Good morning and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Itas Wednesday, May 22. Itas also Harvey Milk Day in California, as designated by the state Legislature in 2009.

Milk was Californiaas first openly gay elected official and one of the first openly gay men to hold elected office in...

In recent weeks, the Trump administration raised an alarm about Iran mounting missiles on boats in the gulf and potentially putting U.S. ships in danger. Citing intelligence about an increased threat from Iran, it sent B-52 bombers, an aircraft carrier, and several warships to the gulf. The State...

Who is this guy, Democrats want to know this week. Are there more like him in the Republican Party? Could he help us win back Michigan?

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) threw a turd in the punchbowl of predictable two-party politics Saturday when he became the first of the GOPas 197-member caucus to...

During a swing through Los Angeles on Sunday, California Sen. Kamala Harris touted a plan to force companies to close the wage gap between their male and female employees a or pay a daily penalty equal to 1% of their profits for every 1% of pay gap. She estimated that companies would owe about...

The invention of the hypodermic needle and synthesis of heroin in the 19th century forever changed the opiate landscape. The arrival of cheap, accessible and mass-produced synthetic opioids might do the same.

Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl are driving drug overdose deaths in the United States...

Police officers should be able to use deadly force only when necessary to prevent death or serious injury to themselves or to others.

That standard seems so logical and so based in common sense that it may come as a surprise that itas not already the law. It ought to be, and a bill currently before...

Make no mistake: The laws recently passed in Alabama, Georgia and half a dozen other states to ban abortion are a coordinated attack on the constitutional right to abortion and a womanas ability to make decisions about her own body.

But a proposal by a Los Angeles-area lawmaker to offer extra tax...

After more than 15 years, the Grand a the final piece of Bunker Hillas transformative Grand Avenue Project a is finally showing signs of life.

According to current plans, the $1-billion-plus development, designed by Frank Gehry and developed by Related Cos. and set directly across the street from...

From the Music Center on Bunker Hill to the Central Library at West 5th Street, Grand Avenue runs just over half a mile. But those four city blocks contain an enticing thumbnail sketch of shifting ideas in mostly 20th century public art.

In 1969, a 29-foot-tall bronze sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz...

To an important degree, Grand Avenue is Music Street.

Not all of it, of course. The bland towers between the Central Library and 3rd Street might appear an affront to music, sitting on land that should have been devoted to the arts. Below 5th Street, Grand Avenue bustles but ceases being grand;...

In an early scene from aThe Exiles,a Kent MacKenzieas moody 1961 film about the lives of a group of indigenous people living in Los Angeles midway through the 20th century, a young woman carries a bag of groceries up a hillside street flanked by weathered Victorian houses converted into apartments...

The blocks of Grand Avenue that are home to the Broad museum, MOCA, Walt Disney Concert Hall and the rest of the Music Center make up what is arguably the aesthetic center of Los Angeles. And if youare hoping to top off your cultural immersion with some food and drink, youare in luck. Within half...

I had known about Eli Broadas many business accomplishments, having first met and written an article for the Wall Street Journal about him in 1969. A trained accountant, he had already established what would become KB Home Corp., one of the nationas most innovative home builders, and soon after,...

Current and former military officers urged the White House not to pardon service members and security contractors implicated in war crimes, warning that forgiving their offenses would send a dangerous signal to U.S. troops and potential adversaries.

Aides to President Trump have been examining...

Travelers love those insanely cheap fares that airlines sometimes post by mistake, such as when Cathay Pacific Airways in January sold $16,000 business-class tickets from Da Nang in Vietnam to New York for as little as $675 round trip.

But carriers have found a way to more quickly cancel those...

The last time elections for the European Parliament were held, the vote was dismissed by many as a sleepy, low-stakes affair.

Five years ago, Brexit wasnat even a blip on the horizon. Populist and extreme-right parties were mainly political sideshows. The pillars of the postwar order a NATO, the...

To the editor: Itas wonderful that some of the opponents of Senate Bill 50, which was killed last week and would have allowed for denser housing throughout the state, have such a myopic view of the next two decades of life in California.

Even with more people moving out of the state than moving...

The relationship between President Trump and California has long been fraught, but in the aftermath of the stateas deadliest wildfire season, the acrimony is burning hotter than ever.

In November, as crews battled the Camp and Woolsey fires, Trump blamed the state for agross mismanagement of the...

To the editor: Michael Hiltzik reminds us that Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, proposes a small-percentage tax on the wealth of the richest 0.1% of Americans.

We already have a wealth tax on the primary asset of the middle class; itas...

To the editor: First columnist George Skelton and then the L.A. Times editorial board came out against the proposal by Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) to allow at least one retail marijuana dispensary for every six liquor stores in cities where the voters approved Proposition 64.

The majority...

When the Los Angeles Philharmonic launched its centennial season last September, media artist Refik Anadol projected a series of giddy hallucinations onto the facade of Walt Disney Concert Hall: The stainless-steel skin peeled back to reveal its twisting structure, like an X-ray of a dancer in...

The Grand Avenue arts corridor may be perched on a hill, but the organizations that have come to define it believe their turf extends across Southern California a and beyond. Giving back to the community is key to each institutionas mission, particularly when it comes to youth outreach. Here is...

Do you hear that? It's the sound of scarring, dullness, dryness, acne, and oily t-zones fading away into the distance.

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"I want to combat the negativity on social media a I have experienced it a itas like a disease."

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Cute, comfy, and lightweight for the summer sun (and fun).

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"This makes me sick."

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We wanna know what really grinds your gears!

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(Shipping not included.)

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Time to host a PJ party!

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Steelmaker directly employs 5,000 people and thousands more in the supply chain

British Steel has entered insolvency, putting 5,000 jobs directly at risk and endangering thousands more in the supply chain after talks with the UK government failed to reach an agreement on emergency funding.

The business secretary, Greg Clark, issued a statement on Wednesday following confirmation that the court has granted an application by the directors of British Steel to enter an insolvency process.

Ministers in denial about impact of austerity since 2010, says poverty expert

i>>?A leading United Nations poverty expert has compared Conservative welfare policies to the creation of 19th-century workhouses and warned that unless austerity is ended, the UKas poorest people face lives that are asolitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and shorta.

In his final report on the impact of austerity on human rights in the UK, Philip Alston, the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, accused ministers of being in a state of denial about the impact of policies, including the rollout of universal credit, since 2010. He accused them of the asystematic immiseration of a significant part of the British populationa and warned that worse could be yet to come for the most vulnerable, who face aa major adverse impacta if Brexit proceeds. He said leaving the EU was aa tragic distraction from the social and economic policies shaping a Britain that itas hard to believe any political parties really wanta.

Environment secretary says it is time to reflect on Mayas anew deala and consider all options

• All todayas Brexit news - live updates

Michael Gove has refused to confirm Theresa May will bring forward her withdrawal bill as planned in the first week of June after MPs from across the political spectrum rejected her 10-point anew deala.

The environment secretary, who supports Mayas deal, said it was a time to areflecta and consider the options, raising the prospect that the prime minister would have to pull the vote.

Avaaz uncovers 500 accounts using fake news to spread white supremacy message

A web of far-right Facebook accounts spreading fake news and hate speech to millions of people across Europe has been uncovered by the campaign group Avaaz.

Facebook, which is struggling to clean up the platform and salvage its reputation, has already taken down accounts with about 6 million followers before voting in the European elections begins on Thursday. It was still investigating hundreds of other accounts with an additional 26 million followers, Avaaz said.

Sabir Zazai, Scottish Refugee Council boss, says U-turn shows Home Office ais a messa

The Home Office has overturned its decision to deny a visit visa for the father of the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council after the Guardian highlighted his plight, a public outcry and repeated questions in parliament.

Sabir Zazai, the 2019 winner of the Lord Provostas award for human rights, wanted his father to see him receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow for his services to civil society over the last 20 years in the UK.

Andrew Cooperas endorsement of other partyas candidates anot compatiblea

Another senior Conservative peer has been suspended from the party whip for pledging to vote Liberal Democrat in the European elections, after the punishment was imposed on the former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine.

Andrew Cooper, the founder of pollster Populus who was David Cameronas director of strategy in Downing Street, tweeted: aI have come to the same conclusion as Michael Heseltine, for exactly the same reasons a and will be voting Lib Dem in Thursdayas European parliament elections.a

Europol says group was involved in drug and cigarette trafficking and assassinations

Police have arrested 22 suspects in an operation across five countries that dismantled one of Europeas top criminal groups behind drug trafficking and assassinations, the EUas police agency has said.

The operation, codenamed Icebreaker, which took place last week, led to the arrest of the 48-year-old Lithuanian alleged ringleader in Spain and other suspects in Poland, Lithuania, Spain and Britain, Europol said.

Three-quarters of mail order requests came from states with strict anti-abortion laws

Thousands of American women have obtained abortion pills online in the past six months, according to figures that highlight the escalating difficulty in accessing safe abortions on the ground.

Data shared with the Guardian reveals that 21,000 women requested abortion medication between October 2018 and March this year from the charity Aid Access. Between a third and a half of the women who made the requests were then sent abortion pills in the mail. The majority of the recipients live in states with hostile abortion policies.

State department says it will respond aquickly and appropriatelya if claims proven

The US says it has seen signs the Syrian government may again be using chemical weapons in its attritional offensive to recapture the last rebel-held pocket of the country, warning the use of any such weapons would incur retaliatory measures from Washington and its allies.

The alleged attack occurred on Sunday on the border of Idlib province, where in recent weeks the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has stepped up an air and ground campaign that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 200,000 from their homes.

M&S annual profits almost wiped out by a APS440m bill for a modernisation programme

Marks & Spencer is accelerating its retreat from the high street by closing a further 20 of its full-line stores, which sell clothing and food under one roof.

The retailer said it planned to close 85 of its big high street stores, on top of the 35 it has already shut. The company is battling the transfer of clothing sales online and it had already told the City to expect about 100 closures.

Donald Trumpas national security adviser, John Bolton, was a key architect of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Now he is stoking tensions with Iran. Julian Borger describes how the standoff could get out of control. Also today: Katharine Viner on how the Guardian is updating its language when reporting on the climate crisis

John Bolton, who has been called athe most dangerous man in the worlda, was not Donald Trumpas first pick for his national security adviser. But after a series of resignations, he was plucked from a life of Fox News appearances to reprise his career as the foremost military hawk in the US. Now he has his sights set on Iran and has pushed for a buildup of US military assets in the Gulf.

The Guardianas world affairs editor, Julian Borger, tells Anushka Asthana that as tensions rise, so do the chances of an accidental a or deliberate a escalation towards war. The echoes of the drumbeat to war in Iraq in 2003 are all too apparent, and it was Boltonas role in that crisis that prompted a Guardian columnist to attempt to make a citizenas arrest of him in the tranquil surroundings of the Hay literary festival in 2008. George Monbiot describes how he came out second best from that encounter.

Growing numbers of travellers are abandoning air travel to help save the planet a even if it means spending 14 days on a train

It has taken Roger Tyers four days to reach Moscow by train from Kiev. His destination is Beijing: a trip that will take 14 days, with a couple of overnight stops along the way. Tyers, an environmental sociologist at the University of Southampton, is on his way to China to research attitudes to the environment, the climate emergency and personal responsibility. aGiven that, I thought it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to fly,a he says over Skype from his hostel room.

It has been months in the planning a he had to convince his bosses to give him a month off to travel to and from China. Has it been a pain? aIt definitely has. Itas a matter of getting your train schedule in line with your visa requirements. I didnat realise I needed a visa to travel through Mongolia, even though Iam not stopping there. There have been moments when Iave been close to giving up and either cancelling the whole trip or just booking a flight.a But he is glad he has stuck with it, he says. aI have to prove it is possible.a

Guy Ritchieas adaptation is lively, colourful and genuinely funny a making only judicious tweaks to the original, itas thankfully not a whole new world

The scimitars are out for Disneyas live-action Aladdin, what with the enduring fondness for the original (not least Robin Williamsa Genie) and the botched unveiling of Will Smith as his successor in an early trailer that presented him as a creepy, half-naked blue guy from the uncanny valley. Director and co-writer Guy Ritchie is hardly a seal of quality these days, either, following flops The Man from UNCLE and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. But sheathe your weapons because this new Aladdin is actually great fun. It is far from perfect, but where many recent fantasias have crumpled under the weight of their special effects (Tim Burtonas Dumbo, for one), this one really takes flight. It is lively, colourful and genuinely funny, and doesnat break what didnat need fixing about the original. As one character remarks of Aladdinas early attempts at romance: itas aclumsy but in a charming sort of waya.

Any Hollywood movie set in a fantasy Arab kingdom is going to have its issues, but Disney has sought to avoid the ethnic stereotyping that marred its 1992 animation. For starters, the cast are brown-skinned actors (all the voice actors in the original were white). Egyptian-Canadian Mena Massoud brings the requisite roguish charm to Aladdin himself, the street rat with a heart of gold, Princess Jasmine is played by Naomi Scott, a British actor of Indian descent, and Dutch-Tunisian Marwan Kenzari is the villain Jafar. Thereas also a European prince, played by Billy Magnussen, whoas treated more like a recurring gag.

An ambitious project is restoring areas of blanket bog in the heart of the Flow Country in northern Scotland that have been damaged by forestry planting

A new commission to produce a series of visual, sonic and kinetic installations has been awarded to Cryptic, the Glasgow-based arthouse, As part of the Peatland Partnershipas Flows to the Future Project in conjunction with the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The work will be shown in the gardens during the Edinburgh Festival in August.

From embracing buttercups to candy-coloured planting, these are the highlights of this yearas show

Green was the dominant theme at Chelsea, literally and metaphorically. Main Avenue, home to the major show gardens, was awash with broad-leaved trees among a calming palette of green, pale yellow and white flowers, including swathes of cow parsley, euphorbias and meadowsweet. Andy Sturgeonas M&G garden was a masterclass in the green sanctuary: echo the look in your own garden by underplanting a hornbeam, elder or field maple with the green-flowered Mathiasella bupleuroides, marsh spurge (Euphorbia palustris), Californian poppy aIvory Castlea and airy grass Melica altissima aAlbaa. For shadier spots, try an angelica (A. archangelica) underplanted with pachysandra and rodgersias.

We are exposed to synthetic chemicals in plastics, cosmetics and food every day. Could it be making us toxic? Our environment reporter was tested for over 1,530 chemicals to find out

aC/ Help us reach our $150,000 goal to fund this series. Make a contribution

Sitting on a plastic chair in a small office, Iam wearing medical scrubs rolled up to my knees and I have an X-ray machine strapped to my shin.

The machine is scanning my bones for lead as an expert monitors readings streaming on to a screen.

Romantic gifts exchanged between Victoria and Prince Albert will be displayed at Isle of Wightas Osborne House

Queen Victoria is sometimes remembered as prudish, buttoned-up and disapproving, but a new display reveals a woman well in touch with the more sensuous side of her nature.

Romantic and risquA(c) gifts exchanged between Victoria and Prince Albert are to go on display at Osborne House, the coupleas grand seaside retreat on the Isle of Wight, which is stuffed with art and fabulous objects that the couple bought for each other.

On campaign trail in Bristol, peer hopes end of cross-party Brexit talks will make partyas policy clear

Just as Andrew Adonis was getting ready to begin another round of canvassing in west Bristol, Dee Ryding invited the Labour candidate into her soon-to-open funeral home and proceeded to lambast his partyas policy on Brexit.

It was not quite the photo opportunity his aides had in mind for a man who may have sealed his political fate when last month he backed Labouras asensible alternative plana to deliver a Brexit deal. But Ryding turned out to be a fan of his efforts to make the case for a second referendum.

As far as I could tell, thereas only one throne, which raises the question of why the show is called Game of Thrones and not just Game of Throne

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS WHAT I ASSUME ARE SPOILERS.

I am not a Game of Thrones fan.

War of words over LGBT rights, perceived threats to traditional values and clerical child abuse

Campaigning in Poland for the European elections has descended into a war of words over religion, sex and morality after a documentary on clerical abuse raised questions about the governmentas ties to the Catholic church and the ruling party campaign sought to portray LGBT rights supporters as a threat to children.

Related: Poland raises jail terms for child abuse after church documentary

In the war, the purpose of journalism was to awaken the world to the catastrophe looming ahead of it. We must approach our climate crisis the same way

Today marks the official launch of Covering Climate Now, a project co-sponsored by The Columbia Journalism Review and The Nation. Joined by The Guardian and others partners to be announced, Covering Climate Now will bring journalists and news outlets together to dramatically improve how the media as a whole covers the climate crisis and its solutions.

The following is an abridged version of the conference keynote speech by iconic TV newsman Bill Moyers, as prepared for delivery. A video version of the speech is available here. See here for more about the Covering Climate Now project.

The greatest challenges to capitalism come when that promise begins to be questioned

Capitalism is intrinsically futuristic. The ideas that underpin market economies a growth, accumulation, investment a express an unspoken assumption, that tomorrow will be different, and probably better, than today. The question that murmurs through markets is not aWhat is good?a or aWhat is faira, but: aWhatas new?a

This future orientation is one of the most striking hallmarks of modernity. Pre-capitalist societies looked to the past a to founding myths, old religions and ancestral lines. Capitalist societies look to the future a to new inventions, broader horizons and greater abundance. aOh, the places youall go!a is an urtext of market capitalism.

Last year, a 12-year-old student was forced to take legal action after he was threatened with suspension by his London school for wearing his hair in dreadlocks. More recently, a six-year-old was sent home from school for having a askin fadea, a common black hairstyle, because his primary school claimed it would adetract from learninga. Now, new research released by De Montfort University Leiceister has revealed that one in six children with afro-textured hair in the UK are having a bad experience with school hair policies.

Related: London school that told boy to cut off dreadlocks backs down

I had very little understanding of events in Northern Ireland while studying for my A-levels at a state grammar school in Guildford in 1972. My subsequent time at Sandhurst left me none the wiser. Entering military academy later that year, I assumed that I was embarking on a well-worn trail in the relationship between ethics and military duty. Of this I was quickly disabused.

A young atom' was a witness, a prosecutor, jury, judge, and if required, executioner, all in a matter of a split second

I am a person who debates in public. Debate is good, debate is healthy. We can disagree. We can disagree and still love each other. Unless, as James Baldwin once said, your disagreement is rooted in my oppression, your denial of my humanity, my right to exist.

A reminder of this most salient of Baldwin quotes is one of almost 100,000 responses I received to a video I shared on social media a few days ago, which has subsequently been viewed 3 million times. The very public and communal way it has been consumed online is in perfect contrast to the very private and lonely way it was created. By me, sitting in a room, with colleagues on a Sky News debate show, who wanted to argue about an image that compared the newborn child of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to a chimp, and the consequences for the person who posted it.

Itas hard to escape the sense that the powers-that-be just feel someone like Daly makes the place untidy

News that the R&A is considering John Dalyas request for permission to use a buggy for Julyas Open at Royal Portrush has been met by a growing chorus of people saying that it shouldnat be. The argument seems to be that golf has worked hard not to be seen as something that fat middle-aged guys can win a I paraphrase slightly a and that Daly using a buggy would make a mockery of all that valuable progress, even though no one else would probably ever seek to do it. And even though that was one of the fun things about golf a which is, letas face it, still not the 100 metres final.

If you missed the background to all this, Daly went round last weekas US PGA Championship in a buggy, in which he had stashed the usual pack of fags and a McDonaldas cup. Owing to the osteoarthritis in a knee, he successfully applied under disability legislation. Alas, the decision was frowned upon by various bores, including Tiger Woods, who sniffed: aI walked with a broken leg a|a Which, for me, served as one of those bi-weekly reminders of how itas possible to love Woods and absolutely hate pretty much everything about him. I guess each man has his appetites to master, so it did make me wonder if Woods ever had sex with any of his cocktail waitresses with a broken leg. If so: well done, champ. Youare a real hero.

Last yearas French Open finalist talks to Tumaini Carayol about death, illness, maturity and discovering the focus that has often eluded her

Sloane Stephens grew up surrounded by dead bodies. Her extended family owns a funeral home, so her formative years were spent in freezers filled with corpses, dressing bodies for funerals and driving the family hearses. She is banned from greeting mourners because she once cried in front of a group of them. She gleefully lists cremation and embalming as her interests. And, yes, she knows that she is strange.

When I asked the 2017 US Open champion earlier this year about living with death, her answer reflected her tendency to tackle serious subjects with irreverence: aA lot of people are scared of dead bodies but you canat be scared!a she said. aTheyare like the only thing you shouldnat be scared of because they canat do anything to you. You should be scared of the people walking around because you donat know whatas gonna happen, right?a

The hosts are, whisper it, among the favourites to lift the Cricket World Cup for the first time after a remarkable transformation but the burden of pressure is enormous

It has been a transformation akin to one of those TV architecture shows, where some utter carbuncle of a 1950s bungalow is dramatically turned into a modern family home that suddenly sits as the envy of the entire street.

Related: Bangladesh World Cup guide: gameplan, key player and prediction

All you need to know about the nine venues for the tournament in France, including history lessons and the hitches along the way

Click on each image for caption information

• Regular updates from around the county grounds
• You can email Tanya here, tweet her here or post BTL
• Day two: how Tuesdayas action unfolded
• Ali Martinas England World Cup team guide

11.40am BST

If, IF, Lancashire win this - they will have won their first three matches of the season for the first time this century. Also, the sun has gone in.

11.38am BST

It is a bit insipid?

England's #CWC19 kit - it's a 1992 throwback! pic.twitter.com/kiQ1NNDXEm

Three years ago Louis Lancaster was coaching youth players at Watford. Now he is taking Taiwan up the Fifa world rankings

By Chris Evans for The Set Pieces

It was the hardest decision of Louis Lancasteras life. The ambitious coach was on the cusp of starting an exciting new chapter of his career in Asia, but it would come at a price. For Lancaster to take up his new post as assistant manager at Chinese side Shanghai Shenxin, he would need to leave behind his seriously ill father. By jetting off to start his job, he knew he might never see his dad again.

aMy dad wasnat well when I left and I potentially wasnat going to see him again. So, I asked him: aWhat do you want me to do a do you want me to go?a He knew how passionate I am about football; he had introduced me to it. He said ayouave got to goa but I knew I might not see him again. I left on 12 July and my dad passed away on 2 August. I didnat even come back for my dadas funeral.a

Plus: long-serving kit manufacturers, football on the big screen (part IIII) and clubs that compete in the most different sports

aThis seasonas Champions League final will be contested by two teams who have gone a combined 87 years without a domestic league trophy,a notes Paul Hawkins. aWhatas the longest ever gap between a team winning a domestic and a European title?a

Asgeir IngA3lfsson has very helpfully crunched the numbers and scoured the internet to bring us what we think is the definite answer on this one. aIn the European Cup/Champions League, Liverpool won it in 2005, 15 years after their last domestic championship a a record either they themselves (29 years and counting) or Tottenham (58 years and counting) will smash in Madrid. Although we did come really close to a team who had never won a league title claiming it with Leverkusen in the 2002 final.

Analysis in north-west England linked to evidence of UKas vulnerability to climate crisis

The floods of 2009 and 2015 in north-west England were the worst for more than 550 years, according to groundbreaking analysis of lake sediment in the region.

Residents have long suspected that the devastating floods were the worst in living memory, but this confirmation a from an analysis of lake sediment layers a provides a unique window on to the history of flooding in one of the wettest parts of England, and reveals the global climate crisis.

NHS staff, patients and visitors shun nutritious snacks in favour of crisps, sweets and cakes

Researchers have called for radical restrictions on junk food in UK hospitals after an audit of NHS health centres found that people overwhelmingly bought unhealthy snacks and drinks on the premises.

Three-quarters of the best-selling snacks in hospital cafes and canteens were rated as unhealthy, along with half of the most popular cold drinks, according to a report by the auditas authors.

Government confirms ban on sale and use of items from April next year

Plastic straws and drink stirrers, and cotton buds with plastic stems will be banned from sale and use in England from next April, the government has confirmed.

The move, which has been in the offing for more than a year, is hoped to vastly reduce the litter and other environmental impacts of the nearly 5bn plastic straws currently used each year in the UK, along with more than 300m plastic stirrers and close to 2bn cotton buds with plastic stems.

Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news, as rising energy bills and air fares push the cost of living higher

• Latest: British Steel in liquidation
• Inflation jumps to 2.1%
• Energy costs surged after price cap lifted
• Pound hit by Brexit crisis
• US considers blacklisting Chinaas Hikvision

11.42am BST

Greybull Capital, the private equity firm which owned British Steel, is facing serious questions over the companyas collapse.

Greybull bought the business for APS1 in 2016, and have since taken millions out of the company in management fees.

A fortnight ago the government agreed a APS120m loan to cover British Steelas cost of buying carbon credits under an EU-scheme to limit emissions. At the time it seemed a respectable use of public money since the delay in the UKas exit from the EU meant the allocation of credits to all UK companies had been temporarily suspended.

But the FT later reported that Greybull had already sold surplus allocations in what appeared to be an a badly timed trade. Other UK steel producers, note, have not asked for loans to get over the permit obstacle. Again, there is an issue of trust with Greybull.

Related: Who are the villains of the British Steel crisis? | Nils Pratley

11.15am BST

Devi Shah, Partner at law firm Mayer Brown, hopes that some jobs at British Steel can be saved:

The immediate priority will be to seek a buyer, and secure the future of as many employees as possible, especially since this is an area where options for those affected will be limited, and the repercussions are likely to be felt across the region.

Brazilas Natura CosmA(c)ticos reportedly expected to swoop on doorstep-selling firm

The Brazilian owner of the Body Shop has agreed to buy Avon Products in a deal that values the US cosmetics company at more than $2bn (APS1.58bn), according to reports.

Natura CosmA(c)ticos was expected to announce the takeover as early as Wednesday, the Financial Times reported. After the deal, Natura would control more than three-quarters of the combined group. The remaining shares would be owned by Avon shareholders.

Mobs set fire to vehicles in Jakarta after supporters of Prabowo Subianto, who lost the vote, took to the streets

Six people are dead and more than 200 are injured, according to Jakartaas governor, after protesters clashed with security forces and set fire to a police dormitory and vehicles in the Indonesian capital following the release of official election results.

National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said protests by supporters of an unsuccessful presidential candidate turned violent late on Tuesday and continued through the night. Police said they had arrested 20 aprovocateursa.

Attacks on health clinics provoke concern that disclosing details of funding might aput a target on the heada of medical workers

The UK has agreed not to publicly disclose how much funding has been allocated to the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, following warnings this might put those responding to the outbreak at risk.

Harriett Baldwin, minister of state for Africa, said the Congolese government had asked for these details not to be made public over fears this will put aa target on the head of some of the respondersa.

Reports stoke fears that two biggest economies are on edge of full-blown tech cold war

The US is reportedly considering restricting Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance equipment provider active in Xinjiang, from buying US components, escalating already tense ties between the worldas two largest economies.

According to the New York Times, the US commerce department is considering placing Hikvision on a trade blacklist that would require US companies to obtain government approval before supplying it with components.

Pictures show a lot of groundwater has seeped into the mine since 2010 disaster that killed 29

The first images from inside the New Zealandas Pike river mine, where an explosion killed 29 men nearly nine years ago, have been released.

The shots were taken as a three-person re-entry crew broke through the 88cm concrete seal on Tuesday at the mineas opening to start the process of gathering evidence on what caused New Zealandas worst mining disaster since 1914. The bodies of the 29 victims remain in the mine.

Bernie Sanders appears to be the favorite to secure Ocasio-Cortezas prized endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive US congresswoman and social media sensation, has said she would be ahard presseda to endorse the frontrunner, Joe Biden, in the Democratic presidential primary.

The statement is the latest sign of the leftas apathy towards the former vice-president, who has surged ahead of the Senator Bernie Sanders and other rivals in recent polls.

Taro Kono a or is it Kono Taro? a says journalists should treat Japanese politicians the same as their Chinese or South Korean equivalents

Japanas foreign minister will ask international media organisations to use the family name first when writing Japanese names a as is customary in the Japanese language a in an attempt to reverse a century of linguistic convention.

Taro Kono a or perhaps that should be Kono Taro a said foreign media should follow the same practice they use when reporting on other Asian countries where the family name traditionally comes first, followed by their given name. As an example, he said Japanas prime minister, Shinzo Abe, should in future be written as Abe Shinzo.

aI wanted it to sound like Metallica and AC/DC from the waist up and Public Enemy from the waist downa

Iad had the riff in my head since college. I wrote Teenage Dirtbag lying on a futon staring at the ceiling in a rented apartment on Long Island, New York. The song is fictional, but has a bit of scenery from my childhood.

The end of GoT isnat just the end of a show. Itas the end of gorging ourselves silly, collectively. Will anything ever fill this buzz vacuum?

• Game of Thrones finale recap a The Iron Throne
  
• Game of Thrones review a final epic episode corrects some major wrongs

In the dying days of Game of Thrones, itas fair to say that HBO got a little needy. With the palpable flopsweat of a soon-to-be-dumped lover, it broke its back showing everyone all the other great shows they could watch if only they stayed subscribed.

Like richly-drawn prestige ensembles? Big Little Lies is coming back, this time with Meryl Streep! Like snow and magic? Look, itas His Dark Materials! Like Westworld? No, of course you donat, nobody likes Westworld. But hereas a trailer for season three, and it doesnat even look like Westworld any more! It looks like a cool new Aaron Paul drama. See? We can change. Donat leave us. Weall do anything you want.

Stories of female rage were for centuries often stifled or spun. From Euripides to Jean Rhys, Stephen King to Gillian Flynn, here are some of the exceptions

We are angry. If the last two years have taught us anything, itas that. Thereas a quiet rage, simmering and unspoken, among women a an anger thatas been encoded in our private conversations, the words we choose and looks we exchange; a language that only we know how to use.

While I was working on my novel, The Furies a a book about obsession, witchcraft, and murder a I hadnat quite realised the extent of it. But it was unavoidable: the young women at the core of my book were simmering with a desire to take revenge on the men who wronged them. To feel the power they knew they had, if only they could seize it.

When Trump took office, sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four increased by 9,500%. This astute study locates the origins of the novel and traces its life within pop culture

Most Orwell biography is, at heart, an exercise in teleology: a reverse journey through his life and times that begins with the achievement of Nineteen Eighty-Four and then works backwards, in an attempt to establish exactly what it was about the intervening years that impelled him to write it in the way that he did. In this highly astute study, Dorian Lynskey locates the origins of the novel a now celebrating its 70th anniversary a in the six months its author spent in the first half of 1937 fighting on the republican side in the Spanish civil war.

It was here in Catalonia, Lynskey argues, that the stanchions of Big Brotheras nightmare world a the disregard for objective truth, the rewriting of the past and the routine suppression of dissent a slid inexorably into place. And, as he makes clear, the aSpanish Beansa that Orwell spilled in his essay of 1942 affected their spiller personally. Having enrolled in the Trotskyist Poum militia rather than the Marxist International Brigades, he was immediately suspect: when the war descended into faction fighting and the Soviet hit-squads arrived in Barcelona, he barely escaped with his life. If the corruption of the left is such a feature of his later writing it is because he was a victim of it himself.

I need help with an issue that could potentially leave my home and many others lethally unsafe.

South East Water is fitting a water meter to my home and others. It has a right to do that a I live in a water-stressed part of the country. However, itas stated that the installation may break electrical earthing if the water main is used as the primary earth in a customeras home.

The films and TV shows Zoya Patel loved growing up were a consistent reminder that areal life only happens to white peoplea

Remember that seminal scene from 1999 film 10 Things I Hate About You, when Cameron first sees Bianca?

Sheas walking through the school quadrangle, ruminating on whether one acan ever just be whelmeda. According to the camera angle, sheas the focus of our attention. But look to the right of Bianca. Who do you see? Thatas right, her best friend Chastity.

With flexible hours the norm, and almost two yearsa parental leave for every child, Swedenas capital boasts a happy and efficient workforce. What can other cities learn?

It is 3.30pm, and the first workers begin to trickle out of the curved glass headquarters of the Stockholm IT giant Ericsson.

John Langared, a 30-year-old programmer, is hurrying to pick up his daughter from school. He has her at home every other week, so tends to alternate short hours one week with long hours the next.

Much of the discussion of the fourth industrial revolution relates to the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence, robotics, biotech, and big data on the world of work and business. It could lead to huge gains in productivity, wealth creation and human happiness. Equally, it may kill millions of jobs, fuel social tensions, and widen inequality. Civil societyas place in this massive societal shake-out, reckons Andy Haldane, is relatively unexplored a but it will be profound.

Related: Worrying about robots stealing our jobs? How silly | Simon Jenkins

Ever in search of moral panic, the Daily Mail has reported that an excess of tourists taking selfies on Hadrianas Wall has caused a portion of it to collapse. Sadly for this theory, the National Trust, which cares for the stretch of wall in question, says there is no evidence the damage has been caused by selfie-takers.

Erosion, weather and invasive plant species are the most likely culprits, and restoration work will be shortly under way to renovate this section of early-20th-century wall-building. Nevertheless, says the National Trust, please donat walk on the wall, but alongside it.

Last yearas winners provide a aray of lighta to inspire new entrants, say judges. This year there are 12 categories for which teams and individuals can apply

• Categories and criteria, 2019
• How to enter
• Entry forms

We were on a high for such a long time a| I donat think weave come down from that.a Neither Rachel Foster nor the rest of the Cheshire West and Chester library service team expected to win the Guardianas Public Service Awards 2018. The team had been far too impressed by the standards of the other entries that had also been shortlisted for a transformation award. aWe were really proud to even be considered among them, let alone win,a says Foster, who is the councilas senior library services manager.

At the ceremony in November, Foster and her colleagues were recognised for transforming their boroughas library service through the launch of Storyhouse, a vibrant multipurpose community centre. The APS37m complex comprises a library, theatre and cinema all under one roof. Itas the only centre of its kind in the UK, and it landed Fosteras team two Guardian awards, including that of overall best public service.

An estimated 12% of children in care go on to university a compared with 49% of the general population. Three who made it explain how

When Sophia Alexandra Hall received the response to her application for the University of Oxford in 2015, she opened it in front of everyone at her school. aI ran into the canteen and burst into tears,a she says. aI was sobbing, and I remember my headteacher saying: aStop crying a you got into Oxford!a No one at social services believed me.a As a care leaver, the odds of Hall making it to university, let alone Oxford, were very slim.

As of 31 March 2018, 75,420 children were living in the care system in England. When I lived in childrenas homes in Oldham 15 years ago, some care staff were content with children choosing PlayStations over the classroom, and it felt as if they were apathetic to our wellbeing in general. Things havenat changed much. In September 2018, social care inspectors found that children from a privately managed care home in the town would regularly abscond, were involved in acounty linesa drug running and had aminimal engagementa with education.

Researchers looking at a Q&A website found well-mannered answers were popular with the questioner even if they didnat make sense

Does it always pay to be polite? Dear reader, the answer very much depends. Academics in the US have analysed hundreds of thousands of answers on the Q&A website Stack Exchange, where users ask such vital questions as: aWhat is to the west of Westeros?a and aAre there any German nonsense poems?a They discovered that polite answers are more highly rated by the asker, something that determines how prominently they are displayed. But they may not actually be the most clear, authoritative or helpful.

The measure the researchers used was a simple one: the frequency of the first-person pronouns aIa and awea versus the second person ayoua. This may not seem like an obvious proxy for politeness, but it works. According to linguistic theory, being addressed directly, while it improves clarity, is often perceived as a aface-threatening acta a something that imposes on the addressee and may feel too much like a barked order. You (forgive me) can see this in the many strategies used by languages around the world to avoid directness. In Farsi, for example, a polite alternative to ayoua (shoma) is the rather more indirect ayour presencea (hozuretan). In Japanese, the bare pronoun is usually avoided, and a personas name or title plus an honorific suffix is used instead.

Messages to the Environmental Protection Agency from lobbyists show tactic of sowing doubt in science, critics say

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Jayne DePotter spent almost a decade making her Michigan jewelry studio a second home for young artists seeking direction, seniors looking to exercise their hands and minds and new immigrants in search of community.

And then she started to get sick. First came the brain fog, then the painful kidney and bladder symptoms.

State department says it will respond aquickly and appropriatelya if claims proven

The US says it has seen signs the Syrian government may again be using chemical weapons in its attritional offensive to recapture the last rebel-held pocket of the country, warning the use of any such weapons would incur retaliatory measures from Washington and its allies.

The alleged attack occurred on Sunday on the border of Idlib province, where in recent weeks the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, has stepped up an air and ground campaign that has killed at least 150 people and displaced more than 200,000 from their homes.

Three-quarters of mail order requests came from states with strict anti-abortion laws

Thousands of American women have obtained abortion pills online in the past six months, according to figures that highlight the escalating difficulty in accessing safe abortions on the ground.

Data shared with the Guardian reveals that 21,000 women requested abortion medication between October 2018 and March this year from the charity Aid Access. Between a third and a half of the women who made the requests were then sent abortion pills in the mail. The majority of the recipients live in states with hostile abortion policies.

Bernie Sanders appears to be the favorite to secure Ocasio-Cortezas prized endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive US congresswoman and social media sensation, has said she would be ahard presseda to endorse the frontrunner, Joe Biden, in the Democratic presidential primary.

The statement is the latest sign of the leftas apathy towards the former vice-president, who has surged ahead of the Senator Bernie Sanders and other rivals in recent polls.

Reports stoke fears that two biggest economies are on edge of full-blown tech cold war

The US is reportedly considering restricting Hikvision, a Chinese surveillance equipment provider active in Xinjiang, from buying US components, escalating already tense ties between the worldas two largest economies.

According to the New York Times, the US commerce department is considering placing Hikvision on a trade blacklist that would require US companies to obtain government approval before supplying it with components.

Environment secretary says it is time to reflect on Mayas anew deala and consider all options

• All todayas Brexit news - live updates

Michael Gove has refused to confirm Theresa May will bring forward her withdrawal bill as planned in the first week of June after MPs from across the political spectrum rejected her 10-point anew deala.

The environment secretary, who supports Mayas deal, said it was a time to areflecta and consider the options, raising the prospect that the prime minister would have to pull the vote.

Mobs set fire to vehicles in Jakarta after supporters of Prabowo Subianto, who lost the vote, took to the streets

Six people are dead and more than 200 are injured, according to Jakartaas governor, after protesters clashed with security forces and set fire to a police dormitory and vehicles in the Indonesian capital following the release of official election results.

National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo said protests by supporters of an unsuccessful presidential candidate turned violent late on Tuesday and continued through the night. Police said they had arrested 20 aprovocateursa.

Democrats ranked global heating as the third most important issue on their list, while Republican voters ranked it last in a Yale poll

Surging concern among Americans about an overheating planet has done little to shift a political polarization that has now reached a stunning extreme: climate breakdown divides Democrats and Republicans even more than abortion does.

Musician says in memoir the pair dated, but Portman disputes account, saying amy recollection is a much older man being creepy with mea

Natalie Portman has criticised Moby for a avery disturbinga account of their friendship in his new memoir Then It Fell Apart.

In the book, the musician, now 53, claims the pair dated when he was 33 and Portman was 20, after she met him backstage in Austin, Texas. He recounts going to parties in New York with her, and to see her at Harvard University, akissing under the centuries-old oak trees. At midnight she brought me to her dorm room and we lay down next to each other on her small bed. After she fell asleep I carefully extracted myself from her arms and took a taxi back to my hotel.a He says that he then struggled with anxiety about their relationship: aIt wanted one thing: for me to be alone a| nothing triggered my panic attacks more than getting close to a woman I cared about.a Later, he writes: aFor a few weeks I had tried to be Natalieas boyfriend, but it hadnat worked out,a writing that she called to tell him she had met someone else.

We are exposed to synthetic chemicals in plastics, cosmetics and food every day. Could it be making us toxic? Our environment reporter was tested for over 1,530 chemicals to find out

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Sitting on a plastic chair in a small office, Iam wearing medical scrubs rolled up to my knees and I have an X-ray machine strapped to my shin.

The machine is scanning my bones for lead as an expert monitors readings streaming on to a screen.

Thousands of potentially harmful chemicals are in products ranging from toys to plastic and carpets in the US

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Synthetic chemicals are in nearly everything we touch and consume. But some chemicals can be potentially harmful and a number of experts are anxious about possible long-term health effects of our everyday exposure. They say US regulations could be stronger.

A 20-year-old woman from Guatemala was shot in the head by a border patrol agent in Rio Bravo, Texas, just minutes after crossing the border

Every Monday morning, after their two youngest daughters go to school, Gilberto GA3mez and Lidia GonzA!lez trek to a brightly colored hillside cemetery to lay fresh flowers at their eldest daughteras grave.