premier League table | Top scorers | Email Niall

1 mins: Arsenal, in their red and white home kit, have spent the first 90 seconds sweeping the ball around their own half.

Here we go…

Meeting called with justice secretary after attack on three guards at HMP Frankland

Prison officers will demand the immediate issue of electric stun guns to protect staff guarding Britain’s most dangerous jails, when they meet the justice secretary this week.

Wednesday’s meeting with Shabana Mahmood was called after the attack on three guards at HMP Frankland, allegedly by the convicted terrorist Hashem Abedi. Two were seriously injured after being doused in hot cooking fat and stabbed, one five times in the torso, in a sustained assault.

Duke of York attends royal family’s traditional Easter service at Windsor Castle with Sarah, Duchess of York

The Duke of York has appeared at the Easter Sunday service at Windsor Castle with King Charles, days after it emerged that an alleged spy helped him write birthday letters to China’s president.

Prince Andrew arrived at St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, with the princess royal, as well as his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, and Anne’s husband, Vice-Admiral Sir Tim Laurence.

Reform UK leader on campaign trail as poll predicts rightwing party could be on course to win in a general election

Nigel Farage has defended allowing labelled chlorinated chicken from the US into the UK as part of a trade deal, as a poll suggested his Reform UK party could be on course to take the highest number of seats at a general election.

Speaking before the local elections in England on 1 May, Farage said British consumers already ate chicken from places such as Thailand reared in poor conditions, and accepted chlorine-washed lettuce.

Rating agency downgrades Ineos Quattro as it says ‘trade barriers’ could affect it for next two years

Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s loss-making chemicals business could take longer than expected to recover its financial health because of Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, analysts have said.

The billionaire industrialist has faced growing concerns over the state of his chemicals group amid problems with his business interests in Manchester United and All Blacks rugby.

Google intelligence report finds UK is a particular target of IT worker ploy that sends wages to Kim Jong Un’s state

British companies are being urged to carry out job interviews for IT workers on video or in person to head off the threat of giving jobs to fake North Korean employees.

The warning was made after analysts said that the UK had become a prime target for hoax IT workers deployed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. They are typically hired to work remotely, enabling them to escape detection and send their wages to Kim Jong-un’s state.

Scheme to boost British film industry leads to Universal Pictures pocketing millions of pounds for blockbuster Jurassic World: Rebirth

A leafy corner to the west of Watford was transformed into a jungle last year. Authentic-looking exotic flowers lined the floor, tree trunks soared up to an artificial canopy and reeds hung from their branches. Peering between them was Hollywood A-lister Scarlett Johansson.

The extravagant construction was a set in Sky Studios Elstree where the movie Jurassic World: Rebirth was being made. Filming there, instead of in an actual jungle, enabled Universal Pictures to pocket millions of pounds of UK taxpayers’ money to partially cover its blockbuster costs.

From nationalising gas plants to boosting renewables, how soaring prices could be tackled

One of Labour’s key election promises was to cut energy bills by £300 a year by 2030 while making Britain a “clean energy superpower�.

The job is already halfway complete: renewable energy made up more than half the UK’s electricity for the first time last year. So why does Britain continue to have one of the most expensive electricity markets in the world? Industrial users complain those costs are driving companies out of business and discouraging investment in the UK.

Numbers have plummeted in recent years, but the problem is no one really knows why nesting pairs fail to rear young

Reaching the vantage point is a tricky business.

First, there’s a hop across a fence into Scratch Arse quarry – the stone workers used to find it such a cramped space to work in that their backsides would bump into the rock face. Then, a tiptoe through the slopes of early spider orchids and wild cabbage before a dizzying scramble down to the edge of the cliff.

It was a nation of dreams, built for the screen. Then it shattered

The first impression America gave me was gentle carelessness. We were driving down from Canada to visit family friends in Texas sometime in the mid- to late 1980s, and a young border patrol agent at a booth, crouched over a newspaper, leaning back in his chair, carelessly waved my family’s station wagon across without looking up. You didn’t even need a passport to enter the United States until I was 33.

You need clear eyes at the border today. Europe and Canada have issued travel advisories after a series of arbitrary detentions, deportations to foreign jails without due process and hundreds of valid visas pulled or voided amid a sense of general impunity. While I have crossed the border a hundred times at least, sometimes once a month when I lived there, I cannot say when I will see America again, and I am quite sure I will never return to the country I once visited.

More and more of us are spending time among the barbells and the treadmills – and feeling more and more confused. Here’s some advice from an expert

The gym is back. In the UK, about 11.5 million people aged 16 and over now belong to one. Even old habits are making a comeback: after a few years of exhorting people to socially distance and wipe down machines, gym chains are removing cleaning stations, while their clientele go back to sharing kit and sweating all over the benches. Nature, as they say, is healing.

But how many people are using their membership, and how much value are they getting out of the gym when they go? As a former editor of Men’s Fitness magazine, I have been going to gyms for more than a decade, and I still see half a dozen things I wish I could mention to people every time I go. So here are the tips I wish were in every gym’s welcome pack, alongside a bunch of the mistakes that it took me years to learn I was making. I am not going to tell you to wipe up your sweat, though. Hopefully, you are doing that already.

As the global enterprise grapples with reported debts of $1.4bn, its calorie-counting formula may have had its day

It began as a support group for overweight New Yorkers in 1963 and ballooned into a multimillion pound global enterprise that has spent decades selling people the dream of long-term weight loss.

The trademark WeightWatchers’ points-based programme has been followed by millions, with accompanying cookbooks, groceries, weekly weigh-ins and “judgment-free� meetings, and a food-tracking app.

Ignore the fuss: Paapa Essiedu is a brilliant actor who can bring his own depth and style to enrich the iconic character

After months of speculation, HBO has announced part of the cast of the latest round of Harry Potter IP-mining: the new TV adaptation of the original books will feature John Lithgow as Dumbledore, Nick Frost as Hagrid – and Paapa Essiedu as Snape. As the Mail and Telegraph’s headlines were quick to inform their readers, yes, this means a “Black actor� in that iconic role.

There is a real concern that Essiedu is drinking from a poisoned chalice – that he will be associated with an author who is at the forefront of a gender-critical movement that has succeeded in redefining the rights of trans people to their detriment; that he will have to weather the racist storm of Potterheads enraged at the diversion from “book accuracy� (Snape is described as having “sallow skin�); and deal with opportunists looking to illustrate their next rant about how the world has succumbed to “woke orthodoxy�. All of this in a show that is slated to last a decade.

Jason Okundaye is an assistant newsletter editor and writer at the Guardian. He edits The Long Wave newsletter and is the author of Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay Britain

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.

Laurie Lee and Robert Graves among ‘English-speaking Quixotes’ in new book celebrating literary love for all things Spanish

Almost 200 years ago, the pioneering British travel writer Richard Ford offered an observation that has been happily ignored by the legions of authors who have traipsed in his dusty footsteps across Spain, toting notebooks, the odd violin or Bible, and, of course, their own particular prejudices.

“Nothing causes more pain to Spaniards�, Ford noted in his 1845 Handbook for Travellers in Spain, “than to see volume after volume written by foreigners about their country.�

Aaron, Tyler and Cam Whitnall aim to make family-owned zoo a conservation leader ‘up there with Chester’

Outside the enclosure, eager visitors jostle for a glimpse of the rare Asiatic lions Sahee and Sonika, Hertfordshire Zoo’s newest residents. The beasts yawn imperiously in the sun, every twitch of their tails sparking an excited murmur.

But when Aaron, Tyler and Cam Whitnall are spotted, the animals are instantly forgotten. The stars of children’s BBC programme One Zoo Three, are tenderly, but relentlessly, mobbed. “We got up at 5am to drive here,� explains one delighted, if bleary-eyed dad. “My daughter just loves you.�

Six great things to do on England’s north-east coast

1 Craster, a short drive from Alnwick, is a charming fishing village with a rugged coastline, crashing waves and bracing coastal walks. It is also a foodie delight. The Jolly Fisherman (thejollyfishermancraster.co.uk) is ideally placed to enjoy the sea views. In its airy conservatory at the back of the pub, you can tuck into a feast of fresh fish on the daily menu, including crab, North Sea prawns, moules frites, salmon &and haddock fishcakes. Outside the pub, you’ll notice a distinctive smoky aroma, no surprise as the shop opposite, L Robson & Sons, is home to the kipper, smoking fish on its site since 1856 and now awarded grade 11-II listed status.

2 Chances are that a stay in Northumberland will include rain, which is when Bamburgh Castle (bamburghcastle.com) really comes into its own. Less overrun with tourists than Alnwick, it’s also cheaper. Overlooking an epic sweep of beach and perched above the sand dunes, this 900-old castle has 14 rooms to explore, from the medieval kitchen to the Victorian Kings Hall, along with a fascinating history from its Norman origins to the current family living there.

Speed puzzling requires quick hands and a cool head, something Elizabeth McCafferty finds out by jumping straight in

Are you here for the puzzle championship?� asks a smiling fellow competitor as I join the queue of puzzle enthusiasts. I most definitely am. But my smile drops as she continues: “That’s all the niceness you’ll be getting from me today, then.� She is, of course, joking but, as with most jokes, there is a glimmer of truth behind it.

I am in Newmarket, Suffolk, for the Gibsons British Jigsaw Championship, which has been held here for the past 11 years. Competitors battle it out to be in with a chance of the £100 first-place prize money. There are three categories: Fun, Pairs and Elites, who would expect to complete a 1,000-piece puzzle in under three hours. In 2023, Elite nine-time British champion Sarah Mills finished her puzzle in 1 hour 52 minutes, meaning she was doing a jaw-dropping eight pieces per minute.

After smelling fragrances inmates create poems, prose or drawings that recall holidays, park walks and sweet shops

“Smell it, but don’t stick your nose straight in it,� says Michael O’Shaughnessy, pulling a small white card, sealed twice in ziplock bags, out of a metal chest. “Waft it, close your eyes. Does it remind you of anything?�

O’Shaughnessy, an illustrator and senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, first began using smells with art students, asking them “to develop projects and concepts� based on scents “because it’s a leveller�.

• Updates from this 4.30pm BST kick-off
• Premier League table | Top scorers | Email Will

Ian Copestake emails: “All this talk of one-sidedness makes it feel like Liverpool are playing Wimbledon again in a certain fina of yore.. It also shows that people follow narratives rather than watch games as playing bottom feeders is exactly the sort of opponent Liverpool struggle against. You’ve been warned.�

I’ve watched enough Leicester this season …

• WCL latest, 5pm BST kick-off at the Estadi Johan Cruyff
• Have any thoughts? Send them to Yara via email

Barcelona (4-3-3): Coll; Battle, Paredes, León, Brugts; Bonmatí, Guijarro, Putellas; Graham Hansen, Pajor, Paralluelo

Subs: Font, Roebuck, Fernàndez, Torrejón, Pina, Rolfö, López, Engen, Caño, Schertenleib

• ‘I was a bit surprised but I just have to accept it’
• Midfielder has been linked to several MLS clubs

The departing captain Kevin De Bruyne was shocked to be told his Manchester City career was over as he feels he can still perform at the highest level. The Belgium playmaker turns 34 in June but, unlike his mid-30-something rivals at Liverpool Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk, he has not been offered the chance to extend his 10-year career at the Etihad.

De Bruyne believes City have erred on that front and feels had the club’s season not been so bad – they are in a battle just to secure Champions League football despite the 2-0 win at Everton – he may have been asked to stay. “I have not had any offer the whole year, they just took a decision,� he said.

• Updates from around the grounds
• Get in touch – email Tanya with your thoughts

A first missive: and a very happy Easter to you Tim Maitland:

“Salutations Tanya!

“I’m struggling to concentrate on the cricket at the moment. It doesn’t help that my beloved Western Bulldogs (Long story short: some disreputable caddies on the LPGA decided I needed an AFL team and I didn’t have the sense to ignore them) are playing St. Kilda right now.

“But it’s not just that.

“I’m finding it hard to get a sense of who is in form, especially with the bat. Maybe it’s because we were distracted by Tom Banton’s 371, which he’s followed with scores of 6, 0 and 5. How long a lead does a triple centurion get before his chain is yanked?

“If Surrey’s Dom Sibley adds significantly to his 40 overnight, does he hold the crown after a 66 at Essex and then 100 not out and 1055 against Hampshire? Incidentally he made 3 in his one game for Khulna Tigers in Chittagong, which is officially called Chattogram, which would be a great name for a social media platform wouldn’t it?

“Or is it Tom Haines? His 174 against Surrey in this round of matches is, weather permitting, potentially match winning and his second innings 141 set up the victory against Somerset last week.

“As for bowlers... have you got anything? [Ed – My immediate thought is Fergus O’Neill?]

“The Bulldogs, incidentally, have living legend Marcus Bontempelli aka The Bont back for the first time this season, but as I speak our 6 ft 10 in young superstar-to-be ruckman Sam Darcy has just hobbled off with an injured knee, which would be a disaster for the Doggies.�

In war-torn occupied territories, fake teams are being deployed as a tool to normalise a violent denial of the past

On 12 April a new club played its first game in Russia’s football pyramid. A healthy enough crowd gathered at Novokolor Arena in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, 20 miles from the border with Ukraine’s occupied territories, encouraged by a slick buildup on social media. They watched “Zarya Luhansk� begin their slog through the Third League, the fifth tier of a complicated Russian system whose composition shifts annually, with a 5-0 home win over Volgar Astrakhan’s second team. Some had travelled by chartered bus from the city their club purports to represent.

The name may sound familiar. The real Zorya Luhansk are eighth in the Ukrainian Premier League and savour a proud 102-year history. They play European football almost every season and hosted Manchester United in 2016. Nowadays, they play home matches in Kyiv owing to the illegal occupation of their home city. Any idea they would pull out and compete in Russia is beyond laughable.

• Yorkshire-born cyclist won eight stages of Tour de France
• Famously beat Eddy Merckx at Gent-Wevelgem in 1974

The pioneering British road sprinter and Classics rider Barry Hoban has died at the age of 85. Hoban was for many years the UK record holder for stage wins in the Tour de France notching up a tally of eight during his 17-year professional racing career, a total bettered only by the greatest sprinter of them all, Mark Cavendish, in 2009.

Hoban’s first stage victory in the Tour, in 1967, was not one he cared to remember – or that he felt was really a win – as it came the day after the sudden death of his friend and rival Tom Simpson on Mont Ventoux; he was “permitted� to escape and cross the line first by the grieving peloton.

Dance live on the BBC with a club teammate, after Wales had lost to England, provoked a torrent of hate online

The abuse and hate messages I received for doing a TikTok dance live on the BBC after Wales’s defeat by England was crazy. On Instagram I received a few DMs saying: “You’re an embarrassment, what do you think you’re doing?�

That doesn’t affect me because we get criticism all the time for different things: losing a game, dropping a high ball. I am not hugely active on X and it was not until those of my friends who aren’t big fans of rugby were checking in on me to see if I was OK that I realised the extent of the abuse on social media.

• Defending champion loses first-round thriller 10-9
• Debutant Lei and Xiao exemplify China’s fine start

Kyren Wilson became the latest victim of snooker’s Crucible curse after a shock defeat on the opening day of the World Snooker Championship at the hands of Chinese sensation Lei Peifan – underlining the belief many have that this could finally be the year China crowns its first champion of the world.

Not since snooker’s most prestigious event moved to Sheffield in 1977 has a first-time winner of the event gone on to successfully defend the title. Wilson is now the 20th man on that list after his defence came to a shuddering halt within hours of this year’s tournament beginning, after the world No 39 produced a magnificent comeback victory.

The idea that autism is some aberration that can be cured is typical of a movement that celebrates simplistic thinking and loathes human difference

In the recent past, Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that Donald Trump is “a terrible human being� and “probably a sociopath�. But in the US’s new age of irrationalism and chaos, these two men are now of one voice, pursuing a strand of Trumpist politics that sometimes feels strangely overlooked. With Trump once again in the White House and Kennedy ensconced as his health and human services secretary, what they are jointly leading is becoming clearer by the day: a war on science and knowledge that aims to replace them with the modern superstitions of conspiracy theory.

Nearly 2,000 members of the US’s National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have warned of “slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration�. Even work on cancer is now under threat. But if you want to really understand the Trump regime’s monstrousness, consider where Kennedy and a gang of acolytes are heading on an issue that goes to the heart of millions of lives: autism.

Last week’s ruling clarified the legal safeguards of the Equality Act. However, it was a travesty that the battle needed to be fought at all

Middle-aged women are expected to fade into the background, to be apologetic for their existence, to quietly accept their lot. They’re not supposed to stick up for themselves, to enforce their boundaries, to say no. As a woman, these societal expectations have been drummed into me from day one. But still. The swell of anger and disgust that rose in response to the supreme court judgment last week that made clear women’s rights are not for dismantling – rights already won, that were supposed to be ours all along – has taken my breath away.

I was in court last Wednesday to hear Lord Hodge confirm that the Equality Act’s legal protections that were always intended for women are, indeed, reserved for women. He reiterated that trans people continue to have the same robust legal protections against discrimination and harassment as any other protected group, something I’ve always emphasised in my own writing. But men who identify as female – whether or not they have a legal certificate – are not to be treated as though female for the purposes of equalities law.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

An unpopular government and floundering official opposition creates fertile territory for Reform

For his next trick, perhaps Comrade Farage will belt out all the verses of The Red Flag and tell us that his favourite book is The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists. Brother Nigel has popped up on the government’s left flank by demanding the immediate nationalisation of the steel industry. He’s also expressed a solidarity with trades unionists hitherto undetected in this longtime admirer of Margaret Thatcher.

At an event at a working men’s club in one of the more deprived wards of County Durham, the old fraud even claimed to have a personal affinity with steelworkers because he used to be in the “metals business� himself. This was a disingenuous reference to his time as a trader at the London Metal Exchange, which involved long lunches in the City fuelled with copious quantities of port. Or maybe he was thinking of his gig as a paid “brand ambassador� for a firm that deals in gold bullion.

A ‘Romeo and Juliet’ clause in England’s crime bill is common sense – now let’s focus on the men who really harm young girls

God, remember kissing in corridors? It’s been so long since I was a teenager that I had honestly forgotten how much snogging used to happen at school, until it was mentioned in the House of Commons this week. (I have never been a fan of the word snogging, yet as a term it’s powerfully evocative of late 1990s-early 2000s adolescence, conjuring a heady mix of Impulse body spray and Lynx Africa, the taste of Juicy Fruit chewing gum, and the sound of braces clashing.)

Teenage love is in the headlines, because of the news that there will be a “Romeo and Juliet� exemption to the new crime and policing bill obliging professionals in England, including teachers and healthcare workers, to report suspicions of child sexual abuse. The exemption for teenagers in consensual sexual relationships received cross-party support, recognising that “not all sexual activity involving under-18s is a cause for alarm or state intervention�.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist and author

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 president has made clear he wants the prestigious prize. That’s just one of many honors to come

From the start of his first campaign for president 10 years ago, Donald Trump has incessantly presented himself as a winner, the only man in the world who had the temperament to make America great again. As he said in 2016:

“We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say: ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it any more, Mr President, it’s too much.’ And I’ll say: ‘No it isn’t. We have to keep winning. We have to win more!’�

Ariel Dorfman, a distinguished professor emeritus of literature at Duke University, is the Chilean American author of the play Death and the Maiden and the novel The Suicide Museum and, more recently, Allegro, narrated playfully by Mozart

A new E4 dating show brings the lies we tell while dating into the spotlight. But is bending the truth always a bad thing when looking for love?

In 1994, I went on a date. I had just arrived in a new country and I liked the guy: he seemed funny and confident. He took me to a hardware store (weird, but not a dealbreaker) and then for a Tex-Mex meal during which, at some point, I told him I drove a Land Rover.

It was a truly weird, dumb, lie – I knew nothing about cars and cared even less. Maybe I thought it made me sound grown up, tougher and more capable than I was, or maybe the margaritas went to my head? I’m sure I told him other lies (I remember giving the impression that I enjoyed clubbing), but that one was memorably stupid.

In her final piece for the Observer, Carole Cadwalladr reveals what happened when she returned last week to give the opening speech at technology conference Ted, where she gave her first – life-changing – talk six years ago

To walk into the lion’s den once might be considered foolhardy. To do so again after being mauled by the lion? It’s what … ill-advised? Reckless? Suicidal? Six years ago I gave a talk at Ted, the world’s leading technology and ideas conference. It led to a gruelling lawsuit and a series of consequences that reverberate through my life to this day.

And last week I returned. To give another talk that would incorporate some of my experience: a Ted Talk about being sued for giving a Ted Talk, and how the lessons I’d learned from surviving all that were a model for surviving “broligarchy� – a concept I first wrote about in the Observer in July last year: the alignment of Silicon Valley and autocracy, and a kind of power the world has never seen before. The key point I wanted to get across to this powerful and important audience is that politics is technology now. And technology is politics.

As Rachel Reeves heads to US for IMF meetings, stance appears unaltered despite chaos unleashed by White House

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves have underlined how much the world has changed after Donald Trump’s “liberation day�, with the UK prime minister even declaring an end to globalisation.

But as the chancellor prepares to fly to Washington this week to meet her global counterparts at the International Monetary Fund meetings, Labour appears to see the risks purely in terms of the hit to international trade.

It’s not good enough for Labour to say that there’s no money to tackle the problem – raising taxes risks losing a few votes but for the greater good

One of the crowning achievements of the last Labour government was a significant reduction in child poverty. This was achieved not only by supporting more parents into work, but through significantly increasing the generosity of financial support paid by the state to low-income parents. Today, that ambitious New Labour goal to halve child poverty feels like a distant memory as this government looks set to preside over a significant rise over the course of this parliament.

That financial support was slashed away by Conservative chancellors from 2010 onwards, meaning that Labour has inherited a tax and benefit system that is far meaner when it comes to children living in financially precarious families. The poorest tenth of families with children lost on average £6,000 a year as a result of tax and benefit changes between 2010 and 2024. On top of that, it is the poorest households that have been most sharply affected by the cost of living crisis. This explains why the UK’s child poverty rate rose the fastest of 39 OECD and EU countries between 2012 and 2021, a symptom of the lack of priority and care afforded to poor children by successive Conservative governments and the product of policy choices to cut taxes in a way that disproportionately benefited better-off households rather than protect children from growing up in families where it is a constant struggle to put food on the table and keep homes warm. Almost one in three children live in relative child poverty and one in four in absolute poverty in households with incomes of less than 60% of the median income in 2011, adjusted for inflation.

The supreme court judgment gives protections to women at the same level as other groups

The meaning of “woman� and “female� in the Equality Act has become one of the most contested questions of recent years. Last week the supreme court settled it, in a landmark legal judgment that affirms the rights of women to the same level of legal protection afforded to other groups.

The Equality Act protects people against discrimination on the basis of nine protected characteristics, including their sex, race, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. The question at stake was whether “sex� means someone’s biological sex, or their “certificated sex�; in other words, should those who are male but who have a gender recognition certificate (GRC) be treated as a woman under equalities law?

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk

Guardian readers respond to the judgment on sex and the Equality Act, and consider its repercussions for trans people

The recent supreme court ruling on gender recognition and the controversial debate over single-sex spaces has at its core the need to avoid male violence. Male violence affects us all, but is seldom mentioned in any of these toxic debates. Instead, we get women being pitched against trans women, and one of the major underlying causes of all this distress – male violence – is allowed to remain unexamined.

Putting the sports issue aside, can you imagine how different this issue would have been if there was no threat of violence (whether sexual or physical) from men, either towards women or trans women? The first step in treating a problem is to correctly name the root cause.
Liz Moylett
Tyne and Wear

The renowned designer’s lasting creative influences are celebrated by Portia Dadley, while John P Butler shares a touching memory of his late wife’s love of a Morris pattern

Re your editorial (The Guardian view on William Morris: how the Strawberry Thief took over the world, 11 April), William Morris developed the Strawberry Thief pattern at his Merton Abbey Works on the banks of the River Wandle.

The workers who turned the design into a “swinish luxury� formed a close-knit community – the carpet knotter Eliza Merritt remembered “a tradition of comradeship�– whose members lived long, creative lives. The tapestry weaver William Sleath was rescued from destitution by Morris, who took him on as an apprentice at age seven.

The degradation of the Arctic tundra has triggered a terrible chain reaction that can only lead to greater mayhem

The problems that now afflict attempts to establish a military presence in the far north of Canada and Greenland provide timely warnings about the miseries that lie ahead for the rest of the planet as global warming continues its remorseless spread.

The Arctic has suffered especially early impacts because temperatures here are rising faster than in any other part of our planet. Crucially, this process threatens to trigger even greater climatic mayhem.

The effects of the climate crisis and a lack of jobs are driving young people away from the Andean highlands but a long-shunned crop could stem the tide

Few young people remain in Bolivia’s highland plateau, the Altiplano. The rising frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as drought and frost, have reduced their economic prospects and migration has accelerated as the environment becomes more unpredictable.

“The climate isn’t like it used to be,� says Nico Mamani Lima, a farmer and agronomist from Ayo Ayo.

Bases in Norfolk, Devon and Hampshire face MoD investigation over possible leaching of dangerous PFAS into environment

Three UK military bases have been marked for investigation over fears they may be leaking toxic “forever chemicals� into drinking water sources and important environmental sites.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) will investigate RAF Marham in Norfolk, RM Chivenor in Devon and AAC Middle Wallop in Hampshire after concerns they may be leaching toxic PFAS chemicals into their surroundings. The sites were identified using a new PFAS risk screening tool developed by the Environment Agency (EA) designed to locate and prioritise pollution threats.

The German scientist on her new book arguing that inequality, wealth and sexism are making the climate crisis worse – and what we need to do about it

Friederike Otto is a senior lecturer in climate science at Imperial College London. She is also the co-founder of the World Weather Attribution initiative, which seeks to determine the influence of global warming on intensity and likelihood of an extreme weather event. The project also examines how factors such as ill-suited architecture and poverty exacerbate heatwaves, hurricanes, floods and wildfires. This is the theme of her second book, Climate Injustice: Why We Need to Fight Global Inequality to Combat Climate Change.

The thesis of your book is that the climate crisis is a symptom of global inequality and injustice. That will be quite topsy-turvy to some people, who think global heating is caused by the amount of carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere.
Yes, of course, if you just stick to the physics, then the warming is caused by the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, but the amount of carbon in the atmosphere is caused by the burning of fossil fuels. And it is also the case that those who benefit from the burning of fossil fuels are the few already wealthy people who have stakes in or own the companies themselves. The vast majority of people do not benefit. The American dream is social mobility, not burning fossil fuels.

Dozens of MPs are angry at their party, despite frantic efforts by whips and government ministers to assuage them

• ‘We just go to the park’: making the most of Easter in a child-poverty hotspot

Labour MPs opposed to the government’s massive £5bn of benefit cuts say they will refuse to support legislation to implement them, even if more money is offered by ministers to alleviate child poverty in an attempt to win them over.

Legislation will be introduced to the House of Commons in early June to allow the cuts to come into force. They will include tightening the criteria for personal independence payments (Pip) for people with disabilities, to limit the number of people who can claim it. Under the changes, people who are not able to wash the lower half of their body, for example, will no longer be able to claim Pip unless they have another limiting condition.

Videos tagged #ElectronicMusic attracted more than 13bn views worldwide last year, an increase of 45% on 2023

It is another example of the parallel worlds in the music industry. The Gallagher brothers may be taking over the world’s stadiums this summer, but over on TikTok users are moving to a different beat.

Views of posts using electronic music as a soundtrack, including techno and house, outgrew those tagged for indie and alternative for the first time in 2024, according to the social media app.

Growing group of activists from minority ethnic backgrounds say they can help Nigel Farage’s party win big in cities

“I’ve been assaulted, I regularly get verbal abuse, I got a death threat one time. But until the people come to their senses, I will stand,� said Raj Forhad, a Reform UK candidate.

The 43-year-old, who owns a software business, is part of a growing group in politics: British voters from minority ethnic backgrounds who campaign for Nigel Farage’s party.

Chefs, home cooks and supermarkets are discovering exciting new varieties that come in all shapes and sizes

When life gives you pithy cedro lemons and sweet Tacle mandarins, what exactly do you make with them?

British chefs and home cooks are increasingly embracing new and unusual varieties of citrus in recipes, with supermarkets and greengrocers offering a rising number of speciality fruits. Retailers like M&S now offer punnets of kumquats, while Waitrose has reported a 27% rise in sales of yuzu juice.

Actor Lisa Rose’s one-woman show highlights suffering of aspiring actors and office juniors who fell prey to mogul’s abuse

Harvey Weinstein’s key accusers were famous – from Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow to Lupita Nyong’o and Ashley Judd. These Hollywood film stars spoke out against the ex-studio boss’s abusive behaviour in 2017, fuelling the international #MeToo movement.

But Weinstein’s crimes and bullying practices had a direct and lasting impact on many more, including unknown names who worked with him in London.

The 176-year-old chemist is preparing for another change of hands. What’s the mood of staff and residents at its home base in Nottinghamshire?

‘We’ve had several rounds of cost-cutting and it could happen again,� says a Boots worker. Fears are running high as the Nottinghamshire-based chemist prepares to change hands – perhaps twice in quick succession.

The US private equity firm Sycamore Partners is close to finalising a $10bn (£7.8bn) deal to take over the listed US owner of Boots, Walgreens Boots Alliance.

Dame Rachel de Souza says parents should look to their own smartphone use and not try to be their children’s friend

Parents should be prepared to make difficult decisions over their child’s smartphone usage rather than trying to be their friend, the children’s commissioner for England has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza said this should include parents considering the example they are setting their children through their own phone usage.

A 41-year-old man charged with murder after discovery at an address in the Penylan area of Cardiff

Police investigating the murder of a woman from Cardiff who was last seen leaving work a week ago have found a body.

Paria Veisi’s body was discovered by South Wales police at an address in Penylan, Cardiff, on Saturday, the force said.

Badenoch is braced for heavy losses in the local elections on 1 May, but as Labour stumbles and Greens and Lib Dems surge, the contest is wide open

A byelection in a normally safe Labour seat was Keir Starmer’s first big electoral test as Labour leader. A similar scenario now provides his first test as prime minister. The loss of Hartlepool to Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in 2021 provoked the biggest crisis of Starmer’s time as opposition leader, forcing sweeping changes in personnel and approach. The loss of Runcorn and Helsby to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK could be similarly bruising. Labour ought to start as favourites, having won this socially mixed marginal corner of Cheshire by a massive margin less than a year ago. But with polls showing a Labour slump, a Reform surge and a restive, dissatisfied public, all bets are off.

The Runcorn result will set the tone for this year’s round of local and mayoral elections. A Labour hold will take the pressure off a harried government; a Reform breakthrough will stoke the heat up further, boosting Farage’s claim to be parking his tanks on Labour’s lawn, and jangling the nerves of anxious Labour MPs in the restored “red wall�. While Farage may hurt Labour in Runcorn, it is the Conservatives who face the most pain in this year’s English local elections. Most are in blue-leaning parts of the Midlands and south, and the Tories swept the board when they were last contested in 2021, with Farage off the scene and the government riding a “vaccine bounce� in the polls. Nearly 1,000 Conservative councillors are up for re-election in May, and with Kemi Badenoch’s party polling below its disastrous showing last July, hundreds look set to lose their jobs. Nearly a year on from their worst ever general election result, the Conservatives still have further to fall.

Thousands gather in Parliament Square in a show of unity after supreme court judgment

After last week’s supreme court decision, activists had been worried that trans people might become fearful of going out in public in case they were abused.

They weren’t afraid in London on Saturday. Thousands of trans and non-binary people thronged Parliament Square, alongside families and supporters waving baby blue, white and pink flags to demonstrate their anger at the judges’ ruling.

Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege

Gaza has been pushed to new depths of despair, civilians, medics and humanitarian workers say, by the unprecedented seven-week-long Israeli military blockade that has cut off all aid to the strip.

The siege has left the Palestinian territory facing conditions unmatched in severity since the beginning of the war as residents grapple with sweeping new evacuation orders, the renewed bombing of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, and the exhaustion of food, fuel for generators and medical supplies.

Extraterrestrial rocks, recently delivered by a space probe, could answer the big questions about alien lifeforms and human existence

Several billion years ago, at the dawn of the solar system, a wet, salty world circled our sun. Then it collided, catastrophically, with another object and shattered into pieces.

One of these lumps became the asteroid Bennu whose minerals, recently returned to Earth by the US robot space probe OSIRIS-REx, have now been found to contain rich levels of complex chemicals that are critical for the existence of life.

Where once the world came together to fight the credit crunch, Trump’s tariffs will set a more divisive test

When the world’s finance ministers and central bank governors gather at the International Monetary Fund in Washington this week, it may kindle memories of another meeting, also held against the backdrop of a global economic crisis, in autumn 2008.

Then, as the aftershocks from the collapse of Lehman Brothers ripped through financial markets, central banks coordinated drastic emergency rate cuts, and the UK chancellor, Alistair Darling, urged his G7 counterparts to emulate the UK’s approach and shore up stricken banks.

Kremlin’s most prized spies were sent in to Czechoslovakia to whip up the 1960s reform protests in a move then replicated across the eastern bloc

During the spring of 1968, as revolutionary sentiment began to grow in communist Czechoslovakia, a group of friendly foreigners began arriving in Prague, on flights from Helsinki and East Berlin, or by car from West Germany.

Among them were 11 western European men, a Swiss woman named Maria Weber and a Lebanese carpet dealer called Oganes Sarajian. They were all supporters of what would become known as the Prague Spring, an ultimately doomed attempt to build a more liberal and free ­version of socialism and escape from Moscow’s suffocating embrace. Many of the visitors sought to get close to the movement’s leading lights, offering support in the battle to reform communist rule.

Russia touted as possible destination for Iran’s uranium stockpile and could also act as arbiter of deal breaches

Russia could play a key role in a deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear programme, with Moscow being touted not only as a possible destination for Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, but also as a possible arbiter of deal breaches.

Donald Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers in 2018 during his first term, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.

Worshippers are frisked on entering temple in Kandy where relic is held and photography is strictly prohibited

Sri Lankan police have launched an investigation into a photo circulated on social media claiming to show a Buddha tooth relic, which has gone on display under tight security.

The Criminal Investigation Department was ordered to determine whether the widely shared image was taken during the rare display of the relic, police said.

She lost the first trial in 2022, but she gets ‘second bite of the apple’ due to a judge’s procedural errors

When Sarah Palin arrived at a federal court on Monday, her appearance promised little in the way of legal fireworks.

Palin was in downtown Manhattan for a retrial in her defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. She lost her first trial against the newspaper in 2022 and the legal basis of Palin’s civil claim – that an incorrect editorial unlawfully smeared her – remains the same.

Chris Whipple’s third book, Uncharted, hits Biden and aides like a bludgeon, with key sources who speak on the record

“Biden was mentally sharp, even if he appeared physically frail,� Chris Whipple wrote in The Fight of His Life, his 2023 book on the 46th president, who was then warming up his re-election bid at the age of 80.

In that book, Whipple quoted Bruce Reed, a senior aide, describing a long-distance flight. When others appeared exhausted, Biden was raring to go, Reed said. Biden showed “unbelievable stamina�.

Uncharted is published in the US by HarperCollins

Experts say a crisis is under way in Guinea, fuelled by a growing market run by cross-border trafficking syndicates

At Guinea’s only private drug rehabilitation clinic, Dr Marie Koumbassa and her 15-person team are so convinced that drug use is a national emergency that they work for no pay.

Every week, SAJED-Guinée (Service for Helping Young People in Difficult Situations due to Drugs) receives dozens of distress calls from relatives of addicts who are then taken to the facility in the working-class Conakry neighbourhood of Dabompa.

Opposition says trial was staged to entrench president Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule

A Tunisian court has handed down prison sentences of 13 to 66 years to politicians, businessmen and lawyers in a mass trial that opponents say is fabricated and a symbol of president Kais Saied’s authoritarian rule.

Businessman Kamel Ltaif received the longest sentence of 66 years on Saturday, while opposition politician Khayam Turki was given a 48-year jail term, a lawyer for the defendants said.

Ahead of the release of his spectacular second album, the Nigerian singer speaks of his recent songwriting epiphany and how he learned to best express his political rage

Right before he began work on his second album, someone told Obongjayar it was time to “start writing songs�. “I remember being really pissed,� laughs the artist, whose real name is Steven Umoh – though, in person, he goes by “OB�. “Like, what the fuck? What do you think I’ve been doing this whole time?�

The incredulity seems fair. The 32-year-old Nigerian singer has been releasing work for more than a decade, running the gamut of genres from hip-hop to Afrobeat to experimental electronics to spoken word, alt-rock and soul. It has made him something of a critics’ darling, but if you’re not familiar with his solo music (his debut album, 2022’s Some Nights I Dream of Doors, was stunning), odds are you’ve heard his lithe, gravelly inflections on Richard Russell’s Everything Is Recorded project, or warming up UK rap star Little Simz tracks such as 2021’s glorious Point and Kill, or sampled by super-producer du jour Fred Again on the 2023 behemoth Adore U.

The young actor’s life has been transformed since they landed the lead role in what turned out to be a TV phenomenon. As the much-anticipated second season begins, they discuss growing up in the glare of fame

Bella Ramsey self-recorded their audition tape for The Last of Us at their parents’ home in Leicestershire and sent it off more in hope than expectation. Ramsey, who was 17 at the time, had never played the post-apocalyptic zombie video game on which the new TV series was based, but knew it was a big deal: released in 2013, it had sold more than 20m copies. It would later emerge that Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann, the show’s creators, looked seriously at more than 100 actors for the role of Ellie, the sassy and quirky but also complicated and vicious American protagonist of The Last of Us. “Yeah, I’ve been told,� says Ramsey with a wry smile.

When Ramsey got the first callback from Mazin and Druckmann, they joined the Zoom from their childhood bedroom. “I’ve gotten very used to sending in a self-tape and forgetting about it,� they say, when we meet at a photo studio in north London. “But the problem was when there was a self-tape that really meant something to me, like The Last of Us did. It feels quite scary. And when I got the phone call saying they wanted me to be Ellie it did feel surreal for a few days. I understood that if I said yes – which obviously I was going to – my life was going to change.�

What can Catholic Harry Clark – who lied his way to winning the Traitors – learn about faith? Plus: The Piano hits Brighton Station. Here’s what to watch this evening

9pm, BBC Two

Co-Op Live, Manchester
Cycling through a set of stiff hand gestures, the rapper sometimes seems unsure what to do on stage. But when mediated through screens, his connection to his fans is palpable

Central Cee has exported UK rap like no one else before, by sculpting UK drill for TikTok with fast-paced, bite-sized packaging that often remixes a recognisable hit, all sealed with his steely demeanour. An influential fashion figure and Gen Z icon, his success is global and previously inconceivable. His 2023 hit Sprinter with Dave sat in pole position in the charts for 10 consecutive weeks. The crowd at Co-Op Live arena reflects his youth appeal all the way down to primary-schoolers. But while the squealing girls and balaclava-wearing boys have their fun, sometimes it feels as though the rapper is too reticent to join in.

Arenas aren’t suited to reserved characters, but Cench, as his fans call him, is smart enough to match the Co-Op’s scale. He stands in front of a multitiered structure that, using screens, becomes an open dollhouse that tells the story of his come-up through the key places in his life, from his family home to his new pad. Unwinding into tracks from his initial mixtapes, his barbed flow rolls like a series of verbal jabs: “Your dad left home from young / And you ain’t done shit for your mum, ah man,� he berates on his breakout 2021 single Day in the Life.

Sales of tea sets soar and artists are captivated by the symbolic and creative potential of the simple teatime essential

The British think the cuppa is their national treasure, but a new interest in tea sets among young people is bringing with it an interest in the international cultural significance of the teatime ritual.

Online vintage homeware marketplace Vinterior reports a six-fold increase in teapot purchases over the past six months, while sales at John Lewis are up 22%. The Ulla Floral fine teapot in a gift box is its current bestseller. A survey of 2,000 millennials by the home improvement store B&Q earlier this year found that 26% of those surveyed think teapots are back in fashion.

As a new documentary explores Boarding School Syndrome, seven former pupils share their stories…

Boarded from the age of nine

Think you look better with a suntan? Worried you don’t have a 12-step routine? Dermatologists cut through the noise to reveal the products they swear by – and those they’d run a mile from

• Anti-ageing products that actually work: Sali Hughes on the 30 best creams and treatments

Looking after your skin used to seem so simple: for decades, a basic “cleanse, tone, moisturise� routine was seen as the gold standard. But the skincare industry has recently exploded with thousands of new products, while skincare influencers have been racking up millions of views with often bewildering (and conflicting) advice.

So, should you be putting snail slime or beef tallow on your face, like that video you saw on TikTok? And which products are safe for your teenager to use, if any? We spoke to eight dermatologists to find out their own skincare routines – and which mistakes they see most often. Spoiler: none of them use snail slime.

Which feta has the required salty tang, and whose leaves a sour taste in the mouth? Feta fanatic Georgina Hayden tastes and rates 10 supermarket staples

• 13 kitchen gadgets top chefs can’t live without

While feta is often synonymous with Greek salad, you’ll find a range of uses for this brined, tangy white cheese, and a real range in finishes, too. On the whole, though, the longer the feta has been aged, the punchier its finish will be. Young cheese needs only about two to three months to mature, and can vary in anything from its saltiness to its tanginess and strength. One thing is for certain, however: if the cheese is labelled “feta�, it will have been made in Greece due to a European PDO (protected designation of origin), so you can be assured that it’s the real deal and made with sheep’s milk, or a blend of sheep and goat’s milk.

Personally, I like the salty, tangier varieties in salads, with crunchy veg or crumbled over pasta, and I save milder, creamier ones for the likes of pies, sweets and even doused in honey, wrapped in filo and fried. Try out a few brands for yourself, because the stronger ones can put people off. I stand by the statement that “everything is better with feta� – you just need to find the right one for you.

Our expert puts the best power washers through their paces on the toughest – and muckiest – outdoor chores, from grimy paving slabs to dirty decking

• How to get your garden ready for summer

The trouble with the great outdoors is that it gets a bit untidy. Your lawnmower might do a good job of keeping your garden in check, but keeping your patio, decking and outdoor furniture spick and span can take hours, especially if you rely on a bucket of soapy water and a scrubbing brush.

That’s where the pressure washer comes in. These handy tools connect to your hose pipe and squirt water at any cleaning problem. Stubborn and unpleasant stains, from bird dirt to years of neglect, can be lifted from your garden’s hard-wearing surfaces in seconds. With the right attachments, you can also use your pressure washer to hose down cars, bikes and boats.

Best pressure washer overall:
Ava Go P40
_{£149.90 at Ava}

Best budget pressure washer:
Kärcher K 2 Classic
_{£72 at Argos}

Best cordless pressure washer:
Stihl Rea 60 Plus
_{£224.99 at Charlies}

Best for high-power deep cleaning:
Bosch UniversalAquatak 135
_{£135 at B&Q}

Feel like screen time is sapping your concentration? Take a break from the digital world this Easter with these mindful suggestions

• 19 self-care treats for the perfect pick-me-up

I’m sure many of us are guilty of relying on our phones to decompress, even when taking some downtime. But if your social media feeds are anything like mine – an endless stream of fad workouts, meal plans and extravagant skincare routines – it’s more likely to whip you into an anxious frenzy than leave you feeling calm and relaxed. Whether you have social media anxiety, insomnia or are just terrified by the idea of “brain rot�, you need a way to de-stress that doesn’t involve a screen, especially when many of us stare at one all day for work or school.

I’m sure we’re all familiar with the concept of mindfulness and how the practice can help to reduce symptoms of anxiety and boost concentration. But you might not realise how easy it is to incorporate it into your everyday life – after all, at its core, mindfulness is just about keeping yourself in the present moment. So to help you do just that, I’ve compiled a list of screen-free activities to help you clear your mind, get outside (if the weather allows) and be more mindful, without meditating.

It’s long been a magnet for surfers, but will this coast’s relaxed vibe and huge beaches persuade a lifelong Cornwall lover to switch allegiance?

For so many years Devon was viewed as the poorer relation to Cornwall; its coastline less rugged and epic, its beaches smaller, less elemental. For us, the county was always just a cut-through to the treasure beyond and never a destination in itself. The fact that Cornwall was much further to get to somehow proved its remoter superiority. How wrong we were.

North Devon, in particular, is having a moment. Its 30km coastline is the UK’s first World Surfing Reserve, joining Australia’s Gold Coast and California’s Malibu and Santa Cruz as one of 12 officially chosen. Move over Newquay and Fistral beach.

When my card declined, I looked out at my new girlfriend and felt utter panic. Back then, $20 felt like a huge amount of money

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

I was temporarily living in my home town of Wangaratta while caring for my grandmother, who had dementia. I got weekends off and on one of those occasions I met a girl called Marie. During that lovely early period of a new relationship where you’re still getting to know each other, I took her camping at Mount Buffalo in Victoria.

On the way home we stopped in Myrtleford, a small town at the foot of the mountain, to get petrol. I fuelled up and Marie stayed in the car while I went inside to pay.

The designer Bella Freud waxes lyrical over a relaxed, elegant lunch with a fabulous friend

Dove, 31 Kensington Park Road, London W11 2EU (020 7043 1400; dove.london). Starters £4-£16; mains £12-£33; wine from £35

I am a potentially dull person to eat with. However much I love and relish food, food is not my friend and I have a host of verbotens, ranging from garlic, onion and chives, which for me are headache-inducing, to butter, which I have always hated. Each meal in a new restaurant where I’m not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the menu begins, “Do you have anything without garlic?� My meal might end up seeming plain to an onlooker, but this plainness divulges so many nuanced flavours – a grilled chop floods my nervous system with relaxing endorphins. The pleasure of eating something that agrees with me is in itself a huge delight.

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

Are there more pips in lemons than their used to be? That’s definitely my impression. What’s going on? Andrea Wilson, Manchester

Post your answers (and new questions) below or send them to nq@theguardian.com. A selection will be published next Sunday.

Go for a bit of Hollywood, hedonism and history… stay for the beach

I was sold on Le Touquet even before we reached the beach, a vast sweep of golden sand and grey green sea. There’s something about the way the town was created that appeals, an eccentric idea that was based on nothing more than a desire for pleasure. (A bit like Las Vegas, but classier and French.) It was in 1837 when a wealthy Parisian lawyer decided to plant about 2,000 pines in the area for his hunting parties.

Around 50 years later, a linoleum magnate from Leeds bought the town, attracting the British gentry with a horse track, casinos and golf course.

Your job now is not to manage your wife’s feelings but to focus on your own behaviour

The question I am a man in my mid-50s, living with my wife and our children. Two years ago, I admitted to an affair, texting sex workers, watching porn and checking out women in public. I was not upfront with my wife and it badly affected her self-worth. Since then, I have been in therapy and some childhood issues have come to light around secrecy, lying and feeling unlovable. But I take responsibility for my actions. We have also done couples’ counselling and spent two difficult years working through it all while raising the family.

In recent months, things have been better. Trust has been rebuilding, we’ve felt closer and the future felt hopeful. But last week she caught me looking at a woman on the street in a way that upset her. I lied about it at first, then admitted it later. It reopened all the old wounds and I’m angry at myself for repeating the same damaging behaviours around dishonesty and ogling.

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking for people who declared their love after being inspired by a certain song, book, TV show or film

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is looking for people who declared their love after being inspired by a certain song, book, TV show or film. Did you confess your feelings for your best friend after watching When Harry Met Sally? Did you propose after seeing Four Weddings and a Funeral? Did you decide to have a baby with your partner after reading The Argonauts?

We’re looking for funny, unexpected love stories – and they don’t have to have happy endings. Maybe you married the wrong person, and now you realise that all that really held you together was a deep and undying love of The Arctic Monkeys? Perhaps Fleabag made you proposition your priest?

Tell us about a brilliant culinary experience in France – the best tip wins £200 towards a Coolstays break

There’s no denying great food and drink make a holiday – and we want to know about your under-the-radar finds in France. Perhaps it was the menu du jour in a hidden bistro in a Paris suburb, wine tasting at a family vineyard in Provence, eating oyster from a shack on the Brittany coast, or an outstanding mountain hut restaurant loved by the locals. Tell us where it was, what you ate or drank and why it was so special for the chance to win a £200 Coolstays voucher.

If you have a relevant photo, do send it in – but it’s your words that will be judged for the competition.

We’d like to hear from small business owners in the UK and elsewhere about any impact of changing tariffs

China has raised tariffs on US imports to 125% in an escalation of the trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

US tariffs on Chinese goods now total 145%, while most other countries, including the UK, have maintained a 10% tariff on goods following Donald Trump’s announcements on Wednesday pausing “reciprocal� tariffs for 90 days.

We’d like to hear from people in the UK who moved to the countryside or coast during the pandemic and have now moved back to the city – or are planning to

Data analysis from the property website Rightmove has found that London is once again the most searched-for location on the website, and the majority (58%) of people living there are looking to stay rather than to leave.

This is a a reverse from five years ago, when in the early months of Covid lockdowns, would-be house buyers were looking for a move to coastal and rural areas as a bigger garden, access to nature and more room for home working became the priorities.

Arturo Suárez Trejo was caught up in Trump’s immigration crackdown in North Carolina and sent to a notorious Salvadorian prison

In a recording studio in downtown Santiago, where the dad she has never met once sung, a four-month-old baby girl snuggles in her mother’s arms, noise-cancelling earmuffs shielding her tiny ears from the sound.

Nahiara Rubí Suárez Sánchez is equally oblivious to the plight of her father, a Venezuelan musician who is thought to be languishing in a maximum-security prison thousands of miles away in El Salvador after being swept up in Donald Trump’s anti-migrant crusade.

As drag queens find a place in the mainstream spotlight, their counterparts are taking back the underground scene with theatrical performances that celebrate a marginalised community

• Get our weekend culture and lifestyle email

It’s just past 11pm on a warm Wednesday night at Sircuit bar in Smith Street Collingwood, in Melbourne’s inner north. The venue is filling up with an assorted crowd of predominantly punky and boyish-looking people of all genders. There’s no shortage of fauxhawks, baseball caps and mullets in the room.

Holi Dae Knight, introducing the drag king show tonight called SlayBoy, has just taken to the stage in a green sequined dress, hot pink hair and a full moustache and bushy beard performing Cher’s Believe. It’s the last night of a three week season of SlayBoy and the crowd is here to see drag kings. The first performers are Justin Sider and Johnny Cocksville doing a version of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy – they strut wildly on stage simulating raunchiness but it’s all in good fun.

Massive, sustained protests led to the 2021 downfall of billionaire oligarch Andrej Babiš, dubbed ‘the Czech Trump’

A former cold war communist dictatorship and component part of the Habsburg empire seems an unlikely source of hope for Donald Trump’s opponents.

One such country, Hungary, is often cited as the model for Trump’s no-holds-barred authoritarian assault on US institutions. Viktor Orbán, the central European country’s prime minister, has been a guest at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate and has won Trump’s praise for transforming Hungary into an “illiberal state� that extols “traditional� values – and for projecting the kind of “strongman� persona the president admires.

President’s attack on universities echoes efforts by Reagan and McCarthy – but experts say ‘we’re seeing much worse’

The showdown between Donald Trump and Harvard University may have exploded into life this week, but the battle represents just the latest step in what has been a decades-long war waged by the right wing on American academia.

It’s a fight by conservatives that dates back to Ronald Reagan, the hitherto spiritual leader of the Republican party, all the way to McCarthyism and beyond, experts say, as the rightwing scraps to seize more control in a manner that is “part of a standard playbook of authoritarianism�.

English-speaking minority refugees caught up in clashes between the military and separatists are stranded in neighbouring country

Amid the sound of children excitedly practising a drama for a forthcoming performance, a yam seller calls to passers by with discounts for their wares. Outside a closed graphic design shop overlooking them from a small hill, Solange Ndonga Tibesa tells the story of being uprooted from her homeland in north-west Cameroon.

In June 2019 she and other travellers were abducted with her three-month-old baby by secessionists, who accused them of supporting the military. Their captors repeatedly hit them with butts of their guns, keeping them in a forest without food or water.

Australian Diana Prazak was told she wouldn’t make it as a boxer. She’s just been inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame

The soft early evening spring light floods the room behind the world champion you’ve probably never heard of. In front of a big poster of a shirtless Bruce Lee adorning her wall, Diana Prazak smiles and laughs often as she talks about her most unlikely career and her road to the top.

The expatriate from Melbourne is arguably the most successful professional boxer that Australia has produced – she attained the ranking of best active professional boxer pound-for-pound in 2014 – but celebration of her world champion status remains disappointingly muted in her home country.

Alla Shyrshonkova was on a bus when Russian missiles hit the city. Now a toy bear and hippo mark the spot where 35 people, including two children, were killed

Last weekend, Alla Shyrshonkova got on the 62 bus on a journey to her cottage near the Ukrainian city of Sumy. It was a warm spring day. “I thought I’d sit with friends, have some tea. Birds were singing. The weather was beautiful. It was so nice,� she recalled.

“The bus was packed. There wasn’t a single free seat. People were standing. Some were going to church for Palm Sunday. There were families with children.�

Kat, 30, who works in the music industry, meets Matt, 30, a civil servant

What were you hoping for?
Great food, a fun story and hopefully someone to explore London with.

More and more men are being sucked into parts of the internet that circulate misogynist content, leaving their families to deal with the wreckage

Samantha thought of her partner as the most progressive man she had ever had a relationship with. Her Swedish boyfriend seemed, to her, more feminist than many British men she had dated.

“I never had to ask him to clear up,� she says. “All our labour was shared. He had done therapy. He was happy to talk about his emotions.�

Nick and Lily were lovers in their 20s and reconnected 40 years later. But should they walk away from their marriages?

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

For the past two years we’ve been meeting up once a month, but I want more

Twenty years ago, John Hancock had dinner with his mother, Gina Rinehart. He says it’s the last positive interaction he had with her. In an in-depth interview, he explains how his relationship with his mother fell apart and discusses a high-stakes legal case that could threaten the foundations of her empire

• Listen and subscribe to the Gina Podcast at theguardian.com/gina

This week, Harvard University, the oldest and wealthiest in the US, defied Donald Trump a list of demands. The Trump administration responded by freezing $2.2bn in federal funding for the Ivy League school.

This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to the Harvard professor Ryan Enos to consider why the university is pushing back, how far this fight may go and why other universities are watching closely

Archive: ABC News, Bloomberg News, CBS News, CNN, National Conservatism, NBC News, Scripp News

A violent fanatic and pioneer in bigotry, Meir Kahane died a political outcast 35 years ago. Today, his ideas influence the very highest levels of government

By Joshua Leifer. Read by Kerry Shale

While generation Z are making gains at the gym, are they losing out on connection?

Gym membership in the UK is more popular than ever – and generation Z are a key demographic boosting the numbers. Gen Z are also drinking less than previous generations. So why are gen Z choosing working out over hanging out at the pub?

“I see on social media, people saying, if you do this, and you do this, and you do this, then you’ll feel better, and then you’ll look better,� Isabel Brooks, a freelance reporter and “zillennial�, tells Helen Pidd.