Nicola Sturgeon spoke to reporters outside her home just hours after her husband was charged by Police Scotland

Fit claimants to have their benefits removed if they refuse to take a job after 12 months under PMas anew welfare settlement for Britaina as he comes under fire for aunbelievably damaginga rhetoric

UK is avery firmly engaged in counselling moderation,a says government minister

Feeling depressed doesnat mean you cannot work, Rishi Sunak said as he announced major changes to the UKas welfare system.

Rishi Sunak donned a red apron and goggles as he got to work cutting keys on a visit to Timpsons following his pledge to end the UKas asick note culturea.

A grandmother has described the shocking moment an e-scooter crashed into her outside her home, leaving her badly injured.

The Duke of Sussex claims he was targeted by journalists and private investigators working for Rupert Murdochas publisher

Lloyd Evansas article described as agrima, amisogynistica and ahorrifica on social media

Naga Munchetty clashed with Tory minister Mel Stride during a heated discussion on his partyas plan to end a puported asick note culturea.

Watch live as Rishi Sunak calls for an end to asick note culturea in his welfare reform speech today (19 April).

Firefighters rushed to put out a small fire in the home in Shetland Close

While former health secretary Lord Clarke warned the ban risked being difficult to enforce, current health secretary Victoria Atkins said anicotine robs people of their freedom to choosea

Hans Rausing said his wife Julia aleaves behind an extraordinary legacya as friends say the philanthropist bore her illness with great courage

The poetas manuscript was destroyed after he died amid fears of damage to his reputation

Pop star shares message with fans from Instagram as fans celebrate new album release, with many noticing several lyrical references to The 1975as Matty Healy along with her ex-boyfriend Joe Alwyn

Song from new album aThe Tortured Poets Departmenta namedrops her ex Matty Healyas favourite band

Fans have long held theories about character"s brief appearance

Pop singer is known to delve into themes of love and heartbreak with her songwriting

Several signs point towards Kardashian being the topic of song athanK you aIMeea

But some viewers think it gives too much away

The hit BBC series could be soon welcoming famous faces

Streamer has been accused of manipulating images in true-crime documentary

Fleetwood Mac star has praised Swiftas songwriting talents in the past

BBC showas former aide shared his honest view after finale aired

Fans expecting a post-mortem of the musicianas six-year relationship with Joe Alwyn have been left surprised, as Swift seems to spend more time dissecting her brief fling with The 1975 frontman

Willisas daughter attended anniversary wearing baseball cap printed with aBrucea

aItas really bittersweet to hear,a one person said

The second half of Netflixas expensive sci-fi epic is less problematic than the first a but not a whole lot more compelling

Breaking Bad star thought if he had adeath by misadventurea his wife and four kids would get insurance payout

Musically, this album is some of the bandas catchiest and punchiest material in years

The 18-minute film accompanying their classic single aWeekendera has been called a amini-masterpiecea. Craig McLean salutes a double re-release of the bandas music and traces their story

With its playful narratives and hooks like anchors, Swiftas 11th studio album is a terrific reminder of her storytelling powers

Grab life by the horns and... get yourself some toilet bowl cleaner.

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What a full-circle moment for Sabrina Carpenter!

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All I want to know is what genius came up with the hands-free pot stirrer and in-flight foot hammock.

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"Every time shead ask me for a cup of milk and not drink it, I would take a quarter out of her piggy bank. Someone has to pay for that milk."

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Picnic-worthy pants, flowy sundresses, versatile skirts, and more.

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Skip the elbow grease, but still enjoy the results.

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If your fairy godmother could put together a list of foolproof products to get you looking ~flawless~ for the ball, this would be it.

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"It"s a place I once avoided because of the stereotypes associated with it, but it ended up being my favorite city in the world, hands down."

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Genetics is only one piece of the puzzle.

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Products that"ll make every step in the journey (including the travel) feel like vacay.

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"This country has no comprehensive long-term care system, particularly for older adults."

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Don"t let the easier ones fool you...

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If we"re staying inside, we might as well make it as comfortable as possible.

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Believe me, your feet will thank you.

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Treats moms will adore, for every budget.

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You"re about to get the best sleep ever.

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Baby showers, weddings, birthdays, and "just because" events a you"ll need a new dress (or two).

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These are made for seven days a week.

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US secretary of state condemns airstrike in Iran; discussion aleans more towards infiltration than attacka says anonymous Iranian official

• Full report: Israel has carried out airstrikes on Iran, US officials say
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

Itas 7:24am in Tehran and 6:54 In Tel Aviv. Letas get a reminder of what we know so far:

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out military operations against Iran but did not describe those operations.

The Israeli military has told news agencies including Agence France-Presse and Associated Press: aWe donat have a comment at this time.a

Iranas state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan Friday

Air defence systems over several Iranian cities were activated, state media reported, after the countryas official broadcaster said explosions were heard near the city of Isfahan.

Iranas Fars news agency reported athree explosionsa were heard near the Shekari army airbase in the north-west of Isfahan province, while Iranas space agency spokesperson Hossein Dalirian said aseverala drones had been asuccessfully shot downa.

Nuclear facilities in Isfahan were reported to be acompletely securea, Iranas Tasnim news agency reported, citing areliable sourcesa.

Flights were suspended across swathes of Iran on Friday. aIranas air defence has been activated in the skies of several provinces of the country,a Tehranas official IRNA news agency said.

Mehr news agency reported that aflights to Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, and airports in the west, northwest and southwest have been suspended.a

Flight-tracking software showed commercial flights avoiding western Iran, including Isfahan, and skirting Tehran to the north and east.

There was no immediate comment from Dubaias Emirates airline, which was operating several of the planes.

Blasts were also reported in southern Syria, according to a local activist group. aThere were strikes on a Syrian army radar position,a said Rayan Maarouf, who runs the Suwayda24 anti-government website that covers news from Sweida province in the south, reports AFP.

Oil prices surged more than three per cent in early Asian trade on Friday after the reports of explosions.

Iranian official indicates no aimmediatea plan for retaliation after explosions reported in sky over Isfahan and Tabriz

• Middle East crisis: live updates
• What we know so far
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out airstrikes against Iran, as explosions were reported in the sky over the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, while the Iranian government sought to play down the scale of the attack.

As an Iranian official indicated that it had no aimmediatea plan for retaliation, calls mounted internationally a including from the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen a for Israel and Iran to de-escalate their confrontation.

Reported Israeli drone strike on Isfahan may signal that this widening conflict has become more dynamic

• Middle East crisis a live updates
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran

While the details remain vague, and Iranian denials strong, it seems very likely, given past history and strong comments from US officials, that a limited Israeli drone strike was launched against the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning.

Isfahan is significant for its military-industrial facilities, the presence of an important facility in Iranas nuclear programme and a major airbase hosting the Islamic Republicas ageing fleet of F-14 aTomcatsa, making the importance of any strike, whether carried out from beyond Iranas borders or from within but backed by Israel, more than symbolic.

PM criticised for personal independence payment review amid aspirallinga disability welfare bill

Rishi Sunak is considering withdrawing a major cash disability benefit from some people with mental health conditions, prompting claims he has launched a afull-on assault on disabled peoplea.

The prime minister announced fresh curbs on disability benefits on Friday, saying he wanted to explore whether some cash payments to claimants with mental health conditions could be replaced by treatment or access to services.

Shifting responsibility for issuing fit notes, formerly known as sicknotes, away from GPs to other awork and health professionalsa in order to encourage more people to return to work.

Confirming plans to legislate ain the next parliamenta to close benefit claims for anyone who has been claiming for 12 months but is not complying with conditions on accepting available work.

Asking more people on universal credit working part-time to look for more work by increasing the earnings threshold from APS743 a month to APS892 a month, so people paid below this amount have to seek extra hours.

Confirming plans to tighten the work capability assessment to require more people with aless severe conditionsa to seek some forms of employment.

Katie Fieldhouse says Conservative party failed to act after she reported incident in early January

The Conservative activist who has accused a Tory MP of making a late-night demand for money has said she is appalled by the partyas response.

Katie Fieldhouse has said Mark Menzies called her one night in December at 3.15am asking for APS5,000 to pay abad peoplea who had detained him in a flat and were not letting him leave.

Prime minister says his apatience has run thina over failure to get deportation plans through parliament

Rishi Sunak is arguing that not getting people into work is an airresponsible burdena on future generations and taxpayers. He says:

We risk not only letting those people down [the people who are long-term sickness benefits], but creating a deep sense of unfairness amongst those whose taxes fund our social safety net in a way that risks undermining trust and consent in that very system.

We canat stand for that. And of course, the situation as it is, is economically unsustainable. We canat lose so many people from our workforce whose contributions could help to drive growth.

Swifties take to social media to dissect lyrics and celebrate Swiftas 11th album on Friday as the musician releases 15 more songs

• Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside The Tortured Poets Department
• The Tortured Poets Department review a fame, fans and former flames in the line of fire

The Tortured Poets Department is just out but it is already splitting Taylor Swift fans a between those who have already listened to it after it leaked online early, and those who refused to listen out of loyalty to their favourite singer.

Swiftas 11th studio album was released on Friday but all 16 tracks and lyrics began appearing on social media on Wednesday. Some fans a known as Swifties a refused to listen to the leaked album, insisting that atrue fansa would wait for the official release, while others shared false links to the leak in attempts to stop people finding it.

Lawyers for Harry and other claimants argued trial delay to examine timing of claims would be ahighly disruptivea

Prince Harry has won the latest bout of his long-running legal battle with the publisher of the Sun after a high court judge rejected an application to delay the trial.

News Group Newspapers (NGN) had applied to push back the trial for alleged unlawful information gathering a which is scheduled for January next year a to allow the court to examine whether claims of unlawful news gathering by Harry and 41 others were brought too late.

Dozens of secretly filmed, voyeuristic videos feature women often in short dresses on nights out

Women who have been secretly filmed on nights out are being urged to contact UK police after videos posted online have racked up millions of views and attracted an abundance of misogynistic comments.

Police are trying to catch people responsible for dozens of voyeuristic TikTok and YouTube videos that have titles such as aManchester nightlifea and feature women who do not know they are being filmed.

Acoba chair Eric Pickles says rules on post-ministerial jobs are aunenforceablea after former PM avoids answering questions

Boris Johnson was aevasivea, aavoided answering specific questionsa and has arefused to be opena about his relationship with a hedge fund on whose behalf he met the Venezuelan president, a Whitehall watchdog has said.

Johnson met NicolA!s Maduro in early February in a paid role as a consultant to Merlyn Advisors, according to reports. This raised questions for the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) which is responsible for providing advice on post-ministerial roles for two years after a minister leaves office.

IOPC to examine whether two forces missed chances to protect Kulsuma Akter before she was fatally stabbed in front of her baby

Two police forces are being investigated over contact they had with a woman before she was stabbed to death in front of her baby, the police watchdog has said.

Kulsuma Akter, 27, was fatally stabbed as she pushed her baby in a buggy in Bradford city centre on Saturday 6 April. Habibur Masum, 25, has been charged with her murder.

Poet says government has not acted on 2022 MacAlister review because reforming system is not a vote winner

• UK politics a latest updates

The poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay has accused ministers of ignoring abrillianta recommendations to improve the adysfunctionala childrenas social care system in England because they are not vote winners.

Sissay, whose bestselling memoir My Name Is Why was a reflection on his own childhood in care, said the government had acherrypickeda from the 2022 MacAlister review, despite the report putting forward costed recommendations that would save money in the longer term.

Andy Leek, creator of Notes to Strangers, made the move after finding himself unable to afford rising rents in UK capital

An artist who was made homeless after being evicted by his private landlord in London has started effectively commuting from Argentina where the rent is so much cheaper that it covers the cost of air fare.

Andy Leek, 38, whose Notes to Strangers works are pasted on to walls and junction boxes across more than 20 British and European cities, has moved to Buenos Aires where the rents are several times cheaper and he travels back to the UK roughly every two months for work. The flight costs less than a monthly train season ticket between Bristol and London.

A pioneering plan to keep cigarettes from future generations was widely lauded but big tobacco aworks in the shadowsa

• UK politics a latest updates

When New Zealand announced its world-first law to ban smoking for future generations it was widely hailed as a life-saving plan that would prevent thousands of smoking-related deaths, flatten out inequities in healthcare and save the economy billions of dollars.

The pioneering legislation a enacted in 2022 a introduced a steadily rising smoking age to stop those born after January 2009 from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes, alongside a slew of other measures to make smoking less affordable and accessible.

Talk of Elizabeth line order raised hopes over safeguarding future of Derby factory but staff are taking nothing for granted

aItas strange at the moment: everywhereas so quiet. Itas not good.a Mick Waldram has worked at Alstomas sprawling train manufacturing plant on Litchurch Lane in Derby for 20 years, like his parents before him, and has watched in recent months as its six production lines have been gradually mothballed.

aIave been here 20 years and my brotheras been here 20 years as well,a Waldram says. aMy mum was the managing directoras secretary, she was here 38 years, and my dad was a projects engineer who was here 36 years. We want to stay here. Me and my brother are not looking at leaving, we want to stay here if possible, do another 20 years.a

Rents are soaring, housebuilding is lagging and long-promised eviction reform has still not been enacted

• Artist cuts rent by commuting from Argentina

Andy Leekas escape to Argentina from Britainas soaring rents is no doubt extreme. But the fact that this relatively successful artist feels he is better off paying transatlantic air fares than stumping up for ever-rising landlord demands is indicative of a crisis that only ever seems to get worse.

Polls show 23% of voters now rank housing as the most important issue facing the country, up from 14% at the December 2019 general election. More people now rate it as the priority than crime or the environment, according to YouGov. Yet little is done.

Sketchwriteras take on memoir of PM who screwed up catastrophically and quickly but thinks thereas still work to do

I was impatient to get going. Plans had been made. I picked up my phone. aChatGPT. Write me a memoir in the style of an excitable five-year-old on acid.a

aWeave only got 10 years to save the west,a I declared solemnly.

With three hit shows a Strictly, The Traitors and the returning The Piano a Claudia Winkleman is TVas hottest presenter. She talks about being tone deaf, being a style icon a| and why sheas allergic to praise

Claudia Winkleman is convinced she gave the ick to Mika and Lang Lang, her co-stars on Channel�4 hit The Piano. aTheyare so alarmed by my eating habits,a she says. aMy micas always on and all they can hear is me munching beef-flavoured Hula Hoops.a To illustrate the point, she launches into an uncanny impression of loud crisp-crunching noises echoing down a lapel mic.

Winkleman recently wrapped filming a new run of the ivory-tinkling talent search, which has meant living off train station food. aI look up each oneas eateries in advance,a she admits. aI adore a Greggs and Iave fallen in love with Upper Crust. They do a cheddar baguette thatas almost erotic. Obviously, I always have a Burger King. A Murder King, I call it. You know youare in a different class of station if thereas a Leon. In Liverpool, theyave got Krispy Kreme. I crashed and burned by 9.48am because I made the mistake of scoffing a tray of Original Glazed for breakfast. I was like: aGuys, I need a nap.a The producer went: aCan somebody get Claud a coffee? And no more sugar!a OK, boss, fair�enough.a

The comedian is desperate to make out his jokes about rape and domestic abuse will get him cancelled. In reality, this Netflix special is about as edgy as a Jim Davidson set

The darting eyes are new. As a young man, Jimmy Carr never had so much trouble keeping his eyeballs under control. In Natural Born Killer, the comedianas new Netflix show, his pupils bounce from one side to the other so frequently it is like watching a game of table tennis. Or, as Carr might say in his affected working-class voice: aWatchina a game of fuckina table tennis.a

Why does Carr think he needs to swaddle his punchlines in frantic eye movement? Well, the manas material is so edgy that he actually has to scan the room in case the woke police are in. aThis next joke might get me cancelled,a he says at one point, like a teenager smelling his farts and chuckling that he could get thrown out of a sleepover. If delivering material that might as well have been cribbed from a Jim Davidson set can get you acancelleda (aThereas a reason men propose on their knees a theyave fucking given upa), Carr might well be.

Jimmy Carr: Natural Born Killer is on Netflix now

What are the big takeaways from Swiftas new album? Sheas refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation

aC/ Read Alexis Petridisas four-star review of the album

Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010as Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But sheas never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Whoas Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: aYou taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,a she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.

Iall tell you something right now
Iad rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
Iall tell you something about my good name
Itas mine alone to disgrace

Royal Horticultural Society hopes punters will be inspired by Salford winner of pub garden competition

Pub gardens often feature barren patios, characterless lawns and a worst of all a fake grass.

Now, the Royal Horticultural Society is asking landlords across the country to plant up their patios, saying they are full of untapped potential for urban green space and wildlife.

The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril

aStrong women are not easy women,a says Jennifer Lawrence, aand a womanas life is lonely. So much of our experience cannot be shared or understood by men, and our rights are in their hands. Thatas why we need each other.a

The two other people on our video call nod in agreement. One is Malala Yousafzai, who, with Lawrence, has produced a new documentary about the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban after US troops withdrew in 2021. The other is Sahra Mani, who directed it.

Jerry Hallas next husband could manage almost the whole menu without putting in teeth

Le Caprice will to my mind always be Princess Dias lunchtime gal pal hotspot. I grew up about 250 miles from St Jamesas in central London, where handmade shoe boutiques nestle beside bespoke fedora specialists, and where the local corner shop is Fortnum & Masonas food hall. However, via the tabloids, the goings on at Le Caprice often played out in my living room in Carlisle. Behold, HRH Diana, sleek and coquettish, striding into Le Caprice for her bang bang chicken, perhaps dining alongside megastars Mick Jagger, Liz Taylor and Nina Myskow. I guzzled that sophisticated-sounding bang bang chicken vicariously, then headed off to the local Brewers Fayre for my breaded scampi.

Now, on the old Le Caprice site, after closures and some management swapsies, Arlington is here. Some might say not a lot has changed: the decor, menu, clientele, Mayfair money, yacht tans, facelifts and the general sense that many of the diners here are merely passing through London this week, after Gstaad and before Cannes, and checking in on their Mayfair townhouses. Who is going to cook for themselves when youare on a schedule like that? At Arlington, people table-hop, air-kiss and still eat bang bang chicken, which is just a runnier version of chicken satay, as I learned to my puzzlement on reaching London in the 1990s. Itas satisfying, sweet, crunchy, chickeny stodge, although Arlingtonas version has a delectable undertone of barbecue sauce.

Race distance seen as pinnacle of human achievement since time of ancient Greece is no longer the finishing line for what body can endure

The Olympic marathon held 120 years ago saw 32 people start, 14 finish, the winner disqualified for spending most of the race in a car, and another competitor undergo emergency surgery for the damage caused by inhaling dust thrown up by the cars and bicycles that accompanied the athletes around the outskirts of St Louis.

aWhen the Games are held in 1908 I do not think that the marathon will be included in the program,a said James Sullivan of the Amateur Athletic Union, the eventas organiser. aI personally am opposed to it and it is indefensible on any ground but historic. A 25-mile run is asking too much of human endurance. In sending some 30 men or more into an endurance test as keen and terrible as the marathon run, an awful chance is taken.a

Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse sheas suffered simply for being a modern black woman

Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliveras children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussexas new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.

In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. Itas only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, itas goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.

Compulsory maths and English retakes speak of a system that ignores pupilsa real talents. But hope is on the horizon

That time of year approaches when we ritually sacrifice 40% of our 16-year-olds to mark them down as failures. Exam season is coming up a that summer rite when we sit down all the young, hunched over cramped desks day after day for weeks, to sit far too many GCSE papers. The ceremony has one great national purpose: to elevate the 60% who pass their crucial 5 GCSEs including maths and English to a superior destiny on a level 3 course and up a and to stamp down on the rest. Over two thirds of those failing to get that vital maths and English grade 4 are from families in the bottom fifth of incomes.

Then we force them through it again and again in resits most will fail again and again. Dividing the sheep from the goats is harsher after this government ordered everyone failing maths and English to keep resitting between the ages of 16 and 18: colleges and sixth forms lose their funding for any pupil who doesnat keep resitting. Those hoping they were leaving behind schooling they failed (or that failed them), to escape into the green pastures of a further education college, perhaps for BTecs and City & Guilds qualifications, find they are forced to keep taking the English and maths GCSE medicine. Without grade 4, many courses are closed to them a whole vistas of new horizons, anything above level 2, however good they might be at, say, graphic design, cabinet making, gardening, art, caring, engineering or cooking. aNot everyone needs grade 4 English and maths,a says David Hughes, head of the Association of Colleges.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

The scandal, revealed by the Guardian, didnat occur in a vacuum. The rightas casting of the poor as parasitic benefits cheats underpins it all

The unpaid careras allowance in this country is APS81.90 a week. Itas hard to see what serious thought went into arriving at that figure a any calculation of how much it costs to live on, for instance, or how much an unpaid carer is saving the government. Being without discernible curiosity about the lives of unpaid carers, or their contribution to society, it looks very much like a benefit handed down from on high; so at the very least, youad expect the Department for Work and Pensions to keep on top of its administration.

That is not what happened. Unpaid carers are allowed to earn APS151 a week before it affects the benefit. In nearly 30,000 cases last year, people breached that limit, itas thought almost always unknowingly, and the DWP allowed debts to rack up, sometimes running to thousands of pounds. This wonat be the first time itas been observed how bureaucracies that seem lackadaisical and unequal to their own responsibilities become unbelievably tenacious and forceful when it comes to the debts of others. It is accused of intimidatory tactics, against people who may have committed only minor breaches, rewarding them with criminal records and penury that has forced some to sell their homes.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Bad actors know that factchecking sites are a vital democratic tool. Thatas why theyave launched their own dishonest versions

Asked by sociologists about his views on the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian in his early 70s shifted the conversation to the massacre in Bucha a one of the worst atrocities committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. Evidence of Russian war crimes was fake, he said: aTake Busha or Bucha or wherever it may be. The way they filmed it, the way the bodies were arranged: it was clearly a fake!a

Two things stand out from this. He parroted, word for word, statements of Russian propaganda about bodies being actors aarranged on the grounda, echoing the claims of War on Fakes, the Kremlinas imitation of a factchecking organisation. Yet despite his certainty, he did not know anything about the town, to the extent that he could not pronounce its name correctly. Relying on an aanti-fakea outlet modelled on western factchecking, he was not interested in facts but rather in shielding Russia from accusations.

Maxim Alyukov is a political sociologist who is a Leverhulme early career research fellow at the University of Manchester

They might not be Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but the X Factor judgesa ding-dong over Simon Cowell is a joy

All weekend and on into Monday, the row between the TV presenter and erstwhile wife of Les Dennis, Amanda Holden, and the managerial powerhouse Sharon Osbourne has been quite something. In brief: on Celebrity Big Brother Sharon slagged off their joint sometime-boss Simon Cowell. Holden then leapt to his defence in a Daily Mail interview, calling Sharon abitter and pathetica. Sharon then delivered a two-page diatribe against Holden, listing her many and lucrative achievements long before The X Factor entered her life, much though she enjoyed her judging stint. aSimon paid me very well. Probably more than what youare receiving today, but all that, my darling, went on a few handbags.a

Marcus Decker dared to protest on climate and was punished. Now he could be deported. Is that a humane democracy?

When the traditional ruling class was obliged to concede to demands for democracy, it gave away as little as possible. We could vote, but it ensured that crucial elements of the old system remained in place: the House of Lords, the first-past-the-post electoral system, prerogative powers and Henry VIII clauses, and above all a legal system massively and blatantly biased towards owners of property.

In combination, these elements ensured that the system remained predisposed to elite rule, even while it pretended the people were in charge. The portcullis excluding us from power has never been properly lifted since the Norman conquest. The relationship between rulers and ruled remains, in effect, a relationship between occupier and occupied.

I fear we are forgetting lessons from that terrible history

I donat usually talk about my great-uncle Walter. Gen Walter Warlimont, as my grandfatheras brother was formally known, was head of the national defence department in the high command of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Only two people were between him and the FA1/4hrer in the chain of command. Walter worked so closely with Hitler that the failed assassination attempt in July 1944 injured his arm. The orders he signed during wartime a about who to shoot to kill, about how to treat prisoners a meant he had hundreds of thousands of lives on his conscience.

Not that Uncle Walter was the only one in the family who facilitated the Third Reich and the Holocaust. My paternal grandparents were very proud to have been among the very earliest members of Hitleras party. My maternal grandfather a Walteras brother a was the head of a factory in Vienna that made the guidance systems for the V2 rocket, a factory that was staffed by Russian and Ukrainian slave labourers.

In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protestors, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

The students sat on the ground and sang as police in riot gear approached them. Eventually, more than 100 of them would be arrested; their tents, protest signs and Palestinian flags were gathered into trash bags by the police and thrown away. One video showed officers and university maintenance workers destroying food that had been donated to the encampment, making sure it would be inedible. According to student journalists reporting from WKCR, Columbia Universityas student radio station, one arrested student protestor asked the police to be allowed to go to their dorm to collect medication and was denied; as a result, they went into shock. The arrested students were charged with atrespassinga on the campus that they are charged more than $60,000 a year to attend.

The day before her administration asked the New York police department to storm their campus and arrest their students, Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, testified before Congress, saying that she wanted her university to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. But Shafik, who was called to testify after missing a hearing last year where the presidents of Penn and Harvard were each grilled on their insufficient hostility to pro-Palestinian students, appeared eager to please the Republican-controlled committee. The Penn and Harvard presidents who had testified each lost their jobs soon thereafter; Shafik clearly entered the hearing room determined to keep her own.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

A potential pointer to future home arrives, Ronnie OaSullivan eyes more glory and champion Luca Brecel returns out of form

For the snooker purists, it was the sight nobody wanted to see just days out from the most prestigious tournament on the sportas calendar. Debate has raged for years about whether or not the world championship will eventually have to leave its spiritual home of the Crucible and this week, ahead of the 2024 edition, there was what felt a significant moment.

The world championship will remain in Sheffield until 2027 at least but the sight of Barry and Eddie Hearn, flanked by the seven-time world champion, Ronnie OaSullivan, in Saudi Arabia to announce that Riyadh Season, a state-funded sports and entertainment festival, was to become an official partner for the tournament would have sent a shiver through the spines of those who adore the Crucible.

• News, Premier League previews and European reaction
• Barney Ronay: City fail to deliver as Madridas power tells

Meanwhile in the Championship, a host of former Premier League sides are nervously peering down rather than optimistically looking up. Hereas Will Unwin on how short-term approaches are holding clubs back.

Those FA Cup semi-finals and this weekendas round of Premier League matches are all under the microscope in everyoneas favourite double digit looking-ahead column.

As the Coventry manager prepares to meet his old club, his former United teammates discuss that goal in 1990

Legend has it that Mark Robins saved the career of an ailing Manchester United manager in 1990. On Sunday at Wembley he could influence the future of another. When Robins was 20, amid a United run of 11 matches without a league win, Alex Ferguson hoped his young striker could provide a much-needed spark in a January FA Cup tie at Nottingham Forest a and it worked.

United went on to beat Crystal Palace in an FA Cup final replay and 34 years later Robins will lead Coventry against his former club in the semi-finals. Winning the competition arguably rescued Fergusonas job in a season when United finished 13th in the First Division. The then chairman, Martin Edwards, always denied Ferguson was on the brink but the results were grim. A loss at the City Ground could have proven fatal but local boy Robins ensured United marched on.

• County Championship updates from day oneas action
• And you can post BTL or mail Tanya with your thoughts

My son, doing Georgraphy revision, tells me there was a 2.5 magnitude earthquake in Derbyshire last night. Perhaps that rattled the slip cauldron, as reported BTL. Leicestershire 22-0

Durham have won the toss and will bat. Looks brisk.

The Sauber driver has had a long wait to race on home soil and expectations are off the charts in Shanghai

There has been no little wait for the home crowd and their local hero Zhou Guanyu but what a moment it will be when, finally, this weekend he becomes the first Chinese driver to compete at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai. Already the star of a documentary, the only Chinese driver to compete in an F1 race is the main draw for a meeting that sold out in minutes.

This race has not been held since 2019 because of the pandemic and while the 24-year-old Zhou made his F1 debut in 2022, with the Alfa Romeo (now Sauber) team, he has had to wait till his third season to race on a track in the city where he was born and where he has never before competed in a single-seater.

One of Premiershipas most vaunted coaches is earning rave reviews for swashbuckling style a to rivalsa dismay

Look back through the archives and it becomes clear what kind of a player Sam Vesty was. aProbably not the most fashionable,a according to his former Leicester head coach Richard Cockerill, but as the Australian Matt OaConnor, who would later occupy the top job at Welford Road, adds: aHe understands the game so well that he makes guys around him play Abetter rugby.a

Vesty, for his part, saw himself as an attacking fly-half and someone awho likes to put some width on the gamea but just as important was a resilience in defence, an unrelenting work ethic: aThat is Leicester. If youare not 100%, youare nowhere. That is bred in every Leicester player.a

Germanyas Sebastian Steudtner may have surfed the biggest ever wave in NazarA(c), Portugal earlier this season. The wave, calculated using drone technology, was measured at 28.57 metres. If officially ratified by the sport, it will surpass Steudtner"s current world record of 26.21 metres which he also set in NazarA(c) back in 2020.

Exclusive: 80% of Welsh dairy farms inspected, 69% of English ones, 60% in Scotland and 50% in Northern Ireland breaching regulations

The majority of UK dairy farms are breaking pollution rules, with vast amounts of cow manure being spilled into rivers.

When animal waste enters the river, it causes a buildup of the nutrients found in the effluent, such as nitrates and phosphates. These cause algal blooms, which deplete the waterway of oxygen and block sunlight, choking fish and other aquatic life.

Exclusive: Study released at Cop28 misused research to underestimate impact of cutting meat eating, say academics

A flagship UN report on livestock emissions is facing calls for retraction from two key experts it cited who say that the paper aseriously distorteda their work.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) misused their research to underestimate the potential of reduced meat intake to cut agricultural emissions, according to a letter sent to the FAO by the two academics, which the Guardian has seen.

Researchers say early deaths may have been avoided over 10-year period if technology installed

Research has estimated the health impacts from the coal-fired power plants that operate across India.

Six hundred coal power plants generate more than 70% of Indiaas electricity. Despite regulations passed in 2015, fewer than 5% of these plants operate with modern systems to clean up air pollutants from their chimneys. In China, 95% of coal-fired power plants were fitted with clean-up technologies by 2013.

Campaigners say underclaiming is a result of restrictions on taking on paid work and harsh penalties for accidental rule breaches

As many as half a million unpaid carers in the UK who look after frail, ill and disabled loved ones are failing to claim the APS4,200-a-year careras allowance despite experiencing high levels of poverty, according to new estimates.

Campaigners said unpaid carers may have not claimed the benefit partly because of the strict limits dictating the amount of paid work they can undertake on top of their care duties, and the harsh penalties they face if they breach those rules.

Creature with balloon syndrome spotted from passing bus in Gloucestershire is in charityas care and has been named Bounce

A hedgehog that had swollen to the size of a football a so big that it was spotted in a field by a passenger on a passing bus a has been deflated by rescuers.

The female hedgehog, which has been named Bounce, had blown up to twice its normal size when it was seen in Gloucestershire.

Tributes paid to Jitendranath Karuturi and Chanhakya Bolisetti, who are believed to have slipped while taking selfies

Tributes have been paid to two students at the University of Dundee who drowned after falling into a waterfall at a Highland beauty spot.

Jitendranath Karuturi, 26, who was known as Jitu, and Chanhakya Bolisetti, 22, are believed to have been taking selfies at the Linn of Tummel waterfall, near Blair Atholl, on Wednesday evening when they slipped and fell into the river.

New research suggests some 16th-century writers were confident Shakespeare was the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Scholars often say that no one doubted Shakespeareas authorship until the 19th century. The response is a rote way of brushing off persistent questions about the attribution of the worldas most famous plays and poems a but it may not be true.

New scholarship suggests that doubts about Shakespeareas authorship first arose during his lifetime a in a book called Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, published in 1598 by the theologian Francis Meres.

Almost three in four services between London, Edinburgh and York will be cut in Aslef membersa stoppage

A train driversa strike will lead to almost three in four services being cut on Saturday on LNER, which operates intercity trains between London, York and Edinburgh.

Members of the Aslef union will take industrial action for 24 hours on 20 April a and also ban overtime during the weekend a in a dispute over terms and conditions, separate to the wider pay row that has led to strikes at all national rail operators across England.

On the banks of the River Roding, authors explain how they are putting the concept of awild servicea into practice

It is a call to action that might just be the founding text for a new environmentalism. A forthcoming book by a diverse band of right to roam campaigners offers a radical new vision of how people can repair both the natural world and their broken relationship to it.

Wild Service: Why Nature Needs You, inspired by the rare wild service tree, calls on communities to develop new relationships with the natural world, combining the hard graft of conservation science with the ceremony, gratitude and fun bound up in festivals, Indigenous traditions and even church services.

Watchdog rules that vote should be held at Coventry warehouse to test support for union recognition

• Business live a latest updates

Amazon could be forced to recognise a trade union for the first time in the UK after members of the GMB at the internet retaileras Coventry warehouse were granted permission to hold a legally binding ballot.

The Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), the independent statutory body that adjudicates on collective bargaining rights, has ruled that a vote should be held at the site to test support for union recognition.

Shoppers cut back in March, with data likely to increase pressure on Bank of England over interest rates

• Business live a latest updates

Retail sales in Great Britain unexpectedly stalled in March as consumers cut back on spending because of the cost of living, according to new data.

British retail sales volumes stagnated at 0% in March after an increase of 0.1% in February, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Local media reports a man entered the consulate saying he had explosives

aRussia must be held accountable. Ukraine urgently requires more air defence support!a wrote the EUas ambassador in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraineas president, visited the Donetsk region today.

First phase in worldas largest democratic exercise begins, with 969 million people eligible to vote over six-week period

Voting has begun in Indiaas mammoth general election, as Narendra Modias Bharatiya Janata party hopes to increase its parliamentary majority amid allegations that the countryas democracy has been undermined since it came to power 10 years ago.

Indiaas elections are the largest democratic exercise in the world, with more than 969 million voters, amounting to more than 10% of the worldas population. The voting began at 8am on Friday, when polling opened at 102 constituencies across the country, and will continue over the next six weeks, in seven phases, until 1 June. All the results will be counted and declared on 4 June.

Candidacy could grant immunity to Ilaria Salis who was arrested in February 2023 after a counter-demonstration at a Neo-Nazi rally

An Italian antifascist activist held in prison in Hungary has accepted a candidacy in the European elections that could see her granted immunity and released from jail.

Ilaria Salis, 39, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, was arrested in Budapest in February 2023 after a counter-demonstration against a neo-Nazi rally. She was charged with three counts of attempted assault and accused of being part of an extreme leftwing organisation.

Prospective jurors were grilled on myriad facets of their life, with one raising concerns her identity had been discovered

Donald Trump is set to appear in court for the fourth day of his hush-money trial on Friday, with 12 jurors and one alternate already selected and five more alternates to be chosen before jury selection wraps up.

The process had proved complicated because of the polarizing and high-profile defendant. Prospective juror had been grilled on their political leanings, their social media posts and many other facets of their lives.

Exclusive: India seeking to use approach of UK election as bargaining chip and any exemption would be controversial

India is demanding an exemption from the UKas planned carbon tax as part of negotiations aiming to finalise a free trade deal before the UK election.

Indiaas negotiating team have spent this week in London in a surprise set of talks to try to overcome the remaining hurdles to an agreement.

US secretary of state condemns airstrike in Iran; discussion aleans more towards infiltration than attacka says anonymous Iranian official

• Israel has mounted strikes on Iran, US says, as Tehran plays down attack
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

Itas 7:24am in Tehran and 6:54 In Tel Aviv. Letas get a reminder of what we know so far:

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out military operations against Iran but did not describe those operations.

The Israeli military has told news agencies including Agence France-Presse and Associated Press: aWe donat have a comment at this time.a

Iranas state media reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan Friday

Air defence systems over several Iranian cities were activated, state media reported, after the countryas official broadcaster said explosions were heard near the city of Isfahan.

Iranas Fars news agency reported athree explosionsa were heard near the Shekari army airbase in the north-west of Isfahan province, while Iranas space agency spokesperson Hossein Dalirian said aseverala drones had been asuccessfully shot downa.

Nuclear facilities in Isfahan were reported to be acompletely securea, Iranas Tasnim news agency reported, citing areliable sourcesa.

Flights were suspended across swathes of Iran on Friday. aIranas air defence has been activated in the skies of several provinces of the country,a Tehranas official IRNA news agency said.

Mehr news agency reported that aflights to Tehran, Isfahan and Shiraz, and airports in the west, northwest and southwest have been suspended.a

Flight-tracking software showed commercial flights avoiding western Iran, including Isfahan, and skirting Tehran to the north and east.

There was no immediate comment from Dubaias Emirates airline, which was operating several of the planes.

Blasts were also reported in southern Syria, according to a local activist group. aThere were strikes on a Syrian army radar position,a said Rayan Maarouf, who runs the Suwayda24 anti-government website that covers news from Sweida province in the south, reports AFP.

Oil prices surged more than three per cent in early Asian trade on Friday after the reports of explosions.

Iranian official indicates no aimmediatea plan for retaliation after explosions reported in sky over Isfahan and Tabriz

• Middle East crisis: live updates
• What we know so far
• Whatas in Isfahan? The city home to Iranian nuclear facilities

US officials have confirmed that Israel has carried out airstrikes against Iran, as explosions were reported in the sky over the cities of Isfahan and Tabriz, while the Iranian government sought to play down the scale of the attack.

As an Iranian official indicated that it had no aimmediatea plan for retaliation, calls mounted internationally a including from the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen a for Israel and Iran to de-escalate their confrontation.

Reported Israeli drone strike on Isfahan may signal that this widening conflict has become more dynamic

• Middle East crisis a live updates
• What we know so far about Israelas strike on Iran

While the details remain vague, and Iranian denials strong, it seems very likely, given past history and strong comments from US officials, that a limited Israeli drone strike was launched against the Iranian city of Isfahan on Friday morning.

Isfahan is significant for its military-industrial facilities, the presence of an important facility in Iranas nuclear programme and a major airbase hosting the Islamic Republicas ageing fleet of F-14 aTomcatsa, making the importance of any strike, whether carried out from beyond Iranas borders or from within but backed by Israel, more than symbolic.

Five alternates remain to be chosen before jury selection wraps up and the presiding judge has suggested opening statement could begin as early as Monday

Before jury selection starts, judge Juan Merchan addresses the chilly temperature in his courtroom, which Trump complained about on Thursday, looking yesterday to his aides in the gallery and saying aitas freezinga.

Merchan told both sides before jurors were brought in this morning:

Weare also still working on the temperature in the courtroom.

I want to apologize that itas chilly in here ... Weare trying to do the best we can to control the temperature, but itas one extreme or the other.

Republican House speaker now set to push forward legislation, which had stalled in the House amid protest from rightwing GOP

House Democrats came to the rescue of Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker, in a rare move for a committee that normally votes along party lines, in order to save the Ukraine aid legislation from rightwing rebels.

The dramatic action took place on Capitol Hill on Thursday night as, on Friday morning Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, warned that if US aid was further delayed for Ukraine athere is a real risk it will arrive too latea to help the grinding resistance to Russiaas invasion.

Environmentalists celebrate new rules but Alaska politicians call it an aillegala attack on stateas livelihood and predict lawsuits

The Biden administration said on Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13m acres (5.3m hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.

The decision a part of an ongoing, years-long fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state a finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the controversial Willow oil project.

Swifties take to social media to dissect lyrics and celebrate Swiftas 11th album on Friday as the musician releases 15 more songs

• Breakups, fantasies and her most cutting lyrics: inside The Tortured Poets Department
• The Tortured Poets Department review a fame, fans and former flames in the line of fire

The Tortured Poets Department is just out but it is already splitting Taylor Swift fans a between those who have already listened to it after it leaked online early, and those who refused to listen out of loyalty to their favourite singer.

Swiftas 11th studio album was released on Friday but all 16 tracks and lyrics began appearing on social media on Wednesday. Some fans a known as Swifties a refused to listen to the leaked album, insisting that atrue fansa would wait for the official release, while others shared false links to the leak in attempts to stop people finding it.

US officials say pedal pad could come loose and get lodged in interior trim, causing vehicle to accelerate unintentionally

Tesla is recalling 3,878 Cybertrucks to fix an accelerator pedal pad that could come loose and get lodged in the interior trim, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Friday.

A trapped accelerator pedal could cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally, increasing the risk of a crash, the auto safety regulator said in a notice.

Students had pitched tents on New York City campus, demanding ceasefire and for the school to financially divest from Israel

Isra Hirsi, the daughter of the Minnesota Democratic representative Ilhan Omar was among more than 100 protesters arrested on Thursday on Columbia Universityas campus in New York City, as police were called in to break up those who pitched tents to stage a pro-Palestinian protest.

Further demonstrations protesting the arrests and the universityas decision to call in outside law enforcement continued into the night at the private ivy league school.

Local media reports a man entered the consulate saying he had explosives and wanted to avenge his brother

aRussia must be held accountable. Ukraine urgently requires more air defence support!a wrote the EUas ambassador in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraineas president, visited the Donetsk region today.

Golden state expanded abortion access after Roe was repealed in 2022 while neighboring state is set to enact near-total ban

As Arizona prepares for a near-total ban on abortion to go into effect in the coming months, providers in California are getting ready to welcome a surge of out-of-state clients and live up to the stateas reputation as an aabortion sanctuarya.

California clinics have been treating patients confused by the legal framework in neighboring Arizona ever since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 law enshrining a federal right to abortion, in June 2022.

Research into release of aforever chemicalsa raises concerns about contamination and human exposure along worldas coastlines

Ocean waves crashing on the worldas shores emit more PFAS into the air than the worldas industrial polluters, new research has found, raising concerns about environmental contamination and human exposure along coastlines.

The study measured levels of PFAS released from the bubbles that burst when waves crash, spraying aerosols into the air. It found sea spray levels were hundreds of thousands times higher than levels in the water.

New research suggests some 16th-century writers were confident Shakespeare was the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Scholars often say that no one doubted Shakespeareas authorship until the 19th century. The response is a rote way of brushing off persistent questions about the attribution of the worldas most famous plays and poems a but it may not be true.

New scholarship suggests that doubts about Shakespeareas authorship first arose during his lifetime a in a book called Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury, published in 1598 by the theologian Francis Meres.

Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is challenging incumbent Rick Scott and highlighting his aunapologetic and prouda support for the stateas six-week ban

A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Floridaas Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell.

The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after learning the fetus was not developing.

Process has coincided with a rise in price in the past and is due to take place again on Saturday

Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of bitcoin, still has an influence on the cryptocurrency nearly 14 years after disappearing.

This week the protocol designed by Nakamoto a an individual or group of individuals who went silent in December 2010 a will trigger what is known as a abitcoin halvinga, a process that has coincided with price increases in the past. The latest halving is expected to take place on Saturday.

More than 50% of the planetas species live in the earth below our feet, but only a fraction have been identified a so far

Read more: No birdsong, no water in the creek, no beating wings: how a haven for nature fell silent

The sound of an earthworm is a distinctive rasping and scrunching. Ants sound like the soothing patter of rain. A passing, tunnelling vole makes a noise like a squeaky dogas toy repeatedly being chewed.

On a spring day at Rothamsted Research, an agricultural research institution in Hertfordshire, singing skylarks and the M1 motorway are competing for the airways. But the attention here is on the soundscapes underfoot: a rich ecosystem with its own alien sounds. More than half of the planetas species live in the soil, and we are just starting to tune into what they are up to. Beetle larvae, millipedes, centipedes and woodlice have other sound signatures, and scientists are trying to decipher which sounds come from which creatures.

What are the big takeaways from Swiftas new album? Sheas refining her sound, confronting elements of her fanbase and done with romantic idealisation

aC/ Read Alexis Petridisas four-star review of the album

Swift named an entire album after the concept of her reputation and has been engaging with public perceptions of her as far back as 2010as Speak Now; songs such as Mean, Blank Space and the gothic half of Reputation lash out directly at critics. But sheas never openly condemned her listeners before her new album The Tortured Poets Department, in songs that constitute some of its most daring moments. Whoas Afraid of Little Old Me? feels like a deservedly bitter, barbed update of the cutesier and more cloying Anti-Hero that suggests Swift is the way she is because of the twisted culture she grew up in and had to contort herself to fit into: aYou taught me, you caged me, and then you called me crazy,a she seethes, sounding quite high on the fearsome power commentators have ascribed to her.

Iall tell you something right now
Iad rather burn my whole life down
Than listen to one more second of all this bitching and moaning
Iall tell you something about my good name
Itas mine alone to disgrace

As the scrap metal touched the power line, everything went black

In 2010, Iad been working in Colorado, in one of the worldas most dangerous professions. As a lineman, it was my job to maintain and repair electrical power lines. I knew the risks, and had already witnessed them when my brother, who worked in the same field, lost his right arm in 2008. That same accident saw a colleague lose his life. I began to question whether it was a career I should stay in. I told myself I�wasnat a quitter, but after 13 December 2010, everything changed for me.

On that day, I was standing on a�platform, working on a power line. I�was cutting a wire to size and wanted to throw some scrap on to the ground. My colleague was down below me, and I didnat want to hit him in the head, so I spun around to throw the piece elsewhere. The power line above was protected by a plastic insulating cover, I was being very careful, but in that tiny second the wire touched a part that wasnat wrapped up. Then 14,400 volts charged through my body. Everything went black.

The Oscar-winner and the Nobel laureate have teamed up to make Bread & Roses, a new film about the abuse of women in Afghanistan. In an emotional interview, they warn that the west ignores its message at their peril

aStrong women are not easy women,a says Jennifer Lawrence, aand a womanas life is lonely. So much of our experience cannot be shared or understood by men, and our rights are in their hands. Thatas why we need each other.a

The two other people on our video call nod in agreement. One is Malala Yousafzai, who, with Lawrence, has produced a new documentary about the oppression of Afghan women by the Taliban after US troops withdrew in 2021. The other is Sahra Mani, who directed it.

A show in which women competed to date a royal lookalike was panned at the time as afodder for the braindeada. But the contestants had been duped, as a new podcast reveals a|

Next month marks a decade since one of the most ridiculous reality shows ever aired on television. I Wanna Marry aHarrya was a dating show in which 12 American women dated Prince Harry, then the worldas most eligible bachelor. Only, obviously, it wasnat him at all. The aHarrya in question was a lookalike: according to the show, a a99% lookalikea (I will let you be the judge).

Airing on Fox in the US before making its way to ITV2, the reality show consisted of the dozen potential girlfriends being whisked to a secluded mansion in the Berkshire countryside, then going on a series of dates with the fake prince. It was constantly implied by the production team that they were in the presence of royalty: Harry was even referred to as asira, when really he was plain old Matt Hicks, an environmental consultant from Exeter who had had his hair dyed ginger. The stunts for the ruse were quite something: from asira being whisked away by men in sunglasses after a asecurity incidenta, to fake paparazzi invading a date before being tackled to the ground. Fake Harry was even Photoshopped into an image alongside the real Prince William for a potential date to stumble across while Hicks went to the bathroom.

With three hit shows a Strictly, The Traitors and the returning The Piano a Claudia Winkleman is TVas hottest presenter. She talks about being tone deaf, being a style icon a| and why sheas allergic to praise

Claudia Winkleman is convinced she gave the ick to Mika and Lang Lang, her co-stars on Channel�4 hit The Piano. aTheyare so alarmed by my eating habits,a she says. aMy micas always on and all they can hear is me munching beef-flavoured Hula Hoops.a To illustrate the point, she launches into an uncanny impression of loud crisp-crunching noises echoing down a lapel mic.

Winkleman recently wrapped filming a new run of the ivory-tinkling talent search, which has meant living off train station food. aI look up each oneas eateries in advance,a she admits. aI adore a Greggs and Iave fallen in love with Upper Crust. They do a cheddar baguette thatas almost erotic. Obviously, I always have a Burger King. A Murder King, I call it. You know youare in a different class of station if thereas a Leon. In Liverpool, theyave got Krispy Kreme. I crashed and burned by 9.48am because I made the mistake of scoffing a tray of Original Glazed for breakfast. I was like: aGuys, I need a nap.a The producer went: aCan somebody get Claud a coffee? And no more sugar!a OK, boss, fair�enough.a

As the show becomes a global hit and is renewed for a second season, experts say game adaptations are the new superhero movies

In the first few days of its release, Fallout a the Prime Video adaptation of the post-apocalyptic video game franchise a has become a hit with global audiences, shooting to the top of the UK chart and ranking among Primeas top three most-watched titles ever.

On Friday, just a week after the show debuted in more than 240 countries and territories, Amazon announced it had renewed it for a second season. aThe bar was high for lovers of this iconic video game and so far we seem to have exceeded their expectations, while bringing in millions of new fans to the franchise,a the streamer said.

The divisive directoras sci-fi follow-up is both original and derivative and will be unlikely to convert anyone, but thereas something charming about its sincerity

Is there a contemporary Hollywood film-maker who better epitomizes the modern commerce-v-art quagmire than Zack Snyder? Snyder has an instantly recognizable style and a deathless dedication to his singular vision; he also, at the behest of various studios, volunteers to think almost entirely in terms of franchises, comic books and self-conscious myth-making a whether heas trying to interrogate those myths or just build them up so he can smash them down with maximum mayhem.

Rebel Moon, his sci-fi/fantasy franchise for Netflix, pulls both sides of his career to further extremes. Itas a multimillion-dollar two-parter (for now) thatas technically original and highly derivative, with Snyderas fanboy obsessions taken so far around the bend that they become niche again. Even his hordes of online fans donat seem to care that much about it. Rebel Moon a Part 2: The Scargiver, following last yearas A Child of Fire kickoff, is supposed to be an explosive finale. But with expanded R-rated cuts of both movies definitely on the way, and ideas rattling around in Snyderas brain for even more sequels, the whole project feels like one long, never-ending middle.

Mina confronts Tom, but little sister Layla would rather keep the peace. You decide whoas right in this sister act?

Find out how to get a disagreement settled or become a juror

Confronting Tomas toxic attitudes is good practice for my sister and will boost her confidence

Mina wants to make a stand, but after a row, itas me who has to deal with the aftershocks at home

In her willingness to unleash state violence against student protestors, Minouche Shafik proved herself to be a willing ally to extremists

The students sat on the ground and sang as police in riot gear approached them. Eventually, more than 100 of them would be arrested; their tents, protest signs and Palestinian flags were gathered into trash bags by the police and thrown away. One video showed officers and university maintenance workers destroying food that had been donated to the encampment, making sure it would be inedible. According to student journalists reporting from WKCR, Columbia Universityas student radio station, one arrested student protestor asked the police to be allowed to go to their dorm to collect medication and was denied; as a result, they went into shock. The arrested students were charged with atrespassinga on the campus that they are charged more than $60,000 a year to attend.

The day before her administration asked the New York police department to storm their campus and arrest their students, Minouche Shafik, the Columbia University president, testified before Congress, saying that she wanted her university to be a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. But Shafik, who was called to testify after missing a hearing last year where the presidents of Penn and Harvard were each grilled on their insufficient hostility to pro-Palestinian students, appeared eager to please the Republican-controlled committee. The Penn and Harvard presidents who had testified each lost their jobs soon thereafter; Shafik clearly entered the hearing room determined to keep her own.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist

Richard Nixon infected the modern Republican party with a sickness that would kill it a Donald Trump has finished the job

Last Sunday, on ABCas This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Chris Sununu, New Hampshireas Republican governor, about his recent switch from supporting Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, for the Republican presidential nomination to supporting former president Donald Trump.

aYour words were very, very clear on January 11, 2021,a Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu. aYou said that President Trumpas rhetoric and actions contributed to the insurrection. No other president in history has contributed to an insurrection. So, please explain.a

Her cookery and lifestyle show looks like a sensible retreat from the abuse sheas suffered simply for being a modern black woman

Meghan Markle has bottled it. Or more precisely, she has been making jam. Branded jars of her strawberry preserves, adorned with one of those frilly caps you see at village fete produce stalls, were distributed this week to assorted celebrity friends to post on social media (though possibly not for actually eating, given the restrictions of a Hollywood diet). This housewifely offering marks the debut of American Riviera Orchard, which sounds like one of Jamie Oliveras children but is in fact the name of the Duchess of Sussexas new commercial venture, under which she plans to flog everything from tableware to yoga kit to her reinvented self.

In a retro, sepia-tinted launch video, the woman we once hoped would put a rocket up the royal family is seen blissfully stirring a saucepan and arranging flowers. Itas only three years since she wrote an open letter to US congressional leaders lobbying for paid family leave for working parents, sparking wild speculation about a run for political office, but suddenly that feels like a very long time ago. For now at least, itas goodbye to the much-mocked empowering feminist podcasts and hello to the safety of her Californian kitchen. Meghan is, it seems, entering her tradwife era.

Bad actors know that factchecking sites are a vital democratic tool. Thatas why theyave launched their own dishonest versions

Asked by sociologists about his views on the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a Russian in his early 70s shifted the conversation to the massacre in Bucha a one of the worst atrocities committed by the Russian military in Ukraine. Evidence of Russian war crimes was fake, he said: aTake Busha or Bucha or wherever it may be. The way they filmed it, the way the bodies were arranged: it was clearly a fake!a

Two things stand out from this. He parroted, word for word, statements of Russian propaganda about bodies being actors aarranged on the grounda, echoing the claims of War on Fakes, the Kremlinas imitation of a factchecking organisation. Yet despite his certainty, he did not know anything about the town, to the extent that he could not pronounce its name correctly. Relying on an aanti-fakea outlet modelled on western factchecking, he was not interested in facts but rather in shielding Russia from accusations.

Maxim Alyukov is a political sociologist who is a Leverhulme early career research fellow at the University of Manchester

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I fear we are forgetting lessons from that terrible history

I donat usually talk about my great-uncle Walter. Gen Walter Warlimont, as my grandfatheras brother was formally known, was head of the national defence department in the high command of the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Only two people were between him and the FA1/4hrer in the chain of command. Walter worked so closely with Hitler that the failed assassination attempt in July 1944 injured his arm. The orders he signed during wartime a about who to shoot to kill, about how to treat prisoners a meant he had hundreds of thousands of lives on his conscience.

Not that Uncle Walter was the only one in the family who facilitated the Third Reich and the Holocaust. My paternal grandparents were very proud to have been among the very earliest members of Hitleras party. My maternal grandfather a Walteras brother a was the head of a factory in Vienna that made the guidance systems for the V2 rocket, a factory that was staffed by Russian and Ukrainian slave labourers.

Our writers pick the winner, key players and dark horses as the NBA postseason gets into full swing

Golden State Warriors. It feels flat-out wrong to have a postseason without Stephen Curry, but regardless of how good he still is, thatas the way the cookie crumbles when you donat give him an adequate supporting cast. Hopefully the Warriors will take the summer to retool a clearly insufficient roster. CDL

A compelling matchup between two of Americaas brightest young boxing talents has been overshadowed by questions about the the social-media superstaras state of mind

One of the most unusual build-ups to a major prizefight in recent memory came no closer to normalcy on Thursday afternoon when Devin Haney and Ryan Garcia came together for the final press conference ahead of their intriguing but unsettling world super lightweight title fight in Brooklyn.

On paper itas the caliber of event thatas all too rare in boxing today: a delicious matchup between two of Americaas brightest young stars, both 25 years old and at the front of their athletic primes with ample top-flight experience. But itas been almost entirely overshadowed by Garciaas erratic behavior both in person and on social media, calling into question the responsibility of the New York State Athletic Commission in assessing a fighteras mental fitness and whether Saturdayas fight at Barclays Center should even take place.

Race distance seen as pinnacle of human achievement since time of ancient Greece is no longer the finishing line for what body can endure

The Olympic marathon held 120 years ago saw 32 people start, 14 finish, the winner disqualified for spending most of the race in a car, and another competitor undergo emergency surgery for the damage caused by inhaling dust thrown up by the cars and bicycles that accompanied the athletes around the outskirts of St Louis.

aWhen the Games are held in 1908 I do not think that the marathon will be included in the program,a said James Sullivan of the Amateur Athletic Union, the eventas organiser. aI personally am opposed to it and it is indefensible on any ground but historic. A 25-mile run is asking too much of human endurance. In sending some 30 men or more into an endurance test as keen and terrible as the marathon run, an awful chance is taken.a

San Jose have goalkeeping problems, the Whitecaps are defending in a unique way and Miami are given a helping hand

Welcome back to the Guardianas MLS Power Rankings, where I have a beef with your specific team and your specific team alone.

MLS roster rules might be changing in the middle of the season, but as for this column? Itas following the same format as it has all season. Weare still ranking teams from worst to first. But along with the rankings, weare diving deep into a handful of teams from around the league who are doing particularly interesting things.

Ominous Barcelona side are in the way to another Champions League final but recent missteps pale against her achievements

Emma Hayes steps into the technical area at the Estadi OlAmpic on Saturday after a draining few weeks on and off the pitch. The task is huge. Over two legs, Hayes must navigate Chelsea past a Barcelona side who are laden with World Cup stars and play the most delicious football to reach the Champions League final.

The Champions League is the only trophy to have eluded the manager during her 12 years with Chelsea and twice in the past three seasons BarASSa have stood in their way a inflicting a bruising 4-0 defeat in the Gothenburg final in 2021 and last year winning 2-1 on aggregate in the semi-finals.

• Manager says team must toughen up if they are to win the title
• Klopp takes hope from return of key players from serious injury

JA1/4rgen Klopp has admitted Liverpool have become atoo easya to play against and must toughen up if they are to stand any chance of winning the Premier League title.

Kloppas side travel to Fulham on Sunday in third, two points behind Manchester City and below Arsenal on goal difference, having drawn and lost their past two league fixtures, against Manchester United and Crystal Palace, respectively. On Thursday they also exited the Europa League at the quarter-final stage after a 3-1 aggregate loss to Atalanta and, all in all, are performing poorly. Their hopes of winning a quadruple in Kloppas final season in charge are long gone but the German still believes he can leave on a high, though only if his players rediscover the character, as well as class, that had them competing on all fronts a little over a month ago.

With just the final two rounds to come, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Hikaru Nakamura and Gukesh Domaraju share the lead while the world No 2 , Fabiano Caruana, is half a point behind

With 12 rounds complete and just Saturdayas and Sundayas final two rounds to come, the Candidates in Toronto could hardly be closer. Three players share the lead, another is just half a point behind. The a!500k tournament will decide which of its eight contestants challenges Chinaas Ding Liren for his world crown later this year.

Leaders after 12 rounds (of 14) were : Ian Nepomniachtchi (Russia), Hikaru Nakanmura (US), and Gukesh Dommaraju (India) all 7.5; Fabiano Caruana (US) 7; Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu (India) 6. Three others follow. Key games to come are: Saturdayas round 13, Nepomniachtchi v Nakamura; Sundayas round 14, Nakamura v Gukesh and Caruana v Nepomniachtchi.