Readers respond to an article by Sally Kyd on how road safety rules are being broken and lead to countless deaths every year Sally Kyd’s article (Too many drivers see road safety rules as a personal affront. It’s time to tighten up UK laws, 6 April) rightly highlights the alarming inadequacy of our current legal framework regarding driving offences. The ambiguity between “dangerous” and “careless” driving not only undermines public confidence, but insults the victims of road violence, as seen in the heartbreaking cases of Mayar Yahia and the Lincoln teenagers. Kyd is absolutely correct: relying on the abstract, subjective standard of a “competent and careful driver” is failing us, especially as road policing diminishes and driving standards visibly decline. However, while redefining offences and restoring road policing are crucial steps, they largely address the symptoms of poor driving after the fact. To truly transform road safety and reframe driving as a lifelong responsibility, we must proactively mandate enforced, ongoing regulation. Currently, a motorist can pass a test at 17 and never face another assessment, despite decades of changes in vehicle technology, traffic density, and the Highway Code itself. This is illogical and unsafe. We urgently need a system of mandatory periodic retesting to ensure skills do not degrade into the dangerous complacency that Kyd describes. Continue reading...

Drummer who brought an irresistible melting pot of styles to hits by Marvin Gaye, Gloria Gaynor and the Jackson 5 In R&B, soul, funk, disco and other forms of African-American popular music, no performer is more valuable than the drummer who can find “the pocket”: the name given by musicians to that elusive place where the rhythm propelling a song is both profound and irresistible. James Gadson, who has died aged 86, seemed to live his entire working life deep in that pocket, giving momentum to such 1970s hits as Bill Withers’ Lean on Me, Marvin Gaye’s I Want You, Diana Ross’s Love Hangover, the Jackson 5’s Dancing Machine, Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive, Smokey Robinson’s Cruisin’, Peaches & Herb’s Reunited and many more in future decades during his career in the recording studios of Los Angeles. Other artists in related fields also made grateful use of his gifts. He played on Boz Scaggs’ Slow Dancer (1974) and Elkie Brooks’s Live and Learn (1979), Leonard Cohen’s The Future (1992) and, in this century, Rickie Lee Jones’s The Evening of My Best Day, Paul McCartney’s Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Lana Del Rey’s Paradise, and several albums by Beck, among others. Continue reading...

Readers respond to an article by Bim Adewunmi on encountering the reticence of British people after she spent a decade living in the US It’s funny how returning “home” can feel alien and apprehensive when you’ve spent years living abroad (I’m back in London after a decade in the US – and I miss those friendly New Yorkers, 5 April). There’s a reverse culture shock when your world-expanded self arrives back in a city you’ve known so well, and missed, but now see through a different lens. In my experience, something always pulls you homeward eventually. You miss the infrastructure, the convenience, the variety and, mostly, the people. Not just your close friends and family, but the general populace too: the shop staff who leave you alone, the fellow commuters who know not to make eye contact, let alone dare small talk, the restaurant bill that arrives with service already included and no pressure to calculate the appropriate tip. Continue reading...

Christian nationalism has as little to do with the true values of Christianity as national socialism has to do with the values of socialism, says Rev Prof Nick Ross Thank you for your editorial on the religious right (The Guardian view on Britain’s religious right: using and abusing faith in the pursuit of power, 5 April). The truth is that Christian nationalism has as little to do with the true values of Christianity as national socialism has to do with the values of socialism. It is a perversion of the faith … almost an oxymoron in its combination of opposites. I serve in a church in the heart of Smethwick in the West Midlands, where our congregation reflects the area, being made up of those born and bred in the area, the families of the Windrush generation and new immigrants and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia. Continue reading...

Dr Nigel Fairweather and Philip Clarke on the newly released Nasa photographs showing the far side of the moon There has been much excitement about the crew of Artemis II seeing the far side of the moon (Artemis II swings back around after completing record-setting moon flyby, 6 April). Let us remember that on 7 October 1959 the Soviet spacecraft Luna 3 (also known as Lunik 3) photographed the back of the moon for the first time. A picture was sent down to Earth and printed in Pravda newspaper using standard wire-photo equipment. Meanwhile, the Daily Express obtained the photograph via the Jodrell Bank radio telescope but got the proportions wrong, printing it too wide or too narrow (I’m not sure which). I was a schoolboy obsessed with space, so I wrote to Pravda in Moscow asking for a copy of the newspaper with the (correct) moon photograph and they kindly obliged. Incidentally, around the time I had heart surgery a few years ago, I dreamed that I’d been in a figure-of-eight orbit around the Earth and the moon. I awoke from surgery, flung my arms in the air and declared loudly: “I’m alive!” (I’d been told I had a 90% chance of survival.) Dr Nigel Fairweather Brixham, Devon Continue reading...

Polls suggest lead for opposition candidate before vote on Sunday as both allege enlistment of foreign interference Europe live – latest updates Hungary elections: what is at stake and who is likely to win? Viktor Orbán and his centre-right rival, Péter Magyar, have traded accusations of enlisting foreign interference in a high-stakes election that polls suggest could mark the end of the nationalist Hungarian prime minister’s 16 years in power. As the two leaders’ campaigns entered their final stages before this weekend’s vote, which is being watched as keenly in Brussels, Moscow and Washington as in Budapest, Orbán said on social media on Friday that his opponent would “stop at nothing to seize power”. Continue reading...

The men, sent to the southern African country in July, have been denied in-person counsel for nine months Four men deported by the US to Eswatini and denied in-person legal counsel for nine months while detained in a maximum security prison have the right to see a local lawyer, Eswatini’s supreme court ruled. The men, from Cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam and Yemen, were sent to the small southern African country in July despite having no connection to the country, as part of Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to ramp up deportations. Continue reading...

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Vehicle veered into a ravine on island of La Gomera while transporting a tour group for a boat excursion A man has died and 27 people are in hospital after a bus carrying British passengers crashed in the Canary Islands, local officials have said. The incident happened at 1.15pm local time on Friday when the vehicle veered into a ravine on the GM-2 highway near the town of San Sebastian de La Gomera. Continue reading...

Claude Mythos’s apparent superhuman hacking abilities are alarming experts as the Trump administration remains blinded by hostility In June 2024, a cyber-attack on a pathology services company caused chaos across London’s hospitals. More than 10,000 appointments were cancelled. Blood shortages followed and delays to blood tests led to a patient’s death. Lethal cyber-attacks like this are thankfully rare. But a new AI release could change that – plunging us into a terrifying new world of chaos and disruption to the digital systems that we rely on. Shakeel Hashim is the editor of Transformer, a publication about the power and politics of transformative AI Continue reading...

Guardiola says City must win every game, Howe ‘aligned’ with chief executive and Pereira wants fixture help Continue reading...

Outrage from survivors follows first lady’s statement calling on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse Sign up for the Breaking News US email to get newsletter alerts in your inbox More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse have accused Melania Trump of “shifting the burden” onto them after she called on Congress to hold public hearings with victims of Epstein’s abuse. “Survivors of Jeffrey Epstein have already shown extraordinary courage by coming forward, filing reports, and giving testimony,” said a group of 13 people and the brother and sister of the late Virginia Giuffre, who was one of the most vocal Epstein accusers, in a statement. “Asking more of them now is a deflection of responsibility not justice.” Continue reading...

The party’s talk of visa bans for countries seeking reparative justice is not just undemocratic – it displays staggering ignorance about geopolitics On 29 November 1781, Capt Luke Collingwood faced a decision. He was in command of a ship called the Zong, which departed Accra with 442 Africans to be sold into slavery. However, the crew of the Zong kept getting lost on the way to Jamaica. Now their overcrowded “cargo” was ridden with disease and dehydration. Closing in on their destination, they realised that if these Africans died onshore, this would be a loss for the shipowners. But if they were “lost at sea”, the insurers would cover the cost. Soon, more than 130 people were thrown overboard, starting with the less commercially valuable women and children. At the resulting court case two years later, the main area of dispute was whether this action invalidated the financial payout. None of the city of London’s legal and financial institutions involved considered whether the mass drowning constituted a crime. This episode from Britain’s inhumane and inglorious history of slavery came to mind this week when I read that in response to a recent, well-supported UN resolution recognising the historic crime of slavery, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK said it would deny all UK visas to people from countries seeking slavery reparations from Britain. Countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica and Ghana, from where Zong set sail all those years ago. Dr Kojo Koram is professor of law and political economy at Loughborough University. His latest book, The Next Fix, is out on 4 June Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

Ruling by state’s top court comes as 34 other states are pursuing similar cases against Meta in federal court Meta Platforms must face a lawsuit by the Massachusetts attorney general alleging that as the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, it deliberately designed social media features to addict young users, the state’s top court ruled on Friday. The ruling by the Massachusetts supreme judicial court marked the first time a state high court has considered whether a federal law that generally shields internet companies from lawsuits over content posted by their users would also bar claims that companies like Meta knowingly addicted young users. Continue reading...

Amendment calling for step-incest to be included in ban on harmful content tabled by Conservative peer Gabby Bertin The government has agreed to ban the production of porngraphy depicting sex acts between stepfamily members following a vote in the House of Lords. An amendment calling for step-incest to be included in a ban on harmful content was tabled by Conservative peer Lady Gabby Bertin, who led a review into pornography regulation that was published last year. Continue reading...

Credit can be used to offset future bills as full-year losses at UK division widen to £41.3m and it adds 92 stores Starbucks’s UK retail arm received a £13.7m corporation tax credit last year, even as its sales increased 6% and it added more than 90 stores. The credit, which can be used to offset future tax bills, comes after losses widened to £41.3m in the 12 months to the end of September – almost matching the £40m it paid in royalty and licence fees to its parent company. Continue reading...

Southwark Playhouse Borough, London The songs soar and blast in this inventive tale of a toxic romance – though it needs a few tweaks to be truly brilliant The scope and ambition of this dark musical by Theo Jamieson and Adam Lenson are boundless. A jagged, time- and space-travelling drama about the emotional wreckage of a mutually destructive relationship, it begins with reports of a young astronaut who has gone awol in a shuttle. Why has Daniel (Stuart Thompson, fabulous) disappeared with such limited fuel and what is the point of his kamikaze journey? A non-sequential backstory emerges featuring his relationship with Emily (Poppy Gilbert, just as good) to build a chopped-up picture of their relationship, rather like The Last Five Years. It shows glimpses of formative traumas and cruelties. Daniel, bullied as a child, seems unconsciously drawn to someone who inflicts similar emotional damage. Emily lives in a state of guilt and betrayal passed on by her parents (especially her philandering film-maker father, who co-opts his teenage daughter into his web of infidelity and deception). At Southwark Playhouse Borough, London, until 16 May Continue reading...

Celebrities including Annie Lennox and Miriam Margolyes sign letter to force after pro-Palestine march route rejected Annie Lennox and Miriam Margolyes are among artists who have accused the Metropolitan police of giving preferential treatment to a far-right demonstration led by Tommy Robinson over a pro-Palestine protest in London on the same day. The pro-Palestine movement has had its preferred route through central London for its annual commemoration of Nakba – the mass expulsion of Palestinians – rejected by the Met, while the “Unite the Kingdom” demonstration will take place on the same date in Kingsway, the Strand, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall and Parliament Square. Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, posted on X: “London is ours on May 16th.” Continue reading...

Let’s hope it’s just a phase See more of Fiona Katauskas’s cartoons here Continue reading...

Rebels put forward amendments to courts bill in attempt to stop government plans to cut back on jury trials Labour MPs are hoping to hijack plans to cut back on jury trials in England and Wales by proposing specialist courts for sexual offences with fixed dates for trial. While those behind the amendment want to block the wider plan to stop thousands of cases being potentially eligible for jury trials, a measure ministers insist is needed to cut court backlogs, they say the specialist courts alone could still solve much of the problem. Continue reading...

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now! Discipline has long been one of the cornerstones of a successful dressing room in England. If John Eustace’s Birmingham City players did not wish the training ground reception staff “good morning” they were issued with a £250 penalty. Steven Gerrard implemented a variety of fines when manager of Aston Villa for players leaving flip-flops in the shower (£50), forgetting to bring a cake for a birthday (£50, Yaya Touré: look away now), leaving plates and cups on the dining table (£100 an item). When Frank Lampard replaced Maurizio Sarri in 2019-20, Lampard immediately introduced a series of internal disciplinary fines for first-team players. Late for training? That’s £20,000, guv. Failure to report knack or illness before a day off? That’s 10 large. Phone rings during a team meeting? One thousand English pounds, thank you very much. Sheffield FC invented football (yesterday’s Quote of the Day)? A certain person on the other side of the Atlantic would no doubt dispute that” – Robert Pearce. This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...

Concerns raised over use of travel data in determining whether people are ‘continuously’ in UK, after HMRC fiasco Ministers are to start removing post-Brexit residency rights from EU citizens who are no longer “continuously” living in the UK. The initiative is legal under the 2020 Brexit withdrawal agreement but the decision to use travel data to partially determine absences has raised concerns following the HMRC fiasco that saw almost 20,000 parents stripped of child benefits because of inaccurate Home Office border data. Continue reading...

Woman also treated in hospital for arm injury as result of a dog bite A 45-year-old man has been arrested after a three-month-old baby girl died in a suspected dog attack. Cleveland police said they were called to a house in the Dormanstown area of Redcar shortly after 1.30pm on Thursday afternoon after a report of concern for the welfare of the child. The baby is believed to have died as a result of a dog bite, police said. Continue reading...

Campaigners say birds could die trying to access ancestral nests that were sealed during rail refurbishment Some swifts returning to Britain to breed will be unable to access their ancestral nesting holes after they were blocked in a £7.5m refurbishment of a Derbyshire railway viaduct, campaigners say. Nature lovers had appealed to Network Rail to unblock three holes which were among at least nine swift nesting sites on the twin viaducts at Chapel Milton, on the edge of the Peak District. Continue reading...

The retired midfielder’s brilliant career still managed to transform a footballing public for ever If some footballers take time to reach their potential, others seem to be the finished article before they’re able to drive. A teenage Aaron Ramsey was firmly in the latter camp. After only 11 league starts for Cardiff he had made his international debut for Wales against Denmark, turned down Manchester United in favour of Arsenal, and given Cardiff fans one of the great what-ifs of their club’s modern age after Dave Jones chose not to start him in the 2008 FA Cup final against Portsmouth, with Ramsey being the tender age of 17. Success-starved supporters who should know better will pin their hopes on to the narrowest of young shoulders, and yet it all seemed so easy for the teenager from Caerphilly who was captain of his country by the age of 20, would go on to play in a World Cup and two European Championships and this week retired as an icon of the Welsh game. Continue reading...