Documents also show PM’s choice for US ambassador was offered ‘higher tiers’ briefing before vetting was finalised UK politics live – latest updates The then cabinet secretary, Simon Case, appeared to advise Keir Starmer to complete security vetting for Peter Mandelson before announcing an appointment, documents reveal. The documents released last month by the Cabinet Office as part of the disclosures over the US ambassadorial appointment also show Mandelson was offered a “higher tiers” briefing before his vetting was finalised. Continue reading...

Judge throws out claim by the singer’s father over the sale of items she once owned Amy Winehouse’s father has lost a high court claim against two of his daughter’s friends over the auctioning of items once owned by the singer. Mitch Winehouse, acting as the administrator of his daughter’s estate, sued her stylist Naomi Parry and friend Catriona Gourlay over claims they profited from selling dozens of items at auctions in the US in 2021 and 2023. Continue reading...

In the wake of recent attacks, I call on anti-racists to extend the same solidarity to Jews they would to other minorities subject to prejudice and violence Finchley Reform Synagogue in north London was my community for several years. This was a place where I found belonging, singing at Friday night services. I taught weekend classes with children ahead of their bar- and batmitzvah. The synagogue’s former rabbi, Miriam Berger, officiated our wedding when I married my husband. Last week, along with a synagogue in nearby Kenton and a building that previously housed Jewish charities in Hendon, this community was subject to an arson attack that mercifully did not cause substantial harm. Yet the emotional and psychological impact has been felt far beyond the physical damage. These attacks feel close to home, grounded in the very real dangers Jews face globally. David Davidi-Brown is chief executive of the New Israel Fund Continue reading...

Erling Haaland scored a winner and refused to take a dive but could not resist a little dig at the fading Gunners Man of the weekend in the Premier League? It is not in doubt. Erling Haaland deserves the acclaim and not only because he scored the winner for Manchester City in the top-of-the-table showdown against Arsenal – his 23rd goal of the season in the competition and 34th for City overall. Another Golden Boot is within reach; Haaland’s only rival is Brentford’s Igor Thiago, who has 21. Another league title is also there for the taking. Yet Haaland trumped it all with something he did not do at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. It was an old-school battle between him and the Arsenal centre-half Gabriel Magalhães; a wrestling match at times, so much pushing and pulling, all about the upper body strength. There was always the potential for it to bubble over and that is what happened in the 84th minute. Continue reading...

The author, who recently revealed her real name to be Sara Cohen, began writing to escape from her work as a medic, and now has a huge global fanbase Some call themselves McFans, others Freida readahs. However Freida McFadden’s loyal fans choose to define themselves, what we know for sure is that their numbers are growing, and fast. McFadden, the author behind blockbuster psychological thriller The Housemaid, was the UK’s bestselling novelist of 2025, outstripping Richard Osman, Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarros, and shifting 2.6m print copies in 12 months. Continue reading...

Abbey, Dublin An unnamed narrator recollects a 1970s childhood of institutional brutality and sectarianism in this allusive memory play Language is twisted and slippery in Frank McGuinness disturbing new memory play for the Abbey theatre. As an unnamed narrator, Man (Ryan Donaldson) looks back on his 1970s youth during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, he says that the past “does not belong to me”. The Man’s recollections come in snatches: sometimes hazily with humorous shrugs, then sharply focused. First, his early years with his violent mother, who struggles with alcohol addiction; later his time in a residential care home for teenage boys run by a luridly sadistic sexual abuser known as Beastie Billy. There the boys are subjected to Billy’s Old Testament-infused sectarian and misogynist rhetoric, while being pimped at night to members of the British security forces. “We serve the forces,” the narrator’s teenage self says ironically, as ideas of loyalty and service become increasingly distorted. Continue reading...

Player forced to miss Madrid Open and Italian Open Latest setback for Briton represents another painful blow Jack Draper has been sidelined for at least another month as injuries continue to disrupt his hopes of establishing himself as one of the top tennis players in the world. Draper has withdrawn from the Madrid Open this week and the subsequent Italian Open due to the aggravated knee tendon injury that forced him to retire from his opening match at the Barcelona Open last week. Continue reading...

Union’s interim head coach has been given a hospital pass and, despite a vastly improved performance, her team went down to Wolfsburg So different, but absolutely the same. If you had wanted a clear demonstration of why exactly 1. FC Union Berlin was just the place for Marie-Louise Eta to become the first female head coach in a top five European league, you got it on Saturday afternoon. Eta made her debut at the helm in the Bundesliga match with Wolfsburg and after a week in which both she and Union were global news, with coach and club visibly taken aback by the media flocking to Berlin to see her opening press conference and debut in charge, just being able to get to work was a relief. And there is really no place to ply your trade in Germany, or in Europe, quite like the Stadion An der Alten Försterei. As the team lineups are read out before kick-off there is a call and response, with each player’s name met with the collective reply “Fußballgott!” (Football God). On Saturday, when Eta’s name was announced, it was met with a united “Fußballgöttin!” (Football Goddess). On an extraordinary day, it was touchingly normal. Continue reading...

From the secret gay life of a British-Caribbean man to that controversial shared Booker win, the author has blazed a trail across the literary landscape. Here are seven of her top titles Even by Evaristo’s experimental standards, this book is a highly ambitious mash-up of forms and stories. It takes a mismatched couple, strait-laced Stanley and ebullient Jessie, on a road trip across Europe where they meet the ghosts of black historical figures, from Alexander Pushkin to Mary Seacole. We learn a lot along the way, but the real engine of the story is Stanley and Jessie’s combative relationship. Told in a blend of prose, poetry, scripts, memos, legal documents, budget spreadsheets … and road signs, Soul Tourists ultimately wobbles under the weight of both its own good intentions and its skittish variety, but it has charm and energy to burn. Continue reading...

First Nation communities warn that government must act as accounts face destruction, risking central part of Canada’s reckoning with its colonial past • ‘Cultural genocide’: the shameful history of Canada’s residential schools – mapped Cheryle Dreaver first heard her mother discus what she had endured as a child in a Winnipeg courtroom in 2008. Ivy Dreaver was one of tens of thousands of Indigenous people in Canada invited by the federal government to testify about their experiences of sexual, physical and mental abuse in the country’s residential school system. “At that time … I didn’t know those things had happened to her until that very day,” said Dreaver. “I was in shock … there was a lot of abuse.” Continue reading...

Defender’s current deal due to expires this summer ‘There is a big chance I’m here next season’ Ibrahima Konaté has said he is close to agreeing a new contract with Liverpool, having informed the club he wanted to stay during negotiations last year. The France international’s deal expires this summer and, with talks over an extension dragging on for over 12 months, Liverpool have been at risk of losing another asset on a free transfer alongside Mohamed Salah and Andy Robertson. Continue reading...

Jennifer Andrea Porras, now 53, says they were sexually abused by the union leader as a teen A version of this story was published in Spanish in La Opinión. When Jennifer Andrea Porras, a non-binary, Indigiqueer, Coahuiltecan artist and cultural worker from the San Francisco Bay Area, first found out about the New York Times investigation detailing allegations by multiple women of sexual abuse by civil rights icon Cesar Chavez, they were not surprised. The news confirmed their own experience with the co-founder of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union. Continue reading...

Barbican, London Antonio Pappano’s dramatically charged interpretation of this religious oratorio landed powerfully with a hair-raising performance from David Butt Philip as the titular soul Elgar’s greatest oratorio is that rare thing, a complex religious text that explores core tenets of the Roman Catholic faith and yet is set to music that sweeps away any sense of dusty philosophical debate in a blaze of transcendent beauty. As the composer’s most operatic score, Gerontius responds readily to a theatrical approach, which was one reason Antonio Pappano’s dramatically charged interpretation landed so powerfully. Take the prelude. Seldom has the music’s Wagnerian ache and the sense of time running out felt so palpable. Elsewhere, he was unafraid to pull back, teasing out Elgar’s chamber-like textures with a gentle elasticity. Most rewardingly, his conductorly attention to the protracted expressive arc ensured that the work’s twin climaxes – the great chorus of Praise to the Holiest and the soul’s searing glimpse of the Deity – felt properly earned. This, he seemed to say, is where we have been heading all along. Continue reading...

Conservationists in Denbighshire left “angry and heartbroken” after the Nant-y-Ffrith site was emptied during breeding season More than 1,000 toads may have died after a reservoir important to the local ecosystem was drained by a water company, conservationists in north Wales have said. Volunteers at Wrexham Toad Patrols help toads returning to the Nant-y-Ffrith reservoir on the Llandegla moors in breeding season, this year assisting 1,500 of the amphibians cross busy roads to help protect the declining species. Continue reading...

Judge in case of two families housed for years in single hotel rooms says they should have been moved within three months The Home Office could face legal action from hundreds of asylum-seeking families stuck in single rooms in hotels after a judge criticised the “extraordinarily stressful” conditions in which they are expected to live. In a ruling, the deputy high court judge Alan Bates questioned why two families had been forced to live in single rooms for more than three years. He said they should have been moved to alternative accommodation within three months. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Retired NHS worker Nicholas Stone, 65, died after becoming unwell at protest against far-right group Bristol Patriots The daughter of a retired NHS worker is calling for a full and independent investigation into the death of her father after it emerged he died after police contact at a protest against the far right. Nicholas Stone, 65, who lived in Bristol, died on 10 January after becoming unwell at a protest opposing the rightwing group Bristol Patriots, who were staging a demonstration in the city centre. Continue reading...

Only those in unassailable positions of power would ditch capital letters – or reply to colleagues with a thumbs up emoji i recently learned that, in february, jack dorsey – formerly of twitter, now of block – wrote a 600-word email announcing a mass layoff (4,000 employees) all in, you guessed it, lowercase. This was the jumping-off point for an investigation into the tech broligarchy’s “new language of power” by journalist Zak Jason for Business Insider. Jason conducted his own no-caps experiment, recklessly deploying lowercase in messages to his boss, colleagues, fellow parents and “every outreach to sources for this story – biz etiquette experts, comms gurus, & sam altman”. He agonised less and responded quicker, he concluded, but lost clarity. Continue reading...

I found Benny and his brother, Buster, when they were three months old. I was besotted with them both, but it was Benny, with his quirky ways and loving nature, who really stole my heart I suppose you could say I got Benny from the shops. In 2006, he and his brother ambushed me outside a supermarket in Bahrain. They were trying to climb into the bags of shopping I was carrying to get at the food they could smell. Immediately smitten, I took them in. It was the start of a 16-year relationship that saw Benny and Buster accompany me to Kenya, Qatar, back to Bahrain, then finally to Manchester. I used to say they had seen more countries than most people. I was an advertising creative director and followed the work where I could get it. It was an interesting but lonely life and my new pals, who were about three months old, immediately made a difference. I was besotted with them, but it was Benny, with his endearing quirks, who really stole my heart. Continue reading...

Footage from the 1985 Trial of the Juntas is expertly edited into a documentary providing unforgettable witness to the repression that ‘disappeared’ thousands From 1974 to 1983, the Argentine military junta waged a “dirty war” against its own citizens under the pretext of national security. Tens of thousands of people from all social strata were marked down as subversives, and “disappeared” – murdered at the hands of the state. Composed entirely of courtroom footage from the landmark 1985 Trial of the Juntas, where nine military officials including dictator-in-chief Jorge Rafael Videla were prosecuted for their crimes, Ulises de la Orden’s searing documentary makes for a profound work of preservation and remembrance. Culled from 530 hours of archive recordings, the film is divided into 18 chapters, each titled after a moving phrase taken from the testimonies. These headings distil the barbarism of the military’s genocidal tactics. Delivered in a judicial setting, harrowing stories told by former detainees and victims’ relatives lay bare the methodology of state-sponsored violence, as well as the collective trauma shared across generations. Confronted with the anger and the pain of the witnesses, the defence responds with feeble arguments professing patriotism, which are met with jeers and disgust from the spectators. The extraordinarily precise editing maintains the bubbling tension between multiple vantage points, groups with clashing ideas of justice. Continue reading...

Updates from final day of the latest round of matches Sign up to The Spin | Email Tanya or comment BTL Adds Ali: “Warwickshire are currently warming up to Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits ... will their day be the song title or the band name?” Very good. I once ended up watching two hours of Youtube videos on Sultans of Swing, I didn’t realise how obsessed people were with it. Continue reading...

Seville could see 34C this week and parts of Brazil could hit high 30s, while storms forecast in southern Africa Over the course of this week, temperatures in Spain are expected to soar well above the seasonal average. Daytime temperatures could reach about 30C in Madrid on Tuesday, 10C above the norm, while Seville may see 34C, about 9C above its late April average. An area of low pressure situated out in the Atlantic will allow for a south-westerly flow, introducing warm air from north Africa. In addition to this heat, a notable dust plume is expected to travel northwards from the Sahara, covering the skies above Iberia and south-western France, which may lead to some particularly orange or red skies at sunrise and sunset. In Brazil, high temperatures are forecast for the states of São Paulo, Paraná, Mato Grosso do Sul and Santa Catarina over the next few days, eventually spreading into Minas Gerais. Here, daytime maximum temperatures are expected to reach the high 30s Celsius later in the week, about 5-10C above the seasonal average. Continue reading...

A documentary about Peter Sichel – the ‘Jewish James Bond’ who died in 2025 – includes striking mea culpas about the cost and efficacy of US involvement in the Middle East In New York social circles, he was known as the “Jewish James Bond”: a refugee from Nazi Germany whose gratitude to his American hosts was such that he volunteered to join the US army and became the CIA’s first station chief in Berlin as a mere twentysomething, filing early warnings about Soviet activity that have been credited with ringing in the Cold War. Like 007, Peter Sichel also appreciated a fine tipple, and after leaving the US foreign intelligence service it was he who briefly turned a sweet German white, Blue Nun, into one of the best-selling wines in the world. Continue reading...

Research casts doubt on plans by UK government to offer subsidies for carbon capture attached to the power source Burning wood for power generation can be worse for the climate than burning gas, even when the resulting carbon dioxide emissions are captured and stored, new research has shown. The findings cast doubt on plans by several governments, including the UK, to offer subsidies or other financial support for carbon capture attached to wood-burning power. Continue reading...

The Lakers star would have been expecting to play a supporting role as he burrows into his 40s. But injuries means he has assumed a familiar role LeBron James must be so sick of this. If he wanted to experience being the best player on an otherwise thin team, he could simply remember the Cleveland Cavaliers’ run to the NBA finals in 2007. Or the 2015 NBA finals when his best teammates, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, suffered injuries. Or the 2018 season, which convinced SNL to make a spoof of James’ support staff. “I’m 53 years old,” one of LeBron’s “teammates” says in the clip. “I have seven kids, and two of them are also on the Cavs.” It’s 2026, James is a Los Angeles Laker, his two best teammates are hurt, and one of his kids actually is on the team. How on earth did we get here, again? James is 41. The story of his season was his labored yet successful pivot into the Lakers’ third option, behind Luka Dončić (who was having one of the best stretches of his career before tweaking his hamstring in a humiliating loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder) and Austin Reaves (who strained his oblique in the same game). Both men are in their primes. James, on the other hand, has been plagued with what some observers may call old guy injuries: he missed the start of the season due to sciatica; he’s sat out a couple games since thanks to arthritis in his left foot. So how – how – is it that Dončić and Reaves were the ones felled by injuries and James is the iron man? Aren’t the rules that athletes in their 20s get to enjoy energy and health, while those in their 40s have to retire and become mediocre pundits? Continue reading...

Psychiatrist Amir Levine’s first book explored different types of attachment. In his follow up, he explains how anyone can become more secure Amir Levine has been quietly working towards a second book for 16 years. When Attached, which he co-wrote with Rachel Heller, was published in 2010, it brought the categories for how we behave in relationships – AKA attachment styles – into the public consciousness. According to attachment theory, you could be anxious (often resulting in social hypervigilance), avoidant (independent, suppressing difficult emotions), fearful-avoidant (craving closeness, but often retreating in fear) or secure. Knowing which you were and where significant others sat on this spectrum provided helpful insights for self-awareness and relationship harmony. Since then, Levine has received countless emails from readers around the world either seeking his advice or telling him how the book changed their life. “I got an email from a woman from Iran,” he recalls. “She said that she realised she was with someone very avoidant. She was able to cut off from him and she found someone else who was secure.” Also, because she felt better equipped “to communicate her needs with this new partner, she reached an orgasm for the first time”. From all of these stories, as well as research into the neuroscience of attachment and neuroplasticity and working with therapy clients, Levine has now compiled the tools needed to help anyone become more secure. Continue reading...