A blue cheese rind can be a bit funky even for cheese aficionados, but its intensity works wonders in a clever salad dressing On a single crumb of cheese rind there are more than 10 billion microbes: that’s more microbial cells than there are people on Earth. Cheese rind is an intensified expression of the cheese, with a powerful flavour and highly concentrated community of good bacteria, yeast and mould. But it is misunderstood and underrated, and often removed and discarded. Though it can be intense, it’s almost always edible, unless it’s grown new mould or contains synthetic plastic, wax or cloth, which should be removed. Like an apple or slice of bread, the skin, crust or rind add texture, flavour and nutrients to the eating experience. Sometimes, even I can’t stomach a really strong rind though, and another approach is necessary – like my blue cheese rind vinaigrette, where that pungent rind comes into its own, flavouring the dressing beautifully without overpowering it. Continue reading...

Exclusive: McSweeney summoned by foreign affairs select committee in rare step, as Mandelson vetting row continues UK politics live – latest updates Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s former chief of staff, has been summoned before the foreign affairs select committee as the Peter Mandelson vetting row continued to undermine Keir Starmer’s premiership. As MPs attempt to unravel the facts, McSweeney is to appear next Tuesday to respond to allegations that Downing Street put huge pressure on the civil service to approve his appointment as the UK’s ambassador to Washington. Continue reading...

As rising gold prices fuel environmental destruction, communities in the country’s biodiverse heartland are passing laws against mining Mahogany trees tower above Herminio Mamani as he tends his cacao farm in Bolivia’s biodiverse north-west. A former president of El Ceibo, the country’s largest organic cacao co-operative, he says the agroforestry model used by its 1,300 members is vital not only to maintain the quality of the cacao they produce, but also for keeping gold mining at bay. “We cacao producers would never kill an animal here,” he says, parrots squawking nearby. “The parcels [of land] can never be monocultures – all the crops grow together.” Continue reading...

Part lesson, part lark, these 15-minute episodes are a total joy. They have such a deliriously light touch they will make you want to run outside and plunge your hands into the soil This might sound like heresy to some, but I can comfortably assert that the reason I am not a skilled horticulturist is Gardeners’ World. When I was growing up, Gardeners’ World – appointment television as mandated by my father – felt like the longest, dullest 30 minutes of the week. When the theme tune came on, I could feel my life force draining away. How different things could have been if This is a Gardening Show had been around back then. Hosted by Zach Galifianakis, there are moments when This Is a Gardening Show feels like the perfect programme. Part lesson, part lark and part warning, the series’six 15-minute episodes have such a deliriously light touch that it makes you want to run outside and plunge your hands into the soil. Continue reading...

The Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator is preparing for the NFL draft later this week. On a recent trip home to London, he reflected on his extraordinary journey A middle-aged man pulls down his baseball cap, walks across Leicester Square and heads to Greggs for lunch before taking the Piccadilly Line home to Southgate. It’s only two months since he won the Super Bowl but none of the thousands of tourists milling around central London recognise him. Aden Durde should be a British celebrity. Olympians often say there is a massive comedown after they win gold medals. Some think: ‘Now what?’ How have you felt after winning the Super Bowl? “I wouldn’t say it’s a comedown, but there were moments after you win it, like at the parade, I felt numb. The little letdown is, while you might get another chance to create it, you’re not going to do it again with that group of people. You realise that this special thing that we had is over. I thought that on the bus going back to the hotel from the game.” Continue reading...

Severe heatwaves in commonly hot regions could leave farmers unable to work outside, with livestock mortality rates expected to rise Extreme heat is threatening the world’s food systems, with farmers unable to work outside, livestock experiencing stress and crop yields falling, putting the livelihoods of more than a billion people in peril, the UN has warned. Experts said food supply in some areas was being “pushed to the brink” by increasingly common and severe heatwaves, on land and at sea, in a major report written jointly by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Continue reading...

Unwanted vessels left to decay release fibreglass shards into the water, harming marine life. Steve Green – with his trusty van Cecil – is determined to clean things up Steve Green, a boat engineer from Cornwall, was pulled over by the police just before Christmas. He was driving a decrepit-looking VW campervan and towing an even more dilapidated yacht up to Truro. He hadn’t broken any laws, but he admits that Cecil the campervan, which runs on donated chip oil from local pubs and has a crane and a winch on the front, “wasn’t quite what VW intended”. Green (and Cecil) are on a mission to rid the beautiful hidden creeks of Cornwall’s Helford and Fal rivers of 166 abandoned fibreglass yachts, which are leaking plastic and toxins into the predominantly marine waters. Marine biologists have likened the thousands of shards of fibreglass they have found embedded in the flesh of sea-creatures in areas with wrecks such as these to asbestos, a substance known to have a noxious effect on humans. Green uses a detachable crane system at the front of his van to move around bags of plastic after they have been weighed. Cecil is upholstered in recycled denim Continue reading...

Isn’t running 26.2 miles difficult enough? Not for some. Whether it’s dressing up as a helicopter, a lobster or a pair of testicles, wearing a novelty outfit spurs many competitors on Delusion. That’s the crucial prerequisite for running a marathon in fancy dress, according to the ultramarathon competitor and cancer survivor Jonathan Acott, who is attempting the fastest marathon dressed in a clanking suit of armour. So that’s what it was when I decided to run this year’s London Marathon dressed as a badger. I’ve run a marathon once before, 19 years ago. I hated the suffering. I injured myself. And now I’m 51. Why was this a good idea? Continue reading...

British singer and guitarist wrote and performed Traffic classics including Feelin’ Alright? before platinum-selling solo albums and work with Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and more Dave Mason, the co-founder of rock band Traffic who also collaborated with Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac and many other A-list musicians, has died aged 79. A statement from his representative said he died peacefully on Sunday at his home in Gardnerville, Nevada, having settled in the US in 1969. “Dave Mason lived a remarkable life devoted to the music and the people he loved,” the statement added. Continue reading...

‘Persian Prince’ begins campaign amid conflict ‘I’m fighting as well for my country, for my family’ Hossein Vafaei begins his campaign at the snooker world championship later on Wednesday but the groundbreaking Iranian admits it has been hard to focus because of the bombardment of his country by the United States and Israel. The war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February, has since engulfed the Gulf countries and Lebanon and ignited fears of a global energy shock. For now, an uneasy truce reigns which was extended by the US president Donald Trump at the 11th hour on Tuesday. Continue reading...

Men’s tournament could follow Women’s World Cup method New format would likely come in after Euro 2028 An adapted version of the Nations League format is front runner among several options being considered for a revamp of the men’s European Championship qualifiers, which face an overhaul likely to be implemented after Euro 2028. The Guardian understands the plans were presented to Uefa’s national team competitions committee on Tuesday and will now be considered by individual Football Associations, who will discuss them in smaller groups over the coming days. A final decision will be taken by the Uefa executive committee in Istanbul before next month’s Europa League final. Continue reading...

Workers and labor advocates say the company’s injury rates and how it treats injured staff remain a problem Amazon, one of the world’s largest employers, has for years faced scrutiny over its safety record. When Billy Foister, a 48-year-old worker, died after a heart attack inside one of the tech giant’s warehouses in September 2019, managers were accused of telling staff to “get back to work”. When another worker died this month at a distribution center in Troutdale, Oregon, an Amazon spokesperson claimed they had collapsed from an “existing medical issue”. They denied a report that a nearby employee was told: “Please get back to work.” Continue reading...

Prominent Maga bros have suggested the 20-year-old son of the US president should be called up this year. Why does this seem so vanishingly unlikely? It can’t be easy being the youngest son of a man who compares himself to the son of God. Rather a lot to live up to, isn’t there? Still, Barron Trump seems to be taking it in his stride. Rather than rebelling and becoming a socialist, the 20-year-old is shaping up to be just like dad: Barron is already worth $150m, according to a 2025 Forbes calculation. That’s largely from World Liberty Financial, a Trump family cryptocurrency company he co-founded. (Reportedly it’s Barron who got the president into crypto.) Barron isn’t just trading alt-coins. The university student has also launched a yerba mate brand called Sollos. (Yerba mate is a caffeinated herbal tea from South America). And he’s been engaged with politics behind the scenes. Barron is widely credited for boosting his dad’s most recent election campaign by connecting him to manosphere influencers such as Adin Ross and Theo Von. Continue reading...

It’s crucial to understanding how gender is affecting our ability to rally behind a shared ecological vision Feminist influencer Liz Plank opens her groundbreaking book For the Love of Men with a bold statement: “There is no greater threat to humankind than our current definitions of masculinity.” She means it at several levels, from the most intimate: how male partners are the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the US; to the most macro: how associating “eco-conscious behaviors with femininity and a repudiation of masculinity” is literally killing the planet. This Earth Day, it’s worth reflecting on why this is so and what can be done about it. While it won’t come as news to most that, compared to women, men litter more, recycle less, and leave a bigger carbon footprint There’s something more extreme than simple thoughtlessness causing young men, in a form of anti-environmental protest known as “rolling coal”, to modify the diesel engines on their pick-up trucks to deliberately belch large amounts of grey-black exhaust, and then run Priuses and bicyclists off the road. Continue reading...

A commuter’s entrapment provides a taut, unnerving and rare example of an adaptation that holds close to the video game on which it is based A glitch in the matrix, a rip in existence’s fragile fabric, and suddenly everything we knew about the world is snuffed out … or perhaps revealed to us for the first time. We see its arbitrariness, its cruelty, its vast indifference to the lab rats scurrying around frantically within it, heading for a death they cannot imagine. Genki Kawamura’s psychological mystery is inspired by the Japanese video game of the same name, and also by the repetitions of Groundhog Day and the vertiginous perspectives of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining, with those corridors whose corners cannot be rounded without coming face-to-face with something horrible. Kazunari Ninomiya plays a depressed young man on a crowded rush-hour Japanese subway train who one day sees a boorish commuter screaming at a young mother for not keeping her baby quiet. On alighting at the platform he takes a call from his ex-girlfriend – and that iPhone ringtone is very upsetting all by itself, guaranteed to have every audience member reflexively reaching for their own phone with guilty dread. She reveals that she is pregnant and something in the coincidence of these events unnerves the young man. Continue reading...

The ICC chair Jay Shah has dominated social media posts from global tournaments but his views on the future direction of the game are harder to find “Visuals that the whole nation will remember for ages,” reads the social media post by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, introducing a 37-second video clip. It captures the celebrations after India’s T20 World Cup triumph in Ahmedabad last month, a victory built by an astounding squad; strong enough to exclude names such as Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, nerveless enough to thump 255 in the final against New Zealand. But one man in a suit dominates the footage: Jay Shah. The chair of the International Cricket Council (ICC) is in most of the shots, embracing the players and soaking in the moment alongside their head coach, Gautam Gambhir. He is all smiles alongside former India captains Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni, and at one point there is a frame of him on his own holding the trophy. He goes on to help Suryakumar Yadav lift it. Shah is not the honorary secretary of the BCCI any more; the whole sport is his responsibility. Yet here he was, transformed into the protagonist of a story that did not belong to him. This is an extract from the Guardian’s weekly cricket email, The Spin. To subscribe, just visit this page and follow the instructions Continue reading...

House Democratic leader says result should serve as a warning to Ron DeSantis after latest blow to Donald Trump’s redistricting battle Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. The vote to approve new congressional maps in Virgina could embolden Florida’s Republican-controlled state assembly to consider tit-for-tat changes to its own map, the House Democratic leader has said. If Florida Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create more prime-pick up opportunities for Democrats. We are prepared to take them all on, and we are prepared to win. Continue reading...

Real Madrid star buys 1.2% of Hundred franchise ‘I love cricket so I’m so happy to be on board’ Jude Bellingham has explained his decision to buy a minority stake in The Hundred franchise Birmingham Phoenix, saying: “I feel like I owe the city something”. The England and Real Madrid star has taken a 1.2% holding in the Edgbaston-based Hundred franchise, revealing himself as the unnamed investor who had been mentioned in the annual accounts of the parent club, Warwickshire. Continue reading...

Beyond Gandalf and Magneto, the 86-year-old stage and screen star has a grand career as a great Shakespearean, not to mention his work as an LGBTQ+ rights campaigner. He’ll be here to discuss it all We could wang on about how great Sir Ian McKellen is all day. Millions know him as Gandalf in the Lord of The Rings and Hobbit trilogieswhile others know him as Magneto in the X-Men franchise, for which he’s revealed he wore a sculpted undersuit to give him a more muscular torso. He returns in Avengers: Doomsday later this year. But don’t be fooled by the blockbusters; McKellen has been and still is one of the finest actors of his generation. On film, his roles go back to A Touch of Love in the late 1960s, playing John Profumo in Scandal in 1989, and starring in and producing Richard III in the mid-90s. A late90s double whammy – Gods and Monsters, for which he was Oscar nominated, and Apt Pupil – put him over the top, after which he rolled into the aforementioned franchises, resulting in 11 appearances (so far). In between he’s managed some great stuff, such as the ageing ’tec drama Mr Holmes, theatrical thriller The Critic …. and the voice of Zebedee in The Magic Roundabout. The less said about Cats the better. And now he’s taking a lead role in the new Steven Soderbergh film, The Christophers, opposite Michaela Coel. Continue reading...

Tracks by Rema, Burna Boy and more were streaming in the billions, but hits are drying up. Stars and analysts across the African music industry fret about how to change course In 2016, Afrobeats – the catchall term for a range of contemporary dance music emerging from west Africa – began to seep into global pop culture, propelled by intercontinental collaborations such as Wizkid and Drake’s Come Closer. Olabode Otolorin, then a university student, would dispatch optimistic forecasts on the internet about the genre’s future. Nearly a decade on and now a campaign associate at Mavin Records, one of Africa’s leading labels, Otolorin has a more downbeat outlook on Afrobeats. “It is currently in a perilous state in terms of our exports,” he says. Otolorin is not alone in this sentiment. Addressing the 200 or so fans gathered at a spruced-up warehouse in Lagos for a recent listening party for his new album, Clarity of Mind, Afrobeats stalwart Omah Lay made a startling but accurate observation. “Afrobeats is declining overseas – that’s a fact. The sound from 2020 to 2024 isn’t what it is today. I’ve been watching, learning and studying my idols, looking for a way to bring that energy back,” he said pensively. Continue reading...

Macaques have learned to eat soil to avert gut irritation caused by salty and sugary snacks, researchers believe Troops of monkeys living on the Rock of Gibraltar have learned to eat soil in what scientists believe is an effort to settle their stomachs after all the junk food they receive – and sometimes steal – from crowds of tourists. Researchers spotted the intentional mud eating, known as geophagy, while observing groups of Barbary macaques in the territory. Monkeys that had the most contact with tourists ate the most soil and consumption peaked in the holiday season, they found. Continue reading...

No indignity is too great for the leads of these darkly funny shows as they pursue a comeback at any cost In the fifth and final season of sitcom Hacks, the legendary comedian Deborah Vance has once again been plunged into crisis. After leaving America’s number one late-night talkshow in a flurry of controversy, a vengeful non-compete clause is barring her from performing new material. Season four of the Emmy-winning comedy ended on a cliffhanger, with TMZ mistakenly reporting that Deborah (Jean Smart) had died. Freshly resurrected for season five, the prodigal mother of comedy worries that her lifetime of work will be defined by her premature late-night exit. To secure her legacy, she sets her sights on staging a major comeback show at Madison Square Garden – and she’ll stop at nothing to make it happen. Not uncoincidentally, the final season of The Comeback begins on a similar note of desperation. Valerie Cherish – the high-cringe sitcom star played by a red-haired Lisa Kudrow – is handed a career lifeline when she scores the lead role in a new sitcom. There’s just one catch: the script has been written by AI, and this is a secret that Valerie is forbidden from sharing. It’s the type of toe-curling scenario that could only come from Kudrow and her collaborator, Michael Patrick King, who is back on form after terrorising the world with And Just Like That. Continue reading...

Council proposal to use glyphosate to tidy up pavements criticised over potential harm to humans and wildlife Cornwall is famed for its glorious gardens and verdant landscapes but a bitter row has broken out over a plan to tackle a less glamorous type of vegetation – roadside weeds. The unitary authority has announced plans to use the controversial herbicide glyphosate to tidy up pavements and kerbsides, after largely phasing out its use over the last decade amid concerns about potential harm to humans and the peninsula’s rich ecosystems. Continue reading...

Conservative host says he’s ‘tormented’ by previous support for Trump – could this presage his own run for president? He can’t live with him and can’t live without him. But, finally, the conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson seems to have made up his mind about Donald Trump. Their up-and-down marriage of political convenience is heading for the divorce court. On Tuesday Carlson admitted that he will be “tormented” for a long time by his support for Trump in the 2024 US presidential election “and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people”. What he did not say is whether this presages his own run for president in 2028. Continue reading...

Kevin Warsh, Trump’s ‘central casting’, has a long road ahead of convincing board members to lower interest rates Donald Trump’s fate is to be frustrated by monetary policy. Even assuming he gets his way and Kevin Warsh succeeds Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve next month, it is unlikely that the president will finally gain control of the Fed. Continue reading...