Decades after I first befriended one of the town’s sons, I finally got to see the place – or at least its glorious bridge Is it possible to have a soft spot for a place you’ve never been to and know next to nothing about? I think it is, in my case anyway, for I have developed warm feelings for Runcorn. On reflection, this has been in the making, quietly, in my subconscious, for a long time. In the last century, I was at university with a lad from Runcorn and, as he is the only person I have ever known from Runcorn, he is bound to colour my sense of the place. Big Everton fan. Could occasionally, like most of us in our gang, get a bit boisterous on a night out, but otherwise had a heart of gold. Reconnected with him recently and the boisterousness seems to have dissipated while the heart of gold still beats. I met his dad once, too; he was nice as well. All good for my own personal sense of Brand Runcorn. Also in the last century, I got talking to the bloke sitting next to me on a train out of Euston. I was squashed up next to him and his suitcases. He had a lot of luggage, so wherever he was going it looked as if he would be staying there a while. He turned out to be American, and a Mormon. I had, not long before, been to Salt Lake City, so we had a nice chat about that. When I asked him where he was heading, he said Runcorn. This led me to ask why. He replied: “Because that’s where the Lord has sent me.” There’s no answer to that, or at least not one I could think of as we rattled our way north. A shroud of mystery now settled over my idea of Runcorn. Continue reading...

This weekend sees the release of a controversially funded film about the first lady, directed by a disgraced film-maker It’s not often that a presidential administration faces a direct referendum at the box office. Sure, there was more than a hint of rebuke in Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 unexpectedly becoming the biggest-grossing non-music-or-nature documentary of all time (and highest full stop in North America) while taking re-election-year shots at George W Bush (who went on to squeak out another victory anyway). But that movie was also sold on Moore himself, a recent Oscar winner and fixture in both film and television by that point. Bush was excoriated, but he wasn’t exactly getting top billing. The unambiguous star of this weekend’s Trump-approved documentary is right there in the title: Melania. It’s coming to 1,500 theaters this weekend from Amazon/MGM. Relatively few documentaries receive a wide release (though Melania is going out in about half as many theaters as last weekend’s Amazon release, the Chris Pratt vehicle Mercy), so comparison points are relatively few. Box office predictions generally place the movie well under Moore’s unlikely high-water mark for the form. Some are guessing the opening weekend will pull in about $1m, which would comfortably keep it off the list of the worst wide openings of all time (the record low for a new release in around 1,500 theaters is about $330,000) but would nonetheless qualify it as a bomb. Others estimate that it will go as high as $5m, putting it in line with rightwing docs like Am I Racist?, the highest-grossing documentary of 2024, which ended its run with $12m. As the Hollywood Reporter points out, technically inching ahead of Am I Racist? and the recent faith-based After Death would boast the biggest non-music launch for a documentary of the past decade. Continue reading...

Downing Street sources say agreement is ‘done deal’ and will not be scuppered by US president’s U-turn US intelligence agencies disagree with Donald Trump’s newly found opposition to the Chagos deal, Keir Starmer has said, as he underlined how the US administration had supported the deal as it bolstered their defences. The prime minister made his remarks, which could undermine the US president’s fresh view of the deal as an “act of great stupidity”, on the flight to Beijing for a visit that will cover UK national security among other issues. Continue reading...

Our perception of a person’s physical beauty is colored by our perception of their behavior – but what if we divorced inner and outer beauty? Hey Ugly, They say we end up with the face we deserve. When we think “ugly” (hurtful, spiteful, non-constructive) thoughts, our faces tense and harden. Similarly, when I ignore my needs, my face shows me signs of it. Continue reading...

Esther Ghey has previously said she believes her daughter’s social media addiction made her more vulnerable Esther Ghey has called on MPs to vote for an age restriction on social media in the coming weeks, as she accused the government of “kicking the can down the road” with its planned consultation. The mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey told the Guardian’s Politics Weekly podcast she believed children would be harmed if the government waited for the results of its assessment later this year rather than enacting a ban straight away. Continue reading...

A look behind the scenes of the star’s second album turns out to reveal exactly what you’d expect, at arduous length Paris Hilton here presents us with an unbearable act of docu-self-love, avowedly a behind-the-scenes study of her second studio album, Infinite Icon, and where she’s at as a musician, survivor and mom. But maybe there is, in fact, nothing behind the scenes; judging by this, the scenes are all there is: Insta-exhibitionism, empty phrases and show. Hilton’s second album no doubt has its admirers and detractors, and her fans are perfectly happy with it. But this film, for which she is executive producer, is an indiscriminate non-curation of narcissism and torpid self-importance that seems to go on and on and on for ever; the longest two hours of anyone’s life, finally signing off with a splodge of uninteresting and unedited concert footage. Continue reading...

Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne named women of the year and former Gaza reporter Malak A Tantesh wins rising star prize The Guardian journalists Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne have been recognised for their investigation covering accusations of sexual misconduct against the actor and director Noel Clarke by more than 20 women. The pair were named women of the year at the Women in Journalism awards. Osborne dedicated the honour to the “many brave women, our sources” who chose to give evidence after Clarke took legal action against the Guardian. Continue reading...

Pianist who put her solo career on hold to care for her husband and established the John Ogdon Foundation to preserve his legacy The pianist Brenda Lucas Ogdon, who has died aged 90, achieved greatest prominence in the duo with her husband John Ogdon, one of the most dazzling performers of his day. It was at the suggestion of the conductor John Minchinton that they started playing as a duo, and in 1962 Lord Harewood invited them to perform Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion at the Edinburgh international festival. It proved to be a notable success, and in the following year’s festival they gave it again. John’s joint victory at the Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1962, sharing first place with Vladimir Ashkenazy, led to international tours. In Australia in 1964 the couple had separate performing schedules as well as playing as a duo, and Brenda cared for their infant daughter, Annabel. Later tours included several to the US, where on one occasion they performed Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos in Houston with the conductor, André Previn, at the third keyboard, and to the Soviet Union. Continue reading...

The US president bears political responsibility for having greenlighted ICE agents’ regularly lawless conduct As public outrage grows over the killing of two protesters by Donald Trump’s deportation agents in Minneapolis, the White House is going into damage-control mode. It has its work cut out for it. Trump didn’t pull the triggers that killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but he bears political responsibility for having greenlighted the agents’ regularly lawless conduct. Good and Pretti should not have been killed. As far as can be seen in the ample video evidence that has emerged, neither posed a threat to the agents at the scene or anyone else. Their sole “offense” was to take a stand against the deportation raids. Yet trigger-happy agents needlessly shot them – Good as she was turning her car away from the agents, Pretti while he was restrained by agents on the ground. There was no plausible self-defense to justify these killings. Continue reading...

Judgment in The Hague orders Netherlands to do more to protect Caribbean people in its territory from impacts of climate crisis The Dutch government discriminated against people in one of its most vulnerable territories by not helping them adapt to climate change, a court has found. The judgment, announced on Wednesday in The Hague, chastises the Netherlands for treating people on the island of Bonaire, in the Caribbean, differently to inhabitants of the European part of the country and for not doing its fair share to cut national emissions. Continue reading...

She was the art world’s hottest ticket after her confrontational goths-and-dobermans show at the Venice Biennale. But did she get too cosy with the worlds of fashion and advertising? ‘I don’t know what you want to know,” says Anne Imhof, three-quarters of the way into our interview. Her cautious smile, between curtains of jet black hair, changes into a sceptical pout. I have just quoted a headline at Imhof, one of Germany’s most important contemporary artists, that described her 2025 New York show as “a bad Balenciaga ad”. Just a few years ago, Imhof was the hottest ticket on the international art circuit: a Golden Lion winner at the 2017 Venice Biennale, whose transformation of the German pavilion into a sinister, S&M-flavoured “catwalk show from hell” had masses scrambling to join the queue. Imhof was a cultural polymath whose shows combined etchings, paintings, dance, live music and film; a muse to fashion designers whose sporty goth aesthetic – Adidas tracksuit bottoms, chunky trainers, black leather – beseiged the clubs of Berlin and beyond. Continue reading...

Not content with haemorrhaging MPs to Reform, Kemi decides to drive others into the arms of the Lib Dems UK politics live – latest updates A minute’s silence for Kemi Badenoch. Thoughts and prayers welcome. The Tory party leader just can’t help herself. Every time you think that, just maybe, she is beginning to get the hang of the job, she comes up with something so deranged, so batshit that you can only sit back and admire the self-destruction. Almost as if she can’t bear any idea of success. Bewilderingly, sabotaging herself seems to be her default coping mechanism. Someone who can only find satisfaction in annihilating her own party. Sometimes you even wonder if she has ever been a Tory. Like so much of Kemi’s behaviour, this was all totally avoidable. There was no need for her to do or say anything. With Keir Starmer away in China, this was a week off for her from prime minister’s questions. A slot she would delegate to the even more useless Andrew Griffith. Clearly Badenoch does not welcome any competition so Griffith might get the deputy leader job for good. Continue reading...

Pilot of rapid access valve assessment clinics in England has indicated success in closing healthcare inequality gap A pilot programme aimed at diagnosing heart disease among people from ethnic minority backgrounds should be rolled out across the whole of the NHS, the doctors behind the initiative have urged. Aortic stenosis is a condition where the aortic valve, which controls blood moving from the heart to the body, starts restricting blood flow. This causes it to become narrow, resulting in symptoms such as shortness of breath and chest pain. Continue reading...

Winger was highest earner at £325,000 a week He has not played this season after being frozen out Raheem Sterling is looking to revive his career after departing Chelsea by mutual consent. The 31-year-old winger was the club’s highest earner but has been out of favour since the summer of 2024. Sterling had 18 months left on a deal worth £325,000 a week. Sterling struggled to produce his best form after joining from Manchester City in 2022. He was the first player to arrive under the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital ownership and was hailed as a marquee signing. Continue reading...

Pacifism is core to modern European culture, but a ‘no arms’ attitude risks leaving artists and film-makers short of answers when facing military aggression and political threats • Don’t get This Is Europe delivered to your inbox? Sign up here One reason why art – painting, literature, film, theatre, all of it – is so important to society is that it creates spaces that can tolerate difficult answers to difficult questions. This makes art the opposite of politics, where politicians are under constant pressure to give easy answers to difficult questions. I was thinking about this distinction this month while watching the European film awards, this continent’s answer to the Oscars, which has moved its annual ceremony to January this year as it seeks to position itself as a major tastemaker for grownup cinema. Continue reading...

AlphaGenome can analyse up to 1m letters of DNA code at once and could pave way for new treatments Researchers at Google DeepMind have unveiled their latest artificial intelligence tool and claimed it will help scientists identify the genetic drivers of disease and ultimately pave the way for new treatments. AlphaGenome predicts how mutations interfere with the way genes are controlled, changing when they are switched on, in which cells of the body, and whether their biological volume controls are set to high or low. Continue reading...

We’ve had declarations of obsession, we’ve had notification of their matching rings … can someone please throw some cold water over this press tour love-fest? Even though it isn’t released for another fortnight, you may already have formed strong opinions about Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights. Perhaps you hold the position that the novel is a text so sacred that any adaptation whatsoever is equivalent to sacrilege. Or maybe you are excited to see what a noted iconoclast such as Fennell will do with something as fusty as a 179-year-old book. Either way, it is likely that your key takeaway from the Wuthering Heights press tour so far is that it’s getting a bit much. It has now been revealed that Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi have matching rings decorated with two hugging skeletons and the phrase “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same”. Continue reading...

A new book and podcast tell the story of a 1 in 12, a venue that used community and artistic passion as bulwarks against poverty and grim politics. Its founders and key acts recall gigs, plays and pranks on the NME “Things were getting grim,” says Gary Cavanagh, reflecting on Bradford in the early 1980s. “There was a hell of a lot of unemployment, and people were thrown on the scrap heap.” Cavanagh was working for Bradford’s claimants union in 1981, helping the city’s poor and unemployed get benefits, when a government report stated that one in 12 dole recipients were defrauding the state. So he and some friends reclaimed this statistic – which they thought was ludicrous – as an identity. “We became the 1 in 12 Club,” he says. Continue reading...

Nerveless batter is a master of building an innings on spinning wickets and his form suggests he could have prospered in India and Sri Lanka The final night was Harry Brook’s but Joe Root still took the series, as he usually does in Sri Lanka. It was here that he began his stratospheric run against the red ball, a double hundred at Galle in 2021 the first of 24 Test tons in the next five years. Go back to 2014, his first visit to the country with England, and there’s an unbeaten 50-over century in Pallekele, a trick he repeated on Tuesday in Colombo. As Root and Brook sat on the Premadasa outfield after England’s 53-run win in the deciding one-day international, it was the former’s shirt that one supporter repeatedly pleaded for from the stands, never mind what the captain had just done. Local admiration is expected when the 35-year-old has never left a tour of Sri Lanka without at least one match winning knock. Continue reading...

Campaigners pushing for 2030 deadline said deferral was ‘denying renters the most basic standards in our homes’ UK politics live – latest updates The government’s promise to make private rented homes fit for habitation will not be enforced for almost a decade, a decision described as “absurd” by campaigners. The timeline means landlords will have until 2035 to implement a decent homes standard (DHS) in their properties, despite ministers promising to deliver “robust standards” to combat disrepair, damp and energy inefficiency. Continue reading...

Family members and lawyers say Pakistan’s former PM suffered dangerous blockage in right eye while in prison Pakistan’s incarcerated former prime minister Imran Khan is facing severe eye damage and is being denied proper access to medical treatment while in solitary confinement, according to officials from his political party. Khan, 73, considered to be Pakistan’s most high-profile political prisoner, has been in jail since August 2023. He is serving sentences for corruption and leaking state secrets, which he has claimed are part of a state-sponsored campaign to keep him out of power. Continue reading...

Midfielder speaks out on politics before World Cup Goretzka open to summer move to England from Bayern The Germany international Leon Goretzka has said Donald Trump’s actions have left him feeling “not only German but also European”. The US president has recently threatened to take Greenland by force and called Europe “weak” and “decaying”. Goretzka, who hopes to make the Germany squad for the World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico this summer, told Die Zeit: “Of course, I’m aware of the political debates. I still expect it to be a great tournament – it will promote football there, and show many people want an incredibly exciting game. Donald Trump makes us feel not only German but also European.” Continue reading...

Director in charge of investing in programming outside London will take over Tim Davie’s role while corporation seeks permanent replacement The BBC has named senior executive Rhodri Talfan Davies as its interim general director, as the corporation continues the search for a permanent replacement for Tim Davie. Davie, who resigned in November after the row over the BBC’s editing of a Donald Trump speech, will remain in the role until the start of April. Talfan Davies will then take over. Continue reading...

Campaigners demand ‘real consequences’ for peer who claimed expenses for car journeys he did not take Campaigners have criticised as too lenient the punishment handed to a Conservative hereditary peer who has been found to have broken the House of Lords rules for the second time. In a report published on Wednesday, the House of Lords concluded that the Earl of Shrewsbury had fiddled his expenses and that he had done so in an “unacceptably casual” way. The lords’ authorities are intending to suspend him from the upper chamber for two weeks. Continue reading...

Crisis on UK high street deepens as private equity owners of homeware chain with 137 stores pins collapse on ‘extremely challenging’ climate How has your local high street changed since 2019? Check your postcode Study: ‘Labour risks election wipeout unless it improves high streets’ The Original Factory Shop homeware chain has called in administrators, putting 1,200 jobs at risk, putting the decision partly down to higher costs from government policies. Administrators from Interpath have been appointed at the 137-store discount retailer, which was bought by private equity firm Modella Capital less than a year ago. Continue reading...