The broadcaster relives his landmark series that changed everything. Plus, gritty casino drama The Cage continues. Here’s everything to watch this evening 8pm, BBC One Continue reading...

From legitimate scrutiny to lurid scare stories, the Green party’s rise has brought a sudden spike in attention It is the lot of smaller parties that grow rapidly that they tend to endure something of a trial by the media in the UK. The attention from some of the newspapers and broadcasters to the Green party before this week’s elections has occasionally borne an unlikely resemblance to the height of Clegg-mania in the spring of 2010, when the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, was rewarded for his positive polling with the unlikely Daily Mail headline “Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain”. All manner of colourful tales have emerged about Green policies and personnel as the party has risen up the national opinion polls, making them something of a target for news editors and reporters. That attention has ranged from legitimate questions over the views of members to more eccentric warnings of a dire future for everyone in Britain from exotic animals to members of the clergy. Continue reading...

For five years, our column has attempted to settle rows about the important little things … but what happens after the verdicts are in? Since 2021, I’ve had one of the most brilliantly nosy jobs in journalism. Writing Saturday magazine’s You be the judge column has let me into the interior lives of others, lifting the lid on the everyday irritations that grind people’s gears in their closest relationships. It’s the pettiness that gets people going. I’ve interviewed couples at war over alarms and dishcloths, girlfriends disagreeing about dog care, and sisters who cohabit and argue about their sex lives. With interviews conducted online and in person, I’ve accumulated domestic disputes from every corner of the globe which have also sparked heated debates online. Part small-claims court, part sociological experiment, You be the judge turns low-stakes grievances into battles that somehow feel life-or-death, and it’s fascinating to see which minor injustices ignite the fiercest debates. Continue reading...

Her actions may be numbing pain she feels in other areas of her life, so you must approach the issue thoughtfully My mother is in her 70s and addicted to playing video games such as Tetris, many different versions of solitaire and slot machine gambling games. In the 1990s my parents bought a desktop computer and my mum started to play mostly card games on it for hours. As technology has progressed, she moved to a laptop and now a smartphone. When my sisters and I were younger, we used to joke about her gaming, but we’ve come to realise it has affected our relationships as she has never been emotionally available. When I’m with Mum now, she always has her phone in her hand and will be playing a game even when I’m talking to her. I never feel I have her full attention. She is like this with other family members too and it’s become a bit of a family joke. Continue reading...

This cute and jovial eatery is reason enough to make a break for the coast As summer looms, and with it the urge to stampede towards the edges of Britain in search of paddling opportunities, I proffer another coastal dining idea: Willy’s in Margate – and, yes, that name does have about it something of the naughty seaside postcard. Tucked away in the back of Margate House hotel on Dalby Square, a few minutes’ walk from the seafront, Willy’s is a blur of frilly red-and-pink seaside adorableness. It’s cool, cute and jovial, with pork scratchings and apple chutney on the menu, as well as black pudding scotch eggs, sticky toffee pudding and Sunday lunches of beef rump and baked cauliflower cheese. This menu is short, intentional and hearty, rather than airy-fairy, and it chortles in the face of small plates. But, for the foodie/sippy crowd, the signifiers are all here: there’s a paper plane and a penicillin on the cocktail menu, throwbacks to New York’s iconic Milk and Honey bar. There are three Olivier Pithon natural wines from Roussillon on the short list, which as a whole leans towards natural and low-intervention bottles from France, Spain and Italy. Most tellingly, the chef is Mark O’Brien, who worked with Robin Gill at the Dairy in London and at Samphire in nearby Whitstable before making this little nook his home, and who earlier this year reached the final three of MasterChef: The Professionals. Willy’s is clearly run by a team that knows about nice things. Continue reading...

When Vadym Lietunov spotted a fortified position after his own had been blown up, he didn’t realise it belonged to the enemy The bombing began the morning after Vadym Lietunov arrived on the frontline. It went on for six or seven hours each day. The Russians hit the dugout where he was sheltering with kamikaze drones and mortars. After every strike, Lietunov and another Ukrainian soldier, Sasha, repaired the damage, extinguishing fires with bottles of urine and shoving clay-filled sacks back into position. “The enemy knew we were there. It was trying to kill us,” he said. In late February Russian drone operators tried a new tactic. They sent in a Molniya drone carrying an anti-tank mine. It exploded next to the entrance, leaving the two soldiers concussed and shaking. There were several similar attacks before Lietunov heard an ominous buzz. This time, a mine fell on top of their foxhole. “I look up and we’ve got no roof. It blew everything up,” he recalled. Continue reading...

Gemma Correll has suffered from anxiety and depression disorders since childhood, and at 16 she discovered a magical elixir that promised to make her feel better. In this extract from her new book, she shows how that promise was broken In 2018, I was in my 30s and living in Oakland, California, having moved there from the UK in 2015. I had always struggled with anxiety and panic attacks, but I was doing fairly well – until suddenly I wasn’t. I started having back-to-back panic attacks, wandering the streets of Oakland and nearby Berkeley in a desperate attempt to shake them, without success. Continue reading...

Iran says the ‘ball is in the United States’ court’ as Trump says he is likely to reject new proposal from Tehran Donald Trump said on Saturday he was going to review a new peace proposal from Tehran but cast doubt over its prospects, saying Iran had not yet “paid a big enough price”. Two semiofficial Iranian news outlets, Tasnim and Fars, believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, said Iran had sent the US a new 14-point proposal via Pakistan. Continue reading...

Two members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s party in Sinaloa state have temporarily stepped down after the US charged them with drug trafficking Two members of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s party in the north-western Sinaloa state said they would temporarily step down from their posts after the United States charged them and eight other politicians and security officers with drug trafficking. The bombshell indictment against the 10 has shaken Mexico’s political establishment. Continue reading...

Russian troops edge closer to Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region; two people killed in Kherson after drone attack. What we know on day 1,530 Russian troops are inching towards the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, trying to establish a foothold close to a heavily defended area, Ukraine’s top army official said on Saturday. Kostiantynivka, along with other cities, forms a so-called fortress belt in the country’s east – an area well fortified by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on the Telegram app that ‘counter-sabotage measures’ were being undertaken in the city. A Ukrainian battlefield mapping project called DeepState shows that Russian troops control an area about one kilometre (0.6 mile) from the city’s southern outskirts. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday its forces had taken control of Novodmytrivka, just north of Kostiantynivka. On Saturday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had seized the village of Myropillia in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, where Moscow says it wants to establish a buffer zone. But the Kursk group of the Ukrainian military, writing on Facebook, dismissed the Russian report as a “complete lie” and said its units controlled the area. Also in Sumy, the regional governor said a Russian airstrike near the town of Krovelets had injured six people, including two in serious condition. Two people were killed and seven wounded after a Russian drone attacked a minibus in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, local officials said Saturday, in the latest round of attacks on civilians across Ukraine. Hours later Russia attacked another minibus in Kherson, wounding the driver, said regional head Oleskandr Prokudin. On Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, a Russian strike damaged port infrastructure in the city of Odesa but no casualties were reported. In a blow to Berlin, which had pushed for the move as a powerful deterrent against Russia, a planned drawdown of 5,000 US troops from Germany includes a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany. The US plan should spur Europe to strengthen its own defences, German defence minister Boris Pistorius said on Saturday, but two top US Republican lawmakers expressed concern, saying the troops should not leave Europe. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met delegates to the ruling party’s youth league congress in Pyongyang, state media KCNA said on Sunday, as the North Korean government has again cast young people as central to both domestic mobilisation and its military role in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Eleventh Congress of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League is a once-in-five-years political gathering aimed at mobilising citizens aged roughly 14 to 30. In a letter published on Friday, the ruling Workers’ Party explicitly linked youth loyalty to Pyongyang’s involvement in the Ukraine war, telling the congress that young soldiers sent on overseas operations had “become bombs and flames” in defending the country’s honour. North Korea sent an estimated 14,000 troops to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and western officials. Continue reading...

The photographer Eric Lusito takes us on a scientific journey through space and time in a book on Soviet scientific institutes Continue reading...

Arena in Birmingham cleared after report of suspicious bag, with comedian pulled from stage mid-performance A man has been charged over a bomb hoax after a live show by comedian Peter Kay in Birmingham was stopped when a “potentially suspicious bag” was found around the venue. The Utilita Arena Birmingham was evacuated and a 19-year-old man was taken into custody, West Midlands police said on Friday evening. Continue reading...

Antonelli seals third straight pole in tight contest Mercedes star narrowly pips Verstappen; Leclerc in third Kimi Antonelli took pole position for the Miami Grand Prix with a strong lap, but only by narrowly beating a resurgent Max Verstappen and Red Bull into second place. Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were in third and sixth for Ferrari, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in fourth and seventh for McLaren, while Antonelli’s Mercedes teammate George Russell could manage only fifth, four-10ths back from the Italian. Continue reading...

Arsenal put pressure on Manchester City with 3-0 win First-half performance ‘one of the best’ this season Mikel Arteta said his Arsenal team had played some of their best football of the season in Saturday’s 3-0 home win over Fulham and demanded that they take the positive feelings into the return leg of their Champions League semi-final against Atlético Madrid on Tuesday. Arsenal picked a fine time to recover their attacking flow, Viktor Gyökeres scoring either side of a Bukayo Saka goal to give them an unassailable half-time lead. The result took them six points clear of Manchester City at the top of the Premier League, albeit their rivals have two games in hand – the first of which is at Everton on Monday night. Continue reading...

When Federica met Oskar, she thought their Google translate-powered romance would be brief, but soon they were planning their future restaurant together Find more stories from the moment I knew series In 2013 I moved from Milan to work as a pastry chef in Marano Vicentino, a tiny town in the region of Veneto. My new boss was the youngest chef to be awarded a Michelin star in Italy and I was excited by the opportunity to work at El Coq, living in the staff sharehouse and learning everything I could. I’d been there a year when Oskar arrived on the scene. A fellow chef and friend of my boss, he had been working on a boat somewhere and was going to stay with us in the sharehouse for a few weeks and spend some time in the kitchen helping us develop the menu. Continue reading...

Sassica Francis-Bruce regularly joined her father – a film editor – on set. As she grew older she loved working beside him in the cutting room I clearly remember the first time I had a soda because it was the same day Jack Nicholson threw up on me. Deliberately. He’d burst through the doors of a church and began a profanity-riddled tirade against God and women as he gesticulated madly and accosted churchgoers. When he reached the front row where I sat and turned towards me, I froze. His eyes were abnormally alert, his hair wild and uncombed and saliva dripped from his mouth like a Neapolitan mastiff. Continue reading...

More trips around the sun does not mean inevitable decline, new research suggests – and having a optimistic outlook can even bring improvements By most standards, Prof Velandai Srikanth is at the peak of his career. He is the director of the National Centre for Healthy Ageing; his decades of highly regarded research has led to work being published in leading scientific journals; and he has been awarded funding from some of the world’s biggest scientific funding bodies. He has also turned 60, and says that as soon as he did, “Somebody said: ‘So when are you going to retire?’” The comment shocked him – he realised this was the stigma of ageing, and it was coming for him. Continue reading...

Arsenal supporters had almost forgotten what it was like to win without their nerves being shredded. They were reacquainted with the feeling on an occasion when everything felt right from the start and got better and better. It was all over by half-time, Arsenal three goals to the good and the Emirates Stadium purring over a virtuoso Bukayo Saka performance. The England winger had not been himself before he was forced to take time out at the end of March to rest an achilles problem – and one or two others aches. He was back in the starting XI here and the bang he produced could be heard in Manchester. City do not play until Monday night. They will kick off at Everton six points behind Arsenal at the top, albeit having played two games fewer. Arsenal have turned up the heat inexorably. Continue reading...

Champion nicknamed the Monster holds off late surge Both boxers had unbeaten records entering Saturday Battle billed as biggest fight in Japanese boxing history Naoya Inoue successfully defended his undisputed super-bantamweight championship with a close but uncontroversial 12-round unanimous decision over Junto Nakatani in their eagerly anticipated showdown at the Tokyo Dome on Saturday night. Before a sellout crowd of about 55,000 spectators during Japan’s Golden Week holiday, Inoue held off a fierce late surge from his unbeaten rival to win by scores of 116-112, 116-112 and 115-113 and retain the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO belts at 122lb, extending his perfect record in what had been billed as the biggest fight in Japanese boxing history. (The Guardian had it 115-113 for Inoue.) Continue reading...

2005 winner rallies from 15-13 down to win 17-15 Murphy will play Mark Allen or Wu Yize in final Shaun Murphy twice overturned a two-frame deficit in the final session to beat John Higgins 17-15 and seal his place in his fifth World Snooker Championship final. Murphy was forced to dredge up his best form to see off the 50-year-old Scot in a titanic tussle that looked nailed-on for a decider until Higgins fluffed a black on a break of 50. Continue reading...

Ukrainian wins 6-3, 7-5 at the Caja Mágica Title means Kostyuk will break into top 15 for first time Marta Kostyuk took an enormous step towards fulfilling her potential as the Ukrainian closed out an incredible week by winning the biggest title of her career at the Madrid Open, defeating Mirra Andreeva of Russia 6-3, 7-5. Although Kostyuk’s run through a WTA 1000 draw was unexpected, this title did not come out of nowhere. Kostyuk won her second career WTA event in Rouen just before Madrid, and has now put together an 11-match winning streak. Continue reading...

British driver beats teammate Oscar Piastri into second Mercedes drivers fourth and sixth with Leclerc third Lando Norris won the sprint race at the Miami Grand Prix with a dominant drive for McLaren, beating his teammate Oscar Piastri into second to secure a one-two for the team and deny Mercedes a win for the first time this season. Charles Leclerc took a strong third for Ferrari but Mercedes, dominant for the opening three meetings, could manage only fourth and sixth for George Russell and Kimi Antonelli. Antonelli had finished fourth but was given a five-second penalty for exceeding track limits, a costly error for the championship leader. Max Verstappen was fifth for Red Bull and Lewis Hamilton seventh for Ferrari. Continue reading...

Four people are in hospital, with one 25-year-old man facing life-threatening injuries A drive-by shooting in Brixton which left four people in hospital on Saturday has been branded “an act of indiscriminate violence” by police. Shots were fired in the early hours on Coldharbour Lane in the south London area, leaving one 25-year-old man in hospital with life-threatening injuries. Continue reading...

Semi-final: Leinster 29-25 Toulon Leinster will face Bordeaux or Bath in Bilbao final They made a bit of a meal of it, but Leinster will march on Bilbao in a few weeks for their ninth Champions Cup final. Their 17th semi-final was clinched by four tries to three over Toulon, another multiple winner of this tournament, but it was not a classic. Which is not to say it was boring. Leinster are not convincing this season, and a telltale sign of a team with a confidence issue is the offering up of hope to a seemingly defeated team. The hosts, enjoying a knockout tie at the Aviva for the umpteenth time, went 18 points clear when Caelan Doris scored their fourth with a little more than 10 minutes to play. And then all hell broke loose. Continue reading...

Compliments mean little to West Ham at this stage of the season. They hit the woodwork three times, had a goal ruled out for a tight offside and contributed to an entertaining game against strong opposition but none of that mattered when full time arrived and Nuno Espírito Santo faced up to his side missing a huge opportunity to take a big step towards winning their fight against relegation. It remains too tight to call. This defeat keeps West Ham two points above the bottom three and means they will drop into the relegation zone if 18th-placed Tottenham beat Aston Villa on Sunday night. Continue reading...