Mukund Krishna arrested by City of London police along with two other national board members The head of the Police Federation of England and Wales has been arrested on suspicion of corruption. Officers from the City of London police arrested Mukund Krishna and two other national board members. Continue reading...

Groundsman stumbles across room, sealed for more than 100 years, that was part of 12th-century Manchester hall A sinkhole that opened up on a Manchester golf course has exposed a wine cellar abandoned for more than a century. The cellar, along with dozens of empty wine and port bottles, was discovered by a groundsman who assumed the hole was nothing more than a collapsed drain. Continue reading...

Rising scream queen Fabianne Therese’s ability to channel distress somewhat redeems film in which an attractive, therefore doomed, couple learn major lesson Horror cinema presents yet another persuasive reason why you should never go camping, with this gory thriller that proves no good can come from walking in the woods, seeking pretty hilltop views or communing with nature in any way. The attractive and therefore doomed couple who learn this lesson the hard way are Macy (up and coming scream queen Fabianne Therese) and Chase (Seann William Scott, for ever Stifler from American Pie). As the story begins, Chase is planning to propose to Macy, and intends to pop the question at the top of a mountain after a hike, because he is a fool who has clearly never seen a horror film. But Macy has doubts about whether she is ready to become a full-on stepmother to Chase’s daughter Evy (Eve Blackhurst, possibly related to the film’s writer-director Rod Blackhurst). Continue reading...

Aker QRILL is facing criticism of its fishery management amid calls by environmentalists for curbs on Antarctic fishing of the keystone species Environmental groups have objected to the recommendation of a “blue tick” sustainability label being awarded to a Norwegian krill fishing giant, amid concerns over concentrated fishing pressure and dramatic climate-driven effects on the Antarctic’s fragile ecosystem. Norway’s Aker QRILL, the world’s largest harvester of krill, a tiny crustacean and keystone of Antarctica’s fragile ecosystem, and its sister company, Aker BioMarine, produce feed additives for aquaculture and dietary supplements for pets and humans. Continue reading...

Englishman has led team to back-to-back triumphs Tiger Woods is first choice to take over US captaincy Confirmation that Luke Donald will captain Europe’s Ryder Cup team for a third time is expected on Wednesday, in a move that will increase pressure on the PGA of America to tie down Tiger Woods to lead the US at Adare Manor next September. Woods, who is the first choice to succeed Keegan Bradley, has been publicly vague on his captaincy status. News on Donald will enhance Europe’s sense of continuity and togetherness with the US picture uncertain. Donald has been widely lauded for his approach in Rome and New York, where Europe won back-to-back Ryder Cups. After a dramatic success at Bethpage last year, it was apparent players wanted the Englishman to remain in office. Continue reading...

My friend and her partner just sleep wherever, depending on who gets into bed first. Such chaos is unthinkable How well do any of us really know our friends? You may be confident of the answer to that, feel secure – smug, even – but be warned. One day, a little detail might accidentally slip out, and you’ll suddenly discover they’re not just a stranger, but also a bit weird. Turns out my friend and her partner don’t have designated sides of the bed. They just sleep wherever, depending on who gets in first, like animals. She did at least have the decency to look ashamed after revealing this, and – perhaps I’m imagining it – also a little relieved. The burden of carrying such a secret must have weighed heavily. Polly Hudson is a freelance writer Continue reading...

Clubs in favour say squads of 28 would reduce injury risk Critics fear move would deepen hoarding of top talent Elite clubs are lobbying Uefa to expand the size of Champions League squads to 28 to reduce the risk of injuries. The calls have come at the highest level of the European club game and prompted fears among critics that it would deepen the hoarding of top talent. At a meeting of Uefa’s club competitions committee (CCC) last month, clubs argued that the cap of 25 players should be increased. It is not a view shared by all 16 clubs represented on the CCC, with some strongly against expansion. Continue reading...

The Cricket Research Network was told how the sport is perceived in China and why the women’s side is seen as the national team The Cambridge wind had a February chill, and the trees at Fenner’s were still without any spring decoration, but the old bleachers to the side and the pavilion, largely unchanged since the 1980s, were reminders of a new season just a turn of the calendar away. Fenner’s cricket ground sits next door to Hughes Hall, where the Cricket Research Network held their third annual conference last week. The organisation, headed by Raf Nicholson, sometimes of this parish, is a place for cricket academics to exchange ideas, and the conference a chance for rest of us to put an ear to the door of data and detail. Continue reading...

Iran the only nation missing from Fifa planning summit US and Israel began attacking Iranian targets on Saturday Donald Trump has said he does not care whether Iran participate in this summer’s World Cup, which is being jointly hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. The US and Israel began attacking targets in the country on Saturday, with the conflict in the Middle East since spreading to the wider region. US president Trump told Politico: “I really don’t care. I think Iran is a very badly defeated country. They’re running on fumes.” Iran was the only nation missing from a Fifa planning summit for World Cup participants held this week in Atlanta, deepening questions over whether the country’s team will compete on US soil this summer amid an escalating regional war. Continue reading...

PM says his country will not be complicit in growing conflict in Middle East ‘simply out of fear of reprisals from someone’ Middle East crisis – live updates Europe live – latest updates The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has responded to Donald Trump’s extraordinary threat to cut off all trade with Spain over his government’s refusal to facilitate the US’s ongoing attacks against Iran, comparing the growing conflict in the Middle East to playing “Russian roulette with the destiny of millions”. Sánchez, who has been one of the most vociferous European critics of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, said his government’s position on the widening instability could be summed up in three words: “No to war.” Continue reading...

The Guardian’s Saturday magazine is interested in hearing from couples, partners and former lovers to talk about their sex lives How often do you have sex? The Guardian is looking for couples to talk honestly – and completely anonymously – about what they get up to in the bedroom for the Saturday magazine’s much-loved This is How We Do It column. The idea behind the column is to provide a counterpoint to the airbrushed, exaggerated stories about sex we see on TV and in the media. We want to publish un-sensationalised interviews with real couples, so we are particularly keen to hear from you if you have hit a roadblock in your sexual life. How do you navigate intimacy when your partner wants sex more than you do? Or after an affair? Or when you are not feeling spectacular about your body? We’re looking for couples of all ages and sexualities. We would not publish your names or where you live. If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here. Continue reading...

Do you love it or is it time to put it quietly back on the shelf? This year’s World Book Day in the UK and Ireland is on Thursday, with many primary schools encouraging children to take part. However, schools in England are sidelining dressing up for the event due to concerns that the activity could detract from the promotion of reading, experts say. What do you think about World Book Day? Share your thoughts in the form below. Continue reading...

From Marty Supreme to One Battle After Another, this awards run has been populated by a harder-to-love group of spiky characters Broadly speaking, the best way to get an acting Oscar is to play someone lovable, or someone lovably hateable. Not every acting winner fits that binary, of course, but the history of all four categories is filled with fascinatingly bad behavior (Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, JK Simmons in Whiplash) as well as expressions of sheer delight at the combination of actor and lovable character (Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump, Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love). This year’s crop of acting nominees isn’t exactly short of rooting interests: Michael B Jordan makes his pair of 1930s gangsters charming twice over in Sinners while still distinguishing between their individual nuances, and Benicio del Toro’s even-keeled activist is highly lovable in One Battle After Another. Elsewhere, though, there’s definitely a stronger-than-usual strain of characters who defy the usual standards of easy likability. The importance of likability in an Oscar campaign is akin to its importance in a political one – though in the case of the Academy awards, performers are campaigning twice, for themselves as actors and, essentially, for their characters as part of the cinematic firmament. That’s why likability is arguably the secret accelerant to the longtime trend of the awards going to actors playing real-life figures. It’s not just about a physical transformation or seamless impersonation, because many of those biographical performance aren’t really that when you put them side by side with the real thing. It’s that extra rooting interest that comes from embodying Freddie Mercury, Winston Churchill, Stephen Hawking, Abraham Lincoln, Judy Garland – people who Academy voters probably already like or admire to some degree, at least in the abstract. Suffering, too, can help create an easier sense of empathy. Continue reading...

The future Hall of Famer’s behavior over the years has been rash and erratic. But it’s understandable given the scrutiny he finds himself under They’re calling the posts the “KD Files”. There’s no definitive proof that Kevin Durant is the man behind the X account @gethigher77 (display name: getoffmydickerson), but if he isn’t, somebody has done a phenomenal impersonation. In various screenshots splashed across the internet, getoffmydickerson took shots at Durant’s teammates, as the player himself has done before. There was also creative and amusing trash talk, something Durant has shown a talent for. Some of it crossed the line: the account made a reprehensible joke about supplying drones (Durant invests in the company Skydio, which has provided the Israel Defense Forces with weapons) and called Durant’s teammate Jabari Smith Jr “retarded”. When asked about @gethigher77, Durant said, “I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense” – far from a denial that he was behind it, and in the eyes of many, confirmation that he was. We’ve got people writing in-depth proofs that the account is real. Not that getoffmydickerson is Durant’s only problem. Shortly after the tweets blew up, Boardroom, which defines itself as a “sports, media, and entertainment brand” co-founded by Durant and his agent Rich Kleiman, laid off three of its staff writers, rationalizing the move as part of a pivot to video. (An aside: what’s the point of having career earnings of half a billion dollars if you’re not willing to invest some of it to protect your media company from financial headwinds?) Continue reading...

Amid a cost of living crisis, pricey patisserie is all the rage – and not just in London. Our reporter goes on a crawl to find out if a tart can really be worth £45 There was a time when you could get a stuffed vanilla cream slice or a neon-pink Tottenham cake for about £1 on the leafy, residential corner of Hackney, east London, where I stand today. But the branch of Percy Ingle bakery that was here for nearly 50 years is gone. In its place sits Fika, a cafe where a cinnamon bun costs £4.20 and a pistachio croissant will set you back nearly £5. In comparison with other bakeries, however, Fika’s pastries are a bargain. At Copains, a Parisian favourite that opened its first UK branch in central London late last year, a large babka (about the same size as a supermarket chocolate twist) will set you back £12.50, while an eclair costs £11.90. In Harrods’ food hall, a stuffed, savoury croissant topped with gold leaf is £12. At Cedric Grolet, located inside the luxury Berkeley hotel, a hazelnut cookie will leave you £25 out of pocket. Yes, the age of the £10-plus pastry has arrived. Continue reading...

James Murray says PM has approached Middle East crisis with a ‘cool head’ amid repeated criticism of UK’s position from US president The government has imposed an emergency brake on visas for the first time on nationals from four countries, as Shabana Mahmood accused them of exploiting Britain’s generosity to claim asylum. Study visas for nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan have been halted, in addition to work visas for Afghans. No, look, president Trump has expressed his disagreement with the decision that we took about joining those initial strikes on Iran over the weekend. But I think what’s really important when we think about that decision is to recognise that the prime minister took the decision he did in the national interest, you know, and he’s approached this with a cool head, with a real clarity of purpose, with a real focus and a determination to do the right thing for the British people. Well, I think, you know, the president has expressed himself using his words, but what’s important for me is that the prime minister is taking the right decisions for the UK, and, of course, that the special relationship between the US and the UK continues. You know, we work together with the US, day in, day out. A Royal Navy destroyer is expected in Cyprus next week after Keir Starmer announced it would be sent to defend the country and British bases there after hostile drones targeted RAF Akrotiri on Monday. The UK government will charter a flight from Oman in the coming days, prioritising vulnerable British nationals in the region amid continued strikes by Iran, the foreign secretary has said. Yvette Cooper said the closure of the airspace and the threat of strikes from Iran, retaliating for US-Israeli attacks, meant the situation was “fast-moving”. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, insisted Labour had “the right economic plan” for a world that had become “yet more uncertain” as she delivered a spring forecast that downgraded growth for this year. The UK faces weaker economic growth and higher unemployment than previously expected. A new YouGov poll showed a surge in support for the Green party, which climbed to second place (behind Reform) as Labour slumped to its lowest figure to date. Continue reading...

Company promises ‘rapprochement discount’ with shoppers from country after decade-long action in EU court The UK supermarket chain Iceland has reportedly abandoned its decade-long trademark battle with Iceland and instead promised a “rapprochement discount” for shoppers in the country. After the budget grocery chain suffered its third legal loss last year, its executive chair, Richard Walker, said on Wednesday that it would draw a line under the dispute. Continue reading...

Rising oil and gas prices may hit increase of £300 a year for typical working-age households, says leading thinktank Business live – latest updates Conflict in the Middle East could trigger an energy price shock that wipes out anticipated growth in living standards in the UK worth £300 for a typical working-age household over the coming year, a leading thinktank has warned. The Resolution Foundation said a “decent” one-off increase in average living standards this year and a bumper rise for lower-income households could be reversed by rising oil and gas prices as the Iran conflict disrupts supplies. Continue reading...

US-Israeli onslaught may lead regime to push for bomb or embolden other groups to steal uranium stockpile The US-Israeli onslaught against Iran is intended to resolve a 24-year standoff over Tehran’s nuclear programme, but it runs the risk of backfiring and driving the regime towards making a secret bomb, proliferation experts have warned. The regime in Tehran has long insisted that the programme is for civilian purposes and it has no intention of making a nuclear weapon. However, since two undeclared sites, for uranium enrichment and heavy water plutonium production, were discovered in 2002, the programme has been treated with intense suspicion. Continue reading...

Pregnant women prisoners are being handcuffed to prison officers – often male – during intimate vaginal examinations and long, agonising births. Will this dehumanising treatment be stopped? The worst moment of Joanna’s labour was an internal examination. She was handcuffed with her legs splayed apart and a male prison officer at the foot of the hospital bed saw everything. She had prepared for the arrival of her first baby as carefully as she could. But she understood that birth can be unpredictable – and this was complicated by the fact that, during the latter part of her pregnancy, she was serving a jail sentence. Joanna was a model prisoner who followed the rules. She had been convicted for a non-violent drugs offence and was not deemed to be at high risk of escape, particularly not in the throes of an agonising labour. She hoped to use hypnobirthing, breathing and relaxation techniques to make the birth calmer and more comfortable. Thanks to information provided by the charity Birth Companions she knew it was her right not to be handcuffed during labour. She had highlighted the handcuffing points in the booklet. Continue reading...

Anthony Vaccarello marks decade at helm of fashion house with powered-up take on Yves Saint Laurent’s classic The most famous suit in the world, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, has returned to the Paris catwalk 60 years after its invention. Designed by the late couturier to be worn by men in smoking rooms to protect clothing from the smell of cigars, he adapted it for women, slimming the trousers and lapels. It wasn’t a runaway success – only one sold from his 1966 collection – but it became a global symbol of power dressing and gender dismantling, and would appear in every collection until Saint Laurent retired in 2002. Continue reading...

Forget cleavage. A deep V plunging to the waist is the current style – as seen on Gwyneth Paltrow and many others this year. Why is it suddenly so popular? Good news for anyone looking to portion off their skin in new and creative ways: we have entered the era of the “veavage”. This new term for a deep, V-shaped cleavage plumbed new depths this weekend at the SAG awards. As seen on (deep breath) Kristen Bell, Jenna Ortega, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Paulson, Odessa A’zion and Lauren Miller, this neck-to-navel style appeared on wafer-thin tops and second-skin dresses. In a red carpet first, veavage somehow outweighed cleavage 2:1. Other recent veavage-flaunters about town include Zendaya, Emma Stone, Elle Fanning and Erin Doherty. Think the boyband JLS meets Michael Douglas in Fatal Attraction, by way of a couture gown cut with exacting technical rigour. The talking point is not the clothes, though. It’s what they leave behind, which is the boobs. Or at least the bit where the boobs usually are. Because the great thing about this trend is that you don’t need boobs to do it. In fact, it’s better without. Or a bra. Nipple tape, which is worn to stop nipples sticking out in frigid temperatures, is probably useful but otherwise you could see it as a cost-saving exercise – a way of using up less fabric. Right? Continue reading...

Danica De La Rey Jones’s elite fighter is targeted in a film that would be more exciting if its padded runtime was trimmed down Here is an action-thriller that opens with some zesty Call of Duty-style military violence unfolding in Angola in 2013. A crack unit believe themselves to be in pursuit of poachers who kill protected animals for profit, but these baddies turn out to be all that and more: they kidnap children, burying them underground in coffins with a wifi connection so that they can broadcast live footage of the kids to their parents when they demand ransom money. In short, they’re not very nice people. Elite fighter Jessica (Danica De La Rey Jones) handily wrecks their operation and now, more than a decade later, they’re after revenge. The revenge takes the form of hunting this resourceful single mother, whom they have finally located despite a change of identity, through the bushland of South Africa, with a motley crew of villains all loosely connected to the enterprise she took down back in the day. Their leader is a relentless sadist called Lazar, who is written as a fairly one-note character – and that note is simply, “he’s evil” – but full credit to actor Richard Lukunku for finding a way to smash that one note over and over again in a manner that’s actually pretty effective in a blunt-force trauma kind of way. Continue reading...

Evacuations near RAF base have reignited debate as Cypriots question the risks of hosting western military sites All his life, like his parents before him, Giorgos Konstantinos has learned to live next to RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus. He has dealt with the roar of planes, the comings and going of military vehicles and the war games. But never has Konstantinos, the village’s vice-mayor, witnessed anything quite like the events of the past two days. Continue reading...

A historian and exponent of ‘Rhodes must fall’ explores how political liberation doesn’t always bring personal freedom To be part of Zimbabwe’s “Born Free” generation was to be handed a promise: that your life would no longer be shaped by colonial rule. Skin colour would not dictate the right to vote, learn or work. For Simukai Chigudu, born in 1986, six years after independence, that promise was stamped on him from the very beginning: “Your name, Simukai, it means to stand up,” his father, a former liberation fighter, tells him. Yet, as Chigudu reflects in his compelling memoir, the end of colonial rule does not mean freedom from historical events and how they reverberate in everyday life. He tells two interlinked stories: Zimbabwe’s brutal war of independence, and his own search for belonging in the years that followed. It is a wide-ranging, restless book, passing through Uganda, Rwanda, Ireland and Mexico City. Yet at its centre are Zimbabwe and Britain, “former colony and metropole”, and the unfinished business between them. Continue reading...